"The Angry White Liberal"

For quite a while, we've had this extreme political tension where one side seems incapable of seeing that another side might have a point - or at least might not be insanely evil. This author captures some of the problem very well:

The Angry White Liberal:
"We've spent the month of August talking about alleged right-wing rage, but it's really time we started discussing the Angry White Liberal. When things aren't going his way, the Angry White Liberal wails and gnashes his teeth, rends his garments, and hurls invective at the opposition. His rhetoric and prose is so heated, it's gotten to the point where you need to put on oven mitts before opening the paper. He is so convinced of the righteousness of his positions that he lashes out uncontrollably at anybody who disagrees with him. For the Angry White Liberal, dissent is anathema. Antagonism is illegitimate. Only conformity to prevailing liberal opinion is enough to still his rage.

. . . even though "health care" is not the top voter priority, even though the budget deficit stands at more than a trillion dollars, President Obama decided that this was the moment to remake one-sixth of the American economy.

The more Obama talked about health care reform, the further his numbers dropped. The country seemed caught in a time-warp. We'd been catapulted back to 2005, when another president attempted a major overhaul of the American welfare state. Then, too, the president deferred to Congress to come up with a plan. Then, too, as the president crisscrossed the nation, warning of the dangers of out-of-control entitlement spending, the public increasingly tuned him out. The innate conservatism of the American people--an instinctual resistance to sudden changes in existing social arrangements--came to the fore.

. . . Protest, which a few years ago was the highest form of patriotism, is now considered artificial, dishonest, misinformed, cynical, and mean-spirited. "An ugly campaign is underway," Nancy Pelosi and Steny Hoyer wrote in USA Today on August 10, "not merely to misrepresent the health insurance reform legislation, but to disrupt public meetings and prevent members of Congress and constituents from conducting a civil dialogue. . . . Drowning out opposing views is simply un-American."

Meanwhile, Harry Reid referred to the town hall protestors as "evil-mongers." Senate finance committee chairman Max Baucus preferred "agitators." Congressman Eric Massa, Democrat of New York, accused Iowa Republican senator Charles Grassley of "treason" for criticizing the health care plan.

. . .

Times columnist Frank Rich warned that the current debates surrounding health care resemble the "walk up to the Kennedy assassination."

. . .

The Angry White Liberal finds it simply incomprehensible that somebody might honestly and in good faith disagree with the Democrats' efforts. On August 14, blogger Steve Benen wrote on the Huffington Post that the "far-tight apoplexy is counter-intuitive." After all, "Why would people who stand to benefit from health care reform literally take to the streets and threaten violence in opposition to legislation that would help them and their families?"

Forget Benen's exaggerated claim of threatened violence. Note, instead, that Benen cannot conceive that someone might actually think the costs to the Democrats' program outweigh the unrealized and perhaps unachievable benefits. Hence he divides Obama's critics into five camps: the "partisans," the "tin-foil hats," the "greedy," the "dupes," and the "wonks." The "wonks," we are told, compose the "smallest of the groups." In Benen's view, then, millions of opponents of health care reform have no reasonable grounds for their opinion."

Chrysler Bankruptcy Plan

Where are the lawyers? This seems like WW-II era Italy

Chrysler Bankruptcy Plan Is Announced - NYTimes.com:
"WASHINGTON — President Obama forced Chrysler into federal bankruptcy protection on Thursday so it could pursue a lifesaving alliance with the Italian automaker Fiat, in yet another extraordinary intervention into private industry by the federal government.
. . .
The arrangement came after an intensive round of White House-sponsored negotiations among the Treasury Department, the union and Chrysler’s executives and creditors. After working through the night, a small group of debtholders balked at Mr. Obama’s final terms, leading the president to decide that bankruptcy could not be averted.

It was a stark moment, and one unseen in modern times, as the fledgling president deepened his involvement in a struggling but iconic American company. Chrysler, which Mr. Obama called “a pillar” of the industrial economy, invented the minivan and owns the Jeep brand.

With Thursday’s filing, Chrysler became the first major American automaker to seek bankruptcy protection since Studebaker did so in 1933."

A Civilian National Security Force?

I have friend who is worried that Barack Obama will succeed in one of his campaign promises - the creation of a Civilian National Security Force. Here is my response to his concerns:

"There's been a buzz on what the President had said on 2 Jul 08 about a "civilian security force" which would be "as large and well funded as the military."

I've seen clips of Mr. Obama actually saying this in his speech."

Right now I think the Democrat's plans to politicize the Census may be a bigger threat - the Census is used to determine how voting districts are laid out, and can have a big effect on which party gets control of a district.

Regarding the topic of a Civilian National Security Force:

My initial thoughts were -
1. Is was just campaign rhetoric & he won't try to implement it

2. Fortunately we didn't elect an emperor, so he can't implement it on his own

3. The Democrats are so busy spending our great-grandchildren's money that they won't have time to implement this

4. If they try to implement this, the public will boo them out of office (remember the amnesty for illegals bill a couple of years ago?)

5. The longer Democrats are in charge, the more likely it is that they'll implement this new force in tiny incremental steps (like the cigarette bans)

A national force like this, used internally, would inevitably be used to make the government stronger - at the expense of citizens rights & liberties. At some point government overreaches so far that we can't cure it with the ballot box, but I don't think we're there yet - in fact I think the Democrats will lose a lot of seats in the next congressional election. I do wish we had an alternative to big-government-Republicans that was actually electable.

On further discussion & reflection, I responded to my friend's points -

"Obama was addressing, among others, veterans. I think Obama is smart enough to try to keep the veterans in his back pocket in case there is an "emergency".

Let us suppose he intends to somehow invoke the law that makes veterans under 65 subject to recall.

Suppose he requires veteans to register with local law enforcement as potential recruits and /or police auxilaries.

Suppose he require civilian employees of law enforcement to become auxilaries.

Suppose he requires younger gunowners to join the National Guard and the others to become police auxilaries. Suppose he requires the younger vets to be in the Guard?

These developments would enforce and uphold the Second Amendment under the well regulated militia clause."

* Veterans are as politically diverse as the rest of the country - trying to keep them in Obama's back pocket is probably futile. Our life experiences let us know when we're being taken advantage of and/or being lied to by politicians.

* Invoking a law that makes veterans under 65 subject to recall would result in a blizzard of law-suits and in massive non-compliance, unless there is really serious problems like a world war (possibly another Crusade).

* Requiring veterans to register with local law enforcement for any purpose would likewise result in law-suits and massive non-compliance, along with people filing false paperwork - registering Bugs Bunny etc.

* A lot of veterans might agree to be police auxiliaries - however this cooperation is more likely if it is a local program (like we have in Phoenix) than a Federal one. Veterans have seen the Federal government up close - in service we learned lifetime lessons about "waste, fraud, & abuse" in government bureaucracies.

* Requiring civilian employees of law enforcement to become auxiliaries might be more successful, especially if they feared for their jobs if they didn't comply. Still, such a program couldn't be kept quiet, and lawsuits & voter protests would follow. We've shown in the last few years that voter protests can move Congress (although offensive legislation usually comes back after several months in stealthier forms).

* I know of no mechanism that could be used require younger gun owners to join the National Guard or anyone to become police auxiliaries. We don't currently have a Draft, but if we did, using it selectively to draft gun owners would almost certainly be tossed out by the Supreme Court, and an administration that tried it would be hard pressed to win the next election. "Rule of Law" may be inconvenient, but it usually works to our benefit.

* It might be possible to encourage or force younger veterans to join the National Guard, but if so, they still couldn't plan to act against the public without those plans becoming coming common knowledge, once again causing lawsuits, protests to Congress, and political difficulty for those seeking reelection.

* The Congress is always on a two-year leash - remember the huge political reversal in 1994 - this has the unfortunate effect that our congress-critters are always campaigning and always indebted to contributors, but it also means that the Federal Government can't turn us into a Soviet state - there isn't enough time to get it done before the next election. (For another view, see We're All Socialists Now)

* Creating a totalitarian society (my view of the threat caused by a Civilian National Security Force) without cooperation of Congress requires that the military take over. While this is easy in some countries, I don't think it can be accomplished in ours. Our military leaders (at all levels) have some lines they won't cross, and remaking their home in the image of what they've fought for generations is certainly one of them.

I know young people who thought some citizens would revolt before Obama was sworn in. In responding to such comments, I realized my life experience shows me that whatever our troubles, this too shall pass. Liberal or conservative, Presidential desires get blunted by the realities of getting legislation passed into law, and bad laws tend to be mellowed by court actions and subsequent legislative modifications.

I personally wish our government was smaller an less intrusive, but I'm comforted by the knowledge that flawed as it is, this is still best country on Earth to live in. (We survived Jimmie Carter, & we'll survive this administration too.)

We Are All Socialists Now?

Through buying vast blocks of stock in the nation's largest banks, our government has come close to nationalizing this industry. If we don't sell this stock when these troubles are through, then we will have taken a significant steps towards socialism.

It has taken us generations to get to this European Style nanny-state, and it may take generations to reverse this trend. Reversal is important because as a (European) socialist country; the inevitable poor economy will cost us our leadership of the free world, and force us to become a client state of a more successful country like China or India.

In addition if we continue to educate citizens to be dependent on government for every need, we will lose the pioneering spirit and the inventiveness that has carried us through the last few decades.

We Are All Socialists Now | Newsweek Business | Newsweek.com: "The interview was nearly over. on the Fox News Channel last Wednesday evening, Sean Hannity was coming to the end of a segment with Indiana Congressman Mike Pence, the chair of the House Republican Conference and a vociferous foe of President Obama's nearly $1 trillion stimulus bill. How, Pence had asked rhetorically, was $50 million for the National Endowment for the Arts going to put people back to work in Indiana? How would $20 million for 'fish passage barriers' (a provision to pay for the removal of barriers in rivers and streams so that fish could migrate freely) help create jobs? Hannity could not have agreed more. 'It is … the European Socialist Act of 2009,' the host said, signing off. 'We're counting on you to stop it. Thank you, congressman.'

. . . Whether we want to admit it or not—and many, especially Congressman Pence and Hannity, do not—the America of 2009 is moving toward a modern European state.

We remain a center-right nation in many ways—particularly culturally, and our instinct, once the crisis passes, will be to try to revert to a more free-market style of capitalism—but it was, again, under a conservative GOP administration that we enacted the largest expansion of the welfare state in 30 years: prescription drugs for the elderly. People on the right and the left want government to invest in alternative energies in order to break our addiction to foreign oil. And it is unlikely that even the reddest of states will decline federal money for infrastructural improvements.

. . .
Bush brought the Age of Reagan to a close; now Obama has gone further, reversing Bill Clinton's end of big government. The story, as always, is complicated. Polls show that Americans don't trust government and still don't want big government. They do, however, want what government delivers, like health care and national defense and, now, protections from banking and housing failure. During the roughly three decades since Reagan made big government the enemy and "liberal" an epithet, government did not shrink. It grew. But the economy grew just as fast, so government as a percentage of GDP remained about the same."

Baby boomers need to consider whether retiring in the soft lap of the Nanny-State is worth the cost to future generations. The current economic stimulus legislation effectively borrows tax dollars from our grand-children (and their children) - a cost they may find difficult to bear.

Obama Project: Space Solar Power (SSP)?

Space Solar Power (SSP) suffers from a chicken and egg problem. It is too expensive for NASA to divert research funding (although they will conduct experiments from the space station soon), and it isn't conventional enough to qualify for traditional investment & funding. Hopefully, as we ramp up to build more Nuclear Reactors some entity will try spending the equivalent amount on an SSP demonstration. (Bill Gates maybe?)

An interesting idea in comments following this article is the use of a beanstalk that can be built with conventional materials IF it ends 1 Diameter of Earth from the surface. We could use conventional (but reusable) chemical rockets to get materials to this low orbit, and then use beanstalks to lift them into the high orbits - saving a large part of the transportation cost, and do-able with today's technology. Another benefit is that such a beanstalk would be much less vulnerable to terrorist attacks.

Political transitions are a time to reflect and change policies - now is the time for the new administration to consider kick-starting the SSP industry. It would cost us less than many of the bailouts currently in the news, and provide enormous on-going benefits. The jobs created for such a program would be high-tech, and the product (energy) would be exportable.

Obama-Biden Transition Project: Space Solar Power (SSP) -- A Solution for Energy Independence & Climate Change | SpaceRef - Space News as it Happens:
"A National Security Space Office (NSSO) study concluded in October of 2007 that 'The magnitude of the looming energy and environmental problems is significant enough to warrant consideration of all options, to include ... space-based solar power.' This NSSO report also concluded that SSP has 'enormous potential for energy security, economic development, improved environmental stewardship, advancement of general space faring, and overall national security for those nations who construct and possess a (SSP) capability.'

We urge the next President of the United States to include SSP as a new start in a balanced federal strategy for energy independence and environmental stewardship, and to assign lead responsibility to a U.S. federal agency.

SSP Falls through the Cracks as Nobody is Responsible: No U.S. federal agency has a specific mandate or clear responsibility to pursue SSP. The U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) says SSP is a space project, and thus NASA's job. NASA says SSP is an energy project, and thus DOE's job. The NSSO-report found that SSP ''falls through the cracks' of federal bureaucracies, and has lacked an organizational advocate within the US Government.'

SSP has Significant Long-Term Advantages: SSP is unusual among renewable energy options as it satisfies all of the following criteria:

Immensely Scalable -- SSP can scale to provide the energy needs of the entire human civilization at America's standard of living. Most other near-term renewable options are strictly limited in scalability. As the NSSO report states "A single kilometer-wide band of geosynchronous Earth orbit experiences enough solar flux in one year to nearly equal the amount of energy contained within all known recoverable conventional oil reserves on Earth today."

Safe Global Availability -- Nuclear power technology cannot be safely shared with most of the countries on this planet because of proliferation concerns.

Steady & Assured -- SSP is a continuous, rather than intermittent, power source. It is not subject to the weather, the seasons, or the day-night cycle.

No Fundamental Breakthroughs -- SSP does not require a fundamental breakthrough in either physics or engineering, such as those required by fusion.

Highly Flexible and Optimal for Export -- SSP could enable America to become a net energy exporter. We could be the world's largest exporter of energy for the 21st and 22nd Centuries, and beyond."

The US Leads the World Despite Our Internal Critics

Weekly, sometimes daily, I hear how awful we are in the US in our treatment of people unlike ourselves. Having lived and worked a little in other countries, I'm quite certain that the US is the best place in the world to live. Even in Britain, an ally and the homeland for many Americans, society affords some people fewer opportunities than they would have as immigrants in the US.

Perhaps instead of always trying to push social frontiers further in the US, we should consider working to bring other countries up to our standards. It would give some people a rest, and enable many people to see how unique and valuable our country is.

BBC NEWS | Could Britain have a black PM?:
"When Barack Obama claimed that his story could only have happened in America, he might have been looking across the Atlantic for evidence.

The odds of a black or Asian person taking the keys to 10 Downing Street any time soon are slim.

Tony Blair acknowledged as much in 2001, when he suggested the US was ahead of the UK in having people from ethnic minorities occupying some of the top political posts.

Mr Blair was mindful of Colin Powell and Condoleezza Rice at the heart of the White House, but probably hadn't even heard of Obama.

. . . the UK can learn from the way Americans responded to their racist history.

"Since the civil rights movement of the Sixties they have had to put in laws and rules in place because racism was more overt. It's more subtle in this country but there is a sense there's a glass ceiling across most industries.

"In America it's more acknowledged and they've put in positive discrimination. There was much resistance at the beginning but they have the fruits of that, which is people being forced into certain positions."

Consequently the US has a large and powerful black middle class, he says. While the UK is arguably more integrated, he says, a black prime minister will only be closer when there are more black business leaders and commissioning editors, operating the levers of power and educating society about black and Asian experiences.

. . . "In the US they dare to dream the American dream, talking about hope. Using that kind of language is something Americans do naturally. Here, we are I think culturally much more understated. We tend to be more cynical generally.

"And while I don't think we are anti-aspirational, the aspiration of what we are and who we are comes without the language of America. Americans are proud that they have brought about change no-one thought possible in the time they have.

"The language of Barack Obama and Martin Luther King is very singular to America but we're not able to use that kind of language. So we need to find a way to get out of that cynicism." "