Bill Richardson in Claremont, a Campaign Event
Well, Beth was working this morning, so I was left to my own devices. After taking the recycling to the local recycling center, I popped into Shirley's Restaurant in Claremont for a Bill Richardson "Meet and Greet", which I knew from the local paper was scheduled for this morning.
The owner of the restaurant, Dan Fillo, was quoted in the paper as having said, "We've been told by the campaign not to expect a question and answer format. He's probably just going to come in and speak, giving a brief 10- or 15-minute speech about his platforms."
So I was quite pleasantly surprised when after giving his talk, Richardson did open the floor to questions. In my last blog post, I mentioned that Beth got in the last question from the floor at our session with John McCain. I didn't say anything about what she asked him, however. So here I'll mention that she asked him about Darfur. We were both bothered that it took until she got in (right under the wire) for Darfur to be mentioned. McCain did respond pretty passionately, and it was clear that the genocide in Darfur was something he has thought about and that he does seem to care and want to do something about it. But still, it seemed clear from his not having taken the initiative to mention it himself that it is not terribly high on his agenda.
Well, I'm pleased to report that Richardson mentioned Darfur as part of his opening remarks. No prompting required. There's a point in his favor.
I was very disturbed by one thing Richardson said this morning. (In regards to what to do about illegal immigrants, he mentioned something about whether they were embracing American values/culture, and he mentioned as part of the criteria on which that judgment is to be made, "Do they go to church?".) I called him on it. (Frankly, I view that as a horribly scary test. "Do you go to church?" being one small step removed from "Which church do you go to?", which (in terms of whether someone is embracing American values/culture) is terrifyingly close to "do you worship the way we want you to worship?". (See: sectarian violence in Iraq, Sunni vs. Shia, religious persecution, Holocaust, Salem witch trials, Pilgrims landing on Plymouth Rock, the Crusades, etc.,...)). To be honest, I was disappointed that when I called him on it, he didn't take a stronger position and admit that it was the wrong thing to say. Instead, he justified mentioning it, by citing that it's one of many criteria in already existing legislation. There's a point against.
HOWEVER...
Calling him on that was secondary to the real question I posed to him, which was about not only reducing our dependence on foreign oil (emphasis on foreign), but rather on reducing our dependence on oil. I'm very concerned about using up our natural resources. If reducing our dependence on foreign oil means simply shifting our focus to more domestic drilling and refining, well that's no solution at all, is it? To his credit, Richardson is firmly in the camp of those who want to move to renewable resources. "New sources of energy" rather than old. He's pro-coal, but pro-responsible-coal. That's a step in the right direction, as the current administration isn't pro-responsible-anything. Richardson is clearly very much pro-solar and pro-wind. I'm guessing (although he didn't state it) that he would also be pro-tidal/wave energy. And if not, then I would at least feel reasonably comfortable in assuming that he's not anti-tidal/wave energy. (Point in favor.)
Richardson is opposed to "No Child Left Behind" (he calls it "an unfunded mandate"). Another point in favor.
He's making real a point of being boldly, strongly pro-education, particularly in science and math. (Multiple points for.)
He's pro-science in general, and I believe if he gets elected, there will be a 180 degree turnabout in our electoral branch's stance on science. That is, I believe the war on science would come to an end. (Point for. (Exuberantly!))
He's also pro-arts education, as he sees the arts as a vital way to open young minds! (Another point for.)
He requires no prompting to talk about autism. (Point for.)
I'm not really on board with Richardson's views on illegal immigration. But then again, I haven't heard much I do agree with on that topic from any of the contenders.
In the end, I've come away from this morning's event as more a Richardson fan than I had been going in. I'm still not endorsing him. But at the moment, I'm thinking that I could imagine being happy with him as our next president. I think he's a pretty solid choice.
The owner of the restaurant, Dan Fillo, was quoted in the paper as having said, "We've been told by the campaign not to expect a question and answer format. He's probably just going to come in and speak, giving a brief 10- or 15-minute speech about his platforms."
So I was quite pleasantly surprised when after giving his talk, Richardson did open the floor to questions. In my last blog post, I mentioned that Beth got in the last question from the floor at our session with John McCain. I didn't say anything about what she asked him, however. So here I'll mention that she asked him about Darfur. We were both bothered that it took until she got in (right under the wire) for Darfur to be mentioned. McCain did respond pretty passionately, and it was clear that the genocide in Darfur was something he has thought about and that he does seem to care and want to do something about it. But still, it seemed clear from his not having taken the initiative to mention it himself that it is not terribly high on his agenda.
Well, I'm pleased to report that Richardson mentioned Darfur as part of his opening remarks. No prompting required. There's a point in his favor.
I was very disturbed by one thing Richardson said this morning. (In regards to what to do about illegal immigrants, he mentioned something about whether they were embracing American values/culture, and he mentioned as part of the criteria on which that judgment is to be made, "Do they go to church?".) I called him on it. (Frankly, I view that as a horribly scary test. "Do you go to church?" being one small step removed from "Which church do you go to?", which (in terms of whether someone is embracing American values/culture) is terrifyingly close to "do you worship the way we want you to worship?". (See: sectarian violence in Iraq, Sunni vs. Shia, religious persecution, Holocaust, Salem witch trials, Pilgrims landing on Plymouth Rock, the Crusades, etc.,...)). To be honest, I was disappointed that when I called him on it, he didn't take a stronger position and admit that it was the wrong thing to say. Instead, he justified mentioning it, by citing that it's one of many criteria in already existing legislation. There's a point against.
HOWEVER...
Calling him on that was secondary to the real question I posed to him, which was about not only reducing our dependence on foreign oil (emphasis on foreign), but rather on reducing our dependence on oil. I'm very concerned about using up our natural resources. If reducing our dependence on foreign oil means simply shifting our focus to more domestic drilling and refining, well that's no solution at all, is it? To his credit, Richardson is firmly in the camp of those who want to move to renewable resources. "New sources of energy" rather than old. He's pro-coal, but pro-responsible-coal. That's a step in the right direction, as the current administration isn't pro-responsible-anything. Richardson is clearly very much pro-solar and pro-wind. I'm guessing (although he didn't state it) that he would also be pro-tidal/wave energy. And if not, then I would at least feel reasonably comfortable in assuming that he's not anti-tidal/wave energy. (Point in favor.)
Richardson is opposed to "No Child Left Behind" (he calls it "an unfunded mandate"). Another point in favor.
He's making real a point of being boldly, strongly pro-education, particularly in science and math. (Multiple points for.)
He's pro-science in general, and I believe if he gets elected, there will be a 180 degree turnabout in our electoral branch's stance on science. That is, I believe the war on science would come to an end. (Point for. (Exuberantly!))
He's also pro-arts education, as he sees the arts as a vital way to open young minds! (Another point for.)
He requires no prompting to talk about autism. (Point for.)
I'm not really on board with Richardson's views on illegal immigration. But then again, I haven't heard much I do agree with on that topic from any of the contenders.
In the end, I've come away from this morning's event as more a Richardson fan than I had been going in. I'm still not endorsing him. But at the moment, I'm thinking that I could imagine being happy with him as our next president. I think he's a pretty solid choice.
Labels: all, campaign, education, New Hampshire, politics, religion, science, voting
posted by Louis J. Cassorla at
7/28/2007 12:29:00 PM
I ran, unsuccessfully, for the U.S. presidency in 02008.
If you are interested in reading my archived official campaign web site, you can find it by clicking here.
4 Comments:
By the way, if you want to read more on today's event, you can go here for Sarwar Kashmeri's blog entry.
By
Louis J. Cassorla, at 7/28/2007 10:25 PM
I am curious - do you believe the government should be spending money on science? Seems to me that any government run program is just a waste of money and that private innovation in science and, well, everything, is the way to advance.
H
By
Anonymous, at 8/09/2007 10:17 PM
H,
You pose a most interesting question. In principle, do I think governments in general should be spending money on science? If we were starting from scratch, would I likely be in favor of making that a government function? Not necessarily. Probably not, in fact.
However, we're not starting from scratch. We're at a point where our research institutions are used to (and dependent on) getting funding from the government. I think to pull that out from under them would be disastrous.
I don't think government funding is a bad thing. It's how we have our public schools, and to be honest, I wish we were spending more public money on schools. I think our schools are underfunded, and I just don't see the necessary funding coming from private investors.
I'm not necessarily a believer that the government should be in the business of doing science. But I really don't have any philosophical problem with it funding science.
On the other hand, I think there's established precedent for the government doing science and proving that it's a worthy endeavor. NASA may be bloated and may not always do things cost-effectively. On the other hand, what NASA has done is extraordinary. Putting people on the moon, putting people into orbit, putting the Hubble Space Telescope up into orbit, putting the rovers on Mars, sending the probes out to the various planets. All of these things are amazing, worthwhile endeavors and I'm VERY glad they were done. They were done by government, and I don't think they would have been done without government.
It wasn't until a couple of years ago that a private craft put a human being outside of our atmosphere. That was spurred by the (privately funded) X Prize. The prize alone did not cover the investment that the winning team put into the effort, but if it weren't for the profit motive that's offered by the potential of space tourism, SpeceShip One would not have been designed/built/flown.
So now there's a profit motive for putting people into orbit. But there's no profit motive whatsoever for doing a Hubble-like project. There's no profit motive for sending up a Voyager-like mission. Basically, from an economic standpoint, those are like flushing money down the toilet. That does not mean that they're not worthwhile endeavors. But it does mean that they're the sort of projects that private investors won't fund.
I'm of the opinion that our government should be doing things that our free market won't. Here's an example: A decade ago (frankly, quite a while longer than a decade ago), our auto makers should have asked themselves, "Are we in the horseless carriage business or are we in the internal combustion engine business?" And the answer should have been "the horseless carriage business". They either didn't ask that question or they came up with the wrong answer. So they steadfastly refused to seriously work on improved mileage and alternative means of propulsion. As a result, our domestically-built vehicles are terribly inefficient burners of oil. So now Toyota outsells GM. And our discussions about reducing our dependence on foreign oil put us in a sort of Catch 22. We can be serious about doing that, and our domestic auto industry will go that much deeper into the crapper. Or we can continue to buy American and make no real headway on that goal.
What if the government had said, "fine...you don't want to work on fuel economy? We'll work on fuel economy!" Obviously, the visionaries were not in the auto industry. The visionaries were outside of it, but couldn't get the money together to do anything about it.
I think at this point we'd be in a better position. Does the government need a profit motive in developing new technology? Not really. If the government had developed a more efficient engine, or had invested in hybrid or plug-in hybrid or all-electric vehicle development, they could have given (yes, GIVEN) the technology to our auto industry, which would then be in a better position than they're in now.
Without the government, we would not have our interstate highway system. Sure it has its problems, but I happen to think the interstate highway system is a magnificent success story. There's a lot that I dislike about Eisenhower's legacy, but I certainly can't fault him for that.
I'm not a "shrink the government" guy. I'm a "do what makes sense and what's worthwhile" guy. And if that means having the government do what the private sector chooses not to do, I'm fine with that.
If we ever have peacetime again, I think we really ought to put our Army to work building affordable housing. You may say "that's big government and is therefore bad". I say, instead, it's a worthy use of all that manpower, and frankly it would likely result in increased recruitment.
I'm all for, as you say, "private innovation in science and, well, everything", but where that falls short, I strongly disagree with your assertion that "any government run program is just a waste of money".
By
Louis J. Cassorla, at 8/10/2007 8:09 AM
I think that SpaceShipOne has shown that there CAN be a profit motive for space science. When people think "profit," they often think "big business," but that's not necessarily the case. Nonprofit organizations like the Ansari XPrize and philanthropic billionaires like Bill Gates and the Google owners do things like this all the time in other endeavors.
Why wouldn't an eccentric billionaire say, "I want an advanced space telescope in space so that I can see the Earth clearer"? Then, the Hubble telescope would be born-- and for a lot less money than we spent on it, I'm sure.
The first plane (and for that matter, any technological innovation before the 1950s except the nuclear bomb, including anything done by Tesla, Einstein, Newton, Edison, the car, the transistor) was not created by government mandate. The first flight across the Atlantic was done because a philanthropist offered a prize to do it, and Lindbergh took him up on the offer. Private industry.
Sure, it's great to have someone on the moon, but private industry certainly would have done that (there's a lot of benefit for whoever can colonize the moon and build space condos there or take people for trips there or even just open a tourist shop there! :)) The space shuttle is fatally flawed and has killed some of our best astronauts and is only now being replaced, 30 years later. That's with access to an almost endless budget. Private companies wouldn't have that kind of waste. Most of the budget goes to bureaucracy, plain and simple, and incompetence. Did you hear the one about the employees who knocked over the several million dollar rocket, destroying it? Or the rocket that unexpectedly tipped over on landing, ending a $50 million mission?
I like NASA, I just think it can be better.
Next, the car industry. First of all, it's a fallacy to think that our CURRENT car companies would create the technology that would put them out of business. Secondly, our government IS funding a lot of research into this, just not the right research-- for example, the Dept of Energy is funding $50 million into Craig Venter's research on creating life from scratch because they think that might lead to renewable fuels. In other words, it's being a bureaucracy and not getting the job done. As far as the environment goes, it doesn't matter whether Toyota has the innovation or American companies do. The government has given so much corporate welfare to our car companies that they became complacent, giving in to their unions (no employee paid a penny for healthcare, ever, that's absolute madness) and then crying to the government, which said it would pay their employees' retirement benefits and health care if the companies went under. Now they don't have as much of a motive to retool themselves, they have a government crutch.
The point is that a completely NEW company needs to come in and develop renewable technology. But it WON'T be able to do that because the car and fuel industries are both highly regulated, too regulated, kept that way by the current big players on purpose so no new competitors can spring up. The best thing a company can do is get its industry regulated-- then it never has to worry about any new competitors from the free market.
I don't think that turning the Army into Habitat for Humanity would be good for recruitment, although it's a unique idea. Would the Army be buying the lots and materials and paying for the mortgages as well?
Interestingly, interstate highways are now a large reason that we have suburbs, sprawl, carbon emissions and SUVs and have to now think about renewable fuels. Every decision has a reaction, you know?
"I'm not a "shrink the government" guy. I'm a "do what makes sense and what's worthwhile" guy."
Then you're a "shrink the government" guy. :)
You can see some other thoughts on why government funding actually is bad for good science here:
http://www.libertariangirl.com/2008/02/28/why-the-government-should-stay-out-of-science-completely/
By
Libertarian Girl, at 2/28/2008 4:45 PM
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