Let Iowa and New Hampshire continue holding nominating contests in early February.
Then, sort all remaining states (and voting territories, like Guam) by size, and classify them into three tiers, with an approximately equal number of delegates at stake in each tier.
All states in the first tier (the smallest states) vote on the second Tuesday in February.
Tier two votes on the second Tuesday in March.
Tier three votes on the second Tuesday in April. And then you can hold the conventions in May.
Tiers 1 and 3 rotate places every four years.
WHY SHOULD WE ADOPT THIS SYSTEM?
The current primary system is a mess.
Almost every state is faced with a dilemma: 1) leave the primary where it is and resign oneself to a state of irrelevance, or 2) move the primary inexorably earlier, wasting millions, or even hundreds of millions of dollars (as in the case of California in 2008) just in the transaction costs of hosting Presidential primaries separately from local primaries. The alternative (moving all of the local primaries earlier and earlier every year) is likewise sub-optimally palatable.
The public are forced to coexist with an inexorably lengthening election cycle, in which national elections have become a near-constant phenomenon.
Those few states that take a moral stand and refuse to move their primary to gain influence are punished for it.
Finally, the primary system is lumpy. Some states’ primaries are all alone amidst a sea of media coverage. Others’ are all clogged into Super Tuesday.
It is, quite simply, a senseless mess. And, everyone knows it.
If everyone knows and agrees that it is a mess, then why hasn’t anyone changed it?
That’s a great question. One might similarly ask why Congress never seems to get around to passing budget bills until the government is brought to the brink of collapse. The simple answer is that a complex system with many stakeholders contains a lot of obstacles to doing things. Few states have a strong interest in reforming the primary system. But, the traditional first few states have a very large interest in retaining their primacy.
Plus, not everyone has coalesced around the same solution yet. A lot of people would like the states to all be equal. Iowa and New Hampshire want to retain their primacy. Some people think that the race fundamentally changes once the first couple of actual votes are cast and recorded, and so it is a good idea to put a couple of states without a ton of delegates a bit ahead of everyone else, so that the system has a chance to adjust to whatever happens and really vet the candidates. Some people want a drawn out primary, so that the candidates are more thoroughly vetted. Other people advocate a shorter primary, so that the eventual winner is less damaged by the time they go up against the opposition.
This system gets around those concerns.
By retaining Iowa and New Hampshire as the first states, this plan simultaneously avoids pissing off those states and retains the advantages of having a couple of states out front for early vetting. The inhabitants of both states are actually quite used to performing this job, and take cultural pride in it. Anyways, they really only have a few delegates between them, so it doesn’t make that much difference to everyone else.
Then, this system puts all of the other states on equal footing with eachother. Under this system, there are no states that are truly irrelevant, as there is a substantial possibility that any given competitive election will still be undecided by the time it gets to the third wave.
In the current system, campaign events are heavily concentrated in the first 4 states, and almost non-existent for states whose contests occur after Super Tuesday. This system would allow candidates to focus their efforts in states that are conducive to their message. All states would see campaign events.
By the same token, we should do away with the electoral college, and enter an era of true representative democracy.
The Equal Employment Opportunity Commission just announced that sexual orientation discrimination in the workforce is a kind of sex-based employment discrimination that is already prohibited under Title VII of the 1964 Civil Rights Act. It is easy to see how discrimination against transgender individuals is sex-based discrimination (and the EEOC, predictably, made that call three years ago), but many people are wondering how sexual orientation discrimination is sex-based discrimination. After all, a homophobe might say he discriminates equally against gay men and gay women!
So, how does the EEOC come to its conclusion that sexual orientation discrimination is sex-discrimination?
1) The EEOC first admits that sexual orientation was not explicitly listed in Title VII.
2) The EEOC notes that it traditionally asks whether an agency accused of discrimination has “relied on sex-based considerations” or “taken gender into account.”
3) The EEOC notes that there is no reason to think that congress specifically intended to EXCLUDE LGBT individuals from Title VII protections, and then notes that LGBT individuals should be protected to the extent that the language extends to them even if congress didn’t actually anticipate its language being applied thusly.
4) The EEOC blathers on at length about how sexual orientation is inextricably linked to sex.
5) Finally, the EEOC gets to the point: A man fired for being gay is a man fired because he is a person — who is attracted to, or associates with (or is perceived thusly) certain classes of people — who has a penis. A person attracted to women, who is fired because she also happens to be a woman is discriminated against based on her sex, because if she had been a man with those attributes, there would have been no problem.
6) An employee can state a claim for sex discrimination if she can show that the discriminatory treatment would not have occurred but for her sex.
7) Alternately, the EEOC has precedent saying that sex discrimination occurs when one is discriminated against for failure to comply with sex stereotypes, norms, or expectations (such as the stereotype that men sleep only with women, for example). Suppose an employer reserved a special pink tutu for a female employee and made her wear it to work every day because of her sex, or lose her job. That would be sex discrimination. The EEOC is just saying that the same principal applies if an employer requires male employees to sleep with only women or be fired. Obviously that is ridiculously discriminatory and outrageous, and men should not be subjected to it (and women should not be subjected to the converse).
Conclusion
So, now you see how the EEOC’s decision makes perfect sense.
Technically, the EEOC’s opinions are not binding on the courts, but they are given substantial deference. The EEOC is a part of the federal government, so it is conceivable that a Republican President Bush or Walker, for example, could seek to undo what has been done in 2017, assuming no federal court had yet ruled on the issue. However, with the country moving steadily closer to virtual unity on the issue of LGBT rights (after all, marriage was SUPPOSED to be the LAST battleground; the country is generally far more supportive of things like employment and education non-discrimination), I see this as a huge victory that is unlikely to face serious opposition in the years to come.
“Your acid partisanship blinds your eyes to the truth and paralyzes a nation.” – Me
Hyperpartisan Meltdown – a new weekly segment where I pick an article from a hyperpartisan newsource, melt down all of the BS, and see what, if anything, is left.
This week I picked an article from Townhall, an extreme rightwing publication, called, “So Much for the Free-Speech Left.” For an optimal reading experience, take a glance at the original BS here. Always feel free to leave your thoughts in the comment section, and refer me if you happen to stumble across a hyperpartisan news article that is ripe for a meltdown.
The Melting
You know you have reached a rightwing publication when the links to other articles bear pictures of muslim men and frowning Hillary Clintons in defensive postures, and when hovering over a picture of rainbow flags outside the Supreme Court reveals the caption, “Mass Hysteria in America.” Pictures of gold coins advertise investment managers, and a pop-up asks you to vote on Marco Rubio. And, of course, the title of the piece refers to the “left,” disparagingly. These should all be signs that what you are about to read should be taken with a very large grain of salt.
The article begins by pointing out that there is violence and vulgarity in movies. Hollywood makes movies. 1) The word “Hollywood” is apparently now interchangeable with “the left;” the article offers no further evidence of liberal beliefs beyond what makes its way into movies. 2) Last I checked, the movie industry was a business, and reactionaries, of all people, should be aware that businesses are not emotional, political entities. They operate to maximize profits, and that means that they put things in movies that are going to make people buy movies. Roughly half of the people in the country are Republicans. If movies are loaded with violence and profanities, it is because people (including Republicans) LIKE to watch violence and and profanity. It is absolutely ridiculous to think that “liberals” have a secret plot to inject violence and profanity into our culture by means of “Hollywood.” For starters, even if liberals thought it was a good idea, there are like 100,000,000 of them, and they aren’t exactly known for being good at communication and teamwork… or voting…
Then, the article foregoes any attempt at logical argument and dives straight in with an insupportable conclusion: “When it comes to perfectly decent speech — spoken innocently with no bad intention — those same liberals need smelling salts.” What “perfectly decent speech” is being referenced? Presumably, from context, the author is referring to speech that sounds racist, but actually was not intended to offend. Now, I am actually a huge fan of the biblical idea that “he who takes offense when offense is not intended is a fool.” But, the article overlooks some pretty big problems: 1) Only the person who said the racist thing can know whether they intended offense. 2) When someone says something that is racist, it can cause harm to people regardless of whether it was intended to offend and regardless of whether it DID offend (it may make someone feel bad, it may make someone else think that racism is okay, it may divide us, etc.). And, 3) liberals, in fact, generally DON’T take offense when they don’t think offense was intended (they might still inform of the potential damage that the words that were said could cause, but that is just simple courtesy.).
Next, the article goes off on a rant about liberal “micro-aggressions,” “where conversation becomes a minefield of political correctness.” I don’t know about you, but I don’t feel like I am walking in a minefield when I am talking to people. For me, being respectful of others comes naturally 99% of the time. Occasionally I say something stupid, or hurtful, or mean. Then, I apologize and try to go on with my life trying to be a decent person.
If someone were to hand me a list of things that I might be saying, which might represent subconscious prejudices and negative attitudes towards others, and which might be coming across subtly in my verbal and non-verbal communication and thereby causing friction in the workplace and potentially reducing the value of others’ experience, I would say thank you and think carefully about the words that are on the list.
The author attacks such lists because they include entries which could be innocuous in some contexts. But what the author doesn’t realize is that it isn’t about the words themselves. It is about the ideas, feelings, and emotions that they represent. If you are glad that you live in the land of opportunity, and that is the thought that you consciously and subconsciously intend to convey, then there is no microaggression. On the other hand, if your real intent, conscious or subconscious, is to put somebody else down because they haven’t been able to succeed, then that IS a microaggression, and you are being a micro-jerk by saying it. Employers trying to educate their employees about how not to be micro-jerks is a solid business practice, and it is disingenuous for a conservative proponent of the free market to criticize the way a liberal (assuming that the university administrators actually are liberals) runs HER business. If the author still doesn’t understand how seemingly perfectly innocuous statements can be disruptive microaggressions that can bring an institution to its knees, I would suggest the movie, Mean Girls.
Near the bottom of the page, I would like to point out that the author actually does something perfectly reasonable: he complains about how distressingly complicated it is to be nice (Note that the reverse-compliment is a particularly well-known form of micro-aggression. ;P). It is true that in order to respect a person, you have to balance a respect for a person’s background, including his ethnic heritage, with a respect for the fact that he is still a complete human being. Trying to “integrate” Native Americans by destroying their culture in the name of being “color-blind” is NOT respect, for example. ALLOWING Native Americans to pay tribute to their culture, while at the same time ALLOWING them to participate in ordinary society to the extent that they desire to is NOT complicated. It is simply respecting their autonomy, because this is AMERICA.
Grammatically, it is kind of weird that the author moves on to the next topic within the same paragraph. His paragraphs are kind of haphazard and random in general, and the article as a whole pretty much lacks any semblance of structure. He complains that:
If you are a “store owner following a customer of color around a store,” presumably because you believe he might be shoplifting, you believe he is “going to steal,” and he is “dangerous.” And that is wrong.
First of all, old man, we don’t refer to people as “of color” anymore. Seriously. Find another way to express that thought. Second of all, YES, if you are only following black people around in your store, and you assume that all non-white people are dangerous criminals and thieves, then unless you happen to live in a really bad all-black neighborhood, you are probably a racist. Why? Because the vast majority of “people of color” are not any more likely to rob you than the white person that you are NOT following around. Also, I don’t want to get into the complex causes of criminality, but let’s just leave the idea in the air that maybe black people are humans too, and the reasons for higher criminality (to the extent that disparate arrest and imprisonment are actually caused by higher criminality and not just disparate enforcement) among some communities is ultimately caused exclusively by past and present racism and not by your imagined lazy/criminal gene.
On the second page, the author continues to rant about how things that aren’t really micro-aggressions, like asking an Asian person why he is so quiet, where he was born, or for help on your math homework, are perceived to be micro-aggressions by “nutty professors.” Yes, Mr. Author, these things COULD all be innocent. But lets face it: frequently they ARE micro-aggressive, and frequently they may be misperceived as micro-aggressive even if they aren’t intended that way. Professors aren’t “nutty” for trying to educate students about the complexities of human communication, and encouraging everyone to just not get an education is a recipe for disaster!
What’s Left?
When we melt off the partisan BS, we find a few weak points: 1) Movies are vulgar. 2) Sometimes some liberals go overboard, criticizing microaggressions that aren’t actually micro-aggressive. 3) Sometimes it is difficult to function in a complicated modern social world, especially if you are a cranky, stubborn old man who still refers to people as “colored.” 4) Sometimes people who see people of other races as inferior don’t like to be criticized when they voice their honest opinions directly or through microaggressions that those people are inferior or are likely to have negative qualities. 5) The word, “Liberals” is interchangeable with “professors” and “Hollywood.” And, 6) education makes you ignorant.
Conclusion
The author displays the hyper-partisan lens through which he sees the world in every paragraph. The article abandons logical argumentation with the first sentences, jumps haphazardly from topic to topic, and reads more like a live-stream of crazed consciousness, or a soliloquy at a Tea Party rally than like any kind of thoughtful and structured written work. Finally, the article unprofessionally uses sentence fragments and seemingly random paragraph breaks.
Yes, sometimes some liberals go overboard in their criticisms of others. But, the author of the article treats liberals as a tiny group of malevolent and powerful satanic angels which have taken control of hollywood and academia and whose sole purpose is to make the lives of honest, decent human beings harder. It perhaps should come as little surprise that a person who doesn’t understand why racial sensitivity is important, should also not see the logical problem in viewing liberals that way.
A lot of the article can be explained away with the probability that the author of the article apparently just doesn’t understand what the word “microaggression” refers too.
All I can say is this: the two biggest problems facing American capitalism today are 1) we don’t have enough workplace drama in our companies, and 2) we don’t have enough uneducated people on our streets. If we could just solve those two problems, ah, what a country this could be.
I Would Suggest…
…that if the author of the article finds that going through life without saying something racist is like walking through a minefield, then he should take a look in the mirror and reconsider the way that he subconsciously thinks, or DOESN’T think, about other human beings.
Immediately after Burwell was released yesterday, the conservative world alighted with a mania for criticizing the twisted logic Justice Roberts used to justify upholding a key prong of the Obamacare legislation. The argument goes like this: Roberts ignored the obvious TEXTUAL meaning of the statute in order to uphold its broad INTENT. Conservatives are SUPPOSED to put the text of the law on the highest pedestal, as part of their ordinary judicial philosophy. The Chief Justice, therefore, abandoned a fundamental tenet of conservative judicial philosophy in order to cater to popular opinion. But, Roberts actually adopted the most textualist position available.
Here is the problem: the Supreme Court always considers Congress’ intent when it is trying to interpret ambiguous wording in a law. The critics thought Roberts chose congressional intent OVER the plain meaning of the text. But, what he actually did, was to use congressional intent to cast doubt on whether the meaning of the text (which looked facially unambiguous) was actually unambiguous. After determining that there were actually good reasons to think that the text could mean more than one different thing, Roberts determined that the textual interpretation that was most consistent with Congress’ intent was appropriate.
Pure textualism doesn’t make sense. Words simply don’t have absolute, unique, and unchanging meanings. Words are fluid, and loaded down with subtle connotations that can often only be truly ascertained in context. Suppose I say that you are driving me up the wall? Those words have a clear, obvious meaning in the English language. But you aren’t literally driving me up a wall. The language is figurative, and depending on the context, it could mean that I am frustrated with you, or that you are blackmailing me, or it could mean that someone else is frustrated (if I am quoting them). It could even mean the exact opposite, that I am not frustrated at all, if I were to precede it with the statement that everything that follows means the opposite of its ordinary meaning. This last scenario is essentially analogous to what Roberts saw in the Obamacare legislation.
Let’s delve a little deeper. The petitioners in Burwell were a group of people who were cruelly forced to accept government subsidies to help them pay for their health insurance. In order to sue for the invalidation of a statute, you have to prove that the statutory provision in question harmed you in some way. The Burwell petitioners argued that the hated subsidies decreased the percentage of their income that would be required to purchase health insurance below 8%, and thereby destroyed their hopes of being exempted from the individual mandate. In other words, without the subsidies, they would not have been required to purchase job-killing Obamacare insurance from a private insurance company.
The petitioners found a few ill-chosen words at the back of the law, essentially in an appendix discussing the nitty-gritty rules for the payment of subsidies, which seemed to say that subsidies were only available to individuals who purchased health insurance through an exchange established “by the state.” Petitioners had acquired their insurance through an exchange set up by HHS after the state government declined to set one up. Therefore, they were not eligible for a subsidy.
It seems straightforward, unless you read the rest of the law and notice that in the section that sets up the fundamental structure of the law, this is nowhere to be found. Then, you notice that enforcing the provision as it seems to be written would result in the entire law falling apart, and you notice the likelihood that no congresspersons actually read the appendices before voting for the law. You notice that enforcing the provision as written would result in catastrophe for millions of Americans that could only be prevented by the parties of congress working together on a contentious issue. Then, you notice another tiny provision in the law that seems to be a safety valve: If the state declines to set up an exchange, HHS shall set up “such an exchange.” What does “such an exchange” mean? Does it mean “an exchange established by the state?” According to the Supreme Court, that is exactly what it means.
Obviously, HHS cannot actually set up an exchange set up by the state. But, that isn’t the question. The question is whether Congress could order HHS to do so, and write a law that depends on the legal fiction that the exchange set up by HHS was actually set up by the State. It turns out that Congress is indisputably allowed to do exactly that, and the only question is whether that is what they intended.
In other words, the Question Presented to the court was not whether “established by the state” means “established by the state or federal government,” but whether “such an exchange” means “an exchange established by the state.” Justice Roberts actually took the most textualist route of all, declaring that “such an exchange” meant EXACTLY what it was referencing.
Sometimes Profound 