tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-81202125266416947502024-02-20T08:00:35.381-05:00Subject To DebateFor years, often with glasses of wine in hand, we have had intelligent, interesting debates from decidedly different viewpoints. In an effort to prove that conservatives and liberals can still talk to and challenge each other without resorting to angry rhetoric, we offer you, “A Subject To Debate.” Each week conservative John Bertosa and liberal Dan Holt will take turns debating and rebutting the issues of the day. We hope you enjoy the discourse and welcome your comments.D.T. Holthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10584391448918201154noreply@blogger.comBlogger28125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8120212526641694750.post-91720176587695599242009-02-23T12:48:00.002-05:002009-02-23T13:00:22.515-05:00Bertosa the BraveBy John Bertosa<br /><br />So, there I was perusing the Internet last week trying to pin down what I would blog about for Monday. I had some ideas but nothing that was really stirring the passion or anything that seemed pressing.<br /><br />And then Eric Holder spoke.<br /><br />For those who don't know who Holder is, he's the new Attorney General, and therefore a member of the "Hope and Change" Administration. And on Wednesday he declared the United States was "a Nation of Cowards." (I'll give President Obama credit for keeping one campaign pledge, he is changing the tone in Washington.)<br /><br />Now Holder believes we are cowards because we don't candidly talk about race, and we don't go home and hang out with people differing skin color.<br /><br />Now, I was shocked at these words at first since I thought there was no need to have a discussion. I thought we should simply say what whites have done wrong and what whites need to do to fix things. And that wouldn't be considered a discussion.<br /><br />But I will take up Mr. Holder's challenge and start a frank discussion on race.<br /><br />I believe that the best way to combat racism and such prejudice is to be colorblind in our thoughts as well as actions. To treat every one the same despite their skin color and more importantly to react to people in ways that have nothing to do with their skin color.<br /><br />Think back to the last three strangers you saw at the grocery store, or the bar or the movie theater. Can you recall if they were right or left-handed? Or if their ear lobes were attached or detached?<br /><br />We don't notice those physical attributes because we don't think about them, and I believe conditioning society to think about skin color in this way is the only way that we can truly eradicate racism.<br /><br />Others will counter that a lot of horrible things were done to people because of their skin color, things that were never done to the left-handed or those with detached earlobes. Skin color was used to separate people in society and put some in a very much worse situation while others benefited.<br /><br />And those who say this are absolutely right. That has been going on in our modern day society since the Dutch first discovered Africa.<br /><br />They also will say that since our society looks at skin color, the best solutions are ones that take skin color into account. But in this they are absolutely wrong.<br /><br />Because by using such methods (i.e. affirmative action and quotas) it sends the message that it is OK to take skin color into account if it is beneficial to a group. And in a society that is taught two wrongs do not make a right,that becomes a conflicting message.<br /><br />It also creates a resentment among some whites, not necessarily the college-educated ones who have access to quality jobs, but the poorer ones whose families never owned slaves or owned a southern restaurant with segregated bathrooms.<br /><br />These poor whites ask why should the government set up beneficial programs specifically for poor blacks when they are in the same financial situation?<br /><br />So, setting up programs like the one in Ohio where a certain percentage of government contracts have to go to minority firms treats the symptoms of racism but it merely masks the true disease -- defining people based on the color of their skin. And when you don't treat the disease, it will spread.<br /><br />Yes, I know getting more than 300 million people to stop seeing skin color as a defining characteristic is a tall order and will take generations. But that time will come sooner if government stops endorsing race-based policies out of the goodness of its heart.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8120212526641694750.post-77070709361090502512009-02-09T18:17:00.001-05:002009-02-09T18:17:01.052-05:00Money -- the root of all good?By John Bertosa<br /><br />WARNING:FACTS WILL BE REVEALED IN 50 SECONDS THAT WILL MAKE LIBERALS QUESTION EVERYTHING THEY THOUGHT THEY KNEW.<br />In Northeast Ohio, just like in other parts of the country, there are school districts that are the envy of parents everywhere and are just miles away from districts that are pitied by parents everywhere.<br />Two of those top-rated districts are Chagrin Falls, to the east of Cleveland and Bay to the west. And in between is the woeful Cleveland school district.<br />Liberals look at the situation -- affluent households supporting districts in which kids go to newer buildings and do excellent on test scores while poorer household have to go to crumbling buildings and are given educations that result in low test scores.<br />And these liberals cry unfair and demand an equal amount of funding goes to the poorer districts. Because, as was perfectly illustrated in the quote chosen by Dan, they believe the key is government money, aka redistribution of wealth, aka making people do the right thing.<br />WARNING:FACTS WILL NOW BE REVEALED THAT WILL MAKE LIBERALS QUESTION EVERYTHING THEY THOUGHT THEY KNEW.<br />Standard & Poors School Evaluation Services, with its Web site schoolmatters.com, has culled state and federal reports and created a database covering every school district. It found that Chagrin Falls spent $12,594 per student in 2006 while Bay averaged $11,215 per student, both way above the state average of $10,561.<br />And as for Cleveland, are you ready for this? The Cleveland School District spent $13,390 per student!!<br />How can this be so? Well because the industrial base in Cleveland, as deteriorating as it is, still has a higher tax base than mostly residential Chagrin and Bay.Chagrin took in an average of $12,590 per student and Bay took in $11,533 per student while Cleveland brought in $15,270.<br />There is not a direct correlation between districts spending more money and students learning more. Despite what Aaron Sorkin believes.<br />Still in shock, well lets look at some other numbers.<br />WARNING: LIBERALS MAY NOT UNDERSTAND OR EVEN BE ABLE TO SEE THE FOLLOWING SENTENCES SINCE THEY DO NOT INVOLVE TAX MONEY OR GOVERNMENT CONTROL.<br />In Chagrin Falls, the number of single-parent households is 8.3 percent, in Bay it's 8.4 percent. And Cleveland again tops these numbers (only not in a good way) with 20.5 percent.<br />Having two people in a home increases the chance of supervision after school so that kids will be compelled to study instead of play Playstation 3 or just hang out.It also improves the odds that there is a parent who appreciates a good education.<br />But, the number that I think is most compelling is this, the number of households in which an adult has at least a bachelor's degree is 64.5 percent in Chagrin and 53.2 percent in Bay while in Cleveland it's 15.7 percent.<br />Parents or older siblings who have navigated the course to the finish line know how to get there but even more importantly they know what it takes to get there. They can tell the child this is how much you have to study and this is why this certain school subject is important.<br />It's family and hard work that offer the best chance to giving a child a good education, not a bright new building or high-priced teachers.<br />So, my solution to the education situation is to emphasize the charter schools so that kids in tougher situations can earn that degree and then serve as a beacon for others in their neighborhoods who might not have that good example at home. Boost scholarship opportunities for the same types of kids who have blindly scratched and crawled their way to great grades. Get them to college so they too can be a good example in their community.<br />It needs to be targeted since the numbers show throwing money at a school district does not have the desired effect.<br />As for the argument about getting the best teachers, that is irrelevant as long as the belief holds that "every child learns in different ways" and that "some students just aren't good test-takers." Because that means you can't create a true standardized test and if you don't have a test to compare the learning of students you will never gauge the teaching of students.<br />After all, if there was a way to gauge a teacher's abilities, (put sarcasm here) don't you think the teachers' union would have unveiled it already?Anonymousnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8120212526641694750.post-65051950881857257062009-02-02T00:01:00.003-05:002009-02-02T16:18:33.209-05:00The Silver BulletBy D.T. Holt<br /><br /><em>“Mallory, education is the silver bullet. Education is everything. We don't need little changes. We need gigantic monumental changes. Schools should be palaces. The competition for the best teachers should be fierce. They should be making six-figure salaries. School should be incredibly expensive for government and absolutely free of charge to its citizens, just like national defense. That’s my position. I just haven't figured out how to do it yet.”</em><br /><br />Actor Rob Lowe as Sam Seaborn in the West Wing episode “Six Meetings Before Lunch,” written by Aaron Sorkin.<br /><br />It feels a little odd to start off a piece on education with a quote from a television show, but I’ve never run across a statement that comes closer to my own beliefs. For as long as I can remember, politicians, education professionals and ordinary citizens have talked of the dreadful state of our education system but we have never made it a national priority to improve the sad state of our schools. Politicians from the local level to the Presidency regularly give lip service to the idea of improving our schools but I have never seen a concerted effort to address the problem of a “separate but equal” system for funding education which insures that the schools that are in trouble will have little or no chance to improve.<br /><br />I use the phrase “separate but equal” in reference to the landmark civil rights decision Brown v. Board of Education, in which the Supreme Court ruled that segregated schools were, in fact, not equal and that the black students in racially segregated schools were not being given the same opportunity as their counterparts in the white schools. While our schools are no longer segregated along racial lines, the common practice of funding education through local property taxes has effectively created a scenario in which a child born in a lower income community does not have the same opportunities as one born in a more affluent district. Although the two school systems are required to adhere to the same standards and are therefore, in theory, “equal,” the difficulty in improving schools which are perpetually under funded due to low property values and a community unable to afford even the smallest of increases on their property taxes creates an educational experience which is far from apples to apples.<br /><br />Some would say that this problem is best addressed with a voucher system, which gives parents the opportunity to send their children to the best of the available schools in their community, and in same cases even private or parochial schools. While this system is probably a good option for the parent of the child going to the better school, it does nothing to address the problem of the failing school. It sets up what is basically a competition, funds are awarded to the school that is performing better which punishes the children still attending the poorly performing school by withholding necessary funds that could help to turn the tide of a worsening situation. The No Child Left Behind act of 2001 sets up a similar situation by awarding federal funds to the schools with the best test scores while leaving the underachieving schools and more importantly the students who attend them to continue to fall behind.<br /><br />I am not suggesting that there is no place for accountability in our schools or that we should withhold money from those that are performing successfully. However, funding that is based on this accountability gives students who are lucky enough to be born in a community with strong schools access to the greater level of opportunity that a good education provides while doing nothing to help the child who is unlucky enough to be born in a lower income, chronically under funded inner city school district.<br /><br />The only way to insure that all of our children have access the same opportunities is to insure that all schools have an equal access to funds. Obviously, this is far easier said than done and, much like the Sam Seaborn character in the West Wing, I am not sure exactly how to do it. I believe that the answer may lie in education that is funded on a national level and be paid for by a progressive income tax. We are currently paying for schools based on the property values in our communities which is in effect a progressive tax system - those who’s home are of higher value are paying more for education. Collecting funds on a national level instead of locally, gives greater opportunity to disperse the funds proportional to all school systems based on the number of students in a given community.<br /><br />Am I certain that this idea will work? Absolutely not. However, I am certain that good schools equal strong communities, lower unemployment, lower crime rates and greater opportunities all of which make solving this problem of equal importance to all of us. Only a willingness to make education a national priority on the level of national defense will give us the chance to achieve the “silver bullet” of a well educated populace.<br />____________________________<br /><br />Check back on Monday February 9 for John Bertosa's rebuttal to "The Silver Bullet."D.T. Holthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10584391448918201154noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8120212526641694750.post-68574540136390823642009-01-22T00:01:00.002-05:002009-01-22T00:01:01.204-05:00What now?By John Bertosa<br />For the past eight years liberals followed the rule to never praise President Bush unless you do so quickly and quietly and then follow up loudly with 10 criticisms. But sometimes, Bush would make a proposal that not even liberals could immediately criticize so they would instead fill their voices with immense doubt and skepticism and in almost a singsong voice say "It sooouunnds gooood but weeee'lll seeee...."<br />And give them credit, it worked. Bush was so villified that during the campaign Obama could simply say that he's not Bush and he didn't have to get his hands dirty in a personal fight with McCain. And even liberals like Dan who didn't resort to such nonstop hateful vitriol would still benefit from it in the form of a Democratic President.<br />So, I would like to start doing my part to help the Republican nominee in four years by only grudgingly complimenting President Obama on the most minor of things while heartily voicing my criticism of everything he does or, more easily, fails to do. Instead of the GOP candidate having to get in a nasty fight that would lessen her standing, she will just have to say "I'm not Obama." while staying above the fray.<br />But, like any inauguration there isn't really anything to criticize here. After all, on a president's first day he can promise to be everything to all people and he is surrounded by people who voted for him and media outlets who can't resist the feel good vibe.<br />So to use the tactic right out of the Liberal Playbook...<br />I hope President Obama uses this wave of popularity as evidenced by the crowds at the Inauguration and soaring approval numbers to bring this country together and not tear it apart. But weeee'lll seeee.<br />Following the inauguration attended by well over a million people, possibly two million, the Washington DC police reported absolutely no arrests. People of all races and ethnicities happily mixed that day. I hope President Obama will continue this era of good feeling and not pursue actions that lead to one race or another being upset, but weee'll seeee.<br />In his inauguration speech, when President Obama said "Our time of standing pat, of protecting narrow interests and putting off unpleasant decisions — that time has surely passed," I hope he was including liberals' interests and decisions that would be unpleasant for Democrats and not just those involving Republicans, but weeee'll seeee.<br />And in his Inauguration speech, when he says "And those of us who manage the public's dollars will be held to account" I hope he will follow through. But weeee'll seeeee.<br />I hope that President Obama's promise of bringing change to Washington will lead to the elimination of the bitter partisanship that has been nonstop since the Bush-Dukakis race 20 years ago. That there will be a breath of fresh air for all. But when I see all the ties to the Clintons coming into the Obama Administration, I'll just have to say weeee'll seeeee.<br />But I am full of hope because this president not only has a mandate but his party controls both the House and the Senate (just like Bush) and he has the smartest and most able advisers that the Democratic Party can field. He does not have to rely on simply <em>trying</em> as he has the power of the greatest country in the world to <em>do </em>what he has promised. If Reagan and his callous idea of "a rising tide lifts all boats" could get us out of an even deeper recession while the opposing party controlled the House, then surely Obama and his more compassionate economic policies will make short work of this one. Everything appears to be in place for a wonderful eight years and the only thing that would prevent that is if the Democrats' ideas are not a true guideline to success.<br />Weeee'll seeee.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8120212526641694750.post-44932797052859097072009-01-22T00:01:00.000-05:002009-01-22T00:01:01.026-05:00Time To Put Away Childish ThingsBy D.T. Holt<br /><br />I’ve witnessed many of those moments in history that cause us to remember where we were or the circumstances of our lives when they occurred. Richard Nixon’s resignation of the Presidency in 1974, John Hinkley Jr.’s attempt to assassinate Ronald Reagan in 1981, the Challenger Space Shuttle disaster of 1986 or more recently the impeachment of Bill Clinton and Hurricane Katrina all spring to mind. The element that all of these events have in common is that they were inherently negative moments in the history of our nation. Watching Barack Obama take the oath of office and become the 44th President of the United States, I was overwhelmed by the historical significance of the moment and overjoyed to realize that this too is a moment that will be an indelible mark in my life. Only this time, the event is positive.<br /><br />There are those, mostly pundits on the far right, who seek to downplay the historical significance and positive nature of the Inauguration. Unable to put aside their political differences long enough to celebrate the image of an African/American being sworn in to the highest office in the land, they are left with nothing but bitter resentment for an election lost and a nation seemingly at odds with their political ideology. I am not expecting conservatives to forgo their ideals and embrace Obama’s political agenda, in fact I would lose respect for them if they did, but to ignore this moment or worse yet to pretend that it’s significance is being overstated to further the agenda of the so-called “liberal media” is to ignore how far we have come as a people, a nation and a democracy.<br /><br />It has been less than 50 years since the Civil Rights Act of 1964 prohibited discrimination based on race, color, religion, sex, and national origin. Less than 50 years have passed since the Voting Rights act of 1965 brought millions of disenfranchised black Americans equal voting rights in the South. It has been less than 60 years since Brown v. Board of Education of Topeka brought an end to the “separate but equal,” racially based segregation of our public schools. The assassination of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. was a mere 40 years ago. It is not possible to overstate the significance of how far we have come in a relatively short span of time. To suggest that the focus of the media on the sheer magnitude of this event is somehow politically motivated is to pretend that racism no longer exists in America.<br /><br />None of this is to suggest that we all should have voted for Obama because of his race or skin color. His success or failure as a President will rightly be based upon the merits of his accomplishments and he will not be a great or even good president because of the historical significance of his having been elected. Those who have pointed out that he is a relatively inexperienced newcomer on the national scene and has yet to prove himself are correct in their assessment. President Obama has before him the task of earning his place among the important leaders in our country’s history and his achievements as a community organizer, Senator and Presidential candidate do not automatically make him a great President any more than does his race.<br /><br />I do believe that President Barack Obama will be a great President but not because of some knee jerk reaction to the importance of his achievements thus far. It is because he is the first leader in my memory who uses words like “us” and “we” far more often than “I” or “me.” He neither has nor pretends to have all of the answers but his single minded focus on uniting our country behind the ideal of forming that more perfect union that the Preamble of our Constitution so eloquently calls for makes him the type of leader that we need in this time of fractured politics and angry rhetoric. We have approached our government as a spectator sport and let our differences paralyze us for far too long. It’s time to move forward and, as President Obama quoted from the Bible, “put away childish things.”<br /><br /><em>“On this day, we gather because we have chosen hope over fear, unity of purpose over conflict and discord. On this day, we come to proclaim an end to the petty grievances and false promises, the recriminations and worn-out dogmas that for far too long have strangled our politics. We remain a young nation. But in the words of Scripture, the time has come to set aside childish things. The time has come to reaffirm our enduring spirit; to choose our better history; to carry forward that precious gift, that noble idea passed on from generation to generation: the God-given promise that all are equal, all are free, and all deserve a chance to pursue their full measure of happiness.”</em><br /><br />From the Inaugural Address of President Barak Obama, January 20, 2009D.T. Holthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10584391448918201154noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8120212526641694750.post-21647801820187156332009-01-13T22:35:00.001-05:002009-01-13T22:37:04.705-05:00Climate ChangeBy D.T. Holt<br /><br />Ah yes, the question of the age: is Global Warming real and if so, have human activities contributed to it? Well, before we start talking about it, we should probably call it Climate Change, which is the term preferred by the National Academy of Sciences. Also, let me say that I am not a scientist and my knowledge of this subject falls in the range of a very casually interested observer, which is a polite way of saying that I know next to nothing about Climate Change or Global Warming. You’ve probably already guessed it but, full disclosure, my fellow blogger John Bertosa is also not a scientist. Although I do know that he is ridiculously smart, I won’t speculate about his expertise in this specific subject. Because my knowledge in this area is limited, I think my best approach to rebutting John’s argument is to look into some of the claims he makes in his post.<br /><br />The first point that caught my eye was the assertion that scientists have been pressured to sign on to the prevailing theories of man’s culpability for Global Warming. Interestingly, when I searched for information relating to this claim, I found a lot of accusations that scientists were pressured to skew their findings on Climate Change to support the Bush Administration’s skepticism on the subject. According to a Reuters news article dated January 31, 2007, a survey by Union of Concerned Citizens “found that 150 climate scientists personally experienced political interference in the past five years, for a total of at least 435 incidents.” I did not find a reference to the Congressional testimony that John refers to in his piece, which only proves that I was unable to find the reference, and is not indicative of whether or not it exists. It is, however, important to note that accusations of political pressure can be found on both sides of the issue and the mere existence of these accusations does not, in and of itself, give them credence.<br /><br />I also had difficulty finding a source for the idea that global temperatures have been cooling since 1998. What I did find was a report by NASA’s Goddard Institute for Space Studies which states that “the highest global surface temperature in more than a century of instrumental data was recorded in the 2005 calendar year.” It also points out that the margin for error makes it a virtual tie with 1998, which was the previous warmest year. This doesn’t seem to support the idea that the earth has been getting cooler since 1998. Even if the global surface temperature had lowered in every year of the last decade, my understanding of Global Warming in particular and Climate Change in general is that scientists are looking at trends over much longer periods of time than ten years. While the temperature could easily have fluctuated up or down in recent years, that does change the fact that over significant time, the global surface temperature is trending up.<br /><br />Finally, I would like to look at John’s opinion that the liberal position on Climate Change is similar to our supposed religious stance that “humans are in control, not some superior being.” As I’ve said before, I don’t believe that there is such a thing as an all encompassing liberal position, but I can say that those of us who do not believe in a superior being most certainly do not believe that “humans are in control.” The Theory of Evolution revolves around the idea of natural selection. To put it simply no one is in charge of the earth, nature takes its own random path. In his comparison, John misrepresents the liberal viewpoint on Climate Change, stating “global warming follows the same argument -- the belief that humanity is in control of nature, that we can constantly have mild weather if we only tried.” I don’t believe that anyone, liberal or conservative, is seriously saying that Climate Change is an entirely man made phenomenon. The prevailing theory is that man has contributed to and possibly hastened Climate Change, not that he is entirely responsible for it.<br /><br />I agree with John’s viewpoint that there are natural cycles to the earth and it only makes sense that at least some of the Climate Change we are seeing is a natural occurrence. Human beings have only occupied the earth for a fraction of the planet’s existence and it is arrogant to think that we could be entirely responsible for its survival or demise. Joe Biden’s comment that Global Warming is “man made” is a ridiculous oversimplification of an extremely complex subject. Sadly, this sort of thing has become the standard level of political debate for both major parties during an election year. However, the wealth of evidence that man has contributed to Climate Change coupled with a myriad of other negative consequences of pollution makes the lowering of Green House Gas emissions and an overall heightened concern for the preservation of our natural resources our responsibility as citizens of this planet that we neither control nor own.D.T. Holthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10584391448918201154noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8120212526641694750.post-23222000717018157752009-01-05T00:01:00.000-05:002009-01-05T00:01:00.770-05:00The Green ScareBy John Bertosa<br />One of the lowest points of the Republican Party's history was McCarthyism in the 1950s in which the fear over communism led to extreme acation and intolerance to opposing viewpoints.<br />It also led to some government leaders using this concern and fear for their own personal gain.<br />Now, it was this selfishness, intolerance and extreme actions that were wrong, not the fight against communism. The fall of the Soviet Union and the subsequent opening of its records did confirm that they were seeking to insidiously influence American Society by using sympathetic Americans. But, that did not exscuse the motives and actions some took to combat this.<br />And now, liberals and their Democratic Party have their brand of McCarthyism -- Global Warming.<br />Testimony before Congress has come out in the past two years (as temperatures cool down both physically and emotionally) that scientists are being pressured to sign onto the theory that global warming is man-made or else not receive funding for their endeavors. Those in the general public are ridiculed as being ignorant just as those who questioned McCarthy were considered sympathizers.<br />Those who defend the scientific theories that global warming is man-made first wrongly treat these theories as fact and they wrongly treat these scientists as unquestionable. A person's career, no matter how noble, can never overcome the frailties inherent in humanity. Otherwise priests and police officers could never do any wrong.<br />Fortunately for the saner observers, claims by Nobel Prize-winning Al Gore and his followers are starting to be shown to be laughable. Global temperatures have been cooling since 1998, not rising. Better examinations of cores taken from glaciers show that earth went through several similar warming periods in the past 1000 years. Also, none of the computer models being used as the basis for global warming predicted such a cold year for 2008.<br />Now, when religion is debated, liberals always seek to take the point that emphasizes humans are in control not some superior being. And the issue of global warming follows the same argument -- the belief that humanity is in control of nature, that we can constantly have mild weather if we only tried.<br />They ignore the natural cycles of our earth. Just as a clock rotates for an hour which leads to the turning of a day which leads to a week which leads to a month and so on for a year,the same goes for other parts of nature. Except for San Diego, the world has seasons throughout the year, every year, so why shouldn't we expect the earth to have greater rotations that span centuries or even millenia.<br />So why ignore this? Why not let people like Joe Biden who responded during the vice president debate with the ultra-simplistic "It's man-made, it's man-made, it's man-made" have their way?Because their solutions to lower air pollution puts a financial burden on industries and that can and will mean job cuts to compensate. And as the current national financial situation shows, it's not worth tampering with for a climate situation that will swing back within decades, if it hasn't already done so.<br />So, be aware that the earth's climate is changing, but also be aware of the damage done by hysteria and be aware of those who try to prosper politically by it.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8120212526641694750.post-5634917531175275682008-12-29T13:11:00.003-05:002008-12-29T13:54:32.201-05:00Goal-settingBy John Bertosa<br />I know resolutions have become a little overdone for the New Year but not for me. I am a big goal-setter so I've got New Year's resolutions, Half-Year resolutions (for July 1 through the end of the year) and then the pre-New Year's resolutions (from the end of October on) that get me lined up for next year's New Year's resolutions.<br /><br />In fact one of last year's resolutions was to be more knowledgeable of what was going on in politics so when Dan approached me with this blog idea I happily said yes and crossed it off my To Do list.<br /><br />So, here are some of my resolutions I hope to accomplish in the coming new year:<br />JANUARY: I really need to build up my stomach muscles so I don't vomit too much over the fawning coverage of Obama's inauguration. Perhaps a daily dose of hot pepper juice and raw octopus will get me ready.<br />FEBRUARY: Convince Dan that he should name his child Sarah Palin Holt.<br />MARCH: Umm, really no resolutions for March. Such a boring month, the only thing really to do is to hear about Spring Training baseball and look forward to summer.<br />APRIL: Write letters to all Democratic congressmen on the 15th daring them to raise taxes (y'know just on the rich, or is the phrase now "super rich"?)<br />MAY: Run Cleveland Marathon<br />JUNE: Try to walk from couch to kitchen.<br />JULY: Make out a 24-month to do list in preparation for my 40th birthday.<br />AUGUST: Try to avoid TV at all costs as one of the traditional hottest months of the year will generate plenty of Global Warming cries from people who weren't able to shout it during this cold winter.<br />SEPTEMBER: Mark one-year anniversary of Subject to Debate and my attempts to enlighten Patriotic and Open-Minded Liberals.<br />OCTOBER: For Halloween, buy prison uniform and masks of either Hillary, Richardson or Rahm.<br />NOVEMBER: I need to hone my personal coping skills. After a year of enforced personal savings due to the recession, people will be ready to start spending again on the holidays and we will hear all about the Great Obama instead of realizing the U.S. economy is a very complicated machine relying on millions of vital factors. Perhaps if I shout out "Serenity Now!" one thousand times that will do the trick.<br />DECEMBER: Make a list of all my non-Christian acquiantences and the go out and wish each of them a "Happy Friday" on Dec. 25.<br /><br />See you all next year!Anonymousnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8120212526641694750.post-87838046147362336732008-12-29T00:05:00.000-05:002008-12-29T00:05:00.308-05:00A Moment For ChangeBy D.T. Holt<br /><br />I’ve been thinking a lot about how to approach this final posting of the year. No matter what side of the aisle you’re on, there’s no denying that this was quite a year for politics. It is equally true that the coming year has the potential for greater challenges and more change than most of us have ever experienced. So, what to do, 2008 in review or preview the coming year? After careful consideration I’ve decided to sort of do both and actually do neither. Instead, I would like to talk about the opportunity that this moment in American political history affords liberals and conservatives alike to work together to face the uncertainties our future holds.<br /><br />There are those in the liberal camp who have had sharp criticism for many of President Elect Obama’s proposed cabinet appointments. As a card carrying liberal (okay, we don’t really carry cards but, you get the idea) I have been concerned about the moderate nature of most of his choices. Many conservatives have expressed displeasure about the number of Obama appointees who played a major role in the administration of President Bill Clinton. Amazingly, these feelings are echoed by the liberals. I realize that to many conservatives, Bill and Hillary represent the very pinnacle of liberalism in America but, those of us who actually are on the left know that the Clintons are card carrying moderates.<br /><br />So what should we do with our concerns? Should we give voice to our criticism? Absolutely, however we should also give the new president the benefit of the doubt. He does not seem to be surrounding himself with “yes men” but instead is making his appointments based on the expertise and ability to challenge of those he has chosen. It is often said that a smart leader should surround himself with smart people who disagree with him and on some level, this seems to be President Elect Obama’s agenda. Whether we agree or disagree with his political viewpoint, Obama’s willingness to embrace reasoned debate should serve as the bar that we should all strive to reach in the coming year.<br /><br />My point isn’t that we should all put our beliefs aside and rally around the president. Nor is it that liberals and conservatives should stop fighting and “just get along.” In a few weeks we will inaugurate a new president and swear in a new session of congress. Given the current economic and social climate, we can no longer afford to weigh the decisions of our political leaders based purely on conservative or liberal ideology. We owe it to ourselves to strive for a more inclusive form of political discourse. We should demand and accept nothing less than reasoned debate from our leaders, fact based, intelligent criticism from the press and informed, active participation from our fellow citizens.D.T. Holthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10584391448918201154noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8120212526641694750.post-3746595098985533512008-12-22T00:01:00.000-05:002008-12-22T00:01:00.786-05:00Have A Happy Thursday!It's the holiday season, what the hell are you doing trying to read about politics? We're taking the week off and will both be back next week with our final thoughts for the year. In the mean time, enjoy Christmas or Hanukah or Thursday or whatever it is you do or do not celebrate, but for Pete's sake,take a week off from politics!D.T. Holthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10584391448918201154noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8120212526641694750.post-26324791693879701382008-12-15T00:01:00.001-05:002008-12-15T00:01:01.093-05:00Logic gets its fingernails pulled outBy John Bertosa<br /><br />From Webster's Dictionary:<br /><strong>torture. 3:</strong> <em>distortion, overrefinement or perversion of a meaning, argument, or a line of thought or reasoning.<br /></em><br />Now, liberals love to use the phrase "freedom from religion" but that is simply being overly dramatic. No one is forcing them to adopt a religion, to get down and pray at the call of an imam or face imprisonment, or be required to go to temple on Saturday or church on Sunday. What they mean is "freedom from religious speech."<br />Well, too bad.<br />America doesn't operate like that. It emphasize the speaker's right, not the listener's right. And our society does that in every other aspect of Freedom of Speech.<br />If an evangelical sees a library display about Gay Pride Day, the government doesn't order it taken down when the evangelical says "Ooooh I'm offended," when a military veteran sees another patriot burning the American Flag on the town square he can't count on the government stepping in on behalf of the offended party.<br />But liberals counter there is no double standard.They say that it is two separate situations because unlike other forms of free speech the U.S. Constitution has set up a separation of church and state.<br />Wrong.<br />Here is exactly what the Constitution says: "Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof,"<br />That's ALL it says.It does NOT say anything about a separation of church and state. It says NOTHING specifically about religious speech. And it definitely does NOT say anything about freedom from religion.<br />The clause stems from King Henry VIII abandoning the Catholic Church so he could get a divorce. He ESTABLISHED A RELIGION -- the Church of England, setting himself up as head of the church as well as head of state. Archbishops and other church leaders could be picked by the King or Queen and a proportion of bishops get to sit in the House of Lords.<br />To connect that situation to a librarian voluntarily putting up a Christmas tree or nativity scene for her 5,000 patrons is utterly and completely tortured logic. A person would have to pass over a lot of steps to connect buying a $10 plastic light-up Jesus to establishment of a religion. It's pull-out-fingernails, electric-shocks-to-the-nipples torture.<br />As for the thought that government funding equals endorsement, well you might as well strap logic to The Rack while Barbra Streisand music blares all night long.<br />The government gives tax money to all sorts of groups not because they are seeking to endorse a certain way of life but because public groups should have some access to the public's money. The government made February Black History Month and provides some funding for related educational programs in schools and libraries. That does not mean government is establishing that skin color as America's official skin color.<br />And on an individual level, someone celebrating Black History Month should not be accused of an unwillingness to acknowledge the trials and success of those with other skin colors. Just as someone who says Merry Christmas or Happy Hanukah is not showing an unwillingness to consider other viewpoints. Maybe, just maybe, they are hoping someone has a happy holiday like the well-wisher has experienced in the past.<br />Congress is clearly forbidden by the Constitution from passing a law demanding a City Hall or library put up a manger but they should not be prevented from voluntarily doing it because that would be a violation of their freedom of speech.<br />So here's hoping liberals set logic free like they are trying to do with their political prisoners at Gitmo and support a nativity scene on Public Square as graciously as they defend a public museum hanging a Mapplethorpe photograph of someone urinating into another's mouth.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8120212526641694750.post-76421811382648124462008-12-08T00:01:00.000-05:002008-12-08T00:01:01.726-05:00‘Tis The Season For The War On Christmasby D.T. Holt<br /><br />From where I sit, the very notion that there is some sort of an attack being waged on Christmas and that Christians, who by any count are in the majority in this country, are somehow a persecuted minority is laughably ridiculous. Yet every year at this time, conservative radio personalities and conservative Christians alike lament the growing threat to this venerable religious holiday.<br /><br />Some point to the very idea that those of us who are more sensitive to the multitude of faiths and belief systems in America, choose the slightly more generic “Happy Holidays” over the more specific “Merry Christmas.” A woman I know insists on defiantly wishing everyone she meets a “Merry Christmas,” usually following it up with “did you notice I said MERRY CHRISTMAS!” Christians often proclaim things like “I wouldn’t be offended if one of my Jewish friends wished me a Happy Hanukah” but that is completely missing the point. The problem isn’t that a non-Christian may take offense. It’s not about hurt feelings but instead about an unwillingness to acknowledge other viewpoints.<br /><br />Another front in this so-called war, involves the nativity displays that appear in the public squares of virtually every town and village in the country. Invariably a few advocates for the separation of church and state will enjoin court action to remove one of these ubiquitous, publicly sanctioned religious displays. The Bill O’Reillys of the world will then rave about the traditions of Christmas and the supposed traditional Christian values that this country was founded on. Again, this is missing the point. The Constitution grants us freedom of religion, but it also grants us the freedom to not have a religion, in effect, the freedom from religion, if we so choose. A Christian specific display on public property, often paid for and maintained by public funds amounts to government sanctioned religion, which is a clear violation of our Constitutional rights as citizens of this country.<br /><br />Because most of us will be celebrating Christmas, the idea goes, public displays and Christian-centric greetings are to be expected. Those who are either non-Christians or choose not to celebrate this holiday should just casually look the other way. When the first amendment states that “Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof,” it doesn’t specify an exception if the religion in question is in vogue with a majority of the population. The fact that most Americans celebrate Christmas has no bearing on the appropriateness of religious icons or celebrations in the public domain.<br /><br />While I am one of the many Americans who celebrate Christmas, my celebration of it is more about fellowship with family and friends that it is about my religious beliefs and I suspect that this is true in varying degrees for a large percentage of us. With this in mind, it is important to remember that American culture is a patchwork quilt that encompasses a multitude of viewpoints and belief systems. Far from being seen as an attack, efforts to confine this holiday to the private sector of our places of worship and homes should be applauded as an example of American’s ability to embrace the true spirit of religious freedom granted to us by our Constitution.<br /><br />Happy Holidays.D.T. Holthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10584391448918201154noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8120212526641694750.post-38025711881017825602008-12-03T23:13:00.000-05:002008-12-03T23:15:14.441-05:00John Stewart, Rush Limbaugh and The Sinister PurposeBy D.T. Holt<br /><br />There is no doubt that political comedy, like that of The Daily Show or The Colbert Report, has an agenda beyond merely making us laugh. As far back as Mark Twain, and possibly much further, satirical comedy with a political bent has been part of our culture. In and of itself, this is in no way a bad thing. A comedian who is attempting to go beyond the usual banal banter that passes for comedy in America is a welcome thing and comics like Bill Mahr and John Stewart have honed their “thinking man’s comedian” routine to perfection. It becomes a problem when the audience for these entertainers begins to see them as legitimate news sources.<br /><br />There is also no doubt that the influence of political comedy has gone far beyond anything we’ve ever seen. The question we must ask ourselves is, are the comedians themselves responsible for this influence? I would argue that the onus is on a news media that has become far more concerned with ratings and infotainment than it is with actually, you know, reporting the news. Americans now have more diversions at their fingertips than at any other time in history and the bi-product of this is a populace with a short attention span and a penchant for quick, easy answers. This makes the pseudo informed persona of Bill Maher seem like a reasonable place to look for stances on political and cultural issues alike.<br /><br />I don’t believe that there is a sinister purpose behind the plethora of left leaning political comics. For the most part, the tradition of political comedy has been from a liberal viewpoint and none of these shows purport to be anything other than comedy. On the Daily Show, John Stewart constantly pokes fun at the idea that the show is an authority on anything and in interviews seems genuinely aghast at the idea that anyone is looking to his show for their political news. Whenever I see a survey about the droves of college students who see Comedy Central as their primary news source, I find myself wondering how they can possibly get the jokes. Good political comedy, like that of John Stewart or Bill Maher, requires a certain level of knowledge in order to work.<br /><br />When criticizing a public that relies on liberal comedians for it’s news, it is also important to point out the conservative counterpart. Radio personalities such as Sean Hannity, Bill O’Reilly, Mark Levine and especially Rush Limbaugh have made a cottage industry of attacking the left in a way that exploits the political ignorance of our populace. Websites like Media Matters for America have long pointed out the level at which the right wing noise machine is willing to mislead, mischaracterize and outright lie to lead their loyal minions to the alter of so-called “conservative principals.” However, the conservative talk show hosts are still seen by their listeners and, in some cases, the news networks that employ them as legitimate, informed political commentators on the level of George Will or Katha Pollit.<br /><br />Sean Hannity spent the final weeks before the election raving about Barack Obama’s alleged lack of a birth certificate and his listener believed every word. Never mind that this story has been debunked by numerous fact checking groups. The constant repetition of the story, coupled with an audience that is listening in a vacuum that only includes viewpoints with which they agree, make a ridiculous fabrication seem not only plausible, but actually true.<br /><br />There is one major difference between the liberal comedians and what I prefer to call conservative radio personalities. The comedians make no effort to convince anyone that they are anything but comedians. They also make no effort to hide that they have an axe to grind and an agenda to further but, at the end of the day, they are presenting themselves as comedic entertainment. The fact that a large segment of the public has assigned them a loftier role is, to be sure, a sad commentary on our lack of an informed electorate but is not an indicator of some sort of conspiracy to win the hearts and minds of young Americans. Limbaugh, Hannity and the others present themselves and are perceived by their public as bona fide political commentators, which is at the very least a disturbing deception.<br /><br />The effectiveness of right wing talk radio relies on and in fact encourages an audience which mistrusts all other sources of news. If liberal political comedy requires an audience that is at least slightly informed in order for the jokes to work and conservative talk radio encourages it’s audience to look only to them for their news and opinions, which side has a sinister purpose?D.T. Holthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10584391448918201154noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8120212526641694750.post-82259006050276513352008-11-24T00:01:00.000-05:002008-11-24T00:01:01.086-05:00J---By John Bertosa<br />There is a four-letter word in the English language that I have grown to despise.<br />I completely loathe this word because it has turned people who use it into deceivers, if not outright liars, 99.9 percent of the time.<br />And what is this profanity? It’s just the word “just”-- as in “I’m just joking” or “I’m just saying.” It is a safe bet that when someone states “I’m just joking” what they really mean is “I’m making a humorous statement but I’m also mixing in a serious observation which I feel will be more easily accepted if told in a light-hearted manner” and when people say “I’m just saying” what they really mean is “I stand by the simple, obvious meaning of what I just uttered but I also am trying to make another point using allusions, innuendos and/or other wordplay.”<br />Now, this brings me to this week’s topic here at Subject to Debate -- should we take seriously The Daily Show, The Colbert Report and other comedic observation shows like David Letterman?<br />And the answer is the jokes should not be taken literally but, yes they should be taken seriously because the shows are not "just" comedy.<br />One reason these shows should be taken seriously is because people in our society are using the Daily Show to get their news. They aren’t purposefully sitting down with notebook in hand believing every word, but they are picking up on the facts. Why are they doing this? Because political and world events are used as the set-up for the joke, heck, real-life politicians are coming in to sit down and be part of the process.<br />Case in point -- Over the summer, a very intellectual relative of mine was talking about an episode in which President Bush, traveling overseas, was seen addressing an Eastern European congregation using very colloqiual language. Now my relative didn’t focus on Jon Stewart’s joke about how such English could never properly be translated into Polish or Hungarian, she dwelled on the actually news element.<br />And then there is an acquaintance of mine, college-educated, who is regularly quoting Bill Maher during political discussions.<br />All this is in addition to the "real" news shows covering what the Daily Show and The Colbert Report are saying.<br />Now, intent is another reason this is not “just” joking. Humor in ye olden days used to just be about word play, whether it was a limerick or a “Why did the chicken cross the road.” But from Lenny Bruce in the 1950s through Redd Foxx and Richard Pryor in the 1970s, social observation matured as the popular basis for jokes. These comedians intended to have people think about the different aspects of our society when we laughed at their jokes.<br />And this humor's maturity has reached a new zenith with the Daily Show and the Colbert Report. No longer are comics just basing their jokes on the news, they are adopting a news format to give their humorous observations.<br />And when almost all the comedy is focused against one side or the other, it's not "just" joking, it's called preaching. And that is my problem with the Daily Show and the Colbert Report.<br />The writers on those shows see the world from a certain viewpoint and they want to make the argument that you should to.<br />The only difference between these writers and George Will, Maureen Dowd and Rush Limbaugh is they do a better job of sugar-coating their observations.<br />So, if you want to defend the Daily Show writers' Freedom of Speech or even go out on a limb and defend their viewpoints, that's fine. But don't act like these are "just" jokes or say these shows don't have political viewpoints and should not be taken seriously.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8120212526641694750.post-52397366639438126142008-11-17T00:01:00.001-05:002008-11-17T00:01:00.713-05:00The Emperor has no clothesBy John Bertosa<br /><br />Those who advocate changing society to accommodate those who embrace the homosexual lifestyle connect it to skin color and the 1960s civil rights movement and gender and the feminist movement.<br /><br /><br /><br />But making that emotional connection is taking the simplistic, easy way out just like labeling every politician you hate "Hitler" or every war "another Vietnam."<br /><br /><br /><br />Homosexuality is not hereditary (like skin color) nor is it a basic of nature (like gender is). But it also is not morally wrong. Homosexuality simply is a biological defect.<br /><br /><br /><br />The human body was intelligently designed or evolved -- depending on whether you are a Bible-clutching conservative or enlightened liberal -- to function at certain levels in nature, and the genetic aspects of an individual which hinder that function are defects. Some are as profound as Down's Syndrome, others pose just minor obstacles, like nearsightedness.<br /><br /><br /><br />Homosexuality is a defect because people are biochemically attracted to their own gender which limits the continuation of the species. A defect, that is all it is.<br /><br /><br /><br />There are social aspects to homosexuality separate fromthe biological ones and those are the ones that concern this discussion of gay marriage, but the problem with supporters of gay rights is they cite biology to defend the social aspects. When an opponent of the cultural aspects brings up a point, the proponent alludes to the biological aspect and declares "It's not a choice!!"<br /><br /><br /><br />But that simplistic outlook is wrong. So, to clearly differentiate, let's draw a black solid line in which everything discussed afterward will be just about the cultural aspects of sexuality, both homo and hetero.<br /><br /><strong>XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX</strong><br /><br />There, now I dress in button-down shirts and wear Dockers because that's the societal group I choose to associate with just as other heterosexuals choose to wear black concert t-shirts and ripped blue jeans because that is the group they choose to associate with. If dress was based on sexual urges then all heteros would dress alike.<br /><br /><br /><br />Therefore, since the only difference between homos and heteros is our sexual urges,the physical appearances homosexuals adopt must also be a choice. The hairstyles, clothing and amount of make-up or lack there of are choices made to associate with a social group. Not genetics.<br /><br /><br /><br />Now, while my biochemistry pushes me to want sex with women, it does not compel me to marry one. While sexual compatibility is a component, there are numerous other considerations, ranging from intellectual to financial compatibilities. And all of these lead to us having to make a choice of who we marry.<br /><br /><br /><br />Actually, we don't even have to make such a choice as more and more people are co-habitating without being married. If our sexuality compelled us to marry, then how can this be possible?<br /><br /><br /><br /><strong>XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX</strong><br /><br />I didn't really need the black line there but I liked it so much as a literary tool that I thought I'd use it again to start my summation.<br /><br /><br /><br />Our society believes we should be judged and accept the rewards and consequences of our choices -- not simply because of who we are. Society should be able to set up laws that push back at people who are 30 years old and choose to go against society norms and try to marry a 10-year-old sheep -- not because these people are black or women but because of the choices they make in our society.<br /><br /><br /><br />And that is exactly what our society is doing when it decides what parameters need to be met in order to marry. The homosexuality that society addresses is not the biology that takes place in the bedroom but the social choices that bring people to City Hall. .<br /><br /><br /><br />Our society has accepted those embracing the gay culture as much as it has those embracing the evangelical culture, the Goth culture and the Urban culture.<br /><br /><br /><br />But on Election Day, the most liberal diverse state (as opposed to Vermont where everyone thinks and looks the same), decided that in the case of changing a pillar of society, it was better to stop pretending that homosexuality in society is the same as race or gender.<br /><br /><br /><br /><strong>XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX</strong><br /><br />I had a little space left so I thought I'd make one side comment, and that's on the rhetorical question "Why would anyone choose to be homosexual?"<br /><br /><br /><br />There are young people out there who feel completely, utterly alone perceiving a world that persecutes them at every turn. Some are drawn to the military as a way of being part of a supportive group, others join a gang while others commit suicide or lead a self-destructive life. Others see the support that homosexuals get from members of their own social group and they want to join it and not feel so alone any more. They either don't see the real-life persecutions (homosexuals are treated nicely on TV all the time) or they believe it can't be any worse than what they're going through now. I believe this is only a small percentage of the gay community, but a percentage nonetheless.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8120212526641694750.post-80113714065768897962008-11-10T00:01:00.000-05:002008-11-10T00:01:00.881-05:00In Defense of Same Sex MarriageBy D.T. Holt<br /><br />With the passage of proposition 8, which amends the state constitution to define marriage as being between one man and one woman, California has become the first state to give the right of same sex marriage and then take it away. It is ironic that a single election could include a triumph for the civil rights movement, in the election of Barack Obama as the first African American President, as well as a major setback in the rights of homosexuals, which many see as one of the major civil rights issues of our era.<br /><br />There seems to be a lot of debate from both sides of gay rights issues as to whether homosexuality is a choice. While it seems ludicrous to think that anyone would choose a sexual orientation with the real potential to make them social outcasts, for the sake of argument, let’s say that it is a choice. Why would that make any difference to the argument either for or against gay marriage? Aren’t all relationships between consenting adults by definition a choice? We all choose the person that we will spend our lives with.<br /><br />Many would say that we should give homosexuals access to the same rights as heterosexual couples, just don’t call it marriage. This is where we get into the idea of civil unions which, theoretically, carry all of the same rights as a marriage but with their own fancy, non-threatening to heterosexuals, name. If the rights are in fact the same, why not just call it a marriage and be done with it? Does our society really have the right to decide which marriages between consenting adults are valid and which are not? I’m not generally a proponent of the fabled “slippery slope” but, isn’t it possible that this paves the way for the return of interracial marriage bans? If two grown men are denied the civil right of marriage because a segment of society sees their relationship as immoral, who’s to say that there aren’t other marriages which large numbers of Americans see as immoral? What about a marriage between a 50 year old man and a 20 year old woman?<br /><br />For reasons that I have never understood, there seems to be a real fear of the effect same sex marriage will have on so-called traditional marriage. How does a change to the legal definition of an institution inherently threaten that institution? Proponents of gay marriage are in fact attempting to change our legal or civil definition of marriage to be a union between two consenting adults. They are not asking churches who believe that homosexuality is a sin to throw open their doors to the flood of same sex couples looking to take part in the holy sacrament of marriage. Instead, they are simply asking that they be afforded the same rights of any other couple that has decided to legally formalize their relationship.<br /><br />It is my belief that the aversion to same sex marriage is more about an aversion to homosexuality than it is about some perceived threat to the institution of marriage. To allow gays the same legal rights to matrimony that straight couples enjoy, is to validate what is seen as the homosexual lifestyle. If same sex couples are given the right to marriage it will be tantamount to a societal acceptance of their sexuality as no more remarkable than a straight man with a preference for blonde haired women. Opponents of gay marriage, along with supporters of the separate but equal concept of Civil Unions, are really opposing the acceptance of homosexuals as an ordinary segment of our society. This is an argument that is based in fear of the unknown and an unwillingness to confront the changing social mores that are a necessary part of the evolution of a vibrant, multicultural society.D.T. Holthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10584391448918201154noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8120212526641694750.post-76790995342267565852008-11-03T00:01:00.002-05:002008-11-03T00:01:01.396-05:00Final Thoughts On The 2008 Presidential ElectionBy D.T. Holt<br /><br />This has to stop. Not the election or the campaigning, which will obviously stop after the results have been counted tomorrow night. What has to stop is the way we’ve been doing this for as many presidential election cycles as I can remember. The idea that a candidate can say whatever is necessary to win. That gross mischaracterizations and even outright lies are just part of a “tough campaign.” We have to expect more from our politicians and from ourselves.<br /><br />It should be obvious to anyone who has been reading this blog that I am pulling for Barack Obama to win this election. While I am encouraged by the polls going into the final day of the campaign, I by no means think that this is a forgone conclusion. These things have a way of being much closer than anyone can predict and it could still go either way. But let’s, for the sake of argument, say that Obama will be elected President of the United States tomorrow night. At some point in the evening, John McCain will address a roomful of faithful supporters with a speech that will start out with something like “I’ve just spoken with Senator Obama and congratulated him on his victory and a well run campaign,” and go on with something along the lines of “I have nothing but respect for Senator Obama and plan to give the next President of the United States my full support,” and maybe something like “in these difficult times, it is more important than ever that Republicans and Democrats alike pull together to reach across the aisle and do the hard work of putting our country back on the right track.”<br /><br />How can this possibly be what he will say after spending the last three months trying desperately to convince the American people that Barack Obama is a terrorist or a socialist or a redistributionist? If even half of the things that have been suggested about Barack Obama were true, why shouldn’t all of McCain’s supporters take to the streets and refuse to acknowledge a Barack Obama presidency?<br /><br />The answer that most would give is that campaigns are tough and sometimes things are said during the course of a campaign that wouldn’t normally be said. How can we, as Americans who are asked to believe in this process, accept this answer? How can we all walk away from the divisiveness and the attempts to incite hatred and fear and mistrust? Elections and the future of our country are too important for us to continue to accept the angry rhetoric, the willing manipulation of half truths and the exploitation of an uninformed electorate.<br /><br />It has to stop. No matter who wins this election, as a country, we have to decide, right here and now, that we will no longer accept this kind of behavior from our candidates. There is a vast difference between advertising and rhetoric which is critical of an opponent’s stances on the issues and that which seeks to defame his character by bending the truth and manipulating any factoid, no matter how inconsequential, in order to cast a shadow of fear or distrust.<br /><br />If Barack Obama is elected president, it will be the first time in a long time that the politics of character assassination have failed. Should McCain win the office, we should all take to the streets, not to refuse acknowledgement of his presidency, but to make it known that never again will we allow ourselves to be used in this way. That in the future, we will expect our candidates to rise to a higher standard of debate and convince us of their own worth without calling into question the patriotism of their opponent. We must expect, no, demand that future candidates for office respect not only the country or the office for which they are running, but also the patriotism and sacrifice of their opponent and, above all, the intelligence of the electorate that they seek to represent.D.T. Holthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10584391448918201154noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8120212526641694750.post-72637210267105725042008-11-03T00:01:00.001-05:002008-11-03T00:01:00.905-05:00PredictionBy John Bertosa<br /><br />When this campaign began in earnest at the beginning of the year, I started making mental notes about whether a candidate's actions on a certain day would be the deciding factor on whether they would go on to win or lose the election.<br /><br />I had a decent-sized list going when I had to throw it all out. That's because the deciding factor ended up being when the stock market started to plummet and the Wall Street bailout was talked about. Because the day before that the polls showed only a 1 percentage point separating Obama and McCain with Obama not getting more than 47 percent of the vote. Also, the Generic Ballot poll for Congress showed Democrats with their smallest lead of the year.<br /><br />What happenned during those five days in late September were two-fold. One it was the final straw for many voters who were disturbed with the way the country was going and they were turned off to Republicans no matter what.<br /><br />But the second was how McCain handled it. I'm not saying his suspending campaigning and going to Washington was wrong. It absolutely was the right thing to do. But he didn't follow through. If he would have joined with conservatives in demanding a better plan he would have utterly taken away Obama's accusation that his just policies are just like Bush's. He also would have been the one being pro-active and he also would have endeared himself to working families who didn't like billions of dollars going to corporations.<br /><br />But he caved into Bush and his Treasury Secretary who had just recently left Wall Street, and the Democratic Senate Majority Leader and the Democratic Speaker of the House.<br /><br />Maybe, the election will reveal I was wrong about the turning point of the election. Maybe it will be when Obama accidentally revealed his economic goals to a plumber in Ohio. But I don't think so.<br /><br />Overall, this has really been a boring race, with few lead changes and thus few changes in campaign tactics. However, I have learned some things through the media and my liberal friends.<br /><br />-- Obama's idea of a running a post-partisan campaign is to break a promise about accepting federal campaing funding and the limitations that come with it, imply that one of his opponents is a pig, and throw reporters off his plane if their papers hadn't endorse him.<br /><br />-- That liberal politicians shouldn't be held to the higher standard they've set for themselves but conservatives should be criticized.<br /><br />-- We should never forget that after the Twin Towers were rammed in 2001 Bush kept reading a storybook to kids. And we should never remember that as the stock and credit markets began to plummet, Obama decided to shoot hoops.<br /><br />-- Joe Biden taught me that unlike how Bush handled the beginning of this financial crisis, President Roosevelt got on TV when the Great Depression first hit and looked the public in the eye and told them the problems they were facing. (I used to think that Hoover was president when the Depression started in the late 1920s and TVs weren't mainstream until the 1960s). Oh, and Biden also taught me that J-O-B-S has three letters and Obama assured me he will campaign in all 57 states.<br /><br />-- I was already taught by liberals that conservatives are stupid for saying "misunderestimate." or saying there's an "e" in "potato".<br /><br />-- Now, I also already had learned over the last eight years that if you can find a reason to criticize the actions, or inaction, of a Republican leader then do it but remain silent if you can't find a reason. In this campaign, my liberal friends have taught me that if you can find a reason to praise a Democrat, then do it but if you can't find a reason then... well... criticize a Republican.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8120212526641694750.post-8098419487055793392008-10-27T00:01:00.002-04:002008-10-27T00:01:00.953-04:00Is it voter fraud or voter suppression?By D.T. Holt<br /><br />I think it would be difficult to find anyone who doesn’t agree that voter fraud is reprehensible and that we should do whatever we can to keep it from happening. However, I think there is some question as to whether ACORN has perpetrated voter fraud. The fact that a small number of more than 13,000 registration assistance workers hired by the organization have willfully turned in inaccurate or sometimes fictitious registrations does not prove that the organization itself has engineered, as John puts it, “a systematic corruption of our voting system.”<br /><br />It is instructive that the conservative pundits who are accusing ACORN of trying to steal this election fail to point out that in almost every instance which has been reported, it was actually ACORN who discovered the bad forms and called them to the attention of election officials. They also fail to mention that ACORN is required by law to hand over each and every registration that they collect. They are not required to verify the forms and flag those that are suspicious for further investigation by the election commission and yet ACORN has done exactly that at considerable expense to their organization. If their intent was systematic corruption of our voting system, what would be their motivation to draw attention to the registrations that they have been unable to verify?<br /><br />Another point that the conservative pundits fail to make about the discrepancies in voter registrations is that many of them are routine in nature. John sites the estimated 200,000 of 660,000 new Ohio voters with records that don’t match. It is crucial to point out that the most minor of differences between the information on the registration form and the databases used for verifying registrations would constitute a record that doesn’t match and therefore requires further investigation. For example, if I were to register to vote as “Dan Holt” instead of “Daniel T. Holt,” that would constitute a record that does not match. While these types of differences cause additional verification by election officials, they do not constitute voter fraud, nor do they lead to anyone having the opportunity to cast an extra vote.<br /><br />In any voter registration drive, there will be false registrations for the likes of Mickey Mouse. There will always be anecdotal evidence such as the teenager in Ohio who registered multiple times. However, there still isn’t clear proof that these false registrations have lead to widespread fraudulent voting. John’s example of the recent case in New Mexico, in which the GOP reviewed 92 ballots and found 28 to be fraudulent, doesn’t seem to be true. ACORN was able to locate and verify several of the so-called false registrants within a day or so. Even if the claim is true, are 92 ballots a representative sample in a state where thousands of new voters were registered in advance of the Democratic primaries? Does the fact that the investigation was undertaken by a Republican lawyer who played a central role in an effort to pressure a U.S. attorney to bring politically motivated voter fraud cases have any effect on the credence of the voter fraud claims?<br /><br />The only systematic attempt that I see in all of this is the systematic attempt of the conservative punditry and the McCain/Palin campaign to throw the results of the coming election into question. This is nothing short of an attempt to suppress or disenfranchise millions of new voters simply because they are more likely to vote for the Democratic candidate on November 4th.D.T. Holthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10584391448918201154noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8120212526641694750.post-19767886261155146442008-10-20T00:01:00.001-04:002008-10-20T00:01:01.045-04:00Twisted tree grows from this seedBy John Bertosa<br /><br />I know I promised to discuss the role of government regulation in our economy this week but recent events have yielded a different subject (and yes a much jucier one) to discuss. Which is why I'm going to talk about balancing the assurance that U.S. citizens can vote with the assurance that there is no criminal activity tainting those results.<br /><br />Every year, in every major election, there are going to be individual instances of voter intimidation and/or voter fraud. The most creative ones I’ve heard were dead people voting in Chicago in the 1960 election and in 2004 pamphlets were being circulated in black neighborhoods saying to be sure to vote on the second Tuesday of November. (If you don’t understand what’s wrong with that then please go to a different Web site and never return here again).<br /><br />But, throughout American history there have been times when these problems coalesced into organized, systemic problems. From Southern Democrats using reading tests and other unrelated requirements for decades to prevent blacks from voting to New York Democrats in the mid-1800s encouraging the immigrant population to vote early and vote often (literally). The problems in the South from the end of the Civil War to the late 1960s, put the focus on intimidation and disenfranchisement, and laws and other efforts since then have worked to alleviate that.<br /><br />But, those efforts have led the pendulum to swing the other way and now, we are seeing another systemic corruption of our voting system. ACORN, the Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now, has claimed to have registed 1.3 million people this year, including Mickey Mouse in Orlando, Fla. There is no word yet on whether that number includes all 73 times one Cleveland teen has registered. Nevada, Connecticut and Missouri are among the eight states targeted as the FBI has launched investigations into a possible national coordinated scam. And ACORN is not the only one pushing the pendulum the other way. In Cleveland last month, a non-partisan chauffer taking the homeless to register and vote admitted on camera that she was encouraging them to vote for a certain candidate. And, wow, talk about coincidence. As I was typing that last paragraph, I was interrupted by a call saying that a man living in a home for 36 years just received a mailing with his address on it telling where to go vote on Nov. 4. The name on the notice was not his.<br /><br />It is not surprising about this growth in fraud considering the fertile ground it was planted in. Voting by mail, voting with no ID required, registering and voting the same day all make fraud easier because they strain the verification process or outright circumvent it.<br /><br />Some might say, what’s the big deal, the elections boards will catch fraudulant registrations and illegal voting. But those people obviously have never lived in Cuyahoga County in Ohio where government ineptitude is on full display every spring and fall. And even if an elections board is on the ball, they don’t have the personnel resources to handle so many questions. In Ohio’s , the Associated Press reports 200,000 of 666,000 newly registered voters have records that don’t match.<br /><br />And here's proof -- in a June election in a House District in News Mexico, the GOP reviewed just 92 ballots and reported 28 were from fraudulent registration. Now, because of a biased source, let's only look at the 10 registrations that were released to the public. These did not include any Social Security numbers, drivers license numbers or birthdays. And the cherry on top? One of the voters was "Duran-Duran." Nice.<br /><br />The pendulum has swung from one way of eroding democracy to another damaging way. And America needs to get the pendulum to settle right in the middle. But that won’t happen if people lustily shout out for making it easier to vote while only reluctantly whispering about fraud prevention.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8120212526641694750.post-31902962674009921242008-10-13T00:01:00.001-04:002008-10-13T00:01:01.059-04:00YesBy John Bertosa<br /><em>First, should we only look at candidates’ intentions and policies when voting?</em><br /><br />Well, the military saying goes “A battle plan is great until the first shot is fired.” What that alludes to is that in an emotionally intense, ever-changing situation, what looks good on paper is quickly irrelevant. That’s why the military focuses on the foundations of good soldiering and leadership. So, when that first shot is fired the soldier will immediately take appropriate action as will the officer even if it’s not what’s dictated by the plan.<br /><br />Running a major country is no different. President Bush came into office talking very little about international plans, until Al Qaeda fired that shot. Senators McCain’s and Obama’s intentions and policies for the economy are already obsolete.<br /><br />So, what also matters is the foundations of these leaders. What inner workings will guide them and what philosophies will they rely on? That is what voters need to know — how candidates will react once their plans become irrelevant.<br /><br /><em>So, then, should a candidate’s personal faith be considered?</em><br /><br />For some voters, education is the most important factor. But unless the President majored in Human Psychology, textbooks aren’t enough. Temperament is a key indicator as well as the ability to determine which advisors to rely on and which not to (can you say “Michael Corleone”?).<br /><br />Another indicator is a leader’s religous faith and strength of it. Because faith (belief in a higher power and the guidance that higher power has given) is infused in believers to a great degree or lesser; it colors our personal philosophy and outlook and affects our decisions, minutely or decisively. A prime example is Sarah Palin’s decision to carry out her latest pregnancy despite the hardships it will cause because she believed life is sacred.<br /><br />Faith moves us to take action beyond our own basest self-interest, like taking in foster children or standing in the freezing cold ringing a bell for The Salvation Army. Faith also serves as an excellent coping mechanism, knowing that there’s a higher power backing you up is a great comfort. And faith serves as a brake on emotionally selfish tendencies (Consider the 10 Commandments).<br /><br />And if a candidate does not have a strong or encompassing faith, then I’ll leave that up to the voter to decide on the level of importance to attach to it. But the voter should be able to gather enough information on the candidates to make that decision.<br /><br /><em>But should candidates infuse their personal beliefs in the way they govern or legislate?</em><br /><br />The people who ask that question think of faith as just a credit card that you stick in your wallet and take out like you’re paying for dinner — something that can be compartmentalized, a tangible object to be isolated.<br /><br />But it’s not. It is ingrained throughout our being, serving as a building block for new experiences and coloring everything we’ve done and thought. And even if we could completely set aside our beliefs, no one would want to.<br /><br />Taking care of the poor is very much a Christian (and Islamic and Judiac) teaching. Should a government official really set aside these religious teachings when it comes to policies that direct funding (including tax dollars from non-believers) to the most needy?<br /><br />After all, from a scientific viewpoint, it is better the weakest should die so they do not use limited resources that are better served going to the strongest. What good does the severely mentally handicapped in orphanages do for society except to serve as test subjects?<br /><br />Those who fear religioun point to its worst examples — The Crusades, the Inquisition, Islamic extremism — and make no mistake those were horrible. But the absence of God has led to even more horrendous societies — the officially aethiestic USSR sent hundreds of thousands of people to their deaths in Siberia; and consider Nazi Germany where Hitler and his party were set up as religous figures. Remember, it was the deeply religious Abolitionists in the early 180s who led the fight to ban slavery even though the Supreme Court had ruled blacks were not living, breathing human beings (hmmm, sound familiar?).<br /><br />So, yes we should be a Christian nation, or at least a nation that emphasizes that we are accountable to something greater than ourselves (don't even think about saying the United Nations).<br /><br /><em>But, John, personal faith may be fine in a leader but does organized religioun have to play a role in their duties?</em><br /><br />It should and will play as much of a role as the candidate’s faith allows. Just as political parties cannot force every member to believe every part of a platform, it is closeminded to think that every Catholic, Evangelical or Muslim must believe every tenant. After all, Joe Biden is a Catholic but he supports much pro-choice legislation. Sarah Palin’s church preaches that homosexuality is wrong but as governor she vetoed legislation that would haved banned health benefits for same-sex state workers.<br /><br />Organizations, religious or other, serve as an amplifier. It is still the words (i.e. faith or political views) that comes through that megaphone that truly matters.<br /><br />So, to summarize, religious faith is not something we can lock up in a small corner of our minds. It molds and influences our views and actions (and inactions). And in picking our leaders the depth and breadth of their views should be considered.<br /><br /><em>But, are voters who do that relying on a simplistic litmus test for their candidates?</em><br /><br />Now, our society’s language has devolved, to where we use as few words and even letters as possible. Remember when we said Kentucky Fried Chicken and Burger King but now its KFC and BK? Politics and social situations have also been condensed to where the word Democrat connotes certain things as does Christian and Muslim.<br /><br />This leads some to think that people are seeking to use shorthand litmus tests. But make no mistake, the people using these simple <em>words</em> know they are not simple <em>labels</em>. Evangalicals call both Palin and McCain Christians but react to each differently. And liberals consider Obama and Palin Christians but they also act like there are differences in their views. Heck, Biden is a Catholic but polls show McCain has more support from that group.<br /><br />Voters are looking at not just the candidates’ stated beliefs but how strongly they express them and how they’ve lived their lives. They are intellectually and logically comparing a candidate’s words with their philosophies and then seeing if that’s the type of leader they want to follow.<br /><br />Well, sorry the post ran over (just under 1000 words) but I felt it was needed to properly explain things. For next week, in light of the current economic situation, I'll kick off a discussion about the role of government (i.e. regulations) in capitalism.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8120212526641694750.post-71908601119383653912008-10-06T00:01:00.000-04:002008-10-06T00:01:00.568-04:00Yes, This Is A Christian Nation. But Should It Be?By D.T. Holt<br /><br />What if Sarah Palin was an atheist? What if there was nothing else different and she had all of the same conservative touchstone values but just without the belief in God? Would she still be the darling of the far right that she is today? Not only is the answer no, she wouldn’t even be in the race. Her name would’ve never come up for consideration.<br /><br />Similarly, what if Barack Obama really was a Muslim, like all those crazy emails are claiming? Again, what if everything else about him were exactly the same? Obviously, if this were true, we wouldn’t even know his name. He probably would have never made it to the US Senate, let alone the presidential race.<br /><br />All of the contestants in a debate during the Republican presidential primary were asked if they believed every word in the bible and several of them said yes but, even more amazingly, none of them was willing to point out that the answer to that question was completely irrelevant. Those who were unwilling to sign on to every word gave stuttering non-answers that they hoped would be glossed over by the Christians in the viewing audience. Politicians on both sides of the aisle are afraid of having the wrong religious views and those, like John McCain, who, by all appearances, don’t seem to be active participants in religion, try desperately to pretend that they are.<br /><br />For many, having a belief in Jesus Christ has become shorthand for having sound morals and the elusive “family values” that the pundits insist are the key factors in most presidential races. But would a politician who held the same views as you on the economy, on the war, on abortion, or human rights be dismissed because he does not share your religious views? Isn’t this a shallow short cut to choosing which candidate deserves your vote?<br /><br />Conservatives have successfully rewritten history to read that this nation was founded on Christian values however a casual Google search brings a list of conflicting quotes about the religious beliefs and intent of the founding fathers. The truth is that their religious intentions are not only difficult to discern they are also irrelevant to this debate. The question is not whether we are a Christian nation but whether we should be.<br /><br />I am an atheist, that is, I do not believe in God. Sometimes, I also refer to myself as a Buddhist but, I see Buddhism as more of a philosophy than a religion. I not only don’t believe that Buddha was a god, I don’t believe it even matters. I am drawn to Buddhism by the concept of being present in each moment and I have found its philosophies and rituals to be effective in my life. I mention my personal beliefs because I don’t expect or even look for them when choosing to support a candidate for president. I honestly don’t think it’s important or even any of my business.<br /><br />I don’t care whether Barack Obama believes in God but I do care how he intends to help millions of Americans, many of them children, who are without adequate health care. I care about his plan for our economic woes and his plan to fix our failing education system. His religious beliefs are his business and should have no bearing in my judgment of his fitness for office.<br /><br />The only time that a candidate’s religious beliefs become a concern for me is when, as in the case of Sarah Palin’s support of teaching creationism in high school science class alongside the theory of evolution, those beliefs can potentially have an undue influence on public policy. If Sarah Palin wants to ignore the findings of literally thousands of scientists and pretend that the earth is less than 10,000 years old, that is certainly within her rights however, those beliefs can have no bearing on the way she governs as an elected official.<br /><br />The next President of the United States will potentially face as much adversity and make as many difficult decisions as any in our history. It’s time that we focused our attention on the intentions and policies of those vying for the highest office in this country instead of the incessantly examining their religious beliefs. It’s time to do the hard work of researching the candidates and leave the shorthand of a simple “yes, but is he a Christian?” litmus test behind.D.T. Holthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10584391448918201154noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8120212526641694750.post-4257888479114578512008-10-05T22:59:00.006-04:002008-10-05T23:34:40.196-04:00I Hoped This Blog Wouldn't Turn Into ThisI have to say that I'm a bit <span class="blsp-spelling-corrected" id="SPELLING_ERROR_0">disappointed</span> in John's "Rebuttal to The Rebuttal." It's not that I mind having my opinions challenged, I very much welcome it. However, I would rather see them actually challenged than merely ridiculed.<br /><br />I did not say that offshore drilling and John McCain were "useless," as John puts it, instead I explained that I don't believe that offshore drilling will solve the problem and I included some of the facts that I was able to find to support my point of view. I opined that John McCain's motives in supporting drilling were more about getting votes than about solving problems and made no mention of whether I think he is "useless."<br /><br />My mention of "a frank discussion" of the scope and complexity of energy independence was not a call for, again as John puts it, "A 9/11-style commission 30-plus years after the problem." It was a comment on my belief that we have yet to actually have such a discussion. Instead, both Democrats and Republicans have spent the last 30 years ignoring the problem, pointing fingers and trying to come up with answers based entirely on the desire to be re-elected. I honestly don't believe that we have even begun to act as if solving this problem is a national priority.<br /><br />Finally, I don't understand the idea that in order to criticize a proposed solution to a problem, I must have an alternative solution. I don't believe that there currently is a viable solution to energy independence and I don't believe that we will find one until politicians on both sides of the aisle become serious about actually solving the problem.<br /><br />I'm glad that we agree on the need to end the posturing and tendency to oversimplify the problem but I would argue that John's response to my rebuttal does just that.D.T. Holthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10584391448918201154noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8120212526641694750.post-4821232466677543982008-10-04T06:26:00.002-04:002008-10-04T06:33:22.670-04:00Rebuttal to the RebuttalBy John Bertosa<br />First, I’d like to respond to Dan’s solutions... hmm, let’s see... more domestic drilling not viable... ok, that’s fine so he must support... ummm... “no viable solution currently available.” Well, er, ok he must get into more theoretical solutions... alternative energy development good, drilling and McCain useless... hmmm, has to be more than that... wants to find a viable solution....ok here’s where he must start talking about a solu... no wait that’s not it.... or is it? He wants a “frank discussion of its scope and compexity”? A 9/11-style commission 30-plus years after the problem first burst upon American? What Sen. Obama called “the oldest political trick in the book”? Well, I would have to disagree, there’s been enough talk. Ah, here in his last paragraph, now I see the crux of his argument -- He’s against posturing and oversimplification and non-solutions.<br /><br />I agree.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8120212526641694750.post-70234862826343929602008-09-29T00:01:00.001-04:002008-09-29T00:01:01.558-04:00Are We Trying For Energy Independence or Electoral College Votes?by D.T. Holt<br /><br />It seems to me that the gap between the left and the right on energy in general and oil in particular is getting smaller everyday. There is a lot in John’s take on energy independence that I agree with. For example, I agree that the answer is comprehensive. There is no single answer – off shore oil drilling, electric cars, hydrogen cars etc – that solves the problem. The tendency of politicians on both sides of the aisle to oversimplify this issue is at least part of the reason that we have been talking for years about solving our energy problems and our “addiction to oil” without making serious moves towards actually doing it.<br /><br />I disagree with John’s assertion that those who are opposed to offshore drilling don’t really WANT energy independence. I very much want energy independence however, what I don’t want is an empty solution which includes environmental risks, however minimal, while doing nothing to solve the problem. Most experts put the percentage of the world’s oil produced by the US at around 3%, while we consume around 25% of the oil used on the planet. Simple math tells us that it is impossible for us to survive on US oil alone without an immediate, drastic reduction in our consumption of oil and even that may not be enough.<br /><br />Some would argue that increasing US oil production in the short term will give us the time to develop alternative fuels for the long term solution. This would be a fine argument if it were possible to make even a small dent in our usage of fuel from foreign countries by drilling more in the US. The fact is that our current infrastructure is not equipped to produce any more oil than we are already producing. According to a report by the US Energy Information Administration, increased access to offshore drilling would not have a significant impact on oil and natural gas prices or production before 2030 and even then would only represent a 7% increase over current production.<br /><br />The simple truth about our dependence on foreign oil is that the only viable path to total or even partial independence is to end our usage of carbon based fuels. Obviously, this is not something that can happen over night and there is, in fact, no viable solution currently available. John assumes that liberals would be against the idea of fledgling alternative power companies striking it rich by developing new fuel technologies. On the contrary, I think it would be difficult to find anyone who would be opposed to the economic boost that growth in this vital area of development would bring. The potential for large profits and job growth may be one of the best incentives for development of alternative energy and the assumption that the left is opposed to the concept of profit is at best a gross oversimplification of an issue that is probably fodder for another debate.<br /><br />So why do politicians in general and Republicans in particular continue to treat offshore drilling as a main component in our energy independent future? For the same reason that most politicians, Republican or Democrat, support anything, because they think it will help them win elections. It is a shell game that focuses the attention of the American public on an empty solution which is often far easier than actually trying to solve the problem<br /><br />I’m guessing that my conservative co-blogger would call this viewpoint cynical and it probably is but, I still maintain that what John McCain WANTS is to be the next president of the United States and I don’t believe that his stance on offshore drilling is offered in the spirit of actually solving a problem. If it was, why wouldn’t he acknowledge that offshore drilling has no short term impact on the problem?<br /><br />The fact is that the endeavor to solve our “addiction to oil” probably doesn’t play well on either side of the aisle. How many people would vote for a politician who said “While we do not currently have a viable solution to the problem of energy independence, it is of the utmost importance that we work towards finding one.” Voters generally want to hear promises and solutions, no matter how short sighted, instead of nuanced discussion of the problem. Unfortunately, it is often impossible to solve a problem of this nature without a frank discussion of its scope and complexity.<br /><br />The other common argument for offshore drilling is that it offers short term relief in the much debated “price at the pump.” In his post, John asserts that oil prices “plummeted” this summer when the President called for more offshore drilling. According to the US Energy Information Administration website, the average price of gasoline was $3.65 per gallon the week of September 8, 2008, which is an increase of 90 cents over the price one year ago. While gas prices have fluctuated down from their mid-summer peak of around $4 per gallon, overall they are 32% higher than they were one year ago. The decrease of 35 to 40 cents per gallon over the past month or so can hardly be described as a plummet and its cause is more likely the result of decreased demand as the American people were forced to use less fuel in order to maintain their already overstressed budgets<br /><br />John talks a lot in his posting about which side in the argument actually wants energy independence and which side is merely posturing for more sinister political gain. I don’t believe that either side is serious about energy independence and the posturing, oversimplification and emphasis on misleading the public with non-solutions will only continue to exacerbate the problem and do nothing to solve it. Until the American people and the politicians who represent them truly treat energy independence as an actual crisis, we will continue to look to the Middle East to feed our addiction to carbon based fuels.<br /><br />__________________________________________________________________<br /><br />Be sure to tune in next week when I'll kick off another "Subject To Debate" and in the mean time, let's have some more comments from our readers. This blog isn't just about the opinions of one liberal and one conservative, it's about dialogue.D.T. Holthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10584391448918201154noreply@blogger.com0