Your Tax Receipt

I find it fascinating how people will argue their ideologies about federal budgeting without actually considering the details of how exactly their tax money is actually spent.  Republicans will say "spend less", without considering where their spending is going, and how that may personally impact them.  Democrats will say "spend more", as if our bank accounts are a bottomless pit to be drawn from.  What are your personal priorities within the federal government?

How much do you think is your personal fair share for:

• social security
• medicare
• national defense
• health care
• job and family security
• education and job training
• veterans benefits
• natural resources, energy, and the environment
• international affairs
• science, space, and technology programs
• immigration, law enforcement, and the administration of justice
• agriculture
• community, area, and regional development
• All additional Government programs
• Net interest on the debt

I'd encourage you to think of a number you feel is appropriate for each of these areas.  Then I'd like you to head over to the government's Taxpayer Receipt website, and enter your tax information in.  Where were you over-predicting your contributions?  Where were you under-predicting your contributions?  A reasonable starting point for exploring your personal convictions is examining your personal contributions to the government outside of what your party tells you you should think.  It can be a first step towards freeing yourself from the prison of partisan politics.

Strike Syria?

If there were ever a case to be made that the institution of the Presidency is far too dangerous for a single person to control, it couldn't be made better than by looking at Barack Obama's upcoming decision about what to do of the chemical weapon attack in Syria.

Consider this:

• American's strongly oppose military intervention in Syria, by nearly a 2-1 margin.  
• Though the constitution mandates that the power to declare war lay with congress, they are unlikely to get a chance to vote on it.  For the long standing practice of having undeclared wars, I would say that an act of war is as strong a declaration of war as there is.  If the Japanese had said after Pearl Harbor, "just kidding"... would that have slowed down our response?  
• It won't be internationally recognized by the United Nations either, as they just rejected a call for military intervention.  

And yet, warships steam towards what seems like an inevitable destination to drop their bombs.  I think everyone agrees that what the Syrian government did to its own people is outrageous, and deserves international intervention.  But I more strongly believe the will of the people should hold the day.  Does this even remotely look like Democracy in action?

----------------------------------------------------------

Edit: Looks like Congress will get its chance to vote on a strike in Syria.  While I thank the Obama administration for seeking the consent of American's in committing an act of war, I still believe he very well could have carried out the strike had he wanted to... for instance, he never sought a vote in attacking Lybia.  Because of this, I stand by my previous opinion that too much power lay with the institution of the presidency.

Corporate influence of politics and the disengagement of the general public

There is a strain of thought through American politics that corporate influence in government has grown so far beyond the term "influence" that you might as well say their candidates have been bought and paid for.  Corporate money flows through the vanes of election coffers, and has become the lifeblood of a candidates reelection prospects.  And if elections are the blunt instruments of change, campaign contributions from lobbyists are the the scalpel, laser focused on individual issues, or even individual phrases in bills related to issues.  So does democracy even offer tools for the greater public to weigh in on a policy level?

On the one hand, the reality is there needs to be a place for so called "special interests" to be heard.  We have chosen a representative democracy specifically because the electorate doesn't have the time to become an expert on legislative matters.  But some people are, and they can help guide representatives towards the expertise they need to make a qualified decision.  Take for instance, the computing industry has a strong interest in the concept of net neutrality, a term that most Americans couldn't even explain.  Software engineers and internet companies must take the lead in clarifying policy repercussions for any semblance of a coherent strategy.

On the other hand, there aren't very many avenues for mainstream people to engage with their representatives on issues which they have come to informed opinions.  Corporate money guarantees face time with lawmakers, and even a hand in drafting legislation.  Most public campaign donations are contributed to political parties or individual candidates, which tend to focus again on the blunt instrument instead of the scalpel.  Not surprisingly, the public has become disengaged with the issues, allowing elections to be driven by personalities instead of policy.

There are some common sense reforms to our democracy that could help restore the balance in a non-partisan manner, and engage the greater body politic in issues again.  First of all, we can recognize that corporations benefit tremendously from the economies of scale when it comes to donations.  TV advertising has a built in fixed cost barrier that must be overcome before political money becomes effective.  On a per voter basis, this becomes feasible only when the size of the electorate for an election reaches a critical mass.  The President's campaigns are more cost efficient than a Senator's, and in turn a Senator's is more cost efficient than a member of the house of representatives.  Can you even remember the last time you saw a TV add for a city council member?  Consider when the country was founded, we had one member of the house of representatives for every 30,000 people... a ratio very similar to that city council member.  Today, we are approaching 1,000,000 people for each representative.  If we were to restore that ratio, the pool of corporate money would be diluted on a per representative basis to levels not seen in a generation, and we would see a waning of corporate influence... at least in the house of representatives.  Another benefit of this system is that people can have a lot closer contact with their representatives when they have to represent such a smaller group.  It could serve to empower people to seek out their representatives on a personal level.

Another possible way to provide democratic institutions with the mechanisms to support issue level representation is to change the way we vote.  Consider that the house of representatives is formed of a number of committees that are much more issue focused.  These committees are designed to allow representatives to become experts on individual issues, and are a driver of legislation before it reaches the wider house of representatives for a vote.  But these committees are appointed by the leadership of the parties, largely on a seniority basis.  In a two party system like are own, it virtually guarantees that Americans who care about issues have no say at the ballot box, unless all their issues align with one of the two party choices.  If instead we had many parties, where people could vote nationally for the parties that best matched their personal ideologies, we could have a better reflection of the American will on individual issues in these committees.  Better yet, we could even potentially have issue specific parties, which the public votes separately for on a per committee basis.  I could vote for my charter schools party for the Education and Workforce committee, and my deficit reduction party for the Budget committee, and my isolationist party for the Armed Services committee, and so on.  Imagine the engagement Americans could have in such a system!

In conclusion, corporate influence in American politics is not a problem to be addressed in and of itself, but a symptom of a greater problem of public disengagement in the issues of politics.  Common sense reforms which empower individuals to engage with their representative democracy would naturally dilute the influence of special interests, yet preserve their rights to engage in the political process with their expertise.  Changing the levers of elections to allow voting for committee members would turn politics on its head, and help bring the body politic back in line with the values of the people they represent.

where are the real civil libertarians?

The two party system has created a principle schism in the American political landscape.  The limitations of this means that unless you are aiming to be marginalized, you must compromise on your principles to fit into one of these two groups.  One of the casualties of this structure is the authoritarian/libertarian axis of politics, which is orthogonal to the current alignment of political parties.  It can be seen explicitly on sites like the political compass.

One of the appeals of the Tea Party during its formative years, was an alternative that crossed political boundaries to embrace libertarian ideas.  Their core focus was making government smaller and less intrusive in our lives.  But the movement got co-opted by the far right.

I genuinely seek a government that doesn't intrude in our lives... so I thought a good test would be the recent vote against restricting the NSA from sweeping powers to spy on Americans who have done nothing.  Counting the votes from the Tea Party, this can help me decide what kind of organization it is.


Tea Party member's votes on a bill limiting the powers of the NSA:
For (27) Against (20) Abstain (1)

For: (27)
Joe Barton
Rob Bishop
Diane Black
Michael Burgess
Paul Broun
Bill Cassidy
Mike Coffman
Jeff Duncan
Blake Farenthold
Stephen Fincher
John Fleming
Louie Gohmert
Tim Huelskamp
Lynn Jenkins
Doug Lamborn
Kenny Marchant
Tim McClintock
Gary Miller
Mick Mulvaney
Rich Nugent
Steve Pearce
Ted Poe
Tom Price
Phil Roe
Dennis Ross
Steve Scalise
Joe Wilson


Against: (20)
Rodney Alexander
Michele Bachmann
Gus Bilirakis
John Carter
Ander Crenshaw
John Culberson
Trent Franks
Phil Gingrey
Vicky Hartzler
Steve King
Blaine Luetkemeyer
David McKinley
Randy Neugebauer
Steven Palazzo
Ed Royce
Pete Sessions
Adrian Smith
Lamar Smith
Tim Walberg
Lynn Westmoreland

No Vote: (1)
Howard Coble

One the one hand, these results surprised me... I had taken a more cynical view of the Tea Party in recent years, and am actually quite pleased to see that a majority of them voted for the new restrictions on the NSA's secret powers.  Compared to the 40% of republicans on whole who voted for the amendment, 56% of tea party members voted for it.  On the other hand, 55% of democrats voted for this measure, which really doesn't distinguish the Tea Party's libertarian credentials.

As a side note, Chris Christie came out strongly against the libertarian position, calling it dangerous.  In the words of Benjamin Franklin, he who trades liberty for security deserves neither.  That is a deal breaker for my support in the 2016 presidential cycle.

George Zimmerman and Blackstone's formulation

On October 3rd, 1995, my 9th grade Geometry teacher dialed the radio in to the reading of the OJ Simpson verdict.  This was a case that captivated the nation, scratching the still fresh racial wounds centuries in the making.  Everyone had a strong opinion, and I found myself thinking that it was obvious that he was guilty.  How else did he get her blood in his car?  Why else would he run from the police?  He certainly had motive and opportunity.  When the verdict of "Not Guilty" rung through my ears, I was stunned.  How could anyone believe he was not guilty, after what had been presented?  But there were droves of people who believed he was innocent, and that I was a fool for believing him guilty with the same evidence laid out before them.

Flash forward to this past week.  The nation again found itself gripped in a trial laced with racial undertones.  George Zimmerman had undeniably shot young Trayvon Martin, a young black man he had believed to be a neighborhood thief.  But he claimed to have done it in self defense.  Again, I lined up the facts of the case, and could only conclude the verdict was correct.  If he had thrown the first punch, he was guilty as sin... if Trayvon had... then his claim of self defense was valid.  The prosecution had done very little to prove who had done that.  They should have looked for autopsy evidence that Zimmerman had struck martin with a punch, but they couldn't.  If he had made up his story on the spot, it certainly fit well with the physical evidence and witness testimony... so it seemed plausible.  When Zimmerman was set free, I was not surprised at all.  However, many across the nation rose to protest that an injustice had been done.  Injustice.

How is our justice system supposed to function here?  I think in both these trials, reasonable people could look at the body of evidence, and come to very different conclusions.  Regardless of what horrible thing has happened, we must be sure of ourselves when we reach a verdict.  We must not compound one injustice with another.  It got me thinking to Sir William Blackstone, who in 1765 stated "It is better that ten guilty persons escape than that one innocent suffer".  This is fundamental to how we must approach justice.  We convene juries that must reach a unanimous decision, because if reasonable people can disagree about the innocence of a person, then only injustice can result from an arbitrary result.  The benefit of doubt must lie with the accused.

George Zimmerman is a free man today.  It may be because he truly acted in self defense.  It may just be because the prosecution couldn't prove beyond a reasonable doubt otherwise.  The same could have been said for OJ Simpson.  And either result strengthens my faith in our criminal justice system.  We live under the rule of law, where personal biases of an individual are trumped by collective certainty in the outcome of a trial.  And for that, I am thankful.

The activist courts

This week the Supreme Court announced a historic ruling, declaring federal discrimination against gay couples seeking marriage to be unconstitutional.  For many, this was a day to celebrate the protections of minority rights that many thought unachievable only a few years ago.  This came on the back of a ruling overturning key provisions in the landmark 1965 voter's rights act, once credited as the greatest civil rights achievement of the 20th century.  The dichotomy of these two rulings got me thinking about the purpose of the court in American politics.  Is it an institution that should be limited in nature, identifying and overturning laws that usurp only from our most commonly agreed principals, or should it be an institution that seeks to apply those principals as broadly as possible, with the purpose of protecting those who congress is unwilling to protect?

It is important that the mission of the courts in determining the constitutionality of laws be crystal clear, as this small group of citizens is given unprecedented powers to invalidate legislation passed by a majority of a democratically elected members of congress, while themselves never facing a direct election by the public.  Their stamp on public debate is final, leaving us with no alternative but to follow what they decree.  They are ideally supposed to live outside the pressures of politics, applying the basic principals on which our government was founded as a litmus test to the validity of laws.  But reality is a far different animal.

The modern court is filled with ideologues bent on stamping their own dogma permanently into America's legal system.  These judges were hand picked in turn by ideologues in the white house, who seek to use the court as a proxy in political fights to ensure that their agenda cannot be challenged.  Controversial rulings often swing on a single vote, a single person, deciding the fate of laws critical to millions of Americans.  We require the principals on which they rule to be passed by two thirds of both the house and the senate, and then three fourths of the states must vote to ratify the expansion of the freedoms outlined.  They were designed to be broadly agreed upon, not controversial in any manor.  Yet the reality is the words of the constitution are twisted to fit whichever argument is championed by a justice, seen in the many many cases having dissenting views.  Why do we not hold these justices to a similar standard as the constitution?  We require criminals to be found unanimously guilty by a jury of their peers, but the whole class of law to which they are tried to rest on a tiebreaker yes or no swing vote?  Absurd.

The modern court is an activist court, both on liberal and conservative causes.  It embraces controversy... We've seen that in recent days, in the overturning of the long standing voter's rights act, and throughout courtrooms of the past century, from Roe vs Wade, to Bush vs Gore.  I believe the powers we have enshrined in this institution need be flexed only when there is widespread agreement.  The courts should need more than majority, they should need super majority to apply their ideals.  It could be done, as over 60 percent of rulings were unanimous at one point this year.  Deferring to the will of the elected legislature should resolve controversies.  The panel should be expanded, so that a wider range of views is represented by the votes.  Members of the court should be nominated by a wide body, not stuffed by any one president.  Some mechanism should be included to ensure minority views are also represented.  Our courts have been sliding down the slippery slope to the political muck.  It is time we bolster the institution with the protections to insure that it functions as it was originally intended, as the bellwether protector of the principals on which we all stand.

racial inequality without racism

In 2003, I stood on the campus of UC Berkeley among a massive crowd of protesters, who were arguing for radical changes to university admittance policies.  They shouted that racism was ingrained in our country, that white people hid behind a vale of political correctness that masked an underlying modern day Jim Crow society.  How could this be, I thought.

Everything my personal experience told me suggested otherwise.  Nobody I ever personally knew was racist.  I had grown up in a rural predominantly white community, and the one or two fringe people flying their confederate flags weren't exactly what you'd call "difference makers" in town.  If I had to bet based on my personal interaction with people I met at Berkeley, I'd guess well north of 99% believe in civil rights, and embraced the diversity that made our campus special.  A Jim Crow UC Berkeley just didn't fit into my world view.

Last night, listening to the Tavis Smiley show on the way home, I heard this fascinating interview with Nancy DiTomaso as she discussed her book "The American Dilemma, racial inequality without racism".  There, she noted that after interviewing thousands of individuals, she found that for 99% of people, 70% or more of their job opportunities had came because they had some extra help from a friend or former coworker.  This type of networking has the effect of marginalizing social mobility, because if you come from a community where there are already no job opportunities to be shared, it makes it that much tougher to break into a market where you do not have a connection.  This is a reality that fits well in my understanding of how the world works.  Personal connections make getting a job 10 times easier for someone seeking employment.

But why does the world work that way?  Businesses have a financial interest in hiring the best candidates for the job.  They want a meritocracy.  The reality is that the hiring process in the modern workplace is totally broken.  How can you really know what a person claims to understand on their resume, amongst rampant exaggeration?  How can you project how an employee will do based on a 30 minute call and a 45 minute in person interview?  It is a joke.  A bad hire is far worse than not hiring anyone at all, and companies must hedge against this risk however they can.  So they turn to personal recommendations.  Nothing really identifies a star in the workplace like working with them for months on end, staying up late at night, relying on their good ideas to make a team successful.  If you can convince people you ALREADY know are good to come work with you, it is a huge win.  At the cost of an unintended structural inequality, without racism.

Top Coder Ratings

What could we do to improve on this system?  We need to improve the hiring process to make it more merit based.  Companies need tangible evidence about the people they invest in.  There are a few areas where I could see wins both for companies and minorities in my industry, software engineering.  First, there are competition based sites such as Top Coder and 99designs, where contracts are won on a merit based system via direct competition.  Statistics on these sites give you a quantitative difference between the results of different individuals, which can be meaningful when hiring a full time employee.  This is a meritocracy in its truest form.  Next, if companies can increase the ratio of interns to full time employees, they provide low cost, low risk opportunities to identify potential candidates based on an extended period of working along side them.  These kind of jobs provide invaluable inroads for people just starting their career, and improve the long term quality of employees that a company brings in, without having to rely on personal recommendations to hedge risk.