Musings

It has taken me over two hours today to process the Sunday NYT.  It was rich in many ways, but the article that caused me to start here was Nicholas Kristof's well laid out comparison that the country that currently best practices many Republican goals is Pakistan.  He acknowledges that the U.S. will not end up there, but income inequality and a lack of wealth transfer to maintain the institutions that support economic class mobility across generations will lead us down that path.

I also spent a fair bit of time on the Sarah Palin articles.  In verbal discussions with my friend RedStateVT, he stated that he is upset that the "left" thinks that she is dumb when she has been a governor and went on to cite past statements that Bush II and Reagan were dumb.  I don't really think characterizations about intelligence are respectful to the need for political debate.  In fact, they get in the way of sound debate over whether this country is going to find the revenues to pay for the wars and a strong national defense and support education and health care for all so that economic mobility remains a defining characteristic of American life.  That more then anything else defines my politics.  A viably financed government that supports its basic roles.

As for Sarah Palin, I have decided that she is ditzy, not a characteristic that is exactly presidential, but neither one that is defining of intelligence.  I hope she runs so that my SNL Tina Fey opportunities for comedy are increased.

As for the Democrat's chances in 2012, I am beginning to consider the possibility that they should consider backing down from pushing back on abortion restraints.  While this flies in the face of my libertarian leanings, it gets in the way of having a debate on basic economic issues with a substantial slice of the Republican base that has more in common with Democratic economic policies.  The Economist found a survey that only 24% of 18-29 year olds support abortion rights under any circumstance.  Of course they followed that with an article about the decline in crime rates and cited the statistically supported sequencing that the increase in the availability of abortion in the 1970's reduced the number of unwanted children born to teenagers & unwed poor mothers who are precisely the part of the population that has a higher % of going to prison.  Social policy is very complicated politically and we need to simplify the political debate so there can be a clear mandate for providing the government the revenue it needs to pay its bills while supporting education (I must be clear, not everyone needs to go to college, but they need skills) and health care for all.