I should probably have a post explaining who I am for anyone who cares. I’m a married father of two. I’m a third year law student, with a job secured for next year with a large Atlanta firm. Therefore, I’m still poor, but with brighter horizons. Now for ideology:
Philosophically: I’m a post-modernist. Which doesn’t mean much to anyone, but I’m a reader of Wittgenstein and the post-structuralist movement. In short, I believe in the power of words and narratives to bridge the gaps of human misunderstanding. I believe that there are no Truths, there are only facts and faiths.
Religously: I’m a Catholic. Square this with post-modernism and you understand me.
Politically: I’m an independent. I have never voted for a Democratic president, and I voted for Bush in 04.
I believe in the power of free markets, but I understand that market failures are more than inconvenient theoretical necessities, but are real failures that hurt individuals and the country as a whole. I support the War on Terror, and I supported its neo-conservative refocusing on Iraq. I supported Bush’s immigration plan. I supported Bush’s Social Security Reform, though not in all the particulars.
All that being said, I am voting for Obama. Why?
I believe we need to refocus the war on terror which has floundered on nation building. I believe in increased government spending during two conditions: economic or military emergency and market failure. And we have both. I believe in a graduated income tax, which has always existed, and I think it should be more pronounced at a time when wages have stagnated and prices are rising. I believe in a reversal of de-regulation policies, especially in the financial sector, which I believe a mostly responsible for our current economic crises. I believe in universal healthcare, because there is an enormous market failure in the healthcare industry. I believe in fair trade, not free trade. I believe in the Constitution, which has been roughshod over during the last eight years. I believe the US should not condone torture. And lastly, I do not trust John McCain.
Friday, October 31, 2008
Monday, October 27, 2008
Redistribution of Wealth
Conservatives have apparently lost their senses and when confronted with the phrases “spreading” or “redistribution” hear Socialism or Marxism. This would be fine if they went on to acknowledge that we have therefore lived under Socialism/Marxism for a long, long time.
In fact, Aristotle divided the Law into 2 bodies: 1) retributive (criminal), and 2) distributive (economic/civil). That is the model that continues today.
The law is inherently distributive.
The law decides, for example, the operation of contract law and must distribute justice among two contract makers when one of them breaches.
The government is inherently distributive:
For example: we all pay for education and yet not everyone has school aged children. Redistribution of Wealth!
For example: Alabama receives much more money from the federal coffers per capita than it sends to the federal government through income taxes.
Redistribution of Wealth!
We pay farmers not to farm, we incentivize buying a home (interest deduction), we incentivize getting married (just the hetero’s though), we incentivize having children, we incentivize saving for retirement – THIS IS REDISTRIBUTION. But it redistributes “up”, so no one cares. The renter pays higher taxes so the home owner can take his deduction. The consumer pays more for milk and veggies, so the farmer can avoid the swings of the market. The childless subsidize parents.
In reality, this is not socialism, but government. Unless every taxpayer expects a dollar for dollar return on their taxes, redistribution is a fact of civilized life. In the words of that great Justice and American romantic, Oliver Wendell Holmes: "I like to pay taxes. With them I buy civilization."
In fact, Aristotle divided the Law into 2 bodies: 1) retributive (criminal), and 2) distributive (economic/civil). That is the model that continues today.
The law is inherently distributive.
The law decides, for example, the operation of contract law and must distribute justice among two contract makers when one of them breaches.
The government is inherently distributive:
For example: we all pay for education and yet not everyone has school aged children. Redistribution of Wealth!
For example: Alabama receives much more money from the federal coffers per capita than it sends to the federal government through income taxes.
Redistribution of Wealth!
We pay farmers not to farm, we incentivize buying a home (interest deduction), we incentivize getting married (just the hetero’s though), we incentivize having children, we incentivize saving for retirement – THIS IS REDISTRIBUTION. But it redistributes “up”, so no one cares. The renter pays higher taxes so the home owner can take his deduction. The consumer pays more for milk and veggies, so the farmer can avoid the swings of the market. The childless subsidize parents.
In reality, this is not socialism, but government. Unless every taxpayer expects a dollar for dollar return on their taxes, redistribution is a fact of civilized life. In the words of that great Justice and American romantic, Oliver Wendell Holmes: "I like to pay taxes. With them I buy civilization."
Obama on Positive Rights
Conservatives are flagging this audio of Obama:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iivL4c_3pck
And, once again, show that they have no idea what they are talking about.
The Brown v Bd. of Educ. decision was the end result of 40 years of litigation strategy by the Legal Defense Fund to overturn Plessy. Obama notes that the Supreme Court concluded that segregation was unconstitutional and used the schools as an instrument to force the desegregation of all public institutions.
Obama points out that the Court’s other possible route was to conclude more narrowly that education was a fundamental right under the constitution. It should be noted that this might have avoided the necessity of forced bussing and all the problems that it has brought, and would not have forced desegregation of all public institutions.
But this is an essential point of theoretical contention between negative and positive rights. (and this is a constitutional law professor talking). The Positive rights model posits that while the bill of rights is a necessary conscription to State power, Why should a negative document be so limiting as to define the scope of human/natural rights? In fact, the 9th Amendment points to directly this supposition, though the Supreme Court has labeled the Amendment an “inkblot.” And yet the Court continues to find negative rights, such as privacy, through the “penumbra” of the other negative-rights amendments, like the 14th. The court did not go positive right on education because the court was essentially conservative and afraid of the power it might be granting itself. Obama points this out and notes that such a reading is probably never possible. WHICH is a platform of the Republican party!
Then he goes on to describe the existence of the government as a legislative rights creating body. Apparently he wants to declare things “rights” (education has been such a “right” in this country for quite a while now) through the proper use of democracy. Oh the Horror.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iivL4c_3pck
And, once again, show that they have no idea what they are talking about.
The Brown v Bd. of Educ. decision was the end result of 40 years of litigation strategy by the Legal Defense Fund to overturn Plessy. Obama notes that the Supreme Court concluded that segregation was unconstitutional and used the schools as an instrument to force the desegregation of all public institutions.
Obama points out that the Court’s other possible route was to conclude more narrowly that education was a fundamental right under the constitution. It should be noted that this might have avoided the necessity of forced bussing and all the problems that it has brought, and would not have forced desegregation of all public institutions.
But this is an essential point of theoretical contention between negative and positive rights. (and this is a constitutional law professor talking). The Positive rights model posits that while the bill of rights is a necessary conscription to State power, Why should a negative document be so limiting as to define the scope of human/natural rights? In fact, the 9th Amendment points to directly this supposition, though the Supreme Court has labeled the Amendment an “inkblot.” And yet the Court continues to find negative rights, such as privacy, through the “penumbra” of the other negative-rights amendments, like the 14th. The court did not go positive right on education because the court was essentially conservative and afraid of the power it might be granting itself. Obama points this out and notes that such a reading is probably never possible. WHICH is a platform of the Republican party!
Then he goes on to describe the existence of the government as a legislative rights creating body. Apparently he wants to declare things “rights” (education has been such a “right” in this country for quite a while now) through the proper use of democracy. Oh the Horror.
Polls and Bias
There’s not much talk is about poll bias. But, there’s much fun in talking about polling inaccuracies, and to a lesser extent the inner workings of polls. But, nevertheless, let’s look at polls through the same prism of economic incentives that we’ve previously viewed the media.
1) unlike the media, polls are paid to be accurate
Many people forget that polls do not exist for advertising dollars, but rather exist because someone will pay them for the data they create. Now it may be that some polls (the larger ones) are paid simply to create headlines, for which the big media will pay them. So large swings in their polling results may be economically useful. This is why Zogby and Gallup are so wild. It is also why these two pollsters are so often on television explaining their polls – they get paid for that too.
But most polls are paid for by politicians seeking their data. When people complain about not being privy to the “internals” of a poll, what they really mean is that they weren’t willing to pay for the internals (media outlets pay big bucks because once they publish the value is lost). Politicians need accuracy and they pay big money for it. And they need the data keyed to particular demographic and geographic internals, and they pay bigger money for that.
2) polling is an artform
Well, polling is at least part science and part art. The art is particularly in the “likely voter” model, while the science is in the distribution of data from the model created. The art comes in predicting which people will vote in a given election. Some, like the Gallup traditional (one of its three models), predict based solely on previous voting patterns. This has obvious pros and cons. Others rely more heavily on registration patterns for new voters and other “excitement” polling to generate their models. This is more typical.
3) polling is erratic, so in come the averagers
The fact that polls may be erratic does not detract from their value to the campaigns. Because often an outlier poll can pinpoint its own model flaw, and retain the value of the internals. For example, one recent TPP poll showed a very close race. It subsequently, however, released data that showed a 78% inclination for McCain in the age 18-24 demographic. This violated common sense, and thus renders the overall poll numbers useless. But the data for other demographics remained viable and thus retained its monetary value.
This is where sites like RCP, Election Projection, and 538 become useful. They gather polling data and then attempt to aggregate to reach consensus. They are more susceptible to bias however, as they must weight each poll in relation to the others (or don’t weight and count on outliers to cancel each other out, which is what RCP does). Nevertheless, these sites can provide a better overall picture of races and provide valuable commentary on each poll’s usefulness. 538 is the site which pointed me to the TPP problems noted above, for instance.
4) polling may be generally tilted democrat
I’m still working on this, but in general, I think that because polls must predict turnout, the voting tendencies of groups must be the primary source of modeling. This means that if some groups are difficult to predict, more error will obviously occur in predicting that group’s behavior. It is suggested that republicans are a more predictable voter. Therefore, sites that use “excitability” polling and “voter intention,” may find that they consistently over-poll democrats. But tryin to model to avoid this would mean subtracting votes subsequent to the objective model based on party affiliation, which would a) look bad, b) be impossible to verify, since it assumes that the subject voter is lying/mistaken.
Why is this part of the American Romance? Similar to the media, polls are in the business of giving the people what they want and getting paid for it. They provide a valuable service to politicians, while giving the average American something to talk about. That’s American romantic, baby.
1) unlike the media, polls are paid to be accurate
Many people forget that polls do not exist for advertising dollars, but rather exist because someone will pay them for the data they create. Now it may be that some polls (the larger ones) are paid simply to create headlines, for which the big media will pay them. So large swings in their polling results may be economically useful. This is why Zogby and Gallup are so wild. It is also why these two pollsters are so often on television explaining their polls – they get paid for that too.
But most polls are paid for by politicians seeking their data. When people complain about not being privy to the “internals” of a poll, what they really mean is that they weren’t willing to pay for the internals (media outlets pay big bucks because once they publish the value is lost). Politicians need accuracy and they pay big money for it. And they need the data keyed to particular demographic and geographic internals, and they pay bigger money for that.
2) polling is an artform
Well, polling is at least part science and part art. The art is particularly in the “likely voter” model, while the science is in the distribution of data from the model created. The art comes in predicting which people will vote in a given election. Some, like the Gallup traditional (one of its three models), predict based solely on previous voting patterns. This has obvious pros and cons. Others rely more heavily on registration patterns for new voters and other “excitement” polling to generate their models. This is more typical.
3) polling is erratic, so in come the averagers
The fact that polls may be erratic does not detract from their value to the campaigns. Because often an outlier poll can pinpoint its own model flaw, and retain the value of the internals. For example, one recent TPP poll showed a very close race. It subsequently, however, released data that showed a 78% inclination for McCain in the age 18-24 demographic. This violated common sense, and thus renders the overall poll numbers useless. But the data for other demographics remained viable and thus retained its monetary value.
This is where sites like RCP, Election Projection, and 538 become useful. They gather polling data and then attempt to aggregate to reach consensus. They are more susceptible to bias however, as they must weight each poll in relation to the others (or don’t weight and count on outliers to cancel each other out, which is what RCP does). Nevertheless, these sites can provide a better overall picture of races and provide valuable commentary on each poll’s usefulness. 538 is the site which pointed me to the TPP problems noted above, for instance.
4) polling may be generally tilted democrat
I’m still working on this, but in general, I think that because polls must predict turnout, the voting tendencies of groups must be the primary source of modeling. This means that if some groups are difficult to predict, more error will obviously occur in predicting that group’s behavior. It is suggested that republicans are a more predictable voter. Therefore, sites that use “excitability” polling and “voter intention,” may find that they consistently over-poll democrats. But tryin to model to avoid this would mean subtracting votes subsequent to the objective model based on party affiliation, which would a) look bad, b) be impossible to verify, since it assumes that the subject voter is lying/mistaken.
Why is this part of the American Romance? Similar to the media, polls are in the business of giving the people what they want and getting paid for it. They provide a valuable service to politicians, while giving the average American something to talk about. That’s American romantic, baby.
Friday, October 24, 2008
Media American Romance
I should have linked yesterday's post to the theme of this blog. So in short:
Media companies are businesses. To make money, they must give the people what they want. They do. And that's American.
Media companies are businesses. To make money, they must give the people what they want. They do. And that's American.
Media Bias
There's been much talk about media bias in this election, so I think wise to dissect media bias systematically. To understand the media, one must understand their priorities. The priority of the media company is to get eyes on themselves. The media is a business whose only product is viewers. Then they sell those eyes to advertisers. During political campaigns, politicians and media's priorities align, as the politician wants: 1) eyes, and 2) to show those eyes their story. The media has an interest in the first, but no interest in the second.
Controlling/shaping the media is a politician's top priority in order to effectively sell his story to the public. When he fails, it is either because: a) he fails to capture eyes, b) he fails to have a story, or c) the story is unpersuasive.
There is another priority, of course, in the personal objectives of the individual reporter. And this is where so much controversy lies. Reporters are by and large liberal. But the reporter is under the constraints of the company and can never allow his own view to damage priority 1, getting viewers. Some "reporters"use their views to capture viewers, like Bill O'Reilly. Others use their viewpoint to spin the politicians story. Neither McCain or Obama can complain, for example, of a lack of attention. Plenty of eyes are gathered. But one narrative is working, and the other is not. McCain would love to blame the media, but this is in effect saying that "because the person I'm talking to disagrees with me, I am unable to tell my story or make it persusive." But somehow lots of people are elected, even if most reporters don't like it.
The press conference is a good example. Reporters ask questions. They want to a) ask the questions that get the most attention (eyes), b) ask the questions that they personally would like answered. The weight of those priorities may vary, but (a) generally far outweighs (b). But the real game for the politician is in influencing what is going to get the most attention in advance.
A previous negative ad campaign, for example, can ensure that the attention will be peaked by that ad run. So the media is forced to ask the questions, and then, when those questions no longer draw eyes, focus on the negative ads themselves, McCain encourages this because - in a negative ad campaign - answers don't matter, it's the questions that are important. So the media works for him. If it doesn't work, it isn't the fault of the media, but rather that questions fail to make a story to sell to the public.
Thus, the media's objective is served, the politician's objective of getting eyes is served, but the ultimate interests of the candidate in selling a story are lost. But this is an example of how the media can be used successfully by a disfavored pol.
Ultimately, the media serves its own interests, and the successful politician must align the media's priority 1 to his own advantage. Then, the politician must be pursuasive. If he fails at either of those two things, he loses.
Controlling/shaping the media is a politician's top priority in order to effectively sell his story to the public. When he fails, it is either because: a) he fails to capture eyes, b) he fails to have a story, or c) the story is unpersuasive.
There is another priority, of course, in the personal objectives of the individual reporter. And this is where so much controversy lies. Reporters are by and large liberal. But the reporter is under the constraints of the company and can never allow his own view to damage priority 1, getting viewers. Some "reporters"use their views to capture viewers, like Bill O'Reilly. Others use their viewpoint to spin the politicians story. Neither McCain or Obama can complain, for example, of a lack of attention. Plenty of eyes are gathered. But one narrative is working, and the other is not. McCain would love to blame the media, but this is in effect saying that "because the person I'm talking to disagrees with me, I am unable to tell my story or make it persusive." But somehow lots of people are elected, even if most reporters don't like it.
The press conference is a good example. Reporters ask questions. They want to a) ask the questions that get the most attention (eyes), b) ask the questions that they personally would like answered. The weight of those priorities may vary, but (a) generally far outweighs (b). But the real game for the politician is in influencing what is going to get the most attention in advance.
A previous negative ad campaign, for example, can ensure that the attention will be peaked by that ad run. So the media is forced to ask the questions, and then, when those questions no longer draw eyes, focus on the negative ads themselves, McCain encourages this because - in a negative ad campaign - answers don't matter, it's the questions that are important. So the media works for him. If it doesn't work, it isn't the fault of the media, but rather that questions fail to make a story to sell to the public.
Thus, the media's objective is served, the politician's objective of getting eyes is served, but the ultimate interests of the candidate in selling a story are lost. But this is an example of how the media can be used successfully by a disfavored pol.
Ultimately, the media serves its own interests, and the successful politician must align the media's priority 1 to his own advantage. Then, the politician must be pursuasive. If he fails at either of those two things, he loses.
Thursday, October 23, 2008
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