Coins of the realm

(Go here for background)

It is not the goal, nor should it be the goal of single-issue groups like The Sierra Club to build a national party. It is the goal of the Sierra Club to protect the environment.

The objection I and others have with the Sierra Club's short-sightedness (and the short-sightedness of other progressive groups) is not that it hurts the goal of building a national party. My objection is that the Sierra Club is hurting their own long-term goals by focusing only on the individual records of the people they endorse.

Lincoln Chafee, Republican Senator from Rhode Island, could be getting a 100% environmental rating from The Sierra Club, but if he continues to prop up a party that has a 0% rating, then supporting him is dangerously counter-productive.

Markos uses the NRA as a counter-example. The NRA doesn't endorse individuals as individuals. They endorse as part of a strategic plan designed to protect their interest. They don't endorse candidates just because they have a 100% rating. They endorse them if doing so will improve the chances of the NRA getting positive results in the next legislative session.

Endorsements are one of the coins of the realm in politics. Progressive single-issue groups have been spending them unwisely on feel-good candidates instead of investing them wisely in strategic plans with a promise of longer term dividends.

Choosing To Fail, Revisited

I've been thinking a little more about the post I made yesterday about Josh Trevino's rather curious comment about "choosing to lose".

To reiterate, here's the comment in question:

Your solution basically calls for putting the country further in debt, wasting more American lives?

They're only wasted, of course, if we choose to lose. And it will be a choice.

Perhaps its because of my admitted befuddlement over Trevino's comment, but I think yesterday's post wasn't very well thought out. I was trying to wrap my head around this idea of "choosing to lose" and, in arguing against it, I appeared to argue that choice doesn't play a significant role in the question of success or failure.

Let me be clear on this: Choice most definitely does play a role in the question of success or failure.

What we choose to do in any particular situation can have a profound effect on whether we will succeed or not. Success is not simply a matter of chance, as my previous post appeered to suggest. Rather it is born from the confluence of chance with the choices we make to improve those chances.

So, for example, success in Iraq may have been brought closer to reality if we had choosen to send 500,000 troops into Iraq instead of only 150,000.

The cause of my befuddlement over Trevino's comment was not simply over the question of the role choice plays in success or failure. It was in his basic assertion that success can be achieved by "choosing not to lose". In other words, Trevino seems to be arguing that we can win in Iraq through a simple act of will.

There are two monumental problems with this position. First of all, it is magic thinking. No amount of wishing it can make something true if reality simply won't allow it. This is no different from the New Age motto "Visual World Peace".

Sorry, the world doesn't work that way.

The second problem is just as problematic: if success is ultimately a matter of "choosing not to lose", logically doesn't that mean that failure must be a direct result of "choosing to fail"? And doesn't that therefore mean that any position on the Iraq War that will likely lead to some measure of failure on the part of the United States must therefore, logically, be the result of a (conscious or not) desire to fail?

This is what I was trying to get at in my previous post. Trevino's "Success = Choosing not to lose" formulation inevitably leads to accusations that those who want to take a more realistic approach to the situation in Iraq, an approach that might lead to some measure of failure, are therefore "choosing to fail". Indeed, they must want to fail, otherwise why would they choose such a course of action?

Thus we find ourselves in our present prediciment, with any serious discussion of our options in Iraq derailed by accusations that anything less then full support of our present course must necessarily be the result of a desire to see American fail.

Net Neutrality, Common Carriers and Legal Liability

(For background on the issue of Net Neutrality go here).

I have a question (warning: this is based on my layman's understanding of the law)

Net Neutrality, the principle that internet service providers cannot distinguish between the originators of content (or the nature of the content for that matter) when giving priority to traffic on their networks, makes said service providers the internet's version of a Common Carrier. The service provider provides a common method for the transportation of content from providers to consumers. The law with respect to Common Carriers says that said Carriers cannot be held legally liable for the content they transport as long as they treat it as equal. For example, a service provider cannot be sued for libel just because their network was the vehicle by which a libelous article was transmitted.

But, if a service provider gives preference to one type of content over another, are they not vesting their will in the content they are giving a preference to? If some content provider pays the service provider money to give their content preferential treatment on the provider's network, doesn't that mean that the provider takes on a measure of responsibility for the content itself?

For example, if AT&T signs an agreement with MSNBC to give video traffic from the latter's channel priority over traffic from CNN and FOX, and MSNBC transmits a video that contains a libelous attack, doesn't AT&T become liable in any subsequent legal action?

Here's my point: Do the service providers appreciate what they might be getting themselves into by backing legislation that would eliminate Network Neutrality? Do they really want to open up that Pandora's Box? And couldn't defenders of Network Neutrality use this as an argument to persuade service providers that they are working against their best interests?

Just a thought.

Choosing To Fail

Josh Trevino and Armando have launched a new group blog, Swords Crossed. The goal of the site is to present an honest and reasoned dialog between two intelligent individuals of opposite political bent.

They are currently discussing Iraq, with cogent posts by both Trevino and Armando on the subject. I recommend reading both.

What I would like to talk about here, however, is something Trevino said in the comment section of his post. It's a minor comment mixed within a much larger set of comments, but I think it hilites a fundamental difference in our thinking on this issue.

Your solution basically calls for putting the country further in debt, wasting more American lives?

They're only wasted, of course, if we choose to lose. And it will be a choice.

Does Trevino really think that losing only happens if the loser chooses to lose?

This may very well be the core of the disagreement (on this and many other issues): to what degree do our choices influence our consequent success or failure? Trevino appears to believe that success or failure is primarily, if not solely, dictated by choice and, therefore, if you fail, it must be because you choose to fail.

Myself, I believe that success or failure is influenced by our choices. But primarily only in the leadup to action. Once we are in the heat of it, especially in war, choice becomes a secondary influence, falling well behind chance.

You can choose to create a situation that improves your chance of success. But no amount of choice can ever guarantee success. Failure is not, ipso facto, evidence of a choice to fail. It may just be that your choices force you into a position where success is no longer an option. Then the only choice left to you is, if you are going to fail, how are you going to fail.

Does Trevino honestly believe that those of us who believe that the Iraq war is already lost want it to be a failure? That we chose the course of failure deliberately?

Does he really think we are that insane?

This is the kind of thing that ratches up my teeth grinding factor. How often have you run into the attitude that there is a preference, on our part, towards failure? Quite frequently I would imagine. Our antagonists don't usually come out this clearly and say that that is what they believe. But it colors their analysis of our beliefs.

When I read things like this it pisses me off, but I often can't put my finger on exactly why. The "choose to fail" frame is well hidden in the dialog. Frankly, it is just insulting for Trevino to suggest that people who have come to a different conclusion about Bush's Grand Adventure want that adventure to fail.

His "choose to fail" frame may explain why he and others like him so frequently misunderstand our point of view.