California dreaming... ending or begining?

Is one generation's California Dream, another generation's nightmare? This article makes a good case for it:

My Dark California Dream
Our­ parents had wide open spaces all around.
We still had nature within reach. Now what?

CALIFORNIA’S over, everything I love about this place is going to hell.

I knew there was something familiar about this thought from the moment it occurred to me in Yosemite National Park. My sister and I started going to those mountains 40 years ago with our parents, who taught us to see the Sierra Nevada as a never-changing sanctuary in a California increasingly overrun by suburban sprawl.

Once we had our own families, we indoctrinated our kids in the same joys: suffering under backpacks, drinking snowmelt from creeks, jumping into (and quickly back out of) icy lakes, and napping in wildflower meadows. Yosemite remains my personal paradise, but the impact of drought and climate change has become overwhelming — smoky air from fires, shriveled glaciers leaving creeks dry and meadows gray, no wildflowers.

The big new forest fire didn’t help, as we hiked back to our car in mid-August. We were never in danger, but smoke from that so-called Walker fire filled the sky and turned sunlight orange. At the surprisingly good restaurant attached to the Lee Vining Mobil station just outside the park, ashes fell like apocalyptic snowflakes onto our fish tacos. We watched a DC-10 air tanker carpet bomb flames a few miles off. We had intended to stay in a nearby motel, but Highway Patrol officers told us they planned to close the road, so we joined the line of vehicles escorted past red walls of fire.

We slept at a friend’s house on the western flank of the Sierra Nevada. The next morning, as we began our drive home to San Francisco, this sense of unraveling — of California coming apart at the seams — worsened by the mile. The air was more Beijing than Yosemite, and the Merced River, normally a white-water pleasure ground, was a muddy sequence of black pools below mountains covered with dead ponderosa pines, a tiny sample of the more than 12 million California trees killed by drought and the bark beetles that thrive in this now-warmer climate.

The San Joaquin Valley, still farther west, is depressing on good days, with its endemic poverty and badly polluted air and water. But driving in freeway traffic through endless housing developments on that particular weekend encouraged a fugue state of bleakness in me. Somewhere in that haze lay an industrial-agricultural plain where the unregulated pumping of groundwater has gone on for so long that corporate farms pull up moisture that rained down during the last glacial period — with two paradoxical and equally strange geological effects.

[...]

We were nearly home, inching through Sunday-afternoon traffic (rush hour is now everywhere and always), when I realized that I had become my parents. Put another way, it was finally my turn to suffer the sense of loss that made my mother weep over every strip mall obliterating every once-lovely farm during family road trips in our 1971 VW micro-bus. My father’s nostalgia was more for 1950s Los Angeles: Bing Crosby living down the street, the Four Freshmen on the radio, a T-shirt filled with oranges as he rode the bus from his family’s Westwood home through sleepy neighborhoods to a completely separate town called Santa Monica.

Confusing one’s own youth with the youth of the world is a common human affliction, but California has been changing so fast for so long that every new generation gets to experience both a fresh version of the California dream and, typically by late middle-age, its painful death.

[...]

“Eyes wide open, here,” says Terry Sawyer, co-owner of the nearby Hog Island Oyster Company, where the big issue is excess atmospheric carbon dioxide raising ocean acidity so fast that oyster larvae struggle to build shells. “The California dream of us being wet and making a living and enjoying ourselves may be threatened,” he says. “I have kids, and I want that dream intact for them, but it may not be the same dream. I may not be growing the same organism. I am hopeful, but I am extremely concerned.”

Everybody is — except, of course, those living the most obvious new California dream, the technology gold rush. Try telling successful 25-year-old entrepreneurs in San Francisco that California’s over and you’ll get blank stares as they contemplate stock options, condos going up all over the city, restaurants packed nightly and spectacular organic produce at farmers’ markets every day.

It’s not only 25-year-olds saying that. “You’re a naturalist, Duane, so of course you see it through that lens,” said Mr. Starr, later in our conversation. “But don’t lose sight of all the great new things happening, all over California. Marc Benioff just built one of the greatest pediatric hospitals on the planet a few miles from your house! And this whole tsunami of foreign investment pouring into California is really a ringing endorsement of the dream.”

I drive by Mr. Benioff’s hospital every day, and I know that Mr. Starr is right. I am also impressed, sincerely, by all these brilliant people making fortunes seemingly overnight. I recognize that prosperity is better than its absence, and I like the fact that Californians still help make the future look hopeful, by developing better solar panels and electric cars, sustainable agriculture and marine-protected areas that preserve fish populations and their habitats. I have also noticed the friendly crowds jostling my elbows at every surf break and on the shockingly long lines below Yosemite rock climbs. These people have as much fun as I ever did, loving the only version of California available to them. [...]

That's just it. Those of us who knew an older version of California, miss it as it disappears. New people come along, not knowing how things used to be, and they think it's fabulous just the way it is.

Perhaps this is true of life generally, not just California specifically. As we get older, we miss what was. California's transformation(s) have been many and rapid, which makes it dramatic. But I think it's happening everywhere, as the world becomes a smaller, more crowded place. And once you become old enough to have as significant amount of "past" behind you, you notice it more.

It was a good article, with lots more examples, read the whole thing for embedded links and more.

     

Future-shock, accelerated?

Is the pace of technology suddenly accelerating? A case can be made for it:

The Acceleration of Acceleration: How The Future Is Arriving Far Faster Than Expected

One of the things that happens when you write books about the future is you get to watch your predictions fail. This is nothing new, of course, but what’s different this time around is the direction of those failures.

Used to be, folks were way too bullish about technology and way too optimistic with their predictions. Flying cars and Mars missions being two classic—they should be here by now—examples. The Jetsons being another.

But today, the exact opposite is happening.

Take Abundance. In 2011, when Peter Diamandis and I were writing that book, we were somewhat cautious with our vision for robotics, arguing that we were still ten to fifteen years away a major shift.

And we were wrong.

Just three years later, Google went on a buying spree, purchasing eight different robotics companies in less than six months, Amazon decided it was time to get into the drone delivery (aka flying robots) business, and Rethink Robotics released Baxter (a story explored in my new release Bold), the first user-friendly industrial robot to hit the market.

Baxter was the final straw. With a price tag of just $22,000 and a user-friendly interface a child could operate, this robot is already making the type of impact we were certain would show up around 2025.

And we’re not the only ones having this experience.

Earlier this year, Ken Goffman—aka RU Sirius—the founder of that original cyberpunk journal Mondo 2000 and longtime science, technology and culture author—published Transcendence, a fantastic compendium on transformative technology. Goffman has spent nearly 40 years working on the cutting edge of the cutting edge and is arguably one of a handful of people on the planet whose futurist credentials are truly unassailable—yet he too found himself way too conservative with his futurism.

You really have to stop and think about this for a moment. For the first time in history, the world’s leading experts on accelerating technology are consistently finding themselves too conservative in their predictions about the future of technology.

This is more than a little peculiar. It tells us that the accelerating change we’re seeing in the world is itself accelerating. And this tells us something deep and wild and important about the future that’s coming for us.

So important, in fact, that I asked Ken to write up his experience with this phenomenon. In his always lucid and always funny own words, here’s his take on the dizzying vertigo that is tomorrow showing up today:

[...]

Read the whole thing, for embedded links and more examples of this phenomena, and what it means for the future.

It a way, this also relates to this article: Welcome to the Failure Age!, that I blogged about recently. It's about the relationship between technological advancement and the evolution of economics and the ways both shape our societies. About how technological advancements cause failures of older technologies, and how that causes massive disruptions in the workforce and economies, locally and globally.

Our societies are struggling with ways to deal with that, and now that the pace of change is accelerating (according to both of these articles) it's more important than ever to understand this technological/economic relationship, and how we may cope with the many possibilities it's creating in the near future.

I really recommend this article; it's not pessimistic! I think it identifies the dynamics involved very well, and is optimistic that we can find ways to adapt, if we remain flexible and adaptable, and able to change with the changes. If we can, many good things may become possible.

     

Older workers in the workforce

Here are some videos from the PBS website, part of a section called: New Adventures for Older Workers. They show many of the problems older workers face finding employment, and how some of them transcend those problems.

About half of unemployed middle aged and older workers are still unemployed two years later. If you are near retirement and an employer wants to hire you, there’s fixed costs to hiring you. They have to train you. They have to invest in you and if their investment is only going to be spread over a few years then that might not be the best investment for them compared to a worker where that investment might be spread over many more years.

— Julie Zissimopoulos
Economist, University of Southern California

This lady comes out of retirement, and finds work that she's never done before, that transforms her life:



Many older people, well past traditional retirement age, are still working:



More on late-blooming self-starters; "Encore" careers:



The advantages of a geriatric workforce. Here is a company where the median employee age is 74:

I think there’s a kind of sweet spot that’s emerging in life that’s a function of the longevity revolution. So when you’re 50 years old, you have the chance to have a whole new chapter and it’s an extraordinary opportunity for individuals to have another chance to do something important.
— Marc Freedman Founder, Encore.org

It seems that some of the oldest folks, 65 and older, who had to come out of retirement and start working again, have had even more success. It's interesting to see the different approaches that different people of different ages take, and the varying degrees of success they enjoy.
     

The Weird Ways TV Changed in just 7 Years

5 Ways Television Went Crazy Since I Quit Watching in 2003

Sometime in early 2003, I gave up television. It wasn't some conscious decision to try to become a more productive person or anything of the sort. I just found that the remote had become just an extra unused object on my computer desk that got in the way of my mouse, like job applications and intervention letters.

But eventually, you find that without it you miss out on a lot of social interactions, especially at work. Over seven years, I had a lot of moments that went like this:

"Did you see Family Guy last night?"

"No, I don't have TV. Do you play World of Warcraft?"

"No, I have sex."

So I decided to buy cable again, and let me tell you that after seven years without seeing a single episode of anything except by accident, I found myself feeling like a time traveler in a world where everything had gone just a bit insane.

It turns out that in the last seven years... [...]

His observations are spot-on. Nice to know I'm not the only one that thinks modern TV viewing fare has become... Bizarre and Freaky!

     

What Young Voter's REALLY Think

About Republicans. And why:

The Real Reason Young People Don’t Like Republicans

[...] It’s true that most polls find strong support for same-sex marriage among young people. The report, mainly written by Winston Group pollster Kristen Soltis Anderson, tries to gauge how important the issue is in driving their votes. It finds that 26 percent of young voters favor same-sex marriage and wouldn’t vote for a candidate who opposes it even if they agreed with that candidate on most other issues. Some of those voters, maybe most of them, must lean toward the Democrats on issues other than same-sex marriage. So Republicans are losing some young voters on this issue, but it may not be central to the party’s troubles.

And young people aren’t socially liberal when it comes to abortion. In the College Republicans’ March survey, 51 percent of them believed abortion should be banned altogether or with exceptions in unusual circumstances. They aren’t all that liberal on immigration, either. About 65 percent of young voters favored deporting illegal immigrants, enforcing the law before offering them legal status, or offering them legal status but not citizenship -- all positions to the right of the immigration bill now being debated in the Senate. Young voters also consider climate change a low-priority issue.

Economic Concerns

They are deeply concerned, on the other hand, about economic issues. And Republicans have a lot of work to do on them. A majority of young voters think the party’s economic policies played a big role in the recession. They don’t follow Republican politicians in thinking that higher taxes on the rich are higher taxes on small business. Although they tend to agree with Republicans about the future of entitlement programs for the elderly, they are much more worried about the here-and-now. (The report cites a survey showing 20 percent of young people had delayed marriage because of the economy.) They consider student-loan debt a major obstacle to their goals.

And they give President Barack Obama credit for trying to help the economy, reduce their debt burden, and fix health care. Among those young voters who approve of Obama’s job performance, “trying” was the No. 1 word they used about him -- as in, he has been trying to improve things.

They think that public spending should be cut and that government is too big. Fighting big government is, however, a much lower priority for them than expanding the economy, reforming the safety net and controlling the national debt.

To my eye, these findings suggest there is an opening among young people for Republicans who advance credible plans to reduce the cost of health care and college, to foster job growth, to control the national debt and to address the other issues they consider important. Republicans will want those plans to involve shrinking the government, but that shouldn’t be their chief selling point. If they can do that -- a big if, for many reasons -- Republicans will also get credit from young voters for trying, whereas they now seem reflexively anti-Obama. It will also make them seem more intelligent, which is a quality that young people, according to the report, prize more than coolness. [...]

Republicans had a chance to fix things like health care, but they chose other priorities, and they are paying the price for it now.

Currently, the Republican Party is having a problem adapting to changing demographics. They keep trying to appeal to a majority of Americans that no longer exist as a majority. Time to adapt, or die. I think ultimately they will adapt, but there will be growing pains.
     

GOP supporting Gay Marriage?

Many in the party are moving in that direction:

Conservative effort underway in push for gay marriage

There are some prominent names in there. I'm not surprised. In so many ways, the battle to stop it is a lost cause, for many good reasons:

The inevitability of Gay Marriage

Whatever you think of it, it's here, and it's not going away. Deal with it. The GOP has much more important battles to deal with, and should not waste any more time and resources on a battle they have already lost.
     

The inevitability of Gay Marriage

Here is the "why":

A gay marriage backlash? Not likely

[...] Four factors often predict whether judicial decisions will generate backlash: public opinion, relative intensity of preference, geographical segmentation of opinion, and ease of circumvention/defiance.

Unsurprisingly, only rulings that contravene public opinion tend to generate backlash. In 2003, Americans opposed gay marriage by roughly 2 to 1. Today, supporters outnumber opponents by 5 or 10 percentage points. A ruling in favor of marriage equality would generate far less backlash today than previously. Still, the nation was divided nearly down the middle when the Brown and Roe cases were decided, yet both rulings generated massive political resistance.

Backlash is more likely when opponents of a ruling care more than supporters do. In 1954, Southern whites overwhelmingly disagreed with Brown, and 40% of them regarded civil rights as the nation's most pressing issue. Most Northern whites agreed with Brown, but only 5% of them deemed civil rights equally important. Similarly, by 2004, among the one-third of Americans who supported gay marriage, only 6% said the issue would influence their choice of political candidates. Among the two-thirds who opposed gay marriage, 34% deemed it a voting issue.

That large disparity in intensity of preference between the two sides of the issue no longer exists. Perhaps more important, even strong opponents are unlikely to find that a marriage equality ruling will directly affect their lives in the way that Brown and Roe affected opponents. In the 1950s, white Southerners committed to white supremacy thought that sending their children to school with African Americans was the end of the world. Opponents of abortion regard the procedure as murder.

Constitutionalizing gay marriage would have no analogous impact on the lives of opponents. Expanding marriage to include same-sex couples may alter the institution's meaning for religious conservatives who believe that God created marriage to propagate the species. But that effect is abstract and long-term. The immediate effect of a marriage equality ruling would be that the gay couple already living down the street would become eligible for a marriage license — and nothing would change in the daily lives of gay-marriage opponents. That is why strong initial support for a state constitutional amendment to overturn the Massachusetts court ruling rapidly dissipated once same-sex couples began to marry. [...]

That explains a lot. Succinctly. And in IMO, makes it inevitable.
     

Paul Harvey got much of it right, back in 1965

See for yourself. How much of this rings true today?



Hint: it was easy for someone to illustrate it with contemporary photographs.

     

Changes That Are Coming: Good or Bad?

You decide. I got the following in my email:

9 Things That Will Disappear In Our Lifetime

Interesting to note and very true too.....
Whether these changes are good or bad depends in part on how we adapt to them. But, ready or not, here they come .....

1. The Post Office
Get ready to imagine a world without the Post Office. They are so deeply in financial trouble that there is probably no way to sustain it long term. Email, Fed Ex, and UPS have just about wiped out the minimum revenue needed to keep the Post Office alive. Most of your mail every day is junk mail and bills.

2. The Check
Britain is already laying the groundwork to do away with check by 2018. It costs the financial system billions of dollars a year to process checks. Plastic cards and online transactions will lead to the eventual demise of the check. This plays right into the death of the Post Office. If you never paid your bills by mail and never received them by mail, the Post Office would absolutely go out of business.

3. The Newspaper
The younger generation simply doesn't read the newspaper. They certainly don't subscribe to a daily delivered print edition. That may go the way of the milkman and the laundry man. As for reading the paper online, get ready to pay for it. The rise in mobile Internet devices and e-readers has caused all the newspaper and magazine publishers to form an alliance. They have met with Apple, Amazon, and the major cell phone companies to develop a model for paid subscription services.

4. The Book
You say you will never give up the physical book that you hold in your hand and turn the literal pages. I said the same thing about downloading music from iTunes. I wanted my hard copy CD. But I quickly changed my mind when I discovered that I could get albums for half the price without ever leaving home to get the latest music. The same thing will happen with books. You can browse a bookstore online and even read a preview chapter before you buy. And the price is less than half that of a real book. And think of the convenience! Once you start flicking your fingers on the screen instead of the book, you find that you are lost in the story, can't wait to see what happens next, and you forget that you're holding a gadget instead of a book.

5. The Land Line Telephone
Unless you have a large family and make a lot of local calls, you don't need it anymore. Most people keep it simply because they've always had it. But you are paying double charges for that extra service. All the cell phone companies will let you call customers using the same cell provider for no charge against your minutes.

6. Music
This is one of the saddest parts of the change story. The music industry is dying a slow death. Not just because of illegal downloading. It's the lack of innovative new music being given a chance to get to the people who would like to hear it. Greed and corruption is the problem. The record labels and the radio conglomerates are simply self-destructing. Over 40% of the music purchased today is "catalog items," meaning traditional music that the public is familiar with. Older established artists. This is also true on the live concert circuit. To explore this fascinating and disturbing topic further, check out the book, "Appetite for Self-Destruction" by Steve Knopper, and the video documentary, "Before the Music Dies."

7. Television
Revenues to the networks are down dramatically. Not just because of the economy. People are watching TV and movies streamed from their computers. And they're playing games and doing lots of other things that take up the time that used to be spent watching TV. Prime time shows have degenerated down to lower than the lowest common denominator. Cable rates are skyrocketing and commercials run about every 4 minutes and 30 seconds. I say good riddance to most of it. It's time for the cable companies to be put out of our misery. Let the people choose what they want to watch online and through Netflix.

8. The "Things" That You Own
Many of the very possessions that we used to own are still in our lives, but we may not actually own them in the future. They may simply reside in "the cloud." Today your computer has a hard drive and you store your pictures, music, movies, and documents. Your software is on a CD or DVD, and you can always re-install it if need be. But all of that is changing. Apple, Microsoft, and Google are all finishing up their latest "cloud services." That means that when you turn on a computer, the Internet will be built into the operating system. So, Windows, Google, and the Mac OS will be tied straight into the Internet. If you click an icon, it will open something in the Internet cloud. If you save something, it will be saved to the cloud. And you may pay a monthly subscription fee to the cloud provider. In this virtual world, you can access your music or your books, or your whatever from any laptop or handheld device. That's the good news. But, will you actually own any of this "stuff" or will it all be able to disappear at any moment in a big "Poof?" Will most of the things in our lives be disposable and whimsical? It makes you want to run to the closet and pull out that photo album, grab a book from the shelf, or open up a CD case and pull out the insert.

9. Privacy
If there ever was a concept that we can look back on nostalgically, it would be privacy. That's gone. It's been gone for a long time anyway. There are cameras on the street, in most of the buildings, and even built into your computer and cell phone. But you can be sure that 24/7, "They" know who you are and where you are, right down to the GPS coordinates, and the Google Street View. If you buy something, your habit is put into a zillion profiles, and your ads will change to reflect those habits. "They" will try to get you to buy something else. Again and again.

All we will have left that can't be changed are "Memories"...

Aligning conservatism with our modern world

GOP'S WINNING TEAM: FACEBOOK/TWITTER IN '12

Republicans have been quick to recognize the practical benefits of technology, but slow to grasp its political implications.

[...]

As the internet exploded into the mainstream over a decade ago, it was widely assumed that it would accelerate the fragmentation of society. Instead of watching the same television shows, attending the same movies, and patronizing the same stores, tech-savvy and self-reliant consumers would retreat into their own online spaces and express their individuality. Libertarianism would flourish.

In reality, Web 2.0 has had the opposite effect. Social networking sites, online chat and discussion forums, blogs, and peer-to-peer sharing have strengthened social bonds, not dissolved them. As never before, interconnectedness and interdependence are central facts in the lives of young people.

[...]

In this context, excessive rhetoric about individualism and personal freedom is not just inappropriate; it’s insane. It’s no coincidence that Republicans are getting slaughtered in densely populated urban and suburban areas, filled with students and young professionals who are intimately involved in their communities, offline and online. They are repelled by swaggering calls to go it alone, to sink or swim, to believe that they alone determine their own destiny.

What is true in spacious America is doubly true in crowded Britain. This is why British Conservative leader David Cameron endlessly repeats that “we’re all in this together” and “there is such a thing as society.” After the economic revolution of the Thatcher era, Tories were viewed as the wrecking crew, as uprooters of communities and enemies of social cohesion. In truth, conservatives on both sides of the Atlantic are still trying to reconcile economic liberalism with respect for tradition and continuity. Perhaps the most crucial aspect of Cameron’s modernization agenda has been the enormous effort to recast his party as champions of social responsibility. [...]

It goes on to describe how the Brits are attempting to bond conservatism with this new demographic, the "Facebook/Twitter generation", and how in the US Obama has already done so. Could it be true that American conservatives, while being savy about the technology itself, really have yet to fully understand it's implications?

It remains to be seen if what British conservatives are doing will have any success, but if it does, there may be some lessons there for American conservatives. Even if it doesn't work for the Brits, there still may be some lessons there for us. If the Grand Old Party doesn't connect with the current electorate, we may indeed need a Grand New Party.

I'm very much an individualist, but there are some things we all have to cooperate on; none of us lives in a vacuum. As technology increasingly makes our world inter-connected and interdependent, the need for cooperation becomes unavoidable, and that's not lost on the young people who are on the cutting edge in embracing these technologies.

The article goes on to offer some very conservative ideas about how this cooperation should be approached and even embraced and advanced. IMO these ideas don't diminish conservatism in any way, and are at least worth considering, as our Brave New World continues to evolve. The conservative way involves a lot more freedom and multiple choices, and I'll take that over the authoritarian big government Big Brother way any day.
     

Christian moralizing as a party platform

Are conservative Christians and the Republican Party one and the same thing? I wouldn't say so, although I wouldn't deny they make a up a huge part of the party. So much so, that Republicans can't win elections without them. But not so large, that Republican's can rely ONLY on them. The Republican Party needs to expand it's base, and it needs to do so while retaining most of it's current membership. How can that be accomplished?

Since Bush senior, conservative Christians have made their social issues the spearhead of the Republican party. While that may have had a short term gain for the party, in the long term, due to changing demographics, it's likely to be a losing proposition.

I'm not suggesting that religious conservatives give up their social positions, because:

A.) They WON'T.

B.) I wouldn't let anyone tell me to give up my positions on anything, so I would not expect anyone else to.

What I am talking about is, the spearhead of the Republican Coalition. In a coalition, the members have core beliefs they share, and a variety of other beliefs that can differ considerably. If the coalition is to hold together, the spearhead must be the core beliefs, so all them members can rally behind it and support it. If the spearhead is instead the agenda of one coalition member, the support drops, and the spear, through lack of support, never reaches it's target.

I think that's what we are seeing currently. Religious Republicans have been putting their social issues at the forefront, the spearhead, of the party. When they are asked not to do that, they complain that they are being asked to "give up" their social issues. I submit that that is not the case. I think what they are being asked to to is, to rally around the core beliefs that they share with other non-religious Republicans, and put those at the forefront of the party.

Why? So we can win elections. Why? Because if your party is powerless, NONE of your issues will be served well, if at all.

If you insist on all or nothing, you will often end up with nothing.

Social issues are also Hearts and Minds issues. They can't be legislated onto people against their will. If you try to impose such issues on a free people, against popular sentiment, you create resistance and even a backlash.

The political left understands this. Tammy Bruce, in her three books, goes into great detail as to how the left has succeeded in implementing many of their agendas over the years. The secret: they did it incrementally. They knew that giant, sweeping changes would only alarm and repel. So they advanced their causes piece by piece, eroding away at the opposition. Over time, it adds up, it counts, it makes a difference.

Religious and Social conservatives could do the same thing, but they tend to stick to "all or nothing" scenarios, and thus often end up with nothing; the moral purist high-road becomes a dead end.

The other factor is positivity. Who wins elections, historically? Usually it the most optimistic, positive and upbeat candidate. Democrats often loose presidential elections because their candidates whine and complain, and emphasis what they are AGAINST, more than the expound positively what they are FOR.

Obama was very upbeat and optimistic. Superficial perhaps, but it played well none the less. Conservatives (myself included) fell into the trap of constantly criticizing Obama about things the media would not cover, which ended up making the Republicans sound very negative. Furthermore, many conservatives were often negative about our own candidate John McCain. Some came around towards the end, but only half heartedly. And what did the loudest voices in the Republican party, the Religious/Social conservatives, keep pushing to the forefront? Anti-abortion and Anti-gay marriage platforms, and all sorts of things they were AGAINST.

We become the party that was AGAINST, which is usually the Democrats losing strategy, but this time it was ours. Oh sure, there was plenty of stuff we were FOR, but it was not at the forefront of what the public saw.

Are we going to learn anything from this? I keep hearing different factions of the Republican party saying, we need to kick out the religious conservatives, or the social liberals, or the small "L" libertarians, etc. Ridiculous. Kicking people out just makes our party smaller and weaker. What we NEED is, at the forefront of our party, a spearhead that we can ALL stand behind, support enthusiastically, and speak inspiringly of, and be positive about.

It's perfectly doable, but will we? Or will we continue to be perceived as the negative, all-or-nothing, divided and divisive, interfering busy-body party that non-religious voters complain about? It's up to us.

Tammy Bruce today has a poll on her blog, asking Should the GOP reach Out to Pro-Choicers?. I'm sure many Pro-Life conservatives would be tempted to automatically vote "NO", but I would ask them to think about it more deeply. I would ask them to consider, are you more interested in posturing against abortion (and getting nowhere), or changing laws to limit abortion, thus saving actual lives?

Tammy Bruce herself, while being pro-choice, has also called abortion "the Razor's Edge". She's said she doesn't approve of the way it's used as birth control, and she has a lot of sympathy for women who are pro-life. She has said that as a feminist, she wants every women to "find her own voice", and when many women do that they find that it's a "pro-life" voice, and she accepts that.

Tammy is conservative on many, probably most issues. Can we not expand our party to include people like her? Would it be such a bad thing for us to win elections?

This isn't about "giving up"; it's called "give a little, get a little". It's about the art of political maneuvering; it's about making incremental advances, instead of blunt inflexible posturing, that may feel good when you do it but in reality does NOTHING to advance your cause.

I've used abortion as an example here, but it could easily apply to just about any social issue that's important to you. "Compromise" is only a dirty word if you believe that idealism is more important than affecting actual change on the ground. Incremental change not only makes a difference, it also is a footsoldier in the battle for hearts and minds. If your cause is better served by incremental advances, then get started. Start moving things to where you want them to be, even if it's slowly, instead of just loudly complaining that you aren't there yet.

There is no political party that fits my views 100%. With maturity I've learned to compromise, because I realized that it's the only realistic way to actually advance the causes and principles that I do care about. I've understood that I can't do it alone, that I need other people, and that means agreeing with people on the things I can agree on, and agreeing to disagree about the rest. An 80% ally isn't a 20% enemy. Ronald Reagan taught me that, and it's a lesson that the Republican party as a whole would do well to strive to embrace, if it's going to survive the 21st century.
     

Change is here, whether you like it or not

Across U.S., Big Rallies for Same-Sex Marriage

[...] “It’s not ‘Yes we can,’ ” said Tom Ammiano, a San Francisco city supervisor, referring to President-elect Barack Obama’s campaign mantra. “It’s ‘Yes we will.’ ”

Carrying handmade signs with slogans like “No More Mr. Nice Gay” and “Straights Against Hate,” big crowds filled civic centers and streets in many cities. In New York, some 4,000 people gathered at City Hall, where speakers repeatedly called same-sex marriage “the greatest civil rights battle of our generation.”

“We are not going to rest at night until every citizen in every state in this country can say, ‘This is the person I love,’ and take their hand in marriage,” said Representative Anthony D. Weiner of Brooklyn.

In Los Angeles, where wildfires had temporarily grabbed headlines from continuing protests over Proposition 8, Mayor Antonio R. Villaraigosa addressed a crowd of about 9,000 people in Spanish and English, and seemed to express confidence that the measure, which is being challenged in California courts, would be overturned.

“I’ve come here from the fires because I feel the wind at my back as well,” said the mayor, who arrived at a downtown rally from the fire zone on a helicopter. “It’s the wind of change that has swept the nation. It is the wind of optimism and hope.” [...]

I understand perfectly well people's concerns about not wanting to change the definition of what a marriage is. But no-fault divorce has already done that. For years I worked for attorneys that dealt with divorce cases, and saw it in action. No-fault divorce has turned marriage, in it's legal definition, into nothing more than a civil contract, to be broken at will.

This is why it's being called a "civil right". As a civil contract, how can it be legally denied to gay people? Arguments against gay marriage as a religious choice will probably still hold up, because no one has to join a religion that they don't like. But that argument does not hold up in the secular sphere, nor does it enjoy popular support there. To continue to try to force it on secular people is only going to create continuing resistance... and resentment.

If conservative Christian churches want to maintain the right to not perform gay marriages in their churches because of their religious beliefs, I believe that is their choice and their right. But secular people also have their right to make their own choices. If the religious right continues to try to control secular civil marriage contracts to reflect their own views, they may find themselves in a very uncomfortable, and losing, position.


Related Link:

The anti-gay marriage votes