Duck

I wonder what Mike Vanderboegh's opinions are on terrorism. I bet he'd say he's not a fan. And yet:

Mike Vanderboegh of Pinson, Ala., former leader of the Alabama Constitutional Militia, put out a call on Friday for modern “Sons of Liberty” to break the windows of Democratic Party offices nationwide in opposition to health care reform. Since then, vandals have struck several offices, including the Sedgwick County Democratic Party headquarters in Wichita.

[...] “We can break their windows,” he said. “Break them NOW. And if we do a proper job, if we break the windows of hundreds, thousands, of Democrat party headquarters across this country, we might just wake up enough of them to make defending ourselves at the muzzle of a rifle unnecessary.”Vanderboegh told The Kansas City Star that the action was meant to “get everyone’s attention.”

“What I was trying to get across was that people do not understand how on the edge of civil conflict this country is,” he said.

It's that time again

Link dump!

First off, Marc Ambinder brings us this graphic from Pew on party ID:


I think this is great news. The two-party system is moribund and the lesser its hold on the voting population, the better.

Next: Kevin Drum meditates on torture. An excerpt:

The whole point of civilization is as much moral advancement as it is physical and technological advancement. But that moral progress comes slowly and very, very tenuously. In the United States alone, it took centuries to decide that slavery was evil, that children shouldn't be allowed to work 12-hour days on power looms, and that police shouldn't be allowed to beat confessions out of suspects.

On other things there's no consensus yet. Like it or not, we still make war, and so does the rest of the world. But at least until recently, there was a consensus that torture is wrong. Full stop. It was the practice of tyrants and barbarians. But like all moral progress, the consensus on torture is tenuous, and the only way to hold on to it — the only way to expand it — is by insisting absolutely and without exception that we not allow ourselves to backslide. Human nature being what it is — savage, vengeful, and tribal — the temptations are just too great. Small exceptions will inevitably grow into big ones, big ones into routine ones, and the progress of centuries is undone in an eyeblink.

Whether the point of civilization really is as much moral advancement as physical (what does that mean, concretely?) and technological advancement is, if you ask me, up for debate. But the liberal political project (and I mean liberal not in the American political sense but in the philosophical sense that includes both Rousseau and Burke) certainly argues that it is. Without that presumption the entire structure of liberalism is undone. The American democratic structure is deeply predicated on that framework, and so while I think from a realistic, anthropological, and even historical viewpoint Drum's assertion may be questionable, I think it's useful in terms of this discussion.

Finally: I've been a bit curious about John Huntsman, Governor of Utah, since he revealed that he supports civil unions--who wouldn't be? Utah is about as solidly red as a state can get, and that redness is very cultural. He himself is a Mormon. Finally, as it's starting to seem that he'll run for President, I got myself over to his Wikipedia page and I must say the man holds my interest. I think he falls under that category of politicians whom I like and respect and want to see do well--but not so well that I'd vote for them. I have the feeling that I'm diametrically opposed to Huntsman on most fiscal and economic policy, but I respect the independent thinking (or, potentially, political brilliance) that his social heterodoxy would seem to represent.

It's midterms week here, and I've had two tests, two papers, a B.A. thesis proposal, and the nervewracking act of asking an important professor to be my thesis advisor to handle--and it's only Wednesday night!--so that's all I got. Time now for my brain to be allowed to shut off.

You have got to be kidding me

NYTimes: Both Parties Move to Aid Homeowners.

The title seems innocuous enough. Half of what's in the article is innocuous too.

Apparently the stimulus is being recrafted to include provisions intended to a) help reduce foreclosures and allow bankruptcy judges to renegotiate mortgage payments for homeowners in default, and b) stimulate the housing market because that is the cause of all of our troubles.

A) makes sense. B) is insanity.

The housing market is in a slump because there was a housing bubble. Trying to get people to buy more houses will not change the fact that the bubble must deflate. All you do is delay the inevitable.

There is an argument for doing so--that if you can spread out the pain and make the deflation longer and slower, the economic pain won't be as catastrophic. That's basically the argument for bailing out banks, or it was when "bailing out" implied breaking up businesses, restructuring, selling off bad assets, or anything else that involved dealing with economic pain rather than sending everybody off on a three-month cruise and hoping they all get drunk enough that they won't remember this "crisis" business by the time they come back.

But the problem with that argument in terms of the housing market is that people are not perfectly rational and no one is going to buy a fucking house right now. I don't care what tax credits you throw at them, it's just not going to happen. From the article:

Even though home-building has been depressed for almost two years, the soaring number of foreclosures has continued to drive prices down and kept the supply of unsold homes at extremely high levels.

See? Home-building has been depressed for two years, guys. That's because demand for houses has been down for longer than that. Nobody wants to touch a mortgage right now, and the number of people for whom the government can make a difference on this is negligible in terms of economic healing and/or stimulus.

The article in general is an odd read--it keeps lurching back and forth between reasonable things (make it easier for people whose mortgages are killing them to stay in their homes) and this housing market madness. Ah, but all becomes clear:

But beneath the consensus over helping the housing market, there are huge differences over who should benefit under the competing plans. Democrats want to aim money directly at people in the greatest distress; Republicans want to aim money at almost all homebuyers, on the theory that a rising tide will eventually lift all boats.

[...]

The Republican approaches are aimed much more at boosting the entire housing market, and would only provide indirect relief to families about to lose their homes.

Of course. The Democrats want to do something potentially sensible and the Republicans are yammering on in supply-side clichés.
And--don't forget!--it manages to simultaneously come with a hefty price tag:

But senior Democratic lawmakers are staunchly opposed to the plan, warning that the costs could climb as high as $1 trillion.

It's amazing the duds these people can come out with. This is one case where bipartisan outreach is really, really not a good idea.

All DNC all the time

Schweitzer, Kucinich, and Clinton all delivered barnburners. The three of them each got the audience on their feet and screaming. It was great.

Mark Warner's speech was, I thought, brilliant, but a lot of people seemed to find the delivery boring. I was honestly disappointed in Janet Napolitano and Kathleen Sebelius--I've heard so much about them that I was really looking forward to their speeches, but they didn't hold me.

Looking forward to watching video of Deval Patrick's speech. I've heard good things.

ETA: Patrick was good. I also forgot to mention that Bill looked like he was going to explode with pride and affection during Hillary's speech, and it was nice to see.

Feministe links to a Washington Post series on the working poor.

What's really worthwhile about this one to me, though, is the comments. I am economically privileged, and as far as I know everyone who reads here is in no danger of economic struggle. We hear a lot about downturn/recession/inflation/consumer goods, and it's all very real and true, but what you don't hear are these stories, anecdotes, experiences. There are a lot of highly educated hard-working people--people with spouses and family support--barely scraping by.

The bootstraps are dead, as far as I can tell.

Annnd for some interesting thoughts on the tenuous link between capitalism and democracy/freedom, read here.


Finally, it seems that the new draft of the Democratic Party platform is actually pretty good on several feminist issues. Of course, very little is said about LGBTQ because Obama could hardly give less of a shit, and my faith that much of the platform will translate into action is...less than strong, but at least they said the words.