Public policy and privacy
Public policy issues such as privacy, technology industry economic development, education to support technology workers, and so on. Privacy in particular, whether or not strictly tied to public policy.
Open letter: In 2020, please vote a straight Democratic ticket
Please share this with anybody who might find it interesting.
Americans of different policy preferences are united in realizing: Trump must go. His dishonesty, incompetence and meanness make him unfit to lead any country. His contempt for limits on his power make him especially unfit for America.
But ousting Trump is not enough; Republican policies and legislators must go too. It’s not just that Republicans have enabled Trump for too long, or that they echo some of his vices, such as science denial, voter suppression, or general corruption. Beyond all that, REPUBLICANS ARE BAD FOR THE ECONOMY. I know it’s common to assume otherwise – but any such assumption is 30+ years out of date. Read more
| Categories: Economic development, Public policy and privacy | Leave a Comment |
Much of the electorate is still undecided (about whether to vote at all)
Permission to copy this post is granted through November 3, 2020, provided that proper attribution and URL are included. Please share widely!!
As always, a HUGE fraction of the electorate remains undecided.
- Millions of people have already voted in Election 2020.
- Millions more haven’t and definitely won’t, due to physical or legal impediments.
- Around half of eligible voters haven’t voted yet, but clearly intend to and know who they’ll vote for.
- A small number are sure they’ll vote but don’t yet know who for.
But the rest – tens of millions of voters and tens of percent of the electorate – are undecided as to whether they will vote at all.
Election 2020 isn’t even close to being decided or over!!! Keep campaigning!! Keep campaigning as hard as you can!!!
One way is to spread the following message, and encourage other people to spread it further:
Democrats are better for the economy than Republicans, at the Presidential and Congressional levels alike. They’ve been better for 30+ years, they’re better now, and they’ll be better in the decade ahead.
I’ve posted two versions of the argument accordingly:
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Why Democrats are better for the economy than Republicans
This discussion is posted in two versions:
- Longer and more extensively reasoned. (This one)
- Shorter and easier to copy/paste.
Permission to copy either version is granted through November 3, 2020, provided that proper attribution and URL are included. Please share widely!!
Donald Trump and his supporters must be swept from office, for countless reasons, many of which have been highlighted by the coronavirus pandemic. In broadest terms, these include:
- Corruption, incompetence, and science denial.
- The most explicit governmental race-baiting in over 50 years.
- Many-fronts efforts to undermine the voting process itself.
Much in our country needs healing and repair.
Many Americans agree, and favor Democratic candidates, for their intent to govern with decency, empathy, and reliance upon established facts. And so Democrats expect success in the election now underway. Even so, one major Democrat/Republican comparison may still be worth spelling out.
In a nutshell, Democrats are much better and safer for the economy than Republicans, especially but not only in the growth industries that provide so much of our wealth, exports, and favorable career opportunities. Republican propaganda often claims the contrary. But the pro-Democratic view is supported by all of:
- Decades of history.
- Economic science.
- Basic business common sense.
Let’s drill down.
| Categories: Economic development, Public policy and privacy | 3 Comments |
Democrats are much better for the economy than Republicans, and this is unlikely to soon change
This discussion is posted in two versions:
- Longer and more extensively reasoned.
- Shorter and easier to copy/paste. (This one)
Permission to copy either version is granted through November 3, 2020, provided that proper attribution and URL are included. Please share widely!!
For 30 years, Republicans have been bad for the economy.
- George H. W. Bush’s term in office ended in recession.
- The economy boomed under Bill Clinton.
- George W. Bush started his term with an ordinary recession …
- …. and ended with a huge one.
- The economy grew back steadily under Barack Obama.
- The Obama boom slowed during the first part of Donald’s Trump term.
And of course we’re in economic catastrophe now.
Not coincidentally, standard Republican claims have not held true.
- Deficits have not led to inflation.
- Corporations have not reinvested tax windfalls in their businesses.
- Economic growth has not “trickled down” to the rest of the population.
- Stock market gains have not been coupled to the rest of the economy.
Most fundamentally, Republicans wrongly claim that “making more money available for investment” does in fact cause significantly more investment. (This is how they justify tax cuts for corporations, tax cuts for rich people, removal of regulations, and the like.) But in reality, if that was ever true, it’s been false for decades. Read more
| Categories: Economic development, Public policy and privacy | 4 Comments |
Election 2020 – party vs. party, all hands on deck
I am one of Donald Trump’s top non-fans. I’ve considered him a despicable crook (and bad businessman) since at least 1990. More drastically, as the child of Nazi refugees, I hate nativist wannabe dictators. Never, in my opinion, has there been a more important electoral task than getting rid of Donald Trump. Indeed, nothing else in US history has even come close. The survival of our free country is at stake.
Even so, I view the upcoming 2020 election as Democrats-vs.-Republicans at its core, rather than Trump-specific. Reasons for that viewpoint start: Read more
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The other side is crazy, and wants to steal your freedoms
I click on a lot of Republican Facebook ads, browse the occasional conservative political forum, and read what Republicans say in the news. A huge amount of the Republican messaging I see boils down to one or both of:
- Democrats are allegedly crazy or otherwise deluded. Particular versions of this include but hardly are limited to:
- “Out of touch”.
- “Radical”.
- “Socialist” (and socialism never works well).
- Want to spend a lot of money on free stuff (and the money isn’t there).
- “Libtards”.
- “Triggered”.
- Having a “meltdown”.
- “Trump Derangement Syndrome”.
- “Russia hoax”.
- “Ukraine hoax”.
- Don’t know the difference between men and women.
- Democrats allegedly want to take away your freedoms, in areas such as:
- Guns.
- Choosing your doctor.
- Socialism (and socialism always leads to dictatorship).
- Saying “Merry Christmas”.
- Shunning gays.
- Eating meat.
- Using plastic straws.
- Driving gas-guzzling cars.
But you know what? Democrats use those same themes, and should use them even more. Read more
| Categories: Public policy and privacy | 2 Comments |
Republicans are extremists, and should be labeled as such
Republican and other US conservative political messaging is relentlessly negative.
- Since Ronald Reagan, Republicans have communicated negativity about almost any government activity except law enforcement and military defense.
- Republicans relentlessly attack “libtards”, “feminazis”, the “lamestream media” and, above all, out-of-touch radical socialist secular America-hating Democrats who insist you eat tofu.
And the Trump era has taken this to a new level of screeching. The “fake news” press are “enemies of the people”. Patriotic bureaucrats are a “deep state” “swamp”. Impeachment is a freedom-destroying “coup”. Anybody who opposes Trump should be locked up for treason. Above all, Democrats are nuts and want to take your freedoms away.
Democrats can use negative messaging too. But they face obstacles, including: Read more
| Categories: Public policy and privacy | 3 Comments |
Republicans vs. democracy
For traditionally patriotic Americans, rule of law is sacrosanct. But leading Republicans don’t agree.
- They show this through authoritarian rhetoric, like “treason”, “enemies of the people”, “lock her up”, “human scum”, “fake judges” and “I have the right to do whatever I want”.
- They show it through dictatorial actions, such as defiance of Congress, open (and openly reciprocated) partisanship in judicial appointments, criminal-law harassment of the FBI officials who investigated them, and the whole mess with Ukraine.
And so the November, 2020 United States election will be desperately important. Republicans are sabotaging our democracy, and have done it much damage. So they must be temporarily removed from power, long enough for the system to be substantially repaired. This is essential at the national level, president and Congress alike. It is vital in individual states as well.
The importance of such repair is impossible to overstate; democratic government, once lost, can take a very long time to restore. Read more
| Categories: Public policy and privacy | 3 Comments |
Everything is at stake on November 6. Here’s how you can still help.
Summary: The November 6 election is hugely important to the future of freedom in the United States. The main remaining way to help is to donate to Democrats in very close races. My most specific advice is:
- Sign up with ActBlue Express, a kind of PayPal-for-Democrats that makes every particular donation extremely easy.
- Donate to one of both of two organizations focused on winnable state-legislature races, Forward Majority (startup-y, data-driven) and/or the Democratic Legislative Campaign Committee (more establishment-oriented).
- Donate to specific House candidates in races that are very close and not already overloaded with money, such as:
- Leslie Cockburn, a highly accomplished investigative journalist running in the 5th District of Virginia.
- Dan McCready, a marine, Harvard MBA and solar energy entrepreneur in a super-close race in the 9th District of North Carolina.
- Kathleen Williams, who is running for the at-large seat in Montana, a state that also has a close Senate race.
Further ideas are below.
| Categories: Public policy and privacy | 1 Comment |
The wars on democracy and truth
The “War on Truth” is a new and somewhat useful cliché. But like any short phrase, it isn’t perfectly accurate. In particular:
- “Truth”* is in danger from many different threats.
- Some of those threats are surely deliberate attacks …
- … but others are not.
*There also are a number of semantic and epistemological issues around the concept of “truth”, but let’s put those aside for now
For starters, let’s note: Read more
| Categories: Public policy and privacy | 8 Comments |