SSM & Making a Bad Situation Worse

It's not going to surprise anyone that I was glad to see California's Proposition 8 pass. Besides my feelings about same-sex marriage (SSM), I wanted to see the voters thumb their nose at the activist and anti-democratic California Supreme Court.

Now that the people have spoken, opponents of Prop 8 are turning to ... the courts.

If Prop 8 is overturned, it will be further proof that what we have is not democracy but minority rule -- an oligarchy not unlike Sunni-controlled Iraq.

If California is forced to send this through the constitutional "revision" process, does anyone think the voters aren't going to respond negatively to having their decision violated? As bad as the last campaign got, the next campaign can be expected to be nastier still.

Hopefully this won't continue. If it does, maybe it will spur some badly needed judicial reforms.

Matthews' Job

Remember this in the next four years:



Is this fair warning not to expect journalistic excellence but an enabling of the Obama administration? It looks to me that the media's treatment of President Obama will be just like its treatment of Senator Obama.

It could be a long four years.

Headlines 11/5/08

U.S. Stocks Post Biggest Post-Election Drop on Economic Concern
Are we really surprised?

2008 Atlantic Hurricane Season Withers on the Vine
Darned global warming!

Post-Election Thoughts

To President-elect Barack Obama,
Congratulations. You fought hard, and you won. And you showed us that the American dream is still alive.

You also showed us a new kind of campaigning for the 21st Century. In many ways your campaign was masterfully run and will no doubt be carefully studied in the next few years.

Please take the next four years as an opportunity to prove your detractors wrong. Govern as a uniter, not an ideologue, and you will truly go down in history as a good president, not just a first.

To the American people,
We have showed the world that America is a spectacular country. Though our race issues are far from solved, we have come so far from the eras of slavery and Jim Crow that we have elected a black man president. We can be proud of our growth as long as we realize there is more room to grow.

To Republicans,
We lost. Move on. Barack Obama will not be the "president" or their president but the President. Let us be gracious in defeat and spend the next four years as the loyal opposition.

To conservatives,
Already people are talking about what needs to change in the Republican Party. It is not party leadership as much as it is operating philosophy. With every passing year the difference between the two major parties seems harder and harder to identify. Remember what you stood for and stand for it again. Don't take this election as a repudiation of conservatism but a reaction to the way it has been abandoned.

Thank God there is still a chance to maintain some influence in the Senate, and we still have a voice in the House. Use it wisely. When the Democrats start work under the new president, we cannot just oppose them, we must counter-propose. We must work very hard to get our ideas into the light, and we have to accept that the media is not our friend in that endeavour, but it can be done and must be if we want to win anything back in 2010 and 2012.

To Christians on both sides of the aisle,
Remember that we're all family. We disagree just as much as any biological family, but in the end we have "one body and one Spirit... one Lord, one faith, one baptism; one God and Father of all." Let us disagree in love and remember that what happens here on Earth is only really important as it relates to the mission of our Master.

Election Links

Here is some more food for thought for those considering voting for Sen. Obama:

The Comprehensive Case Against Barack Obama

Taxes
Taxing Times
Who's going to get tax cuts under Obama? Is it under $200k, $150k, or $120k?
You may remember that Bill Clinton's middle class tax cuts turned into a tax hike.
The classic Bar Stool Economics

Economy
How Not to Help the Poor
Deregulation: The Big Lie
Drilling for Dollars
A good solution for our energy problems: bankrupt the coal industry.

Abortion
Straw Everywhere
Obama’s Abortion Extremism
Pro-Life Politicians Have Made a Difference
Does Increased Welfare Spending or Pro-Life Legislation Reduce Abortion?
Ballot Box Blues
One-Issue Politics
Culture of Death
When is it Acceptable for a ''Pro-Life'' Voter to Vote for a ''Pro-Choice'' Candidate?

Healthcare
How to Fix Insurance
Not So NICE
Almost Everyone Would Be Better Under the McCain Plan
We Need a National Market for Health Insurance
The Obama Plan

Other
Fairness Doctrine & Blogs
Losing the Global Popularity Contest
Obama’s Magic
Joe Biden and other Democrats on Sen. Obama
Why a Woman Shouldn't Run for Vice President, but Wise People May Still Vote for Her

Do Polls Make the News?

A properly done poll reflects the attitudes of the population by drawing inferences from a sample of that population.

An improperly done poll reflects the biases of the people who operated the poll.

When we have polls with such a wide disparity in results, you can ask whether this is simply differences in method, but when you look at some of these polls closely, they seem to be intentionally skewed.

Polls that oversample one party, polls that ask leading questions, and polls that ignore known polling issues (e.g., Republicans are always under-represented in weekend polls), are published as if they were perfectly valid polls. Why?

Are the polsters -- or the people reporting these polls -- trying to shift opinion? In the current presidental election, are they hoping to depress turnout on one side by making the other's win seem assured? Or are they trying to excite them to action by reporting that they're behind -- or slipping? Perhaps they're trying to create a bandwagon -- get the undecideds to join the winning team?

I think most people these days know they need to take polls with a grain of salt. We also need to steel ourselves to not be swayed by the polls. Let's do our best to keep the polls from making the news.

The Other Case for McCain

Gridlock is good.

If Sen. Obama is elected, we're going to have a Democrat controlled House, Senate, and administration. Let's think about single-party rule.

Single-party rule under Bill Clinton brought us tax increases, big spending, and two controversial wars. Under GW Bush it brought us the Patriot Act, big spending, and a controversial war. 

Gridlock brought us the Clinton tax cuts, welfare reform, and a balanced budget. 

Single-party rule lets people get lazy and simply try to pacify the voters. Gridlock keeps the parties competing against each other; it keeps them honest and causes them to focus on their principles. It also keeps them from doing very much. 

A McCain administration wouldn't be able to pass anywhere near the tax cuts Sen. McCain has proposed, but you know he'd take quite a bit of pleasure in vetoing extravagant spending items. He'd have a hard time getting the far right judges he wants approved, but he'd never appoint the far left judges Sen. Obama would choose. In short, gridlock would keep us in a middle of the road, not too ideological state of being. And you know a Democratic Congress would never let him go to war without a darn good reason. 

So on November 4, vote for gridlock, and keep America sane.