What If It Had Been Me?

George Zimmerman, the creepy-ass cracker

What if George Zimmerman had gotten out of his car and followed me on that fateful evening? OK, I’m a white 50-something guy. I don’t usually wear a hoodie (but I do occasionally). I tend toward khakis and polo shirts. I’m not particularly menacing. So, you think, what possible reason would Zimmerman have for following me? Well, that’s the point, isn’t it: he wouldn’t have. 

He likely followed Trayvon Martin because Martin looked like Zimmerman’s idea of a young man up to no good, or, in his own words to the police dispatcher, one of those “fucking punks.”

But let’s suppose that Zimmerman was feeling unusually vigilant the evening he sees me walking the streets of the Twin Lakes community and decides to follow. Trayvon Martin’s girlfriend testified that Martin told her that he was being followed by a “creepy-ass cracker.” I suppose this was a case of reverse profiling: Martin assuming bad intentions based on Zimmerman’s appearance. Of course, I would not have employed the term “cracker” to describe Zimmerman.  I would have thought, “Who is this creepy asshole following me?”

  

Following someone is not innocent or neutral behavior. It is predatory. It is threatening. In a different context we call it stalking or hunting.

 

Trayvon Martin, the fucking punk

One of the things we learn in Biology 101 is that under a perceived threat an animal will either fight or flee. Humans are animals. Our “fight or flight” instinct is hard-wired into us. Most likely, if some creepy asshole tracked me around a neighborhood, I would challenge him. After all I’m a white guy in my 50s. Generally I believe that I have the right to be where I am and act accordingly.

I wouldn’t have been particularly polite or deferential towards George Zimmerman. “What the fuck are you doing?” are my likely words. Maybe he identifies himself as the “neighborhood watch.” But he’s not wearing a uniform, he doesn’t carry a badge, and, in fact, he has no legal authority whatsoever. I know this and likely tell him to “piss off.” Maybe I threaten to call 911 if he doesn’t cease & desist, but that’s a white-guy-in-his-50s reaction. Trayvon Martin wouldn’t have called the cops.

Perhaps the confrontation ends then & there. Or maybe George Zimmerman doesn’t like his “authority” questioned. He is, after all, the self-appointed fist of the homeowners association and protector of the community. He’s carrying a loaded 9 mm automatic pistol. He is empowered. He’s not a man to be trifled with. 

So Zimmerman strides towards me. He’s five feet away, four feet away, three feet away…I drop down and attempt a two-legged takedown. It’s a basic wrestling move I learned in 7^th grade and practiced a thousand times. Now we’re rolling on the ground. Things are out of control. Zimmerman reaches for his pistol, presses the barrel against my chest, and pulls the trigger. Bang, I’m dead.

It’s worth taking a close look at the timeline for the killing of Trayvon Martin. As Zimmerman exits his truck against the wishes of the police dispatcher, Trayvon Martin is on the phone to his girlfriend, telling her he is being followed by this creepy-ass cracker. The phone call ends about 7:16 PM, presumably the moment Zimmerman comes upon him. At 7:16:11 PM there is a 911 call reporting a fight. A gunshot is heard on the 911 recording at 7:16:55 PM. The fight between this 29 year old adult man and the 17-year old boy lasts less than a minute. Before another minute has passed a police officer arrives on the scene, but Trayvon Martin is already dead.

If you believe that my scenario, the one where I am killed by George Zimmerman, is ridiculous, then the likely “ridiculous” part is Zimmerman following me in the first place. Everything else is typical of the string of unintended consequences, the unraveling of reasoned behavior, which often happens when human beings confront one another and try to decipher each others’ intentions. 

And, if you don’t believe that Zimmerman would have followed me, a white guy in his 50s, then you must also accept that he profiled Trayvon Martin. That is, he presumed Martin’s malicious intent and my benign intent based on our appearance.

It’s crazy.  George Zimmerman initiates the confrontation, and then, after things spin out of control and he shoots Trayvon Martin, he is allowed to claim self-defense. I argue that he voided any claim of self-defense when he got out of his car to pursue Martin. Is this really the behavior Florida's "Stand Your Ground" legislation was designed to protect?

As proverbs says, when you sow the wind, you reap the whirlwind.

Juror B-37 has spoken out publicly. She believes Zimmerman’s “heart was in the right place,” but he exercised poor judgment. I suppose she means his intent was to protect the community, and, thus, good & pure. But there is a reason that police officers go through extensive training before they are issued a badge and gun. It’s to prevent events like this. 

As is often said, the road to hell is paved with good intentions.

What juror B-37 doesn’t acknowledge is that Zimmerman’s actions were reckless. Because he chose to carry a gun and act like police, he should be held accountable for his reckless behavior. Whether this is 2^nd degree murder, manslaughter, or some other infraction, I cannot say, but it is an injustice that he walks away from this trial a free person.

Get Aboard

When President Obama announced his evolving position on gay marriage, he spoke for me. I, too, have seen my position on gay people move slowly, steadily towards full acceptance, including marriage.

I was borne in the 1950s. Like many kids of my generation, I learned the derisive terms “faggot” and “fairy” before I knew what a homosexual was (probably before I knew what a heterosexual was).

My thinking began to change when I came to understand that being gay wasn’t a choice. How could it be otherwise? Throughout my life, you certainly didn’t improve your prospects by announcing that you were gay.

As an adult, I came to know gay people and found we shared common values. They cared about their families, their homes, and their communities. So did I. In business they were often successful. As a group they seemed unusually creative. I respected all this.

I didn’t see that in any way, shape, or form, gay people diminished my life one iota. In fact, it seemed the contrary.

A few years ago I helped my daughter and her roommate look for an apartment in the D.C. area. At one point we discussed neighborhoods in transition, and my daughter’s roommate mentioned casually, “...and first come the gays.” Apparently it is now accepted knowledge, taught in college classes, that gay people are the most likely demographic to revive failing urban neighborhoods. How remarkable I thought? And something, I’m sure, not lost on big city mayors.

In the near term the country will likely remain split on the gay marriage issue. But gay people will move where they feel welcome and that includes where they can marry. I think that young, talented, straight people will follow, seeking out the same tolerant communities as their gay friends.

Ultimately it may come down to economics. States that resist this new paradigm will watch their youth depart, and then, sometime later, wonder why there’s so little happening in their cities.

It’s simple: we want the same good things in life for our gay friends and gay family members as we want for ourselves. One of the good things, for most of us anyway, is the right to marry the person we love and make a life together.

The train is leaving the station, get aboard.

Gun Stories

Everyone has a gun story, even if it’s “I never touched a gun in my life.” 

On the Nature of the Thing

There is much debate about the essential nature of guns. Here’s my take. In itself a gun is neither good nor evil, but its possession carries a “moral weight” commensurate to its lethal purpose. A gun kills. A gun is not equivalent to a screwdriver or a tape measure. If you’re not willing to heft this moral weight, don’t buy a gun.

 Greetings Neighbor

My brother-in-law lives in a comfortably prosperous neighborhood.

A few weeks ago he rang a doorbell in search of the owner of a lost dog. The homeowner greeted him with a handgun, presumably loaded. “You never know who to expect this time of night,” the homeowner said. My brother-in-law politely agreed before he got the hell out of there.

You don’t make new friends with a gun in your hand. A gun fundamentally alters the relationship between neighbors. Next time my brother-in-law finds a little lost dog, he probably won’t go ringing doorbells.

The Truth

Truth is I don’t know.

I don’t know whether—as the National Rifle Association (NRA) asserts—the answer is more guns in the hands of citizens. I don’t know whether it’s a ban on certain types of weapons. I don’t know whether it’s a ban on certain types of ammunition or large-capacity magazines. I don’t know whether it’s universal background checks, censorship of ultra-violent video games, enforcement of gun laws already on the books, or better care for the mentally ill.  

What I do know is that the status quo is unacceptable: too many people die at the hands of deranged young men with high-powered weapons, too many nominally legal gun purchases find their way into the hands of criminals, and too many lives end violently because a gun is readily available.

It’s not that I don’t have an opinion. My gut is universal background checks, a limit on the size of magazines, and a limit on the number of weapons purchased at one time make perfect sense, and do not meaningfully impinge on anyone’s 2^nd Amendment rights.

Research = Politics

One problem is we don’t have sufficient hard data on gun ownership and gun violence to develop effective public policy. The act of conducting research on guns is itself seen as a political act. According to a December 21, 2012 article in the Wall Street Journal, public and private funding for gun research has largely dried up. This didn't just happen. Since 1996 pro-gun Congressman have added language to appropriation bills that effectively restricts any agency of the federal government from conducting research that might be construed as promoting gun control.

I Shot a Gun and I Liked It

Almost everyone who has ever commented on the gun issue feels a need to demonstrate his or her bona fides.

At age 12 I went to a summer camp where one of the activities was trap shooting. The first real gun I fired was a pump-action 20-gauge shotgun. I “killed” a clay pigeon. It was fun.

Later, I was gunnery officer on the USS Charleston (LKA-113). The ship carried an assortment of small arms, all of which I routinely fired: M-14 automatic rifle, M-79 grenade launcher, M-60 light machine gun, and .45-caliber automatic pistol. We also carried .50-caliber heavy machine guns that could be mounted around the ship.

There’s an undeniable adrenaline kick when you fire a high-powered weapon; in my case it soon passed and usually left me with a headache.

Fathers, Sons & Guns

In Pennsylvania, where I live, fathers usually introduce guns to their sons, and sometimes daughters, through deer hunting. My father did not hunt, so not surprisingly neither do I.

This isn’t to say he was unfamiliar with guns. He joined the Marine Corps as a 17-year old near the end of WW II. His older brother was already serving in the 15^th Armored Division in Europe. He qualified as an expert marksman and carried a Browning Automatic Rifle, a light machine gun. Fortunately the war ended before he had opportunity to use it.

My father kept a small caliber revolver of indeterminate make in his dresser drawer. He dutifully instructed me never to play with it. Still, by age 9 or 10, I would take it out of his dresser drawer and pull the trigger at make-believe bad guys. Fortunately by this time the ammunition had disappeared. I remember well the weapon’s heft and the stiff trigger pull, so different from the toy guns my friends and I played with.

Years later the revolver passed to me after his death, but no ammunition came with it. I had no use for the gun. It resides in some landfill today.

The only gun I ever considered my own was a Daisy air BB gun that I received for my 8^th birthday (essentially it was the same as the “Red Ryder” gun that Ralphie so desperately wished for in The Christmas Story). For many years I shot it at paper targets, tin cans, plastic soldiers, and what-not in my back yard. My father forbade me to shoot at small animals, so I never did.

Why did I obey my father when it came to animals, and not when it came to the revolver in the dresser drawer? I have no idea.

Notwithstanding the many years my dad kept a revolver in his dresser, I sensed that its presence made him uncomfortable. He never thought that gun ownership was a rite of passage. He never discussed the 2^nd Amendment as a right under attack. He never suggested that you should own a gun to prepare for some apocalyptic future, whether a societal breakdown or Big Brother government.

By the way, when did this notion of going to war with the U.S. government become part of the conservative mainstream? I never read it in the pages of William Buckley’s National Review, to which I subscribed for many years. Yet, today, it is bedrock Tea Party doctrine. 

But ideas have consequences...

In 2009 three Pittsburgh police officers were killed and two wounded responding to a domestic disturbance. The shooter was a 22-year old man, who, according to friends, purchased his firearms, including an AK-47, "because he felt the quality of (his) life was being diminished," and feared newly elected President Obama would take away his right to own weapons.

At one time I would have called this guy a wacko, but I have heard much the same thing from people I now call friends.

No Gun Mulligans

The first “gun enthusiast” I encountered was a shipmate on the USS Charleston. Reportedly he was testing the trigger pull on a 9 mm automatic pistol that he had modified for a shooting competition when he blew a hole in his hand. He was alone in his apartment. His name has slipped my memory, but privately my shipmates referred to him as “that fucking idiot.” You see, you don’t get a second chance to screw up with a loaded weapon.

Last December a father’s 9 mm Beretta accidentally discharged in the parking lot of a western Pennsylvania gun shop killing his 7-year old son. This guy is a fucking idiot too.

Gun Sex

Another shipmate of mine, not the one who blew a hole in his hand, was robbed in Hampton, VA, while he and his fiancé slept in their bedroom. They heard but never saw the intruder. The next day he purchased a hand gun. I assume the gun provided some peace of mind. Still, I wonder, was he ever robbed again? Did he keep the gun at his bedside after he married and had children?

Justin Cronin, a self-described Texas liberal, wrote about his come-to-Jesus moment regarding gun ownership in a January 28, 2013 NY Times editorial. Attempting to flee hurricane Rita with his family, Cronin found himself stuck, 50 miles from home, at 2 AM, amidst a multitude, like him, trying to get the hell out of Houston. Although he didn’t observe any outright lawlessness, he experienced a crisis of vulnerability, i.e., it being Texas, he figured most of the people milling about were armed, and, well, he wasn’t. Despite the threat of an oncoming hurricane, he and his family hightailed it back to Houston.

Subsequently Cronin purchased a .38 caliber handgun. But then, he bought another gun, and another, and another, until he owned six; and today he’s planning his next purchase. So what to make of this? Do six guns provide six times the personal safety? Or, as seems more likely, guns are just his adult toys, and personal safety a mere ruse to explain a creepy fascination with guns.

Somebody that I Used to Know

 In middle school I car-pooled with a boy who lived nearby. His mother drove a large Mercedes sedan. We were friends but didn’t hang out together. I think he was a rung or two higher up the social ladder. Several years later, after I had moved away, I learned he had killed himself with his dad’s pistol. And so it goes.

About a year ago a childhood friend disclosed in a profoundly sad public email that he had Huntington’s Disease. Briefly, it is caused by an insidious genetic defect that often does not manifests itself until mid-life. Essentially your brain wastes away. The progression of the disease varies; cognition, mood/behavior, and physical movement all eventually deteriorate.

His end story was relayed to me by mutual friends—I cannot independently confirm it. When one of his adult children came to check on him, he brandished a shotgun at the door. A 911 call followed and a SWAT team arrived on the scene. Negotiations ensued, and ended abruptly when he turned the shotgun on himself. And so it goes.

About 20% of Huntington patients attempt suicide; 7% succeed. Huntington patients should not possess guns.

So Little Time, So Many Gun Deaths

At this point the many mass gun killings blur together. Of course, the memory of Sandy Hook Elementary is still fresh, as is the Aurora movie theater shooting. Columbine stands out, because of the number of fatalities and the creepy partnership between the two socio-pathic teenage shooters. Then there’s the Nickel Mines School in Lancaster, PA, the Gabby Giffords shooting in Tuscon, AZ, et cetera, et cetera.

The online magazine Slate and Twitter feed @Gundeaths have started a crowdsourced tally of U.S. gun deaths since the Sandy Hook massacre on December 14th. At this writing, 69 days later, the tally stands at 1,999 or about 29 gun deaths per day. I'll let the reader decides what this means.

The Strange, Sad Tale of the 2^nd Amendment’s Poster Child

Meleanie Hain at her
daughter's soccer  practice

In 2008, Meleanie Hain, a woman from Lebanon County, one county east of where I live, brought a loaded handgun to her 5-year old daughter’s soccer game. It was legal. She had a permit to carry the gun. Many of the other soccer parents objected. In the ensuing brou-ha-ha, the Lebanon county sheriff revoked her gun-carry permit on the grounds that she displayed poor judgment. By the way I’ve seen fights break out between mothers at youth soccer games, so I tend to think this is the last place you want loaded weapons. In due course a judge returned her permit. For the next several months Meleanie was a poster child for the 2^nd Amendment movement.

Meleanie was all about her right to carry a gun, regardless of any identifiable threat. After the soccer game incident, she complained “the way people look at me sometimes when I am out running errands, I feel as if I am wearing a scarlet letter, and really it’s a Glock 26.”

I suppose that was a witticism. Either she couldn’t see, or didn’t care, that a gun strapped on her hip changed her relationship with the community. As my brother-in-law will attest, you don’t make friends with a loaded gun at your side.

A year later her husband murdered her in their home with his 9mm handgun. Then he took his own life. Her loaded Glock 26 was a few feet away in a backpack hanging on the door. Her three children were unharmed.

The Elusive Truth

When I look back, guns have played a minor part of my life. I am grateful that I never felt compelled to own a gun for personal protection. For me, not needing a gun is a hallmark of civilized society.

As I reported earlier in this post, two people I once called friends used guns to kill themselves. I wonder, is this about normal for someone who has lived 58 years? It seems a lot.

Within my circle of friends, I have never had anyone recount how a gun thwarted a crime or protected their family from harm. I'm not saying it doesn't happen, but apparently it doesn't happen often. My gut is that a gun is much more likely to be involved in an accidental shooting, a suicide, or a domestic homicide than it is to protect anyone. 

The more I listen to people comment on the gun issue, the more convinced I become that we are talking past each other. People, like me, see guns as a personal safety issue that should be judged on a cost-benefit basis (people killed versus protection afforded); we have little in common with people who see guns as somehow fundamental to liberty and their sense of what it means to be an American.

From the Front Lines of the Culture Wars

In the August 3rd Wall Street Journal (WSJ), Jay Richards and James Robison joined the latest skirmish in the culture wars. They argued that the reaction against Chick-fil-A constitutes an “ominous attack on religious freedom,” worse even than the threat posed by Obamacare (no details here, presumably they refer to the mandate for health insurers to provide free contraceptives). 

Richards and Robison are co-authors of “Indivisible: Restoring Faith, Family, and Freedom Before It’s Too Late.” The title subtly hints, I think, at the authors’ position on the cultural issues of the day.

The back story is important here. If you’re familiar with it, skip the next few paragraphs.

Chick-fil-A is by all accounts a highly successful fast food restaurant chain. As you probably already know, its specialty is chicken. There’s a Walmartian feel to the restaurants. The last time I dined at one, grandmotherly women were busing the tables (which, I gotta say, was a little weird).



Dan Cathy, President and COO
of Chick-fil-A

 Chick-fil-A is owned by the Cathy family, which espouses a fundamentalist Southern Baptist Christianity. The family’s religious beliefs underpin its decision to close their restaurants on Sundays. I think it’s fair to say the family intentionally wraps its religion around the Chick-fil-A brand name. Through its nonprofit, the Winshape Foundation, the family has contributed to Exodus International and Focus on the Family, both of which see homosexuality as sinful and attempt to re-orient gay persons away from a gay lifestyle (I won’t attempt to discuss their methods). Most gay people see these groups as inherently anti-gay.

The chain of events that made Dan Cathy, Chick-fil-A’s president, a lightning rod for the same-sex marriage debate is a bit mysterious, suggesting perhaps a slow week for news. On July 16^th the Baptist Press re-posted a story about Dan Cathy that was originally published in the Biblical Recorder newspaper. Somehow it was picked up by the national media, including CNN, and then spread quickly through social media. Here are the lines from the Biblical Recorder story that caused the disturbance in the Force:

"Well, guilty as charged" said Cathy when asked about the company's position.

"We are very much supportive of the family -- the biblical definition of the family unit. We are a family-owned business, a family-led business, and we are married to our first wives. We give God thanks for that.”

 

Granted there are a few code words here, for instance, “biblical definition of the family unit,” but generally this is pretty tame stuff.

Then someone uncovered a June 16^th phone interview with Dan Cathy on The Ken Coleman Show, a syndicated radio show. On this date the show’s theme was Father’s Day. Dan Cathy started with some standard stuff on fatherhood, offered up a few nuggets of homespun wisdom, such as, single-parent families are “emotionally handicapped,” then culminated with this warning:

“…we’re inviting God’s judgment on our nation when we shake our fist at him and say we know better than you as to what constitutes a marriage. And I pray God’s mercy on our generation that has such a prideful, arrogant attitude that thinks we have the audacity to redefine what marriage is all about.”

OK, that’s more like it. Any time you bring in the wrath of God, you’re likely to ruffle a few feathers. Again, no explicit mention of same-sex marriage, but everyone understands what he was talking about.

The next thing you know several northern mayors and the odd alderman are making bombastic threats to impede Chick-fil-A’s expansion into their cities, former Governor Huckabee organizes a “Chick-fil-A Appreciation Day,” and various gay-lesbian groups attempt a national boycott of Chick-fil-A.  And, oh, a lot of same-sex couples post photos of public displays of affection with Chick-fil-A signs in the background.

Back to Richards and Robison’s WSJ editorial…their beef in this latest skirmish of the culture wars is that supporters of same-sex marriage have conspired to intimidate Dan Cathy, and by doing so infringe his freedom of speech and freedom of religion. Richards and Robison specifically call it an attack on religious speech, implying religious speech is a special and protected class of speech.  

For the record Dan Cathy is very clear that while Chick-fil-A is operated according to “biblical principles,” it is a private business, not a religious organization; so the operation of the business cannot be construed as a religious activity.

There’s not much question that the threat of the big-city mayors to deny future licenses or permits to Chick-fil-A would, if acted upon, pose a true free speech issue. As a practical matter few people seemed to take the mayors’ threats very seriously. To be generous I assume they were pandering to their political base.

Religious speech is speech, pure and simple. The Constitution does not distinguish religious speech from political speech. The 1^st Amendment specifically prohibits the government from “abridging the freedom of speech.” What the 1^st Amendment does not do is protect an individual from the commercial or social repercussions of freely speaking; thus Dan Cathy’s public statements that God may punish the nation if it legalizes same-sex marriage and that proponents of same-sex marriage are prideful and arrogant is bound to lose Chick-fil-A customers. These same customers are under no obligation to differentiate Dan Cathy's personal opinions from Chick-fil-A’s corporate culture.

The exercise of free speech is not always free. Those of us who work directly with the public understand this. We generally temper what we say to avoid alienating the people whose goodwill our livelihood depends on. I’m a real estate agent. I cannot recall the last time I saw a fellow agent with a political bumper sticker on his car. We understand that no matter whose sticker we display, we’re likely to alienate half the people we meet. That’s not a good business plan.

The Susan G. Komen Foundation for the Cure, famous for its pink ribbon logo, learned much the same lesson earlier this year. It is (or was, I'm not sure) the largest charity dedicated to fighting women's breast cancer. In January it announced that it would no longer use Planned Parenthood clinics to provide breast cancer screening for poor and uninsured women (granted, Komen's actions were more than speech, but you get my point). Many Komen contibutors felt that defunding Planned Parenthood compromised Komen's mission in order to support the pro-life movement, which has made eradication of Planned Parenthood its priority.  Four days after it defunded Planned Parenthood, it reversed its decision. But the damage was done: Komen was no longer an unsullied champion of women's health, it was just another belligerent in the culture wars. Komen is still trying to repair the damage to both its reputation and pocket book.

Internally Chick-fil-A may have come to the conclusion that it should remain neutral in the gay marriage debate. I note that it issued the following press release on July 19^th, just as things were heating up in the media: "going forward, our intent is to leave the policy debate over same-sex marriage to the government and political arena."

Who is the Leftist of Them All?

On May 2nd Newt Gingrich finally—finally!—curtailed his presidential campaign.  It took about twenty-three minutes to say everything he wanted to say. His nth wife, Callista, stood mutely by his side.

He refused (or delayed) endorsing Mitt Romney. Instead, he asked rhetorically whether Mitt Romney was conservative enough to earn his endorsement, then attempted an answer saying it didn’t really matter because Barack Obama was “the most radical, leftist president in American history.”



Yea, I know...adolescent humor



So much for closing ranks. Don’t expect the Romney campaign to extend an olive branch to Gingrich. One month on, there is a sense that Newt’s star has permanently dipped below the horizon.

Rick Santorum was marginally more gracious in defeat than Gingrich. On May 7th he sent a late-night email to his supporters that it was now OK to sport Romney 2012 bumper stickers.


Rick Santorum, the man who put
 the "cool" back in the sweater vest

This conjures an image of Santorum at his desk at 1:30 AM, throwing back an oversized Scotch, muttering “fuck it,” and hitting send.

But back to Gingrich’s comments regarding Obama’s politics. I have been hearing the Obama is a radical-leftist-socialist from conservative sources since the last election. Still, I wonder, in a technical sense, is Gingrich correct? Is Obama, in fact, the most liberal president in history?

Rating a politician on the liberal-conservative scale is tricky business. Numerous interest groups, such as the American Civil Liberties Union and the American Conservative Union, publish their own ratings. These groups have dog in the fight, so one may reasonably question how unbiased their ratings are.

 National Journals's 2007
 "Most Liberal" Senator of the Year

The National Journal (NJ), which enjoys a reputation for neutrality, has rated Congress since 1981. NJ’s methodology involves cherry picking the key roll-call votes during a calendar year that demonstrate political ideology (and obviously introduces its own bias in the process). It stepped into a political maelstrom during the last presidential election cycle, when it rated then-Senator Obama the most liberal senator in 2007 five days before the Super Tuesday primaries. Senator John McCain jumped on this tidbit, declaiming "It's hard to reach across the aisle from that far to the left."

Closer inspection reveals a more nuanced story. Obama had missed 33 of the 99 roll-call votes NJ used in its ratings system. Meanwhile McCain had missed too many votes to be rated in 2007. Obama only voted differently than Senator Hilary Clinton twice, yet she was rated the 16th most liberal while he was the 1st most liberal, a distinction without much difference. In 2005 and 2006 NJ rated Obama, respectively, the 16th and 10th most liberal senator.

Political science professors Keith Poole and Howard Rosenthal partnered in the 1980s to develop a sophisticated political mapping method which today goes by the acronym DW-NOMINATE (Dynamic Weighted Nominal Three-Step Estimation). Their methodology is not for the statistically faint-of-heart. I refer those curious for background to Keith Poole’s blog Voteview. Suffice it to say that DW-NOMINATE is today’s gold standard for rating politicians.

Using DW NOMINATE Poole and Rosenthal analyzed roll-call votes from the 1st Congress onward on a 2-dimensional scale, where the x-axis represents the traditional left-right position on economic issues, and the y-axis is the position on important regional and social issues (e.g., slavery, civil rights). Poole and Rosenthal infer the position of presidents and presidential candidates from the votes of Senators and Congressman with whom they were clearly aligned.

To get a sense of the party dynamics within the U.S. Congress, watch Voteview's video The History of American Politics in Two Minutes. Note that in the past thirty years the overlap between Republican and Democratic members of Congress has disappeared. The parties have grown further apart and more cohesive. The just-published 2012 values survey by the Pew Research Center reports the same widening gap between registered Republican and Democatic voters.


The smoothed histogram below illustrates the distribution of Senators and Congressmen along the traditional left-right economic scale in 2007. By the way the DW-NOMINATE score represents a poltician's cumulative voting record. Senators Clinton and Obama effectively fell on top of each other. Their score of -0.43 puts them slightly to the left of the typical Democrat. Senator McCain with a score of +0.33 was slightly to the left of a typical Republican. Nonetheless, in the year these three Senators ran for president, each represented the political mainstream for his/her respective party. On the other hand President George W. Bush's score of +0.76 put him on the far-right of the Republican Party.



DW-NOMINATE scores for 2007 Congress on the
 traditional liberal-conservative economic scale

 With the success of Tea Party candidates in 2010, the Republican Party has undoubtedly shifted towards Bush, which makes it all the more curious that the current Republican Party largely repudiates its last and most conservative president.


Poole and Rosenthal used the DW-NOMINATE method to score the political position of presidents from World War II forward (shown below). The remarkable observation here is that Obama's presidency so far has proved to be the least liberal of any Democratic president since and including Harry Truman. He is still liberal, but as the chief executive he has governed more moderately than he previously legislated as a senator. Meanwhile the Republican presidents starting with Eisenhower have moved steadily to the right.




DW-NOMINATE scores for presidents from 1945 to present
 (based on roll-call votes on which a president clearly articulated his position)

 There's an old saw that if you repeat something often enough, it must be true. This seems to apply to Republican claims regarding Obama's politics. As a political tactic, it has a long and disreputable history. But undoubtedly it can be effective. For historical perspective here's Lyndon Johnson's infamous "Daisy" attack ad from 1964. It was part of a concerted effort to convince voters that the conservative Senator Barry Goldwater could not be trusted with nuclear weapons.

There is considerable irony in this whole Obama-leftist-socialist thing: the Republican Party moves away from the political center, then complains that the Democratic president is too far from the political center, and, thus, not truly American. Ah, such is poilitcs. This is why we need the occasional reality check.

Whatever you think about President Obama's leadership quaities, he is clearly not the closet socialist his opponents would have us believe. He continues the moderate liberal tradition of Democratic presidents going back to Harry Truman.

Does America Need A DREAM Act?

Lady Liberty

What is this land America, so many travel there.
I'm going now while I'm still young, my darling meet me there.
Wish me luck my lovely, I'll send for you when I can;
And we'll make our home in the American land

American Land, Verse 1 by Bruce Springsteen

DREAM Act = Development, Relief and Education for Alien Minors Act

If the DREAM Act has a poster child, Staff Sergeant Luis Lopez is probably it. The Wall Street Journal published his story in February 2011. In brief, his parents brought him to the U.S. as an eight year old in 1990. They overstayed their tourist visa. He grew up in Los Angeles. After high school he used fake documents to enlist in the U.S. Army, eventually serving ten years, including deployments to Iraq and Afghanistan. By all accounts he was a brave and competent soldier. In December 2010 Sergeant Lopez told his army superiors that he was an illegal alien and was applying for U.S. citizenship. When an army official referenced his fake enlistment documents as evidence that he had not served honorably, it put his citizenship application in jeopardy.  Fortunately for Sergeant Lopez, his commanding officer went to bat for him, and he was eventually granted citizenship.


Sergeant Luis Lopez

Sergeant Lopez’s story is far from unique. Out of an illegal immigrant population of 11 million, there are about 765,000 who came to the U.S. before the age of sixteen and effectively grew up “American.” Approximately 65,000 young adults in this category graduate from high school each year. They inhabit a kind of legal-cultural limbo: they identify as American, yet they cannot legally work in the U.S. Furthermore, current immigration policy makes it almost impossible for them to ever live and work legally in the U.S.


[Note: Posted population estimates for illegal immigrants vary considerably, so these statistics are a bit fuzzy, but adequate for this discussion]


It was to help people like Sergeant Lopez that the DREAM Act was first proposed in 2001. It provides a path to U.S. citizenship for this subgroup of illegal immigrants. There are conditions. They must have entered the U.S. before age sixteen, lived continuously in the U.S. for five years, graduate from high school, possess good moral character, and either serve in the military or attend a four-year college for two years. Do all this and they earn six years of conditional legal residency; successfully complete their degree program or military service, and they may apply for permanent legal status. Bottom line: the DREAM Act is not an easy road to citizenship.


The original DREAM Act did not pass in 2001. An amended version passed the House during the lame duck session of Congress in 2010, however, it could not muster sixty Senate votes necessary to overcome a filibuster. While the bill’s sponsors tried to narrow the scope of the DREAM Act, and so keep it apart from the larger questions regarding immigration and border policy, it seems the two cannot be easily separated.


Polling data suggests the country is split on immigration policy. According to Pew Research Center, 29% of Americans think the highest priority is better border security, 24% think it is a path to citizenship, and 48% think border security and a path to citizenship are equal priorities. 

 

Senator John McCain (R-Arizona),
former presidential candidate
 and well-known maverick


Originally the DREAM Act had sponsors on both sides of the political aisle. Today support for the act closely follows party line, with Republicans, especially those associated with the Tea Party, opposing the act, and Democrats supporting it. It is noteworthy that such Republican stalwarts as Senators McCain (R-AZ), Kyl (R-AZ), and Graham (R-SC) recently changed their position on the DREAM Act, most likely in response to pressure from the Tea Party wing. John McCain had co-sponsored the DREAM Act in 2007.

Fundamentally the DREAM Act is about American values. It forces us to ask What do we think about immigrants? and Do illegal immigrants who entered the U.S. as children merit special consideration for citizenship?

Senator Jeff Sessions (R-Alabama),
leading opponent of the DREAM Act

Senator Jeff Sessions (R-AL) lead the Senate opposition against the DREAM Act, declaiming in late 2010, “This bill is a law that at its fundamental core is a reward for illegal activity.” It is noteworthy that Session’s home state, Alabama, recently passed the most draconian anti-immigrant legislation. Prior to the last vote on the DREAM Act, he circulated a memo outlining reasons to oppose the act. He argued that the act would encourage more illegal immigration, lead to mass chain immigration, and saddle taxpayers with more federal debt. In his worldview illegal immigrants enter the U.S. to pursue criminal activity, such as running guns or drugs, and to suck on the public teat. Session’s unspoken goal, and the goal of the recent Alabama legislation, is to create conditions so noxious and restrictive that illegal immigrants will self deport, a term that recently surfaced in Mitt Romney's  presidential primary campaign.

Missing entirely from Senator Session’s calculus is the long term economic value of immigrants and the moral question posed by people like Sergeant Lopez. The famous line inscribed on the Statue of Liberty,

“Give me your tired, your poor, your huddled masses yearning to breathe free…,”

The 1920's revival of the KKK
migrated north and introduced
the quaint tradition of crossburning

carries no significance or weight. And whether a child raised in the U.S. has the language skills, cultural understanding, and social network to survive in his/her country of origin is a question apparently not worthy of consideration. Context is important, so it should not be forgotten that the drug war in Mexico has claimed more than 50,000 lives, and being deported to that country is not like being deported to Sweden.

For the student of history the current anti-immigration fever is reminiscent of the nativist movement of the early 20^th century, which culminated in the Emergency Quota Act of 1921. It capped immigration of what many Americans then thought of as less-than-desirable Catholics and Jews from eastern and southern Europe. It was closely associated with the 1920s revival of the Ku Klux Klan.

I docked at Ellis Island in the city of light and spire.
I wandered to the valley of red-hot steel and fire.
We made the steel that built the cities with the sweat of our two hands.
We made our home in the American land.

American Land, Verse 4 by Bruce Springsteen

President Ronald Reagan believed
immigrants represent an essential
American value

What is perhaps most ironic in all this is that a political generation ago President Reagan, the conservative’s conservative, championed a path to citizenship through the 1986 Immigration Reform and Control Act.  Speaking in a 1984 debate, President Reagan said “I believe in the idea of amnesty for those who have put down roots and lived here, even though sometime back they may have entered illegally.” He appreciated that people who immigrate to the U.S. overwhelmingly seek personal liberty and economic opportunity. He understood that the passion and energy of new immigrants helps grow the economy. He also saw the large illegal immigrant population as rife for exploitation, which greatly troubled him.



Many of those who knew and worked with Reagan have expressed their belief that Reagan would strongly endorse today’s DREAM Act. For him it would embody the American values represented by the Statue of Liberty. It would provide the most worthy subgroup of illegal immigrants with an opportunity to share the American dream. It would chip away at the population of easily exploited illegal immigrants. Finally, he would see the future contributions of DREAM Act children as both strengthening our economy and reinforcing traditional American values.

So, yes America, we need a DREAM Act.

The McNicholas, the Posalskis, the Smiths, Zerillis too*,
The Blacks, the Irish, Italians, the Germans and the Jews,
They come across the water a thousand miles from home
With nothing in their bellies but the fire down below.

They died building the railroads, they worked to bones and skin;
They died in the fields and factories, names scattered in the wind; They died to get here a hundred years ago, they're still dying now;
Their hands that built the country we're always trying to keep out.

American Land, Verses 4 and 5 by Bruce Springsteen


* Bruce Springsteen's mother's maiden name was Zerilli.


Here's Springsteen and the E Street Band playing a footstomping, kickass rendition of American Land.