US Election 2004

In an effort to focus my blogging efforts, I am eliminating multiple blogs in favor of a single one on the ThinkerToThinker platform.  Therefore, I am moving this blog as part of the consolidation.

The new platform is superior in features to the AOL Journals platform.

So, please go to Words by Woods and see what is available.

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Prior to Iris Chang's suicide, I had written:

On an administrative note, US Election 2004 will continue to post after today.  In addition to significant news items, the posts will focus on the challenges for the next term, and explore how we can have better choices in 4 years.

Since that comment, posts have been sparce.  Breaking from the election theme, I have started two new blogs relevant to those posts that were never made.

The Washington Re-Post focuses on current news stories as reported by and editorialized in The Washington Post newspaper.  To date, posts have had the length and format of letters to the editor.  In the future, I anticipate longer Op-Ed length pieces.  So far there are been posts on:

* Prospects for nuclear terrorism
* Productivity as the key to growth
* Reproductive choice
* Medical liability reform
* Executive pardon power
* Civilian collaborators with terrorism

Do Not Let It Go takes a longer term view in looking at ideas that can transform politics and revitalize American values.  This blog begins with an inspiring quote from Ayn Rand's essay "Don't Let It Go."

With the end of the election, I have resumed posts to my Woods Workbench.  That blog is a place for writing experiments, drafts, and miscellaneous commentary.

USE2004 is now officially closed to new content.  Thank you to all the have visited US Election 2004.  I hope that you will continue to enjoy the content providers that I have linked to in the past.

jwoodswce at 11:47:30 PM EST Permalink | Blog about this entry |  Add to del.icio.us |  digg this This entry has 0 comments: Add your own

Last month, historian Iris Chang committed suicide.

Publicly, she is remembered for her books:  The Thread of the Silkworm, The Rape of Nanking, and The Chinese in America.  Personally, I found both of her first books valuable, but not enjoyable.  She had the courage to face hard truths about history, including backlash from those seeking to evade the truth.  From her website:

Iris Chang is one of the nation's leading young historians. Her latest, widely acclaimed book focuses on Chinese immigrants and their descendents in the United States -- their sacrifices, their achievements and their contributions to the fabric of American culture, an epic journey spanning more than 150 years. But even before the publication of "The Chinese in America: A Narrative History," Chang had established herself as an invaluable source of information about Asia, human rights, and Asian American history.

In her international bestseller, "The Rape of Nanking," Chang examines one of the most tragic chapters of World War II: the slaughter, rape and torture of hundreds of thousands of Chinese civilians by Japanese soldiers in the former capital of China. Stories about Chang's grandparents' harrowing escape were part of her family legacy and prompted her to embark on this ambitious project, for which she interviewed elderly survivors of the massacre and discovered thousands of rare documents in four different languages. Published by Basic Books on December 1997 (the 60th anniversary of the massacre) and in paperback by Penguin in 1998, "The Rape of Nanking" - the first, full-length English-language narrative of the atrocity to reach a wide audience - remained on the New York Times bestseller list for several months, became a New York Times Notable Book, and was cited by Bookman Review Syndicate as one of the best books of 1997.

Chang's first book, "Thread of the Silkworm," a critically acclaimed and engrossing study of how Cold-war hysteria influenced American foreign policy, tells the ironic story of Dr. Tsien Hsue-shen. Born in China, educated at M.I.T. and Cal Tech, Tsien became a professor at both universities and a brilliant space age pioneer. Then, after 15 years of stellar achievement and major contributions to American military defense, he was branded a Communist and deported to China -- where he revolutionized the Chinese missile program and developed the Silkworm missile that later threatened American armed forces. The imprisonment of Tsien Hsue-shen during the height of the McCarthy era has been compared to U.S. mistreatment of Wen Ho Lee, a Los Alamos scientist accused of passing secret nuclear data to mainland China.

At the time of her death, she was researching for a book about American survivors of the Bataan Death March.  Frankly, her intensive research into such horrors caused her to breakdown.  It is an important reminder that recharging your soul while confronting such brutal facts is essential to life.

Taking this lesson to heart, the weekend after her death I went to the Corcoran Museum in Washington, D.C. to view Daniel Chester French’s sculpture “The Sons of God Saw The Daughters of Man That They Were Fair”  (1923).  While there, in addition to refueling my soul with the sight of casts from the friezes of the Parthenon, I stopped at the “First Division Memorial” (1922) and gazed upon its golden Nike.  Since my soul have feasted upon the first two novels in Ed Cline’s Sparrowhawk series: Jack Frake and Hugh Kenrick, which demonstrate the revolution of ideas that preceded the American Revolution.

My condolences to those that loved Iris Chang.  To others heed the lesson and invest the effort to refuel your soul.

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Now that the election has past, President Bush has demonstrated a willingness to re-engage the war with the action in Fallujah. 

With the resumption of effective and aggressive action against the terrorists, the words of Capt Scott D. McDonald should be revisited.  On the eve of the invasion of Iraq, he spoke with his marines about the meaning of their actions.

In his conclusion, Capt McDonald effectively explained why it is proper for America to invade our enemies:

Ensconced as we are within boarders that protect us from the rampant collectivism that embraces the rest of the world, why then do we engage in expeditionary campaigns? What drives a nation of free men to take up arms and carry war to foreign shores?

Contrary to the rhetoric of contemporary sophists, we are not the defenders of international liberties. We empowered our government to protect our rights, not to spend our treasure on protecting the misbegotten notions of others. There comes a time, however, when in order to defend our republic—and by extension our rights—we must carry the fight to the enemy.

Those who despise our ideals, who scoff at our liberty, lurk in far off places. Their lairs serve not only as planning cells, but launching pads for the use of force against our citizens. Their targets, however, are not the innocents who perish in such attacks, but the very principles on which our republic was founded.
Having displayed intention and means to bring death to our shores, it becomes not only the right of our government to take action against such criminals, but an obligation based on the sacred trust we have placed in our government to defend our rights.

We, the men who volunteered to defend our constitution and the way of life that it enables, march to the sound of the guns, not because we are bloodthirsty, nor because we love death. We come willing, ready, and committed to defending those freedoms, without which our lives would be unlivable. We are men who have tasted freedom and refuse to live without it. We are men who fight to be free.

We retain that sacred charge of the American Revolutionaries and carry it into a new era, an era where we are under threat from people who oppose all that we know to be right. With integrity of purpose and moral conviction, we will defeat the enemies of our Republic and return to bask in the glow of the temple to the triumph of man, which we call the United States of America. [S. McDonald, Why a Free Man Fights, Initium, 5/26/2003]

This is a lesson the Democrats must learn if they are going to avoid the marginalization caused by their New Left leadership.

Check out a wonderful photograph by Lee Sanstead of the USMC War Memorial with the Capitol, Washington Monument, and Lincoln Memorial in the background.  If you love this image, go to the Monument Light Photography website and buy a quality print.

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Edwin Locke has an excellent Veterans Day op-ed that explores the rational self interests of our soldier and contrasts that with the orgy of sacrifice celebrated by our political leaders:

It is often said that our soldiers must sacrifice themselves for our country. This is precisely what we must not ask them to do. A sacrifice entails the surrender of a greater value for a lesser one. But if a man loses his life on the premise, "I would rather die than live in slavery," it is a tragic loss--but it is not a sacrifice…it is a sacrifice to send our soldiers to a country that has no connection to their interests and values…Any element of self-sacrifice in war is a betrayal of our soldiers and the American freedom they fight for…Our heroic fighting men and women are not to blame for these disasters. It is the politicians who are responsible. It is they who believe that our soldiers are sacrificial fodder to fulfill the politicians' desire for "prestige-enhancing" adventures…We must be proud of our soldiers, but it is equally true that they should be proud of the cause they fight for.  It is terrible to die in war, but there is one thing worse: to die in a war that has no meaning, a war that offers no reason for risking one's life.

The best way we can honor our veterans and give real meaning to Veterans Day--aside from ceremonies honoring their past and present dedication and bravery--is to promise that we will go to war only when America's interests as a free nation are threatened, and wage it in the uncompromising pursuit of victory.  [E. Locke, Giving Real Meaning to Veterans Day, Capitalism Magazine, 11/6/2004]

Hardy congratulations and respect for their achievements to all of our veterans who had the courage to live their rational values.  Choosing to breathe, eat, and perceive without those values would have been a suicide; but, our veterans had the courage to live as free men.

Veterans Day (11/11/2003)

Image Source: Cox and Forkum

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Looking at the net changes in popular votes in this election, it looks like Kerry’s get out the vote (GOTV) effort was a relative failure despite the record turn out.  The following observations are the groundwork for a hypothesis that would have to be tested with more detailed survey work.

Looking at the net change in vote cast between the 2000 and 2004 elections, there was an overall increase of 10%.  However, Bush’s net increase was 18%, or 85% of the overall increase.  That does not leave much for Kerry.

On its face, using Gore’s total from 2000 as a baseline, the Democratic candidate increased his vote by 10%.  But I do not think that was all new voters, because Nadar lost 86% (almost 2.5 million votes) compare to his 2000 performance. 

If those voters who left Nadar did cast ballots in 2004 and did so for Kerry, as was the Democrats' strategy, then that would account for about half of Kerry’s net gain.  Further, Kerry’s victories in four states may have been heavily dependent upon these Nadar switchers (New Hampshire, New Jersey, Oregon, and Wisconsin).

As the Democrats argue about whether to moderate or radicalize, these Nadar switchers may break away from the Democrats again.  It is likely that there will develop a marginalized orthodox New Left party; the question is whether it will be the Democrats or a third party like the Greens.

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With a presidential election loss, the losing party turns its knives inward in an attempt to explain its defeat.  However, the explanation for Kerry’s loss has been available for 24 years:  he was the candidate of the New Left.

In The New York Times Magazine (5/17/1970), in the context of the activism of the New Left, it was asked, “Are We in the Middle of the ‘Second American Revolution’?”.  In her contribution to the question, novelist and philosopher Ayn Rand explained how the New Left was not a revolution but a putsch.  More importantly, she put the issue in a broader context:

Physically, America is not in a desperate state, but intellectually and culturally she is.  The New Left is the product of cultural disintegration; it is bred not in slums, but in the universities; it is no the vanguard of the future, but the terminal stage of the past.

Intellectually, the activists of the New Left are the most docile conformists.  They have accepted as dogma all the philosophical beliefs of their elders for generations:  the notion that faith and feeling are superior to reason, that material concerns are evil, that love is the solution to all problems, that the merging of one’s self with a tribe or a community is the noblest way to live.  There is not a single basic principle of today’s Establishment which they do not share.  Far from being rebels, they embody the philosophic trend of the past 200 years (or longer):  the mysticism-altruism-collectivism axis, which has dominated Western philosophy from Kant to Hegel to James and on down.

But this philosophic tradition is bankrupt.  It crumbles in the aftermath of World War II.  Disillusioned in their collectivist ideals, America’s intellectuals gave up the intellect.  Their legacy is our present political system, which is not capitalism, but a mixed economy, a precarious mixture of freedom and controls.  Injustice, insecurity, confusion, the pressure-group warfare of all against all, the amorality and futility of random, pragmatist, range-of-the-moment policies are the joint products of a mixed economy and of a philosophic vacuum.

There is a profound discontent, but the New Left is not its voice; there is a sense of bitterness, bewilderment and frustrated indignation, a profound anxiety about the intellectual-moral state of this country, a desperate need of philosophical guidance, which the church-and-tradition-bound conservatives were never able to provide and the liberals have given up.

Without opposition, the hoodlums of the New Left are crawling from under the intellectual wreckage.  Theirs is the Anti-Industrial Revolution, the revolt of the primordial brute—no, not against capitalism, but against capitalism’s roots—against reason, progress, technology, achievement, reality.  [A. Rand, “From a Symposium,” The New Left:  The Anti-Industrial Revolution (New York: Signet, 1971), p. 97]

In this election, the media has focused on two alternatives:  Kerry’s New Left and Bush’s Evangelicalism.   But, is there an alternative to the faithful of the left and the right?

What this country needs is a philosophical revolution—a rebellion against the Kantian tradition—in the name of the first of our Founding Fathers:  Aristotle.  This means a reassertion of the supremacy of reason, with its consequences:  individualism, freedom, progress, civilization.  What political system would it lead to?  An untried one:  full, laissez-faire capitalism.  [Ibid., p. 98]

In another piece in the same published collection, Rand explores the anti-industry, anti-technology, environmentalist, and thus anti-man, agenda of the New Left.  At one point, she explains why these ideas persistent and have not been fought effectively. 

There are three major reasons why you, and most people, do not protest.  (1) You take technology—and its magnificent contributions to your life—for granted, almost as if it were a fact of nature, which will always be there.  But it is not and will not.  (2) As an American, you are likely to be very benevolent and enormously innocent about the nature of evil.  You are unable to believe that some people can advocate man’s destruction for the sake of man’s destruction—and when you hear them, you think that they don’t mean it.  But they do.  (3) Your education—by the same kind of people—has hampered your ability to translate an abstract idea into its actual, practical meaning and, therefore, has made you indifferent to and contemptuousof ideas.  This is the real American tragedy.

It is these three premises that you now have to check.  [A. Rand, “The Anti-Industrial Revolution,” The New Left:  The Anti-Industrial Revolution (New York: Signet, 1971), pp. 131-132]

Rand’s The New Left has been republished in an expanded edition including three essays by Peter Schwartz and retitled The Return of the Primitive:  The Anti-Industrial Revolution.  Whether your personal concern is rebuilding the Democratic Party, correcting the “me to” Republicans, or fighting the violation of your rights, The Return of the Primitive is an essential book to read in order to feed your argument with correct concepts, and inform your actions.  

Image Source: Ayn Rand Bookstore

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Next Friday (11/12) at USC [see link at left of main page under Events], there will be a debate between Andrew Bernstein (Pace University Professor of Philosophy) and Peter Robertson (USC Professor of Social Policy Planning and Development).  The important question is “CAPITALI$M:  Is there a Moral Alternative?”

Bernstein will argue for laissez-faire capitalism.  According to the event announcement, his position is introduced as follows:

After roughly 250 years of capitalism, 80 years of socialism and millennia of statism more broadly, the historical verdict is in. Capitalism the system of individual rights has wrought vastly greater freedom and prosperity than has ever previously existed in the world. Whether in Western Europe, North America or the Asian Tigers, the system of individual rights has protected citizens’ freedom of speech, of intellectual expression, of the press, of religion and of the right to own property and seek profit. Not surprisingly, such freedom of the human mind has led to the highest general living standards of human history by whole orders of magnitude. The system of individual rights and limited government must be implemented in 3rd World nations for them to overthrow political oppression and rise out of the resultant destitution. 

Robertson will argue for an alternative to capitalism.  The announcement introduces his position as follows:

Laissez-faire capitalism, as practiced in today's global economy, is dysfunctional for the planet and for human society.  Despite all the benefits this economic system has generated throughout the modern era, the logic underlying capitalism is incompatible with the conditions of our post-modern, post-industrial, Information Age world.  The result is that capitalism is now doing as much harm as good, threatening the long-term sustainability of the global village.  Fortunately, an emerging set of frameworks, proposals, and applications are establishing the basis for some fundamental changes in the rules of the game by which capitalism is played.  Such changes can and should be made, and while we might continue to call the revised system capitalism, it will most certainly be a moral alternative to the contemporary version of laissez-faire capitalism. 

Fundamentally, this will be a dispute between the Reason, Freedom, and Justice of capitalism against ideals that resort to force to prevent the free exchange of values between individuals.

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In comments, bhasksan made an interesting statement, “…you said ‘This blog provides an independent perspective on the 2004 American Elections’ It would be hard to convince me that your blog isn’t partisan...”  While I do not have an obligation to convince, it is such an interesting point that I would like to put the observation in context.

For those who assume this has been a partisan pro-Bush site, I suggest they go back and read the posts prior to 10/22 when I endorsed Bush’s re-election.  When I made that endorsement, I considered modifying the description of the blog to state that it was Anti-Bushite for Bush; however, on considering the description I recognized that such an endorsement did not change the independence of this site.

In comments, azwick2 asserted in effect that to be independent this blog would not make a choice between candidates and would offer both perspectives as if I were subject to a FCC equal time rule.  I could not disagree more.

In September when USE2004 was featured on AOL’s Political Panel, I posted:

Your first question may be whether this is a pro-Bush or pro-Kerry site.  Simply put, it is neither.  At the moment, neither candidate has been endorsed by the site.  

So if the site is not a candidate or party tool, what is it about?  The site is about the same thing this election is about: the intersection of politics, ideas, and our lives.  In this regard, both candidates are highly flawed.  However, you have probably already noticed that.

To say that this blog is independent simply means that it reflects my judgment without allowing others to think for me.  Thus, the statement in the description about being independent was directly related to the human virtue of independence.  As Ayn Rand described it:

Independence is the recognition of the fact that yours is the responsibility of judgment and nothing can help you escape it—that no substitute can do your thinking, as no pinch-hitter can live your life—that the vilest form of self-abasement and self-desctruction is the subordination of your mind to the mind of another, the acceptance of an authority over your brain, the acceptance of his assertions as facts, his say-so as truth, his edicts as a middle-man between your consciousness and your existence.  [A. Rand, “Galt’s Speech,” For the New Intellectual (New York: Signet, 1961), p. 128; via Lexicon]

Some argue that because no one can know everything that independence is an illusion, and that we must have faith in experts like politicians to make the right choices.  In response to this postmodernist cant, Dr. Hurd has written:

This view is an over-reaction, as well as a distortion of the actual facts.  It is true that you have to, in a sense, “hand over” your first-hand judgment when relying upon a surgeon, a stock broker, or any other expert with specialized knowledge.  But you still can—and, indeed, must—use your first-hand judgment to assess the expert’s character, his reputation, his track record, and whether or not his recommendations make any logical sense.  In our complex, division-of-labor society, delegating to others the task of learning specialized knowledge is both logical and necessary.  To delegate, however, is not the same as to surrender independent thought altogether.  Quite the contrary; in a complex society, a continuous focus on reality with the user of independent, rational judgment, is more essential than ever.  We all must make day-to-day choices about whose expertise to solicit and whose to ignore.  [M. Hurd, Grow Up America! (Washington, DC: Living Resources Press, 2000, p. 21]

As Edwin Locke observed independence is a life and death choice:

The virtue of independence refers to one’s acceptance of the responsibility of using one’s own judgment for the purpose of sustaining one’s own life.  The need for this virtue stems from the fact that every mind and every body is individual.  Anyone who defaults on this responsibility can only live as a parasite on the thinking and effort of other people.  This undermines one’s capacity to live.  [E. Locke, The Prime Movers (New York: American Management Association, 2000), p.151]

In his book on the rational basis for morality, Craig Biddle explains the independent thinker:

The independent thinker’s primary orientation is toward reality, not toward other people.  He is guided by the use of this own mind, not by the views of others.  He puts his own observations and judgments in first place; he faces reality directly and deals with it first-hand.

An independent thinker demands rational evidence for every idea he accepts.  He does not accept (or reject) ideas on the grounds that others believe them to be true (as do religionists, social subjectivists, and second-handers).  Nor does he accept ideas just because he wants them to be true (as do personal subjectivists).  Rather, he accepts ideas only if he understands them to be true—by means of this own reality-oriented, logical thinking…In sum, an independent thinker considers ideas only insofar as they are relevant to his life, are supported by some degree of evidence, and do not contradict anything he rationally knows to be true.  [C. Biddle, Loving Life: The Morality of Self-Interest and the Facts that Support It  (Richmond, VA: Glen Allen Press, 2002), p. 91.]

Curious Specimen (10/27/2004)

Image Source: Cox and Forkum

jwoodswce at 1:25:57 AM EST Permalink | Blog about this entry |  Add to del.icio.us |  digg this This entry has 0 comments: Add your own

Based upon the NBC and FOX Electoral College projections, Bush will be re-elected (based upon a House tie-breaker).

The bad news is that Senate Democrats have had their heads handed to them in the South (1 potential loss in Florida is still too close to call), and with the loss of their leader.  This will limit but not overturn their capacity to block bad actions by Bush, such as bad court appointments.

After Kerry has conceded and Bush has declared victory, it will be necessary for the Senate Democrats to select a new minority leader.  Frankly, if they really thought Kerry would be the best leader for our country, they should select him to be their minority leader.

On an administrative note, US Election 2004 will continue to post after today.  In addition to significant news items, the posts will focus on the challenges for the next term, and explore how we can have better choices in 4 years.

A Fresh Start (11/3/2004)

Looking South (1/28/2004)

Images Source: Cox and Forkum

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