Tag: discourse

Categories
thoughts

Judging on the Wrong Metric

I have been reading the series of articles published by the Deseret News about the consequences of pornography addiction. It has been pleasing to see the problem explored publicly. One of the things that has interested me is in reading through the comments from readers. Some are obviously still in denial about how serious, dangerous, and pervasive the problem of pornography is in our society. One comment in particular caught my attention as it highlighted the kind of attitude that can completely hobble a discussion of how to address this issue. I’ll save my readers the trouble of trying to wade through the poor grammar and rambling thoughts of the actual text of the comment. Here is the idea it was conveying:

“who has never thought about, or done, from birth onward till today, any activity that results in erotic stimulation. Even after you read or heard about the Husband and wife have a solemn responsibility to love and care for each other and for their children.”

The comment implies two things: 1) that anyone who who has ever done anything that could cause them to answer “yes” to the above query is unqualified to speak out against pornography, and 2) that virtually everyone has to answer yes to that query. The problem with that metric is that even if the second implication were 100% accurate the first implication is completely wrong. I suspect that the comment author considers it hypocritical of someone to answer yes to that question and then publicly speak against pornography. If a person is willfully and unrepentantly indulging in pornography then that is undoubtedly hypocrisy. On the other hand, The metric of that question ignores the option of repentance. It wrongly eliminates from the discussion those who have to answer yes who have subsequently rejected the legitimacy of whatever forces them to answer yes. That kind of thinking would reject the opportunity of an ex-gang member speaking out against gangs when the truth is that ex-gang members can provide an authority on the subject that others never could.

That comment reminded me of how dangerous quick and thoughtless judgments can be in hampering our efforts to seek truth and in hampering the process of repentance for ourselves and those we interact with.

Categories
culture meta politics State

Public Discussion

Obi wan Liberali recently asked others if he was considered liberal. Apparently some of his liberal friends thought he was not liberal enough because he is not inflammatory. The discussion that followed in the comments got me thinking about different sites that I have visited and my perceptions. I try to follow sites across the spectrum of political thinking. In doing so I have found some sites (liberal and conservative) where I cannot bring myself to follow closely. In my case, most of the ones I avoid are liberal. I suspect that a reasonable liberal, such as Obi wan, would find that there are more conservative sites he cannot bring himself to follow closely (I am not suggesting that he does, or should, read across the spectrum – only guessing about what I would find if I were liberal like him). That got me thinking that public discourse could be measured along two axis – liberal/conservative and reasonable/unreasonable.

I believe that reasonable discussants find it easy to read other reasonable discussants across the spectrum and less than reasonable discussants who match up with them ideologically. I also believe that unreasonable discussants provide fuel to other unreasonable discussants who are ideologically opposed to them. In other words it is probably fairly easy to follow those in adjacent quadrants, but unreasonable contributors tend to drive away reasonable contributors who are ideologically opposed to them. (Reasonable contributors probably bore unreasonable contributors who are ideologically opposed to them.)

It’s time for another grid:

I have tried to depict who would be alienated by a person who fell at various positions on the grid. For each dot, those on the other side of the line matching the color of the dot would be alienated (according to my theory).

By way of experiment, I am cross posting this at One Utah to see how the discussion differs since that site attracts a very different set of commentors.

Categories
politics

The Wide Middle

I just discovered The Wide Middle today and I think that the concept of “open source public policy” is an example of how more political discourse ought to take place – based on the assumption that we agree on more things than we disagree on and that we can find solutions where we identify problems. I hope that the discussion takes off – I certainly plan to contribute where I can.

Categories
culture politics

A New Birth of Freedom

How do we rekindle the flame of liberty in the heart of all American citizens?

I have been thinking about that question. It continues to disturb me that high turnout in an election approaches 50% participation. That is evidence of the disengagement that indicates a passive (or absent) desire for freedom unlike the active desires of Americans at the founding of our nation. I have said before that I would be happy with the outcome of any election where turnout topped 70%.

As this has been churning through my mind trying to come to some approach to the question, I started doing some searching through the things I have written before. Most powerfully I found my Independence Day post from last year quoting American by Choice that “true American citizens are made and not born” and that “Americans, both natural and naturalized, must be trained–they must be made.”

I went on to talk about how to transmit this “made” American culture through the way we celebrate our national holidays. Naturally my focus then was on the 4th of July. The more I think about it though, we should be celebrating our American culture by participation in the rituals that made America what it is – that would be exercising our rights to vote and participate in the various levels of government.

A week later I revisited the topic after I had found a list of what could be considered the founding documents of our nation. To that list I would add the Federalist Papers which I found among my searching today. That gives me 103 documents to study and react to as I continue my search for how we make Americans so that we may experience an end to our Uncivil War and find – as Lincoln sought during our Civil War:

“. . . that this nation, under God, shall have a new birth of freedom and that government of the people, by the people, for the people, shall not perish from the earth.” (Gettysburg Address)

Categories
National politics State

Why We Need A Tax Debate

If anyone wonders why I think we need a tax debate here’s a good example. Congress passed their omnibus spending bill and today Senator Bennett announces that he got $290 Million for Utah in the bill. The assumption underlying his announcement is that any money he brings to the state from the federal government is a good thing.

Obviously if I leave near the Moab Atlas Mill Tailing site I’m happy for the $24 Million dollars. If I work at the Space Dynamics Lab in Logan (which I used to) then I’m pleased as punch that we got nearly $400,000. On the other hand I’m not excited about the golf course in Pennsylvania that the government paid for and the people of Pennsylvania are probably not too thrilled that they have to clean up the tailings mess in Moab so we can all complain that the government is wasting money. Besides that, when the $24 Million is gone will I be satisfied with the tailings cleanup myself?

We need to make federal spending more transparent and start to talk about what we believe is the proper place for government intervention – in other words, what things are appropriate to receive government funding Is government in charge of health care? defense? border security? my retirement? education? my transportation options? the cost of my groceries? what religion I practice (or get exposed to)? the speed of my internet access?

I think that anyone who says’s yes to all of the above, or no to all of the above is extreme.

Categories
life Local politics

Help Me Brainstorm

I ran into one of the candidates for city council today who happens to work in the same building I do. We took a few minutes to talk (politics naturally) and as we talked we realized that both of us have a similar desire to accomplish two things here in Lehi – we want to discourage apathy among citizens and increase transparency in our local government (all levels of government really, but let’s not bite off more than we can chew right now). We have agreed to get together soon after the elections are over next week and discuss some ideas for getting more people interested in what’s happening in our local government and for making information about what’s happening with our local government more readily available.

Our hope is that by doing this we might be prepared to hold candidates accountable in future elections for what they say, and how they respond to citizens. If we can get more citizens interested in the issues that the city is facing that might encourage our elected officials to be more proactive about communicating, or at the very least they might realize that there are many people who are interested in the challenges that the city is facing.

As I sat down to write tonight I realized that I know many people who are very interested in politics (local politics in many cases, but few who are local to Lehi) who might be able to come up with some ideas on how to accomplish these aims. I decided to invite the thoughts of my fellow bloggers on how we might go about encouraging participation and transparency. Are there technologies that you would recommend for these aims? Do you have any ideas about how to encourage people to be more active? Do you know any tricks to building a politically oriented organization that could accomplish these goals?

Categories
politics State

Facts in Debate

I was excited to see the Daily Herald use the text of HB 174 to support their position. That is the way that debates over vouchers should be. Instead of getting teachers who are concerned about their students to speak in ads saying that the voucher bills are vague and full of loopholes, the voucher opponents should demonstrate one loophole that concerns them in the text of the voucher bills. Voucher supporters should be making arguments in favor of the voucher bills rather than guilt-by-association tactics against voucher opponents.

I have determined that I will not post anything more on vouchers without supporting my arguments with the relevant text of the voucher bills. Anyone who wants to add to the debate would do well to read the text of HB 148 and HB 174 rather than sticking to the vague sound bites we’ve been treated to so far.

Categories
culture politics

A New Generation?

I had not planned to write anything particularly focused on the anniversary of 9/11. Certainly I am not surprised by the number of people who are writing about that. When I read The September 11 Generation Doesn’t Forget it got me wondering how much of the attitudes in that article were real and how much they were based on perceptions from a partisan standpoint. I also wondered if we had really gained a new distinct generation. If anyone has read The Fourth Turning they would recognize the significance of that.

I was disappointed to see that the inappropriate attitudes among liberals that were portrayed in the article were not merely the fancy of a conservative writer. I saw some clearly inappropriate posts on a “progressive” blog here in Utah. I won’t link to the post because any coverage that post gets is more than it deserves. In fairness, that same blog later posted a much more appropriate dissenting opinion. (I won’t link to that either because it leads so easily to the other post.) I’m not ignorant that there is plenty to criticize in our current administration, but some kinds of dissent are more destructive and less acceptable than others.

For an example of what I consider to be the best kind of commemoration for this date see SLCSpin. Like others have said – get out and vote today. Exercising that American privilege is the best commemoration of any important event in American history. For anyone in Lehi, you can learn about the candidates (if you have not already) from Utah-Candidates.com.

Categories
politics

Real Debates

Mike Huckabee has offered to debate Fred Thompson, Lincoln-Douglas style. I think that Fred should accept the offer, but I know lots of reasons why he might chose not to. Mike has nothing to lose. Few people take his candidacy as seriously as they should and the media attention of such a debate would help Mike even if he didn’t trounce Fred. Fred would probably rather pretend that there are only 4 candidates in the race (Huckabee not being one of the other 3).

I think this kind of debate would be helpful to the voters because a Lincoln-Douglas debate tends to help shape the issue in the minds of the listeners. The kind of “debates” that we get among multiple candidates on network television only serve to allow the candidates a chance to try to convince the audience that they best represent the audience, rather than framing the issue to show that they best represent the truth, or the best way forward (depending on the type of issue being debated). Ideally there would be a series of debates on a variety of issues involving different sets of candidates. Each debate should feature only two candidates but each candidate would have debates with a number of other candidates. It would turn the primary campaign into something closer to a tournament allowing us to get to know the candidates (possibly better than we do now) and also helping the voters to get to know the issues instead of just the soundbites.

I hope that Mike gets to have his debate with Fred, or one of the other higher profile candidates, because if he does I am confident that he will prove himself to be every bit the equal of any other candidate. Considering the Fred apparently expressed a desire to have this kind of debate I think he should accept. If he does not I would call it political cowardice unless he manages to arrange for this kind of debate with some better known candidate in the field within the next couple of weeks.

Categories
politics

More Voucher Debate

I talked about flawed/unbalanced arguments related to vouchers in Pick Your Poison. As more and more is written the issue fails to get clearer. However, one point that I cited (made by the anti-voucher camp) involves throwing out numbers to prove their point without backing up their numbers. In this case it was “the average cost of private school tuition is $8000/year so a $2000 voucher wouldn’t help lower income people cover the cost.” (no, that was not a direct quote.)

I now have the pro-voucher counter-argument which also throws out numbers without fully backing them up:

The lower a family’s income, the higher the voucher amount—from $3,000 down to $500. Clearly, this benefits low- and middle-income families more than wealthier families.

According to a Utah State survey of private schools, the average tuition for kindergarten through eighth grade is just $3,800. As much as $3,000 of that would be covered by a voucher, leaving a difference that could be managed by nearly any family.

So are vouchers up to $3000, or only $2000? And what is the average cost of private school tuition? ($3800 is less than half of $8000 so the difference cannot be ignored.) At least the pro-voucher group cites a “Utah State survey of private schools.” I’d like to see a link to the survey.

The anti-voucher numbers link to a Salt Lake Tribune article, but when I read the article those numbers never appear. The $8000 figure never appears, it only states that private school tuition ranges from $2200 to $15000 per year. There is a “snapshot of private school tuition in Utah” that shows 7 schools with tuition between $2200 and $5000 per year and 7 schools with tuition between $6000 and $15000 per year. I notice that 3 of the schools have tuition of $8000 per year, but that includes Catholic schools which are not eligible for vouchers because they discriminate based on religion in the admissions process. If the $8000 average is based on calculating the cost of the 14 schools listed (which may or may not be representative) then it should be noted that the outliers on the high end drastically skew the results.

Actually those 14 schools average out to $7000 per year, and if we toss the 3 that cost over $10000 per year and the catholic schools that can’t accept vouchers anyway the average goes down to $5000 meaning that more than half the tuition is covered by vouchers for the lowest income people at more than half the schools in the list. I did not intend for this to be a pro-voucher argument, but I find that the numbers from the anti-voucher side are totally unreliable so far. The figures they cite don’t appear in the article they reference and the numbers shown in the article they reference actually come closer to the pro-voucher numbers than the numbers published by the anti-voucher group.

The best arguments against vouchers seem to be the arguments that don’t depend on numbers – arguments about philosophy and personal opinion. These are valid arguments to make, but if the anti-voucher crowd wants to focus on bogus numbers instead they deserve to lose on this issue.

So far this has been a discussion about the arguments being made on the voucher issue. My personal stance on the issue is rather unique. I will be attempting to codify it in some understandable way. Stay tuned . . .