Conventional Wisdom

Ah, the conventions. That time of year when the parties reach out to their respective bases and fire up those boots on the ground. One thing you can always rely on in the wake of confetti and outrageous bar tabs that follow a convention; nothing of substance will have been said. So many crazy hats! So many convoluted twisty strings of earnest soundbytes and zingers! Such a very small chance that anyone will actually change their mind under the mind-numbing deluge of fluffy feel good slogans mixed with dire warnings about the evil that is the other side. After all, those people who are "undecided" at this point in the election cycle are just too busy to be bothered by politics or too fed up to care. Or at least, that's what conventional wisdom tells us. And who am I to argue with that?

Actually, as a skeptic, it's kind of a way of life. I also try to avoid generalizations about large groups of people precisely because large groups of people contain individuals. Some of those undecided and independent voters who research their choices carefully and cast purple ballots are pretty damned smart. You may be one of them. If you are, you might enjoy wonk-extraordinaire David Gewirtz's diary of an undecided voter (GOP version). (I'll tackle his equally amusing take on the DNC's dog and pony show next time out). Both of them are worth a read in full, but if you haven't got the time for that, I'll break down some of the highlights and my reactions to them.

On Paul Ryan:

He says the Romney ticket's goal is to create 12 million new jobs over the next four years. That's a high bar, but it's far from enough. We have about 23 million Americans out of work. Worse, about 2 million new workers enter the workforce each year. So, over the course of a 4-year term, of the 12 million jobs Ryan discussed, only about 4 million of those would be available for the current 23 million out of work. It's not nearly enough.

Given the fact that Paul Ryan draws inspiration from Ayn Rand's Utopian view of the free market, I think it's safe to assume he's not interested in adding to the federal payroll as any part of that jobs plan. Shrinking the public sector seems more likely, and that translates to less money going into the middle class. Those firefighters, teachers, police officers, and bureaucrats buy things. They have families to support. They stop buying things when they get "cut back", and start relying on government aid and student loans.

And yes, I know that the President forges a budget from the depths of his character, and the VP is just a tiebreaker in the Senate or a President-on-deck in the event of a national tragedy. Still, I operate under the informed conclusion that Romney's political convictions, even with all of his experience as a leader in the world of business, find their truest expression in the final line of Bohemian Rhapsody. The Romney that ran against Ted Kennedy in Massachusetts and implemented the pilot program for Obamacare is a far cry from the guy flying around the country today. Ryan's potential influence in his administration is something I weigh a bit more heavily than I would have if Gingrich had won the primaries.

On Romney:

Romney described five steps to creating those jobs, but one thing he didn't mention was population. Romney has five kids and 18 grandchildren, and so, in this regard, he's contributing to the problem -- rather than helping it. My detailed mathematical models showed that without some attention paid to reducing population, the jobs situation will continue to grow worse.

Excellent point. Gewirtz fails to draw the logical followup here, and that's a shame. This is precisely the area where economics and social issues are joined at the hip. Or, more accurately, they're joined at the uterus. Both Romney and Ryan oppose abortion for any reason other than rape, incest, or the mother's health. Ryan opposes it even in the event of rape or incest.

I'm stopping for a moment to collect my rage and let it go. See, that Buddhist stuff really works! Moving forward, then.

Regardless of how you feel about limiting access to abortion from a moral standpoint, the pro-life platform in general presents some real problems for our economic stability as a nation. Pair it with opposition to birth control measures like the IUD and birth control pills, and we have a recipe for a government mandated population explosion here. (Unless, of course, people stop having sex for anything other than procreation. Think that's likely? Yeah, neither do I.) Nothing erodes the middle class and puts people who otherwise would have been just barely making it into a position where federal and state aid become necessary more than unexpected children. Nothing keeps them there like increasing the odds that they will have more. This is not how you grow a struggling economy.

On God:

....

This is somewhat surprising, because if you listened to any of the RNC at all, it was kind of hard to miss the fact that God was definitely speaking from the stage through the rhetoric of the people who know him best. He wasn't quite the keynote speaker, but everyone there sure did talk about Him a lot. They seemed quite focused on letting the American people know, once and for all, that the values of this nation are the values of the holy and most righteous among us; and if you don't agree with that, you are lacking the core guiding principle that makes our nation great. Psychology Today even did an article about it.

In the process, they alienated plenty of people whose number one voting issue is the separation of church and state. They contributed, once again, to the common misconception that the atheists among you are just about as trustworthy as rapists. Which is a shame, really. I don't eat babies, I don't worship Satan, and I don't appreciate it when people who want to run my government imply that my philosophical convictions are in any way shape or form stunted.

I won't vote for you if that's the way you feel about me, and I just hope my friends and family don't believe it when you tell those lies. E pluribus unum, bitches.

Happy Birthday, Phyllis Schlafly: Round 1

It's been an interesting couple of weeks in the culture war over women's reproductive rights, to say the least.

There's a lot of research out there detailing exactly how the tides have shifted over the past thirty years, but recent polls and ever tightening restrictions on abortion at the state level have shown that for the first time since the good old days of coat hangers, the pro-life movement has the upper hand by a nice solid margin.

It certainly appears that the cumulative effect of a decade's worth of millions of dollars spent attempting to overturn Roe v. Wade one red state at a time (touched off by the Webster decision in 1989 that kicked Roe in the ovaries and hard) is paying off. Looking at the numbers, it's clear to see why U.S. Senate hopeful Todd Akin felt comfortable talking candidly about how he justifies his position, even in the event of rape or incest.

Of course, another way of looking at the data is that the number of voters who immediately recognized the pro-life movement's connection to the "woman's place is in the kitchen" crowd has been slowly replaced by a younger group of voters who don't really understand how powerful that movement is, or how comprehensively they have been marketed to. Speaking for myself, I'm a Gen Xer. Coke vs. Pepsi, the fall of the Berlin Wall, and the first war in Iraq were the big issues of my day. The feminists who fought for the ERA before I was born had been re-branded as feminazis by the time I was in high school, and burning my bra in my twenties seemed like a waste of perfectly good lingerie. Hell, I didn't even know who Phyllis Schlafly was until I had been out of college for years, and I'm pretty sure I'm not alone in my demographic. She's worth getting to know a little better, particularly for those of us who weren't around when she was fighting the ERA.

This matron-saint of the movement to end all abortion, even in the case of rape and incest, gave a speech at the Republican National Convention yesterday in which she said:

“The pro-life plank of the platform...is really not controversial in the Republican Party anymore. It is just a blind statement and, I think, one of the things we have done to make the Republican Party pro-life. Almost all of our candidates in 2010 were pro-life, and they are again this year.”

She's certainly correct about that. But I think there are some important details Schlafly is leaving out. One woman's "pro-life" stance for herself looks very different from a "pro-life" stance that criminalizes abortion. The same set of data, when expanded to allow for a more nuanced approach to the issue, looks quite a bit different.

Looking at the second chart, it's clear to see why Akin maybe should have saved that speech for the country club, where most of the people in that 22% figure are already drinking the same Kool-Aid and calling it science. Don't get me wrong. It's time that we started having a serious national debate about these issues. When some mothers are already being put in jail for crimes against the unborn, it's arguably past time.

Finally, the issue of abortion is getting the deep analysis it deserves on the national stage, instead of a shallow treatment in which we're all free to hold our own opinions and now back to American Idol.

Paul Ryan's followup interview in response to the, shall we say, negative publicity probably didn't help. He rather nonchalantly referred to rape as a "method of conception" just as the headlines were starting to focus on his partnership with Akin in co-sponsoring "personhood" legislation. Did I mention Arizona governor Jan Brewer signed a law redefining the date of conception as taking place two weeks before intercourse back in April? That's getting some attention now, too. But wait, there's more. Just when you thought the crazy train couldn't possibly make any more spectacularly blunderstruck stops, we get another Republican U.S. Senate candidate, Tom Smith, hopping on board to say that carrying a rape baby is not all that different from having a child out of wedlock. (And yes, he actually used the term wedlock.  Quaint, no?)

The backlash is starting to (if you'll pardon the grim pun) bleed over into Romney/Ryan's once solidly red numbers in Missouri. Still, Phyllis Schlafly ended her remarks at her little birthday shindig by telling an enthusiastic crowd, "We're winning. We're on the winning side."

All I have to say is I hope she enjoys that layer cake. If my generation and the younger voters rise up to meet this tectonic shift toward the insane the way I think we will, it will turn to humble pie come November.