Author: henry

Do we really want our politicians to work together?

I caught a few minutes of an interview with former Senator Danforth of Missouri, who commented that “the people” want their government to work, they don’t think it is working, and that they would like their politicians to work together. Now I like Senator Danforth, which was why I stopped long enough to hear his interview. (I’m afraid I don’t even recall the network.) But I think a lot less people want politicians working together peacefully than say they do.

What they really want is for politicians who agree with them to succeed at their goals for for all the other politicians to work with their favorites. Now don’t get me wrong; I’m sure there are a number of people who actually do want politicians to work together in a bipartisan fashion. I just think there are less of us than the polls would indicate.

If you want to know where you stand on this ask yourself how many issues are litmus test issues for you. For example:

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NASA has announced plans for a polar moon camp which would be a start to full time living on the moon. I got this story a number of different ways, but I want to provide a special hat tip to The Evangelical Ecologist, who has commented on the potential value of this plan and technology in providing energy and other resources for life here on earth.

This provides us with an excellent example of the often overlooked fact that sound ecological policy and technology are not necessarily enemies. In the short term we may seem to benefit from ecologically unsound use of technology, but in the long term it will always cost us dearly.

Careful and wise use of technology, however, also provides the solutions.

This story about Afghanistan and the opium harvest, which has reached a record high this year reminded me of one of the problems with reporting the drug war.

We tend to report on the huge amounts of drugs that are stopped. What we don’t comment on so much is how many drugs are getting through. It’s a bit like Vietnam when we reported body counts but paid much less attention to the new live bodies that were replacing the dead ones. It’s time to do some rethinking, both in Afghanistan and here at home.

As long as there’s demand for drugs, there will be supply.

Well, I’ve written about a couple of posts by Joe Carter over on the evangelical outpost when I disagreed with him, so I ought to write once in a while when I agree! This morning he posted a truly wonderful write-up on opinion polls.

It has been said that “figures lie and liars figure,” but that is not precisely accurate. It is not that the figures lie, but that they allow us to compile and present them so as to make the combination of many truths turn into a lie. The major problem with polls I believe is that they are either poorly designed, or their results are given a meaning in presentation that they don’t actually possess.

So many people are so weak at math, and so unused to thinking with any precision about the data that they are easily mislead. One of my favorite means of statistical deception is the “on a scale of one to ten” question. Ask any sample of people to rank some issue from one to ten and then average the numbers and you will get what appears to be a very precise impression of the views of that group of people. The impression, however, is largely false.

I recommend a couple of books: How to Lie With Statistics, which is old, but still very relevant, and Damned Lies and Statistics, which is more recent and also covers major issues in more detail.

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It appears that some evangelicals don’t like the idea of Barack Obama speaking at a church. He’s been invited by Rick Warren of Saddleback Church to speak at a conference on AIDS. The reason? He supports abortion rights. (See the story on MSNBC.com.)

I wanted to call attention to this on two levels. First is the desire of some Christians (and note “some,” not all or even most) to close down lines of communication and listen only to those people who agree with them. It is not unlikely that many of the people who listen will disagree with much of what Obama believes, not only on abortion, but also on many other issues. Any issues of partisanship should be put to rest by the invitation to Senator Brownback of Kansas, not precisely one of my favorite people, but quite correct on this particular issue. Those who protest simply hearing from someone they disagree with do not do Christianity any favors.

There are a number of reasons why I am looking favorably at Barack Obama myself. Obviously as an independent who stays out of the primary process, I am nowhere near becoming committed to a candidate, but he has taken some interesting steps. One very positive thing, I believe, is that he is encouraging liberals to talk about their faith. There are a lot of people of faith who are liberal, but their existence is often obscured by some of the noisier folks.

I’m also mildly annoyed that we have this lengthy story about the fact that Senator Obama will speak at this event, but that is the sole topic of the coverage. It’s amazing to me what simply announcing candidacy can do to make one newsworthy. The material to be debated at the conference and the fact of the conference itself are substantially less newsworthy than is the participation of one particular politician.

I guess we’ll need to get used to this kind of coverage over the next couple of years. Journalists have very little feel for substance and so focus on ever minor issue and speech. Journalists are at least as much to blame as political operatives in lowering the level of public debate.

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