I think this is especially disappointing to find such a lack of contribution in the middle of the legislative session—I could have at least commented on some bills such as the rainwater bill (which I favored) and the administrative subpoenas bill (which I opposed).

While I know that I am not able to maintain the daily posing schedule that I had previously expected I also know that my very thinking begins to atrophy if I give up posting altogether.

I have yet to find the proper balance but I am working on it and hope that I. will still have people interested in reading and responding to what I write by the time I find the proper balance.

I’m using a plugin called Best-Of Comments to display those comments I select in the sidebar with a link back to the original comment. Feel free if you see a great comment to go add to the discussion, even if it seems to have ended.

Think of it as a way for me to say “thanks” for everything that all of you add to this site.

I was so surprised that I had to go look at the full list. I don’t think it was an error because the top 5 is still some select company.

Now I will return to more valuable content.

I have been doing a lot of reading lately. Besides any moral/religious reading (C. S. Lewis etc.) in the last month I have read:

• • Atlas Shrugged
  • Why We Whisper
  • Lies My Teacher Told Me
  • (with others on hold at the library)

As I read all these things I have lots of thoughts worth blogging about and I have come to the conclusion that I am missing some good opportunities because of the "Book Report" mindset. I have avoided blogging about things I am reading when I am still in the middle of a book. By the time I get to the end I am starting a new book and there is too much in any of those books to remember and synthesize it all (at least in the time I have to write a post). I decided this morning that I will try to avoid that mindset and just blog about thoughts and ideas that I have from my reading without trying to digest the whole book first. If I write about Atlas Shrugged it will be far from a book report because I have returned that book and don’t intend to re-read the 1200 pages in order to cover the many ideas more fully. On the other hand, I have not yet returned Why We Whisper and so I will probably go back through those 100 pages to gather the ideas that stoked my thoughts the first time around (the same applies to Lies – except that I own that one).

Also, I have started contributing as an author at the KVNU – For The People blog. I won’t cross post everything I write there, but I now have a section in the sidebar showing things I have written recently on other sites.

I still intend to be civil in manner, but by abandoning the secular terminology I will not avoid taking positions that are considered politically incorrect. As I have in the past, I will still be open to changing my positions in the future when I have been convinced of an error but I will try to avoid situations where people might mistake my true position based on my whispered stances and open declarations of uncertainty.

I appologize in advance to any of my readers who might perceive my writing as becoming more partisan than it has been in the past. I don’t know where this will take me, but I know that I cannot bear to think of myself as one who whispers the truth as if I am afraid to offend anyone or afraid that my positions may come back to haunt me in the future.

In addition to this change to a less wavering voice, I have also determined that it is time for me to find a party to affilite with in order to become more engaged in the political process as a participant rather than just as a pundit. I am still in the process of deciding what party would most closely align with my goals because I intend to make a difference in shaping the way we actually conduct the business of government. I do not intend to participate only in order to say that "I’m a delegate" (or whatever level of participation I actually  achieve). In other words, if I were a delegate, I would be active in shaping the party platform and holding elected officials accountable to that platform not simply attending and casting a vote at the convention.

Let me start off by saying that Constitutional Amendment A does not have anything sinister or devious in it. In fact, there is very little in it to raise objections about. My primary objection is rooted in my position on constitutionally based governments in which I prefer to reject any amendment to the established law unless I see good reason for the change – in other words, I default to opposition where constitutional amendments are concerned.

This amendment would clarify the specifics of succession in the office of Governor and Lieutenant Governor. The specifics themselves are fairly mundane, but the situation being addressed is one that hopefully and probably will never occur. (Davis Didjeridu reminds me that a vacancy can happen for less than tragic reasons – such as federal appointment – making this situation more common than I had been thinking.) In the event that one of those vacancies did occur, common sense should allow the succession to happen seamlessly even without these specified specifics being added to the State Constitution.

There is one place where I have a specific objection to the amendment. In the section dealing with the succession of the Lieutenant Governor, it specifies that the Governor must receive the consent of the Senate for the person they would appoint to fill the vacancy. This appears to violate the separation of powers considering that the Governor, when running for office, needs no consent from the Senate when picking a running mate. I see no reason that selecting a replacement should have tighter safeguards than the original selection.

In summary, there is little to recommend this change, and more to discourage it. I won’t be overly concerned if it does pass, but I believe that not making such a change is the better choice.

Recently my niece approached me to ask questions about politics. She’s a young teenager, years short of being able to vote, but she wants to become informed and involved so that she could positively participate by the time she can vote. The conversation served as a reminder to me of how important it is for our young people to be able to obtain information on political issues that is not tainted by the rancor that often pervades political discussions. In other words we need a clearinghouse for civil civic conversation. I decided that I wanted to form an organization that would work for that purpose.

When I read the plea at Ladies Logic regarding our atrocious levels of participation in Utah (and remembered my own pleas to encourage greater levels of participation here), I realized that the time to act was now and that the need was not only for our youth who are approaching or recently passing the age where they can vote but also for every citizen who can’t bring themselves to really participate in the dirty game of politics – many of whom simply stay out of the discussion and vote without becoming well informed on the issues. We need to reach "the silent majority."

The group I will be forming will be open to, even encouraging of, participation by people of all political perspectives. The only requirement for participation is a commitment to avoid the playground politics of name calling and guilt by association. The aim of the group will be to draw people out of the silent majority until the silent become the minority by fostering civil dialog between people of differing perspectives. We will not aim to come to a consensus except the consensus that wider participation is better than narrower participation. I would like the group to seek to engage other group members in public discussion of issues so that people who have been silent will have a chance to be exposed to various positions on important issues without the likelyhood of being personally insulted by those who disagree with them. I also would like the group, individually and collectively, to engage in discussing issues with candidates for office and elected officials with an emphasis on local candidates and officials and a balance of local, state, and national issues.

In addition to my own energy, and knowledge I need the energy and experience of others who can help me to spread the word, engage effectively with public officials, organize group efforts, and generate ideas to further these aims.

I would ask anyone who believes in the importance of broad political participation, especially if you are in Utah, to please contact me publicly or privately to help me get this off the ground. Leave me comments or drop me an email if you have interest in participating, ideas about what can and should be done, or if you know of people who could help me in this.

There are a few plugin glitches to work out (no classic posts listed at the moment) and I have removed the “politics” category since everything here is politics to one degree or another. I hope that everyone can make the transition smoothly with me so that all the great comments keep coming.

I believe that reasonable discussants find it easy to read other reasonable discussants across the spectrum and less than reasonable discussants who match up with them ideologically. I also believe that unreasonable discussants provide fuel to other unreasonable discussants who are ideologically opposed to them. In other words it is probably fairly easy to follow those in adjacent quadrants, but unreasonable contributors tend to drive away reasonable contributors who are ideologically opposed to them. (Reasonable contributors probably bore unreasonable contributors who are ideologically opposed to them.)

It’s time for another grid:

I have tried to depict who would be alienated by a person who fell at various positions on the grid. For each dot, those on the other side of the line matching the color of the dot would be alienated (according to my theory).

By way of experiment, I am cross posting this at One Utah to see how the discussion differs since that site attracts a very different set of commentors.

• • Salt Lake
  • Utah Valley/Happy Valley
  • Weber/Ogden
  • Cache Valley/Logan
  • Davis
  • Dixie
  • Tooele

The classifications will be self-selection – if you want to be identified in a particular region you just email me or leave a comment with the region(s) you want to be listed in. Please only request to be listed in regions where you have an interest (that would generally be living or working in that region). Please do not choose Salt Lake if your only interest is that you follow the legislative session.

If you are going to be listed in a region with two names, please vote on which name you prefer to use. (We’ll use straight democracy – I’ll break any ties.)

As an example, I could be listed in the Davis (live) and Salt Lake (work) regions – in the past I could have been listed in Utah Valley (before I moved).

Update 8/28/08: The names of the geographic categories have been settled. Only Utah Valley has more than the basic name attached to it (valley) because “Utah” might appear to be general for the whole state (even though that would have been redundant).