Conventional Wisdom

 Last evening, Iowa Republicans and Democrats got together for their annual caucuses leading up to county and later, state conventions. In my county, I understand 270 Democrats met on Zoom to deliberate about the fate of the party and use Zoom filters. I am not a fan of caucuses of any size, but understand that conventions are important to the loyal faithful. At one time, you couldn't get elected dogcatcher without the convention nominating you. 

I have been to a handful of these convention gatherings in the past, and like religious organizations, found them happy to see new blood (if for only that the longer-in-tooth could get off of a never-ending committee assignment). I mention this because I worry about the future of political parties if conventions are their go-to for sparking interest in the more youthful.

In my college job, I witness the younger generation up close. They are an interesting lot and they do seem to like to travel in packs. You'd think that would be a draw for convention going. Also, they like to feel important, again good for political gatherings. Finally, they seem to enjoy the sound of their own voices--it would seem that political convention would be like hitting the trifecta for these youngsters. But alas, you'd be so wrong. Because they also don't care much for conflict or gravitating too far from campus, and unless there is a keg or keto, they aren't coming.

No, party conventions are largely an older person's thing, especially the countywide ones. Sure a stray college student who is part of the campus party student org and a handful of others may try it out as a lark, but they aren't coming back next year (probably because they are graduating and moving back home or to the closest large city out of state).

So for those of us who think the future belongs to the young, we better think of a better way to engage the young. Kounty Kegger and Keto Konvention, anybody? 

Protecting the First Amendment, Kind Of

 As a public employee, I received a note from my employer stating that I would need to comply with their command that I understand the limits of free speech at my job and complete a training module to that end. Given that I work at a post-secondary institution, I do not have a problem with additional learning and set aside the required 15-20 minutes to complete the module so that I will be "in compliance" of whatever I am in compliance of--basic knowledge of the US consitution's Bill of Rights, I suppose. While it makes sense to me to meet the legal compliances that are required of me, like complying with FERPA so I'm not data mining student information or completing anti-harassment training to do my part to keep the workplace less creepy, I do object to the idea that my employer's boss is afraid that we are not doing free speech right and that we all have to take a crash course to keep ourselves operationally efficient in that respect.

For the record, I am fond of the 1st Amendment and exercise it frequently. I am not a constitutional scholar but have not yelled "fire" in a theater ever in my life. I know that my free speech has limitations. Apparently, one of the limits is that I have to be tested on my understanding and certify that I do understand. Comically, I also had to take a quiz consisting of 3 questions and needed to have a score of at least 80% to be in compliance. I am not a mathematician, but I do know that a 3 item quiz cannot bear a score of at least 80% unless you answer all the items correctly.  But, somehow, I don't think that was the point--and from an assessment vantage point, we are going to look really good and overperforming in our compliance as most, I expect will score 100%.

I completed the training in 15 minutes. I'm not sure how my taxpaying neighbors will feel about me being a newly minted expert on the 1st Amendment. I'm pretty sure that they will be counting the cost of me and my public employee counterparts who took it and wonder why they had to foot the bill for something that most of us already studied in middle school or high school social studies. Rightfully, they may feel duped by lawmakers and bureaucrats who score political points by double charging them for such things. 

Welcome to the suck of Neo-Progressivism

 Did you know that progressivism is, like, so dead? Yes, we are so beyond  AOC, Ilhan Omar and Green New Deals. We have progressed beyond this thanks to Neo Pros. Who or what is a Neo Pro, buckle up buckaroo and I'll fill you in. The brainchild of Lawrence Lessig has been around since at least 2012, Neo Pros are like you, but without all the unpleasantness. According to the not so great design of The NeoPro website: 

The Neopro  approach is not that much different than the old progressive method, where it comes to the goals that need to be achieved. It is shares similar concerns and policy goals concerning the environment, human rights, animal protection and gender equality, among many others, yet the path to achieve those goals is completely different.

The Neopro philosophy takes a more entrepreneurial and strategic approach to achieving these goals. It is a philosophy that provides a better path to solving cultural and political problems. Neoprogressivism understands that issues evolve and that the approach to finding lasting solutions needs to be continuously revamped and improved, just as successful businesses adapt to changing market conditions. Consequently, the people most qualified to lead this movement are people with entrepreneurial and business backgrounds. Real-world experience in dealing with the economic markets and the marketplace of ideas combined with the traditional progressive motivation to work toward the greater good are the hallmarks of Neopro leadership.

So, in other words, it is Capitalists masquerading as Socialsts. And probably, for some, it is an appealing proposition. Trade-in your Green New Deal for a Harvard MBA Strat Plan and let's make some money on green energy! 

Not so fast my reactionary leftie, the NeoPros are on to you. The Neo Pros know you: "We call them reactionaries because the (sic) react to any cause they are told to oppose instead of taking a proactive approach to improve the political situation, a characteristic more commonly associated with Neoprogressives. Most progressives are not part of the reactionary left, but unfortunately the reactionary left is currently the most vocal part of the left. The truth is that all progressives have some reactionary in them, and our goal is change that and turn all good-hearted people into more productive progressives."

Yes, productive, strategic work shall set you free, my Chomsky-loving friend. Certainly, you don't want to offend anyone or gore their ox when you can simply outmaneuver them with slick framing and unwavering belief that the market solves everything for the better. Yes, if we were only a little more, what is the word--cooperative (and stayed on the same page).

But even the Neo Progs are not all on board. Some of them have said that this so-called entrepreneurial approach worked until the 1990's but now believe we have to get behind changing the constitution so that we can really get the job done. Thomas J. Main writes:

So the mechanism that is most amenable to non-incremental change would be a realigning election that ushers in a period of unified government. We can call this the presidential/majoritarian model. And we might well see it as the last arrow in America’s constitutional quiver for producing big change.

And if a Democratic landslide did produce a moment of institutional unity? What should be done with it? I would argue that we should focus our energies on improving the capacity of our political institutions for collective action through constitutional reform.

There is a long list of proposed constitutional amendments waiting for their chance, ranging from the elimination of the Electoral College to an amendment that would allow the president to submit a legislative agenda directly to Congress, which would be required promptly to vote the entire package up or down, without amendments, on a strict majoritarian basis.

But if we’re going to go the difficult route of amending the Constitution, the change ought to be even more fundamental: an amendment which changes the amendment process itself.

This idea has, in various ways, already been incorporated into most state constitutions and therefore received ample road testing. The Article V process for amending the Constitution is notoriously daunting, and far more difficult than the amendment process of any other liberal democracy. Why do we assume that this is the optimal design?

State constitutions are vastly more malleable than the federal Constitution. Our federal Constitution has been amended only 27 times—the first 10 being immediately passed as the Bill of Rights—yet only 19 of the states still have their original constitutions. Most states have adopted three or more constitutions. In total, the states have held over 230 constitutional conventions, adopted 146 constitutions, and added over 5,000 amendments.

If this feels at all what the Republicans are proposing or the Libertarians before them, it is because all the power ideas are pretty much the same. Control the laws, control the agenda. Control the process of making laws, power to the people--who are holding it.

It is fair to say that left-leaning people like myself are looking for ideas that support life on this planet for people on this planet. Before I dismiss the above ideology completely, note they may be on to a fundamental problem of leanings--being less flexible about how we get stuff done. It is like the story of the middling anti-war protestor who replied to "What do we want?": Peace. "When want it?": "Now, but if that is not possible, tomorrow or the next day." We could stand to be a trifle more patient, I suppose. The other problem is methodology. It sure would be a whole lot easier for equity to occur if the Constitution were clearer about it. Sure, but you throw a party, you never are completely sure who will show up--and the best ideas don't always win--talking to you 2nd Amendment.

We may need to wade through more suckage before we find a way to manage to have policies that actually put people and planet first, Neo Pros are the latest in a line of hats we try on until we find one that fits.

Malls: It's Personal

 

For a third of my professional and pre-professional life, I worked in shopping malls. At one time, these gleaming mausoleums to the American Dream have dissipated into fortresses seemingly short-staffed guarding against the e-commerce hordes. This past weekend, my wife and I succumbed to cabin fever and we made the trek to one of the last-remaining-healthy-shopping-malls in our part of Iowa to shop for an area rug and some books. As a former retail worker, what we witnessed reminds me why I still have PSMSD (Post-shopping Mall Stress Disorder). Even stepping foot in a mall these days makes me anxious because of the noise and traffic.

In the so-called glory days of shopping malls, the huddled masses yearning to buy stuff were always a challenge. As a shoe store manager, I often would have to grin and bear it as an unhappy customer wanted a refund on a beaten up pair of sandals that clearly she'd gotten when she boarded the ark with Noah or being screamed at by a customer who was being inconvenienced by the line of customers that was ahead of him. Yes, the marketplace of America brought out the good, the bad, and the very ugly. And while I attribute a lot of the ugly to the idiot who said, "the customer is always right" (I recently learned it was credited to the Chicago retailer Marshall Field),  I also blame greedy and desperate people who both had their reasons for wanting to hoodwink store employees and/or outright steal from our companies. In fairness, these companies, in their ways, were complicit in creating the environment that brought "Black Friday" and lobbied to have states with "Blue Laws" open up for business on Sundays and eventually brought on the era of non-stop, 24/7 shopping.

However, these same malls served as places for teens to hang out, people to meet with or run into their friends and neighbors, even as places for persons with disabilities to be seen and older folks to get in some exercise. I remember a young man named Eddie who would spend his entire day at the mall because his mother was a cashier at Woolworth's. Eddie would push his wheelchair in reverse with his  one good leg through the mall and many of the regular customers came to know him by name and to be a friend to him and help him when he needed a hand. Sadly, when his mom got ill and died, Eddie's community shrunk as he became a ward of the state and stopped coming to the mall.

On this particular Saturday, we visited four different stores and experienced the following. Huge stores with various policies about masking. From Tuesday Morning that "Recommend Highly" the wearing of masks to Homestore that had no posted policy and was crowded with people in both masks and many more without. The Barnes and Noble bookstore had plenty of masked customers and masked employees, but the feel of the place was perhaps like a Marakesh outdoor market, kind of desperate and super-crowded. Many of the customers were typical Iowa folks some of whom were in town for a state-wide wrestling meet and others were likely local new Iowans who speak in Spanish, Arabic, Russian and other dialects I am not familiar with. Blending together in this retail soup are likely political extremes joined together in that most American of all pursuits--shopping and spending!

The commingling of adrenalized expectation and exercise of freedom was palpable in the pushing and shoving of people eying potential purchases that other people had a front-row seat to viewing first. The mass of cars and trucks in the parking lot (quite visible from the highway) indicated that this was a place to still be. The shopping mall as a destination may be on the ropes in many areas, but in the flyover zone, it is a reminder of a "simpler time" when you could meet at the mall and shop or hang or catch a flick or just walk--no matter who you were, you were a part of the melting pot grabbing at
the brass ring.*

*Unless you were a person of color and the store or mall security followed you around, like you were a criminal.

As my wife and I left the center with a purchase of three books and deflated expectations, we mourned what we had known as veterans of the retailing profession. We also realized that people are desperate, but not for connection with each other, so much as to possess more and more stuff. The one thing that has changed over the years is that malls are no longer "community centers" as they historically have been and are now solely transactional resource centers soon to be of a bygone era.

It is personal to me, that I spent many of my formative years in that environment. I learned a lot about helping people in distress through my work which I regularly use in my career today. I genuinely loved helping people, as a salesperson my paycheck depended on being as helpful as I could be, but also encouraging people to part with their money--I am not proud of that or the shortcuts that I and my fellow salespeople took to make our commissions. However, I was knowledgeable about what we sold and did much more good than profited from customers, many of whom I was quite friendly. Most of my understanding of people came from the wide swath of customers I assisted. If I am open-minded about most people, it is because I served them in my job. If I am critical of people, it is also because of what I observed. I used to think that every generation is better than the previous one because we know more. However, I think that either willful ignorance has taken over this generation or merely a lack of social skills and we will likely suffer mightily for it. 

Kris Kristofferson probably was right when he wrote "Freedom is just another word for nothing left to lose." More on point, freedom is just a word that people use to say "Fuck you/ya'll. I'm going to do what I want." It is hard to imagine a future for "united states" if that is the sentiment of its people. From me to you, we are losing it. Not our freedom but our ever-loving minds. No amount of shopping is going to fill the void of being an empty, self-centered society. Shopping malls may be thought of as a canary in a coal mine, a harbinger of things to come.

Lessons from January 6, 2021

 Yesterday,  a lot of people spent the day reflecting on the events that occurred on 1/6/21. But, what have we learned? One of the biggest takeaways has got to be that while the Republican party is still embracing the former president, they are also trying to rewrite history or, as in the case of my state's Senator Charles Grassley, are trying to move on from it by calling for unity. So, let me be clear, you can't be for both unity and anarchy unless you want us to unify for anarchy. We also have learned that Republicans were hellbent on gaming the voting system in 19 states toward their direction by adding no less than 34 new laws to the books to make it harder to vote in 2021. Believing that the best way to win is to eliminate pesky voters (and particularly those who usually vote against you), the Republicans are pre-stealing the vote so their supporters don't have to work so hard. What else have we learned? We've learned that Republicans are subjective in supporting the police. Police who are arresting BLM protestors in Portland and Seattle are good, but police who are arresting violent looters of the Capitol in DC are fine to pound into the dirt.

We have also learned that Trump and his minions are trying to control the narrative by backdating it to Election Day 2021, even though the evidence that there was voter fraud is less than threadbare (though in Florida at least 4 persons, all Republicans, were convicted of voter fraud by voting in two different states). Suffice to say that the idea is to make the case that the rage was justified because these "Patriots" were not being heard (although over 60 court cases filed suggest that their interests were well represented). These folks would like us to think that they are the real victims of a system intended to silence them. So the other thing we've learned is when a system that is working the way it was designed to work doesn't lead to the outcome you expect, the system is the problem, not you. If this lesson bears out, democracy has been lost to mob rule and that would be the hardest lesson to accept.

(Photo Credit: Associated Press 1/6/21)

Parents' Rights and School Shootings

According to Progressive Democrats of America,  "last week’s deadly shooting at Oxford High School in suburban Detroit was one of 222 school shooting incidents in 2021, an all-time high, according to the Center for Homeland Defense and Security’s K-12 School Shooting Database." The difference in this shooting versus many others is that the parents of the alleged shooter are being held jointly in connection with the murders of four students and seven injured. Maybe, it is as it should be. With school boards being loaded by parent activists who want more say over what their children learn and experience in school, perhaps it is time we also hold less active parents accountable for what their children do in America's schools.

 It may have escaped the notice of some liberals, but conservative right-wingers are using authoritarian messaging that sounds ever so wholesome but is really part of a power grab at all levels. Concerned parents who don't want to vaccinate or mask their children, but are okay if your kid gets sick; who don't want them exposed to Critical Race Theory or books that they deem to be thematically "pornographic" due to LGBTQ themes, but are all about allowing bullying to occur and are still mostly okay with their kids handling guns. Heck, the parents of the latest shooter apparently provided their son the gun as a holiday gift. It was only later they were surprised to learn that their son had taken the gun from an unsecured location within their home and brought it to school as a twisted "show and tell".

  If parent activists want to have a say over what their children learn at school then it is fair to expect that we have some say over what they learn at home. Parents should not have the ability to treat themselves like the gun manufacturers who have had laws adjusted to not hold them accountable when a gun is used as it is designed--to kill people. No, parents should absolutely be treated as either an accomplice or a co-conspirator when their child kills at school. No more of this child being tried as an adult, let the parents step in there and man up. 

It seems that since Congress is not doing much to stop the killing, it will rely on main street moms and dads to be responsible for the 220+ school shootings that happened this year and who knows how many next year. If we lock up enough parents who are lax with their children about guns, maybe there will be fewer children shooting up schools. I mean, like Republican Iowa Senate leader Jake Chapman said, "someone has to protect the children."

With Liberty, But Not Justice For All

 Should your pursuit of liberty be an existential threat to my pursuit of life? To hear Republicans and others tell it, yes, absolutely. If I don't want to vaccinate myself against a viral disease that has killed millions around the world and significantly compromised the health of millions more, I don't have to. Nor do I have to tell anyone and no one can prevent me from doing my work,, at least according to some courts. The Constitution allows me to do this. But, does the Constitution guarantee this in all cases? Well, I guess we'll wait and see. 

Protecting the rights of the minority has long been a way to ensure that the majority does not stifle their voices, however in the case of war and other life-threatening situations such as natural disasters or crying "fire" in a crowded theater there are limits. Certainly in the past when epidemics have broken out, this has been a bone of contention. So when exactly does the public good supersede the individual's rights? Apparently, the answer has been: it depends.

In many ways, this is a challenge. Fundamentally, I believe most of us value our freedom of choice, and life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness are as ingrained as part of American culture. But when we are talking about how our actions impact others, can this attempt at rationalizing our heritage for our selfish act truly be just? We have successfully stopped smokers from smoking everywhere and chemical plants and cars from belching toxins without regard, but the idea of reducing the national risk of a devastating global pandemic is a line that can't be crossed?

So let's consider the exceptions first. I won't do this for religious reasons. Well, major religious leaders are calling on their memberships to be vaccinated except for health reasons. Typically those religions that do not "believe" in vaccines are relatively small in number. But, what of those "unaffiliated" religious people or those who use religion as a reason why they don't do anything they don't want to do? To them, I simply ask, what would your God want you to do?

And what of those for whom vaccination is dangerous to their health because of pre-existing medical conditions? To them, I say get a medical exemption and then think about how you keep yourself and others safe as you could be or become a carrier, even if you don't contract it yourself. How are you going to keep your family or people you care about well? Use your freedom to figure that out.

However, to the greatest number of people who are not vaccinated, who'll I'll categorize as the stubborn, the arrogant, and the patently misinformed, I ask, are you that nihilistic or sociopathic? I refer to the kind of people who won't evacuate during a hurricane because they'd rather ride it out (remember those rooftop evacuations during Hurricane Katrina?). They are the people who think the government is trying to control them (e.g., microchips tracking, vaccines actually giving them the disease) and treat Facebook "expert" posts as the gospel while warnings from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention fall on deaf ears. These are the same people who also don't want to or won't wear a mask or do other things that mitigate against COVID-19 and its variants. These are those who gleefully point out that vaccinated people have gotten sick, never taking into account the difference between illness and death--the lion's share of which has happened mostly to the unvaccinated. If this number were 1% or even 10% of the country, chances are they wouldn't matter so much, but because their numbers, while a subset, are so large (about 40% according to the CDC), they are not ignorable.

From a societal perspective, you can argue perhaps it is good that there is all of this controversy surrounding vaccination because it does attach itself to what democracy is supposed to be about, that is the people deciding their course of self-rule. And that is the missing ingredient in the discourse--self-rule as a nation. Through our representatives, we make laws all the time that dictate what color paint you can use in a gated community or what side of the street we can park on, or even what your variable tax rate will be scaled at. We trust regulators to keep us from getting sick from the milk we drink to issuing warning labels on plastic bags so our kids are not accidentally suffocated. We do this because democratic rule is not the same thing as anarchy or libertarianism, it is a series of debated concessions we make so that we all can experience the closest thing to life, liberty, and justice for all. Because it is an ideal and not a fact, democracy is a process, not a status quo. 

Democracy is a governance that is built on justice. Justice is an important facet of liberty. Justice insists that everybody gets a fair shake at a decent life. Justice needs to be supported by not giving in to the whims of people who regard their lives as more or less disposable than others. We don't have to understand everybody's motivations to know that life is valuable and that conceding some of our autonomy to serve that end is a tradeoff for our freedom. If we really believe that justice for all is guaranteed by the Constitution, we have to willingly sacrifice a small amount of freedom so we can all have a better shot at life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.