Over the course of my writing here I have been asked why I focus so much on political issues and not so much on promoting a moral society. I think it’s a great question and I have thought much about it. The short answer is that my focus on this site is on the political system and how it impacts society as well as how we can have a positive effect on the system that is currently in place.

For some time now I have found myself falling back in private political discussions to the position that all the best efforts and intentions with regard to political activity are no more than a bandaid over the ills of society and that true progress and stability in society are utterly dependent on the underlying morality or righteousness of the society being governed. It is exactly the same with a wound: a bandaid can help keep it clean and impede further infection but real healing is an internal function of the body. From outside the body the most we can do is create an environment that is conducive to healing.

What does that mean with regard to political involvement? A couple of things:

The most important thing it means is that we must recognize that no matter how pure or even effective our political efforts may be they cannot finally solve any of the problems we face. We must keep in the forefront of our minds the fact that actual solutions must begin and be rooted in the basic cells of society, our families. With that understanding we might be more careful in the laws that we support to make sure that we are supporting and enabling healthy families rather than passing out casts and crutches for the broken homes which we have in ever increasing abundance. (We should also recognize that “broken” homes include more than just the poor or single parent families that get so much public sympathy.)

The second thing that means is that we must recognize that even though we cannot force people to be righteous, or smart, or tolerant through legislation what we establish in law is a baseline of decency and goodness in society—in other words, what we legislate is what we can and should enforce as a society and the bare minimum of what we should adhere to as individuals. When we remove or alter existing legislation we should consider whether we are truly promoting liberty or whether we are aquiescing to the destructive forces operating on our society.

Third we need to recognize that the vast majority of those who wish to use legislation to do more for society than it can actually do, in other words those who would use legislation as a tool for social engineering, are good and honest in their intent even when they are misguided in their efforts. Those who recognize the natural limitations of political action must work to help them recognize those limitatons and also work to expose that small minority who are actually using the power of government under the guise of social justice who are not acting honestly but instead are seeking for their own power or for the destruction of that which supports a moral society.

In summary, political power can be used to define and enforce a social baseline for conduct and expectations but it cannot be used to make society good—even if we want it to—and those who seek to use political power for more than that generally do so out of ignorance or misunderstanding rather than out of malice.

In a not-particularly-surprising move, Arizona passed a very strict law giving police broad powers to crack down on illegal immigration. Equally unsurprising is the backlash from those who worry that rights will get trampled in the enforcement of this law. The biggest complaint is against the provision allowing police to stop anyone they suspect of being here illegally and have them prove that they are legal residents.

I don’t think anyone can reasonably argue that such authority would never be abused. More disturbingly to me, 60% of people favor this law despite the fact that 58% of people in the same poll believe that the rights of some citizens will be infringed upon by the enforcement of this law. If we assume that all 40% of people who do not favor this law are among the 58% who fear the rights of citizens will be infringed then there is almost 1 in 5 who is willing to infringe on the basic rights of citizens in order to enforce our essentially arbitrary immigration laws.

My own position on immigration is the same as it was nearly three years ago – we’re asking the wrong questions and until we take the time to decide what we believe about the value of immigration for our nation we will never be able to write and enforce coherant laws relating to immigration.

My more conservative friends might wish to blackball me for saying it, but I think the first thing we need to do about the immigration issue is abandon any pretense that we are going to catch all the illegal aliens and send them home. If they are doing nothing except building our country throught their own honest labor then I think we are wasting our time trying to round them up and that is completely unacceptable if it also includes infringing upon the rights of citizens who might be mistaken for illegal immigrants.

On the other hand my few liberal friends will undoubtedly take umbrage with my position that immigration status should be a secondary offence, like seat belt laws (or like seat belt laws used to be in some places). A person should not be stopped simply on suspicion of being illegal but if they are stopped for any other reason they may be required to prove their legal status. Anyone who cannot prove their legal citizenship should be deported for any but the most minor of offenses. Those without a valid and current visa should be deported for any offense.

When minors are picked up for any offense their parents may be required to prove their legal status. Unless one parent was a citizen prior to the child’s birth or both parents are citizens currently, the child should be deported with (or to) any non-citizen parent.

Along with such laws, we should make an easy to get “Citizenship Visa” for those who desire to become citizens. The visa would expire after a set time sufficient to become a citizen and they would be deported if they did not become a citizen within the allotted timeframe. Those who left promptly when the visa expired would be able to apply for another such visa five (or possibly ten) years later while those who overstayed their visa would be denied future opportunities for such visas.

And by the way, the military should not accept anyone who was not a citizen or a holder of a citizenship visa.

Ever since the passage of that rancid piece of legislative sausage labeled health care reform Republicans have been talking about repealing the bill. Some even talk about “repeal and replace” as their goal. Alongside that rhetoric (and that’s pretty much all it is at this point) there has been the action taken by the Attorneys General of many states to file suit against the constitutionality of the bill. My purpose here is not to discuss the issue of health care reform; rather, it is to talk about the differences between these two legal paths out of this reform as well as another path which is fundamentally different—nullification—which thus far has not been actively pursued by most opponents of the bill.

While the battle cry “Repeal it!” is very memorable and effective at rallying the emotions of voters who are willing to admit that this bill simply does not pass the smell test, critics of this approach point out that the chances of repealing this bill are virtually nonexistent. To repeal it while Obama is in office would require 2/3 majorities in both houses of Congress to override his certain veto of any bill to repeal. To wait until after he leaves office, even if he only serves one term assures that passion and energy will almost certainly have cooled enough that Congress would no longer consider a bill to repeal it. Remember, there is nothing so permanent as a temporary government program and by 2012 all the bureacracy related to this “reform” will be entrenched.

The lawsuit from many states over this bill has a higher chance of success because even proponents of the bill recognize that the constitutionality of an individual mandate is highly suspect. Actually, the only way to argue that it is constitutional is to argue that the Constitution itself has no force of law beyond establishing the structure of our multi-level government. While this should be a slam dunk in any court that respects the Constitution as the supreme law of the land, I would not trust our Supreme Court to overturn Congress on a piece of legislation that is this emotionally charged unless the legislation were banning abortion or gay marriage. The fact is that the majority of our Supreme Court justices see the Supreme Court as the supreme law of the land rather than the Constitution.

While repeal and filing suit each presume that the federal government is ultimately sovereign, nullification assumes that ultimately the states are sovereign in our republic. Nullification has been used before, mostly during the first century of our nation’s history while the state governments really remembered that they had a sovereign power within the nation as a whole.

I wrote to my state senator and representative asking about nullification and the response I got was:

I don’t know if there is much appetite within the legislature to nullify the health care bill.

That sounds accurate to me but I think we are cutting off the real power of our system of federalism by ignoring such an opportunity to remind Congress by nullifying this lousy bill that the states remain sovereign on most issues according to the Constitution and that we as states have not forgotten that. Instead we crawl back to the federal government and ask if they might please modify or remove the legislation themselves as if we needed permission to act within the sphere of our established rights as a state.

What has been really interesting to me was not that Bennett recognized how slim his chances are right now (I’ve never thought that he was as ignorant and disconnected from that reality as the necessarily optimistic tone of his campaight might make him appear) but that the commentary from all quarters since he took the shot seems to converge on the fact that not only is Mike Lee the clear frontrunner of all the candidates, but Senator Bennett is probably not even his closest challenger. In the race for second place it appears that Tim Bridgewater is currently in the lead.

Right now as Bennett tries to peel some support away from Lee it may be Bridgewater who is the primary beneficiary instead of Bennett. At the same time, Mike Lee is working his hardest to make sure the race for the Republican nomination ends on May 8th. I’m confident that Mike understands that he can’t count on that result although his position seems very safe to be among the top two if there is a primary.

The Bennett campaign continues to say publicly that they think they have a decent shot and that they are making headway among the delegates. We should expect that kind of public statement from the campaign because any serious candidate must be at least publicly optimistic about their chances or else they have no reason to stay in the race. Consider that, like the Bennett campaign, the official line from the Lee and Bridgewater campaigns is that they are making headway among the delegates. I’m sure if you added all their optimism up it would add to well over 100% of all delegates – and that doesn’t count the optimism from any of the other five candidates.

Along with polls come public discussions such as this one of what the polls actually mean and how the convention will play out. Of course all such discussions are nothing more than guesswork but there are a few facts that can tell us a lot about how long Bennett will hold a seat in the Senate. The first fact is that he needs to receive votes from 40% of the delegates to even land in a primary. Also, all the rhetoric from the various campaigns and the delegate poll seems to be remarkably consistent in placing Bennett-supporting delagates somewhere in the low 20% range right now. There is also strong consensus that Bennett is highly unlikely to be the second choice for many delegates because a large portion (easily over 40%, almost certainly over 50%, and quite possibly over 60%) will vote for anyone except Bob Bennett this year. Because of this I feel very confident in saying that Bennett’s magic number at the convention in first round voting is 30% of the votes.

Even if Bennett were the top vote getter in the first round, if he only received 29.5% of the votes in that first round I am very confident that he would not be able to pick up enough votes in later rounds to reach the 40% plateau no matter which of his challengers were left in the top three. (I am not limiting that possibility to Lee and Bridgewater even if they are the only challengers I have mentioned in the post.) Even if he were to receive the most votes in the second round, say 36% (that is my wildest imagination if the first round generated only 29.5% for him), the third round would see virtually every delegate who had not already voted for him voting for whoever was left of his challengers and there would be no primary.

If Bob Bennett currently has the support of 22% of the state delegates, as this poll has indicated, that would mean he needs to convince another 8% to support him in the first round. That is approximately 300 delegates he will need to sway in this highly anti-incumbent atmosphere to have any chance of surviving into a primary.

I’ve shared some ideas (and will be doing whatever work I can to see that they get implemented) about how to make caucus meeting accommodations that are better suited to having productive and effective caucus meetings. I realize that having comfortable accommodations does nothing to address the issue of having ill-informed or single issue participants.

I don’t know the numbers (I doubt anyone does) but many people were elected as state delegates this year based solely on their position on the senate race. It’s possible that some of the county delegates were elected based on their positions on one specific race or another. As I pointed out before the caucus meetings, there were at least four races for each of these delegates to vote on in my precinct.

The solution to having informed participation is to have ongoing discussions about politics. I have learned through my years of experience that having a loose community online where people discuss things is not as useful for making a real political difference as having people who share a geographic location which focuses the issues that they deal with. This would require that politics be taken back from among the taboo subjects that are not discussed in polite society.

While having a group that share a geographic identity is important it is also important to allow for asynchronous communications so that people who are not generally available during traditional meeting times can still participate. This is where online discussions are very advantageous. I was very pleased to hear at the convention that there are a number of precincts in Davis County that have created Facebook pages for political discussion in their precinct.

As I discussed this issue with some friends at the convention the issue was raised of anonymity and authentication. Allowing anonymous contributions to the discussion can be valuable but it also opens the door to outsiders manipulating the discussion. I think that a good site for local discussion should allow anonymous comments but also provide a way for those who are local to be authenticated so that the anonymous comments can be treated with the proper weight – representing outside opinions available for consideration but not necessarily representative of a local perspective.

Online discussions should also be augmented with physical meetings with some degree of regularity – every few weeks perhaps, where the discussion could go synchronous and people could get to know each other.

If such discussions were taking place it would be possible for people to be more informed on the issues of current importance and also to be more informed on who they can trust in their area. That would allow people to be informed as caucus participants when the time comes to decide who to vote in as delegates. In fact it would allow them to know not only who they trust, but who they trust on specific issues. I know that in my precinct I was elected as a county delegate even though I was more prepared for the state races and at the same time one of our state delegates was more prepared and informed on the county races and issues than I was.

I’d love to hear what other people think about this. Any experiences you have had or ideas about solutions or potential pitfalls to creating a forum for continuing discussion at a local level.

I was mildly impressed with the statistic that 97.7% of delegates made it to the convention but considering that they (we) were elected only 18 days ago I would consider anything under 95% to be disappointing. I can’t wait to see the attendance at next year’s convention. Then I would be pleasantly surprised if we got 75% attendance.

I have come to the conclusion (again) that conventions could operate more quickly if we could reduce the amount of generic campaigning such as having current officeholders speak if they have nothing more to say than we are fed up with the actions of the other party and we’re going to take back the presidency/House/Senate/governorship/state legislature (whichever ones apply). We could also save time by skipping the speeches that say nothing more than give ourselves a pat on the back for the great things we have done in {whichever of the above we control currently}. (That might also save some hospital bills.) For example, my reaction when Orrin Hatch spoke was that even when he said the rift things he completely failed to convince me that he cared about anything more than getting to stay in the Senate.

If all speeches were focused on “here’s what we are or should be working on going forward” the time would be more valuably spent.

Our precinct had 91 people sign the rolls. I’m confident that this failed to count people who came and then left because of the cattle-chute conditions. (I know of people who came and then left but I cannot confirm how many of those signed the roll.) Those who stayed were packed into a room that was designed to seat perhaps a dozen students at a local junior high school. I’m sure a firemarshall would never allow more than 30 people in a space that size even if the desks were removed. It was not even a regular classroom.

Many people who stayed were out in the hallway where they could not hear from the candidates for the various positions nor the questions that were being asked. All they could do was pass in their ballots.

I am told that our precinct was in the same room in 2008 when only 56 people attended. (I was not living in this precinct until shortly after the caucus meetings that year.) The party leaders did not adjust the accomodations despite the fact that they were clearly inadequate two years ago and despite the fact that there was a great deal more poliical energy in the state before the caucuses this year than I have ever felt in the past.

In many places I know that caucus meetings have been held in neighborhood homes. While that may provide enough space in many cases, few homes could really accomodate the crowds we had this year in many places and even if they could, I know some people who do not feel comfortable in a private residence for this kind of official community meeting.

Knowing that parties often do not have a good idea in advance (like they should have this year) regarding how many people will show up, they need to hold caucus meetings in locations that can accomodate large or small groups. Schools might sound ideal for that but few schools can really handle more than two large groups individually and the junior high where I was had ten precincts attending. Parties should break their precincts out into more locations using schools, churches, city halls, and community centers so that they are able to keep people close to home and have space to accomodate unexpectedly large groups when necessary. I can’t say for other churches but virtually any LDS chapel has rooms to house at least two large groups comfortably. I would imagine that many churches of other denominations can also house mutiple good-sized caucus meetings. If we were to add these locations along with libraries, city offices, community centers and other such locations we should not need to feel like cattle headed for slaughter when we attend precinct caucus meetings.

Ideally I would love to see one meeting location in each precinct where both Democrats and Republicans hold their caucus meetings. If the emphasis were on “neighborhood” rather than “party” they might even say the pledge of allegiance together before splitting for their separate meetings.

Somehow my post came to his attention and Rep. Bishop felt that he was being unfairly maligned as his staff could find no record of my questions getting to their office. At some point (I suspect recently) Rep. Bishop discovered that they had received my questions and considered them important (or unique) enough to warrant an individual response instead of a stock answer. The questions were given to the congressman himself and then somehow they slipped through the cracks and been buried. When he discovered his mistake Rep. Bishop took it upon himself to track down my phone number (and it’s not an easy task to sort through the many David Miller’s out there) and offer his apologies and a personal response to my questions.

I was quite surprised when I received his call Wednesday evening and I appreciated very much the time he took to speak with me. His was not some simple two minute call to appologize and share his position on earmarks in answer to my questions. I stead he took the time to listen to my thoughts and enegage in a full conversation until I was satisfied that I was being heard. He did not even attempt to change my opinion on those points where we do not share a common perspective but I finished the phone call confident that we share the same overall goal on the subject of earmarks and that he understands the reasons I think earmarks should become a thing of the past.

Thank you Rep. Bishop. You deserve as public an acknowledgement as the criticism I offered before.

I don’t think we should abandon partisanship, but we need to abandon incivility and mindless unfounded attacks. I don’t want conservatives or liberals to change their principles, or to compromise them to gain short-term political points. I want them to confront the many serious problems that we have in this country and articulate their proposed solutions. Instead of focusing on who is scoring points or who is ahead in the polling or who made the most recent boo-boo, let’s focus on policy ideas and substance.

Our media is unwilling to do its job. There are no serious long-term investigations, no serious analysis of policy ideas, and no holding of our elected officials to account (except for sexual misbehavior of course). All those things are too expensive and don’t bring in enough revenue. Having some partisan hack shouting down anyone opposed to him or inviting a parade of other partisan hacks to spout off incoherent, uninformed nonsense is both cheap to produce and profitable. It’s time “we the people” stopped listening to this. We have a political system to fix, an economy to fix, a pointless war machine to stop. We need to learn to work together not revel in transient “victories” over our political opponents.

If 60% of voters could come to believe this and act/vote accordingly our political culture would be healed almost overnight.