U.S. Senate
See Full Big Line
(D) J. Hickenlooper*
(R) Janak Joshi
80%
20%
Governor
See Full Big Line
(D) Michael Bennet
(D) Phil Weiser
60%↑
50%↓
Att. General
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(D) Jena Griswold
(D) M. Dougherty
(D) David Seligman
50%
40%
30%
Sec. of State
See Full Big Line
(D) J. Danielson
(D) A. Gonzalez
(R) Sheri Davis
50%↑
40%↓
30%
State Treasurer
See Full Big Line
(D) Brianna Titone
(D) Jeff Bridges
(R) Kevin Grantham
40%
40%
30%
CO-01 (Denver)
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(D) Diana DeGette*
(D) Milat Kiros
90%
10%
CO-02 (Boulder-ish)
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(D) Joe Neguse*
(R) Somebody
90%
2%
CO-03 (West & Southern CO)
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(R) Jeff Hurd*
(R) H. Scheppelman
(D) Alex Kelloff
70%
30%
10%
CO-04 (Northeast-ish Colorado)
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(R) Lauren Boebert*
(D) Trisha Calvarese
(D) Eileen Laubacher
90%
20%
20%
CO-05 (Colorado Springs)
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(R) Jeff Crank*
(D) Jessica Killin
70%
30%
CO-06 (Aurora)
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(D) Jason Crow*
(R) Somebody
90%
10%
CO-07 (Jefferson County)
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(D) B. Pettersen*
(R) Somebody
90%
10%
CO-08 (Northern Colo.)
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(R) Gabe Evans*
(D) Yadira Caraveo
(D) Manny Rutinel
(D) Shannon Bird
45%↓
30%↓
30%
30%↑
State Senate Majority
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DEMOCRATS
REPUBLICANS
80%
20%
State House Majority
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DEMOCRATS
REPUBLICANS
95%
5%
March 21, 2009 04:01 PM UTC
61 Comments
though I think we can take it further: “Excellence consists in redirecting the enemy’s resistance such that it reinforces one’s own efforts, and transforms the enemy into a partner.”
That, to me, is the whole mission of political and economic (and, for that matter, cultural) activism: How to align individual and collective (as well as current and future) interests, such that as each works vigorously in his or her own present interests, he or she is simultaneously serving the interests of all others, for all time.
I like impossible to realize fantasies too!
Face it, human civilization has always relied on some people being the controllers and others being the controlled. Politics (including “activism”) is just the window dressing we use to make us feel better about it.
that it not only precisely describes the most fundamental driving force of human history, but also the most fundamental driving force of natural history.
To start with your oversimplistic depiction: How do you think “controllers” become controllers? It involves a group of people organizing, by one means or another (controllers within controllers, for instance), in order to conquer, subdue, or otherwise control a larger group of people.
The hierarchical mode of accomplishing this is just one: Markets, norms, and ideologies also play a role. The reason why people are driven to try to align individual to collective interests is because when individuals do so, they gain collectively and, depending on the mechanism for distributing those gains, may all gain individually. Historically, that has often involved organzing to exploit others, as mentioned above.
The reason why it is a challenge and doesn’t happen automatically is because individuals are also motivated to try to cheat, to let others carry the load while benefiting from their efforts. That is why our hierarchical, market, normative, and ideological mechanisms form to create systems of enforcement, whether formal and hierarchical, or informal and diffuse.
Bottom Line: human social and historical dynamics are not some 2-dimensional caricature that reduces to an oversimplistic declaration about what it is. Rather, it is a complex dynamical system, embedded in larger complex dynamical systems, adhering to a logic which those of us willing to invest the effort gradually discern and formalize, while always recognizing that we cannot encompass more than a fraction of the full breadth and depth of its subtlety and complexity.
We’re apes. We are concerned that other apes have more and tastier fruit than we do. We come up with various schemes to convince the other apes to give us their tasty fruit. If they don’t give it willingly, we take it. Those who are stronger or able to gather the most allies get the most fruit. They will then act to protect the fruit they have won.
That pretty much covers it, I think. I do think that the post I originally responded to was in error. The purpose of activism is to gain allies, so that you get more of that tasty fruit. If you think otherwise, in my opinion, you’re fooling yourself. Luckily, the human brain is a lie-spinning machine built to construct beliefs that allow you (and me) to fool yourself (and myself).
Also, my statement about controllers vs. controlled was only meant to apply to civilization. In simpler societies, I would bet that no such division is needed.
Is that you, John Whorfin?
I simply am taking your assumption to its logical conclusion, as both Charles Darwin and Adam Smith (and their various successors) did.
I have never claimed that we’re anything other than apes. But we’re apes that speak, apes that have created a second mutating replicator (after genes): Human cognitions. And they evolve in exactly the same way that genes do, only faster, and at an accelerating rate (due to their effects on communications technologies and directed “mutation” of cognitions).
Evolution isn’t benevolent. But it does favor utility (among other things), and utility favors aligning individual and collective interests. It also favors skillful predation on the wealth created by aligning those interests.
This is exactly what is seen throughout nature. Flowers and bees don’t have to love each other to engage in a mutually beneficial exchange of nectar for cross-pollination. Their individual self-interested evolutionary trajectories converged on a cooperative relationship.
As for taking fruit, if I am a lone strong ape taking fruit from all of the weak apes around me, they might find it sufficiently in their interest to gang up on me and take it back. So I might find some other strong apes to convince that it’s in our interest to band together and keep taking fruit from the weaker apes we could subdue. But we might find in time that we can get them to gather more fruit for us if we let them keep a bit more of what they gather, thus motivating them to work faster than our mere threats could manage to do (from whence comes the stereotype of lazy slaves, which is a quite reasonable thing for a slave to be).
And so on, and so on, and so on. Books and libraries have been filled with the empirical and theoretical implications of these dynamics. Branches of mathematics have been invented to formalize them.
I never said that you were “wrong,” just that you’re engaging in gross oversimplification. The “truth” you’ve identified has implications that go far beyond the extent to which you have explored them.
The correct phrasing would be “implications that go far beyond the extent to which you have explored them in these posts”, as you have no idea how much I have or haven’t explored them outside of this venue.
My explorations have lead me to the conclusion that politics, activism, or whatever other forms of collective action you care to mention are all forms of ritualized violence (such as fruit-taking) that often lead to actual violence (e.g. laws, war, police states, people’s revolutions, etc.). I believe that human beings have yet to demonstrate that we can interact and live together in unrelated groups without violence.
In my opinion, praising activism or politics is praising violence. Now, maybe you aren’t praising activism, just describing it, although the word “excellence” makes it sound like you are praising it.
something incredibly stupid, and then is called on it, the argument that “you don’t know how smart I am when I’m not talking” isn’t very convincing.
As for violence and politics, once again, you identify an isolated and decontextualized fragment of truth, and mistake for an entire and freestanding truth. It’s just not worth the effort to go into the details with you any more: You treasure your belligerent ignorance too much for anyone to hope to separate you from it.
is Sun Tzu’s. I just commented on it within the context of his usage.
And, apparently, your “explorations” have led you to discover your bowels, because that’s what one usually finds when they explore where you’ve been exploring.
Please, share with me an example of a large-scale civilization that has lived without violence. Or are you just going to keep coming up with 100-word ways of calling my posts shit? That’s not violent at all.
You have “most of” a PhD in sociology, which means that you couldn’t finish it (no doubt due to the evil influence of someone else, not your own personal failings. Don’t worry, I didn’t finish my PhD either). But surely you found SOME actual example of a civilization where violence wasn’t the norm, given the fecal nature of my argument?
In fact, if you look at the very post to which you are responding, I said that it is an integral part of our reality. Hmmm.
What simple-minded dichotomous “thinkers” can’t grasp is that the world isn’t either all black or all white. It is rife with shades and hues, blends and complexities, subtleties and variations. The fact that violence is and integral aspect of human reality doesn’t mean, ipso facto, that cooperation isn’t also an integral aspect of social reality. You see, genius? That’s what I’ve meant when I kept telling you that you are identifying fragments of truth and mistaking them for the whole thing.
I didn’t finish my Ph.D. because I chose not to finish my Ph.D. I’ve never claimed anything else, have never had a moment’s shame or embarrassment over my choice, and am as impressed by your attempted exploitation of it as some make-believe measure of my self-worth as I am impressed by your exploitation of Obama’s little gaff on Leno.
I can see why you would want Pols to delete all of your past posts. Archived self-inflicted repeated humiliation is a real bummer. Good thing you use a screen name.
Steve,
My name is Greg Wimpey. We have Facebook friends in common.
And, in my opinion, the human tendency towards violence overrides the nicer parts of human existence. So, now that I see our difference rests on different views of the picture. Some people see the glass as half full, some as half empty.
Right now, I see the glass as broken into shards that are lacerating our veins. You may see cooperation where I see coercion. You may see a desire to build a better world. I see a desire to bend the wills of others, through force if necessary. And I’m not talking Ayn Rand BS here… I’m talking the actual use of actual weapons to kill actual people.
As for your PhD… “most of” a PhD means “no” PhD. I don’t know why you put it on your Facebook profile unless you think it will impress people. Well, having been in a PhD program, I can tell you… most of a PhD means nothing other than that you didn’t do the work necessary to get a degree. That doesn’t impress me, nor do your motives for quitting, as honorable as they may be.
but rather a glass with just so much liquid in it. It is what it is. The judgment you choose to impute to it has no effect on what it is, one way or the other.
Human history is what it is. Human social reality is what it is. Some of it is more malleable, some of it is less so. I have spent my life, through a variety of avenues, exploring that puzzle.
Among my many methods of exploring it, I have studied both formally and informally, constantly and in various venues. I did not do so primarily to win framed plaques to hang on my wall, as you seem to think to be the only purpose of studying. I did it to learn. When I describe myself to others, to avoid mentioning the endeavor which has occupied 18 years of my adult life (higher education, including my BA) just because some of those years were not dedicated to the acquisition of a plaque, would seem to me to be an absurd omission. It would be the expression of a shallow world view such as yours, rather than the more nuanced one I enjoy. I didn’t put it in my educational information on facebook to impress people: What on earth is impressive about “most of a Ph.D” (or even a whole one)? I put it there because it’s part of who I am. I spent five years of my life, after my M.A., studying in a Ph.D. program, doing professional research, presenting papers at professional conferences, teaching undergrad classes, being the guest of the Dutch government at a week long seminar of leading social scientists from all over the world, living a wonderful scholarly life. But since those five years didn’t result in a plaque, you not only are privately convinced that I shouldn’t have put it on my facebook page, but are so deeply affected that you feel emboldened to try to shame me for it?
Well, look, even though they don’t give out plaques for being a putz, I think you should go ahead and put it on your facebook page.
Your problem, Greg, is that you are angry with me for making you look bad (really, you make it so easy), and are trying with all your might to return the favor, but are only succeeding in making yourself look even more petty and parasitic in the process.
But, please, do go on.
First, I’m not particularly angry at you. Angry, yes, but not at you.
Mostly, what I’m angry about is that I am a member of a civilization that I never asked to join. I’m angry that the only option out would appear to be suicide, an option I’m not currently willing to take. I’m baffled, after having participated in the political process more last year than ever before, that anyone could ever believe that the political process has a net positive impact on people.
“It is what it is” is an answer to any question. Why does the sun rise in the morning? “It is what it is”.
As for your “scholarly life”, I hope with all sincerity that it has made you happy. As for me, I found the scholarly life fraudulent and full of petty bickering. Perhaps I simply had a bad experience.
And I suppose that sums up most of my life: a bad experience. And now I await your reply about how that’s because I’m petty, moronic, and parasitical.
In fact, that’s sometimes how violence turns into something else.
The countries of Western Europe, at each other’s throats for centuries, have made mighty strides toward a negotiated political and economic interstate unification, and are far removed from the conditions of internecine war. And it was accomplished, in the wake of war, through a political process.
“It is what it is” was a reference to the normative valuation of a descriptive reality. It’s neither “good” nor “bad”: It is what it is.
My scholarly (and experiential) life has given me a very deep and profound kind of happiness, the happiness of having explored an endless labrynth, one of nature’s great wonders, without even having begun to exhaust its many tunnels and caverns. And with each step taken, the step itself increases the quantity and intensity of the wonders to be seen and contemplated.
Oh, yes, the scholarly profession is indeed “fraudulent and full of petty bickering,” something we both seem perfectly able to engage in. But it is also one of the reasons I left it. Not the only reason, but one of them. I wanted to be able to explore where and how I chose, not to have to spend the bulk of my time engaged in shallow formailities that produce hollow publications but little insight. I had gotten to the point where the latter was going to take over, and the former was going to be swallowed up by it. That wasn’t for me.
But the scholarly life and the scholarly profession are not one and the same. And the scholarly life is only a part of something larger and more delightful: A life driven by a sense of wonder. Now, there’s nothing fraudulent and petty about that.
Is the life the two of us live, with no imminent danger of starving to death or becoming some other animal’s lunch hanging over our every moment, really worse that the lives that have been lived before us, or are lived by many others on the earth today? Yet, if you were an ape on the African savanna in a hunter-gatherer tribe, you would be too busy surviving to wonder whether your life was worth living or not. Because that ape would suffer no illusions that life came with a guarantee that it would be particular pleasant, or peaceful, or safe. It didn’t, and doesn’t, come with any such guarantees. It just comes. And, yes, it is what it is.
Politics, you are right, is in many ways sublimated violence. But sublimated violence isn’t all bad. With it, those of talent and good will can make life marginally better for some or many people. If a law passes that increases the chance that child born into poverty won’t die a slow and agonizing death from a preventable illness because that child had no access to health services, then the “violence” that produced that result isn’t all bad.
I don’t know if you have children or not, but, for me, my daughter’s birth took “suicide” off the table, even as an abstract option that always exists, and thus can be a source of strength (something I rather liked from Hermann Hesse’s “Steppenwolf”). And, really, my daughter just made real for me something that my own life had failed to make manifest before: That we aren’t merely isolated beings with no obligation to one another.
That’s why the violence, both actual and sublimated, isn’t just ego against ego, but also superego against id, an internal struggle as much as an external one, the expression and possible step toward resolution of the dissonance of a single organism.
Human history is the messy therapy session of a troubled being. But such is life.
I agree with much of that post, particularly the last line. And I’m definitely experiencing the “troubled” aspect of late. As you may note, that often leads to a certain amount of incoherence on my part and to saying things that I might regret later.
I’m honestly not sure if magically given the choice to become an “ape on the savanna” whether I would take it. On page 1 of The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy, Douglas Adams wrote of the people of Earth:
I first read that over 25 years ago, when I was in junior high. The world can certainly look bleak from the perspective of junior high, and I resonated with the wistful, farcical pessimism found throughout those books and related British media such as the Monty Python TV shows and movies and Doctor Who. I still do. The world is a fantastic, terrifying, mystical, profound, and confusing place. Human beings are those things as well. And sometimes… I just get pissed off with the whole thing. And them. And me. Grr.
And this is why I shouldn’t post at ColoradoPols. It’s role is to discuss Colorado politics, not be my group therapy session.
“its role”, etc.
Well, since human history is a political process and a group therapy session, the two aren’t incompatable.
I’m glad we worked out our differences.
Margaret Mead did a famous study of Samoan Islanders in which she concluded that they had formed a completely non-violent civilization. Her findings, in fact, have since been thoroughly debunked. I have always argued against the myth of primitive peaceful societies, understanding that cooperation is a function of competition, that it is formed, as I’ve said, by aligning individual and collective incentives, not merely by some magical pre-existing alignment. Social institutions use various mechanisms, again, as I said, to accomplish this task. Implicit or explicit violence is often a feature of these mechanisms (penal systems, shunning, etc).
Violence, however, can be sublimated. The better functioning the social institutions are, the more sublimated the violence is. Rates of violent crime, and violent punishment, are remarkably low in some civilizations, both large and small.
The weakness of your arguments isn’t that their is no element of truth in them: All of my responses have stated, in fact, that their weakness is that they are oversimplified and decontextualized truths. Yet you come back with “show me a society that has no violence,” as though by stating that your arguments are flawed, I must have been asserting the diametrical opposite to them. I mean, what else is there?
There is complexity. There is nuance. There is subtlety. There is a multi-facted, multi-dimensional reality that doesn’t reduce to your little caricatures.
.
GW Bush had been a supremely excellent leader.
In late 2002, Saddam Hussein feared for his life and offered to step down, if only Bush would guarantee him safe passage out of Iraq to his new home in exile.
Of course, winning without firing a shot does not have quite the same impact on voters as victory in battle. People will vote to reelect a President when the country is at war, so he can see it through. But if a guy avoids war because that course is better for the nation, he may be beaten at the polls.
So, Bush did that which was best for himself politically, knowing it was going to harm the nation, and took us into war, even after he had already achieved the stated purpose of the war: the removal of Saddam.
Not so supremely excellent, after all.
.
and instead of taking advantage of the opportunity to defeat his enemy without a fight, chose to draw us into a costly and unnecessary war, it would seem, in fact, that he was not a “supremely excellent leader” by this formulation after all.
.
(in my best Maxwell Smart imitation)
“He was THAT close.”
.
After all, he won the coveted endorsement of One Queer Dude!
n/t
from Paul Krugman
This is the problem with handling this using people who are part of the existing system – they’re wedded to that existing system.
Don’t Buy the Chirpy Forecasts
.
Just like there are different measures of the money supply,M1, M2, …, M6,
there are also different measures of unemployment. See
http://www.bls.gov/news.releas…
I expect that few people here know that the Department of Labor is reporting 16% Unemployment for February 2009 under U6. U6 comes the closest to what I think it means to be “unemployed.”
The official rate U3 of 8.9% is concocted to fool the public, but corporate economists are looking at U6.
.
from the N.Y. Times
from the Boston Herald
The Coloraod state GOP then issued a release complaining about Steele’s remarks. (Just kidding.)
Oh-oh, maybe the state GOP is going to face up to their problems and get their butt in gear. If so, we Dems are going to have to work to keep our majorities.
Never mind, we can continue to relax…
from Slate
Maybe I should change Windward from a software company to an investment house/bank. It looks like the big money is not producing something but rather failing in a key industry and then having the government shovel money to you.
German group, but sung in English. No Angels – There Must Be An Angel (embed not allowed).
are running a marriage amendment again? I didn’t, but ran across it while looking for something else.
Thank God for Coffman and his co-sponsorship. This is so important right now.
http://thomas.loc.gov/cgi-bin/…
At least he’s not on the list of people who haven’t introduced anything or co-sponsored anything anymore.
And why are they rushing to define marriage at a federal level? I thought they were all for state’s rights. Oh, right, that’s only when it comes to guns and shit.
.
to regulate fecal matter ?
.
Apparently I’ll have to join you on the list of bloggers that will never chair the GOP. We just don’t understand… about any of this shit 😉
I’m surprised Lamborn hasn’t signed on as a co-sponsor.
A tiny Balkan country greets the spring – and safeguards the environment – by planting five million trees in a massive reforestation initiative. From one of my favorite new sites:
http://www.goodnewsnetwork.org/
Since trees have been called the lungs of the world, it’s nice to see this development. I’d like to see a global initiative along the same lines.
I also think more comapnies should endeavor to use their resources to plant trees in open spaces, and possibly receive tax credit for doing so. That would be one good use of these AIG-type bonuses.
Thank you very much for the site link. The media doesn’t cover enough uplifting news, but this is a way to brighten the day.
There has been hearty and in some cases heated discussion about the use of aliases on this site. I don’t know about most of you, but I use one for many reasons.
Mainly, it helps me speak a truth I couldn’t if I posted my name and face on Myspace. I don’t hide behind it. My name is David. I won’t write my last name because it’s frequently misspelled and more frequently mispronounced.
I was born in Sarasota FL, and lived there for 20 out of my 30 years. The last 10 I’ve spent here in the Denver Metro area.
I have a Bachelor’s Degree in Political Science with an INternational Relations emphasis. I have an Associate’s Degree in filmmmaking. I’m now in the process of applying for a Master’s Degree in Public Policy.
Politically, I’m a moderate. I’m fiscally moderate, and socially left-leaning. I have a few Conservative beliefs, left over from the teachings of my father, a retired peace officer. I believe that respect must be earned, and all are entitled to equal justice.
Cartesian Doubt comes form something a professor once said. It’s from Rene Descartes’ methodological skepticism.
Apologies for the long post, but as I’ve read more about some of you I was compelled to more formally introduce myself. I appreciate all of you, including those I disagree with.
while reading my favorite book, Bend Sinister.
An example: The booming politician.
Posting anonymously is necessary for some people, in some positions. Those directly involved in the political process, especially when working with and for others, have to be careful that nothing they say is indirectly attributed to or associated with those they work with, for instance. Others, for similar reasons, have a professional responsibility to appear neutral on matters currently being processed in the public sphere. Still others might simply make the calculation that they would like to be able to publish their private thoughts on public matters without it adhering to their public reputation. All of these are legitimate reasons for posting anonymously, and I don’t begrudge anyone the right to do so.
I post in my own name for several reasons. First, when I started posting a couple of years ago, I more or less accidentally used my name backwards as my screen name, and was quickly “outed” in any case, so having my name known when I posted became a reality at that time. Second, though I am sometimes a little embarrassed after eviscerating someone for posting something I found particularly annoying, I am basically perfectly content to have my name associated with what I post here, to “own” my reputation in its entirety, and to be known for my openly communicated thoughts and analyses on matters of public interest.
But I, for one, do not consider the choice of whether to post in one’s own name or anonymously anything other than a personal choice that each is free to make according to their own needs and preferences. That’s why when, for instance, someone tried to bring in Another Skeptic’s alleged real name and things that had been written or said by that person, as much as I find AS to be a basically loathesome bottom-feeder, I did not consider that appropriate (though I can certainly empathize with having been tempted to do so).
Just my thoughts on the matter, since you brought it up.
As someone who fits into your third category of anonymous (semi-anonymous really) posters, I’ve often been tempted to join you out in the open. It’s not so much that I’m worried about making my private political thoughts public–in the real world, I’ll usually tell you how I feel on an issue–it’s choosing who to give that information to that concerns me. Online, you have no choice.
I’ve had bad experiences with people who have way too much time on their hands trying to cause me trouble in my personal life because of things I’ve said online. I post anonymously as an effort to minimize that stress.
But in the days of social networking, the google, and blogging, the time is fast approaching when it won’t be as easy to separate political thought from public persona. I don’t mind that really, and I’ll probably change my user name to my real name after my stint as FP editor–whackos be damned!
Still, this blog is run by three people, of whom two are anonymous, and the third was until recently. This blog thrives on the ability of people who might not normally be able to say what’s on their minds to do so.
but, then again, I have that whole Sherlock Holmes thing going for me! 🙂
Sometimes it concerns me to be so transparent to the world. There are certainly risks involved. If and when I run for office in state or local government, my opponents will have, on this site alone, a rich source of material to dredge up in any attempts to smear me (or simply depict me as I am to constituents who would never vote for someone who, for instance, has argued that prohibing the “murder” of zygotes serves no purpose intended by the prohibition against murder, but incurs a whole host of social costs, and imposes much unnecessary human suffering. Oh, yeah, that’s going to play well in South Jeffco!). But I would never run as someone other than who I am in any case, so what can you do?
I’m more interested in fighting without subterfuge for a more rational and compassionate world. And how can one be ashamed to associate his name with that agenda, the one we should all share and should be well beyond debate?
The only people who should be ashamed to put their name to their thoughts are those who argue against reason and compassion. It’s amazing how many there are.
I’ve had 2 teachers yell at my kids over something I’ve written.
Punishing them for your words is unprofessional on their part. They’re purpose is to teach, not to concern themselves with the online writing of a student’s parent.
When did someone try to out AS? That’s fucked up.
of what’s right about this blog. Aristotle is quite possibly Skeptic’s biggest critic, but he still thinks it warrants a post when he sees Steve’s comment. I don’t think there are many who’d disagree with Ari’s sentiment either.
Anyone who tries, either out of spite or because of ideological differences, to actively reveal someone’s true identity on a blog is a real piece of work.
both not to give the person who did it a hard time (never my intention in mentioning it), and not to reinforce the “outing” itself by making it more visible.
from Kung Fu Monkey h/t KOS
There’s a young guy in one of my small law classes (it isn’t a seminar, but is being run like one) who responded to my argument that systemic problems require systemic solutions, and that relying on diffuse personal responsibility without trying to influence that personal responsibility systemically is a levels-of-analysis error, by saying, redfaced with rage, “My answer to you is Ayn Rand. That’s all I have to say.” Oy vey, kids these days!