Category Archives: Politics

Another Election Day, But the Same Heinlein Quote Applies

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On every electon day, I recall this bit of guidance from Robert A. Heinlein’s “The Notebooks of Lazarus Long”:*

If you are part of a society that votes, then do so. There may be no candidates and no measures you want to vote for…but there are certain to be ones you want to vote against. In case of doubt, vote against. By this rule you will rarely go wrong. If this is too blind for your taste, consult some well-meaning fool (there is always one around) and ask his advice. Then vote the other way. This enables you to be a good citizen (if such is your wish) without spending the enormous amount of time on it that truly intelligent exercise of franchise requires.

And if you decide you want to vote against both sides, I am as always available as your convenient write-in vote.

I’m the Anti-Candidate — or, if you will, the “well-meaning fool” — and I approved this blog post.

___
*The “Notebooks” were included in Heinlein’s novel, Time Enough for Love.

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Cutting Through the Benghazi BS

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In all of the back-and-forth about the killings in Benghazi — all of the he-said, she-said, they-said, and who-knew-what-and-when-did-they-know-it — I haven’t heard any of our leaders lay out this simple point:

Four U.S. citizens are dead who shouldn’t be.


(Will UN Monitors Investigate This Tragedy? by roberthuffstutter, from Flickr under Creative Commons.)

Those men — Ambassador Christopher Stevens, Glen Doherty, Tyrone Woods, and Sean Smith — posed no threat to Libya, and indeed posed no threat to individual Libyans. Their mission was diplomatic, and peaceful, and in general respectful and helpful to Libya as a nation and its citizenry. Yet armed marauders, in a coordinated assault, overpowered and killed them.

Four Americans are dead who shouldn’t be.

Why are they dead? First, for the simple reason that they were U.S. citizens.

Not because they had done or said anything specific, and not even because they worked under the current administration.* They were targeted because they represented the U.S. What does that mean for the rest of our diplomats, or for any of us who may travel abroad? Call it paranoia if you like, but it seems to me there are forces in the world that consider each of us, and all of us, legitimate targets because we are U.S. citizens.

It appears there may be another reason they are dead. Not because of a video presentation, but because increased security that might have been afforded was — for reasons as yet unknown — not provided. It is fruitless at this early stage, as investigations proceed, to speculate on whether a legitimate need went unmet, or whether the reasoned allocation of limited resources produced a scarcity where a surplus was needed. I am willing to wait for the professionals to determine what was known, and when, and whether the preparations and responses were reasonable, but in the end the tragic truth will remain:

Four of my countrymen are dead who shouldn’t be.

In the immediate aftermath of the attack, it was heartening to see some Libyans step forward to express regret over the attack that killed four men they knew, at heart, to be friends of Libya. It would be more heartening to see those who love peace take steps to apprehend and punish all the perpetrators, and then to work diligently to moderate the extreme rhetoric and the frequent recourse to violence we have seen in Islamofascism.

But no amount of contrition or action on the part of moderate Libyans will bring back our people.

Four U.S. citizens are dead who shouldn’t be.

And we have every right to be pissed off about that. I’ll even go so far as to say that if you’re a U.S. citizen and you’re not pissed off about the fact that four of your countrymen were killed for no good reason, then I think you need to re-evaluate your loyalties.

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*If the Ambassador and his staff had been associated with the current administration instead of the U.S. as a whole, would they have been targeted? Possibly. The current administration has shown itself to be friendly, if not actually accommodating, to those who do not support the best interests of the U.S.; however, it has largely (and correctly, in my opinion) continued the national security policies of the previous administration.

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Missourians, You Have Another Choice: the Anti-Candidate!

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Actually, that goes for just about anyone, anywhere, but most especially for my friends in the Show-Me State who are as appalled as the rest of the thinking world at the idiocy spouted by Representative Akin.

Remember, the Anti-Candidate is available to be your write-in vote for any election, any time, anywhere.

You DO have a choice this November. As the Grail Knight said to Indiana Jones, “Choose wisely!”

I’m the Anti-Candidate, and I approved this message.

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August 14: Sons of Liberty Day

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On August 14, 1765, the recently-formed “Sons of Liberty” made themselves known in a very public way.

Starting as “the Loyal Nine,” the group formed in Boston in the summer of 1765 in response to the Stamp Act. By August their agitation produced a violent response, when on the 14th a mob burned the Stamp Distributor in effigy and ransacked his home. Four years later, the Sons of Liberty gathered at Boston’s “Liberty Tree” to commemorate the event and one of the participants compiled a list of those present.

According to this USHistory.org page, however, “The success of these movements in undermining the Stamp Act cannot be attributed to violence alone. Their most effective work was performed in newsprint [as] accounts of the most dramatic escapades spread throughout the colonies.”

The most famous of the Sons of Liberty’s escapades was the Boston Tea Party on December 16, 1773. That particular protest contrasts with recent protests we’ve seen ….


(Click for larger version.)

Well might we ask ourselves, who are today’s true-born Sons of Liberty? And for what liberty do they fight?

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Think I'll Run for Congress, 'Cause I've Got Some Bills to Pay

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More of my musical nonsense …


(Write me in for any office, anywhere, anytime.)

Filmed in the Baen Barfly suite at Dragon*Con, a little ditty about “the only sport for adults.”* Here’s the chorus:

Politics, that’s the life for me
It fits my arrogant, megalo-maniacal personality
I’ll get my name in the papers and my face on your T.V.
And take good care of myself, my friends and my family — yes, that’s the life for me

You won’t find honesty like that in any standard campaign commercial, will you? So I think of this as the theme song for the Anti-Campaign.

Watch it here: Playing Politics.

Many thanks to Tedd Roberts for both the videography and all the YouTube magic.

Hope you get a chuckle out of it — the melody is a little monotonous (sorry), but consider the subject matter. And remember, if you don’t want to vote for any of the folks on the ballot, you can always write my name in!

I’m the Anti-Candidate, and I approved this message.

___
*Attributed to Robert A. Heinlein.

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A Pre-Election-Day Reminder

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If you can’t find anyone you want to vote for, you can always write in the Anti-Candidate.

… we’re not on the ballot for … any elected office (so far as we know). You won’t see our name on those irritating little signs in your neighborhood. You won’t see any obnoxious “I approved this message” ads on television. In fact, if you’re committed to one party or one issue and you find a candidate who will represent you adequately, we encourage you to vote for that person.

Then again, if you find you’re not satisfied with the candidates already on the ballot — and you can’t pick one to vote against, as Robert A. Heinlein suggested — just vote against all the candidates and write in “Gray Rinehart.” It doesn’t matter what office: put us down for any or all of them. (Be sure to spell the name right: we wouldn’t want the election officials to get confused.) On the off chance that we win, we probably won’t show up anyway, since we agree with Thoreau that the government governs best “which governs least.”

You can read more on the Anti-Campaign page.

I’m the Anti-Candidate, and who else in their right mind would have approved this message?

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Freedom of Speech Is Not Free

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Subtitle: “Elizabeth Moon, Juan Williams, and Liberal Hypocrisy”

It interests me, in the way all coincidences interest me, that on the same day National Public Radio declared its disinterest in free speech by firing Juan Williams for expressing a contrary opinion, the Society for the Furtherance and Study of Fantasy and Science Fiction (SF3) disinvited guest of honor Elizabeth Moon from the 2011 WISCON (its convention in Madison, Wisconsin) for having expressed her opinion on her own LiveJournal account.

Both examples demonstrate the cost of free speech; not the cost of defending it, which Ms. Moon paid as a U.S. Marine, but that free speech can sometimes cost the speaker quite a lot.

It will not surprise anyone who knows me that I stand with Ms. Moon and Mr. Williams.

I have never met Mr. Williams, and have only met Ms. Moon once: I spoke with her briefly after the “Politics in Science Fiction” panel at Dragon*Con that was the impetus for her LiveJournal post. I found her to be delightfully thoughtful, even if I do not agree with everything she said during the panel. I think everyone should read what she wrote about citizenship and consider it carefully.

Let me be clear that NPR has the right to hire and fire in order to maintain its “standards,” even if those standards have more to do with their political agenda than journalistic integrity; however, they should be forthright about their agenda. SF3, which has a crystal clear agenda as the “leading feminist science fiction convention,” has the right to invite whomever it wishes to be its guest of honor; however, to cancel a standing invitation because they find an author’s recent statement distasteful is bad form and hardly conducive to examining the issues in a reasoned, dispassionate debate.

I find it extremely interesting that the decision by SF3 (which, so far as I can tell, did not come with any detailed explanation) came a month after the WISCON directors decided specifically not to rescind Ms. Moon’s invitation:

Even though we strongly disavow … elements of Ms. Moon’s post, we have not rescinded her invitation to be a Guest of Honor, nor do we plan to do so. The WisCon planning committee selected Ms. Moon earlier this year based on her past work and our feeling that she would make a positive contribution to WisCon. After extensive conversation in recent days, and having spoken directly with Ms. Moon on the subject, we continue to believe that her presence will contribute to the Con.

I’m curious as to what changed in the last month.

The deeper problem here is that these kinds of actions — metaphorical excoriations of public figures, and the inevitable backlashes — raise everyone’s hackles, mine included, and make rational discourse even more difficult than it usually is. Our political reflexes kick in, whichever side of the aisle we sit on. We are less prone to listen, more prone to shout.

Indeed, I wonder how loud the shouting would be — how much louder it would be from the left — if any organization, anywhere, fired or disinvited someone who, say, called right-wingers racist because they disagree with the President’s policies, or who maligned the military because it seeks to impose good order and discipline under the law, or who ridiculed all Christians because a misguided few seem to have stricken “God is love” from their Bibles.* It is an interesting thought experiment, but only that, because those opinions, it seems, are protected … and even celebrated.

And the hypocritical message repeats, loud and clear: free speech is free when it agrees with X; free speech is free when it doesn’t offend Y; free speech is free when it is mine, rather than yours.

___

*Saint John’s first letter, chapter 4, verse 8 (paraphrased): Anyone who does not love does not know God, for God is love.

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On the Road to Dragon*Con, the Anti-Campaign Surfaces

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Driving through the Triad on the way to Dragon*Con yesterday, right around Thomasville, I noticed a blue Dodge pickup truck with a very interesting political message on the tailgate. Neatly spelled out in precise white letters was the simple message:

SOMEONE ELSE
FOR
PRESIDENT

— which sums up why I started the Anti-Campaign.

I have no way of contacting the gentleman in the truck; he pulled off I-85S at exit 106 (Finch Farm Road). If anyone knows who drives a dark blue Dodge pickup with North Carolina plates and a University of Georgia-style “G” affixed to the roll bar, let him know that I appreciate the sentiment.

And if you feel the same way about any of this year’s political races — that you’d rather have someone else, anyone else, than the candidates on the ballot — feel free to write in my name.

I’m the Anti-Candidate, and I approved this message.

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Why are Terrorists' Grievances More Palatable than Conservatives' Opinions?

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(Disclosure, or Caveat: I don’t have hard evidence to back this up, and I presume many of my friends on the left side of the political aisle would deny it. This is supposition on my part, grounded in my own perceptions of news stories, Internet postings, and conversations. I suspect I could find some documentary evidence if pressed to do so.)

My question in this blog post stems from the vehemence with which the Tea Parties have been excoriated by left-leaning elements of the press and the populace. Interesting in the first place is that the groups took their name from a pivotal event in U.S. history, and were quickly branded with a homosexual slur that many on the left still seem not to recognize.* Perhaps it should not be surprising, since those leaning left consider themselves “progressive” and wish only and always to “move on” to something new and different (even if not demonstrably better), that they would disdain a movement that looked back to an example of revolutionary protest by Colonial patriots.


(U.S. Flag image by Elaron, via Flickr, under Creative Commons. Click to enlarge.)

But even more interesting and appalling is that the same people who went to great lengths after September 11 to ask why terrorists would attack us — who characterized the terrorists’ concerns as legitimate and presumably still believe them worthy of serious consideration by the very people they attacked — won’t spare even a moment to consider why their political opponents differ from them. They asked about the terrorists, “Why do they hate us?” Do they ask of those at a Tea Party rally, “Why do they disagree with us?” From what I have seen, they do not ask and would not be interested in the answer. In a life-and-death struggle with radicals who would prefer them (and the rest of us) dead if we refuse to convert, they want to meet around the table and listen to grievances; but in a political debate, they refuse to listen to differences of opinion.

People on the right and the left used to agree on one thing: that they would defend each other’s right to express their opinion, even when they disagreed. No more, it seems.

Pogo was right: “We have met the enemy, and he is us.”**

___
*First pointed out by James Taranto of the Wall Street Journal. In effect, their use of vulgar slang in the pejorative sense equates to a slur in both directions, i.e., against the homosexuals as well as Tea Partiers.

**From a 1971 cartoon by Walt Kelly. A play on US Navy Captain Oliver Hazard Perry’s message to Major General William Henry Harrison after the Battle of Lake Erie (War of 1812), “We have met the enemy, and they are ours.”

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Vote for Gray! (The Anti-Candidate Lives)

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After much soul-searching and “counting the cost,” I have decided NOT to file as a candidate for the 2010 election primary. (Today is the deadline.) Instead, I will continue making snide observations about the candidates and the process, and as the Anti-Candidate I remain available for any write-in votes you want to cast.

(East view of the U.S. Capitol. U.S. Government photo. Click to enlarge.)

I received a lot of encouragement from folks, and I appreciate everyone’s confidence and general enthusiasm. I especially appreciate the offers of office space and other support. Maybe next time….

I made the decision based on four practical considerations. First, I don’t have any spare time to devote to the actual work of campaigning, not while I’m working two jobs and spending most of my off hours on church matters. Second, I haven’t built an organization capable of running a campaign, spreading the word, and getting out the vote. Third, owing to the lack of an organization, I don’t have any campaign funds to pay for things like the campaign filing fee. And finally, there doesn’t seem to be any shortage of candidates already in position, each of whom has more time, more of an organization, and more money than I do. So, from a practical standpoint, it made sense to sit this one out.

Some folks really seem to want me to run for office, and maybe one day I will. In the meantime, if you want to get an idea of where I stand on the issues, I’ll let you know as soon as I figure that out. (Actually, I’ve posted some issue-related ramblings on the Anti-Campaign pages.)

And if you don’t like the choices set before you on election day (or primary day), and can’t decide which one(s) you should vote against, feel free to vote against all of them by writing in my name!

(I’m Gray Rinehart, and I approved this message.)

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