Test Number One

Well, Liberals have found their first bone to pick with President-elect Obama. And, to be honest, it was only a matter of time. The way that the far left and the far right are so hyper-sensitive to just about anything these days, they were going to nitpick every little move that he made until there was something to complain about. But, the only problem is that the issue the far left picked to harp on is a really stupid one.

The basic overview of the issue is this: Obama picked evangelical Rev. Rick Warren to deliver the invocation at his inauguration. Liberals (and specifically the LGBT community) are furious over the pick given Warren’s views relating to homosexuals. Warren was a proponent of California’s controversial proposition 8 (which I vehemently opposed) that would define marriage as solely between a man and a woman, and he has “likened committed gay relationships to incest, polygamy, and ‘an older guy marrying a child’”. Because of these beliefs, and because of the enormous amount of symbolism that has been placed on Obama’s presidency, Liberals contend that Warren’s pick is a slap in the face to the entire message of Obama’s campaign. Even worse, some have labeled it as a sign of Obama’s true intentions towards the LGBT community, or as a real indicator of some uncontrollable hubris.

But why cant it just be a simple gesture of respect to an individual with some differing viewpoints?

Rev. Warren’s past and current works encompass a great deal more than just support for proposition 8. Warren is a conservative, without doubt, but much of his actions speak to a new movement of evangelicals, much more focused on poverty, education, and the environment than on traditional issues such as abortion (which he strongly opposes, but does not emphasize as strongly as many of his peers). As senior pastor of Saddleback Church in Lake Forest, California, Warren has led significant efforts to provide H.I.V. and AIDS relief to Africa, to bring an end to poverty, and to combat what he deems “rampant illiteracy”. Warren has also brought significant attention to environmental conservation and preservation.

Admittedly, none of this is to say that I agree with Warren on everything he believes in, or even in his interpretation and teaching of Christianity in general. To be honest, his evangelical brand is not really for me. And, I’m sure that if I knew more about the total spectrum of his personal viewpoints there would be more than just the issue of gay rights on which we found ourselves in disagreement. As would more than likely be the case with any person at all with whom I discussed every opinion that they had on every issue (you included). But, what I am trying to show is that nothing is black and white. We have issues on which we agree and issues on which we disagree. As such, no single one should serve as a litmus test.

Isn’t that the entire premise of the liberal movement? Freedom of ideas and expression?

I find it wholly hypocritical that this left wing, which has preached again and again the need for a more inclusive society, now is making the argument that one person should be eliminated from consideration for the invocation because of his viewpoint on one issue?

I am starting to notice that freedom of speech and opinion isn’t really the end goal; its freedom of speech and opinions that we agree with. The rest can be censored and otherwise restricted as much as possible.

Liberals should also remember that Rev. Warren was under very similar pressure from his conservative following both in August this past year when he invited Obama and McCain to a summit on faith, and two years ago when he invited Obama to speak at Saddleback Church about AIDS. Evangelicals feared that Warren was providing Obama, a “pro-death” candidate (in reference to his pro-choice stance on abortion), too significant a platform. However, Warren did not fold under pressure and gave Obama his chance to speak to the evangelical community. Liberals applauded the move by Warren then, so why are they so furious when Obama reciprocates the gesture now?

With this move, I for one am even more impressed with Obama than I was before. I think that this is delivering on the kind of change that was promised. We are a country flooded with contrasting voices and viewpoints, and we sooner or later must come to except that the goal is not to align them all into a singular political identity, but rather to harness these differing forces under the umbrella of an all-inclusive democratic government. To set aside polarization of opinion and to understand that mentality is the very essence of political change.

When asked about Obama’s choice of Rev. Warren to deliver the invocation, Democratic congressman Barney Frank offered that, “I think he overestimates his ability to get people to put aside fundamental differences.” I think that very well might be true. But I would much rather have a president that expects more out of the American people than one that expects less. In the end, Obama cannot bring about change alone. He can only create a framework that the rest of society must itself build upon.

This is test number one. So far liberals do not seem necessarily welcoming of that word that they have so loved for the past year: change.

A Wish On Christmas Eve

World Wars I and II taught important lessons about the need for a global community. They were reminders that the world is a place not immune to dangers and to evils that cannot be avoided through isolation or defeated by independent actions. Rather, unilateralism became acknowledged as part and parcel of any sustainable international peace. The allied forces, not once, but twice defeated foes intent on seizing control of Europe, and in the process they laid waste to fascism.

This recognition of a need for global interconnectedness and mutual protection is the basis upon which today’s global bodies (The United Nations, NATO, etc.) were established. And these bodies have not been without instances of sporadic successes. The U.N. brought an end to genocide in the Balkans and established a multi-state solution that has brought a significant decline in regional ethnic tensions; a coalition force expelled Iraqi troops from neighboring Kuwait during the Gulf War; and many of the U.N.’s humanitarian efforts provide much needed relief to areas infected with poverty, starvation, and disease.

However, amidst these periodic stories of success, I find that these international bodies are most often unable to fulfill their promises of a true global community. Pick up any newspaper or watch any global news network program and you can find any number of examples for how ill equipped and ill-prepared the international community has been to face the challenges that we face around the globe.

The Congo has been decimated by clashes between governmental and rebel forces (not to mention a third and very violent faction called the Mai Mai that seems perfectly content just aimlessly raping, killing, and abducting children). The UN has been put in charge of enforcing a tentative and fragile cease-fire agreement between the two principle sides, but just two weeks ago in Kiwanja, Congo, 100 peacekeepers did nothing while rebel forces overthrew the strategically located town and went door to door demanding payment from locals. If they could not provide sufficient payment, the males in each household were dragged into the streets and executed. Peacekeeping forces did nothing while 150 men’s lives ended with bullets to the head.

In 2006 the Ethiopian government, backed by the United States, invaded Somalia and removed the hard-lined Islamist government that controlled the country, only to put in place a new centralized government that lacked the necessary resources to train and equip a full security force and to rebuild the country’s infrastructure. Now, even more radicalized forces have invaded the country and are fighting back against the government in a bloody civil war that has created what most human rights groups have deemed a human rights nightmare. Furthermore, the country has become a breeding ground for pirates that have staged attacks on international cargo ships and have disrupted worldwide trade networks, threatening to raise the price of a number of different commodities. Not to mention the millions of dollars that multi-national companies have themselves lost in stolen cargo and paid ransoms. The African Union has placed a 3,400-person security force into the country, but that is less than half of the 8,000 that were requested. The U.N. has signaled that they are unlikely to provide any support.

Just Monday “the organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe announced…it would end its 16-year mission in Georgia because it had been unable to resolve a deadlock with Russia over whether to treat the separatist enclaves of South Ossetia and Abkhazia as sovereign nations.” (Barry, Ellen NYT) Russia was the only nation in the 56-member group that voted to discontinue the security mission, but given the council’s requirements for unanimous approval, Russia’s vote proved enough to leave Georgia with reduced military protection in the face of a potential subsequent Russian invasion.

In Afghanistan, the Taliban and other radical Islamic rebel groups have been able to finance a sizeable insurgency against the central government through proceeds predominately generated by transporting Opium into Pakistan and selling it within the global drug market. So, it made sense when NATO commanders called for an increased crackdown on the country’s trade in narcotics. However, those efforts have been thwarted by several allied nations (Germany, Italy, Poland, and Spain) who have been unwilling to wage anti-narcotics missions, citing domestic laws that prohibit military forces from participating in drug enforcement. Simply put, they are fearful of being sued by foreign nationals. That’s why they won’t help cut off the primary supply line for Afghan terrorist funding.

On top of these examples, there is the fact that, despite efforts by the global community, North Korea and Iran continue to pursue nuclear arms and Israel and Palestine are still without any long-term peace accord. Oh yeah, and there are those other historical events such as the Rwandan genocide that occurred without the international community doing anything at all.

I guess that in many ways this is just a rant of all of the reasons that the international community makes me mad. Its one thing after another, and in the end I cant help but find myself questioning what the point of all of these organizations really is? What do they really do? And how can this possibly be the grand vision that leaders such as Winston Churchill and Franklin Roosevelt had in mind when they espoused the need for international cooperation and fortitude?

I think that it is time that more is expected of these institutions and of the world in general. We need to actual fix the problems facing us. Problems of terrorism and violence and disease and death and war. These problems breed opportunity for the evolution of new challenges and dangers that will in due time find their way back to our doorstep. We either repair the world around us, or we simply remain idol until we are forced to deal with the implications of it being broken.

If we want to be serious about creating a multi-national body capable of promoting and ensuring global stability, then it needs to be one that has the determination and the necessary strength to intervene in active war zones. Peacekeeping missions are not entirely effective when the U.N. or NATO is afraid of sending troops into areas where there is a real chance of sustaining casualties. Unfortunately, those are the areas that need intervention most desperately. Furthermore, a multi-national body needs to be independent of individual governmental agendas and influence. It needs expanded funding and increased troop levels, and the global community needs to sustain commitments even beyond the end of regional hostilities. I am of the opinion that, had we spent as much funding on repairing infrastructure such as schools and hospitals in Afghanistan as we did on arming militias to fight Russians in the 80s, then we might very well have stopped the country from becoming a radical hotbed of terrorism.

Sadly, the above stories paint a picture that suggests the international community is not at all ready to take the drastic steps necessary to revamp an existing body such as the U.N. or NATO. Until that changes, there is little opportunity to really bring about the kind of peace necessary to stabilize the world and to truly advance humanity as a whole.

So, on the eve of Christmas, when we all have our own wishes that we make and hope to have delivered, let me hope that there is something deep down in our spirit, some common bond of human experience that will force us to one day do better. I hope there is something that will force us to actually bring about a true global community.

War Eagle And The Race Card

I hate the race card. Honest, I really do.

In general, its overused and most of the time I just don’t agree with the situations in which someone pulls it. The media, and society as a whole, is so hyper-tuned into the issue of race and gender inequality that we all tend to harp on any statement or action that has any hint of it. By doing this we do not advance a society of acceptance, but rather one of further division and, in the worst of instances, it leads way to reverse discrimination.

So, that was the perspective that I had when I logged onto ESPN.com and saw the headline “Barkley says Auburn should have hired black coach”. I clicked the link, ready to be outraged and ready to write a blog very different than the one that I am writing right now.

The University of Auburn’s search for a new head football coach could be narrowed down to two candidates in the end: Turner Gill and Gene Chizik. Gill is black. Chizik is white. Chizik got the job. But, was the decision, as Charles Barkley characterized it, based on race? To be honest, I’m not sure that it wasn’t.

Chizik’s resume as a former assistant coach is stellar. He was Auburn’s defensive coordinator in 2004 when the team finished the season 13-0, and he coordinated the Texas Longhorn’s defense in 2006 when they won the national title. The man can run a defense. But, can he run an entire football program? Chizik has spent the last two seasons as head coach at Iowa State University, and he has done little to inspire confidence. His overall record is 5-19 and his team has not been the slightest bit competitive in a Big 12 north conference that isn’t exactly a national powerhouse. For my money, I wouldn’t even have been quick to bet on Iowa State retaining Chizik after another year or two without seeing some significant improvement.

What is Gill’s resume? Gill spent eleven years as a wide receivers coach at his alma mater, Nebraska, where the team won three national championships and one of his quarterbacks (Eric Crouch) won the Heisman trophy. Gill then spent one year as an assistant offensive coach and director of player development for the Green Bay Packers before being hired as head coach of the University of Buffalo.

Before Gill arrived at Buffalo the team had won a total of ten games in seven seasons. By most accounts, it was the most difficult coaching destination in Division 1-A football. However, Gill has had remarkable success. In two seasons the school has won thirteen games, and this past season they won the MAC conference title by defeated undefeated #12 Ball State in the conference title game. Unlike Chizik, Gill has shown the ability to run a football program inside and out, and he has done so at a school with significantly less resources than those at Auburn’s disposal.

College football as a whole has a grossly inadequate proportion of minority coaches. Although the player base is overwhelmingly African American (just watch any college football game for sufficient anecdotal evidence of this), there are only four African American coaches among the one hundred and nineteen teams in Division 1-A. And, of these coaches, only Randy Shannon at Miami has a position at an elite program.

In addition, black coaches typically get much shorter opportunities than do their white counterparts. Tyrone Willingham became the first black coach in the history of Notre Dame, only to be fired after a 21-15 record in three seasons and to become the first Notre Dame head coach to be released before completing his initial contract in recent memory. Compare that to the current coach, Charlie Weiss, who has posted a lack-luster 28-21 record in a tumultuous four year tenure that has included the worst single season in the history of Notre Dame football (last year’s 3-9 mark). But, Weiss remains and Willingham did not.

Look also at Kansas State’s Ron Prince, who was fired this season after posting a 17-20 record in his first three years at the University. That is a much improved winning percentage from Chizik, but Prince is not being introduced as head coach of another major program, instead he is sitting at home looking for work again as an assistant.

The NFL has experienced similar, although less profound, problems of racial disparity among its head coaches. In response, the league enacted the Rooney rule, which requires teams to interview a specified number of minority candidates before hiring a new coach. I have always been opposed to such a rule, but now I am beginning to understand its value. Even if these candidates do not receive the position, these interviews allow them exposure to top executives and provides them with increased name recognition in the national media as a result of their ties to potential job openings. It is not a perfect system, but it at least provides some semblance of balancing the tide.

The racial distribution of college football’s head coaching ranks is flat out unacceptable. I am not one that believes in forced hiring or other forms of affirmative action, but even I cannot deny that there is a problem here that needs to be addressed. If it is not a product of racism, then it is surely one heck of a coincidence.

Turner Gill should be the next head coach at Auburn. He is not. He is black. I am not dumb enough to suggest that there is no connection between those last two points. College football needs to institute some sort of rule, similar to the Rooney rule, in order to give African American coaches a real opportunity to land head coaching positions. The current structure of the hiring process also must be further investigated and provided increased transparency so that the role of race can be better assessed in these hirings.

I do not believe in the race card, but I believe that, in this instance, it cannot be ignored.

Reasons For Lefty Being Slow

Hey guys. I haven't really had time to put up new stuff for a couple of weeks because of being home for Thanksgiving break and then just a completely chaotic week of school (finishing up 8 million different group projects...all of which are filled with annoying and lazy group members. So much so that I can't promise it wont be the topic of a subsequent posting).

I am hoping to get a chance to put up some new blogs in the next few days. At least that is the plan.

Lessons Out Of Nebraska

(To Aud: If you read this it will make you mad)

Laws can do a number of different things both expected and not. We expect laws to promote social stability and to achieve specific governmental aims and goals. And when this happens we are generally pleased. On the other hand, the passage of laws can result in unintended consequences and can inform us that a problem is much more far reaching than we had expected. In these cases we should learn from the results of our actions and find ways to better or more completely address the problems that we seek to fix.

Take for example Nebraska’s recently passed Safe-Haven Law. In July of this year the state enacted the statute that “decriminalized leaving unharmed infants with statutorily designated private persons so that the child becomes a ward of the state”. Basically, the state sought to provide parents with an alternative to abortion or continuous neglect, and to allow them to instead turn over their children to the state. But what lawmakers failed to anticipate was what the eventual impact of their statute would be.

Instead of receiving Nebraska-newborns, the state was quickly handed a number of out-of-state children that were generally much older than toddlers. Mostly around the ages of ten to twelve, these children were abandoned by parents from states such as Georgia and Florida who basically said that they just couldn’t care for their children anymore, either because of financial problems or because of behavioral issues.

Now the state is working quickly to change the wording of the law in order to create an age limit for the children that are dropped off into its care. The revamped statute will restrict the eligible children to toddlers, and therefore limit the scope of the law to its intended target of unwanted newborns. However, my interest is not necessarily in what will become of the statute, but instead on what its brief lifespan has shown us about the state of our childcare system.

While we spend so much time, energy, and money arguing about the question of abortion and Roe v. Wade, we focus very little national attention on how to better improve the surrounding infrastructure that contributes to raising our children. If nothing else, what this statute has shown is that there are a number of parents out there who cant seem to get by. Maybe its laziness or selfishness on their part, and maybe its not. Or maybe its somewhere between the two extremes. In any case, the fact is that many parents feel unable to provide basic care to their children.

I wonder if we might be better served putting off our debate about abortion and instead on focusing our efforts first on improving our society’s capacity to better raise children. Lets argue about how to provide wages that allow parents to not have to work two or three jobs in order to pay the bills, and that therefore allow them to participate in their child’s life. Lets figure out how to reverse rising trends of divorce and re-instill a stronger sense of family values. To eliminate crime and gangs that threaten to derail the upbringing of even the most potentially successful youth. Lets revamp our foster care system in order to address the psychological and practical needs of adopted children, and lets figure out how to reduce the prevalence of teen pregnancies.

Statistically, these are the factors that significantly impact a child’s potential for success later in life, and so they should be the focus of our national dialogue. Lets lay that foundation before we fight back and forth about abortion. Fighting the same fight again and again gets us nowhere, and it limits us to simply trying to determine what to due with the result of the problem, not the cause of it.

Improving society’s emphasis on childcare is not an easy task. It requires improvement on the part of the government and the individual. It necessitates a change of mentality and a new approach. But, it will at least offer the potential for creating change; something that fighting the same perpetual battle does not.

The problem is far too large for any one state to fight on its own, and so Nebraska will soon institute the age limit necessary to limit its own exposure to it. This is understandable. But, for the brief time period in which this law has been in effect without such a limit, it has shown us that the state of childcare in this country remains far from perfect.

Where Bailouts Are Really Needed

As the economy continues to spiral into a relative nosedive, much of the focus of our national discussion has been on bailing out the private sector. Whether it be the financials, the insurance giants, or now the automobile industry, the federal government’s role in providing financial assistance has far exceeded anything we have seen in recent history. And this has not occurred without grumbling and sometimes outright anger from voters and some lawmakers alike.

Conservatives have criticized bailouts because of their ideological belief in a pure free-markets approach, and some liberals have displayed anger because of their preference to instead use a more socialist approach that calls for consumer stimulus and middle-class tax relief. And voters, well they are just upset that their taxes are going directly into the pockets of already over-paid executives (or at least that’s the perception). All in all, most of us are against bailouts. However, there is one sector that has gone somewhat unnoticed and that I think we would all, if we really thought about it, agree needs a bailout of its own: state and local governments.

State governments feel the impact of recessions much like any Fortune 500 company; when things get bad, their revenues fall. And so, states such as California, New York, Rhode Island, Alabama, Kentucky, and Florida, all of which were already experiencing fiscal shortfalls before this economic crisis, are now in more dire situations than ever. And unlike a corporation, whose losses are confined to those directly involved with the company, the impact of a state losing all finances is much more difficult to ascertain.

The first step of such a collapse would look like this: states would cut funding. In order to sustain critical operations, states would have to reduce spending across the board, with some of the first areas to be hit including health care, education, and state aid to localities. But what would be the lasting impact of such reductions? In order to begin to answer that question, let us look at just one of these areas, education.

Our educational system is already grossly inadequate, with American students lagging behind many other developed countries in areas such as math and science. And the impact is that we don’t create a workforce that is able to meet our growing demands, and we don’t produce workers able to compete in the global economy. But for some reason, saying these things doesn’t typically register with the American psyche enough to create change. So, I will instead provide an example. Let us consider Lockheed Martin.

In 2004 the Lockheed Martin Corporation, the largest defense contractor in the world, appointed Bob Stevens as its new CEO. Mr. Stevens took a look at the company around him and what he saw was this: 100,000 of his 135,000 employees were expected to retire in the next 10 years. Of these employees, 70,000 were highly skilled engineers. Mr. Stevens understood this meant that there was a distinct urgency to recruit and replace his highly technical workforce with new, young engineers. But Stevens saw one other thing: a pool of potential replacements sorely inadequate to meet his demands. Simply put, the ranks of American born college graduates were not large enough in the field of math and engineering to replace the outgoing workforce. As a result, and without an increased number of math and engineering majors, Lockheed Martin will be forced to either decrease the amount of employees it uses, or to encourage the government to relax its security standards in order to allow top level clearances to foreign born engineers; effectively reducing our security standards at the exact time when we need to raise them.

If that is not enough, just look at the cost of education. Nowadays, attending college is as much a question of financial feasibility as it is of a student’s academic aptitude. For me personally, the cost of a semester’s worth of textbooks can be as high as $500, and that is just the books. Tuition is a whole different ball game. The annual cost of college tuition at either an out-of-state or private university can far exceed $20,000 per year, and that cost is rising. According to this morning’s article in the Washington Post, this past year “tuition has increased as much as 14 percent in Rhode Island, 13 percent in Alabama, as much as 9 percent in Kentucky, and 15 percent…in Florida’s university system”. California anticipates passing a 10 percent increase in college tuition costs for next year.

And so, when we need to increase the pipeline of college graduates and better train them for an international workplace with increasing competition, we are making college graduation a more costly endeavor than it has ever been. High school graduates must choose between facing a world without a diploma and waiting four years to enter it encumbered with debt. Quite frankly, I can understand why many of them might way the options and choose the former.

The problem is that, unlike the rapid rise in unemployment that would be caused by a GM bankruptcy, or the sudden drop off in stock prices that we would see if another major financial firm went under, the cost of failing to educate our youth would be much slower to show itself. But, while the final result may be slower to materialize, its effects will be far more damaging than anything that can be inflicted by Wall Street or the Big 3 in Detroit.

And this goes for all of the other areas that could see decreased funding. Neglecting Medicaid reimbursements would drastically reduce medical coverage for the poor and the elderly, and increase premium costs for the rest of us who are already overburdened by an overpriced healthcare system. Reduced funding for local municipalities could decrease police budgets to fight crime and address the growing problems associated with gangs, and it also means that infrastructure would continue to be neglected, which might result in further tragedies like the levees breaking in New Orleans and the bridge collapse in Minnesota.

So, while company bailouts are all the fad right now, I only hope that lawmakers and voters remember that we need to not only save the economy for today, but to ensure the stability of it well into the future. And that means paying as much attention to the health of state governments as we do to the state of Wall Street.

Ideas That Create Opportunities

Barack Obama’s presidency will be judged in large part by his ability to deliver on promises of a bipartisan agenda. And I think that there are a number of opportunities for him to do so, including one that is beginning to show itself in an area that I didn’t wholly expect: education.

I am in the process of reading Obama’s second book, The Audacity of Hope, and in it I have found that not all of his philosophical positions are as liberal as one might expect, and specifically in the area of education. Surprisingly, he is fundamentally opposed to the idea of teachers receiving tenure, and believes instead that we should replace it with a system that provides significantly higher wages that attract more qualified teaching candidates, but that allows for inefficient or ineffective teachers to be fired. This stance is quite different than what is traditionally considered to be the Democratic position, which is one that has consistently sided with teachers’ unions who predominately support tenures.

I think that Obama could leverage middle-ground ideas like this in order to broaden his appeal towards Republicans, many of whom have been calling for educational reforms for years. And, while reading the New York Times this morning I spotted a potential ally to Barack that might be able to give teeth to such an effort.

Michelle Rhee, chancellor of the Washington Public schools, has proposed an end to tenures in her district. Her plan would provide teachers with an option. On one hand, they can choose to be enrolled into the “green plan”, which would significantly increase their annual salaries. This group will see their salaries as much as double by 2010, with star teachers making up to $130,000 per year, and a teacher currently making $60,000 a year could expect an increase to at least $90,000 per year. The one catch: in return, they must forfeit their tenure. Teacher performance would be reviewed, and the ineffective ones fired.

Or, teachers can choose to be placed in the “red program”, which would allow them to retain their tenures, but allot them more moderate pay upgrades, and also result in a precipitous loss of seniority.

Ms. Rhee’s plan introduces a shockingly refreshing sense of logic to the framework of the teaching system because it accomplishes two aims at once: it increases teacher compensation, which helps to attract new talent into the field, and it creates the flexibility needed to get rid of teachers that just don’t teach. However, it has received significant criticism from many teacher union groups who have argued that tenure must be maintained in order to provide protection to teachers. But protection from what?

Unions argue that tenures allow teachers the freedom to pursue academic aims without constant input from over-politicized education boards that might push specific agendas through the threat of firing teachers that do not comply. And this is a legitimate concern, but not one that can’t be addressed by other means. We are not unable to create a system that has safeguards and oversight built into it. Independent review councils, or some other vehicle, could be established that help to prevent politically or ideologically-based firings, but that uphold good faith terminations. And, has tenure really improved the level of teaching in this country? The answer is no. While it has provided teacher’s with the ability to not fear reprisal for the lesson plans that they choose, it has all too often provided them with an equal ability to not fear reprisal or job loss when they fail to properly educate their students. In the end, we do not have an educational system that is able to prepare students for the challenges of a global economy. Relative to other modernized countries, we are largely deficient in critical learning areas such as math and science. So, no, tenures have not resulted in better teaching. They are not the entire problem, but they are at least a part of it.

I believe that our educational system needs to be retooled. Teaching is not a highly sought after profession, and we need to convince more of today’s college graduates to pursue it. When choosing between becoming a lawyer, an accountant, or a doctor, they see too great a financial disincentive to be expected to choose to be a teacher. So, not surprisingly, the most talented graduates end up picking the high paying jobs and we are left with an insufficient pool of applicants from which to draft the educators of the future. In response, we need to provide salaries that encourage growth in the teaching profession’s ranks and that attract top talent and top minds. Ms. Rhee’s plan does that, and it also allows for teachers who fail to do their jobs to be let go. Put simply, it increases benefits and encourages growth, while at the same time eliminating inefficiencies within the current system.

I understand that President-elect Obama has a lot on his table right now, and educational reforms probably aren’t registering highly on his list of priorities, but I think that there is a real opportunity here. He has already praised Rhee for her efforts in the area of educational reform and given her praise as being Washington's "wonderful new superintendant". But he can do even more. By publicly supporting Ms. Rhee’s plan, Obama could openly showcase a more moderate position that would sit well with Republicans. And, more importantly, he could provide some much needed public support for an innovative and new approach to teacher compensation that just might work.

At this point, with the state of our educational system, we desperately need something that works.

To Detroit: Sorry

My mother recently attended a speaker series where the guest speaker was Pulitzer Prize winning author and economist Thomas L. Friedman. At the end of his speech he took questions from the audience and, given that this was right before Election Day, many people wanted to know his opinion on the candidates. Who would he vote for? Who might best lead the country? And while he did not directly answer either of these questions, he did have one clear piece of advice for the next President: do not bail out the U.S. automakers once again.

It seems at times that we are a country constructed out of absolutes. In many ways, our politics and our own personal belief systems are black and white, with little tolerance for the middle. Not surprisingly, we do not treat economic policy any differently. Throughout much of the nineties, and the early part of this century, we have embraced a free markets approach. Especially under the stewardship of former Fed Chairman Alan Greenspan, our government and our society advanced a lax regulatory environment with low interest rates and minimal direct interference from government into the private sector.

But there has been one consistent exception to this trend: U.S. automakers.

We have spent much of the last twenty-five to thirty years extending one crutch after another to Detroit, and in the end what has it done to change their corporate trajectory? Through our consistent policy of financial bailouts for automakers we have effectively created an environment where free markets do not apply and where there is little incentive for true twenty first century business evolution. In the end, automakers see no need to improve their financial viability so long as the government is willing to pick up the bill, and unions see little reason to make necessary financial concessions for the exact same reason.

Now, with the idea of free markets losing considerable popularity in the arena of public opinion, absolutism is at work again, and elected officials are now on a spending binge in which they cant bailout companies fast enough. There is no middle ground here, and anyone in trouble is getting a piece of the pie. As a result, Detroit can probably feel pretty comfortable that their perpetual allowance check is coming in the mail; much the same way that I wait for a new check from my Dad when the bank account hits zero. Like a father towards his son, the government seems intent to not just let the automakers go under. But the difference here is that at some point I move out of college and start to support myself, and the automakers don’t seem that they ever will. Like it or not, we may very well just have to let them fail.

The counter-argument to this point is quite clear. These companies provide millions of jobs and benefits for employees and retirees alike. According to a report released by the Center for Automotive Research, complete financial failure of “GM or one of the other Detroit automakers could wipe out 2.5 million jobs and $125 billion in personal income in the first 12 months”. But would all of these jobs and income really just be eliminated?

I don’t think so. Let us first take a step back and identify the purpose for our support of these institutions as being specifically limited to ensuring these jobs. So long as we do not propose a purpose in excess of that, then there are alternative courses of action.

First, if we are intent on spending billions of tax payer dollars on ensuring jobs, then we might very well be better suited by allocating these funds to governmental projects and/or public-private partnerships for the creation of state and federal infrastructures. We could create employment through funding the building of new roads, bridges, buildings, etc. Many of these projects are already necessary and they are likely to see significant funding in an Obama administration. And, if we are concerned specifically with former autoworker employees, then we can provide priority to workers from the automaker unions for many of these jobs. We could also create funds or tax benefits that encourage further vocational training and that allow these workers to seek other kinds of employment.

Second, the free markets would not allow for a complete decimation of the automakers. The fact is that bankruptcy would free them from outstanding obligations to retirees and from much of its outstanding debt, which would make them attractive acquisition targets for foreign automakers. The big three would likely each be purchased, either in part or whole, by other companies that would still provide a significant amount of jobs and that would offer the kind of fuel-efficient cars that we have so desperately tried to get Detroit to create.

Finally, as for the retirees that would lose their benefits, what is the worst that can happen here? They lose their income and have to be supported by taxpayers? Isn’t that already what we are doing through these repeated bailouts? The government would be better off just directly financing and paying for them itself. Benefits would lessen, but reasonable retirements could be provided for much less cost than what these automakers currently pay out.

We need a president who can frame the issue in a truly all-inclusive manner. Someone who can explain that letting these companies go bankrupt doesn’t mean that we cant find other creative ways to sustain jobs, and that it doesn’t have to mean that retirees are left out to waste away without public support. There are many different solutions to the problem, and they extend far beyond the limited ideas generated by a senior accounting major while sitting at a Starbucks and typing on his computer.

Einstein stated, “we can't solve problems by using the same kind of thinking we used when we created them." Doing the same thing again and again while expecting different results is the definition of insanity. And so, bailing out Detroit once again just doesn’t make sense. Its time for them to support themselves; to either sink or to swim, and time for us to understand that sinking for them doesn’t have to mean sinking for us all.

Losses: Deserved And Not

Along with the number 270 (the amount of electoral votes needed to win the presidency), there has been another number that the media has been fixated on: the number 60 (the number of Senate seats that the democrats would need in order to create a filibuster-proof majority). Although the final results have not yet been tallied, and there remains an outside chance of the Democrats achieving this number, it is more likely that they will not. And, in my opinion, that would be for the best.

I could approach this topic on a philosophical level and espouse about the fundamental role of a balance of power and the need for a balance of ideals. Or I could argue that an absolute one party government is not really in the interest of any President, because it leaves them the sole source of blame for any shortcomings in office. However, the real problem, in my opinion, is that in the flood of one party over another, we find ourselves blindly removing all of the incumbents of one from office, rather than just those that are to blame for the government’s failures.

In all, the democrats will have netted anywhere from 5 to 9 seats in the senate, and the number will likely fall somewhere between those two extremes. Included in that net gain will be democratic wins that are deserved and also republican losses that are not.

In watching the election results last night I found myself vehemently rooting for the democratic challenger Kay Hagan to defeat the Republican incumbent Elizabeth Dole of North Carolina. In retrospect, Dole may very well have deserved to lose. Many campaigns may have taken negative tones, but none more so than Hagan and Dole. For her part, Hagan made a series of aggressive attacks against Dole’s residency (she had not spent much time in North Carolina since her election), her ineffectiveness in the Senate (she was ranked as the 93rd most effective senator), and argued that she had been a major proponent of the Bush policies that the country, and the state, was so displeased with. And these claims were largely true. Dole closely aligned herself with the Bush administration, and voted along with the GOP close to 90 percent of the time (departures from her party included votes such as H.R. 1, in which she voted against Republicans and Democrats alike to not adopt the recommendations made by the 9/11 commission). And when Dole launched a last second mudslinging ad against Ms. Hagan that did not sit well with voters, she all but put the nail in the coffin herself.

And then there is Senator Ted Stevens from Alaska. Although I am no political strategist, I would guess that being convicted of ethics violations one week before an election would not lend itself too much to ongoing effectiveness in political office. Surprisingly, Stevens looks likely to have won Tuesday night. But, undoubtedly, he too deserved to lose. His conviction symbolizes the kind of corruption that American government needs to shed itself of in order to achieve real progress.

But, lost among the justifiable shifts in Senate seats from Republican to Democrat, there are those Republicans who do not deserve blame for the last eight years. Included in this category are Gordon Smith of Oregon (who is still in a close battle with Jeff Merkley) and John Sununu from New Hampshire (who lost to Jeanne Shaheen). Smith, a real moderate, voted along party lines only 72 percent of the time in the current congress, and Sununu, although a conservative, opposed the Bush administration on many key issues. Sununu voted against the Federal Marriage Amendment, in favor of child safety locks on handguns, against the EPA delisting coal and other energy sources from the Clean Air Act, and was one of 5 Republicans who opposed the Patriot Act and voted against removing the use of the Filibuster (the “Nuclear option”). For his part, Smith joined Sununu in calling for the resignation of former Attorney General Alberto Gonzalez, became a critic of the Iraq war and a proponent of a timetable for withdrawal, and voted in favor of stem cell research funding.

Sununu and Smith represent the kind of moderation and open-mindedness that the Republican Party will need in order to forge a new identity. And, they have exercised appropriate judgment in determining when to agree with the administration and when to oppose it. In the end, they have both been good Senators, and undeserving of the criticism being levied against Bush and the Republican Party in general. However, in any sea of change, we tend to overlook the specifics and to allow for collateral damage.

Hopefully Smith will still win, and sadly Sununu did not. These individuals could have represented the very breed of Republican that a new President Obama could have reached out to and worked with to create real bipartisanship. They could have helped create a foundation for a new Republican Party, and helped to moderate its message. But instead, Democrats saw only the number 60 rather than the record behind those they needed to overthrow to achieve it.

Reading Into The Narrative

Sitting in my friend’s apartment last night watching the election with a handful of other people, it was clear where the support of this college community rested. We each filled out our own electoral maps, and the lowest estimated total of electoral votes for Obama was well north of three hundred. We each brought food, and the goodies included cookies with the Obama logo frosted onto the front. Then, as each successive “swing state” was called in Obama’s favor, everyone in the room let out a loud reprieve. And, when I finally returned home to my own apartment and laid in bed with the window open, I could hear the crowds of other students chanting “Obama! Obama!” and “Yes we can! Yes we can!” There was no in between, no need to wait on an official call here. This campus was deep Obama country.

Last night was, in many ways, a signal. It signaled a progressive step towards a post-racial era that has already been largely embraced by a younger generation and that has now found a real voice in the country’s broader political landscape. It signaled a defiant call for change in our political system. And, it signaled an olive branch being extended to the rest of the world; a call for a reevaluation and a second chance to prove that this country should be, as Obama called it, “a beacon of light”.

I understand that these are largely subjective measures of last night, and that they do not include recognition of the fact that, in the end, we elected another president and nothing else. If we are to really achieve a new era of interracial relations, then we need to reach a point where we only see it as that. However, last night, and right now, such subjectivity and narrative is unavoidable.

I saw Tucker Carlson being interviewed this morning and he argued that, by calling this election a huge step forward for America, we were inevitably saying that the election of John McCain would have represented a step in the opposite direction. He argued that emotions were running too high, and that he hoped we would judge Obama and be able to critique him on his actions, policies, and views rather than on the historical significance of his campaign. And I agree, but not today.

Elections are emotional entities, and especially one with as much enthusiasm and personal investment as this. Furthermore, to ignore the historical significance of this moment would be to lose a sense of context. Recognition of this context is what led us to raise Jackie Robinson as an American hero and to make his number the only one that is retired across major league baseball. In doing so, we are not attempting to say that a white player being called up to the Dodgers instead of Robinson, had he deserved it based on talent, would have been a step backwards. We recognize Robinson’s achievement as the breaking of a barrier. And so, had John McCain been elected, we would not have frowned down upon it as a move in the wrong direction, but rather as a delay of a barrier being crossed and the decision to call up a different player instead. The political equivalent of Jackie Robinson would simply not yet have been realized.

This is not to say that there wouldn’t have been talk of race had McCain won. Black voters would have felt hurt and let down, and pundits would surely have had to explain how polls so uniformly showing an Obama lead had been wrong. Bradley effect or not, racism would have been raised as one possible answer to the question. But that is not to say that a vote for McCain was racist. And anyone who says that is ignorant. McCain’s service to the country over the course of his life, and many of the central elements of his platform speak to a significant element of our population, and to a significant element of those that I know personally. Race would have been questioned as a factor in the process, but I do not think it would have been cast as the sole reason for the final result.

What I am saying is that votes should be made outside of race, but that the final impact of those votes on our social paradigm should be recognized after the fact. In the end, narratives are important to Americans. Narrative is what led most of us to root for the Tampa Bay Rays in the World Series, George Mason in the NCAA tournament a few years ago, Boise State over Oklahoma in the Fiesta Bowl, and to cherish movies like Rudy and Rocky that tell stories of true underdogs. We are so consumed by narrative in the rest of our society that it should be no surprise when we find it equally fascinating in politics.

So, there will be plenty of time to judge Obama on what he accomplishes. But, for now, let us at least recognize what he has accomplished before he has even stepped into the oval office. And let us realize that to do so does not denigrate those who voted for John McCain, but that it simply acknowledges the impact of those who did.

One Day To Go, Already Second Guessing

(Dedicated in length to both Buel and Karen)

One day before the conclusion of this presidential race, John McCain’s possible routes to the White House seem limited. Although a wise old man likes to remind me that polls are often like bikinis, it is undeniable that all of these bikinis are showing the same thing: a big night on Tuesday for Mr. Obama. Obama currently holds an 11 point lead in the national Gallup poll, leads or is in a dead heat in nearly all battleground states, and even “sure winners” for McCain, such as Arizona and Montana, have now moved into the toss up column.

I am not trying to suggest that John McCain will definitely lose. Elections are not immune to surprises, and especially not an election with so many variables as this one. Lets not forget that we are still talking about electing the first ever African American president of this country, and that carries with it a certain amount of uncertainty in and of itself. In the end, anything can happen.

Still, I wonder if McCain had to be in this situation?

I suppose it is easy to play Monday morning quarterback (and I guess this is kind of like Friday night quarterback, because the election isn’t even over…but hey, sometimes you just get bored and find yourself wondering: what if?). However, could McCain have changed the paradigm of this race? Could he have created a scenario in which he wasn’t looking up at such a significant hill to climb just one day before D-day?

From my I-am-in-no-way-an-expert-perspective, here are two things that I think McCain could have done to stop from being in such a hole.

1. Pick Mitt Romney as his Vice President.

Look, this one could have backfired, but I don’t think so. Palin has shored up the base for sure, but her appeal to independents and undecided voters has not been what the campaign expected. She wasn’t picked to help with the base, but to make a real appeal to disgruntled Hillary Clinton voters (remember in her first press conference when she made specific reference to the poor treatment of Hillary in the democratic primary?). Instead, she has seen her negatives significantly rise and has been a drag on the campaign’s pitch for the middle. So, what if he had picked Romney instead?

Mitt Romney could have also made a strong appeal to the base, but that is not where his real value would have been. Through and through, Romney is a businessman. The economy is his lifeblood, and he could have provided a true economic message for the McCain campaign; something that they have been sorely lacking. I would have to think that in a moment of true sincerity, even McCain staffers would tell you that the shift of focus to the economy, could it have been predicted earlier, would have made Romney the sensible choice.

Romney also would have provided strength in key electoral areas. He is the son of a former governor of Michigan (a state that McCain had hoped to compete for, but long ago gave up on), has strong roots in the southwest (could have supported flailing efforts in Nevada, New Mexico, and Colorado), and he was formerly the Governor of Massachusetts (which could have paid dividends in New Hampshire and played well with moderates, who might have viewed that as a sign of bipartisanship).

Romney likely would have raised fewer questions of experience than Palin, given his extensive record in Massachusetts, his successful involvement with the Salt Lake City Olympic games, and staggering personal business success. He also showed, over the course of the Republican primary, a broader and deeper understanding of major domestic and international issues than Sarah Palin has. I am not saying that Palin might not develop that understanding with time, but Romney already had it.

Granted, Romney is an aggressive, and at times dirty, campaigner. He showed a tendency during the Republican primaries to go negative against his opponent. And this might not have played well against an opponent so dedicated to remaining positive. But I think that negativity and aggression wear much better on a Vice presidential nominee. Being an attack dog is part of the job, and a part that Romney would have been really good at.

But, maybe Romney wouldn’t have worked out. Maybe McCain was convinced that picking a woman was the right way to go. In that case, I still think that he had options. Again, had anyone known the direction that the economy was going to move right before the election, the campaign would clearly have wanted a running mate heavily versed on that issue. And so, Carly Fiorina, who was only slightly mentioned as a potential choice in the veepstakes, could have made a great deal of sense. She is the former CEO of a Fortune 500 company (HP), and has spent enough time in front of cameras and crowds to be ready for the massive media exposure on day one.

In retrospect, and despite claims to the contrary from the pro-Palin crowd, I think that either Romney or Fiorina would have been better choices for right now. And, despite claims to the contrary from McCain supporters, I think that they have to be second-guessing the pick that they made.

2. Stick to a positive campaign tone.

Attacks seem to be a significant part of most political cycles, and evidence shows that they are typically quite effective. However, they don’t seem to be paying many dividends against this particular opponent. Obama has shown great skill in defending against them by simply staying above the fray. In the end, that is one of the largest appeals of Obama’s political platform.

Most pundits have speculated that the only way to defeat Obama would be to raise his negatives through attacks. But I disagree. I think that there are real lingering doubts about Obama on his experience, and those doubts would exist with or without McCain’s persistent aggression. What McCain needed to do was to run a similarly positive campaign that simply offered him as an alternative to Obama. In the end, voters will decide how important experience is when they enter into the voting booth.

Inconsistent and poorly coordinated assaults on his connections with Bill Ayers, Tony Rezko, and others have done little to help McCain with the middle. Sure, when Sarah Palin claims that Obama pals around with terrorists it gets a rise out of the crowd. But that is the part of the crowd that was going to vote for McCain over Obama regardless of what he said about him. His true appeal to independents has been his own personal narrative (which is incredible) and jovial character, when he has let it show.

McCain should have highlighted his extensive record of bi-partisanship, clearly delineated himself from President Bush on day one, and just been himself. His campaign got so involved in negativity, gimmicks, and ultimately ineffective packaging that McCain never got to do that. The humor that he displayed during the white tie gala with Mr. Obama showed the exact temperament that he could have levied to connect with the American people as their president.

Instead, in the waning days of the election, the McCain campaign is closing with warnings of a leftist takeover of Washington and a play to personal fears of terrorism and anti-Americanism. They are fear-pandering the same way that Bush did in 2004. It worked then, but it is unlikely to work now because the political landscape has drastically altered. This campaign called for the McCain from 2000, not the McCain that we see today.

And the contrast could be made no clearer than by looking at Obama and his running mate Joe Biden in their speeches yesterday. There were attacks on Bush and on the ideologies that have brought us to where we are, but those attacks did not extend to Republicans themselves. At a rally at Florida State University, while a dozen McCain-Palin supporters protested outside, Biden made reference to them and stated that “We cannot move past the politics of division unless we reach out to those people in the parking lot”. Similarly, when crowds booed or jeered the mention of McCain at rallies in Missouri, Obama scolded them with a simple, “You don’t need to boo, you just need to vote”.

There is no overwhelming hostility there, just optimism for change.

In taking the above two steps, McCain probably would have lost anyways to be honest. However, we might be left with a great deal more suspense heading into the final 24 hours of this campaign.

Lefty Hits YouTube!

Lefty Elephant officially has its first video/quasi-commercial! Here is the link to view it on YouTube:

Lefty Elephant Video

Please pass it along to anyone that might like it, and feel free to post comments of what you think.

The Test

Last week I went to one of my classes ready to do what students typically do in classes: ready to take a midterm exam. I walked into the room and took my seat. The professor had a stack of stapled tests sitting on his desk. Multiple choice, short answer, and one essay to round things out. Simple enough. I took out a number two pencil and a pen, and started to run all of the likely questions through my brain, a last dress rehearsal.

Then something different happened. My professor stood in front of the class and told us that we had a choice. We could take the test by ourselves and he would give each person that did so a total of seven extra credit points. Or, we each had the option to pick a partner, anyone that we wanted, and to take the test as a team. However, there would be one drawback: teams would have five points deducted from their overall score.

Immediately, the class full of both engineering and business majors did what both engineers and businesspeople do: everyone analyzed the options. In the end, I decided that the benefits of a partner outweighed the obvious incentives to take the exam on my own (plus, my girlfriend’s roommate had asked to be in my group, and so social niceness dictated that that was probably the only real plausible option).

One week later, when we showed up to class, the professor had posted the grade distribution on the board, and it was as follows:


After allowing us time to look over the results, he asked who had done a better job. So, who had?

Just looking at the raw scores, the two person teams had in fact scored higher. However, when the point curves are applied, the final scores for the individuals far exceed those of the teams. So which one matters more?

As the professor went on to explain, it’s really a matter of defining the purpose of the examination. If we suppose that its purpose is to get the best grade, then the individuals did the best. In contrast, if we determine that its principle purpose is to promote learning and to ascertain how much of the information is understood, then the teams performed better for two reasons. First, they had a higher raw score, which shows that they answered more of the information correctly. And, in the process of having to explain their answers to their teammates, each team member was likely to have had to display a deeper understanding of the material. So, if learning is the core purpose of the exercise, then one would likely conclude that the teams benefitted more and therefore did better in the end.

However, the problem is that too often, in school and in society, we don’t appreciate the process, and we don’t often relate our results back to any fundamental purpose. As my professor explained, we have created a “culture of victory over excellence”. Students in the end are more concerned with the final grade, with the final GPA, than they are with real learning. And, as I alluded to before, society seems to share this mentality.

Think about many of the core systems at work within our society: Wall Street, our legal system, or even our politics. Does each of these systems reflect their core purposes?

The stock market was created as a method to generate needed capital for growing business. Investors provided money that helped fund necessary expansion, and in return hoped to receive a healthy compensation for the adopted risk. At its core, it was about creating something and growing the economy as a whole, to the benefit of us all. But today that purpose is not readily reflected on Wall Street. Stocks are no longer seen as long-term investments, or as partial ownership stakes in strong companies, but they are instead consumed by the concept of profit.

We have developed various concepts such as short trading and day trading that effectively create nothing. Board of directors promote company practices that cut costs and increase profits rather than ones that generate jobs or encourage only smart growth. Company stock prices increase when CEOs announce job cuts, and the most attractive stocks represent companies with unproven potential for growth, rather than companies that have established consistent revenues. Our emphasis is on the price of a stock at the end of the day, and not the state of the company itself.

Our legal system is no better. We have lost a sense of its true purpose to adjudicate cases of potential wrongdoing and ensure personal liberties. In a society where doctors face a lawsuit every four years on average, and where civil litigation consumes and constricts company actions more so than any economic factor, you have to question whether or not our legal framework even still knows what its purpose is. Whether it is still a part of the solution, or if it has somehow come to advance misuses that threaten our society more than the evils it was designed to combat.

And the partisanship of our politics could be no further from its purpose. It has devolved into an entity that does not uniformly represent all constituents, but instead it is fueled by ideology and representatives only represent those special interest groups that put them into power. I am currently watching Barack Obama speak in Columbia, Missouri and he explains that we need “a smarter government”. But I don’t know that it needs more intelligence, because it seems well capable of achieving its own ends. Instead, it need only be smart enough to relearn what it was intended to do. It needs to relearn and reconnect with its purpose.

At the end of his discussion of our exam, my professor concluded that “it is your responsibility that when you are given the opportunity to operate under a different paradigm that you connect with its purpose”. He never answered which group had done a better job. Instead, although unspoken, his message was that we needed to create our own paradigm within which to answer that question. Each student needed to surmise his or her own definition of purpose. And so too must America.

Proposition 8 (Part 2)

My last post, “Proposition 8”, has received some criticism in terms of whether or not Proposition 8 does in fact substantively limit the rights provided to homosexual couples, or whether it is simply nothing more than an alteration to the wording of the definition of marriage. I think that this is a valid point to question, and one that would be best addressed through an additional post on the subject, rather than within the comments area. So, here is Proposition 8, part two.

First, let me preface all of my remarks by stating that my own personal inclination is to define marriage as between a man and a woman. The institution of marriage carries a predominately religious connotation, and given that religious institutions have traditionally established it as a union between a man and a woman, I find myself rather inclined to maintain that specific definition.

Second, I do not in any way support any action that would mandate a religious organization to perform a same-sex marriage ceremony against its own free will. I support the concept of freedom of religion with the same rigor that I find myself supporting the idea of individual equality. Any such measure, proposed either now or in the future, would be met with complete disgust on my part.

That said, it is true that proponents of Proposition 8 have offered that it does not limit the rights provided to same-sex couples because of the equality provisions ensured by California’s Family Code § 297.5. This code states that:

a) Registered domestic partners shall have the same rights,

protections, and benefits, and shall be subject to the same

responsibilities, obligations, and duties under law, whether they

derive from statutes, administrative regulations, court rules,

government policies, common law, or any other provisions or sources

of law, as are granted to and imposed upon spouses.

This provision, also referred to as the Domestic Partnership Act of 2003, was heralded as one of the most progressive measures ever taken in order to ensure same-sex couple rights. And, it should be applauded, for it did provide for significantly elevated levels of equality for domestic partnerships in the state of California. Some of the positive implications of the act included:

- Protections for children of same-sex domestic partners, including the ability for courts to allocate visitation rights to each partner.

- Expanded property rights that more closely reflect those of married couples. This includes that jointly acquired assets be divided to each partner "...in proportion of interest assigned to each partner at the time the property or interest was acquired unless otherwise expressly agreed in writing by both parties” in the event of a partnership dissolution.

- Upon the death of one of the partners, the other inherits, absent a superseding estate plan, the deceased partner’s property in the same manner as a surviving spouse.

- Significantly expanded anti-discrimination protections.

- Additional employment benefits to mirror those of married couples.

This act was a gigantic step forward, and surpassed any other protections for domestic partnerships that might have been present at the time. However, it also did not provide complete equality, and left for various inequalities to still exist between the treatment of same-sex domestic partnerships and married couples. These inequalities include:

- Limitations on the filing of joint returns. Under the act, partners must still use the same filing method for state income tax returns as they do for their federal returns. And, given that the federal government does not recognize same-sex domestic partnerships for the purpose of income tax filing, this effectively prohibits same sex couples from filing joint returns.

- While judges are able to order the payment of spousal support, as they do for typical divorced couples, these payments are not tax deductible for domestic partnerships as they are for married couples.

- Section 1041 of the Internal Revenue Service Code ensures that capital gains taxes not “be imposed on a division of assets pursuant to a dissolution of marriage.” However, this does not apply to domestic partnerships.

- Domestic partnerships are not afforded similar rights to married couples with respect to obtaining Qualified Domestic Relations Orders, which are required in order to divide a private pension plan in the case of the relationship’s dissolution.

- The Domestic Partnership Act does not modify rules “defining eligibility for long-term care plans under the Public Employees' Long-Term Care Act.”

Admittedly, the majority of the above examples of differential treatment relate to the Federal handling of domestic partnerships, and would not be drastically altered regardless of whether or not Proposition 8 passes. Still, it provides tangible evidence that inequalities still exist between the treatment of domestic partnerships versus married couples, and it suggests that there remains a need to strengthen the rights provided under those partnerships if we are to ensure uniform individual rights while restricting those who are able to obtain a marriage license.

What the passage of Proposition 8 would do is to take a prohibitive step backwards from advancing equality in any of the above-mentioned areas of differential treatment. It would continue to restrict the right to file joint returns, and prevent challenges of federal laws restricting other areas of fair tax treatment.

Some might suggest that such implications are not the intent of the proposition, and that they should therefore not weigh on whether or not it is adopted. To that I say that we must undoubtedly be as much, if not more, concerned about the end result of our actions as we are with the intent that drives them. And to those who would suggest otherwise, I can only hope that a similar emphasis on intent over result be applied to all areas (i.e. criminal justice system, etc.), and not just those that benefit our own personal aims.

The argument that Proposition 8 serves as nothing more than a definitional refinement is the same that was put forth to support the passage of the 1996 Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA). However, DOMA did not simply define marriage as between a man and a woman, it instead provided a philosophical framework that to this day diminishes the strength of domestic partnerships in general. DOMA has been the core justification for the above discrepancies, and it has therefore amounted to much more than a simple definition.

Lastly, as I had argued in my first post on the subject, questions of whether or not marriage should be limited to a man and a woman are quite valid, but they carry no relevance in relation to a Constitutional document. Such documents are meant to provide and protect rights, not to limit them in any way. One comment on my previous post argued that it was simply an issue of “Webster’s…(defining)…marriage as a union between a man and woman”. In that case, it is an issue that is best argued with a publishing company rather than played out on the pages of our most central governing document.

Proposition 8

Little more than a week away from Election Day, much of the national focus is directed towards the presidential race, and much of our national dialogue involves whether or not a black candidate can really write history and be elected to the country’s highest office. With national polls that show a commanding lead for Senator Obama, it seems that there is a real likelihood that it will happen. But still, we ask questions.

Will there be a significant anti-black vote? Can Obama win votes among rural, blue-collar voters? What percentage of blacks will go to the polls to vote for the first black president?

The conversation is so consumed by the topic of prejudice and race that I wonder sometimes whether or not we are fully able to move beyond it. Whether or not a minority candidate could ever not only win, but win without race playing a real role. Still, the fact that we have even reached this point suggests that we have significantly progressed as a society when it comes to our own underlying prejudices. Right?

And then I look to my home state and I am not so sure.

While the state of California seems all but certain to cast its share of electoral votes for an African American candidate, it is also taking part in another dialogue: whether or not it should pass Proposition 8. In essence, Proposition 8 seeks to overturn the state Supreme Court’s ruling to allow gay marriage, and would add an amendment to the state constitution that defines marriage as solely between a man a woman.

This measure has ignited passion from a predominately conservative base of support. It has been advanced by religious leaders who have equated the issue of gay marriage with “Armageddon”, and who have warned that if “we lose this, we are going to lose in a lot of other ways, including freedom of religion” (Charles Colson). As a result, evangelicals and other faith-based communities have sent numerous volunteers to the state of California and have raised over $25 million to date in order to get the measure passed. They have touted it as a question of societal values and family empowerment, but to me it seems more a product of two less commendable forces: hypocrisy and ignorance.

Supporters of the measure argue that recognizing gay marriage will lead to an erosion of the system of religious freedom. They claim that churches will be sued if they refuse to marry gay couples, will have their tax-exempt statuses revoked, and that religious leaders will be faced with potential imprisonment if they refuse to recognize these couples. In order to prove their case, they have aired numerous commercials featuring a Swedish pastor, Ake Green, who was jailed for one month in Sweden because he made a speech that vehemently condemned homosexuality. However, these arguments, although they serve as effective vehicles of fear, lack any credible precedent within the American judicial system.

The fact is that, within the states that currently allow gay marriage, no religious groups have been forced to condone or recognize any same sex couples. Furthermore, Catholic churches have never been forced to recognize remarriage for divorcees, and Jewish synagogues frequently refuse to marry cross-religious couples, without any legal repercussions. Our legal and governmental institutions have consistently reinforced, not lessened, religious freedoms. In fact, under the Bush administration, the Federal government has even supported funding for religious-based groups that discriminate during their hiring processes based on a person’s religious affiliation. And, lastly, Mr. Green’s case is a question of freedom of speech rather than discrimination. And I highly doubt that our country is going to move to limit the freedom of speech ensured under the first Amendment of the Constitution any time soon.

So if this proposition isn’t really about threatening freedom of religion, then what is its appeal? Maybe it’s simply because of our deeply engrained homophobia. Homosexuals represent a relatively small minority of the broader population, and society’s tendency is therefore to ostracize the pariah. But doesn’t this stand against the identity and purpose of the concept of America in general?

Those same conservatives that are most prone to support this proposition are also often the group that most aggressively defends the right to bear arms provided by the second amendment to the Constitution. While moderates and liberals might support restrictions on gun ownership because they feel that the amendment was not intended to provide a blanket, all inclusive prohibition against gun laws, these conservatives argue that we must read and interpret our founding document at face value. What is said is implicitly what is meant. So then what is the meaning of the statement that “All men are created equal”?

Trying to construe or modify the intent of this last statement has led to the most significant flaws in our union: slavery, segregation, and gender discrimination. In due time we have found each of these to be, in one way or another, forms of gross hatred and illegal in nature. Still, we once again try to modify the words in order to justify and make way for our own engrained prejudices.

The other interesting component of this bill is that it has found support among many minority religious groups. Conservative Jewish groups, as well as Hispanic Catholics, African American evangelicals, and Mormons alike have all pushed for its passage. But do these minorities remember that they too were once victims of similar discrimination? It was only through progressive changes to our set of values that they were even bestowed the right to now stand on the corner of a street and publicly preach their own opinions, regardless of what they may be.

The potential use of the constitution as a tool for limiting the rights of any group is in and of itself disturbing. At the time of this nation’s creation, the Constitution served as a catalyst and a protector for those individual rights that we saw to be inalienable. Its purpose is to support personal freedom, not to limit it. Such an interpretation of the document’s intent is inherent within the title of the pages within which the aforementioned liberties are contained: the Bill of Rights.

Similarly, state Constitutions serve as guarantors of individual freedoms. They create a basic framework that outlines and limits governmental action against individual rights. Therefore, to use such a document for the purpose of constricting such rights undermines its most fundamental purpose and confuses our most fundamental understanding of its relevance within our political discourse.

Lastly, and this view is mostly a by-product of my own personal opinions on the matter, who is gay marriage really affecting? Assuming that we accept my assertion that it in no way threatens to encroach on religious freedoms (which it does not), then who does it really impact other than those that directly benefit from it? Let churches refuse to recognize such unions, and let bigots make the decision to not interact with homosexuals if they so choose. In the end, one need not be in any way exposed to the effects of gay marriage if they do not want to be. Some may argue that it erodes the concept of family values and threatens to negatively impact our future children. But I argue that it no more impacts our children than the father that chooses not to engage in his child’s upbringing, the sixteen-year-old who has a child while in high school, the parent with a drug addiction or tendency to abuse their child, or a foster care system that is wholly inadequate to address the needs and emotional concerns of those children placed within it.

Our society is far from perfect, but it is no more ruined by gay marriage than by the plethora of other forces at work within it.

So, I foresee the significant likelihood of waking up next Wednesday to a national conversation. We will tout the election of a black president and will discuss its representation of a new era of racial relations and understandings. And in many ways it would represent just that.

And the proponents of Proposition 8 will point to its passing as a success for family values and ideals, although it stands as a direct contradiction to those values and ideals that created this union and that in the end allows for those families.