Race and gender

Nate Silver, who I deeply respect and read frequently released a picture earlier this week showing how the election would look if only men or only women voted this year, to a difference that set off the internet, at least the part of the internet made super liberal people, who tend to be most of my friends.

However, as is so often the case in news, there is a much deeper level to this than meets the eye.

Looking at exit poll data from 2012 we can see that the "gender gap" is very different from what most people imagine it as.

First, Nate Silver is correct about how women voted in 2012, here is the map for reference:

In 2012 (for states which data is available) women voted like so:

This does show some significant swing states in the women vote for Clinton. Indiana, Missouri, Kansas, Arizona, and potentially a few other states which CNN did not conduct exit polls in 2012.

Nate Silver also demonstrates in the male vote that they are overwhelmingly voting for Trump.

In 2012 however, the male vote regardless of race would have looked like this:

So, according to the latest projections, Trump is projected to pick up the male vote Michigan and Colorado and retain the men in all the other states which Romney won the male vote in 2012.

This gender divide picture changes however when you take into account both race and gender.

White men voted like so:

This shows a large number of massive swing states for Republicans if only white men were allowed to vote. Romney would have won every state (for which I can tell given data limitations) except Washington, Oregon, Vermont, and Massachusetts. Every other state for which I could find data would have voted for Romney in 2012. This would be approximately 494 electoral college votes for Romeney, leaving only 44 for Obama.

Is the gender divide what changes American politics? Well, white women voted like so:

This would have given Romney many important states, including Florida, Virginia, Maryland, Pennsylvania, New Jersey, Ohio, Michigan, Colorado, New Mexico, and Nevada. Romney would have won 349 electoral college votes if only white women were eligible to vote. More than enough votes to carry the nomination if voting were limited to white voters only.

With Obama carrying only the northwest and New England given a white only vote, Romney would have won 479 electoral college votes. A landslide victory without question.

The only reason Democrats can win nowadays is with minority voters who form a voter bloc. For every state with data, I find Democrats easily winning the majority of Latino and Black voters, both men and women. The Democrats have become a massive coalition of minorities and white allies since President Johnson, and that is their ticket to winning. This is why Republicans work for voter ID laws, which limit minority turnout. With their opposition to programs which raise people out of poverty, who tend to be disproportionately minority due to centuries of discrimination, there is no wonder why minorities have flocked to Democrats with their support of education, health care, and other essential services that prevent people from falling down completely. 

This is why it is important when studying gender or race to check to see if there is not a lurking variable behind what seems like an easy correlation. The real reason we see more women voting for Democrats is not simply from significant numbers of women flocking to the Democratic party, but from a higher voter turnout among minority women versus minority men. The gender divide is small, but the difference in turnout between minority men and women is large enough to tilt national elections. With millions of African American men incarcerated for minor crimes across the country they are ineligible to vote which does not give the male demographic the Democratic boost needed to also side slightly to the Democratic Party.

For the future this has major consequences for American politics. Hispanic/Latino Americans are growing as a percentage of the population, partly through immigration, and also through a higher birth rate than white Americans. It is now impossible for Republicans to win the Presidency without being accepting and open to these Americans, and they are likely to lose important states such as Arizona and Texas, and Florida is going to be out of reach within 10 years as the demographics shift.

The Republican Party right now is a reactionary party, and Donald Trump represents this reaction from the far right of American politics to a new America which is more diverse than at any other point since independence. With Nate Silver currently giving Clinton an 81.9% chance of winning the election with 322 electoral college votes under their Polls Plus Forecast, this strategy is clearly not working and if Democrats vote down the ballot this year it could be a total catastrophe for the Republican party.

Until the Republican Party becomes less racist the Democrats will retain the Presidency. It is time to focus down the ballot, end gerrymandering and kick the Republicans out of state legislatures as soon as we can. That will probably be in 2022 assuming that there are ballot initiatives in 2018 and 2020 to reform or end gerrymandering. The current initiative in Maine for IRV has the potential to spread across the country like how gay marriage in Maine and Washington spread across the country in the blink of an eye. With ranked voting and multiple members per district in more states, the Democrats and major third parties (eg The Progressive Party) will gain power, forming coalitions and increasing opportunity for everybody. Hopefully these efforts will spread like wildfire, we can change the law to allow (or even require) members of congress to be elected using ranked voting and then we will have governments which reflect the wishes of the people.

This is the foreseeable future of American politics. The racial divide is real and the biggest determinant of which party wins.

Sources:

CNN Exit Polls 2012

http://fivethirtyeight.com/features/election-update-women-are-defeating-donald-trump/

Time to work down the ballot

Trump with his latest move has made his final mistake. He has alienated people of every minority over the last year, Hispanics, Muslims, African Americans, and with his latest train of disgusting degrading remarks he is now losing the support of the Republican Party, with some calling for him to withdraw from the race.

What is striking about this is how none of these types of comments are new for Trump to say on cable news. What is different this time is how he is not targeting a racial group but all women in the world. The modern Republican Party endorsed Trump through all of his racist comments and openness to his bigotry over the last year. They have shown they do not care about Black Lives, Muslims, Hispanics, Native Americans, or anyone who is not white to be honest. Their unwillingness to stand for all Americans and support of a blatantly racist candidate makes them the most despicable party in this country over the last 150 years.

Trump is going to lose. He is a racist rapist who doesn't deserve any time on the news. Only the Democratic Party has shown that it is willing to at the bare minimum to oppose people like Donald Trump and vote for things like the Lilly Ledbetter Act. Granted, the Democratic Party has a lot of room to improve and need to be better about passing legislation with their important pieces intact, in cases including the Affordable Care Act, and voting against legislation which is opposed to American principles, including the PATRIOT ACT. But these are small issues compared to the amount that Donald Trump has already destroyed our civil discourse and wants to move our country backwards. The Republican Party supports him so I must assume this means they support his policies as well.

We need to vote down the ballot and kick out as many Republicans as possible. We need to elect strong progressives in local, state, and Federal offices this year if we are to move our country forward. The President gets all of the headlines, but Congress as a body is just as powerful as she is. Most Presidents in history are former Senators or Governors (Clinton, Obama, Bush, Clinton, Bush, Reagan, Carter, Ford, Nixon, Johnson, Kennedy, Truman, and Roosevelt all were either a Senator or Governor before becoming President) meaning the 46th President is already in office somewhere. Senators and Governors usually are State Legislators when they are elected to Federal Office for the first time, and those individuals grow their campaigns originally through being leaders in their local communities years before they run for office.

The President who will be elected in 2028 is currently in their 30s right now somewhere in the country. This individual is possibly running for a state legislature seat right now in some state in this country. This individual is starting their political career which will catapult them to the Presidency this year only if people get out to vote. Elections down the ballot matter because a future President is running for a legislative seat this year and the only way they are going to lead the United States as President is if they get elected in a month. Do you want that individual to be a progressive fighting for the Bill of Rights and opportunity, or yet another corporate tool who believes that unlimited money in elections is a good thing and that internet surveillance works? (hint: Generals in the military say it doesn't) The only way we are going to be able to secure our future is if we vote for our local races this year all the way down to that boring county commissioner position, which is actually a very important role for determining land use and many other services we rely on everyday. Great leaders in American history start at the bottom, as community organizers gathering petition signatures as they move up the food chain. We get the leaders we deserve by who we elect into those positions.

Please fill out your ballot. Your county needs you.

Schools Of Thought In Modern Politics: Part 2: Who are the Neoliberals?

Building off my last post which defended liberalism as opposed to socialism and fascism, I want to look at the economies of Europe and determine whether their economic policies are more liberal, socialist, or mercantilist. Before I post on that, I need to clearly define the different schools of thought within liberalism by looking at the writings of the authors themselves. Keynesians are fairly easy to define, but the school of thought most misrepresented in today's political arena is that of the neoliberals of von Mises, Hayek, and Friedman and their followers.

Most other issues are not wedge issues between Marxists and Liberals as competing ideologies in their policies.  When it comes to the regulation of monopolies classical liberals are unified about the necessity to prevent one company from having too much power. Even Friedrich Hayek (who is one of the most libertarian economists out there) agreed that social insurance and public health are important services of the government. (Road to Serfdom, chapter 9) Milton Friedman also saw a role for the government and envisioned the Earned Income Tax Credit, the largest transfer of wealth to the poor in America. ¹ Clearly, government intervention is not opposed by even the Austrian or Chicago Schools of thought. The Austrian and Chicago schools definitely supported less direct government intervention than Keynesians and are not the same, but their support of negative income taxes and transfers of wealth from the rich to the poor are antithetical to the modern conservative movement across the world. They advised the conservative parties in their respective countries as well, and deeply influenced the policies of their governments. The politicians then selectively listened to the parts of their arguments they liked and discarded the rest. To emphasize this point, Milton Friedman used Hong Kong, a territory with public education and single-payer health care, as a preeminent example of free market capitalism. Reading their writings and looking at the policies of the conservative parties across the world I see a lot of disconnect and selective listening.

The closest you get in 20th century thought to her radical nature is Ludwig von Mises who influenced politicians but has few true followers in economics who didn't distort what they actually said. Many people claim that Friedman and Hayek follow him, but reading their writings, Mises was more radical than these Austrian School thinkers for multiple reasons. First of all, Mises has little to no interest in fighting income inequality, contrary to Hayek and Friedman who wrote extensively on this point.

Then how do you categorize the current right-wing in America and Europe which has become radicalized over the last 30 years to the point of making Hayek look like an ardent Keynesian? If you look at who is behind the funding of the political campaigns of both parties on Open Secrets you find it is large businesses which are attempting to benefit themselves at the expense of others. Economic thought has never endorsed such an opinion, and is widely credited from economists ranging from Smith to Hayek to Mills to Keynes as being a gross misunderstanding of how the economy works. In economics we observe that the expenditure of one person is the income of another. This is about as close to an absolute truth as you can get within the field. The individuals who fund political campaigns behind this radical ideology are far more in line with Ayn Rand's view of the world which now dominates parties across the world, the Republican Party in America, Conservative Party in Britain, CDU in Germany, Liberal Party in Australia, and Conservatives in Canada. The denial of global warming and idea that we are not connected to one another is contrary to everything economics has ever learned and delusional. It is the ideology of Ayn Rand, who had little to no understanding of economics, and proposed that we are separate from everyone around us. This idea is opposed to all serious economic thought left or right in the world, and there is no evidence for it.

The leaders of this movement who are put forward by these monied interests took some ideas from Hayek and Friedman with little to no understanding of economic theory and then twisted their ideas to fit their own ends. We saw the erosion of the public sector in both Britain and the United States by politicians who do not understand the way the economy is connected into a radical form from popular books that were written by these laissez-faire economists. They took the parts which vindicated government intervention from their non-academic works and then ran with it to an extreme that none of them ever fully advocated in their scholarly works. We see the rise of people like the Koch brothers who fund these organizations to destroy all state intervention and are not liberal in their economic thought at all. These people are simply corrupt and do not closely fit in any modern Western philosophical tradition, unless if you counted objectivism as a philosophical tradition in which case they fit almost perfectly. The closest form of thought they are to is mercantilism because they support policies which improve their businesses but hurt others, support trade when beneficial to themselves in the short run while at all other times oppose trade through legal barriers such as extensively long copyright and patent periods. All of these policies have been demonstrated to be detrimental to the economy in the long run. This is why I am convinced the people these individuals listen to are not economists but the people who pay their campaign funds.

So, in conclusion, the modern Republican Party is not a neoliberal party but an objectivist party. One finds very selective following of the advice of Friedman and Hayek but the most influential individual in them who they did not selectively listen to is Ayn Rand, and the monied interests today who take her writings to heart.

Schools Of Thought In Modern Politics: Part 1: Defining and understanding the modern schools

A question I have been wondering for a while now is how to defend liberalism in a logical way vs. the two other major modern schools of thought which are fascism and communism. the major schools I am going to analyze are liberalism. socialism/communism, fascism, and mercantilism because all four have substantial influence in modern politics.

First, definitions. I am trying to make these the most basic possible, and each of these schools are very diverse, but each idea has basic tenants in common which unite them, primarily the idea of who the primary actor of society is which is a fundamental assertion of all of these major schools of political thought and an easy way of discerning between competing branches.

Liberalism is going to be understood as being focused on the individual as the primary actor in history and is focused on expanding individual rights. Different liberals will interpret this differently (Mill's utilitarianism and Rawls' Justice as Fairness for example) but they all agree on those basic tenants. Liberal economics proposes a system which emphasizes individual liberty balanced with a role for the state (which almost all liberals from Adam Smith to John Maynard Keynes base it on to different levels). The solution to economic justice then is a system where people are able to trade freely (with some exceptions) and social justice where you cannot be restrained from doing actions which do not harm others. In this way almost all liberals focus on justice more than freedom. Most liberals also are not primarily opposed to government intervention. Liberals going back as far as Adam Smith advocated for government intervention in the maintenance of monopolies, and 70 years later Mill argued for public education and other public services which were become more important as capital grew in importance and the labor theory of value was insufficient to explain economic growth (as it mostly was during Smith's time). Liberalism is like a ninja (as one of my teachers likes to say) in that it has substantially evolved over time, but liberals continue to agree with who the primary actor of society is and generally that we should work with market forces and have a generally free market.

Marx is focused on economic classes as the primary drivers of history and history is seen by him as being a conflict between the bourgeois and proletariat. The bourgeois take advantage of the proletariat and the solution is for the proletariat to supplant the bourgeois and create a dictatorship of the proletariat. Marxism must be understood as an evolution of the economy through various stages beyond the current form of capitalism.

1. The economy would be centrally controlled by this dictatorship of the proletariat. the example used by Joseph Weydemeyer is that of Oliver Cromwell in England (who as any Irishman knows was far from benign) and the French leadership which succeeded the French Revolution in 1791 (also known as the Reign of Terror). As a sidenote, next time you are constructing a school of thought, don't use the Reign of Terror as an example of what your theory will recreate, however briefly. The states where the proletariat take over the means of production then should expand their rule to spread the dictatorship of the proletariat to other nations.
2. As society progresses (according to Marxist thought) the dictatorship will then turn into a society where everyone is completely equal in their ownership of the means of production in what Marx called a socialist society. socialism is a society where the means of production are owned directly through the people jointly or indirectly through a government, where all decisions will ultimately be made by the workers.
3. As the socialism progresses all people will become equal and then the society will evolve into a communist society. This communist society is where everyone will have equal ownership over the means of production and there will be no government and no social classes. In the countries where the dictatorship of the proletariat has been established it has failed to progress to a completely communist society in all of the places which have attempted it. The transition will now be complete and everyone will be equal.

Fascists view races as the primary drivers of history and history is the struggle between ethnicities. The way to make peace is make your ethnic group the most superior of all which is the philosophical background to the classic fascist states of history. Race is a socially constructed phenomenon based on how power relates to people's heritage. A system where all ethnic groups are equal, such as Bavarians and Berliners are politically equal, would then be of the same race, while a system where Bavarians and Berliners are fighting between each other would have the Bavarian Race and Berliner Race. Race is in this way completely unnatural and a fully social construction. The way we see the history of the Irish in America for instance confirms this interpretation. Any time you hear a politician make an argument against an ethnic group or argue that people from different ethnic groups cannot cooperate their argument has its roots in fascism.

The fourth major school of Economic thought is that of Mercantilism. Mercantilists are all about protecting the businesses of the state from foreign and domestic competition, and believe that trade represents weakness because they argue it makes you vulnerable to invasion from the countries with which you trade. First of all, I must point out there is scant to no evidence the economy actually functions this way, and economists today almost unanimously agree that this is a way to reduce growth and increase inequality and it is really hard to get economists to agree on anything. I include Mercantilism on this list because it is the school of thought which impacts policies regarding agriculture, laws which prohibit imports in an attempt to boost domestic industry (see the protections against foreign auto manufacturers which were scrapped in the early 1990s) and rigorous multivariable research on the impacts of these policies almost universally agrees that these policies end up hurting the economy in the end. I really have nothing good to say about mercantilism, but it continues to pay an important role in economic policy around the world.

For me I am definitely a liberal. The best reason is what is when a Marxist dictatorship of the proletariat or Fascist state is established the response then is the class or race which is supplanted to then supplant the new master race (literally meaning the race of masters) or upper class. They lack balance of power which leads to a concentration which breeds corruption. There is no solution ever in these and a constant cycle of one group fighting another. Turning a dictatorship into a democracy is a long and arduous process, and it has never been done overnight.

Liberalism on the other hand doesn't have such a problem. Since we live in a world where nobody is 100% from one continent or another according to DNA evidence there is no biological background to the concept of a race except one that includes all humanities, except as a purely social construction. We are all people, so fascism makes no sense. When it comes to Marxism we see the development of Marxist states such as the Soviet Union and China see only the creation of a new bourgeois class supplanting the old bourgeois class, while most people remain proletariat.  We have no example in history where a dictatorship has ever voluntarily given up its power. There is no solution in Marxism and the classes are not natural nor inevitable.

A truly liberal world would on the other hand recognize the humanity of all people and build a world where everyone has the same political rights as everyone else. More liberal states are closer to such an ideal than others and don't see a contradiction with an upper or lower class compared to Marxist or Fascist states. If someone were to create a society where people would be unequal, they would not be following the basic overarching concept that unites all liberals, and would stop being a liberal. For me this represents a strength of liberalism which the other schools fail to succeed in. Truly liberal states (such as Scandinavia, New Zealand, Post-WWII West Germany, Pre-Thatcher Britain) have had generally liberal economic policies and saw the largest decreases in income inequality the world has ever seen. Countries which tried the central planning approach failed to reach these levels of personal freedom and material well-being which are two major factors in determining quality of life.

The final defense of liberalism must be that the economic policies of Reagan and Thatcher are not liberal. Liberal economics, if we are going to use the term as political theorists use it regards a market where firms can freely enter and exit, the government does not pick winners or losers, and everyone has a level playing field with equality of opportunity. this is what was written by Adam Smith, added onto by John Stuart Mill (who advocated for equality of education and other leveling factors) and then with John Maynard Keynes who of course advocated for government to be involved more heavily in recessions and less in times of expansion in countercyclical policy. All of these three major liberal thinkers agreed however that the government should generally be uninvolved in the day to day operation of the economy besides the basic necessities and natural monopolies, as opposed to the interventionist policies of Marxists and Mercantilists. the policies of Thatcher and Reagan (etc.) led to the reduction in private competition by favoring certain businesses over others, which is opposed to everything that the great liberal economic thinkers proposed. The policies they did which favored some businesses over others (tying into the idea of that the government should not pick winners and losers) led to a less competitive economy and is actually mercantilist, which is exactly the school of though which liberalism was founded in order to oppose. I take their actions more seriously than their words (as I do for every political leader) and given how this was their approach I must say they fit closer to the Mercantilist camp. Their policies to break public organizing is opposed to liberalism (especially the works of Mill) because it was the government intervening in the economy to regulate how workers can and cannot act to protect one class over another which was exactly the picking winners and losers liberals love to hate and mercantilists advocate.

So, in conclusion of this first installment in what has rapidly become a series of three articles, the modern Republican Party and other similar parties across the world is not a liberal party. Also, liberalism is the only major ideology in the world which does not contradict itself in major ways. Because of these reasons, we should base our economic policies on liberal ideas.

How the Democrats will win

We have another year until the next election for Congress kicks off, so now is the time for the Democratic party to build an honorable track record to defeat the Republicans next year. The Democrats need to pick up 17 seats and lose none in order to win. They need to play strong defense and specific offense in districts that are at risk with people who have good strong legislative track records at the state level to beat the Republicans.

The following seats and Congresspeople are at risk, according to the election rankings and Cook PVI (Any PVI Republican of 5 or less, or any Democratic PVI that has a Republican representative):

1. Arizona's 1st district
2. Arizona's 2nd district
3. California's 7th district
4. California's 10th district
5. California's 21st district
6. California's 25th district
7. California's 31st district
8. California's 36th district
9. California's 49th district
10. Colorado's 3rd district
11. Colorado's 6th district
12. Florida's 2nd district
13. Florida's 7th district
14. Florida's 10th district
15. Florida's 13th district
16. Illinois' 6th district
17. Illinois' 13th district
18. Illinois' 16th district
19. Indiana's 2nd district
20. Iowa's 3rd district
21. Kansas' 3rd district
22. Kentucky's 6th district
23. Michigan's 1st district
24. Michigan's 3rd district
25. Michigan's 4th district
26. Michigan's 6th district
27. Michigan's 7th district
28. Michigan's 8th district
29. Michigan's 10th district
30. Michigan's 11th district
31. Minnesota's 1st district
32. Minnesota's 2nd district
33. Minnesota's 3rd district
34. Minnesota's 6th district
35. Nevada's 2nd district
36. Nevada's 3rd district
37. New Jersey's 2nd district
38. New Jersey's 3rd district
39. New Jersey's 5th district
40. New Jersey's 11th district
41. New York's 2nd district
42. New York's 11th district
43. New York's 19th district
44. New York's 21st district
45. New York's 22nd district
46. New York's 23rd district
47. New York's 27th district
48. Ohio's 10th district
49. Ohio's 14th district
50. Ohio's 16th district
51. Pennsylvania's 3rd district
52. Pennsylvania's 6th district
53. Pennsylvania's 7th district
54. Pennsylvania's 8th district
55. Pennsylvania's 15th district
56. Virginia's 2nd district
57. Virginia's 10th district
58. Washington's 3rd district
59. Washington's 8th district
60. Wisconsin's 1st district
61. Wisconsin's 6th district
62. Wisconsin's 7th district
63. Wisconsin's 8th district

The following seats are potentially at risk for the Democrats assuming that third parties don't run because of our voting system, these are seats where Democrats won but got less than 52% of the vote:

1. Arizona 1
2. Arizona 2
3. Arizona 9
4. California 7
5. California 36
6. California 52
7. Connecticut 5
8. Florida 18
9. Illinois 10
10. Massachusetts 6
11. Nebraska 2
12. Nevada 4
13. New Hampshire 1
14. New Hampshire 2
15. New York 18
16. New York 21
17. North Carolina 7
18. Pennsylvania 12
19. Utah 4

Basically, the next election looks really good for Democrats. If both parties lose their close seats, than the Democrats will be up 44 seats. This is due to a lot of very close districts for the Republicans. Given that the Republicans follow Democrats in most polls, it is likely that the next election could be very good for Democrats, Hispanics, and gays.

The Future of American Politics

We all have heard about how the Republicans are so opposed to deficit spending. Where were all the hard-core Republicans in Congress when Bush turned a surplus into a $400 billion deficit?

We all have heard about how Democrats are doves, where were the Democrats when the Iraq War got almost unanimous approval in 2002?

We all like to hope that Democrats will defend our freedom of speech, where were they when the Patriot Act was passed?

We all like to think how the Republicans put the deficit first as our most pressing national priority... but why do they seem to think that cutting only the $414 billion that the Department of Health and Human Services spends on everything except Medicare (which they want to keep) will balance a $900 billion budget?

We all like to think that the Republicans want a small federal government, but why then did almost all of them support the No Child Left Behind Act, bank bailouts, and PATRIOT ACT which expanded the role of the Federal government?

We like to think the Republicans are the party that supports America's future, but why do they keep cutting funds for schools?

We like to think that Democrats are in favor of expanding access to inexpensive high-quality college, but why have there been a total of 0 major college-education bills over the past 4 years providing more assistance been in the spotlight?

We like to think that Democrats are in favor of helping the poor, then why did Clinton pass the reform for TANF with the Republican-led congress which made it mostly a state-run program with 56 bureaucracies instead of 1?

We hope Democrats will stand up for what has to happen, but why did they not go to the Supreme Court when the Republican-led governments of Ohio, Pennsylvania and Florida gerrymandered their congresssional districts in ways that are very clearly designed to give Republicans an edge in both the maps and the votes?

This is because neither party truly represents America. If the Democrats represented America they would be a very different party. They would be pushing very hard to bring back the Work Progress Administration, and would have started pushing for an increase in the minimum wage a decade ago. The Democrats would have signed the Kyoto Agreement in 2009 when they had a chance. They would push for serious election reform to make it so that every vote counts, and gerrymandering will have almost no power. I am glad Obama is trying to push his party left on voting reform, climate change, and serious economic policy, and I hope he succeeds. I hope he pushes for making the border with Canada easier to cross, not harder. I hope he will seriously balance the budget by taxing capital gains as regular income, because that is all it will take. I hope he roots out waste in every agency, including the Department of Defense, and shortens the deadline for that agency to audit themselves. It shouldn't take years for an audit to be finished.

Why does this happen? Within both parties are large caucuses. We saw the Republican factions very clearly during last year's primary:

• Santorum with his Christian Democracy platform and soft opposition to the secular state. (I’ll call them Christian Republicans)
• Ron Paul with his libertarian small government ideology in everything except abortion (Libertarian Republicans)
• Mitt Romney with his beliefs between the two, believing in more social policy controls yet not to the point of Santorum. (I’ll call him Republican National Convention)

This is a really uneasy alliance between the three wings. I expect it will someday split.

The Democratic Party also has some uneasy disagreements which to those of us who were involved in Occupy are starting to become apparent on the ground. While I am not and do not wish to be a registered Democrat when it comes to my beliefs I fit into one of these camps. I expect we will start to see it during future Presidential election years like we saw it during last year's Republican primaries.

• Although unorganized, a large number of Democrats fit under the ideology of the Progressive Party (aka Bull Moose) of Theodore Roosevelt. These people are pro-globalization (which alienates them from the Libertarians and Greens), favor nothing less than Universal Health Care (which the Democratic Leadership Council and Libertarian Democrats fail to support and many oppose), and are pro-free trade with nations that have similar economic and political statuses yet oppose free trade for non-business practices (alienating them from everyone else) and are unlikely to support free trade to support American businesses alone, they are also likely to support free travel. They support regulation of the worst aspects of the financial industry. Some will favor a strong military to be used only when necessary. Elizabeth Warren is the epitome of the Progressives.
• You see the more traditional Democrats who want less government involvement in social lives and more governmental regulation in banking and the stock market along with pro-globalization leanings (Democrat Leadership Council). These people do not favor Universal Health Care but favor more centrist approaches. These people favor compromise to hard policy. Obama is the epitome of this party.
• You see people more in Ron Paul’s libertarian camp who avoid the current Republican Party like the plague due to their social policies (Libertarian Democrats).
• You see more isolationist Democrats, the anti-WTO protesters of the 90s who continue to take an anti-military, pro-visa, pro-tariff, and are shifty on immigration in terms of foreign policy along with some more mainstream Democratic policies (Progressive Democrats, merge with Green Party). Whether they will gain seats remains to be seen, but they are a powerful force of solid left wing Democrats and should not be underestimated.
• Some Democrats will join the left-wingers of the Republican Party (Blue Dogs). These people oppose universal health care and when it comes to free trade do not focus on fair trade as a prerequisite.

It would be quite possible to divide the Democratic party on these five lines. It is becoming a very uneasy alliance when you get into it. With so many different ideologies it makes for politics constrained in political beliefs by regional tendencies giving people in different parts of the country fewer choices once the general election comes because the Democratic candidate will be able to outspend the Greens and Socialist Workers. If the Democratic Party split into 4 or 5 factions than we will see more debate.

The Tea Party will be split between the Libertarians and Christian Republicans.
So, I predict that in the next 30 years we will see a reorganization of the American political spectrum as the parties change and we get a more diverse mix of parties. From left to right on the economic scale.

1. Progressive Democrats/Greens (PD)
2. Progressive Party/Bull Mooses (PP)
3. Democratic Leadership Council (DP)
4. Republican National Convention (GOP)
5. Christian Republicans (CR)
6. Libertarian Democrats/Libertarians (LP)

Here is the list of parties by social scale from smallest to largest involvement in personal affairs:

1. Progressive Party/Bull Mooses (PP)
2. Progressive Democrats/Greens (PD)
3. Democratic Leadership Council (DP)
4. Libertarian Party (LP)
5. Republican National Convention (GOP)
6. Christian Republicans (CR)

Here is a table for comparison. Vertical is economic, horizontal is social. Top-left is left-wing. Small vs. Big is the comparative size of involvement of the government.

	Small Social	Medium small	Medium big	Big Social
Small Econ	(Anarchy)	LP
Medium small	PD	DP (status quo)	GOP (status quo)	CR
Medium big	PP (W. Europe)			(NAZI)
Big Econ				(Soviet Union)

There is one more dimension that must be accounted for which is foreign policy: Here is a list of parties, isolationist on top, involvement on bottom:

1. Libertarian Party (LP)
2. Progressive Democrats/Greens (PD)
3. Progressive Party/Bull Mooses/Congressional Progressive Caucus (PP)
4. Democratic Leadership council (DP)
5. Republican National Convention (GOP)
6. Christian Republicans (CR)

I am expecting that the modern Bull Mooses will be more inclined to cooperate with other countries as opposed to the interventionism of Theodore Roosevelt which with the modern politics of America would not fit with their other policies. The Christian Republicans’ policy towards the Middle East puts them on the bottom.

This will be a much healthier system for American politics and we will need a new election system, which I have already talked about. Without using ranked voting we will find that there will be major spoilers which as we saw in 2000 dissuade people from breaking party line in the future. Changing will make every vote count and make it possible for strong political minorities to form their own parties. People will be able to vote their conscious and issues that currently get swept under the rug, like drone bombings (which I will hopefully blog about soon) or our relations with Israel, or issues that aren't even brought up, like our Relations with Canada or Progressive Capital Gains that could receive wide support if discussed, which neither party wants to talk about. This will be good for America.

Another thing that we have seen throughout history is that what happens in America doesn't stay in America. The very idea of democracy which developed here is now used in almost every country. By changing our election system it will be front page news around the world which will make countries like Canada and Britain more seriously consider changing their election systems. It will be a great step for mankind across the world.

I know the factions will continue to disagree in the major parties, and I hope that we can adopt an election system soon before people feel the same way we felt about how Ralph Nader spoiled the election and then go back to voting party-line. The differences in the parties are growing and I think we will.

The motives behind politics

I am currently taking a sociology course at my local community college. One of the most important parts of sociology is the two major theories behind it. The first is structural functionalism, that every decision has costs and benefits to society, and the second is conflict theory, that society is in constant battles for resources. I want to look at the major issues of today to look and see where the Democrats and Republicans get their motivations from.

My sources are: www.opencongress.org for the votes. www.opensecrets.org for the lobbying, and news organizations, predominately NPR, BBC, Al Jazeera, and most importantly, PBS. I have chosen these four because I have observed they usually don't benefit just one side but give more balanced viewpoints and wider coverage than any other source.

First. The money. The motivation. According to www.opensecrets.org the largest financers of political campaigns in order are Finance/Insurance/Real Estate, Health care, communication/electronics, energy (oil), labor, construction, agriculture, transportation, and military. Looking at where the money comes from I will look at what they will get out of the major political debates.

Finance/Insurance/Real Estate have a mix of interests. The real estate industry benefits from subsidies for housing (Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac) and tax breaks for mortgages to encourage people to buy houses, not rent. Insurance has an interest in requiring people to get health insurance from them with no public option, and oppose all forms of universal health care which will shrink their business. Instead people are required to have insurance (which given the situation of money and media I think is the best available option for Americans. We spend far too much in the hospitals as a country for what we get.) Finance would be like banks and stock brockerages who do not want regulations and have collapsed the economy through their lack of responsability. They then get bailed out (what else are we going to do? Pay them unemployment and pay deposit insurance to all their depositors?) when they collapse the economy after lobbying to end government regulations and ruining the finances of real people.

The second would be health care. The largest are manufacturers of medicine, lobbying to get their drugs through the FDA before others. The American Medical Association is not included in the list on opensecrets.  This helps explain why universal health care has so few advocates in our government.

The third is Communications/Electronics. These are the people who support things like SOPA, PIPA, and other terrible things. They monopolize their respective markets and get the government to buy their goods. Others want to impact what regulations are passed that effect their business.

The fourth is energy. This is dominated by oil corporations fighting renewable energy and environmental regulations to protect their businesses at the cost of the country's economic dependence on foreign oil and a vicious cartel. They are almost entirely Republican financiers.

The fifth is composed of unions. These people fight for social programs, schools, or whatever else their industry is interested in. They are almost entirely Democratic financiers. An important note here is how unions are different from corporations, instead of being led by their leaders who are CEOs (like the rest of the lists here) the decisions are made by their members and their leaders are elected by the union members.

The sixth is made of construction, especially people who construct homes. These people donate across the board and are interested in keeping Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac how they are.

The seventh is agribusiness, and these people are interested in keeping their subsidies from the Department of Agriculture and having input on what regulations are put on their businesses. They also oppose legal work visas for Mexicans to work on their farms because they would have to pay them minimum wage and work them no more than 40 hours per week.

The eighth is Transportation. These people are diverse. The people who run rail lines (Berkshire Hathaway, CSX, and others) are interested in keeping AMTRAK on their lines only, keeping the other smaller lines without AMTRAK trains. The autodealers are interested in keeping funding mass transit at bay, so that they can continue to sell far more cars than are needed. (Notice the clash between Berkshire Hathaway and National Autodealers Association) Others include Courier Services who have an interest in keeping their ability to ship packages and stay unregulated. Also some airlines who are interested in keeping the environmental regulations (which cost money) at an absolute minimum. American Trucking Associations is another one that is heavily interested in keeping freight trains at a bare minimum.

The ninth is Defense. These people are interested in the government buying their goods and expanding our military. It is already the largest military budget in the world and the companies want us to buy more of their goods. It makes them rich and takes up a quarter of total government expenditure (half of all discretionary spending). Our government has two types of spending, Mandatory (social security and medicare are the largest amounts here) and discretionary (almost everything else) and the department of defense takes up more than all other mandatory and our annual interest on our debt combined! Also, assuming that it would cost the Federal Government $80,000 to send one American to college for four years ($20,000 per year), if we took half the defense budget out we would still have the largest military budget in the world and could provide free college tuition to 35 million Americans with only half of our military budget. That includes tuition, books, fees, room and board, the whole college everything. We would then make far more in taxes because people would not be deducting their student loans from their income tax, which would more than balance out in the end.

Part 2: The Policies

The Republicans and Democrats agree on a number of issues, the housing market, transportation (although a growing number of Democrats favor mass transit), agriculture subsidies, bailing banks, and Israel. Pro-Israel PACs (according to opensecrets) give 2/3 of their money to Democrats and 1/3 of their money to Republicans, and bth parties support continuing to give them money every year for their military. Perhaps they don't need to give as much to the Republicans because of their evangelical wing? Most of these are not usually brought up. Looking at the policies, we can see how they benefit the big donaters to political campaigns, but the American people often do not benefit as much.

How do the American people benefit from deregulating banks that then collapse? How do the American people benefit from exporting weapons to Israel? How do the American people benefit from the housing market collapsing? How do the American people benefit from having education cut to make way for military? How do the American people benefit from the highest rates for health care in the world with quality that is not significantly better than our European peers, but in many measures is worse (according to the CIA World Factbook)? How do the American people benefit from Monsanto getting government subsidies by less competition? How do the American people benefit from oil companies getting fewer regulations and renewable energy getting stalled, now for over 30 years? How do the American people benefit from AT&T monitoring what we do on-line?

The answer to all of these questions is, no, we lose massively. Very few politicians speak out against these massive corporate powers. Someone to speak out on the issue would be to say "America is going to get renewable energy." (hurting the oil lobby, dropping energy prices for 310 million Americans) "We are going to increase food production to bring down food prices by ending government subsidies to agriculture and scaling back the Department of Agriculture." (hurting Monsanto and United Fruit, now known as Chiquita, dropping food prices for 310 million Americans) "We are going to protect the access to all websites in America and reject pay per view for different websites as proposed in SOPA." (not giving Comcast more money, protecting access to the full internet for 310 million Americans) "We are going to outlaw dangerous lending practices." (Ending short-term gains for large banking institutions and stabilizing the economy for 310 million Americans) "We are going to have universal health care." (Hurting the never ending flow of cash to the insurance industry and decreasing health care costs for 310 million Americans) Behind all of this Americans don't get enough opportunities through education through lack of funding (despite having mostly excellent teachers) and don't cover issues like economics and politics that means Americans don't realize where the corruption actually is.

If someone said this, that person would be hated by those companies. Those people are President Barack Obama, Future Senator Elizabeth Warren, Senator Barney Frank, Senator Al Franken, Representative Dennis Kucinich, and these are the people who get the most hatred from right-wing media. We have not had a President who is so absolutely against these corporate interests since President Carter left the White House and he has received more than his fair share of hatred from the right wing. That is why FOX News and Romney's company Bain Capital's asset Clear Channel (which broadcasts Rush Limbaugh and other far-right pundits) are attacking President Obama. He is a threat to the massive lobbyists who control our government through campaign spending. He is the 99%, he just needs to say it. He was born to a mother from a poor (yet educated) farming family from Kansas and an immigrant father, what origin could be more humble than that? Because he is a threat to these massive lobbyists (especially the insurance industry) they have stepped up their spending, and their media doesn't represent what he really says because if the majority of people in the Deep South realized just how much they would benefit from his policies, he would win 40-50 states come November. This is why they are making voter ID which the NAACP, ACLU, SPLC, and other defenders of our freedom oppose. He is shaking up the status quo as much as he can, and he needs our help to help us. We need a Democratic Congress to pass a Constitutional Amendment to outlaw bribery (aka lobbying) and laws to make it punished severely. The Constitutional Amendment is needed so the Courts can't overturn the regulations again. If Mitt Romney is elected this will not happen, if Obama is kept there is a chance that we could see a massive decrease in corruption if he has a Congress that will work with him and pass these reforms!

They claim that he wants to end the American way of life, and there is some truth for this because he wants to change the system where everything our freedom is supposedly based on is a good that is provided by one of the major lobbying industries (namely own a house and own a car per person, look at the list of lobbyists and there is a clear correlation) and put less restrictions on what we can do, say, or protest, and provide every American with health care, college, and well funded public schools but he can't do that because Congress opposes everything he says, even routine legislation! He wants to change our country the same way Scandinavia's governments did when they became first-world democracies! On top of this most Americans don't hear what the President actually says and this is the big problem because what they think of him is what they are told by the media which is owned by the people who corrupt our system. Why else are there Exxon Mobil commercials on the evening news? If he is reelected and Congress is a Democratic majority than we could see universal health care, affordable college, and a growing economy with less corruption in Congress. If Mitt Romney wins, well, that's not possible because he changes everything he says on a frequent basis, whatever the lobbyists want him to say. If the American people vote for Obama and support him with a Democratic-controlled Congress (which is possible if people in the South start to vote) than there will be big changes, just like our greatest generation did and our standard of living will improve. I would love for the American way of life to be less dependent on the products of the same people who lobby our government.

This is why I am voting OBAMA 2012.

www.barackobama.com

On Ron Paul

On Ron Paul

His policies, his speeches, and his true friends.

In light of Ron Paul recent success in Iowa, let's look at his policies.

I am using the sources Wikipedia uses, to save space here they are the same interviews wikipedia uses from all sorts of news organizations.

Ron Paul’s beliefs

Foreign policy

• non-intervention in both peaceful and military matters
• Lift the embargo against Cuba
• Withdraw from all international organizations
• WTO is a “barrier to free trade”
• States he supports Free Trade, but opposes all free trade agreements
• Patrol our borders
• Policy with Mexico is in line with Republican Party of building a fence and deportation
• No birthright citizenshi
• Opposes hunting terrorists who do us harm.

Economic Policy

• End the Federal Reserve (bad idea, see below)

Social Policy

• Opposes Gay Marriage, Supports DOMA, says he opposes efforts to define marriage.
• No separation of Church and State
• No flag desecration
• No gun laws
• Opposes torture
• Opposes the Draft
• Opposes Affirmative Action, meaning Colleges are allowed to scan applicants for their background.
• Opposes adoption.
• Supports Don’t Ask Don’t Tell
• While stating he supports State’s rights, he has proposed to define life as starting at conception in the US House several times.
• Supports Stem-Cell Research
• Opposes Universal Health Care
• Supports tax credits to cover medical costs
• Supports Marijuana use
• Supports legalizing drugs.
• Opposes Department of Veteran’s Affairs
• Opposes FDA
• Opposes the 1965 Voting Rights Act (2005)
• Opposes the 1964 Civil Rights Act
• Opposes direct election of Senators
• Supports direct election of the President

Environmental Policy

• Opposes Federal emissions standards
• Rejects Global Warming

Overview of inconsistencies

He is inconsistent with his policy on direct voting, by opposing the electoral college and supporting the original method to elect Senators.

Why the Occupy Movement Cannot Support Ron Paul

The first reason is, of course, economical. The Federal Reserve is a Federal agency that is appointed by Congress and approved by the President, despite what Ron Paul says. By removing the power of the government to manage its currency it will go back to where it was during the last period of no central bank from 1869 to 1913, the largest banks in the country will print their own currency with no regulation from the Democratic government. This is what happened then, and that is what will happen now if Ron Paul becomes able to do that. He has been paid by banks, there is no other reason he would support it short of insanity. Having worked for the Federal Reserve he is the perfect member of Congress to make this case for them.

While being a libertarian he supports the government prohibiting federal recognition of gay marriage. Many people make this out to be a libertarian argument, but a Libertarian would not support the Defense of Marriage Act or Don’t Ask Don’t Tell policy, calling them “government intervention”, but Ron Paul does no such thing and has consistently voted to uphold those two policies. He supports a state religion, and to have religion and state intermingle, something a true Libertarian would not dream of supporting. His Abortion policy is directly opposed to Federalism. He opposes giving military employees pensions and lifetime health care after going to war. He opposes free trade, meaning he is a Mercantilist, someone who believes very strongly in the Government sanctioning trade. He has consistently voted against the Federal Government renewing the 1960s human rights legislation that gave African Americans the right to vote and other rights, along with having racist newsletters go out in his name in the 1990s. He supports the Federal Government building a fence with Mexico.

Ron Paul is not a libertarian. He is just another Republican, his policies are all Republican, and his attitude is a Republican attitude. He usually  votes along with his Republican colleagues on important issues unless if it has to do with the Federal Reserve System.

Ron Paul supporters do not know Ron Paul. Ron Paul supporters do not know what Ron Paul stands for. Ron Paul supporters treat Ron Paul as a Jesus figure, and he is the leader of their religion, just like Ronald Reagan has been made into a religious figure by the Republican Party. Follow, and be blind.

If you are part of the Occupy Movement, you cannot support Ron Paul, because he will privatize our monetary policy. The big banks whose practices we oppose will control the United States dollar and you can believe there will be a really rocky ride with many bank runs as soon as this would be done, because that is exactly what will happen. Keep the Federal Reserve, it is our only protection against the banks. He supports expanding government into our lives and leaving our economy to the power of mercantilists. Because that is the economic philosophy Ron Paul follows, Mercantilism.

Do not vote Paul. He is not our friend.