I’ve never been a fan of Glenn Beck. He is prone to hyperbole, has a bizarre grasp of history, and as someone whose job it is to speak four hours a day, can play fast and loose with his lips. That said, the evil that the Left ascribes to this man is itself exaggerated, and the sheer fear with which they approach him is a source of much hilarity.

For all his professional faults, I admire the story of his personal renewal. Americans love a comeback story, even when we’re not privy to see the trainwreck. It is his rise from alcoholism that informs Glenn Beck’s politics and world view. It’s no secret that he is a Mormon, and yet he does not preach Mormonism on his show. Yes, there are strong religious undertones, but what do you expect from a man who has his newfound faith to thank for his survival?

When he organized the Restoring Honor rally this past Saturday, the Left went ballistic. It happens to be the anniversary of MLK‘s speech, and to the Left, this was their day. To them, the idea that Glenn Beck would hold a rally of white people, whom they consider nothing more than racists and bigots, was so offensive it was unacceptable. The sheer vitriol the Left felt towards their fellow Americans was astounding, but not surprising. They have disdained the Right for a very long time.

I’ve never been a fan of Glenn Beck. There’s a subset of his audience that is uncritical of his words and adopts his ideas as gospel truth. This is not his fault, considering that every pundit and two-bit philosopher in the media has their fair share of sheep. But I like how his Restoring Honor rally was not about following his ideas, but a gathering of people in need of fellowship.

Of course, the Left was seen sarcastically wondering whether the “Honor” Beck wants to restore was code for such past sins as slavery, segregation and the racism that inspired those situations. The Left was seen mocking the crowd that day, as they do every day anyway. But the rally itself was not about the Left. This was not a campaign rally, to promote Beck’s anointed candidates. Even their special guest, Sarah Palin, wasn’t speaking in partisan terms.

What wasthe Honor that Beck wanted for so many to restore? Doctor Zero has a few ideas. This was a rally that aimed for a personal and spiritual restoration for the people who attended, that they may bring their experiences that day back home, to share with their loved ones and neighbors.

I’m not quite sure whether we can measure his success, but even if the low estimate of three hundred thousand people went back home and tried to start change with themselves first, and reach out to the neighbors around them, then that’s three hundred thousand minor evangelists, not for a religion but for a movement of ideas.

I have heard of this 9-12 project, which ties in closely with Glenn Beck’s show and has been adopted the various Tea Party organizations. I think this movement, one borne on ideas and values, scares the Left, because it competes with them, not in terms of policy proposals, but with values and principles. Anyone (yes, despite the use of capital-G God) can be a part of it. The Left, along with belligerent atheists, would have you believe that one is unwelcome in such a schema. They are after all, competing for your attention and world view.

So why the title, then? Am I calling Beck a paragon? A charlatan? He is a little bit of both but also completely neither, at least by definition. What he might be is the man who helps us realize what we need, as a country (and no, it’s not to buy gold).

We have been, since the Bush election, a nation hurting for healing and catharsis. The 2000 election was so acrimonious that the country has been in a contentuous state since then. The 9/11 attacks, the subsequent wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, and the numerous politcal scandals have done little to help bring our country together. When our current president ran for office, he tried to sell that uniter schtick. I didn’t buy it, but enough people did and he is where he is now.

There is a terrible sense of buyer’s remorse, though. Moderate Republicans and Libertarians who broke for him in 2008 will unlikely vote for him today. He broke promises to his base, while enacting enough of his Leftist agenda to lull a large number of people while simultaneously inciting his enemies. The healer-in-chief never materialized, and with every issue, he stands behind his lectern, wagging his finger at us on every issue imaginable, whether it’s race relations or the Ground Zero Mosque.

Our president sold himself as a paragon and yet is nothing more than a charlatan. Now, we are faced with the temptation to find paragons wherever we can find them, when in fact the more important thing is to decentralize our hopes and aspirations over many public servants. Take this conclusion by Smitty (emphasis mine):

Here is something of a conclusion: let us be as forgiving as genuine repentance allows, but, more importantly, strive to diminish the importance of individuals in running the government, so that the negative impact of personal failings is reduced.

I’ve never been a fan of Glenn Beck, but if, in examining him, we realize that it’s time we stopped looking for paragons and instead started making paragons out of ourselves, then he’d have made a great contribution in improving politics for all of us.

Last night on his blog, Greg Gutfeld—in verbiage reminiscent of the Cordoba Initiative’s own—announced that he plans on putting up a gay bar speicifcally marketed to gay Muslims:

I’m announcing tonight, that I am planning to build and open the first gay bar that caters not only to the west, but also Islamic gay men. To best express my sincere desire for dialogue, the bar will be situated next to the mosque Park51, in an available commercial space.

This is not a joke. I’ve already spoken to a number of investors, who have pledged their support in this bipartisan bid for understanding and tolerance.

As you know, the Muslim faith doesn’t look kindly upon homosexuality, which is why I’m building this bar. It is an effort to break down barriers and reduce deadly homophobia in the Islamic world.

The proposal turned out to be quite popular among fellow Conservatives, and led to a hashtag game of proposed names for the site. Many of the names are, of course off-colour, although “Ba’ath House” is a personal favorite.

Gutfeld’s gambit is paying off. A lengthy exchange on Twitter has the official @Park51 account revising their description of the project multiple times. The Cordoba Initiative, whose website is still SEO seeded for terms including “Ground Zero,” has renamed their project from “Cordoba Mosque” to “Park 51,” after the historical significance of Cordoba, Spain and the Caliphate there was laid bare. Today, I’ve seen them call the building a “Muslim modeled YMCA or JCC with a prayer space.” (Screenshot.) The rest of @Park51‘s tweets have taken on a defensive and annoyed character. It’s as if the author forgot that people may challenge him.

This manoeuvre is even doubly effective in its timing. As I tweeted: “Gutfeld’s timing is perfect. After the Prop 8 ruling decreed tat [sic] opposition to homosexuality is bigotry, they have no wiggle room.” @Park51′s tweets in response to Gutfeld had a visible nervousness to them. Perhaps they never imagined that someone would take this line of attack. By opposing this project on the account that it may offend Muslims’ sensibilities, @Park51 has basically refused to extend the courtesy that it demanded.

Today, Greg Gutfeld checkmated Imam Rauf and his terrible Twitter operator. Everything else is detail.

Three events this week have proven the difficult times ahead for us Conservatives, and I have a few thoughts on them.

NYC’s Approval of the “Ground Zero Mosque”

The Cordoba Iniative, whose funding sources for the “mega-mosque” (come on, it’s only thirteen stories, right) remain unproven, has made it clear that they will use the phrase “Ground Zero” in their SEO seeding (Google Search) and screenshot). Previous articles on their news section keeps on mentioning the World Trade Center site as one of the primary reasons for building their site.

You can imagine how many people find this offensive, right? Except if you do find it offensive, you are hereby a bigot. This is Conservatism’s first defeat this week: that opposition to this mosque on any grounds has become successfully painted as unjustifiable, irrational anti-Islamic bigotry. There is a syntactical and semantic differnce between a “mosque close to the World Trade Center site” and “Ground Zero Mosque,” so much so that Cordoba itself has renamed the project “Park 51.”

I feel no sorrow for Imam Rauf renaming his project as such, considering that he reminds me of me before my conversion to Conservatism. It was a faux pas for Rauf, and it’s a tragedy that for years now a Greek Orthodox Church has been fighting red tape to get construct their place of worship. Apparently there’s a mosque the same distance from the World Trade Center site as Rauf’s mosque, and no one’s complained. There’s also a mosque at the Pentagon, and no one’s complained.

Neither mosque has been marketed as triumphantly and as proudly as Rauf’s. That’s why no one’s complained.

Proposition 8 in California ruled unconstitutional

There is not enough room on this blog nor in my headspace to discuss this at depth, at least not with the limited time I have these days. Long and short: I like the outcome in that extending marriage to gays as a convenient and legal means of recognizing a family (albeit different from what we’re used to) makes sense. I call upon all homosexual couples to live a moral life, and form exemplary families to prove the detractors wrong.

There will be dark days ahead for this ruling. The politics of this will be far-reaching, and I do personally worry that this is going to stoke Conservative anger towards gays. Not in the sense of the violence of the era of closeted group dates, but because it would be harder for remaining gay-related political issues to be advocated for that requires broad appeal.

From an outside-looking-in perspective, Proposition 8 was a huge mistake for California Conservatives in the first place. It’s like that state is so fucked up that the only thing their politicians could think of is to use wedge issues for political gain and it has backfired royally. The worst place to advocate a gay marriage ban is a gay-friendly state like California. Proposition 8 was a myopic attempt, and politically it was on the level of the Battle of Cannae from the perspective of the Romans.

I’ve only started reading the ruling. I am dismayed by some of the judge’s statements, but they are what they are and they will be tested in the higher courts.

After five long years, Harriet Miers has finally been confirmed to the Supreme Court.

Elena Kagan’s duplicity in her senate hearings, her lack of judicial experience and her views on abortion all disqualify her in my book. Elections have consequences, and this is one of them. The Republicans who voted for her (Collins, Gregg, Lugar, Grassley, Graham) have their reasons. She would’ve been confirmed anyway. Her confirmation is a bitter reminder of what happens when your party sucks so much monkey balls you get devastated into irrelevance after a contentuous election like 2008.

We are facing at least twenty years of a Justice Kagan, and I, for one, look forward to her judicial opinions. May they be grounded in firm legal reasoning, despite her obvious partisanship. I do hope she recuses herself from cases she’s argued in the past that then makes it to the Supreme Court. In that, maybe we will be blessed with two years of an impotent justice Kagan.

So, that’s it.

The past week has been a political bloodbath for Conservatism. I call upon fellow Conservatives to act strategically and react prudently to these developments. Let’s not panic, and let’s not act in anger. Sadly, for too many, I know this is a tall order.

The outcome of every political movement follows one of three archetypes: failure, success through integration into the social fabric, and lastly, an overstay of welcome. Examples of failure and far and wide. I’d rather not list them. Success, such as the suffragette movement, has made our history of not giving women the vote an embarrassing afterthought.

And then we have the overstayers, the ones who after success or failure just haven;t learned to go away for some reason. As time marches on, these movements and the organizations around them lose their way. They end up losing sight of the goal, branching beyond their original missions, sometimes into self-parody.

Advocacy groups need to know when to bow out or reassess their raison d’etre. Recently, some chapters of the Log Cabin Republicans (for whom I’ve done design work, just as a disclaimer) have engaged in actions that go beyond the stated mission of advancing gay rights. They’ve aligned with Liberals in promoting Liberal policies, instead of remembering that they are a Republican group, or even, a group of Republicans.

Today’s news is that a woman by the name of Shirley Sherrod, in a speech to members of the NAACP, recounts her experience in giving aid to a white farmer back in 1986. Her own words, as reported by Fox News, from a video by Andrew Breitbart:

“He had to come to me for help. What he didn’t know while he was taking all that time trying to show me he was superior to me was I was trying to decide just how much help I was going to give him,” she said. “I was struggling with the fact that so many black people have lost their farmland and here I was faced with having to help a white person save their land — so I didn’t give him the full force of what I could do. I did enough.”

The discussion on Twitter has been going on all day. It’s gone from acrimonious to intellection and everything in between. One of the more…polite exchanges I’ve had was with Jim Keenan, who wrote a very thoughtful post. In it, among the many important points he makes, he notes that the NAACP has basically overstayed its purpose:

NAACP, your time is up. The enemy is no longer “the system.” It’s time to change your charter or shut down.

Jesse Jackson, Dan Gilbert was not being racist in expressing his feelings towards LeBron’s defection. Jesse you were, by assuming his comments were racially motivated on the sole data point that LeBron is a brother. Jesse, when the enemy was “the man,” when systematic racism was embedded in the fabric of this country, you were a leader, a deliverer of sorts and you did your job well. You pulled away “the mans” grip on the system and set the path for a black President, black CEO’s like Richard Parsons Ursula Burns and Kenneth Chenault and for that I thank you and we area all indebted to you. But, it is now time stop. Your approach is outdated. It is ineffective and misaligned. It could be argued, your outdated approaches are setting us back as they continue to operate from the fact the system is racist. This assumption is offensive to the millions of white Americans who aren’ racist, those who support diversity and have been part of the solution for years. Enough Jessee, the NAACP, and my fellow brothers and sisters who are still angry and are fighting yesterdays fight.

“Fighting yesterday’s fight.” I like that. I didn’t grow up in America, and bigotry in the Philippines is more fueled by social status, familial pedigree and regionalism. We studied the history of the USA, though, and I find the concept of race relations in this country both boggling, fascinating and annoying. Because of the constant flux between populations, people moving in and around the country, different values are shared amongst different groups of people.

Today’s race relations are different from those as recent as 1986, and the speed by which information exchanges will change race relations even more so, and faster. Back in 1984 (IIRC) my mother went on a trip to San Francisco with a friend and his family. When they entered a department store, a sales associate shadowed them at every turn, watching closely, making sure she and her friend didn’t steal anything. Never mind the fact that my mom’s friend happened to be the wife of a Philippine Member of Parliament. The reputation of my people at the time was that we’re far from trustworthy. When I moved to the States in 2001, I never experienced that, not even from the most insular “rednecks” in Maryland.

Groups still believe in, and exhibit, stereotypes and archetypes. I’ve personally observed Asians’ and Hispanics’ attitudes towards African Americans and I can say that the relationships between these many groups have a long way to go. That said, I believe that if there’s one thing that can help us get together, beyond groups and racial designations is that we are all Americans. It’s the whole point of being in America! We have immigration problems in Arizona and other states because (in part), legal or not, a large number of immigrants do not see themselves as American. We need to promote this value, and I think that the current trends on how we treat the concept of diversity needs reexamining.

Shirley Sherrod may very well be the victim of her own unfortunate verbiage. She may have openly admitted to racist thoughts, and a decision, twenty-four years ago, based on race. Take all that, and consider that Shirley Sherrod is no more a victimizer as she is a reminder that we have a long way to go to be at our best.

The lines are drawn: General McChrystal’s insubordination has divided Conservatives between those who find his actions unacceptable, and those who excuse his actions to further the broader narrative of an incompetent president.

The facts are simple. Obama is still President and Commander-in-Chief, McChrystal is still a general. The CiC still calls the shots and grievances in the military are still carried through the chain of command. Talking to the press like this is a violation of this protocol. I dislike Obama, and have made it clear in the many posts I have written on my blog, but I dislike what’s going on with McChrystal even more. You’d think that after the lessons of history from Douglas McArthur’s tiff with Truman, a contemporary general would know better, but no.

To my Conservative friends: switch some names around, look at this issue broadly, and ask yourself whether you would react this way if it were any general and the President were George W. Bush? What if Petraeus’ aides were reported on being on the record as calling the VP names, and basically calling Bush incompetent? Would you cheer? If you’re Conservative, probably not. If you’re Liberal, you probably already cheered on a critical general in the form of General Shinseki.

Friends, it’s very simple. Our military and its dynamic with the civilian leadership has to maintain a high level of professionalism that wouldn’t be found in government alone, nor in corporate life. We don’t need McChrystal’s opinion, no matter how factual, no matter how much we dislike the current President, no matter how much it works to our advantage. We need our generals to be better than Shinseki and McChrystal, and we need ourselves to be at our best so as not to promote or encourage this kind of misbehavior.

The usual warning applies: just because I’ve been amiss in blogging doesn’t mean I’ve tuned out from all the news that’s generally unavoidable. I’m well aware of the oil spill from Deepwater Horizon. I know that this doesn’t look too good for offshore drilling, but the investigation into this matter will take more time that it does to rush to judgment. I choose to wait on lengthy commentary about that.

Here is, however, something I need to get off my chest. As a Conservative convert (been rocking Reagan since 2003), I am not ignorant of the anti-intellectual tactics and mistakes that the American Left does on a regular basis. I made those same mistakes when I was a Filipino Leftist, so. There’s this annoying meme floating around the Twitterverse about how the Deepwater Horizon spill is our current president’s “Katrina,” in that he took “so long” to respond to a crisis. Moreso, that he delayed action in order to further prove the dangers of offshore drilling.

That “moreso” part is so beyond the ability for anyone to prove absent documentation it’s not even worth addressing. But the fact that he “took so long” to respond? Everyone and their mother, and those without mothers, knows that I am no fan of our current president. However, my intellectual integrity is more important than fulminating against him.

I tweeted: In 9/11/01, Liberals expected GWB to jump into a phonebooth, don some spandex and block a plane from hitting a building. #RememberThat and followed up with: So, just as a reminder to my Conservative friends, let’s not give BO TOO MUCH flack for “not reacting fast enough” to the oil spill, ok?

I don’t think we should expect whomever sits in the office of the president to have a secret box where he can change into some spandex-clad demigod, fly into the scene of a travesty and make everything better “just by doing something.” To hold our current president to account for not acting quickly enough is to validate the years-long criticism by the Left that George W. Bush—upon receiving news of the 9/11 attacks—sat back and continued reading My Pet Goat isntead of “reacting fast enough.”

I will never, never forgive the Left for the base disrespect they showed the Office Of The President because they despised who was occupying it. I won’t fall into the trap of excusing my behavior by citing theirs as validating precedent. No way.

When our current president vocally, candidly and not since Andrew Jackson oh so petulantly lambasted—in a forum no less important than the State Of The Union address—the SCOTUS for the Citizens United ruling, it prompted Associate Justice Alito to silently mouth “not true” at the numerous falsehoods spewing from the mouth of the boy-king. Our current president’s demagoguery and incitement to overrule by statute a SCOTUS ruling days after it’s been released was the most uncomfortable and disturbing moment of the SOTU.

It boggles my mind that the only understanding Liberals have of Citizens United is that it allows “massive infusions of cash and unlimited contributions to a candidate.” True to form, my generally Liberal friends have an aversion to the mixture of money and politics. I can’t say “I don’t understand” why they think this way, because I do. Sadly, many see the world as a conflict between laborers and the people who employ them. Too many believe that the State has a vested interest in igniting this conflict, that the State may gain control of the means of Production.

What they won’t acknowledge is the diametrically opposed world view that the State is a necessary evil that exists with every bureaucratic breath to control people, including the corporations they form. The State simultaneously enslaves and represents people. The difference between Liberals and Conservatives when it comes to the role of the State is how much benefit of the doubt is afforded to it.

I have little patience for the incuriosity they’ve exhibited towards Citizens United. They hear the words “corporation,” “money” and “contributions” and their ears turn to tin; their blood turns to steam. A “corporation” in the context of this ruling is nothing more than the legal entity that represents a collection of human beings. Citizens United extends the right of free speech to this collection of people, to spend their money to speak about a particular candidate.

Political speech is more free now, but not unlimited. Defamation, libel and slander laws have not changed. The reputation of a corporation is also at play. If a corporation, great or small, wants to campaign for or against a candidate, they risk facing the wrath, or receiving the love, of their clientele. They have to balance their budget used for campaigning, or else they can lose their entire business. What the SCOTUS did in this ruling is to force consequences through a more organic process.

Consider: if Coca-Cola, PepsiCo, or Bank Of America were to advertise against our current president, they risk alienating the remaining 35% of the population who lives in complete adulation of this man. A boycott is one of the most powerful influencers against a corporation, and consumers are free to spend their money elsewhere. If mom-and-pop falafel shop wants to advertise in favor of a pro-Israel candidate in their Congressional election, they can, too. They also risk raising the ire of those who would prefer the Arabs wipe Israel off the map and lose their business.

Journalistic corporations have faced the consequences of their politicking, all through the day of the election. It’s for this reason that large swathes of the news media are losing audiences while others gain. Before Citizens United, the only corporations that could spend unlimited amounts of cash through the day of the election are publications. This exemption has been abolished; instead the right to speak has been reinstated, not just for journalistic corporations, but for all institutions: labor unions, corporations, and other foundations. Isn’t free speech such a lovely, chaotic thing?

While Liberals gleefully celebrate the arrest of investigative journalist James O’Keefe, Conservatives are wringing their hands. The most telling thing I see about this, is that the young man has not even been convicted and the Left and Right have prejudiced this man for their own reasons.

For the Liberals, it’s easy. He shed light on ACORN‘s corruption. He made fools out of his targets, and his work helped lead Congress to withdraw funding (if but symbolically) for this organization. They have a vendetta.

For the Conservatives, it’s easy. We need to distance ourselves from this man for fear of guilt by association. Screams of “Louisiana Watergate” have left us quaking in our boots. “Shit,” we cry, as the momentum of the worst two weeks for Democrats comes to an abrupt, shrieking halt. We have reputations to protect.

Los Angeles Prosecutor Patterico knows something about jumping to conclusions:

Look: I wasn’t there and I therefore don’t know what happened. But O’Keefe has a history of goofy, humorous, over-the-top undercover stunts to make a political point. Wiretapping doesn’t seem like his style. And the facts in the affidavit — especially the lack of reference anywhere to any listening devices in the possession of anyone in the building — suggest to me that’s not what he was doing.

The Conservative handwringing is bullshit. So far I’m the third person I know who is giving James O’Keefe the benefit of the doubt. The second is an Althouse commenter. Volokh:

It’s one thing to pretend to be a pimp when interviewing ACORN employees. It’s quite another to pretend to be a telephone repairman to gain access to a U.S. Senate office and its telephone system.

It really is different. The way I see it, it’s actually better and more justifiable to bug a US Senator than it is to spycam an ACORN office. The corrupt ACORN employees are civilians, and they were being recorded by other civilians. Mary Landrieu is an elected official and an arm of the US government, and as such is a “public official” whose rights to privacy are more limited than your typical civilian.

This is different from Nixon’s Watergate Hotel break-ins because the bugging was at the behest of a public official, a person in power no less than the President, acting against an association of private individuals. Civilians have to have the power to resonably violate the privacy of elected officials* and especially their appointed underlings. It’s for this reason that the Office Of The POTUS releases correspondence with civilians as a matter of public record. It was this same problem that our current president faced when they had to wrest his BlackBerry from his grubby clutches.

Even from a Kantian standpoint of certain actions being truly immoral no matter the circumstances, the Conservatives’ despair because he “did something stupid.” Shit, we don’t even know exactly what he did! Secondly, it seems the only moral standard these whiny Conservatives is that it’s against the law. Have we forgotten that what is legal is not always moral; what is proscribed is not always evil? The repudiation from Conservatives is indicative of a lack of desire to fight on the side of one’s allies. Lastly, this is a pattern of behavior for a number of Conservative pundits. They all-too-quickly judge one of their own and distance themselves before all the facts are in.

Liberals have shown more faith in cop-killer Mumia Abu-Jamal than Conservatives shown this boy. They stood through thick and thin with the corrupt employees at ACORN and in so doing reduced O’Keefe’s victory to a symbolic one. It’s one thing to follow advice from one’s enemies. It’s another to learn a thing or two by observing them.

* – I understand the possibility of the shoe being on the other foot. My test of reasonability lies in the physical and mental territories around which politicans move. A home, a hacked email account or in the case of Mme. Palin, one broken into thanks to a weak password, do not really count as “reasonable” because these are not in the public purview. I also understand that this idea is extreme and unimplementible since Senators handle important national security information, the essence has to be that elected officials should be afraid of the public, not the other way around.

Not too many people know the actual terms for the ethical concepts of deontology (formalism) and consequentialism (utilitarianism), but in their lives they feel the full conflict of these two moral “schools” when facing moral dilemmas and trying to do “the right thing.” The third school, which predates these two, is virtue ethics. As a refresher to readers unfamiliar with these concepts, here’s the important stuff, with links to Wikipedia:

• Virtue Ethics focuses on the intent and character of the doer.
• Deontology posits that there are moral duties towards a formal action, the deed itself, absent consideration of the consequences. Immanuel Kant is one of its most famous adherents, and (almost?) all religions are deontological by nature.
• Consequentialism judges the rightness or wrongness of an act based on the consequences produced. Its largest failing is that it doesn’t necessarily provide a guide as to what to do at the time of the dilemma itself.

I bring these definitions to the fore because political discussions too often unfortunately take on the nature of moral discussions. “Is it wrong or right to go to war?” “Is anything less comfortable than a hotel stay appropriate for enemy combatants?” “Under what, if any, circumstances can a pregnancy be ended, or a life ended by the state as consequence of a crime; and for that matter, what crime forfeits a person’s life?”

After years of reading, observing, studying, and participating in political discussions of this nature, I realize that disagreements over policy boil down to one party judging the other on a deontological standard while the other excuses its actions using good intentions (virtue ethics) and consequentialism. A fine example can be seen in Julian Sanchez’s The Spectre of Pacifism:

The conceptual mistake is to suppose that we’re faced with a binary choice between a pure consequentialism that just mechanically adds up all the yums and ouches or a kind of absolutist deontology that hews to a principled rule, and damn the consequences.  The point of invoking pacifism is to imply that if you want to consider any non-consequentialist moral properties of certain kinds of acts, you’re compelled by relentless logic to the most extreme possible position.  The thing is, pretty much nobody really thinks this way. Most people—the vast majority—will say it’s immoral to secretly chop up a healthy vagrant for organs to save five other people. We’re not just interchangeable tokens in some great social calculus, but individuals with individual rights that must be respected—rights that trump maximization of social welfare.  Except that if suddenly we’re sure we could save a thousand or ten thousand or ten million people by killing one innocent, most of us will at some point say, reluctantly, that it ought to be done after all.

Majority of political discussions play out this way. Pundits large and small judge each others’ quality as people based on which positions they would condone and condemn. This is also the root of the declaration that “there is no absolute morality,” in the sense that religious moral standards can fly against the face of reason. (Not to mention, of course, that different religions posit different moral judgments on certain actions.)

As another example, let’s take a look at the manufactured scandal over Scott Brown’s bikini-clad daughters. Liberal critics of this photo, as well as Scott Brown’s 1982 nude centerfold in Cosmopolitan hinge their arguments on the fact that Scott Brown and his daughters are Republican. The faulty logic goes like this:

1. Scott Brown and his daughters are Republicans.
2. “Republicans like to sell themselves as bastions of morality.”
3. Posing nude or sexy is immoral.
4. Therefore Scott Brown and his daughters are hypocrites.

The major fault in this line of reasoning is that Liberals focus on propositions 2 and 3. They exaggerate and caricature the definition of what it means to be Republican. Liberals would excuse the baring of such flesh by people with whom they agree because in their mind, these Liberal exhibitionists don’t hold themselves to a high moral standard. If Scott Brown were a Democrat, I fully expect Republicans to launch a similar line of attack, but I don’t think it would have been as effective, because Liberalism somehow reconciles with licentiousness. That Democrats would not hold Scott Brown to the standards they would hold for themselves is just one of those tactics from Saul Alinsky’s playbook. Hypocrites are, by and large, more repugnant than those who admit to, and even wallow in, their fallen nature.

The aim of a political attack based on morality is to invalidate the target’s reputation and credibility. They can be very effective, but can lead to a cheapening of the debate so much so that matters of actual policy lose priority. In the meantime, those in power continue to govern however the hell they like, to the detriment of us all.

Having grown up in the Philippines and being politically aware since high school, most of the campaigns for national office revolve around pandering to the massive throngs of urban and rural poor. Most of this pandering involves some version of eat-the-rich class warfare rhetoric that aims to promise redistribution of wealth. The Philippines is not, by any stretch of the imagination, a socialist nation, but as an emerging economy, it is fraught with pitfalls and challenges that many American observers find easy to point out and difficult to solve.

The most annoying aspect of Philippine politics is that none of the political parties have a clearly defined platform that distinguishes one form the other. You have a central personality as the anchor of the party, and everyone else rides that person’s coattails. The promises of goodies at the expense of the taxpayer is de rigeur, and some days it feels like a choice between Engels or Marx.

So when I moved here, being the short-sighted, middle-class Liberal funded by my mother’s hard-earned money, the distinction between the political parties in terms of principle is like night and day. It was refreshing, and through a long process of unlearning ideas such as entitlement and hatred of producers, I became the Conservative that so many people know and love (or revile, depending on your beliefs).

The method by which the two monolothic parties build their coalitions, also differ like night and day. Democrats build coalitions by promising fulfillment of a group’s pet issue. This is why they nail the gay vote, the woman vote, votes from different ethnic groups, name it. Republicans, on the other hand, make one issue the defining issue of a campaign, and they pick off voters from the groups that agree with them.

This is how Scott Brown campaigned. He insisted on being the forty-first vote to prevent cloture (I’m a stickler for words, a topic I intend to write about soon enough). He made opposition to the Democrat-controlled healthcare reform his single, defining issue. He built his identity around that and the people came. They came for their own reasons, of course, but he didn’t spend his campaign promising goodies to groups. He found a case that he believed was enough to get people to sacrifice their pet issues and focus on something else.

These tactics also lead to each parties’ undoing. In this country, no single party stays in power for too long. Americans remain suspicious of absolute power and prefer to tip the balance the other way. Once the issue around which Republican voters coalesce is resolved, it is up to the incumbents to find another issue to rally around. If they fail, the infighting begins: people’s instincts start to take precedence. The same people who voted for Brown in opposition to Obamacare will be the same people who will oppose him on social issues, given that Brown leans pro-choice.

Democrats, on the other hand, lose votes when they fail to deliver on those many goodies they offer (gay marriage, anyone?). They also fail when they use the groups they court as weapons against the middle, such as when the current—and soon to be dead—version of Demcare exempts union members from the “Cadillac plan tax.” They fail because they realize these concessions are extreme and divisive and come at the expense of those whose money they want for contributions.

After stating these observations, what advice do I have for the Republican party? When the pendulum swings in your favor, it’s time to use it, or lose it. For the Democrats? I have a few thoughts, but the most prudent of politicos don’t take advice from their opponents anyway.