Liberal and Loving It

Why we couldn't end slavery at our founding

The single largest failure of our founding fathers was that they did not end slavery. And the argument has always been that what they did accomplish was pushing things to the edge of impossible and taking on slavery too would have been a bridge too far. That always sounded logical to me, and to most historians writing about it too.

But I just read American Creation (Christmas present from one of my daughters) and he talks about this same issue at length - which got me thinking. The founding fathers could not envision a bi-racial society. This was not just in the South (where it was critical) but also it was not envisioned in the North. All of the anti-slavery efforts at that time were to send the slaves back to Africa and it did culminate it the founding of Liberia later on.

What no historian I have read has thought through though is what this logically meant. If the only conceivable way to end slavery was to return slaves to Africa, it made ending slavery impossible. Not expensive, but impossible. First off, the cost just went up substantially because transporting everyone to Africa and giving them enough support to survive would more than double the cost.

But once everyone was gone, what happens to the South? There was no way to replace all that labor and without that labor, the South could not survive. We're not talking a serious recession and contraction - we're talking that the economy would disintegrate. There was no amount of money that could solve this problem.

Issues that could be resolved within the mindset of slavery or emigration were resolved at our founding. The slave trade was set to end 20 years after the ratification of the constitution and there was no significant argument over that clause. Slavery was not allowed in the Louisinia Purchase - by Thomas Jefferson, a Souther slaveholder. And again, no major argument.

Most historians say the Civil War was pushed off as long as possible and only occurred when the South no longer saw "any alternative." But what if instead the Civil War could not happen until enough Americans could accept a bi-racial society? So it was not the South at last deciding to secede but instead enough people finally accepting a bi-racial society. This empowered Northerners to push the South to end slavery and Southerners to see it could credibly be ended. Not immediately, but to clearly set it on the path to extension.

When the Civil War started it was specifically not about ending slavery or civil rights for most in the North (and the South too obviously). But several years into the war when Lincoln declared the Emancipation Proclamation, there was support across the North and among some in the South (every Southern state except South Carolina had regiments fighting on the side of the North too).

Most people probably did not realize it consciously. But subconsciously they had made the transition, that the country could be a bi-racial society. Most clearly did not envision full social equality but they clearly did find full civil equality ok. Look at how quickly Northern states gave African-American (men) the vote.

I don't think there is any way to ever prove or disprove something like this. And almost certainly many factors influenced this in many ways, differently for each person. But I do think it is an interesting question and it could have had a major impact on what happened when.

My dream ballot - Edwards vs Huckabee

Ok, up to a couple of weeks ago I was strongly leaning toward Hillary (and would strongly support Gore if he jumped in). Nothing against any of the other candidates, I like all of them (not wild on Kucinich) but definitely preferred Hillary.

And then the Hucka-boom started. I read a lot of what Huckabee was saying and what others were saying about him. A populist with a credible chance on the Republican side is, well, inconceivable before today. Not since Teddy Roosevelt have the Republicans put forward a true populist.

What was interesting was I found myself agreeing with a lot of what Huckabee said. Not all of it. And not enough to consider voting for him. But still, I found a lot of his policies interesting and some are ones I would support.

As I continued to watch what Huckabee said, it made me start paying a lot more attention to John Edwards. Because John is our populist candidate. And where Huckabee is appealing in general as a populist, in the specifics he's worrisome. But John Edwards combines the general appeal and his specifics tend to be really good.

So Mike Huckabee, because he is a populist and sold himself well, has changed my vote (at present) from Clinton to Edwards - our populist. While I am not sure he should be our candidate, I hope he wins Iowa so he remains in the race, both as an option and as an influence on the debate.

The Populist Dream Ballot

What could be fascinating is, if the general election it is Edwards vs Huckabee. Since both are clear populists, the election debate would not be on if the president should be a populist, but what type of populist. The campaign alone would insure the next 4 years would be a battle against the entrenched interests.

The fact that this result is very possible shows how much support there is in this country for a populist response to the growing imbalances in this country - across the political spectrum. And that alone is wonderful news.

Merry Christmas all

I hope you all have a wonderful holiday with friends & family.

Why voting software has so many problems

Think of your cell phone - You accept the fact that lines drop, connections are bad, calls sometimes fail - but what you get for the price is worth it. A lot of software falls in that category, it's imperfect but it's not worth the cost of making it perfect.

Now take a look at the license agreement for Java, which is used for major enterprise systems such as Amazon and eBay:

"Java technology is not fault tolerant and is not designed, manufactured, or intended for use or resale as on-line control equipment in hazardous environments requiring fail-safe performance, such as in the operation of nuclear facilities, aircraft navigation or communication systems, air traffic control, direct life support machines , or weapon systems, in which the failure of Java technology could lead directly to death, personal injury, or severe physical or environmental damage".

Windows, Linux, Apple, Java, all of them fall in the category of more than good enough for mission critical enterprise software, but not for cases where any failure, any at all, leads to death. If Amazon is down for 15 minutes once a year, all that is really hurt is their profits. But if a plane, a nuclear plant, a medical life support system is down for 15 minutes - people die.

In the software industry we constantly balance this trade-off of bugs vs cost. You could have a cell phone that was 100% reliable, but would you pay 100 times as much each month for it? I didn't think so. And going from 99% reliable to 99.9% is equally expensive - and 99.9999% is incredibly expensive. Yet 99.9999% is what software like Amazon's strives for while we need 100% for life critical items.

Well here's where the problem is with voting software. It's not viewed as being on the list of software requiring 100% reliability. Yet while it is not life threatening, most people do accept the requirement that for ensuring an accurate vote, it is worth the 100X increase in cost to design and test voting software. In other words, it should be on the list with flight software, because of the value of 100% accuracy to the body polity.

Until we demand this level of software, and are willing to pay what it costs to deliver it, we are going to be left with crappy voting software written inexpensively and running on systems that are easily hackable. And as long as we keep looking for a magic bullet that will solve this issue, and be the lowest bidder, we are going to be disappointed.

Because today we have a cell phone level of quality in our voting software, if that. And we are at this point by choice, just as we have the cell service we are willing to pay for.

And in the interests of full disclosure

Occasionally I wrote a post I really don't want to, but feel I must. This one impacts two people I respect a lot, Bill De La Cruz and Chris King (Chris peripherally).

Bill wrote a nice letter to the editor today about Chris King. A little lot overflowing with praise but a reasonable letter for someone who sees the potential in what Chris is doing. But Bill missed one little item in his letter.

Bill is a part-time consultant for BVSD working for Chris (basically doing outreach in a meeting a month). Now there is nothing wrong with publicly stating that your boss walks on water, all of us do that at times. The problem is not disclosing it in the letter.

And no, the phrase "working with Chris" does not make it clear that Bill is a paid consultant. All of us that volunteer on BVSD efforts work with BVSD employees while we remain unpaid.

I do think Bill is a great person for this work. And I respect him a lot, both for what he has accomplished for BVSD and for how he approaches problems. But I think he should have disclosed his job in the letter.

And this issue has nothing to do with Chris King, but he will (unfairly) get a bit of blowback on this - which is too bad.

Advice for the 3 Amigos

Ok, the CD-2 race is bouncing along and it's getting pretty repetitive. Jared does something, Joan zings him for it, Will supports Joan's zinger - lather, rinse, repeat. Guys (and I mean that in a gender neutral way), this is getting boooooring.

Ok, there's what we would all like to see, and then there is what makes the most sense if each candidate wants to win the race. And these are two very different things. So lets look at what I think each should be doing if they want to win, in alpha order (I'll do reverse alpha next time):

Joan - your constant litany of questions about Jared are effective. And they are legit questions, not necessarily actual problems, but they are legit questions. While none have been a major hit on their own, in total they make people concerned about Jared.

And in a 2 person race, this could be a winning strategy. People go to vote and they are thinking Joan is mean, Jared is questionable - vote Joan. But this is a 3 person race and in this case they can walk in going Joan is mean, Jared is questionable - vote for Saint Will.

You need to start giving us reasons to vote for you. Start pounding out your vision of what you will do in office, the big picture of what we get with you there. Let us know the plus side of election Joan. And leave zinging Jared to your staff so you retain the positive aura.

Jared - your trying things outside the box is refreshing and a lot of people like it. And your message is resonating with some. But the details are killing you. In the business world if you get the important things right the details are not critical. In politics the details will kill you. This country spent over a year and impeached a president over a blow job. Allen lost the Senate over using the word macaca, not his long history of closet racism.

Whoever is telling you not to worry about the details, don't listen to them. If you have others telling you the details are important and you are ignoring them, start listening to them. If you can't get the details right, you will lose this election.

These details are defining you at present. And come August if you have a 10 month trail of them - you're toast. Because Joan and Will will define you as someone who's problem with details will lead to poor legislation.

Will - Ok, at present duck and cover looks like a good plan. But that assumes that Joan and Jared will continue to do the same thing for the next 8 months - not gonna happen. They're both very smart and will adapt as the campaign progresses.

You are foregoing a tremendous opportunity right now to tell your story. You are "3^rd place" and being ignored. You can work on getting out your story, who you are, what you have done, why that would make you a good legislator. And most importantly, why we should vote for you. What do we get if Will Shafroth is our legislator?

You need to be reaching out to people big-time now. So that when the arrows start coming at you, Joan & Jared don't get to define you because you have already defined yourself. Weekly email blasts, winning events like the coats & cans charity drive, talking to various groups. And you need to reach the groups you don't know, not the ones you already are connected to.

So there you have my take on what each candidate should be working on over the next couple of months. Of course, advice is worth what you pay for it...

In the blogosphere no one knows your name

A lot of major political figures (and by political figures I don't mean just the elected ones) are just now learning about the blogosphere for the first time. And they are finding it disconcerting. The biggest complaint I hear is that they don't like anonymous postings.

First an aside. My posts are not anonymous and I have still found some many people I ding get very upset. The underlying issue to them seems to be how dare some random person be able to have a significant impact on the public conversation. Blogging changes the game and opens the public conversation to a much larger number of people. And that is threatening to those in position of power because a change means their position is threatened.

But now lets discuss the subject of anonymity. I would prefer that everyone in the blogosphere went by their real name. But depending on the forum it ranges from everyone is known to most people are not known. And that seems to be the nature of the Internet – that a lot of these forums will be mostly anonymous. So it’s one of those things that it doesn’t do much good to try and change.

But what I have also found is that over time you come to recognize the regular contributors by their handle. And in most cases knowing their name adds nothing because they’re not someone you ever met or know of. There’s about 20 – 30 of us who are regular bloggers on ColoradoPols that post very regularly and we all “know” each other and the less regular posters “know” all of us. But I don’t think knowing their name would increase my knowledge of them at all. And they do know my real name but I don’t think that adds much to their knowledge of me other than to tease me about having a Republican mom.

With all that said, I have also found the fact that I put my name up buys me up-front credibility. I have seen many posts replying to others saying that their disagreeing with me would carry more weight if they would sign their name too. It’s not that people know me, just that they know I list my real name. Plus there are the occasional soccer & basketball parents who read it and then give me a hard time at games which keeps me a bit more in line.

I think how this all works is jarring for those who are new to it. And because up till now all "speakers" in the public stage were known, and they all generally had met and know each other. This is especially jarring for lawyers because in the law they work in a world where there is a predisposition to full disclosure. This is more like a political discussion in a bar.

But all in all, I really like it. It’s not perfect and it has it’s good and bad points. But it’s alive and vibrant and incredibly wide-ranging. It’s why more younger people get their news from The Daily Show than the nightly news.

And I think this is healthy. What we have now is actually very similar to what existed during the founding of our country. Hamilton, Jefferson, Madison, etc all started newspapers using shell companies, wrote articles using pseudonyms, and tore into each other as bad as we see happening now at the national level. The only difference is they used the printed page. But we are following in their footsteps.

And they managed to do a good job in that environment.

I want to lower my carbon footprint, but...

Ok, for this Christmas we are going out to Grand Junction. Why? Because I was bad my wife's parents live out there. So I figure, let's take the train. 8 hours on a train sounds better that 8 hours in a car. Yes it costs more than driving (5 of us round trip is $440.00) but still, more comfortable and less carbon than driving.

And they're sold out. It's understandable as Christmas has to be a very busy time for any transportation. And it does not make sense to have additional trains that run just a couple of weeks a year. But it is also a reason that many times our car remains our only alternative.

Cindy Carisle - another self-destruct?

I have written before about how the Democratic lock on local office here in Boulder leads to corruption. Not necessarily financial payments, but a corruption of office holders who feel entitled to their seats, and who are free to operate as they please with no significant threat of losing their seat.

We have the County Commissioners exhibiting this behavior most every time they meet. We have Claire Levy with her tone-deaf defense of Edie Stevens. And now we have Cindy Carlisle as the latest example of "the rules don't apply to me."

Cindy sits on the C.U. Board of Regents. C.U. just paid $2.5 million in a settlement where the lead attorney is Baine Kerr - Cindy's husband. While Cindy recused herself from this issue, how can her being a regent have no impact on the University's decision to settle, and for how much. Everyone at the University involved in this knew that a significant part of the payment would be going to Cindy via her husband. Some individuals might over-compensate by offering less, some would offer more to not have her upset with them over something else. But it had to impact everyone involved.

And Cindy's defense is "I never thought I should resign," she told me. "I was elected, and I did not hear from my constituents that this was something I needed to take into consideration." I have a feeling that when the campaign heats up, Cindy will start to hear from the voters on this conflict.

Everything may have been handled "properly" but that does not mean it won't smell bad to a number of voters. Put Cindy in the eminently beatable category.

Apparently you can buy the entire U.S. Senate

Ok, we all know many Senators will sell their votes at the right price. But apparently now the entire Senate is available to the highest bidder - on eBay.

I was on ColoradoPols today and this is the ad listing from the site. Apparently the entire Senate is available to the highest bidder. So if you have more money than Haliburton, it's all yours...

(Yes eBay just takes search terms and injects them into the ad. But the result in this case sure is funny.)