on treating politics as a game

[jrtom]

snagged from filkertom's other blog: Josh Marshall's Talking Points Memo on the dangers of political strategizing.

Today we hear Democrats asking whether they should take a hard line on Social Security or a soft line, stand in opposition or come up with a contending plan. Here's what I propose whenever Democrats have a question about just what stance to take on the Social Security debate.

One question ...

What is the actual policy outcome that would be most preferable on Social Security (to protect, preserve or augment it -- whatever) and how important is it that it take place in this Congress?

Comments

Re: Oh for God's sake...

[jrtom.livejournal.com]

Speaking of "civil"...I actually think that JKL has a point. If being centrist isn't your goal, then "centrist" probably wasn't a good word for you to use, because it has the implications he pointed out. Politics shouldn't be word games, true, but semantics are important.

I wish I believed that most Americans believed as you suggested. Not sure it's true, though, since people don't generally view their _own_ beliefs as/priorities extreme, no matter what they are.

Personally I wouldn't insist on having a _party_ that had clearly articulated policy goals that drove their actions as politicians. Having politicians that behaved this way would be a nice start, regardless of what (if any) party they belonged to.

Naming the band

[fdmts.livejournal.com]

I'm reminded of the Bob's song Naming the Band

"...We should be writing tunes,
And learning where to stand
Instead we're spending all our time
Naming the Band..."

I'll repeat my challenge: Start articulating policies on current hot button topics. Be sure to show your work so that we can see how you came to your conclusions. That way (a) we can have an answer to "what do you believe about X" and (b) we may be able to distill some general principles from the specific cases you work out.

At least, that's how I'm approaching it. Details when I have more than a couple such points.

As to semantics: No words in common usage are going to be suitable, because all of them have semantic baggage. I could be happily going along with my "civil discourse" party, and get slammed for wanting to revert to the "civil society." Thus the genius of the "Bull Moose" party. The what? Yeah, here's what we stand for.

This was part of Newton's genius when he abstracted space, time, position, motion and energy into symbols like X. That, however, is way off topic.

Re: Naming the band

[jrtom.livejournal.com]

OK, my sister (red_frog) recently reinstated her LJ, and I found the post I was talking about earlier (http://www.livejournal.com/users/red_frog/344385.html). Presented without comment, here is a series of policy statements that I lifted directly from that post. I don't necessarily agree with every single one as stated, but it's a good place to start from, I think. "Discuss."

I want:
* a country that respects freedom of religion. Someone made a good point that the Democrats have got themselves in the position of freedom FROM religion, and while that's more my position I can see how it could alienate a lot of people.
* a country where people have enough money to live on, without making handouts to people who don't need them.
* national service for high school graduates. Get a small salary and go intern teaching reading, or learning the ropes of environmental cleanup, or whatever. Doesn't have to be a military slot, I'm just trying to invest people in the place where they live.
* a country where the civil rights associated with marriage are extended to all adults.
* a country that acknowledges the reality that industries change and helps both companies and individuals ride out those changes. I don't want policies to try to prevent those industries from changing, since that only delays the change and may make it worse. (There's a good example of this going on in Central America now--tons of maquiladoras built to supply textiles under a trade agreement that expires now. They're fucked, because many did not prepare for this and they're going to lose to China.)
* a country where people have a decent chance at improving their economic standing from what they were born into.
* a country where kids can get a good education without their parents having to pay for private school.
* a country with a clean water, air, and sidewalks
* a country that is asked to arbitrate in international affairs, and even fight if need be, but does not direct by arms.
* a country that people like well enough to think it's cool that you're from there.

Harried thoughts in the morning

[fdmts.livejournal.com]

First, thanks very much for starting with these. It grounds us in reality. Give or take my opinions on these points, here are two meta-opinions about the manner in which they are framed (before I run off and start my day):

(1) Negation: It's important to me that statements of policy articulate choices which have sensible opposites. Many of these points don't really have an opposite, and thus are meaningless at some level - "A country with clean water, air, and sidewalks" is certainly a good goal. That said - I can't think of a single politician in history who would say "I stand for making our country dirty, with unbreathable air and no sidewalks."

Where goals like this come from is when leaders seem to implicitly be striving for those anti-goals through their idiotic policies.

I suppose that there's room for both sorts of statement - I would look at these as test conditions for a policy rather than the policy itself. That's very valuable, as I think about it. We can use them to check our work. "Sidewalks clean? No? Clearly we need further work."

(2) Specificity: "Marriage rights for all adults" clearly refers to same-sex marriage, right? Or maybe it doesn't. Perhaps it's the mentally deficient, sibling marriage, polygamy, or some as-yet-unspoken thing that would upset the new pope. If the goal is "sexual orientation is not a ban to any civil right, including marriage" then let's come out and say that.

The problem is that I don't get much contact with popular culture, and so I get confused by the slogans that everybody else understands. A protester with a sign reading "A living wage for EVERYONE!!!!" confused the hell out of me. Was it minimum wage, immigrant labor, or what?

Thank you for posting these. I'll give them some thought during the day.

Re: Harried thoughts in the morning

[jrtom.livejournal.com]

Just a brief response: you're right in that some of these aren't so much policies as they are goals. However, I'm not sure that policies are generally either/or so much as they are priorities, in practice. (Politicians may not be pro-dirty-air, but they may prioritize clean air considerably less than, say, happy energy companies.)

I think that the question of what oughtta be done about marriage and its associated rights constellation may be as thorny as the question we tackled a few months back about national service. Worth pursuing, but I'm not sure that the best answer is an easy one.