Somewhere in the Middle

The Government Bubble

2012-02-06T01:40:00.001-05:00

Just my latest theory:
We are probably headed to a second recession as a result of "the government bubble".

Facts:
The GDP of the country is roughly 14.5 trillion dollars/year.
The national deficit is roughly 10% of our GDP and has been for the past few years.

That's just the numbers. You can look them up in half a minute through Google.

Speculation:
Roughly 10% of our economy right now is coming from deficit spending, which is to say, it is coming from borrowed money at a rate we can't keep up forever.
Roughly 1 out of every 10 people currently employed owes their job to this deficit spending.

So, for example, the upcoming cuts to the DOD call for the Army to shrink by 80,000 positions and the Marines by 20,000 positions. So this will be 100,000 job openings that are being canceled as we try and draw down the deficit. The Navy is additionally canceling about a dozen new ship orders over the next 5 years, for however many jobs that would have accounted for.

Not that I am, by any means, saying I supported this massive level of government spending. I think Keynesian economics is probably bullshit, but I do think we have propped ourselves up with a frenzied pace of borrowing money and that lifeline is going to get pulled in the foreseeable future.

The problem, I think, is that the Obama administration has not addressed the core problem, which is America's competitiveness in the global market. In order to really turn the economy around, we have to compete better with foreign companies. We need to look more attractive to businesses and corporations looking to set up shop. I know of nothing the Obama administration has done towards this end. So we are no better off now than we were in 2008 when this all started. The "economic recovery" has been entirely due to the 5+ trillion dollars Obama/Congress spent in the form of new debt over the last 3 years.

If we can keep adding 5 trillion to the national debt every 3 years, we might be able to hold steady. If not, then we are going to go right back in the recession, because the underlying problems have not been addressed.

The Problem with Politics

2011-06-08T05:03:00.001-04:00

The problem with politics today is that it's less like people figuring out how to run a country and more like two rival sports teams trying to score points, complete with fans beating each other up for wearing the wrong jersey.

2001:
Patriot Act passed with wide bipartisan support. Later, since the Patriot Act was passed under Bush, it was proclaimed that Republicans were stealing our freedoms and Bush was evil and so forth, completely disregarding the bipartisan support that got it through Congress to begin with.

2011:
Patriot Act extended, passing House and Senate with bipartisan support and signed by Obama.

There have been other shorter extensions I've skipped, but suffice to say they passed, under both a Democrat controlled Congress and a Republican controlled Congress, and Bush and Obama have both signed them into law. All of the sports-style rivalry was just for the sake of the show.

Just as Democrats used the Patriot Act as a way to villify Republicans in the media, you can bet that had the Democrats struck down the law and then America got attacked, Republicans would have leaped on the chance to villify them for that.

The point is that priorty #1 these days is Scoring Points in the Media. Priority #63 would be Solving the Problem, right behind Priority #62, which is Make Sure the Refrigerator Door of the Congressional Breakroom is Closed.

A lot of this is perpetrated by the media. They love a good face off. Some guys in a room sitting down to work things out? Booooring. That's just C-SPAN. Republican vs Democrat cage matches? Exciting! Throw in some one-sided websites and even more one-sided graphics and that's entertainment! Paint Democrats like THIS and then paint Republicans like THIS and we can really get them going at it.

Apparently they think that the majority of Americans are huge suckers, easily manipulated into going at each other while the important issues slip by unnoticed in the background.

Apparently they are largely correct about this. On the web and the media, the two parties are completely at odds. Most people won't even discuss politics unless they are on the same side, because we are conditioned into believing that it's all Red Team vs Blue Team and never the two shall meet. We spend more time talking about Palin, Beck, Pelosi and Olbermann than we do talking about real issues. I heard more about Schwarzenegger fucking the maid than I heard about Obama extending the Patriot Act.

Red Team and Blue Team are doing the same stuff where it matters. They are both big spenders. They are both big DEFICIT spenders. They are both supporting the wars we are in. They both back the Patriot Act and continue to extend it. They differ on some issues, but not uniformly enough that we should be easily slapping labels around based on party affiliation.

The media fueled frenzy of Democrat vs Republican, greatest sports rivalry of all time, is doing terrible things to us, and we are eating it right up.

Libya

2011-03-30T03:25:00.002-04:00

Lately the discussion has been "Democrats vs Republicans. Basically the same thing these days, aren't they?"

After Libya, I'm more inclined to agree, as, I think, a lot of people are.

Don't get me wrong. I'm actually completely in favor of using American military power to stop a nation's military from simply going out and slaughtering their own citizens. Nobody inside can stop them, so it has to come from outside. We did it in the case of the Serbian conflict and I think we should have done it in Burma.

But the "humanitarian" aspect of Libya has not at all be sold to me. The rebels appear to have guns, in this case. It's not a massacre, as in Burma, but rather, an armed rebellion with two sides who seem to be killing each other. In that event, I don't see why it's "humanitarian" to back the rebels over the Libyan government troops. Or vice versa. In fact, I'm not sure why we should be remotely involved in what's going on in Libya.

Now that we're in it, though, I hope we're in it all the way. "Never do your enemy a small injury". We have certainly demonstrated to Ghadaffi that we don't like him anymore, and we will back a rebellion against him, which means if he actually gets through this rebellion, he is certainly going to seek his revenge against us and there won't be any more Mr. Nice Guy.

Because as I recall, he was one of the unstable leaders back in the days when he was drawing his "line of death" and basically made us go in and bomb him. After that he seemed to settle down. Gave up his nuclear ambitions. He stopped bothering us and we stopped bombing him.

Now the honeymoon is clearly over. We are back to bombing him and if he gets out of this, he's going to seek ways to get back at us.

Had we done nothing and the rebels won, we could have welcomed them. Congratulations on your successful overthrowing of that guy we never really liked anyway! Had we done nothing and Ghadaffi won, we could have just said good job on repressing those rebels, and gone back to business as usual. But now we've picked sides, and we'd best make sure that they win.

I supported Iraq. Saddam was flaunting the U.N. and shooting at our planes and had been known to own and use chemical warheads, even if we couldn't find any. He never really wound down from the first gulf war.

I supported Afghanistan. Taliban. Nuff said.

But Libya I just don't understand.

Real Estate: Elements of the Storm

2009-09-15T15:42:00.003-04:00

I was thinking about the whole continuing real estate problem...

One thing I think has changed over, say, 30 years ago is that we are practically a society of transient workers now. Fewer people work in stable jobs that linger for 20 years. Far more people work in jobs that last, say, 2-8 years before requiring them to move on. Maybe the old job went to India. Maybe it got bought by a bigger company. Maybe the facilities simply moved to another state. Maybe they found a better offer somewhere else. Whatever the reason, they're moving and moving and moving again.

This alone creates a strong feeding ground for a real estate disaster. Short term purchases are far more likely to run into some type of recession that causes house prices to drop, and now you're screwed. Your job went away. You need or strongly want to move. You can't because you owe more than the house is worth.

I also think ARMs are going to play a big factor, especially as interest rates start going back up. You lose your job, you need to sell but you can't because your loan is underwater. So you stay on, maybe take a lower paying job, squeak by with your mortgage, but then interest rates go up and your ARM starts costing more. Now your job didn't change, but you can't afford your house anymore and you can't sell it because the loan is underwater.

And I was thinking about "specialization". America produces a lot of specialized stuff. The problem with specialized stuff is it takes specialized skills, which is why people have to move so much. When your job manufacturing printing presses goes away, you can't just find another printing press manufacturing job in your area. There aren't any. Everything in your area is another specialized job for which you do not have the skill. To find another job for your skillset, you need to move. If you can't move because your mortgage is underwater, you're screwed.

I'm wondering if these are the elements of the "perfect storm".

1) Americans stopped producing mundane, non-specialized goods. We only produce specialized goods.
2) When your specialized job goes away (which it will eventually, because this is the nature of specialized work), you have to move.
3) If the housing market takes any sort of tumble, your mortgage may be underwater and you can't move.
4) You are boned and the economy starts to buckle when enough people land in this situation. Too many people find themselves applying to Home Depot for work because their skill sets are too specialized and they can't reach the work for their specialization.

For the coup de grâce, let's think about tax write-offs for mortgage interest.

Let's say you want to buy a $200,000 home and you have $40,000 in the bank.
Do you:
a) Put $10,000 down (5%) and spend the other $30,000 elsewhere
or
b) Put $40,000 down (20%)

With no tax incentive for mortgage interest, you would do "b". This would lower your interest payments and save you a lot of money. In fact, you may be encouraged to pay off your premium as fast and as early as possible just to get out from under your interest payments.

A tax incentive allowing you to write off mortgage interest wipes out that advantage, though. Doing "b" saves you nothing. You will instead do "a", use the government tax incentive to write off what would have been the savings of "b" and then spend the rest of your money somewhere else.

So we have created the perfect storm:

Specialized workforces move a lot and therefore tend to have newer home loans.
Tax incentives encourage new home loans to be as close to the cost of the house as possible.
Any drop in housing prices, therefore, will very quickly put our loans underwater, potentially inflicting personal financial ruin.
Enough people in personal financial ruin becomes national financial ruin.

If my theory is true, then this entire economic disaster can be attributed to government interference:

Tax incentives for home loans are a government intrusion into personal finances which has encouraged reckless behavior by individual home buyers.
High government taxes impacting basic manufacturing jobs have encouraged those jobs to move out of the country, necessitating that our work force become more specialized and therefore more transitory.

Transitory workers + incentives for dangerous financial situations = the perfect storm.

If my theory is correct, we haven't heard the last of this current recession because we haven't done anything to improve the two factors that fed it: government meddling in personal finance and government taxes making basic American manufacturing uncompetitive in the global market.

Health Care

2009-08-28T10:31:00.002-04:00

http://news.yahoo.com/s/livescience/20090824/sc_livescience/majorityofamericansbelievehealthcarereformmyths
Article title: "Majority of Americans Believe Health Care Reform Myths"

Hmmm.

How many of those are actually "myths"?

For example, the "myth" of government funded abortions. The story behind it is that by the wording in the bill, what will and will not get funded will be determined after the bill goes live by some executive in charge of the system. Abortion is neither on nor off the list, but it's certainly doable given the current language of the bill. The person in charge would simple have to say, "Yes, we are funding abortions" and there you'd have it.

Some Republicans have tried to insert language specifically prohibiting abortion funding but it got struck down.

Obviously "abortion" is a hot button item but they could have just as easily said "breast implants" or "penis extensions". The bottom line is that the bill doesn't enumerate what will or will not be funded and efforts to limit what CAN be funded have been struck down by the Democrats, which I find to be rather mysterious. Setting a handful of definitions on what the government health care plan must or must not cover would do a lot to ease the unpopularity.

And stuff like this:
"Five out of 10 think cuts will be made to Medicare in order to cover more Americans (66 percent of Republicans, 37 percent of Democrats, 44 percent of Independents)."

Is that a "myth"? It sounds more like a prediction of the future and the real question is whether you're optimistic about it or not. Can Democrats guarantee that Medicare cuts will NOT be made? Of course they can't guarantee that. Medicare itself ended up costing vastly more than anticipated, didn't it? So really nobody has any idea what this health care reform will cost or what financial sacrifices might have to be made to keep it on the road.

I would call the article, "Americans Easily Duped By Disingenuous Left-Wing MSM Articles".

For my 2 cents, the problem here isn't "health care reform". I think many conservatives would agree that health care has problems which need to be addressed.

However, this bill is going about it in completely the wrong way. It does nothing to address medical costs and the language of the bill itself is very difficult to read and understand. They need to burn the thing and start over from scratch with something simpler and more focused on individual problems rather than simply creating a massive bill for the sake of saying "we have government health care now".

The currently proposed plan from the Democrats is simply a non-solution, as I see it. Conservatives aren't opposed to health care reform; they're just opposed to this particular legislative abomination.

2009-08-13T22:45:00.003-04:00

I've been seeing all these town hall meetings about the health bill. I got to wondering when my representative, Christopher Van Hollen, was going to hold one.

Here was his version of a town hall meeting, I guess:
http://tpmdc.talkingpointsmemo.com/2009/07/van-hollen-to-hold-tele-town-hall-on-health-care-with-grassroots-dem-supporters.php

Dear Friend,

After decades of struggle, we are now closer than at any other time in history to providing quality, affordable, and accessible health care for every American.

Grassroots Democrats like you are the reason we've gotten this far. Through your generous financial support and your tireless activism, you've created a force for progressive change on behalf of President Obama.

With all the fast-breaking developments this week, I wanted to gather our most dedicated supporters like you to provide an update on where we stand, answer your questions, and discuss our plan for action on health care reform.

Join me for the DCCC's Health Care Reform Tele-Town Hall Meeting this Friday, July 31 at 2:30 PM EDT. Sign-up today to participate from wherever you are.

Thank you for putting us on the verge of making history with health care reform. Let's keep up the fight against the Republican attacks and help President Obama finish the job.

Please join me on Friday.

Thanks,

Rep. Chris Van Hollen
DCCC Chairman

So. His town hall was a "tele town hall".

Addressed specifically to Democrats. Not all constituents. Just the Democrats.

I guess that's why I never heard about it.

Yyyeaah. Somehow I don't think he's getting my vote next election either.

I doubt he cares. Here in Maryland, conservatives are accustomed to just not having representation. The interesting thing is I think there's actually a lot of us, it's just that not enough of us think it's worth showing up for an election because the liberals always win (I hear people say that. Me: "You voting?" Them: "Nah. Democrats always carry Maryland. There's no point.")

Well, I voted last time. Voted against him. I'll do the same next election. We need more conservatives to do this. At least then we can say "we tried". Maybe we'll surprise these buzzards and make them realize they need to start representing their entire district and compromising between the sides rather than simply ignoring conservatives entirely. Better to lose with 42% of the vote and make him a little concerned than to let him win by a landslide and think he's got it in the bag for years to come.

lulz

2009-07-02T09:39:00.002-04:00

http://www.breitbart.com/article.php?id=D99589RO0&show_article=1&catnum=0

Quote:

"Those ridiculous contracts with pages of fine print that no one can figure out—those things will be a thing of the past," the president said in a statement accompanying the 152-page draft bill. "And enforcement will be the rule, not the exception."

Hopefully they'll start enforcing it in Congress first. Government would probably run a lot smoother if they had to make bills small enough that everyone would actually read and understand it before voting on it.

Quote of the [Time]

2009-06-19T18:41:00.001-04:00

Overheard:
Person A: "When small government and personal responsibility are considered radical or extreme ideas you know we're fucked."
Person B: "We're fucked."

The Conservative

2009-05-23T01:22:00.000-04:00

(what? I was bored... With apologies to Dr. Suess...)

At the far end of town, where the grickle-grass grows,
and the wind smells slow and sour when it blows,
and no birds ever sing there, excepting old crows,
is the street of the Lifted Conservative.

And deep in the grickle-grass, some people say,
if you look deep enough you can still see today
where the Conservative once stood, just as long as he could,
'till somebody lifted the Conservative away.

What was the Conservative and why was it there,
and why was it lifted and taken somewhere,
from the far end of town where the grickle-grass grows?
The old Liberal still lives here: ask him, he knows.

You won't see the Liberal - don't knock on his door.
He stays in his lurkem on top of his store.
He lurks in his lurkem, cold under the roof,
where he makes his own clothes out of miff muffered moof.

And on special dank midnights in August he peeks
out of the shutters, and sometimes he speaks,
and tells how the Conservative was lifted away.
He'll tell you, perhaps, if you're willing to stay.

The Liberal grunts, "I will call you by whisper-ma-phone,
for the secrets I tell are for your ears alone."
SLUPP!!!
Down slupps the whisper-ma-phone to your ear,
and the old Liberal's words are not very clear,
since they have to come down through a snergally hose
and he sounds as if he had smallish bees up his nose.

"Now I'll tell you," he says, with his teeth sounding gray,
"how the Conservative was lifted and taken away.
It all started way back,
such a long, long way back..."

“Way back in the days when the government was small,
and proper power plants in the winter would give warmth to us all,
and we thought global warming was the worst we could fear,
One morning I came across a place of good cheer!

“And I first saw the church! The magnificent church!
The bright colored stained glass of the magnificent church!
Filled with people, together, all singing in mirth!

“And next to the church I saw an elementary school,
Where they were conducting an election, (electing some fool)
The people stood in line waiting to cast in their vote,
To have their voice heard, no matter how remote!

But those churches, those churches, those magnificent churches!
All my life I'd been searching for a cause such as this!
Those people were happy in their ignorant bliss,
And I knew right away I had to put an end to all this.

I felt a great leaping of joy in my heart.
I knew just what I'd do! I unloaded my cart.
In no time at all I had made up a sign.
Then I wrote a few words on it, it was such a great line.
And with great skillful skill and with great speedy speed,
I took the great line – and planted a seed!

Not a seed for growing flowers or trees that bore fruit,
Not a seed for the birds or the grasses underfoot,
But a seed that would grow in the heart and the mind,
A seed that could take root in whomever I could find.

The instant I'd finished I heard a great SLAM!
I looked. I saw someone walking over. A man.
It was sort of a man. Describe him? That's hard.

He was shortish. And oldish. And brownish, and mossy.
And he spoke with a voice that was sharpish and bossy:
"Mister," he said, with a sawdusty sneeze,
"I am the Conservative. I speak for the free.

"I speak for the free, as anyone can
and I'm asking you sir, to think on your plan”
he was very upset as he shouted and puffed,
“What's on that sign there? It's just lies and fluff!”

"Look, Conservative," I said, "there's no cause for alarm.
I just made up a sign – I am doing no harm.
I'm being quite useful: I also am free.
And I'm free to stand here and say what I mean.

“Your church: I don't like it. It's fooling the people.
Full of lies. I don't trust it, from front step to steeple.
And the voting that's going on in the school over there?
Votes driven by lies and by lots of hot air.”

The Conservative said, "Sir, you are crazy and naive.
There's no one on Earth who would buy your fool's creed!"
But the very next minute I proved he was wrong.
For just at that minute a chap came along,
and he thought that the sign I had made was quite good!
And when he asked to join me I said that he should.

I laughed at the Conservative, "You poor stupid man!
Your old fashioned ways are no match for my plan!"
"I repeat!" cried the Conservative, "I speak for the free!"
"I'm busy," I told him, "shut up, if you please."

I rushed 'cross the road and in no time at all,
built a radiophone and then I put in a quick call.
I called all my cousins and uncles and aunts,
and I said, "Listen here! Here's a wonderful chance
for all of the Liberals to join in on my cause!
Get Soros and Buffett and MoveOn and Kos!”

And in no time at all, in the website we built,
the whole Liberal family was working full tilt.
We were all making blogs, just as busy as bees,
And we knew that we could bring Conservatives to their knees.

Then oh, baby oh! How our website did grow!
Now corrupting the media was going too slow!
So I quickly enlisted some poor college students,
They begin rushing stages, silencing Conservative stooges!
We were converting the people four times fast as before.
And that Conservative? HE didn't show up any more.
But the next week he knocked on my new office door.

He said, "I'm the Conservative, who speaks for the free,
who you seem to be deceiving as much as you please.
But I'm also in charge of the nearby election,
Which relies on accuracy and integrity, from every section.

“NOW thanks to your website and your ACORN deceit
Our ballot boxes are stuffed with votes of the deceased.
And our speakers have been run off of stages around the nation
And even Miss California can barely hold onto her station.

They loved living here but I can't let them stay.
They'll have to find freedom, and I hope that they may.
“Good luck, folks!” he cried, as he sent them away.
I, the Liberal, was sad as I watched them all go.
But now this was my government and it was time for it to grow!
Regardless of freedoms and churches, you know.

I meant no harm, I most truly did not.
But government had to get bigger, so bigger it got.
We biggered the welfare, we biggered the taxes,
We bought up the factories, which employed all the masses,
We wrote up a budget that sent money forth
to the south! To the east! To the west! To the north!
We sent everyone money (we just printed more)
Now that silencing Conservatives was no longer a chore.

Then AGAIN he came back. I was cleaning some pipes,
when that old nuisance Conservative came back with MORE gripes.
"I am the Conservative." he seemed very sad
He dabbed at his eyes with an old worn out rag
He sighed and he coughed, to clear out his throat
"Liberal!" he cried with a cruffulous croak,
"Liberal, you're making such a terrible mess!
You've defeated the church but replaced it with less!

"And so," said the Conservative
"Churchgoers can't live here, so I'm sending them off.
Where will they go? I don't hopefully know.
They may have to walk for a month or a year,
to escape from the persecution you've created around here!

"What's more," snapped the Conservative (his dander was up,)
"let me say a few words about ACORN and stuff.
Your methods and websites seem very fine
And your abolishment of guns even took away mine

You've left your own people without a place to go
When their lives are troubled and they have nothing to show
And what do you do with the liberties you had?
I'll show you, you dirty old Liberal! You'll see that it's bad!

“You're stuffing the ballot boxes for candidates you favor
You're taxing the product, then taxing the labor!
You're taxing the gas that gets you to work
You've run off the corporations, you're a serious jerk!
You think that the world outside your borders doesn't matter
And when you find out you're wrong, you'll be all the sadder.”

And then I got mad. I got terribly mad.
And I yelled at the Conservative, "Now listen here, dad!
All you do is yap-yap and say bad,bad,bad,bad!
Well I have my rights sir, and I'm telling you
I intend to go on doing just what I do!
And for your information, you Conservative, I'm figuring
on biggering, and biggering, and biggering, and BIGGERING.
Turning MORE work into taxes
So that we have even more money, all for the masses!

Then at that very instant we heard a loud cheer!
And I looked at the Conservative and gave him a sneer.
For I knew what it meant, that cheer from them all
Nuclear power had just been made fully against the law

But then a funny thing happened. The lights started to flicker
And soon it grew quiet, even the clatter of the stock ticker
We had done what we wanted, we had beaten the system
We had outdone the churches, we had silenced opposition
But now there was no work to be done, no corporations to pay
And the taxes had taxed all the taxpayers away

Enemies were at our borders, for we had shrunk the military
I asked my general how bad it was and he just said, “Very”
Our defenses were down, our economy was a wreck
It seems that our foes wanted more than respect.

The Conservative said nothing - just gave me a glance.
Just gave me a sad, sad backward glance
as he lifted himself by the seat of the pants.
And I'll never forget the grim look on his face
as he heisted himself and took leave of this place
through a hole in the fog without leaving a trace.

And all that the Conservative left here in this mess
was a small piece of paper, with the one word, "unless."
Whatever THAT meant, well, I just couldn't guess.
That was long, long ago, and each day since that day,
I've worried and worried and worried away.
Through the years as my buildings have fallen apart,
I've worried about it with all of my heart.

"BUT," says the Liberal, "now that you're here,
the word of the Conservative seems perfectly clear!
UNLESS someone like you cares a whole awful lot,
nothing is going to get better - it's not.
So...CATCH!" cries the Liberal. He lets something fall.
“It's a copy of the Constitution. It's the last one of all!”

"You're in charge of the Constitution and the freedom it holds
And freedom can last, if you're good and you're bold
Take it with you and start up a new country near here,
And be wary of the Liberals, watch out for them, dear.
They mean well. They do. And they talk quite a lot
But think back on what we had here, and how we let it rot.
Grow a Republic that's free and that's safe from attack,
Then the Conservative and all of his friends just might come back!”

2009-05-21T14:24:00.001-04:00

Someone asked me today if I would support a cut of government social programs: social security, welfare, medicare and medicaid.

I say we take whatever is in these funds, turn them into a private charity and cease all government funding.

They will then sink or swim based on charitable contributions and the charity's ability to balance the objectives of the charity with people's willingness to give to it. I might well give $1000/year to a Social Security charity. This is considerably less than I am forced to pay into it now.

It's always been my goal to work my finances such that I can one day retire without government aid. I could have a nicer car, a nicer house and better stuff but I don't because I want to retire one day and owning a really nice BMW today would impede my ability to one day retire and be independent.

If I could have all of my social security payments in my bank account, that would amount to a nice little raise that would help me retire that much earlier.

My parents would either be living with me or I'd be helping them out financially to live somewhere on their own, but at least that's a decision we can come to on our own.

There may be certain minimums I would be willing to see the government do. But we are talking bare minimums. A roof over your head, food to eat and a place to sleep. Anything beyond that should be left in the hands of private charities and volunteer programs.

We're too dependent on the government.

People aren't willing to go out and volunteer or give money for programs they believe in, because they expect the government to do it for them. It's horseshit. Someone wants to help old people? Volunteer. Donate. Ring a bell in front of a bucket in front of the local shopping mall. But don't mug me every April 15th for an amount of money you think is appropriate to steal from me in order to support your charity.

You can't make this stuff up.

2009-05-11T11:19:00.002-04:00

The New York Times loves this video:
http://storyofstuff.com

Ms. Leonard put the video on the Internet in December 2007. Word quickly spread among teachers, who recommended it to one another as a brief, provocative way of drawing students into a dialogue about how buying a cellphone or jeans could contribute to environmental devastation.
...
More than 7,000 schools, churches and others have ordered a DVD version, and hundreds of teachers have written Ms. Leonard to say they have assigned students to view it on the Web.

It has also won support from independent groups that advise teachers on curriculum choices. Facing the Future, a curriculum developer for schools in all 50 states, is drafting lesson plans based on the video.

So your kids might be getting to see this propaganda in school.

I'll just address a few things as I watch the video.

She claims the US military takes up 50% of our budget. That's either misleading or "a lie" depending on how generous you want to be. DOD is 50% of the budget only if you don't count social security, medicare, medicaid, welfare and interest on our debt -- the so-called "mandatory" budget items. If you do count those, it's about 16% (social security is 21%).

Almost a breath later:
"It's the government's job to watch out for us, to take care of us; that's their JOB."

I don't think Ben Franklin or Jefferson would have quite agreed with that. But that's the modern day liberal viewpoint, isn't it? (Or as Mark Levin calls them, "Statists" instead of "liberals" -- people who seek the growth of the state rather than individual independence from the state.)

"The corporation is bigger than the government."
She says it like it's a bad thing. The animation is of the government shining the shoes of the corporation. Although if it comes down to it, is there any corporation in America who makes more money per year than the government? From Wikipedia:
"Estimated [tax] receipts for fiscal year 2008 were $2.66 trillion."

Does any corporation bring in $2.66 trillion? If I'm reading it right, the #1 corporation in the world is Wal-Mart, which brought in about $379 billion in revenue.

So no, the government appears to be much, much, MUCH bigger than Wal-Mart, and Wal-Mart is the #1 corporation. (Exxon-Mobile is #2 at about $373 billion.)

"[America has] 5% of the world's population but we use 30% of the resources."
Yeah, being technologically advanced sure is a bitch. If only we could go back to living in grass huts and hunting fish with a spear, we'd be in line with a lot of the rest of the world.

"We mix toxic materials in with the natural materials to make toxic, contaminated products."
Uhh.

Okay, I'm not even 5 minutes in and I give up on this video.

I would be pretty furious if my kid was shown this propaganda video in school without some serious discussion about the truth of the "facts" given and whether it's a fair assessment and what parts of the video have merit and what parts are a fine example of liberal extremism gone awry. I would use it as an educational video to show the kids how emotions can sometimes cause adults to lie to children, and that they should always be on guard against this.

Although this does remind me of some of the crap we were shown as kids when I was in school: oversimplified, inaccurate garbage meant to drive your opinion in a particular direction.

The Decline in Journalism; The Rise of the Blogger

2008-12-24T10:35:00.008-05:00

Partial transcript from Morning Joe on MSNBC:

Pat Buchanan: Is the old media that we all grew up with, is that really passing away and this new media the kids got, with the internet and the rest of it, is that the future? ...

Brian Williams: ... when people hear me lament the passing of that media, they think, oh, that's just your own self interest. And it's not. It's Jefferon's kind of educated and enlightened democracy. ... And if you're going to tell me it's, it's someone with a web site, well, have you been, as a friend of mine says, classically trained? Do you know to make your calls and get your two-to-three sources? ...

Old media is being replaced by bloggers.

The reason is pretty simple, I think: old media has become lazy. Their jobs are easily taken over by armchair amateurs. I created this blog largely because I, using only the power of Google, can come up with better in-depth articles than the New York Times. Obviously I don't do this very often but then, I'm not getting paid. But there's an army of people like me, so between the lot of us, readers don't really need the New York Times anymore. Do I make my calls and get my two-to-three sources? Do you, Mr. Williams? Did the New York Times make their calls when they published a fake letter from the mayor of Paris?

I used to have a lot of respect for reporters -- specifically for investigative reporting. I confess, I'm kind of lazy. If I had to go down to the library of Congress to research stuff, I wouldn't do it. But when I can prove an Associated Press article to be wrong, biased or simply incomplete using only the power of Google and a couple links to the census data, something is wrong with classical media.

What's wrong is that they're just as lazy as I am, except they're getting paid to be lazy. They aren't checking their sources. They aren't delivering unbiased reports. They aren't digging down except when it suits their personal political views. Why did we hear so much about Palin and so little about Biden? Why are negative stories about Iraq put on page 1 and positive stories put on page 11 or not printed at all? Why do I have to go to the blogs of private journalists (classically trained or otherwise) in order to get the full story?

Mainstream media has allowed bias and laziness to overthrow investigative reporting and hard work.

It should be no surprise to Brian Williams that we are turning away from people like him and turning towards private sources and bloggers for news. I can glean more truth from a handful of bloggers (some from both sides of the story) than I can from any single mainstream media source.

Journalism as a profession can easily come back, but now they have to compete. Now they have to WORK. You guys at the New York Times and MSNBC want to still have a job ten years from now? Get to work. Start investigating. Put more effort into your story than the average blogger and maybe we'll come back. Keep being lazy and biased and you'll be replaced by bloggers because you aren't doing anything we can't do.

The Decline of America?

2008-12-08T19:15:00.002-05:00

In the "Afterword" (his spelling) section of Orson Scott Card's Shadow of the Hegemon, he's reviewing some of his thoughts on why he had the politics of the book play out the way they did. He describes America as "a nation in decline, and my people have little will to be well led". We prefer individuality and the modern comforts and we will not unite to change the world. In the book, America is largely taking a back-seat role in politics while the movers-and-shakers are the Russians, Chinese and Indians -- cultures with a strong sense of nationalism, easily united to focus on a common national goal (such as, e.g., taking over the world).

I can understand why he thinks this about America, and to some extent perhaps it's true. I recently saw the South Park episode where South Park is overrun by hippies. Initially, Stan and friends (minus Cartman, who hates hippies) were taken in by their desire to fight the corporations, but they eventually realized that hippie talk is really just talk, and somehow fighting the corporations turns into a big festival with lots of music and pot smoking and if you wait for the part where they actually stick it to the man, you're going to die of old age (or smoke inhalation). Like most South Park episodes, there's a seed of truth in there.

I see the same thing a lot on various political oriented websites. A lot of strong talk, but not much action. What action there is tends to come in the form of donation to charity rather than any real move. Oh, genocide in Africa? How terrible. Let's all donate to Doctors Without Borders! And then, presumably, we'll all go eat some pot brownies and that'll fix everything. Stop the genowhatnow? You want who to do what and go where to stop whowhatsit? No no, that's the MAN talkin', man! Just donate to this charity group and replace your old lightbulbs with CFLs! Wooo! Free Bird!

One might get the impression that we are becoming a nation of wusses. Big on talk, small on action, surely our days of changing the world are coming to an end.

What's more, Card seems to follow the belief that China and India will become huge world superpowers due to their massive populations. I'm starting to suspect that they may not be able to become huge world superpowers precisely because of their populations.

Look at, oh, say, the D.C. area, especially around where I am, in the Rockville area. Traffic is absolutely horrible and they're only building more places to live. I was talking to a coworker the other day, who has lived here all of his life, and he mentioned that originally, there were supposed to be 2 beltways around D.C. and several more bridges across the Potomac to Virginia. The environmentalists sacked the bridges, the second beltway never got made and the Intercounty Connector (which won't help much, I think) is having to fight in the courts. The more people you have, the harder it is to actually do anything because there are too many groups you have to appease. As it is, the planned route for the ICC is rather curvy and ridiculous looking because of all the places they absolutely couldn't go through.

If these are the kinds of growing pains that America has, I can only imagine what a mess it must be in India and China, and it seems to me that it's only going to get harder as time goes by. India has a rate of deaths-per-10k-motor-vehicles-per-year of 20 while in the U.S., it's 2. They have a huge incentive to improve their infrastructure but I'm willing to bet that right now, they can't. The large population is, I suspect, hindering their ability to adapt as much as it's helping supply a base of wealth and power.

I also figure it's a bit like chimpanzee vs elephant. For all of the elephant's brain mass, they never became kings of the animal kingdom because they're so huge, they have to spend all day finding things to eat. The basics of life are complicated enough for them that they don't have time to sit around and ponder better methods of throwing poop at the local jaguar population. It was the leaner, more efficient apes that became kings of the animal kingdom. They're the ones that ultimately invented guns.

So, is America really in decline?

I don't think so. I think we might be losing our will to go out and effect change in the world with our bombs and our bullets, but I don't think we're in danger of losing our will to maintain our position remotely, through financial clout, political manipulation and the traditional selling of weapons to the enemies of the people we don't like. India and China are like the elephant, seemingly huge and unstoppable and brilliant, but all of their strength and brains are focused internally, trying to solve the problems that are brought on by being so big. We're the monkeys. Smaller but more adaptable.

I don't think we're on the decline. I think we're just now really beginning to establish our place at the head of the table. Be glad you're here, because I think it will prove, ever increasingly, to be one of the best places to live in the decades to come. Yes, nations like Sweden have peace, freedom and universal health care, but the only thing preventing them from being stomped on by their neighbors is a temporary lack of desire to do so. Who knows what the future holds for them? Who knows where China, India, Pakistan and the volatile Muslim nations will end up? America is the greatest country on earth because I think we have the most reason to look ahead and see ourselves still in a position of strength and influence in the world. In the long run, I think we're still the place to be.

Black Friday 2008: Best Ever?

2008-11-29T21:23:00.003-05:00

CNN

This goes back to my general wondering of how much of the "depression" is real? And how much does a stock market crash impact the average American and their willingness to spend?

I'm curious to see November's unemployment figures but October's number was 6.5%, which is high for recent history but still pretty low in the grand scheme of things.

Latest unemployment numbers

The pattern there is rather interesting as well.

Voter turnout 2008. All hype?

2008-11-08T11:57:00.004-05:00

I was seeing some people saying how voter turnout in 2008 blew the lid off of 2004's numbers and since Obama won by a landslide, this proves the country is really behind him.

Actually...

I already demonstrated that Obama only got 52.5% of the popular vote, so not exactly a landslide. So how was voter turnout?

I'm having trouble tracking down good numbers right now, as I guess it's too early, but here's what I could find so far:

Voter turnout same or slightly higher than 04

Registrations were way up (ACORN?) but actual turnout was not.

I actually think it's closer than that CNN blog says. They're using "124 million" as voters in 2004 (and another CNN story says it "shattered 2004's mark of 122 million" -- the 2004 number keeps dropping!) but the census table I'm looking at right now says 125.7 million voted in the 2004 presidential election. That's 58.3% of the voting age population for that time.

Let's see... voting age population for this election was 231.2 million, so if 127 million voted in 2008 (latest preliminary estimate I could find, Nov 6th) then we're at 55%?

Hmm, that can't be right. That shows us as actually having a lower percentage turnout this year than in 2004.

Well, we'll check again when there are some final numbers, I guess. I would love to see the Census Bureau report on it but it looks like those don't come out until the following spring.

Don't believe everything you hear about Obama. Look it up for yourself first.

Defining a "landslide"

2008-11-08T02:13:00.003-05:00

I'm seeing a lot of verbiage about Obama's "landslide victory" and how this means "Americans were sick of Republican rule and demanded change". Articles like this don't help matters:
http://ap.google.com/article/ALeqM5gYbBmMmElgU_AjfYlbWgYFe66cqAD948IC2G0
"Obama becomes first black president in landslide".
http://news.aol.com/elections/article/presidential-race/233562
"Obama wins election in landslide"

Before we jump to any conclusions that this means America is sick of the Republican party and has wholeheartedly embraced Obama's calls for change, perhaps we should look a bit deeper.

These articles go on to talk about the "electoral college landslide", which is true.

What they fail to mention is that it was a very close race in terms of the popular vote.
Obama 65,125,043 (52.5%)
McCain 57,178,049 (46.2%)

Someone recently said to me that "Americans stood up and yelled they wanted this change. The election was as close to being called a landslide as it gets. This country is tired of Bush policies and those that support him."

Well, 46.2% of Americans stood up and yelled that they wanted McCain.

Don't misattribute something to "Americans" as if you spoke for all of us or even some overwhelming majority when in fact Obama's calls for "change" only appealed to about 52% of the voters.

Economic doom....DOOM! DOOOOOOOOM!!!

2008-09-01T21:54:00.001-04:00

Recording more of my online retorts. Someone posted this as one of the problems delivered unto us by Republicans (and thus, why we should vote for Obama) --

Our craptastic job market?

What's wrong with our job market?

First thing I found on Google:
http://www.finfacts.ie/irishfinancenews/article_1014073.shtml
"Eurozone unemployment rate unchanged at 7.2% in May 2008; Irish rate rises to 6%; Spain to 9.9% - lowest in Denmark: 2.7% and the Netherlands: 2.9%"

Second thing I found on google:
http://www.nidataplus.com/lfeus1.htm

Take a look at that chart, then answer the following question:
Is our unemployment rate so bad, or is it just more liberal propaganda making you THINK it's bad? Our unemployment rate has ranged from 4.0% to 9.7% since 1980. We're at around 5.4% this year. Doom?

America isn't as bad off as some people would have you believe.

Next claim:

We are in a recession.

"The Economy is Fine (Really)" - The Wall Street Journal.
http://online.wsj.com/public/article_print/SB120147855494820719.html

This is a favorite article of mine because it was out in Jan 2008, when literally every news media was forecasting a recession. This article from the WSJ forecast the opposite and they were right. Seriously, google "recession 2008" and marvel at the gloom and doom news articles from January.

Here's a good one from Forbes, dated June 2008: "After the Slowdown"
http://www.forbes.com/columnists/forbes/2008/0602/035.html

Now, if your definition of a recession is the traditional standard—two consecutive quarters of negative growth— rest assured, this isn’t going to happen. There’s no possibility now that the U.S. will suffer two consecutive quarters of negative growth in 2008, as there’s too much liquidity sloshing around. Also expect America’s small businesses to go on a second-half buying spree to take advantage of accelerated tax depreciation.

What the liberals are calling a "recession" is actually "slowed economic growth". We still have positive growth, but it's just not as positive as it used to be. Kinda like if I have a stock I bought at $10 and within the month it goes up to $15 and then the next month it goes to $15.50 and I proclaim economic doom because it didn't keep going up as fast as it used to.

I think there's a lot of disingenuous intent behind the cries of economic doom. I think if the events of today were going on under Obama, it would be all smiles and roses as the good parts of the economy would be under a spotlight and the negatives would be ignored, instead of what's happening today, which is the opposite. A lot of people in the press want Bush out of office big time and they're doing everything they can to keep you misinformed towards that end.

This is slowly getting to be the #1 reason why I won't vote for Obama: there's too much fishy stuff going on with the intent of getting him into power.

Income Inequality?

2008-08-28T00:23:00.001-04:00

Here's another one I've heard: income equality in America is getting worse.

Actually....

From a 2007 Census report:

Income inequality decreased between 2006 and 2007, as measured by shares of aggregate household income by quintiles and the Gini index. The share of aggregate income received by households in the top fifth of the income distribution declined, while the shares for the third and fourth quintiles increased. Meanwhile, the Gini index declined from 0.470 to 0.463, moving closer to 0, which represents perfect income equality (1 represents perfect inequality).

This "Gini coefficient" is the standard measurement for income inequality (how rich the rich are versus how poor the poor are). Under Clinton, it went from .433 to .462, an increase of .029.

Under Bush, it has gone to .463 after decreasing between 2006 and 2007, for a total increase of .001.

In other words, income inequality got worse under Clinton. Under Bush, it has not changed.

Here's the whole Census report. The quote was from page 13:
http://www.census.gov/prod/2008pubs/p60-235.pdf

(edit)
Oh dear lord! I found the greatest quote ever. Think about what I just said above and then read this quote from Bill Clinton's DNC speech:

"Look at the example the Republicans have set: American workers have given us consistently rising productivity. They've worked harder and produced more. What did they get in return? Declining wages, less than one-quarter as many new jobs as in the previous eight years, smaller health care and pension benefits, rising poverty and the biggest increase in income inequality since the 1920s."

Oh the irony.

The big increase in income inequality was under YOUR watch, Billy boy! Under Bush it hardly budged!

Maybe he's using some other index. You know, the one the US Census bureau apparently doesn't use.

Incidentally

2008-08-26T13:53:00.000-04:00

In regards to the first blog, I thought I'd try and address all of his claims about Why America Sucks. "But why go through this trouble?" I'm glad you asked! Because these are the types of claims I hear over and over again in forums all over the internet. People really think these things. There's a massive anti-America campaign raging across the internet that has already consumed my original political party, the one I picked when I was 18, and the donkey needs to get kickin'. Small numbers of abrasive loud mouths have spread disinformation and the Democratic Party has become the party for people who think America can do no right. Michelle Obama's first time being proud of America was when her husband was nominated? I've been proud for years!

Without further ado, let me debunk some more popular, untruthful claims about America:

Claim #1:
"We don't have the right to a trial anymore."
Status:
Debunked. See first blog. ("The Great Conspiracy")

Claim #2:
We've lost the right to protest.
Status:
Hyperbole. Not even going to bother to debunk this in detail. I can only assume he's referring to incidents like the guy who got tasered during the Kerry speech after he butted in line and went in a lengthy monologue rant well over his allotted time. He could have booked the hall and made his own speech on his own time. The right to protest does not include the right to infringe on everyone else's rights, and he was actually infringing on the free speech rights of Kerry and all the other people who wanted to ask a question.

If you would like to protest in some normal, non-asshole manner, you certainly can. Welcome to America.

Claim #3:
Civil disobedience can now be labeled as terrorism.
Status:
This is apparently a result of the "Animal Enterprise Terrorism Act". I looked up the bill and browsed it. It only applies if you are causing threats, damage, bodily harm or economic damage to animal-related ventures.

Economic damage is defined as:

`(A) means the replacement costs of lost or damaged property or records, the costs of repeating an interrupted or invalidated experiment, the loss of profits, or increased costs, including losses and increased costs resulting from threats, acts or vandalism, property damage, trespass, harassment, or intimidation taken against a person or entity on account of that person's or entity's connection to, relationship with, or transactions with the animal enterprise; but

`(B) does not include any lawful economic disruption (including a lawful boycott) that results from lawful public, governmental, or business reaction to the disclosure of information about an animal enterprise;

So if you go blow up a horse track, you can be called a terrorist.

This is not "civil disobedience" as I understand the term. The website I found to get me started on this research showed a bunch of people standing in protest with a big label of "TERRORISTS" over them.

That's misinformation. It's the propaganda machine steering you down a particular path again. Did you fall for it?

The only way those people could be "terrorists" is if the place they were standing in was causing direct harm.

In fact the bill explicitly says:

`(e) Rules of Construction- Nothing in this section shall be construed--
`(1) to prohibit any expressive conduct (including peaceful picketing or other peaceful demonstration) protected from legal prohibition by the First Amendment to the Constitution;

So you can picket all you like. Although I suppose if you were picketing ON THE HORSE TRACK DURING A RACE then it may apply as economic damage, not to mention trespassing.

Of course, nothing in this bill means you can be sent to Guantanamo. You're still just a regular criminal. It looks like the purpose of the bill was to describe extra punishment (mainly fines) for committing these particular types of pre-existing crimes. I challenge you to find something covered in the bill that was not already a crime.

Claim #4:
We don't even have the right to vote -- we haven't met UN fair election standards in years.
Status:
Unknown. I can't find out what "UN fair election standards" are. Obviously this is stemming from the 2000 election debacle in Florida, and the subsequent claims that electronic voting needs paper trails, but I can't find any actual UN "fair election standards" that suggest this sort of thing.

It looks like the claim mainly came from Jimmy Carter. I certainly agree that voting machines should have paper trails but the claim, as is, is a hyperbole at best, and complete fantasy at worst.

Four claims on why America sucks, and not a valid one among them.

This is the propaganda machine at work. Too many Americans are eating it up when there's no substance to it. If that doesn't worry you, it should.

Propaganda Wars Continue

2008-08-25T22:40:00.000-04:00

I saw this gem on Yelp:

http://www.smh.com.au/...

More than 600,000 civilians dead in Iraq alone as a result of the war.

That's about the entire population of Fiji.

And that figure it from 2 years ago. According to Wikipedia, the latest tally is close to 1.2 million civilians.

Well thank goodness he checked his facts with Wikipedia first. Now let's check Wikipedia's facts. What are the casualties like in Iraq? How many people died during the overthrow and capture of Saddam and the subsequent battles against insurgents, foreign fighters and terrorists intent on turning Iraq into the new headquarters for strict Sharia law? Let's see what Wikipedia had:

Survey Iraqi deaths March 2003 to...

Iraqi Health Ministry survey 151,000 violent deaths out of 400,000 excess deaths due to the war. June 2006

Lancet survey 601,027 violent deaths out of 654,965 excess deaths. June 2006

Opinion Research Business survey 1,033,000 violent deaths as a result of the conflict. August 2007

Survey	Iraqi deaths	March 2003 to...
Iraqi Health Ministry survey	151,000 violent deaths out of 400,000 excess deaths due to the war.	June 2006
Lancet survey	601,027 violent deaths out of 654,965 excess deaths.	June 2006
Opinion Research Business survey	1,033,000 violent deaths as a result of the conflict.	August 2007

Wow, 1 million deaths. That's roughly 1 out of every 30 people living in Iraq.

Why are the figures so different? How did they arrive at these figures? I'll go to the source websites for this, not trusting Wikipedia. (Note: I could not substantiate the "400,000 excess deaths" figure claimed to be in the first survey. I searched for "400,000", "excess" and I browsed the report as well as a New England Journal of Medicine report on the report and couldn't find that claim anywhere.)

Opinion Research Business (who??) --

•Results are based on face-to-face interviews amongst a nationally representative sample of 1,720 adults aged 18+ throughout Iraq (1,499 agreed to answer the question on household deaths)

I tried to find out more information, but the link on the ORB website for more information didn't work. I'd like to know more about this "nationally representative sample". But basically they polled 1499 people and extrapolated 1,000,000 deaths.

Lancet:

These three misattributed clusters were therefore
excluded, leaving a final sample of 1849 households in
47 randomly selected clusters.

So they polled 1849 households.

Iraqi Health Ministry survey:

TOTAL NUMBER OF COMPLETED
HOUSEHOLDS 9345
...
Why were female doctors and statisticians chosen as interviewers?
Female doctors were not the only interviewers. Other groups such as female dentists, pharmacists, nurses and technical college graduates were also involved as interviewers. As, in many surveys in Iraq, female interviewers are most suitable and best able to communicate effectively with women. Moreover, in Iraqi culture, women respondents have more trust in female interviewers, as sensitive issues were discussed in the women’s questionnaires. The census enumerator were selected for this work for their accuracy and reliability in recording the household information and in identifying the cluster samples and the household locations.

Top

How do you explain the high response rate for IFHS 2006/7 in spite of the very bad security situations in Iraq?

The household response rate of 98.2% and the women response rate of 98.3% match with the MICS-III 2006 response rate of 98.6%. Also, IFHS teams were required to try three times with each household if they were not successful in finishing the interview the first and the second time. This high response rate was accomplished with the help of community leaders who facilitated the process of interviewing the families.

Interesting.

So the polling agency with the most transparent views into their polling methods and which had the widest sampling by far, resulted in smaller numbers.

Yet somehow, it's the 1 million count from the unknown organization with the broken links that people quote from Wikipedia.

Note also that these numbers are not indicating "civilians killed in combat with NATO troops" but rather, all violent deaths, including terrorist carbomb attacks against civilians.

What about deaths under Saddam? Did we bring these people war and death when they would have been safer under Saddam? He seemed like an okay guy, right? Here's a snippet of information from a news article covering his trial:

Saddam and his cousin, Ali Hassan al-Majid, a Baath Party leader who allegedly organized Anfal, are charged with genocide widely considered the toughest charge to prove since it requires showing their intention was to exterminate part of an ethnic group.

Saddam and al-Majid also face charges of crimes against humanity and war crimes, as do their co-defendants, most of whom are former military figures.

The Anfal trial is likely to take months as well. The campaign was on a far greater scale than the Dujail crackdown, with death toll estimates ranging from 50,000 to 180,000. Prosecutors plan to call up to 75 witnesses and to present extensive documents from the former regime, as well as evidence from mass graves.

Exact figures on death tolls under Saddam will be hard to figure out.

We have to find all the mass graves first.

The Great Conspiracy

2008-08-25T21:20:00.000-04:00

We always hear about government conspiracies -- the government is engaged in a cover-up operation. They manipulate public opinion, they hide the facts. There are many sites dedicated to telling you about the things "the government doesn't want you to know". We are constantly on the alert for government propaganda.

Query:
What if some other organization was engaged in a propaganda campaign? What if their primary outlet for misdirection and misinformation was the internet and the news media? Would you recognize it for what it is?

I submit that there is indeed a massive propaganda campaign taking place in America, one that uses half-truths and disinformation to steer public opinion in certain directions, and odds are pretty good you've already fallen for it.

I spend some time on Yelp. It's an internet site dedicated to reviewing local businesses, restaurants, etc. They have a "talk" section for discussions and it's surprising to me how frequently discussions bring up something that's anti-America. If you attempt to criticize China for blocking iTunes in order to prevent access to the Tibet album, you'll be quickly shushed by people who will tell you about several bad things America has done and that we therefore have no right to criticize China.

This escalated into a private chat with one guy. Here's a snippet from his email:

I think the reason why there's a lot of "anti-american sentimate" is because the america we live in isn't the free country we were raised to believe in. We've lost the right to protest and civil dissobediance can now be labeled as terrorism. We don't have the right to a trial any more. We don't even have the right to vote... did you know that we haven't met UN fair election standards in YEARS?

We don't have the right to a trial? Oh, those evil government bastards have done it again! Damn George Bush and the Republican party! I shall vote for Obama!

Wait.

Let's check some facts.

I know what he's referring to. The "Military Commissions Act of 2006". Long time readers of my MySpace blog may recall this discussion. Let me dredge up the arguments:

Propaganda: "We have lost the right of habeas corpus -- essentially, the right to demand a trial while being detained."

No doubt many of you have heard this.

Did you believe it?

If so, you are a victim of a massive propaganda campaign, this being one small part of it.

But let's make it interesting. What does Wikipedia say?

The November 13, 2001, Presidential Military Order gave the President of the United States the power to detain suspects, suspected of connection to terrorists or terrorism as an unlawful combatant. As such, it was asserted that a person could be held indefinitely without charges being filed against him or her, without a court hearing, and without entitlement to a legal consultant. Many legal and constitutional scholars contended that these provisions were in direct opposition to habeas corpus and the United States Bill of Rights.

Hmm, that's interesting. A person can be held indefinitely without charged being filed? Many legal scholars contend that it's in opposition to habeas corpus and the Bill of Rights? That sounds serious. It sounds like any of us could be declared as terrorists and held without a trial!

What does it say about the Military Commissions Act?

The text of the law states that its "purpose" is to "establish procedures governing the use of military commissions to try alien unlawful enemy combatants engaged in hostilities against the United States for violations of the law of war and other offenses triable by military commission." While the most controversial provisions in the law refer to "alien unlawful enemy combatants", section 948a refers to "unlawful enemy combatants" (not explicitly excluding US citizens).

Oh dear. Section 948a refers to unlawful enemy combatants without specifying alien, meaning it might apply to U.S. citizens?? That is serious!

Let's just quote section 948a and see what it says:

`Sec. 948a. Definitions

`In this chapter:

`(1) UNLAWFUL ENEMY COMBATANT- (A) The term `unlawful enemy combatant' means--

`(i) a person who has engaged in hostilities or who has purposefully and materially supported hostilities against the United States or its co-belligerents who is not a lawful enemy combatant (including a person who is part of the Taliban, al Qaeda, or associated forces); or

`(ii) a person who, before, on, or after the date of the enactment of the Military Commissions Act of 2006, has been determined to be an unlawful enemy combatant by a Combatant Status Review Tribunal or another competent tribunal established under the authority of the President or the Secretary of Defense.

So wait, it turns out that section 948a is the "Definitions" section and the only mention of an "unlawful enemy combatant" that does not specify "alien" is the bit where it actually defines what an "unlawful enemy combatant" IS?

And where is this phrase used in regards to habeas corpus?

SEC. 7. HABEAS CORPUS MATTERS.
...
`(e)(1) No court, justice, or judge shall have jurisdiction to hear or consider an application for a writ of habeas corpus filed by or on behalf of an alien detained by the United States who has been determined by the United States to have been properly detained as an enemy combatant or is awaiting such determination.

So in the actual bill, it says that in order for this to apply, you have to be an alien.

So wait, who is this bill actually aiming at, anyway?

`Sec. 948c. Persons subject to military commissions
`Any alien unlawful enemy combatant is subject to trial by military commission under this chapter.

So, our friend up top suggested that we have all lost the right to a trial. He knows, because a huge propaganda campaign told him so. Told us all. It was on the news.

This sentiment is echoed across the internet and Wikipedia isn't exactly clearing it up for you.

Yet when I go and actually look up the text of the bill and read the whole thing, I see that it doesn't apply to American citizens. Basically you have to be a non-American citizen and you have to be someone who has "engaged in hostilities or who has purposefully and materially supported hostilities against the United States or its co-belligerents who is not a lawful enemy combatant (including a person who is part of the Taliban, al Qaeda, or associated forces".

Does this sound like any of you?

Are you a non-American citizen and have you supported hostilities against the United States? No? Then this doesn't apply to you.

This is a common technique of expert propaganda. They will actually quote for you the sections they want you to hear, which supports their side of the debate, and they will leave out the rest, relying on your laziness to not check their facts. After all, they quoted stuff! It MUST be true!

But hey, don't take my word for it. Look it up. Maybe I'm the propaganda machine! You'll just have to fact check and find out. Don't rely on the press to do it. You think the government is corrupt and needs to have their facts checked, but what about the press? Even NPR?

http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=6161833

If you listen to the story, I think you'll find the wording interesting. I believe he mentioned "alien" only once, and that's after his first statement which seems to suggest that anyone can be declared an unlawful combatant, perhaps implying to the casual listener that any American can be locked away for good in Guantanamo. The story goes on for quite a while about a lot of details which do not apply to any of you. You'd think he'd maybe reiterate that point.

But let's think about what's really going on here and what Guantanamo Bay really is:

It's basically a prisoner of war camp for unlawful combatants.

If they were lawful combatants, they would belong to a military that's part of a country that's at war with America, and when the war is over, we send them home.

Instead, they are "unlawful combatants" -- basically, people who went into Iraq to cause death and destruction without a military and without a national backing.

We can't hold them "until the war is over" because there's nobody to declare peace with, nobody who can tell us that hostilities are over and it's time to release the prisoners.

We can't send them home because home nations like Syria and Iran will pat them on the head and send them right back out to kill more people.

The call for habeas corpus is essentially a call for a trial, but let's think about what that means:

We caught a Syrian combatant in Iraq. And you want to try him in America?

That's just wrong on so many levels. The Syrian police do not get to go to Canada to arrest Americans and try them in Syrian courts. We would bomb the hell out of them for that. Yet many people claim that this is precisely what we should do with our prisoners: try them in an American court for crimes committed in Iraq and Afghanistan against those other countries.

What laws would we even put them on trial for breaking? Iraqi laws? American laws?

IDEALLY, we would send these prisoners back to Iraq and Afghanistan for trial in the courts of the nation where the deeds were done. We have no right to try them. However, if we simply handed them over now, what odds would you place that:
1) They can get a fair trial (i.e., they are not simply executed on the spot)
2) Local security forces can keep them safe (from rescue and from lynching)

So not only is this propaganda driving the public (e.g., YOU) in a hooting frenzy against the American government, but it's actually trying to force the government to do something that is, frankly, very very wrong.

Holding "alien unlawful enemy combatants" as prisoners of war in a camp until such time as we can reasonably hand them over to some more proper authorities is the only reasonable option.

This campaign of misinformation is dangerous.

It's scaring me a lot more than anything I think the government has done.

Before you say, "Oh, but the government did this other thing" maybe you should go look it up and make sure you don't fall for another piece of propaganda.