What Passes For a Political Post Around Here

We went to our favorite pub to watch the debate the other night, thinking that we might also meet some new people. It was a madhouse when we got there, so we ended up having to take a table outside the main room where people had gathered to watch. So much for meeting new people.

Out in the bar, both TVs were turned to the debate. One was tuned to CNN, one was tuned to Fox News-- I guess this was an attempt at appearing to be non-partisian, what with the whole "allowing Barack Obama's campaign staff to host a debate-watching party in the private room" thing. It didn't really make any difference, since both channels were broadcasting the exact same thing, down to the camera angle, without any commentary (during the debate, anyway). The volume was turned way up, but because of the size of the room and the number of people in it, it wasn't really possible to hear what was being said, so we had to rely on the closed captioning.

I love closed captioning both in concept and practice. And I especially love closed captioning in real time, because I get a little kick out of the small errors and too-literal interpretations of what's being said. Now, this is not intended to be a slam against the closed captioners, who have seriously mad typing skillz. It's kind of like how it makes me smile when the normally unflappable, perfect NPR announcers screw up. It's like "See, those are people like me!"

The CNN closed captioner was significantly slower than the Fox News closed captioner, which meant that every so often, he just skipped a couple of sentences to catch up. The Fox closed captioner was faster, but made lots of little mistakes. My two favorites: "Dwight David Ivan Her" (The follow up novel by Sir Walter Scott!) and "meow posturing" (I watched my cat do that just this morning, trying to reach her back paws during her morning devotions).

Forty-five minutes in, I just couldn't take it anymore. I am so effing sick of talking points and petty name calling from both sides. Why are we reduced to this drivel? And why doesn't anyone ever call John McCain out when he uses selective memory/ carefully framed half-truths as "facts" to "support" his points? I expected so much more of him during this campaign, and I am angry, angry, angry with him. I remember back when this whole thing was just getting underway... I told everyone and their dog that I was hoping against hope that we would get to see a McCain-Obama race, because I was certain that we'd get to see a race run with a respectful and real discussion of the difficult issues facing our country, a discussion that would allow for reasonable people to disagree. This, I suppose, should be taken as proof positive that I am, all appearances to the contrary and all snarkiness aside, an irretrievable optimist.

I am finding this race much more difficult to follow, emotionally, than even the 2004 campaign. I'm starting to believe that the greatest danger we are facing as a nation is our inability to have a civil discourse and our divisiveness-- artificially induced by the media, or maybe by the most vocal and extreme elements of the political system. I can't believe that I really have so little in common with a conservative voter that we can't find common ground on many, if not most, issues. And I find it increasingly more infuriating that people are being encouraged to disdain or even hate other people on the basis of differing opinions on issues that the vast majority of people don't even really understand, just because Oprah or James Dobson says so.

P.S., because Paca's blog reminded me: Factcheck.org is awesome and informative, and so is the League of Women Voters.

Smart Aleck

One of the Yahoo! News top stories right now is Bush Wants Newcomers to Learn English, and every time I see it, my internal voice says "People in Hell want ice water".

Just Wondering

Not to harp on this story, but if the guy dies, will they charge Dick Cheney with, say, negligent homicide? Or maybe sued by the man's widow? I mean he wasn't even hunting legally and isn't getting cited for that, either (though I bet some staffer has been royally reamed and probably fired for missing that stamp).

I'm Not Mean, I'm Just Right

So Professor Strap thought it would be a good idea to set up a series of "debates" (and here, we are using the term in the loosest possible way) in place of an actual lecture for our immigration law class this week. If we'd been given the topics in some organized fashion and given time and direction on preparation for these debates and NOT told that we shouldn't work too hard on it ("no more than one or two hours"), maybe this wouldn't have come across as a way to get him out of preparing a lecture for class. The topic I was assigned to debate together with War against an unnamed opponent was (and here I paraphrase to 1)properly phrase the question for debate, unlike the professor, and 2)remove the jargon for you non-legal people) "Resolved: That temporary student and visitor visas should be prohibited for all people from Pakistan, Afghanistan, Iraq, and Saudi Arabia". We were against this proposal.

War and I did some half-hearted research, found a bunch of statistics and numbers and quotes and such from such sources as the Department of Commerce, the National Academy of Science, and the Institute of International Education; we also found demographic information showing that immigrants from the region tend, on the whole, to be well-educated, with lower than average rates of criminality and higher than average rates of applications for citizenship and of home ownership. In other words, exactly the kind of immigrants that our laws do (and arguably, should) favor.

All of that went out the window in the first few moments of the debate when our opponent argued that John Locke's Heirarchy of Values showed that the goverment should do whatever it takes to guarantee the national security.

I'll wait just a moment for you to soak in all the things that are wrong with that sentence.

Have I ever mentioned how I was all into Speech and Debate in high school? And how the hallmark of my stint on the Mock Trial team was the fact that I literally made at least one witness per competition cry on the stand? (Hey, Hulio: "Jess was already an adult and therefore not subject to the curfew law, wasn't he?... Do you remember giving a deposition in this case?... Hmmmm, may I approach the witness, Your Honor? Thank you. Please read the second paragraph on page 3 of your deposition... Eighteen is bigger than seventeen, isn't it?... So, were you lying then, or are you lying now?" Or how about this classic: "Yes, this case is about values as fundamentally American as apple pie: the freedom to worship whatever god you believe in, in the manner you see fit... You gonna cry, private school boy? Huh? Are you?") Chica was going down.

I was all set to jump on the fact that John Locke is not only not the philosopher associated with the Heirarchy of Values-- a fact which would have been revealed by a thirty second visit to Google, together with the fact that Chica has no actual understanding of Maslow's philosophy-- but that the philosophies with which he is associated actually support our side of the argument. Had this been an actual, orderly debate in which each side got a set period of time to present their arguments followed by rebuttal, instead of the I-Think-I'm-Chris-Matthews-Free-For-All "debate" that Professor Strap was conducting, I would, in fact, have gotten to this point. But nooooooo, Chica had to follow up with this gem: "Since we're at war with two of those countries, we shouldn't be issuing visas to them anyway."

It was on.

I turned to War and gave her a look, then turned back to Chica and replied "Oh? Which two would that be?". Being the moron that she is, she didn't hear the warning bells ringing loudly. In the snottiest voice possible, she replied "Afghanistan and Iraq" and though she didn't actually add "Duh!" at the end, you could practically hear it. I raised my eyebrows and turned back to War, asking "Did you know about that? Because I must have missed that announcement. I was under the impression that Afghanistan is our ally in the War on Terror and that Iraq is also a friendly nation that we are helping to rebuild," making air quotes around that last phrase. Professor Strap jumped in and tried to stop me by commenting that "We're not here to discuss the war in Iraq", but I was having NONE OF IT and turned on him instead, letting him know in no uncertain terms that Chica opened the door to exactly THAT discussion and I wasn't about to cede the ground. In fact, War and I jumped up and down on that point for several minutes, pointing out that exposure to positive Western influences could only help in the "war to win hearts and minds", while punitive measures could only drive people into the arms of extremists of all sorts. After all, if you don't have the opportunity to get an education and improve your life that way, why would you turn down the opportunity to get ahead (though perhaps only in the afterlife) or at least fight for the chance to improve your children's lives via the only means available to you? The whole time, Professor Strap kept trying to stop us by insisting that we weren't there to debate the war in Iraq (and for the second time, I just had to go back and correct my original phrasing, in which I wrote "the war on Iraq", which should give you some indication as to how I feel about the subject.) and it took all the self-restraint I could muster to keep from yelling "Well, then maybe you shouldn't have written a question involving eliminating visas to citizens of IRAQ, you effing idiot!". He ended the debate shortly after.

Now, all pretext of civiility will be lifted. THe last three classes are going to make him sorry he ever set eyes on me and War. It's time to participate in class, my friends. And boy howdy, do I plan to be an active contributor to class discussions from now on.

Moron.

Every Little Bit Helps, I Suppose

Especially when you almost failed in your last effort to throw your state's vote your brother's way (Thank God for The Supremes!) Maybe disenfranchising large numbers of voters before they have the chance to possibly choose the "wrong" candidate will help.

Are You Threatening Me?

http://www.cnn.com/2004/ALLPOLITICS/09/07/cheney.terror/index.html

Motivations

http://www.nytimes.com/2004/09/03/politics/campaign/03detain.html
http://www.eddie.com/blog/archives/000012.html

Why aren't people screaming in the streets? Why is this election even close?