Reality Check!! (Discussion)

I posted my last commentary on February 4, 2013. For those who may want to re-read it, it can be found by double clicking on its title "Reality Check!!"

I received two comments in response thereto both of which led to exchanges. I want to share these with you.

The first came from Albert Nekimken PhD of Vienna, Virginia, whose reaction to my post was as follows:

Your skewering of Jindal was delicious and absolutely on target. Regarding the prospect of millions of new Hispanic voters, I was surprised that you didn't even mention the recent vote in Puerto Rico in favor of statehood. How long can Republicans ignore this fervent plea to join the Union (and add Democratic votes in Congress…)? 

As for gerrymandering of House districts, I continue to believe strongly that the only way to solve this is to amend the Constitution so that ALL members of the House are elected by a national constituency, as is the president. The current system is hopelessly anachronistic and, as you describe cogently, thoroughly sabotaged. A national constituency would have the corollary benefits of diluting the effectiveness of lobbyists and narrowly directed PAC money. It would force the creation of multiparty, national governing coalitions. 

Beyond that, you are absolutely correct in sounding the alarm regarding GOP efforts to change the electoral college system, which--whatever its faults--seems to be working as intended at present.

My response follows:

Not all agree that there is a fervent plea on the part of Puerto Ricans to join the union. See here. 

Quoting from CNN:

"In response to the second question, which asked voters to select an alternative, 61% of those who cast ballots chose statehood, but more than 480,000 people abstained from voting on that question.

They could have voted for statehood, if they had really supported it," said Maria de Lourdes Santiago, senator-elect for the Puerto Rican Independence Party, which supports the island becoming its own sovereign republic. "When you combine all the votes, statehood doesn't appear as the true winner in the second question about non-colonial options."

But it is irrelevant. Congress will never allow it. You may remember that when statehood for Hawaii and for Alaska was being considered it only became possible because one was considered Democratic and the other Republican. Without a balance it is not possible.

As for gerrymandering the solution does not require a Constitutional Amendment, and I think that your national House is neither a good nor a viable solution. The Solution lies in the Supreme Court striking it down as a violation of the Equal Protection clause.

In VIETH V. JUBELIRER the Court would not intervene because they could not agree on a suitable standard. But that is not needed. They don't have to agree what would be legal, only what is not. I think this is an issue where Kennedy could be won over and we might have the practice stopped.

A national House constituency runs in the face that smaller units need to be represented, something I agree with.

But I would favor doing away with mid-term elections. Let the House and the Senate be elected every four year to coincide with Presidential elections. Less time spent campaigning and raising money, and a larger and more representative electorate. If possible, state elections should be held at the same time too.

I do not favor multi-parties. They confuse the issues. 

Another comment came from Mike Cerrato Esq. of Westville, New Jersey, who opined:

I've gotten over their having founded their economic system on slavery several hundred years ago (after all, up until that time, everyone was doing it or had done it in the past) I just wish they'd stop trying to REINSTATE it for EVERYONE not earning over a half million dollars/year! But, then again, I always was a wild-eyed idealist.

This drew the following rebuttal from me:

I would not consider slavery as being an integral part of the founding of our nation as being relevant today, were it not for the fact that its influence pervades our culture to this day.

As for "until that time, everyone was doing it" is not accurate. Take a look here and you will see that the US was very late in abolishing it, as compared to most of the world, and no where else did it require a bloody war, to end it. As late as 1850 the US Congress passed the Fugitive slave law, and as late as 1857, the Supreme Court decided the Federal Government did not have the power to regulate slavery within the territories.

But the important point is that race has never ceased to be a major factor in our body politic. It did not stop being a factor even after the Civil Rights movement of the '60s and remains a major factor to this day, as I will discuss in a future post. This is a factor quite apart from the economic class warfare being waged against the middle and lower classes.

Which in turn drew these further remarks:

I don't know about it being "quite apart" from what is going on today. Oh, the suits are nicer, and the words more polished (i.e., "Right to work"), but it still boils down to a bunch of people who still think that it is right to steal another’s' labor, or at least get it as cheaply as possible and morality be damned as long as it gives us "Always low prices." As for the history you cite, all I can say is "American exceptionalism" indeed! As always, thanks for some enlightening information.

Drawing an extensive surrebuttal from me, as follows:

Here I must again take exception. Lower prices are as much a boon to those with little, as higher income. If there were a direct relationship between lower wages and lower prices, it might have some justification. Occasionally there is, but most of the time, lower compensation leads to more profits, which goes mostly to those who already have too much. But I have no quarrel with the Capitalist system that creates these motives, or with the people who take advantage of the system. 

           

I must caution against false equivalence. A system that tries to keep labor costs low is not in any way equivalent to slavery, and we serve both concerns poorly when we make such a false equivalence.

           

All I want is for the government to play its role in balancing the system. A fair minimum wage adjusted to inflation. A fair system of taxation where we get enough revenue from those who can afford it, so that government can meet the needs of the nation and promulgate regulations to protect the consumer, the worker, and the environment, while making sure the nation has the infrastructure and the educational system that keeps it competitive into the future.

           

It is indeed generational theft when we do not do the things that will make us competitive in the future, and destroy the environment in which future generations will be living.

           

But race is different. There is no profit motive when we incarcerate people of color for doing what white people do with impunity, or deny them the right to vote. That is innate to people needing to feel superior, when they have no other basis for it than color.

           

Note how our immigration laws have always, and continue to discriminate against people we deem inferior, whether first Chinese, then people of Eastern and Southern European descent, and now people from the South of us.

           

We, as a nation, suffer from a terrible case of xenophobia and fail to deal with our problems with cries of exceptionalism, which leads to a refusal to recognize our failures and to remedy them.

           

What has made this nation an exceptional one was our creation of a strong middle class, and an educational system that was second to none. This is not the fist time we have temporarily lost our way. We have always managed to right ourselves, often through sheer luck, such as when the reactionary McKinley died and the Reformist VP Teddy Roosevelt ascended to the Presidency. This ushered in a reformist era, when the Republican Roosevelt was followed by the Reformist, though racist Woodrow Wilson, though with the Taft hiatus. We then had the dark days of Harding, Coolidge and Hoover, only for the pendulum to swing the other way with Roosevelt, Kennedy and Johnson, and would have continued in this vein if the Left foolishly had not turned on Humphrey, prolonging the Vietnam war by eight years, by ushering in Nixon, whose policies, domestically, really weren't so bad, but who with his Southern strategy, based on race, ushered in the Reagan era, which we are only now recovering from, albeit with great resistance.

Comments, questions, or corrections, are welcome and will be responded to, but will not be distributed, because events are moving too fast and my posts need to keep up.