So I was looking at the election results (*sigh* American politics...), to see how Oregon's ballot initiatives ended up, and took a gander at the other states' initiatives, as well.

One of the... what I'd consider odd... amendments up for consideration to a number of the state constitutions was a constitutional right to hunt and fish. Anyone here in one of those states, who can clue me in on what was driving those amendments? It can't possibly be knee-jerk "oh noes... Obama's gunna take our gunz," is it?

Reactionary? Never! Especially not this amendment passed in Oklahoma:

Ballot initiatives are a terrible feature of our political system, and I think everyone would be better off if they didn't exist. Sometimes they're stupid but relatively harmless like the ones you and Bitt have pointed out, but more often than not, they allow voters to do stupid thing and hamstring elected officials who know more about the long-term consequences than the uninformed electorate does.

Of course, a bigger problem than ballot initiatives is the ridiculously high number of elected officials we have. States don't need bicameral legislatures, and we don't need nearly as many elected officials at the state/local levels. We also shouldn't have any elected judges -- they should all be appointed by the chief executive at the proper levels. Having all these elections for comptroller, registrar of wills, and dog catcher just leads to voters voting for people they know nothing about based on party affiliation, yard sign counts, etc.

Oh, and "There are too many states, please eliminate 3, PS, I am not a crackpot."

I saw that one, too. It makes the American half of me embarrassed to be American. Now... had it been written so as to forbid courts from considering, or using "religious canon or law," I could get behind it. Were I an Oklahoman after this election, I'd put in a ballot initiative forbidding courts from considering Catholic canon.

Well, sometimes that's the goal behind those who sponsor the initiative, whose goals are opposed to the elected officials.

I like that initiatives allow the public to (attempt to) institute changes that elected officials wouldn't normally touch with a ten foot pole, such as legalizing medical marijuana. On the other hand, "majority rules" decisions can all too easily be used to deprive certain segments of the population of rights they ought to have the freedom to enjoy. Yin and yang.

Except that when a bad decision is made by a legislature, you know who to blame, because either your guy voted for or against the thing you wanted or didn't want. There's no way to boot out the entire electorate when they do something stupid, but you can send your legislator packing. Of course, incumbents usually win no matter how awful they are, and yes, the replacement legislator is probably shitty, too, but at least there's something motivating the guy to do the right thing by his constituents, even if it's just so he can keep his job.

Relatedly, there was a ballot initiative in North Carolina to amend the NC Constitution to deny anyone ever convicted of any felony the ability to run for sheriff.

So much for having paid your debt to society.

It passed something like 85-15.

This is why we need to not have hoi polloi making legislation. It's just reactionism. I'm sure that most of those people got to the poll and saw that for the first time, and said, "Yeah, we don' need no crimmunuls as shurrif," thus denying people who were once convicted of or pled no-contest to, for example, pointing a laser at an airplane are no longer eligible to run for sheriff.

In terms of the electoral results themselves, I think there was going to be some reversion of seats from D to R no matter what was accomplished in the 111th congress. Some of the seats the Dems picked up in the 2008 wave were going to be difficult/impossible to keep without resorting to extreme levels of pandering to the conservative tilt of those districts.

Still, the magnitude of the shift is notable, and I hope it makes Democrats seriously consider whether they might try to be more like, um, Democrats to turn out their base. I don't actually expect this to happen, because, well, they're Democrats, but right now, ideological coherence within the party is higher than it was with all those Blue Dogs and New Democrats in deeply red districts and states. That's a tremendous opportunity to show a consistent message and stay on it until 2012, which will drive turnout of the Democratic base voters that got them elected in 2006 and 2008.

I think it's rather curious how the GOP strategy of creating an "alternative" sub-party paid off this time. So that voters could vote GOP while simultaneously pretending not to.

-ml

Well, the GOP didn't really create the Tea Party, they just commandeered it when it became useful to them. The "Tea Party" as we know it today has its roots in various factions of libertarianism that, at the time they were founded, wouldn't have anything to do with the mainstream GOP. But, just like their godfather Ron Paul, they soon found it was convenient to partner with the GOP in the same way a tapeworm partners with its host organism. The GOP gets their astroturf-y populist group that people can feel good about voting for, and the tea partiers get millions of dollars for negative ads without having to personally whore themselves out to big business (or in some cases, in addition to whoring themselves out to big business.)

This has brought the tea partiers a good measure of electoral success despite the fact that many of their views would prevent them from winning a primary election in most states, much less a general. Of course, now that they're in, I reckon the old guard Republicans will be enforcing some party discipline, meaning that any of them that still thinks they'll be cutting Medicare or Social Security will quickly find themselves eating lunch alone and trying to win elections without the giant piles of corporate cash. Either that, or a civil war will break out, but the tea partiers are small enough in number that I think any insurrection will be quashed pretty quickly. I'm curious to see what happens to these bombastic tea partiers once they get in. My prediction is that most of them will morph into garden-variety Republicans, a few will stir the pot a bit, but ultimately, there will still be near-100% ideological purity within the GOP caucus and almost no split votes on any bills of substance.

That's certainly the back story that's always been promoted to the press.

Brilliant, I suppose, given how effectively it appears to have worked.

It does look brilliant when you just look at the results, but all it really boils down to is big money. The GOP basically initiated a hostile takeover of the tea party movement by injecting millions and millions of dollars to fund groups that co-opted the tea party message and smoothed out some of the rough spots. Without big money from Karl Rove, Dick Armey, and The Koch Brothers, the tea party is still a bunch of Ron Paul goldbug types holding rallies and backing libertarian candidates who get 2% of the vote.

Now, were those big money boys "brilliant" in recognizing the fact that the tea party could be useful to them? I don't know. There are many obvious natural synergies between the tea party types and establishment GOP ideals, and most of the tea partiers are disaffected Republicans to begin with. So I'll give them credit for recognizing the state of play and making bold, decisive moves to bring those guys back into the GOP tent, but I think calling it brilliant might be giving them too much credit.

Interesting article someone linked on Facebook.

http://thebusysignal.com/2010/11/03/the-loss-of-russ-feingold-lamentable-and-shameful/

This is why I don't follow politics too closely. Stories like this help to show how reactionary most of the voting population is, and low little research most do into the candidates. "(R)? Oh, thats good, I'll vote for him, even though that (D) guy actually was voting for limited government and the other core values I claim to support..." *sigh*

It's true, though. There was no "Tea Party" at first. What happened was after the nearly $2T in bailouts and "stimulus", people started getting together literally at tea parties (where you drink tea) to bitch about the situation together and as homage to the Boston Tea Party. It took off like wildfire and started to look like a movement, but it was decentralized. Then the Republicans started pandering to this group to bolster their ranks. That scummy bit did work rather effectively.

Libertarians have flown the Gadsden Flag ("Don't Tread on Me!") for many years, but unfortunately now it's become a symbol of the far right. As my good friend once said about the stars & stripes when *everyone* put them on their vehicle after 9/11, "every time someone does that, it makes the symbol less significant". Well said.

What's eating him? Doesn't he believe in The Power of Pride?

Holy cow, was I wrong on this one! It turns out that the tea partiers are abandoning their principles and adopting standard GOP doubletalk on spending before they arrive in Washington:

Dr. Rand Paul, Revolutionary Outsider (February)

Senator-elect Rand Paul, now:


I'm actually a bit conflicted on this, because I actually agree with Paul's statement that spending earmarks are mostly symbolic, being such a small portion of our overall spending. Then again, I didn't run a senatorial campaign explicitly opposed to earmarks.

All politicians are hypocrites, but this may just take the cake as one of the most brazenly hypocritical about-faces I've seen in a long time.

When is this pony show supposed to end by the way? I'm tired of the US dollar being in the toilet (lately). The way it's dipped seems to be related to the elections and it's disheartening to see that the more US money I accumulate, the lower the rate goes.

It is the stated policy of the Fed to continue to devalue the US currency to attempt to bolster exports. Another $600-900B in devaluation was announced last week, the day after the elections, in the form of monetizing debt. Don't expect the dollar to improve in the near future. Because it solely controls the international reserve currency, the US can spread their economic trouble all over the world by devaluing the dollar, and they've done this to an astonishing degree. They seem to intend to continue until it collapses.

At last there is starting to be recognition that worthless fiat currency is not an answer to anything, and that central-bank caused inflation is a way of stealing from people, as you say in your post. Inflation steals from savings. What's needed is a hard currency beyond the grasp of a ruling class, greedy bankers, and corrupt politicians.

The inflation rate is near historic lows. Deflation is a much more urgent and potentially corrosive risk to our economy when unemployment is near ten percent. The latest round of quantitative easing was widely expected, and thus already priced into the markets.

We're a lot closer to 1990s Japan than we are to present day Zimbabwe. There have been many times in our history to worry about inflation, but now is not one of them.

They tried the gold standard in the depression and that didn't work out so well. Government and currency are too intertwined to seperate. There is no such thing as a currency with intrinisic value because without government the only thing with intrinsic value is food and guns/bullets.

I think Libertarians and Socialists can agree that this is pretty funny.

It looks like we've got at least one incoming GOP freshman who's, shall we say, off message.

I was thinking about this sort of thing last night, while I was waiting in line at the grocery checkout. The person in front of me was using food stamps, and the first thought that popped into my mind was "you know... if the Republican voter base is okay with using my tax money to pay for their wars, then I really have no problem using their tax money to pay for my health care and her groceries."

My second thought, after watching her swipe her card through the card reader 8 times, each time with a different orientation (including mag-stripe up and away from the reader) was "Wow... she's not very bright."

Especially considering how one in four Americans is enrolled in a federal food program.

But, hey, these people are all just leeches who are buying T-bone steaks using funds confiscated from our society's true wealth producers. If we'd just leave their income alone, I'm sure they'd handle the "food security" situation through charitable giving.

A friend of my wife just had her second kid on our tax dollars. Her “Baby Daddy” doesn’t want to marry her because he would have to put her on his insurance and the cost would go up. She would also not get her food stamps and other public food and health assistance since he makes about $60k a year.

If he did marry her he might have to cancel one of his hunting trips or fishing trips to a sporting resort.

Not everyone on food stamps is stupid. Some are quite smart about the system.

That there are unethical people who take advantage of government programs is not in dispute. The fact that you know a couple who's making a convenient financial decision for them that may skirt the intent of government assistance* doesn't really address the question of whether providing the assistance in the first place is in our nation's interest, even if it's not optimally efficient.

Of course, we also know that there are unethical people at higher income levels who abuse the system by taking advantage of tax loopholes, and that because of their disproportionate share of wealth, their negative impact on the government's bottom line is much higher than the amount of fraud in our entitlement programs.

The fact is, with 10% unemployment, a lot of people are going to need assistance. Many of them truly need the assistance, and even if the couple you know doesn't need it, they're clearly spending their money on other things, whereas a CEO who gets a tax break is just going to park money in savings right now, which will do nothing to stimulate the economy. Even if 90% of the food assistance in this country was totally fraudulent, it would still be a good thing for our economy, which has a lot of idle resources due to high unemployment and excess production capacity.

* Of course, I'm not conceding this point without knowing more about their situation than his income and some anecdotes about how he spends his leisure time.

tl;dr version: "The plural of 'anecdote' is not 'data'."

The problem is two fold:

«» Stealing from the government (and to a lesser degree big business) is not considered bad and not considered to hurt anyone.
«» In many cases there is no positive or negative motivation to remove yourself, or your family, from pubic assistance.

Coming from a poor background I have more instances of people happily living well off welfare and cheating the system than I do of people that are really in need. I can only think of one instance where a family used welfare when they needed it and then got off the dime. Even in that situation they could have survived without it by say: canceling their $70 a month cable TV and cutting back. I have even known people to quit their jobs so they could get on public assistance because they didn’t want to work anymore.

A gradually diminishing assistance program would really help to get the slackers motivated. The truly unable to work should be thoroughly screened. Getting one doctor to sign a paper saying you have ADD and can not work is not a ticket to live off the government for the rest of your life (another antidotal example from my experience).

I have rarely seen anyone in true need. The one’s that are in true need on streets usually have some major mental health or addiction issues and refuse help.

This is a complex issue but should not be rocket science. You would think the government could do a better job at monitoring and handing out the cash. I’m sure they’ll do a great job with they new healthcare they will be administering, not.

I think I get what you're driving at, but to me, the extent to which that statement is true depends greatly on what the "stealing" looks like, and who's doing the looking. Conservatives generally concern themselves with people who steal from the expense side of the ledger by abusing government programs, whereas liberals generally have a bigger problem with those who don't pay their fair share into the system, whether that's through tax fraud or judicious use of legal loopholes in the tax code. Of course, a dollar of lost revenue and a dollar of wasted spending are both the same in economic terms, so the idea that one or the other is a greater sin is purely based on political prejudice.

It's also important to note that in both cases, there are gray areas around whether the fraud actually violates the letter of the law, or just the spirit and intended purpose of the law. Your example couple, at least from the information you've put forth, is probably not among the most needy families to be drawing food and/or income assistance, but I have little doubt they qualify under the letter of the law for those programs. Compare their actions to the thousands of businesses and millions of individuals who do everything they can to minimize their tax burden using legal loopholes. Nobody wants to pay more in taxes than they are legally obligated to, so why wouldn't someone who qualifies for assistance take it provided they meet legal eligibility requirements?



That really depends on the individual program. Clinton's 1996 welfare reform imposed strict restrictions on welfare (TANF, formerly AFDC) benefits, including a hard 60 month cap on lifetime benefits and strictly-enforced work requirements for recipients. These led to the number of AFDC/TANF recipients shrinking from ~12 million in 1996 to ~4 million in 2007.

Other programs like SNAP (food stamps) impose fewer restrictions, but I don't think the average SNAP recipient's monthly income of $640 or average monthly food stamp benefit per household of $227 would be considered living high on the hog.


Your anecdotes don't change the fact that the average benefit per recipient of these programs is very small, and the total expenditures is just a drop in the bucket. The total size of the SNAP food stamp program is around $30 billion a year. Last year, we lost twice that in tax revenues to companies who shifted income around to avoid taxation, $3.1 billion that just from Google. When you consider that there are many other forms of legal tax evasion other than income shifting, you realize that the amount of legalized fraud on the income side of the ledger likely matches or exceeds that of those who are abusing government programs. Yet I don't see conservatives/tea partiers campaigning for stricter enforcement of our tax code to make sure companies pay their fair share.



Well, most of the provisions of "Obamacare" have not yet taken effect, but we're already seeing benefits from the few that have. For instance, more small businesses are offering health insurance this year due to a tax credit in the healthcare law. Furthermore, at a time when 20-somethings are having trouble finding jobs, kids up to age 27 can now remain on their parents policies instead of having to go to an emergency room where you and I would pay much more for their care. And it's not like there's any single payer system or public option, so I'm not sure what exactly you're worried about here.

I love the benefits so far. Next year my monthly premiums are going up 300% while my copays are increasing by between 200% and 1000%. They are increasing more the year after. Yay benefits!