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Holidays and Hobbits
Saturday, December 22, 2012, 11:38 AM

Earlier this month I fell ill with the horrible flu that is going around and lying abed in misery decided not to pay too much attention to the news for sanity’s sake.  Of course, the space between not too much and no attention leaves plenty of room for discouragement and distress.  Yet the holiday, for me Christmas, means having to look above and beyond the immediate and natural.  I could stand a Facebook level of opinion and analysis, but not a Postmodern Conservative one.  That means I have not read anything much here in weeks.  Apologies to my fellow bloggers, but I cannot bear a clear vision of the political world at the moment.   No looking through the glass grimly right now, but rather seen through the glass smeared through the sweet butter of my holiday baking.

Since being ill, I have been rereading the Lord of the Rings for the umpteenth time.  I have not read it in many years.  My father bought me The Hobbit when I was thirteen years old and the other books shortly after.  I read and reread them in my teens and read them to the children, of course, as did my husband and we would all listen then.  If I did get time to read them for myself, that always seems to be at this time of year. My understanding of the Tolkien books changed when I became a Christian, when my understanding of the battles between good and evil also changed.  They are good stories when you don’t hear the Biblical echoes, but are literature when you do.

I intended to read The Hobbit before going to see the Peter Jackson movie, but it either wandered off of my shelves of its own accord or was wandered by someone.   Jackson takes so many liberties with the plots and themes that not reading the books ahead might make for less criticism.  In fact I did like the movie, despite many deviations from the beloved book.  But Jackson misunderstands Tolkien.  I am not the only one who thinks so.   Still, it is a pleasant diversion and Martin Freeman captures the Bilbo Baggins character, mostly.

We are looking forward to seeing Les Miserables this weekend.  Years ago, my son took an AP English course that had for summer reading a comparison of the Hugo novel and The Fountainhead.  We thought that was brilliant.  When my daughter took the course a few years later, the novels for summer reading were four modern things, Life of Pi was one, not bad books, but far more shallow.  Not that The Fountainhead is particularly deep.  It isn’t, but from the Christian point of view, Rand looks at evil from the wrong way around, as if it were good.  The comparison with Les Miserables gave it depth and we could talk about those books as a family that summer, which was a pleasure we rarely got from the public education part of our children’s educations.

I promise to come back from childish things after the holidays and pursue the difficult questions of life in the new year.  I began a discussion weeks ago that I could not complete, but will when I can face it.

For now, Merry Christmas to all!  May God bless us in the coming year.

 


Refusing the Invitation to Free Enterprise
Tuesday, November 27, 2012, 6:40 AM

Cheering up, a little, with Bill McGurn: “How Obama’s ‘Life of Julia’ Prevailed; Conservatives don’t need to compromise their values. They need to do a better job of selling.”  Many of my friends truly seem to believe that 47% of the US population wants to be in some kind of public assistance.  The only argument I hear against the idea is that we should not say that because it is not a viable political message.  If it is true, why would we not discuss it?  Numbers are an inadequate reflection of reality, that’s why.

I want to begin collecting reasons why “the people” embrace entitlement programs.  I think I am going to put the post out incomplete and work on it for a few days, asking why “The Life of Julia” would appeal to anyone?  Please forbear with me as I muddle through, revise and add to the list with your assistance.

1. Fear: “We have nothing to fear but fear itself” always rang false and silly to me.  However, I do think fear of the world as it is can be a problem.  Modern expectations are so high, so complex, that people are reluctant to engage with life.  Hence, basement boys, but also people who are afraid to attempt life out of or far from the public safety net.

2. Greed: Yet as someone pointed out recently, until a person gets good at gaming the system, greed does not get much scope for those on public assistance.

3. Laziness:

4: Ignorance:

5: I don’t how to label an idea I have that modern society is too difficult for people on the left side of the Bell Curve.

6. Cultural Demands:  If you cannot live to TV show standards, you might as well give up.

I have to go to work now.  Feel free to argue my points and add to them.  I’ll be doing that myself, until I can return.


Sex and the Single Girls
Saturday, November 24, 2012, 10:51 AM

“So today’s would-be Lysistratas need to develop ways of stigmatizing young women who too readily say yes to sex, just as unions do to scabs and strikebreakers. What a feminist triumph that would be.”  says James Taranto, discussing hook-up culture and the arguments about it.

Call this an update to earlier discussions or a segue from Carl’s latest on Damsel’s in Distress.


Turnout and Principles
Friday, November 23, 2012, 2:40 PM

In a way, this piece,  The GOP Turnout Myth, by Kimberley Strassell in the Wall Street Journal is very good to read.  It makes me happy.  I had heard and had been saying that conservatives stayed home and felt terrible about that.  They didn’t care?  How awful is that?  I have also read that voter turnout, overall, is a problem.  “The turnout myth comes from a statistic that has been endlessly repeated: Mitt Romney got fewer votes than John McCain in 2008. This isn’t quite true (Mr. Romney this week eked past the McCain totals), and in any event it is somewhat irrelevant. The Romney vote count reflects a nationwide voter turnout that was down nearly five percentage points from 2008.”

The Democrat’s numbers were way down, too, just not down far enough to lose the presidency.  The battleground states?

Mr. Romney beat Mr. McCain’s numbers in every single battleground, save Ohio. In some cases, his improvement was significant. In Virginia, 65,000 more votes than in 2008. In Florida, 117,000 more votes. In Colorado, 52,000. In Wisconsin, 146,000. Moreover, in key states like Florida, North Carolina, Colorado and Virginia, Mr. Romney turned out even more voters than George W. Bush did in his successful re-election in 2004.

True, Project  ORCA was a bust and the Obama campaign had a better grip on the use of social media.  However, she does not embrace the idea that the medium is the massage.  No, The Republican Party is not addressing the concerns of minorities.  Strassell focuses on the GOP Hispanic voters. “Often missed in talk of the GOP’s ‘demographics problem”‘ is that it would take relatively modest minority-voter shifts toward Republicans to return the party to a dominating force.”  The answer?  Reconsider the message.

Yes, on immigration and to Hispanics; as I have said in comments here, the most prevalent Republican policy on immigrations seems inconsistent with principles about liberty and the value of the individual in society.  We can and should sort those things out, but to say as some critics (even friendly ones) do, that demographics mean that the GOP candidates should not publicly express whatever they believe or think is to assume that the current political implications of the current demography will never change.  We don’t know that.  People change their minds with changing circumstances and with new information.

Byron York says. “The bottom line is that even if Romney had made historic gains among Hispanic voters, he still would have lost the election. That means Romney underperformed among more than just Hispanic voters. And that means winning more Hispanic votes is far from the GOP’s only challenge.”   He contends that Hispanics vote for Democrats for a variety of reasons; only college-educated Hispanics tend to vote for Romney.  “A majority of Hispanics who voted Nov. 6 favored keeping Obamacare. A majority favored higher taxes for higher earners. A majority — two-thirds, in fact — said abortion should be legal.”  Unless Republicans sound like Democrats, they won’t win those folks. The divide is of a different nature. 

Do we need two parties that are alike?  I can think of circumstances where the idea appeals.  Maybe changing circumstances and better understanding of all of the information accessible to us all will bring reasonable Democrats around.   I liked this, written by Katrina Trinko last week, as an apologetic.   Countering the current image of the GOP among the electorate  is the challenge.


The Geography of the 2012 Election
Monday, November 12, 2012, 9:33 AM


Good News, Bad News
Monday, November 12, 2012, 7:52 AM

Supporting my contention that individual Americans will grow the economy almost no matter what our federal government does, a WSJ Review and Outlook looks at “The Hard Fiscal Facts“. “The feds rolled up another $1.1 trillion deficit for the year that ended September 30, which was the biggest deficit since World War II, except for each of the previous three years. President Obama can now proudly claim the four largest deficits in modern history.”  That’s no surprise since the president remains in office based on liberal spending and the resulting good will of the people.  Federal spending is at “about $3.54 trillion, or some $800 billion more than the last pre-recession year of 2007.”

However, look at this, tax revenue still increased, “up 6.4% for the year overall, and at $2.45 trillion it is now close to the historic high it reached in fiscal 2007 before the recession hit….Individual income tax payments are now up $233 billion over the last two years, or 26%.”  Not bad, America.  Those inclined to prosperity manage to prosper despite low economic growth and high unemployment.  No wonder people do not take Republican gloom and doom about the economy seriously.   But consider this, the government stalemate of the last two years, with a recalcitrant Congress restraining the President, may have done more to increase tax revenues than any increase in tax rates would do.

The bad news is that what was “stimulus spending” is now expected spending.  Going forward, there is the promise of even more spending to come through Obamacare and other election promises.  We must figure how to handle that, the worry being that the president’s proposed tax rate increases could kill the current actual tax influx.  However, look at what we have.  The people returned to Congress a Republican majority, all of whom ran on promises to restraint government spending.  This, while returning a president and senators committed to increasing spending.   What the people elected was political drama.  Right now, that’s good news.  They can argue and America can get along with its business.

 


Going Forward
Saturday, November 10, 2012, 3:11 PM

Enough with the wailing and gnashing of teeth, already.  Complaining about the neighbors doesn’t improve the neighborhood.

Half of eligible voters didn’t vote and the half that did was divided pretty evenly.  Two percentages points seems like so little, although given the size of the US, the numbers are sizable.  A million here, a million there and pretty soon you are talking about a lot of people.  What astonishes me is the absolute hooey that people believe about Republicans, conservatives, the federal government, law, the economy, the poor and the rich.  That is staggering.  Possibly, that is reflected in the election results, although to say that is to insult at least a quarter of the electorate.

My granddaughter asked me yesterday if it was true that Romney was responsible for the breast cancer deaths of thousands of women.  “How could he be?” I asked, “When was he ever in a position to be so responsible?  Who said that?”  Her friends did and said their parents were voting for Obama because of that.  “How was he responsible?”  She said no one knows, but they all think he is evil.  Besides, he’s a Mormon and that is really bad.  Her teacher said so.  Did the child misunderstand what she heard?  I don’t think so.

I’ve heard that Romney would make all women quit working and stay home.  Who said that?  The political science professor in the room next to mine at the community college.  That wasn’t the only absurd he said, either.  Romney would make the use of contraceptives illegal.  Who said that?  Many women I know were adamant about that.  He would make abortion illegal, too.  As if a president could dictate that.  “How do you know?”   The women on “The View” said so and everyone knows it is true.  “Did he say it?”  He must have said it.  Everyone knows that is what he would do.

America is awash with information, much of it false.  Who is educated enough to discern?  Maybe no one, not even the educated.  Once, conservatives thought that more influence on the culture would answer these problems.  Create media outlets to express the conservative voice, proclaim the conservative point of view.  We’ve done that.  The Internet abounds with conservative talk and there are so many conservative magazines one must make choices as no one with a job could read them all.  Then, as Pete notes, Fox News is full of it’s own kind of hooey.  I can’t stand to watch it.  Can you?  It is entertainment, successful as that, and subsequently, hard to take seriously. Persuasion by that means has not been effective and looks to be counter-productive.  What’s next?

I don’t know, but I do know that no American wants the country to fail or really wants to endure a financial and social apocalypse.  We will all do all that we can to avert that, if only for ourselves, our families and our friends.  The rich, who the administration says it is determined to eat, really have no where else to go in the world to be as comfortable.  They won’t be eaten, of course, because the president, the hungry senators and congressmen and their most supportive friends are also rich.  Just as has always happened, there will be legal ways to protect wealth and the most truly wealthy, the rarities like the Buffet or Gates, know or have hired people who know how to shield wealth most throughly.  They’ll be all right.  But that’s what America just voted for, while telling itself it was voting for something else all together.

I suggest that the only way left to Americans to ensure prosperity is to trust to Adam Smith’s Invisible Hand.  It really works, for the most part, no matter what system of government or economy is extant.  Individuals each doing his best to survive and prosper will not totally prevent hardship, or perhaps not prevent hardship at all.  They, we, will ensure that most of us survive, because we take care of ourselves.  No matter what foolishness is done as a result of political foolishness that is said, people tend to keep their wits about them and get through hard times, sometimes thereby averting truly hard times for all in the process.

“Take back America”?  We’ve got America, but so have our neighbors.  We have no choice but to share.  Conservatives have to figure out how to live with the ones who see the world and American politics much differently than we, as well with the near half of the country who may not be looking or thinking about the world or our politics at all.  Or if they are looking, are so dissatisfied that they will not play the game at all.  At the moment, do you really blame them?

 

 


What! Again?
Friday, November 9, 2012, 7:12 AM

The morning reading about politics is all about the realization that America, despite complaining about the inefficiency of a divided legislative branch and a president constrained by a House controlled by the other party, voted for just the same again for the next two years.  We like the president well enough, or didn’t like the other guy enough.  But we don’t want him to be able to do anything he says he wants to do.  So we elect congressmen to constrain him.  That’s funny.  Ad yet we have been complaining about just this kind of government for the last two years.

I hope you all like John Boehner.  I do.   He is in an unenviable position right now.  Conservatives must look to him to hold the line on so many issues, especially taxation, and yet politics in Washington will go beyond the pressure on him and Republicans in Congress to compromise.  The pressure will be all about capitulation.  Here’s something for the president to consider, that Bill Clinton is well remembered as president because he did compromise with a strong Republican Congress.

Then I read Peggy Noonan, who is demanding a big “rethink” of Republican policies, ideas and attitudes after complaining for a few paragraphs that Romney didn’t run on ideas and policies.  What she does best here is sum up post-election confusion.  In that sense, she exemplifies much of the Right. I prefer what Pete said, “How Republicans win over growing constituencies while keeping their limited government commitments is going to be harder. ”

The talk about the effect of Hurricane Sandy is apropos here.  I’ll be interested to see how voting patterns worked in early voting states like mine.  Elections are a snapshot of politics in time.  But political scientists ought to be able to track how people voted over most of the month of October between heavy absentee voting and early voting.   I sensed a shift in attitude during and after Hurricane Sandy.  We might be able to see if that is true.  Am I right?


The Election from my Corner of the USA
Wednesday, November 7, 2012, 2:04 PM

If I am reading the results correctly, in the precinct where I worked as a poll judge yesterday, turnout was high.  We had a ten minute lull of no voters at midday in a day that began when the doors opened at 6:30 and went until the doors were locked at 7:30.  None of us had seen anything like this before.  People came out to vote.  And Ohio had early voting.

Based on my precinct, I’d say the 47% that Romney spoke about turned out in force, as did blue-collar voters.  Call that the blue-collar and no-collar vote that pressed Obama’s victory home?  There were union buttons and badges very much in evidence.  There is a trailer park, a big one, in the precinct and at one point a woman in line turned around and said, “Is all of ————— Trailer Park here?”  This morning an email asked, “Isn’t America rational anymore?” and I think it is, but being rational can be about self-interest.  Republicans were asking people to look to the future and that is a very personal prospect for most of us.  The issues were clear and the majority voted for a government of dependence.

Do we know this, that we will have at least two more years of the kind of government we have had for the last two?  My husband’s favorite comment this morning was that John Boehner now becomes the last statesman of the Western World, the bastion of reason.   What Pete says below about the mindset conservatives must adopt in the future has been true.   However, given the results of this election, the president will have a Republican House of Representatives, and especially  Boehner, to kick around and blame when disastrous presidential policies become — well, disastrous.   What is this coalition I keep hearing about?

Republicans are a minority, but not by much.  Last numbers I saw show a difference of a about a million votes nationally.  That’s what, 1%?  That’s not that much, though it is the margin for defeat.  Maybe it is a time to snooze and let the politics of the Left create enough problems (as in the late 70s) that America gags on them.   I wish I could not look at our politics for the next couple of years.  Yet I was never able to snooze when I was hiding my head under the covers.   Good luck with that for you, Pete.

 


Election Day in Ohio
Monday, November 5, 2012, 9:36 PM

Part of my probably excessive sense of civic duty is the compulsion to work as a judge at the polls during heavy elections.  This year, I will be a presiding judge in a local precinct.  The wonderful lady who used to do this job is old and ill.  Only a fool signs up for a grueling 15- 16 hour day for, as a friend put it, “the big bucks” and I forgot to ask about that.

I went to the Board of Elections for training less than a week ago.  The rules have changed  since the last election.  Some things could be open to challenge.  Even as the nice BOE official was fast-talking me through procedures, some some key points sounded almost designed to wreck havoc.

John Fund notes some the problem.

This year for the first time, Ohio officials mailed every registered voter in the state an application for an absentee ballot. A total of 1.3 million applications flooded in, and to date some 1.1 million, or 85 percent, have been returned. But many of the rest won’t be mailed before the election. So what if the voters who failed to send in their absentee ballots show up at their polling places on Tuesday asking to vote

They will be allowed to, but only by provisional ballot in order to make sure they don’t vote twice.

Actually, the answer to every question and every problem for poll workers on Election Day will be the provisional ballot. “In addition to provisional ballots, some 20,000 or more absentee votes that arrive after Election Day will remain uncounted for ten days.”

That’s not all.  Ohio is now an early voting state, in the interests of making elections more open and accessible.  The Secretary of State authorized early voting, which has been available to voters since October 2, but it was to end a few days before the election.  This seemed sensible, to allow election officials to cope with the practical problems of preparing for Election Day.  But military votes would still be coming in and that wasn’t fair as judged by the Supreme Court.  Ohioans could vote until 2PM today.  That sounds fair, doesn’t it?

The BOE has not had time to tally the absentees of the weekend.  We have a list of voters who have already voted in our bag of election materials (it is sitting in the back of my car) and in the morning, in the hour we have to set up, we must find those 200+ names of early voters in the poll book and apply stickers next to the names.   By the time the polls open, we will have another list of the people who stopped in to vote yesterday.  That, in addition to the worrying about the absentee voter applicants who misunderstood the nature of the mailing from the Secretary of State and are marked as having previously voted in our voter lists.  Room for confusion?  Room for fraud?  Room for accusations of fraud?  Sure, and plenty of room for simple error on our part, as well.

Fortunately, as of the afternoon, anyway, no UN observers seem to have signed up to watch us in Hambden Precinct D.  We’ll be checking id, addresses and scrutinizing signatures.  We open at 6:30 AM and close the doors at 7:30 PM, arriving an hour earlier and leaving a couple of hours later.  It’s a long day.

 

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