US presidential election 2016

The past several years I have made an effort to stay out of politics. I don’t agree with the stance that we have a responsibility to participate in politics. One of the benefits of freedom is that we have the freedom to ignore politics, which can greatly improve your quality of life. Now, it is true that, when I’m not participating, I can’t complain about the outcomes. (Well, I have the freedom to complain. I just don’t have the moral right to.)

And even when I was involved, I generally held the policy of not saying who I voted for. You could often guess based on what I said, but I didn’t think I needed to proclaim it.

This presidential election, however, is different. Not only do I feel I must vote, I also feel like I should take a public stand. Not in an effort to convince anyone to vote the way I am but merely because it feels like taking a stand is warranted.

Trump has made it very clear that he doesn’t know or care about the principles upon which civilization operates. What’s more, I’m not convinced that he would listen to advisors, whether good or bad.

During the 2008 primaries, at the local caucus, I saw first hand the dirty tricks that the Clinton camp will use. I have little respect for her. But I do believe she has a firm understanding of the underpinnings of civilization and a vested interest in preserving it.

I am past the time when I was idealistic enough to support a third party candidate. The biggest problem in Federal politics (prior to Trump’s nomination) is that the two major parties look more like each other than like the electorate. The system doesn’t incentivize the parties to be more representative of the electorate. Since only the people in power could reform the system, and since it is rigged to keep them in power, it is hard to see a time when the system will be reformed to make third parties viable so that our parties might better represent us. The best we can hope for is for a third party to replace one of the major two, but then we’ll just be right back in the same boat.

The system means that—for all my life—my vote for president hasn’t counted. My state, being winner-takes-all, always ends up going 100% Republican no matter how many people vote Democratic or third party. The fact that the Republican nominee is so unfit, however, means that this may be the first time in my lifetime that my vote for president might actually count. So, I’m voting for president this year, and I’m voting for Clinton.

Gun control

Personally, I have no desire to own a gun.

I cannot agree with either extreme on this issue.

I don’t believe any guns should be banned outright. I think people should have the freedom to own any sort of gun they want...provisionally.

I also believe that we should regulate them. In at least some cases, heavily. There are lots of things we do regulate—in some cases heavily—that I’d argue for deregulating before guns.

Why are we still talking about piracy?

heavy sigh

I’m so tired of it.

The software industry—other than a few special cases—figured it out decades ago.

The RPG publishers figured it out about five years ago. (Don’t get me started on Wizards of the Coast and this issue.)

The music industry figured it out three to five years ago.

Seriously? Why are we even talking about this anymore? Piracy is not the problem you think it is. The pirates weren’t going to pay you anyway. Copy protection doesn’t work and doesn’t help you make more money. Overreaching legislation doesn’t help you make more money and probably won’t work either. Just make a good product, charge a fair price, and concentrate on the business you’re winning instead of the business you wrongly think you’re losing.

Project Apollo

Jake wore out my VHS tapes of HBO’s From the Earth to the Moon. He got DVD versions for Christmas.

Reading JFK’s speech—included on the bonus disc—and watching the episodes again, it really is hard to believe that it happened at all.

As much as I’ve always loved the idea of human space travel, I have to admit that I find it very hard to justify. The risk:reward really favors robotic probes beyond Earth orbit. We’ve done LEO long enough that I think the risk:reward really doesn’t justify continually sending humans there either. Even if it did, I still think the SSC would’ve been a better investment in science than the ISS.

(I’m really only talking about NASA here. I’m very glad to see the development of commercial human space flight.)

I’m beginning to think that winding things down once the political goal was made wasn’t really such a tragedy.

Still. It’s so hard to believe that the country actually came together enough to even achieve that goal. I can’t imagine it happening today. Even Obama’s call for us to actually see some progress in alternative energy technologies after all the decades they’ve been talked about. Imagine if we could actually see Project Apollo-like resolve behind that.

The next century of change

America, we have come so far. We have seen so much. But there is so much more to do. So tonight, let us ask ourselves—if our children should live to see the next century; if my daughters should be so lucky to live as long as Ann Nixon Cooper, what change will they see? What progress will we have made?

—President Elect Barack Hussein Obama

Extrapolating from the changes the last hundred years have brought, what might things be like at the end of the next hundred years?

Do you like what you foresee?

Not filibuster-proof

This year was the first time I voted in a primary election. I’ve always considered myself an independent, so I figured the primaries were none of my business. I don’t think I’ve ever voted for a Republican for a federal office, though.

I even attended my district Democratic caucus this year.

While it may now say “Democrat” on my voter registration card, I’m glad the Dems didn’t get a filibuster-proof majority in the Senate. While I’m very happy that Obama won, I can’t say I’m terribly comfortable with the Dems also having majorities in both houses of Congress.

But then, I’m weird. I think gridlock is a good thing.

We’ve been ready

I suspect that Obama’s victory is a sign that we’ve been ready for a black president.

I think candidates may have not won because of racism, but I don’ think a president gets elected because they’re black. Obama won because he was the strongest candidate and racism is weak enough that it is no longer a factor.

Likewise, I think the country is clearly ready for a woman president. Clinton came close to winning the Democratic nomination, and the both parties have now had a woman as a vice-presidential candidate. We got our first black president instead of our first woman president merely because Obama was the stonger candidate; not because the country isn’t ready for a woman to be president.

Realistic?

I don’t think it’s terribly realistic, but my suspicion is that this president will not start out being constrained by what people tell him is realistic. If he did, it wouldn’t be president now.

—David Wessel

When the best candidates don’t run

Four years ago, the best Democratic candidates didn’t run. Who can blame them? Why go up against an incumbent when you can just wait four years and not? Especially when there seems to be no heir apparent emerging.

I don’t like a system that discourages the opposition from putting it’s best candidate forward. I’m not sure how you could really fix that, though.

Of course, part of the problem may simply be the political climate in which a failed bid for the job effectively disqualifies you from getting your party’s nomination again.

Character

No matter what happens today, I’ll be happy.

I never cared for Bush. Not when he ran for governor. Not when he was governor. Though, he did show an ability to work with the other side that I could admire. Once he got to Washington, though...

To be honest, I agreed with Natalie Maines. I’ve been embarrassed that Bush has been our president. I’m ashamed of some of the things our country has become under his leadership.

I used to just tune out when the Republicans brought up “character”. But then they let this guy lead their party for eight years. (Bush certainly is a character, but...) I much preferred a president with Clinton’s flaws to one with Bush’s flaws. I was no big fan of his father’s, but I liked Bush senior better. I could have a modicum of respect for the guy. I’ll much prefer McCain if he should win.

Though it bothers me that Palin seems cut from the same superficial cloth as Bush.

It actually boggles my mind that McCain got the nomination. It’s almost as if Lieberman were the Democratic candidate.

Anyway...no doubt some of you reading this will not appreciate my feelings on this, but this is honestly how I feel.

Four years ago, I voted against Bush. This year, I voted for Obama. He’s the candidate whom I more agree with on the issues. He’s the candidate whom I feel is best suited for the job. Yeah, he’s a master orator, and while that can let someone without substance go farther than they would otherwise, it doesn’t mean there isn’t substance there. It feels good to vote for a presidential candidate again rather than against.

But I also agree with McCain on a lot of issues. (Senator McCain if not candidate McCain.) And I think both candidate’s score better than the current office holder by at least an order of magnitude on the Republican “character” criterion.

Equal time

Why I Support Barack Obama by Tim O'Reilly

This is from the primary: 20 minutes or so on why I am 4Barack by Lawrence Lessig

(Not really equal)

Should you consider the campaign?

But the failures of the campaign are reasons to punish the campaign managers, not the country.

—David Frum

Shouldn’t the candidate also be held responsible for the failures of the campaign?

While I have liked Senator McCain, I haven’t been too fond of candidate McCain or his campaign. Likewise with Mrs. Clinton, if not moreso.

Public education

I think there are two main things we should do in this country to improve public education.

1. Stop micro-managing our teachers and administrators. Let these people do the jobs we hired them for. The jobs they trained for. In particular—to give just one important example—let them pick their own text books.

2. Figure out how to get more of the money we spend on education into teacher salaries. Pooring more money into the system isn’t an answer to anything until we figure out how to better use what we already spend. If we are going to let the teachers do their jobs, we need to retain the good ones, recruit more good ones, and give them the incentives to do their best.

Incidentally, I’m not a fan of school choice. The best schools can’t take everyone. (Even if they did, that would just mean they wouldn’t remain the best as they got overloaded and stretched too thin.) The other schools will still be full, but it will be full of the kids who lost the voucher lottery instead of the geography lottery. We need to improve the whole system rather than trying to come up with a silver bullet.

More of the same

If it’s more of the same on both sides, I’d rather have more of the Clinton years than more of the Bush years.

Presidential debate 08 impressions

Jim! You’re a moderator, not a therapist!

It seems kind of ironic how McCain keeps emphasizing how he’s worked on these things his whole career and still hasn’t made progress on them.

Barack, we need to invest in education beyond science and technology. We may need to improve, but we need to be more well-rounded too.

McCain, the guy who has been signing all those spending bills is your president.

We had a surplus under a Democratic president, a Republican president who never saw a spending bill he didn’t like, and a Republican presidential candidate complaining about greed on Wall Street. O_O

Hmm. McCain has been to all these foreign countries, yet he still has shown very poor judgement about them.

Unlogicatious

If I was a McCain supporter...and there was a time when I was a potential McCain supported...I’d be very put out.

1. Abandons many of his principles to run towards Bush
2. Tries to call this staying the course position “change”
3. Hammers the (nonsense) experience angle
4. Picks a running mate as vulnerable to the experience argument as anyone
5. The “claim to change” which that running mate trots out is misleading at best

Oddly enough, this all seems to be working short term. I like to believe this is sealing his doom long term, but Bush got elected...twice!

It’s fun when you search a list of Bush quotes for “logic” and it says “not found”.

The Big Sort

I caught part of an interview with a guy who wrote a book called The Big Sort.

At one point he said that “the big sort” results in experimentation at the city level but gridlock at the national level.

I’m not sure how he felt about that, but it sounds like a good thing to me.

Except for those few things that it would be really good for the federal government to get done. But who’re we kidding? They wouldn’t get done anyway. (^_^)

McClellan’s book

I suppose I should be happy about it, but something about this Scott McClellan book bothers me.

Maybe it’s because Scott managed to wait so long to tell the truth that it barely matters anymore. Maybe it’s because it smells more of moving units than coming clean. Maybe it’s because, “Oh, I lied a lot then, but I’m telling the truth now,” rings so hallow.

Still, I guess better late than never.

We don’t want to vote for the delusional

Eight years ago, I was very annoyed when McCain dropped out of the primaries much too early. Now, though, I’m annoyed by Clinton’s tenacity.

I think the big difference is that there was (emphasis on “was”) a bigger difference between Bush and McCain than there is between Obama and Clinton. There was a point in McCain staying in because there were differences to consider.

Or maybe just that even then I was in the “anybody but Bush” camp.

You're the communications guy?

Hillary’s communications guy on NPR a couple of days ago: “If that’s a negative ad, then I don’t know what a negative ad is.”

It’s funny when a guy paid to not make those kind of mistakes makes them. (^_^)