jameswharris

Why People Who Should Be Democrats Vote Republican

It has always puzzled me why middle class and poor people vote Republican and support conservative ideals. Don’t they know which way their bread is buttered? Republicans mainly help the rich and special interests, which are the corporate rich. If you don’t have a pile of money to protect, or a business that you want the government to bestow special favors upon, then why go Republican? Well, this article from The New York Times, “Why Voters Tune Out Democrats” explains it very well. Stanley B. Greenberg has analyzed polls about voter attitudes and he sees trends why people are supporting conservatives, not just in the United States, but all over the world.

Republicans have always been anti big government, but it seems that people who previously voted Democratic are now developing their own anti-government bias, and they are moving to the Republican Party to join their anti-government stand. Greenberg suggests for the Democrats to fight back they need to deal with issues their voters are upset about. Even though a majority of voters support most of the policies of the Democrats, including social programs and rejecting tax-cuts, they are mad at the Democrats for several particular issues, and that’s making them swing to voting Republican. Those issues are:

The government bailed out failing companies without punishing their executives
Wall Street gets a free pass even when it brings down the economy
Big businesses can get help from the government but not small businesses
The banks and bankers were saved but not home owners
The government is rigged for special interest groups
The government supports globalization over American workers
They don’t like illegal immigration
Congress helps itself more than it helps the people (my cousin emailed me as I write this a protest promoting a 28th amendment advocating no pension/no tenure for congressmen)

Greenberg sees these as a trend. People resent the government acting unfairly, supporting special interest groups, and rewarding the unjust, privilege, incompetent, and underserving rather than helping the common American. Whether this is true or illusion doesn’t matter, it’s the perception in polls. And because Republicans, especially Tea Party voters, are so anti-government, that people who normally votes Democrat on other issues are moving into the conservative groups because of these perceptions.

What Greenberg recommends to the Democrats is they also get on a Fix Washington campaign too.

I’m against unfair practices too, but I’m not going to join the conservatives.

Personally, I blame all these issues on the Republicans anyway. I believe they are the party that set things up in Washington so special interests control the government. Of course the Democrats are not without blame. When they wanted the Republicans to vote on social programs they made deal with Republicans to support their big business goals. Now the Republicans are saying no more deals, no more compromises, because they have sensed they’ve got more of what the people want than the Democrats.

I think this New York Times article is very perceptive. I think we liberals need to see which way the wind is blowing, and WHY. This explains why so many Tea Party voters, many of which are ironically on social security and Medicare, are so riled up about big government politics at the moment.

I find our current political climate very unsettling and depressing. But maybe there’s a silver lining. Maybe all of this will lead to governmental reforms that will make us feel better about our rulers in Washington. Maybe I don’t really hate Republicans, maybe I just hate how big money has corrupted the government and special interest groups with money get more representation than they are due.

JWH – 8/1/11

1959 by Fred Kaplan and Kind of Blue by Miles Davis

If you have a Spotify account you can listen to Kind of Blue while you read my review. Visit this link and it will launch Spotify and play the album. If you don’t have Spotify, request a free account here. Having at least the free Spotify account means you can always try a new album when your friends rave about a new album discover. Kind of Blue was first released in 1959. I’ve included YouTube versions of its five songs below.

I am becoming more and more fascinated and entertained by history – but not the history they teach in school, but the everyday history of people, inventions and art. We take every new thing for granted, as if it sprung fully formed new on the scene. Take the hit gadget of the moment, the iPad. It was far from the first tablet computer, and the concept goes back to at least to the Dynabook imagined by Alan Kay in 1968. Nor could the tablet computer exist without the integrated circuit which was patented in 1959 by Jack Kilby, hence the connection to the book I want to talk about, 1959 by Fred Kaplan.

In 1959 Kaplan writes several related essays about how 1959 was a pivotal year for all of us who have been living since. Essentially, you can do this for any year, but Kaplan makes a good case for 1959. Whether it’s birth control, jazz, Fidel Castro, atomic warfare, Beat writers Kerouac and Ginsberg, Motown, integrated circuits, Malcolm X, Vietnam, Grove Press, or any of the other happening events of 1959, they all impact on us today. Everything evolves, and everything trails a history, and the past gives birth to the now.

Never heard of Grove Press? Well, it took on U.S. censorship and since then we’ve had sex and dirty words in books and movies. Now you might not think that’s a good thing, but it is a pivotal change in society. What Kaplan is getting at is you could experience pop culture before 1959 it would be much different from anything you know now. Not unknown, because everything before is still around, but it would be missing a lot of stuff that’s come out since.

This is hard to explain. I lived before cell phones were invented, in any form. People who grew up with cell phones can’t imagine what life was like without them. What Kaplan is trying to explain in a series of essays is what life was like before 1959, and what came out that year that has changed everything since.

One of the essays that really stood out for me was the one on Miles Davis and his sextet recording Kind of Blue. It’s easy to understand the impact of technology. Kaplan writes about the invention of the integrated circuit and we’ve been living with the technology it generated ever since, from computers to high definition TVs. That’s obvious. But can you understand the impact of a kind of “new technology” in music? I struggle for that, but it’s pretty obvious if you spend time listening to Kind of Blue. Most young people today will not understand the roots of their favorite music, but their favorite musicians who create the music will.

I find it tremendous fun to time travel via pop culture. For most of us baby boomers, we were kids in the 1950s, and our memories of the times are fleeting and tainted by TV. It’s easier to remember Leave It To Beaver than the politics of Dwight Eisenhower. I was born in 1951, so I lived through most of the decade, but I have few memories of it. I do remember the 1960s vividly, but putting the puzzle pieces of the 1950s together makes the 1960s make more sense.

Kind of Blue is a transition marker in the art of music. If you like to play the six degrees of separation game, it will link you to many cool people. It’s both a tipping point and a crossroads. You can listen to the music, but it’s also fun to read about its history.

Kind of Blue is considered to be one of the best jazz albums of all time, and the best selling jazz album. A 2001 NPR report claims it sells 5,000 copies every week. There are no words to describe how beautiful this album is, that’s why I provide the link to Spotify above. The album has a fascinating history that you can read at Wikipedia or listen to on this NPR documentary – I won’t try to rephrase that history since these sources do it so well.

As I read 1959: The Year Everything Changed by Fred Kaplan, a columnist for Slate magazine and also columnist on jazz at Stereophile magazine, I realized the Kaplan had a gift for music history. I thought the chapter on Kind of Blue in 1959 was full of wonderful historical details and the his descriptions of music are very precise and vivid. It’s very hard to describe music in words. Check out Kaplan’s video introduction to the book in this video clip at Amazon. It opens with music from Kind of Blue, Kaplan will give you a better idea of his enthusiasm for writing about 1959.

I turned eight in 1959, and I was living in New Jersey, out in the country, where I was oblivious to the world at large. I’m not sure we even had a TV set at the time. Kaplan covers a quirky view of 1959, but one I can identify with because all the topics later impacted my life. I didn’t discover Kind of Blue until the late 1980s. I was reading Kerouac and Ginsberg in the late 1960s. Fidel Castro took over Cuba in 1959, and I spent most of my youth growing up in Miami living with the results, so I’m like one degree away from that chapter, plus I spent the 1960s loving hits from Motown which was started in 1959. I never knew I had so many connections to 1959 until I read this book.

Kaplan is right about 1959, people and inventions from 1959 have slowly weaved themselves into the fabric of my life over the last 52 years. I wished I had been given a record player and the LP of Kind of Blue when I was 8, because I grew up with AM rock n roll and that has shaped the musical tastes of my lifetime. I wonder if I was exposed to jazz at 8 if I would have been a different person. For the most part I don’t even like jazz, but I love Kind of Blue, and Time Out by the Dave Brubeck Quartet, another masterpiece of jazz from 1959.

I have been able to travel back in time to enjoy the jazz of the 1920s and 1930s, and through the swing era of the 1940s. Then came Bebop, which was beginning of modern jazz and although I can admire it intellectually, I don’t feel it. I feel the same way about most classical music. Neither kind moves me emotionally.

Miles Davis worked with Charlie Parker, one of the pioneers of Bebop, and then Davis moved on to Hard Bop, which brought R&B, gospel and blues into jazz. I bought several Art Blakey and John Coltrane CDs in the 1980s trying to get into this era of jazz. Again, I could semi-enjoy this kind of jazz, but something was missing. Why?

Why was Jack Kerouac and his Beat buddies so blown about by jazz of the 1940s and 1950s? It drove them insane with excitement, but it’s all too cool emotionally for me. Then comes 1959 and Miles Davis and Dave Brubeck produce two albums that turn me on, but also turn on a zillion other people to jazz again. When I read Kaplan’s chapter on Miles Davis I wanted to go back and try to get into those jazz years I can’t connect with. My friend Mike who got into jazz about the same time as I did broke the barrier and left me behind.

For those of you who didn’t take the time to join Spotify, here’s “So What” the first cut off of Kind of Blue. It really helps to have good speakers to enjoy the textured loveliness of these tunes.

Maybe the reason why I dig this new direction in jazz is because it jettisons so much of the old forms of jazz. Miles Davis and Bill Evans prepared very little in the way of musical notation for the musicians to follow. Fred Kaplan explains what they are doing in words, but these seven musicians are improvising from very little structure, mainly just the mood of the piano. I wish I understood music to know what they are doing, but I don’t.

All I know is this music lights up my mind. I highly recommend getting a copy of Kind of Blue and play it when you are ready to just relax and listen. Let your mind go with the music. It’s very different, yet this album has influenced many artists since. I really got into The Allman Brothers in 1969, and even got to see them before Duane was killed. Duane Allman loved Kind of Blue and claims it influenced his music. In can feel “In Memory of Elizabeth Reed” in “Freddie Freeloader” which you can play here:

“Blue in Green” is so moody that it feels more like a soundtrack for a story, or music for a modern dance piece. This third track was the final song recorded in the March 2, 1959 session. Give it a listen:

The final two cuts were performed on April 22, 1959.

“All Blues,” the first cut on the back side of the LP, picks up the tempo and is the longest cut on the the album (11:31), and my favorite, but sadly it’s cut short here on YouTube because of the 10 minute limit.

The last track, “Flamenco Sketches.” This is so far from modern pop music that I’m not sure if young people will be able to get into this kind of music at all. I think one reason why I love this Miles Davis over his earlier work is because the music is slower. I couldn’t handle the frantic tempo of Bebop, nor did I relate to the old tunes being blended into Hard Bop. This music is as modern as NASA, the agency that was created just a year before in 1958. This music is light-years away from the teen idols I was hearing on the radio at the time.

Is this really the sound of 1959? The music of bomb shelters and revolutions in Cuba? It certainly sounds like music for books by Jack Kerouac and Alan Ginsberg, but how many regular Americans listened to this album? I’m sure its as esoteric as Zen Buddhists to mainstream America, yet it was significant to our culture.

Us baby boomers can’t let go of the 1950s. Look at TV shows like Mad Men, that started with 1950s ad men confronting the beginning of the 1960s or the film The Tree of Life, which tries to put the 1950s in context of the whole history of the universe. Or read a book like The Life and Times of the Thunderbolt Kid, which is a nostalgic memoir of the times by Bill Bryson.

I wonder what people from generations after us baby boomers think of the 1950s. It must be as alien as the 1920s are to me, the decade my parents were children, or the 1930s, the decade they were teens.

Kind of Blue was a musical experiment. A few other albums after it pursued the same techniques, but as far as I know, it’s a dead end for a trend, yet fleeting pieces of its sound show up in music all the time. Modern pop music is almost a rigid formula – I almost ache to hear something new and different. What musical experiments are going on now in 2011 that will be written about in the 2060s?

JWH – 7/30/11

The Challenges of Living in a Meaningless Reality

We live in a meaningless reality. By that I mean we have no prescribed purpose. There is no God telling us what to be, nor does the universe expect anything from us. Our awareness of the universe is an accidental byproduct of evolution, and when we die that awareness will cease to exist. I know religious people will strongly object to the assertion that our lives are without purpose and there is no God that’s personally involved with each of us. But religion is a psychological response to not understanding reality by a developing consciousness. Once a critical level knowledge of reality is attained it becomes obvious that God and religion is all in our heads and not part of the external reality.

Beliefs in gods are universal in the human condition because psychologically we do not like living without a sense of purpose, but with enough education it become abundantly clear that we’re living in a universe in which our species has no special purpose or protector. Once we accept that it becomes obvious that we face a number of challenges. People can live perfectly happy lives knowing there is no meaning in the universe but the very first challenge we deal with is wanting to define our own meaning. We have a deeply seated need for meaning.

Challenge #1 – Existentialism

Existentialism is the philosophy of living in a meaningless universe. It’s mostly an atheistic philosophy, but there is a theistic branch, which says God created the universe and then walked away, but in ether flavor, existentialism is about existing in a universe with no prescribed purpose. Existentialism basically says everyone has to invent their own purpose. This is both good and bad because people can choose very selfish pursuits, or even amoral pursuits. Counter to what religious believers think, atheists tend to be more moral and ethical when we work at creating our own rules about living rather than accepting them from imaginary beings.

The universe does not demand that we don’t kill – if you look at nature, the rule would seem to be: thou shalt kill or be eaten. We have decided that we shouldn’t kill – and that’s deeper than religion. Even atheists believe murder is wrong. Even without a God defining right and wrong we can instinctively develop morality. The faithful fear a meaningless universe because they fear absolute chaos, but even without God we can find order.

Existentialism succeeds for the individual but not for the human race. There is no universal system of belief that all people accept. If we want law and order it must be created by consensus that’s not tainted by any belief system. As a species we all want order, justice, security and civil rights in society, and they require a consensus to achieve. We could collectively pursue a delusion. If everyone was a pure Muslim or Mormon we could create a clean orderly society where most people were happy, but we’d be living a delusion. Thus the first challenge is to create a society that allows all its citizens freedom to pursue their own created purpose, but still protects the rights of all other citizens.

Challenge #2 – Delusional Imperialism

We all have a psychological defense mechanism to impose meaning onto reality. If we are poorly educated about reality, we will make up an explanation that makes sense to us and then share our delusion with others as a way to rationalize we’re right. This is an extremely common neurotic behavior. This is not a problem when populations of shared delusions stays small, but when they grow very big like the over billion Christians clashing with the over billion Muslim it becomes quite a danger. Historically it has always been a danger when one delusional group tries to rule the entire population. No mass delusion has ever achieved 100% penetration because the desire for personal freedom is always stronger, and the fact that no delusional system has ever explained reality correctly. True details of external reality always brings inner and outer criticisms to a delusion.

Challenge #3 – A Delusion Free Government

Whether it’s Christian, Muslim, Confucius, Capitalism or Communism, most governments are tainted by a philosophical system that doesn’t actually explain reality. They always fail. The challenge is to create a government that is not tainted by ideology. Some of the founding fathers of the United States may have attempted this but time and again their plans have been thwarted by delusional groups. Any religious group that can’t understand the concept of the separation of church and state is a threat to a purely free government. There are no exceptions to this.

Throughout the world all governments fail because they are under attack by special interest groups. Our challenge as humans living in a meaningless universe is to create governments that are equally meaningless but offer the maximum freedom and protection to its citizens.

Challenge #4 – Achieving a Consensus about Reality

Because our lives have no prescribed purpose means we can prescribe any meaning we want to ourselves. We become self-programming entities. Ethically there is nothing wrong with believing that Jesus will bring about personal immortality, even if it’s 100% inconsistent with reality. Ethics are the way we define right and wrong, or morality, if you will, in a meaningless universe. The universe has no ethical intent, nor does it care what ethics we create, it’s 100% indifferent. But because we are a social species we’ve invented ethics as a way to create fair play between individuals and groups. However, there are no 100% consensus on any ethical idea. Probably the one ethical ideal that is the most universally held is the golden rule.

In the entire history of the world there has only been one system that seeks to understand reality in a consistent way and that’s science. Science is a system of exploring reality and not a philosophy or belief system. Science is the study of reality by consensus. People study an aspect of reality, create a hypothesis, create more experiments, collect data, and finally propose a theory that is shared around the world, where other scientists will test that theory. If everyone creates experiments that validates the theory, the theory is considered true for everyone. Religious people have trouble with the word theory – they think it means a hypothetical idea. No, it means a proposed explanation about how reality works to be tested. Theories become true after years of consistent testing. The theory of gravity or the theory of evolution or the theory of relativity are now considered facts about reality because they’ve maintain decades or centuries of consistent experimental validation. We keep the name “theory of whatever” as just a label and to give credit to the person who first proposed it.

Through science we know a gigantic amount of information about reality. Yes, we don’t know everything, but we know a whole lot. Most humans have never taken the time to study science so they are suspicious of it, or even consider science arrogant for thinking it has achieved so much knowledge. But science is consistent, and it’s the only system that has explained reality in a consistent manner.

The reason why there is such a tremendous conflict between science and religion is because they explain reality differently. Actually, science explains reality in one way, and religion explains reality in an infinite number of way, all inconsistent. Of course religion is thwarted by other thought systems such as logic, philosophy and mathematics. Any person with a good education in science and psychology will understand that gods and religion are a mental coping mechanism inside people’s heads. The unpleasant reality is the scientific minded must live with the mass of delusional people. The delusional people have inconsistent views about reality and try to impose them onto other delusional believers and non-believers. This means it’s very hard to have a consistent view of reality by all humans living in it.

Challenge #5 – Living with Delusional People

To the faithful, they see reality composed of believers and nonbelievers. To the scientific, we see reality inhabited by clear thinkers and people possessed by delusions. I know that sounds arrogant. However, a really good education just clears away the delusions so it doesn’t feel arrogant, it just feels like the freedom to see clearly. Don’t get me wrong, no matter how smart you are, there are always delusional traps of various kinds. Our minds are not computers. Our thoughts are overwhelmed by biological impulses, and it’s very easy to forget what we’ve learned. It’s like that movie Charly based on the book Flowers for Algernon, about a mentally retarded man who is given an experimental cure and he becomes a genius for a short while, but in the end, it wears off. I can imagine losing my clarity of thinking as I get old and de-evolving into delusional thinking. It’s not arrogance, just fleeting clarity. It would be fantastic if society as a whole was delusional free so I wouldn’t be tempted by delusional thoughts as my mind ages.

The delusional in recent years have sensed that science is a powerful tool for understanding reality but without understanding how science works. They have even created fake science in attempt to justify their delusions not understanding that their theories have to be tested scientifically and they always fail. I have even heard of faithful people getting Ph.D.s so they can claim to be scientific in their attacks on science. The sad fact is delusions are extremely hard to escape. It is very hard to accept that reality has no meaning, that we are mortal, and our lives are subjected to the whims of chance.

Challenge #6 – The Meaningless of Life

If you’ve seen many Woody Allen films then you’ve seen many stories about characters trying to deal with the meaningless of life. Living with the truth can be hard, but it can also be empowering. It’s like giving up childhood and living on your own. The universe becomes more magnificent when you get beyond religion. Reality is incredibly far out, and there seems to be no end to discovering more about reality. Once you get past the idea that there is a God telling you how to act and believe it’s very freeing to feel the responsibility of thinking for oneself. Sure, it’s bummer that we’re going to die, but it’s a real miracle that we’re here at all and it’s awe inspiring to contemplate that. Trust me on this, religion has very small ideas about reality, it’s very limiting and tiny compare to the real reality. When a religious person is inspired by the miracle of life they are just seeing the tiniest of the surface of things. It’s a shame they hate evolution because evolution is only an explanation about how the miracle of life works.

If you read a hundred books on evolution and then compare it to the phrase in the Bible “and God created life” you will see there is no comparison. If you want to believe in God, read one hundred books on evolution and think this is how God created life. The theory of evolution is the Bible written with a billion more details, that’s all. Rejecting evolution is the refusal to look at reality directly and in detail. The ironic thing is probably the people who wrote Genesis were more aware of the workings of reality than the true believers in the Bible today who live so far away from nature. Early religions are always nature worshipers. Science is the ultimate form of nature worship.

Challenge #7 – The Evolution of Man

Humans can’t evolve as long as a majority of humans are mired in their religious delusions. Those who are free of delusions are being held back by the people who are possessed by ancient superstitions. Even though reality is without meaning doesn’t mean that humanity can’t decide its own purpose or purposes, but that can’t happen as long as most people cling to their religious delusions. I’d like to think that given enough time we’ll spread stable governments throughout the world and develop ever improving educational systems that will one day lead to a delusional free population, but I have grave doubts. Religions destabilizes governments. However, that might be part of our evolutionary progress. Without chaos in our lives we never would have evolved into such powerful thinkers. Neanderthals lived for hundreds of thousands of years without changing. It’s weird, but religious strife might be the generator of free thinking.

But still I worry that there’s a barrier to total freedom that humanity is incapable of passing.

Conclusion

For us people who want to live in a society where everyone sees reality with a scientific rationality our only choice is to support stable governments that strongly support the separation of church and state, and spends lots of money on education. The Christian and Muslim fundamentalists instinctively know that liberal education is bad for their view of reality. This is why I believe many Americans hate paying for public schools – they see them as attacking their beliefs. It’s also why fundamentalists want to influence the content of school textbooks. And I can’t help but wonder if the conservatives who want a smaller government isn’t because they see a big government spreading scientific knowledge.

Liberals tend to be less religious and assign a purpose to government to uplift all people, whereas conservatives tend to be religious and dislike government being in the purpose business or making what they consider moral decisions that belong to their churches. Essentially, non-religious people see government as the highest form of social organization and purpose, where religious people see their particular religious group being the supreme authority. This is quite a conflict, but it does define the battle lines between the two groups. Atheists want big government and big education. Theists want small government, controlled education and a big universal religion.

Right now most people have to evolve through many delusions stages in childhood before they get enough education to see clearly. I wonder what society would be like if we taught our children right from the start to see reality clearly and never allow them to be confused by the many delusional systems that exist.

I sometimes wonder if fiction is a danger to our development. I love fiction, and we pursue a lot of fiction through novels, movies, TV shows, video games, comics, etc. If we read more non-fiction and watched more documentaries, would that help to free us sooner? I also worry that fiction is the escapism that people pursue when they have given up on faith but do not want to work to understand science. You can reject religion and still find many other sources of delusion. If you want to know how reality works you have to study science, and that’s not very popular.

There are many ways of living in our meaningless universe. Most people cope by believing in various delusions. Others ignore reality by chasing after hedonistic pursuits. Art has always been a major alternative for some. A few can’t take the lack of meaning and kill themselves, which is very tragic. The real challenge is to accept the realities of the reality and find your own purpose that reflects the best knowledge we gained through science.

JWH – 7/29/11

Balanced Budget Amendment

There is a movement among the most conservative of Republicans to get an amendment to the Constitution that requires the federal budget to balance every year. Mike Lee, one of these newly elected Republican Senators has written a book The Freedom Agenda: Why a Balanced Budget Amendment is Necessary to Restore Constitutional Government. I’m a liberal and his case is even convincing to me. The most damning evidence he has is the federal budget was 2 percent of the GDP a hundred years ago and is 25 percent in 2011. It’s obvious the government can’t keep growing. He also points out the national debt is over $14 trillion dollars, equal to every man, woman and child owing $50,000, and those same people are running their up their bill by $5,000 a year. OK, Senator Lee, you’ve convinced me we’ve got to do something, but what?

First off, we need to clarify some things. If the current budget is truly 25% of the GDP, it’s because of extra spending due to the recession and the cost of the war in Afghanistan – so 25% is not the natural figure. In fact, that percentage should automatically lower and rise with good times and bad. But Senator Lee, lets assume the budget is too big and that we have to pay down the national debt. Is this the time to do it? The federal government is always a job stimulus feature of our economy, so to monkey with it now probably means causing more unemployment. But I assume you Republicans are going to get your way and we’ll start spending cuts. However, this is also were the bargaining starts – as well illustrated by recent weeks of gridlock between the White House and Congress.

The difference between conservatives and liberals is how big should the budget be. What if 20% of GDP is the perfect figure for Democrats and 15% is what the Republicans would love? We need to decide just how big the government needs to be. I’m willing to agree it’s too big, and we’re spending too much, and we’re running up too much debt. But how we cut spending and reduce the debt will be a war in Congress for years, even if the Tea Party leads the nation to pass a balanced budget amendment (BBA), which has been tried several times before and has never passed.

Passing a balanced budget amendment is almost a fantasy, but it would have a far better chance of becoming a reality if Republicans would change their mind about new taxes.

Instead of crying “No new taxes” we should be crying “No more tax cuts” until the deficit is drastically reduced. And Senator Lee, I know you guys are adamant about about no new taxes, but I think if you seriously want to change the size of the federal government and reduce the deficit you should be willing to repeal all of the Bush tax cuts. If the rich feel put upon by just rolling back their cuts, we should roll back all of the Bush tax cuts until the deficit is close enough to where a balanced budget amendment would work.

Now I’m not against drastically cutting the federal budget, but we should be careful not to hurt the economic recovery, which is mighty weak at best. I think Americans public can handle more taxes right now than higher unemployment. We know what balancing budgets are doing to the states and its not pretty. I’d hate to see more hardships brought on across the nation by hacking away at the federal budget too. However, if your goal is really a BBA, then conservatives have to consider increasing revenue.

I think the balanced budget is a great idea in theory. My wife and I have been far happier now that we balance our budget and no longer go into debt. Debt is a terrible thing, but sometimes bad things happen and you have to go into debt, even nations.

Let’s imagine that the Balanced Budget Amendment passes. I know you Republicans also want it passed with a rule that says taxes can only be raised with a supermajority. Let’s not go there right away. Let’s plan for bad times, because there will always be bad times. I suggest we have two automatic taxes in case of war or recession. The War Tax would automatically kick in if the military has to spend more than it’s share of the balanced budget because of a war or warlike action. And a Recession Tax would automatically kick in if the government needs to pay to help people during bad economic times. And logically, we could also have automatic tax reductions in good economic times if we have a surplus (after we pay off the national debt).

What this would allow is the creation of a steady state balanced budget that is tied to a certain percentage of the GDP. We should determine that percentage in the future after the deficit is paid off and when we can figure what size government is the absolute best for the economy. Personally I’d prefer a prosperous economy and that might mean a larger government than conservatives want, but if Republicans can whittle away the government and still having a thriving economy, so be it.

I am just an ordinary citizen watching two giant political parties fight over their ideals, but it’s scary and creates uncertainty about the future, which I’m sure is felt by all my fellow citizens. I know the arch conservatives want lower taxes immediately and they are using the fear of an uncontrolled rising deficit to concoct a plan to reduce the size of the government. As a Democrat I’ll buy into the idea the deficit is insane – let’s reduce it. I’ll even buy into the idea of a balanced budget, but you guys need to give in on taxes until we solve the deficit.

What if we repeal the Bush tax cuts and apply them to the deficit and then cut the federal budget to the size it was before the recession, and then work on balancing the budget. Then while we’re paying off our national debt work on slowly reducing the annual budget with program cuts. Then when we see drastic deficit reductions and an improved economy we can gradually reintroduce the Bush tax cuts.

Republicans think they have a mandate from the people to cut taxes, and I’m sure most citizens would love lower taxes, but I also think most citizens don’t want to see millions more Americans put out of work from cutting budgets. What’s happening in the states is more than just cutting the fat.

The Bush tax cuts grew the deficit dramatically, so applying such revenue back into paying off the deficit should reduce it just as quickly. If you really want a balanced budget then the quickest way to get one is pay down the national debt so it’s practical. If you try to pay down the national debt with program cuts now you’re only going to scuttle the economy.

JWH – 7/27/11

Why We Fail to Fix Our Large Problems

Today I read “Was the $5 Billion Worth It?” an interview with Bill Gates, Jr. at the Wall Street Journal, which asked him if he felt his money spent on fixing education in America was well spent. Here is one significant reply:

Asked to critique these endeavors, Mr. Gates demurs: "I applaud people for coming into this space, but unfortunately it hasn’t led to significant improvements." He also warns against overestimating the potential power of philanthropy. "It’s worth remembering that $600 billion a year is spent by various government entities on education, and all the philanthropy that’s ever been spent on this space is not going to add up to $10 billion. So it’s truly a rounding error."

Every night when I watch the evening news I get depressed because we are facing so many huge problems that we can’t seem to fix, no matter how much money, effort and brain power we put into finding solutions. We have education, the budget deficit, global warming, health care, unemployment, the economy, religious conflicts, over population, and the list goes on and on. At first I was going to list the war in Afghanistan, but wars always seen to end someday, so they fix themselves – the problems I’m talking about are the ones that never get fixed and we argue over the solutions our entire lives.

If we spend $600 billion a year on education, how come education in America is seen as a huge honking failure? Today I read that only 12% of the American public believes in evolution and that around 50% believe that Jesus is due to return to Earth sometime soon. Is that a failure of the education system, or does it show a basic inability for the average person to learn.

But if you look at our big problems there is one consistent factor that few people want to address, and that is we’re polarized over how we view the fundamental working of reality. Essentially there are two philosophical opposing groups which I’ll label Science versus the Faithful.

The largest group are the metaphysical believers – people that think the Earth is our temporary home while God decides our true destination. They believe Earth is the center of God’s creation and humans are his chosen beings, and this life is a test of our souls.

The other group, sees the universe as being very old and very big, and the Earth and humans are insignificant compared to the rest of the cosmos. They see reality working by very exact laws that can be discovered through science and mathematics. These people believe our lives are only as important as we make them for ourselves.

God’s faithful, whether Christian, Muslim, Jew, or the many spiritual followers of Eastern religions believe in ancient holy books, written before science or history. These spiritual texts can’t coexist with science. The worshipers of these books firmly believe the key to metaphysical reality is within their scriptures. Most of the faithful accept the tenets of their beliefs after only a brief exposure to their basic concepts. Believing is very easy. Giving up these beliefs are very hard.

The followers of science believe knowledge is vast and to understand reality requires reading hundreds of books. They are the believers in good liberal educations, which means it takes twenty years of solid study to get a decent grasp on reality. Learning is very hard, and it’s so easy to forget.

The faithful believe much of education is a waste, and that a good deal of it are lies. They refuse to believe in evolution because they can’t comprehend it and because they intuitively understand it invalidates their most cherish belief, that we have souls that can exist in an afterlife. They refuse to believe in global warming because they can’t comprehend the science and because they believe this life is not important, but the next one, an eternal life in paradise should be our ultimate concern.

It’s probably more than obvious that I’m on the side of science. The really good question is: If we were all on the side of science, could we solve the really big problems we face? I think so. But I know the faithful also believe if everyone believed the tenets of their holy books the world would be a beautiful place too.

I wish there was some kind of compromise so we could make everyone happen, but there isn’t. The strange thing is the faithful think Earth is of no value, so why can’t they let us have this world since we loved it so much more. The faithful should live like the Amish, pursuing simple lives, following their spiritual disciplines until they die. I can’t understand why the faithful want to run this world when it matters so little to them in their philosophy. Why do they want political power when they should be seeking piety.

Here a logic puzzle.

We have four possible paths – two real actions betting on two choices.

Global warming is a fact, we fix things
Global warming is a fact, we don’t fix things
Global warming is a scam, we fix things anyway
Global warming is a scam, we don’t do anything

There are four results.

We save the world
We kill off civilization
We get an energy efficient society
We save some money

If the scientists are wrong the worse thing that could happen is we end up with a very energy efficient society. If the client deniers are wrong, we end up living in hell. No logical person would place their bets that lead to result 2.

Yet, for many in our society action 2 is where they want to place all their chips. And is it any wonder that most of these same people are also desiring the end of the world by wishing for the return of Jesus. Do they think the Rapture is brought on by overheating?

We will never solve our big problems as long as we’re polarized between science and faith, and neither side seems willing to change.

Someone needs to create a religion where the path to heaven lies in mastering science. Has none of the faithful ever wondered if their purpose on Earth is to figure out the mysteries of reality? I guarantee there are plenty of clues if you’re willing to study science.

JWH – 7/25/11