So, I've promised to write this out sometime, and here it is, at least in part. I have a bunch of things I want to talk about, and it will, in all likelihood, take more than one blog. I also will be talking about some Chicago machine politics soon, which should be fairly interesting - but is a totally separate topic.
Well, the title sort of says it all, and I am in part responding to a number of comments by friends about constructing a "rational" system of morality. I have already detailed a number of problems with this approach, and I will reiterate some of them here. I will also detail the history of the growth of the "atheist" movement in America (and, to a lesser extent, worldwide).
And note that I did put atheist in quotes, as this is my first point. Most people who claim to be atheists are, as far as I am concerned, agnostic. The may not acknowledge this or even be aware of it themselves, this seems to me to be the case. The reason that I say this is because they do not embrace the full ramifications of the nonexistence of any transcendent nature. The true ramifications of this are really fully explore by Nietzsche (and Machiavelli did significant work in this direction as well). Nietzsche is one of very few philosophers who truly embraced all the ramifications of the fact that there is no God.
Before I go much further, I must say this - I am nominally Latin Catholic (most people call it Roman Catholic, but it's correct name is the Latin Catholic Rite, one of what I believe is 13 Catholic rites), still practicing to a certain extent, and very well educated on the philosophy of my religion. This is not to say that I blindly follow dogma - much of the dogmatic has been removed from the religion with the advent of the Second Vatican Council, though there is still some dogma. One of the main responsibilities of adult Catholics is to be "persons of conscience" - meaning that each person is an individual moral agent, and they are responsible to their own conscience, which should be informed by the teachings of the church. I make this point so that you do not think that I am blindly trying to verify the existence of God because I have my beliefs.
Of course, in part this is true - my belief must extend in part from my upbringing in this tradition, but I have gone through a protracted period of non-belief; the main issue in this is that I have, over a number of years rediscovered my belief (which I still sometimes question) and looked at the ramifications of trying to construct a moral system without some kind of divinity.
And here is the crux of the issue. If we remove the sense of "specialness" from humanity, if we are just animals, and if existence is merely a random coincidence, there is no absolute morality. While this does not seem to be a problem on its face, it is quite a huge problem in trying to decide what can make something right or wrong. In fact, the very concept of right and wrong must be thrown out if you believe this. We must then, as Nietzsche says, move "beyond good and evil". The labels become ridiculous without some kind of transcendent nature. Try and define these terms without reference to God or to humanity being "special" in some way.
What is "good"? What is "evil"? If one tries to define these in a purely rational way, it is totally impossible. I challenge anyone to attempt this, and I can find fault with it. And please do not bother quoting from John Stuart Mill and Utilitarianism - he makes a number of mistakes that are easily observed, and in fact the mistakes that he makes are many of the same ones that modern atheists make.
Most people feel that there is no longer a need for God because people are basically good, and that blind adherence to dogma diminishes people because they are not allowed to think. In part they are correct - complete adherence to dogma does diminish people - but complete rejection of it is just as foolish. Belief that because people are currently good regardless of the hundreds of years of social history that molded their morality is giving yourself an enormous blind spot.
Let me give you an example in terms of science - obviously, this is simply an analogy, not an attempt to say that faith and science are interchangeable - they are not. If every generation decides that because we have more knowledge than the previous generation we can simply discard everything that they have done, there would never be any growth in society. If, for example, Jonas Salk discovered the polio vaccine and moved the world of vaccinations forward by leaps and bounds. If we just assumed that we know more now than he did then, we could discard all of his work. Same in terms of space exploration - they got to the moon with calculations on slide rules using Newton's laws. If we did not keep using the good that has been previously discovered, we cannot progress forward.
The same does work on a moral level. If we simply discard all that previous generations have done in terms of morality, our social and moral systems wouold never advance. One of the best examples of this is in the case of Martin Luther King, Jr. The reason his message caught hold so well all over is not because it was new, but because it was founded on the moral and religious principles that many people already claimed allegiance to. (and yes I know I ended with a preposition, I just don't want to rewrite it) He called people to task on their original religious beliefs and called them to look at how they were treating other people and how it was inconsistent with their professed faith.
I have to stop for now, and I really have not finished (I've barely even begun) but I will continue soon.
Wednesday, December 24, 2008
Friday, December 19, 2008
The Joy of Wargaming
So, I am sure you all want to hear about my reflections on the nerdish pastime of wargaming - for me, the principle games are Warhammer 40k and Infinity (though I've dabbled in Warhammer Fantasy as well). I just started wondering why it is that I like it - and I really don't know.
I don't really care about winning, though I do try to win when I fight; winning is not a high priority - having a good time is. If I win, that is fine, but only if, in the process, the person I am playing also had a good time. I like the strategic thinking elements, I like the numbers game of constructing an army - but these are secondary pleasures for me. I guess it is the social context in which the game occurs that I enjoy the most - it is why I tend to play with only a select group of people.
After my attempts at a couple of games in conventions, finding min/maxing running rampant and attempts at cheating an obfuscation being more the norm than civility, I prefer to stick with people I know - from our group or from the group that I know at the local game store.
Not that min/maxing is really wrong - of course there has to be an element of mathematical efficiency in terms of army selection, but the tourny version consists of mathematical and army min/maxing. Using lists from armies that everyone knows are unbalanced with the rest of the game - but everyone at the tournament is using those armies, so it doesn't matter to them - it only matters if you are not playing one of the uber-optimized armies, like Tyranids or Imperial Guard...
But enough complaining - on to my critique of 5th Edition of 40k. On the whole, the rules are actually an improvement - they allow for an increase in tactical thought, while preserving the rapid play elements. For the most part the rules are very balanced, but then they had to release the Space Marine codex - of course, marines are even tougher now. With their new ability of being able to break 10 man squads into two five man squads (vital in the new troop based objectives of the game) and the ability to choose to pass or fail any morale test they want, in addition to the "And They Shall Know No Fear" special rule makes them a formidable foe for any assault based army. Terminators assaulted by Genestealers, no problem - voluntarily fall back (risking the wipeout from sweeping advance - some small balance at least) - then unload on them with stormbolters shredding them to bits. That coupled with the alteration of the "Rending Claw" rule that leads to a drop of an average of 22% in my lethal efficiency, and you can see why I am a tad upset over the turn of events.
But on the whole, the game is pretty balanced if you do not play space marines. Apocalypse is another story - Eldar and Space Marines rule the day in this game, but the 'Nids have a few tricks up their sleeves (if they ever wore sleeves). Since everyone has access to ridiculousness, it can be fun, but you run into the problem of since there are no restrictions, the person who spent the most money getting the cool Forge World models will likely win. But if you do not play douche-bags, it is still fun, and honestly, many people have had those Forge World models a long time and dumped a good deal of cash on them - why shouldn't they get the joy of playing them in a battle every now and then? As long as they are doing it for the fun and not trying to just overpower everyone because they spent the most money, thats cool.
But on to my latest joy - Infinity. This game is very, very cool, allowing for a great deal of flexibility in assembling armies while still maintaining balance. It is a skirmish based game (not unlike Necromunda or Mordheim) but it is so much better than any other it is ridiculous. The story is that we are several hundred years in the future, the makeup of the power structure on earth has changed dramatically, as well as wormhole travel opening up various planets for exploration. The fluff behind the game is really cool, but it really shines because of its mechanics.
You have an "order pool" based on the number of model, and you may spend those orders on any of your models in a turn (for example if you have 8 orders, you could spend all 8 on 1 model, 1 each on 8 models, or anything in between). This allows for immense tactical flexibility, but there is a price. Unlike most games, both players act on each turn. Any action by the offensive player generates a "reaction order" in any model from the opposing side that can see it. Use of smoke, crawling and keeping models in cover is very much the order of the day, and if you take a shot at someone who can see you, they may jump behind cover as a reaction, or they may shoot back - and if they are a better shot than you, you could lose your model on your own turn. Add to this the high tech doctors, engineers, and hackers on the board, and you have a very diverse game - with one side shooting while moving hackers up to try and take control of enemy mechs, while the other side responds with anti-hacking protocols and return fire - you get the idea - it is a very dynamic game.
Plus the number of special abilities that add depth to the game but do not overpower, and the special weapons that offer the same advantages - they introduced a value called "SWC" in addition to points cost for models. SWC is the special weapons cost, and you can have as many SWC as points in your army divided by 50. Since most games are 300 points, this means you can have 6 SWC - making you choose what you want your army to specialize in. Because of this you absolutely cannot have everything - for example, a heavy infantry with a missile launcher costs 70 points and 2 SWC, while a trooper costs 10 points and 0 SWC, and there are a ton of other options - you could field an army of all remotes and robots, or a infiltration based force, or an airborne deployment force, or even an undisciplined force of irregulars (they do not contribute to your order pool - each model keeps his own order, limiting, but much cheaper on points and SWC), or you can mix it up. I would love more people to give this game a try. Raveboy tryed it and really enjoyed it, and NTT's Brain enjoyed watching it (and I think he even tried a game). I think that the Acupuncturist played a game or two as well, so maybe we can play a few games with more of us next time...
Also, I am putting together a larger skirmish/battle game for L5R so that we can actually use some of the mass quantities of models that I own. My laptop charge is almost gone, however, and I am done blabbing for now.
I don't really care about winning, though I do try to win when I fight; winning is not a high priority - having a good time is. If I win, that is fine, but only if, in the process, the person I am playing also had a good time. I like the strategic thinking elements, I like the numbers game of constructing an army - but these are secondary pleasures for me. I guess it is the social context in which the game occurs that I enjoy the most - it is why I tend to play with only a select group of people.
After my attempts at a couple of games in conventions, finding min/maxing running rampant and attempts at cheating an obfuscation being more the norm than civility, I prefer to stick with people I know - from our group or from the group that I know at the local game store.
Not that min/maxing is really wrong - of course there has to be an element of mathematical efficiency in terms of army selection, but the tourny version consists of mathematical and army min/maxing. Using lists from armies that everyone knows are unbalanced with the rest of the game - but everyone at the tournament is using those armies, so it doesn't matter to them - it only matters if you are not playing one of the uber-optimized armies, like Tyranids or Imperial Guard...
But enough complaining - on to my critique of 5th Edition of 40k. On the whole, the rules are actually an improvement - they allow for an increase in tactical thought, while preserving the rapid play elements. For the most part the rules are very balanced, but then they had to release the Space Marine codex - of course, marines are even tougher now. With their new ability of being able to break 10 man squads into two five man squads (vital in the new troop based objectives of the game) and the ability to choose to pass or fail any morale test they want, in addition to the "And They Shall Know No Fear" special rule makes them a formidable foe for any assault based army. Terminators assaulted by Genestealers, no problem - voluntarily fall back (risking the wipeout from sweeping advance - some small balance at least) - then unload on them with stormbolters shredding them to bits. That coupled with the alteration of the "Rending Claw" rule that leads to a drop of an average of 22% in my lethal efficiency, and you can see why I am a tad upset over the turn of events.
But on the whole, the game is pretty balanced if you do not play space marines. Apocalypse is another story - Eldar and Space Marines rule the day in this game, but the 'Nids have a few tricks up their sleeves (if they ever wore sleeves). Since everyone has access to ridiculousness, it can be fun, but you run into the problem of since there are no restrictions, the person who spent the most money getting the cool Forge World models will likely win. But if you do not play douche-bags, it is still fun, and honestly, many people have had those Forge World models a long time and dumped a good deal of cash on them - why shouldn't they get the joy of playing them in a battle every now and then? As long as they are doing it for the fun and not trying to just overpower everyone because they spent the most money, thats cool.
But on to my latest joy - Infinity. This game is very, very cool, allowing for a great deal of flexibility in assembling armies while still maintaining balance. It is a skirmish based game (not unlike Necromunda or Mordheim) but it is so much better than any other it is ridiculous. The story is that we are several hundred years in the future, the makeup of the power structure on earth has changed dramatically, as well as wormhole travel opening up various planets for exploration. The fluff behind the game is really cool, but it really shines because of its mechanics.
You have an "order pool" based on the number of model, and you may spend those orders on any of your models in a turn (for example if you have 8 orders, you could spend all 8 on 1 model, 1 each on 8 models, or anything in between). This allows for immense tactical flexibility, but there is a price. Unlike most games, both players act on each turn. Any action by the offensive player generates a "reaction order" in any model from the opposing side that can see it. Use of smoke, crawling and keeping models in cover is very much the order of the day, and if you take a shot at someone who can see you, they may jump behind cover as a reaction, or they may shoot back - and if they are a better shot than you, you could lose your model on your own turn. Add to this the high tech doctors, engineers, and hackers on the board, and you have a very diverse game - with one side shooting while moving hackers up to try and take control of enemy mechs, while the other side responds with anti-hacking protocols and return fire - you get the idea - it is a very dynamic game.
Plus the number of special abilities that add depth to the game but do not overpower, and the special weapons that offer the same advantages - they introduced a value called "SWC" in addition to points cost for models. SWC is the special weapons cost, and you can have as many SWC as points in your army divided by 50. Since most games are 300 points, this means you can have 6 SWC - making you choose what you want your army to specialize in. Because of this you absolutely cannot have everything - for example, a heavy infantry with a missile launcher costs 70 points and 2 SWC, while a trooper costs 10 points and 0 SWC, and there are a ton of other options - you could field an army of all remotes and robots, or a infiltration based force, or an airborne deployment force, or even an undisciplined force of irregulars (they do not contribute to your order pool - each model keeps his own order, limiting, but much cheaper on points and SWC), or you can mix it up. I would love more people to give this game a try. Raveboy tryed it and really enjoyed it, and NTT's Brain enjoyed watching it (and I think he even tried a game). I think that the Acupuncturist played a game or two as well, so maybe we can play a few games with more of us next time...
Also, I am putting together a larger skirmish/battle game for L5R so that we can actually use some of the mass quantities of models that I own. My laptop charge is almost gone, however, and I am done blabbing for now.
Thursday, December 18, 2008
So much to say, so little time
Well, I have a ton of stuff that has been rolling around in my noggin over the last week or so, from mundane inanities like the Rubik's cube as a metaphor for both positive and negative views of life, to topics about which I have a great deal of passion - say the existence of god(s), end of life issues, rational construction of a moral system, and on and on and on...
But I don't really feel like writing much of the heavy s**t right know, so I will content myself with my Rubik's cube metaphor... this has occured to me on more than one occasion over the last two weeks, and I feel like writing it down (BTW, hit my best time yesterday - 55.4 seconds, and I haven't been close since, still averaging around 1 minute 30 seconds, dropping down to 1:15 every once in a shile and going up to 1:50 every once in a while, but consistently howvering around the minute -thirty mark)
Anyway...
It seems to me that the cube could be a metaphor for the pessimist's view of life (though some cynics might argue that this is the realist's view, and on my worst days I tend to agree, but then again, I am clinically depressed, so what the hell does that tell you?). You see the cube is really about perfecting an ultimately mindless and useless task, then repeating that task over and over and over, even if you can't get any better. It is much like Sysiphus (sp?) constantly rolling the boulder up the hill, but with an added cynical twist - you screw up the cube yourself then try to solve it, only to screw it up again. How like many jobs, where we rush to complete one mindless task, and in the process create other mindless tasks for ourselves, all of which are ultimately pointless... Or relationships that we hasten to fix and then break apart and remend in an endless cycle of misery... Or life in general where we hurry to get noplace so that we can save time to spend it on nothing, hurrying and scurrying until we meet our end having accomplished nothing except for endlessly repeating the same pattern... Which could go for the human race - endlessly repeating the same mistakes, not because of institutions, governments, or religions, but simply because we are people and that is our nature (incidentally, blaming religion or society or republicans or democrats or whatever group for being the root of evil is purest sophistry -all those groups have done great good and great evil, like virtually every group every, and they all have one common denominator - human beings - who ultimately choose good or evil).
Or on the lighter side, one could point to the zen-like state that you enter in the solution of the cube, performing a mindless task with a religious devotion like a mantra taking one to a state of non-existence of self, of other, of anything, just perfecting the task - like a swordsman trying to perfect the art of the draw, or a potter losing himself in his craft, etc., etc. Obviously this one is not as well thought out as the other - I am in a bit of a bitter mood, and have been for a couple of weeks - no good reason, just where I am, so this positive crap feels phony to me, but I think there might be a kernel of truth in it somewhere - it just doesn't seem like it right now.
But on to other things; I am going to be out of town for most of the next two weeks, and when I am in town, I don't know if I can game or not, but I am going to be adding a blog to this - an L5R blog. I am going to indicate whether a post is for the High or Low power group, and anyone can respond to the post (in character of course) and tell me how they interact with the situation. I figure that this way I can keep up my ideas for the games, have a place to post summaries, and be able to give experience for players who are out of the area... Oh yeah and I can post all the house rules in detail and see if anyone wants to volunteer ideas for other rules or getting rid of rules.
I think it should work out pretty well - look for it in the next few hours. Here is the link, it is in my list of blogs to the side as well: http://tosavethesteelthrone.blogspot.com/
But I don't really feel like writing much of the heavy s**t right know, so I will content myself with my Rubik's cube metaphor... this has occured to me on more than one occasion over the last two weeks, and I feel like writing it down (BTW, hit my best time yesterday - 55.4 seconds, and I haven't been close since, still averaging around 1 minute 30 seconds, dropping down to 1:15 every once in a shile and going up to 1:50 every once in a while, but consistently howvering around the minute -thirty mark)
Anyway...
It seems to me that the cube could be a metaphor for the pessimist's view of life (though some cynics might argue that this is the realist's view, and on my worst days I tend to agree, but then again, I am clinically depressed, so what the hell does that tell you?). You see the cube is really about perfecting an ultimately mindless and useless task, then repeating that task over and over and over, even if you can't get any better. It is much like Sysiphus (sp?) constantly rolling the boulder up the hill, but with an added cynical twist - you screw up the cube yourself then try to solve it, only to screw it up again. How like many jobs, where we rush to complete one mindless task, and in the process create other mindless tasks for ourselves, all of which are ultimately pointless... Or relationships that we hasten to fix and then break apart and remend in an endless cycle of misery... Or life in general where we hurry to get noplace so that we can save time to spend it on nothing, hurrying and scurrying until we meet our end having accomplished nothing except for endlessly repeating the same pattern... Which could go for the human race - endlessly repeating the same mistakes, not because of institutions, governments, or religions, but simply because we are people and that is our nature (incidentally, blaming religion or society or republicans or democrats or whatever group for being the root of evil is purest sophistry -all those groups have done great good and great evil, like virtually every group every, and they all have one common denominator - human beings - who ultimately choose good or evil).
Or on the lighter side, one could point to the zen-like state that you enter in the solution of the cube, performing a mindless task with a religious devotion like a mantra taking one to a state of non-existence of self, of other, of anything, just perfecting the task - like a swordsman trying to perfect the art of the draw, or a potter losing himself in his craft, etc., etc. Obviously this one is not as well thought out as the other - I am in a bit of a bitter mood, and have been for a couple of weeks - no good reason, just where I am, so this positive crap feels phony to me, but I think there might be a kernel of truth in it somewhere - it just doesn't seem like it right now.
But on to other things; I am going to be out of town for most of the next two weeks, and when I am in town, I don't know if I can game or not, but I am going to be adding a blog to this - an L5R blog. I am going to indicate whether a post is for the High or Low power group, and anyone can respond to the post (in character of course) and tell me how they interact with the situation. I figure that this way I can keep up my ideas for the games, have a place to post summaries, and be able to give experience for players who are out of the area... Oh yeah and I can post all the house rules in detail and see if anyone wants to volunteer ideas for other rules or getting rid of rules.
I think it should work out pretty well - look for it in the next few hours. Here is the link, it is in my list of blogs to the side as well: http://tosavethesteelthrone.blogspot.com/
Friday, December 12, 2008
Rubik's Cube and L5R new stuff
So it's been a week since I learned to solve the Cube (simple 3x3 only, I am starting to look for patterns that would help me solve the 4x4 and larger, but that will take a while). I have been practicing fairly regularly - maybe 20-30 minutes a day, maybe a little longer on some days, none on others, but I got my best time of 1 minute and 18.56 seconds today (of course, listing the decimal is somewhat spurious in terms of the significance, because of the delay of pressing the button, picking up the cube, an pressing again when finished, but what the hell). That doesn't seem too bad for a week, but I would like to get sub-one minute, I figure it may take another couple of weeks to do that. Cutting from 3 minutes to 1:20 is pretty easy, but there comes a point where until you learn how to process the color differences faster and learn some finger techniques that you hit a wall. I'll note when I achieve that. One of the kids who taught me has a best time of 40 seconds ish, the other has a best time of 8.56 seconds - I saw him do it in my classroom at a Rubik's Cube Club meeting - he has one of those timeing pads and everything.
He is phenomenal - able to do it blindfolded, behind his back, one in each hand simultaneously (that is the most impressive for my money). He can even solve a 7x7 cube in under 5 minutes - look up Vcube on you tube and you'll find a number of solutions to this puzzle and get an idea of just how hard it is. He has even come up with an algorithm of his own for solving the cube -pretty cool!
I've also been teaching myself multi-variable calculus over the past couple of weeks - it is surprising how easy it is to pick it up. The basics of three dimensional vectors make a lot of sense, and the proofs of how the basics work is not that bad - mostly a pretty simple extension of analytic geometry... but reparameterizing equations seems kind of silly, I am going to have to look up why anyone would want to do it - there must be something I am missing, but it could have something to do with integral multivariable -since the reparameterized equations are in terms of the parameter s, the length along the curve (so the x, y, and z coordinates are in terms of the distance travelled along the curve rather than the arbitrary parameter of t that has no actual representation on the curve - and I suppose I just answered my own question - the new parameter has physical "reality" on the curve). But I just realized that this is probably terribly boring, and you would rather hear about the L5R stuff.
3rd Edition Revised came out a couple of weeks ago, and Masters of Magic (to go with Masters of War and Masters of Court) came out a couple of days ago. Revised fixed quite ofew ofthe errata, and introduced more errata with some of their corrections. It also added in the Spider Clan (Daigotsu's Shadowlands clan) for more interesting characters and NPCs. Here are the major new bits, all of which I'll be incorporating.
He is phenomenal - able to do it blindfolded, behind his back, one in each hand simultaneously (that is the most impressive for my money). He can even solve a 7x7 cube in under 5 minutes - look up Vcube on you tube and you'll find a number of solutions to this puzzle and get an idea of just how hard it is. He has even come up with an algorithm of his own for solving the cube -pretty cool!
I've also been teaching myself multi-variable calculus over the past couple of weeks - it is surprising how easy it is to pick it up. The basics of three dimensional vectors make a lot of sense, and the proofs of how the basics work is not that bad - mostly a pretty simple extension of analytic geometry... but reparameterizing equations seems kind of silly, I am going to have to look up why anyone would want to do it - there must be something I am missing, but it could have something to do with integral multivariable -since the reparameterized equations are in terms of the parameter s, the length along the curve (so the x, y, and z coordinates are in terms of the distance travelled along the curve rather than the arbitrary parameter of t that has no actual representation on the curve - and I suppose I just answered my own question - the new parameter has physical "reality" on the curve). But I just realized that this is probably terribly boring, and you would rather hear about the L5R stuff.
3rd Edition Revised came out a couple of weeks ago, and Masters of Magic (to go with Masters of War and Masters of Court) came out a couple of days ago. Revised fixed quite ofew ofthe errata, and introduced more errata with some of their corrections. It also added in the Spider Clan (Daigotsu's Shadowlands clan) for more interesting characters and NPCs. Here are the major new bits, all of which I'll be incorporating.
- Defense Skill while in "Full Attack" posture - Always add 2x your def skill to your TN when in full attack - this is a very good reason to buy it up, especially for the Lion characters. I am not sure if this is too good, but I think it balances out. At rank 3 you add it to your TN at all times (except full attack), so a character with defense rank 3 adds 6 to his TN in full attack, but the opponent still gets 3 free raises so he effectively only gets a -9 to his TN instead of a -15 if the raises are used to lower TN
- Defense Skill while in "Attack" posture - allows characters to use the defense skill even if they choose the attack posture; this makes no sense under their rules, but with us still declaring postures in reverse initiative, it is a very good option. You may make a defense skill roll, and the total replaces your TN from your reflexes. So a character with a 3 Ref and a 3 Def will average a base TN of 25 if they use this skill, rather than a base of 15. A normal Defense Roll would give plus 25 instead of the plus 10, but you did not need to be in full defense to use it.
- Full Defense - the full defense bonus only applies against as many opponents as your insight rank. Abilities that allow you to use your full def on someone else means both of you have the bonus against the same attackers. You can only use this bonus if you know you are being attacked.
- Heavy weapons and carapace - the Tetsubo only takes 2 off of the carapace, but removes the 10 bonus from armor, Dai Tsuchi removes 1 from carapace and 5 from armor bonus. Much more realistic, and there are still mastery bonuses.
- Feint Manuever - this is now worthwhile. Make an attack roll. If you succeed, you do no damage, but for every successful raise you called towards a feint, you get two free raises on your next attack against the same opponent, as long as you attack befor the end of the next round.
- Extra Attack - both attacks must be made against the same opponent unless you are attacking with a second weapon in your off hand. This can make dragons very dangerous, and can make some peasant weapons extremely effective (watch out for those wandering budoka masters who just look like peasants ;)
- Movement Penalties and damage - When you are hurt (+10 TN) you also take a penalty of 1 to your water ring for movement purposes, when crippled, you take a penalty of 3.
- Movement - Move Water x 10 feet per round. Full defense you may move half that distance. If you are in "Full Attack" posture, you may also attack after a full move. In "attack" posture, you may attack after a half move, or after a full move if you make a raise.
- Attacking after getting up - getting up takes a full action - If you make two raises, you may attack as well.
- Raises on contested rolls - simply declare raises and then subtract 5 x the number of raises from your final roll - this simplifies contests with multiple opponents (a very important rule with Winter Court forthcoming)
- Raises for Damage - 1 raise adds 1k0, two raises adds 1k1, three raises adds 2k1, four raises adds 2k2, etc.
- Raises for spells - a bunch of new stuff here, they basically systematized the raises for duration, range, and casting time. Each raise increases the duration by an amount equal to the base duration, each raise for range increases range by the base amount (ie 50 feet base, 100 ft with one raise, 150 with 2, etc). Each spell takes its mastery level in actions to cast, each raise reduces the casting time by 1, to a minimum of one action. (rituals take 10 minutes per mastery level, and require multiple casters). Raises are capped by Void or Ranks in Spellcraft, spellcraft of 5 gives a free raise on all spells. If you have an emphasis, at rank 7 you add that amount to your spell casting roll (mucho dangerous for specialists, putting them more on par with their bushi counterparts)
- Void points for extra actions - you may spend 2 void points to gain an additional action on a turn. It can't be an attack, but it can be anything else (including a spell - so it is possible to cast two spells if you have enough Void). You can only gain one action this way, and it could be a spell after a normal attack (for example - the Maho Tsukai attacks someone to fuel his spell and then casts the spell - so he stabs you and uses your blood to fuel the evil magic that he casts at you - risky and difficult, but oh so scary)
- You may spend a Void to add +10 to your TN for a round.
Those are the main differences, there are a couple of others that I may phase in gradually, but these are pretty straightforward, and are also pretty cool. I have a couple of house rules that we have been playing with so far, but I may as well systematize them here.
House rules:
- Delaying actions - if you have a higher initiative and you delay your action to try and see what someone will do, you can make a contested reflexes roll to act before they do - no modifiers for being "quick" or having a technique that mods initiative - you already used that and are then delaying. This way, you can see what someone will do, and then make a move based on that if you are willing to take the risk.
- Casting a spell that targets an individual you take a penalty to the TN of the spell equal to twice the ring that opposes the spell you are casting if the person is aware of the spell and actively resisting the effects (for example, you cast a Jade Strike at an Oni. The oni has an Air ring of 3, your TN to cast the spell is 6 higher). This gives people some actual resistance to spell casting, but not the full +10 TN that the books give now - it is halfway between the old system and the new one, and we'll see how it works ( I might change it to ring times 1/2 Insight rank, rounding insight up before multiplying, but I am not sure yet)
- Declaring posture in reverse initiative order, this still gives the initiative winner a big advantage.
- (NEW) Penalties for being in "Full Attack" posture happen when you declare the posture and last until your next action.
That's all for now, I am going to watch Two and a Half Men with the wife (funniest new show on TV, BTW).
Friday, December 5, 2008
Rubik's Cube
So I finally learned the algorithms to solve a rubik's cube today - it is pretty easy, only took me a day to learn them, and I can finish a cube in sub-three minutes. I won't consider it much of an accomplishment until I can get below the one minute marker.
BTW, supergoober, thanks for the reminder on The Hospital... I had forgotten about that (don't worry, I still remember how it ends, just forgot to finish writing it). Incidentally, I am in a better mood now - four days averaging less than two hours of sleep a night does some strange things to your mind - lets just say the gun barrel joke came from a serious curiousity and leave it at that :)
But I got five hours of sleep last night and I feel much better. Though the good thing about sleep disorders is that you do burn more calories being awake - I did nothing different in the past four days (except not sleep) and lost five pounds from the anxiety - what a perfect crash diet - I wonder if I could sell it to Hollywood model/actress types?
Well, that's it for right now, I might do a more serious one tomorrow, if I finish writing my practice final exams for my classes and posting them on my website in a timely fashion - they dont have the final until december 19th, but I figure that they can have more time to study this way.
Maybe one of these days, I will just right a post listing a bunch of hotbutton issues and topics, but never actually discuss them, and see how many hits I get from people who just monitor this stuff because they have little else to do... seems like fun, huh?
BTW, supergoober, thanks for the reminder on The Hospital... I had forgotten about that (don't worry, I still remember how it ends, just forgot to finish writing it). Incidentally, I am in a better mood now - four days averaging less than two hours of sleep a night does some strange things to your mind - lets just say the gun barrel joke came from a serious curiousity and leave it at that :)
But I got five hours of sleep last night and I feel much better. Though the good thing about sleep disorders is that you do burn more calories being awake - I did nothing different in the past four days (except not sleep) and lost five pounds from the anxiety - what a perfect crash diet - I wonder if I could sell it to Hollywood model/actress types?
Well, that's it for right now, I might do a more serious one tomorrow, if I finish writing my practice final exams for my classes and posting them on my website in a timely fashion - they dont have the final until december 19th, but I figure that they can have more time to study this way.
Maybe one of these days, I will just right a post listing a bunch of hotbutton issues and topics, but never actually discuss them, and see how many hits I get from people who just monitor this stuff because they have little else to do... seems like fun, huh?
Wednesday, December 3, 2008
So, it's three am and I can't sleep...
So, it's 3 a.m. and I can't sleep, so I figured I'd get a bit of writing done and briefly foray back into the online world after a prolonged absence - due in part to being extremely busy prepping student leaders for a Kairos Retreat and due in part to struggling with some depressive tendencies - a weird combo, busy and depressed, but not so weird... depression can at once paralyze and also cause a person to be unnecessarily busy to avoid confronting him/herself... and what luck, I just used both unhealthy strategies :)
I have two stories and a poem floating in my head right now, but I don't feel like writing them - one story is too upbeat for the way I feel right now, and would just sound phony, and the poem and other story are just too depressing to put down on paper (or the electronic equivalent), so I will just resort to telling a few jokes - somewhat in the vein of the gallows humor of the comment at the end of the last paragraph.
I was just thinking in all the distopian futures, they always have suicide booths/parlors etc. This always seemed somewhat profligate to me - I know that you want to encourage such things in the dark times of the future (Soylent Green comes to mind), but I just got to thinking that it would be a lot cheaper and more effective if they just made flavored gun barrels - because who really wants that metally taste in their mouth before they die?
I guess that isn't as funny as I thought it was, but sometimes it helps to make a joke out of the more bizarre thoughts... maybe I'll go on to something a little less ... uh ... dark.
I always wanted to run my own mortuary, just so I could put truth back in advertising - my slogan would be "Your pain is our gain" - coffin sales are the most ridiculously exploitative businesses.
Guess that's not really any lighter is it?
What if alien abductions are happening? Their tech would be so far advanced it would be like us catching fish - just imagine the little fish posters underwater showing all the missing persons (or fish, I guess) and the fish police who have no leads - it's like these fish just disappeared completely from the world. And what about the ones who are caught and released - they just come back with a bizarre story of how they were swimming along like normal - spotted a tasty morsel and ate it, then they felt a searing pain in the mouth got yanked up out of the world where they couldn't breath, had a probe shoved in their mouth to remove a device (or maybe implant one??????) under the glaring light that they've never seen before, only to be thrown back in a different part of the lake than where they were eating...
Then they have to go home and explain what happened - and try to convince the other fish that it is not the cheap gin they been drinking or the methamphetamines they've been smoking, but it actually happened.
For my money, I still bet on the cheap gin and meth being the cause of human abductions...
Okay, so I'm not that funny right now, but whatever, at least I wrote something - get off my back.
Coming soon: a post on Voltaire's expression, "If God didn't exist, it would be necessary for us to invent him" in this post, then in my fiction post, a poem called "gossamer threads" and part two and three of "A Butterfly Caught in a Spider's Web"
Talk to you soon
I have two stories and a poem floating in my head right now, but I don't feel like writing them - one story is too upbeat for the way I feel right now, and would just sound phony, and the poem and other story are just too depressing to put down on paper (or the electronic equivalent), so I will just resort to telling a few jokes - somewhat in the vein of the gallows humor of the comment at the end of the last paragraph.
I was just thinking in all the distopian futures, they always have suicide booths/parlors etc. This always seemed somewhat profligate to me - I know that you want to encourage such things in the dark times of the future (Soylent Green comes to mind), but I just got to thinking that it would be a lot cheaper and more effective if they just made flavored gun barrels - because who really wants that metally taste in their mouth before they die?
I guess that isn't as funny as I thought it was, but sometimes it helps to make a joke out of the more bizarre thoughts... maybe I'll go on to something a little less ... uh ... dark.
I always wanted to run my own mortuary, just so I could put truth back in advertising - my slogan would be "Your pain is our gain" - coffin sales are the most ridiculously exploitative businesses.
Guess that's not really any lighter is it?
What if alien abductions are happening? Their tech would be so far advanced it would be like us catching fish - just imagine the little fish posters underwater showing all the missing persons (or fish, I guess) and the fish police who have no leads - it's like these fish just disappeared completely from the world. And what about the ones who are caught and released - they just come back with a bizarre story of how they were swimming along like normal - spotted a tasty morsel and ate it, then they felt a searing pain in the mouth got yanked up out of the world where they couldn't breath, had a probe shoved in their mouth to remove a device (or maybe implant one??????) under the glaring light that they've never seen before, only to be thrown back in a different part of the lake than where they were eating...
Then they have to go home and explain what happened - and try to convince the other fish that it is not the cheap gin they been drinking or the methamphetamines they've been smoking, but it actually happened.
For my money, I still bet on the cheap gin and meth being the cause of human abductions...
Okay, so I'm not that funny right now, but whatever, at least I wrote something - get off my back.
Coming soon: a post on Voltaire's expression, "If God didn't exist, it would be necessary for us to invent him" in this post, then in my fiction post, a poem called "gossamer threads" and part two and three of "A Butterfly Caught in a Spider's Web"
Talk to you soon
Friday, October 24, 2008
Moral Imperatives and Social Need
Just a quick hit to follow on a comment someone (supergoober) made to a previous blog. He used the term "moral imperative" for certain social spending, and jocularly, I shot back with a comment about of "I thought we couldn't legislate morality" obviously referring to the whole abortion argument in general. But of course, there was a little truth told in jest.
Supergoober's line did actually describe the feeling out there of how we should be kind and generous and giving to our neighbors - but that is, at heart, a religious/moral sentiment, and therefore a matter of personal choice. I deeply believe in the necessity of social justice, and in the religious tenet of "love thy neighbor", and neighbor is to be interpreted very broadly, but most of the social programs do not consist of me personally being generous, they consist of me insisting that people who have more than me be generous as well. I have taken my moral choice and evaded it by forcing someone with "more" to be generous instead.
Obviously, the government has some role in "promoting the general welfare", but as the government usurps this role more and more, it becomes easier and easier for all of us to neglect this aspect of our responsibility to each other. We succumb to an "I gave at the office" mentality - that is it is easier to evade our own personal duties if some mythical, mystical government entity can do it for me (perhaps very badly) and obviate me of any feeling that I might have of helping my fellow human beings. It is this fact that I find destructive to the soul of humanity, and while others might flinch at the use of the word, use it in any connotation you like, this attitude destroys any bit of the transcendent nature of our selves, whether that transcendence is divine or human doesn't matter.
Either way, you precisely are legislating morality, and in doing so, you are ultimately destroying the desire to make any moral choice in all of us. That is not to say, then, that we should never legislate morality - every law should be an extension of good moral sense - that is the origin of law. People who object to the "legislation of morality" really object to legislating anything that would feel bad for them because either it makes them feel guilty, or because they don't agree with the legislation of morality.
For example, it is immoral to kill, thus there are laws against murder. Were we to not consider that killing was wrong, we would have never legislated against it in the first place. A gross oversimplification, yes, but you get the gist of my point. We cannot escape the fact that morality is all we legislate - all civil rights legislation, for example, is an attempt to instill a certain form of morality, that is one of eliminating gender bias, racial bias, etc, so that we can treat each other as equals - but that is a fundamentally moral issue!!! Again, I am not saying that there is anything wrong with that - I think it is laudable and the way that laws need to be written. People start objecting when the "morality" in question makes them feel guilty about their own choices or those of their friends, and rather than process the guilt appropriately, they seek to externalize a moral standard that makes them feel better (a very typical, if dysfunctional, way of dealing with cognitive and emotional dissonance), or they object because the morality does not fit with their own moral sensibilities - I think you find the former more than the latter, however, especially with the abortion issue, and this is where the mantra of "choice" is ultimately detrimental and destructive.
Yep - I am about to write about that dread topic of abortion. I know that this is going to upset people, but I want you to realize exactly where this is coming from before I write it. It is coming ultimately from a place of care and concern, especially for children who have to go through this so-called "choice" (and believe me I have seen, on more than one occasion, the psychological and emotional trauma a 15 or 16 year old goes through when they have made this "choice" - and it is not because of some external standard of guilt imposed by a religion - they know that they had a child inside of them, whether fully developed or not, and as they are younger, they see the implications of what would have happened had their parents made a similar choice, but I digress, more on that later).
So, this is big-time a hot button issue, and rather than trivialize it, I will attempt to talk about some problems with our current standards. I am going to avoid the whole mess of legality or illegality; rather I am going to address the folly of saying that it is simply a choice (yep, I used folly, sorry if that is insulting, but my use of the word should become clearer as you read on) as well as the problem with allowing it without parental consent. And that part, the parental consent issue, is huge. I have had long discussions (and sometimes arguments) with my wife about this, and she makes some very valid points about how most children cannot approach their parents with a statement like "I am pregnant" or "I got my girlfriend pregnant". Very true, it is difficult to do, but I really hope that the majority of parent-child relationships in this world are not so strained and abusive that this conversation could never happen. That is my hope, but I know it is not necessarily a reality (but I believe that it is a reality more than not), however, allowing a child to make this kind of decision without her parents only serves to set up a government sponsored impediment to relationships between child and parent.
Let me explain; most of us (humans in general) avoid emotionally traumatic and difficult situations as frequently as we can. We try not to upset other people, and sometimes out of altruism or sometimes out of fear, we do not wish others to have to deal with our problems. This goes especially for teenagers, who are struggling through the tribulations of becoming adults. They have to deal with the fact that their parents treat them as children while they feel like adults; they struggle with impulses to simultaneously act childish and then engage in very adult behavior; and top all of that off with the fact that they have a feeling of invincibility that they do not want disturbed, and they do not want to admit that they were wrong about. That makes for a very messy, difficult space to approach a conversation with parents. If society gives them an out for this difficult situation, how are we going to expect them to ever develop the cognitive, social, or emotional skills for dealing with these situations? Yes, this would be an incredibly difficult conversation to have with your parents, but many teenagers might find that there parents were far more supportive of them than they had anticipated. Others might find that their parents are as flawed and human as they thought that they were. Either way, being able to struggle through this process is important, and while I cannot force this upon anyone, I bristle at legislation being used to give a "easy" out to this difficult situation. (GE)
Because it is not really an easy out. And this is the crux of the difficulty. When we say that this monumentally difficult decision is just a "choice" we do several things to the young woman involved. First, we make the decision, the blame, and the responsibility entirely hers. It implicitly states that it is her fault for getting pregnant - after all if she is the sole arbiter of choice, then she must be solely responsible. She is told that she has a choice, and that it shouldn't be difficult (again, this statement is implicit in the abortion rights movement, in my opinion), and when she struggles with the decision, and feels that there is a huge burden involved, she defaults to the fact that something is wrong with her. This conclusion is entirely wrong, but entirely common, and something young women must struggle with in silence. By telling a girl (and many are, unfortunately, just girls when they have to make this decision) that it is just a choice, when we use terms that make it seem like it is no different than choosing what breakfast cereal to eat, we set up a false expectation in them. When they struggle with the reality of the fact that they could give birth, in a short amount of time, to someone just like them, the decision becomes huge and traumatic. All our platitudes about choice serve only to undermine and separate the child involved. Because it was a "choice", her "choice", the implication is that she must make it without help. The trivial nature of the slogan is at odds with the traumatic reality, and, rather than realize that the slogan is wrong, she assumes that something is wrong with her - she doesn't feel comfortable seeking help, because she has always been told that she can make this decision by herself.
All of our banal platitudes that were put in place with the best of intentions, our sincere attempt to diminish a child's sense of culpability in this difficult situation, have only served to undermine her emotional and psychological stability and, even worse, have only served to traumatize and isolate her. She can only seek the help of her peers, and even then only in whispers, not because of the stigma attached to abortion, but because she feels weak at not being able to make such a simple choice, or because she feels guilty at having made such a choice. And that guilt is not something for which she was prepared because, while she understood some of the magnitude of the decision, again, it was always trivialized in discussions on choice, and again, she feels wrong for feeling guilty.
So all that this choice for children has done is put them in harmful situations and removed any sort of support structure from them, all in the attempt of minimizing the impact of this decision. One cannot argue the good intentions - I believe that virtually all (with some specific exceptions) of the major players in the pro-choice movement are well-intentioned. They don't want people to feel the trauma that they felt or that they assume might be felt at the proposition of an abortion. Either that or they have excessively intellectualized the debate, and removed the emotional aspect from it in an attempt to diffuse the tension surrounding the issue. All this has served to do is to alienate young women who are going through this and who have intensely powerful feelings about it - when they were always told that they shouldn't have those feelings. Now when they experience guilt over the choice, their guilt is de-legitimized and they are forced to struggle with it alone.
So what do we do? I don't know, but I will give you my response. If it wasn't obvious up til now, I am nominally pro-life, though the descriptor is rather silly (everyone is both pro-life, and pro-choice, I don't know anyone who hates life, or anyone who wants to take away all choice - the issue at had is abortion, the monikers merely take away from the argument, so I seldom use them). In terms of moral culpability, from Catholic moral teaching (and many others, but I will cite Catholicism as I was raised Catholic and am well-versed in the moral teachings (not just the dogma)) the less choice one has, the less moral culpability one has. This is a nod to the "can you be evil with a gun to your head" line of thinking, and was introduced into Catholic moral teaching in full-force (though it had precursors) around WWII. It was originally given as a moral "out" so Catholics could feel comfortable lying to hide Jews and others from the Nazis - Catholics were good at guilt, and right and wrong, so Catholics who would hide Jews would feel guilty for lying to state officials about it and confess to priests, I don't need to go through all of it now, you get the idea, right?
Anyway, the less capable you are of making a decision, the less wrong it is. I do believe that abortion is wrong (more on the science of that in another post, and yes, there is science and not just dogma or emotion, though the science still relies on valuing human life; if you don't believe in the value of human life, then the science won't persuade you either). But a girl who is in an incredibly difficult situation, whose parents or boyfriend pressure her into the decision cannot be truly said to have committed a "sin" or done something truly immoral. Was the act right - no, clearly not, but it is by all major moral thinking less wrong than an affluent woman in her late 20s using abortion as a birth-control technique (and I hope that doesn't happen, but I would guess that it might have, but I would argue not frequently). It is the moral imperative of the community around a girl to support her through the difficult process of recovering from such a life-altering decision, not trivializing it and telling her it was nothing. They should provide counseling and emotional support (and yes I do mean professional counseling). Many women end up counting birthdays of unborn children, or have pangs of guilt when they see a child that they know would be the same age as the child they aborted. Do we force women to dear this guilt in silence by denying its existence, or do we help support them as people of care, concern, and conscience would? Do we diminish people by saying that the choice is trivial when it isn't? Should we try to eliminate the emotion involved in the decision, again by trivializing the decision, or do we help people who have made this decision come to terms with it and grow as a result?
My answers to these questions are pretty obvious, as I have already stated. Notice in my argument above, I didn't even get to the social and financial pressures that make the decisions even harder, or the fact that easy availability of abortion makes it easier for boys to exert sexual pressure on girls (and no, this is never explicit, but it is becoming built in to the psyches of young people as a potential out - fear of pregnancy is less acceptable as an "excuse" for a girl who doesn't want to engage in sexual behavior), but all these serve only to bolster my point, and I could write books about all of them.
I know that some people deny the existence of the feelings that I have mentioned above, or they attribute them to the moral upbringing in a puritanical society, but I do not agree with those contentions. Even from a purely biological standpoint, our emotions must exist to preserve the species, so the "love of a mother for her child" is biologically selected, even if you don't buy any of the moral arguments. It is very likely that the moral construct of guilt in the situation is biologically inspired as much as it is morally inspired (and many contend that our morality may flow out of our biology - I do not agree with that entirely, there are major flaws in the logic, but there are reasonable points that can be made). My point is that the guilt associated with abortion is not entirely a social construct of religion that we can eliminate. Many in the "pro-choice" movement tacitly accept that it can be removed because they do not want anyone to have to deal with the guilt. Rather, we should be focusing on how to support kids through the trauma, not invalidating it. By saying that there is or should be no guilt, we try to shut off a part of ourselves, and we damn the children to struggle with it in silence, alone. Even if you look at it from purely a therapeutic mindset - therapy does not seek to eliminate guilt, pain, or other emotional responses, rather it tries to put them into perspective so that we can live our lives as whole human beings rather than flawed constructs consumed with guilt and self-loathing or shallow non-entities who have shut off any capacity for emotion in ourselves to stave off uncomfortable feelings. I guess that gives a little insight into what I believe and why, and I hope that whoever reads this knows that the decision to be "Pro-Life" or "Pro-Choice" shouldn't be undertaken lightly, and what we say and do has a tremendous impact on each other, especially on the young and vulnerable in our society.
Wow, I had originally intended to talk about legislating morality and construction of morality outside of belief in a deity of some sort (a near impossibility if you want to generate a non-Nietzschean, non-Machiavellian morality - try reading John Stuart Mill, for example - his utilitarian ideals are so flawed you could drive a Mac Truck through them, not that they had Mac Trucks in his day, insert the Victorian equivalent), but my progression of thoughts led me to the abortion issue. If you've made it this far, I hope I haven't upset too many apple carts, and I hope that you can still engage in conversation with me later...
I suppose this one might pop up on a number of search engines now, and I might get wanderers in that don't normally read this blog - if that is you, feel free to comment, but try to remain thoughtful in your comments, as I tried to in this lengthy discussion. Feel free to dispute what I have said, but don't just come down on my side or on the opposition side with irrational or argumentative garbage... if you have a counter argument, I would love to hear it; this does not capture all my reasoning, but I have given it a bit of thought...
Thanks for reading :)
Supergoober's line did actually describe the feeling out there of how we should be kind and generous and giving to our neighbors - but that is, at heart, a religious/moral sentiment, and therefore a matter of personal choice. I deeply believe in the necessity of social justice, and in the religious tenet of "love thy neighbor", and neighbor is to be interpreted very broadly, but most of the social programs do not consist of me personally being generous, they consist of me insisting that people who have more than me be generous as well. I have taken my moral choice and evaded it by forcing someone with "more" to be generous instead.
Obviously, the government has some role in "promoting the general welfare", but as the government usurps this role more and more, it becomes easier and easier for all of us to neglect this aspect of our responsibility to each other. We succumb to an "I gave at the office" mentality - that is it is easier to evade our own personal duties if some mythical, mystical government entity can do it for me (perhaps very badly) and obviate me of any feeling that I might have of helping my fellow human beings. It is this fact that I find destructive to the soul of humanity, and while others might flinch at the use of the word, use it in any connotation you like, this attitude destroys any bit of the transcendent nature of our selves, whether that transcendence is divine or human doesn't matter.
Either way, you precisely are legislating morality, and in doing so, you are ultimately destroying the desire to make any moral choice in all of us. That is not to say, then, that we should never legislate morality - every law should be an extension of good moral sense - that is the origin of law. People who object to the "legislation of morality" really object to legislating anything that would feel bad for them because either it makes them feel guilty, or because they don't agree with the legislation of morality.
For example, it is immoral to kill, thus there are laws against murder. Were we to not consider that killing was wrong, we would have never legislated against it in the first place. A gross oversimplification, yes, but you get the gist of my point. We cannot escape the fact that morality is all we legislate - all civil rights legislation, for example, is an attempt to instill a certain form of morality, that is one of eliminating gender bias, racial bias, etc, so that we can treat each other as equals - but that is a fundamentally moral issue!!! Again, I am not saying that there is anything wrong with that - I think it is laudable and the way that laws need to be written. People start objecting when the "morality" in question makes them feel guilty about their own choices or those of their friends, and rather than process the guilt appropriately, they seek to externalize a moral standard that makes them feel better (a very typical, if dysfunctional, way of dealing with cognitive and emotional dissonance), or they object because the morality does not fit with their own moral sensibilities - I think you find the former more than the latter, however, especially with the abortion issue, and this is where the mantra of "choice" is ultimately detrimental and destructive.
Yep - I am about to write about that dread topic of abortion. I know that this is going to upset people, but I want you to realize exactly where this is coming from before I write it. It is coming ultimately from a place of care and concern, especially for children who have to go through this so-called "choice" (and believe me I have seen, on more than one occasion, the psychological and emotional trauma a 15 or 16 year old goes through when they have made this "choice" - and it is not because of some external standard of guilt imposed by a religion - they know that they had a child inside of them, whether fully developed or not, and as they are younger, they see the implications of what would have happened had their parents made a similar choice, but I digress, more on that later).
So, this is big-time a hot button issue, and rather than trivialize it, I will attempt to talk about some problems with our current standards. I am going to avoid the whole mess of legality or illegality; rather I am going to address the folly of saying that it is simply a choice (yep, I used folly, sorry if that is insulting, but my use of the word should become clearer as you read on) as well as the problem with allowing it without parental consent. And that part, the parental consent issue, is huge. I have had long discussions (and sometimes arguments) with my wife about this, and she makes some very valid points about how most children cannot approach their parents with a statement like "I am pregnant" or "I got my girlfriend pregnant". Very true, it is difficult to do, but I really hope that the majority of parent-child relationships in this world are not so strained and abusive that this conversation could never happen. That is my hope, but I know it is not necessarily a reality (but I believe that it is a reality more than not), however, allowing a child to make this kind of decision without her parents only serves to set up a government sponsored impediment to relationships between child and parent.
Let me explain; most of us (humans in general) avoid emotionally traumatic and difficult situations as frequently as we can. We try not to upset other people, and sometimes out of altruism or sometimes out of fear, we do not wish others to have to deal with our problems. This goes especially for teenagers, who are struggling through the tribulations of becoming adults. They have to deal with the fact that their parents treat them as children while they feel like adults; they struggle with impulses to simultaneously act childish and then engage in very adult behavior; and top all of that off with the fact that they have a feeling of invincibility that they do not want disturbed, and they do not want to admit that they were wrong about. That makes for a very messy, difficult space to approach a conversation with parents. If society gives them an out for this difficult situation, how are we going to expect them to ever develop the cognitive, social, or emotional skills for dealing with these situations? Yes, this would be an incredibly difficult conversation to have with your parents, but many teenagers might find that there parents were far more supportive of them than they had anticipated. Others might find that their parents are as flawed and human as they thought that they were. Either way, being able to struggle through this process is important, and while I cannot force this upon anyone, I bristle at legislation being used to give a "easy" out to this difficult situation. (GE)
Because it is not really an easy out. And this is the crux of the difficulty. When we say that this monumentally difficult decision is just a "choice" we do several things to the young woman involved. First, we make the decision, the blame, and the responsibility entirely hers. It implicitly states that it is her fault for getting pregnant - after all if she is the sole arbiter of choice, then she must be solely responsible. She is told that she has a choice, and that it shouldn't be difficult (again, this statement is implicit in the abortion rights movement, in my opinion), and when she struggles with the decision, and feels that there is a huge burden involved, she defaults to the fact that something is wrong with her. This conclusion is entirely wrong, but entirely common, and something young women must struggle with in silence. By telling a girl (and many are, unfortunately, just girls when they have to make this decision) that it is just a choice, when we use terms that make it seem like it is no different than choosing what breakfast cereal to eat, we set up a false expectation in them. When they struggle with the reality of the fact that they could give birth, in a short amount of time, to someone just like them, the decision becomes huge and traumatic. All our platitudes about choice serve only to undermine and separate the child involved. Because it was a "choice", her "choice", the implication is that she must make it without help. The trivial nature of the slogan is at odds with the traumatic reality, and, rather than realize that the slogan is wrong, she assumes that something is wrong with her - she doesn't feel comfortable seeking help, because she has always been told that she can make this decision by herself.
All of our banal platitudes that were put in place with the best of intentions, our sincere attempt to diminish a child's sense of culpability in this difficult situation, have only served to undermine her emotional and psychological stability and, even worse, have only served to traumatize and isolate her. She can only seek the help of her peers, and even then only in whispers, not because of the stigma attached to abortion, but because she feels weak at not being able to make such a simple choice, or because she feels guilty at having made such a choice. And that guilt is not something for which she was prepared because, while she understood some of the magnitude of the decision, again, it was always trivialized in discussions on choice, and again, she feels wrong for feeling guilty.
So all that this choice for children has done is put them in harmful situations and removed any sort of support structure from them, all in the attempt of minimizing the impact of this decision. One cannot argue the good intentions - I believe that virtually all (with some specific exceptions) of the major players in the pro-choice movement are well-intentioned. They don't want people to feel the trauma that they felt or that they assume might be felt at the proposition of an abortion. Either that or they have excessively intellectualized the debate, and removed the emotional aspect from it in an attempt to diffuse the tension surrounding the issue. All this has served to do is to alienate young women who are going through this and who have intensely powerful feelings about it - when they were always told that they shouldn't have those feelings. Now when they experience guilt over the choice, their guilt is de-legitimized and they are forced to struggle with it alone.
So what do we do? I don't know, but I will give you my response. If it wasn't obvious up til now, I am nominally pro-life, though the descriptor is rather silly (everyone is both pro-life, and pro-choice, I don't know anyone who hates life, or anyone who wants to take away all choice - the issue at had is abortion, the monikers merely take away from the argument, so I seldom use them). In terms of moral culpability, from Catholic moral teaching (and many others, but I will cite Catholicism as I was raised Catholic and am well-versed in the moral teachings (not just the dogma)) the less choice one has, the less moral culpability one has. This is a nod to the "can you be evil with a gun to your head" line of thinking, and was introduced into Catholic moral teaching in full-force (though it had precursors) around WWII. It was originally given as a moral "out" so Catholics could feel comfortable lying to hide Jews and others from the Nazis - Catholics were good at guilt, and right and wrong, so Catholics who would hide Jews would feel guilty for lying to state officials about it and confess to priests, I don't need to go through all of it now, you get the idea, right?
Anyway, the less capable you are of making a decision, the less wrong it is. I do believe that abortion is wrong (more on the science of that in another post, and yes, there is science and not just dogma or emotion, though the science still relies on valuing human life; if you don't believe in the value of human life, then the science won't persuade you either). But a girl who is in an incredibly difficult situation, whose parents or boyfriend pressure her into the decision cannot be truly said to have committed a "sin" or done something truly immoral. Was the act right - no, clearly not, but it is by all major moral thinking less wrong than an affluent woman in her late 20s using abortion as a birth-control technique (and I hope that doesn't happen, but I would guess that it might have, but I would argue not frequently). It is the moral imperative of the community around a girl to support her through the difficult process of recovering from such a life-altering decision, not trivializing it and telling her it was nothing. They should provide counseling and emotional support (and yes I do mean professional counseling). Many women end up counting birthdays of unborn children, or have pangs of guilt when they see a child that they know would be the same age as the child they aborted. Do we force women to dear this guilt in silence by denying its existence, or do we help support them as people of care, concern, and conscience would? Do we diminish people by saying that the choice is trivial when it isn't? Should we try to eliminate the emotion involved in the decision, again by trivializing the decision, or do we help people who have made this decision come to terms with it and grow as a result?
My answers to these questions are pretty obvious, as I have already stated. Notice in my argument above, I didn't even get to the social and financial pressures that make the decisions even harder, or the fact that easy availability of abortion makes it easier for boys to exert sexual pressure on girls (and no, this is never explicit, but it is becoming built in to the psyches of young people as a potential out - fear of pregnancy is less acceptable as an "excuse" for a girl who doesn't want to engage in sexual behavior), but all these serve only to bolster my point, and I could write books about all of them.
I know that some people deny the existence of the feelings that I have mentioned above, or they attribute them to the moral upbringing in a puritanical society, but I do not agree with those contentions. Even from a purely biological standpoint, our emotions must exist to preserve the species, so the "love of a mother for her child" is biologically selected, even if you don't buy any of the moral arguments. It is very likely that the moral construct of guilt in the situation is biologically inspired as much as it is morally inspired (and many contend that our morality may flow out of our biology - I do not agree with that entirely, there are major flaws in the logic, but there are reasonable points that can be made). My point is that the guilt associated with abortion is not entirely a social construct of religion that we can eliminate. Many in the "pro-choice" movement tacitly accept that it can be removed because they do not want anyone to have to deal with the guilt. Rather, we should be focusing on how to support kids through the trauma, not invalidating it. By saying that there is or should be no guilt, we try to shut off a part of ourselves, and we damn the children to struggle with it in silence, alone. Even if you look at it from purely a therapeutic mindset - therapy does not seek to eliminate guilt, pain, or other emotional responses, rather it tries to put them into perspective so that we can live our lives as whole human beings rather than flawed constructs consumed with guilt and self-loathing or shallow non-entities who have shut off any capacity for emotion in ourselves to stave off uncomfortable feelings. I guess that gives a little insight into what I believe and why, and I hope that whoever reads this knows that the decision to be "Pro-Life" or "Pro-Choice" shouldn't be undertaken lightly, and what we say and do has a tremendous impact on each other, especially on the young and vulnerable in our society.
Wow, I had originally intended to talk about legislating morality and construction of morality outside of belief in a deity of some sort (a near impossibility if you want to generate a non-Nietzschean, non-Machiavellian morality - try reading John Stuart Mill, for example - his utilitarian ideals are so flawed you could drive a Mac Truck through them, not that they had Mac Trucks in his day, insert the Victorian equivalent), but my progression of thoughts led me to the abortion issue. If you've made it this far, I hope I haven't upset too many apple carts, and I hope that you can still engage in conversation with me later...
I suppose this one might pop up on a number of search engines now, and I might get wanderers in that don't normally read this blog - if that is you, feel free to comment, but try to remain thoughtful in your comments, as I tried to in this lengthy discussion. Feel free to dispute what I have said, but don't just come down on my side or on the opposition side with irrational or argumentative garbage... if you have a counter argument, I would love to hear it; this does not capture all my reasoning, but I have given it a bit of thought...
Thanks for reading :)
Wednesday, October 22, 2008
On Socialism
In a response to the last blog, supergoober mentioned the word "socialism", and I responded with the fact that Obama clearly is "socialist" in his aims. I feel that I should define a bit more clearly what I mean by that, and mention the specifics where he, as well as many Democrats and Republicans have socialist tendencies.
But first to address the resistance to the word in general. Many people tie this to the failed economies of the Eastern Block, and rightly so, as those were communist governments (actually formed into oligarchical dictatorships) that had socialized economies - specifically the branch of socialism that deals with the state controling the means of production. The fact that Soviet Communism was deeply entangled with Socialism really did a lot to throw the economic principles of socialism into doubt.
Many people now will debate whether socialism and communism are the same thing, adherents to one socialism generally try to distance themselves from the name communism. Marx viewed the proletarian revolution and socializing of economies (socialism) as a step toward the communist utopia that he posited.
The actual history of the names, however, is much more interesting. Communism was the European term for the atheist utopia that Marx envisioned. In Protestant England, however, the term was deemed to be to close to Communion (the Catholic Sacrament) and the term socialism was favored. They both actually describe the same, or very similar, philosophies, however, adherents to each will spit hairs over who falls into what category.
Even among Socialism, which could be defined as the movement to remove control of industry from the hands of a few "capitalists" and return it to either the laborers or the government, depending on your flavor of socialism. A free-market socialism would have labor organizations running all businesses rather than individuals, while a national socialism (the term now being far out of favor since the Germans used it in that upsetting period in the late 1930s and early 40s) focusses on the state controlling industry. In addition, the Marxist philosophy of "from each according to his means, to each according to his needs" also affects social policy - particularly "liberal" social policy, which flows from the social democrat ideal (most notably used in England) of state ownership of key market industries and tax-funded social welfare programs for the population.
The social democrats (not affiliated with the Democratic party of the USA, though holding many of the same ideas), are the socialist ideology to which Barrack Obama is most closely aligned. He favors punitive actions towards owners of businesses (aka Joe The Plumber, sorry, but it is the most obvious reference) making him "spread the wealth around" to favor people who for whatever reason could not achieve what Joe did. He had some lines where he danced around the issue and said that he would have liked to do things to help Joe reach where he did (not that he needed any help, apparently), but now that he was there, it was his responsibility to help his fellows, not by employing them, but by giving back some of that presumably ill-gotten gain to the government so that Obama could "spread it around" as he saw fit. That is a distinctly socialist idea, and naming it as such does no harm.
If Obama does not like that, he should adopt a philosophy that does not espouse that, but it would undermine everything he ostensibly believes in. He should instead embrace the term and tell people what it means and why he believes that it will work. McCain could reasonably counter with why he thinks it doesn;t work and why free-market capitalism does.
But that would require both candidates to be intelligent and genuine, and it would also require that McCain be a free market capitalist. He is, however, very socialist in his approach to government, perhaps not so much as Obama is (ie socialized medicine), but attempting to manipulate the housing market and control that entire sector of the economy with a government institution is completely and 100 percent socialist. I don't know if he knows that or believes that it is actually the right solution (or is it just what voters want to hear?), but you cannot argue that it is anything but socialism. Government economic regulations put us in this position with Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac being regulated into making these loans, and main street and wall street were complicit in this action (yes, theGM and I talked a bit about this, and I do believe that it is all three, I always have, but I feel that Wall Street gets all the blame, so my other blogs were an attempt to show where the Wall Street attitude came from. These loans used to be considered to risky, but when Carter started pushing for them, and regulations started mandating them, Wall Street quickly fell into lock-step realizing there was money to be made and that the Feds would bail them out, and main street jumped on board, conveniently never stopping to read the fine print and happy that the world was giving it up for them for once... long parenthetical finally concluding, Socialized Government started it, wall street and main street hopped on for a ride, but the fundamental precipitating act was the government attempt at controlling the economy and money supply).
So, long story short, McCain and Obama have very strong socialist leanings in their policy (government funding of energy - wind, solar, nuclear, etc. also socialist Mr. McCain), and I do not particuarly like either one. I am not a free-market nut, the government should oversee in a regulatory capacity, but I have an intense dislike for government ownership and for control of the economy as an engine for social policy change - because it doesn't work well (if it does at all). The need for social welfare from the government is largely self-fulfilling - the government usurped the roles of the traditional organizations involved in these activities and began doing it less efficiently and in a more dehumanizing way...
But that is for a later blog on liberal supermajorities in 1933 and 1965, and I think you can already see where this is going. Talk to you soon, I have to go tutor chemistry again :)
But first to address the resistance to the word in general. Many people tie this to the failed economies of the Eastern Block, and rightly so, as those were communist governments (actually formed into oligarchical dictatorships) that had socialized economies - specifically the branch of socialism that deals with the state controling the means of production. The fact that Soviet Communism was deeply entangled with Socialism really did a lot to throw the economic principles of socialism into doubt.
Many people now will debate whether socialism and communism are the same thing, adherents to one socialism generally try to distance themselves from the name communism. Marx viewed the proletarian revolution and socializing of economies (socialism) as a step toward the communist utopia that he posited.
The actual history of the names, however, is much more interesting. Communism was the European term for the atheist utopia that Marx envisioned. In Protestant England, however, the term was deemed to be to close to Communion (the Catholic Sacrament) and the term socialism was favored. They both actually describe the same, or very similar, philosophies, however, adherents to each will spit hairs over who falls into what category.
Even among Socialism, which could be defined as the movement to remove control of industry from the hands of a few "capitalists" and return it to either the laborers or the government, depending on your flavor of socialism. A free-market socialism would have labor organizations running all businesses rather than individuals, while a national socialism (the term now being far out of favor since the Germans used it in that upsetting period in the late 1930s and early 40s) focusses on the state controlling industry. In addition, the Marxist philosophy of "from each according to his means, to each according to his needs" also affects social policy - particularly "liberal" social policy, which flows from the social democrat ideal (most notably used in England) of state ownership of key market industries and tax-funded social welfare programs for the population.
The social democrats (not affiliated with the Democratic party of the USA, though holding many of the same ideas), are the socialist ideology to which Barrack Obama is most closely aligned. He favors punitive actions towards owners of businesses (aka Joe The Plumber, sorry, but it is the most obvious reference) making him "spread the wealth around" to favor people who for whatever reason could not achieve what Joe did. He had some lines where he danced around the issue and said that he would have liked to do things to help Joe reach where he did (not that he needed any help, apparently), but now that he was there, it was his responsibility to help his fellows, not by employing them, but by giving back some of that presumably ill-gotten gain to the government so that Obama could "spread it around" as he saw fit. That is a distinctly socialist idea, and naming it as such does no harm.
If Obama does not like that, he should adopt a philosophy that does not espouse that, but it would undermine everything he ostensibly believes in. He should instead embrace the term and tell people what it means and why he believes that it will work. McCain could reasonably counter with why he thinks it doesn;t work and why free-market capitalism does.
But that would require both candidates to be intelligent and genuine, and it would also require that McCain be a free market capitalist. He is, however, very socialist in his approach to government, perhaps not so much as Obama is (ie socialized medicine), but attempting to manipulate the housing market and control that entire sector of the economy with a government institution is completely and 100 percent socialist. I don't know if he knows that or believes that it is actually the right solution (or is it just what voters want to hear?), but you cannot argue that it is anything but socialism. Government economic regulations put us in this position with Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac being regulated into making these loans, and main street and wall street were complicit in this action (yes, theGM and I talked a bit about this, and I do believe that it is all three, I always have, but I feel that Wall Street gets all the blame, so my other blogs were an attempt to show where the Wall Street attitude came from. These loans used to be considered to risky, but when Carter started pushing for them, and regulations started mandating them, Wall Street quickly fell into lock-step realizing there was money to be made and that the Feds would bail them out, and main street jumped on board, conveniently never stopping to read the fine print and happy that the world was giving it up for them for once... long parenthetical finally concluding, Socialized Government started it, wall street and main street hopped on for a ride, but the fundamental precipitating act was the government attempt at controlling the economy and money supply).
So, long story short, McCain and Obama have very strong socialist leanings in their policy (government funding of energy - wind, solar, nuclear, etc. also socialist Mr. McCain), and I do not particuarly like either one. I am not a free-market nut, the government should oversee in a regulatory capacity, but I have an intense dislike for government ownership and for control of the economy as an engine for social policy change - because it doesn't work well (if it does at all). The need for social welfare from the government is largely self-fulfilling - the government usurped the roles of the traditional organizations involved in these activities and began doing it less efficiently and in a more dehumanizing way...
But that is for a later blog on liberal supermajorities in 1933 and 1965, and I think you can already see where this is going. Talk to you soon, I have to go tutor chemistry again :)
Tuesday, October 21, 2008
Republicans Wrong? Of Course!
In answer to your earlier query in the blog response, I just want to unequivocally say that certainly there are times when I feel the Republicans are wrong. In case you don't remember, this cycle I view it as my civic duty to not vote for either presidential candidate. I feel that both of them are naive, neither has appropriate leadership qualifications, and both the economic plans are patently ridiculous. I will vote for the propositions and so on, but I refuse to vote for either candidate.
Some people at work who have heard me mention this say, "If you aren't going to vote, you have no right to complain about what you get." BS - not exercising one right does not mean I waive another (free speech). Even if you buy the non-sequitor, I still have the right to complain because my refusal to vote is because both are horrible. I will bitch quite loudly about disastrous policy decisions of either one, because I would if I voted for either one anyway.
In terms of why my comments are so resoundingly anti-Democrat, it is because I am not following any of the crap that is going on. I will listen to snippets of news, but I do not cruise the blogs or follow FOX or CNN religiously. I flip on network news every once in a while - since the press seems to have a love affair with Obama and Biden, I will more often hear their idiotic comments and respond to them.
If you recall a couple of blogs ago, I decried the "Carbon-Tax Plan" that Palin mentioned as about an idiotic idea as one could have, especially in the current climate (pun intended - check out the cooling trend of the last 7 years, plus the cooling trend of the economy - a carbon tax would screw up America, but it would condemn 3rd world countries to economic bankruptcy were it ever instituted in a widespread fashion).
As to the racist and overtly homicidal comments, I haven't seen them, but if I had, I would be quick to damn them. Rush's bit on being sexist is surely a joke - that sounds like it is right out of his playbook on commentary that would infuriate the left - and he tends to play this stuff as a "straight-man" style humor for as long as possible. What are you referring to when you talk about comments from the candidates - can you point me to a quote? I am not being flip, I am really not plugged into this campaign because it is such a joke on both sides.
As far as the election fraud, the Disney character bit is extreme, but the voter rolls not being purged of felons and deceased persons is ridiculous - that should be done immediately, because that is where real voter fraud takes place. ACORN is a politically active organization that does actually encourage voter fraud (a bit extreme of an accusation, but it can be backed up - now is not the time, because I need to finish grading (midterm grades due 8:30 am tomorrow)).
But what I really find troubling are the proposals Obama has made in the past - and he is just echoing the Dem. party line on these. He wants to allow "day-of" voter registration. That is you can register to vote the day of the election - eliminating checks on citizenship, residency, and eligibility - not overtly, but because there will be no way of immediately checking. This is a horrible idea, and it only encourages fraud, or at best ignorance in voting and bribing of voters (Chicago machine politics, anyone?). The other thing that he supports is eliminating the secrecy of voting for unionization - labor organizers could petition people and have knowledge of who voted against "organizing" and pursue aggressive campaigns to convince anti-union people. This is dangerous - when someone knows how you vote, they can intimidate you, and just as big monopolies tried to crush unions in the early 1900's, big unions have tried to crush opposition to them in the late 1900's to early 2000's (and yes, I know that I don't need the apostrophes, but dammit they look better).
An unfortunate necessity, however, is that of spoiled ballots being discarded. As much as people complain about this, it affects both sides about evenly. There are neutral parties who inspect ballots and discard any ones that do not meet certain requirements... it is impossible to intuit what a voter would have wanted if they could not follow instructions. While it seems ridiculous to discard a ballot that did not have a line completely connected (for example) when it is "readily apparent" who the person wanted to vote for, we cannot embark on the road of letting a third party interpret who they thought someone was going to vote for. This is the same way people lose points on the SAT and other standardized tests, and when you are dealing with that many votes, it is unfortunately the only way.
I will aways favor paper ballots, because there is a "paper trail". Can fraud occur? Yes. Can it occur more easily and less verifiably with an all electronic system? Oh my yes. To falsify large amounts of ballots, it would take the concerted efforts of many, while to screw up an electronic system on a fairly large scale would require less effort. I am not a tinfoil hat nut that says that evil liberals or evil conservatives would do this, but it puts voter fraud on a massive scale within reach of small pockets of people who, on some level, just like to f__k with computerized stuff.
So, long story short, Republicans piss me off on some level just as much as Democrats. There is nothing I hate more than having an idiot try and defend a position that I hold - and I am sure you feel the same way.
But more on that later, and I would also like to discuss the "Bradley Effect" and race in elections... coming soon to a blog near you :)
Some people at work who have heard me mention this say, "If you aren't going to vote, you have no right to complain about what you get." BS - not exercising one right does not mean I waive another (free speech). Even if you buy the non-sequitor, I still have the right to complain because my refusal to vote is because both are horrible. I will bitch quite loudly about disastrous policy decisions of either one, because I would if I voted for either one anyway.
In terms of why my comments are so resoundingly anti-Democrat, it is because I am not following any of the crap that is going on. I will listen to snippets of news, but I do not cruise the blogs or follow FOX or CNN religiously. I flip on network news every once in a while - since the press seems to have a love affair with Obama and Biden, I will more often hear their idiotic comments and respond to them.
If you recall a couple of blogs ago, I decried the "Carbon-Tax Plan" that Palin mentioned as about an idiotic idea as one could have, especially in the current climate (pun intended - check out the cooling trend of the last 7 years, plus the cooling trend of the economy - a carbon tax would screw up America, but it would condemn 3rd world countries to economic bankruptcy were it ever instituted in a widespread fashion).
As to the racist and overtly homicidal comments, I haven't seen them, but if I had, I would be quick to damn them. Rush's bit on being sexist is surely a joke - that sounds like it is right out of his playbook on commentary that would infuriate the left - and he tends to play this stuff as a "straight-man" style humor for as long as possible. What are you referring to when you talk about comments from the candidates - can you point me to a quote? I am not being flip, I am really not plugged into this campaign because it is such a joke on both sides.
As far as the election fraud, the Disney character bit is extreme, but the voter rolls not being purged of felons and deceased persons is ridiculous - that should be done immediately, because that is where real voter fraud takes place. ACORN is a politically active organization that does actually encourage voter fraud (a bit extreme of an accusation, but it can be backed up - now is not the time, because I need to finish grading (midterm grades due 8:30 am tomorrow)).
But what I really find troubling are the proposals Obama has made in the past - and he is just echoing the Dem. party line on these. He wants to allow "day-of" voter registration. That is you can register to vote the day of the election - eliminating checks on citizenship, residency, and eligibility - not overtly, but because there will be no way of immediately checking. This is a horrible idea, and it only encourages fraud, or at best ignorance in voting and bribing of voters (Chicago machine politics, anyone?). The other thing that he supports is eliminating the secrecy of voting for unionization - labor organizers could petition people and have knowledge of who voted against "organizing" and pursue aggressive campaigns to convince anti-union people. This is dangerous - when someone knows how you vote, they can intimidate you, and just as big monopolies tried to crush unions in the early 1900's, big unions have tried to crush opposition to them in the late 1900's to early 2000's (and yes, I know that I don't need the apostrophes, but dammit they look better).
An unfortunate necessity, however, is that of spoiled ballots being discarded. As much as people complain about this, it affects both sides about evenly. There are neutral parties who inspect ballots and discard any ones that do not meet certain requirements... it is impossible to intuit what a voter would have wanted if they could not follow instructions. While it seems ridiculous to discard a ballot that did not have a line completely connected (for example) when it is "readily apparent" who the person wanted to vote for, we cannot embark on the road of letting a third party interpret who they thought someone was going to vote for. This is the same way people lose points on the SAT and other standardized tests, and when you are dealing with that many votes, it is unfortunately the only way.
I will aways favor paper ballots, because there is a "paper trail". Can fraud occur? Yes. Can it occur more easily and less verifiably with an all electronic system? Oh my yes. To falsify large amounts of ballots, it would take the concerted efforts of many, while to screw up an electronic system on a fairly large scale would require less effort. I am not a tinfoil hat nut that says that evil liberals or evil conservatives would do this, but it puts voter fraud on a massive scale within reach of small pockets of people who, on some level, just like to f__k with computerized stuff.
So, long story short, Republicans piss me off on some level just as much as Democrats. There is nothing I hate more than having an idiot try and defend a position that I hold - and I am sure you feel the same way.
But more on that later, and I would also like to discuss the "Bradley Effect" and race in elections... coming soon to a blog near you :)
Monday, October 20, 2008
Joe Biden: Hello Mouth, Meet Foot
Joe Biden has a habit of continually putting his foot in his mouth; and I am not talking about the kind of gaffs that go largely ignored because they are inevitable mistakes for a person who makes his/her living by speaking in public. Most politicians have many of these types of mistakes - how often do we all fumble over words at times. Most times, these mistakes are picked up by comedians (and sometimes journalists) to poke a little fun at a politician or politics in general.
Biden spent a long time criticizing Bush's education policy and No Child Left Behind, and then concluded with the statement: “There’s less than 1 percent of the population of Iowa that is African American. There is probably less than 4 or 5 percent that are minorities. What is in Washington? So look, it goes back to what you start off with, what you’re dealing with.”
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/10/24/AR2007102402716.html
Anyway, that is not the only gaffe, but I do not want to rehash his long history of ignorant and arrogant statements, but one he made recently was incredibly stupid from a political standpoint. I don't remeber the exact quote, but he effectively said that within six months of being elected the world would test Obama the way it tested Kennedy. He implied that there would be some potentially catastrophic confrontation of Obama because of his lack of experience.
Whether this statement is correct or not, it shows an incredible lack of sophistication about national politics. The Republicans would probably never bring something like that up for fear of being called scaremongers or being too negative. But if Biden brings it up first, it all of a sudden becomes fair game. You go from being politically unable to touch the inexperience angle, and then Biden just opens the floodgates and makes that aspect of the debate relevant again.
Think about it. Biden basically says that because Obama is inexperienced, the world will test him - what exactly does that mean? It seems to express a real lack of confidence in his presidential candidate. That is not a good thing to have your running mate say less than a month before an election.
Just an observation, more later, but not on Biden - he is just another boring racist elitist, and there is lots of proof of that from his own mouth.
Biden spent a long time criticizing Bush's education policy and No Child Left Behind, and then concluded with the statement: “There’s less than 1 percent of the population of Iowa that is African American. There is probably less than 4 or 5 percent that are minorities. What is in Washington? So look, it goes back to what you start off with, what you’re dealing with.”
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/10/24/AR2007102402716.html
Anyway, that is not the only gaffe, but I do not want to rehash his long history of ignorant and arrogant statements, but one he made recently was incredibly stupid from a political standpoint. I don't remeber the exact quote, but he effectively said that within six months of being elected the world would test Obama the way it tested Kennedy. He implied that there would be some potentially catastrophic confrontation of Obama because of his lack of experience.
Whether this statement is correct or not, it shows an incredible lack of sophistication about national politics. The Republicans would probably never bring something like that up for fear of being called scaremongers or being too negative. But if Biden brings it up first, it all of a sudden becomes fair game. You go from being politically unable to touch the inexperience angle, and then Biden just opens the floodgates and makes that aspect of the debate relevant again.
Think about it. Biden basically says that because Obama is inexperienced, the world will test him - what exactly does that mean? It seems to express a real lack of confidence in his presidential candidate. That is not a good thing to have your running mate say less than a month before an election.
Just an observation, more later, but not on Biden - he is just another boring racist elitist, and there is lots of proof of that from his own mouth.
Monday, October 13, 2008
McBamaNomics
Yep, well, I've been busy lately, and I don't have a ton of time to write right now, but just want to opine about the state of the economy and how our two wonderful candidates proposed to deal with economic issues, and how, if either one institutes their ideas, what a disasterous mess it will cause. Pardon me as I go through this, it will have a bit of a CW feel to it (check the sidebar for the definition).
Anyway, the first question was basically, "What do you think we should do about the crisis?" If either one thought that their answer was the right one, then God help us should either of them get into the White House. Actually, in a way I hope that Obama does, because it will (in my mind) mean the ultimate repudiation of his economic school of thought. Of course, no one else may actually be paying enough attention to what actually happens for this to matter, because his ideas are nice and help out the little guy (insert mewling voice here). Never mind the fact that they ultimately screw the little guy worse harder than Ned Beatty got screwed in Deliverance, harder than Jodie Foster got screwed in The Accused, harder than any contemporary porn actress gets screwed in any of the modern mysogynistic miasma of pornography, harder even than Greedo got screwed when Lucas editted Star Wars so that he shot first (now that should get you an idea how strongly I feel about Obama's plan - I don't want to live in a universe where Greedo shoots first!!!!!!)
But I digress... Obama's plan was basically this: spend money on public works, create government jobs, bailout any person who got in over their ignorant head, and tax the hell out of the evil corporations who got us here in the first place. If this sounds familiar, it should - it is a page out of FDR's playbook, and unfortunately, anyone with any historical savvy can tell you it did not work. It mired us in a worldwide depression for over a decade, and only a World War got us out of it. Not that even a world war would do that, now; we have switched from a manufacturing based economy to a service based economy, so a war would not really help gear up economic growth (and even that growth was government spurred, but not in the same way - that's for another time, kiddies). Anyway, if you want a decade of malaise, go with the Obama plan.
The McCain plan was just as bad, perhaps worse. His idea was to have the Treasury purchase and renegotiate loans so that the loan would not exceed the value of the home. This would supposedly stabilize home prices. Unfortunately, it wouldn't work. Lots of lessons in the past have showed us that government price and wage fixing don't work at all. Whether they were put forth as part of a disastrous domestic plan of Richard Nixon or of Jimmy Carter, they f---ed up the economy royally the last time. Trying to "stabilize" home prices is ludicrous. Some people are going to lose their homes, and lose their investments. Sorry, there are no rewards without risks, and that was the risk that some people took. If these cycles never happened, no young buyers would ever be able to get into homes.
I bought my home in 1996, at the bottom of a market slump that started around 1994 (which Clinton tried to reverse by freeing up capital by mandating Freddie and Fannie make more risky loans). I bought my house for $202,500. I only mention that because the guy I bought it from had purchased at the height of the previous craze for $330,000 and he got screwed in the deal. he couldn't afford to live in the area and was moving to the East Bay, and he lost all of his down payment, and actually owed more on his loan than we paid. Did that suck for him? Yes, but were it not for his bad judgement, I would not have been able to buy a home. There are many reasonable people who can now (or soon) afford homes in the area, and the prices will stabilize themselves. If that means that some people have to pay unreasonable amounts for a home that is worth less than the loan, then they had better keep doing it.
They have a couple of options: keep paying on a loan that is higher than the value of the home and wait for prices to rise again (as they will), or sell it at a loss because they cannot afford the payments because they got themselves into a stupid loan in the first place. That is it. End of story - just like owning a car, you make loan payments for quite a while when you owe more than the car is worth (instant depreciation) and no one has a problem with that unless they overextended to buy that car. Not too different, and it isn't rocket science.
But back to the plans - long story short, they both suck, but I take solace in the fact that, in all likelihood, neither will be instituted; debates are all about who sounds like they care more, and seldom actually have anything to do with what people are going to do in office.
Obama is not going to cut taxes on 95% of Americans (even his proposed plan doesn't work out to this number). He ran on a similar line for the Senate and always voted against any tax cut, whether for rich or poor. McCain will not get rid of earmarks, too many people love them - it is their principle method of getting re-elected.
I will have to labor these points more later, right now I am going to tutor someone in Honors Chemistry.
Anyway, the first question was basically, "What do you think we should do about the crisis?" If either one thought that their answer was the right one, then God help us should either of them get into the White House. Actually, in a way I hope that Obama does, because it will (in my mind) mean the ultimate repudiation of his economic school of thought. Of course, no one else may actually be paying enough attention to what actually happens for this to matter, because his ideas are nice and help out the little guy (insert mewling voice here). Never mind the fact that they ultimately screw the little guy worse harder than Ned Beatty got screwed in Deliverance, harder than Jodie Foster got screwed in The Accused, harder than any contemporary porn actress gets screwed in any of the modern mysogynistic miasma of pornography, harder even than Greedo got screwed when Lucas editted Star Wars so that he shot first (now that should get you an idea how strongly I feel about Obama's plan - I don't want to live in a universe where Greedo shoots first!!!!!!)
But I digress... Obama's plan was basically this: spend money on public works, create government jobs, bailout any person who got in over their ignorant head, and tax the hell out of the evil corporations who got us here in the first place. If this sounds familiar, it should - it is a page out of FDR's playbook, and unfortunately, anyone with any historical savvy can tell you it did not work. It mired us in a worldwide depression for over a decade, and only a World War got us out of it. Not that even a world war would do that, now; we have switched from a manufacturing based economy to a service based economy, so a war would not really help gear up economic growth (and even that growth was government spurred, but not in the same way - that's for another time, kiddies). Anyway, if you want a decade of malaise, go with the Obama plan.
The McCain plan was just as bad, perhaps worse. His idea was to have the Treasury purchase and renegotiate loans so that the loan would not exceed the value of the home. This would supposedly stabilize home prices. Unfortunately, it wouldn't work. Lots of lessons in the past have showed us that government price and wage fixing don't work at all. Whether they were put forth as part of a disastrous domestic plan of Richard Nixon or of Jimmy Carter, they f---ed up the economy royally the last time. Trying to "stabilize" home prices is ludicrous. Some people are going to lose their homes, and lose their investments. Sorry, there are no rewards without risks, and that was the risk that some people took. If these cycles never happened, no young buyers would ever be able to get into homes.
I bought my home in 1996, at the bottom of a market slump that started around 1994 (which Clinton tried to reverse by freeing up capital by mandating Freddie and Fannie make more risky loans). I bought my house for $202,500. I only mention that because the guy I bought it from had purchased at the height of the previous craze for $330,000 and he got screwed in the deal. he couldn't afford to live in the area and was moving to the East Bay, and he lost all of his down payment, and actually owed more on his loan than we paid. Did that suck for him? Yes, but were it not for his bad judgement, I would not have been able to buy a home. There are many reasonable people who can now (or soon) afford homes in the area, and the prices will stabilize themselves. If that means that some people have to pay unreasonable amounts for a home that is worth less than the loan, then they had better keep doing it.
They have a couple of options: keep paying on a loan that is higher than the value of the home and wait for prices to rise again (as they will), or sell it at a loss because they cannot afford the payments because they got themselves into a stupid loan in the first place. That is it. End of story - just like owning a car, you make loan payments for quite a while when you owe more than the car is worth (instant depreciation) and no one has a problem with that unless they overextended to buy that car. Not too different, and it isn't rocket science.
But back to the plans - long story short, they both suck, but I take solace in the fact that, in all likelihood, neither will be instituted; debates are all about who sounds like they care more, and seldom actually have anything to do with what people are going to do in office.
Obama is not going to cut taxes on 95% of Americans (even his proposed plan doesn't work out to this number). He ran on a similar line for the Senate and always voted against any tax cut, whether for rich or poor. McCain will not get rid of earmarks, too many people love them - it is their principle method of getting re-elected.
I will have to labor these points more later, right now I am going to tutor someone in Honors Chemistry.
Thursday, October 2, 2008
So, I'm watching the debate...
So far, it is what I expected... Biden is playing it safe, and chanting the mantra about his tax cuts for 95% of Americans - avoiding details, Palin is doing about as well, saying the same McCain line over and over.
The problem that I am seeing right this second is that Biden is talking out of both sides of his mouth - we are causing global warming, "we know the cause" and yet still advocates "clean coal". Sorry, you can't have it both ways - if you buy the line that CO2 is a greenhouse gas, and that we are causing the majority of warming - clean coal doesn't help. In fact, according to their science, low sulfur coal would increase CO2, while decreasing sulfur - sulfur is actually toxic, but it actually results in cooling, so this is actually a horrible solution (switching from one carbon source to another does not lessen the amount of CO2 in the atmosphere).
Of course, I don't think that our production of CO2 has a marked effect - I'll explain why later - the point is still valid. It is hypocritical. But people don't care - they just listen to whoever says the words "clean energy" more - regardless of the truth.
And Palin just supported a carbon tax -a horrible idea (unless it is very small - statistician/environmentalist Bjorn Lomborg did a study that showed the optimal rate was two to three dollars per ton - any more puts the brakes on economies without measurable positive effect).
They are actually going after each other a bit, now, but it is actually pretty boring - McCain/Palin supporters will still go that way, Obama/Biden supporters the same. It is possible that a small portion of the undecided might be swayed - possibly to McCain - Palin seems a little more convincing, Biden seems to be saying the same thing over and over. I don't think that this debate would really sway anyone, and I am getting bored - both are just putting forth the standard campaign lines. I am just going to shut it off and play some more Silent Hill 5.
The problem that I am seeing right this second is that Biden is talking out of both sides of his mouth - we are causing global warming, "we know the cause" and yet still advocates "clean coal". Sorry, you can't have it both ways - if you buy the line that CO2 is a greenhouse gas, and that we are causing the majority of warming - clean coal doesn't help. In fact, according to their science, low sulfur coal would increase CO2, while decreasing sulfur - sulfur is actually toxic, but it actually results in cooling, so this is actually a horrible solution (switching from one carbon source to another does not lessen the amount of CO2 in the atmosphere).
Of course, I don't think that our production of CO2 has a marked effect - I'll explain why later - the point is still valid. It is hypocritical. But people don't care - they just listen to whoever says the words "clean energy" more - regardless of the truth.
And Palin just supported a carbon tax -a horrible idea (unless it is very small - statistician/environmentalist Bjorn Lomborg did a study that showed the optimal rate was two to three dollars per ton - any more puts the brakes on economies without measurable positive effect).
They are actually going after each other a bit, now, but it is actually pretty boring - McCain/Palin supporters will still go that way, Obama/Biden supporters the same. It is possible that a small portion of the undecided might be swayed - possibly to McCain - Palin seems a little more convincing, Biden seems to be saying the same thing over and over. I don't think that this debate would really sway anyone, and I am getting bored - both are just putting forth the standard campaign lines. I am just going to shut it off and play some more Silent Hill 5.
Regulatory Reform Act of 2005
Just a quick blurb for supergoober, who earlier queried about my sources, here are a few interesting links on this act. Sponsored by Hagel - R, cosponsored by Elizabeth Dole, John McCain, and John Sununu, it called for regulatory oversight of Fannie and Freddie, including investigation into bookkeeping "irregularities". It attempted to stop risky loans and 0 down loans that were the hallmark of what the Dems wanted - to turn "The American Dream" into the American Right - that is, it is everyone's right to own a home.
I don't want to belittle the American Dream, and home-ownership is a big part of that. But it requires hard work, dedication, sacrifice, and it still might not happen. Hell, I wouldn't own if I hadn't gotten lucky with some idiot screwing up his own shot at the Dream. Sometimes, you can't always get what you want... and I know that this seems harsh, but shit happens and chips fall where they may and about a hundred other cliches - life doesn't always work the way we want it to - but the purpose is to live it and try and figure it out for ourselves, not to have people hand us stuff to try and pacify us into re-electing them (a long time Democrat strategy, oft employed by Republicans as well, but we can't forget who mastered the art of creating a dependent class of voters - that is a capital D!)
Anyway, as to the source, citations, etc. on the bill, I've included a summary below from govtrack.us, and their main source material is the Congressional Record (I still reminisce fondly about those days working in the Millbrae Library when I would read those on my break, so I could actually see what bills were like and how the debates went down).
The summary:
1/26/2005--Introduced.
Federal Housing Enterprise Regulatory Reform Act of 2005 - Amends the Federal Housing Enterprises Financial Safety and Soundness Act of 1992 to establish: (1) in lieu of the Office of Federal Housing Enterprise Oversight of the Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD), an independent Federal Housing Enterprise Regulatory Agency which shall have authority over the Federal Home Loan Bank Finance Corporation, the Federal Home Loan Banks, the Federal National Mortgage Association (Fannie Mae), and the Federal Home Loan Mortgage Corporation (Freddie Mac); and (2) the Federal Housing Enterprise Board.
Sets forth operating, administrative, and regulatory provisions of the Agency, including provisions respecting: (1) assessment authority; (2) authority to limit nonmission-related assets; (3) minimum and critical capital levels; (4) risk-based capital test; (5) capital classifications and undercapitalized enterprises; (6) enforcement actions and penalties; (7) golden parachutes; and (8) reporting.
Amends the Federal Home Loan Bank Act to establish the Federal Home Loan Bank Finance Corporation. Transfers the functions of the Office of Finance of the Federal Home Loan Banks to such Corporation.
Excludes the Federal Home Loan Banks from certain securities reporting requirements.
Abolishes the Federal Housing Finance Board.
The site of this is http://www.govtrack.us/congress/bill.xpd?bill=s109-190&tab=summary
If you want McCain's remarks on the senate floor, they are at http://www.govtrack.us/congress/record.xpd?id=109-s20060525-16&bill=s109-190
Hagel's introduction of the bill is at http://www.govtrack.us/congress/record.xpd?id=109-s20050126-53&bill=s109-190#sMonofilemx003Ammx002Fmmx002Fmmx002Fmhomemx002Fmgovtrackmx002Fmdatamx002Fmusmx002Fm109mx002Fmcrmx002Fms20050126-53.xmlElementm39m0m0m
The full text of the bill is at http://www.govtrack.us/congress/billtext.xpd?bill=s109-190
Interesting video on the debate http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_MGT_cSi7Rs - a montage of Democrats saying Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac will be just fine, despite Republicans maintaining that we need more regulations on the two organizations. Check out Barney Frank maintaining that there are no problems, and that the Republicans are just trying to stir up trouble - and he has the audacity to now claim that it is the Republicans fault (and , yes, I know that I split that infinitive, but I felt like it, okay - get off my back!).
Also, the bailout bill sucks - do we really think any of the senators read the 450+ page bill - a typical Senate bill with loads of crap having nothing to do with the bailout - subsidies for energy, rum, railroad ties. So before you think that I am just listening to Right-wing nutcases, know that I love to research :)
No offense, supergoober, but one of your responses was a tad snitty, and what, no response on the origin of the universe ;)
Now I am off to play a little of Silent Hill: Homecoming before the debate - preliminary judgement - the game is frickin' awesome... a tad on the linear side so far, but I still hold out hope.
I don't want to belittle the American Dream, and home-ownership is a big part of that. But it requires hard work, dedication, sacrifice, and it still might not happen. Hell, I wouldn't own if I hadn't gotten lucky with some idiot screwing up his own shot at the Dream. Sometimes, you can't always get what you want... and I know that this seems harsh, but shit happens and chips fall where they may and about a hundred other cliches - life doesn't always work the way we want it to - but the purpose is to live it and try and figure it out for ourselves, not to have people hand us stuff to try and pacify us into re-electing them (a long time Democrat strategy, oft employed by Republicans as well, but we can't forget who mastered the art of creating a dependent class of voters - that is a capital D!)
Anyway, as to the source, citations, etc. on the bill, I've included a summary below from govtrack.us, and their main source material is the Congressional Record (I still reminisce fondly about those days working in the Millbrae Library when I would read those on my break, so I could actually see what bills were like and how the debates went down).
The summary:
1/26/2005--Introduced.
Federal Housing Enterprise Regulatory Reform Act of 2005 - Amends the Federal Housing Enterprises Financial Safety and Soundness Act of 1992 to establish: (1) in lieu of the Office of Federal Housing Enterprise Oversight of the Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD), an independent Federal Housing Enterprise Regulatory Agency which shall have authority over the Federal Home Loan Bank Finance Corporation, the Federal Home Loan Banks, the Federal National Mortgage Association (Fannie Mae), and the Federal Home Loan Mortgage Corporation (Freddie Mac); and (2) the Federal Housing Enterprise Board.
Sets forth operating, administrative, and regulatory provisions of the Agency, including provisions respecting: (1) assessment authority; (2) authority to limit nonmission-related assets; (3) minimum and critical capital levels; (4) risk-based capital test; (5) capital classifications and undercapitalized enterprises; (6) enforcement actions and penalties; (7) golden parachutes; and (8) reporting.
Amends the Federal Home Loan Bank Act to establish the Federal Home Loan Bank Finance Corporation. Transfers the functions of the Office of Finance of the Federal Home Loan Banks to such Corporation.
Excludes the Federal Home Loan Banks from certain securities reporting requirements.
Abolishes the Federal Housing Finance Board.
The site of this is http://www.govtrack.us/congress/bill.xpd?bill=s109-190&tab=summary
If you want McCain's remarks on the senate floor, they are at http://www.govtrack.us/congress/record.xpd?id=109-s20060525-16&bill=s109-190
Hagel's introduction of the bill is at http://www.govtrack.us/congress/record.xpd?id=109-s20050126-53&bill=s109-190#sMonofilemx003Ammx002Fmmx002Fmmx002Fmhomemx002Fmgovtrackmx002Fmdatamx002Fmusmx002Fm109mx002Fmcrmx002Fms20050126-53.xmlElementm39m0m0m
The full text of the bill is at http://www.govtrack.us/congress/billtext.xpd?bill=s109-190
Interesting video on the debate http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_MGT_cSi7Rs - a montage of Democrats saying Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac will be just fine, despite Republicans maintaining that we need more regulations on the two organizations. Check out Barney Frank maintaining that there are no problems, and that the Republicans are just trying to stir up trouble - and he has the audacity to now claim that it is the Republicans fault (and , yes, I know that I split that infinitive, but I felt like it, okay - get off my back!).
Also, the bailout bill sucks - do we really think any of the senators read the 450+ page bill - a typical Senate bill with loads of crap having nothing to do with the bailout - subsidies for energy, rum, railroad ties. So before you think that I am just listening to Right-wing nutcases, know that I love to research :)
No offense, supergoober, but one of your responses was a tad snitty, and what, no response on the origin of the universe ;)
Now I am off to play a little of Silent Hill: Homecoming before the debate - preliminary judgement - the game is frickin' awesome... a tad on the linear side so far, but I still hold out hope.
Tuesday, September 30, 2008
A Brief Musing on the Point of the Universe
So, in one of my more self-indulgent moments, I was thinking about the whole origin of the universe thing, based on some of my discussions with supergoober and others, and I just started thinking about the actual "time" right before the Big Bang.
I use the quotes around time because it is highly probable that time did not really even exist. According to most theories, the universe was a infinitesimally small volume of energy heated to billions of degrees somewhat smaller than an electron in size, and uniformly energetic. The four fundamental forces were unified at that point, and the existence of "space" and "time" as we can currently conceive doesn't make a whole lot of sense.
You see, all of the dimensions that we know (plus a probable 6 or 18 others that we cannot perceive) were wrapped around each other and existed in that microscopic space. So even the question of measuring it and saying it "was the size of an electron" is somewhat specious. Since the dimensions were fundamentally different at that point, trying to establish a radius in something that fundamentally encompasses all of the spatial dimensions that we can conceive of is somewhat ridiculous. Space would be so turned in on itself, it would be like trying to measure to the edge of the universe right now. The problem is that you would have to take an infinitely curved path to get to that edge, because the dimensions did not behave as they do now (that is my personal contribution to the thought - I haven't heard anyone else say it, but I am sure that theoreticians must have raised this point somewhere). Even trying to question what was outside that energy at that time is not a great question. If there was something "outside" there is no way we could possibly come up with a description because it would be outside of all known experience. It would not even possess the dimensions of space that we hold so dear as absolutes (until you get close to light speed or on a subatomic scale).
But I digress... just millionths of a second after the Big Bang, gravity split off, and caused some of the expansion of the universe and dispersal of the energy (one of the reasons space has a fairly uniform temperature despite 13.7 billion years not being enough time for universal cooling to this extent). Very shortly thereafter, the strong and weak nuclear forces as well as electromagnetism come into existence and Hydrogen and Helium come into existence as a result. It takes much longer for other elements to form, because H and He must coalesce into stars so that nuclear fusion can happen (and incidentally, if the timing was any different, and the strong nuclear force was about 2% stronger, you can kiss the universe we know goodbye - Deuterium and Helium-5 or maybe Helium-6 becomes standard, stars do not form in the same way (if at all) and who knows what the hell the universe would be like, but we certainly wouldn't be here).
Anyway, this always makes me think of the whole life in outer space thing, and while I believe that it is a distinct possibility, the temporal distances (not the physical ones) are what seem to be the problem. Of course, physical distance is a problem, too. Let me put it this way - we have been humans (homo sapien) for 150,000 years. We have been a "civilised" species for about 12,000 years, and have been fairly mathematically advanced for about 3,000 years. We have been able to communicate via radio transmissions, etc for about 120ish years, and we might have another few thousand years as a species, say 100,000 years as an optimistic estimate. Since we are, by most accounts, recovering from a fifth major extinction event, any one of those previous eras could have made an intelligent life form as a dominant species. If another planet has a similar evolutionary pattern but was off of the creation of our planet by 100,000 years, they could have peaked and gone extinct far before we existed. Similarly, they could be occurring after us. The timescales are so huge, and the evolutionary scales are relatively quick (maybe 4 billion years from sludge to us, but that includes major extinction events). Suppose a planet doesn't have that first major extinction, evolves into an advanced civilization, then experiences that extinction (say, like sleestaks, for humorous comparison). We would not ever bridge the physical gulf to the suitable planet, and to then get there AT THE TIME that their civilization is comparable to ours would be statistically impossible. Just look at the slice of a 100,000 year peak period for an intelligent species (I just made that number up, but it seems like a reasonable amount -complicated intelligent species seem to have some self-destructive nature if we are any example - but maybe that is overly pessimistic - we've only been around at our current level for a very short amount of time, so that is why I am giving that time frame).
Suppose that the universe will last another 25ish billion years (another assumption, but reasonable for the rate of expansion and the point where energy may be diffuse enough to no longer support life as we know it). That means about a 40 billion life cycle of the universe, with a generous 100,000 year window for intelligent species. This amounts to a fraction of 1/400,000 of the time in the universe. Hoping that another species is intelligent in that correct window of time as well as within range of practical travel and technologically sufficient to communicate - a long shot at best. My point - don't bet on meeting ET outside of a theater any time soon.
But actually, that is not my only point. Many philosophers have posited that one only gains a soul through painful self-reflection and a growth of self-awareness. These two facts - the fact that we could need to engage in self reflection coupled with the fact that we feel compelled to explore the origins of the universe, led me to an unusual thought, one I think supergoober will like to muse on.
What if the whole existence of the universe is simply a struggle for self-awareness. That is, the sum total of all physical and natural laws of space and time is only an attempt for the universe to create something that can comprehend itself. Rather than individual self-awareness, it is a struggle for the actuality of the universe to comprehend itself. I know, it is kind of wacky, maybe something that many people contemplate while high, but since I have never been high and have missed out on those idiotic moments, I find this thought rather interesting.
What if the universe is on a quest to become self-aware, and we are just one of many possible divergent lines of "thought" for said universe? Like the different modes of reflection/religion/philosophy many of us muddle through as individuals in a quest for understanding of self and enlightenment, what if there are divergent strands of life (temporally and spatially forever separated) who are all engaged in the struggle to understand the universe because the ultimate goal of the universe is self-awareness.
So what happens if the universe does achieve this?
I don't know, but it is kind of cool to think about.
Hope I haven't bored you too much, and I will be writing about my Reno trip soon.
I use the quotes around time because it is highly probable that time did not really even exist. According to most theories, the universe was a infinitesimally small volume of energy heated to billions of degrees somewhat smaller than an electron in size, and uniformly energetic. The four fundamental forces were unified at that point, and the existence of "space" and "time" as we can currently conceive doesn't make a whole lot of sense.
You see, all of the dimensions that we know (plus a probable 6 or 18 others that we cannot perceive) were wrapped around each other and existed in that microscopic space. So even the question of measuring it and saying it "was the size of an electron" is somewhat specious. Since the dimensions were fundamentally different at that point, trying to establish a radius in something that fundamentally encompasses all of the spatial dimensions that we can conceive of is somewhat ridiculous. Space would be so turned in on itself, it would be like trying to measure to the edge of the universe right now. The problem is that you would have to take an infinitely curved path to get to that edge, because the dimensions did not behave as they do now (that is my personal contribution to the thought - I haven't heard anyone else say it, but I am sure that theoreticians must have raised this point somewhere). Even trying to question what was outside that energy at that time is not a great question. If there was something "outside" there is no way we could possibly come up with a description because it would be outside of all known experience. It would not even possess the dimensions of space that we hold so dear as absolutes (until you get close to light speed or on a subatomic scale).
But I digress... just millionths of a second after the Big Bang, gravity split off, and caused some of the expansion of the universe and dispersal of the energy (one of the reasons space has a fairly uniform temperature despite 13.7 billion years not being enough time for universal cooling to this extent). Very shortly thereafter, the strong and weak nuclear forces as well as electromagnetism come into existence and Hydrogen and Helium come into existence as a result. It takes much longer for other elements to form, because H and He must coalesce into stars so that nuclear fusion can happen (and incidentally, if the timing was any different, and the strong nuclear force was about 2% stronger, you can kiss the universe we know goodbye - Deuterium and Helium-5 or maybe Helium-6 becomes standard, stars do not form in the same way (if at all) and who knows what the hell the universe would be like, but we certainly wouldn't be here).
Anyway, this always makes me think of the whole life in outer space thing, and while I believe that it is a distinct possibility, the temporal distances (not the physical ones) are what seem to be the problem. Of course, physical distance is a problem, too. Let me put it this way - we have been humans (homo sapien) for 150,000 years. We have been a "civilised" species for about 12,000 years, and have been fairly mathematically advanced for about 3,000 years. We have been able to communicate via radio transmissions, etc for about 120ish years, and we might have another few thousand years as a species, say 100,000 years as an optimistic estimate. Since we are, by most accounts, recovering from a fifth major extinction event, any one of those previous eras could have made an intelligent life form as a dominant species. If another planet has a similar evolutionary pattern but was off of the creation of our planet by 100,000 years, they could have peaked and gone extinct far before we existed. Similarly, they could be occurring after us. The timescales are so huge, and the evolutionary scales are relatively quick (maybe 4 billion years from sludge to us, but that includes major extinction events). Suppose a planet doesn't have that first major extinction, evolves into an advanced civilization, then experiences that extinction (say, like sleestaks, for humorous comparison). We would not ever bridge the physical gulf to the suitable planet, and to then get there AT THE TIME that their civilization is comparable to ours would be statistically impossible. Just look at the slice of a 100,000 year peak period for an intelligent species (I just made that number up, but it seems like a reasonable amount -complicated intelligent species seem to have some self-destructive nature if we are any example - but maybe that is overly pessimistic - we've only been around at our current level for a very short amount of time, so that is why I am giving that time frame).
Suppose that the universe will last another 25ish billion years (another assumption, but reasonable for the rate of expansion and the point where energy may be diffuse enough to no longer support life as we know it). That means about a 40 billion life cycle of the universe, with a generous 100,000 year window for intelligent species. This amounts to a fraction of 1/400,000 of the time in the universe. Hoping that another species is intelligent in that correct window of time as well as within range of practical travel and technologically sufficient to communicate - a long shot at best. My point - don't bet on meeting ET outside of a theater any time soon.
But actually, that is not my only point. Many philosophers have posited that one only gains a soul through painful self-reflection and a growth of self-awareness. These two facts - the fact that we could need to engage in self reflection coupled with the fact that we feel compelled to explore the origins of the universe, led me to an unusual thought, one I think supergoober will like to muse on.
What if the whole existence of the universe is simply a struggle for self-awareness. That is, the sum total of all physical and natural laws of space and time is only an attempt for the universe to create something that can comprehend itself. Rather than individual self-awareness, it is a struggle for the actuality of the universe to comprehend itself. I know, it is kind of wacky, maybe something that many people contemplate while high, but since I have never been high and have missed out on those idiotic moments, I find this thought rather interesting.
What if the universe is on a quest to become self-aware, and we are just one of many possible divergent lines of "thought" for said universe? Like the different modes of reflection/religion/philosophy many of us muddle through as individuals in a quest for understanding of self and enlightenment, what if there are divergent strands of life (temporally and spatially forever separated) who are all engaged in the struggle to understand the universe because the ultimate goal of the universe is self-awareness.
So what happens if the universe does achieve this?
I don't know, but it is kind of cool to think about.
Hope I haven't bored you too much, and I will be writing about my Reno trip soon.
Thursday, September 25, 2008
Boy Am I Pissed - And You Should Be Too!
So I was driving home from tutoring a student just now, and in between songs on LIVE 105, I jumped over to 560 AM, conservative talk radio in the area, to hear if anything interesting was being discussed (hold the laughter til later, interesting stuff does come up there, just like it comes up on 810 AM as well). Anyway, a guy named Brian Sussman (the host) was talking about the mortgage mess, and talking to a "conservative" woman caller who was lamenting the fact that she could not refinance her home due to the drop in value of her property because of the number of foreclosures in the area. By the way, the first bit isn't an nCr, but beware of GE.
Here's the story and I got really F___ING PISSED hearing it. She got a loan for her house with a rate that was 5-year fixed then shifting to adjustable with the intent on refi-ing the home before the loan shifted, and adding in a line of credit to cash in on the increase in value of her house. She claims to have done this before ("several times") and also claims that her husband was a die hard 30-year fixed guy who had to be dragged kicking and screaming into the loan. With the number of foreclosures in her area, however, her property value went down, and now the adjustable rate is going to kick in, and she won't be able to afford it because as rates continue to adjust, her payment continues to go up. The host laments with her, she is a good person, and through no fault of her own she can't get out of this mess. She has talked to the bank to try and negotiate a fixed rate loan before the fixed term ends, but her home value is less than the loan value, and she has a history of refinancing and pulling more money out - something they deem as not fiscally sound. So despite her best efforts she won't be able to make the payments.
BOO-F***ING-HOO!!!!! I know that may sound harsh, but she knew exactly what she was getting into. She wanted to trade short term solvency for a long term risk. Any moron knows that no market goes infinitely, unerringly, unflinchingly upward. Yes, it is not her fault that the value of her house went down. It is her fault for taking that risk. She clearly assessed the risk, thought that it was worth it (she had done it before), and took it. She got shafted for making the wrong decision, and it is no ones fault but hers. She will have to deal with the vagaries of an adjustable rate. Tough shit. They are called consequences, some of us learned them when we figured out not to touch the stove when our moms said it was hot (touch it once, you're a skeptic, twice, you are a moron). And yes, my house value has decreased, almost to the point where I owe the actual value of the house, but I knew that was the risk, and I did not set up my loan so that this eventuality would hurt me. I took risks, accepted that fact, but tried to set myself up for long-term success at the cost of short-term comfort. I am unusual in that fact, but having an instant gratification society should not be rewarded with a bailout. If people were fooled into bad loans, fine, they should receive help. But I don't agree with you supergoober, in thinking that evil lenders fooled most consumers. Most consumers willingly colluded. They wanted to be fooled into thinking that their home was an eternal well-spring of free money. Anyone with even the most unsophisticated approach to mathematics can grasp the concept of "fixed payment for x years, the payments will change thereafter" or "this loan means you owe more to the bank each month (negatively amortized) and your house value better grow faster than that debt grows or you are screwed."
You don't have to read all the fine print or listen to all the fast words at the end of a loan add to know if something is too good to be true. Most of us know when stuff is too good to be true based on simple intuition - we then choose to look further or not on our own. If we chose to ignore the risk we find, to ignore the gut feeling in the first place, or to take the risk in a calculated fashion - that doesn't matter. If you signed your name to the contract, you took the risk - you are accountable. Welcome to the wonderful world of being an adult where a decision can haunt you for the rest of your life. We expect people to make good decisions about everything but their homes - let me give an analogy -
Suppose I am at a bar, looking for a date - this uber hot chick comes up to me and says to me that she wants to do all kinds of filthy things with me right then, just out behind the bar. It won't cost me anything, and she doesn't even want to know my name, and no one else will ever know, but she has no protection - she doesn't like it, it is not enough fun for her.
While this may sound fun to most men, even if they are married, most guys would know that they were taking a risk. They might still take it, but they wouldn't be surprised if they ended up with crabs, herpes, festering sores, drugged and mugged, or surprised by something extra s/he had below the belt.
The mortgages being offered had a very similar feel, and it doesn't take a rocket scientist to notice it. Period. End of story. You made that bed, now lie in it mother-f***er, even if it is in a studio apartment instead of your palatial home that you over-extended for.
Warning: This next section will likely piss you off if you have different political ideas than I do. It is partisan (but not excessively so), and it attributes blame where I feel it is due. Read on, if you dare!!!!
(and if you wonder what party affiliations I have, let's just say I chose Red for my warning, not Blue. If you like Blue, you may not like what follows -but come, gentle reader, come into my lair)
So now we come down to it. I laid out in a previous blog what I thought was the cause - I will reiterate some of it and expand a bit. But more I will be going on to the idea of the bailout, the candidates, and some other stuff (yes, I know the grammar is bad, but for the sake of the flow of my thoughts, just go with it, and check out the label, GE, in the sidebar).
It can really be traced back to a bill in 1977, I forget the name, but it was a Jimmy Carter sponsored legislation that forced banks to make risky loans. It pushed them into loans with little collateral or down-payment and low temporarily fixed rates so that high-risk loans would be more common. The thought behind it was to allow more people access to housing and business loans so that people's lives would be better, and more people would have access to "the American Dream". A noble goal, but goals don't mean squat unless the plan you have will actually achieve that goal. They worked a bit - especially for small business loans that needed early capital with low payments that would show profit in a few years, but the track record of success is shaky.
What really happened was that people got locked into loans they couldn't afford, because they were convinced (by the government) that it was a good way to go. It caused a lot of risk for the consumers and the lenders, and a lot of people on both sides got screwed.
It got much, much worse under Bill Clinton in 1994. He and his attorney general and federal chairman got a lot of credit for freeing up a lot of capital by loosening up a lot of strictures on how loans could be made, and by exerting pressure on banks (especially Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae) to assume more and more risky debt. He has no problem denying this - he took credit at the time, but claims a "lack of oversight" under the Bush administration led to the current crisis.
But there is a huge problem with that story (and this will really piss off all you Dubyah haters out there - keep in mind I have no love for the man, he hasn't done well on a lot of issues I hold dear, but he was spot on with this one). He was pushing for reform of Fannie and Freddie in 2003. His claim was that the risks that they were assuming were too great, and that they would ultimately collapse. While many may insult his intelligence, he does have an MBA, and that means a little knowledge of economics (and probably the ability to tell the negatives from the positives on an accounting ledger; I have grave doubts as to whether most politicians on either side possess this skill). McCain joined in on this in 2005.
Democrats were staunchly opposed to increasing regulations on the banking industry in general, and Freddie and Fannie in particular. In fact, Barney Frank said (about two years ago) that even if Freddie and Fannie were to fail, the market would quickly recover and there would not be much impact. Obama was opposed to fixing any of the regulations as well (and here I thought the Republicans were notorious deregulators - guess the Dems had to try their hand at it, too). In fact, most of the key opponents to the reforms were people who were getting largess in the form of campaign contributions from Freddie and Fannie, mainly Dodd, Frank, and Obama.
Now, I know many of you think that it is not the time for the blame game, that we must put all that aside and fix the problem. Wrong, wrong, wrong, sorry you couldn't be more wrong. If a mechanic f***s up my car so bad that the engine falls out on the highway and I have to sue him, I don't go back to that guy to get my car fixed. But that is precisely what we are doing. Look at the two most outspoken figures on this $700 billion bailout - Frank and Dodd. Plus Obama is running on the fact that his policies are not George W. Bush's, but his policy of taking scads of dough from Fannie and ignoring them contributed big-time to this mess. Do I think he did it intentionally - of course not - but the lack of foresight involved in his decision-making is astounding.
Now to the bailout - McCain took time out to head back to the senate and *GASP* do his job, while Obama had that elitist statement of - I'll be there if they need me, right when someone calls me - that's not the exact quote, forgive me, I am working from memory. Was it politicking on McCain's part - maybe. Was it an unwise statement on Obama's part - almost certainly. Which one has more of the characteristics of a good leader - the guy who shows up because he knows it is the responsible thing to do, or the guy who waits for his boss to call him in to work to deal with a problem that he already knows about - you decide. Either way, they are both there now, and debating a $700 billion bailout. And this is where it gets dangerous.
Most Dems, and many Repubs, too, want a bill by tomorrow so they can go on break, campaign for the election by saying that they did something. It doesn't matter if the something was meaningless, it is just an election issue (like buying off voters with a "stimulus package"). The package as written had a bunch of fluff and riders about a whole bunch of crap, and also set up the buyout of not just homeowner debt, but also of credit card and auto loan debts.
We should not rush into this. The reaction needs to be swift, yes, but jumping off a cliff is swift - it just doesn't get us where we want (unless we want to be smashed to bits on rocks, and on my worst days, that seems a reasonable option). It needs to be measures and carefully planned. There are three main strategies I will detail below:
Here's the story and I got really F___ING PISSED hearing it. She got a loan for her house with a rate that was 5-year fixed then shifting to adjustable with the intent on refi-ing the home before the loan shifted, and adding in a line of credit to cash in on the increase in value of her house. She claims to have done this before ("several times") and also claims that her husband was a die hard 30-year fixed guy who had to be dragged kicking and screaming into the loan. With the number of foreclosures in her area, however, her property value went down, and now the adjustable rate is going to kick in, and she won't be able to afford it because as rates continue to adjust, her payment continues to go up. The host laments with her, she is a good person, and through no fault of her own she can't get out of this mess. She has talked to the bank to try and negotiate a fixed rate loan before the fixed term ends, but her home value is less than the loan value, and she has a history of refinancing and pulling more money out - something they deem as not fiscally sound. So despite her best efforts she won't be able to make the payments.
BOO-F***ING-HOO!!!!! I know that may sound harsh, but she knew exactly what she was getting into. She wanted to trade short term solvency for a long term risk. Any moron knows that no market goes infinitely, unerringly, unflinchingly upward. Yes, it is not her fault that the value of her house went down. It is her fault for taking that risk. She clearly assessed the risk, thought that it was worth it (she had done it before), and took it. She got shafted for making the wrong decision, and it is no ones fault but hers. She will have to deal with the vagaries of an adjustable rate. Tough shit. They are called consequences, some of us learned them when we figured out not to touch the stove when our moms said it was hot (touch it once, you're a skeptic, twice, you are a moron). And yes, my house value has decreased, almost to the point where I owe the actual value of the house, but I knew that was the risk, and I did not set up my loan so that this eventuality would hurt me. I took risks, accepted that fact, but tried to set myself up for long-term success at the cost of short-term comfort. I am unusual in that fact, but having an instant gratification society should not be rewarded with a bailout. If people were fooled into bad loans, fine, they should receive help. But I don't agree with you supergoober, in thinking that evil lenders fooled most consumers. Most consumers willingly colluded. They wanted to be fooled into thinking that their home was an eternal well-spring of free money. Anyone with even the most unsophisticated approach to mathematics can grasp the concept of "fixed payment for x years, the payments will change thereafter" or "this loan means you owe more to the bank each month (negatively amortized) and your house value better grow faster than that debt grows or you are screwed."
You don't have to read all the fine print or listen to all the fast words at the end of a loan add to know if something is too good to be true. Most of us know when stuff is too good to be true based on simple intuition - we then choose to look further or not on our own. If we chose to ignore the risk we find, to ignore the gut feeling in the first place, or to take the risk in a calculated fashion - that doesn't matter. If you signed your name to the contract, you took the risk - you are accountable. Welcome to the wonderful world of being an adult where a decision can haunt you for the rest of your life. We expect people to make good decisions about everything but their homes - let me give an analogy -
Suppose I am at a bar, looking for a date - this uber hot chick comes up to me and says to me that she wants to do all kinds of filthy things with me right then, just out behind the bar. It won't cost me anything, and she doesn't even want to know my name, and no one else will ever know, but she has no protection - she doesn't like it, it is not enough fun for her.
While this may sound fun to most men, even if they are married, most guys would know that they were taking a risk. They might still take it, but they wouldn't be surprised if they ended up with crabs, herpes, festering sores, drugged and mugged, or surprised by something extra s/he had below the belt.
The mortgages being offered had a very similar feel, and it doesn't take a rocket scientist to notice it. Period. End of story. You made that bed, now lie in it mother-f***er, even if it is in a studio apartment instead of your palatial home that you over-extended for.
Warning: This next section will likely piss you off if you have different political ideas than I do. It is partisan (but not excessively so), and it attributes blame where I feel it is due. Read on, if you dare!!!!
(and if you wonder what party affiliations I have, let's just say I chose Red for my warning, not Blue. If you like Blue, you may not like what follows -but come, gentle reader, come into my lair)
So now we come down to it. I laid out in a previous blog what I thought was the cause - I will reiterate some of it and expand a bit. But more I will be going on to the idea of the bailout, the candidates, and some other stuff (yes, I know the grammar is bad, but for the sake of the flow of my thoughts, just go with it, and check out the label, GE, in the sidebar).
It can really be traced back to a bill in 1977, I forget the name, but it was a Jimmy Carter sponsored legislation that forced banks to make risky loans. It pushed them into loans with little collateral or down-payment and low temporarily fixed rates so that high-risk loans would be more common. The thought behind it was to allow more people access to housing and business loans so that people's lives would be better, and more people would have access to "the American Dream". A noble goal, but goals don't mean squat unless the plan you have will actually achieve that goal. They worked a bit - especially for small business loans that needed early capital with low payments that would show profit in a few years, but the track record of success is shaky.
What really happened was that people got locked into loans they couldn't afford, because they were convinced (by the government) that it was a good way to go. It caused a lot of risk for the consumers and the lenders, and a lot of people on both sides got screwed.
It got much, much worse under Bill Clinton in 1994. He and his attorney general and federal chairman got a lot of credit for freeing up a lot of capital by loosening up a lot of strictures on how loans could be made, and by exerting pressure on banks (especially Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae) to assume more and more risky debt. He has no problem denying this - he took credit at the time, but claims a "lack of oversight" under the Bush administration led to the current crisis.
But there is a huge problem with that story (and this will really piss off all you Dubyah haters out there - keep in mind I have no love for the man, he hasn't done well on a lot of issues I hold dear, but he was spot on with this one). He was pushing for reform of Fannie and Freddie in 2003. His claim was that the risks that they were assuming were too great, and that they would ultimately collapse. While many may insult his intelligence, he does have an MBA, and that means a little knowledge of economics (and probably the ability to tell the negatives from the positives on an accounting ledger; I have grave doubts as to whether most politicians on either side possess this skill). McCain joined in on this in 2005.
Democrats were staunchly opposed to increasing regulations on the banking industry in general, and Freddie and Fannie in particular. In fact, Barney Frank said (about two years ago) that even if Freddie and Fannie were to fail, the market would quickly recover and there would not be much impact. Obama was opposed to fixing any of the regulations as well (and here I thought the Republicans were notorious deregulators - guess the Dems had to try their hand at it, too). In fact, most of the key opponents to the reforms were people who were getting largess in the form of campaign contributions from Freddie and Fannie, mainly Dodd, Frank, and Obama.
Now, I know many of you think that it is not the time for the blame game, that we must put all that aside and fix the problem. Wrong, wrong, wrong, sorry you couldn't be more wrong. If a mechanic f***s up my car so bad that the engine falls out on the highway and I have to sue him, I don't go back to that guy to get my car fixed. But that is precisely what we are doing. Look at the two most outspoken figures on this $700 billion bailout - Frank and Dodd. Plus Obama is running on the fact that his policies are not George W. Bush's, but his policy of taking scads of dough from Fannie and ignoring them contributed big-time to this mess. Do I think he did it intentionally - of course not - but the lack of foresight involved in his decision-making is astounding.
Now to the bailout - McCain took time out to head back to the senate and *GASP* do his job, while Obama had that elitist statement of - I'll be there if they need me, right when someone calls me - that's not the exact quote, forgive me, I am working from memory. Was it politicking on McCain's part - maybe. Was it an unwise statement on Obama's part - almost certainly. Which one has more of the characteristics of a good leader - the guy who shows up because he knows it is the responsible thing to do, or the guy who waits for his boss to call him in to work to deal with a problem that he already knows about - you decide. Either way, they are both there now, and debating a $700 billion bailout. And this is where it gets dangerous.
Most Dems, and many Repubs, too, want a bill by tomorrow so they can go on break, campaign for the election by saying that they did something. It doesn't matter if the something was meaningless, it is just an election issue (like buying off voters with a "stimulus package"). The package as written had a bunch of fluff and riders about a whole bunch of crap, and also set up the buyout of not just homeowner debt, but also of credit card and auto loan debts.
We should not rush into this. The reaction needs to be swift, yes, but jumping off a cliff is swift - it just doesn't get us where we want (unless we want to be smashed to bits on rocks, and on my worst days, that seems a reasonable option). It needs to be measures and carefully planned. There are three main strategies I will detail below:
- The current plan - throw a bunch of money at problem, hope problem goes away, get many votes, feel better, and bury head in sand. Needless to say, it ain't a good option as far as I'm concerned, and it is currently much vaunted by Democrats who want this as an anti-Bush election issue. Talk about politics as usual (I thought Obama was a candidate for change)
- Excessively conservative plan - try to inspire a bunch of free market investors to buy up bad loans (a la Warren Buffet) let them make scads of cash, hope that the free market fixes problem. Again, not a great option, no real reason to believe the new purchasers will be any more responsible than the old, encourages class warfare, sets up a real "rich get richer" scenario, just like the Dem inspired setup for the bailout.
- Balanced plan - Selectively buy out loans, let some foreclose and have the US act like a big-ass bank. Not bad, but has some ethical issues that make me flinch: most notably is do we really want the government to also own our mortgages? Yes, it will lead to the government making money on the bailout rather than pissing taxpayer dollars down a rat-hole, but I do not like the idea of the precedent of a government owning supposedly private property until you can pay of the loan - that sets up a really large risk for bad abuses of power. It might be the best of a bad bunch of ideas.
However, if you moderate the last idea with cutting capital gains tax, so people who have to sell and then move in to apartments don't get as huge a hit, plus lower corporate tax rates, you have a recipe for economic vibrancy. Since capital gains have never been indexed to inflation, there are huge amounts of invested capital that people will not sell if their gains have been largely inflationary - a tax on inflationary gain cuts into the original value of the investment, and just slams the brakes on an economy. It needs to be gotten rid of - the middle class will benefit immensely, as they pay the lion's share of it (contrary to popular opinion), or at least have the rate lowered and indexed to inflation.
Imagine if you got your COLA raise and it bumped you into the next tax bracket - you would be earning the same amount (definition of that type of wage increase) but being taxed at a higher rate. It was called bracket creep in the '70s, gotten rid of in '81 when the tax brackets were indexed to inflation, and yet we never did this with capital gains (which are really just a tax on money that you already paid taxes on, invested, and because your investment increased, you are taxed again - some people think that this is reasonable, I don't - that's just a philosophical difference that cannot be bridged for people on the opposite sides of the issue).
Okay, I feel a little better now, I guess finishing at 9:44 pm for the 1 hour and 31 minute rant helped. I am going to go lay down and watch poker on TV, to get in the mood for the tournament this weekend. More on that, later.
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