Cable TV grew, promising hundreds of specialized channels. And the Internet boomed. In time, the wide array of choices began to bother me. Not the possible choices; the ones being made.

Back when the world was larger and the choices were smaller, every outlet tried hard to service everyone’s point of view. It meant, of course, that no one was happy, because it meant we were all confronted regularly with things we didn’t like and didn’t want to hear. Stories that were critical of our favored views found the air, and we had to confront the criticism.

To me, this had always been the way you built your views. I subscribed both to The Progressive and The National Review. I bought Bill Buckley’s books, and Ralph Nader’s. I grew up being exposed to multiple views, and carried that habit forward, believing the only way one can possibly be comfortable in one’s intellectual house is by being familiar with the weapons used to try and break it down.

The marketplace of ideas brought forth a cacophony, forcing me to resolve the dissonances myself.

But as the array of choices became wider, it became more and more possible to shelter our points of view from all those nasty objections other people had. And as the Internet dawned, no matter how crackpot the idea, we could always find a few other like-minded souls to conclave with, and we could rely on Wikipedia to present our viewpoint without noting the strength or severity of the objections to it.

At first, the idea of finding these communities, these sanctuaries, on the net was welcome. But I noticed a disturbing tendency, not only in others, but in myself. There were so many opportunities for like-minded gatherings, no one was seeking out contrary views. We (for I did it as well) spent all our Internet time listening to echoes of ourselves.

It was easy to notice it in others; as usual the faults in others are far more obvious than those small subtle deficiencies in ourselves. It was only when one of the political sites I regularly read posted something obviously (to me) false (it was obvious to me because it was about people I knew for years) that it started to dawn on me.

It’s known that eating dirt helps you. It’s something to do with training the immune system (apparently, just like other faculties, the immune system needs practice to get its responses right).

The equivalent to that in the intellectual arena is deliberately exposing yourself to “contamination” by other points of view. This develops not only our ability to defend ourselves against them, but it also helps us recognize the seriousness of them. And, just as helpful, the truth in them.

(The Da Vinci Code foofah comes to mind in this context. Yes, the book demonstrated Dan Brown wouldn’t know a fact if it walked up and kissed him on the lips. But the book was also clearly labeled “fiction,” so that’s hardly an issue. But despite that label, how many people let themselves be seduced into either believing it or reacting to it as a serious threat to the stability of the universe? Since nothing in it was new, the “antibodies,” as it were, should have been widely disseminated, and all we should have had to talk about was storytelling technique.)

We’ve closeted ourselves in our groups, where everyone believes what we believe, and no one dares speak against it. So when someone does, our personal echo chambers resound, aghast at the impropriety. We haven’t trained our mental immune system well, so we overreact badly, and things spiral out of control quickly.

We’ve locked out all who think differently from us, and when all our safeguards fail, and we see someone a few degrees different from us, we react as if they’re a threat to everything we hold dear. So Fox News screams radical epithets at MSNBC, and MSNBC returns the favor. Neither makes sense, neither makes a reasoned discourse. They simply make noise.

But if we’re going to make this silly thing called democracy work, folks, we can’t do that. We have to let people espouse ideas and principles that horrify us. And we have to learn how to meet those people, and more importantly, live beside those people, even though every fiber of our being screams they’re wrong.

Just like they have to live beside us. Else we are all doomed.

Fannie Mae hit a little trouble recently with a contractor. I’m glad they caught him in time. But…

I can’t help but wonder if he was one of those H1B visas industry said they had to have, simply because Americans wouldn’t work cheap enough. So the program expands, and now foreign nationals are planting software bombs in federal computers. On one hand, the irony is overwhelming.

Is this what we’re going to see more of, now that the downturn is upon us? Companies, even our own government, hiring foreign nationals rather than local talent?

It’s not the economy, or the war, or terrorism, or taxes, or the deficit; these all look simple when compared with the real problem. The shortage of patience.

Kasparov wants him to do something about Russian relations, but that’s just the opening. Nearly everyone who lined up behind President-Elect Obama has their own pet issue, and their own timetable for solving it. And he will disappoint them.

No, I’m not criticizing him, I’m simply pointing out that the election did nothing to repeal natural laws. There are still only 86400 seconds in a day, and he will have to remain idle for some of them (it’s called sleep) if he intends to operate at full capacity during the rest. The nature of time is such that we humans can only really concentrate on one thing at a time, can only do one thing at a time. So priorities will be set, and followed, and some things will wait while other things get done.

There’s going to be a tremendous pressure on him to do everything at once — a sure recipe for failure in everything. When Jimmy Carter gave his first presidential speech, outlining everything he planned on doing in his first year, Hubert Humphrey said to him, “If you get even a third of that accomplished in your first term, you’ll get your own book in the bible.”

So the question is, how will his uptopia-mad supporters react when told their pet issue will have to wait for a while, because other things are more important? When something they want gets traded away in the cause of getting something he feels is more important enacted? Good Government is not pure as the driven snow; it’s the art of compromise, of giving a little on one issue to gain something on another. It’s settling for a step forward instead of insisting upon a great leap.

President-Elect Obama has inherited a huge mess, one that took years, in some cases decades, to make. It’s not going to go away when he walks in the door. It won’t suddenly resolve itself as it basks in his smile.

If he truly means to heal our dysfunctional family, his people are going to have to avoid the temptation to play “Now it’s our turn!” and start ramming things through. President Reagan tried that, as did President Clinton, and it cost both of them control of Congress and brought gridlock in very short order. The second President Bush’s experience also leads to the same conclusion.

Building consensus, bringing more people into the tent, slows the process down, this is true. Now matter how well-intentioned or important it is, it will cause some fractious debates within the ranks of supporters. The adoption of the US Constitution, for example, infuriated Patrick Henry. But anything less is a lack of leadership that dooms us all.

Since I began this with a Kasparov reference, it’s fitting to end it with a chess metaphor. President-Elect Obama’s position is dicey: he’s a pawn down in a Rook ending, but all isn’t lost. The game can be saved, perhaps even won. But it’s going to take a lot of work, and especially time.

The question before the house is: Is he going to get that time? I suspect he won’t, I fear that both as a nation and as a world, we have grown too self-centered to allow that to happen. But I live in hope.

The process reminds me of a story from Wisconsin’s history, a story about two frontier towns: Sauk City and Prairie du Sac.

These two cities are Wisconsin’s version of the Twin Cities, albeit from a more dysfunctional family. They lie on the shore of the Wisconsin River, and both derive their names from the Sac Indian tribe.

Almost from the day they were founded, these cities kept trying to one-up the other. When the state decreed they had to share one postmaster, and they chose a man from Prairie du Sac, he insisted the post office had to be in Prairie du Sac. When the state appointed the next postmaster for the two towns, obviously the fair thing to do was appoint one from Sauk City. His first act? He and his cronies moved the post office out of Prairie du Sac and into Sauk City lock, stock, and barrel.

When the state built a bridge across the Wisconsin at Prairie du Sac in 1852, nothing would do except for Sauk City have its very own bridge, just a few miles away. They scrapped over everything, from the routing of US highway 12 to the number and location of schools serving the area.

But the story the election brings to mind is the battle over the placement of the county seat. Obviously this is a ripe plum to award to a growing city in the early days of the state. The two cities were of roughly similar size, and were the first major settlements in the county, making either one the logical choice for the seat of county government. Prairie du Sac was made the interim seat, while the legislature pondered where to put it permanently. This, of course, did not sit well with Sauk City, who promptly sent a delegation to the legislature with the prime goal of ensuring the legislators knew it was a Bad Idea to make Prairie du Sac the permanent county seat.

Of course Prairie du Sac wasn’t going to sit still for this, so they sent their people to make sure the legislators knew it was a Really Bad Idea to establish Sauk City as the permanent county seat.

The legislators listened to both delegations, and pondered, and made their decision. The permanent county seat of Sauk County would be — Baraboo!

One and a half centuries later, I find myself in the same position as those state legislators. They listened to the delegations, and were convinced by both of them. Giving the county seat to either was clearly a Bad Idea, so they looked elsewhere. While I’m not saying who gets my vote this year, I will say that both major candidates have made their case, I no longer believe either is fit to be president.

And I say this going forward, hoping (probably in vain) for others to join me, to any candidate that wants my vote: be more concerned with telling me why I should vote for you than telling me why I should vote against your opponent. I don’t care what your opinion is of your opponent personally or of your opponent’s policies. Obviously you disagree with them, or you wouldn’t be in the race, so tell me why your way is excellent, not why your opponent’s way is evil (pronounced “eeeeee-villllllll”).

So long as you run more ads about your opponent than you do about yourself, so long as you spend more time and money talking about your opponent than about yourself, You’ll not get my vote. Period. I don’t care if you’re Abe Lincoln and JFK rolled into one. You’re simply proving you’re not fit to lead.

I mean, I’m all in favor of the Fifth Amendment. I think it’s necessary to preserve our liberties, especially today when the federal government seems intent on taking them away in the name of security.

I just don’t see any sort of meaningful difference between a password and the key to a locked room/box/safe. If I’m the target of a legally obtained search warrant, I can be forced to provide a key for a strong box. How is that different from a password for an encrypted file?

Even more to the point, the judge can compel me to provide the combination for a safe that might be the legitimate target of a search. Tell me, please, just how that possibly differs from the password for a computer file.

I’m definitely not in favor of giving the government carte blanche to search everyone everywhere. There are specific tests they must meet in order to be granted the right to search, and the warrants have to be specific about what they can find and take away.

But given those measures are satisfied, I’m completely at a loss how any reasonable judge can draw a distinction between the combination to a safe and the password to a computer, saying you have to divulge the one but not the other.

I’ll make no secret of this: I’m not one of Jessica McBride’s fans. You want proof? The first line of her comment is disgraceful. I’ve even gone so far as to speculate on when her last remaining synapse might die of loneliness. But there’s a line between disagreement, even strenuously enthusiastic disagreement, and abuse.

You wonder why I’m writing these lines? Have a look.

I know, calling names seems to be what passes for political discussion these days, but even in that light, this kind of crap is appalling. You want to know why I don’t like to be seen in the company of people who share my political views? You need look no further. Crap like that actually makes some of the right-wing shills look good.

I don’t for a moment expect this to have any effect on the writer; from all available evidence the writer thinks it’s clever and funny to behave badly. I’m just making my own POV clear: The real problem with most left-wing positions isn’t with the positions, it’s with the people themselves.

Calling names doesn’t solve anything, doesn’t bring us any closer to getting things done. Like public masturbation it will gratify the performer, but polarize the spectators. At best, it lowers one person’s blood pressure at the expense of another. Net gain: zero.

(In the interests of accuracy, and for the education of one of the commenters on the referenced blog entry, the word and its suggested definition is found in the current OED as well as the 1991 edition. American Heritage, Encarta, and Merriam-Webster also support that usage, though none, including the OED support it as the primary definition. That isn’t the point. The point is the kindest description of the term any of them put forward is “vulgar;” all but OED also include the adjectives “disparaging” and “offensive.” Encarta adds “highly” to “offensive,” even. That’s the point. Politics are fair game; people aren’t. “But they’re calling me names!” someone cries. If they jumped off a bridge, would you the same? To borrow a line from West Wing, “You’re the Good Guys. You should act like it.”)

I remembered a man from the past. I remembered a man who entered politics as a young man, but who grew and matured. A man who entered the Department of Justice at a time when that was a scarce commodity. An eager, enthusiastic young man who saw disappointment and loss, and grew. Unlike many politicians of his day (and most politicians of today) he was not afraid to admit mistakes and to learn from them.

The movie was “Bobby.” The man is Robert F Kennedy. Today there’s a lot of myth, caricature, and just plain misinformation about the man. I’m not sure this movie does anything siginificant to dispel any of it, but that’s not the point. If you’re too young to remember Bobby, if you didn’t live those years, this movie may not add much to your understanding. But pay attention, not to the fictionalized parts of it, but rather to the clips from speeches and press reports.

The movie is about Robert F Kennedy’s last day, but it’s only peripherally about Bobby himself, and I think that what he would have wanted. Other people were wounded at the same time he was killed, and the movie centers around their lives, the events of their day that led them to that place and time, that led them to their appointment with a bullet. These people, from a busboy to a hotel manager to socialites and the powerful, mattered also. And Bobby would have been the first to insist they should be the heart of the story, not him.

The movie invoked memories for me. Memories of a man who thought it more important to stand for something, than to stand against it. As Attorney General he once said, “I happen to believe the decision is right. That does not matter. It is the law. Some of you hapen to believe it was wrong. That also does not matter. It is the law.”

I wasn’t an early supporter of Bobby. But the man’s attitudes and principles still played a major role in shaping my own. I disagreed with him, but learned from him. Ideals matter:

“…there is no basic inconsistency between ideals and realistic possibilities — no separation between the deepest desires of heart and of mind and the rational application of human effort to human problems. It is not realistic or hard-headed to solve problems and take action unguided by ultimate moral aims and values, although we all know some who claim that it is so. In my judgement, it is thoughtless folly. For it ignores the realities of human faith and of passion and of belief; forces ultimately more powerful than all the calculations of our economists or of our generals.”

It’s a lesson no one remembers today: it’s not what you stand against that matters; it’s what you stand for. It’s why I am neither Democrat nor Republican. Both parties today have become obsessesed with opposition — they oppose each other the way a knee jerks after being tapped by the doctor’s rubber hammer. Neither party has a reason for this opposition, something they stand for. All they want to talk about is what they stand against. In the economy of ideas, both are poverty-stricken.

The reasoning is simple, but still it escapes the leadership of both parties: As long as I stand for something, and you stand for something, there’s a way we can get together and move forward. I can do something to help you, and you can do something to help me. But when both of us merely stand against something, then no progress is possible. If I help you and you help me, the best we can manage is a steady-state equilibrium: no decline, but no advancement, either.

It’s not a matter of “practical politics.” Practical politics, by itself, achieves nothing. Only when we in engage in it in support of an ideal does it begin to achieve anything significant.

Both the Democrats and the Republicans need to decide what they stand for. Not in terms of specific legislation, but in ideals and principles. Those ideals and principles will then inform the legislation, and will serve as a basis for the political wrangling to follow as we all engage in the necessary work of lighting up our city and country with a glow that will light the world, to use the imagery of Bobby’s brother John, or the work of creating that shining city on the hill, if you prefer the imagery of Ronald Reagan.

If your opponents are demons, then you cannot work with them. But once you acknowledge they also want the best for their country, the way you want the best, and all you are doing is merely disagreeing on some parts of the definition of “best,” you have a means to progress. But once you succumb to the temptation to brand people who merely disagree with your policies as “evil” or “stupid” you’ve shut the door on progress, and you’ve harmed us all.

I could continue to develp the theme, but instead I’ll step back and let Senator Robert Francis Kennedy say it for me:

“I have not come here to propose a set of specific remedies nor is there a single set. For a broad and adequate outline we know what must be done. When you teach a man to hate and fear his brother, when you teach that he is a lesser man because of his color or his beliefs or the policies he pursues, when you teach that those who differ from you threaten your freedom or your job or your family, then you also learn to confront others not as fellow citizens but as enemies, to be met not with cooperation but with conquest; to be subjugated and mastered.

“We learn, at the last, to look at our brothers as aliens, men with whom we share a city, but not a community; men bound to us in common dwelling, but not in common effort. We learn to share only a common fear, only a common desire to retreat from each other, only a common impulse to meet disagreement with force. For all this, there are no final answers.

“….But we can perhaps remember, if only for a time, that those who live with us are our brothers, that they share with us the same short moment of life; that they seek, as do we, nothing but the chance to live out their lives in purpose and in happiness, winning what satisfaction and fulfillment they can.

“Surely, this bond of common faith, this bond of common goal, can begin to teach us something. Surely, we can learn, at least, to look at those around us as fellow men, and surely we can begin to work a little harder to bind up the wounds among us and to become in our own hearts brothers and countrymen once again.”

The Democrats focus on stopping the Republican agenda; The Republicans return the favor and focus on stopping the Democratic agenda. And so we as a country stop. People, we need to focus less on stopping and more on starting.

In a nutshell, three stupid kids thought it’d be fun to dig up a month-old corpse of a pretty lady and have sex with it. They weren’t able to; they were caught long before it got that far (surprise!) but when the DA charged them under Wisconsin’s sexual assualt laws, the judge in question threw out those charges for the rather amusing reason that the legislators who drafted the law never mentioned the word necrophilia in their debates, and so (this oh-so-clever jurist reasoned) that must mean that when the lawmakers said “This section applies whether a victim is dead or alive at the time of the sexual contact or sexual intercourse” they obviously didn’t want to bar necrophilia.

Is terminal silliness sufficient reason to impeach a judge?

With those vote-leaking drawbacks, Obama looks like he’s worth it and could possibly bring it home.

Nope. Not gonna happen. You see, Barack Obama has one very obvious drawback: he’s a Senator.

In races for the White House, Governors rule. In the last century, the only times a Governor has been weak is when he’s campaigning against a sitting prez or veep. No Senator has ever beaten a Governor. A Senator did once manage to beat a sitting veep, but fer cryin’ out loud, it was JFK over Nixon, and even then it was so close some still think Daley rigged the election (more than was customary for Chicago politics, that is).

I’ve said this before: if the dems are serious about the White House, look to the Governors, not the Senators. Senators talk; Governors administrate. The people trust Governors more than Senators. And Barack, if you’re serious about the presidency, look to the State House, not the White House, for your next stop.

To understand where I’m coming from, let me first say I’m in favor of minimum markups, in principal. They attempt to keep giant chains from undercutting local businesses, driving them out, and then raising prices back up. They don’t always succeed in that endeavor, but they succeed often enough that I feel the benefits of the “tax” (in the form of slightly higher prices) is worth the cost.

But Wisconsin’s law has a design flaw that current gas prices have exposed. It’s based on percentages, a measure that only people who have never run a business and had to set price levels would use.

In the real world, when you go to set your price, you make some calculations. Eventually, you arrive at the cost to you to obtain the widget (gallon of gas, in this instance). You also calculate the amount (not percentage) of profit you want to realize from this business, project sales, and amortize that amount over the number of widgets sold. You can follow several pricing theories from volume pricing (where you lower the profit on each individual widget, in the hope the sheer number of sales will turn those pennies into dollars) to boutique pricing (where you raise the profit from each widget, expecting sales to go down, but the dollars to still arrive, just in larger clumps this time). Once you’ve decided on the amount of profit, that plus the cost will show you the percentage profit, which is just a convenient measurement tool, and a number that financial gurus love to chat each other up about, but has no real purpose in the world of actual buying and selling. This should be made even clearer by the fact that some businesses thrive on a 1% profit margin, while others fail with a 20% profit margin.

And that’s the flaw in Wisconsin Law. They picked a percentage (just over 9%) as minimum markup, rather than allow for an absolute number. When the wholesale price of fuel goes up to the local station, few other costs go up. So why should the overall profit margin automatically rise proportionately to the fuel cost?

A better approach would be to cap the minimum markup at a real number (say, 15 cents or thereabouts) which is indexed to an inflation indicator. The change in the law would be simple: add a paragraph which calculates the cap number, and then for every occurance of the percentage add “or the cap number, whichever is smaller” to the statute.

That way the small businesses would be assured of getting the profits they needed to survive. Remember, all minimum markup laws are supposed to do is provide a subsistance level of support to the small business person, protecting them from predatory practices. They’re not supposed to guarantee any level of success beyond that.