GOP Pledge is Nothing New

GOP Pledge is Nothing New

This column originally appeared in the Williston Observer on September 30, 2010.

As Yogi Berra said, "It's deja vu all over again."

In 1994, with Bill Clinton two years into his first term as president, Republicans presented a Contract with America to the electorate. The Contract was a list of legislative priorities that the Republicans promised to turn into bills within the first 100 days of the 104th Congress. It was a ploy that played to the angers and frustrations of the American people at the time.

The ploy worked. The House of Representatives had a Republican majority for the first time in 40 years. Though many of the bills based on the Contract failed to become law either because of presidential veto or because the Senate failed to pass them, the Republican majority in the House lasted from the 104th Congress through to the 109th. The Democrats were not able to wrest control until the 110th Congress, almost four years ago, in January, 2007.

The legacy of that Republican control includes government shutdowns, tax cuts for the richest Americans, authorization of an unnecessary war, and the worst recession in decades.

More recently, Republicans have released their Pledge to America. The GOP is pledging to right all the wrongs that they see in American government and society, a good and noble sentiment, but forgetting that it was they who were the root cause of many of these woes.

President Obama came to office promising change, change that many of us, Democrats, Republicans, and independents, were eager for. It is change that we have not seen in many cases, change that we still wait for. But even as we await more of the president's promises to come to fruition, we cannot allow ourselves to be blinded to the fact that change has, indeed, already happened.

To me, the Pledge to America is more about undoing the good that has already been done and thwarting any possibility for more good to be done in the next two years.

Just last week, some of the most important provisions of the health care bill came into effect:

• Children can no longer be denied coverage because of a pre-existing condition
• Health care policies must cover children up to age 26
• Health care policies may no longer include lifetime limits on coverage

These features and protections are all important and have real impact on people's lives today. And if Republicans had had their way six months ago, none of these provisions would have taken effect. Because of the staggered implementation of the health care bill, even more changes will be taking effect over the next few years.

Another major accomplishment of the President and his congressional allies is the end of combat operations in Iraq. This war, the wrong war to have spent blood and treasure on, was authorized by a Republican Congress. Ending it was one of Obama's top priorities, and though it took two years, he was able to accomplish the goal without putting undue risk on our troops or the Iraqi people.

Though Republicans use it as a selling point for their own agenda, calling it a "government take-over", the government's support for General Motors and Chrysler saved an American industry and all the jobs that go with it.

According to Recovery.gov, the Recovery Act, put in place by the Democratic Congress, has brought over $250 million to Vermont through June 30, and another $500 million has been awarded to Vermont. This money represents real jobs, held by your neighbors.

The Republican leadership would have you forget about all of these accomplishments. Is there more to be done? Of course there is, but the way to get things done is not to take a step backwards, back to Republican majorities in the House and Senate.

As he introduced the latest Republican ploy, the Pledge to America, House Minority Leader John Boehner said that if they are placed in the majority, the American people can expect Republicans to "not be any different than we have been". I don't think that America can afford, nor stomach, "not different" from the Republicans, because they have been combative, obstructive, and contrary ever since the new Congress was sworn in.

What we need is a new Republican party that is willing to work with Democrats to come up with solutions, not create more problems. In lieu of that seeming pipe dream, our best bet is to maintain the Democratic majorities in Congress, and for all Democrats to work diligently toward that goal.

The End of Don't Ask Don't Tell

The End of Don't Ask Don't Tell

This column originally appeared in the Williston Observer on September 16, 2010.

Of all the divisions of the U.S. government, the military is likely the most conservative, in this context meaning cautious and resistant to change. But the military must reflect society, and eventually, it does change. First, the military integrated on racial lines. Then it allowed women to serve alongside men in non-combat roles.

Aside from women serving in combat, there is only one major barrier to military service for an entire class of people: homosexuality.

Despite the fact that the same moot canard has been used against other classes of people, such as persons of color and women, the most common reason for forbidding service to openly gay persons is "unit cohesion". The theory is that if a unit was aware that a gay person was serving with them, that unit would not function as a unit. It would, in fact, be at risk of tearing itself apart.

I always found this theory to be a bit insulting. I was asked to serve alongside farm boys and inner city kids, with whom I had very little in common personally. Face it - we all have prejudices, and I am no exception to this truism. But in becoming a platoon, we each had to overcome our prejudices to bond as a unit.

Just as there are dyed-in-the-wool racists who will never change, and have no place in our military, there will be those who will never accept homosexuals as equals. The solution is to weed those people out, not to prevent homosexuals from serving their country.

The anti-homosexual policy in the military went through a shift in 1993. A policy commonly known as Don't Ask Don't Tell was put into place. The practical effect of DADT was that the military would not ask its personnel to say if they were homosexual or not. In exchange, service members would not say or acknowledge if they were gay or not.

At the time, it seemed a reasonable compromise and it probably was. The effect, however, is that the policy required homosexual people to lie to the service, to themselves, to their friends, and to their families about who they were. Upon reflection, these restrictions seem unfair.

In a time of war, the policy also proved problematic. Any soldier who was revealed to be homosexual was subject to discharge - even if that soldier filled a critical role, such as Arabic translator. As of 2007, 58 Arabic linguists had been ousted from service because of DADT.

Beginning in 2001, the DADT policy was modified so that it would not be enforced against service members serving in combat zones. The rationale was the these personnel were too critical to the mission to lose any of them to the policy. This fact played a pivotal role in a recent federal district court ruling in California, which struck down the entire DADT policy as unconstitutional.

As Judge Virgina Phillips ruled, if unit cohesion is important in times of peace, it would seem to be doubly so in times of war, in a combat zone. Yet the military did not increase or tighten enforcement of the policy, it relaxed it. Having a valued member of a team pulled out of that team has more of a negative effect on the unit than the unit discovering a member is gay - something most of the members of the team might have known or suspected anyway.

If my experience in the military taught me nothing, it is that people of disparate backgrounds can, and will, come together as a team. It should be no surprise that members of our military can accept a gay service member as easily as anyone else.

Our military exists to protect our liberty from those who would take it from us. It is an arm of a political system that is based on personal freedom. The DADT policy violates the First Amendment rights of gay service members. It puts our nation and other members of the service at risk. And it is an affront to our national pride in a quality that we say we admire: that a young man or woman would risk his or her life to serve their country.

We should all celebrate and support Judge Phillips's ruling, then drink a toast to the end of DADT. Next up, the last vestiges of discrimination: allowing women to serve in combat and to register for the draft.

Beck's Dream

Beck's Dream

This column originally appeared in the Williston Observer on September 2, 2010.

Last week, on August 28, Fox News personality Glenn Beck held a rally on the steps of the Lincoln Memorial in Washington, D.C. Beck is simultaneously put upon a pedestal by the extreme right wing and denigrated by the majority of the left wing for his utterances, conspiracy theories, near-lunatic rants, and unsubstantiated claims.

Many liberal personalities and organizations were especially critical of Beck because of his choice not only of date for his rally but for its venue. The famous "I Have a Dream" speech was given by Martin Luther King, Jr., on August 28, 1963 on those very steps. Considering the vitriol that Beck has launched against President Barack Obama, including unsubstantiated claims that Obama has hate for "white people and white culture," many have taken personal offense at the event and its organizer.

I can't say that I take the same offense. I'm a great admirer of King's, and admire his I Have a Dream speech so much that I include it in a short list on my web site, a list of documents that I consider of uncommon importance to the nation. And, to be sure, I have no love for Beck. I shake my head in disbelief at his antics, guffaw at his misstatements, and cringe if I ever mistune to his radio or TV programs.

But in the great tradition of the 1st Amendment, Beck has every right to speak his mind in a public venue, and to gather supporters and detractors alike to witness his speech and those of his invited guests. As for the date, there are, after all, only 365 days in a year, and only about half of those in Washington's warm days. As for venues, there are only a few as iconic as the steps of the Lincoln Memorial. If we start to restrict dates and places because something of import happened there once, we will eventually run out of dates and venues.

I honestly don't know if Beck's choice of the date and place is a deliberate affront to the memory of King, but to me it almost doesn't matter. Even a deliberate affront is an exercise of free speech. If a man is being a fool, his actions will show him to be a fool. If a man speaks like a fool, his words will show him to be a fool. Let the man speak unmolested, that we might all hear.

And hear we did - from continuous coverage on Fox to lengthy articles on national news sites, Beck certainly got his chance to air his views. More than anything else, it turned out to be an old-fashioned revival.

In the weeks before the rally, Beck started to say that his event, which was entitled "Restoring Honor" and which was ostensibly held to honor members of the U.S. military, could actually be witness to the word of God emanating from his very mouth. Beck said all he was going to write down for his speech were bullet points, in case "the Spirit wants to talk."

Then, at the rally itself, Beck said that beginning with his rally, America was "turning back to God - for too long, this country has wandered in darkness." Stay tuned to find out when the Church of Beck is slated to open. Beck has said that his inspiration to organize the event came from God himself, that God dropped a "giant sandbag" on his head.

The crowd was substantial, though estimates varied from between 78,000 to a half million. Fortunately for Beck, and unfortunately for those of us who are amused by the sometimes silly, sometimes badly spelled, sometimes ironic, and sometimes hateful placards carried by the Tea Party faithful, most attendees heeded Beck's request that such placards remain out of the rally. The reason for the request, Beck said, was that the event was not political in nature. This in itself is laughable - it was, of course, all about politics.

Last time I wrote about the importance of upholding our freedom of religion, even if the religion is one we do not understand or agree with. I've written before in defense of speech I disagree with, have done so again today, and will continue to do so.

Only by supporting and defending the free speech rights of our foes can we reasonably claim them and defend them for ourselves.