"The Call of Citizenship... Parties and Your Vote"

In civics classes, students are often told to “vote for the person, not the party” or “vote on the issues, not the party.” Commentators sometimes make the same pitch. On the whole, it’s pretty bad advice.

To vote for the person is to assume that the individual officeholder wields singular power. But that’s not true even in the case of the president. In choosing one presidential candidate over another, Americans are choosing more than the person who will sit behind the desk in the Oval Office. They are also selecting several hundred other executive officers, including the secretary of state, the attorney general of the Unites States, and the director of the Central Intelligence Agency. The president also nominates all federal judges and justices. The great majority of these individuals, including the judicial officers, will be of the same party as the president.

The election of a senator or a representative is also more than a decision about which individual will occupy a seat in Congress. Rarely does a single member of Congress have a decisive voice in legislation. Congress works through collective action. Power resides with the majority party in each chamber.

By the same token, a vote based on an issue is usually shortsighted. Once in office, a successful candidate will vote on scores of policy issues, not just one or two issues that were the cornerstone of the election campaign. And what is the best predictor of how the successful candidate will vote on these issues? In nearly every case, the best predictor is the political party to which the officeholder belongs.

An issue that dominates an election can be overtaken by events and be a secondary issue by the time the winning candidates are sworn into office. Partisanship, on the other hand, tends to endure. Today’s Democratic and Republican candidates and officeholders are not all that different in their policy leanings from their partisan counterparts of a decade or two ago.

In recent decades, Americans have increasingly called themselves Independents rather than Democrats or Republicans. They pride themselves on “voting the issue or the candidate rather than the party.” Do you agree with that outlook? What argument would you make to support it?

This article taken from: Patterson, Thomas E. We the People: A Concise Introduction to American Politics. 6th Ed. McGraw-Hill, New York: 2006 (273).

Working Women

During our last EDUC class, the Schoolgirls group asked questions about working moms and stay-at-home moms. I just have a few ideas that I would like to throw out so they stop swimming around in my head.

I think when it comes down to it, a woman should do what she wants. If she wants to be a stay-at-home mom, then she should be. If she wants a career, then she should get one. Personally, if I were to stay at home all day with my hypothetical kids, I might shoot myself. I know I couldn't handle it. I know I'll have a career. And obviously there are benefits to both choices.

I have a problem with society when it comes to this issue. There's a huge group of "modern" women who look down on mothers who choose to not have a job so they can spend their time with their kids. I think this is awful. These moms are seen as backwards. On the other hand, there's a huge group of "old-fashioned" women and men who think that a mom's rightful place is at home with her kids, not in an office. I think this may piss me off even more. If there's one thing I hate, it's people trying to force other people into gender roles. I don't see how that's any different from racial stereotyping. As I said, it's the woman's choice and the family's choice.

The biggest problem I have with this whole thing is the male role in the situation. (Now be prepared, I'm about to make some big generalizations, but they are supported by statistics. So when I say "men" I mean "a large group of American men.") How many times have we heard the phrase "a woman trying to balance her family and her career?" Why do we never hear about "a MAN trying to balance his family and his career?" Furthermore, when asked what the biggest causes of stress are in their lives, women tend to put this balancing act at the very top of their list, while men put it more towards the bottom, if on the list at all. A book called, "The Second Shift" explains that trend. As part of the modern woman outlook, more and more women are getting educations and having careers. However, there are not nearly as many men who are becoming stay-at-home dads. Also, men in general tend to not pick up their share of the work and childcare at home after their work at the office. Staying home with children is increasingly looked at as inferior to having a career, especially for men. A stay-at-home dad will likely be the brunt of many jokes from his male friends challenging his masculinity and wondering why he is doing "women's work." Talk about gender roles. While women are moving to the "superior" position as careerwomen, men are NOT moving to the "inferior" position as homemakers. Thus, modern women are doing double the work and therefore have double the stress.

So my question is, when did being with children become so looked down upon? I'll admit, I don't particularly like the idea of being with small children all day every day, but that is because of personal preferences, not social ideology. Maybe people don't realize how hard it is to raise children. Maybe misogyny is still hanging around. I don't know. But I don't like it. I would like for women to be able to make the choice that they want to make without having to worry about being socially stigmatized by one group or another. I would like for women to be able to raise children in a healthy, loving environment while carrying on a career they love. I would like for men and women to challenge gender roles and not be so rigid. I would like... a lot of things.

Addendum

So here's just a little more about the hurricane, now that it's a few weeks removed. (And this one will be shorter, I promise.) So here goes...

The biggest complaint I've heard in the past couple weeks is about the complainers. People keep saying that we need to stop throwing blame around. They say it doesn't matter who is at fault and what's important now is taking care of people and getting people food, clothing, and shelter. So here's my take. Yes, taking care of displaced people is of the utmost priority. At this moment in time, we need to continue relief efforts and show some compassion for humanity. However, I don't think we should stop throwing around blame. I think that in catastophes like this, it's important to discuss who's to blame. If we don't discuss who is at fault, we won't be able to figure out how to fix this mess for the future. Obviously, there were tremendous failures at the local, state, and national level. It doesn't matter who messed up more. What matters is who messed up what. Once we figure out what they did wrong, we can then figure out how do make sure it's done right in the future. The worst thing would be to not figure out who's to blame and just ignore it. That would mean playing catch-up behind Mother Nature for the upcoming decades. Why keep cleaning up messes after the fact when there are things we can do to prevent such a disaster?

I'm no expert, but here are at least a few ideas.
LOCAL: The local infrastructure of New Orleans is a joke. It's no secret that corruption is a huge problem for the local government. I heard reports that the New Orleans version of Port Authority simply shut down, with the manager there telling his employees to go home. I also read that a sizable portion of the New Orleans police force, firefighters, and EMTs received paid vacation to go to Las Vegas. So maybe the local government needs a giant overhaul.
STATE: After issuing a MANDATORY evacuation, it's the state's responsibility to make sure that people can get out. 60% of New Orleans' population is under the poverty line. These people didn't have enough money to leave. So if the mayor or the governor or whoever declared a state of emergency and issued an evacuation, why were people still there? Where were the city's evacuation plans? Where were the buses taking people out of the city? Where were the emergency funds for evacuees? These people didn't have cars and they didn't have money for a plane ticket. And the state government didn't help them. The state obviously needs more comprehensive evacuation and emergency response plans.
NATIONAL: Uh, FEMA? Where were you? What were you doing? Obviously they weren't watching C-SPAN because they seem to have had no idea that the city of New Orleans was underwater. In their defense, national emergency response DID go to New Orleans. Unfortunately, they were there before the levees broke, so a lot of them just got blown away. And even when they were there, they set up camp around the perimeter of the city. Newsflash, guys: the people that were dying were inside, not hanging out around the outside. We all know FEMA screwed up. Otherwise, why did they guy get fired? Also, Department of Homeland Defense? Where were they? I guess they were a little too busy color-coding terrorist alerts and racial profiling people in airports, because that's all I've seen come out of the new department since its creation. I don't even know where to begin on suggestions for improvement.

So they all get a big, fat F. The good news: we can only go up from here.

Hurricane Katrina

I've been reading news articles for Poli 41, and since everyone with a pen or computer has said their piece about Hurricane Katrina, I'm going to add my two cents in here. Hopefully you'll be able to make sense of what's a jumbled mess in my head. So here are my points, in no particular order:

The inadequacy of our national emergency response system is striking and very worrisome. While I understand that some emergencies are simply too large to be completely prepared for, the reaction to this emergency was and is ridiculous. Many organizations, cities, and nations wanted to help New Orleans but were unable to because there was too much bureaucratic red tape to get through. Now, the logistics of organizing relief workers and supplies does require some red tape so that volunteers aren't running willy-nilly around a disaster zone. However, there's no reason that official organizations, both national and local, weren't more prepared. This point is even more striking in light on the fact that the Bush administration has diverted billions of dollars of funding to the Department of Homeland Security since 9/11 for the sole purpose of being prepared to respond to emergency situations, including the ever-popular terrorist attacks AND natural disasters. All this time I was thinking that Bush's redeeming quality would be national preparedness, but the DHS failed.

On a more local note, the city of New Orleans is stupid. Everyone is talking about the problem of buliding a city below sea level and how dumb that is, but that's not what I'm talking about. From geoeconomical perspective, New Orleans is at a great location. Personally, I wouldn't want to live there awaiting a Category 5, but I also don't want to live in Tornado Alley or along the San Andreas Fault. I don't blame New Orleaners for not leaving their home. What I mean to say is how horrible their environmental laws are. It's a city notorious for their low environmental standards, and even those low standards aren't enforced well. The biggest long-term problem of this disaster is the contamination of the water supply and of the Gulf. Even worse, this sort of contamination is nearly impossible to clean up. I would think that a city in such a precipitous location would at least be responsible enough to clean its act up. On a side note, many nations point to this catastrophe as an example of the dangers of global warming. They hope to encourage Bush to take more responsibility in the global environment. Recently Bush again declined to support the Kyoto Protocol, an international attempt to reduce emissions and slow/stop global warming.

From an international point of view, might I just add that the entire international community is disgusted with the United States at the time being. (I suggest looking up "How Could This Be Happening to the United States?" in the Washington Post online archives. It's a brilliant article.) Sympathetic gestures have been remarkable: France, Italy, Germany, Russia, and China have offered millions of dollars in aid. Even our dissenters, Cuba and Venezuela, have offered aid in the form of health workers and fuel. What really touched me was the report that some of the poorest developing nations - El Salvador, Bosnia, Kosovo, Belarus, Sri Lanka, Georgia - have offered aid. To my knowledge, no such aid has been accepted yet. The administration stated that they were "analyzing needs." I will be very, very disheartened if these offers aren't taken. It would send the message, which most nations believe, that America is too pretentious to accept help from other nations. Now more than ever we need to send the message that we are an international community and that we help each other regardless of status and wealth. I sincerely hope that the United States will not be too proud.

My last point is the race and class issue. Many people, nationally and internationally, are commenting that the majority of the people left behind in New Orleans were poor and black. Other nations are pointing to this as proof that the American Dream isn't all it's cracked up to be, given the still-rampant racism, discrimination, and a large wealth gap. Obviously, class played a large role in New Orleans. Many lower class citizens simply couldn't evacuate. They had no where to go and no money to take them there. A lot of people are blaming the slow response of federal aid on closet racism, and personally, I think that's bull. I don't think anyone thought, consciously or subconsciously, that the government should not worry so much about providing relief because the victims were poor lower-class African Americans. I do, however, believe that this event has highlighted a huge problem with our society. There's no reason for a high poverty rate or a large wealth gap in our wealthy nation. The international community is fair to point out that we have problems with this issue, although I think there are other issues that are more pressing at the moment. Right now, we should worry about getting New Orleans et al on their feet and providing housing for the hundreds of thousands of refugees. When the mess is cleaned up and everyone is safe, then we can talk about the sensitive issues that surround this crisis. Hopefully we won't forget about them by then.

Wow, that was long. I'm going to bed now. I'm exhausted.