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.

Holly Richardson writes about Tim Bridgewater’s momentum. When she talks about his fund raising she doesn’t mention that over 80% of it was a loan to himself. Tim likes the coverage (naturally) and the next day he posts her article on his RedState diary. Tim gave all the proper attribution and everything – I’m not trying to accuse him of plagiarism. The day after that Thomas Burr writes that “Holly Richardson is boosting Tim Bridgewater’s campaign” over at RedState. Whether it was an oversight or a calculated move is open for speculation, but the fact is that Holly didn’t promote Tim over at RedState – unless she did so under Tim’s name. Finally, Tim gets to tweet about the article by Thomas Burr which declares how beneficial Holly’s support is.

So with a couple of nudges from Tim this little game of Chinese whispers has produced, with a little invented fact here (Holly promoting Tim on RedState) and a little omitted fact there (Tim providing almost all his own campaign funding), almost a week’s worth of positive coverage.

The point here is not to accuse Tim of anything untoward – it is to illustrate the cycle of coverage growing in a vacuum. Tim did nothing this week (at least nothing to garner more coverage in those articles) and yet he got a four days of positive news from a topic (fund raising numbers) that seemed to have died before Holly’s post.

In my opinion, the best defense against staying too long and becoming part of the problem is to maintain communication with constituents that is open enough for the constituents to indicate when the officeholder is compromising too much (or not enough in some rare cases) and the integrity to step aside when the officeholder finds that they consistently cannot act in accordance with the feedback they are receiving from constituents in good conscience.

Now that Senator Bennett has demonstrated a refusal to maintain open communication with constituents I am singling him out and exposing his refusal to communicate openly.

The senator wrote on his campaign website that the time for Republicans to stand up and fight is now – I could not agree more with that sentiment but when I wrote a comment that was not absolutely complementary to the senator the result was naked censorship.

Here is my non-complementary, but hardly inappropriate comment:

The fight is now and it’s time for new, fresh ideas and fresh faces. It’s time for the old generals to ride off into the sunset where they can share their experience while allowing younger, fresher faces to carry the banner.

Bob, you’ve been in Washington since before the 1994 “republican revolution.” Let’s have a show of hands from all those who think we’re better off now than we were when you were elected in 1992.

You are among the crowd that managed to achieve Republican majorities in both houses of Congress and the presidency during which time our Republican elected officials failed us as miserably as they could.

We do need change (not the kind Obama, Reid, and Pelosi are pushing), the fight is now, and some of us are not insane enough to think that we can get a different result by sending the same people back to Washington that we had between 2000 and 2008 – because last time we were “victorious” we were either deceived by most of you or else you seriously let up. I for one do not intend to let this coming opportunity pass by with more of the same.

Comments on the senator’s site are moderated – and I have no problem with that – but if only one point of view is to be accepted in the comments integrity would dictate that this should be stated on the site. I even went so far in my efforts to encourage the senator to not censor me as to make my comment public and predict that it would be removed.

I had captured a screen-shot of my comment in moderation:

Later I returned and found that my comment had not been approved while many complimentary comments were approved (note the times on the comments which prove that moderation had taken place since I left my comment at 5:54pm).

When I told my wife about the incident she asked if I seriously believed that a candidate and office holder should be expected to allow less than flattering comments on their website in the name of open communication. My response is “absolutely.” If a candidate or office holder is intent upon keeping the channels of communication open they must accept negative feedback as well as positive feedback. If the negative feedback is  uncivil it can be ignored. If it is mistaken it can be refuted – publicly. Again, I’m not saying that moderation is completely unacceptable, but there are better ways to do it. Senator Hatch has moderation on his site and was even responsive enough to change his terms of use when I took the time to point out some problems with the terms as then written. (Using Hatch as a positive example should carry some weight considering how much I have criticized him in the past.)

I try to avoid calling a person’s integrity into question and will stop short of doing so now, but I will say that open communication is a prerequisite to being able to exercise integrity in response to communication from constituents. I stated that the antidote to becoming part of the problem was open communication combined with sufficient integrity to step aside if the time comes that an elected official cannot accept feedback and continue to act in good conscience in whatever capacity they are elected to act in. It is impossible to demonstrate such integrity while actively censoring a select portion of the feedback being offered. Based on the responses when I shared my comment on Twitter it is safe to say that I am not alone in the concerns and opinions I shared. If Bennett cannot accept the existence of those honest opinions then he has no business in public office – with or without personal integrity.

Consider the example. A newspaper journalist decides to do a story on the impact of new media on our political system. He interviews someone who has used new media to follow a political campaign in a way that traditional media sources sis not provide. He contacts elected officials and other people connected with government. He contacts a political blogger (me in this case). he takes all the information that he has gathered and using his own experience and his skill in the art of written communication tells a story showing how new media is changing the face of politics and what it means to citizens. He turns the story over to his editors who take that story, assign it a place in the paper, edit it for content and in the interest of meeting size limitations on their physical page trims part of the story – the part that explains what this means to the average reader. It has now become a story without a moral – not because the journalist failed, but because of space limitations.

After that happened I, as a blogger who is not constrained by any physical space limitations in what I write, posted the entire list of questions I was asked as the journalist prepared his story and my full answers. This is the unfiltered data from one source which the journalist used to create his story. One symbiosis between traditional journalism and citizen journalism is that those who are interested in what the journalist wrote could look into the raw questions and answers that produced the story and decide for themselves what more they can learn than the paper was able to publish.

I realized this morning as I reflected upon the process of producing that story from fact gathering to publication that a key factor that is hurting old media organizations is that they are trying so hard to put out the maximum amount of information within their limited physical space that they have sacrificed the moral to virtually every story (that’s easy to do because taking out the moral can also make them feel more objective) and the result is that readership declines (especially paid readership) not because reporters are doing their thinking for them, but because almost all thought is expunged from the final product in the interest of keeping a maximum amount of data.

The theoretical way to reverse that trend would be to use digital media with traditional reporting to again publish the whole story – without space limitations. Those organizations interested in having a physical paper could use the paper as a gateway to the digital content – showing teasers of stories with the full story online and/or only printing the top story or stories in the paper while printing all stories worth printing in the digital version. The digital version could be augmented with complete references and links where possible to the original sources on each article so that readers could dig deeper as they were so inclined. By doing this the organization could even begin to learn in more detail what stories and sources their readers were most interested in and follow up on those with more traditional reporting. This encourages the new media ecosystem which them serves as a valuable tool and resource for the traditional media.

Like I said at the beginning, I don’t have a firm business model for how to support this (how to fund it being a major missing component), but I think I am getting a picture of how these “competing” interests can and should work together.

Let me say right off that I don’t believe that the video should have been shown to children without informing their parents in advance. Parents are always the primary decision-makers with regard to what their children should be exposed to in matters of values and this video was definitely a matter of values. Having said that, I don’t believe that this was a particularly devious or pernicious video (regardless of what Gayle Ruzika believes).

Some who are opposed to the showing of this video believe that it is an attempt to brainwash the children. I doubt this is the case. The message is actually addressed to the President as a show of support. Distributing it among children was meant to encourage them to pledge to do some good of their own choosing.

If the makers of the video intended children as their audience then they have no idea how to go about it. The fast scrolling words and constant movement at the beginning of the video will fail to get any massage to such an audience. On top of that, the pledges in the video will either make no impression or they will confuse a younger audience. If it is as harmless as I am suggesting why would I object to showing it to children who will be either confused or unaffected by it? Because at best it is a waste of school time. Why should my taxes and my childrens time be spent watching something that has no positive value for their education? At worst showing the video opens the door for teachers to take over a parental role in discussing the various pledges as they try to reduce them to a level that could be understood by a 5 or 7 year-old. Again, why should my taxes support that?

If the target audience was for older youth (teenagers and college students) then the video is well made (meaning it would connect with that audience). It still has the problem of promoting some dangerous biases of the creators (confusing service to the president with respect for the president as one example), but it will always be necessary to compensate for the biases of those who are promoting ideas because the promotion of ideas is a values issue by definition – which again is an area where the parents are always primarily responsible until their children reach adulthood.

So here’s my pledge.

I pledge to continue to believe in the good intentions of others, whether they be elected officials or simply socially and politically active individuals and groups, even when I fundamentally disagree with what they are trying to do. I pledge to  be civil no matter how passionately I disagree with anyone and to treat other people with respect and decency in all my interactions. I pledge to fight for what I value and seek to make my country, state, community, and neighborhood a better place. I pledge that no matter how much I may want something I will not make promises that my grandchildren will have to keep in order to achieve it, nor will I ask other to do so.

And I don’t have to go to usaservice.org (which is actually serve.gov) to make or keep that pledge.

8 ways reform provides security and stability to those with or without coverage, 8 common myths about reform and 8 reasons we need health insurance reform now.

It think it is important to get a non-spin version of their 24 points (really only 21). I will assume, as much as possible, that their claims are true and show what those claims really mean to the nation.  As usual it’s not nearly as straightforward as any partisan claims would have you believe. (For example, they only offer 7 unique ways reform provides security, 7 unique myths – including one I had never heard, and 7 reasons for reform now – plus one generic platitude.)

8 ways reform provides security and stability

1. Ends Discrimination for Pre-Existing Conditions. This is probably a good thing – if the bill really does this.
2. Ends Exorbitant Out-of-Pocket Expenses, Deductibles or Co-Pays. Now a saavy consumer can spend up to their out of pocket maximum in elective procedures and get the insurance company to pony up 100% of the costs of necessary medical care later in the year – that’ll reduce our overuse of the system. This will not help unless there are some important exceptions in what counts toward the out-of-pocket maximums.
3. Ends Cost-Sharing for Preventive Care. This sounds good, but at best it just means higher premiums on any plan that does not already do this.
4. Ends Dropping of Coverage for Seriously Ill. This is a reform that I can support.
5. Ends Gender Discrimination. Men will now pay higher premiums to match what women have to pay. This will pad the bottom line for insurance companies, but it won’t have any positive effect on the cost of health care.
6. Ends Annual or Lifetime Caps on Coverage. Annual caps make economic sense for the company and the consumer – pick a plan with an annual cap you can live with. Lifetime caps should go because the longer you have an insurance plan the more likely you are to hit that lifetime cap even if you keep paying the premiums.
7. Extends Coverage for Young Adults. Blah – children live off their parents long enough as it is. Few children have a legitimate need to leech off of Dad and Mom that long and those who do would most likely already have an exception.
8. Guarantees Insurance Renewal. This is essentially a repeat of number 4 – I guess they could only come up with 7 ways that reform would provide security.

8 common myths

Some of the myths are presented as myths and others are presented as facts rebutting a myth – I found it necessary to rewrite the 8 myths as “Myth” – counterclaim.

1. “Reform will cause rationing” – reform will end rationing. Rationing is an economic fact. The government can declare that reform will stop rationing, but it will be as effective as declaring that gravity is a repellent force rather than an attractive one.
2. “We can’t afford reform” – yes we can, the president has identified ways to cut costs in order to pay for reform. They may claim that the president has identified ways to pay for reform but if that’s true why do even the most liberal media outlets fail to inform us of where the money will come from? I don’t buy this.
3. “Reform would encourage euthanasia” – it does not. As much as Congress gets wrong, I’m betting that the White House is telling the truth on this one.
4. “Vets’ health care is will be diminished” – the President’s budget significantly expands coverage under the VA. The quality of veterans health care is likely to continue to diminish as all government coverage does over time despite the fact that I am confident that the presidents budget allocates a larger number of dollars for that care.
5. “Reform will burden small businesses” – reform will benefit small business. No amount of tax breaks will make offering insurance coverage an economic possibility for all small businesses. If there is a mandate (as I have heard there is) it will be a burden to some small businesses although some may find the tax breaks beneficial.
6. “Health Insurance Reform would be financed by cutting Medicare benefits” – reform will improve the long-term financial health of Medicare. Medicare will follow the same path as VA care – more expensive and diminishing quality over time – this is again a repeat of number 4.
7. “Reform will force you out of your current insurance plan” – you can keep your own insurance. No provision will explicitly say that you cannot keep your current insurance but any public option will naturally be favorably positioned in the supposedly free market. And there is or was a clause that would prevent insurance companies from offering coverage to new consumers – lose your coverage once and you end up on the government plan forever.
8. No, government will not do anything with your bank account. That’s the counterclaim – I can’t even invent the myth it proports to debunk because I have heard no such myth. I guess they could only find 6 or 7 myths to address.

8 reasons we need health insurance reform now

1. Coverage Denied to Millions. Here they claim 12.6 million adults being denied coverage. Is that 12.6 million individuals or 12.6 million applications – sometimes more than one application per individual? And what of the other 33.4 million of the 46 million figure usually being cited? Apparently 3/4 of the uninsured are not even trying to get coverage.
2. Less Care for More Costs. They claim that average premium for a family plan purchased through an employer was $12,680 in 2008 but they fail to mention that most of that cost is covered by an employer who is not sensitive to the actual health care being delivered for the premium. This disconnect may be the primary driver for the quickly rising cost of health care. If we were to remove that disconnect people would be more likely to live more health consciously and purchase health care more cost consciously. Their plan does nothing to connect the consumer with the actual costs of coverage.
3. Roadblocks to Care for Women. While this is probably true I have not heard anything that addresses the issue except the claim to make the premiums not discriminate regarding gender.
4. Hard Times in the Heartland. The fact that care is less available in rural areas is an economic reality just like rationing. I have heard no claim that their proposals would increase the number of doctors covering rural areas or that they would somehow magically make it more economically feasible to practice in rural areas.
5. Small Businesses Struggle to Provide Health Coverage. The answer to this is not to increase employer coverage of health care expenses, but to increase individual ownership of health care policies. They’re moving in the wrong direction.
6. The Tragedies are Personal. Like number 5 the proposals under consideration do not improve this fact – they might mask it temporarily or make it more widespread (bankrupting society instead of one family at a time) but they are doing nothing to contain costs.
7. Diminishing Access to Care: An estimated 87 million people – one in every three Americans under the age of 65 – were uninsured at some point in 2007 and 2008. I was part of that statistic and while the proposals being considered would have declared that I had some coverage had they been in place it would only have been by stealing from my neighbors. No thanks. At best it would have had no effect on my actions – at worst it would have made it easier for me to not get to work about getting coverage.
8. The Trends are Troubling. As I said in numbers 5 and 6 – the trends of this legislation are at least as troubling as doing nothing.

Of course what his choice is should be a surprise to nobody. I thought it interesting that he’s talking up how much he will be raising. My first thought was that he must be trying to scare off any competitors. Of course that was before I saw the later tweets:

. . . I’m announcing I’m running at 12 …

No, I just realized that I was responding to a text from u. I’m going to pull it off immediately

As I read the Deseret News version I had a thought about an amendment to the bill that would expose the sincerity of the newspapers in their "public service" claim for opposing this. If the bill were amended to stipulate that the legal notices website allow bulk uploads of legal notices from entities such as newspapers (at bulk rates), and also allow a feed or other source for newspapers to print or otherwise republish the notices from that site (if they so choose) then I can see no reason for newspapers to object – besides the revenue competition. If the papers really are not afraid of the competition – if they honestly believe they are opposing this on public service grounds – they should simply offer to post on the state website any legal notices they receive so that their service complies with the new law (assuming it passes).

The Deseret News also provided two claims that need to be debunked.

In addition, as any Web surfer can attest, Web sites are not dependable. They are subject to technical issues, and they don’t make a reliable and enduring archivable record the way newspapers do.

As a long-time web developer I can say that whatever temporary glitches a website may have does not change the fact that web sites can produce reliable and enduring archivable records. In fact, the most reliable archivable records of newspapers are digital. For proof of that simply go look at archive.org. I can pull up old websites of mine that I know no longer exist on any computer where I ever published them. Even if a government site went down it is not likely that it would be lost.

The bill claims it would cost the state nothing. However, Web sites require considerable maintenance and personnel. Even if this new site were to fall under existing state government Web services, it still would cost taxpayers. Newspapers, on the other hand, store and archive data for nothing other than the cost of a legal notice.

This statement completely ignores what was actually said when SB 208 was first unveiled. The site would not cost taxpayers anything not because Sen. Urquhart is ignoring the cost of running a site, but because the site would charge a nominal fee to cover the costs of the website.

I have nothing against the newspapers – sometimes they have useful information – but they have yet to show a solid reason why they deserve a captive market for legal notices. To prove that, I would encourage a removal of the cap on what they can charge for legal notices (this would be even more broad than what they are pushing for in SB 161) if SB 208 is passed.

Recently I’ve been so busy that I am not really following anything more newsworthy than that anyway. I am working on a plugin that might interest politically active bloggers. I don’t normally talk about plugins on this blog, but I’ll post here when I have something that people can use.