Wonky Means Crooked



Presumptive vice presidential nominee Rep. Paul Ryan has had to expend a lot of energy lately explaining how he and Mitt Romney can criticize President Obama's cutting Medicare costs while at the same time they plan on using those same cuts in their budget plan. 

The Affordable Care Act reduces costs to Medicare by $716 billion over ten years without reducing any benefits paid out to seniors on Medicare for services and uses those savings to pay for other parts of the health care bill. Ryan's budget plan counts on those savings in his budget plan, which Republican nominee Romney calls "marvelous". The natural question is how the two Republicans can praise and plan to use those cuts but then accuse Obama of "gutting Medicare" for doing the same thing. Paul Ryan dismisses it by saying it's "wonky". He states "It gets a  little wonky," but they can criticize Obama because he put those cuts "in the base line"; he states "We would never have done it (passed the health care law patterned after Romney's Massachusetts health care overhaul) in the first place", and because he voted to repeal the entire law it's OK for him to support the very same Medicare cuts Obama supported. But if the cuts are a good idea outside of the health care law why where they a bad idea within it? Notice they are not criticising Obama for what he's done with the cuts, but only the cuts themselves.

A google search using the terms "Paul Ryan" and "wonky" shows a plethora of articles that describe Ryan and his policies as "wonky"; one might assume they are saying that he is himself a wonk, a person who is very interested in a subject and has a broad knowledge of it.  But it should be noted that if you search for the definition of the word "wonky" the first word of the first result is "crooked", and after that you have terms like "shaky", "feeble", "whacked out" and my favorite "not working for no definable reason". Considering Ryan's establishment of this obvious distinction without a difference to explain his and Romney's attack on Obama for enacting a measure they intend to keep in force, perhaps these definitions for the term "wonky" are more apt after all.

Romney Concedes!

Presumptive Republican presidential nominee Mitt Romney made it clear to the entire world that he has no expectation of winning November's election by his naming Rep. Paul Ryan of Wisconsin as his vice-presidential running mate.

The two main goals one hopes to achieve in a choice of running mate is either a widening of appeal for the whole ticket to a broader spectrum of voters or the addition of someone who can help make up for a perceived lack on the main candidate's part. Tapping Ryan for the job accomplishes neither of those goals. Romney's biggest deficit besides an almost complete lack of personal magnetism is the complete absence of any foreign policy experience. As a Congressman Ryan has had zero such exposure, having never even served on a committee related to foreign affairs. And while Ryan certainly has more magnetism than Romney, the only types of voters he tends to attract are those who should already be voting Republican.

This choice seems to scream that, instead of hoping to attract more independent and undecided voters, Romney is scared to death of losing the hard right-wing of the normally reliably Republican electorate. Ryan's appeal lies almost entirely among the Tea Party segment, who as a group care far less about what it takes to win an election, instead preferring neoconservative ideological purity above all else.  To be sure, if Romney had chosen someone  more palatable to independents like Tim Pawlenty there would probably have been some Tea Party party voters who would just opt out of casting any vote at all. Apparently Romney's advisers fear that level of abstention could be high enough to deny him victory in states that are usually considered comfortable wins for most Republican candidates.

Romney's choice of Ryan will seem to many people an act of capitulation to the hard right wing of the Republican party, and that translates to a perceived failure of leadership and an unwillingness to make a hard choice in the face of strong opposition. Surely his advisers must have realized that not only were the Tea Party activists championing Ryan's choice for running mate, but liberal Democrats as well were licking their chops at the prospect of such a dyed-in-the-wool ideologue as Ryan being chosen for the lower spot on the podium. In the final analysis choosing Ryan indicates Romney has given up going on the offensive against Obama and instead is playing defense to avoid an embarassing electoral landslide come November.

Chick fil-A boycott hypocrisy

Those who know me would not be surprised that I am a supporter of gay rights, nor would they be taken aback to learn that I am in favor of same sex couples being accorded the same rights under civil law as opposite gender couples to enjoy identical marriage rights and protections. Notice that I specified that they should be allowed identical rights to the civil institution of marriage and said nothing of religious sanctioning of the practice one way or another. There are aspects  of marriage that are entirely within the boundaries of civil law, such as property,  inheritance, tax status and decision-making prerogatives; there are also aspects that are strictly religious, such as whether  such a union is more or less “sanctified” under Christian, Jewish or any other faith or even whether it is allowed at all. I have no interest in interfering with any other person’s religious practices on the subject,  but my personal view as a Christian is that granting all aspects of the civil institution of marriage to same sex couples does nothing to endanger the sanctity of my own heterosexual union; I and my spouse are the only persons with any ability to damage that joining in any way.  If someone else’s religious view allows for the spiritual sanction of same sex marriage it likewise has no impact at all on any of the civil law aspects of that institution.

There has been a lot of publicity lately surrounding the public statements of Chick fil-A CEO Dan Cathy regarding his opposition on gay marriage and the fact that he apparently gives money to political organizations that seek to bar its acceptance.  A number of prominent voices on the political left have made statements critical of Cathy’s stance and have therefore stated that Chick fil -A’s values are not in sync  with certain geographical areas and sectors of our society.   Some of those statements have come perilously close to indicating that some persons in positions of civil authority might seek to discourage Cathy’s company from locating in their necks of the woods based on his outspoken position.

As I consider myself to be a  principled liberal I cannot support any efforts to bring any economic harm  to Mr. Cathy by way of an organized boycott of his company’s products.  Whereas Mr. Cathy and I disagree strongly on this subject,  I would not  dream of attempting to punish him in any way for exercising his God-given and Constitutionally protected right to speak his mind and follow his conscience.  I would instead say to Mr. Cathy, as Voltaire is reputed to have said,  “I disapprove of what you say, but will defend to the death your right to say it.”  I am certain that I am not alone among the liberal community in this position.

What pains me the most in this controversy is that persons in the gay community should know better than just about  any others what it is like to be punished for following their consciences. They have been beaten, arrested, fired from work and denied nearly every facet of human decency at one time or another because they followed the path they saw as what was right for themselves; how, then, can it be justified to enforce a similar type of punishment on a person who follows his own conscience in the same manner?  It might be different if Cathy were in any way discriminating against gay employees in his business regardless of their relationship status because then we will have gone beyond speech or political activism and into directly harmful behavior.  Now, if an individual chooses as a matter of personal conscience to refrain from doing business with Chick fil-A, that is one thing, but to attempt to use mass economic intimidation to punish Mr. Cathy and his business for his private behavior is about as hypocritical as it gets.