411 Politics Fact or Fiction: Week 124 - AIG Rage, Abstinence Unrealistic, More

Posted by Brandon Crow on 03.31.2009

Is the rage against AIG unwarranted? Is abstinence unrealistic? Does John McCain talk out of both sides of his mouth? Was President Obama correct in declassifying and releasing Bush's torture memos?

Welcome to Week 124 of Politics Fact or Fiction. Well, folks, what else can I say but we're getting down to the end here. Just one more week after this with me as moderator. Tick-tock, tick-tock.

This week, I have two more of my favorite participants on the farewell tour for Crow. The first guy, you all know him, you all love him…former columnist, and my personal sparring partner in "The Heineken Dialogues," Josh White. The other participant is the civil liberties writer for about.com, Tom Head.

Ready, set, go!

Ding! Ding!

1. The populist rage aimed at AIG is refreshing and needed, but misplaced.

Josh White: NEITHER. This is a trick question because either I have to say that the animalistic, exaggerated rage is either "refreshing and needed" but misplaced, or it is not misplaced and it isn't refreshing or needed. I don't think that either option is right. I think that it is completely unnecessary, ridiculous, over-dramatic, silly, and totally misplaced.

The government, using taxpayer money, has given AIG $170 billion (an amount so enormous none of us really understand it). Now, even if it is true that every bonus is going to a member of the AIG team who actually lost the company money (which I'm not sure is true), let's just remember that less than one cent out of every dollar is going to the bonuses. (Quick math: 165 million divided by 170 billion is .00097, or .097 of a dollar.) I'm not convinced that we should get mad about how they spend 1/100 of their bailout.

So why are people getting so mad? Why the "populist rage"? I'd say two main reasons, both of which are "misplaced." First, I think that President Obama along with the coverage of this story have done a great job at getting people fired up about this. They have focused on the huge piles of cash being thrown at people who don't, from their perspective, deserve it.

They forget to mention, or minimize, the contractual obligations that AIG has to these workers. It is not that the company is rewarding these executives for failure. They are simply fulfilling the legal obligations that they had even though the workers failed. Then the media publicizes the fact that people are taking bus tours to worker's house to protest. All of this gets people hysterical. Further, the president and media outlets redirect the citizen outrage from the government who allowed for not only the bailouts but the bonuses as well to those who are simply following the law.

Second, I'd like to put a good amount of blame on just plain old jealousy. It is one thing to be amazed at this, or curious if the people should be getting the bonuses. It is another to be so angered that you're protesting, and picketing people at their homes. These in the latter group are simply jealous of their wealth. Class envy is a powerful force when combined with mob mentality (not to mention a president that is stoking the envious fire).

We don't (or shouldn't) act like this when the government spends egregious amounts of money. Few on the left are protesting Obama's trillion dollars of spending. Why not? Because they think that they will get something. But here, they get nothing. Jealousy.

Not refreshing. Not needed. Totally misplaced.

Tom Head: FICTION. It's excessive, but not misplaced. The executives at AIG should have realized--any idiot should have realized--that if you make an unprecedented government investment into a private corporation, if you essentially socialize it, then it is VERY important to avoid even the vaguest appearance that the people who are "too big to fail" are running off with the store. I recognize that bonuses are essential to recruiting the best executives, and AIG can use the best executives right now, but there should be more of an attitude of austerity. If your parents loan you thousands of dollars because you need to pay medical bills, then that's a very bad time to go on a trip to Paris.

It's sort of like the rage conservatives have directed against "welfare bums" or "welfare queens"...except that in the case of AIG, we're talking about millions of dollars that the recipients don't even need. I mean, the same folks who think single mothers need to stop receiving WIC assistance to pay for formula after their fourth kid don't see anything wrong with the government funding multi-million dollar competitive bonuses for bank executives. Hello?

0 for 1. Joshua Einstein Christopher Columbus White, what the hell is NEITHER?! You've completely jacked my scoring!!!!!

2. Sarah Palin's daughter (the one pregnant during the campaign), Bristol is on record saying, "abstinence is not realistic." If an 18 year old can understand this, you are surprised the right wing of the GOP cannot.

Josh White: NEITHER. Once again, I can't answer this with an either or as it will make me something that I don't want to.

The following question is directed to all the readers of this column who are above 22 years of age. When dealing with a personal crisis (financial, emotional, psychological, etc.) do you often go to 18 year olds to get advice? I'm guessing the answer is no.

As we age past the youthful age of 22 we go to 18 year olds for advice almost never. Why? Excluding a few, they don't have the wisdom or life experience to give us the know-how to live ours. Sure, they can tell us facts. But when it comes to wisdom, they got nothing. For this reason, I don't value Bristol Palin's "wisdom" very much.

I am not a fool. I know that kids want to have sex. For guys, it makes them feel like a "man." For girls, it makes them feel desirable and loved. But none of this means that kids have to or will have sex.

What we need to do is focus on how to get people to wait to have sex. I think that waiting until marriage is probably best, but at least waiting until a very stable, long-term relationship in their twenties is a solid second best. The problem is how. It seems that religious reason may work for those who are religious, but they are totally worthless for those who don't. Also, most kids don't care for religious teachings at this age anyway. We need secular reasons. We need to make these youngin's realize that they don't have to have sex, that it is something (very) special, and they should wait. I think that reasons can be made (though I don't think that this is the venue for them). The more pressing question is how to teach these to the kids without seeming "lame."

This is what Republicans should do if they think it is important to stop children from having sex. It is probably a worth venture. Republicans don't really like abortions. Well, people who are adults and married usually don't have them. If they could figure out a way to stop people who are not emotionally or psychologically ready to have sex, then abortion numbers might drop. So, there are good reasons, both secular and religious to make this effort. Teaching our children values is difficult, but as a culture/society we owe it to them. So, no, I do think that "abstinence is not realistic" and I totally support the GOP continuing to try to explain this to the youth.

(And just so that nobody says that I'm just saying this because I'm a born again religious Republican zealot, I will just say that I'm not Christian and that I -mistakenly- had sex before marriage. These thoughts are coming not from what I've done, but what I think should be done.)

Tom Head: NEITHER. In terms of sexual education, the abstinence-only approach obviously isn't realistic; it doesn't work. But I'm sure the right wing of the GOP can understand this.

The commitment to abstinence-only education is not based on a lack of understanding, at least among the principal advocates. It's based on a need to please social conservatives who feel, as Pope Benedict does about condoms, that it's better to take a principled stand that doesn't work than to take an unprincipled stand that does. Better that half the world be HIV-positive, from that vantage point, than to go along in any way with the sexual revolution--because in the former case God will reward our fidelity, and in the latter case God will punish our secularism.

It has nothing to do with whether or not abstinence-only education is realistic or unrealistic. It has to do with whether or not commitment to abstinence-only education will please God. (Read Matthew 10:28--the people we should fear, from a biblical perspective, are not those who would destroy our bodies; they are those who would destroy our souls.) This is a strictly religious concern, and that's what motivates the base behind the abstinence-only movement.

The rest, like the arguments for Intelligent Design, are religious arguments wrapped in secular cloth. The real argument for abstinence-only education, the only one that makes sense, is religious. Only a religious sensibility can justify a public education strategy that so visibly does not work.

Now, having said that, I would argue that abstinence itself IS realistic. People can control their sexual habits. It's not hard; in some ways it can be easier than having sex, and it's sure as hell less complicated. The problem is that we live in a culture where not having sex implies that there's something wrong with you--teenagers are pressured to the point where when they do have sex, they often end up regretting it.

I'm not surprised Josh regrets his first time; in a recent British survey, 40% of teenage girls reported having sex they didn't really want to have. Not necessarily rape, but sex they were guilted or ridiculed into having, or sex they had because they didn't want to lose their boyfriends, or what have you. Sex nobody should have to have. Sex should be about affirmative consent--ENTHUSIASTIC consent--and not about social pressure.

So what we really need is a comprehensive sex education curriculum that provides information on all options while fighting the stigma associated with abstinence--so that sex doesn't become a self-esteem issue. But abstinence-only education programs that push abstinence and ignore other options only increase the stigma associated with abstinence (when have school administrators ever been the credible arbiters of what teenagers want to do?) while decreasing the odds that the majority of kids who will end up having sex before they're in a committed relationship will use protection. It's stupid.

Bristol Palin understands this (and a sufficiently intelligent 18-year-old can understand anything that someone of any other age can understand); I understand this; I'm sure on some level Josh does, too. And I do applaud his sensible approach to his own sex life, but if public health programs were only meant to apply to people who make sensible decisions, we wouldn't need them in the first place.

1 for 2. Good job again, guys. HOWEVER, now we've got TWO NEITHERS!! Josh, look what you've wrought! However, they do agree on neither, so I guess this could technically count…

Switch!

3. John McCain addressed the Heritage Foundation this week by saying, "I am very nervous about the expansion of government oversight," in terms of the financial industry. Then in the next breath, he said, "But we have to do a better job of regulation and transparency." McCain needs to think more about what he is saying before he says it.

Tom Head: FICTION. McCain does need to think more about what he's saying before he says it, in general, but this statement isn't really illustrative of that; it's perfectly consistent to be nervous about the expansion of government oversight and still support more government regulation, just as it's perfectly consistent to be nervous about U.S. nuclear power without suggesting unilateral disarmament. Hesitation to enact a series of reforms does not necessarily constitute ironclad opposition to all such reforms. McCain's position is very nuanced, much as you'd expect from a longtime senator, but it is not internally inconsistent.
Josh White: FICTION. I think that my combatant in political discourse is dead on here. I give him a lot of credit for giving McCain some credit (unlike Mr. Crow!). I think, like Tom, that it is possible to be against an overwhelming amount of a some institution but realize that certain instances of said institution are needed. I wish I could say more here, but I think that it has all been said for me.

2 for 3. Finally!

4. President Obama's Justice Department is about to declassify and release three of George W. Bush's internal memos (written by his Justice Department lawyers) that argued their rationale on "enhanced interrogation" practices. Obama is doing the right thing making these public.

Tom Head: FACT. Abu Ghraib, secret CIA prisons, interrogation tapes deleted under suspicious circumstances, rumors of Gitmo torture--all of these are effective recruiting tools for al-Qaeda and other terrorist organizations. Until the U.S. government owns up to its history vis-a-vis torture practices, it will be extremely difficult to reclaim its legitimacy as an international human rights leader. Our country has a lot of apologizing to do, frankly, and acknowledging what was done and why it was done would be a good first step.

Josh White: FICTION. I have so many things to say here that I have literally started and restarted this first sentence three times now. I guess I'll start by responding to my opponent in the FOF ring. Abu Graib, and all the other institutions listed above are not "effective recruiting tools" for the bad guys. However, the use of propaganda used by the terrorists might be. The bad guys will always distort the truth and lie to make anything we do look bad. But that is not to say that what we've done is bad.

I may be the last person on this earth to say this, but I will not say that "enhanced interrogation" is a euphemism for genuine torture. Keeping people standing or awake for long periods of time is not torture. I'm not even convinced that water-boarding is torture. Breaking bones, starvation, beatings are all examples of torture. I'm not sure that scaring someone with the use of water is. I'm not convinced that the US has to apologize for these things. You may say that this lowers us to their level, but that is nonsense. If the terrorists did only this (water-boarding, sleep deprivation) to its prisoners it would be an elevation of their morality.

What this Obama declassification is is simply another attempt to make Bush look awful and show the world that we've "changed." Obama naively thinks that this will make those who want to blow us up love us, or at least give us another chance. He is wrong. But the main goal of this act is to make Bush look as bad as possible. Look, if Obama wanted to stop the horrible practices that have injured so many prisoners (please note the sarcasm) then all he has to do is ban the practices that he doesn't like. He could then tell the world, "Hey World, FYI we don't do such and such. I'm not saying that we did it in the past. But we certainly don't do it now." This would get the same results without the attempt to humiliate our former president.

Our country has been and still is the leader in the human rights arena. To deny this is deny what other countries are known and suspected to do. Obama's gesture is purely political and has nothing to do with human rights or torture.

2 for 4, technically.

And Week 124 has been up to bed. Come back next week—my final week as moderator. I'll be here, and so will two more of my favorite participants of all time. Hope you all will be here too.