isidewith was an interesting attempt started back in 2012 to get some members of the public to think more about matching their policy interests and goals with political candidates who might better support those. I'm rather skeptical that this project is likely to have much fruitful action in and of itself, for reasons that have to do with how most people vote and why not having very much at all to do with policy goals, particularly in a polarized voting environment. But it was a laudable project at the time to try to get people to think about third parties and more rigorously evaluate their policy visions and compare them to something like the actual positions of candidates.
I'm less sure of its current development still fulfilling that mission, but I have other uses for it all the same.
*I don't really have a positive opinion of some of the methods of matching being used, and the site seems to have taken a somewhat more distinguishably liberal tone to some of its questions and answers rather than being more obviously neutral (I say this as someone who on many issues regards Democratic candidates as illiberal squishes rather than anyone invoking a liberal political and policy tradition). A further problem may be the online sampling is likely to skew younger than the overall population. This has implications on a variety of issues more likely to be popular among younger voters than older voters (note these are not necessarily predictable. Support for entitlement reform for instance tends to be greater among older voters than young people). What that may be suggesting is that some of these issues that are closer in appearance here may be possible for reform, but not for several more years as demographics shift to have fewer of the existing older voters still alive.
But there's still some interesting results in looking at the poll results on specific questions that I wanted to pull apart more.
Issues with general agreement of some kind across parties that might actually get something done in the next few years (and not totally annoy me).
Welfare-work requirements: Pretty popular with both parties. About 3/4 of Democrats and 80% of Republicans are in favor. I think this would make a possible case for an expansion and better tax incidence smoothing of the EITC and other social welfare programs. But not something like a negative income tax (my favored solution instead of min wages and smoothing out transfer payments by eliminating many programs and consolidating them as a cash transfer.)
Paid family/sick leave: Popular with both parties (60-40 Republicans, 90-10 Democrats). I would prefer this be implemented by having the government pay for it, in a way that it operates like disability insurance of a sort, rather than risk providing distorted incentives for employers to fire or not hire people who are more likely to get sick or avoid hiring or promoting fertile aged women capable of reproducing. It is however an issue on which there appears to be some possibility for reforms, which is rare.
Universal background checks for guns: This gets almost 90% support from either party. One caveat to this is that the support for "more gun regulations" is highly split (80-20).
Euthanasia: There's a gap here, but both Republicans (55-45) and Democrats (90-10) supported this as an option.
Issues with odd divides or near uniformity that annoy me:
ISIS - declaration of war ends up being mostly pro. Democrats were split about 35-65. I could see some number of people suggesting a legal procedural problem of allowing the military and President to conduct a conflict without the input of a Congressional vote but this wasn't offered as a legitimizing feature in the "more options" categories. A very similar partisan split occurred in using "ground troops" however, suggesting that if there is some sort of legal procedural voting bloc, it isn't very big.
"Decrease the military budget" - Republicans were almost united in opposing any decrease, but even Democrats were about evenly split. This was utterly horrifying to me given how much money we expend on defense budgets annually and what little return we receive for it (even in reference to what the defense department receives, this is less than clear it is getting what it asked for in exchange for the money allocated).
Foreign aid - reliably, everyone hates this (across both parties). Also reliably, I expect pretty much no one knows how much we are spending and on what.
GMO labels. The only political group that opposed these in substantial numbers is libertarians (and then it was still about 50-50). Both Democrats and Republicans were at 80-20 margins.
Drug testing welfare recipients. Despite considerable evidence this is either unconstitutional or totally ineffective, both parties supported this. Republicans do so to an absurd degree (93-7). But Democrats do themselves no favors (58-42).
Farm subsidies: There's not much of a divide here. Democrats are marginally more supportive of them. Republicans are about 50/50. Again, libertarians were the only political group that opposed these in substantial numbers. There hasn't been a good economic case for these since the Progressive Era under Hoover. Which is to say there is not one.
Prosecuting bankers for the 2008 financial crisis attracted bipartisan support (more from Democrats, but it's about 60-40 from Republicans). I am unclear what good this would do and tends to be pretty hard to do.
Marijuana legalisation: Still pretty opposed by Republicans (60-40). Democrats are up to about 90-10 in favor. I'm constantly annoyed this has not translated at the elite level very much at all. Few Democratic candidates are openly in favor. Drug decriminalisation more broadly (potentially including say, cocaine) has a similar split of around 70-30.
Patriot Act/NSA reforms, not supported very highly by either party. Republicans are more apt to back the existing architecture of the national security state. Libertarians of course hate these powers. The Apple-FBI fight has a similar split in support of demanding Apple hack phones for the government.
Social security. Both parties tended to have about 70-30 opposition to raising the retirement age for Social Security. I had other ideas on how best to fix the problems here (means test the benefits). Others would prefer raising the tax limit for it. But I can't really see a basis for leaving the age where it is either.
Term limits. Both parties support this at nearly 90%. I've never seen a good argument in favor of this idea. It's entirely populist nonsense. Fortunately nobody in office will do anything about it.
Campaign finance laws: both parties oppose the current Citizens United framework. I think the case against this is pretty weak and that greater funding transparency would be of sufficient fix for now. It misdiagnoses the problem as election laws rather than lobbying.
Voter ID laws: Both parties support these. Republicans are at extremely high rates but Democrats are still at around 2/3s. I find there's little or no basis for this form of voter fraud protection and that methods of suppressing or preventing individuals from voting are really poor ideas (even though I think many voters are poorly informed at best, and misinformed at worst).
Death penalty: Supported by both parties. Democrats around 2/3s. Republicans at 90-10. I can conceive of a moral case for killing certain people based on the severity of crimes and the possibility of rehabilitation, but the amount of burden of proof and expense, and the civil libertarian moral case for not killing people who might be innocent or may be otherwise "redeemable", and that there does not appear to be an effect of deterrence for the sort of crimes that we use it for, and the case that we are often using it for racist reasons, all weigh heavily against this being still a good and necessary idea in a modern state.
Issues with odd divides or near uniformity that may annoy partisan elites:
Cuba - There's a partisan split here but it's an odd one for the way Republican elites have been talking about it. Democrats almost universally support this change (95-5), while Republicans come out as almost a 50-50 split. I'm not sure there's much of a cohort available to them to pander toward (neoconservatives?) that it would actually be beneficial to reverse course on this policy trend toward normalizing relations with Cuba. It probably seems pretty clear to almost everyone what we were doing wasn't working.
Global Warming - big partisan split here too, but there's a cohort of Republicans that still favor doing things (about a third). Democrats are almost universally in support of doing something, but almost none of them favor taxing carbon emissions. Which is really disheartening. I think it's probably one of the simplest methods of attacking the problem.
TPP - Both parties voters were about 60-40 against. I have mixed impressions of this because of intellectual property rights law intersecting with the treaty in a way I find undesirable (strengthening and expanding the protections rather than reducing them to be more sensible).
NSA metadata collection - both parties seem to have about a 60-40 opposition to these programs. Further reform to squash them may be possible.
Issues with large partisan divides (things that we should expect to come up in the elections)
Syrian Refugees (accept or not) - For the record I answered this with "we should accept many more than 10k". I'm about as pro-refugee and asylum as someone gets, particularly given all the restrictions and system of checks involved in accepting such people as we already have making it difficult to accept and integrate as many people as we should.
This comes out as a near 50-50 split. But on partisan grounds both parties ended up closer to 80-20 or 20-80 splits. It's likely to be a sore point over which partisans will argue, but no middle ground can occur.
There isn't a cohort that broadly supports overthrowing Assad or preventing Russian support of Assad through their airstrikes. This seems to be a big disconnect between the public, particularly the conservative public, and most of their candidates (Voldemort seems to have tapped into this best, though it isn't a focal point of his blustery word salad presented as a campaign).
Iran - There's a big partisan split over attacking Iran though. Republicans favor airstrikes on nuclear facilities by an 80-20 margin. The polling there is older, but I doubt it has shifted very much since. (For the record, I wouldn't favor airstrikes even if I thought they were building a bomb. Which I do not think is or has been the case for some years now anyway).
College loans/college debt. There's a big partisan split over how to fund these. Sanders plan of a Wall St tax or raising taxes on rich people to fund colleges is very popular among Democrats and liberals. But nobody else likes it.
Immigration: Democrats on virtually any immigration question favored much broader admittance and acceptance. Republicans did not. There was a huge split over whether local law enforcement should detain people based on minor crimes (like traffic violations or other misdemeanors). This is likely because this is believed to be used (and has been shown to be used) for racial profiling purposes rather than immigration enforcement. There was another 80-20 split over birthright citizenship and over the restriction of Muslim immigrants. There was also a gap between Democrats (50-50) and Republicans (96-4) over "border security".
There was no real divide over "immigrants should be required to learn English". Which in practice makes sense, but in terms of the legal system does not.
Unions were regarded negatively by Republicans (70-30) and positively by Democrats (80-20). Which probably explains min wage discussions. Speaking of which, minimum wage increases were along a similar split (80-20 each).
Obamacare: huge partisan divide here. Democrats favored 85-15, Republicans 95-5 against. This essentially forecloses the ability to do either a) reforms to the existing system that make it work better or b) any substantive discussion of further liberal policy choices. It also limits the prospect of conservative policies being put forward instead as the existing system is essentially one put in place by moderate conservatives (Mitt Romney for instance).
Abortion: Remains a pretty strong partisan split. Republicans are "only" coming in at 70-30 "pro-life". Democrats at 90-10 pro-choice. Planned Parenthood funding achieves similar results as a proxy fight in this issue.
Gay marriage: Republicans come in 70-30 against still (Democrats are nearly universally in support).
27 February 2016
26 February 2016
NCAA week 2 rankings
Lots of shaking up occurred. Which is to be expected with the field being separated poorly. But it's basically the same group of teams in a different order or shape.
1) Villanova 14-4
1) Michigan State 12-5
3) Kansas 15-4
4) Oklahoma 15-5
5) North Carolina 14-5
6) Louisville (ineligible) 9-67) Virginia 13-6
8) Kentucky 14-6-1
9) West Virginia 11-7
10) Duke 12-7
11) Xavier 12-3
12) Arizona 11-6
13) Iowa 9-6-1
14) Wichita St 5-6-1
15) Indiana 10-4-2
15) Purdue 10-6-1
15) Miami 14-4-1
18) Iowa St 11-9
19) Maryland 12-4-1
20) Texas AM 14-7
21) SMU (ineligible) 8-4
22) Vanderbilt 7-11
23) Oregon 12-5-1
24) Notre Dame 8-8
25) Connecticut 9-8
1) Villanova 14-4
1) Michigan State 12-5
3) Kansas 15-4
4) Oklahoma 15-5
5) North Carolina 14-5
6) Louisville (ineligible) 9-67) Virginia 13-6
8) Kentucky 14-6-1
9) West Virginia 11-7
10) Duke 12-7
11) Xavier 12-3
12) Arizona 11-6
13) Iowa 9-6-1
14) Wichita St 5-6-1
15) Indiana 10-4-2
15) Purdue 10-6-1
15) Miami 14-4-1
18) Iowa St 11-9
19) Maryland 12-4-1
20) Texas AM 14-7
21) SMU (ineligible) 8-4
22) Vanderbilt 7-11
23) Oregon 12-5-1
24) Notre Dame 8-8
25) Connecticut 9-8
20 February 2016
Random thought for the day
There seems to be a high correlation between the people complaining about "social justice", "political correctness", "feminism", people being accused of being "racist", and said people being or at least acting like assholes, particularly online. By making very sloppy and indecorous arguments, attracting a lot of attention for doing so (often negative attention), and then retreating behind friendly lines and watching the fire burn afterward. Usually quite unapologetically as though they did not realize there would be any problem.
Some or all of those causes have legitimate problems in their public presentation, factual points of agreement or disagreement, and acceptance of critiques along those lines. Some or even many of the people involved in those causes can be sometimes quite unpleasant to talk to. Indeed this is a common complaint leveled at: environmentalists, feminists, atheists, libertarians, conservatives, marxists, etc. That the people involved are often coming off as somewhat intolerant of dissenting views and other crimes against the use of public forums to try to win arguments. But most of the people pointing this out cannot help but to appear to be enormously smug bastards about it as though they are winning something other than this legitimate complaint. And they often seem to pick the more inflammatory or offensive method of expression to do so when something more mundane or polite would suffice. They thus appear to be winning mostly troll-ish opinion and flame wars.
Ordinarily such things don't matter in real life that some number of people might secretly be enormous assholes who are offended that they cannot say regressive things about other people any more. Except we have a Presidential candidate whose entire campaign seems based around taking this manner of argument and rhetoric to its logical conclusion and who seems to be fairing reasonably well in spite of this ordinarily disqualifying limitation. In general, I favor extremely wide uses of freedom of speech, relative even to the extremely wide uses that most Americans think they favor. That is that I do not favor using state power to silence people on almost any basis relating to "offensive speech", and I don't really care very much if we try to use soft power via things like boycotts to silence people we disagree with privately or in this context who we believe are "offensive". I think this is ineffective too most of the time. Idiots and assholes and misogynists and racists and other varieties of poor quality arguments should become self-identifying and self-recommending in that light by allowing them to speak and learning how poorly they have thought of their chosen subjects of speech. But the modern status symbol appears to be assholes "who will tell it like it is" for some number of people. Which is more concerning that there are apparently a sufficient number of idiots and assholes and misogynists and racists.
Some or all of those causes have legitimate problems in their public presentation, factual points of agreement or disagreement, and acceptance of critiques along those lines. Some or even many of the people involved in those causes can be sometimes quite unpleasant to talk to. Indeed this is a common complaint leveled at: environmentalists, feminists, atheists, libertarians, conservatives, marxists, etc. That the people involved are often coming off as somewhat intolerant of dissenting views and other crimes against the use of public forums to try to win arguments. But most of the people pointing this out cannot help but to appear to be enormously smug bastards about it as though they are winning something other than this legitimate complaint. And they often seem to pick the more inflammatory or offensive method of expression to do so when something more mundane or polite would suffice. They thus appear to be winning mostly troll-ish opinion and flame wars.
Ordinarily such things don't matter in real life that some number of people might secretly be enormous assholes who are offended that they cannot say regressive things about other people any more. Except we have a Presidential candidate whose entire campaign seems based around taking this manner of argument and rhetoric to its logical conclusion and who seems to be fairing reasonably well in spite of this ordinarily disqualifying limitation. In general, I favor extremely wide uses of freedom of speech, relative even to the extremely wide uses that most Americans think they favor. That is that I do not favor using state power to silence people on almost any basis relating to "offensive speech", and I don't really care very much if we try to use soft power via things like boycotts to silence people we disagree with privately or in this context who we believe are "offensive". I think this is ineffective too most of the time. Idiots and assholes and misogynists and racists and other varieties of poor quality arguments should become self-identifying and self-recommending in that light by allowing them to speak and learning how poorly they have thought of their chosen subjects of speech. But the modern status symbol appears to be assholes "who will tell it like it is" for some number of people. Which is more concerning that there are apparently a sufficient number of idiots and assholes and misogynists and racists.
18 February 2016
NCAA Rankings
General thoughts on NCAA season so far:
No clear favorite has emerged. Villanova appears to be slightly better but not by much, not only over the top 4 but also the next tier down.
Two teams that are ineligible for post season play are in the top 25, which opens up slots for weaker teams.
Many more teams appear to be in a middling state that hasn't separated from the pack, which will make the bubble teams very soft at selection time. Few of those teams have good records against good teams, see Vanderbilt, Creighton, and Kansas St (teams with tough schedules and poor records) versus Providence, South Carolina, and Colorado (better records and similarly tough schedules, but more "bad" losses).
Almost none of those bubble or middling teams are in minor or mid-major conferences. Valparaiso, Monmouth, and UALR appear to be possible "surprise" teams for later, and maybe the only teams possible to "take" a spot should they not win their conference's automatic bid. Most of the bubble is from the ACC, SEC, and Pac-12 teams that are closer to average, and not minor conferences. There are somewhat more of these minor conference teams that are in the 69-85 range than usual right now, but not many in the top 60.
As always, records are versus top 100 teams only (teams generally likely to be in the NCAA tournament). Gaudy records against more mediocre teams will not impress me.
As always, records are versus top 100 teams only (teams generally likely to be in the NCAA tournament). Gaudy records against more mediocre teams will not impress me.
2) Michigan St 10-5
3) Virginia 13-5
4) Kansas 13-4
5) Louisville (ineligible) 7-6
6) West Virginia 11-6
7) Oklahoma 13-5
8) North Carolina 12-5
9) Duke 12-6
10) Arizona 11-5
10) Kentucky 12-5-1
12) Iowa 9-5-1
13) Miami 13-3-1
14) Xavier 10-3
14) Purdue 10-5-1
16) Maryland 11-4
16) Indiana 9-4-2
18) Iowa St 11-8
19) Wichita St 5-6-1
20) SMU (ineligible) 8-3
21) Texas AM 12-7
22) Oregon 11-5-1
23) Gonzaga 3-6
24) Notre Dame 8-7
25) Vanderbilt 5-11
Ranked Teams not in 25
40) Dayton 7-3-1
51) Providence 9-5-3
28) Texas 11-8-1
36) Baylor 9-7
54) South Carolina 10-4-1
13 February 2016
An update to an older problem
A problem I identified among, mostly liberals I guess, I believe has a more firmly identified cause than it did some years ago when I first wrote about it.
The problem was voter turnout and associated beliefs about "uninformed" voters screwing things up. I categorize most of these as "misinformed" voters, because most of these are voters who believe they possess a good deal of information about complicated subjects and tend to score well on tests of basic political knowledge. Uninformed voters, people possessing very limited levels of political knowledge, tend not to vote. Because they are not interested in politics usually. This is a problem for the theory that voter turnout produces a skewed outcome of some sort, in that the biases of "informed" voters already exist and are generally reflected in the vote.
A clearer statement of this appears to work more as follows: "uninformed voters" are "Republican voters", and that supposedly there is a legion of "informed voters" who don't vote (which is generally not the case), who would vote for Democrats. I'm dubious of this assumption being correct either. The available research on voting participation in the US in particular suggests that the vast majority of people who vote, particularly in primary elections as now, but also in general elections are reliably more partisan than people who do not vote. This is less about information, though partisanship can skew information considerably, and more about political parties having stronger incentives to turn out their voter bases than to try to convince moderate voters to vote for them, voters who are also reliably less informed and thereby somewhat difficult to appeal to, or to get weak partisan voters of your opponents to defect to your side or at least not show up at all, voters who will require somewhat more convincing still. In other words, it's becoming a race to appeal to strong partisans to argue among themselves about what dastardly plan they won't be able to accomplish because those evil people over there are preventing it and dammit we need more of us, and then point fingers at how terrible those people are on the other side. Or even politicians who aren't "pure" enough (as with the Sanders-Clinton infighting that occurs online).
The effect of this however on voter turnout isn't "more people will vote Democrat if only they would show up", because there's less evidence for that prognosis, particularly as the political parties become more extreme. It seems to be instead fewer people give a damn in the first place because they feel disconnected from the more partisan and more extreme voter bases of political parties. General elections like the Presidential election cycle will probably still turnout "moderate" or even "establishment" voters who are less partisan than ordinary voters. Most other forms of elections may become increasingly extreme and polarized, and eventually have fewer voters (not yet, more work would be required to be more partisan than now). This theory seems to explain some of the chaos that has emerged so far as a narrative among the political primaries being so divorced from "establishment" demands, in that the partisan activists are very displeased with the performance of their chosen political parties and believe they would do better if they were only more extreme and purer than they currently are. In some way. There is little or no historical evidence for this theory of course. In fact extreme partisans in large turnout elections have a very strong pull historically toward "this will cost us the election" or "this could splinter and fracture our political party" or "some third party or independent candidate will get a bunch of votes". None of which seems likely to be optimal to the extremists but still they persist in their motions.
As a minor member of a disloyal tribe of partisan voters (small l libertarians, or left-leaning ones), this is all quite amusing watching the major political parties trying to eat themselves alive by arguing their way into factionalism and extremism. And I gladly cheer their efforts on if it means more factions emerge eventually and perhaps more choice becomes available to capture factions of voters unmoved by those on these current extremes (as I am not). But how this impacts voter turnout in some positive manner seems far from clearly advantageous for either side. For the following reason: right now the public still seems on balance to be roughly split in so far as that it tends toward more socially liberal policies (they want less interaction between values and laws), but also tends toward more economic conservatism (they want government to do at least somewhat less than it presently does in the economy overall, if not specifically). At present neither political party represents this demand sufficiently at a national level (one could argue Democrats during the period from 1930 to 1970 mostly had control this state of affairs as it was a more socially conservative party then nationally, and perhaps Republicans in the 1980s and 90s as the national mood was more socially conservative). This dynamic will also shift back and forth on both counts, or at least it traditionally has. Neither party likely possesses some sort of natural monopoly on voters that can persist for long periods of time. This suggests that polarized elections of lower turnout will eventually produce unstable swings between parties as little of note may get done, or that what gets done is immediately demanded to be undone. Non-polarized elections with higher voter turnout will tend to produce more stable swings as some number of people in the middle will be able to sway elections if they feel one party or the other has too much or too little influence.
There can be an argument that voter suppression efforts to depress turnout have a general partisan bias. But even this is not guaranteed. Evidence suggests that the attempts to use voter ID laws in Pennsylvania for instance may have harmed Republican vote turnout more than Democratic vote turnout in the state (or, more likely that it had little partisan effect versus the fact that it was not expected to be a competitive state). It is also not abundantly clear that all such laws have the effect of swinging partisan districts between parties, or dramatically reducing partisan turnout for an opponent in a general election. Voter restrictions based upon felony convictions are a possibility to be of a partisan effect. Voter restrictions that end up with a disproportionate racial bias also. The evidence also suggests that the strictest voter restrictions of these types (for example voter ID laws) end up with perhaps a 2% reduction in voter turnout. This results in perhaps an additional 1% of Democratic voters by margin on average, which is unlikely to impact most races (it will impact some surely, but will also push some number in the other direction). Partisanship effects for something like primary elections have had far more dramatic impacts upon voter turnout however, as voter turnout is considerably lower than a 2% reduction.
To be sure, I tend to oppose most restrictions on voting. For example, I am in favor of allowing ex-convicts to vote in any state that currently restricts it (Maryland just changed its laws on this point, overriding a Governor's veto). I tend to think strict voter ID laws are generally not very useful. Very few people will attempt to vote fraudulently without them. Much less than this 1% of partisan voter suppression being achieved with them. Which suggests these laws are unjustified or unnecessary for electoral fairness. Nevertheless the idea that such laws have significant impact on turnout and the results of elections (particularly Congressional elections) seems spurious versus other causes, partisanship for example, or favorable redistricting efforts in partisan directions, or incumbency biases, and so on down the line. Few elections turn upon a 1-2% turnout gap. The average margin in House races tends to be over 30%. Senate races are about 20%. Approximately 30 House seats and 3-5 Senate seats will be under even 5% each cycle. Maybe 60 House sears and 8 Senate races are decided by fewer than 10 points. This is not significantly different in off year cycles like the midterms. This should not be encouraging that low voter turnout is the problem for some vast quantity of annoying Republicans getting elected if one is a liberal Democrat.
The problem was voter turnout and associated beliefs about "uninformed" voters screwing things up. I categorize most of these as "misinformed" voters, because most of these are voters who believe they possess a good deal of information about complicated subjects and tend to score well on tests of basic political knowledge. Uninformed voters, people possessing very limited levels of political knowledge, tend not to vote. Because they are not interested in politics usually. This is a problem for the theory that voter turnout produces a skewed outcome of some sort, in that the biases of "informed" voters already exist and are generally reflected in the vote.
A clearer statement of this appears to work more as follows: "uninformed voters" are "Republican voters", and that supposedly there is a legion of "informed voters" who don't vote (which is generally not the case), who would vote for Democrats. I'm dubious of this assumption being correct either. The available research on voting participation in the US in particular suggests that the vast majority of people who vote, particularly in primary elections as now, but also in general elections are reliably more partisan than people who do not vote. This is less about information, though partisanship can skew information considerably, and more about political parties having stronger incentives to turn out their voter bases than to try to convince moderate voters to vote for them, voters who are also reliably less informed and thereby somewhat difficult to appeal to, or to get weak partisan voters of your opponents to defect to your side or at least not show up at all, voters who will require somewhat more convincing still. In other words, it's becoming a race to appeal to strong partisans to argue among themselves about what dastardly plan they won't be able to accomplish because those evil people over there are preventing it and dammit we need more of us, and then point fingers at how terrible those people are on the other side. Or even politicians who aren't "pure" enough (as with the Sanders-Clinton infighting that occurs online).
The effect of this however on voter turnout isn't "more people will vote Democrat if only they would show up", because there's less evidence for that prognosis, particularly as the political parties become more extreme. It seems to be instead fewer people give a damn in the first place because they feel disconnected from the more partisan and more extreme voter bases of political parties. General elections like the Presidential election cycle will probably still turnout "moderate" or even "establishment" voters who are less partisan than ordinary voters. Most other forms of elections may become increasingly extreme and polarized, and eventually have fewer voters (not yet, more work would be required to be more partisan than now). This theory seems to explain some of the chaos that has emerged so far as a narrative among the political primaries being so divorced from "establishment" demands, in that the partisan activists are very displeased with the performance of their chosen political parties and believe they would do better if they were only more extreme and purer than they currently are. In some way. There is little or no historical evidence for this theory of course. In fact extreme partisans in large turnout elections have a very strong pull historically toward "this will cost us the election" or "this could splinter and fracture our political party" or "some third party or independent candidate will get a bunch of votes". None of which seems likely to be optimal to the extremists but still they persist in their motions.
As a minor member of a disloyal tribe of partisan voters (small l libertarians, or left-leaning ones), this is all quite amusing watching the major political parties trying to eat themselves alive by arguing their way into factionalism and extremism. And I gladly cheer their efforts on if it means more factions emerge eventually and perhaps more choice becomes available to capture factions of voters unmoved by those on these current extremes (as I am not). But how this impacts voter turnout in some positive manner seems far from clearly advantageous for either side. For the following reason: right now the public still seems on balance to be roughly split in so far as that it tends toward more socially liberal policies (they want less interaction between values and laws), but also tends toward more economic conservatism (they want government to do at least somewhat less than it presently does in the economy overall, if not specifically). At present neither political party represents this demand sufficiently at a national level (one could argue Democrats during the period from 1930 to 1970 mostly had control this state of affairs as it was a more socially conservative party then nationally, and perhaps Republicans in the 1980s and 90s as the national mood was more socially conservative). This dynamic will also shift back and forth on both counts, or at least it traditionally has. Neither party likely possesses some sort of natural monopoly on voters that can persist for long periods of time. This suggests that polarized elections of lower turnout will eventually produce unstable swings between parties as little of note may get done, or that what gets done is immediately demanded to be undone. Non-polarized elections with higher voter turnout will tend to produce more stable swings as some number of people in the middle will be able to sway elections if they feel one party or the other has too much or too little influence.
There can be an argument that voter suppression efforts to depress turnout have a general partisan bias. But even this is not guaranteed. Evidence suggests that the attempts to use voter ID laws in Pennsylvania for instance may have harmed Republican vote turnout more than Democratic vote turnout in the state (or, more likely that it had little partisan effect versus the fact that it was not expected to be a competitive state). It is also not abundantly clear that all such laws have the effect of swinging partisan districts between parties, or dramatically reducing partisan turnout for an opponent in a general election. Voter restrictions based upon felony convictions are a possibility to be of a partisan effect. Voter restrictions that end up with a disproportionate racial bias also. The evidence also suggests that the strictest voter restrictions of these types (for example voter ID laws) end up with perhaps a 2% reduction in voter turnout. This results in perhaps an additional 1% of Democratic voters by margin on average, which is unlikely to impact most races (it will impact some surely, but will also push some number in the other direction). Partisanship effects for something like primary elections have had far more dramatic impacts upon voter turnout however, as voter turnout is considerably lower than a 2% reduction.
To be sure, I tend to oppose most restrictions on voting. For example, I am in favor of allowing ex-convicts to vote in any state that currently restricts it (Maryland just changed its laws on this point, overriding a Governor's veto). I tend to think strict voter ID laws are generally not very useful. Very few people will attempt to vote fraudulently without them. Much less than this 1% of partisan voter suppression being achieved with them. Which suggests these laws are unjustified or unnecessary for electoral fairness. Nevertheless the idea that such laws have significant impact on turnout and the results of elections (particularly Congressional elections) seems spurious versus other causes, partisanship for example, or favorable redistricting efforts in partisan directions, or incumbency biases, and so on down the line. Few elections turn upon a 1-2% turnout gap. The average margin in House races tends to be over 30%. Senate races are about 20%. Approximately 30 House seats and 3-5 Senate seats will be under even 5% each cycle. Maybe 60 House sears and 8 Senate races are decided by fewer than 10 points. This is not significantly different in off year cycles like the midterms. This should not be encouraging that low voter turnout is the problem for some vast quantity of annoying Republicans getting elected if one is a liberal Democrat.
25 January 2016
What to do when doing nothing isn't an option?
"In a previous post, I claimed that there is a bias in public policy debates toward doing something, rather than nothing, even if doing nothing might be the right thing to do. But I also promised in a future post—this one!—to say more on the matter. The gist of my earlier post is that people in the liberty movement often lose arguments by simply denying that there is a problem, or by claiming—which amounts to the same thing—that the proposed solution won’t work, and therefore “we” should do nothing. Since libertarians often want the state to do nothing (though the “Right Kind of Nothing,” to be sure!), this seems facile.
We can do better, I think, by agreeing with the premise that there is a problem. Often, a small restatement of the problem helps. If someone is upset about inequality, I always wonder what they are really worried about. So, I ask:
Isn’t the real problem not inequality, but poverty? Rather than taking envy, which is a sin, and trying to raise it to the status of a virtue by calling it social justice, why don’t we try to help poor people? Furthermore, if the poor in the U.S. have it so rough, why do genuinely poor people from the rest of the world want so desperately to come to the U.S. and be poor here instead of being poor where they are?
As you can imagine, hilarity ensues. Still, I actually agree that poverty is a problem. The best cure for poverty is a job, however. If I can get my conversational partner to agree on that, we have a place to start."
There's several issues on which this is a useful critique. The War on Drugs or the War on Terror I'm not inclined to see as very serious problems worthy of massive state involvement, much less along the lines that the governments involved have typically proposed to wage these fights. But I'm fully aware there are (many) people with serious problems with drug addiction and some (very small) number of people who might wish to commit acts of atrocities upon civilians and citizens in this country for political or discriminatory purposes. It's very easy to see that these are problems worthy of "doing something" about. It is not so easy to convince people that "what we are doing" or "what is proposed to do about it" is not helpful toward alleviating those problems or indeed may be making them worse rather than better. But supposing that's done, there still needs to be something involved as an alternative. I typically would propose something at that time, assuming people are still listening. Likewise if people want to complain about legal abortion I can point out that there are pretty beneficial things going on (even at planned parenthood) that have made abortions less likely. And have done so far more safely and easily than whatever it is they propose to have people do. This isn't exactly greeted as wondrous news either.
So I would suggest one of the problems is simply convincing people what's going on isn't actually working usually succeeds in moving the goalposts. And that will usually show they have other preferences revealed besides actually dealing with a problem as listed. That can be helpful and clarifying. But it is usually not that productive. I'm less convinced that there's a case to be made that immigration is a serious problem. Or that Citizens United has undermined democracy in some critical way. So sometimes there's a strong problem of not seeing a problem and not being able to find some common ground.
The bigger problem this identifies therefore is simply not wanting to find the common ground for many libertarians. By ignoring the possibility of pushing the existing state toward a more free society in favor of demanding the demolition of the existing state this is engaging in a pointless intellectual exercise. Nobody else fights that battle. The hill to die on there is of no value to the existing world. By contrast, pushing the state to do a little less somewhere is something almost everyone does some of the time and to which is a cause people aware of things government does (and probably should not do) can usefully apply themselves.
Liberals wanted the state to be less discriminatory in marriage laws, and allow both straight and homosexual couples to marry. I viewed this as a positive benefit in the freedom of individuals, as deciding who to marry and accord various privileges and benefits to is a significant act for (most) individuals, and as such it should be to someone of their own personal choice rather than someone the state approves of such choosing. The correct and helpful response to this as a movement was not "demand the state abolish thousands of marriage regulations" by "abolishing marriage as a state institution" but rather help to see that the state applies them in a non-biased way. One could always come back around later and start tearing up some of the less useful and effective regulatory benefits once that benefit to freedom is established. Start with the benefit to others first though, or it is less clear that your motive is in fact the liberty of human beings (and is not something else like "traditional religious views should dominate the public sphere").
In other spaces. Liberals used to have a civil libertarian streak (during the Bush administration, it has clearly faded now that Obama was in charge of the nefarious organs of power to which they objected), and wanted to limit (if not abolish) the powers of the surveillance state to impinge on the rights of citizens to privacy and protection against general and unreasonable searches. This was a useful ally to have to protect the rights of individuals and their freedom from an overextended state. While I'm often more dubious of the interest of modern conservatives to protect individuals and individual liberties (particularly their current crop of Presidential candidates), they do occasionally nod toward making less arbitrary regulatory red tape in the formation of businesses or the sale of otherwise safe goods or to the experimentation of new goods. As an example, medications long approved for sale in both the US and EU for instance should be purchasable from EU sources, at steep discounts, and in general, much of the FDA's drug regulations seem more productive at (excessively) protecting existing markets than allowing new and safe drugs to enter and compete (and perhaps lose). Conservatives have noticed this as a fair target for reform. They've also slowly started to help to push against the growth of the prison state, because of its bloated size and ineffectiveness at continuing to lower crime while also re-integrating some of those we send away to prisons and jails in the first place.
It would be helpful if these sorts of pragmatic approaches predominated. Seek some form of common ground, and then ruthlessly ally with whomever demonstrates a path toward it that can be agreed upon.
We can do better, I think, by agreeing with the premise that there is a problem. Often, a small restatement of the problem helps. If someone is upset about inequality, I always wonder what they are really worried about. So, I ask:
Isn’t the real problem not inequality, but poverty? Rather than taking envy, which is a sin, and trying to raise it to the status of a virtue by calling it social justice, why don’t we try to help poor people? Furthermore, if the poor in the U.S. have it so rough, why do genuinely poor people from the rest of the world want so desperately to come to the U.S. and be poor here instead of being poor where they are?
As you can imagine, hilarity ensues. Still, I actually agree that poverty is a problem. The best cure for poverty is a job, however. If I can get my conversational partner to agree on that, we have a place to start."
There's several issues on which this is a useful critique. The War on Drugs or the War on Terror I'm not inclined to see as very serious problems worthy of massive state involvement, much less along the lines that the governments involved have typically proposed to wage these fights. But I'm fully aware there are (many) people with serious problems with drug addiction and some (very small) number of people who might wish to commit acts of atrocities upon civilians and citizens in this country for political or discriminatory purposes. It's very easy to see that these are problems worthy of "doing something" about. It is not so easy to convince people that "what we are doing" or "what is proposed to do about it" is not helpful toward alleviating those problems or indeed may be making them worse rather than better. But supposing that's done, there still needs to be something involved as an alternative. I typically would propose something at that time, assuming people are still listening. Likewise if people want to complain about legal abortion I can point out that there are pretty beneficial things going on (even at planned parenthood) that have made abortions less likely. And have done so far more safely and easily than whatever it is they propose to have people do. This isn't exactly greeted as wondrous news either.
So I would suggest one of the problems is simply convincing people what's going on isn't actually working usually succeeds in moving the goalposts. And that will usually show they have other preferences revealed besides actually dealing with a problem as listed. That can be helpful and clarifying. But it is usually not that productive. I'm less convinced that there's a case to be made that immigration is a serious problem. Or that Citizens United has undermined democracy in some critical way. So sometimes there's a strong problem of not seeing a problem and not being able to find some common ground.
The bigger problem this identifies therefore is simply not wanting to find the common ground for many libertarians. By ignoring the possibility of pushing the existing state toward a more free society in favor of demanding the demolition of the existing state this is engaging in a pointless intellectual exercise. Nobody else fights that battle. The hill to die on there is of no value to the existing world. By contrast, pushing the state to do a little less somewhere is something almost everyone does some of the time and to which is a cause people aware of things government does (and probably should not do) can usefully apply themselves.
Liberals wanted the state to be less discriminatory in marriage laws, and allow both straight and homosexual couples to marry. I viewed this as a positive benefit in the freedom of individuals, as deciding who to marry and accord various privileges and benefits to is a significant act for (most) individuals, and as such it should be to someone of their own personal choice rather than someone the state approves of such choosing. The correct and helpful response to this as a movement was not "demand the state abolish thousands of marriage regulations" by "abolishing marriage as a state institution" but rather help to see that the state applies them in a non-biased way. One could always come back around later and start tearing up some of the less useful and effective regulatory benefits once that benefit to freedom is established. Start with the benefit to others first though, or it is less clear that your motive is in fact the liberty of human beings (and is not something else like "traditional religious views should dominate the public sphere").
In other spaces. Liberals used to have a civil libertarian streak (during the Bush administration, it has clearly faded now that Obama was in charge of the nefarious organs of power to which they objected), and wanted to limit (if not abolish) the powers of the surveillance state to impinge on the rights of citizens to privacy and protection against general and unreasonable searches. This was a useful ally to have to protect the rights of individuals and their freedom from an overextended state. While I'm often more dubious of the interest of modern conservatives to protect individuals and individual liberties (particularly their current crop of Presidential candidates), they do occasionally nod toward making less arbitrary regulatory red tape in the formation of businesses or the sale of otherwise safe goods or to the experimentation of new goods. As an example, medications long approved for sale in both the US and EU for instance should be purchasable from EU sources, at steep discounts, and in general, much of the FDA's drug regulations seem more productive at (excessively) protecting existing markets than allowing new and safe drugs to enter and compete (and perhaps lose). Conservatives have noticed this as a fair target for reform. They've also slowly started to help to push against the growth of the prison state, because of its bloated size and ineffectiveness at continuing to lower crime while also re-integrating some of those we send away to prisons and jails in the first place.
It would be helpful if these sorts of pragmatic approaches predominated. Seek some form of common ground, and then ruthlessly ally with whomever demonstrates a path toward it that can be agreed upon.
27 December 2015
GOP is dead, long live the GOP?
And other political observations for the new year.
Something I've noticed over the last year or so in politics is that Republican pundits seem to think their crop of candidates is a sign of political strength, and that this is a "deep field", with many good options.
There is a problem with that assumption. Actually a lot of problems.
1) Almost none of those people who were thought to be part of that "deep field" are winning polls or likely to do well. He who will not be named has been doing well and mocking the rest of the field. Cruz is a hated figure within his own party. Carson is a surgeon and not a particularly interesting candidate for President. Meanwhile, Jeb has floundered to the point of irrelevance despite raising a boatload of cash. Rand hasn't been able to get any traction on civil liberties and foreign policy as the Republican field has whipped itself into a frenzy declaring who they want to start a war with next. Rubio hasn't really run a good campaign thus far, suggesting he doesn't understand the political situation (perhaps not a good "retail politician", as it were). Christie has struggled to overcome a position of high disdain within his own party. Scott Walker, believed for some reason to be a plausible candidate, didn't even make it out of the summer. This is not an inspiring bunch if they cannot handle a bully, a blowhard, and an out of his depth doctor to overtake them in polls. There's still time of course, as the polling is early, but most of these candidates are probably going to remain irrelevant while these middling idiots run circles around them.
A deep field would imply such candidates would be keeping out the riffraff rather than the other way around.
2) There's very little in the way of major policy differences between the individual candidates at this point (other than the aforementioned Rand disparity on IR and the NSA). This too could change, but there have been several debates upon which to draw this out. That hasn't really happened yet. Some squabbling about immigration. Some squabbling about Putin and Syria. But all of them have endorsed some combination of being anti homosexual, anti choice, pro lower taxes, anti min wage hikes, etc (note: the entire platform jsnt intolerable, but the parts that are most commonly distinguishing from the left often are. Meanwhile. The "interesting" fault lines on immigration, Muslims, Syria, and entitlements, are mostly "interesting" because Republicans are mostly racing to take more and more extreme positions. Positions which are broadly intolerable to wide swaths of the country. The previous method of running for a general election was to stay somewhat near a tolerable center of the American polity. Lacking that center, the farther out one goes the less likely mildly associated voters will stick around, and the less likely partisan opponents might defect. This also has impacts downstream, upon House and Senate races, local and state elections, and so on. It may not be very pretty. (In fairness, several Democratic figures and tbeir positions have strayed far afield as well. The difference is that almost nobody believes a Clinton Presidency would do most of the things that are outside of a centrist orthodoxy, or that she would be capable of enacting all she wished anyway with a divided power structure. This seems likely in some of the Republican cases that they could get some of what they want into law or to adjust courts and other forms of oversight.
Here if there were much depth, we should expect to see fairly interesting arguments about how best to provide sensible answers, or even sensible ideas about what the most pressing questions are, and in so doing see some adjustment and rancor between the field itself. This has occurred on a few topics, but not many. This would instead imply most of their candidates are interchangeable rather than necessary focal points.
3) Clinton is not perceived to be a particularly strong candidate (for now), but virtually anyone doing well among Republicans (with the exception of Rubio, who hasn't gotten a full vetting yet) is much less popular than she is, and usually more despised as well. This is not a recipe for winning a national popularity contest. There may be more names who are believed to compete against her in a national election, but this says little about whether those names actually matter. Hostility toward both the Clintons and liberal policies in general is fairly high among conservatives and has been for many years. But instead of regathering their agenda in a functional way and trying to make sure they would have a candidate who will be capable of beating her, the party establishment seemed content to nominate another Bush. Who would be most likely incapable of doing so. This is not an encouraging sign that they either believed there was much depth, or that they had correctly determined their political problems coming in.
I'm not sure the party entirely survives this election cycle. Party elites, quasi libertarians, anti interventionists, pro big business types, and moderate Republicans (such a species sort of exists still), don't have much of a future where they are. Some of that has been true for decades, some is merely emerging as the conservative voter base becomes more frustrated with being unable to roll back agendas they see as encroaching on their values. I would be very surprised it doesn't partly implode and make very serious efforts to reform to avoid splintering entirely. At the risk of reducing their national footprint further in order to consolidate party power somehow.
4) Bernie Sanders fans remain the Ron Paul fans of this election cycle. Convinced their candidate winning meaningless polls means something, and convinced that his flaws are either an invention of media trying to tank for Clinton, or things that he would overcome if only media gave him the opportunity to reach out to voters who remain roughly unaware of him. As it is, his main problem in this campaign remains the same as it was months ago. He's talking about several issues which aren't as high on the radar for minority voters, and probably shouldn't be, and which they therefore do not fully trust him to handle. This results in polling which shows that he is moderately popular among liberals and Democrats, but has very much higher negatives and unknowns among the same group than Hillary.
This is not a recipe that suggests he will matter. Even on top of unprecedented high levels of establishment and party backing for Clinton, there isn't much he is doing that in any way suggests he is pushing past it and will overtake her in some way. This was never a realistic view. And yet it remains a view that I see pop up at least once a week on social media feeds that something the Paul campaign did also means something now, despite it having failed in conservative circles quite significantly (and repeatedly).
Something I've noticed over the last year or so in politics is that Republican pundits seem to think their crop of candidates is a sign of political strength, and that this is a "deep field", with many good options.
There is a problem with that assumption. Actually a lot of problems.
1) Almost none of those people who were thought to be part of that "deep field" are winning polls or likely to do well. He who will not be named has been doing well and mocking the rest of the field. Cruz is a hated figure within his own party. Carson is a surgeon and not a particularly interesting candidate for President. Meanwhile, Jeb has floundered to the point of irrelevance despite raising a boatload of cash. Rand hasn't been able to get any traction on civil liberties and foreign policy as the Republican field has whipped itself into a frenzy declaring who they want to start a war with next. Rubio hasn't really run a good campaign thus far, suggesting he doesn't understand the political situation (perhaps not a good "retail politician", as it were). Christie has struggled to overcome a position of high disdain within his own party. Scott Walker, believed for some reason to be a plausible candidate, didn't even make it out of the summer. This is not an inspiring bunch if they cannot handle a bully, a blowhard, and an out of his depth doctor to overtake them in polls. There's still time of course, as the polling is early, but most of these candidates are probably going to remain irrelevant while these middling idiots run circles around them.
A deep field would imply such candidates would be keeping out the riffraff rather than the other way around.
2) There's very little in the way of major policy differences between the individual candidates at this point (other than the aforementioned Rand disparity on IR and the NSA). This too could change, but there have been several debates upon which to draw this out. That hasn't really happened yet. Some squabbling about immigration. Some squabbling about Putin and Syria. But all of them have endorsed some combination of being anti homosexual, anti choice, pro lower taxes, anti min wage hikes, etc (note: the entire platform jsnt intolerable, but the parts that are most commonly distinguishing from the left often are. Meanwhile. The "interesting" fault lines on immigration, Muslims, Syria, and entitlements, are mostly "interesting" because Republicans are mostly racing to take more and more extreme positions. Positions which are broadly intolerable to wide swaths of the country. The previous method of running for a general election was to stay somewhat near a tolerable center of the American polity. Lacking that center, the farther out one goes the less likely mildly associated voters will stick around, and the less likely partisan opponents might defect. This also has impacts downstream, upon House and Senate races, local and state elections, and so on. It may not be very pretty. (In fairness, several Democratic figures and tbeir positions have strayed far afield as well. The difference is that almost nobody believes a Clinton Presidency would do most of the things that are outside of a centrist orthodoxy, or that she would be capable of enacting all she wished anyway with a divided power structure. This seems likely in some of the Republican cases that they could get some of what they want into law or to adjust courts and other forms of oversight.
Here if there were much depth, we should expect to see fairly interesting arguments about how best to provide sensible answers, or even sensible ideas about what the most pressing questions are, and in so doing see some adjustment and rancor between the field itself. This has occurred on a few topics, but not many. This would instead imply most of their candidates are interchangeable rather than necessary focal points.
3) Clinton is not perceived to be a particularly strong candidate (for now), but virtually anyone doing well among Republicans (with the exception of Rubio, who hasn't gotten a full vetting yet) is much less popular than she is, and usually more despised as well. This is not a recipe for winning a national popularity contest. There may be more names who are believed to compete against her in a national election, but this says little about whether those names actually matter. Hostility toward both the Clintons and liberal policies in general is fairly high among conservatives and has been for many years. But instead of regathering their agenda in a functional way and trying to make sure they would have a candidate who will be capable of beating her, the party establishment seemed content to nominate another Bush. Who would be most likely incapable of doing so. This is not an encouraging sign that they either believed there was much depth, or that they had correctly determined their political problems coming in.
I'm not sure the party entirely survives this election cycle. Party elites, quasi libertarians, anti interventionists, pro big business types, and moderate Republicans (such a species sort of exists still), don't have much of a future where they are. Some of that has been true for decades, some is merely emerging as the conservative voter base becomes more frustrated with being unable to roll back agendas they see as encroaching on their values. I would be very surprised it doesn't partly implode and make very serious efforts to reform to avoid splintering entirely. At the risk of reducing their national footprint further in order to consolidate party power somehow.
4) Bernie Sanders fans remain the Ron Paul fans of this election cycle. Convinced their candidate winning meaningless polls means something, and convinced that his flaws are either an invention of media trying to tank for Clinton, or things that he would overcome if only media gave him the opportunity to reach out to voters who remain roughly unaware of him. As it is, his main problem in this campaign remains the same as it was months ago. He's talking about several issues which aren't as high on the radar for minority voters, and probably shouldn't be, and which they therefore do not fully trust him to handle. This results in polling which shows that he is moderately popular among liberals and Democrats, but has very much higher negatives and unknowns among the same group than Hillary.
This is not a recipe that suggests he will matter. Even on top of unprecedented high levels of establishment and party backing for Clinton, there isn't much he is doing that in any way suggests he is pushing past it and will overtake her in some way. This was never a realistic view. And yet it remains a view that I see pop up at least once a week on social media feeds that something the Paul campaign did also means something now, despite it having failed in conservative circles quite significantly (and repeatedly).
Completely random sportsball post
I haven't followed football at all this year. I am vaguely aware that the Panthers are undefeated in spite of this limitation, simply because football information is damn near inescapable in America. I was asked, as one often is when one is male at a larger social gathering, of an opinion for the quality of NFL prospects for winning the Super Bowl. One thing I do know, or at least think I know, is that the computer rankings of NFL teams tend to be much, much more reliable than raw records in forecasting performance. Records are mostly irrelevant because football teams do not play enough games, nor against the same quality of schedule to use it as even a casual basis for evaluation. Every year a few teams can and frequently will accumulate gaudy records against inferior competition, with limited skill of their own often by what amounts to sheer luck, and a few teams will struggle for the same reasons. By contrast, baseball, basketball, and hockey teams all play many more games, and against somewhat more even schedule qualities that a record can signify roughly the actual performance of a team (there is still some variance that can be examined and usually explained by things such as a higher or lower quality bullpen).
It was further assumed that home field advantages matter. They don't matter that much. Quality of opponents may matter as a route to a title game, and that can give advantages to higher ranked teams by record that they may get to play crummier teams in the playoffs, but higher quality teams will tend to win games where ever they are played, and seeding isn't a guarantee of playing lower quality teams.
The reason this came up is that when I replied with the relevant information I could look up quickly and form an opinion based around, the teams I said would worry about would be the Seahawks and Cardinals over the Panthers. These are teams rated ahead of Carolina in computer rankings (Seattle in fact is rated well ahead). Cardinals are at least the #2 seed in the conference, so most people would expect them to be a reasonable challenger. The Seahawks only clinched a playoff spot in the last week. Seattle may end up playing Carolina in the playoffs fairly early (assume that Seattle beats the NFC East winner, and Minnesota loses to Green Bay).
So why is a computer ranking system so sour on an undefeated team? They appear to have very poor quality special teams, and only an above average offense (not a good offense, just a little above average) to pair with an excellent defense. Their competition has very good offenses (Arizona #3, Seattle #2, both well ahead of Carolina at #8) paired with very good defenses (Arizona's is rated #3, Carolina is #2, Seattle is #5).
None of that means that I would think Carolina is a bad team, unlikely to compete for a title. Football playoffs can break oddly and unpreditcably more easily than most sports. And they are a good team this year. But that's also not what I was asked (something like who has the best chances was the question).
What sometimes happens when people ask me a question I find is that they expect a certain answer. And then don't get it. And get something somewhat unconventional instead. That can make for a very interesting conversation. Except I think many people ask questions on the expectations that some other person will affirm their beliefs and suspicions when they answer. This makes for more rapid conversation and less argument.
It was further assumed that home field advantages matter. They don't matter that much. Quality of opponents may matter as a route to a title game, and that can give advantages to higher ranked teams by record that they may get to play crummier teams in the playoffs, but higher quality teams will tend to win games where ever they are played, and seeding isn't a guarantee of playing lower quality teams.
The reason this came up is that when I replied with the relevant information I could look up quickly and form an opinion based around, the teams I said would worry about would be the Seahawks and Cardinals over the Panthers. These are teams rated ahead of Carolina in computer rankings (Seattle in fact is rated well ahead). Cardinals are at least the #2 seed in the conference, so most people would expect them to be a reasonable challenger. The Seahawks only clinched a playoff spot in the last week. Seattle may end up playing Carolina in the playoffs fairly early (assume that Seattle beats the NFC East winner, and Minnesota loses to Green Bay).
So why is a computer ranking system so sour on an undefeated team? They appear to have very poor quality special teams, and only an above average offense (not a good offense, just a little above average) to pair with an excellent defense. Their competition has very good offenses (Arizona #3, Seattle #2, both well ahead of Carolina at #8) paired with very good defenses (Arizona's is rated #3, Carolina is #2, Seattle is #5).
None of that means that I would think Carolina is a bad team, unlikely to compete for a title. Football playoffs can break oddly and unpreditcably more easily than most sports. And they are a good team this year. But that's also not what I was asked (something like who has the best chances was the question).
What sometimes happens when people ask me a question I find is that they expect a certain answer. And then don't get it. And get something somewhat unconventional instead. That can make for a very interesting conversation. Except I think many people ask questions on the expectations that some other person will affirm their beliefs and suspicions when they answer. This makes for more rapid conversation and less argument.
21 December 2015
Cultural notes, spoiler-y
Jessica Jones.
Marvel's Netflix foray continues to be pretty good. It's darker, much more clearly rated R material than the Avengers work. This was better than Daredevil in most every way (except the fight choreography in Daredevil is totally badass. It has several of the best fight sequences ever shot in my opinion). Jessica is more clearly conflicted than Murdock, she doesn't need to know how to fight most people (because she can intimidate them with raw strength), has a sometime sidekick or two, etc.
The main reason it works though is that the villain's evil genius power is Professor X crossed with the Joker. Near the center of the X-Men universe is a question that's rarely examined: what happens if someone can control minds, or influence people to do whatever they want? And further, what happens if what that person wants is petty, violent, and selfish? How do we stop them? How could we protect ourselves? Who could we trust? These are questions that cycle around continuously in the first several episodes of the season. Taken away from the comic book elements of direct mind control, there are serious philosophical and psychological questions about who is really calling the shots in our behavior and how much influence others have over us when we do things "we don't really want to", or even determining what it is we really want to do in the first place. This is referred to a few times within the series as some people almost expressing a kind of relief at not being responsible for the actions and will someone else had imposed upon them (Jessica notably does not do this, not really, but she encourages everyone around her to do so).
The show has gotten a lot of "feminist" buzz and aplomb. It's feminist in so far as they took roles for men (in one case, it was a male in the comic), and flipped it to cast a woman as the main character. They did some more extensive flipping than just casting however. Men are typically the "eye candy", in some state of undress. Women not so much (usually). Jessica's main relationship dynamic isn't with a male (Luke Cage), it's with her best friend (Trish) (In my experience, men are more likely to define a "best friend", and the person with whom they have the most dynamic relationship as someone they are also romantically attached to, although this is not universal and certainly is not the only way Hollywood tells stories, ala Kirk and Spock, Batman and Robin, etc). Her main problems, flaws within her past, are what may be regarded as more typically problems women would encounter than men (psychological abuse/control and rape, plus a super-creepy stalker), they are just amplified by superhero qualities. It's also a way of saying it doesn't matter how strong someone is (and she's very strong), someone can break into your life and do terrible things. Most importantly it says: this is not your fault that you were "too weak".
Jones' character is not particularly feminine or feminist, but she is a heroine. There are few such depictions as yet in TV or film for this generation in sci-fi or fantasy roles (Black Widow, eventually Wonder Woman or Captain Marvel, depending on how Civil War goes Scarlet Witch, Leia, another which I'll get to in a minute). Progress is occurring here, again, but it is complicated. Widow doesn't have a stand-alone franchise within the Avengers for example. So the series lets a lot of that air out that somehow a female hero doesn't carry a series or couldn't carry a movie.
There's a few choppier bits, and it seems clear the show wanted to introduce another villain arc for later on that feels like it interrupts the existing arc too much in the moment (and this is, at least tacitly, acknowledged by the show itself). But there's a lot of raw power in some of the moments where our hero is being isolated and broken down by her villainous opponent who is systematically trying to break her again, and she knows it and is fighting to find ways out of the traps.
Force Awakens.
I have more mixed reactions here.
Good:. Rey was fantastic (and is another in the lineage of superheroines listed above). Almost all of the "unanswered questions" surrounding the series coming up to the next one have to do with her, on top of her being a badass. The first sequence where Finn meets her is hilarious (she gets attacked and into a fight, he starts to run over to help, and the fight is over with them on the ground and her picking her stuff back up before he can make it a few steps).
Harrison Ford seemed to have actually pushed the "actor" button that has gone unpressed for about 20 years. He did a good turn as Solo. I think he was happy to get killed off finally. (oh right, that's the main spoiler: Han shot first. And now Han dies).
Effects are much better, it did not look like a CGI mess like the prequels. Several sequences are clearly in there just to show off. The one exception is the tentacle monsters on Han's cargo ship, I could have done without that whole sequence really.
The bar owner character was solid. I liked her as a semi-Yoda-ish channeler.
Middle: I'm not sure what to make yet of the villain. Ren wasn't terribly intimidating except in terms of raw rage. His opening sequence where he stops a blaster bolt mid-air is very impressive, but he fades down the stretch, particularly at the end when Rey easily bests him in a duel despite being mostly untrained. He therefore comes off almost like a whiny teenager. This is still a miles wide improvement over the young Vader/Anakin who came off like a block of wood for reciting terrible dialogue but it doesn't give me a clear idea where he is going next or what sort of conflict is actually going on within him. Luke was much more dynamic in this sense. There are a lot of directions Ren could go that would be interesting next. But Rey is by far more compelling in this work. A weak or bland villain is fairly common lately in film (Loki maybe one of the few good ones for comic book/sci fi purposes).
Isaac's character, Po, was okay. I could have used both more and less of him.
There were some nice moments of nostalgia. Way overdone, but some were good. The plot was lifted almost whole cloth from New Hope so it gets to be too much easily.
Max von Sydow's cameo felt totally wasted, though it was nice to see/hear him.
Poor: Dialogue can be choppy. There's at least one line that was repeated verbatim from New Hope that made absolutely no sense when it was used. It's like they edited it in at the wrong time.
Rebel/Resistance plan to take out the Star Killer base is pretty lame and not built up much. New Hope it makes more sense because they have to sneak out the droid to analyze the plans and try to destroy it based on those. The sneaking out of the droid here has to do with something else. They basically luck into the ability to attack this thing.
I'm extremely tired of watching the Rebels blow up planet destroying bases anyway. This is undoubtedly the reason Empire Strikes Back is so good is it moves on from the "we have to destroy this thing or everybody dies" plot device common to sci-fi/comic book films and centers the conflict within and between the major characters. This may have been necessary nostalgically to establish that this is in fact a Star Wars film. But it wasn't very interesting.
The first Star Killer attack doesn't really make sense or have much impact because the politics of this universe don't make much sense. Universe building failure here. Alderaan being destroyed made a lot of sense. This does not. Really the main thing Abrams seems to have done is rebuild the old Star Wars pre-prequel universe without really trying to a) understand it or b) show us something new and awesome or terrible within it. It feels more like the film wiped out the "Republic" simply to start over on the board, like the way Abrams "reset" the Star Trek universe with time travel and then moved the same old pieces around in a haphazard way without understanding the universe from which they were built.
The Stormtrooper commander (Phasma) was lame.
Finn wasn't very well scripted for my tastes, or the actor wasn't very good. I'm not sure which (or both). He ought to be the other interesting internal conflict because of his status as a defector/traitor to the First Order, but he mostly spends a lot of time running around being a plot device and generally acting like a goof.
Marvel's Netflix foray continues to be pretty good. It's darker, much more clearly rated R material than the Avengers work. This was better than Daredevil in most every way (except the fight choreography in Daredevil is totally badass. It has several of the best fight sequences ever shot in my opinion). Jessica is more clearly conflicted than Murdock, she doesn't need to know how to fight most people (because she can intimidate them with raw strength), has a sometime sidekick or two, etc.
The main reason it works though is that the villain's evil genius power is Professor X crossed with the Joker. Near the center of the X-Men universe is a question that's rarely examined: what happens if someone can control minds, or influence people to do whatever they want? And further, what happens if what that person wants is petty, violent, and selfish? How do we stop them? How could we protect ourselves? Who could we trust? These are questions that cycle around continuously in the first several episodes of the season. Taken away from the comic book elements of direct mind control, there are serious philosophical and psychological questions about who is really calling the shots in our behavior and how much influence others have over us when we do things "we don't really want to", or even determining what it is we really want to do in the first place. This is referred to a few times within the series as some people almost expressing a kind of relief at not being responsible for the actions and will someone else had imposed upon them (Jessica notably does not do this, not really, but she encourages everyone around her to do so).
The show has gotten a lot of "feminist" buzz and aplomb. It's feminist in so far as they took roles for men (in one case, it was a male in the comic), and flipped it to cast a woman as the main character. They did some more extensive flipping than just casting however. Men are typically the "eye candy", in some state of undress. Women not so much (usually). Jessica's main relationship dynamic isn't with a male (Luke Cage), it's with her best friend (Trish) (In my experience, men are more likely to define a "best friend", and the person with whom they have the most dynamic relationship as someone they are also romantically attached to, although this is not universal and certainly is not the only way Hollywood tells stories, ala Kirk and Spock, Batman and Robin, etc). Her main problems, flaws within her past, are what may be regarded as more typically problems women would encounter than men (psychological abuse/control and rape, plus a super-creepy stalker), they are just amplified by superhero qualities. It's also a way of saying it doesn't matter how strong someone is (and she's very strong), someone can break into your life and do terrible things. Most importantly it says: this is not your fault that you were "too weak".
Jones' character is not particularly feminine or feminist, but she is a heroine. There are few such depictions as yet in TV or film for this generation in sci-fi or fantasy roles (Black Widow, eventually Wonder Woman or Captain Marvel, depending on how Civil War goes Scarlet Witch, Leia, another which I'll get to in a minute). Progress is occurring here, again, but it is complicated. Widow doesn't have a stand-alone franchise within the Avengers for example. So the series lets a lot of that air out that somehow a female hero doesn't carry a series or couldn't carry a movie.
There's a few choppier bits, and it seems clear the show wanted to introduce another villain arc for later on that feels like it interrupts the existing arc too much in the moment (and this is, at least tacitly, acknowledged by the show itself). But there's a lot of raw power in some of the moments where our hero is being isolated and broken down by her villainous opponent who is systematically trying to break her again, and she knows it and is fighting to find ways out of the traps.
Force Awakens.
I have more mixed reactions here.
Good:. Rey was fantastic (and is another in the lineage of superheroines listed above). Almost all of the "unanswered questions" surrounding the series coming up to the next one have to do with her, on top of her being a badass. The first sequence where Finn meets her is hilarious (she gets attacked and into a fight, he starts to run over to help, and the fight is over with them on the ground and her picking her stuff back up before he can make it a few steps).
Harrison Ford seemed to have actually pushed the "actor" button that has gone unpressed for about 20 years. He did a good turn as Solo. I think he was happy to get killed off finally. (oh right, that's the main spoiler: Han shot first. And now Han dies).
Effects are much better, it did not look like a CGI mess like the prequels. Several sequences are clearly in there just to show off. The one exception is the tentacle monsters on Han's cargo ship, I could have done without that whole sequence really.
The bar owner character was solid. I liked her as a semi-Yoda-ish channeler.
Middle: I'm not sure what to make yet of the villain. Ren wasn't terribly intimidating except in terms of raw rage. His opening sequence where he stops a blaster bolt mid-air is very impressive, but he fades down the stretch, particularly at the end when Rey easily bests him in a duel despite being mostly untrained. He therefore comes off almost like a whiny teenager. This is still a miles wide improvement over the young Vader/Anakin who came off like a block of wood for reciting terrible dialogue but it doesn't give me a clear idea where he is going next or what sort of conflict is actually going on within him. Luke was much more dynamic in this sense. There are a lot of directions Ren could go that would be interesting next. But Rey is by far more compelling in this work. A weak or bland villain is fairly common lately in film (Loki maybe one of the few good ones for comic book/sci fi purposes).
Isaac's character, Po, was okay. I could have used both more and less of him.
There were some nice moments of nostalgia. Way overdone, but some were good. The plot was lifted almost whole cloth from New Hope so it gets to be too much easily.
Max von Sydow's cameo felt totally wasted, though it was nice to see/hear him.
Poor: Dialogue can be choppy. There's at least one line that was repeated verbatim from New Hope that made absolutely no sense when it was used. It's like they edited it in at the wrong time.
Rebel/Resistance plan to take out the Star Killer base is pretty lame and not built up much. New Hope it makes more sense because they have to sneak out the droid to analyze the plans and try to destroy it based on those. The sneaking out of the droid here has to do with something else. They basically luck into the ability to attack this thing.
I'm extremely tired of watching the Rebels blow up planet destroying bases anyway. This is undoubtedly the reason Empire Strikes Back is so good is it moves on from the "we have to destroy this thing or everybody dies" plot device common to sci-fi/comic book films and centers the conflict within and between the major characters. This may have been necessary nostalgically to establish that this is in fact a Star Wars film. But it wasn't very interesting.
The first Star Killer attack doesn't really make sense or have much impact because the politics of this universe don't make much sense. Universe building failure here. Alderaan being destroyed made a lot of sense. This does not. Really the main thing Abrams seems to have done is rebuild the old Star Wars pre-prequel universe without really trying to a) understand it or b) show us something new and awesome or terrible within it. It feels more like the film wiped out the "Republic" simply to start over on the board, like the way Abrams "reset" the Star Trek universe with time travel and then moved the same old pieces around in a haphazard way without understanding the universe from which they were built.
The Stormtrooper commander (Phasma) was lame.
Finn wasn't very well scripted for my tastes, or the actor wasn't very good. I'm not sure which (or both). He ought to be the other interesting internal conflict because of his status as a defector/traitor to the First Order, but he mostly spends a lot of time running around being a plot device and generally acting like a goof.
18 December 2015
Cruz
I don't take his chances at winning the nomination that seriously yet (much more so than Trump's, but not high end legitimacy, largely because if he gets picked, like with Trump, the GOP gets trounced. And they know it, at the top end at least).
What I did find interesting is that he tried, and mostly failed, to draw some kind of distinction on foreign policy in the last debate. This was supposed to be Rand's job, but he's been so irrelevant that nobody really bothers.
Here's the issue. The GOP's foreign policy over the last 15 years, really over the last 25 or so, has been mostly run by neoconservatives, many of whom tend to be among the most hawkish political figures imaginable and cartoonishly likely to press for military interventions abroad, often unilaterally with limited or non-existent diplomatic legwork. This has led to a number of major blunders in foreign policy through hasty and reckless interventions for anything from "humanitarian" purposes to "democracy promotion", to anti-communist regime changes back in the Cold War days. For the most part, this branch of the GOP's three-legged stool has been unrepentant in its ways, insisting that Iraq was fine until a Democrat got into office, things like that. It remains so now.
There was previously a Powell doctrine style approach to the use of military interventions, for clear strategic purposes that can be accomplished quickly and with a minimum of losses and destruction. This view was dominant in the First Gulf War, and it approaches a more realist foreign policy, of a sort which was once common as a method of waging the Cold War, through a mostly indirect style conflict. Among its elements was a capacity, though not always an eagerness, to work with strategic partners diplomatically, to limit engagements to strategic goals (like crushing military power projection abilities and protecting territorial sovereignty), and to work with strategic rivals for mutual gain or diplomatic purposes rather than to wage dangerous and pointless conflicts. Importantly, it was not a common event to hear Presidential candidates risking or calling for open war with a major state (say Russia or Iran), and it was common for American politics to tolerate some fairly nasty people abroad for strategic purposes of our own to be achieved through stability or (perhaps, though not always) the suppression of some other fairly nasty people.
Today, such an approach is described as "GOP hearts dictators forever." Such an approach might have left us with unsavory people in power in Iraq, Egypt, Libya. And as is still the case, Syria and countries such as Saudi Arabia or Pakistan, but might have had the effect of weakening institutional groups seeking to overthrow those governments and conduct operations of aggression through international terrorism. This is not however a strategy which is widely accepted or promoted is the tolerance of unpleasant people like a Qaddafi or Hussein or Assad in the furtherance of some purported large strategic goal (the suppression or elimination of hostile Muslim radicals in the region). If this was something that Cruz was actually pushing into the light, it might have made for an interesting debate.
The problem with this vague notion being taken seriously is that it was paired with a very aggressive stance on virtually any other form of foreign policy. For example, to call for aggressive bombing of ISIS territory (including civilians). Or most notably (and confusingly) effectively stating that we are at war with Iran, or that we should be if not, for the purposes of regime change. In so far as there is a major state player elsewhere on the globe that is most likely to oppose both ISIS and al Qaeda, it is the Iranian state. So if the idea was to propose that we be strategically flexible in our partnerships, that made no sense to immediately demand we take out someone who might be a partnership worth looking into (they're also one of the most likely players to talk to in order to remove Assad, if that was also the goal). If the idea was to present some kind of basis for not being super-ultra-blood-thirsty in foreign policy, there wasn't anything presented as to what that would be, or what it would look like. Not doing "democracy promotion" and then turning around and saying we should be toppling another major state government to do... democracy promotion?
If we assume that a reasonable foreign policy goal should be the use of significant military power projection against non-state actors like ISIS or al Qaeda (or the Taliban, Boko Haram, etc), and if we assume this is a significant if not central foreign policy question is how we should respond to such actors, both of which I think are dubious assumptions, then the question becomes how best to use the forces available to do so. Including Russia and Iran and Syria. What seems more likely than some well-crafted geo-political response being tested out was that Cruz was throwing out some carefully prepared red meat for the conservative base.
Eg "I hates Iran/Russia forever, but don't really care what happens in Syria/Iraq/Libya as long as it stays in house." Things like that. So taking it seriously as a set of policy proscriptions is undoubtedly unwise. But given that belligerent talk toward possible allies or useful agents in the region is not liable to purchase us their cooperation, and given that there does not as yet appear to be the base of support for a wider operation involving significant ground troops and major air assaults (we're not conducting those either), it may not be worth tossing it out except as a cynical political statement. The sad part is that his minor two-step here aside from predictably Rand Paul's relative sanity within the party was considered an improvement over the outrageous belligerence and stupidity of the rest of the field (Rubio, Bush, and Christie in particular).
The reason this matters. Unless some major scandal occurs, or Hillary falls out of an airplane or some such related issue, she will be the Democratic nominee, and except for a couple of the GOP field who might be able to run effectively against her (Rubio for example), she will almost certainly become the next President. Without there being a genuine foreign policy debate within the GOP, I am quite certain what hers will look like, and it won't have much of a contrast with what they have to offer. Basically neoconservative with a little more talking involved, and a remaining excessive focus on the Middle East, fighting several undeclared wars with non-state actors in regimes of high instability, with at best a moderate indifference to the Pacific theater in geopolitical terms, and a continued high reliance on what appear to be dragnet style civil liberties abusing surveillance systems that serve little or no strategic purpose in our current troubles, such as they are in fact troubles. This is not a position I find I can endorse with much optimism as it is probable success in producing either improvement in our security nor our status and prosperity in a global sense. I should like to see someone capable of making cogent arguments against it running in a position of notice. I expect I shall be sorely disappointed.
As a side note, I'm really curious how, or even if, the GOP manages to remain a functional political party after this election. It seems like the main poles on the big tent have all wandered off in their own directions. It also seems like several factions of the conservative world believe they have a number of "promising" candidates. None of them so far have the ability to a) rally conservatives or b) rally anyone else, except out of despising them as insipid or bigoted. That does not suggest this is a well-populated field with many options. It suggests to me there's a lot of human beings running in the misguided belief they could become the next President. An additional defeat, after having put up nothing of note in 2012, putting up whatever they end up with here, presumably with a "moderately conservative" figure selected instead of something perceived as half-assed, will make the next two years very interesting to see if they can remain as a cohesive unit in political terms.
What I did find interesting is that he tried, and mostly failed, to draw some kind of distinction on foreign policy in the last debate. This was supposed to be Rand's job, but he's been so irrelevant that nobody really bothers.
Here's the issue. The GOP's foreign policy over the last 15 years, really over the last 25 or so, has been mostly run by neoconservatives, many of whom tend to be among the most hawkish political figures imaginable and cartoonishly likely to press for military interventions abroad, often unilaterally with limited or non-existent diplomatic legwork. This has led to a number of major blunders in foreign policy through hasty and reckless interventions for anything from "humanitarian" purposes to "democracy promotion", to anti-communist regime changes back in the Cold War days. For the most part, this branch of the GOP's three-legged stool has been unrepentant in its ways, insisting that Iraq was fine until a Democrat got into office, things like that. It remains so now.
There was previously a Powell doctrine style approach to the use of military interventions, for clear strategic purposes that can be accomplished quickly and with a minimum of losses and destruction. This view was dominant in the First Gulf War, and it approaches a more realist foreign policy, of a sort which was once common as a method of waging the Cold War, through a mostly indirect style conflict. Among its elements was a capacity, though not always an eagerness, to work with strategic partners diplomatically, to limit engagements to strategic goals (like crushing military power projection abilities and protecting territorial sovereignty), and to work with strategic rivals for mutual gain or diplomatic purposes rather than to wage dangerous and pointless conflicts. Importantly, it was not a common event to hear Presidential candidates risking or calling for open war with a major state (say Russia or Iran), and it was common for American politics to tolerate some fairly nasty people abroad for strategic purposes of our own to be achieved through stability or (perhaps, though not always) the suppression of some other fairly nasty people.
Today, such an approach is described as "GOP hearts dictators forever." Such an approach might have left us with unsavory people in power in Iraq, Egypt, Libya. And as is still the case, Syria and countries such as Saudi Arabia or Pakistan, but might have had the effect of weakening institutional groups seeking to overthrow those governments and conduct operations of aggression through international terrorism. This is not however a strategy which is widely accepted or promoted is the tolerance of unpleasant people like a Qaddafi or Hussein or Assad in the furtherance of some purported large strategic goal (the suppression or elimination of hostile Muslim radicals in the region). If this was something that Cruz was actually pushing into the light, it might have made for an interesting debate.
The problem with this vague notion being taken seriously is that it was paired with a very aggressive stance on virtually any other form of foreign policy. For example, to call for aggressive bombing of ISIS territory (including civilians). Or most notably (and confusingly) effectively stating that we are at war with Iran, or that we should be if not, for the purposes of regime change. In so far as there is a major state player elsewhere on the globe that is most likely to oppose both ISIS and al Qaeda, it is the Iranian state. So if the idea was to propose that we be strategically flexible in our partnerships, that made no sense to immediately demand we take out someone who might be a partnership worth looking into (they're also one of the most likely players to talk to in order to remove Assad, if that was also the goal). If the idea was to present some kind of basis for not being super-ultra-blood-thirsty in foreign policy, there wasn't anything presented as to what that would be, or what it would look like. Not doing "democracy promotion" and then turning around and saying we should be toppling another major state government to do... democracy promotion?
If we assume that a reasonable foreign policy goal should be the use of significant military power projection against non-state actors like ISIS or al Qaeda (or the Taliban, Boko Haram, etc), and if we assume this is a significant if not central foreign policy question is how we should respond to such actors, both of which I think are dubious assumptions, then the question becomes how best to use the forces available to do so. Including Russia and Iran and Syria. What seems more likely than some well-crafted geo-political response being tested out was that Cruz was throwing out some carefully prepared red meat for the conservative base.
Eg "I hates Iran/Russia forever, but don't really care what happens in Syria/Iraq/Libya as long as it stays in house." Things like that. So taking it seriously as a set of policy proscriptions is undoubtedly unwise. But given that belligerent talk toward possible allies or useful agents in the region is not liable to purchase us their cooperation, and given that there does not as yet appear to be the base of support for a wider operation involving significant ground troops and major air assaults (we're not conducting those either), it may not be worth tossing it out except as a cynical political statement. The sad part is that his minor two-step here aside from predictably Rand Paul's relative sanity within the party was considered an improvement over the outrageous belligerence and stupidity of the rest of the field (Rubio, Bush, and Christie in particular).
The reason this matters. Unless some major scandal occurs, or Hillary falls out of an airplane or some such related issue, she will be the Democratic nominee, and except for a couple of the GOP field who might be able to run effectively against her (Rubio for example), she will almost certainly become the next President. Without there being a genuine foreign policy debate within the GOP, I am quite certain what hers will look like, and it won't have much of a contrast with what they have to offer. Basically neoconservative with a little more talking involved, and a remaining excessive focus on the Middle East, fighting several undeclared wars with non-state actors in regimes of high instability, with at best a moderate indifference to the Pacific theater in geopolitical terms, and a continued high reliance on what appear to be dragnet style civil liberties abusing surveillance systems that serve little or no strategic purpose in our current troubles, such as they are in fact troubles. This is not a position I find I can endorse with much optimism as it is probable success in producing either improvement in our security nor our status and prosperity in a global sense. I should like to see someone capable of making cogent arguments against it running in a position of notice. I expect I shall be sorely disappointed.
As a side note, I'm really curious how, or even if, the GOP manages to remain a functional political party after this election. It seems like the main poles on the big tent have all wandered off in their own directions. It also seems like several factions of the conservative world believe they have a number of "promising" candidates. None of them so far have the ability to a) rally conservatives or b) rally anyone else, except out of despising them as insipid or bigoted. That does not suggest this is a well-populated field with many options. It suggests to me there's a lot of human beings running in the misguided belief they could become the next President. An additional defeat, after having put up nothing of note in 2012, putting up whatever they end up with here, presumably with a "moderately conservative" figure selected instead of something perceived as half-assed, will make the next two years very interesting to see if they can remain as a cohesive unit in political terms.
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