Mr. Moderate

… “no man’s life, liberty, or property are safe while the Legislature is in session.”
Judge Gideon J. Tucker, Final Accounting in the Estate of A.B. (1866) [1 Tucker 248 (N. Y. Surr. 1866)].

Congress has reopened the can of illegal immigrant worms many thought had been buried a couple of weeks ago. It seems that more than 60 senators have agreed to go forward with the current bill provided two dozen amendments are considered before a final vote is taken. It isn’t the least bit clear what all is in the two dozen amendments or what chances of passage any of them or the bill itself might actually have. During the last go-around, one significant amendment was enough to get a majority to refuse to go any further with consideration of the bill. If it gets through the Senate, it will move to the House, where the Democrat leaders can use any number of tricky rules to ram the mess through without any real input from an extremely upset American public. So, for those of us who oppose this stinky diaper of a bill, this week’s prospective set of votes in the Senate is somewhat “do or die.”
Continue reading ‘Immigration Redux’ »

I hate to harp on the housing crisis but several new articles came out today and if you didn’t know what the underlying story was you might tend to believe that everything was well here in America. The housing market will not be cured for many months, and perhaps years to come. However, that does not mean that certain local markets might not experience a short-term boom on occasion. If you are “flipping houses,” there may yet be some room to maneuver if you are in the right market. But sooner or later, if you are not careful, you will get caught holding the bag and one bad deal can destroy all of your profits.
Continue reading ‘Denial Is Not A River’ »

Back on May 6 (Don’t Get Your Bubble Burst!) and again on May 16 (Housing: Whistling Through The Graveyard) I wrote about the ongoing collapse of the housing market in the United States. On Tuesday, June 19, USA Today wrote a length piece which verified what I had said earlier: the optimistic statements were wrong and things were settling in for a long decline (Subprime storm winds will keep blowing). The scope of the problem is clear from that article:

Home foreclosures in Minneapolis doubled in 2006 and are on pace to double again this year.

…

The Mortgage Bankers Association predicts that adjustable-rate subprime foreclosures, already at a record, will rise into 2008, …

If I can give any prospective homeowner a word (or two) of advice, it is this: be conservative!
Continue reading ‘Housing Nightmare Settles In’ »

I am just a poor boy.
Though my story’s seldom told,
I have squandered my resistance
For a pocket full of mumbles, Such are promises
All lies and jests
Still a man hears what he wants to hear
And disregards the rest.
– The Boxer by Paul Simon

If you want to understand religion, just ponder the first verse lyrics for The Boxer a bit. It is the perfect allegory of mankind against the universe, and man’s inhumanity to our fellow creatures.

The preacher class always serves the political ruling class. If they don’t, then one or the other is rapidly discarded. A few centuries ago, the habit among the ruling classes was that the eldest son was trained to be the heir to the ruler (or “landlord” in some sense of that word), the second-eldest was trained for the priesthood (to become, eventually, a bishop of a rank befitting of his father’s status), and the third-eldest and any subsequent sons were trained for the army (officers, of course; and again, the ultimate rank achieved and the rapidity of promotion would frequently depend upon the rank of the father). Thus did the ruling classes of Western Civilization perpetuate their values to subsequent generations.
Continue reading ‘Understanding Religion’ »

We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness. … That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed, … That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness.

From the Declaration of Independence

From the above we can discern that our founding fathers felt it was appropriate to have a government which would:

• Protect the life and safety of its citizens;
• Protect the liberty and freedom of its citizens; and
• Protect the happiness of its citizens and their ability to pursue additional happiness.

All-in-all, those would seem to be pretty good reasons for people to have a government.
Continue reading ‘Why Have A Government?’ »

One of my major complaints against President George W. Bush is his egregious blurring of the line between “terrorists” and people, groups, and nations who are merely “enemies.” You see, the whole problem for President Bush is that it is very difficult to find some particular activity engaged in by “terrorists” which has not also been engaged in by the United States or its agents at some point in the past half-century. Thus, if we apply the Bush definitions to the United States of America (USA), then the USA is a “state sponsor of terrorism.”

I mention this because, after the recent Hamas takeover in Gaza, it appears that the USA, Israel and its allies are scheming to cut off water, electricity, food, fuel, and everything else supplied to Gaza on the grounds that Gaza is under control of “terrorists.” This of course misses the point: there are 1.4 million men, women, and children trapped in Gaza and the efforts just discussed seemed designed to terrorize them all, or to even kill them all for lack of food, water, health care, and any other “necessities of life.” I know that President Bush has no heart, but what about the rest of the world? Is there nobody out there who will dare to call Bush and Israel “terrorists” for preventing the Palestinian people from surviving this decades-long occupation and seige by Israel? Isn’t this really a Palestinian Holocaust in the making? WHERE IS THE OUTRAGE, WORLD!
Continue reading ‘Hi, Fellow Terrorist!’ »

President Bush and his military leaders (presumably acting under Bush’s orders as Commander-in-Chief) are streaming out hopeful words about the prospects for the US troop surge making things better inside Iraq. However, the BBC reporters on the scene in Baghdad offer this gloomy assessment:

One measure of how bad things have become is that Western diplomats will no longer visit the Iraqi Defence ministry, even though it is inside the Green Zone.

In fact, militia infiltration is believed to be such that no-one walks anywhere in the Green Zone for fear of being snatched off the street.

So, if the coalition cannot even guarantee its own safety in the heart of its power base, what hope for the rest of Baghdad?

The so-called “Green Zone” is the heart of the US occupation, and is heavily walled, fortified, and guarded by American troops. So, if things are getting to be that bad in the “Green Zone,” then it really is legitimate to ask not only what hope there is for Baghdad as a whole, but what hope is there for the whole of Iraq?
Continue reading ‘Where The Surge Is’ »

For a long time now, BBC reporter Alan Johnston has been held captive in Gaza. With the recent takeover of all of Gaza by the Hamas movement, Hamas has announced efforts to free Johnston. You can get the latest details on the BBC web site by clicking on the image.

The only way we can make good decisions is by relying upon facts, not propaganda or fantasy. Good reporters need to go into difficult situations to gather actual facts. Alan Johnston is just one of many brave reporters who has experienced personal tragedy due to his willingness to brave difficult circumstances. The group Reporters Without Borders keeps tab on those who suffer for daring to bring the truth to the public. As of this minute, that group reports that in 2007 (so far), 45 reporters have been killed, most of them (27) in Iraq. In addition, 125 reporters remain in prison for alleged crimes associated with their reporting. It seems like powerful interests find it to be better policy to imprison or kill the messenger than to fix the problem(s) that confront the people of the world. We must all do what we can to change this.

One thing is already certain about the 2008 election results: there will be fewer moderates elected than either liberals or conservatives. The very nature of our two-party biarchy suppresses the middle and accentuates the extremes. Each extreme tolerates the other extreme as a place for incorrigibles who will never “see the light.” But any attempt at achieving power by moderate forces (such as Ross Perot in 1992) will be viciously attacked by both extremes, and this naturally serves to drive most people away from the political middle.

Accordingly, moderates are quite used to being forced to pick between “the lesser of two evils.” Moderates do not usually get to vote for a candidate or cause that they wholeheartedly support. Instead, moderates are usually forced to “hold their noses” and select the least-objectionable from two highly-objectionable extremes. Its no wonder that only about half the people of voting age will even bother to vote on Election Day even if the office of President of the United States is there for the choosing.

Is there any way to make moderates arise and gather in their destiny? I certainly wish there were, but after 15 years of hard work and moderate activism, I’m largely out of possible ideas. Largely, but not totally.
Continue reading ‘Moderates Arise!’ »

Let me say at the beginning that I favor Instant Runoff Voting (IRV), and my “vote for nobody” campaign should not be enacted unless IRV is also in force at the same time.

Given IRV, then among the list of candidates should always be included the option of voting for “None of the above.” In an IRV system, each voter marks N candidates in order, and with my “vote for nobody” option, “none of the above” would always be presumed as the N+1th option marked by the voter unless “None of the above” was previously marked by the voter. Valid but totally blank ballots would always be presumed as a vote for “none of the above” in the first position. In the event that “None of the above” should actually win (achieve a majority vote) under the IRV system, then all current candidates are barred from running again for a specified period of time and a re-run of the election is held with an entirely new list of candidates. The process may be repeated as many times as needed to achieve a majority victory by some candidate. In this way, the elected candidate will always be the choice of the majority. And if no candidate can obtain a majority vote, we are not left with the lesser evil, but instead get a new vote. Think about it: actual majority rule! And there would be no real advantage obtained by any candidate who could manage to generate “spoiled ballots” as those would be counted as votes for “none of the above” and would count against the leading candidate possibly obtaining a “50%+1 vote” majority.