Sparing Change for a Changing Climate

I wanted to provide anyone who is interested with an in-depth and critical look at the Waxman-Markey bill, otherwise known as the Clean Energy and Security Act which passed through the House a week ago. It is important legislation which is worthwhile to understand, as it will impact everyone over the years to come if it is passed through the Senate. Any comments, thoughts, or questions on this bill or climate change are welcome.

Sparing Change for a Changing Climate

By Benjamin Mumma

Lehigh University Class of 2010

The Waxman-Markey Bill

The Waxman-Markey bill, touted as “transformational legislation,” would require the U.S. to reduce emissions of CO² and other gases by 17 percent within the next 10 years and by 80 percent before 2050. Should the bill pass through the Senate, the government will use a "cap and trade" system to regulate the emission of CO². Essentially, the government will issue permits to emit CO², which can then be traded from companies that pollute less to companies that pollute more. The end result should be a level of emissions equal to the "cap" that is set. The main issues in this bill are the effects on the monetary system, and the effects on the climate. So before a judgment is made about this bill, let's look at who pays, who profits, and what happens to the climate as a result.

As with most government policies, U.S. citizens will foot the bill. The Congressional Budget Office (CBO) estimates that this bill will cost the average household $175 per year, mainly from an increase in the price of carbon based fuels. Due to a series of provisions within the bill, the poorest 20 percent of Americans will actually benefit, making $40 per year due to this bill[1]. In addition to the direct cost to taxpayers, the "cap and trade" system will increase manufacturing costs, and provide incentive for companies to move manufacturing plants overseas to areas with lower energy costs, which would likely result in increased unemployment.

Where does this money go? That should be obvious – to the bureaucracy! According to the same CBO report, the bill would increase federal revenue by $845 billion over the coming decade, with estimated expenditures related to the bill weighing in at $821 billion[2]. There are several interpretations of what this means. One interpretation is the creative New York Times headline that the climate bill "would trim budget deficit." Such an interpretation is accurate if the budgeting assumptions are valid, but also terribly misleading. This bill calls for an increase in spending of $82.1 billion per year. To put that into perspective, the AIG bailout of last August was $85 billion. This bill is essentially another one of those each and every year so that our government can regulate the emission of invisible gases.

Now despite the large costs involved, proponents of the bill claim that the cost is worth the benefit of reducing carbon emissions. According to climate models, CO² emissions are a contributor to climate change which, if continued, will result in a substantial increase in temperature across the globe, leading to other changes in climate directly caused by human activity. These models predict a rise of anywhere from two to nine degrees Celsius over the next century. Similar models predict the impact of the House's climate bill to be a drop of 0.05 degrees Celsius by 2050[3]. Simply put, if these climate models are indeed accurate, then this bill will do virtually nothing to change the warming trend. However, by 2050, this bill will have cost us $3,000,000,000,000 ($3 trillion) to change the global temperature increase from 3 degrees Celsius to 2.95 degrees.

With those facts in mind, let's look now at climate change.

Carbon and the Climate

The theory behind anthropogenic (human-induced) climate change is that CO² emissions are causing a rampant increase in global temperature. Thus far, proponents of this theory have largely succeeded in making the public believe that this is an undisputed fact among the scientific community. The truth is, this scientific hypothesis is disputed by many notable climatologists and other scientists. To name a few:

1. The Polish Academy of Sciences[4] who submitted a letter discussing ten problems with the theory of anthropogenic climate change.

2. Princeton Physicist Dr. William Happer[5], who testified before Senate in February that current climate models are inherently flawed.

3. Ivar Giaever, Norwegian Nobel Prize winner[6].

4. Dr. John Cristy, a lead author of the U.N.'s original IPCC report in 2001[7].

5. Over 700 scientists according to a list provided by the U.S. Government[8].

Clearly, any claims of a scientific consensus on climate change are inaccurate. All of these scientists provide theories of their own regarding human activity and the causes and effects of an increased level of CO² in the atmosphere. It's understandable, since even climate models that predict runaway warming can't agree on its role.

The climate models that do predict global warming provide an estimated increase in temperature of anywhere from two degrees Celsius to nine degrees Celsius by year 2100. These models require hundreds of assumptions to be made - one of them being carbon's role in regulating the climate. As Dr. Happer explains in his senate testimony though, about 90% of the "greenhouse effect" on earth is due to water vapor, not CO². CO² plays a much smaller role, and according to Dr. Happer could at most cause a 1 degree Celsius increase in global temperature. He explains:

"There is little argument in the scientific community that a direct effect of doubling the CO² concentration will be a small increase of the earth’s temperature -- on the order of one degree. Additional increments of CO² will cause relatively less direct warming because we already have so much CO² in the atmosphere that it has blocked most of the infrared radiation that it can."[9]

Dr. Happer continues to explain that models currently used rely on the assumption that small increases in CO² levels will lead to increased levels of water vapor in the atmosphere, causing runaway warming. However, empirical evidence has shown this correlation to close to zero of even negative[10]. By definition, the climate change hypothesis is not something we can prove or disprove at this time, so let’s look at some things we can predict.

Climate in the Real World

Looking to what will actually happen; there are a few things we can know for sure.

1. When the U.S. stops emitting CO², China and India won't. With one third of the world’s population residing in China and India, both countries are going through rapid economic growth. Economic growth is inextricably tied to cheap energy consumption, and hence CO² emissions. China's emissions of CO² have increased at a rate of 11% over the past five years, and are expected to continue at a similar rate[11]. These emissions will counteract any cooling effects the Waxman-Markey bill may have.

2. If the world does get a little too hot, it is actually very cheap and relatively easy to cool Earth down. Geoengineers have already devised methods of cooling earth, some of which involve ejecting particles like sulfates into earth's atmosphere to reflect sunlight[12]. This solution lacks appeal to environmentalists, but the result is that humans would see little effect from any warming that does occur.

3. Interestingly enough, a warmer earth is not even the biggest threat that our climate can offer. In the past, events such as Ice Ages and supervolcanic eruptions have wrecked havoc on humans and animals alike[13]. With such events being inevitable over the course of time, at some point we may want more of a greenhouse effect than we have today. As unpleasant the picture of a world 8 degrees warmer is, a world 8 degrees cooler would be much worse. Ironically, the next ice age was the focus of much climate research and alarmism in the 1970’s, and even now there are scientists who claim that we still are quickly headed for another ice age[14].

Money and How to Waste It

For the sake of clarity, here’s what the Waxman-Markey bill does in real terms:

1. Takes a lot of money from 80% of Americans

2. Gives some of that money to the poorest 20% of Americans.

3. Uses the rest to create a huge government agency that monitors and attempts to regulate the emission of an invisible gas.

4. Creates cost incentives that will drive industry elsewhere, as unemployment continues to rise.

5. All of this is done in hopes that we can cool the planet by a 1/20^th of a degree over 40 years.

Now, it is worth noting that supporters argue that this bill will also work to create a "green industry" here in the United States which would create jobs, and also decrease our dependence of foreign oil. These claims are, to a certain extent, accurate. Proponents argue that these benefits outweigh the price tag of $84 billion per year, lost manufacturing jobs, and higher energy prices. That’s simply silly.

Clean and domestic energy are worthwhile goals, no one can dispute that. But, in typical government fashion, this bill goes about “achieving” those two goals in the most convoluted and inefficient way possible. This huge sum of money - about $12,000 per person - over 40 years shouldn't be taken in the first place. Even if President Obama insists on raising taxes, the $3 Trillion could just be used to directly fund clean energy research and technology. It could be used to build more nuclear power plants to provide cheap and clean electricity. It could be used to just reduce the huge deficit built by President Obama and his predecessor. Instead, this bill is directly transferring wealth from citizen to citizen, and being used to fund yet another massive bureaucracy at the federal level. To cap it all off, it will do essentially nothing to combat any human-induced climate change that exists. No matter what you believe about climate change, this is an opportunity to unite to defeat a bill that will do much more harm than good for this country.

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[1] Steven Mufson, Washington Post, 6/23/2009. (http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/06/22/AR2009062202836.html)

[2] Darren Samuelsohn, New York Times, 6/8/2009. (http://www.nytimes.com/cwire/2009/06/08/08climatewire-house-climate-bill-would-trim-budget-deficit-83573.html)

[3] Chip Knappenberger, MasterResource.org, 5/6/2009. (http://masterresource.org/?p=2355)

[4] Kevin Mooney, Washington Examiner, 4/24/2009. (http://www.washingtonexaminer.com/opinion/blogs/Examiner-Opinion-Zone/Polish-Academy-of-Sciences-Questions-Gores-Man-Made-Global-Warming-Theory-43618922.html)

[5] Dr. William Happer, U.S. Senate Testimony, 2/25/2009. (http://scienceandpublicpolicy.org/reprint/happer_senate_testimony.html)

[6] Christina Reed, Nature, 7/15/2008. (http://blogs.nature.com/climatefeedback/2008/07/nobelists_talk_energy.html)

[7] Jon Birger, Fortune Magazine, 5/14/2009. (http://money.cnn.com/2009/05/14/magazines/fortune/globalwarming.fortune/index.htm)

[8] Marc Morano, U.S. Senate Committee on Environment and Public Works, 12/11/2008. (http://epw.senate.gov/public/index.cfm?FuseAction=Minority.Blogs&ContentRecord_id=2674E64F-802A-23AD-490B-BD9FAF4DCDB7)

[9] Dr. William Happer, U.S. Senate Testimony, 2/25/2009. (http://scienceandpublicpolicy.org/reprint/happer_senate_testimony.html)

[10] Dr. Roy Spencer, Earth System Science Center, 2/28/2008. (http://www.drroyspencer.com/Spencer-and-Braswell-08.pdf)

[11] Univ. Of California – Berkeley, 3/10/2008. (http://www.physorg.com/news124384270.html)

[12] Jamais Cascio, The Wall Street Journal, 6/15/2009. (http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052970204771304574181522575503150.html)

[13] Suburban Emergency Management Project, 1/11/2005. (http://www.semp.us/publications/biot_reader.php?BiotID=164)

[14] Dr. Zbigniew Jaworowski, 21^st Centure Science and Technology, 7/12/2003. (http://www.21stcenturysciencetech.com/Articles%202004/Winter2003-4/global_warming.pdf)

Misundereducated

By Benjamin Mumma
This article appears in the November 2008 edition of the Lehigh Patriot.

www.lehighpatriot.com

Education plays a critical role in every nation’s development. Just as leaders today make decisions based upon their past education, the leaders of tomorrow will formulate their actions based on what they learn today. Our future depends on the education of today to produce a well-informed and educated generation.

The problem is, this isn’t happening. Americans are being misundereducated. (Yes, I just created this word. It works; think about it.) Even the politicians can agree on this, yet they aren’t really working on fixing anything. In international testing, the United States ranks below most other developed nations. The question that citizens and politicians both need to answer is: How do we repair America’s education system?

A good education is one of the best indicators of a person’s financial and emotional well-being in life. In addition to a higher income, well educated people divorce less, are less likely to smoke, and are less likely to have physical or mental health problems. When you apply these facts to a nation of over 300 million people, the effects are astounding. Children develop better when they have both parents available. Cigarettes cause an estimated 440,000 premature deaths each year, and each year tobacco products cause an estimated $150 billion in medical care costs and lost productivity(1) . Minimizing these problems and maximizing the benefits of a better-educated populous will result in exponential advancement of our society in the future.

This much everyone can agree upon. Democrats and Republicans alike agree that our education system is broken, and that rebuilding it is vital to the current and future success of our nation. Where they disagree, however, are the means by which to make this happen. However, before we can aid the failing education system, we need to understand why it is ineffective. In this case there are three main problems.

The Three Main Problems

First, the inequality in the system means that good students often get stuck in bad schools with no other recourse to find a better education. There are millions of students attending inner-city schools with great potential to learn, grow, and succeed who aren’t given the chance. Quite simply, their schools lack the proper learning environment. The current environment breeds underserved students and teachers who eventually learn not to care. Businesses that fail to provide adequate services to their customers go bankrupt. But when it comes to education, the government requires students to “buy” a poor product whether they want to or not. The proposition they provide is: attend the failing, inadequate school or pay thousands per year to switch.

This lack of choice provides unequal rights since your education is based upon how much money a family earns. Families who are well off and live in a bad school district can pay to send their children to private school. Meanwhile, a neighboring family that lives paycheck to paycheck will have no other option but to send their child to that failing local school. Over generations, the better-educated family gradually acquires more wealth, while the poorly educated family must continue on a path of low-paying menial jobs. When you look at the inequality between classes and races, a recurring theme with the Democrats, the cause is the inequality in education.

Second, the current system does not incentivize well-qualified people to become teachers. Both Senator McCain and Senator Obama support higher pay for teachers in an effort to combat this issue(2)(3), but that won’t work by itself. Too many inept teachers who are firmly entrenched in the current education system have secured their jobs through tenure. This presents a huge barrier to the influx of good teachers. A single weak link in the process of educating children inhibits all teachers’ ability to educate.

So let’s look at education as a group assignment. The assignment is to educate the students, and each group member (teacher) takes a specialized task along the way. If everyone is competent, this will work magnificently. But as I mentioned before, the system has bad teachers entrenched throughout the school. Intelligent people avoid these groups (education systems) at all costs. No one wants to teach calculus to students who don’t understand algebra.

Finally, the third problem, which actually causes the other two, is that the system lacks competition. Each public elementary and secondary school in this country is effectively a monopoly. Compared to free markets, monopolies often provide expensive yet inferior products. Anyone who has used Microsoft Windows Vista can experience the pain of inadequate competition first hand. Money can’t fix this problem in education, 

because more money does not provide an incentive to succeed. Empirical data backs this up, as seen in Figure 1.

Believe it or not, we do have an example right here in the United States that illustrates how well competition can improve education. The higher education system of the United States thrives on competition. For hundreds of years, Ivy League schools have been competing against each other for students. It is no coincidence that, for many years, these same schools have been providing the premier education in the world. In fact, the entire higher education system in the United States is the best in the world.

The United States has a tradition of personal freedoms that is the very foundation of this country. But, in education, the government does not act in accordance with that principle. For every other product, if a customer receives an inferior product item, they can return it and shop somewhere else. If your doctor doesn’t stick the needles in the right place, you can switch doctors. If your local grocery store sells moldy bread, you can shop somewhere else. These freedoms and the free market are the reason why the U.S. is where it is today. But, when it comes to education, only those who have thousands of dollars to spare every year can switch. This monopolistic system that throws competition out the window is the cause of inferior education in America, and it is what we must revamp.

The Solution

The solution to failing educational systems is simple: eliminate the monopoly. Let schools compete for students through a voucher program or a tax credit program. This seems scary: Democrats fear that already troubled schools will fail further, and that the whole system will dissolve into chaos. Opponents call school vouchers “a dangerous experiment.” But this is effectively the way that businesses in the U.S economy have been running for over 200 years. That dangerous experiment worked out fairly well. A transition to school choice won’t be quick, easy, or without flaws, but it will be worthwhile. To illustrate this, just look at where the United States ranks in education. When the 

government sets up a monopoly, the U.S. is 20th among developed nations. When the free market runs education, the U.S. has the best education in the world(4).

The problems that I’ve mentioned will be solved at varying rates. Most importantly, inequality in education would be eliminated. With a school choice program, parents who live in underperforming districts could send their children to a better school. Just like that, students stuck at an inadequate school would be able to go elsewhere. Families that value education and children who want to learn will be able to, instead of being trapped as a capable student in a failing school.

Also, the lack of competition would, by definition, be solved. Currently, some competition exists in private schools, but it is such an expensive alternative that it is not a consideration for most ordinary families. Interestingly, many D.C. politicians opt to send their children to private schools. The increased competition provided by school choice would force schools to improve their education quality, and steadily improve the state of American schools.

Finally, school choice would also work to inject the education system with more qualified teachers. As mentioned earlier, the current system does not encourage competent people to become teachers. School choice would increase competition, and force schools to spend more money on the most important resource in education: strong teachers. With increased competition for above average teachers come higher wages, and quite simply a more attractive job offering. Changing the teachers in the system would take time, but this is one problem that the government simply cannot solve without the help of free markets.

The end of the argument for school choice links right back to the beginning. Many of the large problems in America today – crime, poverty, drug use, and smoking – are caused, in large proportion, by a lack of education. Improvements in education will bring improvements in those areas too. Even small decreases in crime, drugs, and smoking, along with an increase in efficiency and productivity that results from improved education will net our country billions of dollars over time. Include with that monetary bonus of improved relationships between different classes and races brought about by a better-educated populous, and the rewards clearly justify the risks.

School choice has been an argument of contention in Washington. The American Federation of Teachers, AFT, is a 1.4 million member strong union that opposes school vouchers and generally supports Democrats(5). With 1.4 million votes with which to lobby, Democrats will not make the decision that needs to be made. They rely on the ambivalence of the American people to protect them as they cash in on support from those who benefit from keeping a failing system in place. Unless people stand up on principle and speak out overwhelmingly in favor of school choice, little will be done in the near future and our nation’s problems will continue to grow. 

Education plays such a vital role in a child’s development that people need to stand up for their rights. School choice is far too important for our nation’s success for it to be in the hands of unions comprised of largely inept educators and the vote-seeking politicians who pander to them.

(1):   http://no-smoking.org/may02/05-10-02-2.html
(2):   http://www.johnmccain.com/
(3):   http://www.barackobama.com
(4):   See figure 2 and figure 3 sources
(5):   http://www.aft.org/

An Engineer's Dream

By Benjamin Mumma
This article appears in the November 2008 Edition of the Lehigh Patriot

www.lehighpatriot.com

As a general rule, planning your class load for next semester is stressful. There are requirements to fill, time conflicts to worry about, and logging in at 10:00 pm with 1,000 other people (full disclosure: the author logs in at 9:30). With all of that said, you still have to avoid any class that starts at 8:00 AM and any class with a professor who says “uh” way too many times.

So who needs that? Certainly not me, so I decided to create as stress-free a schedule as I could. I got a headache just looking at my 19-credit schedule I had planned. Who needs to stay up until 3:00 AM every night? Forget about graduating in four years – I deserve a break. If you feel as I do, please feel free to join me on this standard fifteen-credit schedule which will provide an enlightening view to how others at Lehigh are able to live in luxury.

Mondays, I will be waking up bright and early to attend Introduction to Acting from 1:10 – 3:00 PM. What better way to unwind from a stressful Monday morning than to just pretend to be someone else for a few hours? The fact that I receive credit for this is a bonus! Following that adventure, I will be taking a long nap to prepare for my Tuesday.

On Tuesday, I start classes at 9:20. It will be difficult waking up that early, but I had to fit PHIL 220, Theory of Knowledge into my schedule. This class helps to answer the challenging questions in life, such as: “If you can’t know whether you are dreaming, how can you know you have two hands?” When I saw this entry in the course catalog, I knew this class was for me. I mean, just think about it: you may count two hands now, but what if you are actually dreaming that you have two hands? You could have one hand, or three hands, or 80 hands! This line of logic could go on forever.

Sadly, my Tuesday is not yet a fait accompli. Next, I will be moving on to Introduction to Marketing. The goal of this class is “to expose students to the meaning of marketing, the terminology of marketing, the activities involved in marketing,” and some other stuff. Enticing people to buy things they don’t need and can’t afford is part of what has made our economy the best in the world. Keep in mind that these are the geniuses that convince us every day to buy water in a bottle. Now I can be a part of that noble movement.

After a quick lunch, my brutal Tuesday continues. From 1:10 – 4:00 I will be taking a new course for the semester, Engendering “Black” Popular Culture: Race, Gender, and the Politics of Representation. This class promises to “explain the role of the U.S. media in enabling, facilitating, or challenging the social constructions of ‘Blackness.’” As a joint offering from the Africana Studies and Women Studies departments, it will give me the open-mindedness to intelligently discuss the critical social and civil rights issues of the 21st century. It will be interesting, because I don’t even know how to engender something. Plus, I never heard the media tell me how Black I was, but I’m sure other people have different experiences.

So that concludes my Tuesday. Fortunately, on Wednesday, I can relieve some stress by sleeping in until noon and then acting for two hours. Thursday, however, I will have to count my hands again to make sure that I’m not dreaming (even the description scrambles my brain – this is going to be a challenge). That’s okay, though; at that point, I will be one class away from the weekend. After a quick marketing class, my weekend will commence at noon on Thursday.

Over the 72 hour weekend, I will have to find time to complete my homework, read textbooks, write papers, and ponder my “Blackness,” engendering, and the number of hands I have.

This may not be as much of a walk in the park as I first expected.

Words of Inaction

By Benjamin Mumma
This article appears in the October 2008 Edition of the Lehigh Patriot.
www.lehighpatriot.com

Election year politics always provide a tremendous amount of political banter on both sides. While following this year’s contest, I have read countless well-thought and articulate articles on the current political climate. By perusing many articles each day, representing both sides of our nation’s great left-right divide, I’ve discovered a lot about how politics really works. The insights that I’ve gained make it extremely challenging to write about any concrete political situation for several reasons. Thus far, I feel that I’ve found out a lot about how the U.S. political system currently works. In the media you’ll hear the party lines, the political commentary, and the candidate’s talking points. But that isn’t the analysis that matters. If you can see through all of the smokescreens politicians set up, there is one overarching theme: words don’t matter.

That words do not mean anything in politics isn’t a new theme, and I am hardly being original in pointing this out. For the sake of argument, let me give you two examples: abortion and the war in Iraq. Republicans are, by-and-large, against legal abortions. They, as well as the Democrats, love to use their pro- or anti- abortion stance as a talking point. But it has been 35 years since Roe v. Wade, and what has the Republican Party seriously done on a national level about making abortions illegal? Not much. For religious reasons, many Republicans feel that it is an imperative to produce pro-life candidates for national office. In the primaries, Mitt Romney did his best to adapt (flip-flop) his position on legalized abortion. Similarly many Democrats, such as Pennsylvania’s junior senator Bob Casey, have tapped the pro-life voting pool by being Democrats who support restrictions on abortion rights. Some politicians may actually care about whether Roe v. Wade should be overturned. But few will rank it as more important than staying in office, and even fewer will specifically devote political capital to the cause.

On the other side, there is the war in Iraq. War is inherently awful, and it is a sad statement of reality that even for a nation like ours, war is a necessity in some situations. Was the war in Iraq necessary? In hindsight, it probably was not. Those two facts have made the war extremely unpopular, and those on the left of the political spectrum were calling for us to withdraw from a nation we had just torn apart. Democratic politicians used this to their advantage and spoke out against the war in order to raise money and obtain votes. Did any of them actually want us to withdraw? The answer to that is ‘no’. Anyone who views the world minus the influence of mind-altering drugs realizes it would be very dangerous to just pick up and leave Iraq before it is stabilized. Barack Obama has altered his stance away from that extremist view he took in the primaries. He now effectively says the same thing as everyone else: let’s win the war and get our troops out as quickly as possible. Politicians will pay lip-service to their bases by favoring immediate withdrawal; but again they fail to devote any political capital to the cause.

The fact that political actions do not follow political verbiage makes analyzing political conversations extremely difficult. Analyzing their words is great if you want to produce a work of fiction, but that hardly makes it possible to discern their true motives, and that doesn’t work well if you want to find out what the politicians are actually going to do. But suggesting that Mr. or Mrs. Politician is insincere invites attacks from all across the political spectrum. Thus, the cable news networks, talk radio, and political commentators everywhere, mainly analyze a situation based on what politicians say. The media does this because it either pleases or aggravates every politically active person watching, which of course drives the ratings. Comments made every day by people like Sean Hannity and Keith Olbermann purposefully highlight the divisive parts of the other side’s platform. This doesn’t provide rational analysis, but instead breeds angry comments and irrational responses.

Knowing that so many Republicans and Democrats will say whatever they need to in order to secure their popularity and office really diminishes partisan politics, and its analysis. I have attacked Democrats for supporting higher taxes on the rich simply to obtain the votes of the poor, and doing so at the peril of our economy and our country’s future. But what does that attack really mean if Republicans talk about limited government in order to obtain votes, and then either do nothing about or even aid the expansion of our awful bureaucracy at the peril of our economy and our country’s future?

The hypocrisy of both parties is astounding. Democrats have made huge political gains by victimizing, and offering to help, the poor by going after the rich. But right now Democrats are the only ones standing in the way of offshore drilling, which would provide relief for lower-income families who are paying a significant portion of their income in transportation costs. Republicans in office all talk about hating the bureaucracy in Washington and wanting to reduce it, but they haven’t done diddlysquat about it. The best analysis of the current situation of American politics isn’t necessarily exciting, or even controversial, and it is certainly not enough to fill up the schedule of 24-hour news channels.

Finally, playing these partisan games does nothing but sharpen the divide between the ideological bases. It produces a vicious cycle where the attacks become sharper and sharper, distracting everyone from the facts on which a decision should be based. This problem has gotten so severe that humane and even reasonably intelligent discourse of politics between conservatives and liberals has become almost non-existent. Commentators on each side have become more and more brutal in their attacks on the other point of view.

Each side blames the other not just for initiating the fight, but continuing it. In the campaign so far, McCain has used some pretty nasty and devious tactics against Barack Obama. Obama has done the exact same thing to McCain. Arguing over who started it is something six-year-olds do. Both have recognized that negative campaigning is effective, and so each has used negative tactics. Both sides now love to claim the other side is full of evil, intolerant, and stupid people. Lost in the rhetoric is the fact that we are all Americans, and we all want what is best for this country. There’s just a bit of a disagreement about the best route to take. MapQuest can only get you so far.[1]

So what does all this mean with respect to the election? Whoever is elected, Barack Obama or John McCain, will attempt to do what is best for the country, without giving up too many votes. It has been plain for months now that neither of these candidates are the mythical political beast who could care less about getting re-elected. But both candidates are Americans, and both candidates truly want what is best for this country. In deciding who to vote for we need to look for someone whose actions, not words, speak most strongly to a candidate who is able to serve Americans, and not his own political interests.

This year that man is a Republican. It won’t always be the case, but you don’t have to dig too deeply to find evidence that John McCain puts the collective good of America first. His time in the Vietnamese POW camp, and his refusal of early release speaks more strongly to his character and values than any combination of words can. For a full account of his story I encourage you to read Senator McCain’s first-hand account from U.S. News and World Report.[2] Also, McCain has opposed his party, and tried to actually pass meaningful legislation. McCain-Feingold campaign finance reform, as well as the McCain-Kennedy immigration bill, was co-sponsored by a prominent Democratic Senator. In both cases he angered his voting base, knowing that he would eventually have a presidential primary coming up where those bills would haunt him. But it speaks to a man that has his priorities straight as a public servant: America should come first.

Barack Obama on the other hand, has only tried to differentiate himself with words. His actions so far have been so innately and brilliantly political that he has been able to use words to create the impression that he is above politics. His entire political career up until this point has been playing to the extremist portion of his party from which he gets his support, money, and volunteers. His documented connections to Jeremiah Wright and William Ayers[3] show the people he will associate with for political gain. Also, his voting record in the Senate, which was ranked as the most liberal of anyone in 2007[4], shows how he has played to the Democrat’s enthusiastic base. Only now has he moderated his views, best seen as I mentioned earlier on Iraq but also in reference to energy, taxes, and foreign policy as he attempts to win over independents. He has done all of this extremely well, and has played the political game as well as anyone. He very well may have the character and a coherent set of values on the level of John McCain. But he has not proven this yet. And the president, above all, must be someone who can make the right choice even if it’s not the popular one.

So while considering the election this November, think about the character of the two candidates. They are both intelligent, they are both capable, and they both want what is best for this country. You may disagree with Senator McCain on some issues, but as I have proven, the candidates’ talking points matter very little. Remembering that the actual amount of meaningful legislation destined to be passed in the next four years will be very small, I hope that many of you can set aside your disagreements with McCain’s policies as I have, and vote for him in November. As the candidate who is best suited to step above politics, he is the person who America needs making the decisions that will surely have a profound impact on our future as a nation.

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[1] MapQuest, http://www.mapquest.com/politicalunity

[2] “John McCain, Prisoner of War: A First-Person Account”. John McCain. U.S. News and World Report, May 1973. http://www.usnews.com/articles/news/2008/01/28/john-mccain-prisoner-of-war-a-first-person-account.html

[3] “Wright Connection”. Michael Barone. National Review Online, May 24^th, 2008. http://article.nationalreview.com/?q=ODU3MjJlNDgwNWNhODhmN2IwYWFjNzZmNGJiMzUwYTE

[4] “Obama: Most Liberal Senator In 2007”. Friel et al. National Journal, January 31^st, 2008. http://nj.nationaljournal.com/voteratings/