Republican Shake Up

Over on the Moderate Voice there is a good discussion of a recent Newsweek article on some of the potential fractures in the Republican party. The focus of the Newsweek article is on a number of descendants of famous, leading Republicans who are deeply disenchanted with their party. Disenchanted even to the point of contemplating a switch. The folks in question are lifelong, prominent Republicans, but of the so-called Country Club set, with names such as Roosevelt, Eisenhower and Goldwater. If these folks are considering leaving the Republican party then a major realignment, or possible dissolution, of the Republican party is a distinct prospect. I recommend that you go over and read what is written over there. Constructive Interference is clearly a blog that is not very warm toward the Republican party. My opinions on the current state of the Republican party are not favorable. The Moderate Voice is a good bit more centerest and friendly to the Republican party, so their perspective is well worth checking on.

To me it looks like the current trends in the Republican party are towards the neocon, ultra conservative wing, and thus towards eventual irrelevance in American politics. I can't believe that will happen without a realignment, but what that realignment will look like I don't know. Although I am a solid Democrat and rather liberal in my politics, understand that one of the main themes I discuss is the need for critical review, oversight, accountability. These things are essential if we are to make any complex system work. That includes a modern government. Therefore, while I will remain a Democrat, I want there to be a vigorous, effective Republican (or other oppostion) party to provide that critical review, oversight and accountability. The current Republican party cannot play that role because the current Republican party is ideologically opposed to critical review, oversight and accountability. I want a good Republican party back.

Return to Oversight

Oversight being absolutely essential to having good government, this is a good thing. Read the article linked below:

Democrats Aim to Save Inquiry on Work in Iraq - New York Times

It does an excellent job laying out the Democrats' likely approach to investigations. It looks to be thorough and sober. This will be good.

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Accountability and Corruption

MyDD :: Direct Democracy for People-Powered Politics
MyDD :: Direct Democracy for People-Powered Politics

There have been a few posts over on MyDD over the past few days (see Democratic Leaders to Run on Iraq War Accountability and Republican Corruption Back in the Fore?) Republican corruption and Republican lack of accountability and how that the Democrats can make use of these issues. To my mind, one of the most striking aspects of this discussion, here on MyDD and elsewhere, is the tendency to treat these issues as two separate issues. They are not. The Republicans have been claiming for the past few decades that they are inherently more virtuous (using as evidence their overt Christianity, or their attitudes towards sex, or their wealth, etc.). The Democrats cannot, and should not, being trying to argue that they have the greater inherent virtue and furthermore must make clear that they are not arguing that. The liberal position has been for centuries that the thing needed to keep corruption at bay is accountability and oversight. As long as humans are involved in government, relying upon their virtue is a mistake. And not because there are no virtuous people, but rather because in the absence of oversight even the most honest will loose their way,

The Democrats can capitalize on the Republican corruption, but they need to make clear that the reason for the growing Republican scandals is the lack of oversight, the lack of accountability. The Democrats will restore that accountability but make no claim to inherently superior virtue.

The point of this for the upcoming election is that the issue the Democrats need to focus on accountability. The Republicans have abandoned that principal and as a result we see the problems in Iraq, growing corruption in government, the failures of the Katrina response, the growing deficit. The Democrats will return to the vital principal of holding the government accountable. So corruption should be part of the Democratic talking points, but as an example supporting the main talking point of accountability.

One other thing on using corruption as an issue. We Democrats suffer horribly from impatience. The 'Culture of Corruption' as an election issue was started earlier this year. So far, having been used for six months and not bringing victory in the one case where it was used, we are thinking that it needs to be dropped. The Republicans started pushing the Democrats as weak on defense in the 1964 election and finally archived that as a fundamental view on Democrats by maybe 1972 (1968 at the earliest). Could be give it a little more time, with a little more variations in how we use it before giving up. We do tend to come up with these ideas that are very good, but abandon them very quickly when they don't bring immediate success. The culture of corruption will be a fact of Republican governance for as long as they abandoned oversight. We need to make it an issue for that same period of time.

Democrats on the NSA wiretaps

The American Prospect article is a week or so old, so the reference is a bit out of date, but the issue is still pressing. The issue of the NSA wiretaps is NOT a question of National Security or Civil Rights. This is a question of National Security AND Civil Rights on the side that the Democrats are taking vs. a false SENSE of security while actually reducing our security, the Republicans' position.

The only reasons anyone needs to have complete freedom of action with no oversight, the powers being claimed by George Bush, are 1) the individual is incompetent and does not want that discovered or 2) the individual is up to something illegal, and does not want it discovered. Oversight and review are needed to get competent results, they are essential to get top notch results. Removing the oversight on wiretaps and prevalence will only result in wasted time and effort on false leads and pursuing innocent citizens. If we want our national security to be the best it can be we need to restore the kinds of oversight and review that have been in place for the past several decades.

Some folks, see Kevin Drum are starting to see this. Now if we can get the Democratic leadership to make this case we might be in good shape.

As a post script I would add that granting someone these extraordinary, absolute powers has never in history lead to the possessor of the powers using them to protect the nation. The possessor inevitably uses them to protect himself. The Democrats are for the president to have the powers and the motivation to protect the United States, the Republicans are for the president to have powers and motivations to protect himself and the Republican leadership.

The Need for Oversight

he administration, and their right wing supporters, is trying to portray the NSA wiretap issue as a matter of acting in the interests of national security. Indeed they are now claiming that the President has absolute authority to act in any manner he wishes, with no oversight at all. This position is absurd. As many others have pointed out, it is clearly at odds with the constitution and our values of democracy, freedom, and civil rights. But it is absurd in a more concrete and common sense way. There is no human activity of any sort, in which the outcomes are improved by removing all oversight. Consider your accountant, a home contractor you hire, an employee, a babysitter, or any other field at all. In every case, if you remove all oversight you can predict, with confidence, that you will get disastrous results. Indeed the only reason any of these people would object to you checking up on their performance periodically and that their actions be subject to review is that they know their performance is substandard or incompetent and they don't wish to be caught. And that is clearly what we are seeing with this administration.

How to handle error

Democrats and liberals have come under attack to some degree for encouraging and promoting various investigations that may politically damage this administration, on the grounds that doing so will hurt the nation. I've seen complaints to that affect with regards to Abu Ghraib and to the Fitzgerald investigation into Plamegate. Apparently the conservative view is that the actions themselves, torture of prisoners or outing covert agents, are not too important, it is revealing that they happened that does the damage.

Well the liberal position is the opposite. The grave danger to our troops in the field has been done because of the torture itself and because an undercover agent was exposed. The way to minimize and control that damage, and to prevent further such damaging incidences in the future is to expose the culprits and make sure that they face justice for their actions. Covering up the misdeeds does nothing to reduce the damage, but it does make it more likely that such misdeeds will occur again.

Oversight

The Washington Post has a short piece describing how congress has been abandoning its oversight role. As I discussed in an earlier post, the role of oversight, or critical review, of what the other branches are doing, is an essential role that is absolutely necessary for government to work properly. We will only get good policy if the branches of government seriously check each others work. The trend described in the article is something we should be very concerned about. The trend has certainly accelerated with the current congress and current administration. Congressional oversight of the administration is a shadow of what it once was, typified by the congressional Katrina investigation which is shaping up to be a whitewash.

This trend is now not only affecting congress, but the executive has abandoned its oversight role as well. Bush has vetoed exactly zero pieces of legislation. It the branches of government do not check each others work we can only expect poor results. And we are seeing that in the aftermath of the Iraq war, the aftermath of Katrina, the bloated highway bill, and the rest of this current government's efforts.

Freedom of the Press

Well stories have gone back and forth regarding press freedom in New Orleans these days. There have been claims of a general press blackout that turned out to be exaggerated. It would appear that the press is pretty free to roam about, although there have been some instances of harassment. CNN had to sue to get the right to photograph the collection of bodies, but that too is now being allowed.

We get a lot of 'feel good' and patriotism reasons for supporting a free press, but I wanted to write something about the practical benefits of a free press and civil liberties in general.

Accomplishing some task like securing the boarders against terrorist attack is an extremely difficult thing to do. The boarders are long and so many people are coming through that providing complete security is nearly impossible. Now if we grant the public officials in charge of providing this security with broad powers to silence the press and arbitrarily arrest anyone then the task of providing security does become moderately easier but not all that much. It will remain a nearly impossible task. However, what will become very easy is to silence anyone who points out that the officials are failing to do the job. Under these conditions the officials will then be free to do a truly inept job of providing security with no fear of accountability and will typically over time do a worse and worse job of actually providing security. This is the model that has been followed through all of history. Granting officials these powers, restricting civil liberties and freedom of the press will eventually lead to far worse security than we have with these freedoms. That is why we need to insure that they stay in place.

Critical Review

In my opinion one of the largest issues dividing liberalism and conservatism today is not being discussed directly. It is the idea of critical review.

That is to say that a broad and diverse group of independent observers should subject any new idea to criticism, pointing out flaws and suggesting changes, before the idea is adopted. I think that human history has shown conclusively that if you wish to make any large complex system work, it is absolutely essential that you apply this idea of critical review to any new ideas or changes to the system. Today, liberalism is broadly supportive of critical review(see note), while a large and politically powerful section of conservatism is opposed to the idea. They seem to believe that critical review is too untidy and that the better course of action is to find some person of great moral character and rely upon his direction. Again, human history has pretty much shown this to be a disastrous course.

Note: When I say broadly supportive I don't mean slavishly happy to be criticized. We are human, we prefer to have our ideas praised than condemned. However, we do realize the value of critical review and while we might express our displeasure at your criticisms, we do recognize the value. Hence, in a forum such as this you will see open criticism allowed and encouraged and you will face strong counter arguments when you bring those criticisms. This is also because we likewise believe that your criticisms should be reviewed critically.