For the delectation of those who like cryptic crosswords and wordplay:
And here’s one for the 47%:
Showing posts with label Mitt Romney. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Mitt Romney. Show all posts
Wednesday, 19 September 2012
Is Romney Right on the Money?
For the delectation of those who like cryptic crosswords and wordplay:
And here’s one for the 47%:
Wednesday, 5 September 2012
Truth hurts … less
An extraordinary feature of the current US presidential race is that Republican vice-presidential nominee Paul Ryan has managed to earn the ire of a Fox News columnist for lying. You have to go a long way to do that.
Why is lying so prevalent in politics?
In the US, an important factor is the way presidential candidates are selected. In primaries, most states only permit voting by registered party supporters, a minority of voters. Despite this fact primaries are very public campaigns garnering significant publicity and with high costs, so an energised minority of voters gets a disproportionate say in electing the candidate. In a purely internal party race, other factors like appeal to the broader population would play a bigger role. Among the Republicans, a very narrow range of views appealing to a small but stridently activist group of voters has become dominant because it does not take a lot of votes to swing a primary, compared with a general election. That puts candidates in a position where they have to appeal to this very narrow base, after a previous political history appealing to a much wider base. Then, once they get to the real election, they have to unwind some of their more extreme positions – or avoid talking about them.
This phenomenon is particularly acute in the Republicans, but all politicians to some extent suffer the need to appeal to different constituencies at different times.
But do they really need to be dishonest? Telling it like it is may sometimes hurt, but a person who does that is someone you can trust. And in a world of dishonesty, trust has high value.
Let’s personalise the issue to put it into perspective. This is a made-up story, but based on life as I’ve observed it:
Like Sue in my story, I wonder if Romney realises his lies are spinning him away from people who used to support him – and destroying trust in an increasingly irretrievable way. He may win a few votes on the hard right, and maybe this is what it takes to win nomination as a Republican candidate. But is it worth it to live out your life as a lie, without anyone you can trust, and with no one trusting you? And unlike my mythical James, the broader public is less forgiving. If you are known to be a liar, it’s very hard to shake that reputation.
Why is lying so prevalent in politics?
In the US, an important factor is the way presidential candidates are selected. In primaries, most states only permit voting by registered party supporters, a minority of voters. Despite this fact primaries are very public campaigns garnering significant publicity and with high costs, so an energised minority of voters gets a disproportionate say in electing the candidate. In a purely internal party race, other factors like appeal to the broader population would play a bigger role. Among the Republicans, a very narrow range of views appealing to a small but stridently activist group of voters has become dominant because it does not take a lot of votes to swing a primary, compared with a general election. That puts candidates in a position where they have to appeal to this very narrow base, after a previous political history appealing to a much wider base. Then, once they get to the real election, they have to unwind some of their more extreme positions – or avoid talking about them.
This phenomenon is particularly acute in the Republicans, but all politicians to some extent suffer the need to appeal to different constituencies at different times.
But do they really need to be dishonest? Telling it like it is may sometimes hurt, but a person who does that is someone you can trust. And in a world of dishonesty, trust has high value.
Let’s personalise the issue to put it into perspective. This is a made-up story, but based on life as I’ve observed it:
Sue does something she knows will hurt a person she cares about, James, so she tries to cover it up, not thinking through that the cover story is a lot worse than the thing being hidden. James finds the story not only hurtful but illogical and tries to make sense of it. The more he tries to find out what really happened, the more she spins out the original lie, so obsessed with the fear that the truth will hurt him that she doesn’t see that the cover story is far worse. Eventually she fears him so much, she refuses to talk to him: still not realising that simply admitting to the original mistake would be much easier for him to accept than her weird behaviour. Suddenly she wakes up and realises what she’s done. One phone call including the word “sorry” and full disclosure goes a long way to repairing the damage. Trust isn’t rebuilt overnight, but James is willing to give it a try.Take this back now to the Republicans. Romney as governor of Massachusetts enacted a health plan much like Obama’s, and had positions considered “liberal” in the US. Now he expects voters to believe he’s actually a creature of the hard right, who don’t accept abortions even in cases of rape, and consider any government intervention in society to be “socialism”.
Like Sue in my story, I wonder if Romney realises his lies are spinning him away from people who used to support him – and destroying trust in an increasingly irretrievable way. He may win a few votes on the hard right, and maybe this is what it takes to win nomination as a Republican candidate. But is it worth it to live out your life as a lie, without anyone you can trust, and with no one trusting you? And unlike my mythical James, the broader public is less forgiving. If you are known to be a liar, it’s very hard to shake that reputation.
Thursday, 23 August 2012
Republicans Go To Hell
Something that no longer astounds me is the way people claiming extreme religious devotion are capable of unspeakable acts of barbarism. I grew up with a church-going mother who really believed the bits about good works, etc., and would never relate to this sort of behaviour.
In the latest example, Republican Missouri senate candidate Todd Akin has caused widespread offence and even a little dismay in his own camp by claiming that “legitimate rape” victims can’t get pregnant, echoing a superstition long debunked by medical science that you can only get pregnant if you enjoy it.
He’s subsequently issued a non-apology (I used the wrong words) and refused to withdraw (ironically the only form of contraception his end of the loony bin recognizes) from the race. Other Republicans have urged him to withdraw (that word again), without specifying exactly what he said wrong.
The problem is, they don’t want to say, because they want the votes women haters represent.
Women’s groups have been rallying to support Akin’s Democrat opponent Claire McCaskill, as they should – and I hope not only women but also men and others who have less bizarre takes on religion work hard to stop him too. I know my mother would have.
I wonder how soon we’ll see a PAC formed by Rapists for Republicans. If his views ever became enshrined in law, all a rapist would need to do to escape conviction (in line with 13th-century British law) is to ensure the victim became pregnant, thereby enabling the “she must have enjoyed it” defence.
If anyone cannot see how unspeakably barbaric these views are, tell us your secret. How did you manage to live to be 800 years old?
I should also add here that though this is very much a Republican disease – the “religious right” has become something of a tapeworm in the brain of the Republicans – there are plenty of Democrats on the wrong side of women’s issues. But the Republican position has become so extreme that I focus on them specifically.
The US right has a long and repulsive tradition of denial of rationality, including tobacco denial, ozone hole denial and climate change denial. If there’s evidence for something, that doesn’t count, if it contradicts you beliefs. It’s sad that this sort of thing has become mainstream in a country that could land astronauts on the moon and bring them back safely, and pushes the boundaries of science in so many areas.
The root cause of this sort of lunatic view is a deeply anti-rationalist view of the world that says you literally believe what you are told by your religion, even if it’s contradicted by obvious, verifiable evidence. The thing that’s behind that is the bizarre view that there is a supreme creator of the universe, who is infinitely wise and powerful, and has the ego of a spoilt toddler, who smashes everything if he doesn’t get his way. If you think about this for only a second, why would someone that wise and powerful care a jot what I think of her? This representation of the creator serves one and only one purpose: the personal agenda of the religious hierarchy. Create extremes of afterlife – a wonderful paradise versus an extreme of barbaric punishment in hell – and a set or rules that must be followed to get to the right place, and you have a wonderful control tool for the gullible.
Don’t get me wrong: I know some very religious people who are wonderful, and do not fit the characterisation here. The point is that there is a huge self-interest for the megalomaniac to twist this sort of belief system to advantage. And look at what they’ve done:
One reason though I really would like there to be a hell is so I could see the faces of the Republican women haters, suicide bombers, apartheid politicians, Zionist zealots and others who used their creator’s name to excuse unspeakable barbarity at the point when they realise their mistake. To echo a line from The Simpsons: “See you in hell. From heaven.”
And since we are ending with comedy, here’s a starting point for the new Republican approach to trying rapists:
Like Akin, he doesn’t understand what the fuss is about, and claims his words have been taken out of context. Then there’s the tea party Tennessee Republican congressman Scott DesJarlais who was recorded making a phone call to his mistress urging her to have an abortion. To add insult to injury, he's a doctor, so he's facing an ethics enquiry.
Small government, it seems, is one small enough to get into your bedroom. But not if you’re a Republican. Maybe they have smaller bedrooms.
You can’t make this stuff up. I write novels in my spare time, and I certainly wouldn’t.
In the latest example, Republican Missouri senate candidate Todd Akin has caused widespread offence and even a little dismay in his own camp by claiming that “legitimate rape” victims can’t get pregnant, echoing a superstition long debunked by medical science that you can only get pregnant if you enjoy it.
The problem is, they don’t want to say, because they want the votes women haters represent.
Women’s groups have been rallying to support Akin’s Democrat opponent Claire McCaskill, as they should – and I hope not only women but also men and others who have less bizarre takes on religion work hard to stop him too. I know my mother would have.
I wonder how soon we’ll see a PAC formed by Rapists for Republicans. If his views ever became enshrined in law, all a rapist would need to do to escape conviction (in line with 13th-century British law) is to ensure the victim became pregnant, thereby enabling the “she must have enjoyed it” defence.
If anyone cannot see how unspeakably barbaric these views are, tell us your secret. How did you manage to live to be 800 years old?
I should also add here that though this is very much a Republican disease – the “religious right” has become something of a tapeworm in the brain of the Republicans – there are plenty of Democrats on the wrong side of women’s issues. But the Republican position has become so extreme that I focus on them specifically.
The US right has a long and repulsive tradition of denial of rationality, including tobacco denial, ozone hole denial and climate change denial. If there’s evidence for something, that doesn’t count, if it contradicts you beliefs. It’s sad that this sort of thing has become mainstream in a country that could land astronauts on the moon and bring them back safely, and pushes the boundaries of science in so many areas.
The root cause of this sort of lunatic view is a deeply anti-rationalist view of the world that says you literally believe what you are told by your religion, even if it’s contradicted by obvious, verifiable evidence. The thing that’s behind that is the bizarre view that there is a supreme creator of the universe, who is infinitely wise and powerful, and has the ego of a spoilt toddler, who smashes everything if he doesn’t get his way. If you think about this for only a second, why would someone that wise and powerful care a jot what I think of her? This representation of the creator serves one and only one purpose: the personal agenda of the religious hierarchy. Create extremes of afterlife – a wonderful paradise versus an extreme of barbaric punishment in hell – and a set or rules that must be followed to get to the right place, and you have a wonderful control tool for the gullible.
Don’t get me wrong: I know some very religious people who are wonderful, and do not fit the characterisation here. The point is that there is a huge self-interest for the megalomaniac to twist this sort of belief system to advantage. And look at what they’ve done:
- politicians who all but justify rape because they have a pathological objection to abortion
- suicide bombers who have no scruples about killing dozens or even thousands in the most barbaric fashion
- Zionist zealots who cannot see that the Palestinians may have some sort of case
One reason though I really would like there to be a hell is so I could see the faces of the Republican women haters, suicide bombers, apartheid politicians, Zionist zealots and others who used their creator’s name to excuse unspeakable barbarity at the point when they realise their mistake. To echo a line from The Simpsons: “See you in hell. From heaven.”
And since we are ending with comedy, here’s a starting point for the new Republican approach to trying rapists:
Update
In case you think this is a random outlier, here's another one (not the actual candidate speaking but a pretty convincing take-down of Indiana Republican senate candidate Richard Mourdock's position that a woman gets pregnant from a rape because “it is something God intended to happen”):
Small government, it seems, is one small enough to get into your bedroom. But not if you’re a Republican. Maybe they have smaller bedrooms.
You can’t make this stuff up. I write novels in my spare time, and I certainly wouldn’t.
Monday, 4 February 2008
Lucky Americans
Lucky, lucky Americans.
You may be wondering how I can say this when your economy is in the toilet, the war in Iraq is a disaster, Afghanistan is unravelling and there is no obvious end in sight.
Well, one thing is obviously ending soon: the Bush presidency.
Can George Dubya Bush be as stupid as he sounds? People have argued that you have to be smart to get to be president of the US. However, we have some contrary precedents. Not only was Ronald Reagan not exceptionally intellectually gifted, but he was sliding into Alzheimers. To what extent his trademark ad-libs were carefully scripted and the property of well organized reminders we'll probably never know, but that he used cue cards extensively and could be totally incoherent without them has been widely reported.
Look at Bush's record on Iraq. The ostensible reason for the war was weapons of mass destruction. WMDs of course are not a new issue, so why the urgency? Because Bush somehow connected Saddam's alleged WMDs to 9/11. What's the connection? If Al-Qaeda somehow got their hands on WMDs, there would be big trouble. Well, maybe. That part makes some sort of sense. But why would Saddam give an Islamist organization WMDs when he is one of their natural enemies? Some of the enmity between the US and Saddam would have pushed him closer to Al-Qaeda but would Saddam have really contemplated giving such dangerous weapons to an organization fundamentally opposed to his style of government? It's unlikely to say the least.
The more obvious explanation is that Bush's inner circle with their oil connections saw it as a hostile takeover of one of the world's biggest oil resources. That they saw the whole thing in terms of a minimal-cost war, with fewer ground troups and a smaller post-invasion effort than most experts considered reasonable is an indication of a closed mindset with limited objectives in mind.
So, yes. I do think there's a case that Bush is not that smart, and is there primarily because he has powerful backers.
So why the “lucky” thing?
Because none of the frontrunners are nearly that stupid. While they may have widely differing positions on some issues like how to get out of Iraq and how to run the economy, they are all candidates of substance. Not only the election, but the final stages of the primaries are shaping up to be a great contest.
None of this of course eases the short-term pain of the downhill slide of the economy and the continuing disaster in Iraq, but an end is indeed in sight. I don't know exactly what it will be because the candidates have different takes, and there are no obvious answers to some of the hard problems up ahead – but at least they are candidates with the potential to take them on. And it seems unlikely that whoever wins will carry on with the Bush approach to climate change denial.
So, not just lucky Americans – lucky rest of the world too.
You may be wondering how I can say this when your economy is in the toilet, the war in Iraq is a disaster, Afghanistan is unravelling and there is no obvious end in sight.
Well, one thing is obviously ending soon: the Bush presidency.
Can George Dubya Bush be as stupid as he sounds? People have argued that you have to be smart to get to be president of the US. However, we have some contrary precedents. Not only was Ronald Reagan not exceptionally intellectually gifted, but he was sliding into Alzheimers. To what extent his trademark ad-libs were carefully scripted and the property of well organized reminders we'll probably never know, but that he used cue cards extensively and could be totally incoherent without them has been widely reported.
Look at Bush's record on Iraq. The ostensible reason for the war was weapons of mass destruction. WMDs of course are not a new issue, so why the urgency? Because Bush somehow connected Saddam's alleged WMDs to 9/11. What's the connection? If Al-Qaeda somehow got their hands on WMDs, there would be big trouble. Well, maybe. That part makes some sort of sense. But why would Saddam give an Islamist organization WMDs when he is one of their natural enemies? Some of the enmity between the US and Saddam would have pushed him closer to Al-Qaeda but would Saddam have really contemplated giving such dangerous weapons to an organization fundamentally opposed to his style of government? It's unlikely to say the least.
The more obvious explanation is that Bush's inner circle with their oil connections saw it as a hostile takeover of one of the world's biggest oil resources. That they saw the whole thing in terms of a minimal-cost war, with fewer ground troups and a smaller post-invasion effort than most experts considered reasonable is an indication of a closed mindset with limited objectives in mind.
So, yes. I do think there's a case that Bush is not that smart, and is there primarily because he has powerful backers.
So why the “lucky” thing?
Because none of the frontrunners are nearly that stupid. While they may have widely differing positions on some issues like how to get out of Iraq and how to run the economy, they are all candidates of substance. Not only the election, but the final stages of the primaries are shaping up to be a great contest.
None of this of course eases the short-term pain of the downhill slide of the economy and the continuing disaster in Iraq, but an end is indeed in sight. I don't know exactly what it will be because the candidates have different takes, and there are no obvious answers to some of the hard problems up ahead – but at least they are candidates with the potential to take them on. And it seems unlikely that whoever wins will carry on with the Bush approach to climate change denial.
So, not just lucky Americans – lucky rest of the world too.
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