Political Cartel

Let me get straight to it.  This plan to bail out the auto industry—again—is a mistake.  I’m very disappointed that this is the route Barrack Obama has chosen to begin his Presidency (I know he’s not the President, but Bush is a lame duck).  It would be one thing if Detroit hadn’t been bailed out before and this was a fluke, but this has been happening since Carter.  Even Reagan tried to protect Detroit.  Our automobiles are some of the worst in the world.  We are not good at making them anymore thanks to the UAW.  It’s time for our economy to move forward.  Let the Japanese make cars.  

Pelosi and Obama are wanting to require that these automakers make more green-friendly cars as a condition of the bailout.  All that is going to do is push them even farther towards bankruptcy.  They are not good at that kind of stuff.  The WSJ had an interesting article today about the Volt from GM, a car they say will make them no money.  Its a terrible car.  You have to charge it six hours to get 40 miles of purely electric driving.  It costs more than 40,000 dollars.  For those not using the gasoline, they will have to pump the gasoline out of the tank after a few months because it goes bad.  Yet, they are sort of forced to produce this stupid thing.

I say let GM, Ford, and Chrysler go bankrupt.  Not because I hold to a heartless survival of the fittest you can only let something so entrenched get so bad.

This election and all the issues surrounding it have definitely been beaten into the ground.  I am looking forward to getting back to other political and philosophical things on the blog that aren’t just obsessed with day-to-day election issues.  But this seems like a good way to cap it off (for me, anyway).  I feel sorry for John McCain.

McCain seems like a relatively decent human being.  I liked a lot of what he stood for and I liked a lot of what he stood against for years in the Senate.  I respected him as an independent politician and a compromiser.  He was able to cross lines and work with his ideological opponents.  He always seemed like a fairly genuine person.

However, McCain was never cut out to be a national-level politician.  He obviously hates all the things that go along with it - the endless public speaking, the press, the fundraising, and the need to attack.  He performed quite poorly on all of these, and I feel bad for him.  I imagine that for the past several weeks, McCain lay in bed right before he fell asleep and asked himself why he ever signed up for this.  I think he hated it.

Steve Schmidt is thought to be the one who primarily directed McCain’s campaign toward the aggressive and the negative side.  Schmidt was brought in to tighten McCain’s message, which had been scattered.  But instead of tightening it around a single theme, Schmidt waffled between disparate attacks on Obama - none of which stuck.  Throughout the campaign, McCain tried to label Obama as too inexperienced, too naive, too unknown, too popular, too elitist, too radical, too liberal, and too socialist.  McCain and Schmidt never produced a cohesive message for their own campaign, and the endless attacks got old.

“Country First” doesn’t count because it was just a slogan on the posters.  It was never a theme of the campaign.

McCain’s style never seemed to be that aggressive, and I think it went against his nature to run a campaign so focused on the attack.  He must have remembered how nasty the 2000 primary was when he ran against George W. Bush with Karl Rove directing the shots against him.

McCain was also forced against his own wishes to bring Palin onto the ticket.  It seems that he wanted Lieberman, the independent (”maverick”) Democratic Senator to be his running mate, but he was afraid of a mutiny from social conservatives.  He buckled under the pressure and, at the last minute, called Sarah Palin to invite her to join him.  As the campaign went on, Palin turned out to be a terrible choice.  In the end, she went absolutely off the deep end, and it is clear now that there were deep rifts between her and the rest of McCain’s campaign.

I think McCain is simultaneously one of the saddest and happiest people in the country today.  He has known for a while now that the election was essentially over, and it hasn’t been a fun last few weeks for him.  Nobody likes to lose something so publicly and so spectacularly, but he must be breathing a sigh of relief now that it is over.  It is a shame that his reputation as an accomplished maverick Senator is tainted by this very negative campaign that failed.  I feel sympathetic for McCain today.

Of all the various smut going ’round about Obama and why he should not be leading our country, I think the most popular reason (other than his propensity for infanticide…really?) not to vote for this candidate is his “socialist tendencies”, leading straight towards communism. The McCain camp has been pushing this for quite a long time now; it’s probably the most-discussed aspect of Obama’s capabilities as president by his opposition. Now, I’m not saying that Obama is a socialist or a communist, by any means, but one question comes to mind whenever people bring this up: what, exactly, would be so wrong with him if he was? Clearly, since this is a democracy with a lovely incorporated system of checks and balances, Obama could not completely undermine the country with new methods of egalitarianism or making “everyone belong to everyone else.” I would go so far as to say that the so-called “socialist/communist” policies of Barack Obama would have a much lesser societal effect than those of Jesus Christ and the apostles in the early church.

I realize that not many people are thrilled with having their saviour vaguely associated with the likes of Mao, Stalin, and Marx, but I’m not saying that Jesus was a socialist or a communist, simply that he identified with some of their principles. While he did not advocate the state regulating the economy and equally distributing the funds to everybody, it would be silly to conclude that Jesus did not want the poor to be looked after by those of higher means. If you take away the forcedness of communism, is that not the same basic ideal? The rich caring for the poor until we all meet in the middle and everyone has enough to care for his/her own needs? A better example of this, and one that is therefore cited more often, is of the early church in Acts 4.

“All the believers were one in heart and mind. No one claimed that any of his possessions was his own, but they shared everything they had…There were no needy persons among them. For from time to time those who owned lands or houses sold them, brought the money from the sales and put it at the apostles’ feet, and it was distributed to anyone as he had need.”

I find it fascinating that there can be passages like this in the bible and people just skive right over them and continue to live their lives for their own selfish gain, sometimes condemning those who do give freely and often. How amazing would it be if we lived in a society where everyone was truly equal, and whose needs could be met as soon as they were acknowledged?

Now, I’m not so idealistic that I don’t realize that could never happen in our current governmental structure and with our society in general. All I’m saying is that someone who suggests some policies that would affect the betterment of our overall society to heal some caustic wounds (poverty, lack of universal health care, a horrible public school system, etc.) should not be disparaged for being too “radical,” especially by Christians who follow the doctrines of one of the most radical persons to exist in human history.

We want to welcome our two newest authors, Heather McIntosh and Becca Burley.  These two will be among the next generation of writers for Political Cartel.  This blog will continue to thrive and provide the the blogosphere with intellectual content coming out of Harding University for years to come with authors like these.  We thank them for answering our help wanted ad and we are excited to see what they bring to this blog!

Heather is a sophomore English and History major from Bellevue, Nebraska. She writes on her own Livejournal blog, and has been a reader and commenter of Political Cartel for a long time.  Heather is articulate, passionate and opinionated, and enjoys expressing independent views.  Heather reads books ravenously and enjoys debate on a wide range of issues.  After graduating, she plans on attending law school in Boston.

Becca is a sophomore English and History major from Searcy, Arkansas.  She has written on a private Livejournal blog and a public Blogspot blog for about a year. She identifies as an Independent with liberal leanings.  Becca may seem quiet in person, but she loves to express her thoughts in writing, and brings a lot of unique insight to the relevant religious and social issues today.  She is especially interested in feminist studies.  After graduating, she hopes to get her masters in Library Sciences and spend the rest of her life working around books and writing on Sex and Gender in the Church.

There is no doubt that the river of patriotism and state interest is running high right now. With the presidential election less than a week away, many people are turning their attention nationally.  The ongoing, rather ridiculous, debate about which presidential candidate is more patriotic has perhaps reached its apex. Peoples’ interest in the well-being of the United States is at a level only matched by the oozing levels of patriotism present during 4th of July celebrations.  Just today, I overheard a group of people talking about the “love of country” and the virtues of nationalism (they didn’t exactly use the phrase virtue of nationalism, but that’s what they were getting at). I might have even heard John Winthrop’s name dropped.  So I thought this would be an opportune time to throw around some ideas that have been bouncing around my head about nationalism and humanity.

Nationalism is an intriguing concept.  Its gravitational force binds people together; it gives a sense of “us-ness” and civic pride.  It seems rather natural that human beings identify with those of similar background, culture, language, and the like.  Nationalism serves as the unifying glue to this natural phenomenon.  However, nationalism has a very negative side effect, in that it is inherently exclusive; it inevitably creates an “us vs. them” complex.  It is arguable that nationalism (with a mix of religion) is a cause of most, if not all, major conflict in the world.  This happens because nationalism acts not in the best interest of humanity, but in the interest of the state and its citizens.

Thoughts such as these are definitely not new.  Tzvetan Todorov, a philosopher and literary critic, wrote an essay on Rousseau entitled frail Happiness.  In it, Todorov explores the three types of individuals that Rousseau discusses throughout his writings:  the patriotic, state-interested citizen; the self-serving, solitary individual; and the transcendent, moral individual.  It is the third individual that Todoroz identifies within Rousseau’s literary expose Emile as both the superior individual and the only model that can lead the individual, and ultimately humanity, to a true, yet frail happiness.

Todoroz states in his explanation of human society and the state, as they relate to Rousseau’s moral individual, that…

Human society is no longer a matter of a single country but the entire species.  Recall the parallel between Socrates and Cato.  Socrates, who inhabited the entire world, was the incarnation of moral virtue, or wisdom.  Cato, the patriot, embodied greatness, or civic virtue.

He quotes from Emile…

The less the object of our care is immediately involved with us, the less the illusion of particular interest is to be feared. The more one generalizes this interest, the more it becomes equitable, and the love of mankind is nothing other than the love of justice.   The more his cares are consecrated to the happiness of others, the more they will be enlightened and wise and the less he will be deceived about what is good or bad.

Essentially, Todoroz says that human wisdom is not the quest for but rather the forgetting of oneself.  This will lead to an instance of enlightened self-interest.  Meaning that the more one looks to the betterment of others, the better one becomes themselves.  He quotes more from Emile:

The good man orders himself in relation to the whole, and the wicked one orders the whole in relation to himself.  The latter makes himself the center of all things; the former measures his radius and keeps to the circumference.

The moral individual will therefore live in society, but he will not totally alienate himself to a society.  He will respect his State but devote himself to humanity…  Through these ties with others the individual will exercise his universal spirit, and therefore his virtue.

This Rousseauian principle is not at all dissimilar from the Christian principles of denying oneself for a higher cause and serving others before oneself.  What Todoroz explains, and what genuine Christians agree with, is that the particular, such as the state or society, cannot be seen as the ultimate end; something higher and universal than oneself or one’s state must be sought after.  It destroys the “us v. them” complex and replaces it with a unifying “us” scenario.  The moral individual attains happiness through others, not himself.

Of course, I am not blind to the fact that the moral individual model is a bit far fetched and idealistic.  We live in a world dominated by egoism, selfishness, and power.  However, I believe that too often the concept of a unified humanity is marginalized in favor of state interests, patriotism, and power. Rousseau’s critique of the citizen and exaltation of the moral individual is a good defense against the follies of nationalism.

Though I consider myself a political moderate, I have consistently been the most conservative writer on this blog.  I supported McCain being the president for several months.  However, I have recently changed my mind on who to support in this election, and here’s why:

1. Sarah Palin

Sarah Palin is one of the very most disgraceful candidates seen in a long time.  Without a shred of national policy expertise (even in energy policy), she is increasingly seen as a solely political pick.  I was excited when I first learned of her.  I thought it was great that a woman was having the chance to run.  That changed drastically as soon as I heard her speak.

Sarah Palin is stunningly ignorant of the most relevant issues facing our time.  Her ignorance conspicuously extends to financial markets, Eastern European foreign policy, Israeli-Palestinian relations, jurisprudence, and much more.  She has no new ideas.  She is not a good debater.  She is not a uniter.  She does little more than recite the official Republican sound-bites as she thinks of them.

Even if Palin was not frighteningly close to the presidency, she reflects awful judgement by McCain.  I would nearly vote for Obama for the sole reason that McCain picked her.  But I have at least seven more reasons.

2. The Middle Class

Without question, the middle class of America is going to take the most direct blow from our financial collapse.  These people are not the couching-sitting welfare earners.  These are people that are paying college loans, working fifty to sixty hours a week, barely paying off mortgages, taking risks by running small businesses, and trying to be productive and contribute to their communities.  Yet, these are the ones who are going to be squeezed the most.  They are going to be losing jobs, shutting down their small business, downsizing their health insurance premiums for them and their children, increasingly taxed to bail out the financial markets, and worrying everyday about their job security.

The liberal community has for awhile now said that the Reagan trickle-down economic system does not work.  That’s only half true.  While the middle and lower classes receive a less proportionate share of the benefits of upper income growth, the majority of the crap trickles down to them in economic slow-down.  This means two things.  First, it is important that the upper class is allowed to prosper.  Second, it is important when it is certain they won’t be prospering to provide some means of protection for the middle class.  They are the ones that taxes hurt the most.    

Barack Obama has made the middle class the central component of his campaign economically.  I’m normally not huge on making the upper class the scapegoat for economic problems and tax burdening but these are not ordinary times.  I have doubts over McCain’s ability to take care of the middle class.

3. Foreign Policy

I have always been afraid of a McCain foreign policy.  I see huge losses in Russia, China, Iran, and Pakistan under a McCain presidency.  The man is not schooled in diplomacy and thinks from a Cold War paradigm.  The only reservation I had with Obama on foreign policy was his insistence on leaving Iraq during the surge.  The surge is over now and the two candidate basically have the same views on Iraq and Afghanistan now.  Obama has a much better chance of restoring credibility to our country in the eyes of the world.

4. Social Issues

I also had reservations about Obama’s social beliefs.  I am pro-life and he is not.  But when I really think of it, the Republican Party had a majority in both houses of Congress and the Presidency for four years.  In that time, they did absolutely nothing to make America more pro-life.  I have no reason to believe that McCain-Palin would do anything to change that.  Especially with a Democratic majority in both houses at this time.

Additionally, Obama and Biden have both stated that they oppose gay marriage.  This leads me to believe that they will not make social issue policy any worse than what I believe it to be.

5. Transcending Race

Barack Obama has great potential to improve race relations in this country.  I honestly don’t think that gets talked about enough.  I have always considered that one of Obama’s greatest strengths.  He has renounced most of the dogma of black nationalism and has embraced unity, non-violence, and hard work in the black community.  He gives young African-Americans a greater sense of hope in this country that hard work can lead to achievement.

6. Political Intelligence

If I have learned one thing from the last eight years, its that we need highly intelligent people running our executive branch.  I believe Obama to be much more capable of interpreting and adapting to facts presented before him.  And he does not oversimplify most things.  McCain is fair when it comes to intelligence.  Sarah Palin is poor.

Barack Obama was supposed to be the underdog in the debates.  Conventional wisdom was that John McCain was better at thinking on his feet.  Obama clearly played it safe in the debates; he had much more to lose.  But McCain had everything to gain, yet he failed to demonstrate that he had anything more substantive than Obama, that he had any unique insight, that he was any more equipped to handling complicated issues.  What he really did was offer more of the same.

Sarah Palin is even worse.  Her lack of political intelligence frightens me because there are many times when the correct course of action is not instinctive.  Yet I feel the passions of the moment are going to get to her the way they got to Bush we when declared war on terrorism and went headfirst into Iraq.  I can hardly take four more years of low political intelligence.  It was bad enough for the last eight.

7. Campaigning

Barack Obama ran a superior campaign to John McCain’s.  It was far more focused, organized, positive, and relevant.  Not that Obama was perfect in this regard, but McCain used a significantly greater amount of scare ads that are little more than divisive and distracting.  He struggled to find a central message to deliver and never stayed with any idea very long (nothing worked very well).

Obama’s campaign organization was impeccable and engenders a much confidence in his ability to manage organizations, a task which is not unimportant in being the President.

8. Lack of Confidence

One great problem in our economy is lack of confidence.  Regardless of how sound Obama’s policies might be, the fact that they are different from past policies gives at least some level of hope that better things are ahead.  If society lacks confidence in the stability of our financial markets, we will never get back on track.

Writing is very therapeutic.

For the politically inclined, writing has always been an outlet for the wide range of beautiful human emotions. Every four years, this beauty gets taken to a national level as we humbly gather at a roundtable (seatbelts included) and blog it out.

However, there are moments when our fervor is too much for words and, frankly, too dangerous for public forum. What then?

For all of those times when we’re overcome with that urge to grab a dry erase marker and draw cat whiskers on Barack Obama or scuba gear on John McCain, one company has finally given us hope: Decorate Your Candidate

I’m going to hand these out to my “friends” who don’t vote in November but still try and exert their opinions.

I am and have been one of the world’s leading Apple supporters for a while now.  But I’m not too thrilled that John McCain’s and Sarah Palin’s speeches are the only video podcasts on the entire iTunes Music Store that are having problems downloading right now.  In light of McCain’s resurgence in the polls and enormous tv ratings during his and Palin’s speeches, I have a suspicion that some dirty deal went down between Apple and the Democratic Party.  Apple has always seemed like a liberal-leaning company to me.

I detest hot weather.  It’s too hot for jogging, one can’t legitimately drink hot drinks without confessing to a  caffeine addiction,  and my extensive scarf collection goes to waste.  But even more than all of these things, I hate it when people turn their air conditioning on so high that I get cold inside!  What do I wear when I leave the house: something that’s comfortable for the outside or the inside?  What does it say about our nation that I’ve taken to carrying sweaters with me in steamy Tallahassee, Florida, in July?

I would like to proudly publish here that our own thermostat at home rarely goes below 83.  At night, we use ceiling fans and a box fan in our respective rooms to stay nice and cool.  Yes, it gets rather too warm sometimes, but it saves a lot on utilities.  A recent article in Time by Joe Klein proposed that everyone immediately adjust their thermostats up 5 degrees in the summer and down 5 degrees in the winter.  If everybody in the country did this, we’d save roughly 20% of our energy devoted to heating and cooling.  Granted, put together that’s only about 11% of our energy expenditure, but it’s a relatively small sacrifice for individuals to make.  Additionally, that’s something we can all do right now, even though the dreaded GWB is still in office.

Klein claims that in 2006, the US spent 4 quadrillion BTUs on AC, which is more than the total energy usage of all but 21 countries.

So, what’s your thermostat set on?

And, anybody got any more suggestions for living greener?

(Coming soon: the case against frequent showering…….Gotcha.)

The Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty of 1968 is the international communities attempt to prevent the proliferation of nuclear weapons. Since its introduction, 189 countries have become party to the treaty. There are two classes of signatories: nuclear weapon states, including the U.S., the U.K., Russia, China, and France, who were pre-NPT nuclear powers; and non-nuclear weapon states (all the others). The 4 nations not party to the treaty are India, Israel, Pakistan, and North Korea — all nations with nuclear capabilities.

Article six of the NPT states that all nations party to the treaty, both nuclear states and non-nuclear states, “pursue negotiations in good faith on effective measures relating to cessation of the nuclear arms race at an early date and to nuclear disarmament, and on a treaty on general and complete disarmament under strict and effective international control.” Bear in mind that the entire point to the NPT is too see to a proliferation-free international community.

Does the existence of the Nuclear Weapon States completely undermine the purpose of the treaty? I believe so. It is essentially a double standard and is the reason why nations like Israel, India, Pakistan, and North Korea have no incentive to be a part of the treaty. If they wish to sign onto the treaty they will be pressured to dismantle their nuclear capability, which to the leaders of those 4 nations seems a bit irrational.

Furthermore, when nations like the United States actively pursue “mini-nuke” programs under the leadership of the Bush Administration it serves to further undermine the legitimacy and solvency of the treaty. Even more, it overthrows the U.S. stance of non-preemptive nuclear strikes, because “mini-nukes” have no other purpose than use for preemptive (or possibly preventative) low-level strikes. This subsequently sets a dangerous international precedent and encourages other nations to take similar steps.

Will nuclear weapons ever be completely eradicated from the international system? I don’t imagine any time soon and perhaps for good cause. As international theorist Kenneth Waltz dictated in his article Nuclear Weapons: More May be Better, in the realist international system the presence of nuclear weapons actually stabilizes the system and acts as the strongest deterrent known to man. It is hard to disagree. A nation that possesses nuclear weapons is virtually immune from invasion and is given a higher degree of international leverage. What state leader wouldn’t want nuclear weapons? Would a nuclear Iran help to stabilize the Middle East and force the U.S. to deal with them purely diplomatically?

The point is that the NPT is perfect in the land of utopia, but is wholly quixotic in a realist international system.