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

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.