Obama, the Center-Left Pragmatic Reformer

Columnist David Brooks has a wonderfully written article about the misjudgment of Obama from the political left and the right. Here are my favorite lines:

The fact is, Obama is as he always has been, a center-left pragmatic reformer. Every time he tries to articulate a grand philosophy — from his book “The Audacity of Hope” to his joint-session health care speech last September — he always describes a moderately activist government restrained by a sense of trade-offs. He always uses the same on-the-one-hand-on-the-other sentence structure. Government should address problems without interfering with the dynamism of the market.

Brooks goes on to describe Obama's views on health care, education, finance, and foreign policy with those assumptions in mind. It seems odd that when I seen the nation disapproving more than approving of our President, that I've grown to appreciate him more. My sunny disposition was solidified when he said this about the health care reform debate:

I don't know that those gaps can be bridged, it may be that at the end of the day, we come out here and everybody says, 'Well, you know, we have some honest disagreements.'

and this:

The question that I'm going to ask myself and I ask of all of you is, is there enough serious effort that in a month's time or a few weeks' time or six weeks' time we could actually resolve something? And if we can't, then I think we've got to go ahead and make some decisions, and then that's what elections are for.

It's not about good vs. evil. It's an honest disagreement about the role of government. The Democrats should do what they feel is best and the Republicans should do the same. Then the voters will decide who did what they wanted.

Pessimist's Light at the End of the Tunnel

Other comics I like from Luke Surl:

Major in science

Rose by any other name

World's best dad?

Safe rain

Someone perfect for you

Early internet

Yo momma!

Green eggs and ham

Choose your own adventure?

New "I want you" poster

They remind me of xkcd, just less nerdy.

Subscribe to them here.

Improving Democracy

I have been clear in my complaints about the failings of democracy and offered up some possible solutions. Economist Steve Landsburg has some great ideas of his own:

Divide senatorial constituencies according to the alphabet, so that instead of a senator from Alaska and a senator from Wisconsin, we’ll have a senator for everyone whose last name begins with AA through AE. The point being that it’s easy to think up earmarks and pork barrel projects that will benefit the citizens of Alaska at everyone else’s expense, but not so easy to think up pork barrel projects that will benefit everyone whose last name happens to begin with Q.

Give each voter two votes to cast in every senatorial election. You get one vote to cast in your own state and one to cast in the state of your choice. Again, this forces senators to answer to broader and more diverse constituencies, diluting the power of localized special interests.

This one’s not in the book but should have been: Give each senator a personal budget so that once he;s voted for $X billion worth of spending, he’s not allowed to vote for any more spending until he gets re-elected. This pits his various sub-constituencies against each other, so that the New York Senator who lobbies for subsidies to New York City is sure to get a negative earful from upstate.

The Danger of Daylight Saving Time

Be safe today:

On average, there were 3.6 more injuries on the Mondays following the switch to daylight saving time compared to other days, and 2,649 more days of work were lost as a result of those injuries.

Apparently the time change results in an average of 40 minutes less on the Sunday night they switched to daylight saving time. One more reason to get rid of the government's control of time.

Church of Improv

Here's Zach Ward preaching the "Yes and" gospel at a local Tedx Conference. I don't necessarily agree with his world view, but I think he explains the practical benefits to improvisation well.

Speaking of, I'm teaching another Improv 101 class starting April 12th 19th. Also, you can still see me perform every Friday for free. I'm also doing a double header this Saturday at 7:30pm (March Madness) and 9:30pm (Pound for Pound).

Difference Between a Right and a Want

Friend, and fellow graduate from Clemson University's economics program Tate Watkins, recently started blogging. He asks this important question: what makes something a human right? Health care, education, and even high speed internet have been described as rights that all governments should seek to provide. But whether you go the US Constitution or inspirations for it, I find no mention of the products or services that should be provided to citizens. There was even intense political debate over whether the federal government should provide the supply of money. It wasn't even done until the 1860's. Democracies weren't created to provide a basic standard of living for everyone. They were created to ensure the right to pursue that living standard. Governments are meant to protect our basic liberties and forcing the purchase of certain products, even when they are beneficial, is just doing the opposite. How do you determine what a human right is? Ask the father of liberty, John Locke: “Man... hath by nature a power.... to preserve his property - that is, his life, liberty, and estate - against the injuries and attempts of other men.”

Another Benefit of the Gas Tax

Here's an interesting argument for a gas tax from good friend Justin Scott; to decrease the world's production of plastic. Here's a map of continent sized floating patches of garbage:

One of these is predicted to weigh over 3 million tons and is responsible for not only killing marine life, but also releasing poisons into our food supply. Scary to think plastic has only been around for a hundred years, so we don't fully understand what the environmental impact is going to be. I'm not one to be a pessimist, but it's hard when you see these photos of a bird's stomach.

Why People Like Rush Limbaugh, Keith Olbermann, Sean Hannity and Other Wingnuts

I recently heard the term "wingnut" in this interview with the author of a similarly named book. It describes right and left wing demagogues who use fear to convince audiences that the other side has sinister motives. It then struck me, why do people allow themselves to be controlled like this? Like many of our problems, I think it has to do with control:

According to one school of thought, this tendency to exaggerate the strength of our adversaries serves a specific psychological function. It is less scary to place all our fears on a single, strong enemy than to accept the fact our well-being is largely based on factors beyond our control. An enemy, after all, can be defined, analyzed and perhaps even defeated.

Whether it's about the Soviets, Chinese, or the Democrats, it's all about controlling our fear.

Invest in a Entrepreneur

Here's my idea for investing in dedicated students (which apparently even Milton Friedman supported), but that's pretty risky. Instead, try investing in businesspeople directly:

Three entrepreneurs are offering a share of their life’s income in exchange for cash upfront and have banded together to form the Thrust Fund, an online marketplace for such personal investments.

Kjerstin Erickson, a 26-year-old Stanford graduate who founded a non-profit called FORGE that rebuilds community services in Sub-Saharan African refugee camps, is offering 6 percent of her life’s income for $600,000.

I'm not suggesting you take your savings out of a 401(k), but the here's the place where you can if you want. Hat tip to Justin Wehr's shared items.

Resolved Conflict Fosters Intimacy

Those people who I feel proud to call good friends are beyond valuable. They celebrate with you and mourn with you. Without them, we would all need more professional counseling. In fact, the Nobel prize winning economist Gary Becker claims that people are the most addictive thing on the planet. It's not just social interaction that we need, it's real in depth conversation. According to psychologist Wray Herbert, happy people have less small talk and more meaty conversations. It seems obvious that close relationships improve our lives, yet many of us don't have enough of them. It is because intimacy is scary. You have to be vulnerable and may even have to have conflict. It is that willingness to give and receive negativity that results in good relationships. This is shown in four different studies.

Study 1, participants read vignettes in which another person was experiencing a negative emotion. Participants reported they would provide more help when the person chose to express the negative emotion. In Study 2, participants watched a confederate preparing for a speech. Participants provided more help to her when she expressed nervousness. In Study 3, self-reports of willingness to express negative emotions predicted having more friends, controlling for demographic variables and extraversion. In Study 4, self-reports of willingness to express negative emotion measured prior to arrival at college predicted formation of more relationships, greater intimacy in the closest of those relationships, and greater received support from roommates across participants' first semester of college.

So go out there and be vulnerable, be honest, and make real friends.