Actually Yes, Your Vote Does Matter

It seems like you only have to defend voting from the pernicious attacks of statistical improbability in early democratizing countries like America.  Ask anyone in a new democracy if voting matters and you won't find the same apathetic disinterest that you find here.  On the eve of a midterm election here in America, where voting is usually dismal even when compared to the relatively modest turnout levels of Presidential elections, it seems especially important to defend the most fundamental component of our democracy.

There is a well known paradox within the Political Science literature that questions the efficacy of voting.  I thought I was going to have to explain this argument in my post but, as it turns out, I woke up and found an article by Steven E. Landsburg of Slate.com that perfectly summarizes its main point.  This argument comes from the rational choice school of thought that seeks to scrutinize every individual's decision with a personal cost-benefit analysis.  In this particular case the cost (that is, the time and energy needed to go to the polls to vote and to educate yourself so you make an informed decision) is always outweighed by the benefit (that is the likelihood that your individual vote will be the decisive one).  Since very few, if any, major elections are decided by a single vote, your vote doesn't matter and you might as well stay home (or go to work) on election day.  As Landburg puts it, "Instead of waiting in line to vote, you could wait in line to buy a lottery ticket, hoping to win $100 million and use it to advance your causes - and all with an almost indescribably greater chance of success than you'd have in the voting booth."

Is he right? Is voting obsolete?  Not even this argument would make such a bold statement.  He points to the 2000 election in Florida where the official count gave Bush a 537 vote win and, in turn, a victory in the Electoral College and the Presidency.  This argument is not that voting itself is irrelevant, it is that a single vote is irrelevant.  If one more person showed up in this election (an managed to vote properly and have it counted properly, a big if indeed) then the total would have been either 536 or 538 vote margin for Bush, which would not have changed the outcome.  So why vote?  There is something sinister going on with this argument.

Any high school dropout could tell you that the odds that a single vote would be decisive in a critical election with a large voting population is slim to nil.  When someone presents me with this argument I always respond by asking them to imagine a hypothetical scenario, let me lay it out for you now.  Imagine that you live in a state where electoral law forbids candidates from identifying themselves by party on the ballot.  Imagine further that they only use the first letter of the first name plus the last name of the candidate so that you are't biased by gender preferences (something we might like to consider).  Now lets assume that you have no information heading into the polling booth and you are presented with two candidates, J. Anderson and K. Anderson, and the only information you are given is that they are both small business owners.  You have no information to decide which candidate shares your interests and no criteria to decide who you should vote for.  Should you vote?  Many people would say that you should abstain but I believe that the answer is a definite yes.  You absolutely should vote and the reason why goes a long way toward explaining why you should also vote even knowing that a single vote never matters.

Are you a woman? Are you a young  voter? Are you middle class? Do you believe in God? If so, do you attend church regularly, which congregation? Do you have a college degree? Are you or were you ever in the military? Do you have any kids? Are you married, divorced, single, widowed? Do you have a car or do you use public transportation? Did you go to public school or private school?  There are a million questions I can ask you here and to each of them you have a definite response.  All of these questions and more define who you are, and many of them are shared with others like you.  There is nobody exactly like you but there are many people who share some of these characteristics.  When the polls close on election night the real magic happens.  Statisticians begin to work out the answer to a very critical question, who votes?  They break the answer down along all of these dimensions and they figure out who helped get candidate "X" elected.  If your group, people who share certain parts of your identity, votes in large numbers it is more likely that the politician will prioritize issues that are important to that group.  Far more likely is that your group does not vote and you will be ignored on the legislative agenda.  If you ask why insurance providers cover Viagra but not birth control the answer is that old people vote and young people don't.  Your vote doesn't matter, but your identity does.  Even in the hypothetical example I detailed above you should vote, its 50-50 that you will actually vote for the candidate that actually supports your interests better, but its 100% certain that they will recognize that a young, single, African American woman, with a child and no college degree showed up to vote.

Let's get back on track here.  Landburg is talking about single votes not whether whole groups decide to show up on election day or not.  The problem is that his argument is more convincing for certain groups, even if they haven't heard it laid out so starkly.  Young people, poor people, and minorities are far more likely to buy into this argument.  This fact systematically biases the electoral outcome because whole demographics are purposefully abstaining from voting.  Let me offer one last example to help prove my point.  Hispanics are far less partisan than African Americans who overwhelmingly vote Democratic.  Hispanics lean Democratic but not to the same extent as African Americans.  Let us imagine a Senatorial election in Texas where Hispanics split 50-50 between the Democrats and the Republicans.  If this is the case then it would make no difference whether 10% or 90% of Hispanics turned out right?  Wrong.  Hispanics might be split between the two parties because each voter is pressed with a variety of issues that they deem important and some give more weight to one over another.  Here you can be sure that if 90% of Hispanics showed up to vote in Texas that whoever was elected, Democrat of Republican, would prioritize any issue that united the Hispanic voting bloc and might influence future elections.  This incumbent, from either party, would be far more likely to push for and support comprehensive immigration reform because they know that their future electoral success would be dependent on the support of the Hispanic community.  Votes have consequences that extend far beyond the specific election in which the ballot is cast.  They help set the agenda, they influence voting behavior, and they tell politicians that you are paying attention and are willing to hold them accountable if they don't press your interests when they are in power.  So yes, your vote does matter, even though you will never cast the deciding vote.

Defending the Electoral College?!?

Let's face it, the Electoral College is ridiculous.  For those who don't know what I'm talking about (i.e. foreign readers) it is the actual election that determines the President of the United States.  Every four years Americans across the country show up in mediocre numbers to cast a meaningless ballot for one of two pre-selected candidates (technically there are usually more than two people on the ballot).  Each of the 50 states in the union get to determine the specific rules for how and when and (to an unreasonably large extent) who gets to vote.  Then they count the ballots and whoever gets the most votes receives all of the Electoral College votes from that state (with two exceptions).  This winner-take-all system means that a candidate who wins by even a single vote or even a few hundred (out of potentially millions) gets all of the votes from that state.  

Votes from that state? This might seem odd to anyone not already familiar with this archaic system.  Instead of counting all the votes across the country and giving the election to whomever receives the most, we allocate a certain amount of Electoral College votes to each state who then select delegates to vote on behalf of the citizens of their state.  The worst part is that it isn't really proportional to the number of people in each state, it is determined by the number of representatives from each state in both the House of Representatives (lower chamber) and Senate (upper chamber).  The members of the House are roughly proportional to the population but this number is skewed since each state (regardless of population) receives 2 representatives in the Senate.  This means that the distribution of political power is skewed towards the least populous states and away from the most populous.  For example, Wyoming receives 3 Electoral College votes for their roughly 582,000 residents while California receives 55 votes for a population of 38.33 million.  That means that it takes less than 200,000 people to received an electoral vote in Wyoming but almost 700,000 voters in California to receive an electoral vote.  Clearly, the power of the Wyoming voter is enhanced related to that of California.

Anyone unfamiliar with this system will find what I just wrote surprising and confusing.  To be honest, I had a hard time even trying to explain the system in words.  I'm not sure I would really defend this system if given the opportunity to change it.  Nevertheless I tried to make just such a case in a response paper I wrote on Sanford Levinson's Our Undemocratic Constitution: Where the Constitution Goes Wrong (And How We the People Can Correct It).  I have attached the brief portion of the paper where I discuss the Electoral College system.  I have developed the idea further elsewhere, (and I am not the only one who has made a similar argument) but this brief snippet can clearly express the gist of the argument.  Are you convinced?

"Switching to a popular vote for President would advantage dense urban areas, especially in populous states, over rural low population states.  In a popular vote election for president would any candidate ever fly to campaign in Wyoming or Iowa or would they merely fly from Los Angeles to New York with brief stops in Chicago or Dallas or some other large city?  The real question we should ask about the Electoral College is whether the “important” voters in that system are more representative of the diversity of the country than the “important” voters in a direct election.  In a direct election only urban residents in densely populated cities are “important” while the Electoral College system gives importance to every citizen in swing states.  Even if we hypothesize an election determined solely by the voters of say Ohio, they might be somewhat reasonably representative.  Because so much is riding on every vote in Ohio, every citizen, young and old, rich and poor, urban and rural, male and female of every race and heritage and all religions as well.  So much is riding on so few votes that not even a single vote can be abandoned, but preference will be given to larger groups.  Voters in California and every other state might be abandoned, but rural voters in California might be better represented by this system than even a popular election. "

The argument stresses that the Electoral College encourages presidential candidates  to tend to the concerns of a greater variety of Americans.  It might not be fair, per se, but it might be more representative.  Any thoughts, comment below.

Where to Put the Children?

Niraj Chokshi of the Washington Post ran a story about the position of a variety of State Governors on housing some of the immigrant children flooding into the country.  I'd like to respond to the comments attributed to these Governors, but first a little background is in order.

By now you are probably aware that there is a humanitarian crisis at the border as tens of thousands of Central American children and mothers are entering the United States.  It is estimated that 59,000 children from Central America will cross the border during fiscal year 2014.  The fact that these are children from Central America (Primarily Honduras, Guatemala and El Salvador) does matter, the Homeland Security Act of 2002 and the Trafficking Victims Protection Reauthorization Act in 2008 (Both signed by President Bush) makes it so that Mexican children can immediately be turned around and deported but children from elsewhere have to go through immigration proceeding and are not immediately deported.

The political aspect of this sudden surge in child migrants is bitterly caustic.  Democrats are saying this is happening because of the dangers of living in these Central American countries while Republicans are blaming Obama's "amnesty" through Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA).  Trying to sort out the root cause of this problem is beyond the scope of this article, though I hope to write about that soon.  I should point out, though, that perhaps the most compelling argument about the cause of this crisis comes from Honduran President Juan Hernandez who blames this problem on America's War on Drugs.  Regardless of the cause, however, there is an urgent need to come to some sort of resolution about how to handle the crisis.

Most of these immigrants have been crossing the border in Texas and have overwhelmed the facilities that are intended to handle these migrants.  There have been legitimate concerns about the conditions these children are being housed in and this has led many of them to be led out of Texas to other parts of the country.  This has given anti-immigration activists an opportunity to rally and protests and generally cause problems around the country.  The first story I heard along these lines came out of Murrieta California.  As someone who lives just minutes from that sleepy town you can imagine how this piqued my curiosity.   Two questions immediately came to mind: 1) How can a nation of immigrants act with such disgusting vulgarity towards children, and 2) Where are we going to put these children and who is going to take care of them?

This leads me back to Chokshi's article in the Washington Post.  The article offers little in the way of hope for a compassionate response to this crisis and a great deal of fear that these children will be used as pawns in the political bickering rampant across this country.  Let's look through the comments.

Democratic Governors Peter Shumlin of Vermont and Deval Patrick of Massachusetts both said that they are looking into options for housing some of these children.  Only time will tell if they made an earnest search and were willing to help in this time of great need.

The case in Maryland could be one of the more interesting ones.  Democratic Governor Martin O'Malley (a potential 2016 candidate) warned the Obama administration that sending the children home could have terrible consequences and could be dangerous for the children.  Then resisted a proposed Westminster location for housing some of the migrant children claiming that "it might not be the most inviting environment for the kids."  The experience in Murrieta suggests that he may indeed be right, but it certainly reeks of NIMBYism.  I would suggest that O'Malley is feeling a great deal of pressure to find a more hospitable location ASAP.  If he doesn't accept any of these children he will be seen as feckless and irresponsible.

All the blame can't be cast on O'Malley alone (though I think he sort of brought this on himself).  Democratic Governors in Delaware and Connecticut weren't much help either.  Kack Markell of Delaware claimed the state had no suitable facility while leaving the door open to private organizations to help.  Dan Malloy of Connecticut denied a federal request for a particular site claiming it was too old and decrepit.  Malloy suggested this highlights the need for Congress to act on Comprehensive Immigration Reform and to pass the President's Emergency Supplemental Funding Request.  This sentiment was echoed by John Hickenlooper, Democratic Governor of Colorado, who said there were limited resources for dealing with this problem.

I will admit to being disheartened by the fact that all six Democratic Governors quoted in this article appear to be, at best, completely useless in helping this dire humanitarian crisis.  While I am dismayed by this lack of concerted response, I am outraged by some of the responses from the Republican Governors.  Let's start with the least caustic and work our way down.

Republican Governors Brian Sandoval of Nevada and Scott Walker of Wisconsin make a similar argument, both to each other and to some of their Democratic counterparts.  Essentially, they claim that this is a federal issue and that it shouldn't be up to the states to cover the costs of this problem.  I actually believe this to be a true statement, the terrible irony is that the money that the federal government is looking for to pay for this problem is being blocked by members of their own party.  So we are left with Republican (and Democrat) governors who say that the federal government needs to pay, while republican members of congress balk at appropriating the necessary funding.  This, of course, hurts the Republican state of Texas where Republican Governor Rick Perry ought to be livid.  Instead he took some time to go have a photo shoot with Sean Hannity at the border with a giant gun.  I don't think I'll ever understand these people.  I should note, this isn't a critique of Sandoval or Walker, they are correct in pointing out the federal governments obligations, it is merely a demonstration of a lack of coherency and communication within the Republican party.

Okay, here is where it starts to get bad.  I think I need to stop paraphrasing and move on to direct quotes.  Republican Iowa Governor Terry Branstad is quoted as saying "The first thing we need to do is secure the border" and "I also don't want to send the signal that [you] send your kids to America illegally.  That's not the right message."  First, the children who are coming into this country illegally are not sneaking in across an insecure or porous border.  They are walking across and putting their hands up waving to border agents trying to be flagged down.  They have been told that they will be safe when they get to America and they will be taken care of and allowed to stay.  It is entirely disingenuous to claim that this is happening because of an insecure border.  Besides, how can that be Branstad's "first" priority.  Shouldn't our first priority be to ensure that the children and safe and fed?  Moving on to the messaging bit, we should be clear that we are talking about where we are going to host these children within the United States not where are we going to host them in the world.  It is totally ridiculous to argue that having the children housed in Iowa as opposed to New York or South Dakota or even still in Texas is going to send ANY message to the central american families.  The only way that idea would work is if EVERY state refused to take the migrant children, but that would violate the law passed with broad bipartisan support and signed into law by President Bush.  We have not only a moral obligation but a legal obligation as well.

I feel compelled to point this out as well.  At the protest in Murrieta many of the protesters argued for immediate deportation.  This appears to be the argument that Branstad is making, that the best way to deal with this situation is to violate the law and immediately send the children back.  I just can't help but laugh at the irony that this is exactly the same thing that Republicans are suing the president over right now.  They wanted to delay (and repeal) the Affordable Care Act and after Obama did that, they sued him for failing to follow the letter of the law and essentially for crafting his own laws.  Now they are doing this again, "Please Mr. President ignore the dutifully passed laws of our nation and deport these children immediately so that we don't have to deal with them… Then if you do we'll sue you for overreaching on presidential authority."

Last but certainly not least is Republican Governor of Oklahoma Mary Fallin.  She is quoted as saying "Many of our public schools are already at capacity and need additional funding…Our healthcare system is strained as it is.  Now, instead of allowing us to address those needs for Oklahomans, President Obama is forcing us to add an unspecified number of illegal immigrants to our public education and public health systems."  I already covered the cost aspect of this problem above so I'll ignore that here.  What is amazing about this comment is that there is no plan for what to do about the migrant children.  Does she want to deport them?  Does she want any state but Oklahoma to have to take them?  There is clearly no plan here, it is pure and simple "not my children not my problem."  Even this total disregard for the problem is not the worst part of this statement, it is the idea that Obama has been too focused on the immigration crisis to deal with the problems of "real" Americans.  This coming from the lady who refuses to accept Federal money to insure over 200,000 Oklahoman adults through medicaid expansion.  The gall to claim that a strained healthcare system is the cause to not provide care for children when she is personally responsible for refusing federal funding to insure her most vulnerable constituents is incomprehensible.  This logic is beyond reason and beyond further comment.

Blaming Environmentalists for CA Drought Costs?

I almost let this article slide by without comment, but I just couldn't do it.  This opinion piece in the Wall Street Journal makes an argument that environmentalists are to be blamed for some of the consequences for the ongoing drought in California.  As a Californian myself I can tell you that it is certainly a serious problem.  Not only can I not even remember the last time it rained out here, it has also been blisteringly hot.  Without any water we can't do any farming; this is not just bad for Californians its bad for everyone.

Allysia Finley who wrote the piece claims that half a million acres of farmland have been left fallow, that fruit and vegetable prices will rise by 5-6% and that "the average American family will spend about $500 more on food this year" from the drought in California.  This concern is legitimate, especially since rising food costs hit low-income American's hardest.  Couple that with the economic impact it will have on farming communities and indeed the whole state economy in California and we are certainly going to suffer some real consequences.  These problems don't particularly seem to concern Allysia though, she only seems particularly concerned with the actions of environmentalists.

She is all riled up about the fact that the state "flushed" about 1,250,000 acre-feet of water into the San Francisco Bay since last winter.  This outrage is logical since that amount of water would have been sufficient to irrigate more than all the fallowed farmland this year.  Why would the state dump all this precious water into the bay?  To save the delta Smelt, a three inch fish that humans don't even eat.  Can you believe this outrage! Let's blame the environmentalists for trying to protect this endangered fish!  Nevermind that this fish is a critical component of an ecosystem that needs protecting and which humans benefit.  There is no need to concern ourselves with an endangered fish when there is a shortage of water for agriculture, how dare they save the fish!

I'm only being modestly hyperbolic of her rhetoric, she called the decision "insane water rationing" and said "Californians already pay dearly for their government's green sanctimony… Maybe the feds have decided that the rest of the country should pay their fair share, too."  To be honest, that would actually be pretty nice.  Since environmental degradation is a collective action dilemma we should all have to share in the burden of resolving this very real and very serious problem.  That is, however, beside the point.  The point I wish to make is far simpler than that, you ready?  Okay, here we go.

There are much simpler, more economical, and longer lasting solution than letting this critical fish species become extinct.

Unbelievable right? With just 10 minutes on the internet I found a better solution that, having not been implemented, makes for actual justifiable anger.  Having been raised in Southern California I was taught that this land is actually a desert (or semi-desert).  Yet if you drive around here you would never know it, the cities are green as far as the eye can see.  Admittedly it does make for a more beautiful area, but at what cost?  My ire is particularly profound when I drive around and see the sea of green lawns in front of every house for as far as the eye can see.  This got me thinking, how much water do we waste on watering the most useless plant we could grow?  It turns out that that information is not particularly difficult to infer.

California residents actually use only about 10% of the state's water, most goes to the 29 million acres of agriculture with the remaining 5-10% going to industry.  Let's just focus on that 10% that households use.  Studies indicate that more than half of that water is used for landscaping and other outdoor uses (there isn't a specific breakdown for lawns).  This means that of the 8,700,000 acre-feet of water used for residential property about 4,611,000 acre-feet is used outdoors (53%).  Keep in mind that the total amount of water used to save the endangered fish was 1,245,000 acre-feet.  That means that the amount of water that was "dumped" with the "insane water rationing" was only 27% of what California residents spend on landscaping.  If we cut the amount of water we used in just this one area by 1/3 there would be more than enough for the smelt.

If Allysia felt the need to be mad at someone for the rising food costs she could point the finger at all Californians.  Collectively we have been able to conserve a whopping 5% statewide.  Honestly, if you drive around Southern California you wouldn't even know it was a drought.  The sprinklers still spray daily, often overshooting the lawns and dumping tons of water down the drain, or running during the heat of the day when the water isn't even able to be observed by the ground.  So what can you do?  Well environmentalists have long argued for Xeriscaping (landscaping that doesn't require additional water than what is natural).  Beyond that most Southern California residents can get virtually free artificial turf, just having to pay the taxes while the state covers the cost of the turf.  The best part about these solutions… they are permanent.  Sadly, droughts in our great state are only going to become more common and worse as time goes on.  If only we had listened to the environmentalists sooner, some of this damage could (and should) have been mitigated.

Keep in mind that environmentalists are the one group of people who have actually expressed earnest concern for the environment and for resource conservation.  Forgive me, but blaming environmentalists when there is a shortage of any resource is not a particularly thoughtful argument.  It would be nice if there was a genuine concern for climate change rather than finger pointing at the one group of people actively combating it.  Let's leave the politically motivated opinion pieces by the wayside and get to work.

Arguing for Marijuana Legalization? You're Doing it Wrong

All In with Chris Hayes did a segment on the "War on Weed" yesterday that really just drove me crazy.    Let me briefly recap before I tear the whole thing apart.  It started with Lee Fang, an author from The Nation who wrote a piece about the reason Marijuana is still illegal.  He points out that Big Pharma spends a bunch of money advocating against legalization because it would cut into their bottom line, this, it should be noted, is also true for the alcohol and tobacco industries and even for illegal marijuana growers, all of whom would suffer financially from legal marijuana.  That is all simple enough to understand (though certainly newsworthy) so let's move on.  He then brings on former Democratic Congressman Patrick Kennedy who now runs what amounts to a "Drugs are bad" type of a group that opposes legalization.  There is not even one single point he makes that I can accept without comment or refutation so I'll have to come back to that whole bit.  Finally he has the neuroscientist Carl Hart who fills the role of legalization advocate.  He was seemingly dismayed by the lack of opportunity to offer any meaningful response to the former Congressman's laundry list of factual inaccuracies (though I must say that the few precious moment he did have were mostly squandered).  I believe there is an appropriate way to make a marijuana legalization argument yet most proponents choose to make the wrong argument.  I'll come to that but first let me dispel with all the nonsense that Patrick Kennedy was spewing against legalization.

1)  He said that medical marijuana was a "trojan horse for legalization"

To a limited extent that is true. The groups that have pushed for medical marijuana are frequently the same groups that push for recreational marijuana.  It is also true that many of the people that have been prescribed medical marijuana might not be considered "legitimate" patients.  Still, I find this argument completely unpalatable.  I don't know that you could find very many people willing to make that same argument to a patient suffering from Glaucoma, Multiple Sclerosis, AIDS wasting or someone undergoing chemotherapy for cancer.  For many of these people Marijuana is not only the best medication for the ailments they are suffering but the only effective medication for their "legitimate" and serious suffering.  

Let's put this another way.  I hate stairs, for years I have told anyone who would listen that I prefer to walk up an inclined plane than to walk up stairs.  When presented with a choice I will usually avoid stairs even if it means a somewhat longer or more time consuming route.  This means that I will frequently walk up or down a wheelchair accessible ramp rather than take the stairs.  Over time I have noticed that I am far from the only one who makes this similar choice.  In fact, my experience tells me that there are far more able bodied individuals who use wheelchair ramps than those for whom it was built.  The logic of Kennedy's argument seems to suggest that we don't need wheelchair ramps if most of the people that use them could walk up stairs.  This, of course, is not what he was saying but is a natural conclusion to draw from a similar logic.  The point is that even if we grant that most of the people that are medical marijuana patients are "illegitimate" (a conclusion we should be hesitant to make) that is not a good reason to keep those who truly need the medicine from it.

2) He then said that we would be adding on to the burden of addiction by legalizing another drug, evidenced by the claim that Opioid addiction has been fueled by "availability and accessibility."

First, I would like to note that there is an important distinction to make between drug use and drug addiction.  Drug use comes from the potential for intoxication (getting high) and is aided by availability and accessibility.  Drug addiction comes from specific physical reactions to certain drugs through withdrawal, reinforcement, tolerance and dependence.  Having cheap and accessible marijuana certainly wouldn't help with the number of addicts but it has to be coupled with these other factors.  Evidence shows that very few people who ever try marijuana become addicted (were talking low single digits or about 4% depending one which study you consult).  So, when Kennedy says that opioid addiction has been fueled by availability and accessibility he isn't wrong, but the key word there is fueled.  Trying to make the same conclusion for marijuana is quite obviously a false equivalency.  The reason is that, unlike opioids, marijuana is not particularly addictive (see table above).  

To his credit, Kennedy does acknowledge that marijuana is already widely available in spite of decades of prohibition.  The problem with legalization, as he argues, is that there would then be for profit companies who would be marketing marijuana to young adults and teens (though i'm sure that would be regulated) targeting vulnerable populations and turning them into addicts.  Again, we need to realize that this isn't a terribly addictive product.  To make a regular marijuana consumer you don't just have to get them to try it, you need them to like it.  To summarize, the only gains that have been made in reducing marijuana use through prohibition is the small subset of the population that is unwilling to try it simply because of its illegality AND who otherwise would have liked it and continued to use beyond a brief experimental phase.  The same could not be said for tobacco or opioids which are actually addictive and need only be tried briefly to hook and individual for life.

3)  Tied into this last point is an argument that we would be sending the wrong message to our kids.  He said that kids would think it's no big deal, like grabbing a bottle of booze from the cupboard.

I have to say, this is one of my favorite arguments to destroy.  Any rational adult knows that it is actually better (were it not for legal consequences) for their kids to experiment with marijuana over alcohol.  Even our sitting president acknowledged this fact.  But, as a marijuana legalization advocate I don't like to play the "look at legal things worse than pot" game.  The fact is trying to have prohibition for popular drugs is always foolish public policy.  Alcohol prohibition was bad, marijuana prohibition is bad, and tobacco prohibition would be bad.  My hope is that even people who are against all these vices will see that the best solution lies with education rather than prohibition.  

Starting about 5 years ago we had a major shift in high school drug use patterns.  For the first time ever recorded there were more graduating seniors who had tried marijuana over cigarettes.  The fact that this happened mostly because of decreased tobacco use rather than increased marijuana use is a major public health victory.  Looking at the chart above we can draw 2 conclusions: 1- Tobacco use has gone down even though it is still legal, and 2- Marijuana use has stayed steady.  The truth is that I don't believe we can replicate the success of tobacco reductions with marijuana.  The problem is that there is no major scare factor, an education campaign will be hard to mount around relatively minor long term risks associated with marijuana use.  Still this would be better than obvious lies we present with abstinence only drug education.  When adults are hyperbolic about the dangers of marijuana use they lose all credibility.  Teenagers are capable of seeing straight through the lies and turn, instead, to the internet to find out the "truth" about marijuana.  This is potentially dangerous because of the potential for misinformation about the actual risks of use.  For example, there is a legitimate concern about high concentrate edibles with marijuana; people have been known to take to much which can lead to problems.  But if we are dishonest with our drug education, why would they believe us when we try to explain the actual dangers?  

Kids are bright enough to get that just because something is legal does not mean that it is safe, especially when taken to extremes.  They appear to be getting this message with tobacco.  They are starting to realize (I hope) that it is legal to eat fast food all three meals everyday, but you'll end up dying of cardiac arrest in your 40's (if you're lucky).  If we want our kids to believe us when we tell them about the danger and warning signs of tolerance and withdrawal, we have to cut out the "reefer madness."

4) Tobacco, alcohol and marijuana are "gateway drugs."

I almost can't believe we are still talking about this.  If I was Carl Hart I would have used my precious few moments on air to debunk this tired myth once and for all.  PLEASE can't we finally put this to rest.  Kennedy said that the "real" gateway drugs are tobacco and alcohol (i.e legal drugs) which leads kids to marijuana before they get tired of this and move on to harder drugs.  I would like to state this as clearly as possible, there is NO SUCH THING AS A GATEWAY DRUG!  It simply does not exist, not tobacco, not alcohol, and not marijuana.  

Here is essentially how the gateway theory developed.  If you filled a stadium with people who were heroin addicts (Kennedy chose Heroin so I'll stick with that) and polled them on whether they had tried marijuana before heroin you would find that virtually everyone would honestly say that they had.  Presto! Gateway theory is proven, right? Wrong!  My favorite rebuttal to this (though not sure who deserves proper attribution) is to ask the same stadium of people how many of them had tried milk before heroin.  Again you would find that it was pretty much everyone (or actually everyone if you count breast milk), does that make milk a gateway drug?  Of course it doesn't, that would be ridiculous. The appropriate way to test for the gateway theory would be to fill the stadium with marijuana users and to ask them how many had moved on to try heroin.  If you did that you would find that almost none did, in fact, it would be about the same percentage as those who used heroin from the regular population.  Marijuana doesn't cause heroine addiction, it doesn't lead to it, there is no gateway.  But, if you were going to become a heroine addict, you are most likely going to have gone through a plethora of other drugs before you tried shooting up, including tobacco, alcohol and marijuana.  

Let's recap.  1) There are at least some medical marijuana patients who are unquestionably "legitimate" and for whom safe and legal access is a necessity, regardless of abuses of the system. 2) Legalization of marijuana will lead to a modest rise in marijuana users in the short term before once again plateauing.  Marijuana is not particularly addictive and there is no rational grounds to assume that "big marijuana" could turn a whole generation into deadbeat stoners. 3) It is better to be honest with our children about the actual  dangers of marijuana use than it is to send hyperbolic scare messages.  Tobacco education has been more effective than marijuana prohibition. and finally 4) THERE IS NO SUCH THING AS A GATEWAY DRUG!  Instead of lying to kids our politicians and other leaders have been lying to adults, the only difference is that it is actually working.  It appears that we are more gullible than our children.

Okay, with that now out of the way I want to spend a little time talking about the correct and incorrect way to advocate for marijuana legalization.  There are two main approaches to advocating for sensible drug policy, neither of which I am a fan of.  

1) Talking about money

It is true that we spend insane amounts of money maintaining marijuana prohibition and have very little to show for it.  It is also true that we are foregoing insane amounts of money by not taxing marijuana sales in a well regulated market.  The problem with money is that you completely miss the moral argument.  For some reason, money is no concern when it comes to saving even just one child (that is unless we're talking about a latino child from some Central American country fleeing the most horrific violence imaginable).  I have written about how legalization advocates can't just flash dollar signs but have to win the morality argument before.  This still holds true today.  What seems strange to me is that we can win the morality argument.  Whenever someone asks you to think about the message we are sending to the kids ask them about the kids of the non-violent drug users who have been sent to jail for decades, had their assets confiscated, had their student loans rescinded, can no longer support their families, and have been marked forever as felons.  Ask them about entire communities that have been devastated, about whole demographics who have been systematically biased and who were born with dramatically fewer options and opportunities.  How's that for morality?

2) Comparing marijuana to tobacco, alcohol and pharmaceuticals

This one is tempting as seen by the failed effort on Chris Hayes' show last night.  Advocates like to point out that marijuana is safer than any of these legal substances but by making this connection you are inviting all of the problems associated with tobacco, alcohol and pharmaceuticals into the marijuana legalization debate.  Frequent responses include noting that the revenue generated from alcohol taxes doesn't come close to matching the costs associated with alcohol use. That legal drugs are more popular than marijuana and we would essentially be doubling down.  That there would then be corporate incentives to encourage marijuana addiction.  That legal drugs are actually more gateway drugs, etc.  Each of these arguments can easily be refuted, but before you know it you are now talking about other drugs and not marijuana.

So, what is the correct approach to advocating marijuana legalization?  We need to argue that marijuana is actually good.  Not just that it is better than the alternative nor that it isn't worth the cost we have spent but that it is actually good.  We need to argue that all those medical marijuana patients that appear illegitimate are actually legitimate.  We need to argue that marijuana isn't only better than alcohol but better than aspirin.  We need to show that moderate consumption can go a long way to calming the anxious and stressed American population with relatively modest side effects.  We need to show that marijuana is better than sleeping pills, pain pills, and recreational drug use.  We need to argue that the Federal coffers and not the foreign cartels should be profiting of it's distribution.  We need to eradicate non-violent addicts from our prisons and we need to invest in our inner cities.  We need to win the moral argument.  Marijuana is not just "not that bad" rather, "marijuana is good."

*I should note that I don't believe marijuana is for everyone, but I believe that most people are capable of making that decision for themselves (at least with the aid of a doctor).  Certainly we can agree that there is no logical purpose in incarcerating non-violent offenders.

Whats your addiction?

Let's try a word association; If I say "Addiction" what is the first thing that comes to mind?  I'm guessing there are lots of different kinds of drugs.  Cigarettes, alcohol, heroine, cocaine, meth, crack, acid, ecstasy, PCP, caffeine, marijuana, salvia, ketamine, peyote, steroids, inhalants, bath salts, barbiturates, benzodiazepines etc. If you are suburban middle class you might have though of different kinds of drugs: Amytal, Phenobarbital, Valium, Xanax, Ambien, Lunesta, Zoloft, Codeine, Robitussin, Roxanol, Methadose, Sublimaze, Oxycontin, Percocet, Darvocet, Demerol, Dexedrine, Adderall, Ritalin, Vicodin, Soma, Ativan, Fentora, Klonopin, Suboxone, and on and on.  Okay,  but the question I posed in the title is about your specific addiction, and you don't abuse drugs, does that mean you're off the hook? Hardly.

Scholars and scientists recognize many different types of addiction beyond mere substance abuse.  How  about gambling for instance?  There are other rather disturbing addictions, Kleptomania (compulsive stealing) and pyromania (compulsive fire setting) come to mind.  But what about self abuse like cutting yourself, pulling out your hair, popping your pimples, biting your nails, etc.  You might be addicted to sex, shopping, pornography, video games, exercising, or even pain seeking.  Virtually everything that Americans eat is addictive: soda, cheese, fat, salt, sugar, and certainly for me at least, goldfish crackers.

Our addiction to the internet is almost unbelievable there is Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, Pinterest, Youtube, Tumbler, Reddit and so many new fads I can't even begin to keep up.  Moreover, how many of you would feel comfortable going out for even a few hours without your cell phone, how about you laptop or tablet.  Can you go a day without watching any TV if you really tried?  Don't even get me started on video games, World of Warcraft is very much like crack-cocaine.


"I used to have a drug problem, now I make enough money." - David Lee Roth

"Reality is just a crutch for people who can't handle drugs." - Robin Williams

There are somewhat less harmful addictions: you could be a political junkie or a sports fiend, you might be addicted to celebrity gossip or fashion.  If you are like Monica from the TV show Friends you are probably addicted to  cleaning.  You might be addicted to having children.  Maybe you can't help but being apathetic, critical, judgmental, or narcissistic.  Even reading can be addictive, though far from the worst thing on this list. As a country and a world it is easy to see that we are addicted to Oil, sloth, power and greed.  Addictions run the gamut from personal to social, from destructive to benign, from historic to modern; there is no easy way to classify addicts.  When we judge another for their vices, we are asking them to judge us too.

The question I need an answer to is this: Why do we incarcerate those of us who are addicted to substances but ignore the rest of our addictions?  Even among substance abusers we only seem to care about certain drugs, especially if it appears (rightly or wrongly) that they are used more frequently by minorities.  In what world can we justify decades long mandatory minimum prison sentences for drug addicts.  Addiction is itself defined as an action that we no longer have control over, so why would we punish people instead of helping them, or at least leaving them alone?  If we forced every politician who votes to penalize drug addicts to prove that they themselves were addiction free these laws would be overturned overnight.  I defy anyone to claim that they have no addictions.  The mere thought of that is outrageous.

Let he without addiction lock the first cell...

Republican Problems are Actually an Asset

When House Majority Leader (R-VA) Eric Cantor was defeated in his primary on June 10th by the obscure Economic Professor David Brat the Democrats didn't shed a tear.  They consider this another sign that the Republican Party is split and that this fracture will eventually lead to their demise.  Some even seem to think this has already happened and that the GOP has no legitimate chance to win the 2016 Presidential Election.  Obviously this is an overly optimistic prognostication, but this also belies the fundamental advantage Conservatives have through the Tea Party wing of the conference.  Instead of rejoicing at the infighting that permeates the Republican Party, Democrats should be weary of how this affects the perceived "center" of American politics.

It seems all too simple and easy for the Democrats: continue to propose and vote on popular legislation in the Senate then watch while Tea Party Republicans respond with grenade launchers to any thought of Bi-Partisan compromise.  Spend the rest of your time castigating the GOP for failing to pass anything  and watch while voters respond by sending more Democrats into office in future National elections.  There are many problems with this logic but before I get into them lets begin with the notion that infighting is actually a problem for Republicans.

There should be no doubt that nominating poor candidates cost the GOP several seats during the 2012 Congressional elections (legitimate rape anyone?).  Still, there are very real and tangible benefits that far outweigh the paltry loss of a few legislative seats.  The most important of these benefits is the shifting of the center of American politics to the right.  Let's take a look at what the so called "socialist radical Democrats" are proposing: the Affordable Care Act (aka Obamacare) was actually the conservative response to the liberals push for a single payer healthcare system (what every other industrial nation on earth has) in the 1990's, the Senate passed immigration bill includes tens of millions of new dollars to "secure the border" and has an arduous years long path to citizenship, proposed gun legislation grandfathers in all the guns currently floating around this country, the proposed minimum wage hike is still less than what it was decades ago if inflation is counted, cap and trade legislation is another Republican idea that was supposed to be the capitalist approach to dealing with climate change; Democrats are showing up to the bargaining table with what used to be compromise bills between Liberals and Conservatives.  Even when bills are passed and Democrats claim success there are Conservatives secretly rejoicing at how conservative these "bi-partisan" bills have become.  The Farm bill included millions of dollars in cuts to food stamp programs, the VA bill cracks the governments monopoly on Federally covered VA healthcare coverage (not necessarily a bad thing, but I'll save that for another post), and most importantly the routine funding of our governments basic operations was held hostage for deep and indiscriminate cuts to our budget (sequestration, though this has since been remedied by Obama's firm stance and a painful and unnecessary government shutdown).

Furthermore, this infighting has actually invigorated the GOP base for state and local elections.  Eric Cantor was defeated by a relative unknown candidate who garnered less than 40,000 votes.  This election is just a microcosm of what is happening in Republican elections.  The extremely Conservative  base is invigorated and they show up to vote.  These votes matter least during Presidential Elections but play significant roles in smaller local and state elections.  Across this country state legislatures are becoming dominated by Republicans of the Tea Party variety; and more and more this is where the most important legislation is being passed.  The plan is actually entirely genius, elect super conservative state legislators who will do anything to ban abortion and eliminate taxes and pensions and whatnot, then prevent federal legislators from passing anything.  In other words, Washington is doing nothing but Conservative states are making it easier to carry guns and harder to access contraception and abortion.  Democrats can claim victory in Presidential elections and even maintain one of the two houses of Congress, but the only meaningful legislation being passed is in Conservative Statehouses.

Democrats are completely failing to see the big picture.  They think that Republicans will nominate unelectable candidates which would be good news for Democrats, except that most of these "unelectable" candidates end up winning anyway.  This theory sort of works in the Senate but is certainly inaccurate for the House.  Liberals don't seem to get that there are virtually no contested congressional districts anymore, they are quite obviously gerrymandered for one party or another.  The GOP could nominate Vladimir Putin in Eric Cantor's district and he'd win the general election by double digits as long as there is an "R" next to his name.  The question I have, then, is why don't Democrats follow the Republican lead and elect more progressive candidates?  Why didn't we throw out the incumbents who voted for the Iraq war, or who bailed out the banks but left main street hung out to dry?  Why don't we have candidates advocating marijuana legalization and sensible drug laws?  Why are there no candidates who make massive infrastructure investments a key part of their platform? What about a livable wage? Student loan forgiveness? Public works projects? Why are there no climate change absolutists who are willing to shut the government down over what is actually the most pressing challenge of our day?  Why don't Democrats have to fear legitimate primary challenges?  Why are we content to let our platform be "at least we aren't crazy like the guy i'm running against?"  Do Democrats stand for anything or are we just the party of Not-Republicans?

Democrats don't seem to get that sometimes you have to lose a battle or two to win the war.  As long as this attitude continues, Republicans will continue to win at politics… even if they lose elections.

Clinton's new book: This should be top story, but isn't...

On Friday I wrote about some early released information from Hillary Clinton's new book Hard Choices, and singled out what I thought was the most interesting revelation being reported.  Today her book is officially released and the political bashing has begun.  When early reports from her book came out there was something that stood out to me, but didn't seem to gather as much traction elsewhere; Clinton's desire to arm "moderate" Syrian rebels in their uprising against Bashar al-Assad.  This is so interesting because it shows a little friction between her and President Obama, who overruled her desire and refused to send armaments to Syria (at least publicly, cause who really knows right?).  The Neo-Con bashing began immediately, John McCain and Lindsey Graham led the charge. Of course they weren't alone, Mitt Romney supported it, Sen. Bob Corker did too, same with Marco Rubio and Democratic Sen. Bob Menendez.  This, however, only begs the question, if Obama didn't listen to his own Secretary of State or the advice of these Republican (and Democratic) Senators, why isn't this bigger news?

It's all politics of course.  The Democrats have no desire to see Hillary damaged by supporting a foreign policy that is opposed by 3/4 of Americans; nor do they want to show any fractures in what has tended to be a solid and unified foreign policy front.  Republicans have no interests in talking about Syria because it means they have to agree with Hillary Clinton (potentially their big rival in 2016) or they have to take back everything they said and come out in support of Obama's policy (a big no for the neo-cons).  It is almost likely that this story would disappear into oblivion (somehow the media doesn't think this is a story) except there is one man who stands a lot of ground to gain by bringing this story up.  As I mentioned in my first piece (before the book was even released), Rand Paul is the one man who stands to gain from this controversy and I would be surprised to see him let it be forgotten.

Rand Paul himself is often touted as a potential 2016 Republican presidential candidate, and it seems almost certain he will run.  What makes him stand out from a crowded field of Republican candidates is his Libertarian stance inherited from his father, longtime Texas Congressman Ron Paul (and former Presidential hopeful himself).  The Libertarian wing of the GOP stands in stark contrast to the Religious Right and especially the Neo-Cons who have dominated for decades now.  His non-interventionist foreign policy stance stands out in the GOP.  Whats more is that this is actually the preferred position for 75% of Americans, that's why I wasn't surprised to see Rand Paul being the one to actually talk about this issue no one else really wants to discuss.  You can read some comments of his as reported by Burgess Everett of Politico here.  It's buried down at the bottom but he says that "Her eagerness to be involved in war in Syria goes against what 75 percent of the Americans are for" and "That's something she's going to have to explain."  The beauty here is that when he does make her explain this position, he is also going to make Rubio, McCain, Graham, Corker, Romney and  whole host of Republicans explain the same position as Hillary.  This is likely going to be one of the major foreign policy debates leading up to 2016, assuming Rand Paul can deal with agreeing with President Obama on even a single issue.

Follow me on Twitter: @SenBJohnson 

How Will Republicans Handle This?

Hillary Clinton's new book Hard Choices comes out June 10th but already news stories have emerged about some of the revealing details inside.  There is one in particular that stood out to me but does not seem to be getting the same traction as her prediction over the transfer of GITMO detainees for Bowe Bergdahl or anything she has to say about Benghazi.  This little snippet is so interesting to me because it shows a crack in the Democrats' party unity over foreign policy and is an opportunity for Clinton and the GOP to take the same side.

This is why Hillary's claim to have supported arming "moderate" Syrian opposition is so tantalizing.  Obama disagreed with her and overruled her support; deciding instead to provide non-lethal aid and pretty much nothing else.  This, of course, angered the GOP who have spent the better part of 6 years disagreeing with anything Obama said or did.  So here is the problem, since Clinton and Obama disagreed, the GOP is now in the uncomfortable position of agreeing with Clinton.  Republicans have exactly zero races left to run against Obama, but potentially 2 presidential campaigns left against Clinton, we can already see that they are moving past the Obama bashing in favor of anything Clinton-Benghazi related.

The question I want answered is: How will the GOP resolve agreeing with Clinton over a foreign policy decision when they are going to want to paint her as weak on foreign diplomatic relations?  Three ideas come to mind, none of which are going to sound too appealing to Republicans.

1)  They can stick to their guns (both literally and figuratively) by arguing that both they and Clinton were right.  Then they can call her a weak Secretary of State for being unable to convince Obama to arm the Syrian opposition.  This, of course, is ludicrous.  Even the highest ranking diplomatic official (Secretary of State) can not overrule the commander in chief (President).  Besides, they are going to want no part of agreeing with Clinton in a potential 2016 presidential race against her.

2)  They could treat Clinton like Obama.  Forget anything you ever said that agrees with something they are in favor of for the opposite approach, no matter how ridiculous and obvious this tactic may be. For obvious reasons this approach won't work either.  They made too big a fuss about Obama being weak in Syria to turn it around and eventually say he was right.  Besides, the neo-cons in the party would not be happy to hear them distancing themselves from anything war related.  The military industrial complex is big money, and a lot of that money goes to the GOP; they literally cannot afford to walk away from being the party of war.

3) They could try to ignore it by doubling down on Benghazi.  This seems like the most obvious strategy for them to take.  They get to continue bashing everything Obama and Clinton without acknowledging any similarities in their own foreign policy positions.  There is just one problem to this plan and his name is Rand Paul.  I think it would be crazy for Paul (assuming he has serious intentions of running in 2016) to allow for this distancing to occur.  He is going to want to play up the fact that his Libertarian non-interventionist foreign policy preferences are diametrically opposed to what Clinton is claiming she supported.  In a race against Clinton, I think he will be happy to distance himself from her in every way possible, even if that means aligning himself up with Obama's stance.  Oh the cruel, cruel irony it will be!  What's more, it might even work.  Obama and Paul's foreign policy approach is actually favored  by the middle class and the "average" voter.  They don't want to see us entangled in dozens of foreign conflicts every presidency.  Paul could actually begin to encroach on the Democratic hold of the middle, rather than just trying to pry the middle to the right (as the rest of the Republicans would prefer).

For the record, I agree with Obama and Paul.  Putting any more weapons out there is only going to make us less safe in the long run.  Anyone remember arming the Taliban to fight the Soviet Union?  The question is whether Paul could capitalize in a hypothetical matchup against Clinton by throwing the rest of the GOP and all the neo-cons under the bus.

Who is your Congressman?

No I'm not referring to the fact that most people don't even know who represents them in the house of representatives.  I'm talking about something far more sinister.  This is about a Supreme Court case that can potentially be far more devastating to our democracy even than the Citizens United case (which opened up unlimited spending in elections from Super Pacs).  It is actually quite crazy that I am just now being made aware of this case since it is already 8 years old, especially since I consider myself quite educated about politics.  The case: League of United Latin American Voters v. Perry.

Ok so a little background is in order.  Every 10 years the Federal Government conducts a Census and then reassign the number of seats each state gets in the House of Representatives according to population changes during the last 10 years.  States that increase their population get more seats and vice versa.  All that is simple enough.  The tricky part is redrawing all the district lines, determining who represents where and whatnot.  This occurs in every state even if they did not change their number of representatives; this is in order to accommodate in state changes such as moving out of rural areas and into cities.  This is not a simple process.  It is one of the most politically divisive, difficult, and contentious activities related to representation.  One big problem is that our Constitution gives each state the right to accomplish this task however they see fit, meaning there is no standard operating procedure.  Many states allow the state legislatures to draw the lines, some (like my home in California) have turned to non-partisan or bi-partisan commissions (often involving former judges) so that the lines are drawn fair.

Ok, so there is no way to determine exactly what is fair.  There is a bunch of legitimate criteria that could be considered fair, some of which is contradictory.  I have spent time studying minority-majority districts and find this to be a perfect example of this problem.  There are legitimate arguments both for and against this intentional race conscious redistricting.  On the one hand these districts are far more likely to elect minority candidates who are then more likely to sponsor minority favored legislation (descriptive representation).  On the other hand, this often requires drawing funky looking districts that pull minority voters out of other districts making them whiter.  The argument here is that there are now less candidates who would favor legislation for minorities.  Furthermore, this process tends to help the Republican Party which, by a wide margin, is not the party of choice for minorities (at least for Southern African Americans).  Basically they claim that the push for descriptive representation actually hurts the minorities it intends to help (substantive representation).  So what's fair?

Well, I think there is one thing that we can all agree is not fair, and that brings me back to the Supreme Court.  In 2003 Republicans took control of the Texas state legislature and decided to redraw the lines again, this time to help out the republicans before the 2004 election.  It worked, the state went from electing 17 Democrats and 15 Republicans to 21 Republicans and 11 Democrats.  All because the lines were redrawn.  But this was no ordinary partisan redistricting; it occurred mid-decade.  That's right, only 3 years after the last time the lines were drawn Republicans decided to do it again.  At the time this was completely unprecedented in modern America.  The case went all the way to the Supreme Court and they ruled that it was within the state's rights to redistrict as often as they like so long as they do it at least once every 10 years after the census.  So in the title when I ask who you congressman is, I'm referring to the fact that at anytime your Congressman can change.  If you live in a Republican state and you are represented by a Democrat who just barely eked out a victory in the last election (that really doesn't happen either since most districts are drawn to be safe for one party or the other, you scratch my back i'll scratch your kinda thing) the Republicans can redraw the district to the next election there is suddenly a 10 point partisan swing in the new district that was represented by the Democrat.

Let's look at how nasty this can get.  In Georgia there is a Democratic Representative in the 12th district, his name is John Barrow.  He is actually the last remaining white Democrat in the South.  Georgia Republicans used a mid-decade redistricting to challenge the vulnerable Democrat (who held on to win anyway).  In 2006 Republicans took control of the Georgia state legislature and, surprise surprise, decided to redraw the lines.  They went after Barrow, even drawing his home in Athens out of his district.  He moved to Savannah and won again anyway- but by less than 1,000 votes.  After the 2010 Census they redrew his district again, this time eliminating his new home in Savannah- while adding Augusta.  Between these two redistricting's the district because far more Republican.  Had it been drawn the way it is now in 2008 McCain would have won it with 58% of the vote, as it was Obama carried it with 54%- that's a huge swing.  Somehow he was continued winning, and has been remarkably placid over all the political shenanigans.  The question remains however, when he eventually loses (or gives up his seat) will a Democrat ever again win in Georgia's 12th.  Maybe if they retake the state house and redraw the lines for themselves...

Wasting Time

I play guitar.  I play guitar everyday.  Mostly acoustic but I also have an electric, a bass and a classical guitar.  It is one of my favorite pastimes, it feels so good to just sit down and play.  I'm not like other guitar players; I've been playing for years but know very few songs.  I don't actually spend time learning other people's songs.  Some of the best advice I got about learning the guitar was this, "if you learn to play like everybody else, you'll end up playing like everyone else."  Of course that can be taken too far, it is important to learn a little bit about music, about chords, about scales and all that jazz; but if you spend all your time trying to learn one generic pop song after another you'll never develop the creative abilities that makes playing guitar so fun for me.

So I had the day off yesterday and didn't do jack.  I literally sat around all day and played guitar, it was glorious but when the day was done I sat back and thought about the whole day I had apparently wasted.  That's when it hit me.  I'm not wasting time, this is what time is for.  This is why I live. We can't spend every waking minute working on some task or some project at the expense of actually living our lives.  Besides, since when is learning a musical instrument a waste of time.  This is what we should be teaching all our children to do.  There are so many studies that show how music education is good for children, not just their well being but also their academic skills.  Playing music sharpens your brain, it is a productive use of time.  I'm done feeling bad about spending my time doing something I love.

I have no illusions about how far guitar playing is going to take me.  Nowhere.  But that fact isn't going to keep me from continuing to play everyday.  That's not why I do it.  I play because it makes me happy.  Being happy is one of only two things I care about in my life; the other being satisfied with my life at my death.  So I have to ask you, what makes you happy?  And when was the last time you enjoyed doing it?  If those are hard questions for you to answer, I think it might be time you re-evaluate your life.  I'm no therapist, but if you can't remember the last time you did something that truly makes you happy, for no other reason than it makes you happy, I feel comfortable saying that it is time for evaluation and change.

I could say more but I'd rather just go play some guitar.  That would make me happy...

A "Voter Fraud" Solution

When Democrats began complaining about Republican efforts to create and enforce voter ID laws I thought that this might be a losing issue for the left.  I mean sure they have the facts on their side but that doesn't make for good campaign speeches or sound bytes.  After all, what is so controversial about making sure that people who show up to vote are actual citizens?  It turns out that there are actually a lot of legitimate American citizens who don't have a photo ID, and those citizens are almost exclusively the poorest and most marginalized citizens; particularly minorities and legal immigrants.  Of course, a majority of these citizens are Democrats (if aligned to a party at all), hence the political and partisan drama.  Many of these people who lose the ability to vote because they can't prove they are who they say they are.  So our efforts to curb a virtually non-existent problem with voter fraud would actually cause much more damage to our democracy than it would help.

So what is a reasonable solution then?  There is a proposal floating around that would put photo identification on social security cards.  This has been sponsored by former Presidents Carter and Clinton and sounds like a pretty genius idea to me.  It would cost about 10 cents per person and would allow every American citizen a free photo ID card, this is helpful far beyond just voting.  Having a valid photo ID is a necessity in modern America and the fact that so many people don't have should be seriously troubling to anyone who cares about our great democracy.  Somehow this proposal has engendered some level of opposition from both sides, lets explore this a little more fully.

Juliet Eilperin and Karen Tumulty's article in the Washington Post points to three critiques of this idea.  Let's start with the most reasonable and work our way down to the more ridiculous.  Rep. John Lewis (D-GA.) points out that this could lead to security concerns surrounding identity/data theft.  If we allow Social Security Cards to be used as valid identification for a whole host of government interactions they would need to be more secure than the current card are.  But lets face facts here, identity theft is already a serious problem, how much would this proposal really add to this already developed problem?  I think in this case we need to make a simple cost-benefit analysis, and there is just no way that I think the costs of this problem would outweigh the benefits of allowing every citizen a free government issues photo identification card.

Dale Ho of the Voting Rights Project at the ACLU has a somewhat different concern.  He argues that this proposal would still discriminate against people at the margin of society.  Relating an anecdote about one ACLU member who had to take an hour bus ride to obtain the necessary hospital records for getting a Social Security Card.  I just can't buy this argument.  Sure we could go to Alaska and find some native Inuit community living in an area that is only accessible by helicopter and make the argument that this would still be too challenging for them, but does that fact mean we shouldn't help the vast majority of the less affluent people in this country obtain a valid ID?  The answer is no.  So I assume the objection here is not that the government would offer these photo ID cards, only that it would be coupled with stricter voter ID laws.  That is reasonable, these laws are not good for the country.  But ignoring the fact that these laws already exist and that people are already being affected by them, and that the courts have shown no interest in intervening, and that more and more they are being adopted by Republican states, and that more people are slipping into poverty as the wealth gap grows and so more people are going to continue to be affected, and that they are effectively having their voices silenced, and that nothing can change unless we get the majority of these people to the polls means we have to act.

Finally, we get to Rand Paul.  "This is a really bad idea…This idea would make it easy for the federal government to convert the Social Security card into a national identification card."  I'm not sure he gets this proposal, it wouldn't make it easy for a national ID card, it would BE a national ID card.  That's the point, we would be enabling people to have a free government issued photo ID card.  I get that he is anti-big government and all, but seriously what is so controversial about a federal ID card?  It would be controversial if we were required to carry it on us at all times or risk being thrown in jail (I'm looking at you Arizona!) but that is not even close to what is being proposed.  Basically this critique argues that the program would work, and somehow that is bad.  I just don't get it, but it'll probably stir up some Tea Party juices somehow.

The reason I love this idea so much is that it exposes the Republican voter ID laws for what they really are, poll taxes that are intended from keeping our most vulnerable citizens from having their voices heard.  In no way is this about voter fraud except as cover for disenfranchising American who don't agree with Republicans.  Never mind all the lessons we learned from Jim Crow era poll taxes and literacy tests.  We might as well return to the early days of the Federation when only white male property owners could legally vote.  This is such a joke I would laugh if it wasn't also so damn serious. So lets all get out that and have our voices heard on this issue, we have to VOTE… if you can that is...

Smart Guns

Chris Hayes of MSNBC did a piece a couple weeks ago about the smart gun; a handgun that only operates when in proximity to a specialty watch that is linked electronically to the weapon.  The idea is that children wouldn't accidentally find the weapon and kill themselves or someone else but there is also great demand within the police forces who want a weapon that can't be taken forcefully from an officer and then turned back onto them.  Considering the great challenges out country is facing over gun deaths this is a modest step in the right direction but far from a panacea to all our problems.

What is interesting about this story is that the technology already exists, there is a smart gun that is ready to go on the market and there have been at least two distributors who have tried to sell it.  Before they could sell any, however, they were bullied and pressured by gun rights groups to stop.  This seems strange, right?  Why would gun rights groups oppose the sale of any gun, even one that has arguably "liberal" safety features?  Well, it turns out that they fear that once a smart gun goes on the market, this will lead to laws mandating that all gun sales be smart guns and that this could potentially lead to some sort of registry of gun owners.

It turns out this isn't just fantasy conservative fear mongering.  In 2002 New Jersey passed a smart gun law, saying that once a smart gun was available for sale anywhere in the country that New Jersey would only sell smart guns within 3 years.  This means that had either of the attempted distributors of the smart gun been successful then NJ would only sell smart guns beginning in 2017.  Here is where it gets interesting.  Chris Hayes had NJ State Senate Majority Leader Loretta Weinberg on to talk about that smart gun law that she sponsored over a decade ago.  She made an offer to work to repeal that law on condition that the NRA and the Gun Owners of America and other gun rights groups stopped working to prevent the manufacture and distribution of smart guns.  Sounds like a pretty good deal right?  NJ repeals the smart gun law, gun rights groups stop depressing the smart gun supply and America gets a safer weapon available on the open market competing against traditional guns.

Alright, even this liberal gun control advocate can see what a joke of an offer this is.  Let's begin by assuming that Rep. Weinberg is capable of getting this law repealed in NJ (as the Senate Majority Leader she probably could).  The more important question is; what is to keep her from re-passing the same law once the smart gun goes onto the market?  Well New Jersey has a Republican Governor so that might not happen so easily, but what about Massachusetts or Washington State or any of the other deep blue states with Democratic leadership?  Representative Weinberg clearly has no sway or control over what those legislatures do.  It is foolish to think that Democratic leaders in safely blue districts and states would not want to make all gun sales smart gun sales.

This all begs the question, what happens next?  Well, in my estimation, pretty much nothing.  Gun control advocates won't seriously consider repealing this hard fought for law.  Gun rights groups will continue to fight the development and distribution of this technology for the foreseeable future.  Children will continue to die needlessly because of unsecured firearms.  What I can't understand is why some gun control group doesn't just start selling this gun.  Are you listening Bloomberg?  Sell this gun and you will have achieved a major step towards greater gun control.  Not only will a smart gun be available on the market (probably not the ideal situation but better than the status quo) but in NJ at least, all gun sales will have to be smart guns within three years.  When it comes to developing the smart gun market the NJ law has really been an obstacle.  It has provided the ammunition that the gun rights groups need to claim that their rights are being restricted.  It appears to me, that NJ State Senate Majority Leader Loretta Weinberg and the other Democrats who passed this law really jumped the gun.