In Response...

Hello, I'm new here. I just wanted to respond to a post of June 18 by Concerned Citizen re: the new MoveOn ad. I have gone point by point as CC did, but omitted some of the points on which I am not as informed. Please compare to the post of June 18th for side by side arguments.

We don't like shopping at small neighborhood stores. We don't want the problem of choosing where to shop. And we just love cheap plastic crap from China.

Sure, globalization encourages choices, but it also seriously undervalues human rights (i.e. rights of prisoners who work as labourers to make the "cheap plastic crap from China") and overvalues "American liberal (intentionally small-l)" culture. Now I'm not saying that neighbourhood stores are necessarily any more likely to stock humanitarian or fair-trade oriented products (so I concede that point). But I do not think that it can be argued that the Chinese government has some extremely suspicious if not downright deplorable labour and human rights practices.

I'm voting Republican because I don't really want a cure for AIDS or for breast cancer. (They are just gays and women.)

Now this one, Concerned Citizen, I have to take issue with. I know from my own research that PEPFAR (President's Emergency Fund for AIDS Relief) has given a great deal of money and, in fact, has pioneered a funding delivery mechanism in the form of community participation in aid distribution. However, I think that the exclusion of countries which have an exploding sero-prevalent population (i.e. the Central African Republic, many of the post-Soviet central Eurasian republics, etc.) from the PEPFAR distribution list is an overt sanction for political reasons. Additionally, the PEPFAR money has been withdrawn from multilateral funding agencies like the Global Fund and other cooperative projects which promote equal distribution of monies and goods to all countries in need.
Additionally, Big Pharma is the exact set of corporations who put the US in such a diplomatic boondoggle in the 1990s when they tried to defend their patent rights against people manufacturing generic Anti-retrovirals and other life saving medications. This situation led to Al Gore (then VP) having to defend the intellectual property rights of these corporations in the face of large scale epidemics and disease.

I'm voting Republican so that my little Caitlin can be in a classroom with at least 30 other children. That way she can be challenged by fighting for attention.

Although I don't entirely agree with MoveOn's position here, I think the detrimental effects of "school choice" initiatives can be seen in the rapid and sudden decline of urban public schools since the genesis of the Bush administration. The fact of the matter is that in, for example, Chicago a child of colour is 6 times more likely to go to a school categorized as "failing" than a white child. School choice and No Child Left Behind have aggravated and complicated these problems by giving people incentives to disinvest from public schooling and the insistence on test scores as bench marks without reference to context or comprehension of the materials.

I'm voting Republican because women just can't be trusted to make decisions about their own bodies. Never. Ever. Ever.

Now this is probably just a difference in opinion and an irreconcilable set of dialogues (pro-choice, pro-life, unborn child, mother’s right to determine for herself) so I do not try and change any minds. I am stringently pro-choice and instead of recounting all of my reasons, I will let one of my favourite bloggers speak for me. Don’t be scared off by or disregard the argument because the domain name. I am also a strident feminist, and I sincerely hope we all know that is not a bi-partisan sentiment.
The link is below:
http://www.feministe.us/blog/archives/2007/01/22/why-im-pro-choice/

I'm voting Republican because I've already seen the great outdoors. Continuing our use of fossil fuels freely is far more important than preserving our natural wildlands.

Changing our energy profile should be a very high priority on the American political agenda. And frankly since Roosevelt there hasn’t really been a president from either side of the aisle who has been committed to really preserving the natural landscape of the North American continent. That being said, I think that the proposals coming from the Republicans re: drilling in ANWR, off-shore drilling, giving more leeway to logging and mining companies, encouraging “hilltop removal” (strip mining) of the Appalachian mountains, etc. cannot be said to be necessarily pro-environment.

We're voting Republican because we like a conservative majority on the Supreme Court. We really like knowing that even if we're separate, we'll still be called equal.

Yes, it is, in some ways, a cheap shot. However, I think that the fact of the matter is that in cases that took the wind out of the sails of the Swann v. Charlotte-Mecklenburg Board of Education case (e.g. Milliken v. Bradley, and Parents Involved in Community Schools v. Seattle School District No.1) were definitely decided by conservative courts. Those cases, by and large, supported a de-facto segregation policy which is still in place in nearly every city of reasonable size in the United States. Additionally, as referenced before, these schools are far from being equal in access to resources or information.


I'm voting Republican because I need to be told who I can love. I need the government to tell me. I need them to tell me how I can best show a lifetime commitment. And Republicans are just the folks to do that.

I am with Concerned Citizen on this one. Prohibition of gay marriage just does not make any intuitive sense to me. I think it would be more reasonable and more productive if we took away the right of people to get married who stay married for two weeks, or celebrities who have marriages annulled what seems like every day. Additionally, the question of the sanctity of marriage is not one that should be decided by the state.

I'm voting Republican because corporations should not have to pay to clean up environmental damage. The EPA is an outmoded idea. If people want clean water, buy it in a bottle.

The EPA, in the Bush administration, has been filled with appointees who are blatantly anti-EPA which does fundamentally undermine the effectiveness of the organization. While the case may be overstated (and we can all agree that people on both sides of any issue overstate their case) I think that the argument that the EPA has been crippled by the Bush administration stands on solid ground.

Because we need more minorities in prison.

MoveOn is not at all suggesting that minorities should be exempt from the legal system. But study after study has shown that an individual of colour (esp. if that individual does not have access to resources) is vastly more likely than a white individual to receive a guilty verdict. Additionally, they are vastly more likely to receive a heavier sentence than a white person. For a stark example, simply look at the laws governing cocaine possession. The forms of the drug that are largely consumed by individuals in black communities (e.g. crack cocaine) are hugely more severe than sentences delivered for possession of powdered substances, despite their being less pure and therefore less potent. The fact of the matter is that there is systemic racism within the legal system and that is one of the reasons (in addition to economic inequality, lack of opportunity, etc.) that the racial breakdown of prisons is so starkly different from the American population. A good book on the issue is:
http://www.amazon.com/Comprehensive-Account-Industry-Predatory-African-American/dp/0979295300/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1214060070&sr=8-1

Because hybrid cars really suck.

Yes, choice rules in a purely lassiez-faire kind of way. However, I think that there is a place for governmental regulation of the amount of consumption that we do. It is in our immediate economic interest to limit the amount of carbon emissions that we send into the air because of the detrimental effects of global warming on the US economy (agriculture, transport, emergency services, etc.). I do support governmental incentives and disincentives for promoting more fuel efficient practices across the board.

Because I just don't feel like I deserve health insurance.

To concede that you are owed a basic standard of health care is to concede that the government must in some way be responsible for it. Indeed, if there is a right to a minimal level of health which is economically unachievable by the majority of citizens then there is a crisis of healthcare. Living without health insurance in the country as it stands is basically living without health care. That status quo is unacceptable to me.

I'm voting Republican because sometimes the constitution is just one big inconvenient headache.

Let’s all be honest with one another. There are “activist judges” on all sides of any opinion. And interpretation of the constitution, whether from a literalist or expansivist sense is just that, an interpretation. I cannot see how we can point fingers and claim that any party throws out the constitution without pointing three fingers back at ourselves.


Because all other countries are in fear to us. We should start as many wars as we need to keep it that way.

The fact is that there is a serious crisis abroad in the American image. We wasted the goodwill we could have capitalized on after 9/11, we continue to destabilize the Middle East with some kind of grand plan to democratize it. As an American currently living abroad, I am finding that since I first travelled abroad, there is less good sentiment and more suspicion of the US role in the world and the ways in which we use our power. We are seen as bullies. That is just my own experience.

So I can stay in Iraq.

It is true that I wish for a better and more stable situation in Iraq. A better and more stable situation in the Middle East and the rest of the world. I am starting to believe, however, that continued occupation of the territorial region known as Iraq cannot solve problems. If we are providing safety for the “people” but only those who agree with us, then we will have to be there for a very long time. If it is the will of the “people” that we should go, then I think that is the best we can do with the boondoggle we have created.

So I can go to Iran.

There are other nations which hold nuclear weapons which threaten the destruction of their neighbors; North Korea, India, Pakistan, Israel. Are we prepared to take all of them on? Is that our role? Is military force the best way to do it? I certainly do not think so. Is it the plan of the government to do so? I can hope that it is not, and lobby so that it cannot be.