Me and Steve
July 22, 2006
12:49 p.m.
As I have been know to do, I'm in the middle of a great discussion with Steve Leigh over on his blog. The discussion pertains to the current administration and its various policies. I've promised myself not to get deeply into politics here because this is primarily a place about a writer. But rules are meant to be broken, so what the heck. To put my comments into context, I should say that Steve is proud to be a flaming liberal, and I lean toward the conservative. I am not firmly a republican by nature (technically, I'm registered republican, but that's because a friend of mine registered me at the time), but on the whole their policies have historically fit my opinions more closely than the democrats, and so I often--but not always--vote that direction. In the past I have also voted for democrats, libertarians, and independents in various elections. Blah, blah, blah. I like bouncing ideas back and forth with Steve because he's someone who holds strong opinions, but doesn't let a debate degenerate into name-calling merely because I don't agree with him. In the discussion, I told Steve that on the whole I have far fewer issues with Bush's policies in the Middle East than I do with his internal polices. Steve said he couldn't separate the two, and asked me which policies I meant. So here I am. Here, Steve, are some of the issues I'm uncomfortable with:   Immigration: The administration has shown no creativity or compassion with their "let's build a wall and have some guest workers" approach. Of course, the Dems have not provided any workable solution, either. (This is the problem I have with modern-day democratic politicians--on the whole they have no actionable plans, and tend to base their pitch to me as "those other guys are dirty rotten scoundrels.") Approaches I think would help the immigration situation include things like speeding up the current process of becoming a citizen, providing educational programs for legal citizens in their first year as new citizens, and policing corporate payrolls. Nothing will ever remove the existence of undocumented immigrants, but improving the process of managing legal immigration, and identifying corporations that employ people illegally would make the current system better. Unfortunately the administration's and many of our other elected representatives' positions are summed up by a picture that ran in my hometown's newspaper.  If I think about it enough, this makes me hang my head with embarrassment for the human race. Science: The Bushies get small kudos from me in that they have worked to raise the visibility of the space program. However I think the stem cell veto is logically flawed, and a huge mistake. The US is possibly going to fall very far behind in this key technology as a result of this, and the quality of life of those on the planet will be impacted. Our greatest loss in situations like this cannot even be quantified because the power of science is often leverages upon discoveries that were not even able to be dreamed about until research was performed. I understand the Right to Lifer issues here, and I am sympathetic to their concerns that abortions might be performed merely to obtain "test samples." But I don't believe that situation would occur often if ever. Feel free to disagree, but that's my opinion. In the case of traditional medical science, I'm almost ready to give a big chunk of the government's budget to the Gates foundation and let them run with it. I'll talk more about science in the Environment area. But bottom line, I just don't think much of the Bush administration's use of science in driving policy. Personal Liberty: This is a tough one. I understand and agree with the reasons for monitoring phone lines of calls made to foreign lands. At some visceral level I even support them. I understand and agree with the reasons an FBI agent may want to hold a person without warrant in certain situations. I think we can all agree that we want bad guys caught. At the end of the day, I'm not anti-law enforcement, and don't mind if someone stops me just to check a valid lead...so long as the right thing is done in the end and my life as a whole is not disrupted by it. [Note: I'm assuming here that I haven't done anything wrong!] I would prefer, however, to live in a society where you are innocent until proven guilty, or at least innocent until you actually do something. Anyway...like I say, this is a tough one. The US government has historically reacted quickly to domestic security, regardless of which party is in the White House. The Bush administration has made me uncomfortable in this area--but, then, I think a Kerry or any other administration would have done so, too. Environment: I think Bush should have signed Kyoto, and then worked from within to force developing countries to comply or come in. Or I think Bush should have ignored Kyoto and then pushed to meet even more strict emissions levels. Actually, either way he should have worked hard to achieve stricter emissions levels. I say this with a feeling the Kyoto was a terribly weak--essentially worthless--piece of paper, and without really knowing if global warming science is true or not. I agree that there exists a possibility that the current situation is a cyclic thing (even after having seen Mr. Gore's An Inconvenient Truth). On the whole, though, I believe it is a real problem. Regardless of what you or I believe about the science, though, I take my position because there's really not a good argument to avoid taking direct action to hold back emissions. Instead of taking either of my preferred approaches, the Bush ignored Kyoto and beat his chest about cutting emissions, then really didn't getting anything done. I don't mind that Bush is a cowboy. But when he goes it alone, he better get something done. Health Care/Social Security: I think Bush's health care and social security policies were overly complex and wasteful. The idea of personal social security accounts is probably good, but it doesn't really stand a chance to succeed. So the issue I have with his approach was not that his idea was flawed, but that he wasted his political "capital" on a losing effort rather than working to find a solution that could get passed. Now, I want to address a few things Steve talks about where he can't separate between Bush's internal and external policies. He mentions our budget deficit and things like outing Valarie Plaime. Our deficit was certainly created by the Afghanistan and Iraq missions, but I suspect that the far greater threat to our economic stability is the social security system, and restraining health care costs. If Bush is successful in Iraq, the budget deficit could even be looked at as a long-term investment (though I'm sure few people like to think of it that way, or will consider the US being "greedy" if it is looked at this way). Social security and health costs are essentially running unabated. In fairness, though, these are probably more readily fixed by congress, a no more rosy mechanism. As a related aside, in the Iraq situation, most of what we're seeing right now is the cost side of the equation, which is primarily human lives and some cash. If Iraq can become a stable, healthy democracy, then the long-term benefit to the world could well be worth it. It's a risk, and a real one, but it's a risk I don't feel too badly about supporting. I stand by my opinion that we won't have a real measure the likelihood of our Iraq policy's success until the end of this calendar year. With regard to Valarie Plaim, I have no opinion. I view this situation as pure politics, something democrats and republicans have always relished playing. To suggest one side is any worse about this than the other is, in my opinion, just flat-out missing the point and suggests that perhaps a mirror is required. If (and I use if strongly) the Bush administration purposefully and willfully put someone in harms way merely because that person (or another) was critical of them, then, yeah, it's a scummy administration. But I don't trust anyone else to do much better, either. Steve also said the administration botched of the Katrina evacuation. I agree that it was botched. I think it would have been "botched" by any administration, though, because at its root the government's ineptitude started with the mayor and governor, who, quite obviously were unprepared. Yes, FEMA screwed up, but even if FEMA had been perfectly deployed, Katrina still would have been a total disaster. Bush's biggest mistake was in being supportive of "Brownie." In reality, though, he was just being a good CEO at the time. I'm sure that from his position then "Brownie" looked like he was doing a good job. My opinion of order of responsibility for Katrina's botchment is 1) the mayor/local government, 2) the governor, 3) Chertoff, 4) Brownie, 5) Bush/Congress So, there it is. My first breaking of my non-politics zone rule. Sorry about that. Have a great day anyway, though.  Daily Persistence is © Ron Collins |
|
BACK TO 
|