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9 Comments
Jim Harris wrote:
Unfortunately, McCain isn't the man to propound those views.
Well, sure. He doesn't want to put on an act.
Paul Milenkovic wrote:
I am perhaps guilty of this myself. I was table mate to a scientist from a university out East at a rather lavish banquet at a restaurant in Tokyo, and in between my snarfing down my favorite food, raw fish (really), she gamely offered how "healthy the food is in Japan" to which I countered in all-too-geek fashion, "could be, but it might be a little heavy on the sodium." This provoked some remarks about "flyover country", a zone in which I reside.
I guess I was working on auto-pilot, that it was obvious that I couldn't get enough Japanese food based on my taste for it, and that anything a person really enjoys has to have some catch to it. My Momma had to explain to geek-me what provoked the "flyover country" remark. My table companion was probably choking down the raw fish out of politeness and had to offer some countervailing grace regarding the food our host was paying for.
That out of the way, I want to say that I am perfectly open to a balance of liberal, conservative, and libertarian viewpoints, and Rand, you have been a most thoroughly gracious host in soliciting remarks, sometimes critical of your viewpoint, from me and others. But I have to tell you, there is one person I am not inviting to my birthday party because I am going to be told how much sugar and trans-fat is in the cake and other treats.
Paul Milenkovic wrote:
That said, what little I watched of "The Left Wing" and the Arnie Vinnick/Alan Alda character impressed me too. Not the character and the views expressed but that left-liberal Hollywood gave voice to them in such a favorable manner.
Alan Alda may be a Hollywood liberal for all we know, but that he was able to given eloquent expression to a Libertarian may mean he knows people from that perspective and respects where they are coming from. As for the trans-fat in the cake, I mean the made-up nature of Alan Alda's ad-libbed Arnie Vinnick, what people are sometimes forgetting is that in our representative system of government, a politician is representing the people voting for that candidate, not that persons personal views. That a candidate may shape their public views to represent what they believe the electorate wants is called democracy.
Jim Harris wrote:
That a candidate may shape their public views to represent what they believe the electorate wants is called democracy.
That's true, Paul, but there is a difference between doing what the voters want and telling them what they want to hear.
Both Bush and McCain have struggled with this gap. An axiom such as negotiation = appeasement sounds great. It was very convincing in the 2002 elections. But what they actually want? The week after Bush repeated his equation, he cut a uranium deal with Saudi Arabia, presumably to bring down the price of gas. McCain knows that he has to say that negotiation is appeasement to mobilize certain voters. But he's torn, because he also knows that he should support Bush's negotiations with North Korea for the sake of public safety.
Most voters now are in a quandary. They're pretty sure that the country is headed in the wrong direction. But they don't know what went wrong, because the direction it has taken was very convincing before the fact. It was focus-tested.
Anyway, some other presidential contenders have had no trouble putting on an act, because they had long careers in Hollywood. Also, one of Hollywood's wisdoms is that your performance will be the most effective if you internalize the part and actually believe it. But the voters are a little tired of that, although it still holds some sway, and that is why McCain and Obama are both winning the primaries.
Fletcher Christian wrote:
"in our representative system of government, a politician is representing the people voting for that candidate, not that persons personal views."
Garbage. That's the way it should be - but the way it really is, he is representing the people who paid his election expenses and might do again if he does what he's told. In the UK as well as the USA.
memomachine wrote:
Hmmmm.
@ Jim Harris
"The week after Bush repeated his equation, he cut a uranium deal with Saudi Arabia, presumably to bring down the price of gas."
Completely false.
Seriously. Have you been living under a rock? The Bush administration have been trying everything imaginable to prevent nuclear proliferation. The substantial basis of which is the refining of nuclear material to the levels necessary for nuclear weapons.
The reason why the Saudis are going to buy nuclear fuel from us is so that they don't start experimenting in refining nuclear fuel.
Jim Harris wrote:
The reason why the Saudis are going to buy nuclear fuel from us is so that they don't start experimenting in refining nuclear fuel.
Yeah, and will we buy back the neutrons so that they can't make plutonium with their reactor? And did Bush bother to mention that they could generate electricity from natural gas?
Andy Freeman wrote:
> And did Bush bother to mention that they could generate electricity from natural gas?
Yes, they can, but if they do, we can't use that gas to generate electricity.
This is relevant because nuclear power is on hold in the US.
Let's see if Harris can figure out why getting other people to use different resources than you use is a good idea.
Jim Harris wrote:
This is relevant because nuclear power is on hold in the US.
Giving enriched uranium to Saudi Arabia is wrong on so many levels, it's hard to know where to begin. Why Saudi Arabia? Why not, say, Cuba? Frankly it would be a bad idea to give uranium to Cuba, but better than to Saudi Arabia.
Bush declares that negotiation with enemies is appeasement. Instead of admitting to the threats that we face from Saudi Arabia, he calls them friends.
If the concern is Saudi Arabia's energy policies in general, Bush could have asked them not to price their gasoline at 60 cents per gallon. Instead, he begs them to pump more oil.
If the concern is Saudi Arabia's electricity shortages, Bush could have asked them to reduce their electricity subsidies. Instead, he gives them uranium.
If the concern is nuclear proliferation, how does it help anything to hand uranium to potential proliferators? When it was Iraq, they made this big deal about Iraq possibly buying yellowcake from Niger. Yellowcake isn't even milled uranium, much less enriched, it's a form of ore. Why didn't they think of the "solution" of giving Iraq some enriched uranium to deter it from either buying yellowcake or building centrifuges? That would have been idiotic, of course, but why is it a better idea now?
And to address the new theory, if the concern is our own electricity, why should we throw up our hands without trying to restart nuclear power here, and instead hand uranium to Saudi Arabia? Why do we need to take their natural gas while we give them our uranium? They don't even have a nuclear power plant yet; we could build more for ourselves just as quickly.
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About this Entry
This page contains a single entry by Rand Simberg published on May 27, 2008 8:40 AM.
Unfortunately, McCain isn't the man to propound those views.
Well, sure. He doesn't want to put on an act.
I am perhaps guilty of this myself. I was table mate to a scientist from a university out East at a rather lavish banquet at a restaurant in Tokyo, and in between my snarfing down my favorite food, raw fish (really), she gamely offered how "healthy the food is in Japan" to which I countered in all-too-geek fashion, "could be, but it might be a little heavy on the sodium." This provoked some remarks about "flyover country", a zone in which I reside.
I guess I was working on auto-pilot, that it was obvious that I couldn't get enough Japanese food based on my taste for it, and that anything a person really enjoys has to have some catch to it. My Momma had to explain to geek-me what provoked the "flyover country" remark. My table companion was probably choking down the raw fish out of politeness and had to offer some countervailing grace regarding the food our host was paying for.
That out of the way, I want to say that I am perfectly open to a balance of liberal, conservative, and libertarian viewpoints, and Rand, you have been a most thoroughly gracious host in soliciting remarks, sometimes critical of your viewpoint, from me and others. But I have to tell you, there is one person I am not inviting to my birthday party because I am going to be told how much sugar and trans-fat is in the cake and other treats.
That said, what little I watched of "The Left Wing" and the Arnie Vinnick/Alan Alda character impressed me too. Not the character and the views expressed but that left-liberal Hollywood gave voice to them in such a favorable manner.
Alan Alda may be a Hollywood liberal for all we know, but that he was able to given eloquent expression to a Libertarian may mean he knows people from that perspective and respects where they are coming from. As for the trans-fat in the cake, I mean the made-up nature of Alan Alda's ad-libbed Arnie Vinnick, what people are sometimes forgetting is that in our representative system of government, a politician is representing the people voting for that candidate, not that persons personal views. That a candidate may shape their public views to represent what they believe the electorate wants is called democracy.
That a candidate may shape their public views to represent what they believe the electorate wants is called democracy.
That's true, Paul, but there is a difference between doing what the voters want and telling them what they want to hear.
Both Bush and McCain have struggled with this gap. An axiom such as negotiation = appeasement sounds great. It was very convincing in the 2002 elections. But what they actually want? The week after Bush repeated his equation, he cut a uranium deal with Saudi Arabia, presumably to bring down the price of gas. McCain knows that he has to say that negotiation is appeasement to mobilize certain voters. But he's torn, because he also knows that he should support Bush's negotiations with North Korea for the sake of public safety.
Most voters now are in a quandary. They're pretty sure that the country is headed in the wrong direction. But they don't know what went wrong, because the direction it has taken was very convincing before the fact. It was focus-tested.
Anyway, some other presidential contenders have had no trouble putting on an act, because they had long careers in Hollywood. Also, one of Hollywood's wisdoms is that your performance will be the most effective if you internalize the part and actually believe it. But the voters are a little tired of that, although it still holds some sway, and that is why McCain and Obama are both winning the primaries.
"in our representative system of government, a politician is representing the people voting for that candidate, not that persons personal views."
Garbage. That's the way it should be - but the way it really is, he is representing the people who paid his election expenses and might do again if he does what he's told. In the UK as well as the USA.
Hmmmm.
@ Jim Harris
"The week after Bush repeated his equation, he cut a uranium deal with Saudi Arabia, presumably to bring down the price of gas."
Completely false.
Seriously. Have you been living under a rock? The Bush administration have been trying everything imaginable to prevent nuclear proliferation. The substantial basis of which is the refining of nuclear material to the levels necessary for nuclear weapons.
The reason why the Saudis are going to buy nuclear fuel from us is so that they don't start experimenting in refining nuclear fuel.
The reason why the Saudis are going to buy nuclear fuel from us is so that they don't start experimenting in refining nuclear fuel.
Yeah, and will we buy back the neutrons so that they can't make plutonium with their reactor? And did Bush bother to mention that they could generate electricity from natural gas?
> And did Bush bother to mention that they could generate electricity from natural gas?
Yes, they can, but if they do, we can't use that gas to generate electricity.
This is relevant because nuclear power is on hold in the US.
Let's see if Harris can figure out why getting other people to use different resources than you use is a good idea.
This is relevant because nuclear power is on hold in the US.
Giving enriched uranium to Saudi Arabia is wrong on so many levels, it's hard to know where to begin. Why Saudi Arabia? Why not, say, Cuba? Frankly it would be a bad idea to give uranium to Cuba, but better than to Saudi Arabia.
Bush declares that negotiation with enemies is appeasement. Instead of admitting to the threats that we face from Saudi Arabia, he calls them friends.
If the concern is Saudi Arabia's energy policies in general, Bush could have asked them not to price their gasoline at 60 cents per gallon. Instead, he begs them to pump more oil.
http://www.gtz.de/de/dokumente/en-flyer-international-fuelprices-2007.pdf
If the concern is Saudi Arabia's electricity shortages, Bush could have asked them to reduce their electricity subsidies. Instead, he gives them uranium.
If the concern is nuclear proliferation, how does it help anything to hand uranium to potential proliferators? When it was Iraq, they made this big deal about Iraq possibly buying yellowcake from Niger. Yellowcake isn't even milled uranium, much less enriched, it's a form of ore. Why didn't they think of the "solution" of giving Iraq some enriched uranium to deter it from either buying yellowcake or building centrifuges? That would have been idiotic, of course, but why is it a better idea now?
And to address the new theory, if the concern is our own electricity, why should we throw up our hands without trying to restart nuclear power here, and instead hand uranium to Saudi Arabia? Why do we need to take their natural gas while we give them our uranium? They don't even have a nuclear power plant yet; we could build more for ourselves just as quickly.