How Polls Work – And How They Do Not Work

In an earlier article, a reader noted that he was suspicious of CNN’s “Poll of Polls”. Frankly, he was right to do so. What CNN, Real Clear Politics, and other media outlets do, is to take poll releases from various polling groups in a certain time range, and aggregate them to find a sort of consensus. That is a very bad idea, however, if your intention is to accurately reflect the opinion of the general public. It’s a bit like saying that if you take everyone’s favorite version of spaghetti and mix them all together, you will get a really great-tasting batch of spaghetti. The odds are you will get a mess which won’t be worth the effort, and that’s what happens when you mix poll results. Polls, it should be noted, are the product of the groups and agencies which create them, and reflect a specific methodology which is usually similar to that used by other polling groups, but not exactly. That difference is why the two results cannot be mixed with confidence, and the more polls that are mixed, the less reliable would be the resulting report. Polls are best described as snapshots of opinion on one question at one specific point in time and place, not even movies much less reality. An example of this can be seen by looking at the most reliable of agencies, the Gallup Organization.

On August 24, Gallup showed Obama and McCain tied at 45% support each (with 10% undecided). But three days later, Gallup showed Obama with a six-point lead, 48% to 42%, and today Obama still leads by six points, 49% to 43%. The Gallup people seem to be claiming that Obama has increased his support while McCain has lost some. However, a look at the history of convention “bounces” would warn against making such an assumption. If history holds true, for example, McCain should enjoy a similar “bounce” after the GOP convention, yet this would not be a valid indicator of a stronger campaign, necessarily, but merely the effect of the focus from the convention. Even within the stable methodology of a well-respected poll, therefore, it is not valid to assume that changes in polling are necessarily indicators of a weaker or stronger election position.

With that said, it is important to consider other polling results. An August 30 release from Zogby, for instance, shows McCain at 47% support and Obama at 45%, at the same time that Gallup showed Obama ahead by six and holding steady support. How can two major polls say different things? Well, part of it is the fact that the variance between the polls is only eight points, which is equivalent to a four-point margin of error between them. If either poll had a respondent pool of 500 people or less, that disparity is within the standard deviation for such polling. That’s the mathematical point. What else needs to be considered, is that even where the same polling group takes polls, because of the randomness of the respondent pool, this means by definition that the people in different polls are not the same ones who answered the earlier poll, and even when conditions are the same and the same careful rules are applied, different people will probably produce different results. Also, as I have noted before, there is a clear bias in favor of or against the people in focus of polls by the polling groups. As a result, a composite of poll results cannot, by its character, produce an accurate or trustworthy result. At best, one of the polls might accurately reflect the opinion at that moment, but even if that is the case, mixing the results from all polls would only insure that the aggregate result was wrong to some degree.

Polls are not effective predictors of elections. The losing candidates of many past general and primary campaigns can point to any number of polls which indicated they would win. A candidate who trusts polls to indicate the precise amount and nature of their public support, is following the path of Tom Dewey. That is not to say, however, that polling is worthless. When a poll follows consistent methodology and asks consistent questions, and weights its demographics according to Census norms and the National Council on Public Polls standards (or the AAPOR), the results can be applied to illustrate trends and voter interest in key issues. Also, while the public is familiar with the polls which get published in their newspapers and favorite news sites, it should be noted that both the Obama and McCain campaigns have paid for private polling firms to identify target demographics and battleground states. Obama has spent almost 19 million dollars on private polling, while McCain has spent about 770 thousand dollars. It would fair to assume, I think, that these agencies are far more detailed in their questions and specific in their target demographics. So it may also be assumed from the amount of money spent, that there is significant confidence in the value of effective polling. The real question, as yet uncertain in its answer, is how to know which questions, which method, and which weighting is valid for the real condition.

Timing

John McCain out-planned Barack Obama. That is the summary of what happened this last week. Senator Obama apparently planned on the normal course of events as he prepared for the 2008 Democratic National Convention in Denver. He made a number of assumptions along the way, assumptions which were apparent enough that McCain was able to use them in his own planning. Obama assumed, for example, that a few symbolic gestures would mollify Hillary and her supporters, and that in a short matter of time he would have all but a few of them under his banner, ideally working for his election but at least not working against him. He assumed that McCain would stay out his way during that week, and that he would have not only the convention time but also the weekend after to enjoy the glow of a successful run to the nomination. He assumed that the media, which has been overwhelmingly in his corner all through the year, would make sure the spotlight stayed on Obama. On all three assumptions, Senator McCain took advantage of errors by Obama and played them to his own advantage.

McCain understood that the race was close, but that Obama’s nomination would likely give him a “bounce”, in real terms boosting his lead and making it more and more difficult for McCain to look to undecided voters as someone who could win. Therefore, McCain needed to do something unexpected, something which proved him a viable candidate. Part of this was accomplished through Obama’s double-fumble in selecting his running mate. First, Obama not only did not choose Hillary Clinton for his VP spot, an understandable choice and it is quite unlikely that she would have accepted the offer anyway, but Obama failed to vet her for the short list, and in so doing displayed a lack of respect to Hillary’s 18 million supporters. While it is true that for the most part, those voters will come around and vote for Obama anyway, some will sit out the election because of the way Clinton was treated, and some had already warned they would swing support over to McCain in 2008, in order to give Clinton the best opportunity for 2012. The second fumble was Obama’s selection of Biden, a move which is tactically foolish, because it effectively highlights Obama’s own limitations while gaining nothing among undecided voters. This left the door open for McCain to make significant gains through his own choice, an opportunity which would have been far smaller if Obama had handled his side of the aisle better than he did.

The selection of Sarah Palin is brilliant to a far greater degree than it is risky. Analysis of her credentials has already shown Palin to be strong in many areas, and what areas of weakness she has is matched to a more serious degree on the Democrats’ side. Choosing Palin will probably not win over additional Clinton supporters, but that was not the object – what matters is that McCain has not lost any ground with the Clinton supporters he already held, something the Obama camp is not mentioning, indeed he may not yet understand that fact. The timing of the Palin selection is also significant, having destroyed the Obama publicity campaign intended for this weekend. All the talk is about Palin. And the media, while it leans left most of the time, is now as it always was, about the big story, and Palin is simply a much bigger story than Biden ever could be.

The move is not yet complete, however. McCain gambled a bit of his own attention this week. Hurricane Gustav could steal some attention away from the GOP convention, especially as there is no suspense left about who will be in the VP slot. Having played the first half so well, it remains to be seen how well McCain has planned the second half of the convention operettas.

High Stakes Veeping

Wow, what a situation. In the last day, Mitt Romney and Tim Pawlenty have taken themselves out of the running for McCain’s running mate, and a lot of buzz has started up – again - about Governor Sarah Palin. The trouble is, there are now reports that she’s still in Alaska and the only guy from the field in the vicinity of John McCain is his old buddy, Joe Lieberman.

It’s difficult to imagine a vaster gulf between the two, in the effect they would have on the election. Palin would be a breath-taking choice, a masterful stroke which would be likely to reinvigorate McCain’s campaign and make Obama-Biden look dusty and old just a couple days after it kicked off. It would demonstrate bold leadership and an ability to simultaneously firm up the base and attract a lot of the Hillary supporters still angry at their shameful treatment by the Obama camp. If McCain chooses Lieberman, however, he would do just the opposite, burning bridges with groups he desperately needs in order to win, while doing effectively nothing to attract new support. Choosing Lieberman would prove McCain to be the doddering, out of touch man that Obama’s people say he is. This choice could single-handedly prove Obama right and advance his campaign, or prove McCain’s ability to make bold and unprecedented decisions which move things forward. We will know in a little while whether McCain has been a fool or brilliant, but this is a real high-stakes decision, either way.

Poll Bias 2008: What the Numbers Say

Back in 2004, I determined a general measure of bias in the Presidential election by polls. I did the same thing for this year, which may be useful in examining the post-Convention stretch. I began by noting the 2-way poll results from Real Clear Politics from January 1 2008 through August 25.

I made a spreadsheet with the name of the group or agency which conducted the poll, the starting and ending dates of the polling, and the results for Obama and McCain. From this information, I drew up another spreadsheet which produced the daily average for the polls. I then compared each poll against the average for the days polled, to see where each poll stood against the average, noting whether Obama or McCain was getting more or less support than the average in a poll. I then was able to apply that information to determine the average bias, the aggregate variance, and essentially the stability of each poll.

I want to stop at this point, and make an observation about the fairness of these polls. As polls make statements which favor Obama or McCain, it is becoming common to see this poll or that dismissed as being unreliable or unbelievable. This is generally unwise, because in examining the polls presented, I was struck by how well, overall, most polls were conducted. While I have concerns about the demographics base used, and the weighting assumptions inherent in modern polling, the conclusions of each poll were consistent with other polls at the same time. Since twenty-six national agencies or groups have conducted national polls used for my research, such consistency indicates a high level of professional standards. However, within that acknowledgment, there were some clear trends and characteristics, which I think are worth mentioning.

As I said, there were twenty-six separate groups or agencies which conducted polls. Of these, six conducted only one or two polls this year (Battleground, McLaughlin, Franklin & Marshall, Ipsos,POS/GQR, and NPR). Accordingly, I have not considered these groups for the purposes of comparative bias.
That leaves another twenty groups, however, which have conducted a measurable pattern in their polls. For this report, I will note the five polls which most favor Obama, the five which are least favorable to Obama, the five which are most favorable to McCain, the five which are least favorable to McCain, and the five which are, as an aggregate, the least likely to be off the average measure for that date. I would like to emphasize that bias is used here not as an attack on the poll’s integrity or veracity, but simply marks a tendency likely to continue in future polls between now and the election. It remains to be seen which of these polls will prove the most accurate in the final measure.
Here are the top five in each of the five categories, then:

Obama Favorable
1. ABC News/Washington Post (+3.33 pts)
2. CNN (+3.00 pts)
3. Quinnipiac (+1.97 pts)
4. Pew Research (+1.54 pts)
5. USA Today/Gallup (+0.92 pts)

Obama Unfavorable
1. Investor Business Daily/TP (-2.80 pts)
2. FOX News (-2.30 pts)
3. Cook/RT Strategy (-2.28 pts)
4. Hotline/FD (-1.62 pts)
5. LA Times/Bloomberg (1.26 pts)


McCain Favorable
1. Democracy Corps (+3.27 pts)
2. USA Today/Gallup (+2.83 pts)
3. Rasmussen (+1.89 pts)
4. CNN (+1.51 pts)
5. ABC News/Washington Post (+1.40 pts)

McCain Unfavorable
1. Investor Business Daily/TP (-4.55 pts)
2. CBS News (-2.80 pts)
3. Hotline/FD (-1.88)
4. Quinnipiac (-1.57 pts)
5. Time (-1.40 pts)


Aggregate Stability
1. NBC News/Wall Street Journal (1.81 avg total variance)
2. AP-Ipsos (2.06 avg total variance)
3. Gallup (2.17 avg total variance)
4. Pew Research (2.40 avg total variance)
5. CBS News/NY Times (2.53 avg total variance)


I will let the reader draw his/her own conclusions, after making three suggestions:

1. Notice which groups are favorable or unfavorable to both Obama and McCain

2. Aggregate Stability is a near-unknown quality, but represents a reason to have great confidence in a poll. If a poll does not miss the average by very much, it represents a reliable place for quick vitals.

3. Most of the variance shown is within the standard deviation for the population base used in the polling.

Clowns and Commerce

As often happens in these things, we are told that this election is about the economy. That’s no surprise, people often vote by how they feel about their jobs and homes and savings, and wrap the candidate they support in expectations that he will somehow make a difference for the better. The problem with that, is that very few elected officials have any effective idea how the economy works, much less how their actions will influence its behavior. The United States’ economy is a multi-trillion dollar economy, with thousands of job categories and descriptions in industries spanning historical classics to new types created within the past decade. The historical record shows that the government can damage the economy through excessive taxation or neglect of strategic needs, but as a rule government cannot help the economy except by reducing, as much as possible, its footprint upon it. The candidate, therefore, who promises to create jobs or revive the economy through government programs is a liar and a fool, and a poison to the nation he wants to control.

Veep Value

So, Senator Barack Obama has tapped Senator Joe Biden to be his running mate this fall. Senator John McCain may or may not know whom he wants, but in any case he has not announced a pick. At this point there’s not really much substance to the decision anyway, though I think the choices are interesting in what they say about the campaigns. That is, for all the hype, there’s not really much chance the VP choice does much to improve a candidate’s chances – in my entire life I cannot remember anyone saying something like ’I was going to vote for ‘X’, but when ‘Y’ picked so-and-so for his veep he won me over'. Sure, maybe there are some few, some very few voters somewhere that could be swayed by the running pick to vote for someone, but I have to think such a number is too small to really matter. It’s really more a case of three things; the VP pick is usually made when things are a bit slow and the campaign wants some good press – remember that the media is impressed more with the flash of a story rather than its merit, which is why CNN treats a Britney Spears event with greater attention than another success in the Iraq War. Also, the VP choice can be an opportunity to really screw things up, to pick some loser who damages the top of the ticket. Even there, the amount of damage done is generally not significant, as the first Bush’s pick of Dan Quayle in 1988 illustrated. The third thing that comes from the pick, however, is what it tells us about the candidate’s fears. In 1960, Kennedy’s campaign picked Lyndon Johnson because they were worried about the South and JFK’s thin resume. In 1968 Nixon tapped Spiro Agnew because he was worried about the Northeast. On the flip side, the pick sometimes reflects confidence. Bill Clinton’s choice of Gore in 1992 showed that he was comfortable with his team as it was, and Gore was picked because he fit what was already going. In 2000, Dubya picked Cheney for his VP because he saw Cheney as the most competent man for the role, ignoring the popular push to put McCain on the ticket to show party unity, or some prominent regional name to attract support from that area.

There are three effective reasons for picking someone as your running mate. One is the possibility that he might take your place, as five Vice-Presidents have become President through death or resignation since 1900. But Obama is in excellent health, and should expect great support from his party if he is elected. About the only way Obama could get impeached, would be if he announced immediately after taking office that his last name was really “Bush”. So that reason is not really in play. The second possibility is that Obama thinks Biden will help him win a certain region. Delaware is already locked in for the Democrats, and the Northeast is also a pretty deep Blue this year, so that possibility also falls by the wayside. This brings us to the third reason, the fear of some weakness in the nominee’s strategy. Obama picked Biden, it’s pretty obvious, because he hopes Biden’s three and a half decades as a Washington insider will make his own lack of work more tolerable. Obama’s naïveté in foreign policy statements will, he hopes, be overlooked in the light of Biden’s long experience in foreign policy. Of course, the historical record on that point is not promising. Ross Perot tapped an admiral for his running mate, but it did not make his own foreign policy credentials any more authentic. John Kerry got a lot of support from General Wesley Clark, but again the effort failed to undo the damage of Kerry’s own record. So a running mate with a long record does not do much to improve your own credentials. It does, however, prevent McCain’s camp from claiming that neither Obama nor his veep pick have experience in foreign policy.

Some are already saying that Obama’s pick of Biden is a good move, while some have said it was a mistake. At this point I do not really agree with either side. Biden is not likely to win over Clinton supporters who are still mad that Hillary was not even considered for the second slot – even though she would not have wanted the job, many in her camp see the decision to not even vet her as a deliberate insult. Biden is not likely to impress all those young people who are attracted to Obama because he is fresh and new in their minds, something Biden clearly is not. Biden is not likely to win over independents either, as his views have tracked with DNC talking points for a very long time. At the same time, it would be wrong to assume the move is a mistake, as there is no evidence – at least not yet – that Biden would prove a liability. While the man’s vanity and arrogant tone have brought him to many blunders in the past, at the moment Biden looks good where Obama needs him to look good, a union favorite and likely to reassure the party base.

The real effect of the Biden pick won’t be known for some time, partly because the effect will be demonstrated by how well Biden campaigns in battlefield states, but also because now the focus will swing to the question of McCain’s pick. McCain’s choice, like Obama’s, is more tactical in value than strategic, and he has more to lose from a bad choice than he stands to gain with a good choice. But knowing the Biden pick means that the McCain camp has the opportunity to choose a running mate who will appeal to the demographics missed by Obama-Biden.

Sexual Morality (Adults Only)

Jay Tea wrote a very good article this week about his stand on Abortion. In the course of that discussion and the debate in the comments following the article, opinions regarding sexual behavior and orientation were naturally expressed. That got me to thinking about sexuality and the moral imperatives we follow regarding them. From what I learned in various biology classes, the sexual imperative is arguably the strongest after self-preservation, and so a person’s sexual choices and behavior can be said in many ways to mirror the character of the person at their heart. The next obvious question, then, is the moral value of a person’s sexuality, and it is there that the discussion so often devolves into bitter attacks and accusations. Given how close to our heart our own preferences sit, it is not surprising that a practice which we find strange would also be seen as ”wrong” and offensive. What further complicates the matter is the fact that some behaviors go well outside acceptable boundaries of even the most tolerant consideration, particularly those which involve harm to other persons and deliberate assaults on the general sense of propriety. In between those extreme practices and what we might call ”normal” sexual behavior, however, is a range of practices which may be strange to us, but which may reasonably be considered the private business of those who practice it, while in some other cases the behavior may cross the line into moral offense.

I am a practicing Christian, but I understand that to a non-believer my Scripture will have no weight, so for this article I will try to consider the matter using reason and – hopefully – a common set of moral standards. I mention my faith here, for the reason that I wish to be clear about my own moral position, and while I may not understand every point as fully as I wish, I accept the Lord’s word as true. I would mention, however, that I do not always agree with those who quote a snip or scrap of the Bible in one place or another to support their argument, while ignoring the broader context of Scripture. What I mean can be seen by briefly considering the ‘Bible’ argument against homosexuality. The verses in Leviticus which condemn homosexuality, for example, are not far removed from verses condemning wearing garments made of mixed fibers, eating pigs or certain other ’unclean’ foods. You see, the Hebrew people in that time were in the wilderness, where any communicable disease could literally wipe out the nation. I am not trying to use that as proof that the Bible was tolerant of homosexuality, but those verses need to be seen in the context in which they were written and originally taught. Further in the Bible, other verses come up, including 1st Corinthians and 1st Timothy, but again there is reason to be careful about overstating God’s law regarding homosexuality. For example, even though I am sure that my Lord encountered homosexuals in various places during His ministry on Earth, there is no verse quoting Jesus condemning homosexuality. The case of the Roman Centurion whose faith Jesus commended (Matthew 8:4-6) is worth consideration in this respect, but I leave it at that. Speaking just for myself, I think the Bible warns us that what makes the sin in sexuality is the lust. It should certainly be obvious that lust has brought many a man to his ruin, and adultery is a grievous sin in the eyes of the Lord. There are verses in Proverbs, for example, which warn against treating a person as a thing, against thinking of a human being only as an object for serving a sexual desire.

I don’t know about you, but I worry a bit about my struggles to think of every person I meet in the right way. It’s easy to fall into stereotypes, to take a superficial image and assume that’s all there is to that person, but such thinking is an offense to the greater, unseen, person. We’ve come far enough in our cultural mores, to understand that a person’s race, gender, and age are not valid indicators of capability or character. Even so, what we see on the surface still affects our judgment and influences our actions, and when a sexual orientation is clear, that reaction might be strong. Also, we wrestle – or at least I do – with a variety of impulses in response to situations. I try not to judge other people for things they screw up, because my own record is not particularly impressive.

Some time back, I had what I think is a revelation for my faith – that the reason God makes us consider our sin and repent, is so we are not weighed down by that sin, that we are enabled to move ahead and grow into the person we are meant to be. With regard to sexuality, we must learn to govern strong desire and focus our actions to an appropriate goal. Not only that, but we must be careful to avoid that subtle temptation to believe that we can act without consequence. Adultery is wrong, divorce is wrong, and lust is wrong, because such things diminish the person and lead to destruction and suffering. Sexual sin is among the worst, precisely because it cuts deep into its victim.

Intelligence and War

The sudden invasion of Georgia by Russia has, once again, brought strong criticism on America’s intelligence community. Some of it is justified critique of a bloated bureaucracy, some of it is a kneejerk reaction from people who hate the intelligence services, and some of it comes from people who simply do not understand the structure, functions, and limits of intelligence. For example, more than a few people have blamed the Central Intelligence Agency for missing the warning signs of Russia’s invasion, while in fact it is the responsibility of the DNI, or Director of National Intelligence, who has the duty to advise the President of such threats. The head of CIA, the DCI, has since 2005 been a deputy to the DNI, one of several people who report events and analysis for his review. On paper, this arrangement gives the DNI more complete information to consider before he makes a recommendation to the president. In practice, however, the new office adds another layer on a system which is notorious for delay and in-house feuds. It’s very difficult from the outside to know whether the change in organization made things better or worse overall.

Looking more closely at the Russian invasion, though, it should be mentioned that effective deterrence would have required a number of things to have gone right. We would need to have understood the early troop movement in context, for example. That’s not as easy as it may appear – the Russians engaged in a full-scale military exercise in the area during July, for example, and it would have been all but impossible to determine when the troops stopped their exercises and began real combat operations. Satellite imagery and phone intercepts would not have told us Putin’s intentions.

So, we obviously needed HUMINT, human sources to provide insight about intentions and plans. Frankly, we have never had a lot of those, especially at the executive level. If it’s any consolation, no nation’s intelligence service has more than one or two such sources in a major country’s decision-making office, not least because such offices are careful indeed to protect access to national strategic decisions. If you ever want to know what sucks more than an IRS audit, check out sometime what goes into a “Personal Data Statement Questionnaire”, one of the key source documents compiled in the clearance process for vetting potential appointees and their staffs. And Russia, even before Putin, was legendary for its paranoia.

A third avenue of information is building a network of informants. Some information can be deduced by building a profile using alternative sources, and either putting together a composite of data removed from the primary source, or by using low-level sources to produce intelligence to support strategic analysis.

There are other means of collection and analysis, of course, which is one reason why there are so many different agencies and offices which handle intelligence. In addition to military concerns, economic, political, social, demographic, topological, and even weather information can be used to suggest a nation’s intentions and plans. More, events do not generally happen in the singular, which is to say that for every intelligence failure like the invasion of Georgia, there are unheralded intelligence successes. It is a rare individual, for example, who stops to consider why the recent border flare-up between India and Pakistan suddenly cooled down, without any publicly apparent diplomatic action. Of course, an observant reader would understand that the media is not in the business of accurately reporting events and their context, but rather the business of creating reaction and driving attention and emotion. As a result, wars which happen get press while wars averted are ignored. Also, intelligence services do not generally seek attention for their activities, especially when such scrutiny might reveal sources and methods of collection and analysis, in other words giving the enemy tools to close off access the next time they want to do something without us knowing about it in time to react.

Some folks have observed that the United States may have understood the Russian intentions, yet been unable to stop the invasion. One indicator of that is this week’s agreement between the US and Poland to station ten missile defense bases on Polish soil. The agreement’s timing suggests that the United States had been working towards the action as a optional response to potential Russian aggression; it was far too specific and finished to have been begun after the Russians invaded Georgia. This agreement and certain indications of additional protocols put into performance (ever wonder what Russia was reacting to, when it suddenly threatened NATO this week?), provide glimpses into how the event analysis helped structure an effective US response without escalating the crisis. Using warships to deliver humanitarian aid to Georgia is another tactic which suggests careful and early planning by the US, making the Russian position more difficult without inviting casualties.

The intelligence community has its share of suck-ups, political assassins, incompetents and outright traitors. But it is important to understand that there are many agents and officers, in analysis as well as in the field, who do a difficult job well, without credit or reward, serving America as well as the troops sent into harm’s way.

Consequences of Twiddling

Some years back, the Democrats took a look at the process in Presidential elections – they were getting their keesters handed to them on a regular basis – and decided the way to fix it was to start the process early and get their nominee chosen much earlier. This decision resulted in Senator John “Magic Hat” Kerry getting nominated in 2004, and appears set to tap Senator Barack “Magic Suit” Obama for the spot this year. Kerry proved singularly inept as a candidate, and recent events have begun to show Obama’s failings at a time where he can ill afford it. The decision to ‘front-load’ the primary process has produced candidates of dubious qualifications, but more to the point, no effective vetting, so that surprise collapses and mistakes are inevitable.

The Republicans also decided to front-load their own primaries this year, which is one reason for the very weak choice of McCain. The theory, based as near as I can tell on nothing more than assumptions and guesses, is that most voters choose a candidate to support early on, and so there is a strong advantage in getting your party's pick out first. The idea seems to be, that getting your candidate chosen first gives the voters more time to get comfortable with them, and makes your candidate appear more solid than his/her opponent. The problem with that, aside from the basic premise, is that front-loading the primaries only changes part of the process; the actual election date remains the same, and what's more, the convention is still held in late summer, creating a period where events and opponent strategy can defeat momentum and support. Also, a front-loaded primary system is responsible for the schism between Clinton supporters and Obama supporters, as Clintonites claim - loudly- that Senator Obama claimed primary victory before the voters really knew who he was and what he stood for. Obama's poor job at Saddleback takes that claim further, as the Fairy-tale Senator proved unable to answer questions about his opinion. That's not to say that Senator McCain has been at his best this summer, either. McCain was slow to figure out that Americans want secure borders and protection of strategic resources a lot more than they worry about the Global Warming fraud or getting along with the other major party. If McCain had been held to the fire a bit longer by his rivals, he would have discovered what the party cares about a lot sooner. And both Obama and McCain have been remarkably dull at times in noticing that what the average voter wants has very little in common with what CNN or MSNBC care to broadcast. In past elections, the nominees of both Republican and Democrat campaigns came out of the primaries with relatively clear stands on the issues, and specific programs planned for deployment. It appears to me that neither of this year's nominees can say that, and playing catch-up in the last couple months before the election just does not look, well, presidential.

Not ‘The Asian Century’, After All

Every so often, it is fashionable for some political or economic magazine to pronounce the doom of American dominance. Numbers are presented to show the ‘inevitable’ decline of U.S. influence and power, which is to be replaced by either one dominant Asian nation, or a coalition of Asian nations. For several decades now, we have been assured that the future belongs to Asia, not the United States. This theme has been quite popular, but it is quite simply wrong.

History is not taught with the prominence it deserves, and students are seldom very happy to take a history course (which says something about most history teachers, more than it does about History, I would say), but the lessons of History are vital to anyone who wants to understand the nature of Mankind, the character of nations, and the course of civilization. Those who understand History, understand the unique character of the differing players of note, but also the truly unique place and role of the United States. This can be illustrated, perhaps, through examination of three Asian nations presumed to be rising, unstoppably it seemed, to dominance.

Japan: Following World War 2, the Japanese people had to effectively rebuild everything from the ground up. This caused them to be focused on efficiency and savings, two virtues which helped create a very strong economy within a generation. Companies like Sony, Honda, and Toyota became known first for low prices, then exceptional value. Japan gained great influence on the strength of its industry, which was (and is) directed by MITI, a government agency which directs large-scale business as a strategic asset. The Japanese strategy of keiretsu associations of separate businesses which helped each other without an obvious head of control, created advantages that companies from other nations could not match. By the late 1970s, the strength of Japanese business plus the focused direction by MITI made Japan appear unstoppable, and there were genuine fears that Japan would own the majority of influence in Asia in a matter of a few years. That, however, never happened. The first cause was that macro-economics can only be influenced by macro-level forces – by definition, the internal policies of Japan failed to establish control over the policies and operations of other nations. The keiretsu strategy was only effective when one Japanese company faced another individual company in competition. On the global scale, nations learned their lessons and adapted to the changing conditions. But Japan also failed to understand the one-dimensional nature of its power. A strong Yen and efficient business operations would not placate regional enemies, people with a long list of grievances. Both North and South Korea remain bitter about their treatment at the hands of Japanese invaders during World War 2, as does China. Few people outside the Asian sphere understand how greatly Japan’s intentions are mistrusted. Even before Japan’s invasion of Manchuria in 1931, the Land of the Rising Sun was seen by its neighbors as aggressive and voracious, on a scale not seen in the United States in memory. Worse, Japanese officials have been slow to apologize, and where apologies were made, they lacked specificity and a genuine sense of contrition. For example, when China demanded apologies for the medical experimentation of Chinese prisoners of war, the Japanese government agreed, but said the apology would have to wait until the last surviving member of the Japanese units concerned passed away, in order to avoid offending the honor of Japanese families of the men who had committed these crimes. This action outraged the families of the victims, naturally, but Japan has not budged from that position. Consequently, there is a sense in Asian circles that some Japanese companies are worth doing business with, but that Japan is not suited for a leadership role in the region.

India: Calling itself the world’s largest democracy, India has also enjoyed strong growth in economic terms, and India also enjoys a military power which is effectively unchallenged in the Indian Ocean. The Rupee is also rising against the US dollar, and the strong growth of technology in India has impressed many observers. Yet this growth began decades ago, and while impressive never seems to accomplish everything it promises. Like Japan, India has long controlled business through a central economy, relaxing a bit only after 1991, but even then not allowing companies to succeed or fail solely on their merits. In many respects, the Indian government acts in a manner reminiscent of the old Italian patronages by city-states controlled by ruling families, a peculiar mix of feudalism and socialism intended to achieve certain limited specific goals, which often come at the cost of the economic health overall. This would explain why, even here in the 21st Century, India retains a rigid caste system which effectively denies opportunity to many of its people simply on the basis of their race and family.

China: For more than a half century, it has been fashionable to call the Chinese ’unstoppable’. A nation of more than a billion people, with a growing industry and a largely literate people, is indeed an imposing force. However, just as an athlete on steroids may seem invulnerable at first but who dooms himself to the consequences of its poison, so Communism corrupts, and often destroys, the effectiveness of business within its control. Even though China has discarded the more draconian aspects of its practices, it still faces the consequences of their implementation. For example, the horror of the Sichuan earthquake was made much worse by the clear lack of building codes for residential housing and schools. Put plainly, many of the buildings which collapsed in the earthquake did so because there was no functional concern for the safety of such buildings – the Chinese tended to put together towns and cities where the government felt they were needed to support “crash” projects. No genuine infrastructure was ever planned, let alone built and maintained. There is no Chinese equivalent to the U.S. Coast Guard, no rehearsal of disaster drills and rescue operations with an equivalent of the U.S. Red Cross, no communications network to coordinate first responders to natural disasters. More than seventy thousand people died, and literally millions more lost everything they had, because their government wasted the resources which could have been prepared for the crisis. This catastrophe is relevant to the discussion of the nation’s course of influence, because a nation which does not consider the needs and welfare of its population, will destroy its own strength from within.

The same short-sighted set of values can be seen in China’s administration of the Olympic games. Several members of China’s female gymnastics are now known to be under the minimum age allowed by the IOC for Olympic competition, but China continues to pretend they are legitimate. Because the verification of age falls to the home nation of Olympic athletes, there is no way to disprove the claim but it clearly fails the smell test, not least because when the scandal broke, the Chinese government immediately refused to look seriously into the question, falling back on the predictable but unethical line that the government could not be challenged on such points. The men in Beijing who rule the nation fail to understand the message that this sends out – that China is quite willing to lie about essential points, if it means getting what they want in the short term. This behavior has already cost legitimate Chinese companies (like Lenovo or Tsing Tao) a chance at a serious world reputation, because it has become common knowledge that defects in workmanship and dangers in design may be covered up by the Chinese government, protecting short-term advantages at the cost of long-term confidence. Similar problems, however less publicized, are troubling the Chinese military. Rumors of accidents, failed projects, and defection continue to plague the PLA. It may well be that the Chinese military is capable of accomplishing objectives in the short term, but not in the long, as continued difficulty stabilizing Tibet is showing.

It seems counter-intuitive to say so, but many Asian countries are finding the United States the optimal choice, not so much as the leader in alliances and associations, but as an impartial referee. The reasons, however, are strong once they are considered. To begin with, for all its chaotic rises and falls, the US dollar remains the currency of choice for most currency exchanges, because of an inherent trust in its (long-term) stability and acceptance in transactions. Most effective trade practices, including governance codes, began in the United States, so much so that despite promises they would never embrace it, many European and Asian nations are considering implementing at least part of the once-vilified Sarbanes-Oxley Act of 2002. Moreover, the United States military enjoys the unique reputation as the only peacekeeper force which honors its promises. Even the Indonesian government, no friend of America these days, admitted that the US Navy was invaluable in saving lives and delivering relief immediately after the tsunami disaster of 2004. Despite the controversial nature of the invasions in 2002 and 2003, the governments of Afghanistan and Iraq are freer now than they have been in memory. When asked to leave by the Philippine government, the US left Clark AFB without complaint, just as when asked by the Japanese government to stay in Okinawa, the US made arrangements which considered not only its needs, but the priorities of the host country. Scandals in American conduct make the news precisely because they are rare, the exception rather than the rule. Consequently, because American companies generally honor their contracts better than major companies from Asian countries, and because the US military acts in a manner consistent with state policy, the American agents are considered honest brokers more often than many Asian competitors. For the foreseeable future, then, this century remains an American century, not an Asian one.

Foreign Policy: An Entrance Examination

The Russian invasion of Georgia is a genuine crisis, with significant meaning on many levels. In addition to the obvious military, political, and economic issues surrounding the conflict, a leader may be measured by his preparation for the possibility of such a conflict rising. Therefore, it may be useful to consider how much, if at all, each of the two main candidates for President of the United States, were aware of the potential crisis.

The Campaign Spot notes that Senator Obama specifically warned about Putin’s aggressive behavior one time in a speech, compared to three specific and detailed warnings about Putin from Senator McCain.

This does not include passing or general comments made by Senators Obama or McCain.

More specifically, Senator Obama has never mentioned Ossetia in any speech, while Senator McCain has done so twice, as far back as two years ago.

There is a clear difference, as to which candidate has studied this specific scenario and theater of operations, and is therefore capable of making an informed decision without dangerous assumptions or trusting banal generalities.

PPPPPPP

Driving home today, I was listening to the ‘Hugh Hewitt’ show on the radio, which in today’s case meant I was listening to guest host Dean Barnett prove the limits of his military comprehension. Like many Americans, Dean was very concerned by Russia’s brutal invasion of Georgia, and like many Americans Dean thought the American response should be fast and decisive. But today Dean decided to compare the present situation between Russia and Georgia, with the 1990 invasion of Kuwait by Iraq. Mr. Barnett claimed that sending U.S. troops in as a “tripwire” (his word) would stop the Russians. That, for a number of reasons would have been a very, very poor idea. Sending a force too small to accomplish any significant mission or hold any significant territory, without recourse to massive reinforcement and fallback positions, would simply kill those men. The war already underway, interposing our troops on the assumption that everyone would stop and cool down, is extremely naïve, almost Kerry-esque in its lack of contextual awareness. Mr. Barnett brought up Desert Shield and Desert Storm as his example of what we should be doing, without noting any of the critical differences, beginning with the fact that we had places to station troops from the get-go in Desert Shield, that our intel failed to predict the attack but had resources in place to assist our troops, that we had a coalition in loose formation to back us up in the U.N. before any U.S. soldier arrived at a likely battlefield, and – oh yes – Iraq was still trying to develop its first nuclear weapon, while Russia already has a fleet of ICBMs loaded and aimed at the United States. I don’t want to be too harsh on Mr. Barnett – talk show hosts are not normally versed in thinking an argument all the way through, but the argument he used was a dangerous one, the idea that a symbolic act would be effective against an opponent with a track record of ignoring anything but superior force. As outraged as decent people are by the invasion of Georgia by Russia, the American response must be far better considered than a reckless, emotional gesture.

There is an aphorism, commonly displayed on the walls of various barracks, which reminds the men that ’prior proper planning prevents p**s poor performance’. For all the apparent fury of warfare, it is vital to understand and remember that soldiers must plan before acting, and that the best commander does not rush headlong into a battle, simply because the public is angry.

The Edwards Non-Event

I despised former Senator Edwards years ago, for his pandering, his hypocrisy on countless issues, and for his complete lack of a moral compass. So discovering that he cheated on his wife while she was battling an incurable form of Cancer, and possibly fathering a child with no real intention of doing right by the child or the mother, did not really change my opinion of the man; he’s just about as scummy as anyone I have ever heard about, and this was – sadly – not a real surprise. But with that said, I also found myself thinking that this one is not front-page material, at least not where politics is concerned.

The situation for Mister Edwards would be relevant were he still running for President, or were he a serious possibility for the running mate to Senator Obama. Neither is the case, however. In fact, John Edwards’ sole capacity for which he is suited just now, is as a laughingstock, a fool who has wasted his future chances because he could not manage to remember his wife even when she needed him the most, a moron who thought that he could have an ongoing affair and lie about it with no fear of discovery or consequence, in the age of the blogs and 24-hour news services. Edwards is useless to his party, an embarrassment to be hidden away.

But there are other reasons to let this one drop. Like many men in his position, John Edwards never once thought about what this affair would do to his wife Elizabeth, and to his surviving children; Cate, Emma Claire, and Jack (the first son, Wade, was killed in a car accident in 1996). They are innocent in this thing, and so we should be careful not to cause them any pain which can be avoided.

Senator Edwards is what he always was – a self-centered criminal who doesn’t care who else gets hurt as long as he gets what he wants. But as long as he goes away and takes the consequences that are coming to him, I’d just as soon not make any more of the story than has already been said. Unlike John Edwards, I want to do right by his family.

Paul Krugman: Nervous Liar

Within the dank and dreary pages of the New York Times, would-be socialist and failed economist Paul Krugman has decided to respond to the Republican drive to – finally – begin drilling for oil on the domestic territory on and just off the North American continent. Krugman counters the proposal not with a constructive suggestion for another means to address the need for price relief and reliable supply of arguably the most strategic resources for our economy, but by calling the Republican Party the “party of stupid”. Krugman alleges, in a statement which seems to me as ironic as it is pathetically ignorant, that Republicans want to be known as the party of “real men don’t think things through”. What makes that ironic, is that Krugman demonstrates in his article the sort of knee-jerk smear and insult tactics that have typified Democrats throughout the last decade, yet Krugman is smugly unaware that he, like his friends on the Left, has yet to offer a single functional long-term solution worth considering. The Republicans’ plan, however much Krugman derides it, is historically proven, and the mere suggestion by President Bush that it should be undertaken caused such a change in expected behavior on the markets that the price of oil immediately plunged. Krugman sneers at the idea of drilling where we know oil is waiting, where we have complete control of the working conditions, where logistics are far simpler than freighting the stuff in by overseas tanker, and where the U.S. companies’ environmental practices – proven superior to any other oil-producing nation on the planet – would protect wildlife and nature better than any practical alternative. Krugman, after all, has heard from “experts” who insist that increasing supply will not lower prices. One wonders where such “experts” learned their macro-economics, but never mind. Krugman has decided the plan won’t work, so much so that not once in his article does Mr. Krugman actually address the proposal in substance. In fact, Krugman presents more than a few lies along the way. Stupid, absurd lies, but blatant and insulting falsehoods.

Krugman claims, for example, that the Republican plans are all about “simple, brute-force, instant-gratification answers to every problem”. Far from it, actually, but Krugman would much rather portray the Republicans as neanderthals than people who have taken the time to consider the underlying causes of the crisis. Krugman implies that the Republicans care only about oil, when the Republicans in Congress have made it clear that they support research and development into alternative energy, especially in the long-term, but the Republicans, unlike Krugman and the Democrats, are dealing with the reality that for the foreseeable future there is a great need for oil, for a secure and reliable supply of it, and Americans are beginning to understand that we have a lot of oil right here at home, and the overall condition – the long-term condition – will be improved for businesses and citizens alike by depending on American companies to drill for oil on American territory.

But there is also a real and valid present effect to the debate. Krugman sneers when John Shadegg observed, “The market is responding to the fact that we are here talking”. Krugman would have you ignore the fact that ever since the Republicans began the debate on homeland drilling, the price of oil has been dropping, along with pump prices. Pelosi and her crowd made excuses to avoid eth debate and literally ran away, but the Republicans stayed on the topic, and like it or not, Mr. Krugman, prices have come down. You are lying to pretend otherwise. The reason there is a connection is something the Democrats themselves originally recognized; there are people speculating on oil futures, but the Democrats lied and tried to claim it was Big Oil doing that, rather than crowds of individual investors and investment firms who were actually behind the pressure. When it became obvious that the Republicans were pushing for a major shift in policy, one which would significantly alter the long-term supply curve for oil to Americans, confidence on the future price for oil plummeted and present prices dropped. Simple economics, Mr. Krugman, you really should go back and take a refresher course.

No one is saying, however, that merely talking will keep prices dropping. If the Democrats refuse to do the right thing by the American people, and they manage to keep control of the Congress in November’s elections, then obviously the Krugman-style polices will go back into force and we may expect futures to shoot back up, taking present prices with them just as they did before. The need is to give American companies the long-term resources they need, and drilling on North American land is the smart way to do that. To pretend otherwise is just another Krugman lie.

Those who read through Krugman’s little spit piece will no doubt notice that Krugman himself gives up on his claims just six paragraphs into his article. After that, he dredges up the Left’s fave sock puppet, the ‘Bush Lied to get War’ falsehood. The fact that neither Bush nor the Republicans said what he claims, is no more surprising than the fact that Krugman pulls the Iraq War out of nowhere to try to scare Americans into rejecting the Energy plan. Krugman truly goes off the deep end of his short pier when he tries to claim there was a “cult of personality” about President Bush, as if the Left has not been assassinating the President’s character and hoping for something more personally catastrophic to strike him, since before Bush even took office. Krugman blames Bush for Katrina, never mind Mayor Nagin’s lack of planning, Governor Blanco’s decision to delay asking for the National Guard’s assistance, or the peculiar actions of C. Bennett Landreneau in all of that. No, Krugman is determined to blame Bush, never mind the facts, and never mind that he never bothers to explain how hurricanes are part of a national energy plan.

That’s what struck me about Krugman’s smears the most. I mean, from Krugman we know to expect a small mind and a bitter spirit, but the lies are so obvious, so poorly defended and so clearly delusional, that one is compelled to wonder why Krugman thought the articles worth printing? It would appear that Mr. Krugman has been made very nervous by this issue, that despite his claim that the Democrats will definitely make great gains in Congress this fall, that the man has become aware that this issue is one where Americans will not accept the trite and condescending behavior of the Democrats, that while the Republican Party damaged the trust and respect of the American people, the Democrats have managed to go one worse and cast themselves as the clear enemy of regular Americans. It is the Democrats, after all, who want to deny constitutional rights to homeowners while creating special protections and help for people here illegally. It is the Democrats, without question, who think that it is a good thing for taxes and prices to go up, and that Americans should get used to making do with less. And it is the Democrats who, when faced with a debate on energy policy and a clear, effective plan to protect jobs and savings, instead went on a five-week vacation and ordered the lights and cameras in the House of Representatives shut off in hopes of keeping the public from finding out about it. The Democrats used to be the party which stood up for the average guy and the well-being of all Americans. Now the Democrats are clearly the enemies of the family and the small business. The problem for the Democrats, is that folks are starting to figure that out for themselves, and paid hacks like Krugman are becoming more and more desperate to find lies which will hide the truth until after the election.

Error, Sin, Evil

A colleague at work was talking on the phone with a friend the other day, and I heard him remark that R.C. Sproul was right, that he was much happier in the normal sense before he became a Christian. What he meant, I think, was that non-Christians often live without much though about who they are meant to be, and what they were meant to do. It’s kind of like the student who is never stressed by the deadlines of term papers, assignments, and exams, because he does not understand why the grade is important. In certain religious debates, I have even read arguments from people who actually, honestly, believe that they can argue God is at fault for any and all of their failures, that they personally have no accountability for their own character or the things they have done. The Christian, however, is compelled to face the hypocrisy of his life, the futility of trying to do thing son our own strength and merit, and the damage done by all the sins we commit. Our eyes are opened, and yet we cannot do good works as well as we wish, even when we no longer desire to sin. Trying to live, really live, as a servant of God, is no picnic sometimes.

Nobody’s perfect. That trite saying is used, in one form or another, all around the world. Even atheists often accept that we are imperfect, that we screw up even when we want to be better. There are forces at work which make it hard to do the right thing. A Christian would call them temptation, a sociologist would call them contributory environmental conditions, and other kinds of people would find still other names, but almost everyone recognizes that intentions are pretty useless against bad habits and a lack of personal urgency.

Acknowledging that we are not perfect, however, is quite different from calling someone ‘evil’. Evil is the sort of word reserved for a particularly, well, inhuman sort of malice. And of course we tend to think of ‘inhuman’ in humanistic terms. Take someone who cuts you off in traffic, for example. Has that person done something wrong? Most of us would say yes they have, but we would expect a limited sort of consequence for it, like the driver getting a ticket from a traffic cop conveniently posted nearby, not being consigned to hell alongside the likes of rapists and murderers. Similarly, people generally assign differing degrees of responsibility for differing acts, as well as a range of punishments considered appropriate. One of the most common complaints against the traditional concept of damnation, is the apparent injustice of eternal punishment for a finite sin, no matter how offensive. The argument continues to complain against absolute punishment for actions people would consider to be relatively less wrong. For example, Jesus said that if a man merely desires in his heart to commit adultery with a woman, then so far as God is concerned that is precisely what he has done. The extension of that judgment is reflected in other verses, such as the one which warns that calling someone an offensive name is to risk hellfire. While theologians warn that God’s standard is perfection, and so anyone who fails in the slightest degree fails completely, in human terms it is difficult to explain why someone who becomes angry and thinks about murdering someone, but restrains himself from actually doing so, is somehow equally guilty as the one who thinks about the murder then carries it out. Moral problems like that make it difficult indeed for the Christian to defend the faith in discussion and forums, as we are charged to speak as emissaries of the Lord, and such apparent ‘flaws’ in Christianity are used to paint us as intolerant and judgmental. Such claims are made all the worse, when a person who is in fact judgmental and hateful claims to speak for the faith. That problem, the imposter evangelist, goes all the way back to the earliest days of the Church.

I must remind the reader at this point, that I am no credentialed theologian, and that far better minds have left this challenge be, because it is a difficult task and one easy to trip up a believer. But I think, hopefully without hubris, that I may be able to illuminate God’s position in some positive way. The first step is to leave off the legalist position regarding God’s law. The reason for that, is because in our whole existence we can none of us claim a perfect life. True total goodness is the province of God. You may ask, then, why would God demand what He knows we cannot produce? The answer there, I think, is threefold. First, the law as humans know it is imperfect, just as we are. Look at any one of a hundred cases in modern news. Does it not seem that good people are harmed and punished, while bad people get away with all kinds of wrong? How then shall we expect true justice in this world, or for a person to successfully live a perfect life in such conditions? It is true that such living is actually possible, but in all of human history, only one man has ever done it. That said, there are others who have been perfect in a way that has nothing, nothing at all, to do with the law. Enoch and Elijah, for example. These two men are remarkable, because Scripture tells us they did not suffer death, but were taken up into Heaven. There are interesting possibilities as to why this happened, especially given other Scripture which warns that all men must die, but clearly these two men pleased God. Scripture also warns that no mortal man is good of his own work, so we are again faced with a hard riddle – why should some people be pleasing to God, and others not, when the standard is a perfection we cannot attain on our strength, and all men sin? The key, again, is in Scripture, specifically that we are told that Enoch walked with God. God leads, we follow, and when we do this, all is possible. It is that simple, that difficult, that important.

Everything we have and know which is good, comes from God. Our lives, our souls, our identity and purpose, our tools, skills, opportunities, and all that may be good, comes to us as a gift from God. It should not surprise anyone, then, to understand that the only way to please God and serve Him perfectly, is simply to follow Him and, well, to walk with Him.

The next reason is that the greatest human sin is Pride. Were a mortal man to live perfectly in his works, he would surely note how well he does compared to others, and stray from considering himself a man who must answer to God the same as anyone else, and start thinking of himself as a moral authority in his own right. We see this all the time where men hold great power or have attained great fame; they hold the law and their duty in contempt so often, that for most of us it were a great blessing that we understand we cannot be all that we imagine we have become. Certainly we are none of us truly self-made men. We all owe thanks not only to our gracious Lord and God, but to the many other people who help us along the way, so often without notice or thanks. A good man blesses those around him, not least because he succeeds with their help.

Third, when we step aside form the context of the courtroom and consider the Law of God in the same way that we might consider His more gentle laws in appearance, such as Beauty and Art and Grace, we find that hard and fast definitions are elusive, and frankly useless in describing what we mean. Consider music, for example. Through the history of human music, there have been many masters of composition and performance, but how does one define the criteria for such greatness? Even were we to agree on one type of music, let us say what is now called classical, who is really to say whether Bach, Mozart, Vivaldi, or still another composer is the greatest? Who was the greatest tenor, let alone opera singer, let alone vocalist? The answer from any judge would be heavily subjective and a matter of taste, yet we also can understand the difference between someone with no ability, someone who sings well enough in a group, and one who is a virtuoso, even if the style is not to our taste. And so the same for Art, or for poetry, for novels, rhetoric, and so on. In every specific type of craft and art there is a way of greatness, but that same path both denies ranking and grades even as it demands perfection and constant improvement. If we apply this order of skill to the moral plane, how then does Judgment appear? Not so much the vindictive God of threats and retribution, but rather the mentor and teacher who wants us to be as good as we can be, this perfect coach who knows – even as we cant barely sense at best – what we can accomplish if we put ourselves to that commitment. But ask anyone who has tried to become an Olympic athlete, to be a Valedictorian, to join an elite team in any profession .. or anyone dedicated to being as good a parent and spouse as they can possibly be, how hard the road is, that eternal struggle to find more within yourself, to beat odds which seem impossible, and to work for improvement well past the point that we once thought was ‘good enough’.

There is a scale to this moral path, which is why I titled this article ‘Error, Sin, Evil’. You see, as I said above, we all fail in our duty to be good, even when we most want to. It is a difficult thing to accept, especially living as we do in a world where we are brought to believe that we will be rewarded for good and punished for evil, and so we throw as much as we can into our mental ‘good’ tally, hoping to get a good grade. But as I said, there is no grade, at least not the way people expect it to happen. And as anyone should know, we are our own worst critic when we get down to it – we know, well beyond denial, what we meant and intended and wanted when we did, said, and thought certain things, and so we know what our works deserve. At least, if we judge ourselves according to the hard law we think is being applied. There is both very good and very bad news waiting for those folks. The good news, is that God is not looking for ways to send anyone to Hell, quite the opposite in fact. The very bad news is that some folks have decided to go there anyway.

This is where Sin comes in. At some point, we become aware that we have failed in trying to be perfect, we come to understand – or think we do – that we have to be perfect in order to please God, and we have failed miserably in that challenge, and we discover that we rather like some of the things we did wrong. I’m not talking about biology or personal idiosyncracies, but the nasty stuff. Like feeling glad that something bad happened to someone you do not like, being glad that you got away with a lie or a theft or a cheat, a funny feeling of being smart that you got off. Or discovering that disobedience is fun, whether to your parents or a teacher or someone in authority. A pleasure in rudeness and causing offence, a delight in causing loss or sadness for someone else. The difference between error and sin is that we choose to sin. The problem with that, is that we are all still guilty of sin, every one of us pretty much every day. The difference between error and sin is choice.

That leaves evil. Evil is much more serious than even sin. The Bible tells us that God will forgive sin, but there is no place where it says God will give evil a pass. God will destroy evil, be sure of it. The trouble starts, though, for us all when we consider that we are all of us evil. Yes, all of us. That is, we have become evil and can only be pleasing to God by renouncing evil. Sounds preachy, huh? But that warning has actually been around in various forms for all of human history. But it also seems a stretch to classify, say, Mother Teresa and Mahatma Ghandi, with Osama bin Laden and Adolf Hitler. Or for the less political, to attach children to the same sort of person as Ted Bundy and Jack the Ripper. The difference is real, of course. Part of that is the degree of evil we are talking about, how evil a person is willing to be and for how long. And whether a person renounces evil. The line, near as I can tell, comes when someone makes choices that oppose God. Another good way to express it I have heard, is when someone chooses to treat someone else like an object, to get what they want without concern for what it does to someone else. It’s deliberate, it is inhumane, and from what I can tell, it is extremely addictive. Evil becomes a way of life, though the person will probably not call it by that name if he can avoid it. A lot of us excuse evil as simply getting back at someone who deserves it. Someone cuts you off in traffic? Well then, it’s only fair if you cut him off later on. Someone lied about you at work? Well, then it’s only fair to start a rumor that gets them trouble, right? Maybe it’s more subtle than that for most people, but it’s very real, and to some degree it’s really corrupted us as people. Think not? Try going a whole day without saying anything that is not completely true, without once thinking about another person as an object, either of desire (lust, envy, anger, etc.) or a tool to get what you want.

Please don’t think I am trying to make you feel worthless; quite the opposite. Imagine someone with an ear for talent, who finds a natural virtuoso, but who has given up on singing, turned his back on it. He hates what he loves, and it destroys him from inside. OK, that’s hokey, but I hope you see the point. We are, all of us, made to be so much better than we are, and we can be that person if we accept the gift.

Oh, yeah. That sounds like a bad Amway ad, doesn’t it? And no, I am not going to try to tell you that you have to go to my church (or go to church at all), believe exactly what I do, and become some kind of moral clone to make me feel validated in my choices. I am just saying that the bad news is we really do need to be someone better than we think is even possible, that we cannot become that person on our own, but also that God knows this, and has made it possible for us to become that person by simply rejecting evil and choosing good. Sounds easy enough, but you have probably noticed that I am not excluding myself when I talk about folks sinning. I still do it, and so does everyone else I personally know. That’s part of it, though, the understanding that while we should do our best to do good works, to help other people, and that God is pleased by such efforts, that is not how we become better people, although it’s kind of an indicator how we are moving along the road. Knowing evil is real, knowing we have evil in our histories and choices and we tend to like it when it’s not hurting us, is a way that we can use that knowledge to resist evil, to hold to what we know is good, and to align ourselves with good by listening to God. It’s not easy, but it’s worth it.

His Own Worst Enemy

I was reading an old Tom Clancy novel last week, and Ryan (the hero with no experience who nonetheless knows more than anyone else, and is more articulate and better dressed – why does that sound familiar?) noted that the US tried hard to lose the Cold War. A Russian colleague quipped in answer that the Soviets simply tried harder to lose. That strange stratagem seems to be in play this year in the Presidential race. John McCain is the nominee-in-waiting for the GOP, yet he holds most traditional Republican ideals in some degree of contempt. On the other hand, Barack Obama grabbed the Democratic Party nomination by running a campaign based on the old ‘Seinfeld’ show – no substance at all, but clever and good-looking. You can almost see Barack in a stand-up gig, pointing at his own Senate record and asking, “what’s up with that?” But no, actually. If there is anything we can know for sure about Obama, it’s that he will not laugh at himself. Yet it seems that the ‘inevitable’ next President of the United States (that’s familiar too, I wonder why?) has been working hard to lose the election, certainly harder than McCain has been trying of late.

I find it hard to support McCain. It’s just that Obama is much worse. I suspect that a lot of folks on the Left say almost the exact opposite. Local voter registration records indicate only a very mild increase from 2004, indicating either that 2004’s election was very important to folks
here in Harris County, or – despite a massive influx of new residents in the past four years – this year’s election just is not moving the emotions. It’s almost as if the two nominees will spend these last three months not trying to collect new support, but desperately trying to keep folks from drifting off into ennui.

Look at Obama’s just-ended world tour. The media sure loved him, but Obama actually dropped in the polls, McCain gaining on Obama by not doing or saying much at all. It’s as if America wants both of these guys to sit down and shut up, and they are willing to reward the one who actually does it.

Hurricanes Do Not Negotiate

Here in Houston it is raining. It’s been doing that pretty much ever since Dolly made landfall yesterday, a hurricane at that time. Lots of water but not much else here, so we’re pretty relieved. The projections were pretty the last two days before Dolly arrived, but if you go back and look at Katrina in 2005, you may notice that Katrina made some unexpected moves. That’s one reason why so many people were surprised by Katrina; while everyone knew the track it took was possible, it was not what people expected it to do. One of the lessons learned from Katrina, is that you pay attention to what the storm could do, and not just what you think it will do. Because you can’t argue with a hurricane, it will go where it will go, and you’d better be ready.

Too many people today think that everything is relative, everything can be negotiated or controlled. Hurricanes are just one reminder that such thinking is not only naïve, it can be very dangerous.

Car Names

I was thinking about car names yesterday. And I wondered what you folks thought were the best and worst car names, not only ever but also right now. Because it seems to me that we have not seen a really good new car name in quite a while. I mean, I love the Honda Accord and plan to keep mine for a long time yet to come, but ‘Accord’? Isn’t that like calling a car the Honda ‘Agreement’, or the Honda ‘Negotiation’? Yaaawwwwn. Toyota isn’t any better, though. What is a ‘Camry’ supposed to be, anyway? Other companies just make up names, like the Kia ‘Optima’ or ‘Sportage’, the Nissan ‘Maxima’, the Toyota ‘Prius’, or the Saturn ‘Vue’? Other companies just gave up with names completely and assigned what seem to be random number-letter series, like ‘350SL’, or ‘CR-V’, or ‘A4’. What happened to using real names?

Maybe cars in the past were less fuel-efficient, less agile, and so on, but they had style, and they had real names, like ‘Charger’, ‘Thunderbird’, ‘Mustang’, and ‘Corvette’. The names conveyed a sense of power, of purpose, of identity. Of course, we also saw some real losers, like the AMC ‘Gremlin’ or the Ford ‘Pinto’. Some cars were plain mis-named, like the weak and unimpressive Ford ‘Maverick’. But in the main, cars in the past had names that resonated with drivers, not the putrid stuff we see today.

All-Time Best Car Names
Plymouth Barracuda
AC Shelby Cobra
Chevrolet Corvette
Lamborghini Diablo
Ford Explorer
Mercury Marauder
Kallista Panther
Buick Park Avenue
Rolls-Royce Phantom
Dodge Ram
Jeep Renegade
Land Rover
Dodge Shadow
Volkswagen Thing
Dodge Viper



All-Time Lousiest Car Names
Oldsmobile Alero
Chevrolet Lumina
Chevrolet Luv (truck)
Pontiac Aztek
Oldsmobile Achieva
Pontiac Astre
Pontiac Fiero
Saturn Vue
(anything by Kia)
Ford Probe
Toyota Prius


Cool Names Used for Concept Cars but not Production
Catapult
Banshee
Slingshot
Contrail
Rhino
Black Widow
Avatar
Thrasher
Thumper
Verdict
Vulcan
Rawhide
Pocono
Drifter
Desperado
Rowdy
Assassin
Intimidator
Vindicator


Good New Car Names
… OK, I’m stumped. Any ideas?

Dune: A Socio-Political Critique

I just finished re-reading Frank Herbert’s most famous work, Dune. A bit of a guilty pleasure that, since I am supposed to be working on a case for my International Accounting class, having to due with currency exchange translation causing a profitable enterprise to become a losing one, but I tell myself that the diversion makes my mind fresh for the academic work. Which I will do … later.

Anyway, I am a bit more of a critical reader now than I was in years past, which is to say that when an author does something I think is a mistake I am far more likely to say something about it. In the case of Dune, it became obvious to me the first time I read Dune and its sequels that Mr. Herbert figured to make his name as a “great” writer, by that meaning that he wants his stories to be not just popular but “important”. This is why the man stuck what in these post-Rathergate days I may call “fake but accurate” documents, fictional accounts meant to support the underlying structure of Dune’s plot and social community. The thing is, even a cursory examination proves the façade to be thin indeed.

Dune is most famous as a political novel concerning ecology, politics, religion, and human emotion. Maybe it’s because of the Chrichton novels since then, but it seems to me that Dune is essentially barren of real technology in its plot, even the ecological lessons it tries to teach. Rhetoric, yes, but no real science behind it. Similar contradictions showed up everywhere throughout the novel. The rulers of the so-called Great Houses are supposed to be politically brilliant, yet they constantly blunder into huge mistakes, errors they do not notice and which they make no effective attempt to correct. The same mistakes were apparent with regard to religion. The Fremen of Dune are loosely identified as some sort of Muslim, a variant of Shiites obsessed with finding the Kwitzach Haderach, also known as their Mahdi. Yet these Fremen are never seen in practice of Islam; in the whole book there is only one reference to the muzzein, and while the word ‘sharia’ is used, there is no reference to it in practice. Most of all, the prophet Mohammed is never once mentioned, nor does any of the Fremen quote the Quran! Christianity fares no better with Herbert. The reader is introduced to the “Orange Catholic” Bible, a nonsense word for anyone familiar with William of Orange and the causes of the Reformation. No one claims to be Christian in the story, nor are their any ministers or priests, although the mystic ‘Bene Gesserits’ call their leaders ‘Reverend Mother’ in a way suggestive of nunnery’s Mother Superior. Characters throw out quotes from time to time which suggest badly recalled (or deliberately misquoted) Bible and Quranic verses, apparently suggesting that this world of the future did not care enough of Scripture to keep it true – a common lie we hear today from people who find their own opinion better than the Word from God. Various characters exhibit zenlike meditation and philosophical contemplation, but again there is no mention of the boddhavista. Herbert was clearly atheist in his preferred worldview, or should I say he was more a Humanist-Gnostic with pagan leanings. Just something to keep in mind, that Herbert had not one of his heroes call on a higher power or person; they worshipped themselves unless they were – quite literally – praying to another human as their lord.

Returning to politics, though, it struck as bizarre that a future social structure should be based on the assumption of a monarchy. Paul Atreides, the hero of the story, is scion of the “Great House” Atreides, and he is the son of the “Duke”, Leto. The Atreides are in constant war against the House Harkonnen, which is led by a Baron. The known universe is controlled by a triumvirate of powers consisting of a Guild of space pilots and shippers, a “Landsraad” of essentially feudal noble houses, and the Emporer. One would think that 15-century machinations would be out of place in, say, the 30th century Common Era, but there is not even the pretense of democracy or populism. Even the Fremen in the book defer to Paul Atreides simply because he waves around a ring showing he is the Duke. I could say this comes from too much devotion to tokenism by Herbert, but in actual fact I think Herbert just could not resist trying to work some Macchivellianism into his plot, and herbert fell into the medeival worldview without thinking it through. To see why this is a critical flaw in the story, imagine the many professional positions which held no status at all in Herbert’s world, how little a meritocracy fared with him. Even ancient China and Egypt were marked by a class of professionals, especially in government and the military, where a person’s worth was marked by his work and skill. Herbert made a big mistake there.

And then there is the military scope. Herbert makes it clear that the most feared military force in the known universe is the Emporer’s “Sardaukar”, which are trained on his prison planet at Salusa Secondus. Yet even the Sardaukar are no match for the Fremen, especially Paul Atreides’ “Fedaykin” (a vulgarization of ‘fedayeen’). The explanation given by Herbert, is the notion that extreme deprivation and hardship are effective tools at building a high-performance military force. For the purpose of Herbert’s story, he gets away with it as long as no one thinks that one through, but in the real world the concept is laughable on its face. For example, if you want, say, your pet dog to be fast and strong, would you give him a poor diet and beat him regularly? That would actually be about the worst thing you could do, actually. If you want a strong, agile, fast, devoted dog, you have to make sure of the opposite – feed him well, be clear in your instruction and praise him for success, never abusing him or mistreating him. Discipline must exist, but it must be constructive, not punitive. Look at human military units; the best do not come, frankly, from remote and desolate areas, where the food is poor and the water meager, where merely surviving is difficult. No, the most elite units are well-fed and carefully trained, their medical needs are immediately tended to, and they are constantly made aware of not only standards, but rewards for success. If a people existed like the Fremen on Arrakis, they would be weak, disorganized, chaotic, and ill-equipped. Herbert got that part of his story very, very wrong.

I will be the first to say that Frank Herbert’s story was an enjoyable read, but I have to say that taking it as anything but fiction (as various groups have done over the years) would be a very bad mistake. The image of a thing, the delivery of it and the style of it, does not create one iota of real substance, yet this is a caution some people allow themselves to ignore.

The White House Standard

Sophia Nelson at the Washington Post thinks Michelle Obama is under attack simply for being an intelligent black woman. The article is the usual leftist bilge about how unfair Life has been to the Obamas, and continues to be. In the first place, the kid-glove treatment given by the media to the Obamas relative to the McCains makes Nelson’s hypocrisy laughable, but the real truth that I believe Ms. Nelson misses is this – running for President of the United States is a grueling course of tests and examinations, for the family as well as the candidate. And when a candidate fails such tests, especially by whining that he and his family should not have to face such tests, he proves something to the American people, something vital missing from his character and skill set. Like it or not, if Barack Obama intends to become President of the United States, his wife Michelle will have to pass similar tests of character and integrity.

Nelson is quick to point to the parody portrait on the New Yorker magazine, shrilly claiming it to be an attack on all black women, saying “welcome to our world”. The fact that Michelle Obama did make comments which have been taken to mean she is hostile to the nominal American culture is not addressed; the fact that Michelle Obama has repeatedly displayed attitudes of radical political posturing is ignored; the fact that Michelle Obama wrote a thesis at Princeton wherein she argued that “assimilation into a white cultural and social structure will only allow me to remain on the periphery of society” is dismissed as old news, rejected in spite of its evidence of deep resentment of the society she hopes to help lead.

If Michelle Obama were considered someone with little influence on her candidate husband, such views might be more easily discounted, but in fact no potential First Lady is ever inconsequential, and so the views and statements of the wife of a candidate are, in fact, important signals as to the character and mindset of the candidate. The refusal by the Obama campaign to address valid questions brought up by Michelle Obama’s statements and political postures, will be seen by many undecided voters as evasive behavior. This does not mean that Obama would lose the election because of his wife, nor even that her behavior would necessarily mean voters would choose McCain. McCain, after all, has his own baggage and political past to address, and while Cindy McCain has so far avoided damaging her husband’s campaign the way Michelle Obama has made Barack’s campaign more turbulent, she also must face the tests set up to challenge those who would aspire to high office. While the public largely rejects the “co-president” role claimed by Hillary Clinton in 1993, it nonetheless expects certain assurances of the First Lady’s mind and character. This is nothing new, though. So much abuse has been heaped upon George W. Bush, that it is forgotten how Laura Bush was depicted early on. The difference is, Laura passed her test so well, that the jackals in the media found her an unproductive target. The press also challenged Hillary Clinton when her husband Bill was President, sometimes for things she said and did, and sometimes as a way to get at the President. The press challenged Barbara Bush (and came out the worse for it – remember Connie Chung?), and went after Nancy Reagan in a big way. The press had tests for Rosalynn Carter, and for Pat Nixon – not too many people noticed (or cared) what the Watergate scandal did to Mrs. Nixon. While different First Ladies and wives of candidates have seen differing levels of scrutiny from the media, all have faced the gauntlet, and no one can claim exemption from the challenge.

Ms. Nelson and people like her just don’t get it. Michelle Obama is not being challenged because she and Barack are black, or because she’s a woman, or because she and her husband have enjoyed success. The campaign to win the White House is an extremely serious set of tests, and she – like her husband – must face these tests precisely because she is being taken seriously. The answers and tone we Americans receive from Michelle Obama will tell us how seriously she takes that responsibility in her own turn.

Eight Dollar Gas

One of the recent proposals put forth to address the condition of four-dollar-a-gallon gasoline, was to find a way to make it cost more. Some folks seem to think, if I understand the strategy, that making gasoline more expensive will force folks to stop using it. That is a singularly poor notion, however.

Gasoline is principally used to power motor vehicles, but there is also the secondary effect that gas prices affect freight and shipping costs, so inflation is also affected. With very few exceptions, people need motor vehicles to get to work and to do their jobs. It is true that people who can do so will be more inclined to take public transportation, but there are problems with the assumption that the majority of people will do so. In the first place, public transportation does not generally have the infrastructure to accommodate the majority of the population. This is why there are a limited number of bus and train routes and a limited number of transportation options. For example, a few years ago my company had an office near north I-45, while I lived in Southwest Houston. When we were moved to that office, I had to stop riding the bus to downtown and drive myself to the new office, because there was no bus route that would get me to and from work. This was deliberate by the county, because the county managed a network of toll roads which most drivers going that way used, and letting buses carry folks would cut into toll road revenue. As a result, the Harris County Toll Road Authority and the Metropolitan Transit Authority worked together for their maximum financial gain, rather than to meet the needs of Harris County and Houston’s working population. No one should expect future considerations and plans to be any different.

But, just for the argument, let’s say METRO wants to do the right thing and set up a comprehensive network for travel. What will doubling the price of gas do? Raise bus fares, of course, and so will opening up all those new routes and buying the new buses to serve them, and building all the stations and depots needed to service and maintain the buses, plus hiring and training all the additional employees to maintain and drive those buses, and to handle all the traffic. Fares will double or triple, count on it. This is because historically, public transit systems have lost money and cities and counties will not be willing to accept the size of deficit the larger fleet will promise. What will happen, in a practical perspective, is that growth of the bus fleet and route numbers will not rise to the level where the majority of the public can make effective use of buses; just as has always been the case, most working people drive themselves to work because the politically correct solutions are not practical. In many cases they are not even practicable.

Public transport having been shown to have no more substance than an Obama resume, I now address the suggestions that drivers would shift to smaller, more efficient cars, or invest in hybrids, electric cars, or the like. The problem there is that such suggestions ignore the reasons for the popularity of SUVs in the first place. I, for example, do not trust the durability of the smaller cars, nor do I intend to risk my wife in a vehicle which cannot protect her from serious injury in an accident. That is not to say that we drive the biggest cars. I drive an Accord, my wife a CR-V. In both cases the cars are strong enough to protect us from serious injury in the event we have an accident, they are solid enough to avoid damage from the rough Houston roads, and they have suitable visibility, horsepower, and maneuverability to avoid accidents and dangerous situations in the first place. On the other side of things, I have seen the Prius, for example, and no sane driver would use one in traffic, let alone buy one and chance putting his family in it. No one would drive a Fit, a Scion or a Versa. The scooters, electric cars, and the like are even more risky and dangerous, and it is a poor mind which considers economy ahead of safety.

The considerations also fail to consider the force of habit. During the 1970s, a lot of folks changed their ways when the first Oil Crisis hit, and that crisis was a lot tougher than what we face now. But things work in cycles, and if 50-cents-a-gallon gas was no more, the prices did go down for a while and the supply became easy again. That will happen here; no one should expect 2-dollar-a-gallon gas again, but prices will go down and when they do, opinion will shift from the panic being sold by extremists. Conservation and sensible engineering will always be good ideas, but folks just will not agree to be held hostage by an economic condition, at least not in America. No one will like higher prices, but folks will weigh the price against their options, and a lot of them will pay more because the alternative is still not acceptable.

You see, gasoline replaced coal and other options all those years ago, because it was cheaper, cleaner, and more convenient. For a new paradigm to replace the gasoline-driven engine, it will be necessary for the new product to be clearly superior – the notion that political pressure will be sufficient to change transportation modes across the demographic is patently absurd, and fails from the beginning presumption. Effectively doubling the pump price of gasoline through artificial attempts to affect demand for gasoline without providing an effective and attractive alternative fuel source, cannot fail to produce disastrous results. As has been discussed above, artificial manipulation of fuel prices would be incendiary in terms of inflation, would increase unemployment and slow construction and commercial growth, would make American exports more expensive and so increase the trade deficit, and provide a valid source of intense resentment against the political agents who introduced and supported the plan. There would be grounds for legal action against Congress, the reason being that government manipulation of the market for the express purpose of harming the interests of the general population would be patently unconstitutional. The only means by which the leaders of the price fixing could avoid legal consequences for their actions, would be to make gasoline a substance illegal to have in personal possession and use for personal reasons.

Given these rather obvious reasons why doubling the price of gasoline cannot possibly help the nation, one may wonder why anyone would still advocate such actions. The answer to that lies in one simple question – doubling the price of gasoline would produce huge amounts of additional revenue, but who gets all that money? The answer, plainly, is the government, playing a Robin Hood but in real life an agent of its own greed and hypocrisy. After all, given recent behavior by Congress, does anyone believe that they would allow Oil companies to keep the profits they earn? Does anyone think that Congress, having refused to cut its already swollen taxes on gasoline, would hesitate to seize the additional funds from forcing higher prices? And the only way to do that, would be for Congress to effectively nationalize the oil industry, everything from car gasoline to heating oil, to plastics to … you get the idea. Congress making sure it gets the first slice of the pie … and the second … and the third. This plan, at its heart, is poorly-disguised Socialism, lies and hypocrisy painted over with a scheme to blame working people for the greed of a politically correct Nomenklatura.