Nine-Nine-Nine Things I Like About Herman Cain / 10-21-11

You're going to assume that I made the following list in jest.

You're going to wait, and wait, and wait for the sarcastic kicker.

Well, it ain't comin. Read ahead. See?

Ha. Joke's on you. These are nine things I legitimately like about Herman Cain and his presidential campaign. What that's now? Yes, I know he's a Republican, shut up already.

1. He offers a solution to our taxation quagmire. His 9-9-9 plan isn't just an inspiration for this babblefest I call "blogging." It's an actual alternative to the mess in which we find ourselves today, wherein:

One party won't raise taxes or cut benefits;

The other wants to cut taxes but not the benefits;

Meanwhile, the deficit continues to mount, health care costs continue to rise and the safety net gets more and more expensive.

Say what you want about 9-9-9. It's gimmicky. It's too simple. It's regressive. Fine, whatever. But at least Cain is contributing to the discussion in a positive way, detailing a plan of attack, rather than delivering the same empty promises I like to call "lies."

2. He is not easily ruffled by white people calling him "brother." He's not even ruffled by white people with questionable race-related incidents in their past calling him "brother," over and over, on a national stage. In fact, if one of his rivals for the GOP nomination had once leased a hunting ranch called "N*ggerhead" for a decade, using it with his family, and that same rival had called Cain "brother," over and over, in a kinda douchey condescending sort of way, and this had all happened on October 19, 2011 during a debate in Las Vegas, Cain would have remained unruffled throughout.

That was a purely hypothetical exercise, of course, right.

3. He is pro-choice. Not personally, no -- he's on record as being strongly opposed to abortion, but he also adamantly made the case this week, in an interview on CNN, that abortion is a choice best left up to the woman, not the government.

His actual words: "It's not the government's role or anybody else's role to make that decision."

After clarifying that he considers himself pro-life, he followed up: "I can have an opinion on an issue without it being a directive on the nation. The government shouldn't be trying to tell people everything to do, especially when it comes to social decisions that they need to make."

Asked if a woman should be forced to carry a fetus to term after being raped, he answered, "That's her choice. That is not government's choice. I support life from conception."

(He backtracked the next day on his website. That's kind of what politicians do, though.)

4. Although I just called him a politician, he's really an outsider, which is good. Politics needs these guys. Like a '92 Perot or a Ralph Nader of any vintage, non-career politicians serve an extremely important function: they tether the lifelong insiders to the real world. Sometimes they use graphs. I like it when they use graphs.

5. Cain is black. (I know, you're colorblind, you hadn't even noticed.) Your political correctness notwithstanding, the man's race is somewhat of a coup for the Republicans, whose base, according to the latest official numbers, is:

--->103.7 percent white

--->.00002 percent Latino (that's counting W's Spanish-speaking skills and Marco Rubio, who's Cuban anyway)

--->That rich Asian-American guy

--->Colin Powell, Condoleezza Rice, and a 99-year-old former actor in a nursing home somewhere who's still wearing blackface.

If the Republican Party is going to survive at all, and outgrow its current rift with minorities, it needs, well, nonwhite faces. And it would be good for the country, somehow, if the right-wing party was still in existence a generation from now. So, yeah.

6. He's a successful businessman. Wildly successful. He's a multi-millionaire! He was president and CEO of Godfather's, a chain he saved from extinction in the 1980's and 90's. When Cain talks money, you have to at least listen. And money troubles are kinda exactly what the nation's going through right now.

7. He legitimately thinks he has something to offer the nation, so he's following through with that notion. He didn't have to run for President. He's not on his third campaign for the Oval Office. I get the feeling he's not necessarily chasing power for power's sake, although to run for this office in the first place, it does take a certain amount of self-esteem.

8. His family story is compelling. He was raised in a lower-middle-class home, in which hard work, education and faith were paramount. Check his wiki page. And then, imagine this: his childhood values seem to have stuck. He's been married to the same woman for 43 years, he owns a master's degree in computer science from Purdue and is an associate minister at his church.

(Lots more money in the Cain household this time around, though. Not that there's anything wrong with that.)

9. He beat cancer. Stage Four cancer, in his colon and liver, five years ago. He was given a 30 percent chance of survival; now he says he's in remission. You have to respect someone who takes on death, and wins. (My advisers just whispered that beating cancer constitutes merely a temporary victory. Screw that. Any effort that forestalls death is a win in my book.)

Done. Nine items, no sarcastic kickers. Granted, there is no chance I would ever cast a vote for Herman Cain, and I could just as easily make a list twice this long about things that turn me off about him. Maybe some other time.

(P.S.: I found this after finishing the post, so call it 9a. In 2009, Cain founded something called "Hermanator's Intelligent Thinkers Movement," an activist program that fights for conservative causes. Forget the agenda. The acronym spells Hit 'em, and you get to use the term "Hermanator"? Legen. Dary.)

I, Republican, The Sequel / 2-5-11

Last night, I went out of my way to agree with Republican viewpoints on the current issues being spotlighted on gop.com. That post is below.

This entry is wonkier and clunkier. You should probably go do something else, something more useful, more entertaining, more unwonky and unclunky, and come back at the end for dessert.

The full 2008 platform is here.

Aaaand... go.

In the Second Amendment section, which interestingly, headlines the platform, I expected to find plenty to agree with. I can read the Constitution. (Indeed, I HAVE read it! The Second Amendment is there, in plain-ish English, saying well-regulated militias are OK, and because of that, the individual's right to own guns is to be protected.) Yet of the 197 words present in "Upholding the Constitutional Right to Keep and Bear Arms," I could only concur with "We condemn frivolous lawsuits against firearms manufacturers," which isn't even a complete sentence. Oh well. Moving on.

In the "Equal Treatment for All" section, there is much to like. "We consider discrimination based on sex, race, age, religion, creed, disability, or national origin to be immoral, and we will strongly enforce anti-discrimination statutes." Great.

"We ask all to join us in rejecting the forces of hatred and bigotry and in denouncing all who practice or promote racism, anti-Semitism, ethnic prejudice, or religious intolerance." Good stuff. So far, so good.

As a matter of principle, Republicans oppose any attempts to create race-based governments within the United States, as well as any domestic governments not bound by the Constitution or the Bill of Rights." I'm not sure what a race-based government is, but it sounds highly inequitable, and I'm also against inequitable, so yay. This whole section is, of course, missing one key component of the nation's present struggle against discrimination, and we all know what that component is, but it's good to see a clear denunciation of hatred, even if it could use some widening.

Skipping ahead a tab, to "Freedom of Speech and of the Press," I find comfort in: "We support freedom of speech and freedom of the press and oppose attempts to violate or weaken those rights, such as reinstatement of the so-called Fairness Doctrine." Totally agree. The Fairness Doctrine is an ill-begotten attempt to balance the opinions presented on the airwaves - i.e., if Sean Hannity and Bill O'Reilly and Glenn Beck are given 72 hours of airtime a week, liberal viewpoints must be represented in equal proportion, and the government has a duty to make it happen. I simplify, but that brand of"fairness" is a bad idea. Let the marketplace dictate which shows thrive, and which ideas win. (The Fairness Doctrine, in case you couldn't tell or didn't care, is not currently in effect.)

And then we arrive at abortion, or as the issue if framed in the platform, "Maintaining the Sanctity and Dignity of Human Life." (As if anyone could oppose that... but I digress.)

Deep breath. And... go.

"We must protect girls from exploitation and statutory rape through a parental notification requirement." I agree. Abortion is a medical procedure. A minor teenage girl should obtain parental authorization before having such a procedure performed on her body. To be thorough, I don't actually agree with the "exploitation and statutory rape" clause of the sentence. I just believe that parents have rights that supersede the privacy rights of their children under the age of 18.

"We all have a moral obligation to assist, not to penalize, women struggling with the challenges of an unplanned pregnancy." Yes. Although we might go about that moral obligation differently. Abortion is horrifying, after all, no matter where you stand on its legality. We should be helping girls and women in any way we can in their neediest moments.

"We salute those who provide them alternatives, including pregnancy care centers." This is what I'm talking about. Don't nudge people to abortion - offer alternatives. Yes. Do this.

So, logically, the next plank in the platform is entitled "Preserving Traditional Marriage." So, skipping ahead to... but wait! Wait wait! I found something, I found something! Two sentences even! Extra exclamation points on their way!!!! (*sarcasm off*)

"The two-parent family still provides the best environment of stability, discipline, responsibility, and character." So true. Studies confirm this. Google it. (I did.) Homes with two parents do produce, statistically, better-adjusted children.

"Children in homes without fathers are more likely to commit a crime, drop out of school, become violent, become teen parents, use illegal drugs, become mired in poverty, or have emotional or behavioral problems." I will second this if I'm allowed to substitute "homes without fathers" to "single-parent homes." Otherwise, I have to agree with it only as it pertains to children raised by single moms compared with children raised by two parents.

The section ends this way: "As the family is our basic unit of society, we oppose initiatives to erode parental rights." Duh. I'm guessing that this is meant to tie back to the abortion issue. Now if this reasoning is used to rationalize or defend spanking, then we need to chat, Mr. and Mrs. Ray Publican. Otherwise, carry on.

Carrying on to "Safeguarding Religious Liberties," where this turns up: "We support the First Amendment right of freedom of association of the Boy Scouts of America and other service organizations whose values are under assault, and we call upon the Commonwealth of Massachusetts to reverse its policy of blacklisting religious groups which decline to arrange adoptions by same-sex couples. Respectful of our nation’s diversity in faith, we urge reasonable accommodation of religious beliefs in the private workplace."

If you're going to take government money, you need to play by the government's rules. No discrimination in hiring. But if you want to form a private organization and intend on minding your own business, I'm with the R's on this: let people exclude whomever they want. the Scouts want to bar gays -- fine. Their call. Churches want to not perform gay weddings -- totally cool with them declining. But once you're on the government's dime, that all changes.

Less controversially, sort of, the "Preserving Americans' Property Rights" section ends with the sensible "We urge caution in the designation of National Historic Areas, which can set the stage for widespread governmental control of citizens’ lands." Private property is not to be trifled with. Capitalism still works better than other systems, and it only functions if the government shows restraint.

There we are. That is precisely how Republican I am. (Don't measure it.)

Abort, Retry, Fail? Your Choice / 9-1-10

Those old PC's from the turn of the decade -- no, not that decade... or that one... yes, THAT one -- had a tendency to, um, crash from time to time. (That's been fixed in the last 20 years, right? Right?) When a person (we'll call him "Me") would ask the computer, nicely, to execute an illegal order, the computer (we'll call it "Satan") would respond with a deceptively unpleasant multiple-choice conundrum:

"Abort, Retry, Fail?"

Never, "OK, Great, Jawohl!" No. Just three bad options.

Abort: Give up. Kill the operation before it even has a chance to flourish.

Retry: Yeah right, that'll work.

Fail: Basically computer language for "I win, you lose. Again." What next, "Master"?

Boy, nerdy computer jokes from the 80's sure do make a perfect lead-in for a subject as lighthearted and airy as abortion, don't they?

According to polls spanning 35 years, 47 percent of Americans currently describe themselves as "pro-life." 45 percent, meanwhile describe themselves as pro-choice. (I think maybe the other 8 percent call themselves either "Stupid-from-the-T-shirt-I'm-with-Stupid" or "swing-voters" or "pro-indecision" or "pro-go-f*ck-yourself.") Not only that, but the trend seems to unmistakably indicate a steady movement toward the pro-life position over the course of the last 15 years.

So yeah, here's the thing: I dispute the facts contained within the polling. (Maybe I even wreckon they aren't true.)

I would like, instead, to submit the completely unverifiable opinion that 95 percent of American parents are pro-choice. If the question is asked the right way.

Maybe if it were phrased a little like this:

"Do you support or oppose the opportunity for your 14-year-old daughter to end a pregnancy resulting from rape committed by a family member?"

Go ahead. Oppose that one. Try.

Try harder, maybe?

No? You'd like her to make up her own mind here? You think the molested kid ought to have a say in the outcome? Maybe you believe she should make the decision as to whether the fetus is brought to term? What's that, you say? You'd like her to "choose" whether to keep the baby?

Yeah, I thought so. It will not only take a special type of person not only to suggest that your daughter give birth in that situation, but then to MANDATE it... that's cold and harsh. That's not even tough love. That's, what, just tough, I guess.

You can call me on my extremism, and say that I'm using the most far-fetched example to support my case. I freely admit I am. You pose the question, "Should rich snotty promiscuous women living in Manhattan be entitled to the right to casually murder their viable unborn children, up to thirty seconds before delivery, and celebrate with martinis afterward?" and you're probably going to get something less than 95 percent support. Do they even allow negative numbers in polls?

But you make it personal -- your kid is the one seeking deliverance from an impossible situation -- and I confidently assert that almost every parent suddenly (miraculously) converts to the pro-choice camp.

Not because abortion is SO COOL. But because there comes a point where ideology fails, and you have to resort to unconditional compassion for your living flesh and blood, over whatever ideals you might subscribe to in your ivory towers. And because you can't really make this decision for her. And if you can't make it for her, you necessarily support her right to make it for herself. Hey: You've just earned your pro-choice merit badge.

You can call abortion "murder" or "the easy way out" or "a coward's choice" all you want, until it's your kid facing that dilemma.

Even my friend "Donald" (not his real name), who claims he and his wife have agreed in advance to not abort a child resulting from her being raped, has to consider whether he'd really tell his teenage daughter that she's not permitted to choose in that case.

(That's a real conversation I've had recently. "Don" sticks to his pro-life guns -- my word, there's an exquisite phrase -- even when his wife is hypothetically victimized. This is laudable. If abortion is murder, it's murder no matter the circumstances, and murder cannot be condoned. I respect and almost admire Don's ethical consistency. He's a good guy, deep down, even if like all of us political animals, he suffers from a lack of perspective at times.)

Anyway. Other people have made this exact same point before, no doubt. Some probably more eloquently than me, and some probably even more sarcastically than me. (No, I think that's possible. Barely. But it can be done, with Hulkulean effort.) But this is the first time I've gone down this road, so thanks for bearing with me.

If it's you or your kid, do you support the right to choose abortion? In any case? In some cases? And if you think you wouldn't go the abortion route in the end, do you support other women having the same choice? Or do you believe that life begins at or near conception every time, in which case your pregnant daughter's out of luck... or even then, do you allow her the chance to see things differently?

Parting thought, then: Instead of viewing abortions as expensive birth control for the callous and the careless, how about we spend some time thinking of them as painful choices for our daughters and sons?

(Maybe I should have been a preacher after all.)

The squishy center / 6-2-09

Let's face it, a fetus is not a person.

Let's face it, a fetus is not a random collection of cells.

So how 'bout we don't treat it as either.

If it's a person, it is subject to being murdered. So what then -- you want to prosecute would-be mothers for involuntary manslaughter if they miscarry? You want to charge a pregnant woman with assault if her blood type is harmful to the fetus inside her? Or if she smokes in her third trimester? Because those are three extremely viable courses of action, on a purely legal level, that result from giving a fetus the same rights as a born baby. (Actually, that third one sounds kind of borderline OK.)

Now likewise, if this fetus is nothing more than a bunch of tissue contained within another person, then when does it turn into a human? At birth? Really? Not two hours earlier, during labor? Or not a week before? When it crowns? At the first painful contraction? At 28 weeks, when it's considered viable for legal reasons? At 37 weeks, when it's viable pretty much all the time? Or before it's C-sectioned out of its mother who died four minutes ago on the operating table? Do we have a line in the (sand) womb we can draw here?

Let's face more: George Tiller, the abortion doctor murdered Sunday -- is he a creep or a hero?

How 'bout neither.

You'll have heard, by now, that Tiller performed somewhere in the vicinity of 60,000 abortions, that he was charged and acquitted with providing illegal abortions, and that he was fatally shot in the head at his church on Sunday while handing out the bulletin during the service.

In Salon, Kate Michelman, the former head of NARAL, in the wake of Tiller's death, writes to him: "Our world is doing poorly for having lost you. But your courage will inspire us to draw on our own strength and carry out the work for which you gave your life."

As pro-choice as I am, I can't quite squeeze Tiller into the same box she does. Was he fearless? Certainly. Principled? For sure. Brave? Can't deny it. But heroic-slash-courageous-slash-inspirational? I wonder.

And let's not make Tiller into some sort of villain. He provided a legal service few do, under constant threat of violence. He was shot once already, twice actually, in both arms. You may think his profession is despicable, but that doesn't give you the right to kill him. Or the right to rejoice that he died. (Now, different story altogether if he were a lawyer... hardy har har.)

So, in summary, hope you brought your gray Crayolas for this one.

Too much bend for my mind / 6-1-09

To a certain point, I can understand what motivates a guy to load his gun and, in a very premeditated fashion, go out and kill an abortion doctor. Particularly a late-term specialist who is estimated to have performed five figures' worth of abortions.

However, it's horrifying that Dr. George Tiller was shot dead this weekend for essentially performing his job within the confines of the law. (I also think abortion, since it is a gruesome and delicate medical procedure, should only remain legal if reasonable restrictions are in place.)

It's just that I can't bend my mind around how you would rationalize gunning down a man, presumably in God's name, during a Sunday morning worship service.

I've explored this from a couple vantage points. The killer must have believed the doctor was doing Satan's work unwillingly? The killer was convinced the man was in church just for show or out of habit? The killer was a fragile mind easily nursed into vigilante behavior? The killer was an atheist who despised abortion rights?

Either way, Dr. Tiller helped end as many as 60,000 pregnancies. (That's the estimate of the right-wing Washington Times.) With so many people considering him a mass murderer, you have to wonder why the doctor lived as long as he did. And that is a sad commentary.

P.S.: I snagged this from the non-right-wing New York Times:

"Troy Newman, the president of Operation Rescue, an anti-abortion group based in Wichita, said he had always sought out 'nonviolent' measures to challenge Dr. Tiller, including efforts in recent years to have him prosecuted for crimes or investigated by state health authorities.
'Operation Rescue has worked tirelessly on peaceful, nonviolent measures to bring him to justice through the legal system, the legislative system,' Mr. Newman said, adding, 'We are pro-life, and this act was antithetical to what we believe.' "

At least there's that.

Stupid strategy by stupid people / 5-15-09

Let's think about this one.

Say you're a Republican. (Easier for some of you than for others.) You're not crazy about Obama, and it has to do with your pro-life views.

Now say Obama is going to speak at your university's commencement tomorrow.

You are angry. You protest. You sign a petition. Maybe you even go so far as to do this. You do your darndest to fight back.

But that makes you stupid. (Not because you're pro-life. Abortion is a horrendous procedure. One that needs strict limits on its legality. I have nothing against most of the anti-abortion crowd.)

No, you're stupid because you just drew EVEN MORE attention to an event at which President Obama will shine. You do realize he's given a couple of speeches before? Some have been well received, rumor has it.

Seriously, this faux scandal (Catholics voted 54-45 for BHO last November) will have one main outcome. Bunches of people who wouldn't have paid attention Sunday will now. Care to guess what they'll see? (Oooooo, oooooo, pick me, I know, pick me, pick me!) A well-thought-out, reasonable, intelligent, funny speech in which Obama will probably even address this teapot tempest of a controversy.

Good thinkin' people.