Nick Oliva

Kevin Drum does a nice job of decomposing Bush. His claim is that if you can tack any label onto Bush, the one that best fits is the one that calls him a policy-denier.

Kevin doesn’t really get into whether he believes Bush acts this way out of disdain for policy, ignorance, or something else.

After all, policy is all about figuring out how to implement ideas so that they actually work. If you believe that policy is something for effete liberal wonks — as George Bush evidently does — your ideas are doomed to failure.

So why did I post this in "checks and balances"? Because I think flaws like this are characteristics that anyone can exhibit. Where things break down is when there is no oversight keeping them from doing so. Left to itself, each of the branches of our (or any) government will skew towards or away from one major principle or another.

If you look at a government composed of executive, judicial, and legislative branches, it would seem that ideas are the primary domain of the legislative branch. Perhaps I’m putting my ignorance on display here, but putting aside questions of leadership, initiative, etc., don’t most Americans want the ideas to be pushed by the people closest to them? If you look at the founding of America, it’s not like Washington sat in Congress every day; they were mostly awed when he showed up in uniform. The tedious job of proclaiming ideas and establishing policy was left to thinkers.

This particular failure of Bush is magnified by the failures of Congress. The Congress has permitted the dumbing down of the entire government.

In a sense, we have been fortunate. Had Bush been able to find people that both agreed to take his gut-made decisions and been capable of properly implementing them, we’d be in much worse shape than we’re in now.

I have tremendous respect for people in government that pay attention to the details and nuances… where "the devil" lies. The opposite extreme - where the leader involves himself in all minutia is much worse than a completely disconnected leader. Take the obvious example of Fidel Castro… ’nuff said. At least in the case of a disconnected leader, you could have subordinates that pull the weight.

We need a strong Congress again. We need a legitimate and strong Congress, but I think we won’t see that until safe-seats and gerrymandering are finally done away with, and when we move from a two-party system to a system of many parties or association by policies.

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Terp treats us to the equivalent of that tourist map of America gimmick where America is huge and the rest of the world is really small.

…wait a minute… I’ve never used Islamophobic. I’m not even certain I’ve ever heard Islamophobic. I think "racist" is overused and when applied to conservatives can (and should) often be replaced with xenophobic. Sexism exists on both sides of the aisle and I can’t remember having called anyone sexist; not recently anyway.

I don’t like homophobic because most people that hate homosexuality aren’t afraid of it - maybe in the psychologist’s couch sense of "fear", but certainly not in the "AAAARGH! A SPIDER!!!" sense in which most people classify "phobic".

Dennis is completely off point with his suggestion that liberals focus on the words. Liberals focus on the ideas. It’s conservatives that focus on the words. Actually, I think it often comes down to the old difference between winning an argument and searching for truth.

Take the recent example of Hannity attacking Murtha for saying what a pending military report is going to detail. What did Murtha, a man that served 37 years in the Marines do wrong in this case? Isn’t he just exactly the messenger?

Hannity plays well with conservatives. But look honestly at this situation. He’s there with one of the Swift Boat guys saying about Murtha,

He accused our troops, who deserve more than anybody the presumption of innocence, he accused them of killing innocent civilians in cold blood.

So… American troops deserve more than anybody the presumption of innoncence? Not really… only in the case of the troops that are the subject of an upcoming military report. Fox and the Swift Boat guys didn’t give John Kerry (A MAN THAT VOLUNTEERED FOR VIETNAM OUT OF THE IVY LEAGUE) the presumption of innocence.

Go ahead and read Hannity’s quote as though it were a liberal talking about the Swift Boaters. See?

Liberals try to understand the substance of a situation and cull the meaning from it. Then, they try to apply the meaning in other circumstances. I don’t see this from conservatives. I see conservatives constantly justifying their positions or actions from one side of their mouths while from the other they announce that "this situation is different" and "the usual rules don’t apply."

The truth is that conservatives (religious conservatives, in particular) don’t want to play by rules, they just want to win. It’s been a winning strategy so far, but it’s not at all civil. Rather than coming up with new ways to attack liberals - like simplifying everything we say into a few soundbitable words - they should spend more time wondering about things like whether trying to keep people from engaging in consensual adult relationships may, in fact, be well-defined as intolerance.

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I resurrected a pet peeve of mine this morning in the comments to Adam’s post: street-sweeper trucks.

(I’ve proposed a new issue on the broad subject…I’d like to move this entry into that if we can get the issue approved.)

I mentioned in Adam’s post that sometimes people are mangled beneath these trucks. That’s not even my problem with them! In fact, for the purpose of considering the proposal I’m going to make here, let’s presume that all people that have ever been eaten by a street-sweeper truck really, really deserved it!

The benefits of using these trucks escape me; the drawbacks are manifold and obvious.

They don’t really work

I have seen one of these trucks after a New York City street fair going in mad circles trying to pick up debris. Much of the time, the draft from the truck blows things away before they can get caught under the spinning, suctioning, "brushes of death". Another trick to not getting caught, if you’re a sun-bathing piece of street trash, is to lie absolutely flat and, if possible, wet. This has the same impact on the trucks’ effectiveness as unscripted movements of any kind have on the Pentagon’s Star Wars defense demonstrations.

They disrupt everything and require a massive bureaucracy

You don’t just send these trucks down any street. You schedule times when all cars on the street have to be removed. You put up signs at every stone’s throw explaining the days and hours in a manner that is perfectly clear to anybody fluent in Sanskrit. You double the workload of judges and clerks to handle all of the tickets given out. In NYC, the truck routes are actually "pre-swept" - Secret Service-style. Traffic police come through the street before the sweeper giving out tickets to all of the cars that aren’t moved in time.

All of which means that every morning in NYC, thousands of people that had no real reason to start their cars…or start them yet, are sitting in their drivers’ seats listening to Howard Stern (as if listening to Stern isn’t reason enough to do away with this whole system!).

Many of these are running their engines because it’s too hot out…or too cold. They sit and wait for the street-sweeper to come through so they can pull out before the cop gives them a ticket and pull back in before the wet, flat debris gets subjected to double-jeopardy.

That’s right: street-sweeper trucks only get one shot at brass rings, nickel bottlecaps, and wet, flat debris.

(Full disclosure: I keep a car in NYC, but I pay exorbitant rates to garage it. I just won’t do the Street Sweeper Shuffle).

They displace honest, unskilled workers

Each truck costs hundreds of thousands of dollars and requires just one driver - usually named, Eddie.

The fleet is owned by a small or mid-sized company. The owners of these companies don’t wake up in the morning to move their cars. How many people (including Eddie, mechanics, clerks, judges, owners, traffic cops, etc.) does it take to keep one sweeper sweeping?

How many city streets can one guy with a broom and a bin pick clean in one day?

Technorealism?

Technology enables skilled workers to do more, but it displaces unskilled workers. Most of the time, this is a good deal. Much of the time, it isn’t.

In this case, the benefits of junking the trucks in favor of a new CCC are obvious:

• Many people can be employed that are willing to do an honest day’s work for nothing more than regular hours, regular pay, and a generous public health and retirement package (…sigh).
• People don’t need to do the morning car-move drills. A dude with a broom can sweep under a parked car! Just imagine….
• All of that gasoline burned by the trucks and the sitting cars, and the fumes dumped into the air, is saved.
• The streets will actually be cleaned…and quiet.
• All of the ridiculous signs can be taken down. You can still ticket cars that are parked "too long" the way they identify abandoned cars in airport parking garages. Better, actually, because human sweepers can say, "Hey, Fred…that Impala’s been there a long time, eh?"
• No more movies keeping kids up at night like, "Night of the Street-Sweepers"

Oh, man. I can just see the picture on the cover of Newsweek of a single (preferably Chinese) student standing in protest in front of a convoy of street sweeper trucks!

Are you with me?

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When are Democrats going to accept that you can’t be both progressive and evangelical?

This opinion piece in the Post lists the efforts of Democrats to win back evangelical voters. I think Democrats can win about as many evangelical votes as pretty-boy won for us by running as our candidate for Vice President in the last election. How many red states did we pick up by having that Southern candidate…? None.

I think Ruth Marcus is right on target with this. Democrats have a huge group of very motivated, interested, and intelligent voters that they’re in danger of losing with efforts like these. When you show up at the 700 Club pushing the Christian credentials of Democrats, and start talking their talk….

Dude, where’s my party?

The more I read about things like this, the closer I get to taking the pessimist plunge and predicting that Republicans will take the next elections.

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• Who will win the most seats in the ‘06 elections?

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MediaMatters does a lot of cool stuff. However, I would file this story under the tag, "comedy".

I guess it’s cool to call them on it based on the claims they make. But do Republicans really believe that Fox is fair or balanced? Are there Republicans on this site that Drudge, NewsMax, Fox, etc. are "fair" or "balanced"?

MediaMatters has done a few other things to try to show that the networks are conservative. I’m not trying to question their claims or anything like that. I just think they’re cherry-picking.

Focusing on the success of Republican efforts to flood the news programs - on top of the great gift to right-wing ideology known as "Fox News" - ignores the fact that much of the rest of the media really is liberal.

I have to believe, on anecdotal evidence, that the political messages embedded in television and cable programs, for example, lean overwhelmingly to the left. It’s not like you can say, "well those are not news programs": The soft-drink can on the table in front of the cast is a commercial even though you’re not watching "a commercial."

So, I have to take issue with the people saying that the media, as a whole, leans to the right politically. But, I also have to take issue with the people that say it leans to the left. I think the line is hard to draw.

The only real difference that I can point to is the one discussed in the comments of the MediaMatters article: Fox News aggressively claims to not lean to the right. I suppose you can claim that if you moved everyone further to the right, you would be sitting among nothing but conservatives…and still be "balanced".

OK…that’s a huge stretch. Then what do you do about "fair"?

I think we can all agree that there’s a minimum threshold that must be passed for Fox to claim what it does. What percent, for example, of liberals would have to agree in order for Fox to be justified in claiming fairness and balance?

Does anybody know where to find a study from a legitimate source that both sides tend to claim is fair and balanced, that shows the percentages of conservatives and liberals that agree with Fox News’ claim?

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• Is the media politically biased?

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You know… I can’t bring myself to take a position on this issue.

I want to say "Democrats"… but there are probably ten things you can easily point to as "things that will mobilize Republican voters". I want to hope that people will vote out Republicans for what they have done rather than deny Democrats for one of the non-reasons like "no new ideas", etc.

But, I’m not ready to believe that people are going to vote out the GOP. Bush is a lame duck and nobody is going to take Rove while he’s a hot potatoe. How much impact could Rove really have?

The DonkeyRising types are perennially optimistic about chances… but… um… things have not played out as they’ve predicted in the past.

Would it surprise me terribly if the GOP figures out how to turn all of their massive abuses and failures in Government into another win at the polls?

No.

Am I ready to give up on Democrats winning back seats?

Not just yet….

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Boy, did I get heat for my unceremonious send-off of the retired military guy that wrote in to say he wanted America to kill illegals as they crossed the border!

I don’t just mean in comments, either. I got my share of "wake-up" calls and emails on this…. The only two people that have agreed with me so far have been MisterE and my wife .

(My wife has no problem disagreeing with me, so I take her agreement to be genuine.)

So… is it wrong to insult readers? Was it wrong because the guy sent his commentary to the "help" email address? Is it wrong because we have to coddle our readers so that they keep coming back?

I sometimes blog on the site to announce "housekeeping" notes (like the changes that are going to go in tomorrow…after I finish cleanup and testing.) But everything else that I write, I write as anybody else would. There’s a division in the media industry between "business" and "editorial". Everything that is one is not the other. I think we can all agree that FB wasn’t asking a question about site functionality.

FB wanted to contribute to discussion; i.e., "editorial". He chose to do so with an inflammatory and outrageous suggestion. This site is a place where everybody can express their positions. I think it’s much more important that you feel like you can express yourself as you see fit, than you dress up your comments because their public.

whereistand.com does not espouse any opinion whatsoever on any issue. Nobody - certainly not me - speaks for the site when it comes to content. If you are equating what I write with the "voice" of the site, then you do me an injustice and a grave injustice to the site. I’m opinionated, unbalanced, arrogant, and intolerant when it comes to the issues. The site gives equal weight to all sides and behavior helps (or will help) make the cream rise to the top.

I could have done as infocats suggested in the comments. I don’t have any problem with that, per se. But I had an urge to express myself when I read that message - I was reminded of something I saw a couple of weeks ago. An old American in a jacket and tie stood outside a restaurant on Columbus Ave. in the 60’s. He pressed up to the window where four people were having lunch and waived a Mexican flag as he did the international sign for "cut your throat" with his other hand.

What the fuck is going on with old American guys in jackets and ties and retired military types?

Updated based on comments:
Thanks for the feedback, guys. (I love that Jacki revoked my blogging privileges!)

I like Jacki’s suggestion. I have to come clean though. I had already adopted another identity on this site and all this time I’ve actually been blogging not only as "nick", but as "MisterE".

Kidding, of course….

I’m somewhat stuck here, though. First, Carol and Jacki both make points about what profanity does to an argument. I agree completely. But, I had no intention of arguing with FB, I just wanted to tell him to FO.

(No, Armin, I didn’t hear from him again, and none of the new user accounts that have been registered used his email address).

I’m not always trying to "persuade". I sometimes just want to sound-off… Of course, it may turn people off Howard Dean-scream-like. I realize that and have no personal problem with it.

You guys aren’t buying my argument that I don’t speak for the site… and that’s a bit depressing. If I had just "posted" FB’s comment anonymously, or if FB had registered and posted himself, then anyone could have replied as I did… including me.

OK…enough about this. I don’t agree, but I’m not going to win this argument, so I’ll concede this much going foward:

• Anything in the way of commentary received "off-site" (like through email) gets a plain response that we only accept commentary from registered users "on the site".
• I’m going to stop using "nick" to announce housekeeping stuff…which will maybe help you guys see the difference.

I don’t want to assume a pseudonym and change my style of writing, etc. to let me blow steam and hide. Nobody (including me) is censored on the site unless they abuse it in ways that are illegal, etc.

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Well, there’s all kinds of stuff floating around about the Rove situation. If centaur is right, I’ll be terribly disappointed.

If Kevin Drum’s pass-along suggestion from TruthOut via TalkLeft that Rove is singing turns out to be true, I’ll be happy to see it. But, I have to confess that I’d much rather see Rove go up the river than Cheney. I suspect Rove has caused more damage than Cheney, though…perhaps that’s not exactly true.

Would Rove sing to save his ass? Absolutely.

I do regret that the more likely scenario at this point is that truthout jumped the gun. A tip is a tip and that’s what their mission is, I guess. Still, there’s a lot of wiggle room when there are bigger fish to fry, so an indictment of an underling is probably never a sure thing until you hear from the prosecutor. It’s particularly not a sure thing when you suspect that his little piggies are very sensitive to flames…. After all, leaking that Rove is going down could just be the prelude to intense negotiations.

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America has usually let immigrants become citizens over time. When their kids are born here, they become citizens [see clarification below]. In Europe, as I understand, that’s not generally true. The differences in terms of possibilities for immigrants are usually what is meant by the different "approaches".

I got this in the mail at the "help" address from reader FB — who apparently needs real help. We usually ignore the "content-related" messages that come into the help mailbox unless they’re legitimate requests for information, in which case we try to lead them in the right direction.

To: help@whereistand.com
Subject: Illegals

I see nothing wrong with using the military to protect our borders. If
some of them that cross were shot the problem would soon stop.

                        Retired Military

Here’s my response. I am sending FB the link:

FB,

The "help" email address is for questions about, or problems with, the site. To participate in the discourse (e.g., by commenting on somebody’s entries or creating an entry yourself) you need to register at www.whereistand.com/register.

I’m pretty sure your policy would violate both the Constitution and treaties signed and ratified by the United States. You’d be pretty stupid to "see nothing wrong." In addition, I suppose you’d want to use the National Guard and not the military.

Also, as a Cuban who’s father came into America illegally, I’d like to say on behalf of all immigrants, "Fuck You!"

Nick

You know what I can’t stand? It’s assholes like FB that ought to be protesting. He should refuse to eat where immigrants work and refuse to have his lawn mowed by immigrants, etc.

Updates based on comments:

1. My choice of words in the first sentence was incorrect… what I meant was that "the kids" become citizens. In America, citizenship is a birthright - if you’re born here, you’re a citizen. If an American has kids in Europe, the kids are not European. There have traditionally existed paths to citizenship. For example, I think the current time frame between a Cuban "illegal" landing in Miami and his Green Card landing in his mailbox is about a year. All of those Ellis Islanders have stories to tell too…. (the exhibit is fabulous, by the way, if you haven’t seen it. Attendance should be required of "retired military" types.)

2. Shooting people that cross the border from a place where they can’t feed their kids to a land of opportunity is exactly what happened in East Germany. Most Mexicans don’t "look anglo", which is one of the reasons why Americans dont’ want them here. Had FB been writing tongue-in-cheek, my response would have been overboard.

3. I presumed that FB sent his message to the help mailbox because he didn’t know how else to post on the site. You don’t call Howard Stern with comments like these so that Howard can listen to them when he’s taking a shit…. As the guy that runs whereIstand, I try to be professional in all cases. As "Nick" blogging on whereIstand, I respond angrily to suggestions of shooting people that are only trying to improve the lives of their families. I’m not going to respond with profanity to somebody that advocates putting up a wall…I won’t agree, but it’s not an uncivilized response.

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• Is the American approach to immigration better than the European approach?

Tags: Politics by nick
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I love how this issue is worded!

Waste a little time and see if you can get through Wacko Whicker’s latest post or Donovan’s Drivel. (Yes, Whicker…I know…ad hominem… unnecessary personal attacks. I couldn’t help myself!)

Then read MisterE’s rather excellent effort. This is the basic truth and tragedy of mankind:

Religio[us] beliefs are detrimental to society, it is what causes almost all of our problems. It is where intolerance comes from, hate, anger, fear, restriction of freedom, misunderstandings, wars, weapons… its all from the belief in higher powers.

The idea that religion is vital to society can only really be supported by showing how societies have benefitted from religion. I submit that history overflows with disastrous events in the name of religion that have destroyed entire cultures.

WAIT!!! (One of the religious zealots was already getting ready to write about Mao or Marx….) I am making an accusation here about religion. It would be off-topic and intolerable  to talk about things that are not religion in this issue. We can, and should, consider this question stricly on the question of whether specific socities benefitted more by religion than they would have without it. If you want to argue about the failure of the enlightenment… go to another topic and do it there.

Rome didn’t fall without Christianity…. Religion has always brought with it calamity.

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