Blogosphere, Unite!

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Whoever wins the election today will have the support of only about half the country, no matter what the electoral college says. The other half will be dead set against most of the policies he has proposed.

There are now lots of people in the blogosphere who have no problem letting anyone who will read their stuff or watch their videos know exactly how they feel about how the incumbent is trampling on their rights.

What is the connection between these two things? Now, more than ever, now, when it matters, ordinary people’s voices can be heard. People who will never meet in real life can have deep conversations about where this country is headed. People from all around the world can weigh in on how the policies and practices of the behemoth that is the United States will affect their lives. What changes they would make, if only they had the opportunity to vote.

America is a great experiment—not like the experiments in democracy that are disrupting the Middle East and other hot spots, not like the experiment in collectivism that is the European Union—but an experiment in everyman’s access to political theater.

Each person who has access to a computer of some type has his own soapbox. Right now, usually what happens is that a speaker decries some aspect of governance that has really gotten his goat, and others either applaud him or disdain his commentary. But what if those on the other side of an issue, those with a differing point of view, were able to explain their objections? Even a “that just feels wrong in my gut” is a worthwhile statement of beginning.

What if we had a blogosphere-wide brainstorming session? What if, instead of hurling vitriol and invective at the other party’s pet projects, we searched for the core values of those projects, uncovered the rationale behind them, and found a way to deal with the concerns that were raised. Those who disagreed with the outcome or methods of a project could express the reasons for their objection, their fear of where the project would take us, and propose alternate solutions. Back and forth, until the crux of the matter, the thing that is to be prevented, or implemented, is exposed to the light of day, the concerns about the methods or results or analyzed, and a proposed compromise is (tentatively) agreed upon.

If Congress refuses to act in our best interest, there is no reason that we can’t take up the standard of compromise, determine our own solutions, then propose that they implement a generally-agreed upon method for dealing with the issue at hand. Take any hot-button topic—abortion, gun control, education, defense, immigration—there are few people who have an all-or-nothing few of any of these. That means that there is room for compromise and airing of all opinions, fears, and proposals.

Somewhere in the morass lies a path. Maybe not the best path, maybe not the only path, maybe not even a complete way out. But the idea is to start the discussion. Whoever wins this election will have a lot of power for a long time over people who bitterly disagree with his policies. Create a forum for those people to share their ideas for a more perfect planet, to riff off each other in a productive way, and I think we’ll be amazed at the results.

It will take some time to work out the protocol and standards for such an exchange medium. We are so used to shooting down the ideas that we disagree with as soon as they are launched that the ability to let them waft long enough to discern their deeper meaning must be practiced—a lot.

I would open the floor to those who live elsewhere on this planet, as well. Nothing says that the only good or acceptable ideas come from those who inhabit this stretch of land. And whatever America does has such a profound effect on the rest of the world that it might be useful to understand exactly how our giant footprint impacts others’ lives.

We have taken the first step: we have begun the discussion process. Right now, it is disjointed, vitriolic, and polarized. But it is there. What I want to add is a measure of respect for other people’s feelings, fears, and hopes. The chance to delve into what, exactly, are the issues and the problems that are driving the conversation, in an effort to find acceptable solutions. Which results and methods are the most scary, and what alternate possibilities there may be.

Brainstorming is a messy process. It requires people to express their innermost feelings, while other people who disagree must hold their tongues until everyone has had a chance to speak. But it is, I think, an acceptable alternative to the current process of coming up with an idea and shoving it down other people’s throats. Democracy may be useful, but where’s the fun in only getting the chance to vote once every couple of years, then relying on representatives, who don’t always seem to be responsive, to run things?

Wouldn’t it be more fun for those who choose to educate themselves to get to weigh in on every decision made? We’d all bat our ideas around, come up with a suitable compromise, then present it our legislators. The cool thing is that people could be working on many issues at one time—select those that matter to you, and ignore the rest.

Let’s not spend the next four years demonizing whoever is in office. The man’s got a huge, difficult job to do. Let’s lend him a hand. Neither Mitt Romney nor Barack Obama hates people, they just have different ways of viewing the world. Let’s offer our talents to whoever wins, and share the ideas that we have for the direction we’d like this country to take.

Let’s stop mindlessly agreeing or hatefully disagreeing with either man. We can offer a lot more than invective. We all have plenty of ideas to share—all that we need to do is come up with a forum for brainstorming, discussion, and rating of concepts, so that we can create some realistic plans for our future.

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The Lightest Touch

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On this, the day before the most important election in the history of the world, the election that will change the course of history forever*, it’s time again for something positive. I will list the qualities, positions, and policies I would like to see in someone who is running for office.

First, every politician ought to be prepared that his day job is a part-time gig.

“Part-time?” comes the inevitable protest. “How can I run the country on a part-time basis?”

Well, sir, madam, you should not be running the country at all. The country is capable of steaming along quite well all on its own. What you should be doing is protecting its citizens from dangers outside our borders. That’s it. Almost. There are a few other items that need to be taken care of, but let’s get over the idea that we need someone to run our lives.

The U.S. is not, as President Obama is so happy to remind us, a business. The  320 million people who make up this country do not need a manager to set policy, determine what products we will make, or legislate how we will run our private lives. Our public lives, though, involves  another dynamic.

The United States used to be known as the great melting pot. All kinds of immigrants, from all sorts of countries, came to the land of opportunity to make a better life for themselves and their families. They brought their own customs, languages, and religions. If they so desired, they established enclaves of like-minded people, and spent their nights and weekends, and whenever else they weren’t working, celebrating their roots.

But these immigrants had one thing in common. They knew that to succeed, they must learn the common language, English, familiarize themselves with the local customs, and abide by the local rules. Diversity in the common arena was not tolerated. A splash of color here or there, an exotic food brought in for lunch, a smattering of a homeland curse or blessing, distinguished one person from the crowd, but too much difference was frowned upon.

“If you don’t like it here, why don’t you go back to where you belong?”

“I came here to make a better life for my family. There was no opportunity at home.”

What never seems to be brought out is the next logical line in that conversation:

“There’s a reason that there was no opportunity where you came from. Part of the reason that America is a land of opportunity is that here, we all support the same customs and mores and language. Dress and behave and worship however you want to at home, but we all work together because we all operate under the same code.”

Those who want to celebrate their differences at work, without having to accept any consequences for their actions, are ignoring the fact that a great many ills in the world come about as a result of people’s intolerance of others’ religion, dress, race, or language. America works when we ignore all of those differences at the workplace, while allowing them at home. Our leaders have a duty to inspire people to adopt the overarching mores and culture of the successful in our country: work hard, respect others, help out when you can, and speak the common tongue.

Here, where you work, it doesn’t matter whether you are Protestant or Catholic, Sunni or Shia, Buddhist or Coptic. Unlike in other countries where announcing your religion in the streets could get you killed, we tend to tolerate a lot more diversity because we all adopt the same culture—a light dusting of civilization, instead of a heavy dose of a particular way of life.

I understand that many people have religious beliefs that conflict with the currently accepted practices, but before anyone decides to pressure the government to fall more in line with a particular belief system, remember that what may sway members of the government one way at one point in time, may also sway other members of government another way another time. Prohibiting abortion may fly now, but later prohibiting Christianity may be the battle cry.

The government works best that treads lightest. It is true that, if people are not forced to do the right thing, however that is defined, there may be many, many problems that still exist. Not all poverty will be wiped out. Not everyone will receive the best education. Some people will become drug addicts. Of course, those things all happen now, and the government has been intruding itself into all of those arenas for some time now.

If someone wants to go all crusader to fix all of the ills of this world, that’s fine. But don’t run for office. Start a sect, fire up a non-profit, begin a new religion. Gather as many followers to your cause as you can, and work to fashion the world in your new image—privately.

No country, especially one as large and heterogeneous as this one, needs a zealot in office, with the power to back up his otherworldly vision with guns. And what we certainly don’t need is one zealot after another, teetering the country first one way then another.

All we really need from our politicians is maintenance of a civil society, with the barest touch of guidance now and then. Certainly we have the skills and the knowhow to convince people to act courteously toward one another, instead of having to force them all to behave through threat of punishment.

So, once you’re elected, go to Washington, check on how things are doing there, then return home to your dry goods business. The rest of us will manage to steam along somehow, even if you are not there to prod us all along on the path of righteousness.

*This is a pet peeve of mine. Everything changes everything forever. Nothing stays the same. “You don’t step into the same river twice,” as Heraclitus said. What people mean when they say something is changed forever is that it is changed profoundly. So say what you mean.

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Taming Hurricane Sandy

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Hurricanes are a big deal. No doubt about it. They are large, they are powerful, and they are scary. The wind and wave damage cause giant headaches, even when every person makes it through unscathed. Dealing with a major disaster like a hurricane is a great stressor on the entire country.

FEMA can get stretched to the limit when any hurricane blasts through an area. Add in a winter storm, high tide, and a huge population, and it can take weeks before an area settles back down into business as usual. If only there were some way to speed up that process; to get people back to work, and the economy back up and running.

But maybe there is. Mr. Romney is gung-ho on the ability of private business to step up so that government does not need to step in. If he’s serious about the feds returning power to the states, and the states returning power to the people, now is the time to prove that the people are capable.

Mr. Romney can call all of his CEO buddies at Home Depot and Wal-Mart, Lowe’s and K-Mart. Anybody and everybody who stocks any supplies that might be useful or necessary in a hurricane-stricken area. Have them ship truckloads of whatever is needed to help the people who have been hit by Sandy: chain saws, water, blankets, food, lumber, anything and everything to clean up the cities and get them back up and running. Everything that FEMA will eventually get around to sending, but doesn’t have the resources to do as quickly.

Of course, Mr. Obama will have the chance to claim that Mr. Romney is politicizing the storm when Mr. Romney comes yeehawing up the coast, straddling his John Deere tractor, leading his army of private suppliers, but that’s the price to be paid for success. There’s even the potential for partnership, here. Done right, FEMA opens the landfills, Mr. Romney and his troops swoop in and vacuum the streets, and the state and local governments get the electricity back on.

A private-public partnership would relieve the stress on an over-stretched FEMA and weary linemen in eight states. It would also do a great deal toward relieving the minds and bellies of stranded citizens.

And how else is Mr. Romney to show the efficacy of his proposed privatization of certain services? Wouldn’t it be much easier to convince people that greed actually is good, when it is used to save taxpayer money by taking care of the necessaries at the local level? Mr. Obama won’t have to scrape the bottom of the decimated federal barrel, private businesses will not be out-sourcing the clean-up campaign, and people will be able to get back to normal much more quickly than otherwise. Think of the irony. Mr. Romney and his team setting things right in the middle of federal la-la land.

As Sandy slows wends her way inland, then back out, or wherever she’s headed, Mr. Romney and his convoy can follow along behind at a safe distance. Start down the coast as far as need be, restoring life to communities lickety-split before moving further north. If Mr. Romney focused on clean-up, then Mr. Obama’s minions could put all their energies into getting the polls back up and running, running buses back and forth so people could get in that all-important early vote.

Of course, everything won’t be perfect. Of course someone, somewhere is going to get hurt and sue. Of course, some piece of red tape will surface in just the right place to clog the whole machine at some critical juncture. But our choice here isn’t between nothing and Utopia. That’s the stuff of federal fantasy. We are talking about the real lives of millions of people, who would like nothing better than for their lives to resume the course they were taking this time last week, and the presumed ability of the rest of the country to get them back on their feet as quickly as possible.

Of course, if Mr. Romney were to step in and get service up and running, the specter of Katrina would raise her ugly head. “Where was Romney when we needed him here?” Well, folks, he wasn’t running for high office then, he didn’t have the resources and backing that he does now, and where is it written that, because a man does well in the present, that we should shoot him in the back for what he didn’t do earlier? After all, Mr. Obama was alive and kicking then, also. He had the same opportunity that everyone else in the country did to ride to the rescue.

And, Mr. Obama has had four years to decide that FEMA is the most important federal agency. That disaster relief tops the list of federal projects. We all know that climate change is going to make hurricane Sandy look like a slight rise in high tide. We all know that every city on every coast is in danger. For some reason, the fix for all that mess has been outsourced to private companies, while the feds continue to encourage people to construct large communities within inches of the oceans, spurred on by taxpayer-backed flood insurance. Seems a little bit backward to me. Seems like the feds would be encouraging us all to step back just a bit from the ocean’s doorstep and rethink where we are installing our next high rise.

Until that happens, though, let’s deal with where we are. If privatization is the way to go, Mr. Romney, show us the path. Demonstrate to Mr. Obama the error of his ways. Put the good of the country above personal concerns. Then, whether you win or lose, all the Republicans in the dead-locked Congress will have a stronger leg to stand on when they claim that the federal government doesn’t have to do absolutely everything.

Let’s all grab our shovels, and wait for our marching orders. Should be coming down the pike any time now.

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The Situational Ethics of Benghazi

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I once heard someone say that President Obama is the most principled person that she knows, and I was confused. In looking at the things he’s done, and the choices he’s made, I don’t see a coherent set of principles at all. I see situational ethics in action.

Situational ethics is what happens when everything is relative. Used to be, people derived their moral code from their religion. Then God was dead, and humanity became the standard. But whose humanity? Whose culture would prevail, and who got to decide whose ideas were worth upholding?

Diversity, tolerance, these are buzzwords for “I don’t know who has the better ideas. I’d better take one from column A, and two from column B, mix them up at little, and see where we’re at.” (Not good grammar, but I’m trying to make a point here).

And I can understand the backlash against a religion that frowns on people having control over their own bodies. Except that what has happened is that government has become the new religion, and people can’t wait to toss control to local, state, or federal representatives.

Abortion? Yes, get out of my bedroom!

Sugar? No! Bad! Regulate it!

Insurance? Yes! Make me buy it!

The Ten Commandments have been replaced by the 100,000 regulations, and still people clamor for more. What does all this have to do with principles and situational ethics?

Used to be, everything was pretty much well black and white. (And I’m not talking race here, just stark reality). Some people had it pretty good, and some people got screwed. Many religious people did what they could to alleviate suffering, and wrote off the rest.

“Better luck in the next life.”

But some of the people who were getting screwed said, “Hey, this isn’t fair!” And some of the people who had it pretty good said, “Hey, that isn’t fair! Let’s do something about it.”

And principles were thrown out the window and situational ethics was born. It is situational ethics that enables us to have thousands and thousands of pages of laws and regulations. The principled people needed only 10 standards to cover every situation in the book. Ten standards doesn’t allow you to lay comparative blame, though. Ten standards wakes up, sure of its facts and where it wants to go, and the straightest path to get there.

Situational ethics has a more meandering path to follow. A widow can’t afford to educate her son. Education is good, it benefits society, so we’ll make other people pick up the tab for the son’s education. But the son beat up another kid in class. He should be punished. But the son has been distraught because his father was killed by the other kid’s father, who was driving drunk. So maybe he needs counseling. But the kid who was beat up didn’t have anything to do with his father’s actions, and now the kid is scared to return to school. He was captain of the football team, and they will lose the championship if he doesn’t play. That will mean lots of angry parents, who are now calling for the son to be expelled from school, and sent to jail.  But this is the first time the son has been out of line. Up to this point, he’s been a decent student, who had gotten a part-time job to help his mother out with the bills. If he is expelled from school, he’ll lose his job and his mother will lose her house.

The situational ethicist must ponder all of the fine points of this scenario, and weigh each competing claim against the other before making a determination. Who wins, and who loses, and how deserving is each party of its fate, are questions that must be decided before any life-altering action can be taken. That is why outcomes are so different in individual cases: the best situation for the most number of people must be considered.

The 10 commandment guy? He has charged the kid with battery, and moved on. He dealt with the core of the case, and let all other considerations fall where they may.

And so we arrive at Benghazi.

First: The Ambassador to Egypt wants more security. But it may take a lot of security to make him safe, and we don’t want to project that image in that country. We want things to settle down, people to think that the U.S. is reconsidering its hardline stance, the U.S. is ready to treat other nations as equals in the bargaining process. Result: reduction in security.

Next: It’s better for the morale of the U.S. people if they believe that they are safe from al Qaeda. It’s in the best interest of 320 million people to blame a protest in Cairo on a lone movie maker, instead of people who are unhappy with U.S. occupation of countries in the Mideast, even if it isn’t true, and the 1st Amendment gets thrown out the window to boot. Result: blame movie producer for unrest, and Mitt Romney for calling the Obama administration to task in front of the rest of the world.

Then: An embassy outpost in Benghazi is attacked.  Lack of a clear goal makes decision-making difficult. An unmanned drone is dispatched to keep an eye on things, as they spin out of control. Invasion of Egypt in order to protect the Ambassador sends the wrong message to other countries, and the wrong message to U.S. citizens. Result: 4 dead, and the attack is spun as another protest against the movie that escalated.

Now: More people are concerned about the lack of response to the attack, and the deaths of 4 Americans, one of whom was the representative of the U.S. government. Emails and cables showing that the administration knew of the attack, and the reasons for the attack, in real time, are surfacing. The election is nearing, and it is better for the American people if they are represented by a President who believes that cooperation with the rest of the world is more important than cowboy values. Result: Try to maintain a lid on situation until after the election. Throw everyone necessary under the bus to protect the candidate with vision. We’ll all be better off eventually.

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The Final Presidential Debate of 2012

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The last debate was not what I was expecting, at all. Benghazi was glossed over, Mr. Romney was mostly polite and deferential, President Obama was the only one who seemed ready to tussle.

On reflection, Mr. Romney’s strategy makes sense. This debate was cast to persuade the undecided voters of Ohio, and if the rest of us chose to listen in, that was fine with him, but we were in no way the intended audience. Mr. Romney presented himself as a reasoned, rational decision-maker, nowhere near the pugnacious upstart who growled at the incumbent in the second debate.

Women voters don’t like warmongers? Okay, I’m for peace in the world, went the Romney line. Women think President Obama is cool and far-sighted? Then I’ll agree with his every move and policy as much as possible, distinguishing myself only in a few areas: more strict on Iran; don’t downsize the military; reining in China; closer to Israel; projecting strength in the world; and, oh, yeah, that pesky economy that just hasn’t gotten any better.

Perhaps the situation in Benghazi is too complicated for a two-minute discussion. Maybe Mr. Romney has been poked a few too many times for comfort: Big Bird, the 9/11 statement about the situation in the Middle East; the “act of terror” versus “terrorist acts” debacle. It’s possible that he just didn’t want to give Mr. Obama any sound bites. For whatever reason, Mr. Romney went for the measured, stately responses, only chastising the President a couple of times for attacking him instead of addressing the issues.

So, we’re back to policy. Which, of course, is where educated voters prefer the candidates to remain, anyhow. If you prefer cooperation between countries, with no real stand-out leader, allowing events to unfold as they will, with slight course corrections from the sidelines, President Obama is your man. If you prefer a more stand-alone, show-of-strength policy, then Mr. Romney has your back. We have but a couple of weeks to find out which man the voters in Ohio will elect.

At this stage, unless the Romney camp and its cohorts flood the airwaves with revelations about Benghazi, the substantive issues in this campaign appear to have been settled. Now it’s just a waiting and a polling game, with neither side knowing what the actual outcome will be until November 6 or beyond, depending on how close the results are.

Neither candidate will be showing us anything new—even the talking points of the last debate had all been trotted out before: Obama is soft; Romney is a waffler. Nothing more will get done in the next couple of weeks, even as the fiscal cliff looms ever larger. It is a shame that becoming elected outshines running the government by so great a margin, but unless we change the rules of campaigning, or the electorate cries, “Foul!”, the disconnect between running for office and acting in an official capacity will grow ever larger.

 

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