Category Archives: Politics

Clarence Thomas on Nightline

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I watched Nightline’s interview with Clarence Thomas the other night. Mr. Thomas should be embarrassed to have given that interview. If he had any wisdom, he would request that all copies of it be destroyed. I know that Mr. Thomas sees it differently. He’s written a book describing how differently he sees it. That’s the problem.

Never mind that he once again asserts that Anita Hill was lying in her testimony, even though he offered no evidence to back this up. Indeed, at the time of his hearings and even now, it makes no sense to me why Anita Hill would subject herself to the public wringer that she went through if there was no truth in what she was saying. Maybe I am naive, but I believe her testimony more than I believe Thomas’s protestations. [By the way, you can read Ms. Hills’ reply to Thomas here.]

The real problem however is not Anita Hill. It is that, in the interview, Thomas revealed himself to be so bogged down in his own prejudices that it is hard to imagine how he can ever deliver a fair and reasoned ruling.

First, he blames everything bad that ever happened to him, and most especially the problems he had getting confirmed, on racism. Thomas sees every slight as a racial insult. If he gets the wrong change at a restaurant, it must be because the waitress is a racist.

Now, I am white and I readily admit that I can never fully understand the currents of racism that are felt by those of color. But come on! Assuming you go with the conservative interpretation of history (which I assume Thomas does), the same thing that happened to him happened to Judge Robert Bork. In fact, it was worse; Bork did not even wind up with an appointment to the court. Bork’s very name has become a verb to describe the sort of political manuveuring that can shoot down a nomination. And, guess what? Bork isn’t black. Racism did not figure into the Bork process any more than it was a significant factor in the opposition to Thomas. Thomas sees his opposition as a coordinated racist conspiracy (even when some of his opposition came from African American groups) rather than groups of people that opposed him on ideological grounds that had nothing to do with race.

Second, he describes “liberals” (which, according to Thomas, includes pretty much anyone and everyone who opposed his nomination) as worse racists than “Southerners.” This is a pretty broad stroke to paint. Especially so when you consider than the political left wing has been at the forefront of the civil rights movement from its very beginnings. The venom with which he speaks leads me to believe that there is a likely revenge motive in his rulings. “Take that, you liberals…” I imagine he says to himself when voting on a decision. “You may have conspired to prevent my appointment. But I made it to the court anyway. And I have the rest of my life to do my best to make sure that no Supreme Court ruling ever goes your way.”

Not exactly the sort of attitude you hope to see in a Supreme Court justice. To me, his interview does nothing to repair his reputation. It only serves to confirm why he never should have been appointed to the court in the first place.

Wyoming: A dangerous threat to our democracy

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Reading David Sirota’s column today, I was again reminded of how distorted so-called democracy has become in our country. David asks the question: How is it that, even when a clear majority of the public support a certain legislation, Congress does not pass it? If this happened only rarely, we could perhaps attribute it to the wisdom and/or courage of our leaders, standing up to do what they believe is right even in the face of a demanding public that prefers the opposite. But when it happens almost all the time, you have to wonder what is going on.

David posits that the answer can be found in the Senate, where each state gets two votes, regardless of its population. Given that you only need 41 votes to block a bill with a fillibuster, this means that the senators from states representing only 11% of the population would be sufficient to block a bill. Even worse, if you assume that these senators are only worried about getting enough votes to get re-elected, this means that the will of as little as 3% of the voting population are determining what the Senate does!

The same essential problem lies at the heart of presidential elections, which rely on the Electoral College for deciding the outcome. For similar reasons as for the Senate, the College gives disproportionate influence to states with small populations. That’s why it is possible for a presidential candidate to win without getting the most votes (as Bush did in 2000).

All of this gets back to how the framers of the Constitution set things up years ago. I believe, however, they did not foresee the gross differences in populations between states that now exist. Even if they did, it probably would not have mattered. To get all the states to sign on to the Constitution, they needed a compromise that would offer protection to those states with less population. Our current system is what needed to be done to get the union started.

This is not the situation today. Today we live in a country where state boundaries mean much less than they did back then, especially for issues of national policy and office. Indeed, even national boundaries are beginning to fade in significance, as we seek global solutions for many problems.

Given this, it would be easy to say that now is the time to finally overhaul this antiquated system and update it for modern times. The problem is, no matter how strongly I or anyone else advocates for it, it’s not gonna happen. This is because the very people whose support would be almost required to get it done (i.e., those people sitting in the Senate) are the ones with the most vested interest in blocking it. It’s a sad Catch-22 and I have no solution to offer.

David suggests focusing our attention more on state government, where we can affect change more easily. That’s fine for those matters where the states can actually accomplish something. But it does not get at the fundamental problem. Unfortunately, I fear we will be stuck with this fundamental problem for many many years to come.

Note: The title of this entry is based on the fact that Wyoming is the least populous state in the country.

Mortgage meltdown: An easily avoidable crisis

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When I listed my Michigan home for sale in 2003, several months went by without an offer. At one point, a friend suggested that I contact their cousin, who was a mortgage broker. We could work out an arrangement where he left flyers in our home with info about how potential buyers could get a great deal on a loan from him. This, in turn, might get the house to sell sooner.

It turned out that the loans would be the interest-only zero-down payment type loans that are the fuel behind the current mortgage meltdown. When I discussed this with my real estate agent, she said that she could not support doing this, as she was ethically against these type of loans.

Later, in 2004, when looking to purchase a home in the East Bay of San Francisco, I was generally aghast at how high the home prices were. I wondered aloud to my real estate agent how anyone who did not already own a home in this area (or did not already have the money stashed away for a huge down payment) could afford to buy here. His answer was that they were all getting the same risky loans that my Michigan real estate agent had rejected. My California real estate agent was against them as well. As was I. We all saw the looming problem: If home prices ever started to fall, the homeowners could not afford to sell their homes because they would get less cash than they would need to pay off their mortgage. The result, if they could also no longer afford their mortgage payments when the adjustable rate started to rise, would be foreclosure. We all clearly understood this. And this was back in 2003 and 2004.

My point with these two anecdotes is that the current mortgage crisis should not have surprised anyone. The risks were clear. So how did it all happen? Who’s to blame?

I believe there is enough blame for everyone to share a bit. But not in equal parts.

The homeowners who purchased these loans deserve a bit of blame. They should have been aware of the dangers involved and resisted these ethically-challenged loans. This is especially so when you are talking about unnecessarily risking a home you have owned for 40 years so you can get startup cash for a new business venture (as was described in this San Francisco Chronicle article). I suppose some sort of “bail-out” effort is needed in the current environment. But there is a limit to what should be done. People who took foolish risks should not be rewarded by getting bailed out of their foolishness.

Still, showing restraint can be very hard to do when almost everyone else is getting these loans, your mortgage broker is pushing for you to go along, and there is no other way you can afford any home at all in an inflated market like the Easy Bay.

Real estate agents should have warned their clients away for these loans. Indeed, as my anecdotes suggest, many did. But not enough. Still, I understand the dilemma. If you are one of the few real estate agents taking a stand on this, it won’t stem the tide. All that will happen is that your clients will go elsewhere to get the loan, while your personal income plummets. It would have required a concerted effort from real estate agents as a group to do something effective. Simply depending on each agent’s personal integrity is not enough.

Mortgage brokers deserve most of the blame in my view. There were rules in place for decades that prevented these type of loans. In the last several years, these rules were abandoned so that brokers could make a quick buck at the expense of a desperate and too gullible public. The sub-prime lenders are the worst offenders here, and they are the ones in the most financial trouble now. But even huge institutions such as Countrywide contributed to this mess.

Finally, the Bush administration deserves a hefty amount of the blame. They could have acted to restrain the policies that allowed these dangerous mortgages to proliferate. But, as usual, they stood by and did nothing—letting the “free market” police itself. It’s the same attitude they take toward environmental regulations, communications policy, and more. It’s a sad case of putting the wolf in charge of the henhouse. I can only hope that next year’s elections send a clear message that we no longer want to support such policies.

Others could be added to this list. Recently, I have read speculations that offer institutions such as the Federal Reserve and Wall Street as culprits. Perhaps so. But my main point remains: Whoever is to blame knew that this day of reckoning would come and did nothing to prevent it. This was an avoidable crisis.

Gallup poll and evolution folly

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Scientific truth is not determined by a popular opinion. it wouldn’t matter if 99% of the American public believed that the sun revolved around the earth—instead of the other way around. Such poll results would have absolutely no effect on the behavior of the sun and the earth.

When it comes to the subject of evolution, despite the distortions you may have read elsewhere, evolution is an established scientific fact. It is as much of a fact as gravity, or black holes, or atoms and molecules.

Have you actually seen gravity? How do you know it really exists? Couldn’t the reason we feel the apparent pull of gravity be due instead to some supernatural force that we don’t understand? How do you know that atoms truly exist and, more importantly, that atoms behave the way scientists say they do? On what basis do you accept the idea that black holes, whatever they may be exactly, exist in outer space?

My guess is that the overall answer to such questions is that, when it comes to such matters, you accept the consensus reached by the scientists that work in these fields. You may not understand the physics of gravity or atoms or black holes. But that does not lead you to dispute their existence. In fact, it is largely because of your lack of understanding, because you have not made the effort to study the facts yourself, that you defer to the experts who have done so.

The truth of a scientific theory also doesn’t depend upon whether or not you are pleased with its conclusions. You may not be happy to discover that you can get HIV from having unprotected sex. You may be irritated to learn that you cannot cure severe depression simply by telling a person to “Cheer up;” medication may be required to help the person. But your unhappiness and irritation does not change anything.

All of this applies in the same way to evolution. You may be offended by the idea that humans are descended from apes. You may find it difficult to understand how the process of natural selection could account for the range of species on the planet today. But such offense and incomprehension has no bearing on the overwhelming evidence in support of evolution.

Unfortunately, although the above logic is indisputable, people somehow are willing to make an exception for evolution. The same person that would never think of denying the scientific evidence that links HIV to AIDS or that supports the existence of black holes in outer space—has no problem making such an assertion about evolution.

The data in this regard are staggering. According to recent Gallup polls, close to 50% of all people surveyed say that they “do not believe in evolution.” This is consistent with similar surveys taken over the past several years. I am sure that much of the reason for this, aside from what I have already said, is that people view evolution as in conflict with their religious beliefs. Forced to make a choice, they go with religion.

For the scientific community, such poll results are equivalent to finding out that 50% of the American public does not believe in gravity. On the one hand, the poll results are a depressing statement about the state of scientific education in our country. On the other hand, it has no bearing as to whether or not gravity really exists.

Scientific assertions based on ignorance of the relevant science (how many people that say that they don’t believe in evolution have actually studied the evidence?) or on religious prejudices is not a particularly effective way to get to the truth. It doesn’t work for deciding on the veracity of gravity, black holes, atoms, or AIDS. And it doesn’t work for evolution.