Disqus - Latest Comments for MatthewLocke

Re: Seven-Year-Old Political Blogger Gets Letter from Obama

MatthewLocke — Thu, 13 Nov 2008 13:51:13 -0000

Well, I was going more for just general insanity -- didn't want to put too fine a point on it. But, yeah. Oh, and you left out 'blistering anti-Semite'. (Fisher, in his lifetime, also made some personal grooming choices I don't agree with, but that's neither here nor there.)

Re: Veterans Day

MatthewLocke — Tue, 11 Nov 2008 17:46:40 -0000

Good points all -- and a devastating analogy at the end -- but I really can't speak to any of it. In Canada the day isn't Veterans Day, it's Remembrance Day, identical to older Armistice Day in meaning and intent (and presumably only changed because most people under fifty don't know what 'armistice' means). Veterans are certainly part of the pomp, but the focus is strongly on the war dead and the terrible cost of fighting. It isn't remotely a happy holiday, but very solemn, sad, even grim.

And while you guys have Memorial Day we're celebrating Queen Victoria's birthday. I'm not sure why. But it involves a trip to a cabin and ingestion of borderline-dangerous quantities of alcohol, so I'm okay with that. Not one to look a gift horse in the mouth.

Re: The Problem With the GOP

MatthewLocke — Tue, 11 Nov 2008 17:08:07 -0000

Insert 'Obama's a Mac, GOP's a PC' joke here.

Re: Don't Blame Me, I Voted for Kodos

MatthewLocke — Tue, 04 Nov 2008 16:15:26 -0000

Hah. True. But paper works pretty well here. I'm not sure how it works once my ballot is marked, but I'm pretty sure my vote has counted -- even if I couldn't believe the results some times.

Granted, we don't have three hundred races and seven hundred names on the same ballot. So, you know, that makes it easier.

Re: Don't Blame Me, I Voted for Kodos

MatthewLocke — Tue, 04 Nov 2008 16:12:04 -0000

Early and often.

Re: The GOP's McGovern Moment

MatthewLocke — Tue, 04 Nov 2008 08:56:11 -0000

Which is why government spending as a proportion of GDP has expanded much faster under recent Republican administrations than Democratic ones. Republicans' pre-WWII isolationism was, to my mind, wrong-headed, but at least it was consistent. In the meantime, what's more important than Republicans coming clean is voters punishing them for their foreign dalliances. After all, it shouldn't be difficult to see the contradiction -- and it shouldn't remain a politically profitable (or even viable) one.

I'm a progressive type, so naturally I'd rather see government resources pruned and redirected rather than eliminated to great degree. Nevertheless, I think the counter-arguments are legitimate and important, and it is really harmful when Americans aren't really given a choice between them.

Re: Palin's Second Swipe at the First Amendment

MatthewLocke — Tue, 04 Nov 2008 08:41:07 -0000

Your fundamental human rights are being abrogated EVERY DAY.

(If you're reading this and you don't get it it's because you weren't there.)

Re: Eight to Ten Hour Wait to Vote in Atlanta

MatthewLocke — Mon, 03 Nov 2008 00:00:01 -0000

No, I don't think a quiet revolution is underway -- although Obama faces a situation more amenable to moving the country left than any President since LBJ. (If he should win a second term while holding or expanding Dem majorities in Congress that will be even more the case.) But I do think it is significant and important that so many 'unlikely' voters are being pulled into the system. It is conceivable, if by no means inevitable, that a term or two of an Obama Presidency could engage vast swathes of the electorate that have tended to be disillusioned and disengaged. That, more than anything, is what I mean when I say 'there's something happening in America.' Maybe Obama isn't half as amazing as some seem to think, but the movement he's built is more incredible than most seem to realize.

And these images are being watched around the world. The world might not fall deliriously in love with America all over again (even if many fall for its President), but the nation's standing and credibility will be instantly and very positively transformed in a real and really important way.

Re: Last Minute Fundraising for Obama

MatthewLocke — Sun, 02 Nov 2008 00:48:10 -0000

For what it's worth, the text of the email is actually correct, and seems to have been mailed in response to a McCain campaign conference call (or maybe it was a memo? or maybe both? I forget) that made all of these claims. That said, the implication Obama's hard up for cash is a pretty huge stretch.

The McCain campaign + RNC claims to have more cash on hand at the moment than Obama's campaign although, as Elliot suggests, that does not at all mean that they have more money in any meaningful sense -- just that they're holding more liquid capital at the moment, if you will. The more important point is the $10 million on advertising -- that seems to be true. The McCain campaign + RNC has bought $10 million more television advertising over the course of the final ten days of the campaign. This has required a dramatic curtailment in their spending on get-out-the-vote operations, so it's probably a stupid decision. They've chosen to go out with a bang. Feel free to insert your own McCain jet crash joke here.

EDIT: I should add that we're in a weird spot right now where it's in the interest of both the McCain campaign and the Obama campaign to make it seem like the race is closer and the money gap narrower than it really is. McCain doesn't want his voters to think they have no chance of winning and stay home; Obama doesn't want his supporters to think they have no chance of losing and stay home with their wallets in their pockets.

Re: Bush Administration a Resume Stain?

MatthewLocke — Sun, 02 Nov 2008 00:33:15 -0000

This is up there with this summer's front-page NYT investigative report into Obama's claims about his drug use which found that . . . yeah, he pretty much told the truth. Some friends think he might've exaggerated a bit here and there, though there's no real evidence to back that up. And in other news. . .

Re: Two Reasons Why Obama-Biden is a Lock to Win

MatthewLocke — Wed, 29 Oct 2008 19:49:31 -0000

What can I say? When you're right, you're right. And you're right.

Re: Three Rules

MatthewLocke — Tue, 28 Oct 2008 16:00:35 -0000

True, but there was that day in the nineties when the seventies were cool again. I think it was the same day Dazed and Confused came out.

Re: Teen Sex and Moral Anachronism

MatthewLocke — Tue, 28 Oct 2008 10:17:48 -0000

Thanks so much for the kind words -- and for pointing out the typo! That'll teach me to post something at midnight. Anyway, it's now corrected.

Re: Obama Assassination Plot Foiled

MatthewLocke — Mon, 27 Oct 2008 19:05:20 -0000

True -- and it looks like just how ready Americans are for a black President will be demonstrated a week from tomorrow. But then there are some Americans (and, I suggest in a more recent post, some regions of America) that aren't -- and it only takes one.

I don't let that change anything. I mean, I work under the assumption that Obama's not going to be killed anytime soon. But it's still a reality. There have been (often successful) attempts made on the lives of so many Presidents -- McKinley, Kennedy, Reagan, and of course Bartlet. It's maybe the most dangerous job there is.

Re: The Great Migration?

MatthewLocke — Mon, 27 Oct 2008 16:33:57 -0000

I think I can confirm that Ross, for one, doesn't know how to fix a toilet.

Insert 'Joe the Plumber' joke here.

Re: Political Darwin Awards

MatthewLocke — Mon, 27 Oct 2008 15:40:00 -0000

I don't know if that is my implicit argument. Let's wait till the Dems are that desperate, then see if I find it amusing. I don't know; maybe I will.

Re: Obama on the Supreme Court and Wealth Redistribution

MatthewLocke — Mon, 27 Oct 2008 13:27:45 -0000

Or Canada, Britain, France, Australia, and every other democracy in the world -- including, shockingly, the United States. Redistribution doesn't mean taking money from rich people and giving it to poor people. It means taxing citizens and spending that tax money on infrastructure, health care, education, and transfer payments like medicare, welfare, social security, and unemployment insurance. We can have a discussion about the appropriateness of each of those things, but if you seriously think -- or insist on saying -- that all the functions of the modern state beyond maintaining peace and order equal 'black power communism', then I wonder if you know what communism actually is.

Re: Facelift

MatthewLocke — Mon, 27 Oct 2008 00:50:21 -0000

Good call. It also left the page as a whole unbalanced. I've changed most of the bars (though to a shade of blue already in use elsewhere on the blog -- want to limit the palette). Kept a few of them black just because changing all of the colors made it look sort of bland; also to emphasize them. Hopefully this is an improvement.

Thanks again!

Re: Obama's Election Night Venue

MatthewLocke — Thu, 23 Oct 2008 20:02:12 -0000

Ross is American. You know how that insecure that makes us Canadians feel.

Re: Al-Qaeda Hearts McCain

MatthewLocke — Wed, 22 Oct 2008 15:34:49 -0000

A) We're rapidly approaching that point, as the Iraqi government itself acknowledges. We should continue to draw down troops after the upcoming provincial elections and especially after next year's national elections. Assuming nothing goes terribly awry most troops should be out by the end of 2010.

B) Um, no. Unless we're witnessing the total break-down of free market capitalism the bailout bill will more than pay for itself. In time the government will most likely make a profit. As for Iraq? Not so much.

C) Can you provide one example of something any Democrat has said or done and then show me how it's demonstrably 'undermined' American performance in Iraq? This is ignoring for the moment, as you choose to, how America's performance in Iraq has massively undermined the nation's foreign policy as a whole.

D) Oops. Thanks for pointing that out; have corrected the post.

Re: Pop Quiz

MatthewLocke — Wed, 22 Oct 2008 13:11:56 -0000

As the economy has rapidly expanded over the past thirty years real median income has remained flat and the incomes of the poorest Americans have declined. A 'good economy' has not helped the poor. Intelligent government investments in things like education, infrastructure, and health care do.

As for the effects of taxes on productivity -- you've made assertions about human nature but you haven't told me why it should be and you haven't quantified your claims. I'm not saying they're wrong -- just that you haven't really explained them. That's got to be the first step; then you have to compare the real outcomes from the system you propose with outcomes produced in other circumstances. It isn't enough to make broad claims about what humans do and don't do, or what works and doesn't work.

Re: Pop Quiz

MatthewLocke — Wed, 22 Oct 2008 11:21:45 -0000

You're obviously right that a wealthier person will spend more money in absolute terms than a poorer person, but it is demonstrably true in many countries (including my own) with substantial sales taxes that those taxes *are* very regressive. Poor people do spend a larger proportion of their income than rich people because there are certain fixed costs -- food, drink, clothing -- that must be paid for. While the wealthier consume more and more expensive goods, the rate of consumption tends to increase more slowly than income. This is all pretty common sense stuff: it's wealthy people that stash money in savings accounts and mutual funds and stocks and bonds and real estate and so on. There are some arguments to be made for sales taxes, but this is a pretty strong argument against them.

There are also arguments to be made against a progressive income tax system, although they're rarely made -- usually it goes back to Republican whining about how unfair it is for rich people to pay a bigger share than poor people, to which the Dem response is that they can and they ought to, and the debate goes nowhere.

I digress. Ultimately, income taxes pervert incentives but are so much more fair than sales taxes that they remain considerably preferable.

Re: Larison on Powell

MatthewLocke — Tue, 21 Oct 2008 10:05:56 -0000

I hear this talking point all the time -- Dems are trying to 'undermine our efforts'. How? And what does that even mean? The way you've phrased it makes it sound like the Dems have been hoping Americans would fail in Iraq, or at least trying to take actions that would cause failure. Because they've tried to steer Americans out of the war? But if the country is undertaking a stupid and disastrous foreign policy course, then pressuring the administration to change its strategy or abandon that course altogether is the right thing to do. It's lunacy to keep doing something that is hurting you just because to stop doing it would be to 'undermine your efforts'!

Re: Limbaugh on Powell

MatthewLocke — Mon, 20 Oct 2008 17:48:55 -0000

Absolutely. It would be a pretty baseless charge even were it not for the fact that Powell spends ten minutes laying out a clear and concise case for his vote -- a case that's being made by moderates, even moderate Republicans, across the country these days.

Re: Canadian Trade and Labor Market Flexibility

MatthewLocke — Mon, 20 Oct 2008 15:03:07 -0000

You both make fair points. In *my* defense, sort of, I recall Obama's anti-NAFTA line from the primaries but I doubt the sincerity of it. As do Hillary Clinton, Ohio voters, and, seemingly, Austan Goolsbee and the Canadian diplomatic establishment. That kind of pandering is the unfortunate cost of doing business in the Dem primaries (see also Iowa, ethanol subsidies in). That said, if anti-free trade rhetoric turns into action you'll see plenty of ink spilled against it here.

Immigration having been taken off the table in this campaign by McCain's nomination, it's a little harder to predict how it would play out in either administration. Both candidates are obviously more liberal on immigration than the Republican mainstream; I suspect that a President Obama, with less division in his own party, would have more political capital. Still, I'm not very optimistic. In the current political climate, especially with the prospect of a lengthy recession ahead, any time spent talking about immigration reform will probably not be good for sane immigration reform.