A Tea Party Test

The issue of financial reform is finally making its way onto the legislature's docket. I think this will make for an interesting test of the fundamental values of the new Tea Party movement.

With financial reform, I expect that the Democrats will put forth a bill that has new regulations intended to minimize the chances of Wall Street triggering another financial panic. I also expect that the Republicans will oppose the bill because it goes too far, fearing that the unintended consequences and market distortions stemming from the regulations will reduce growth and prosperity more than the regulations will protect the economy from a new disaster.

The Tea Party is a populist movement; almost by definition, populist movements don't like the elites who control power. But the finance issue pits two major elites against each other: a distrust of the rich elite (Wall Street) and a distrust of the government elite (the current elites, at least).

Will there be any debate in the Tea Party movement? If the Democratic reform agenda is really just Republican-lite, it will be easy to cast both the Democrats and Republicans as being snugly in bed with Wall Street, in which case, the Tea Partiers would likely side with the Republicans.

I believe that the presence of active debate within the movement will indicate whether the Tea Party is just an element of the Republican party or whether it is a movement unto itself.

Pro-Life or Pro-Punishment?

Opposition to abortion exists under the title, "Pro-Life." But I think that this slogan, like most slogans, fails to express the full complexity of what it represents.

Taking the slogan at face value, pro-choice believers are often confused by an apparent contradiction: How can someone be "pro-life" yet pro-capital punishment?

I believe this contradiction is an illusion, and the term "pro-life" is the reason for the confusion. Opposing abortion and supporting capital punishment can both stem from a natural philosophy: Protect the innocent, punish the guilty. On this issue of capital punishment, this belief can be very clear -- when someone is guilty of a heinous sin, society metes out the ultimate punishment, death.

How does this same philosophy lead us to oppose abortion? If you believe that pre-marital sex is a sin, then it should be punished. "Protect the innocent, punish the guilty" becomes "Protect the innocent child, punish the guilty mother." As part of the mother's punishment, she must reap what she has sown -- an unintended child.

This philosophical connection exists consciously for some people, though not for everyone. For example, ThePillKills.com, a group strongly opposed to abortion and birth control, offers prayers to "the many uninformed patrons who come asking the staff of Planned Parenthood to provide chemicals, hormones, and sex-education as an answer to their problems with the natural consequences of abuse of sex."

For many who oppose abortion, however, I believe a legacy of this philosophy does exist, though it has largely been buried beneath an acceptance of birth control as a part of modern life, and the debate has shifted from a focus on "punishing the guilty" to "protecting the innocent."

The entire abortion debate cannot simplify down to this one difference in beliefs, but I do believe it is an important part of the philosophical split that exists today. I only hope that in investigating why we believe what we believe, we can better understand those we disagree with.

Movie Review: Slumdog Millionaire

If you aren't familiar with the logline of this movie, I'd summarize it as a dramatic and comic fable of a kid from the Bombay slums whom Fate leads to become an unlikely contestant on India's "Who Wants to Be a Millionaire?"

I was blown away by how deftly the director (Danny Boyle, Trainspotting and 28 Days Later) balances levity with gut-wrenching tragedy. It has some scenes so charged that my wife considered leaving the theater. As to life in the Bombay slums, "Just because it's a movie doesn't mean this hasn't actually happened to someone." But the epic journey of the characters, from childhood through adolescence to adulthood (played for each character by three different actors), is an incredible ride.

For at least the first half of the movie, I was in a state of tension -- the music, the moments, everything about the movie, just kept me pulling for these characters, especially as kids. But in comparison, the second half of the movie, though also fantastic, wasn't able to maintain the intensity of the first -- once the characters do grow older, I begin to forgive them less (as one would expect), and their flaws began to make me fall out of love with them just a bit. The epic sweep is part of what makes this movie so amazing, but it also stops it a little short from being a total 5-star movie. The acting is at times transcendental, at times just ok, but it never detracted from the movie for me.

I'd recommend that everyone see this, but be warned that it is a brutal movie.

Babe factor: There's a reason everybody is in love with Latika.
Beer factor: None. Then, afterwards, enjoy some hard alcohol to celebrate/drown your sorrows.

Little Obama

There's a lot of consternation in the liberal community that Barack Obama isn't making the most liberal of choices as he populates his cabinet and plans his inauguration. My friend Lucia has a great article that spawned me to think:

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/lucia-brawley/is-there-method-to-this-r_b_152189.html

I don't think the concerns are invalid, but I think maybe people need to think differently about their relationship to the President-Elect.

Rather than thinking of him as someone you'd hired to redo your kitchen, and now you're pissed because he put in the wrong tile and scratched up your sink, I think it might be more apt to think about him as your son.

We put our everything into our children, our love, our dreams, our time, but when it is time for them to become grown-ups, we have to let them follow their own path and make their own choices, even if they cause us pain. We can (and should) let them know how we feel, but we have to support them and trust that we did our best and made the right choices in preparing them for the big show.

So feel free to let Obama know how you feel, but maybe try to have a little patience to let him live his life and do what he thinks needs to be done. If you voted for Obama, you gave him a vote of confidence. Let's keep that confidence as long as we can.

Lamenting Xmas Glitz?

Several of my friends who are practicing Christians were lamenting the commercialism and materialism of Christmas. But I think that without those elements, Christmas wouldn't be the major holiday that it is.

It's a complicated holiday -- when the early Christians first celebrated Jesus' birth, they appropriated the Roman Saturnalia (more similar to Carnival/Mardi Gras), though the two had nothing in common -- it was a marketing ploy to get the pagans to join.

Then you throw in Santa Claus, St. Nicholas, who is the patron saint of pawn shops -- the three balls represent three bags of gold that he anonymously gave to a man so the man wouldn't have to sell his three daughters -- whose day was celebrated by giving gifts, and became part of the Christmas celebration when the Catholic Church was trying to woo his worshipers into joining them.

So the Christmas we have today is popular because it was designed to be popular. Maybe as a Christian, the best way to think about it is that its incarnation (glitz and all) is a way to get people excited about the season and interest them in the story of Jesus' birth and his teachings.

The Tribes

The Freakonomics blog asked "When is it ok to vote for your own race?" I thought that was a question that didn't get to the reality of the problem.

The word “racist” is so toxic that it’s preventing us from confronting the basic fact as humans, we are tribal in nature. I don’t want “tribal” to become an excuse for racist behavior, but I think it helps explain our affinities and voting behavior.

My favorite new word from this election cycle is “white ethnic”, which was a term coined to explain why working-class whites were not voting for Obama in the democratic primaries.

It’s my belief that one way to split the American demographic is into “ethnic” groups and the “mainstream.”

If you’re part of an “ethnic” group, be it black, white, latino, whatever, you are less likely to vote for someone from another ethnic group. They aren’t part of your “tribe,” and they’re perhaps even from a competing tribe (re: black factory workers cheering as their latino co-workers are rounded up by INS).

However, Barack Obama isn’t really part of the “black ethnic” voting group — he’s part of the
“mainstream.” And if you’re a “mainstream” voter, you don’t care that he’s black. However, if you’re an ethnic voter, you do — and if you’re black, you’ll vote for him; if you’re not, you might not.

The flip side of this is that a “mainstream” voter does not want to vote for an “ethnic” candidate. While Barack Obama is part of the mainstream, Al Sharpton, for example, is a "black ethnic" candidate. Most mainstream voters (especially non-blacks) won’t vote for Sharpton. The mainstream voter can be effectively just as “tribal” as the ethnic voter — it’s just that because it’s not drawn on color lines, it doesn’t come under the banner of “racism”.

Here's a proposal for some new definitions:

. If you are an "ethnic" voter but would not vote for a "mainstream" candidate with a different ethnicity, that could be termed "racism."
. If you are a "mainstream" voter but would not vote for an "ethnic" candidate of your own ethnicity, that could be termed "elitism."
. If you are mainstream or ethnic and would not vote for an "ethnic" candidate different from your own ethnicity, that could be termed "human."

Is John McCain a "white ethnic" candidate? I don't think he is. But Sarah Palin is definitely a "white ethnic" candidate, which ups McCain's "white ethnic" connection through his choice. So in choosing Palin, McCain had to do the calculus that she would help him with the "white ethnic" vote and probably hurt him with both the mainstream and the other ethnic votes. And I'm sure the polls would reflect this fact exactly. Question is, is the net help greater than the net hurt? We'll find out.

Palin, Palin, Baby

My friend Jason Preston thinks Sarah Palin is the Vanilla Ice of politics. In ten years you'll be embarrassed to admit you listened to her...

INT. The White House, Spring 2009:

McCain: Sarah, we can't get to an agreement with the damn Europeans... What say you?

Palin: All right, stop. Collaborate and listen.

McCain: Of course. And while I have you, the Iranians are threatening our carrier group in the Gulf...

Palin: Light up a stage and wax a chump like a candle.

McCain: Good to hear you say it. I've been wanting to try out our new two-hundred-megatonners, too.

Palin: You better hit bullseye, the kid don't play.

McCain: Oh, they have the latest guidance systems. Plus, two hundred fucking megatons, how can you miss?

Palin: Cookin' MCs like a pound of bacon.

McCain: You know how to hit a Muslim where it hurts.

Palin: If there was a problem, yo, I'll solve it.

McCain: Sarah, will you marry me?

Palin: Word to your mother, let's get out of here.