Category Archives: Politics

I had a dream

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It was back when I was in Seattle for PAX. It was Saturday night and since our hotel was about half an hour away from the convention centre, we decided to skip out on that night’s concerts. Even though I was looking forward to seeing Anamanaguchi, the Minibosses, MC Frontalot, and the Darkest of the Hillside Thickets, the physically painful experience of attending the Friday night concerts was enough to persuade me from pushing for it. After all, Jonathan Coulton and the OneUps were awesome enough as it were.

Anyhow, we got back to the hotel at about 10 pm and realized that we hadn’t eaten yet, so we ordered some pizza from Pizza Hut, which I was thrilled with since that was during the height of Code Geass R2 mania. Anyhow, while were nom-nom-noming on delicious stuffed crust, we had the TV on. It was only two nights before that Obama gave his nomination acceptance speech in Denver. That night, CNN was running a documentary about Obama’s life from the start all the way up to present day.

The dream that I had when I fell asleep was unique in that I could clearly recount the details. I was at the White House and everyone was in like the garden or something sitting around a bunch of tables like you would at a cafe, and George W. Bush was addressing everyone there. Now, Bush being Bush, he was saying some garbage, the details of which I don’t remember. But, I did think what he said was incredibly stupid, so being the devastatingly sarcastic smartass that I am, I heckled him.

Understandably, Bush was pissed as hell that I was heckling him. He walked over, very angry-like and confrontational and overall had a fairly threatening composure. Of course, as luck would have it, Obama was at my table, and he noticed angry Bush approaching. He decided to step in and try and calm him down, but Bush wasn’t having any of it. So, Obama being the cool guy that he is, decides to swing back with an utterly devastating remark to Bush.

How did I know his remark was devastating? Because immediately, Bush looked absolutely dejected and he turned around and walked back to the stage slowly. And what would be an excellent burn without a high-five? So I gave Obama a high-five and we were very pleased with ourselves and smiling and all.

Congratulations, America and hi5, President Obama.

Mr President: ONE WEEK LEFT EDITION

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The American Presidential elections are a week away. Time for some comprehensive opinion.

John McCain

My first impression of John McCain was during the primaries, in which he struck me as a very ardent supporter of the Iraq war and as someone who is aggressive and uncompromising when it comes to foreign policy. Later, I picked up on the fact that he wasn’t seen as a Republican and was deeply unpopular with much of the party since he was seen as someone who wasn’t bound by the party line.

In retrospect, his victory in the primaries seems analogous to that of Stephane Dion’s in the Liberal leadership: everyone else was out by default. Romney was a Mormon and wouldn’t get the support of the Evangelical base. Huckabee was unpopular with the corporate Republicans. Giuliani’s strategy just sucked.

However, his biggest mistakes were made in the last few months, leading up to and since both party conventions. Like Hillary Clinton, he began being a respectable second choice should Obama lose, and like Hillary Clinton, McCain began to squander that goodwill by running a dishonest and dirty campaign. And in both cases, as we near draw closer to decision day, both campaigns were imploding.

The problem for McCain is that no one actually likes him, unlike Clinton. Clinton was able to continue to maintain control of her supporters and ultimately brought them over to Obama. McCain’s supporters are clearly prepared to throw him into a ditch the first chance they can get.

The other problem for McCain is that he’s not as cool and collected as Clinton was. Clinton had the stones to continue for a few days before suspending her campaign after June 3. On the other hand, we have McCain acting on impulse, throwing random crap at us since the DNC convention. We’ve had the impulse pick of Sarah Palin as running mate, the haphazard drama over the financial crisis, and the inability to stay on message over the last few weeks.

And unlike Clinton, he’s unlikely to have a chance to regain whatever positive opinions the public may have had left of him.

Sarah Palin

Interestingly enough, I had heard of Palin before her pick as running mate for McCain. It was on the PA forums, where people were throwing out possible female Republicans who may take a shot at 2012. At the time, we knew as much about her as we did when they introduced her: a young reformer and wildly popular in her state. And of course, when she was announced, there was a slight panic and speculation about how it might change the race.

This will likely prove to be McCain’s biggest mistake. Palin’s inexperience and ignorance of any issues beyond managing her state was clearly demonstrated in an entire series of interviews. She was under investigation for abuse of power. And yet, she is far more popular than McCain among Republicans. Even now, there is speculation that she’s turning on the campaign and looking out for herself. However, her extreme right-wing views and ignorance probably drove away independents and undecideds that McCain desperately needed.

She started off as a fairly dangerous and aggressive candidate, but ultimately was trounced by both Obama and Biden and has now ended up as a liability to McCain.

Joe Biden

I had three picks for Obama’s running mate: former General Wesley Clark, Governor Kathleen Sebelius of Kansas, and Senator Joseph Biden of Delaware. And lucky me, Obama chose Biden.

Biden is one of the senators that I’ve heard about outside of the campaign, and in fact, for a few years now. He’s always struck me as the type of guy that doesn’t take crap and will call you out on your crap. He’s incredibly experienced and is incredibly knowledgeable in foreign affairs. He’s an excellent speaker and is very likable.

I’d watched his speech as Obama introduced him as his running mate. Right out of the gate, he was taking excellent jabs at McCain and introducing his story at the same time. It was then that I knew that Obama made the right choice and that the rest of the campaign was going to be awesome.

I think it speaks volumes about the difference between Obama and McCain in their selection of their running mates. Biden was carefully considered and was chosen to compliment Obama in his administration. Palin was chosen without much vetting and was an obvious political move.

Barack Obama

Like Biden, I’ve been following Obama for a few years, ever since I heard about him on Slashdot. It was my English teacher that said that words have power and Obama is a clear example of this. He is one of the most eloquent and powerful speakers that I’ve personally seen. Even if he didn’t run for president, it’s evident from his speech at the 2004 DNC convention that he’d have a lot of influence.

It bugged me when Obama’s opponents attacked him for his oratory, mostly because it preys on people’s stupidity. People constantly ignore the fact that the world’s most influential leaders are such because they were powerful speakers. The argument that style and substance are mutually exclusive is a retarded one that only stupid people would buy. Unfortunately, the fact that this election might be considered a contest at all is proof that much of America is still dominated by stupid people.

But of course, Obama isn’t all style. His legislative record is proof of this, like the law that’s colloquially known as Google for Government. He has a comprehensive platform. Unlike McCain, he’s able to give detailed explanations of his policies. Beyond his progressive policies, he’s committed to things that everyone should want, like increased government transparency and accountability.

And even if he has relatively little experience to McCain, he’s proved that he’s able to manage and organize a campaign far better than he has. Where he might be inexperienced, he will surround himself with smart people. He’s collected and makes measured decisions. And of course, Obama is intelligent and has a charisma aura and is just plain awesome.

October 14

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Let’s talk about Canada and October 14.

As I’ve mentioned before, I have problems with Stephen Harper and the Conservatives. Harper keeps a fairly tight leash on his party and its members. He governs as though he has a majority by forcing confidence motions. His party deliberately obstructs Parliament. His party ran attack ads for a year before the election. Beyond my problems with his ethics, I’m also not a fan of conservative ideology, whether fiscal or social. I just don’t believe that cutting services and taxes is a good idea.

Stephane Dion and the Liberals are a lot more interesting. I had my reservations about Dion, since he pretty much has no charisma, which is important to have when campaigning. I have no doubt that he’d make a pretty good Prime Minister. The problem, of course, is getting there. He’s reasonably smart, is a progressive, and doesn’t seem to hold contempt for democracy like Harper does. His platform has stuff that I can agree with, and while I’m not a huge environmentalist, I can understand that the Green Shift is a way to tackle global warming and poverty at once.

Finally, we have Jack Layton and the NDP. Much of the NDP platform is similar to that of the Liberals, except for their proposal to reverse corporate tax cuts. The most notable thing for me is that their stance on digital issues is a lot more firm than that of the Liberals. Jack Layton also has been a pretty good leader, if a bit aggressive in attacking the other parties. Of course, they carry the stigma of Bob Rae’s Ontario NDP, who managed to make everyone forget that and somehow end up as a prominent Liberal.

What’s a Christian politician?

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As both Canada and the States are heading into federal elections, I feel the need to bring up my problems with both countries’ conservative parties. I’ve touched on my reasons for supporting Barack Obama or the New Democratic Party before and for the most part, my arguments were grounded in policy. I had also expressed my frustration at how quick other Christians are to jump in and blindly align themselves with conservatives. This was done, again, based on the policies that the candidates proposed. This time around, I want to focus on our conservative politicians from a different angle.

A lot of the time during election seasons, I will often hear at church the congregation being asked to pray for Christian leaders among our politicians. Of course, we never really go into how we could recognize a Christian leader in our government. How would a Christian MP do his or her job? Would they represent their constituents’ views, even if they were contrary to their own or would they vote based on their faith? Would they respect the democratic process or would they willfully obstruct and disrupt it to get the results they want?

To be honest, I suspect that when we Christians ask for Christian leaders in our government, we don’t actually want honest, accountable politicians, but just a guy who promises to vote against abortion and same-sex marriage. Do we seriously consider the character and integrity of who we’re considering to give our vote? If we don’t, then we’re being disingenuous when we pray for Christian leaders to rise up. Of course, if you’re fine with Christian leaders who aren’t principled, then I guess I’d have to concede that point.

And this is the problem that I have with the conservative parties in North America. It turns out that they aren’t accountable, they aren’t transparent, and they don’t have an ounce of integrity left intact. All of Stephen Harper and the Conservative Party of Canada and John McCain, Sarah Palin, and the Republican Party should not have the vote of any Christian that values honesty, integrity, and accountability.

McCain and Palin together have done nothing but lie about Obama’s policies and character, lie about their qualifications for the office that they’re running for, and lie about Palin’s questionable history and both of their poor track records as senator and governor. Their party has done nothing but smear and swiftboat the opposition since they’ve been in power. Their party’s politicians are constantly trying to evade subpoenas and investigations.

In Canada, it’s not much better. The Conservatives are the party that had a 200 page booklet published and distributed among their caucus detailing how to obstruct parliamentary committees. This is the party that runs attack ads on Stephane Dion using that retarded picture of him over and over again. I’d honestly expect snarky, mean-spirited ads to come out from the NDP more than the Conservatives.

These are the people that Christians support. Is it any wonder why most people don’t see us as people who value integrity and accountability?

Techmology 2

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A while ago, I wrote about the effect of technology on our social interactions and relationships. And now I return with more, sparked with a random thought that entered my head. That thought was that I kind of take for granted the knowledge I have about how all of this crap works. I mean, I’m not good enough at it that I can do anything useful, but I know enough to know that it’s not the result of some sorcelations. And then, at the risk of sounding elitist, what logically follows is the scary thought that most people have no idea how computers or the interwebs work.

This is a problem. It causes an unrealistic expectation of what this thing we have built can and cannot do. This becomes more of a problem now that our society is fairly integrated with it. Ten years ago, people were kind of crawling around and exploring this new-fangled thing. Today, people are participating in it. It has defined our society. We now have this thing sitting around that can reach everyone in the nation that everyone can be a part of.

You may remember that I am a fan of Barack Obama. I have mentioned in passing that one of the reasons why I support him is because of his promise to make government data online in universally accessible formats, which is one of the many things he has included in his technology platform. The thing is, though, this will not be a huge thing to anyone who doesn’t understand how computers work. Most people don’t see why this will help “create a transparent and connected democracy”.

Of course, this ties into the other issue of open formats. People don’t understand why keeping documents as Microsoft Word files is a bad idea. People don’t understand why digital rights management is unnecessary. People don’t question service providers on things like bandwidth caps or network neutrality.

I am a fairly large proponent for using technology to improve our democracy. It stems largely from the same basic argument that I laid out in my last post about social relationships and technology. We’re still not taking technology seriously and using it properly. Again, the same basic problem is the people. Technology is not magic. It doesn’t automatically solve all our problems.

How does our government become corrupt? We let it become corrupt by being uninformed and apathetic. Technology solves one of those problems. Obama’s technology platform gives people the tools to be informed. Making government data available, making live feeds of government proceedings available, web tools to track government finances, and using wikis and blogs for public communication are all ways to give people information and let them do something with it.

It’s these sorts of things that convince me of Obama’s trustworthiness. And the wonderful thing is that he’s proven this power. He’s already crafted legislation that created USAspending.gov, he’s centralized his supporters on his website by giving them forums and blogs, and he’s managed to outraise every other candidate using his website and refusing lobbyist money at the same time. It’s also these sorts of things that have convinced me of the power of technology to shape an open and accountable government.

And this is why we need to understand how all of this works. I’m sure you can see how easy it would be for someone to do just the opposite of all of this and actually take away our rights and freedoms using technology, simply because we don’t understand it. It’s already started with digital rights management and the DMCA in the US. This is why technology occupies a large weight in terms of my political considerations. It’s definitely the reason why I’m an NDP supporter, what with their support of network neutrality and real copyright reform (as opposed to the Conservatives’ and Liberals’ capitulation to American interests).

Again, technology is something that we shouldn’t and can’t be afraid of if we want to harness it for good. If we don’t, we’re just letting it sit around as an easy way to catch up on TV shows when it can be so much more. And the danger is that if we don’t use it, someone else will.