Politics, Government & Public Policy: June 2006 Archives
Ok, here's a pop quiz. In the following story, who can spot a problem with the concept of "generosity"?
Are Republicans stingy but principled while Democrats are generous but racist?"I wouldn't put it quite so starkly," said Stanford University professor Shanto Iyengar. He would prefer to call Democrats "less principled" rather than bigoted, based on his analysis of data collected in a recent online experiment that he conducted with The Washington Post and washingtonpost.com.
As reported in this column a few weeks ago, the study found that people were less likely to give extended aid to black Hurricane Katrina victims than to white ones. The race penalty, on average, totaled about $1,000 per black victim.
As Iyengar and his colleagues subsequently dug deeper into these data, another finding emerged: Republicans consistently gave less aid, and gave over a shorter period of time, to victims regardless of race.
Democrats and independents were far more generous; on average, they gave Katrina victims on average more than $1,500 a month, compared with $1,200 for Republicans, and for 13 months instead of nine.
But for Democrats, race mattered -- and in a disturbing way. Overall, Democrats were willing to give whites about $1,500 more than they chose to give to a black or other minority. (Even with this race penalty, Democrats still were willing to give more to blacks than those principled Republicans.) "Republicans are likely to be more stringent, both in terms of money and time, Iyengar said. "However, their position is 'principled' in the sense that it stems from a strong belief in individualism (as opposed to handouts).
Someone explain to me how it's "generous" to give tax money away? Last time I checked, "generosity" is when you give your own money away, not someone elses'.
(HT: James Taranto
I'm encouraged to see that President Bush has issued an Executive Order to prevent the federal government from using the eminent domain power to take private property from one party and give it to another.
By the authority vested in me as President by the Constitution and the laws of the United States of America, and to strengthen the rights of the American people against the taking of their private property, it is hereby ordered as follows:Section 1. Policy. It is the policy of the United States to protect the rights of Americans to their private property, including by limiting the taking of private property by the Federal Government to situations in which the taking is for public use, with just compensation, and for the purpose of benefiting the general public and not merely for the purpose of advancing the economic interest of private parties to be given ownership or use of the property taken.
It goes on into details, and they look pretty good to my naive understanding.
(HT: The Pirate.)
If we're doomed to a Senate filled with senior citizens, let's at least get some new old folks in there, like Willie Brown from my new home of St. Louis?
Willie Brown said he thought he was back in a foxhole in Korea on Thursday morning when a burglar stood at the door to Brown's bedroom."He said, 'I got a knife, don't move,'" Brown recalled.
"I reached behind my back and whipped my gun from under my pillow and said, 'Take this .38,' and I blasted him."
The man, wounded, uttered "Whoops," Brown said, and fled down the stairs. Brown pursued, and fired a second shot, striking the intruder as he jumped through a broken window.
That's the kind of old guy we need in the Senate.
Update:
(HT: My wife, DeoDuce, told me about the old guy in St. Louis! I didn't mention it before because I feel that we're so at one with each other that it wasn't necessary.)
The reason Senator George Voinovich gives for voting against repealing the inheritance tax is pretty ironic.
Sen. George Voinovich cast a key vote last week against repealing the estate tax, calling the proposal "incredibly irresponsible and intellectually dishonest" at a time when the nation is dealing with a massive federal budget deficit."I am thinking not only about the present but about our children and grandchildren and the legacy - or burden - we will leave them," said Voinovich, a Cleveland Republican who was one of just two Republicans in the Senate to against a procedural motion that would have allowed the bill to come up for a final vote.
Yeah, I'm sure children and grandchildren would prefer for the government to get a huge chunk of their inheritance.
I agree with outgoing House Majority Leader Tom DeLay: partisanship can be good, if it's based on principles.
Former Majority Leader Tom DeLay, bowing to legal and ethical troubles, said goodbye to the House on Thursday and took a shot at his liberal opponents. Some Democrats walked out during the farewell.The 11-term Republican from Texas, said it is customary for departing lawmakers to "reminisce about the 'good old days' of political harmony and across-the-aisle camaraderie."
"I can't do that," he said.
"For all its faults, it is partisanship _ based on core principles _ that clarifies our debates, that prevents one party from straying too far from the mainstream and that constantly refreshes our politics with new ideas and new leaders," DeLay said.
Is it more important to "get along", or to pass bills that line up with the desires of the majority of the electorate? I'd say the latter. The voters, through elections, set the strategy for the legislature, and the subsequently elected majority should pay little attention to the minority members -- though keeping in mind that those currently in the majority will eventually be in the minority themselves. Unanimity within the majority party may be something to strive for, but "bipartisanship" shouldn't be the principle thrust of every bill. The majority should focus on passing bills that fit the strategy they were elected to implement.
This is not to say that I advocate partisanship that manifests as rule-breaking, mud-slinging, or "gotcha" politics. Those aren't necessary and can be quite destructive.
I'm not a historian, but it strikes me that America could not have won any of her past wars if our forefathers had been politically constrained to fight diplomatically and militarily by the rules of Democrats such as Teddy Kennedy, Howard Dean, John Murtha, John Kerry, Nancy Pelosi, Chuck Schumer, Dick Durbin, and all the rest that are really too numerous to name. Would America even be America today if the Democrats' modern philosophy had ruled our past?
1775-1783: Revolutionary War
1812-1815: War of 1812
1846–1848: Mexican-American War
1861-1865: Civil War
1898: Spanish-American War
1899-1913: Phillipine-American War
1914-1918: World War I
1939-1945: World War II
1950-1953: Korean War
1957-1975: Vietnam War
1947-1991: Cold War
1990-1991: Persian Gulf War
With the exception of the Vietnam War, which was lost by the same philosophy (and many of the same people) espoused by leftists today, from what I know America acquitted herself well in all these conflicts, and America is now all the stronger for it.
