He Makes a Good Point

Ramsin Canon at the Gaper's Block blog Mechanics aruges that we really don't have a good idea of what constitutes a 'good' Democrat, and this lack is a major problem when it comes to defining what the party is for and how we are to judge it.

There is a flaw in the motto "Elect More, and Better, Democrats." This motto of the liberal netroots--as a handy shorthand for the current generation of liberal activists--was laid out originally by Markos Moulitsas and adopted to various degrees by the other major netroots networks and organizations.

The flaw is the word "better". With no real left ideology (and therefore, no attendant analysis of the current political and economic situation) there is no real way to gauge what makes a "better" Democrat. With no definition of "better" in this context, we are left with "Elect more Democrats;" not only this, but without an ideology--an analysis--we can't gauge legislative progress--meaning we will never know when we have "enough" Democrats. Electing more Democrats is not a worthwhile goal until we know what makes a politician a "good" or "better" Democrat.

That is to say, without a party-independent movement capable of providing analysis of current political and social crises, we'll end up with a constant tension between those who think espousal of particular issues, versus partisan loyalty, define "progress", "the left" or "progressivism".

It's worth a full read, which you should go give it.

"Any Idea," huh?

Reading the Tribune during lunch, I found this snippet:

Bush was asked about a proposal by Republican presidential contender John McCain, later endorsed by Democrat Hillary Rodham Clinton, to suspend taxes on gasoline and diesel fuel for the summer travel season. The tax is 18.4 cents per gallon of gasoline and 24.4 cents on diesel fuel.

"I'm open to any ideas and we'll analyze anything that comes up," he said.

Suspending taxes would be stupid - it's not the taxes that are the problem, and with the government running deeply in the red as it is, it can't afford the revenue loss. However, since Shrub is supposedlly open to anything, here goes - it is well-known that the price of gasoline no longer reflects supply and demand, but instead the efforts of big-money investors to save their own asses. In the interests of preventing this price inflation from hurting the economy further, price controls should be implemented. If Nixon, the most vile President before Dubya, could do it, Bush can do it too.

He won't, though - he and his buddies are all oil guys. The last thing they want is the price to come down.

I Question Your Underlying Assertion

Archpundit recently picked apart an editorial on the Equal Rights Amendment by Fran Eaton (who my readers may remember as the author of an exercise in incoherency that attempted to defend John Bambenek's misreading of Michigan state statues). I'll be the first to admit that I know little about the legal ins and outs of the ERA, but a couple grafs that Archpundit highlighted caught my eye:

But not only will the ERA's passage stir the hackles of little old ladies and helpless widows, 18-year-old college women may be up in arms.

No longer will military registration be required of just males, it also will be required of females - again, no discrimination based on sex. While more and more young women are choosing the military as a career option, if the draft were to be enacted in a stepped-up defense in the war on terror, our 18-year-old women would be forced into service along with our 18-year-old men.

Now, maybe this just comes from my recently having been in the prime age groups to be drafted, but I don't see how subjecting women to the draft would be a bad thing. Our society has made great strides over the past half-century in recognizing that in the vast majority of circumstances, women are just as capable as men, if not more so. To deprive our nation of half its available pool of recruits in a time of national emergency based solely on outdated social ideas is absurd. I don't know why calling upon women to defend with their lives the rights that are due them is the bad thing Fran makes it out to be.

Then again, based on our previous encounter, I get the distinct impression that I would have no idea why Fran thinks most of the things she does.

Why Single-Payer Health Care is Better

Sara Robinson concludes her two-part discussion on Single-Payer health care by discussing some more incorrect assumptions about universal health care. From her conclusion:

The private sector has had 20 years to prove that it could deliver low-cost, quality care using those vaunted business-style efficiencies; and it has failed us utterly and completely. This fact should be the ultimate nail in the coffin of the old conservative canard that "the free market always does it better." If that was true, privatizing health care would have been the shining example that proved it once and for all. Instead, all we got was a colossally expensive national disaster that's denying full coverage to a third of the country --- and putting our health, competitiveness, financial and social capital, and national security at risk in the process. It's also devastating the aspirations of our entire middle class, which is being hollowed out by our current health policies.

The national security angle - which you should go read - is what I find the most interesting. I'm posting this more to educate my paltry score of semi-regular readers, but if anyone has anything to say I'm interested in a discussion.

Note: Part I is here, and my original post is here.

Lies, Truth, and What's Really Going on North of the Border

Sara Robinson, usually of Orcinus, has a post up at the blog of the Campaign for America's Future going over some common misconceptions that get booted around the US media about Canadian healthcare. It's not easily excerptable, so go and take a gander yourself. It's part I of II, and I'll post a link to the second part as soon as I notice that it's up.

UPDATE: Part II is up.

Someone Please Explain This to Me

Someone would have to be living in a hole to not know that Big Shitpile is really messing up the economy right now, and will for some time. While I'm not surprised that the government is getting involved, would someone please tell me why we're giving people advances on their tax returns? (At least, I assume that's how things are getting paid for, as that's how the "tax refund" was handled the last time around.) This whole economic crisis is, to my understanding, the result of the uncertainty over which large financial institutions are holding what large pieces of bad mortgage loans, accompanied by the necessary fall of ridiculously high real estate valuations propped up by those bad loans. While this sucks for a lot of people, average Joe either isn't effected or is so deep in shit that $600 is not going to go very far. So why are we bothering having this be part of the stimulus?

UPDATE: Jonathan of Analog Periphery expresses similar sentiments and does so while being coherent and organized.

Newsflash: Bush Tax Cuts Did Nothing to Help the Economy

Paul Krugman has a couple of posts up on the effects of the Bush tax cuts. The first, and more important one, shows how the cuts did next to nothing to benefit the economy. The second is on the permanency of the tax cuts being a bad thing. Go have a read.