Where Sam doesn't play anymore ...Rick's Cafe Americain

One thing that map does show is that the more people there are in one place, the more likely those people are to lean toward progressive thought.  Why?

Diversity.
Greater population density tends to mean greater diversity (racial, economic, religious, etc.).  People in urban centers also tend to come into contact with more people (and more different people) each day.  People who regularly come into contact with gays, or foreigners, or Jews, or African-Americans tend to be less likely to support stances that may affect those groups, and more attuned to different ways of looking at things.

Information.
A lot has been made of the poll that showed that a majority of Bush supporters were completely misinformed.  Of course, the same poll also showed that Kerry supporters (a far smaller percentage, to be sure) also were misinformed.  There really is no justification for the elitist canard that Bush won because Americans are stupid.  There is, however, some merit to the idea that people in urban centers tend to be more informed because the flow of information is both quicker and broader.  If you don’t believe me, take a drive from New York to Florida on I-95, and cycle through the radio.  Once you hit “red” country, you won’t hear nothing but Rush and the reverends.  Maybe O’Reilly, if you’re moving through one of the pockets of blue-ishness.

Government.
People in urban areas have much more contact with government than their rural counterparts.  My ballot, in a suburb of Silicon Valley, was two pages long and had over a dozen different races.  Urban areas have more courts, more social services, more post offices, more bureaucrats, more crime, more sexual activity, more children, and sometimes maybe even more guns.  In short, people in places with higher population densities tend to be more conscious of and dependent upon government and the services it provides—and therefore more likely to experience the consequences of various policies.  This makes them more likely to pay closer attention to more issues—and to care more about how they are resolved.

Change
People in urban areas may also have more progressive attitudes toward change.  Change comes more often and more rapidly to urban areas, which have a much higher “metabolism” than more rural areas.  In a sense, time moves faster in direct relationship to the population density (my own upside-down version of the Theory of Relativity).  Thus, people in urban areas may be more sensitive to the possible effects of change, and more capable of perceiving the long-term effects.

My observations lead me to conclude that on a majority of issues, people in urban areas may simply have more at stake—directly, anyway—than those in rural areas, and therefore favor more progressive positions.  It therefore is easier for someone in a red state to have 1 or 2 “key” issues, whereas blue-state voters may necessarily have a more expansive view of policy and politics.

This can have subtle, if ironic, effects.  For example, areas of high population density ("blue" areas) are far more likely targets of terrorism, and far harder to secure, than “red” areas.  Yet most “blue” areas voted for Kerry, not Bush.  Because liberals are stupid?  No, because, with less at stake, it is easier for those in Red States to be less critical of this administration’s handling of Homeland Security. 

I think that the inclusiveness and openness that is common to progressive ideologies may grow best in a high-population medium.  It may also be that such are not the traditional values of Protestant America, and so they are fostered most often in centers of cultural and informational exchange (i.e, cities).  I celebrate the openness, the objectivity, the eagerness to see all sides of any issue that characterizes progressive thought.  But it may be our greatest political handicap.  As we have seen, particularly when manifested in the persona of a career panderer politician, this liberalism lends itself to unclarity, “wishy-washiness”, or even “flip-flopping”.  This is no match for a “steadfast” political animal like the modern Republican, who is uninterested in compromise (particularly where none is necessary), and demands loyalty above all else (see, e.g., Arlen Specter).  Stil, it is our best and defining feature.

So, my suggestion to despairing progressives working out their VISA applications is this: don’t move to Canada or Australia—move to Kansas or Wyoming.  If you’re already there, invite your friends to join you.  Convince people from other towns, other countries, other cultures, to move in next door to you.  Since Red Country is bound to ban contraceptives pretty soon, it will be no time at all before little blue spots start cropping up all over that map.  Besides, there’s some pretty nice country out there.

There was a great response to the new marathon route.

It started on the Verrazano and ended at the International Departures desk at JFK. About 54,000,000 people tried to enter the race on Wednesday.

39 states have laws that prohibit gay marriage.  So far thirteen states have approved constitutional amendments limiting marriage to heterosexual couples.  Most states do not recognize civil unions, and some states (like Texas) specifically prohibit them.  Speaking of Texas, that state’s Board of Education just got the publishers of its high school and middle school textbooks to change the wording in those books to define marriage as the union of a man and a woman:

Another board member, Terri Leo, a Republican, said she was pleased with the publishers’ changes. She had led the effort to get the publishers to change the texts, objecting to what she called “asexual stealth phrases” like “individuals who marry.”
“Marriage has been defined in Texas, so it should also be defined in our health textbooks that we use as marriage between a man and a woman,” Ms. Leo said.
* * *
Neither publisher made all the changes that Ms. Leo initially sought. For instance, one passage that was proposed to be added to the teacher’s editions read: "Opinions vary on why homosexuals, lesbians and bisexuals as a group are more prone to self-destructive behaviors like depression, illegal drug use and suicide."

Nice.

Gay marriage is, of course, the “values voter” cause celebre this year.  Values voters voted for Bush, and liberals, didn’t you know, hate marriage.  The case against gay marriage is usually summed up as “marriage is a venerable institution that always has been between a man and a woman.” Well, slavery was a venerable institution, too, and voting was traditionally only for property-owning white men, so forgive me if I reject that argument as spurious.  No, it seems to me that the only honest reason for wishing to ban gay marriage is the belief that there is something morally wrong with it.  After all, homosexuality is a sin, right?

There is no public policy that is served by preventing gay marriage.  To the contrary, excluding gays from the institution of marriage makes it harder for gay couples to provide for each other, and for their families.  And if your position is that gays should be entitled to the benefits of marriage, you just don’t want to call it “marriage”, well, that is the worst kind of intellectually dishonest bigotry.  It’s called “separate but equal”, and it is divisive, destructive, and (incidentally) morally reprehensible.

So what it comes down to is, people are offended by the notion of gay marriage, and don’t want their “own” heterosexual marriage tainted by association.  To use Karl Rove’s words, it isn’t about policy, it is about “decency” (and “hope”!?).  Decency is staying the hell out of other people’s business.  Decency is letting human beings of a different color skin, different gender, different sexual orientation, etc. enjoy the same rights and privileges other human beings enjoy.

You want us God-hating liberals to let you poor, marginalized Christians practice your religion in peace?  Why don’t you start by showing that you are capable of tolerance yourselves?  Seriously, what are you afraid of?

To my mind, Social Security is a singularly flawed system.  As a philosophical matter, I reject the notion that the government can or should force me to plan for my own retirement, much less direct how and how much.  As a practical matter, it has become what has to be one of the worst retirement plans ever.  Social Security’ actuaries estimate that, for a single male worker born in 2000 with average earnings, the real annual return on his currently-scheduled contributions to Social Security will be only 0.86 percent. For someone like me, who makes more than the FICA maximum, the expected return is actually negative.  Nor are the benefits nearly enough for any wage-earner to maintain his/her standard of living – although it was never intended to do that; it was always supposed to be a supplement.

President Bush has called Social Security “the single most successful government program in American history”.  He has campaigned hard in both presidential elections on his goal of “strengthening” social security.  However, he has yet to set forth a detailed plan for doing so.  Indeed, all we really know is that he plans to “privatize” at least part of it, allowing contribution into diversified investment accounts at least similar to 401(k)’s.

“Strengthening” Social Security, as President Bush proposes, will not be cheap.  In order to ensure that benefits continue to be paid, even as contributions are diverted into personal accounts, “transitional” costs of anywhere from .$500 billion to over $1 trillion dollars, depending on how the system is reformed, and how high a return the investor is guaranteed.  President Bush has not yet disclosed where he plans to get this money (although Edward Crane of the Cato Institute suggests getting at least some of it by ending corporate welfare, which I think is a damn good idea.  Otherwise, we’ll have to borrow the money.  Maybe Iraq will lend it to us.

What is clear is that something must be done, and the sooner the better.  The first of the baby boomers will start collecting Social Security in 2008 – imagine that a tired, aging mare who can barely feed her two foals suddenly gives birth to two more.  Not that I think privatization of the Social Security system is a good idea.  To the contrary, I think that the Social Security system as we know it should be dismantled.

The current system, which is headed for fiscal collapse anyway, helps no one.  Those who can afford to put money aside for retirement do not need the government’s help, nor should the government interfere.  Those who cannot afford to plan for their own retirements do not benefit from Social Security.  Most pay more in payroll taxes (FICA) than they do in income tax, and a disproportionate number of poor people, who tend to have shorter life spans, never even get to see benefits.  The system deprives the poor of much-needed income, without even offering them a decent return – if any – on their “investment”.  Hand me my .30-.30, maw.

I’d rather see the “nanny state” replaced by the “welfare state”.  If Social Security were converted into a retirement fund to help only those who really need it – for example, those whose income before retirement was insufficient to allow for significant retirement saving, and who have no children capable of supporting them – I believe we could help a lot more people while greatly decreasing the cost of the program.

When I was a kid, my parents gave me an allowance and taught me the importance of fiscal responsibility.  If I spent all my money during the week (say, on snacks at school), and then wanted to go to the movies on the weekend, my parents would not give me money.  In this way I learned to live within my means and manage my money.  If the goal is to encourage the growth of an “ownership society”, to increase personal choice and responsibility, then I believe the government needs to take a page from my parents’ book.  Freedom of choice means facing the consequences of our choices.  Let’s put Social Security out of its misery.

* For those of you who haven’t bothered to click through to the table of contents, this is for you.

Zinester’s other interviews are with Lisa Heinzerling and Frank Ackerman, the authors of Priceless (how cost-benefit analysis is manipulated to serve political ends) and Liza Featherstone, the author of Selling Women Short (how Wal-Mart discriminates against women). Both interviews (and of course, the underlying books) shed a lot of light on topics that the mainstream media rarely touches.

There are articles on the history of Chuck E. Cheese’s, a jewish Brooklyn teenager who was turned in to the FBI because he looked like this guy, the Gowanus canal, flavor chemistry, home movie preservation and a lot of funny, well-written articles that defy three-word description.

Seriously, get yourself a subscription. Or buy one for a friend.

One thing that I have been thinking about since the election coverage on Nov. 2 was the difference between the exit polls and vote counts. Exit polling has proven itself to be quite accurate over the years, and it disturbs me that not one news organization has questioned the reliability of the vote count given the exit polls. Especially when you consider all the writing before the election about concern over the electronic voting which does not provide a means of verifying its results. I’m not the only one who heard theories about this being the perfect way for a party to “steal” the election. Where was all that concern after the election?

Because there is no way to verify the vote count against ballots electronically cast, there is only one way to judge if the count was accurate: exit polls. Yet not even an eyebrow was raised when the count and polls did not match. Rather than ask the question, the discrepancy was ignored and exit polls were dismissed as notoriously unreliable. This is untrue, and struck me more as a way for the media to regain the public’s trust. I was watching CNN primarily, and they kept repeating that they would not rely on those unreliable exit polls, so as to avoid another Florida projection disaster. Instead, they would wait to call races based upon a combination of voting returns, exit polls (huh?), statistical analysis, and their own expertise.

Blitzer and company kept repeating that they would not rely on exit polls again, continually reassuring the public that the media could be trusted because this time they would not rely on exit polls. It became clear to me that what CNN (and others) were doing was turning exit polls into a scapegoat for their “wrong” Florida projection, so they could regain their credibility. It’s easier to get folks to trust you if you provide a concrete reason why you were wrong, then assure them that factor has been removed from the equation. Rather than admit that they made a mistake in 2000, and gaining the trust back the long, hard way of simply being right in the future. Having turned exit polls into the scapegoat, the media is forced to ignore and leave uninvestigated potential stories on inaccurate vote counts or fraud based upon the fact that the stories find their genesis in information from exit polls.

I have seen exit polls being referred to as unreliable in many sources since the election, and I just don’t buy it. Exit polling has used consistently in the past to call elections. This includes 2000, regardless of what folks say about Florida (remember, exit polls had Gore ahead and since the election any credible news account agrees that Gore would have won if a recount was conducted). Because the exit poll was more accurate than the vote count, should not tarnish exit polls as unreliable. That the media will not face the unpopular reality that Gore would have won Florida if a recount was conducted is not reason to disregard what exit polls tell us.

The news coverage itself reveals the inconsistency in its position. Although they repeat that exit polls are unreliable, the polls form the basis of countless interest pieces and are still used as a factor in the analysis for projecting election results. Both the news organizations and the political parties rely on exit polling to determine what issues were important to voters, as well as the demographic split of the voters.

This is not to say I am convinced that the vote count is not accurate. I am troubled that no questions have been raised in light of the exit polling.

This article provides additional support for the idea of conducting a hand recount. I don’t want a long public drama. It is better to just assume that we have four more years under the Bush regime until we know differently, but I wouldn’t mind seeing the results of a computer audit or a hand recount.

Just because I want to, you know, save the Union from collapse.