If This Is "Our Tsunami"

If Katrina's devestation is really as awful people claim it will be, let's hope the world is more generous then we were. Thanks Bushy.

Head Left, Young Man

We've been following a discussion that Hoboken Blogger Mister Snitch! started a few days back when he posed the question "Why are Democrats heading left?"

There were several suggestions, including one conservative who said it was probably more fun for Democrats to move to the left. However, we're going to argue it also makes sense strategically.

One of the most basic models to explain voter's political outlook is a simple curve:


At either end of the spectrum are small groups of liberal and conversative voters. Moderate positions in the center find the most support with voters. The diagram is a simple one, and no specific issue defines a particular person as liberal or conservative [indeed, what is "liberal" or "Conversative" is really a matter of an era's zeitgeist].

Meanwhile, because of single member districts-- that is, 1 district, 1 winner -- two parties coming from either end of the spectrum should have roughly an equal breakdown of elected officials:



Very conservative and very liberal politicians rarely are elected because so few people on the spectrum share their views. Also as a result, because the largest portion of the population is moderate or centrist in their views, both parties push to the center of the spectrum in an effort to gain a majority. Still, this would tend to mean that both parties would have a roughly equal portion of congress, and shared power.

However, what has happened instead is that the Republican party has struck a balance of centrist politicians and conservative politicians. In essence, because Democrats were making gains in the center of the spectrum of voters, the Republican party turned to the right of the spectrum to turn the balance and gain a majority.



At either extreme of the political spectrum there are still no elected officials. But the Republican party is relying on extreme conservatives to hold onto their majority. In recent years, Democrats have moved right to try and capture some of those votes. Bill Clinton accomplished this when he was elected, moving just to the right of the center. Conservatives of course would argue that Clinton was the devil's spawn. But compare Clinton to Roosevelt or Carter. Or Ted Kennedy. Clinton was right of center compared to these folks.

In either case, if Democrats continue to move Right, they will cease to moving towards the center. Instead, they will creep towards the conservative side of the spectrum-- where Republicans already dominate. There is no strategic advantage to move further right, to become more conservative. For one thing, the moment you move away from the center, the percentage of voters who share those views begins to drop. For another, republicans have already pretty much locked up the conservative voters. Sure, the Republican party could continue moving right [some might argue the conservative movement in the Republican party is like a freight train and will not be able to stop moving to the right, even if they now wanted to]. Hovever, for Democrats to win by moving right, Republicans would have to move to the marginalized extremes while giving up the moderate center. Its unlikely the Republican party will completely purge their moderate voices.

So instead, the only place left for Democrats to move and pick up voters, is to the left.


As illustrated here, if democrats were to move left [the lighter blue], there is a much large number of voters to be gained then moving a small degree to the right-- and Democrats can move to the left with interference from Republicans who control the right.

Meanwhile, since the Republican party already has moved dramatically to the far right, a small step to the left for democrats yields more voters than a small step to the right for republicans.



Illustrated above in the light red is the possible movement of Republicans towards the right alongside the light blue of Democrats moving to the left. Note how many more voters Democrats gain moving left than Republicans gain moving right, by adjusting their platforms roughly, the same amount in the opposite direction.

So head left young man.

Some problems with our analysis:
Its a very simplistic model of voter trends to create a single line. There are alot of complex issues at work. There is also the problem of campaigning-- that some candidates raise and spend more money, or sometimes a candidate turns out to be a dud, not because of political leanings but because of some more abstract issue. There are bound to be a few congressional districts that accidentally elect a candidate that doesnt share the views of the district. This also does not take into account the power of incumbancy, which is a very strong force in campaigns indeed. It also fails to address gerrymandering where one party realigns congressional districts to favor their party. Party politics is a very complex issue, but simplifying the information as was done here, we believe, hold true to the data while explaining why Democrats must move left in order to win.

Immigration and Terrorism

Since 9-11 conservative minded citizens in the United States have grown ever more anti-immigrant. This is not to say they were not anti-immigrant before 9-11, but it certainly seems that instead of embracing the melting pot of the last century, Americans are even more fearful.

But there is one county in particular that Americans, particularly western Americans, hate to see people coming from: Mexico. Since 9-11, the Mexican border has sucked away resources in an attempt to abate the flood of illegals coming over the Southern border. A citizens group calling themselves the Minutemen Border patrol has even gone out and augmented government border patrols. The Minutemen claim success, though the government is concerned that they set off motion sensors and could be caught in harms way.

The solution to making the country more secure from terrorists is simple: ease restrictions on immigrants of Mexican Nationality.

This is not to say that the borders should just be opened up and anyone allowed to cross. However, any Mexican looking to leave Mexico to come to the United States should be allowed, legally to do so.

First, by creating a legal avenue for Mexican immigrants to come into the united states, few, if any, would dare risk entering the country illegally, thereby greatly reducing the demand of resources the current border patrol has. This would mean that American border patrols could concentrate on preventing the illegal importation of drugs, weapons, and bombs. Also because few, if any non-violent, non-threatening immigrants would try to come across illegally, the only people coming over the border would be threats to national security, and would therefore more easily be caught.

Meanwhile, many of the reasons people are anti-immigrant-- that is, reasons other than fear of terrorism-- are only exaserbated by restricted immigration. Opponents of immigration often cite the burden on tax payers and that immigrants take American jobs. Both are caused by the fact that immigrants are illegal, not that they are immigrants.

Illegal immigrants do not have social security numbers, and hence do not pay taxes. Legal immigrants however, do. Since illegal immigrants still use resources that are funded by taxes but contribute nothing, they are a burden. However, legal immigrants who pay taxes pay taxes in proportion to the amount of services they use like any other citizen, and therefor are not a burden.

Illlegal immigrants work for less than minimum wage because they don't pay taxes, and hence take low end jobs American citizens are not willing to do. However, legal immigrants will earn at least minimum wage because they paying taxes and it is the law. Certainly employers who use illegal immigrant labor could still pay employees under the table, less than minimum wage. However, a legal immigrant has dramatically more to lose evading taxes than an illegal immigrant does, and more importantly, an illegal immigrant has no choice but to evade taxes because they do not have social security number, but a legal immigrant, having a choice, will more than likely choose not to break the law.

[If more people chose to break the law than not break the law, then there would not be any reason to have the law. If the law is openly broken frequently, it is because penalties for breaking the law are low. For example, many people think nothing of exceeding speed limits by 5 mph. Why? the penalty for doing so is very low, and the law is infrequently enforced. Thus people do not see it as wrong. The same person however, is unlikely to walk into Barnes and Noble and leave without paying for books. Why? The penalty for stealing is high, relative to the gain of stealing a few books. While most people are willing to speed, few are willing to steal. Legal Immigrants who can pay taxes are unlikely not to pay taxes because, like stealing a book from Barnes and Noble, evading taxes has a high penalty.]

Finally, current citizens will have less of a threat of having their identity stolen. Often, illegal immigrants purchase identification from ID brokers who provide them with forms, documentation, and social security numbers so that they can get public utilities like gas and electric, obtain jobs that require social security numbers and obtaining documents like driver's licenses. But Legal immigrants have all this documentation because they have obtained it legally. There for the demand for stolen identities will decrease. As the demand decreases, the value of a stolen ID decreases. As the value decreases, the cost of getting caught-- that is the likelihood combined with the penalty-- increases. Since legal immigrants will lower the value of stolen ID's, less identities will be stolen.

Again, we're not advocating to open the borders. Instead, Mexicans looking to immigrate to the United States would apply, and then within a few months after a background check to ensure that they are not terrorists, admitted to the country and provided the correct paper work. Since many Mexican immigrants pay truck drivers several thousand dollars to drive them illegally over the border, the United States could merely charge a processing few to pay for the cost of background checks. Not only would this mean the process would cost nothing to confirm an immigrant's status, the United States could even turn a profit on immigrants. At the same time, less would be needed to be spent patroling the Mexican border.

Changing American immigrant policy to reflect the real needs of the world today would save taxpayers money while making American borders more secure. So you still think too many Mexicans are coming to the Unite States? Well think about this, a dozen 9-11 hijackers were Saudi Arabian, and none were Mexican.

Roadtrip

Round trip to Cape Cod: 620 Miles
McDonalds: 2

Men With Small Packages Buy SUVs

Its Official. Men who are afraid they don't live up to size are more likely to buy an SUV. They are also more likely to support the war.

We're against the war and drive a Civic, so that should give you an idea about how we measure up.