U.S. Senate
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(D) J. Hickenlooper*
(R) Somebody
80%
20%
Governor
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(D) Joe Neguse
(D) Phil Weiser
(D) Jena Griswold
60%
60%
40%↓
Att. General
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(D) M. Dougherty
(D) Alexis King
(D) Brian Mason
40%
40%
30%
Sec. of State
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(D) George Stern
(D) A. Gonzalez
(R) Sheri Davis
40%
40%
30%
State Treasurer
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(D) Brianna Titone
(R) Kevin Grantham
(D) Jerry DiTullio
60%
30%
20%
CO-01 (Denver)
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(D) Diana DeGette*
(R) Somebody
90%
2%
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*
(D) Somebody
80%
40%
CO-04 (Northeast-ish Colorado)
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(R) Lauren Boebert*
(D) Somebody
90%
10%
CO-05 (Colorado Springs)
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(R) Jeff Crank*
(D) Somebody
80%
20%
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) Joe Salazar
50%
40%
40%
State Senate Majority
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DEMOCRATS
REPUBLICANS
80%
20%
State House Majority
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DEMOCRATS
REPUBLICANS
95%
5%
February 21, 2010 05:28 PM UTC
85 Comments
Given Andrew Romanoff’s appalling record on immigration and Latino issues, this is no surprise.
Yep, I didn’t think so.
I love how the last 20 names or so appear TWICE. Did you think the folks reading this wouldn’t pick that up because the names …. you know …. “all look the same”?
———————————–
Maybe next quarter I’ll pull Romanoff’s donor list and cut and paste all names of the various “groups” contributing … what best the Jews, Hispanics, Blacks or Anglicans.
‘Carlos Valverde’ looks the same as ‘Maria Young’? It’s not just a character you play here is it Libby?
n/t
The last ELEVEN names appeared twice – obviously a cut and paste error of some kind.
And of course, the names include names like Trimberger, Young…
Wow. You’re as offensive as you are math-challenged. No wonder no one ever takes you seriously, Libertad.
Joseph Soto, Officer, High School Democrats and Obama/OFA/Bennet intern, and member of Aurora Youth Commission. (He’s endorsed Bennet as well.)
I suspect there are also others who are not listed.
David Thielen – Bennet supporter & cool dude
Todd Mata, CoChair of Arapahope Community Team (ACT).
He is a sponsor of the DREAM Act, which would provide tuition equity and a path to citizenship for children of illegal immigrants on a national level.
This is yet another issue where a junior Senator is providing stronger leadership than most of his colleagues who have been there forever.
latinos y latinas en apoya de Andrew Romanoff?
Yo sais Polly Baca y Tabel Apia y Sal Pace y Ed Vigil y Gil Romero y Val Vigil y Ruben Valdez y Frances Natividad Coleman en apoya de Andrew Romanoff.
Y, ellos son mucho otros latinos y latinas qui son en apoya de Andrew Romanoff.
(yo soy estudiante a la universidad de Communidad de Red Rocks – conpermisso por mis errors con los grammaticos)
El es en apoyo de Andrew Romoff.
Вїlo que es lo endosos son buenas, a menos que la otra persona tiene los mejores o porquГ© todo el mundo se apoya, no es gran cosa?
so i will write in English
my point here is, these 20 names listed by Bennet are good, but I quickly saw 10 former and current hispanic legislators who have endorsed Romanoff.
This list was from the 61 legislators who endorsed him, and was not a list specific to Hispanic/latino leaders in the community.
I’d imagine Romanoff can match or beat the number of 20 of Latino leaders statewide.
I am a progressive Democrat who is tired of all the pandering to Hispanic groups by the Democrats.
After seeing this blog, I am definitely going to be supporting Romanoff.
Mass immigration in general and illegal immigration in particular are big issues and the only answer Bennett (and most Democrats) have is “comprehensive immigration reform”, which means amnesty for those who are here illegally and then allowing even higher levels of legal immigration.
Mass immigration of 1.5 million per year, and their descendants are driving almost all of the population growth in the US, which is projected to grow from 308M today to 460 million by 2050. Having this many more people of any race, creed, or color will be a huge problem for the US; economically, environmentally, socially.
There are many other Democrats like myself and lots of unafilliated voters who are tired of being ignored on the immigration issue.
So, continue to pander to one race and ignore everyone else and face the consequences at the ballot box. Democrats are not monolithic (and neither are Hispanics) and lots of us do want illegal immigration stopped (by going after employers) and dramatically reducing illegal immigration.
than merely pretentiously calling yourself “thethinker.”
Economic analyses are mixed on the question of whether illegal immigration provides a net benefit or loss to the American economy. At worst, it is a close call. At best, our economy, and, in aggregate, all of us who live here, benefit as a result of that immigration.
The demographic analysis isn’t a close call: As The Economist magazine has noted, we require a massive liberalization of our immigration policies in order to off-set our impending demographic disaster of a huge number of retirees supported by a small number of people of working age. Immigrants tend to be young people seeking work, and so swell our labor force. That is exactly what we need, demographically, as a nation.
You claim, arbitrarily and oversimplistically, that having more people here of any race is a huge problem for us. Actually, not having more (working age) people of any race is, to an equal and perhaps greater extent, a huge problem for us. Having them here rather than across the border helps alleviate rather than exaccerbate the environmental and resource-stress aspects of increased global population, because we have stronger regulatory control over their environmental impacts then our southern neighbors do.
The humanitarian analysis is even less ambiguous: We are, like all wealthy nations, an enclave of relative wealth protecting ourselves against intrusions by those less fortunate. That is not our stated ideal of who we are, engraved on the base of the Statue of Liberty, nor is it what true progressives want us to be. Egalitarianism and a commitment to social justice, progressive ideals, do not stop at the border. Authentic progressives welcome with open arms hard working people fleeing from destitution and seeking opportunities, trying to feed their children and provide them with better futures.
Having said all that, there are clearly challenges involved, and there are pros and cons to be considered to any immigration policy. But progressives do the analysis, rather than mimic the mindless talking points of their reactionary counterparts.
Continuous exponential economic or population growth is not possible in a world of finite resources.
I guess I’m just a 1970’s type Democrat and environmentalist who believed that the United States did not need any more people (we had 200 millin at the time). There was general agreement that we should stabilize the population and people should “stop at 2” kids. Well, I, and the American public did just that, and the native born birth rate in the United States is just at replacement level. We wanted, and still want a stable population, not one that will approach 1 billion people by 2100.
Continually adding people to “help the economy” and keep the population from aging is a ponzi scheme.
I used to think that the Democrats cared for the environment and working Americans. It is clear that they care for neither. Mass immigration is taking jobs from Americans, and pushing down wages for others, especially the poorest. I don’t want a “bigger” economy, I want a more just economy. Continuously importing people to compete with existing workers is what corporate America wants, so they can keep from paying a decent wage and benefits.
I don’t see anything “progressive” in importing more workers to compete with legal workers, and adding hundreds of millions of more people to our already overstressed country.
It would be more progressive to help people remain in their own countries by readdressing globalization (CAFTA/NAFTA), helping people fight tyranny in their own countries, and learn to live within their own resources, as we must learn to do so themselves.
The term “progressive” has been hijacked by open border activists, and it is too bad, because there is nothing progressive about open borders.
You say that because of this blog, you are definitely supporting Romanoff, not Bennet:
I am curious what it is specifically that has pushed you to Romanoff.
As a Democrat who is concerned about overpopulation in the US driven by illegal immigration and mass legal immigration, I believe Romanoff is more educated and thoughtful on the subject.
I have talked to both Bennett and Romanoff about overpopulation and Romanoff certainly understood the issue better and believed we need to have a national discussion on the issue, while Bennett seemed to have no understanding.
I believe Romanoff did his best to deal with illegal immigration in a thoughtful manner in 2006.
The fact that so many Latino leaders hold that against him, confirms my suspicion that they really don’t care about the interests of all Americans, especially lower skilled workers, who are impacted negatively by illegal immigration.
They actually care more about the illegal immigrants and furthering their own ethnic identity interests politics then they do about the interests of all Americans.
Your use of “they” indicates a “we-they” mentality that “we” are trying to overcome in this country. And by “we,” I’m talking about all of us.
Your assessment of the relative merits of the two candidates’ understandings and knowledge bases rings hollow. For one thing, I’ve listened to them both extensively, and, in my opinion, Bennet consistently strikes the more nuanced and analytically informed position. Romanoff, disappointingly, says what people want to hear far too often, and acknowledges systemic complexity far too seldom. One of the accomplishments of your post above is to finally coax me into saying that, after having restrained myself all of these months.
The fact that you would have a suspicion to be confirmed that “Latino leaders…don’t care about the interests of all Americans…, [but] actually care more about..furthering their own ethnic identity” confirms my suspicion that what you are doesn’t begin with the letter “p”.
A growing number of Democrats I know are very frustrated with the increasingly “open borders” position of many Democratic politicians. This is entirely different from the days when Democrats stood up for American workers.
We want our concerns on overpopulation, the environment, for the legal workers, and all Americans heard and addressed.
The Democrats can continue to pay all their attention to the “hispanic vote” and take the rest of us for granted if they want.
But don’t be surprised if many of us, along with huge numbers of Independents, either vote for Republicans or sit this election out.
We want our immigration laws enforced before any discussion of amnesty. We want lower levels of immigration, back to historical levels of 200,000 per year. We want a stable population and sustainable country and world.
Yes, I still do believe in nations, borders, and rule of law. I guess I’m just old fashioned.
start taking policy positions to appease “Democrats” like you, that’s when I’ll stop being a Democrat.
Once again, you are hiding behind two false claims: Your stance on immigration addresses neither overpopulation nor the environment, but rather the distribution of existing population, and the exportation of environmental problems. Quit hiding behind that false claim.
Secondly, immigration law is what we make it. You are arguing for a specific legal structure, not for the general rule of law. If our immigration laws were liberalized tomorrow, or an amnesty were granted tomorrow, by the legislative authority vested in Congress, then the legal residency of all of those affected by these changes in the law would be in accord with the rule of law. That’s how law works.
Third, nations and borders aren’t going anywhere in the foreseeable future. And neither are all of the ways in which nations are interdependent and borders are permeable. Our policies have to deal with those realities, not with your ossified fictions.
Fourth, Hispanic Americans are Americans. You put “Hispanic vote” in quotation marks, and in an early post said that “they don’t care about all Americans,” which is amazingly similar in form and substance to “they aren’t real Americans.” Guess what: They are.
Fifth, you act as if there is something extraordinary or un-American about particular groups pursuing their particular interests through the political process, and then repeat your commitment to the interests of labor. I guess pluralism is okay with you when it comes to the group you identify with, but not okay for those who identify with groups that have interests that compete with yours? All groups in the United States are equal, but some groups are more equal than others, eh?
Sixth, yes, apparently you are just old fashioned, a throw-back to a pre-civil-rights mentality that few Democrats, regardless of where they stand on immigration issues, would want to return to or accommodate.
Seventh, political parties are means to ends, not ends in themselves. Your arguments that for the Democrats to win they have to become more racist, even if true, would only mean that Democrats will have to satisfy themselves with not winning. Becoming more racist is not an acceptable alternative for most of us.
that you are doing as much of a disservice to Labor and Romanoff in your posts as you are to Hispanics. This kind of fear-mongoring casts everyone you are associating yourself with in a less flattering light, whether or not they deserve it.
There is a legitimate position, that I disagree with, that our immigration policy should be designed to protect American labor. That’s not a racist position, just a nationalist and anti-humanist one. However, you’ve taken it a step further by 1) casting aspersions on Latino citizens of the United States, and 2) claiming an anti-immigration stance based on any and every fictional benefit to xenophobia that you are able to concoct.
I do believe that we need to pay attention to the interests of American labor, and ensure that when people work hard to help produce the wealth of this nation, that they are able to partake of that wealth equitably. But I do not believe that we should or must pay attention to those needs by becoming ever-more of a fortress of wealth amidst a sea of poverty (a fortress, it is worth recalling, that was established by conquest and military land-grabs), beating off the peasants clammering at our portcullis, any more than we should pay attention to the interests of capital by beating off the workers clammering at their portcullis.
Your mentality is what I’m in politics to fight against, and what the Democratic Party exists to oppose.
against illegal immigration now that he’s running in a Dem primary, thinker? What turnip truck did you fall off of? I’m sure that, for now, the less said about all that, the better, as far as AR is concerned. Just like the less said about Pat Cadell’s comment that environmentalists are commies out to dismantle capitalism the better.
In fact he may be re-thinking the whole throw the incumbent bums out angle since Dems are the majority of the incumbent bums which makes voting for Rs, rather than voting for the likes of a Dem like AR, the more obvious choice for the middle.
that Andrew Romanoff is going to go on a crusade against illegal immigration. In fact, I think his stance on the issue is pretty much the same as Bennett’s.
I stated I am supporting him because he is more thoughtful and educated on the topic of US overpopulation then Bennett is.
And no, I’m not Dick Lamm. Neither Romanoff or Bennett are anywhere close to Dick Lamm, who was one of the last politicians who really understood the interconnection and realities of endless population growth, the environment, and American workers.
A lot of us Democrats are looking for someone like Dick Lamm to emerge within the Democratic party, as we do not feel represented by either today’s Democratic party or the Republicans. This is one reason why the Democrats are losing elections nationwide and the possibility of some sort of third party is developing.
Same stance but more thoughtful. How can you tell? Does he stroke his chin more? You ardent AR supporters, when dealing with the fact that there are no significant policy diferences or anticipation of any significant differences in voting crack me up. You really do.
to suggest that NJ, VA, or MA voters turned out on immigration.
but explain why Scott Brown won “Teddy Kennedy’s” seat in reliably “blue” Massachusetts?
And why is Bennett trailing the relatively unknown Jane Norton (seriously, I hardly know anything about her) by 51 – 37% in the latest Rasmussen poll? Could it have anything to do with unemployed Americans not warming to “comprehensive immigration reform” and “the Dream Act”? Who knows? You guys seem to have all the answers.
Rasmussen, Colorado: No miracle for Michael Bennet in Rasmussen’s new poll: the unelected senator leads trails Republican front-runner Jane Norton by a massive 51% to 37%. That said, Bennet’s favorability rating remains (barely) positive and he should have an easier time to improve his numbers than other incumbents since he is less well-known and thus has more room to grow.
that makes it your responsibility to provide the source and support. Or not. But then I get to go on thinking you are wrong.
because of anger at Democrats over immigration? Talk about tunnel vision.
I think the evidence is overwhelming that immigration issues were not front and center in recent elections, but let’s just suspend doubt for the moment. Let’s say that that’s what was on voters’ minds.
Rational people of good will would have to ask themselves what to do with that reality. Should we pander to an “us v. them” mentality, in which the “us” is the more privileged group, and the “them” is the less privileged group? Should we jump on the bandwagon of protecting a fortress of relative wealth against a sea of relative desperation? Should we speak of one of the largest constituent ethnic groups in our citizenry as if they did not quite belong, were not quite as fully “American” as the presumably white speaker defining “their” place in “our” society?
Or she would stick by what is right, what is decent, what is good, and what is true?
I know where you stand on that one, oh thoughtless one, and, sadly, I know that you don’t stand alone, though, happily, your numbers have long been dwindling. And many of us long to see that little, eternally shrinking cluster of small-minded bigots standing with you leave that unholy ground, one-by-one, until you are standing all alone.
And then, even though you will then be the last member of a despised minority, we will all welcome you back with open arms into the fold that you were so eager to deny to others.
That was meant to be “should we.”
I think Bennet is nuanced because it gives him more wiggle room. Romanoff is forthright because he actually says what he believes. I do not think he is simply pandering to his audience.
One of the many problems with the “systemic complexity” you refer to is that it gives cover to many immoral policy decisions, like global free trade agreements which allow corporations to bypass environmental and labor laws in more developed (read more expensive) countries. It allows polluters to write legislation called “Clean Water Act” and “Clear Skies Act” because you see these things are very nuanced and complicated.
Your simple certainties in a complex world do not serve humanity’s interests, and they are as much the “enemy” of rational people of good will working together to improve the human condition as any cynical predatory behavior is. The ultimate political struggle is fought in the arena of the human mind, where we all have much to learn. We all suffer costly gaps between our understandings of reality and the true complexity and subtlety of reality. Your commitment to maintaining rather than narrowing those gaps in your own mind, and in your political commitments, is a disservice to all of us, since we are all interdependent, and depend on one another’s honest efforts to be wise as well as moral.
Romanoff’s reason for opposing tuitioon equity made no sense at all. He stated that he didn’t want to dissapoint students who received a US degree, and then coudln’t work in the United States.
US degrees are marketable in North America, and elsewehere.
1) World population growth and U.S. immigration policy are indeed related, since our national replacement rate is far lower than the global average, and it is reasonable to infer that the gradual assimilation of people from outside our borders will lead to a marginal reduction in global population growth. Your global population argument weakly argues in favor of more rather than less liberalization of our national immigration policies.
2) Immigration is not reproduction. You conflate the two in your arguments.
3) Your analysis remains strictly nationalist, and completely oblvious to global humanism. I recognize that humanity, and humanity’s interests, do not stop at our borders.
4) American labor is opposed to the capitalist class acting like an insulated enclave of wealth, unfairly holding them down. It is hypocritical to then act in exactly the same way vis-a-vis non-American laborers.
5) There are legitimate concerns and challenges involved in these considerations. But, rather than address them, you simply repeat a litany of mindless oversimplifications that don’t address the complexities of the human systems involved.
6) Whatever “progressive” means, it must never come to mean “mindless nationalism.” We live in a world, one that is increasingly interdependent in both its challenges and opportunities, not just in a nation. I would hope that people who identify themselves as “progressives” would be among the first to understand that.
that your last point about the value of helping foster development in those countries from which so many of our economic refugees come is definitely one component of a complete and well-balanced policy. Unfortunately, your notion that we should rely exclusively on that, and that we should all rely on those resource within our own borders (something we have not done for a very long time, and, were we to do it, would involve a very dramatic contraction of our economy) is a one-dimensional response to a problem of n-dimensional complexity.
“something we have never done.” We have never relied exclusively on the resources found within our own borders. And we have long consumed a larger percentage of the world’s resources than either our population or our domestic share of those resources warrant.
extremely cogent. I especially appreciate #3 in this comment. Human beings have been migrating as long as there have been humans on this earth–usually in order to feed themselves and their children. Lines in the sand simply cannot change that. And dehumanizing the people who dare to walk over that line in search of a better life is simply an abomination.
When people speak as though such migration is “criminal” (it isn’t, by the way, even under U.S. law; immigration violations are civil violations in order to be able to deprive people in deportation proceedings the full constitutional protections that are triggered by criminal proceedings), I feel like asking them who they would respect more, people who watch their children suffer and make no effort to improve their chances and their opportunities, or people who endure hardships and dangers in order to provide for their family?
you really start succeeding in getting below replacement growth either through low birth rates, no immigration to speak of or both, see aging Japan.
number 4 is a specious argument. Labor is committed to raising the living standards of all working class people world-wide, just not doing it at the expense of other working class people. This is one of the reasons they worked so hard to allow labor reform laws to be part of every FTA, to allow people to freely organize into unions, to have the same health and safety protections we enjoy here, etc.
Importing cheap labor to lower costs benefits the monied classes far more than either the immigrant or native labor forces. Far better to work on raising the living conditions in their home countries, which labor always tries to do, but capitalists never want.
Pitting one worker against another is a time honored strategy of the owner classes of societies since time immemorial.
is divided on the issue of how important the welfare of non-American workers is. Most forms of protectionism harm foreign workers to benefit American workers, and protectionism is quite popular in many labor circles. Furthermore, you rely on a convenient and self-evidently disingenuous oversimplification by arguing that workers who come here do not benefit from the employment they find: Clearly they do. That capitalists benefit as well, and to what degree, does not alter that fact. Arguing that those workers would be better off attaining something less attainable is just a way of avoiding an inconvenient truth.
The real world is subtle and complex, as are the challenges within it. And real people are not motivated by global class interests as much as they are motivated by self and local interests, regardless of class or geographic locality. When people actually organize in their collective interests, then those self and local biases can be, to some extent, mitigated. Since there is little or no functioning international organization of labor at present, there is little or no mitigation of competing interests of labor across national bounderies. Understanding these and other complexities, more than attributing any imaginary moral perfection to any group or class, would be a useful step toward actually improving the human condition.
it’s not that subtle that the living standards of many Americans are and have been actually falling for decades while those at the top are rising disproportionately.
America was a much more egalitarian society three and four decades ago than it is today largely due to the ascendancy of Ronald Reagan and the free marketeers of his political stripe.
Today our society is much more polarized than at any time since the Vietnam War and it has a lot to do with the politics practiced by those on the right who would have it so in their desire to divide and conquer.
In a more equitable society, the flow of capital in and out of nations would have some of the same restrictions imposed as the flow of people currently does. No one thinks it strange to allow capital to abandon a nation because of political expressions of the people (Argentina in the 70s and Venezuela today), but we are vehement in our denial of people the right to move as freely. Why is that? Because capital wants and needs to exploit those people and how could it do so if the people had the same freedom as the capital?
And you seem to enjoy throwing out the red herring, don’t you? I never expressed “imaginary moral perfection” to any group or class. Neither do I express imaginary moral turpitude to any group. If you read me more closely and clearly, what i do advocate strongly for is a rebalancing of power and interests towards people as opposed to money.
here’s my last and enduring response to you. It addresses everything you have or, presumably, ever will say (being a unverse rather narrow in scope and shallow in depth). I have better things to do than to swat indefinately at intellectual flies who think their buzzing is brilliance.
I mean, sure, you argue against letting foreign workers have access to our labor markets because you favor a more equitable global distribution of wealth (huh?), but, when push comes to shove, it’s really all about your fragile little ego.
You’re the one who felt the need to challenge me to an intellectual duel, not because you give a shit about anyone else in this world, but because you had something to prove (and, alas, only succeeded in disproving it). I merely indulged your wish. Don’t complain to me about the outcome.
“…to those who do not want to let the least rational and least kind among us shout us down and dominate our public policy. ”
Steve Harvey
it is interesting how the intellectually challenged among us (you Steve) have to resort to base name calling and other insults when they can’t win an argument. Very good stuff.
and do you really want to win a political race like this? I don’t know who’s advising you, but you may want to fire them. Oh, you advise yourself? What a surprise!
This statement of yours: “Labor is committed to raising the living standards of all working class people world-wide, just not doing it at the expense of other working class people” can be altered in the following way, and sound amazingly familiar: “American business owners are committed to raising the living standards of all American workers, just not doing so at the expense of the profitability and thus viability of American businesses.” You know why they sound similar? Because they are similar, with only one difference: The latter statement actually incorporates a legitimate (though generally over-exploited) non-zero-sum consideration, while the former is pure bullshit, rationalizing a zero-sum exclusion of those who are already receiving a smaller piece of the pie (and advocating a policy that both shrinks the absolute size of the global pie, and increases the inequity of its global distribution. Way to advocate for the worst of all worlds).
In other words, you’re not just arguing a position similar to an anti-labor one; you’re arguing a position more predatory and less defensible than an anti-labor one, and disguising it in self-serving false rhetoric about an imaginary international brotherhood of workers.
Having spent a lifetime in the private sector in both union and non-union, management and worker roles, I can personally attest to the fallacy of this argument.
Global business interests are absolutely abhorrent to the interests of their workers in nearly all respects. In fact, profit is their singular and overriding objective against all others. The problem in our society is that we have insufficient balance to the interests of global businesses.
I am witness currently to a practice of “off-shoring” highly skilled computer programming and development work to India at a major US corporation. The American workers have to train their Indian replacements or risk losing all severance benefits if they chose not to. There is not a whiff of concern for either the American employee nor their Indian replacement. It is purely a base economic imperative of the corporation to reduce costs regardless of the longer term impacts.
And this is not an isolated instance. It is happening everywhere. It is also one of the grievances of the tea party movement and why it is so successful. No one else seems to be speaking to readdress their grievances. When capital has more rights than people as is currently the case, then we all suffer in the long run.
The bullshit seem to be flowing more from you than from me here. Your rationalizations of execrable positions is pretty amazing really. We’ve lived through more than a generation of you globalism is king, free market drive fallacies. I think you read and believe Tom Friedman all too much. The Lexus and the Olive Tree indeed!
And while there may not be an apparent “international brotherhood of workers” (your words, not mine), that doesn’t mean people who are being patently exploited shouldn’t stand together and fight their exploitation and strive to achieve a much more equitable distribution of the economic benefits of our modern economic society.
then we can dispense with that nasty business of applying reason to evidence.
Having studied political economy from a marxist perspective through my Masters Degree, you’re not positing arguments that I haven’t both heard before, and at one immature point in my life found compelling. Unfortunately, as emotionally gratifying as they may be, they completely dissolve under scrutiny.
As a pure descriptive matter, the injustices of the global distribution of wealth and power are undeniable. No one is disputing the existence of the problem, or of the factual details of how it operates. But that understanding casts a light on the challenges to be faced rather than implies oversimplistic solutions at a glance. As either an analytical or political framework, your approach is useless.
As with most people who adopt your framework, you use a zero-sum model in a non-zero-sum world, and ignore all of the myriad agency and transaction costs problems that make any of your oversimplistic proposed solutions far more devastating to human welfare than the problems themselves.
What should be and what is are two different things. Frankly, I would skip all the intermediary positions and argue that we all should all just get along and act in our universal collective and long-term interests. Unfortunately, that’s not what we do, and saying that we should doesn’t do much to move us any further in the direction of doing it. The challenge, the hard work, is to deal with what we actually are, how the world actually works, and design and implement viable and attainable social institutional innovations that move us in the direction of overcoming our myriad and cross-cutting collective action problems.
I strongly believe in working toward a more equitable and sustainable global political economy. I just don’t believe that your shallow oversimplifications contribute anything to that effort. To the contrary, that obstruct it, and permit you to conveniently argue in your own parochial interests while pretending to be a global humanist.
Without bothering to respond one-by-one to your false attibutions and restatements of my position, I’ll simply denounce them en masse, and state that I speak for myself, and my actual arguments can be found clearly stated in my own words. You don’t win an argument by creating and destroying straw men.
You waited five days until after I posted, hoping to get in some last word, and be spared the thrashing that would inevitably result if I noticed your reply and responded to it? Sorry, friend. In the real world, the most cogent and well-informed arguments win, not the person most able to express his inflexible certainty of the truth of the less well informed and less well reasoned position.
My advice to you is that you focus more on learing, and less on asserting. Take it or leave it.
is oversimplification.
Everything is so very complex to the highly educated amongst us. Maybe a little simplicity is what’s really called for. Can’t see the forest for the trees all around.
The harder work, the bigger challenge is to address global imbalances and the disproportionate influence of money on our political and economic systems.
It is so simple to argue that it is so complex that it defies easy solution. It is harder to stand against those who continue to propagate the many falsehoods of the current system. Without addressing the basic assumptions that got us here, then you argue for a continuation of the path we have been on.
Also, I didn’t wait five days for any other reason than I don’t live on this web-site. I get here when I can and respond when I can. You do enjoy imputing the motives of people, don’t you?
I propose solutions all the time (many quite radical). My stating the fact that your proposed solution is systemically illiterate does not, ipso facto, imply that I oppose all proposed solutions. I just oppose idiotic ones.
For example: The argument that you are doing foreign workers a favor by depriving them access to our labor markets, which is how this discussion began. Nothing like being a chauvinistic douche posing as a global humanitarian! All of your claims to be in favor of a more equitable distribution of wealth evaporate in the light of your use of irrelevant theoretical justifications to oppose policies that actually increase the fairness of the global distribution of wealth.
trade must be taxed for the distance it covers. I too, am against trade agreements that exploit workers and cause workers to seek employment in other countries, but the simple solution is to tax distance. Free trade agreements have a latent consequence of exploiting labor, but the direct intent of trade agreements is to promote and increase the use of oil for transportation – that’s why shipping transports out pollute all of the world’s vehicles.
if Wal Mart had to pay a per mile rate on goods shipped from China or a third world sweat shop, you would immediately see factories opening up in Arkansas. This solves the growing world pollution problem and would stimulate local production, employment and stabilized markets.
If you deprive people of their best bad option without replacing it with something better, you have certainly done them a huge (and sometimes fatal) disservice. And if you create a better bad option than otherwise existed, you have certainly done them a huge service. That does not justify complacency with what we would otherwise call “exploitation,” but it does counsel caution in solving problems at the expense of the supposed beneficiaries.
Furthermore, a sound international (and domestic) economic policy must balance the necessity of growing the global pie in order to produce enough to meet basic needs, with the necessity of distributing it equitably so that those needs are met, with the necessity of doing so in a sustainable manner. A tension exists among these demands, and balancing them is no simple feat.
Let’s try to avoid the error of imposing oversimplistic analyses on complex problems.
You’re entitled to your opinion, friend, I think that Romanoff probably doesn’t want to go down this road with you however. Not unless he wants to complete his self-destruction.
the thinker may think he’s in the majority among Colorado Democrats, but among the progressive left that Romanoff is trying to get on board with his campaign, thethinker’s opinion is tantamount to being a traitor.
Flash back to the tuition equity debacle last spring, and the five Democratic Senators who voted against the bill to kill it. What label was it that they were branded with by Mario Solis-Marich again? Oh yeah, I believe it was the “Dream Killer 5”. And that was just for tuition equity. Can you imagine what would happen if Romanoff was elected to the Senate and he voted against comprehensive immigration reform?
The fact o the matter is that nobody outside of the Libertarian Party is talking about “open borders”. What Democrats at all levels are trying to figure out is what to do with the millions of people who have come here illegally, but who are already in the country. Nobody is talking about deporting all of them, and everyone I’ve heard talking about the issue feels we need much tighter border security, but giving some hope and humanity to the people who are already here and have no intention of leaving isn’t outside of the mainstream whatsoever.
i noticed this is the first time you have really contributed to this website since starting your account a few months ago – and you use your comments to align yourself with Andrew Romanoff, while at the same time, talking like a Tancredo Republican –
tell me, what do you do and who are you?
And why do you think Romanoff represents your kind of thinking?
my email is available.
Wade makes an excellent point.
Some things don’t jibe here with “the thinker.”
While Wade and I disagree, I respect the fact that he doesn’t hide what he thinks or who he supports. Note my recommendation of your interesting and provocative post on Bennet’s letter, Wade. I’m glad you are posting here and genuinely enjoy the back and forth, without guile.
I may call you to task now and then, Wade, but I, too, appreciate your participation here. And I agree that “the thinker” may or may not be what he claims to be. The thought you expressed had already crossed my mind.
Even though I personally suspect, given the consistency and seeming sincerity of every position he states, that “the thinker” is exactly what he claims and appears to be, I don’t think it would be at all fair to hold Andrew Romanoff in any way responsible for those among his followers who are unattractive individuals. I’m sure Michael Bennet has a few of those as well!
and someone replied that my comments were the most insightful they had ever seen for a new blogger.
You folks need to reread my comments. I never stated that Romanoff represented “my kind of thinking” on immigration. Specifically, I said that I believe his stance on illegal immigration was about the same as Bennetts and I believe Romanoff did his best to deal with illegal immigration in a thoughtful manner in 2006. I also said that I stated I am supporting him because he is more thoughtful and educated on the topic of US overpopulation then Bennett is.
I think you folks need to get outside your normal “blogosphere” and talk to some other people about illegal immigration and high levels of legal immigration.
As I’ve stated earlier, I am a Democrat and I personally know many Democrats and Unafilliated voters who are against amnesty for illegal immigrants and who support much lower levels of legal immigration. We believe that the government needs to demonstrate that it can and will enforce immigration laws against employers before any talk about amnesty. They have promised and not delivered on enforcement too many times. We also believe that any immigration reform should include a reduction in legal immigration to 200,000 people per year – about what it was prior to 1970 and a “net zero” immigration level. This, combined with our replacement level birth rate, would allow for a stabilization of US population. We also do not believe the only choices in dealing with illegal immigration is amnesty or mass deportation. By enforcing laws against employers hiring illegal workers, the jobs would slowly dry up and many of the illegal immigrants would move away voluntarily.
This viewpoint is actually quite mainstream and supported by many Americans from across the political spectrum. You may think it is extreme, but trust me, many people think your stance is extreme.
It would behoove all of us to get out and talk to people with different perspectives on this issue instead of applying labels and name calling.
Do you mean by living and working abroad, on three different continents, for about eight years of my adult life? By living and working in every region of the United States? By doing an enlisted army infantry tour of duty? By having worked with children of all ages, from infancy through college, and with elderly adults in a nursing home? By working in factories, agricultural fields, offices, and on the streets? By teaching at the high school and college level, including teaching recent Mexican immigrants in their own language? By doing legal rights presentations for people in deportation proceedings in the Aurora detention center? By doing outreach work for injection drug users in blighted urban areas? By being a Big Brother volunteer for disadvantaged youth? By manning a crisis intervention hotline and talking down someone contemplating suicide? By working with microeconomic models of human social institutions within the context of limited resources and negative externalities? By studying law, including classes in immigration law, labor law, energy law, environmental law, climate change law, education law, family law…?
Sure, tt, I would work at having the breadth and depth of real-world experience that you undoubtedly have, but it would take a blunt-force trauma to the head to get there, and I’d rather pass….
The point you can’t seem to grasp is that the popularity of a viewpoint does not argue for the morality of that viewpoint. Slavery was popular and abolition unpopular in colonial America; civil rights was unpopular and segregation popular (including in the North) for a long time in American history; genocide of native americans was popular, and viewing them as having rights to the land we had our avaricious eyes on was unpopular for a very long time. In each of those cases, I’d like to believe that I would have had the integrity and moral fortitude to advocate for the unpopular position. If the suggestion that most Americans agree with you is the best argument you have (the one you repeat most often, and the only one I haven’t debunked), then you might as well put on a powdered wig and carry around misspelled signs proclaiming Sarah Palin the next messiah, because there’s just no daylight between your position and theirs.
Because this is about the leaders of an important American community coming together to support Michael Bennet.
of the American population, the largest single minority, second only to “non-hispanic whites” as a constituent part of our national population.
They also were once in possession of about nearly 1 million square miles of the current territory of the United States, many of the residents of which are decendents of those hispanic inhabitants who predated the treaty of guadalupe hidalgo.
Much of the culture of the Western United States is heavily influenced by those hispanic roots, included the classic imagery and accoutrements of that quintessentially American cultural artifact, the “cowboy.”
But “real Americans” like our misnamed friend above know how to disregard all of that.
the latino endorsements seem to be pretty evenly divided
but you haven’t provided any evidence to support it. Until you provide a comparable list (not just a handful of names) of latino supporters of Romanoff, your statement is an empty assertion.
Frankly, I don’t really care one way or the other. I just like to see the dissemination of information kept honest.
se escribe en espanol.
to counterbalance a list of about 70 or 80 names (controlling for the duplicates). Thus, my parenthetical.
“Esta escrito en espanol” or “esta en espanol.” But that’s okay; this isn’t a Spanish language competition. (“Se escribe en espanol” would normally be translated as “one writes in Spanish”).
as i said upthread, those 9 names were from the 61 legislators that endorsed AR.
I am pretty sure if AR’s campaign was seeking out a list of Latinos to endorse him, he would be able to match this number of endorsements.
However, unlike Labor, the Latino voting block does not seem to be unified for either candidate as it is in other races. (such as when the opponent is a Tancredo type)
You said that the nine were from a list of 61 legislators who support Andrew, not 61 hispanics who support Andrew. Also, the list of hispanic supporters of Michael is around 70 (just a quick guess), not twenty (that number came from the ten final names on the list having been duplicated).
Again, neither a list of 9 hispanic supporters of Andrew, nor a list of 61 legislators who support Andrew, off-sets a list of about 70 hispanics who support Michael, in a comparison of relative hispanic support between the two.
I want to emphasize again that I am not making any assertions about who actually has more support in the hispanic community, or who is the better candidate. This discussion, for me, is more a matter of honesty and accuracy than anything else. You have not provided any basis for the statement that the two candidates enjoy evenly divided latino endorsements. The only evidence currently on the table suggests that that is not the case.
But it does nothing to justify disingenuity in arguing your case.
You dizzy yet?
I am, just watching you.
Wade, you keep making these blanket statements that are simply not true. Labor is not united for either candidate. Romanoff got the endorsement of two large locals (UFCW and Teamsters), while Bennet has the endorsement of about a dozen national unions and some smaller locals.
The notion that “labor” is “united” behind a candidate is just not true.
Wade had some harsh words for another Polster a few days ago whose accuracy he questioned:
Funny thing is, when I corrected another of Wade’s misstatements (about Bennet, Romanoff and the sequence of things concerning the health care debate), he neither wrote a retraction nor apologized for — how’s he put it? — telling lies. C’mon Wade, it is not so hard.
But there is a pattern here.
June is not September, peacemonger assures me.
that Wade’s statement quoted above received push back form the accused who offered to correct any errors that Wade or anyone pointed out.
Except there was no correction because the quote in question was accurate (apparently- for my own curiosity, I intend to revisit it when better video of the debate is available).
Didn’t you see the part where Wade said Romanoff probably has just as much or more endorsements from the Latino community?
Support AR if you want- but if you think he’s less supportive of the Latino community based on this endorsement teeter-totter, you’re nuts.
Here is a video clip of the announcement.
on Facebook:
http://www.facebook.com/home.p…
they don’t always work right.
What’s getting heated?