Much of the impetus for the settling of the western hemisphere was frustration at the constraints of Europe. All the land of Europe was controlled by some ruler or other and people living on those lands owed some sort of fealty to the ruler--taxes, soldiers, etc. So when two new continents (and not too long later, a third) suddenly became available, lots of people made the move. It was expensive and dangerous and very hard work, and very few ever saw their homeland again. Many of the colonists paid for their journey by selling themselves into indentured servitude, and much of the hard work was done by captured slaves.
The rulers of the old world and their colonial proxies often tried to impose unwelcome restrictions and taxes. In many cases, they assumed that the colonists would be like the residents of the old world and have no choice but to pay up. But in the new world, there was more land--if the colonists didn't like the way they were being treated and they were not indentured or slaves, they could simply pick up and leave, and build a new house and farm and community in the next valley over. For 300 years, even after most of the colonies had become independent nations, there was always more land. If you wanted to, you could go settle on unclaimed land and there would be no official to take exception. The natives and other potential settlers might take exception, however, and settlers had to be prepared to defend themselves against violence from them, in addition to the hard work of making a home and farm on the new land. This was generally much easier and safer if the settler was part of a community or mutual aid society, but there was no help available from any government.
This all ended in the 19th century. Nearly all the land was taken. In the USA, a lot of this was driven by the Homestead Act, which gave title to 160 acres of unclaimed land (more in some particularly dry places) to anyone who could prove that they'd settled the land for 5 years and had made improvements and had never been in rebellion, plus the government-subsidized transcontinental railroads, as well as an extensive network of cavalry patrols and fortifications. At first, this was funded by the grant and/or sale of the land itself, but after all the good land was taken, the expenses became too much and early in the 20th century, income taxes were imposed.
Still, the feeling was that America was settled by pioneers who did it on their own and owed nothing to the federal government and only a little to the state or community. It hasn't been true since President Lincoln signed the Homestead Act in 1862. The act was specifically structured to emphasize the growth of Union supporting territories during the Civil War, and those who had supported the Confederacy were often hostile to those aspects. But after the Confederacy lost in 1865, many took advantage anyway and both sides wanted to let bygones be bygones. No matter how many Confederacy-supporting homesteaders wish to deny it, a homestead is not a sovereign nation and the security and existence of the homestead owes a lot to the federal, Union government.
At one level, this is unfortunate. If you really want to live on your own, with your own beliefs and practices, with collaborators who all agree with you, and no support or taxes at all, why shouldn't you be able to? Slavery was one such practice--the slaveholders thought it was a great deal, and they tended to rationalize it with views like the one expressed by Cliven Bundy last week. But the slaves were less happy about this arrangement. Polygamy was another. The Mormons chose to settle in Utah, territory that was so uninhabitable that they assumed nobody else would ever challenge them for it. To their credit, they made a good living on the terrible land, but the surrounding nation soon encroached polygamy was banned. Many of the "victims" of polygamy seem happy with their situation and some may in fact be better off, but most are not, and it's a kind of slavery. The reality is that there are very few such views that can be tolerated in a free society, and believing that it's ok to not pay your taxes or grazing fees is such a view. The too much, this sort of freedom is about slavers and polluters being allowed to get away with it. Even though the "freedom lovers" deny it, the burden on the rest of us is too high.
It's probably a good thing for society that all the free land in America was spoken for within a few decades of the end of the Civil War, because this forced such dangerous views into the open. But Mr. Bundy has made it clear that after a century and a half, the destructive views still exist.
26 April 2014
25 April 2014
How Much Inequality is Too Much?
The topic of inequality was already a big part of the discussion when Thomas Piketty's new book came out, which is full of statistics showing how serious the problem is and how much harm it does. Many conservatives are trying to tell us that it's not a problem at all, but their arguments have so far fallen flat in the face of the evidence. Most of them boil down to namecalling of Piketty and other who would like to see more equality. The most common is to call him a Marxist. Piketty himself invited this by the choice of the name for his book: Capital in the 21st Century, an obvious reference to Marx's 19th century tome Capital. The namecallers are both right and wrong to make the comparison. First of all, it's unlikely they've read Capital. It's a very large book and covers a great many topics. Revolutionary Communism is not one of them, although class differentiation and struggle is. The field of Sociology was largely inspired by it. Piketty points out that the problems Marx was highlighting are still present, in some ways worse, although they are manifested in some different ways.
Inequality is unavoidable, and to some degree a good thing. There have been very few truly egalitarian societies, and virtually all of them have existed inside a larger society. Examples include the Kibbutzim of Israel and the hippie communes of the late 1960s and 70s. If you weren't happy, it was fairly easy to leave, and in most cases, a large fraction of the economy came from outside. The Pilgrims who came to Plymouth in 1620 wrote a compact which committed them to a high degree of equality and sharing, but as most often happens in such situations, they too had a small number of very dominant leaders. There have been very many religious communes--the Moonies, the Rajneesh, the Hare Krishna, the Mormons, many more, who attempted to follow this prototype. As far as I know, all of them are exploitative and completely dominated by a strong leader, frequently controlling through brainwashing. Massachusetts became a much better place to live once enough settlers had come to make it possible to leave and start your own community when you didn't like the way things were going in the old one.
The societies which have attempted high degrees of equality--from each according to ability, to each according to need--have almost always become highly oppressive. It is easier for a less-than-talented leader to drive down those who achieve a little more than to take advantage of the opportunity to raise everybody else up. But the opposite extreme is just as bad. If a small number are allowed to enrich themselves at the expense of everyone else, everyone else will eventually starve to death. There's an optimal level. Nobody should starve, suffer from curable disease, be prevented from trying to better their lot. All of these things are commonplace in many societies today, including the United States of America. Another thing that is happening is that a few of the very, very rich are attempting to buy control of the US government.
We need to ratchet up our national safety net to the point that this stops happening. campaign finance regulation is one place to start. The Roberts court has taken a committed, consistent pro-corruption position, which much be reversed and severely repudiated. Another is FDR's Four Freedoms and approach to implementing them, which he called the "Second Bill of Rights". The freedoms are: Freedom of Speech and Worship, Freedom From Want and Fear. The rights he enumerated:
In my opinion, we need a society that supports all of these and more...I'd add convenient transportation, and clean air, water and food to the list. I'd say that as long as we provide mechanisms that do all of this, and prevent corruption of government, then any remaining inequality is fine by me.
Inequality is unavoidable, and to some degree a good thing. There have been very few truly egalitarian societies, and virtually all of them have existed inside a larger society. Examples include the Kibbutzim of Israel and the hippie communes of the late 1960s and 70s. If you weren't happy, it was fairly easy to leave, and in most cases, a large fraction of the economy came from outside. The Pilgrims who came to Plymouth in 1620 wrote a compact which committed them to a high degree of equality and sharing, but as most often happens in such situations, they too had a small number of very dominant leaders. There have been very many religious communes--the Moonies, the Rajneesh, the Hare Krishna, the Mormons, many more, who attempted to follow this prototype. As far as I know, all of them are exploitative and completely dominated by a strong leader, frequently controlling through brainwashing. Massachusetts became a much better place to live once enough settlers had come to make it possible to leave and start your own community when you didn't like the way things were going in the old one.
The societies which have attempted high degrees of equality--from each according to ability, to each according to need--have almost always become highly oppressive. It is easier for a less-than-talented leader to drive down those who achieve a little more than to take advantage of the opportunity to raise everybody else up. But the opposite extreme is just as bad. If a small number are allowed to enrich themselves at the expense of everyone else, everyone else will eventually starve to death. There's an optimal level. Nobody should starve, suffer from curable disease, be prevented from trying to better their lot. All of these things are commonplace in many societies today, including the United States of America. Another thing that is happening is that a few of the very, very rich are attempting to buy control of the US government.
We need to ratchet up our national safety net to the point that this stops happening. campaign finance regulation is one place to start. The Roberts court has taken a committed, consistent pro-corruption position, which much be reversed and severely repudiated. Another is FDR's Four Freedoms and approach to implementing them, which he called the "Second Bill of Rights". The freedoms are: Freedom of Speech and Worship, Freedom From Want and Fear. The rights he enumerated:
- a remunerative, useful job.
- To earn enough for food, clothing and recreation.
- For every farmer to be able to earn a decent living.
- For all businesses, large and small, to be free of unfair competition such as monopoly or fraud.
- A decent home.
- Medical care.
- Security from the perils of old age, sickness, accident and unemployment.
- A good education.
In my opinion, we need a society that supports all of these and more...I'd add convenient transportation, and clean air, water and food to the list. I'd say that as long as we provide mechanisms that do all of this, and prevent corruption of government, then any remaining inequality is fine by me.
18 April 2014
Big Vehicle vs Small Vehicle Transit
Prior to the invention of the steam engine, all peoplemoving was done with small vehicles. Horses, small wagons, your own two feet, etc. The steam engine and its internal combustion relatives made it possible to go much faster, and to carry more people at once. Until about 1910, most of these machines required a highly expert operator, who was expensive, so there were economies to be gained by going with bigger vehicles. Even the earliest streetcars, which were powered by a horse and driven by a person with an expertise that was commonplace at the time, were larger than the normal vehicles used to move people and goods. Consequently our notion of Mass Transit came to be affiliated with big vehicles. To be economical, big vehicles and their drivers must operate on a schedule, on a predictable route. Nearly all go back and forth on this route. This is called line-haul transit. Trains, trolleys, monorails, buses etc., all use the biggest vehicle practical and operate on a line-haul route on a schedule, even when the driver is a computer.
Meanwhile, pedestrians, horses and eventually bicycles and automobiles move far more people. These are unscheduled, take their rider(s) from one point to another and nowhere else, and are operated by one of their riders. Because their operator is unpaid, an automobile's actual operating costs per passenger-mile, when everything is factor in--road construction costs, vehicle costs, etc., are about the same as the cost of a bus and cheaper than most railed transit. If you can afford one, they are much more convenient, but they generate lots of problems: congestion, pollution, paving of large areas for roads and parking, consumption of non-renewable resources, etc.
Big vehicle transit is only cost effective when something forces the price of small vehicle transit to be really high. Most often this is congestion. Our biggest cities are so dense that congestion causes travel by automobile to be nearly as slow as walking, and it's extremely difficult and expensive to find a place to park. This forces people to use transit, and as a consequence, transit routes serve a lot of areas and schedules are such that most people can function well without a car. Taxicabs and limousines serve the high end and can be time-savers for those that can afford them...someone else is paid to deal with the parking problem.
I'm only aware of one form of transit that has the unscheduled properties of cars and taxicabs, the short trip times of subways, does not pollute, does not require large parking areas, and is as cheap as buses running on roads. It is called Personal Rapid Transit. Small vehicles, grade separated, offline stations where the vehicle waits for passengers, computer controlled. Because it's non-stop, it'll get you there faster than the subway or private car in the city. It's electric powered, so it doesn't pollute. The vehicles are small enough that moving them for a single passenger doesn't waste much energy, but special vehicles to move groups can be provided.
Meanwhile, pedestrians, horses and eventually bicycles and automobiles move far more people. These are unscheduled, take their rider(s) from one point to another and nowhere else, and are operated by one of their riders. Because their operator is unpaid, an automobile's actual operating costs per passenger-mile, when everything is factor in--road construction costs, vehicle costs, etc., are about the same as the cost of a bus and cheaper than most railed transit. If you can afford one, they are much more convenient, but they generate lots of problems: congestion, pollution, paving of large areas for roads and parking, consumption of non-renewable resources, etc.
Big vehicle transit is only cost effective when something forces the price of small vehicle transit to be really high. Most often this is congestion. Our biggest cities are so dense that congestion causes travel by automobile to be nearly as slow as walking, and it's extremely difficult and expensive to find a place to park. This forces people to use transit, and as a consequence, transit routes serve a lot of areas and schedules are such that most people can function well without a car. Taxicabs and limousines serve the high end and can be time-savers for those that can afford them...someone else is paid to deal with the parking problem.
I'm only aware of one form of transit that has the unscheduled properties of cars and taxicabs, the short trip times of subways, does not pollute, does not require large parking areas, and is as cheap as buses running on roads. It is called Personal Rapid Transit. Small vehicles, grade separated, offline stations where the vehicle waits for passengers, computer controlled. Because it's non-stop, it'll get you there faster than the subway or private car in the city. It's electric powered, so it doesn't pollute. The vehicles are small enough that moving them for a single passenger doesn't waste much energy, but special vehicles to move groups can be provided.
14 April 2014
Bass Players Named John
I'm not sure why this should be, but it seems to me that Bass Players of what I regard as the golden age of Rock and Roll--1965-1975 are disproportionately named John
John McVie played with John Mayall's Blues Breakers and is the "Mac" part of the name of Fleetwood Mac, in both it's Peter Green and Buckingham/Nicks incarnations
John Entwistle played with The Who
Jack (John William) Cassady played with the Jefferson Airplane and Hot Tuna.
John Paul Jones (John Baldwin) - Led Zeppelin and many other groups
Jack (John Symon Asher) Bruce - Cream and many other groups.
Jaco (John Francis Anthony) Pastorius - Blood Sweat and Tears, Weather Report, Joni Mitchell
John Lodge - Moody Blues
John Kahn - Jerry Garcia Band
John Deacon - Queen
The reality is that this is not really anomalous--John was the third most common name in the early 40s when most of these guys were born, and it remained that popular until the 1970s. The surfeit of Johns probably led to the decline in the popularity of the name.
John McVie played with John Mayall's Blues Breakers and is the "Mac" part of the name of Fleetwood Mac, in both it's Peter Green and Buckingham/Nicks incarnations
John Entwistle played with The Who
Jack (John William) Cassady played with the Jefferson Airplane and Hot Tuna.
John Paul Jones (John Baldwin) - Led Zeppelin and many other groups
Jack (John Symon Asher) Bruce - Cream and many other groups.
Jaco (John Francis Anthony) Pastorius - Blood Sweat and Tears, Weather Report, Joni Mitchell
John Lodge - Moody Blues
John Kahn - Jerry Garcia Band
John Deacon - Queen
The reality is that this is not really anomalous--John was the third most common name in the early 40s when most of these guys were born, and it remained that popular until the 1970s. The surfeit of Johns probably led to the decline in the popularity of the name.
02 April 2014
The Blue Angels
I grew up just a few miles from Moffett Field. Moffett was originally set up as a base for the Navy dirigible USS Macon on the tidal flats around the southern tip of San Francisco Bay. The land is very flat and a little marshy in places, and the water that intrudes to make the marshes is salt water, so it would not make an especially good orchard, which was the principal business of the area at the time. Nevertheless, a group of Sunnyvale businessmen collected nearly half a million dollars in 1931 to buy the land, some of it salt marsh, some dry, specifically to donate it to the Navy to serve as an airbase, thinking such a base nearby would be good for business. They were unquestionably correct, and the Navy base was the start of what came to be known as Silicon Valley. Less than 4 years later, and after less than 2 years of service, the Macon was damaged in a winter storm and lost at sea, less than 100 miles from home. But the land proved to be an excellent place to build an airfield, which they did. The house I grew up in is less than a mile from where an airplane 5 miles out on final approach would pass. So I got to see lots and lots of airplanes flying low and slow, every day. Constellations, C141s, C5As, B-17s, and most important of all, the P3 Orions. A P3 is a variant of the Lockheed Electra that was used for sub chasing, and as I write this, they're still being used to try to find Malaysian Air flight 370, apparently lost somewhere in the Indian Ocean. Moffett had been the main west coast base for these long range aircraft, and they trained there and did a lot of their missions from there.
Every year, the Blue Angels would do a show at Moffett, and they often flew over our house, both while doing their landing approach and while practicing. As soon as we were old enough, my friends and I would ride our bicycles out to an overpass we'd found that was high enough and near enough to give an excellent view of the airshow, while not requiring us to pay admission. I very distinctly remember watching them flying F4-Phantoms, which they flew between 1969 and 1974. These heavy planes didn't seem especially good for the purpose, but they were the mainstay of the Vietnam War. After two unrelated midair collisions in 1973 and a number of other crashes, many fatal, they were replaced by the much more appropriate A4 Skyhawk in 1974. These planes were still in use when I moved to the Seattle area in the early 1980s, and everywhere I've lived here has been subjected to numerous flyovers every year during SeaFair, except for the one that the Blues didn't because of the Republican sequester. I've frequently gone to see the show (much harder to do now that they close the I90 bridge) and I often watch it on TV. The F18s they fly today are beautiful, noisy and fast.
The Blue Angels get a lot of criticism--they are expensive and serve no direct military purpose. That's true. They cost the Navy about $40M a year, and the amount of revenue they take in is a tiny fraction of that. Even if they pack 10,000 spectators at 50 shows a year for $10 each, that's just $5M. The basic operation of the spectator venues are barely covered by this. But this completely misses the point.
Their purpose is to drum up enthusiasm. Their shows are spectacular and awe inspiring, and a source of nationalistic spirit. Each of their shows is seen by around a million people--50 or 60 million viewers each year. If just a few people are inspired by this to join the Navy, it's a good investment. If you figure each recruit is worth their career wages--something like $75K on average--then it only takes about 530 new recruits a year for the Navy to break even on this. That's just 10 recruits a show. I'm sure the real number is much higher than that...if the navy averages 100 recruits per show, it becomes a terrific deal.
Such recruiting is an example of an extrinsic benefit. Just as with public transit, the value it produces is so loosely coupled to the cost of getting it that attempting to make it pay for itself directly is a pointless exercise. But that value is real and serves an important national function.
Every year, the Blue Angels would do a show at Moffett, and they often flew over our house, both while doing their landing approach and while practicing. As soon as we were old enough, my friends and I would ride our bicycles out to an overpass we'd found that was high enough and near enough to give an excellent view of the airshow, while not requiring us to pay admission. I very distinctly remember watching them flying F4-Phantoms, which they flew between 1969 and 1974. These heavy planes didn't seem especially good for the purpose, but they were the mainstay of the Vietnam War. After two unrelated midair collisions in 1973 and a number of other crashes, many fatal, they were replaced by the much more appropriate A4 Skyhawk in 1974. These planes were still in use when I moved to the Seattle area in the early 1980s, and everywhere I've lived here has been subjected to numerous flyovers every year during SeaFair, except for the one that the Blues didn't because of the Republican sequester. I've frequently gone to see the show (much harder to do now that they close the I90 bridge) and I often watch it on TV. The F18s they fly today are beautiful, noisy and fast.
The Blue Angels get a lot of criticism--they are expensive and serve no direct military purpose. That's true. They cost the Navy about $40M a year, and the amount of revenue they take in is a tiny fraction of that. Even if they pack 10,000 spectators at 50 shows a year for $10 each, that's just $5M. The basic operation of the spectator venues are barely covered by this. But this completely misses the point.
Their purpose is to drum up enthusiasm. Their shows are spectacular and awe inspiring, and a source of nationalistic spirit. Each of their shows is seen by around a million people--50 or 60 million viewers each year. If just a few people are inspired by this to join the Navy, it's a good investment. If you figure each recruit is worth their career wages--something like $75K on average--then it only takes about 530 new recruits a year for the Navy to break even on this. That's just 10 recruits a show. I'm sure the real number is much higher than that...if the navy averages 100 recruits per show, it becomes a terrific deal.
Such recruiting is an example of an extrinsic benefit. Just as with public transit, the value it produces is so loosely coupled to the cost of getting it that attempting to make it pay for itself directly is a pointless exercise. But that value is real and serves an important national function.
01 April 2014
Scoring and Partisan Extremism
One of the most harmful trends in American politics is the strategy of scoring. Many groups do this, the NRA, the anti-tax lobby, the anti-abortion lobby, and others.
For example, the NRA (National Rifle Association--once a lobbying group for hunters and gun safety, but now pretty narrowly focused on blocking any regulation that might even slightly affect the business of a few powerful gunmerchants--scores on a wide range of legislation, ranging from entirely reasonable background checks, to mythical plots by the UN and others to confiscate the guns of law abiding Americans. You pretty much have to be a nutjob to score 100%, but there are a number of politicians who manage to pull it off and most Republicans come pretty close. If you earn too low a score, the NRA will campaign against you, and even the threat of such attacks scares most politicians from making reasonable choices.
The problem is that scoring tends to destroy nuance. Low information voters see the single number, usually a percentage, and if they think they agree with the goals of the organization, they vote for the candidate that scores highest. The fact that the NRA is not serving the interests of gun owners and hunters, and hasn't for decades, is lost. This is exactly what NRA leadership has in mind. They can control the conversation if anyone representing the vast majority is afraid to speak.
Gun safety regulations are supported by vast majorities, as are universal background checks. But the NRA is so single minded in their opposition to any regulation at all, that they will not tolerate even the slightest breaking of ranks. For example, in 2000, Smith and Wesson agreed to implement locking mechanisms, magazine size limits, and safety testing--all industry firsts, and likely to increase sales of their products in the long term. NRA responded with a boycott that effectively put the company out of business. New ownership reversed the plan, and the name and products of this venerable gunmaker are back on the market, albeit with much less market share.
In December 2012, a 20 year old with a long history of mental health issues killed his mother*, 26 very young school children and their teachers, and finally himself. Coming close on the heels of several other massacres of children by people with clear histories of mental health problems, legislation requring universal background checks got farther than it ever had before. Such background checks poll in excess of 90%, including strong majorities of NRA members. But the NRA leadership is against it, and they threatened congress, who rejected the legislation.
The anti-tax lobby, led by Grover Norquist's "Americans for Tax Reform", uses the same strategy. Nobody wants to pay higher taxes, but nearly all of us are willing to help poor children get food. But the scoring strategy Norquist applies does not countenance any such reasonableness. If people understood what he was up to, he would have support from a few hundred like-minded lunatics and find himself shouting into the wind. But because he hides behind a simple score, and has lots of money from a few anti-tax rich folks to apply to his campaigns, very few republicans will go against him. A few did in 2012. Let's hope it's the start of a trend.
There are lots more groups that do this. Anti-abortion groups conflate reasonable objections to people using abortion as contraception with completely unreasonable objections to necessary medical procedures. Climate change denialists conflate NIMBY and tax related objections to government subsidies of green power with dire warnings about die-offs, sea level rise, and more. et cetera. Each of these groups is funded by some folks with deep pockets, who are mainly interested in protecting an existing, very profitable business, and not really the good of anybody, apart from their own deep pockets.
I don't know how to stop scoring. At one level, it's a good thing, ostensibly helping low information voters. But because extremists (mostly, but not quite entirely on the far right), have figured out how to use it to their advantage, something needs to be done.
-----------
* Adam Lanza's mother had apparently found that her troubled son was calmest when playing with guns and firing them on the range. So she encouraged his obsession with guns.
For example, the NRA (National Rifle Association--once a lobbying group for hunters and gun safety, but now pretty narrowly focused on blocking any regulation that might even slightly affect the business of a few powerful gunmerchants--scores on a wide range of legislation, ranging from entirely reasonable background checks, to mythical plots by the UN and others to confiscate the guns of law abiding Americans. You pretty much have to be a nutjob to score 100%, but there are a number of politicians who manage to pull it off and most Republicans come pretty close. If you earn too low a score, the NRA will campaign against you, and even the threat of such attacks scares most politicians from making reasonable choices.
The problem is that scoring tends to destroy nuance. Low information voters see the single number, usually a percentage, and if they think they agree with the goals of the organization, they vote for the candidate that scores highest. The fact that the NRA is not serving the interests of gun owners and hunters, and hasn't for decades, is lost. This is exactly what NRA leadership has in mind. They can control the conversation if anyone representing the vast majority is afraid to speak.
Gun safety regulations are supported by vast majorities, as are universal background checks. But the NRA is so single minded in their opposition to any regulation at all, that they will not tolerate even the slightest breaking of ranks. For example, in 2000, Smith and Wesson agreed to implement locking mechanisms, magazine size limits, and safety testing--all industry firsts, and likely to increase sales of their products in the long term. NRA responded with a boycott that effectively put the company out of business. New ownership reversed the plan, and the name and products of this venerable gunmaker are back on the market, albeit with much less market share.
In December 2012, a 20 year old with a long history of mental health issues killed his mother*, 26 very young school children and their teachers, and finally himself. Coming close on the heels of several other massacres of children by people with clear histories of mental health problems, legislation requring universal background checks got farther than it ever had before. Such background checks poll in excess of 90%, including strong majorities of NRA members. But the NRA leadership is against it, and they threatened congress, who rejected the legislation.
The anti-tax lobby, led by Grover Norquist's "Americans for Tax Reform", uses the same strategy. Nobody wants to pay higher taxes, but nearly all of us are willing to help poor children get food. But the scoring strategy Norquist applies does not countenance any such reasonableness. If people understood what he was up to, he would have support from a few hundred like-minded lunatics and find himself shouting into the wind. But because he hides behind a simple score, and has lots of money from a few anti-tax rich folks to apply to his campaigns, very few republicans will go against him. A few did in 2012. Let's hope it's the start of a trend.
There are lots more groups that do this. Anti-abortion groups conflate reasonable objections to people using abortion as contraception with completely unreasonable objections to necessary medical procedures. Climate change denialists conflate NIMBY and tax related objections to government subsidies of green power with dire warnings about die-offs, sea level rise, and more. et cetera. Each of these groups is funded by some folks with deep pockets, who are mainly interested in protecting an existing, very profitable business, and not really the good of anybody, apart from their own deep pockets.
I don't know how to stop scoring. At one level, it's a good thing, ostensibly helping low information voters. But because extremists (mostly, but not quite entirely on the far right), have figured out how to use it to their advantage, something needs to be done.
-----------
* Adam Lanza's mother had apparently found that her troubled son was calmest when playing with guns and firing them on the range. So she encouraged his obsession with guns.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)