random political ranting
I don't think I've posted much to my LJ about politics in the past week or so. As such...
First of all, I'm starting to get disillusioned by this whole "Democracy" thing when people fail to properly understand it. Just because 51% of the people vote for something/someone does NOT mean that it's right or a mandate. The same people who seem to want this country to become a theocracy and who want to remove rights from people in the moral minority here are the same people who would be extremely unhappy to see the moral majorities take actions in some other countries. For example, how will we react if the Iraqi Shiite majority democratically decides that they want to have a theocracy? Would it be a morally justified mandate if 50.1% of the people decided to wipe out the 49.9% of the people? (Hey, it would help the next election go more smoothly!) It doesn't seem like Bush has any concept of what it means to compromise or be bi-partisan. His idea of it at the moment seems to be, "I got 51% of the vote so now bi-partisanship would be the Democrats bending to my will!"
Secondly, this past election has caused me to reconsider my views on federal versus local governments. Most interestingly, I correlated some data on the weight of economic power behind the Red and Blue states. It turns out that "blue" states (47.5% of the electoral votes) account for 53.4% of the nation's Total Personal Income, an indicator of the financial resources of the state. This number rises to over 62% if you were to include Ohio and Florida.
Comparing Massachusetts' $21.1B/EV (billion dollars per electoral vote) or California's $21.5B/EV to the $11.8B/EV of Utah or the $5.4B/EV Wyoming (the two strongest pro-Bush states) makes me think that a good strategy for the Democrats would be to push for a smaller and weaker Federal government and for stronger State governments. It's not that all Red States are economically weak relative to the Electoral Vote strength (Texas is at $18.9B/EV). However, shrinking the Federal government has been something the Republicans have been behind.
If the Federal government shrinks, more liberal states can take pick up the slack. They'll need to increases taxes, but the overall tax burden may remain roughly the same. Red states may fall behind in terms of services to their people (education, healthcare, etc), but in some ways they'll be getting what they asked for, and my sympathy is quickly waning. Hopefully the investment CA is about to make in stem cell research will show how states can both invest money into research for public health and into their economy at the same time.
I'm not quite sure how military/foreign policy fits into this (since the blue states are effectively paying for over half of war), but at a minimum we need to get the Federal government out of the game of restricting rights based on morals. This should make it much easier for States to do the right thing (such as what MA has been doing with regards to some human rights issues.
First of all, I'm starting to get disillusioned by this whole "Democracy" thing when people fail to properly understand it. Just because 51% of the people vote for something/someone does NOT mean that it's right or a mandate. The same people who seem to want this country to become a theocracy and who want to remove rights from people in the moral minority here are the same people who would be extremely unhappy to see the moral majorities take actions in some other countries. For example, how will we react if the Iraqi Shiite majority democratically decides that they want to have a theocracy? Would it be a morally justified mandate if 50.1% of the people decided to wipe out the 49.9% of the people? (Hey, it would help the next election go more smoothly!) It doesn't seem like Bush has any concept of what it means to compromise or be bi-partisan. His idea of it at the moment seems to be, "I got 51% of the vote so now bi-partisanship would be the Democrats bending to my will!"
Secondly, this past election has caused me to reconsider my views on federal versus local governments. Most interestingly, I correlated some data on the weight of economic power behind the Red and Blue states. It turns out that "blue" states (47.5% of the electoral votes) account for 53.4% of the nation's Total Personal Income, an indicator of the financial resources of the state. This number rises to over 62% if you were to include Ohio and Florida.
Comparing Massachusetts' $21.1B/EV (billion dollars per electoral vote) or California's $21.5B/EV to the $11.8B/EV of Utah or the $5.4B/EV Wyoming (the two strongest pro-Bush states) makes me think that a good strategy for the Democrats would be to push for a smaller and weaker Federal government and for stronger State governments. It's not that all Red States are economically weak relative to the Electoral Vote strength (Texas is at $18.9B/EV). However, shrinking the Federal government has been something the Republicans have been behind.
If the Federal government shrinks, more liberal states can take pick up the slack. They'll need to increases taxes, but the overall tax burden may remain roughly the same. Red states may fall behind in terms of services to their people (education, healthcare, etc), but in some ways they'll be getting what they asked for, and my sympathy is quickly waning. Hopefully the investment CA is about to make in stem cell research will show how states can both invest money into research for public health and into their economy at the same time.
I'm not quite sure how military/foreign policy fits into this (since the blue states are effectively paying for over half of war), but at a minimum we need to get the Federal government out of the game of restricting rights based on morals. This should make it much easier for States to do the right thing (such as what MA has been doing with regards to some human rights issues.