Catholic Democrats

The Church's All or Nothing Stance Against Healthcare Reform

2009-11-12T08:00:00.003-05:00

My interest was piqued this past Sunday when the lector at mass pointed out that we should pay special attention to the insert in this week's bulletin about healthcare from the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops (USCCB). In years past I've liked these guys because they've compiled some very helpful statistics about Congressional voting records on issues of social justice that are so important to the Church (and me), but I was a bit weary about this insert given the Church's recent inaction during the current healthcare debate.

Specifically, I wondered how many paragraphs it would take for them to mention abortion. As it turns out, the answer was zero -- they mentioned it in the title!

The Church places great importance on the availability of healthcare to all, regardless of their citizenship* or ability to pay. For these reasons they should be a champion of the reform efforts underway. Even if they don't want to become bogged down by the details and support any specific plan, I would think this would be a prime opportunity for the USCCB -- and the Church as a whole -- to make their social justice teachings widely known and promote the reform movement's work towards providing universal (or near-universal) healthcare.

Instead, the Church has been a huge disappointment, choosing not to help the reform process along but threatening to derail it.

Rather than seizing this opportunity to educate the public on its long-time beliefs on this issue, the USCCB -- and the Church as a whole -- has chosen to follow months of silence (really -- where was the Church back in August when townhall meetings were on the news every night and people were making up stories about "death panels?") by tying the healthcare debate to the anti-abortion movement. While I personally take more of a pro-choice stance, I cannot fault the Church for its consistent stance calling for the protection of all life. However, it disappoints me to no end that the Church would be willing to give up tremendous progress towards helping millions of people based on its position on an issue that is only circumstantially related to healthcare reform.

There is already a Federal law on the books that prevents Federal funds to be used to provide abortions, but the thinking here is that people who would receive Federal subsidies to purchase private health insurance could buy it from private insurers who cover abortion as a medical procedure. Again, I have no problem with the Church's opposition to that in theory, but it really angers me that they'd throw away all the gains in the reform bills simply because somebody could possibly use their subsidy to have an abortion.

Sure, argue against that possibility, but don't block the passage of the entire bill based on a theoretical situation. Is the bill perfect? No -- far from it. But as White House staffers are fond of saying these days, don't let perfect be the enemy of the possible. And why pick this issue now? Federal funds currently go -- directly and indirectly -- towards other issues that the Church is against. For instance, this past Tuesday night a prisoner was executed for his crime, using taxpayer money to pay for the act. Did the Church actively oppose the last Virginia spending bill that authorized funding for prisons? Did they threaten to derail the entire state budget process to end taxpayer support for a practice that violates its clear and consistent stance of protecting all life? (And did they do the same in Congress, which likely provides some indirect funding to Virginia's penal system?)

As it turns out, an amendment was added to the House bill that mandates the creation of identical healthcare policies -- without coverage for abortions -- to be offered to consumers using Federal subsidies to buy private insurance. While many pro-choicers are lamenting that amendment, I find it an acceptable, if not complicated, way to solve this problem. But why couldn't the Church have supported the main goals of the bill while working towards passing this amendment?

Instead, in this Sunday's flier and elsewhere the USCCB actively opposed the House bill and any other healthcare reform measure that didn't have specific protections against abortion funding. (Clearly the flier was printed before the vote on Saturday, because it gave no mention to the amendment.) Again, while I respect the desire to protect life, I strongly believe that they did more harm than good by taking this position.

If healthcare reform fails, millions will remain uninsured and vulnerable -- and abortion will still be legal. Why not at least take a big step forward in solving one of those problems?

*A second Church criticism of the House bill was it's exclusion of illegal aliens from being covered. Again the USCCB's stance was to oppose the entire bill rather than lobbying for this part to be changed. This at least keeps the Church from appearing partisan. While some Democrats are against the abortion funding amendment, covering illegals is an unpopular issue on both sides of the aisle.

Thank You

2009-11-11T14:42:00.003-05:00

Image from the U.S. Dept. of Veterans Affairs

Debunking Health Care Scare Tactics

2009-11-11T13:29:00.002-05:00

Ruth Marcus has a solid column in today's Washington Post where she lists some of the outright lies and misinformation presented by opponents of the health care reform legislation that passed last week in the House. It's bad enough that this BS is out there, but the fact that these outrageous comments were made during the House debate on the bill is disrespectful to the members of the House and the institution itself.

Health scare tactics

She ends with this:

Are the Republican arguments against the bill so weak that they have to resort to these misrepresentations and distortions?

Allow me to answer: Yes. Yes they are.

Politicizing the Bible

2009-10-07T12:00:00.001-04:00

Sadly this doesn't seem to be a joke. The website Conservapedia (tag line: "The Trustworthy Encyclopedia") has taken upon itself to start a project to revise the Bible to remove what it describes as "liberal bias." Their Conservative Bible Project starts out:

Liberal bias has become the single biggest distortion in modern Bible translations.

Personally I wasn't aware that Biblical scholars were operating with any political bias when translating Greek to English. Silly me thought they were more concerned with things like accuracy and providing historical context. But I guess now I've been enlightened to the previously secret scandal that most modern Bible translations were made by people wearing Yes We Can! buttons.

So what is Conservapedia's goal? They want a "modern" translation that meets 10 guidelines:

1. Framework against Liberal Bias
2. Not Emasculated
3. Not Dumbed Down
4. Utilize Powerful Conservative Terms
5. Combat Harmful Addiction
6. Accept the Logic of Hell
7. Express Free Market Parables
8. Exclude Later-Inserted Liberal Passages
9. Credit Open-Mindedness of Disciples
10. Prefer Conciseness of Liberal Wordiness

Now let me state that I'm not against revising translations from time-to-time. Language can be modernized, scholars can update translations based on new findings, better understanding of historical context can lead to new thinking, etc (in fact, Catholic books of worship were revised a few years ago to reflect some minor translation differences in the Sunday readings from the previous editions). But liberal bias? "Powerful Conservative Terms?" Free market parables? Liberal "wordiness?" Please.

They are actually complaining that the use of the word "comrade" comes from "defective translations" and should be replaced with "volunteer." Personally I thought a synonym for comrade was "friend," but I guess the fact that those leftist pinko Commies used it makes it a bad word.

Also according to Conservapedia, the story of the adulteress (John 8: 1-11) contains the "liberal message" of not judging someone else's conduct when you yourself are not perfect. Personally I'm not familiar with the history of that passage, and if biblical scholars judge it to not be authentic, then I won't argue with its removal from John. But to claim that its inclusion by Liberals undermines the rule of Mosaic law calling for the "God-ordained government" to impose the death penalty is going more than a bit too far.

It seems to me that the Bible's messages don't fit within some people's narrow world view, and rather than re-examining their own values they'd rather change the Bible to better reflect those (sorely misguided) beliefs. It wouldn't surprise me if their finished "Conservative Bible" made Jesus a lot tougher on crime, less likely to turn the other cheek, and a lot more like a vengeful Old Testament God.

Maybe when these guys are finished they can take a look at that pesky U.S. Constitution, too. There are some amendments in particular that were inserted by Liberals (whose idea was it to let women vote, anyway?), and the whole thing is just too wordy.

Government Ownership

2009-06-16T13:22:00.003-04:00

A pie chart shown recently on Real Time with Bill Maher. Kind of speaks for itself.

Bruce Schneier on the NY Terrorist Arrests

2009-05-22T12:00:00.000-04:00

Bruce, a well-known security expert, has some excellent points about the recent arrest of four men for plotting to blow up synagogues:

One: There was little danger of an actual terrorist attack...

Two, they were caught by traditional investigation and intelligence. Not airport security. Not warrantless eavesdropping. But old fashioned investigation and intelligence. This is what works...

Three, they were idiots...

Four, an "informant" helped this group a lot.

The big picture: law enforcement did its job (and should be congratulated), so don't let anyone try to convince you that our personal freedoms must be sacrificed to keep us safe. And don't live in fear. I'd recommend reading Bruce's entire entry for more detail and context.

Good Article on Reaction to the Obama Notre Dame Speech

2009-05-15T09:53:00.002-04:00

This article shows that, despite the noise made by some, most people -- Notre Dame students, Catholics, and Americans at large -- don't have a problem with Obama giving the commencement address at Notre Dame.

http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2009/05/14/politics/main5014711.shtml

The media's habit of taking provocative stories and running with them often gives a disproportionate amount of coverage to groups, no matter how small, that make the most noise. It appears that this is another one of those cases. While there is opposition among many in the church to Obama's stance on abortion rights, many of those same people also feel that his efforts to reduce the number of abortions (rather than outlawing the procedure), along with his work to decrease poverty and end the wars, is more in line with Church teaching than those who take a hard line against abortion while ignoring other areas of social justice.

Sex Scandals and Torture: A Case of Misplaced Moral and Legal Outrage

2009-04-23T16:03:00.004-04:00

So let me get this straight: when Clinton had inappropriate sex in the White House, people (and by "people" I mean Beltway journalists along with Republicans of all stripes) were willing to spend tens of millions of tax dollars to investigate (I believe Ken Starr spent in the ballpark of $75 million on his investigation). No laws were broken, but it was relentlessly covered in the media and the impeachment hearings were broadcast live.

And yet the Bush administration broke the law by authorizing torture on enemy combatants, and now many of the same people who wanted Clinton thrown out of office are saying we need to let this go. "No need to bring up the past. Let's look forward in the name of post-partisanship." Never mind that, effective or not, torture was -- and is -- a felony in this country.

I'm not giving Clinton a free pass. His actions were deplorable. But not felonies. And you couldn't pick up a paper or turn on a TV without hearing the latest about it.

Of course the torture stuff is all over print and broadcast media these days, but for some reason the Beltway press is playing it as Obama's problem. Never mind that guy who had the job before him who actually approved the illegal interrogation techniques.

I'm not going to argue the effectiveness of torture. Many people say that it worked, but I've seen more evidence that the most useful information was gleaned from subjects before they were waterboarded. Still, let's ignore this and go back to my original point: torture is a felony, and we're just supposed to shrug our shoulders and let it pass?

I don't think the grunts who administered the waterboardings should be prosecuted; they were just following orders. I think the people who approved the use of those techniques should be, however. Their twisted logic justified techniques that, once shown the light of day, are not standing up to the rule of law, and those people should be held accountable no matter what their prior status or title was.

Why are so many people -- especially the Press -- suggesting that high-level government officials aren't subject to the same laws as everyone else? For more on this topic, see Glenn Greenwald.

Where is the moral outrage? I'm pissed that the previous administration authorized this barbaric treatment of prisoners, and I'm pissed that it looks like they'll be allowed to get away with breaking the law without facing any consequences. How can this be less worthy of investigation and prosecution than a president having an extramarital affair? Between this and the free pass on the illegal wiretapping, I just don't know what to say anymore.

George Lakoff on The Obama Code

2009-02-24T16:31:00.002-05:00

Another great post on FiveThirtyEight.com, this time by guest columnist George Lakoff, a professor of linguistics and cognitive science at UC-Berkeley.

Lakoff talks about several issues closely related to this blog that Obama is expected to discuss during tonight's address:

Values over Programs -- the need to separate what government programs accomplish over the programs themselves
Empathy-based policy -- governing by acting in everyone's best interests, not just your own (or your Party's)
Biconceptualism -- finding common ground with traditional opponents and working together on those shared values
Protection and empowerment -- does government "work" to keep us safe and provide opportunity for all
Morality and Economics -- i.e. budgets are "moral documents"
Systemic Causation and Systemic Risk -- consequences, and risk, are not always directly related to actions, but instead are tied to a complex system, be that economic or environmental
Contested Concepts and Patriotic Language -- "freedom" meant something different when George W. Bush described it while at the same time authorizing domestic wiretapping programs; Obama will try to restore the common meaning

It's a long essay, and clearly Lakoff is coming at this as an Obama supporter, but his points are very interesting and worth a read. I firmly believe that many of the values Obama is trying to convey are truly American values. Partisan politics have poisoned both sides into taking harsh stands opposing (or supporting) policies based on political rather than moral grounds. If minds are kept open and partisanship set aside, we can do great things.

Note in this case I don't think bipartisanship simply means compromising and making concessions to the other side. Certainly that's a part of it, but I think both sides need to dig themselves out of their right vs. left posturing and look at all of our struggles and opportunities from a different perspective that allows them to take a new stock of the situation.

A Rising Tide that Lifted All Boats

2009-02-17T17:20:00.001-05:00

The chart below is from an entry on www.fivethirtyeight.com called The Clinton Economic Record and Rising Tides. In that post, Nate Silver breaks down the effects of White House economic policies from Nixon/Ford through Bush 43.

A quick glance shows the obvious:

Nixon/Ford policies were favorable to the rich, and oddly favorable to the very poor at the same time (an anomoly Silver suggests may be more to the delayed effect of LBJ's "Great Society" programs)
The Carter years were economically tough, but there may have been some upper-income benefits from the period's high inflation
Reagan/Bush showed improvements for everyone, but their policies steering wealth towards upper income levels were extremely successful -- for the wealthy, of course
During Clinton, a rising tide lifted all boats
Bush 43's policies were not successful for ANYONE, and they were simply DISASTROUS for the lowest income levels

Silver provides excellent analysis to these trends, and I don't want to steal any more of his thunder, so read his article for its even-handed breakdown of what was successful, not successful, and what kinds of policies can help everyone going forward.

Rick Warren? Really?

2008-12-18T11:46:00.002-05:00

I have to say that I'm disappointed with Obama's choice of Rick Warren to deliver the invocation at his inauguration in January. Granted, my disappointment would have been more like shock had he gone totally off the deep end and chosen someone like James Dobson, but I have to wonder if this choice was made for personal religious reasons or for political reasons. Not knowing Obama's thoughts, I'll have to speculate it was political (Democratic majority in Congress or not, he still has to play nice with Conservatives to get things done), but perhaps Obama's religious beliefs are more conservative than I originally thought.

In his defense Warren has taken on some issues that are outside of the mainstream evangelical agenda, such as eliminating poverty and human rights abuses, but on many other issues he sticks pretty close to the conservative side. So who would I have chosen? Well, if it were me I'd pick my parish priest, but if I were in Obama's shoes I believe a better choice would be Jim Wallis.

People who know me know I'm a big fan of Wallis. Although I'd never consider myself an evangelical Christian, I think he's done an outstanding job of giving evangelical Christians a moderate, rational voice. He's the first nationally known minister I've really cared to listen to, frankly, and he has sensible ideas about faith, politics, and the meeting of the two. His message is far more inclusive than Warren, and I think he'd do a lot more than Warren to bring everyone together at a time when we need a common sense of community the most.

If you don't already know Rev. Wallis, he's one of the founders of Sojourners, whose mission is "to articulate the biblical call to social justice, inspiring hope, and building a movement to transform individuals, communities, the church, and the world." You can read about him and his organization at www.sojo.net.

Here We Go Again, with a Twist

2008-11-14T00:00:00.000-05:00

In a letter to parishioners, a Roman Catholic priest in South Carolina instructed anyone who voted for Obama to refrain from receiving Communion until they have done penance for their vote, "lest they eat and drink their own condemnation."

Um, yeah.

This is the first time I've come across parishioners receiving this treatment (usually it's just politicians themselves), and this is the first time I've seen this after an election. I guess this priest hasn't read the rather long "Faithful Citizenship" document released by the US Conference of Catholic Bishops. It clearly states that Catholics can vote for whomever they choose, regardless of their candidate's stand on abortion -- if they have come to conclude, after praying and forming their social conscience, that they believe their candidate has other strengths that match their values better than the opponent. The only catch is that Catholics can't vote for a candidate precisely because of his or her views on abortion.

We've talked about this in previous posts, and of course we'll discuss it in future posts as well (including some discussion about Catholics, election exit polls, and how Catholics voted). For now, with 54% of Catholics voting for Obama, it looks like this South Carolina priest might have a significantly shorter Communion line this weekend, unless his confession hours are booked solid before mass.

More at Huffington Post.

Happiness

2008-11-05T12:40:00.002-05:00

Seven Key Themes of Catholic Social Teaching: Wrapping it All Up

2008-11-03T22:00:00.002-05:00

We've covered a lot of ground in the past week, examining the seven themes of Catholic social teaching and grading the presidential candidates based on their support for those themes:

Senator Obama has come out on top, in my rankings, with a score of 6-1 over Senator McCain. While McCain scores favorably in the "right to life" categories, Obama shows greater strength in his support for social, economic, and justice issues.

Each of the seven themes incorporates more than one issue, however, and I feel it's important to wrap up this series with a brief look at each of the issues that have been raised over the course of this series. Examining how the candidates rank on these issues will provide a more rounded view of their support for these social teachings - McCain will come out better on some of the social and economic issues while Obama will come out better on some of the right to life issues.

The complexity of this undertaking has reinforced my belief that voting a single issue is short-sighted and dangerous. Too many of these issue are inter-related, as can be seen simply in how the Church presents them. Even the right to life topic goes beyond abortion, also including unjust wars, racism, and poverty. Ignoring one area for the sake of another may simply prove to complicate both issues as well as make the problems more difficult to solve.

Although I'm sure many will disagree with my assessment of one or both of these candidates based on several specific issues, I hope I have at least made my point that these are complex topics that require complex thinking and solutions. While many choose to only see the black and white, the details (and ultimately solutions that will prove to be both workable and agreeable by the majority) are in the many shades of gray in between.

Since I've written a pretty fair amount about most of these issues throughout this series, I'm not going to dedicate a lot of space to justifying my picks here. These are the underlying criteria I used in grading the seven main themes, and my justifications can be found in my earlier posts. Throughout this process I've tried to see these issues as the Church would see them. Undoubtedly my own bias has come out in a number of them, despite my attempts to minimize that, but remember: I'm a layperson trying to make sense of the world using the tools the Church has provided. While theologians may score this list differently than I did, my results were the basis of actively developing my social conscience through study of the issues as well as prayer -- exactly what the Church requests of all members before making voting decisions.

The grading will be simple: Obama, McCain, or No Difference (ND). Of course even where the candidates share similar views, there are often fairly large differences in how they intend on tackling those issues, but in this case "ND" simply means that their end goals are compatible regardless of their paths to those goals, and ultimately that's what I'm judging here - the compatibility of those goals with Church teaching.

Environment/Climate Change: Obama
Energy Policy: Obama
Pursue justice: Obama (no mention on McCain website)
Eliminate Racism: Obama (no mention on McCain website)
End Human Trafficking: ND (no mention on either website)
Protect Human Rights: Obama (no mention on McCain website)
Seek Peace: Obama (no mention on McCain website)
Avoid the Use of Force Except as a Necessary Last Resort: Obama (no mention on McCain website)
Work at Fair, Living Wages: Obama (no mention on McCain website)
Legal Status for Immigrant Workers: ND
Participation in Unions: Obama (no mention on McCain website)
Education: ND
Civil Rights: Obama (no mention on McCain website)
Support People with Disabilities: Obama (no mention on McCain website)
Overcome Poverty: Obama (no mention on McCain website)
Prevent Domestic Violence: Obama (no mention on McCain website)
Protect Children: Obama
Right to Religious Freedom: ND (no mention on either website)
Right to Access Food: ND (not enough information on either website)
Healthcare: Obama
Housing: Obama
Marriage = 1 Man and 1 Woman: ND
Economic Policies to Support Families: Obama
Social Policies to Support Families: Obama
Abortion: McCain
Promoting Adoption: McCain (no mention on Obama website)
Euthanasia: ND (not enough information on either website)
Human Cloning: ND
Destruction of Human Embryos for Stem Cell Research: McCain
Oppose Torture: ND
Oppose Unjust wars: Obama (no mention on McCain website)
Oppose the Death Penalty: Obama
Prevent Genocide and Attacks Against Noncombatants: ND

Scorecard (out of 33 categories):
Obama: 20
McCain: 3
No Difference: 10

It still seems pretty harsh for McCain, but the fact that he goes from 1 out of 7 in the overall results to 13 out of 32 in the detailed results is statistically a big jump. Even if you weigh the right to life issues more than the other categories (as the Church does), however, it's still tough to argue that McCain's policies are in line with the Church's overall themes of social teaching. As you saw, there were a great number of issues that McCain simply has not discussed, whether on his website, in interviews, or on the stump.

It is for these reasons that I strongly support Barack Obama for president. He is far from a perfect candidate, and I reject the messianic status placed upon him by some, but he is a transformational figure at a time when just such a leader is needed, and I think his policies will protect and uplift the vulnerable while improving the lives of us all.

Thanks for reading. I hope you have enjoyed this series, and I sincerely hope, even if you don't agree with my results, that you have learned more about the issues (either directly through this series or through further research on your own spurred by these posts) as well as your faith.

Seven Key Themes of Catholic Social Teaching: The Right to Life and the Dignity of the Human Person

2008-11-03T11:00:00.003-05:00

This post is the seventh in a continuing examination of both presidential candidates based on the seven basic Catholic themes of social teaching. If you're new here, be sure to read the earlier posts in this series to see where I'm coming from:

The Right to Life and the Dignity of the Human Person
...Direct attacks on innocent persons are never morally acceptable, at any stage or in any condition. In our society, human life is under direct attack from abortion. Other direct threats to the sanctity of human life include euthanasia, human cloning, and destruction of human embryos for research.

Catholic teaching about the dignity of life calls us to oppose torture, unjust war, and the use of the death penalty; to prevent genocide and attacks against noncombatants; to oppose racism; and to overcome poverty and suffering.

Let's be honest here. This theme includes more than just abortion, but most people are going to gravitate right to that one. Members of the Church and pro-life proponents from all faiths tend to single out abortion and shrug off the death penalty, unjust war, genocide, and poverty. Euthanasia and stem cell research get a bit more attention from the pro-life crowd, but the big ticket is abortion.

I don't mean to minimize the importance of ending abortion. I am certainly against the taking of any human life, and I believe that the moment of conception is the beginning of a unique biological event that cannot be described as simple cell division. The church is correct to protect the unborn, but I'm not convinced they are going about it in the right way. It pains me that Obama isn't a pro-life candidate, although as I will explain I don't think that means he should support the overturning of Roe v. Wade.

Before I go into why, let me backtrack and point out that we've covered the candidates' stances on all of the issues brought up in this social justice theme, so I'm not going to rehash them in detail here. If I scored this category by all of it's parts (abortion, the death penalty, unjust war, etc), it would be a split decision - and just might tilt in Obama's favor. But because most people, right or wrong, look at this as a single issue theme, I'm going to focus on that one issue. And as far as the Church's teaching goes, McCain is the candidate that best follows that teaching.

Note, however, that I'm going to end this series with one more post that cuts the issues out of each of the seven themes (since most themes incorporate multiple issues) and provides a comprehensive "report card" for both candidates. Scoring by the seven themes results, in my opinion, in a 6-1 Obama "victory" in supporting Catholic social teaching. The comprehensive report card won't change that result, but it will give McCain more credit than is obvious in the 6-1 score, while also boosting Obama's credibility in these "right to life" areas thanks to his support for human rights, his programs to end poverty, and his concrete opposition to unjust wars and racism.

Why No One Should be a Single Issue Voter

We were greeted after mass today by a fairly detailed - and fairly inaccurate - description of the candidates' views on abortion left on our windshields. It pains me that, time and time again on issue after issue, people (and sometimes the candidates themselves) feel the need to spread inaccurate information and sometimes lies about certain issues. Their views are so different from each other in so many areas, what's wrong with simply stating the facts? In the case of abortion, it's simple: McCain favors the repeal of Roe v. Wade, Obama does not. Is that not clear enough? Why is there a need to make Obama out to be a baby killer? But that's how strongly so many people feel about this. It has become the issue of all issues, despite the fact that a vote for the candidate who wants to overturn Roe v. Wade is also a vote against so many other issues (poverty, healthcare, to name two) that play directly into this discussion as well.

My wife wrote a post called Bumper Sticker Religion back in May of 2005 where she described her frustration at seeing a bumper sticker on a bulletin board at church that read "You can't be Catholic AND Pro-Abortion." She explained how that is wrong on several levels (no one is "pro abortion"), but it's most relevant here simply because being Catholic does not mean one has to join the pro-life ministry. Catholics hold a wide range of beliefs, and attempts to paint us all as pro-life is simplistic and naive. In the article New York Times Makes Up Fairy Tale About Politics of Abortion, the site Campaign for America's Future reported on how the Times showed some shoddy journalistic practices by selecting an unrepresentative sample of Catholics that painted an inaccurate picture of our voting habits. It's not saying that Catholics aren't pro-life, but it does show that reporters can't automatically assume that we'll all vote for a pro-choice candidate strictly on that issue.

It also shows that, in polls from the last presidential election, 72% of Catholics opposed the idea of the Church denying communion to politicians who did not oppose abortion. As it turns out, those Catholics aren't sinners for thinking that. In the article Theologian says one-issue bishops violate their own teaching, the National Catholic Reporter reported on remarks by noted theologian Fr. Richard McBrien who said "Bishops who make a case for one-issue politics or openly oppose a political candidate are in violation of the guidelines set out repeatedly in their own documents on political responsibility." McBrien quoted Catholic teaching that states:

Catholic voters and their bishops must not forget the distinction between moral principles and their application in the political order. It is possible to agree on an important moral principle and yet disagree, in good conscience, on the way that principle is applied in the political order.

Furthermore, last Fall the USCCB issued an election statement that read, in part:

The consistent ethic of life provides a moral framework for principled Catholic engagement in political life and, rightly understood, neither treats all issues as morally equivalent nor reduces Catholic teaching to one or two issues... Catholic voters should use the framework of Catholic teaching to examine candidates' positions on issues affecting human life and dignity as well as issues of justice and peace ...

So there you have it. You can agree on an issue while disagreeing on the best way to approach that issue. And while you're doing that, remember not to "reduce Catholic teaching to one or two issues." There's more out there than just abortion, and it turns out many of those issues all affect each other.

Why Not Oppose Roe v. Wade?

The Church, Senator McCain, and Senator Obama all want to end abortion. The Church wants to counsel pregnant women against it. The Church and McCain both want it to be illegal. Obama wants to educate people so they can avoid unwanted pregnancies while working to eliminate the social and economic conditions that lead to unwanted pregnancies, sub-standard prenatal care, and children living in poverty.

The Church's position on counseling (and encouraging adoption) is good. And it should be noted that the Church also has some ministries that help new mothers in difficult situations. But it is irresponsible to make abortion illegal without a) striving to minimize unwanted pregnancies, b) expanding the social and economic networks that support pregnant women, and c) expanding the social and economic networks that support new families (especially single mothers). Of course it is unlikely that the Church will change its stance on birth control, but it can continue to play a large part in providing those important support networks. But if abortion were made illegal, it (and other crisis pregnancy centers) would need an increase in resources to provide those services at a greater level than they do today.

There would be much celebrating in pro-life circles if Roe v. Wade was ever overturned, but the hangover would be intense when the realization hit that the problem of unwanted pregnancies would not simply go away with the ruling. And that's my biggest problem with McCain's stance on the issue. He has no extra provision for funding - federal, state, or part of any faith-based initiative - for any programs to support these troubled women if abortion is once again made illegal. So while his plan would send the issue back to individual states (eventually making the procedure illegal in many states), it wouldn't do anything to help stop the underlying cause of the procedure or support troubled women who are likely candidates for the procedure. McCain has stated the need for local organizations to deal with this problem, but those organizations are already struggling and can't possibly be asked to do much more without some sort of additional funding and/or assistance.

Overturning Roe v. Wade is problematic enough. In The Conservative Christian Case for Supporting Obama, Rob J makes a strong case that Christians can and should support Obama for all of his beliefs, and that his stance on abortion isn't incompatible with Christian teaching. In his rebuttal to the comments readers posted in reply to this article, he also points out that Roe v. Wade is pretty much stare decisis law. Stare decisis is the legal principle under which judges are obligated to follow the precedents established in prior decisions. That makes Roe v. Wade difficult for courts to even consider (the Supreme Court actually declined to hear a case that would have reviewed it in 2006), let alone overturn. Would appointing more conservative judges to the court change that? Maybe, or maybe not. It's been the promise of every Republican president starting with Reagan, but it hasn't worked out so far. Shouldn't the resources spent fighting this ruling be spent on more constructive programs for reducing abortion?

And if McCain were to appoint another conservative judge or two to the Supreme Court, what other damage could be done to our legal system? Would torture be more acceptable? How about illegal wiretapping by the NSA? In my opinion the advantage of overturning Roe v. Wade, however unlikely that may be, is largely outweighed by the threat to many of our democratic rights and civil liberties that the current administration has already played fast and loose with.

Bringing it All Back Around

Ending abortion is a common goal shared by most people. The differences in opinion are in how to end it: make it illegal or work to eliminate the conditions that lead to unwanted pregnancies.

Despite the assertions of many laypeople, it is not a sin for a Catholic to vote for a pro-choice candidate. In fact, Catholics should examine a number of issues from the entire framework of Catholic teaching when deciding which candidate to support.
Overturning Roe v. Wade, as unlikely as that may be, would not stop unwanted pregnancies. Instead it would strain the resources of the existing counseling and support services.
McCain's platform has the stated goal of overturning Roe v. Wade, but no support for the social, economic, or educational policies to help reduce or eliminate the underlying problems that lead to abortion
Obama, while not being strictly pro-life, advocates policies that reduce the number of unwanted pregnancies and support programs that would help pregnant women - including the reform and expansion of the mis-managed Faith-based Initiatives project started by President Bush.

In the end, I'm still giving this one to McCain based simply on the fact that his goals directly match the Church's on the issue of abortion. The goal of ending abortion is undoubtedly good, but I feel that everyone would be better served to recognize this common goal and strive to find creative ways to achieve it instead of this "all or nothing" partisan game we've been playing for the last 30+ years. Abortion should be safe, legal... and rare.

Scorecard:
Obama: 6
McCain: 1

Next up: A comprehensive look at all of the issues wrapped into these seven key themes of Catholic social teaching - including a detailed scorecard of the candidates.

Seven Key Themes of Catholic Social Teaching: Call to Family, Community, and Participation

2008-10-31T00:26:00.005-04:00

This post is the sixth in a continuing examination of both presidential candidates based on the seven basic Catholic themes of social teaching. If you're new here, be sure to read the earlier posts in this series to see where I'm coming from:

Call to Family, Community, and Participation
The family, based on marriage between a man and a woman, is the fundamental unit of society... Supporting families should be a priority for economic and social policies.

I'm dealing with these seven themes in reverse order of how they are generally presented in Church literature. That means that this sixth topic is the second most important theme of Catholic social teaching, which frankly I find incredible. Is defining marriage as between a man and a woman really more important than eliminating poverty, stopping unjust wars, or caring for the poor? Even the last post, Rights and Responsibilities, talks about food and shelter, education and employment, healthcare and housing. You're telling me that heterosexual marriage is more important than that?

Don't get me wrong. Families are important to society -- any society. But is defining what a family looks like more important than feeding and protecting that family? I don't buy it. But because we've come this far already, I'll dive in anyway.

McCain

McCain lists family issues in the "Economy" and "Human Dignity & Life" sections of his website. The subsection under his economic page is called "Immediate Relief for American Families" and discusses gas and food prices, his mortgage buyout plan, and expanding the lender-of-last resort options for student higher education loans to keep the credit crunch from affecting people's ability to receive loans for school.

His plan to lower gas prices is almost comical: "telling oil producing countries and oil speculators that our dependence on foreign oil will come to an end - and the impact will be lower prices at the pump." I can imagine how that will go:

US: Hi, um, OPEC? We aren't going to be dependent on you anymore.

OPEC: Sure, whatever. You buy more oil from Canada than us anyway, but that's fine.

US: No, really. We're going to stop buying so much oil from you, so you'll have to lower prices.

OPEC: Right. You see, the thing is, China and India will more than make up for any consumption you stop, so the market will keep prices where we think they should be. And if prices go down, you'll just drive more again anyway. And guess what happens to prices when consumption goes back up?

US: Oh yeah? Well, we'll screw up the global economy so the price of oil tanks on its own then. How you like them apples?

OPEC: Nuts. I guess we'll have to cut production to drive market prices back up.

US: Crap. Drill, baby. Drill!

Maybe it wouldn't be quite like that, but it's amazing to me to think that simply telling people that we'll cut back on foreign oil would affect global prices. And once again the McCain camp is being delusional in thinking that we have enough domestic capacity to really cut out foreign suppliers. (See my post, Where's the Oil, in the September archives.)

He then goes on to say that his policies (he's not clear on which ones specifically) will cause the value of the dollar to rise, increasing our purchasing power for oil. But wait a minute -- didn't you just say we weren't going to be dependent upon foreign oil any more? So then it wouldn't matter what the price of international oil was, right? Do I need to do another hypothetical conversation? Because I will. It was kind of fun.

McCain's other brilliant plan - that I can't believe is even still on his website - is a summer gas tax holiday. Never mind even his own economists said it was a bad idea. And never mind summer is gone.

He then discusses repealing a tax on imported sugar-based ethanol to increase competition and lower pump prices. Great. We'll stop buying oil from OPEC and instead buy ethanol from Brazil! Granted I'd probably rather send our money to Brazil (and sugar-based ethanol is generally a lot better than corn-based ethanol), but I thought we weren't going to be dependent on foreigners for our energy needs anymore.

Lastly, the only nod to food prices is to kill corn-based ethanol subsidies, which actually might help lower food prices (and help the Brazilians sell us their sugar-based ethanol).

Anyway, this is a bizarre part of his website, and frankly while I don't think the Church would object to any of this, I don't think they'd go out of their way to endorse it, either.

I discussed McCain's mortgage plan in an earlier post, so I won't go into it again here. To recap, it's a revival of a New Deal plan FDR implemented during the Great Depression. Socialism, baby! (Sorry. It's late.)

Now we move on to what I really think the church means when it discusses supporting families: gay marriage. McCain starts out his "Protecting Marriage" section with a discussion about how he will nominate judges who won't legislate from the bench. (That's code for "they won't legislate in ways we don't like, but it's fine if they legislate conservative values.") But his point is clear: if you are a gay couple and you want to get married, there had better be a state statute allowing it, because we won't let judges decide that gay marriage is an implied right.

He then goes on to say, and I wish I were kidding, that "the family represents the foundation of Western Civilization and civil society." Really? Western Civilization? Those heathens and infidels in the Middle and Far East can just suck it. They know nothing about marriage, or civil society for that matter. Never mind that they were the cultures preserving human knowledge in the middle ages while Western society was dumping their chamber pots in the street, fighting with each other, and letting millions die because of a lack of basic sanitation principles that had been practiced since before the Romans were in control. But I digress.

He goes on to say that marriage between one man and one woman (what, is he implying there's a bunch of polygamists in this country?) is the only "definition that sufficiently recognizes the vital and unique role played by mothers and fathers in the raising of children, and the role of the family in shaping, stabilizing, and strengthening communities and our nation." I happen to know a bit about fatherhood and the importance of male role models in children's lives, and I won't argue his main point here. But I will argue that there are more viable options than just "one man and one woman." Nevertheless, this is a stance that the Church approves of, so he earns a point here.

Obama

Obama's plan to strengthen families focuses on practical plans from several areas: cutting taxes, creating living wages, expanding workplace flexibility and the FMLA, reforming education, providing healthcare, protecting home ownership, protecting at-risk families, and creating secure retirement options.

In a nutshell, here's what his plan does (from his website):

Barack Obama will provide a "Making Work Pay" tax cut for America's working families: Obama and Biden will restore fairness to the tax code and 95 percent of workers the tax relief they need. They will create a new "Making Work Pay" tax credit of up to $500 per person, or $1,000 per working family.
Strengthen fatherhood and families: Obama and Biden will work to remove some of the government penalties on married families, crack down on men avoiding child support payments, fund support services for fathers and their families, and support domestic violence prevention efforts.
Restore Work-Family Balance: Obama and Biden will double funding for after-school programs, expand the Family Medical Leave Act, provide low-income families with a refundable tax credit to help with their child-care expenses, and encourage flexible work schedules.

I've discussed or linked to discussions on most of these topics in previous posts, so I won't rehash those areas here. Special notice should be given to his plans to "strengthen families" by supporting fathers, cracking down on deadbeat dads, and supporting domestic violence prevention efforts. Furthermore, he would also expand programs that provide home visits by trained nurses to low-income expectant and new mothers and their families to help with pre- and postnatal care and support. I think the Church would be pleased with all of those plans.

Obama does not specifically mention on his website that marriage needs to be defined in any particular terms. Why limit or exclude when there are so many opportunities to build families up? Fear not, traditionalists: Obama and Biden have both said they do not support gay marriage. But I suspect you won't easily ram any legislation down their throats that curtails anyone's rights.

In the end, McCain's policies play to his conservative base while offering few real social benefits. Obama takes the opposite approach and, rather than limiting himself, proposes practical plans to lift all families up. Since neither candidate ultimately supports gay marriage, this category goes to Obama for offering so many other family-strengthening ideas.

Scorecard:
Obama: 6
McCain: 0

I should point out here that, since my system is awarding points all or nothing for each category (kind of like the winner-take-all Electoral College system in most states), it's not looking too good for McCain. That certainly doesn't mean that McCain's candidacy is devoid of any qualities the Church would find redeeming. If I were awarding points for all of the issues within each theme, he'd be better off. But since the election itself is winner-take-all, I'm going to stick with this scoring system. Quite frankly, however, even if I did award points by issue and not by theme, Obama would still be comfortably ahead in my book.

Next up: The Right to Life and the Dignity of the Human Person

Seven Key Themes of Catholic Social Teaching: Rights and Responsibilities

2008-10-30T12:00:00.002-04:00

This post is the fifth in a continuing examination of both presidential candidates based on the seven basic Catholic themes of social teaching. If you're new here, be sure to read the earlier posts in this series to see where I'm coming from:

Rights and Responsibilities
Every human being has a right to life, the fundamental right that makes all other rights possible. Each of us has a right to religious freedom, which enables us to live and act in accord with our God-given dignity, as well as a right to access to those things required for human decency - food and shelter, education and employment, healthcare and housing.

I sense that I'll be rehashing some of the topics I've discussed in previous posts, but there are a few new items to cover, or maybe look at from a different angle, I suppose.

McCain

We discussed his views on the right to life (incorporating abortion and stem cell research but not euthanasia since I couldn't find his position on that) in the last post, and we'll go into that topic again in more detail in a future post (only one more to go before we get there, for those of you waiting). To recap: thumbs up from the Church for his views on abortion, and maybe a sideways thumb for stem cell research since he's not against it but would specifically prohibit using human embryos for research.

Still, I'm uncomfortable with his main goal simply being the overturning of Roe v. Wade. First of all, I'm not sure it will happen. Second, if it does happen, what next? McCain has no plans for bolstering support for pregnant women and babies (religious and non-profits are already struggling to provide that support now). And his economic and healthcare policies would make life even harder for the poor, who already have a disproportionate number of abortions. Opinionstreams.com put it much better than I can in the excellent piece The Conservative Christian Case for Supporting Obama. Not that I call myself a "conservative" in most circles, but Rob J really nailed this.

Food and shelter? Well, I didn't find much on either of the candidate's sites. The only thing I came across on McCain's site was a blurb about rolling back corn-based ethanol mandates that have contributed to a rise in food prices. (I'm pretty sure he bowed to the corn gods a bit in a recent speech in Iowa, however, so we'll have to wait and see what he does if he's president.)

Housing is the last topic in this section, so I'll group shelter in with that later in this post. In the meantime, the previous post discussed McCain's education policy. Recap: most likely a thumbs up from the Church. Personally I liked his pre-K plans, was unsure of his elementary plans, and felt his higher education plans could go further. Nothing that wouldn't gain the Church's approval, though.

We talked about employment in the post Dignity of Work and the Rights of Workers. I was unimpressed with his lack of any real discussion about strengthening our workforce, creating jobs, or creating a living wage. I think the Church would also find McCain lacking in this area.

Healthcare is probably the biggest topic in this section. I did a post back in August (that can now be found in the August archives) called "Healthcare's Partisan Divide" that references a non-partisan report comparing the health plans proposed by McCain and Obama. I'd still recommend that you check that out. The Washington Post recently did a series called "How They Would Change Health Care." Read the McCain version for a look at the part of his plan for providing high-risk coverage. Finally, there's a detailed, well-researched post at opinionstreams.com about both candidate's plans.

I don't think I could offer any more analysis than those links could give you, so I'll wrap up this part by saying some reports I've read predict the McCain plan would cause many businesses to drop their coverage, forcing workers to go out on the open market for individual policies. Those tend to be more expensive than group coverage, so the $5000 tax credit McCain is offering may not be enough to offset insurance costs. And in a few years, as healthcare costs rise faster than inflation, the tax credit won't keep up and more people will find themselves spending more on insurance - or uninsured. I'm honestly not sure how the Church would weigh in here, although in general I think they'd be strongly opposed to any plan that would result in millions of people losing coverage or having to pay more than they already do to maintain coverage.

For housing, McCain's proposal has gotten a lot of press: buy up bad mortgages and allow homeowners to renegotiate to more reasonable terms that better reflect the current value of their homes. It's close to a policy from FDR's New Deal and would arguably be more fair than only bailing out the banks that speculated on sub-prime mortgages. But I can't help but think it was a belief in deregulation like McCain has held throughout his career that got us into this mess to begin with. (And isn't using taxpayer money to buy bad mortgages a form of wealth distribution?) In any case, the Church would probably approve of helping people out.

Obama

Again, a previous post discussed Obama's views on abortion and stem cell research (like McCain, I could find no information on his thoughts about euthanasia). Recap: Obama is pro-choice and would definitely get a thumbs down from the Church on his support for Roe vs. Wade and family planning. However, I believe his policy of promoting age-appropriate sex education, as well as his economic and healthcare plans, would raise awareness as well as standards of living, reducing abortions in the process. Again, The Conservative Christian Case for Supporting Obama at opinionstreams.com covers this (and other issues) better than I possibly could.

I couldn't find anything about food on Obama's site at all. The closest I got was his section on Rural areas that discusses his plans to help family farms. Establishing country of origin labeling and encouraging organic and local agriculture are probably the two issues that most Americans will be affected by directly (or at least most visibly).

On education, a previous post went into a fair amount of detail. In short, I liked all of his plans -- they were spelled out a bit better than McCain's (with the possible exception of pre-K), and I can't see the Church not giving them a thumbs up.

We talked about employment in the post Dignity of Work and the Rights of Workers. Obama discusses employment as part of his economic plan, his energy and environmental plan, his plan for Americans with disabilities, his plans on fighting poverty, and his urban plans. He's strongly on the side of the workers, which would please the Church.

There's lots of misinformation about Obama's healthcare plan requiring coverage (not true -- that was Clinton's proposed plan during the primaries), penalizing businesses for not providing covereage (true -- for large business, but not for small businesses) or creating a huge government bureaucracy (it would actually let most people keep their existing coverage and then use existing government programs to help people who have fallen through the cracks). My main question at this point is can we afford it with everything else going on? Still, it's goals are noble and something the Church would certainly agree with.

For lots more detail about both candidates' healthcare plans, here are some links. First, to an earlier post I wrote (that can now be found in the August archives) called "Healthcare's Partisan Divide" that references a non-partisan report comparing the health plans proposed by McCain and Obama (it's the same link I provided in the McCain section above). Next, a Washington Post article showing how Obama's plan emulates the plan used in Massachusetts (except for the madates). Finally, an excellent article (also referenced above) on opinionstreams.com.

Obama's policies towards providing affordable housing go much further than McCain's, starting with a universal mortgage credit for homeowners who don't itemize their returns. This would help lower income homeowners take advantage of a tax credit that currently can only be realized by people who have enough deductions to make it worthwhile to itemize them on their tax returns. He also proposes some regulations that mandates that clear and understandable information be given to homebuyers so they know in real terms what the true cost of home ownership will be before they buy, as well as rules to curtail abusive mortgage lending practices.

Obama also supports creating an Affordable Housing Trust Fund to encourage the development of affordable housing in mixed income areas, and fully funding the Community Development Block Grant program to creating housing (and jobs) for low- and moderate-income people.

To recap, the topic of rights and responsibilities touches upon the following subjects:

the right to life
the right to religious freedom
the right to access to those things required for human decency: food and shelter, education and employment, healthcare and housing

We didn't discuss religious freedom, although there are certainly undertones that Governor Palin's beliefs may surface in executive decision-making were she to end up in the White House. However, I think it's clear to say that with McCain and Obama, there would be little or no restrictions placed on people's religious freedom.

The other issues are a mixed bag from the Church's (and my own) perspective. While I think it's short-sighted to only target Roe v. Wade in the efforts to end abortion, McCain's efforts are certainly on the Church's side there. He's probably somewhat safe with the Church on stem cell research, while euthanasia is too tough to call without more information.

Both candidate's education plans would probably meet with Church approval, with Obama's possibly getting an extra nod for his college tax credit proposal.

Food issues aren't really spelled out on either candidate's site, so I won't try to guess here.

Employment, healthcare and housing are all strongly in Obama's favor. McCain would likely win some points with his mortgage buyout proposal, but in the end Obama's consistent policies favoring workers and low/middle income Americans would largely please the Church. I'm giving these category to Obama, as well as the entire topic.

Scorecard:
Obama: 5
McCain: 0

Next up: Call to Family, Community, and Participation

Seven Key Themes of Catholic Social Teaching: Option for the Poor and Vulnerable

2008-10-29T12:00:00.003-04:00

This post is the fourth in a continuing examination of both presidential candidates based on the seven basic Catholic themes of social teaching. If you're new here, be sure to read the earlier posts in this series to see where I'm coming from:

Option for the Poor and Vulnerable
While the common good embraces all, those who are in greatest need deserve preferential concern.

To me, this topic covers the following areas: education, civil rights, disabilities, poverty, abortion, stem cell research, euthanasia, preventing domestic violence, and protecting children.

Education may seem like a stretch to be included since it's technically not "protecting" but "preparing" our kids, but even though it does not involve protecting them from immediate harm, I think in a long-term view it very much protects them by helping them live up to their potential (or, in other words, it protects them from becoming losers). I should also note that I'm not a big fan of the "protect the children" cry. Not because I'm a heathen -- I am a parent, after all -- but because there's so much political smoke blown at us for "the children" that I think much of it is a waste of time and effort. But I'll see what these guys have to say about that topic since children are vulnerable, after all.

McCain

On education, McCain continually uses the word "choice" in discussing parents options. He never says "vouchers," which he was big on in 2000, but I'm left wondering if that's what he means this time around, too. Or does he just mean parents get to choose among public schools in their local system? Aside from choice, his plans for early childhood include better coordinating early education programs and creating Head Start "Centers of Excellence" that will expand their reach by serving more children and sharing their techniques with other schools.

For primary schools, McCain's plans talk about moving beyond No Child Left Behind and supporting better teacher training and retention, providing tutoring programs to under performing schools, expanding online programs, and "giving parents greater choice," whatever he means by that.

Higher education is more sparse, but he talks about simplifying financial aid and tax benefits, improving lending programs, and eliminating earmarks that pull funding away from university R&D. (Way to tie your pet project in with other programs!)

Personally, I'm intrigued by his early learning ideas, need more info about his primary school plans, and am less than impressed with his higher education ideas.

There are no pages on McCain's site dealing with civil rights, disabilities, poverty, euthanasia, or domestic violence, but he does have a section called "Human Dignity & Life" that covers abortion, stem cell research, and protecting children. (With all the publicity about Governor Palin's child with Down's Syndrome, I find it interesting that there's nothing on the McCain website about their plans for disabled or special needs children.)

Many Catholics will flock to McCain because of his goal of overturning Roe v. Wade. He wants "constitutional balance" restored (an important-sounding phrase that, drawing from my Constitutional Law classes from college, I think really doesn't mean squat in this case) by returning the abortion decision to the states. Then he wants faith-based, community, and neighborhood organizations (does he mean community organizers?) to help end abortion at the state level. Promoting adoption becomes the next step for dealing with crisis pregnancies.

My fear is that he wants to clear Roe v. Wade off the books, let the states outlaw abortion on their own, and then leave it to the pro-life organizations to take care of the rest. Unfortunately those pro-life organizations have a mixed record for caring for pregnant women and perhaps a worse record for helping new mothers. At the least I'd like to see a promise of federal help; I'm sure many of these organizations can't do more simply because of limited resources (even my local archdiocese has greatly reduced funding to it's center for pregnancy and adoption services in recent years).

Moving on the stem cell research, McCain probably loses some Catholics based on his support of stem cell research, although his plan opposes creating embryos for research, calls for bans on "fetal farming" or using any human cells created for such use, and supports funding for research that doesn't involve human embryos. Probably not enough to pull in die-hards, but he seems to be trying to walk a fine line between not offending pro-lifers but not being as restrictive with research as the Bush administration has.

Finally, we discussed his plan to protect the children from online porn and predators in an earlier post. To quote that earlier post:

He talks about filters on public computers and a national registry for people convicted of sex crimes against children. I'm not a fan of internet filters, but if a national registry could be handled better than the TSA "no fly list," it's not a bad idea.

Obama

The Obama education plans starts with his "Zero to Five Plan," supporting parents and infants with early education programs to prepare kids for kindergarten and helping states move to voluntary, universal pre-school. He also proposes increasing Head Start funding and, in a practical departure from education-only plans, help in providing child care to working families.

There's a good bit of detail on primary schools to improving on No Child Left Behind (he, like McCain, believes that teaching to a test and comparing kids to national averages isn't the best way to go), expanding funding for charter schools, prioritizing math and science education, providing intervention strategies for addressing dropouts, and expanding after school programs to help working families. He throws in a good bit about recruiting, training, and rewarding teachers as well.

On the surface his higher ed plan and McCain's plan look fairly similar in their goals to make the financial aid process simpler, although Obama ups the stakes by adding a plan for a universal and refundable tax credit of $4000 to be used for college in exchange for 100 hours of community service.

As I mentioned, McCain has no sections on civil rights, disabilities, or poverty, while Obama has extensive plans for all three areas. Obama, like McCain, doesn't seem to mention euthanasia on his site.

Not to sell his Civil Rights section short (it's fairly extensive if you read the PDF), but rather than re-analyze the plan I'll simply quote an earlier post:

It discusses enforcement of civil rights laws, employment discrimination (minorities and women), expanding hate crime statuses, deceptive voting, racial profiling, reducing crime recidivism, and more.

Obama also has a good bit of information on helping Americans with disabilities by expanding laws that protect their rights, loosening the restrictions placed on the term "disabled" that the courts have used to water down the Americans with Disabilities Act, and helping increase the employment rate for workers with disabilities. (This all seems to make sense with the sheer number of disabled soldiers returning from Iraq.) There's more detail in a PDF, and there's a separate PDF dealing specifically with his plan for Autism Spectrum Disorders.

His plans to combat poverty are extensive, including programs to raise the minimum wage and tie it to inflation, create a "green jobs corp" for disadvantaged youth, promote responsible fatherhood, fund programs to create affordable housing, establish "promise neighborhoods" to expand social services in disadvantaged areas, and expand the earned income tax credit for low-income families.

Going against the Church's position, Obama supports Roe v. Wade and would oppose measures to overturn it. He has been consistent in his support for the right to choose, however his positions have been embellished and outright misrepresented by opponents. His efforts to reduce abortion are really based on his support for preventing unintended pregnancies through "comprehensive sex education that teaches both abstinence and safe sex methods."

On stem cell research, Obama co-sponsored a bill to allow research on human embryonic stems cells derived from donated embryos. The embryos cannot have been created for the purpose of research, but must have been created for fertility treatment. Currently many of these embryos are kept frozen and then destroyed after a certain amount of time has passed, so in a sense this idea means not creating life only to waste it. However, this does not sit well with the Catholic Church, which does not agree with using human embryonic stem cells in any way. (It goes without saying that the Church does not approve of the fertility treatments that lead to the creation of these "extra" embryos in the first place, although I don't know what it thinks we should do about the existing frozen embryos.)

Obama's plans for protecting children are wide-ranging, including providing healthcare for every child, protecting children from lead poisoning, expanding paid sick days, reducing domestic violence, preventing child abuse and neglect, and registering sex offenders with a national database. I don't see any "protect the children" scare tactics like internet filters that block legitimate websites at libraries (how many kids surf porn on public computers, anyway?) or laws against online predators that duplicate state and national laws already on the books.

Obama also supports expanded funding for domestic violence prevention programs, he co-sponsored the Violence Against Women Act, and has been active in humanitarian efforts to protect victims of gender violence in Darfur.

To recap, this area covers a number of topics:

education
civil rights
disabilities
poverty
abortion
stem cell research
euthanasia
preventing domestic violence
protecting children

Trying to read this through the Church's eyes, I think Obama would come out ahead on civil rights, disabilities, poverty, preventing domestic violence, and protecting children. His plans in all of those areas are extensive, and McCain doesn't even touch on them, except for two ideas in the protecting children category (one of which, the national database for sex offenders, is shared by both candidates).

McCain would come out favorably on the issues of abortion and possibly stem cell research -- although since McCain still does support stem cell research, the Church may think he's still on the wrong side of the line. The candidates would probably both earn approval for their education plans, even though they go about things differently (personally I'd give the nod to Obama, but the church might like it if McCain is indeed referring to vouchers). It's impossible to tell from their websites where they stand on euthanasia, but I can at least note that the Republican platform is against euthanasia while Democrats feel it is an individual decision. Still, there's not enough info for me to rate either candidate on this one.

Abortion is the hot-button topic that will get people going, and I'll have more on that in a later post (while it is strongly implied here, it crops up again two more times in coming themes). The church will argue that it deserves extra weight in these discussions, so I'll take that into account.

To that end, as I've stated, excepting abortion and stem cell research, Obama's plans seem to fall more in line with Catholic social teaching. I've identified nine issues, and I feel Obama is more in line with the Church on five of them. Both candidates would rate favorably on one of the issues, McCain would get the nod on two issues, and I don't have enough information to rate one issue.

I'm willing to give extra to McCain for his stances on abortion and stem cell research, but the fact that he doesn't even mention civil rights, disabilities, poverty, or domestic violence (I could not a single word about any of them on his website) brings him back down in my book. I know many people will disagree and place the protection of life above all else, but I can't let a single issue, no matter how important, push everything else aside. If Roe v. Wade is overturned but nothing is done about the conditions many of those children are born into, we haven't fully "won" anything.

Scorecard:
Obama: 4
McCain: 0

Next up: Rights and Responsibilities

Seven Key Themes of Catholic Social Teaching: Dignity of Work and the Rights of Workers

2008-10-28T09:00:00.002-04:00

This post is the third in a continuing examination of both presidential candidates based on the seven basic Catholic themes of social teaching. If you're new here, be sure to read the earlier posts in this series to see where I'm coming from:

Dignity of Work and the Rights of Workers
Economic justice...calls for decent work at fair, living wages, opportunities for legal status for immigrant workers, and the opportunity for all people to work together for the common good through their work, ownership, enterprise, investment, participation in unions, and other forms of economic activity.

McCain
The last section of McCain's 14-page economic plan contains two paragraphs about "Competitive American Workers." In those two paragraphs McCain talks about giving students access to "any school of demonstrated excellence" and "expanding the ability of parents to choose among schools for their children." That sounds like school voucher talk to me, which in my mind doesn't really have much to do with the rights of workers.

The section continues discussing overhauling unemployment insurance to allow it to meet workers' needs for paying bills and attending new training, which sounds encouraging. Finally, it talks about how he will "strengthen community colleges and technical training" and give displaced workers "more choices to find their way back to productive and prosperous lives." It's all pretty vague to me, with a bit more detail on unemployment insurance than anything else, but it's totally lacking specifics. I would like to know more about his unemployment insurance plans.

In a section on workplace flexibility, McCain discusses forming a "National Commission on Workplace Flexibility and Choice" to "modernize" labor laws to allow more flexible scheduling arrangements, help home-based workers and telecommuters, make "portable" healthcare (does that simply mean private insurance instead of employer-sponsored?), choice in retirement plans, and job-training assistance.

With regards to immigration, McCain focuses on securing the border between the U.S. and Mexico before legalizing aliens (a break -- some say nod to conservatives -- from the plan he had championed for years before abandoning his own immigration bill in the Senate). McCain's plan for non-agriculture jobs calls for creating a market-based system for low-skilled workers that changes with market demand. It allows workers to "enter the U.S. in an orderly fashion" and "return to their home countries after their temporary period in the U.S." while allowing for visa renewals. It would also offer limited green cards to those workers wishing to stay. Agricultural workers don't appear to get anything other than a "non-bureaucratic" program set by the market, whatever that means.

No use of the word "union" that I could find, and no mention of minimum or fair wages anywhere.

Obama
The Obama website talks about strengthening the ability of workers to organize unions free of harassment, protecting striking workers from being fired, and raising the minimum wage to $9.50 by 2011 and indexing it to inflation.

On "work/family balance," Obama proposes expanding the Family Medical Leave Act (FMLA) to include smaller businesses and including circumstances such as elder care, domestic violence, and even leave for parents to participate in their children's academic activities. His plan would expand flexible work arrangements by educating businesses about flex schedule benefits and make the federal government a model in adopting flexible schedules. Obama's plan would also expand the child and dependent care tax credit and double federal funding for after school programs that help working parents.

Obama's immigration policy is frankly a bit sparse. He discusses improving our immigration system by encouraging illegal workers to become citizens by paying a fine, learning English, and going "to the back of the line" to become citizens. (I'm not sure what that means, but I think it means the back of the existing queue of people waiting for citizenship.) His plan also talks about cracking down on employers who hire illegals to discourage incentives for entering the country illegally.

Obama also has extensive sections on poverty, rural, and urban issues (although "extensive" maybe isn't the best word to describe the section on rural issues). There's too much interesting stuff to go into here, but there's a wide range of proposals on topics such as promoting responsible fatherhood, establishing "promise neighborhoods" in high crime and poverty areas, creating a "green job corp," enhancing workforce training, supporting "innovation clusters," and of course raising the minimum wage.

Overall, both candidates provide a good amount of support for workplace flexibility programs. Obama takes that a bit further with his plans for expanding the FMLA and after school program funding. Both candidates also offer a nod to workforce training, although neither goes into too much detail there.

Whether you like his ideas or not, McCain has more information on his website about immigration. Even though he switched course in the past year, McCain arguably still has more experience in this matter due to the location of his home state. I'm not sold that we need to police the border more closely, let alone militarize it. I'm also a little nervous that his "market-based" ideas are merely codes for letting the market work itself out without regulation, or maybe letting industry lobbyists set visa levels. It may not be all bad, but some clarification would be nice. McCain's comment on changing unemployment insurance also sounds interesting, but I wish it would have earned more space than part of the last paragraph in a 14-page section.

While he doesn't go into enough detail on immigration issues on his website, Obama goes a lot farther than McCain in hitting the goals of creating living wages, participation in unions, and creating programs to spur innovation and small business creation, and I think overall he does a better job than McCain at meeting the goals of protecting the dignity of work and the rights of workers.

Scorecard:
Obama: 3
McCain: 0

Next up: Option for the Poor and Vulnerable

Seven Key Themes of Catholic Social Teaching: Solidarity

2008-10-24T12:24:00.007-04:00

This post is a continuation of my examination of both presidential candidates based on the seven basic Catholic themes of social teaching. If you're new here, be sure to read the first post in this series to see where I'm coming from.

Solidarity
...pursue justice, eliminate racism, end human trafficking, protect human rights, seek peace, and avoid the use of force except as a necessary last resort.

This is a tough one to score. Once again, I wish I had the 2004 USCCB report to see what kind of votes were included in this category. It's not like there's a link called "Solidarity" on the Issues sections of the campaign websites for me to check. Oh well. Here goes.

McCain
Let's see... The McCain website has a section on "Human Dignity and the Sanctity of Life." I think I know where that's going, but maybe there's something in there.

Crap. Starts out with Roe v. Wade. I'll talk about that in a later post. Protecting children -- maybe that fits. He talks about filters on public computers and a national registry for people convicted of sex crimes against children. I'm not a fan of internet filters, but if a national registry could be handled better than the TSA "no fly list," it's not a bad idea.

Then the site goes into "There is no greater nobility than to sacrifice for a great cause and no cause greater than protection of human dignity." Thanks for the specifics. And did you know he was a POW?

McCain's section on crime has a lot about federal funding and support for local agencies, which is fine. It rehashes the "protecting our children" theme, but I'm not sure why judicial activism is here. Then it spends a lot of time talking about illegal immigrants who commit crimes.

In the National Security section, the headline is "A Strong Military in a Dangerous World." Then the first sentence starts out "In a dangerous world..." Gee, thanks for reminding me it's a dangerous world. I had forgotten. Now that I'm scared, will you protect me?

Further down, "to impinge on the rights of our own citizens or restrict the freedoms for which our nation stands would be to give terrorists the victory they seek." Great, but nothing about toning down the Patriot Act or the executive orders that allow domestic wiretapping. Furthermore, McCain has gone to great lengths to mock Obama's call for diplomacy with our enemies, and he has been silent when asked about consensus-building with our allies before the use of force. While he hasn't shown that he'd use force unnecessarily, McCain does seem more willing to go that route before diplomatic options are exhausted.

So, other than some spots on defense, there's not much to go on here. These are topics that McCain just doesn't talk much about (or at least they aren't on his website and I haven't heard him mention them).

Obama
Oh look: there's a "Civil Rights" section! It discusses enforcement of civil rights laws, employment discrimination (minorities and women), expanding hate crime statuses, deceptive voting, racial profiling, reducing crime recidivism, and more. And a PDF with more detail.

In his "Defense" section, Obama talks about creating a "Civilian Assistance Corps" consisting of doctors, lawyers, engineers, city planners, agriculture specialists, police, and others to help in times of need at home and abroad. He also talks about humanitarian activities to build allies.

Obama's position on opening a dialog with our enemies is also widely known now. Not unconditionally, as McCain has been painting it, but with proper lower-level preparations and talks being held first. Most military experts, including active generals and the current Secretary of Defense, agree with the idea that diplomacy must always be an option before war.

Finally, in his "Women" section, he discusses fighting gender violence abroad, which mainly seems to mean Dafur.

Overall, as I stated originally, this is a tough category to pin down. The rambling nature of this post was meant to show how difficult it was to find information on justice, racism, human trafficking (never even found that one), human rights, peace, and force as a last resort. These are not "sexy" topics, and frankly bringing some of them up (force as a last resort in particular) can be exploited as a weakness by an opponent. It should be noted that, in their second debate, both candidates were open to the idea of using our military for moral reasons -- to step into a situation where we may not have direct national interests at stake. Obama gave a few examples of when this would be important, but McCain did not offer any specifics.

Overall the Obama site clearly had more relevant information directly relating to some of the topics (especially civil rights and peace), so I have to score this one for him.

Scorecard:
Obama: 2
McCain: 0

Next up: Dignity of Work and the Rights of Workers

Seven Key Themes of Catholic Social Teaching: Caring for God's Creation

2008-10-23T09:00:00.007-04:00

This blog is called "Catholic Democrats," even though I've been focusing almost entirely on the political side of things lately, so I decided I needed to bring the "Catholic" part back into the mix before election day. What better way to do that than to examine both candidates based on the seven basic Catholic themes of social teaching? Using the tools provided by the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops on their Faithful Citizenship website, over the next week or so I'm going to briefly examine each of the seven themes and rate each of the candidates based on the policy statements on their campaign websites. The themes are:

Back in 2004 the USCCB issued a "report card" based analysis of voting records of members of the Senate that I found to be very enlightening. Essentially it showed that the Republicans scored highly in the areas relating to abortion and stem cell research while the Democrats scored highly in every other category. In the end the lowest-scoring Democrat still had a significantly better score than the highest-scoring Republican when scores from all categories were added together. (Bet you didn't hear much about that report with all the news about Kerry being denied Communion for his views on abortion, did you?)

I wish the USCCB would have revised that report this year. It would have been especially helpful since both candidates are Senators, but alas, they did not. In fact, I can't even find a copy of the previous report on their website, even though they still have other documents from 2006 and earlier. I'll let you draw your own conclusions about that...

I could use prior voting records to make my own analysis for this series, but given that McCain has changed his stance on several key issues since campaigning began, and Obama is running a more centrist campaign than his voting record would indicate, I figured I should use what they say they want to do rather than what they've done. Plus, I have a day job and don't have time to pull Senate voting records from the past two years. I know it's not perfect. Feel free to disagree with this rationale on your own blog.

At the end of the week I'll crown a victor, although really my point isn't only to name a winner but to also get people thinking about issues, where their guy stands, and where that fits into what I consider to be (mostly) reasonable, rational, and justifiable Church teachings.

The first topic is:

Caring for God's Creation
...be careful stewards of God's creation and to ensure a safe and hospitable environment for vulnerable human beings now and in the future.

McCain's environmental/climate change plans on his campaign website are rather shallow. Some of the points are even repeats from his energy plan page. Obama has an extensive environmental plan that goes into quite a bit of detail. (Did you know Obama includes plans for superfund cleanup sites and protecting children from lead poisoning in addition to climate change, clean air, and clean water plans, among other things?)

Both have decent energy plans outlined on their websites, but Obama's offers a more detailed PDF in addition to the highlights on the site. That aside, both candidates offer similar plans for fuel efficiency standards, alternative energy research, reducing greenhouse gas emissions to pre-1990, greenhouse gas cap and trade system, increasing the efficiency of the government itself, encouraging alternate fuel vehicles, etc.

(Yes, I recognize there are differences, some of which are significant, but I don't have the time or space here to explain how Obama's greenhouse gas reduction plan would reduce emissions to 80% below 1990 levels compared to McCain's 60%. Or how they differ on flex-fuel and plug-in hybrid vehicles. Or any number of other differences that are too specific to go into here. I'm just going to hit what I see as the high points in this series.)

Personally I like Obama's plan better. However, you can argue the details until you're blue in the face. Bottom line is that both environmental and energy plans are better than the last 8 years. So are there any differences worth highlighting? Yes. Besides the environmental differences I mentioned above, there are energy policy differences in two big areas: oil exploration and nuclear power.

Obama has stated that he would be for limited offshore oil exploration if proposed as part of a comprehensive energy policy, while McCain is running around yelling "Drill, baby, drill!" and "Drill here, drill now." As I've written in an earlier post, I think that's a mistake. I believe we'd be better served by using our limited financial resources to advance new energy sources instead of plugging it into temporary, polluting sources. That's a win for energy and environmental policy at the same time.

McCain also intends to build 45 nuclear power plants by 2030, but he doesn't explain how we could do that when we haven't built a new plant in 30 years - and many of the engineering and construction requirements for the new plants can't be handled domestically. Three larger concerns, however, are securing the nuclear fuel, disposing of the spent nuclear fuel, and the fact that nuclear power has never been cost effective - our existing plants were often way over budget and highly subsidized by local, state, and federal governments. Obama's plan does not rule out nuclear, but it states that plans for the security and disposal of the nuclear fuel must be greatly improved from where we stand today before undertaking any new development.

Go to the campaign websites. Read their plans. Make up your own mind. But I give this one to Obama. His plan better shares the values of the Church.

Scorecard:
Obama: 1
McCain: 0

Next up: Solidarity

Socialism and You

2008-10-22T12:48:00.005-04:00

My my, we've heard a lot of people using (or yelling) the word "socialist" lately. It didn't really start with our friend Joe the (unlicensed non-union) Plumber (who owes back taxes, makes around 40k a year, and has no immediate plans or ability to buy a business). Since Mr. Plumber has been in the news, however, the use of some form of the word "socialism" has increased dramatically. But do the people using that word really know what it means? Just for kicks, let's go to our old friend Wikipedia.

Socialism refers to a broad set of economic theories of social organization advocating state or collective ownership and administration of the means of production and distribution of goods, and the creation of an egalitarian society... Socialists mainly share the belief that capitalism unfairly concentrates power and wealth among a small segment of society that controls capital, and creates an unequal society. All socialists advocate the creation of an egalitarian society, in which wealth and power are distributed more evenly, although there is considerable disagreement among socialists over how, and to what extent this could be achieved.

Okay, so in a nutshell, capitalism creates inequity, and the way to make things more fair is to have government (or co-ops, it should be noted) control industries and ensure the fair distribution of stuff (goods, wealth, etc). (I doubt if many people would argue that capitalism leads to inequity, although many would argue that the have-nots aren't unfairly treated but simply don't work hard enough.) And that word "egalitarian" sounds scary, too. Do they want us to live and work in a pinko commie commune? Well, no. Again, from Wikipedia:

"Egalitarianism is a political doctrine that holds that all people should be treated as equals, and have the same political, economic, social, and civil rights."

Well that actually doesn't sound so scary, even in a capitalist society. In fact, it almost sounds like Catholic teaching on social justice. (Foreshadowing alert: look for posts on just that topic in the coming days.) I think Thomas Jefferson even used some of that in the Declaration of Independence ("We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal...").

So on what basis do McCain supporters (and McCain/Palin themselves) make this "socialist" charge? Mainly from Obama's tax plan and from Obama's own remarks to Joe the Plumber about how everyone benefits when we "spread the wealth around." (Note to Sen. Obama: You really didn't have a better response than that? You know full well that your plan doesn't really have any Robin Hood characteristics, but you didn't have a better response ready?)

Let's look at Obama's tax plan. We should all know by now that it does not raise, but cuts taxes on any individual, family, or business making under $250,000 a year. That includes not hiding hikes in income tax, payroll tax, capital gains, investments, and pretty much any other means you might have to make it up to $250k. As far as Americans go, depending on where you get your stats, about 90-95% of us make less than $250k, and that means we'll get some kind of tax cut (or our taxes will be about the same if we make right around $250k). Nothing socialist yet.

So what about the 5-10% of Americans who make more than $250k? Well, their taxes will go up. But as I explained to my 7-year-old, it won't hurt them as much. If you have $10 and I tax you at 20%, you have $8 left. If you have $20 and I tax you at 30%, sure you paid more in taxes, but you still have $14 left. This is called progressive taxation, and despite rich people's distaste of it, it has been part of our country's tax policy for generations. It's a sensible notion that if you make more, you should contribute more. John McCain himself even used to believe in it. Here's what he said when he voted AGAINST Bush's 2001 tax cuts:

I cannot in good conscience support a tax cut in which so many of the benefits go to the most fortunate among us, at the expense of middle-class Americans.

As an aside, Salon has a great tongue-in-cheek article about how Bob the Banker's taxes would increase under the Obama plan. Bob makes $280,000 a year (about as much as Joe said his future plumbing business would make), and under Obama his tax rate would rise from its current rate of 33% to only 35%, resulting in increased yearly taxes of $257. Hardly worth a call to arms. Sure, if you make more you will be taxed more, but since that's always been the case, I don't see why it's a hot button issue this year.

Anyway, back to socialism. With a progressive tax code by itself, I still don't see socialism at all. So what are you going to DO with the money you get when you raise taxes on the rich? Well, much of that will go to running government. I know many people don't like government programs, but it is important to have a military, adequate transportation infrastructure, homeland security, social security, Medicaid/Medicare, etc. (Obviously those social services aren't universally popular, but I don't think they are going anywhere.) That money can't all come from the Chinese buying Treasury securities, so we have to get the rest from taxing our citizens.

Another big chunk of those tax increases on the wealthy will go towards... paying for the tax cuts for the middle class and working poor. The theory here is that wealth doesn't trickle down, but it is created from the bottom up. This, some will argue, is socialism. Especially since some people who don't earn enough to file income taxes may end up receiving government checks. True, our Wikipedia definition above does mention a society "in which wealth and power are distributed more evenly," but there is great disagreement among socialist theories on how to achieve that equality. Actively redistributing wealth is one means, but making the system more fair and letting the redistribution happen on its own is another. So do tax cuts for the working poor equal forced redistribution of wealth? That argument falls flat on a number of levels.

First of all, those people who work but do not earn enough to pay income tax do still pay 7.65% in payroll taxes, so in a very real sense they will be taxpayers receiving a tax cut, not a handout. People who don't work do not file taxes, and therefore they will not receive anything.

Second, McCain's own healthcare plan includes a similar refundable tax credit to all working individuals and families. That means that checks will be mailed to every working individual and family, even if they didn't earn enough to file income taxes for that year. For some the amount of their check will exceed the amount they pay for healthcare. Not for everyone mind you (and certainly not for many in another year or two when healthcare costs rise faster than inflation), but the net effect will be payments from the government to individuals and families. McCain properly calls this a refundable tax credit for his own plan while using the scary - and inaccurate - term "government handout" to describe Obama's version of the refundable credit.

To recap so far, socialism is not defined, strictly speaking, as simply redistributing wealth. Even if you think it is, McCain's policies are just as guilty of doing that as Obama's.

So do we have any pure socialism going on here anywhere? Well, yes we do. That $700 billion bailout/rescue package is one big slice of socialism, as the government is using that money to buy equity in financial institutions. Even before that bill passed the feds bought stakes in Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac, and AIG. All this under a Republican administration, supported by a vote from one Senator McCain. I'm not saying this is a good thing or a bad thing, but it happened, and McCain went right along with Senator Obama in supporting it. McCain has even proposed buying up mortgages with taxpayer money and renegotiating the terms (a provision that is already accounted for in the rescue package, BTW), repeating an FDR program from the New Deal. What would it be called if the Federal government became the nation's largest mortgage lender? Why that might also be called socialism!

So in the end it appears that:

a) McCain and his supporters don't truly understand the definition of socialism
2) They misrepresent Obama's plans and claim they are socialist while proposing different ways to do exactly the same things in their own policies
III) McCain himself voted for arguably the biggest socialist legislation in the nation's history and shortly thereafter proposed yet another mortgage buyout that itself smells kind of socialist

I guess, as with many other McCain tactics, he's pretty comfortable spreading lies and FUD about his opponent. In this case, however, he's also campaigning against his own policies. How presidential.

Here's another way to look at it: not spreading the wealth, but raising the floor.

Random Political Musings

2008-10-15T11:11:00.006-04:00

I've stayed away from being overtly political in my last few posts, instead discussing issues. I figured that as the race turned ugly, I'd be better served to stay above the fray. If you didn't see my earlier posts on science and social justice issues, take a few minutes to read them. I'll wait here.

Are you back now? Good. I couldn't resist throwing out a few political topics on the day of the last debate, so I'll just ramble a bit to get them out there.

First, ACORN. Lots of mud flying about Obama's relationship to ACORN, voter registration fraud, their "quasi criminal" status, etc. And of course a lot of that is pure FUD. First, Obama's relationship has been distorted, even though (as with William Ayers) it's been a matter of public record for some time. His law firm represented a group (which included ACORN as well as a little organization known as the U.S. Department of Justice) in their attempt to enforce a voting rights law, and an ACORN-related group did some set up for the Obama campaign at events here in Indiana. (As far as I've read, that set-up didn't even include voter registration drives.) So, in my mind at least, while the organization does lean Democrat because of its charter, it's not an Obama surrogate.

As far as voter registration goes, there have been some huge mistakes. "Let's hire prisoners to register voters in Nevada. What could go wrong?" Um, yeah. So they register the Dallas Cowboys. Matt Drudge made a big deal about "Mickey Mouse" being on a voter registration form in Florida. Clearly there are problems. But do you know what? ACORN has been addressing those problems.

When a voter registration card is submitted, it is ILLEGAL for the submitting organization to pass judgement on it. They do not have the right to say if it is valid or not. If they had that right, they could dismiss forms for any number of reasons, political or otherwise, and there would be no accountability. It is not their place to say if Tony Romo (QB for the Cowboys) lives in Nevada or Mickey Mouse lives in Orlando. In fact, there are 32 people listed in the white pages in this country with the name "Mickey Mouse" -- 2 of them in Florida. So throwing out a card with a funny name may disqualify a real voter. When ACORN has discovered problems, they have fired the people involved (charges are pending against them for breaking election laws) and flagged the suspect forms for review by local election boards. Sure, it's a burden to leave the locals with so much work to do before election day, and ACORN's local offices should have vetted their workers more, but when problems were found, they acted properly.

Now here's the thing: fake voter registrations don't hurt anyone in the election. Why? Because unless Mickey Mouse shows up to vote in person (with ID), it's just his name on a voter list. It's a pain in the ass to process and investigate these bad forms, but a fraudulent voter registration form itself cannot vote. There is no danger of an election being thrown to one side or the other because of thousands of fake registrations. I think the most attention should be paid to voter intimidation and removal, which can have real effects on the people who turn out to vote on election day.

Update 10/20: Slate has an excellent article on why voter registration fraud is merely a smokescreen by the Right to attempt to undermine voter confidence in the electoral system when in fact voter fraud itself is almost nonexistent. Along with voter ID requirements, faulty databases removing registered voters from the rolls, and threatening to arrest people at polls with outstanding parking tickets, some Republicans are now also resorting to threatening early voters in North Carolina. Huh? Since when is following a state law that allows early voting "cheating?"

Speaking of voting, I voted early today in my home state of Indiana. To anyone voting anywhere, this word of advice: keep the t-shirts, buttons, hats, and other campaign swag at home. There were signs all over the courthouse saying that NO campaign material can be displayed while voting, and they would not allow anyone to vote if they had anything visible on them promoting a candidate. So avoid the hassle of being sent home or back to your car to ditch the t-shirt and wear a Colts jersey or something instead.

I've been shocked by the racism and violent outbursts at McCain/Palin rallies in the past week or so, and I've been disappointed that McCain's efforts to tone them down have been so slow and so weak (and I still haven't seen Palin scold anyone). There's not much I can say that hasn't already been said, so I'll just point to this excellent op-ed piece by Frank Rich instead.

After PBS announced a documentary critical of the Iraq war earlier this year, the Bush administration threatened to cut public funding for PBS in half for 2009, by 56% in 2010, and eliminate funding in 2011. The threat seems to have been heard, because now PBS is holding off broadcasting a documentary on torture until after Bush has left office. I can only hope this kind of crap stops on January 21, 2009. I'm amazed it's been allowed to go on this long.

Finally, The Daily Show was the only place to call McCain's "new" stump speech, unveiled this past Monday, for what it is: not new at all, but a rehashed version of his convention speech. On Tuesday night they brilliantly juxtaposed his "new" speech with the convention speech, showing many sections were the same, word-for-word. Now, maybe that's not a bad strategy for McCain since that was the last time he rose in the polls, but it's been bothering me that his campaign announces yet another strategy and newspapers all over the country tout it as his "comeback," often parroting the exact talking points he wanted them to quote. So I leave you with Jon Stewart:

Twenty Questions: Social Justice Quiz 2008

2008-10-13T22:46:00.001-04:00

From the website The Zoo, Twenty Questions: Social Justice Quiz 2008

This may make you squirm. It asks questions you may not know (or want to know) the answers to. It starts off with these:

Q. How many deaths are there worldwide each year due to acts of terrorism?

A: More than 22,000 last year. 1/2 were Muslim.

Q: How many deaths are the worldwide each day due to poverty and malnutrition?

A: About 25,000 every DAY.

More explanation to the answers at the site. You'll also find questions about CEO compensation, in how many cities in the US full-time minimum wage workers can afford rent and utilities, what percentage of the homeless are children, and how many people have died trying to cross the border between Mexico and Arizona.

Not always easy answers, but important to know.

Science Debate 2008: 14 Questions

2008-10-06T18:00:00.000-04:00

Now that the presidential race has officially become ugly, here's some policy information that can hopefully bring some of us back down to what really matters.

To those of you interested in science and technology, here's a political spin: 14 questions about "science and the future of America." It's a long read and there's a lot of stumping on both sides, but the page has a helpful layout that places both candidates' answers next to each other for each question.

There's simply too much material to quote extensively, but here are two worthy of comment:

Nuclear power is a proven, domestic, zero-emission source of energy and it is time to recommit to advancing our use of nuclear energy. -- John McCain

Is nuclear power really proven? It generates electricity, yes, but proven? So far there are no nuclear power plants in the U.S. that haven't been heavily subsidized. The cost per megawatt, when cost overruns and subsidies are calculated, makes nuclear power anything but "proven." Zero-emission? That's a common misconception. They are low-emission, but not zero. Of course they are vastly better in this regard than coal or natural gas plants, but there is some pollution from nuclear plants. And what about those nasty spent fuel rods that no one wants in their backyard? That's a pollution problem.

Next, Obama calls for a national CTO.

...Establish the nation's first Chief Technology Officer (CTO) to ensure that our government and all its agencies have the right infrastructure, policies and services for the 21st century. The CTO will lead an interagency effort on best-in-class technologies, sharing of best practices, and safeguarding of our networks. -- Barack Obama

This is a terrific idea for helping government efficiency and security that could ultimately lead to many good things, but man would that be a tough job. Still, high marks for recommending it. Lots more of this type of stuff, in much greater detail, at the link above.