Threads from Henry's Web

Category: Politics

  • Wondering About Executive Pay

    I’ve been fighting a nasty cold this week, and thus blogging and reading less on the internet and watching much more TV than usual. The experience has reinforced my low opinion of the value of television news as information.

    But this really, truly is going to be a short post. I mean it.

    There are lots of good questions regarding the auto industry bailout, such as why we’re willing to bail out the financial industry but not the auto industry. How about doing none of the above?

    But here’s my question. What is sustaining the high rate of executive pay? We have very highly paid executives, making in the millions, riding companies down to failure. It seems to me one could hire a recent business school grad, for example, who would be willing to ride the corporation down in flames for considerably less money. If these guys were that much smarter, i.e. as smart as their pay would suggest, one would think they would have greater success.

    There seems to be something other than the market working here, but I can’t quite see what it is. Perhaps it’s simply a disconnect between the boards that hire the executives and the people who don’t buy the product. But normally that kind of reward should come from some kind of great performance.

    In reality, of course, the amounts of executive pay are just a minor portion of the money that is being poured into bailouts. But the principle, I think, may be much larger. High rewards are being paid for failure. As consumers and as voters, that is something we need to oppose, irrespective of the amounts of money involved.

  • Thinking about Business Regulation

    The current financial crisis has been cast as a failure of the left by the right, and failure of the right by the left. Did laissez faire capitalism fail or was it excessive taxation or regulation? Perhaps it was a combination.

    I use “left” and “right” here strictly in the context of capitalism, with “right” being those who espouse a maximally laissez-faire position, and left being those who favor government intervention. My own position is moderate in that I am willing to look at all points on that spectrum, but I lean strongly to the right in terms of solutions. I favor the economic solution that most depends on the general will of the participants in the economic system expressed in the way the spend their money, not in the way they vote at the ballot box.

    I should note here for honesty’s sake, as well as to irritate those who can be irritated, that I see neither capitalism nor democracy as absolutes in and of themselves. They are both strategies used to accomplish something in particular. This means that I oppose socialism (in the sense of government ownership of the means of production, not in terms of progressive models of taxation), not because I think the idea of government ownership is morally bad in the first place, but rather because I believe socialism works poorly in appropriately distributing economic goods.

    Similarly, I see democracy as one tool in helping to prevent tyranny, but I don’t think it is all that effective by itself. I would have no problem with various means of limiting or redistributing voting rights, provided those are evenly and objectively implied. The U. S. electoral college and the senate are both violations of pure one-person-one-vote policy, and I support both. I also don’t have any objection to literacy tests or to property requirements for voting, except that they have rarely been applied with an even hand, and I think human nature suggests they are unlikely to be.

    Having thus thrown out a couple of inflammatory ideas not really related to my topic, let me proceed! My assumptions here, which I am not going to support in detail is that fraud prevention and infrastructure building are legitimate functions of government. Further I’m not an ideologue who holds a priori that government can’t do a certain thing. If an activity of government truly benefits its citizens, including not producing unacceptable side-effects, I wll accept it. In practice I generally believe that limiting government action to carefully circumscribed zones is better.

    I think there is an important distinction that needs to be made as we think about government regulation or supervision of market activities. Process is important, and the principles that underly our action are also critical. The temptation, to which legislators almost always yield, is to write a law that prescribes results. In presenting such a law to the public, it is the results that are emphasized. You don’t generally see bills titles something like – “A Bill to Hire 10,000 New Regulators and Cause them to Swarm over the Banking System.” No, the title will be more like – “A Bill to Ensure Honesty in Banking” or something similar. (Examples are intentionally very generic.)

    In the financial markets, we tend to get regulators looking to see to particular results, such as particular rations of assets to liabilities, certain levels of stability, guarantees of funds for depositors, and so forth. Not all of these goals are bad.

    An alternative is to look at regulation from the point of view of the honesty and transparency of the process itself. In other words, rather than making sure that a bank cannot cross a particular line, aim at making certain that the public will know when the line is crossed, and focus enforcement on going after those who misrepresent.

    Extreme capitalists may object to the additional regulation, but see no similar problem in, for example, requiring that someone who manufactures toasters is actually delivering toasters. If such a company instead delivers clever plastic models of toasters that do not do any toasting, that is fraud.

    Similarly I should be able to walk up to a building with the word “bank” on the sign, and assume that I am dealing with something recognizable as a bank, rather than say a junk security marketing service or something similar. It’s simple to tell whether the toaster company is delivering toasters. It’s much more difficult to determine whether the bank is what I would traditionally regard as a bank.

    When deregulation came along, this is an issue that I think was not adequately addressed. Banks were restricted from doing certain activities that were generally viewed as risky. Deregulation permitted such activities. So in effect we changed the definition of “bank” as applied to a business name from one thing to another. This deregulation was viewed as more capitalism. I would suggest that in some cases it was simply an abdication of the very proper role of capitalist government in preventing fraud.

    I think there are many regulations that might be explained in either way–as a prescription of results, or as preventing misrepresentation. But I would be much happier if, as we consider how to keep markets more stable, we tried to emphasize providing investors with accurate information (including such infinitesimally small investors as myself) over simply preventing them from taken risks that they intelligently choose.

    As a final note just to annoy a few more people if possible, I question the function of the stock market as it is constituted. I have no idea how one would change it, but right now it seems to me to be falsely labeled. It should be called the Stock Casino. I have no objection to legalized gambling, but I’d like gambling to be called gambling, and investing to be called investing. Unfortunately, there is a certain amount of gambling in investing, and there can even be investing in gambling. But could we try to draw a line?

    OK, in the near future I will return to subjects on which I have greater expertise. I promise!

  • Not so Much with the Cabinet Surprises

    I’ve been watching television with a certain amount of amusement as various reporters try to create news and then discuss the news they’ve created with reference to President-Elect Obama’s cabinet and other appointments.

    But what interests me is the great surprise that the president-elect may appoint former rival Hillary Clinton as Secretary of State. Besides the fact that their foreign policy views are really quite close despite efforts to distinguish them during the primaries, she clearly has strong leadership skills. At first I wondered why she would want the position, but then I considered that, should she run for president again, it would be nice resume padding. That is besides the basic notion of public service.

    But what most of the commentators, even those who strongly supported Obama during the campaign seem to be doing is assuming that he can’t lead a strong cabinet. They’re concerned about how she’s going to take foreign policy leadership away from him.

    Now I have no way of being sure that he can manage the nation effectively. There is a certain amount of risk in voting for anyone for president, because there really isn’t anywhere to get experience of the same type. But I wouldn’t vote for someone if I didn’t at least have strong hope that they’d be able to do the job.

    I’m sure the the president-elect wants Hillary Clinton in his cabinet because he believes she can provide strong leadership in foreign policy. I think he is not afraid to appoint her because, unlike some of his supporters, he actually believes he has the leadership skill not just to run for president, but to be president. I think he believes that he can shape the group of strong personalities he is gathering into fulfilling his vision.

    I could be wrong, obviously, but I also think he can do it. If I hadn’t have thought he could do it, I wouldn’t have marked a ballot for him on November 4, apparently unlike some vocal supporters today.

    We all need to chill out and actually let this new leader take some actions as president before we start to panic because he’s not going to fulfill his promises, or because strong subordinates in government are going to run away with policy.

  • Quick Thoughts on the Economy

    As an exercise in brevity, some things that occurred to me while watching political TV and reading the blogs:

    • An economic expert is one who provides the arguments that allow me to get what I want. An incompetent economist is one that says I can’t have it.
    • The entire argument is based on need. The financial sector needed capital, the automakers need money to get through this situation (however long that is), the country needs the auto industry not to collapse.
    • I hope someone is asking just what it is that is going to make any of these sectors come out of the spin. They aren’t going to do it because we need them to.
    • If a company is borrowing money to build a factory, that’s hopeful. If a company is borrowing substantially to cover cash flow, that’s dangerous. It doesn’t change if the government is lending the money.
    • It’s interesting to see the difference between the folks in the white house and those in congress. Bush is asking for things that a very similar to what Obama wants; congressional Republicans want to say no. (I’m with the congressional Republicans on this, though I doubt they’ll be at all consistent.)

    It doesn’t look good!

  • Republican Role: Defend Capitalism?

    In an MSNBC story today Senator Jeff Sessions, from our neighboring state of Alabama is quoted:

    Fellow Alabama Republican Senator Jeff Sessions also opposes helping the auto industry. “Once we cross the divide from financial institutions to individual corporations, truly, where would you draw the line?”

    Just a second here. Line? What line? Look in your rear view mirror. That thing way back there, practically out of sight? That’s the “line.”

    You see, congress may have passed a law providing relief to “financial institutions” but the actual money goes to–you guessed it–corporations. But the line was crossed many years ago when the government decided to rescue Chrysler, after which Lee Iacocca was known to run about posing as a champion of capitalism.

    I’m not a purist on capitalism, but I do think we need to realize what we’re actually doing. The most socialist actions we’ve taken recently are not proposing minor chances in the structure of redistribution as provided by the tax code. It’s in these gifts of capital to private industry.

    It’s good that Republicans are working on opposition to this type of activity, though I don’t think they will be very successful. There’s too much fear in our economy right now. I noted during the election that I was in kind of a reverse of the rest of the country. I thought I’d give McCain an edge on the economy and Obama the edge on foreign policy–not that McCain had a large edge.

    So what do I think ought to be done? Personally I would not directly aid these industries at all. We have a problem in this country regarding deficit spending, but most importantly we carry out deficit spending on projects that will not produce anything later. In other words we borrow money from our children and grandchildren with no prospect other than that we will have to borrow some more from their children and grandchildren in order to pay them back.

    But deficit spending is not necessarily bad in the short term. What is bad is when deficit spending becomes essentially eternal, when we will carry on building the deficit even when an emergency is past.

    Two elements would be necessary in any plan for me to feel unqualified support for it. (Note that I’m aware that nobody is waiting for my unqualified support!) First, it would have to accomplish goals that I generally think can be accomplished well by government, such as building infrastructure. (I include basic education as an infrastructure issue, so building schools would be acceptable.) Improving this country’s infrastructure would have the potential of improving our economy down the road, providing those infrastructure projects were well chosen.

    Second, we need a commitment to ending the spending, and making a corresponding reduction in either taxes or in the deficit (depending on how the work was financed) when the mission was accomplished. I have little hope that such a commitment would be made and kept, but since I’m writing almost entirely about fantasies–nobody’s going to do this stuff–why not fantasize about that as well.

    In the meantime we’re going to be stuck with debates on whether we are giving money to “institutions” or “individual corporations” carried out by people who ought to know better. Or perhaps they do know better but don’t feel like admitting it.

  • Measuring Media Fairness

    A corollary of the fundamental idea of a free market is caveat emptor, let the buyer beware. I look at that from a slightly different angle than usual, not as an indictment of the free market, but rather as a statement of its driving force–the decisions of buyers. As a buyer, you vote every day on what will succeed and what will not.

    Regarding the media, both Republicans and Democrats seem unwilling to accept this necessity, and to believe that it works. To their credit, the Republicans do not seem to be advocating new regulations at the moment; they are simply complaining as buyers that the product is not to their liking. Some Democrats, on the other hand, are calling for the fairness doctrine to be re-enacted especially to deal with talk radio, which is an area that tilts strongly to the right. This is one of the many reasons that, while I left the Republican party some years ago, I never became a Democrat. I do not think either party favors freedom in a reasonably consistent manner.

    I might as well pick on two bloggers, though the information is all over the blogosphere right now. Elgin Hushbeck, Jr. wrote in his election Post Mortem that:

    . . . In fact as a recent Pew Research Report showed, the only major network that showed any sense of balance was actually the nemesis of the left Fox News, which had equal percentage of negative stores on McCain and Obama, and slightly higher percentage of positive stores for Obama. On the other hand on MSNBC over 70 pecent of the McCain stories were negative, compared to only 14 percent for Obama.

    On the Stones Cry Out blog, Doug wrote:

    The adulation given to Barack Obama was far more than can be accounted for by his historic run for the Presidency. . . .

    Now my gut feeling is that the coverage was not fair and even, but I have serious problems with the manner in which that fairness is being measured. Counting positive, negative, and neutral stories does not seem, without much broader context, to be a very accurate method. One would first have to establish a base as to what was the correct ratio, and I think it is very difficult to find an unbiased way of establishing that base.

    My gut feeling depends on my idea of what fairness would be, what stories would be relevant and what would not be. I then compare that to the portion of the media to which I listen more, which is admittedly more left leaning (more MSNBC than Fox, for example, and no talk radio at all), and as a result I get the strong feeling that the sources I watched didn’t balance it out all that well. Most commonly, I watch via the internet clips of the stories I regard as relevant. After watching a number of shows from start to finish, I’m very much convinced these clips are the only way to go with news stories–then I get to set the ratio according to my prejudices!

    The question is just what is the correct ratio of stories. Let me illustrate. If a reporter were writing about the Alaska senate race, in which one candidate was convicted of multiple felony counts and the other was, well, not so convicted, what is the proper ratio of stories? If we come back to the McCain/Obama race, another accusation is that the media favored process stories over substance (which is also my gut feeling).

    Assuming for the moment that the numbers and my gut feeling are correct, out of those stories, what was the proper ratio? I would suggest that the Obama campaign provided much less “process” fodder than did the McCain campaign. Bluntly, I was interested in almost none of it, but that doesn’t answer the question about the ratio.

    Besides talk radio we now have the blogosphere to try to bring various stories to our attention, but again, in most cases where I looked, while blogs bring in material that doesn’t make the mainstream media, very often it is less vetted, and less relevant than the mainstream media’s material. Since Republicans seem to have been on the short end of the stick, let me note that most of the stories of which they wanted to see more coverage, would have simply gotten me as a viewer to change the channel. I already knew about the abortion votes, Ayers, Rezko, and Wright during the primaries.

    I was also uninterested in stories of book bannings at the Wasilla library, unless someone could produce something more than an alleged conversation. I wasn’t concerned about who prayed for Governor Palin in her church. I’ve had people lay hands on me and pray who hold views I would certainly oppose, and I’m sure it will happen again.

    In other words, there was a great deal of material in the election that I found quite irrelevant. One thing of which I am quite certain is that two categories of stories got way more mention than they deserved: 1) Candidate associations, and 2) Political process.

    But why was this? I’m going to suggest that very few voters are willing to watch through a serious dissection of the policies of one candidate or another. Republicans who have talked to me wonder how I could favor Obama over McCain. Invariably they will bring up several topics such as government spending, redistribution (the socialism charge), and freedom of speech (campaign finance being an example). Those issues were a wash as far as I was concerned.

    The problem here is simple. The Republicans do not represent responsible fiscal policies. They do not oppose redistribution, and their candidate is one of the great proponents of campaign finance reform. A solid examination of the issues would bring all of those points out. One of my greatest objections to President-Elect Obama is the combination of his support for public financing of campaigns with his decision to opt out of the system. He practiced what I preach, but he didn’t practice what he preached.

    But the specifics of such a discussion are not the most important thing here. There was information available on all of these things. People complained that they didn’t know what candidates, especially President-Elect Obama, stood for. I don’t believe we have any major reason to doubt the general outlines of the policies espoused by each candidate. You would have a hard time finding out, however, if your only source of information was television news.

    And a note to my Republican friends (and enemies). If you think Joe the Plumber and the whole related discussion constituted discussion of the issues, you’re in trouble. But there were a bunch of people who wanted to watch that, so there it was.

    Which is where I get back to the free market. I think the media, and the television media in particular, do a much better job of reflecting the votes of their customers than we give them credit for. Debating the fairness of the various outlets is an appropriate exercise in order to try to change the market share of the various outlets, but not in order to pretend that it is the fault of the media that one candidate loses or wins.

    The media coverage is the fault of the market, and in this case I think the market is doing quite well. Barack Obama’s campaign with its internet driven fundraising, however, will point the way not only to a greater freedom in terms of political money, but also to a greater variety in the media. The weakness in the market is that minority positions can be driven out simply because they don’t have a large enough constituency–yet. That’s true of physical products as well. An inventor of a device that is only intended for a tiny percentage of people has to find the right outlet to reach those people who will listen.

    On that basis third parties like the Libertarians or the Greens have much more to complain about. Or not. You can’t have market share until you have market share, just as you have to have money in order to make money.

    I think it’s a good idea to look at media fairness, as long as it doesn’t turn into advocacy of government control, such as the fairness doctrine. It’s a good way to try to persuade people to vote with their channel changers–the one appropriate way in which to control expression.

  • Education and Forced Labor or Public Service

    Mark has issued a kind of challenge in his things heard post today on Stones Cry Out, regarding the Obama administration’s intent to require public service in high school and college and improve it everywhere else.

    He points to this post by D. A. Ridgeley at Positive Liberty which quotes Change.gov as saying:

    The Obama Administration will call on Americans to serve in order to meet the nation’s challenges. President-Elect Obama will expand national service programs like AmeriCorps and Peace Corps and will create a new Classroom Corps to help teachers in underserved schools, as well as a new Health Corps, Clean Energy Corps, and Veterans Corps. Obama will call on citizens of all ages to serve America, by developing a plan to require 50 hours of community service in middle school and high school and 100 hours of community service in college every year. Obama will encourage retiring Americans to serve by improving programs available for individuals over age 55, while at the same time promoting youth programs such as Youth Build and Head Start.

    Having gone to Change.gov itself, I found this:

    The Obama Administration will call on Americans to serve in order to meet the nation’s challenges. President-Elect Obama will expand national service programs like AmeriCorps and Peace Corps and will create a new Classroom Corps to help teachers in underserved schools, as well as a new Health Corps, Clean Energy Corps, and Veterans Corps. Obama will call on citizens of all ages to serve America, by setting a goal that all middle school and high school students do 50 hours of community service a year and by developing a plan so that all college students who conduct 100 hours of community service receive a universal and fully refundable tax credit ensuring that the first $4,000 of their college education is completely free. Obama will encourage retiring Americans to serve by improving programs available for individuals over age 55, while at the same time promoting youth programs such as Youth Build and Head Start. [emphasis mine]

    . . . a somewhat different thing.

    Now I don’t actually suspect Ridgely of misquoting. I actually suspect Change.gov, and whoever is managing it, of revising. Perhaps a little checking would prove the difference, but since I have no problem with them revising, assuming they did, I’m not going to bother. In fact, I would hope that such proposals would see revision over time.

    The two versions serve to illustrate my view. The version as quoted on Positive Liberty is one I would vehemently oppose. Simply requiring college students, for example, to do 100 hours annually of community service would, in my view, be involuntary service. On the other hand, the version I found on Change.gov this morning is one I would almost entirely support.

    Here’s what I would support:

    • Expanded opportunities for service in areas where it’s needed
    • Tuition support (tax credit or provided in some other way) in return for a level of community service
    • A stated national goal of community service for students

    If the government is paying for your schooling, I have no problem with you being required to serve. In fact, if I had my way all forms of government provided tuition support, including loan guarantees, would have some sort of service requirement attached. If corporate America wants the service of graduates immediately, they can come up with some of the cash required for tuition.

    On the other hand, if you are simply attending school (and I think requiring this at any state institution would be much too sneaky), and not asking the government to provide the support, then it is entirely inappropriate to add some sort of national security requirement. I oppose the draft. I would oppose this. On the other hand, I do not oppose (and in fact I used) benefits in education resulting from military service, and I would not object to providing such benefits for civilian type service programs.

    Thus I will not provide an apology for the proposal as quoted at Positive Liberty. I would regard that as coloring well outside the lines. But the proposal as currently stated is one I would find acceptable and even positive.

  • Reflection after the Election

    Since I had decided long ago what my vote would be, and the man I thought the better (though not nearly perfect) candidate won, it was enjoyable for me to watch. I really don’t want to dwell on the details.

    The greatest problem for President-Elect Barack Obama may not be any of the crises with which he will need to deal, but rather the huge number of hopes, some of them contradictory, which have been read into his person. His election is an historic accomplishment, but as he correctly pointed out in his victory speech, last night was not the change. Last night simply provided the opportunity to accomplish the change. The work starts now.

    Any politician discovers that the promises of the campaign trail, even when sincerely meant, are very difficult to deliver. Actual government involves working with many people and it requires compromise. Compromise is, well, compromise. But in Obama’s case, many people have filled the words “hope” and “change” with their own dreams.

    I disagree with those who say that Obama was undefined. He made enough policy proposals so that we can know what he wants as well or better than we can with other politicians. But by simply seeming bigger than the moment and than any one person to so many, he has the burden of much more than he actually tried to promise.

    Senator John McCain, on the other hand, goes back to the senate. In 2000 I hoped he would be the Republican nominee and I would have voted for him. In 2008 he appeared to be the fractured candidate. I believe his greatest failure was in not running a campaign as his own person.

    The urge to draw in the base of the Republican party conflicted with many of his own views and positions. One thing every political operative should know is that you have to put a message in your candidate’s mouth that your candidate can present successfully. John McCain never presented the attacks on Barack Obama in a convincing manner.

    I’m not one who objects to negative campaigning simply because it is negative. Rather, a candidate needs to know positively why he is the best person for the job, and negatively why the other guy isn’t, and he needs to present both cases. Adding a conservative candidate to the ticket doesn’t necessarily bring all that candidate’s potential supporters to you, and it doesn’t guarantee you won’t lose any of yours.

    The bottom line here is that almost any message, consistently presented, would be better than shifting message from day to day. McCain couldn’t decide how far to go with attacks because, I believe, his heart wasn’t in them.

    I wonder how it would have worked for him to campaign as who he is while letting Sarah Palin campaign as who she is, while simply stating that he had chosen to broaden the ticket and that the Republican party was big enough for both of them. It would go against conventional wisdom, and I have no basis for saying it would work, but I wonder if it could be worse. Governor Palin sounded sincere in the attacks. I don’t particularly like her, even though I did at first, but she does have a voice and a natural audience.

    In any case, I sincerely hope that McCain will now become part of a center oriented group in congress that will work with President-Elect Obama to give him an alternative to working solely with the left. McCain returned to the man of 2000 in his gracious acceptance speech. These speeches may not mean much, but I hope they do.

    As always, I will pray for the leaders of our country, all of them, as they face many difficult problems.

  • Reflection before the Election

    I have been fascinated by politics for as long as I can remember. The first presidential campaign I recall thinking and talking about was in 1968 when I was 11 years old, though I had certainly read and talked about many. There was never any doubt that I would register to vote as soon as I was eligible and get involved.

    My first political involvement was working for the 1976 campaign of Ronald Reagan. I’m not one of those Republicans for Obama, nor an Obamacon. In fact I have some difficulty understanding how conservatives decide to support Barack Obama. I support him because I have have become much less conservative, and the elements of conservatism that were important to me back then, especially fiscal conservatism, seem no longer to be of that much interest to Republicans and/or self-proclaimed conservatives. They talk, but they do not do.

    Reagan’s 1980 campaign was a disappointment to me. I had already moved a bit to the left on social issues by that time, and Reagan was de-emphasizing his fiscal conservatism and proclaiming supply-side economics.

    Barack Obama compared himself in a small way with Ronald Reagan early in the campaign and was criticized for it a great deal. It’s quite true that he is not Ronald Reagan. But there are some similarities in the campaigns and their progress. Many people, especially serious Republican operatives, could not understand us “Reagan Republicans” (I have never been a registered Democrat–I went from Republican to Independent). We had an incumbent president, and surely nobody would throw away that advantage over a newcomer. Reagan was new, unpredictable, dangerous in foreign policy. We couldn’t be sure what he would do.

    Gerald Ford, on the other hand, was a known quantity, stable, certain, reliable, a “real” Republican. How could one not want him to continue in the presidency? He represented safety and reliability, things that conservatives (and Republicans in general) should surely want. These were folks, of course, who also thought that Nelson Rockefeller was just fine as well. It was establishment Republicanism.

    All us young pups with fire in our eyes didn’t see things that way. You see, we thought Gerald Ford was doing a bad job, that things were not getting better. We didn’t think sticking with him was the same thing. If you’re on a river boat headed for the falls, the guy who’s steering straight for disaster just doesn’t appear all that safe! Some other, less experienced candidate, but one who at least intends to turn around seems much safer.

    I also heard some of the same shock from people at Reagan’s victories, both his near success in 1976 and his victory in 1980. He was just an empty shell, they said, a good speaker, but he really didn’t understand what he was saying and doing. There was an effort both to portray him as untested and inadequately defined, and at the same time as espousing dangerous policies.

    I see the same thing going on in this election. I am not one to trust the polls. I also don’t think people generally pay enough attention to the margin of error and the possibility of a poll simply being wild. Thus I’m not proclaiming victory. But I do know that many people right now are still quite stunned that so many people support Barack Obama. I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again: Experience is an argument you use against someone you have already decided to oppose.

    Obama can be both “dangerously liberal” and “very much an unknown” at the same time. That’s the nature of the political debate. But I think those who pay attention can know pretty much who Barack Obama is and what his policies will generally be. He’s a liberal senator. He has made fairly liberal proposals, and he will, I assume, be a liberal president.

    That doesn’t mean he won’t reach across the aisle to build consensus. I think simply being in the presidency requires that to some extent. But don’t expect a sudden conversion into another person. He’s not an empty suit. He has fairly strong positions, and he’s likely to pursue those.

    I’ll just add one more thing. I have learned during this election just how much further from the social conservatives and the family values folks I actually am. I’m afraid I share very little of their agenda, and in general I don’t find the most vocal “family values” groups to be all that pro-family. It’s not that I have just now changed. It’s just that I paid more attention to them during the election season and found very little to cheer.

    Tomorrow we will vote. I urge you, no matter who you support, to get out and vote. It is a right, a privilege, but even more a responsibility. Don’t sit back and refuse to engage. There are significant differences in what will happen depending on the president and congress we elect. There will also be many, many substantial issues in state and local elections as well. Don’t be a shirker!

  • In Which God do we Trust?

    They say a picture is worth a thousand words, and I’m never one to shrink from producing a thousand words–or ten! I wonder what a video is worth? A certain number of words per frame?

    In any case, I wrote earlier about God being mocked in the campaign and I even commented on how “In God We Trust” on our money must be some sort of national joke, considering that we don’t really trust God as a nation, and we do so in our financial affairs least of all.

    Now comes an image that’s worth every bit of it:

    A Golden Calf?
    A Golden Calf?

    You can find some more pictures and even video of some singing and (almost) dancing (Exodus 32:17-19) around the calf here.

    In relation to this, consider the following ad from the Liddy Dole campaign in North Carolina. Hear the part about “In God We Trust” on the money? What on earth is “godless money” anyhow, other than, of course, money that we put ahead of God and thus make into an idol.

    Well, that was probably easy to go through than a few thousand words!

    HT: One Thing I Know. Also to Dispatches from the Culture Wars for the video.