The time has come to pull the plug on this experiment, though.  Thanks to everyone who wrote in with encouragement, criticism, and for any other reason.  It was nice to know that people were reading and, if nothing else, interested in looking to a Massachusetts that works better than it does now.

Now, while we’ve closed down Clean Sweep Beacon Hill, PAC, that doesn’t mean we are completely out of the game or that it won’t come back in some future election.  Right now we’re reorganizing and looking into setting up a foundation to try to spark interest in local politics.

Once again, thanks to all who took the time to stop by.  We hope to see you and many more in the not-too distant future.

Yet this upcoming election is turning on the economy.  Within this reality lies the problem: what makes the economy work?  Do the basics change as we shift in size from household to national scales?  Are tax cuts truly a panacea or the harbinger of national doom?  Beats the heck out of me.

This brings us to Whitney’s First Law of Economics: pose any question to two economists and each will offer different answers citing no less than two other economists each.  Therefore, six economists equals two answers.  Milton and Kynes will only count as 0.75 economists since they are mentioned so frequently.  End result?  Beats the heck out of me but it leads to Whitney’s First Corollary: I don’t get it.

Now that I have so graciously declared my ignorance of the topic at hand, in the finest American and academic style, I will tell you what’s wrong and how to fix it.

Since economics is strictly a numbers game these days, it necessarily misses out on a major factor that has yet to be truly quantified, that of humanity.  Humans are unpredictable in the extreme and groups are only slightly less so.  When economic policy is dictated without regard for the national sentiment of a people, negative results are more likely to result than positive.  In this case, the adversarial relationship enjoyed by most Americans and the government.

This is an issue I see very often when a policy is compared to a European state.  The problem is that we are, generally speaking, no longer European.  We don’t trust the government any more than we trust our neighbors.  Our history is full of examples beginning with people leaving their homes to get into a leaky boat and travel in excess of 3000 miles on stormy seas to arrive at, well, no one really knew what they were getting into, all that really mattered was that it was going to be different from what they left.  Once here, some stayed in the cities but a sizable number kept going West as fast as possible until geography stopped them.

Naturally, this whole brain-explosion was sparked by seeing a couple of polls declaring the same thing: tax cuts should be implemented, across the board, for all.  Even though, in this specific case, it’s not tax cuts exactly, it’s just maintaining the way things are now.  So, really, it’s people against a tax increase.  And this comes as we’ve been told that the last $700 billion stimulus was necessary to jump-start the economy but this “tax cut that isn’t really a cut” is going to cost about $700 billion.  So, what, the plan was to put the money in for a moment and then take it back out again?  Am I missing something or simply trying to take a right turn when a left turn is called for?

Both Democrats and Republicans are guilty of maintaining this mess.  Certain things the government has to do.  Other things are intrusive.  As we were told by the very funny P. J. O’Rourke, trusting government with money and power is like trusting teenagers with whiskey and car keys.

Let’s install a curfew.

This mornings Globe carried an article about the 28x bus lines through Dorchester, Mattapan, and Roxbury.  The article was confusing since the title mentions dissent, the first few paragraphs repeat how the locals are dissatisfied, and nowhere is there a clear description of why these people are cranky.  It’s in moments like these that the comments section fulfills its greatest purpose, answering the question, “Am I an idiot because I didn’t understand what the reporter said he or she was saying?  What did other people experience?”  Fortunately for my early morning piece of mind, if I am an idiot it appears that I share good company for several commentators mentioned the same thing.

In effect, the main complaint is that the management of the MBTA did not make the people living in the areas affected that their opinions were properly taken into account.  Even simpler: the T bosses didn’t stroke enough local egos and that makes people cranky.  We all get grumpy when we feel things are out of our control, when decisions are made without our input, and changes happen that we don’t necessarily approve.

At the same time, we can’t follow the dictates of every person’s whim.  If one hundred people were asked how they wanted to manage public transportation in their area, the answers would probably break down into some variant of the following: 12 I don’t knows, 17 wanting more stops, 21 wanting more buses, 6 wanting fewer stops, 13 wanting fewer stops, 11 decrying the use of fossil fuels, 7 blaming Bush and/or Obama, 2 Russian spies, 10 nuclear protesters, and at least one vote for “pineapple.”  We’ve known this for a long time; this is how societies work.  Socrates commented on it not long before a mob (also known as a group of citizens exercising their pure democratic duties) elected him the proud recipient of poison.

Pure democracy doesn’t work on larger scales.  That is why we have some form of representation.  In theory, the representatives take most of the chaos out of democracy by virtue of having fewer votes and an ability to look over individual interests.  In Massachusetts, the representatives too often become nest-feathering sinecurists  spreading bounty in the form of government jobs and contracts to the faithful and the following.  They do this because there is no fear they will be voted out since that’s been the pattern for many years.

So, this primary, it is my intention to vote in support of newcomers.  This is our chance to prune the election ballot for either party.  There are many who would rather die than vote Republican.

Here’s your chance.  Get rid of the fatcat Dem and support the upstart.  This country was founded by upstarts.  It works for us.

Believe it or not, our voices can carry just as loudly on Primary Tuesday as they do on Election Tuesday.  Let’s get out there and warm up those vocal chords.

Granted, that query has devolved into a painted target on whoever the “other” side is but the actual meat there is powerful, especially if we break it down.  Some time ago, when I was websurfing instead of doing something productive or social, I came across a list of questions derived from the master question above.  Now, while this list made an impression, it wasn’t enough of one that I saved the list, remembered who wrote it, or even where I found it.  But it got me thinking so, whoever is responsible for that, thank you.

Basically, before every election, I think we should all sit down and ask ourselves these three simple questions:

1. Am I happier with government provided services than last election (are the roads better, government agencies more or less efficient or pleasant, do functions like fire and police seem better, have the schools improved)?

2. Am I getting good value for tax dollars paid?

3. Do I have more or less trust in the government than I did last election?

That’s all we really need to know.  If you go to a store and don’t feel like the personnel are trustworthy, aren’t you going to find another store?  Doesn’t the same hold true if you feel like you are not getting good value for your money?  If you don’t like what the store has to offer, wouldn’t you keep on going to find one that does?

That’s what we get to do every election.  If we are not getting what we contracted for, well, that contract’s up for renewal and we choose whether to do so or not.  After all, we’ve done our part by being decent citizens, paying taxes, not causing too much trouble, putting money in the economy by consuming.  Has the government fulfilled its end of the bargain?

I would suggest that, in Massachusetts at least, the government has not fulfilled its part of the contract and needs replacing.  Staying with what we know does not work will help nothing; trying new things until something does work is how greatness is achieved.

Ask yourself the questions.  Answer them honestly.  Then act accordingly in the voting booth.  For all our sakes.

I would honestly and deeply like to thank Sarah Palin for two reasons.  First, it allows me to use the above image that’s been sitting in my pictures folder for months now.  Secondly, in her asinine remarks regarding our current junior senator, she adds more proof to the point I’ve been making all along: it’s a good thing that we have states because it allows us to be different.

Quite frankly, Sarah, we don’t give a damn what you think in Alaska.  That’s been the point all along, regardless of how many newspapers, blogs, political websites, self-appointed important people, and did I mention blogs – no matter how hard all these people have tried to equate Sarah Palin with Scott Brown, it ain’t happening.  And it won’t anytime soon.  There’s an ideological world of difference between the two.

He’s not a Republican, he’s a Massachusetts Republican.  There’s a difference.

There was a time when I rather liked and admired John McCain.  It was quite a while ago, though, back when he was acting like a Massachusetts Republican.  He was his own man, not overly beholden the Republican party, tuned into his constituents, and always willing to favor pragmatism over ideological wishfulness.  Back in 1996, when he was teasing the press mercilessly with the idea of  a presidential run he projected all of these favorable traits.

Now, over a decade later, we’re seeing an opportunist, as much as John Kerry, who just recently shifted back hard right to withstand a re-election challenge.  Oh, and he funded it with the leftovers from his failed presidential bid.  No, it’s not illegal, but it sure looks a little sketchy, especially coming from once of the champions of the McCain-Feingold-Cochran Act.

Massachusetts Republicans are just different.  Individuals yet aware that a community is stronger than any one individual and sometimes compromises have to be made.  More wrapped in reality than ideology, at least so far, Brown has done exactly what he said he would on the campaign trail.

Let’s see if he keeps it up.  And, in the meantime, we’ll let Palin have her little hissy fit and maybe she’ll realize the truth of the situation.

He’s not yours, Sarah.  He’s ours.

I’m talking about the adult services.  As in, selling yourself.  As in what the Massachusetts schools did for a $250 million.  It sucks your soul but what does the union care.  It’s more money.  And that’s all that matters, right?  And that’s why I call what you’ve just done whoring.

How did we get the money?  No one knows.  The scores used to measure the states competing for this grant were not released.  All we know is that last time we didn’t make the cut and this time, magically, we did.  What changed?

Well, we agreed to scrap the Massachusetts educational standard for national ones.  The message is clear: Washington knows better than you and your community how to educate your children.  It doesn’t matter if you live in Massachusetts, Oklahoma, or Alaska; the government is here to wipe out any traces of individuality in the states.  Guess what, Massachusetts parents?  Pretty soon your kids are going to be educated on an agenda based on whatever national party appointed the most people in the Department of Education.  Sounds swell, huh?

And our esteemed governor loves it, saying, “This is further confirmation of our leadership in education reform.”  What kind of reform are we talking about, governor?  The kind where we become like everyone else, our history, our culture, our mores be damned?

More sensitivity is shown towards those who sneak here illegally.

So, for a budget that’s hovering in the $6.75 billion mark, Deval and his cronies are jumping up and down and willing to cheerfully throw out baby and bath water for $250 million.  Over four years.  And spread out among around 950,000 students.  But not spread evenly, no, we’re going to let the government decide which areas are low-income enough to get some cash.  Like Boston.

For that we threw out our standards.  Way to go.  Just don’t advertise it cause Martha needs something to run on this year.

We’re smarter than that, though, right?

Actually, intelligence has nothing to do with it.  There’s more of a psychological identification with the captors, similar to the attachment an infant instinctively tries to make with a strong adult figure.  While this is all fun and interesting, it really has nothing to do with what I really came to talk about today.  Instead, my thoughts traveled to income taxes and the failed Question 1 a mere two years ago.

The idea was to ask the voters if they wanted to repeal the income tax.  Not surprisingly, some groups showed up in favor of keeping income tax exactly as it was: Massachusetts Teacher’s Union kicked in nearly $3.5 million, the National Education Association in DC wrote a check for $1.5 million, and this group that was formed especially for these ballot questions, Coalition for our Communities, came up with an astonishing $6.6 million.  All these millions really added up and blew those who were in favor of a repeal and their paltry $500,000 out of the water.

Where did this Coalition for our Communities come from?  I can’t answer that but I can tell you that their Treasurer was one Paul Toner who apparently is also the VP for the Massachusetts Teacher’s Association.  I guess the teachers really wanted to maintain that level of taxation.

The Coalition for our Communities finance report reads like a municipal union who’s who: SEIU, Mass. Nurses Association, AFSCME, MA Building Trades Council, you get the idea.  Somehow the Boston Globe picked up on the fact that a ton of money got spent in the effort to maintain the income tax but didn’t feel the need to make a big deal out of the fact that a Massachusetts Teacher’s Union official was handling some really big money over at a phantom PAC.

In short, on this issue at least, there’s nothing really wrong with Massachusetts voters except perhaps not paying enough attention to the minutiae; there’s so much minutiae available today that such is an eminently forgivable oversight.  Unions wanted us to keep paying taxes at a higher rate than we necessarily need to and spent an awful lot of money advertising that the world would end if we lowered the tax rates.

That’s right Massachusetts.  You’re paying more because the unions want you to.  How does that make you feel?

Somewhat less familiar is the idea of the “Salad Bowl.”  This is the theory that smells more like the multiculturalism of today.  Here we have the motto E Pluribus Unum (From many, one) taken to the extreme.  Just like a salad has no real defined ingredients, neither does American culture and just like salad, tomatoes, mushrooms, onions, and similar foods taste good individually, well, they just really taste better together, don’t you think?

There are strengths in both outlooks and I happen to lean more towards the salad bowl idea.  We see this reflected in our multiplicity of ethnic restaurants, the food we eat at home, the words we use that have come from other languages, clothing styles, you get the idea.  We are all Americans but, as a new people, we can take what we like from other cultures.  Such was a point made during the debates about whether to remain part of England or declare independence: here is an opportunity, unseen before in history, to actually ponder deeply and choose the most beneficial government available.

Modern multiculturalism has taken the salad bowl idea to the most ridiculous extreme, metaphorically wanting to place each ingredient into its own separate bowl.  No salad can be created this way; at the end, you have the same as at the beginning in a bunch of disparate ingredients.  No salads here!

These thoughts came to me after reading two different takes on schools.  The first, by Dennis Prager, is an editorial in which Prager describes a speech he wishes school principals would give.  It will, undoubtedly, infuriate the multicultural types who will start whining about racism, evil republicans, xenophobia, and the like.  Then came a Boston Globe article (not an editorial, mind) reporting on groups wanting to further train teachers in different cultural ideals. As if teachers don’t apparently have their hands full already, at least according to the continually disappointing test scores we regularly see in those same broadsheet pages.

Here’s a question for our political hopefuls to ponder and (hopefully) answer: How much longer are we going to pursue failed policies or minor modifications of failed policies?  Isn’t it time to diminish the distractions, deal firmly but fairly with disruptive students, and craft a coherent policy for students instead of unions?  If not, then it is time for our children to be taken out of these failing schools and sent where they can actually learn.

Should that be the case, it is also time for parents who have to do that to start lobbying for a return of their tax dollars earmarked for public education.  If I buy a television and it doesn’t work, I take it back for a refund.  Why not the same for a child’s education?

A little over a year ago, we had the Cambridge fiasco which culminated in the “Beer Summit.”  What he should have said:

Skip Gates is a friend of mine, a passionate man, a brilliant writer and educator, I’ve known him for years and he has always impressed me.  Now, about the details of this case, I can’t speak to that, I haven’t been fully briefed on that yet.  Next question?

Nice, calm, simple, presidential.  There’s support for a friend but nobody gets alienated and hidden prejudices aren’t shoved out into the screaming klieglights of a ravenous media working on a deadline.

And then there’s what he really said:

“I don’t know – not having been there and not seeing all the facts – what role race played in that, but I think it’s fair to say, number one, any of us would be pretty angry; number two that he [sic] Cambridge police acted stupidly in arresting somebody when there was already proof that they were in their own home.”

Kind of sets a whole different tone to the discussion, doesn’t it?  Actually, instead of ending the discussion right there, that answer turned a whole, small-town tempest in a teapot event and turned it into a national gasfest, boasting a carbon footprint larger than Air Force One zipping off to Europe in a failed bid to host the Olympics and a trip to Spain.

Was there a teachable moment in this whole mess? There always is.  Don’t say things like:

“Let me be clear: as a citizen, and as president, I believe that Muslims have the same right to practice their religion as anyone else in this country,” Obama said at a White House iftar, the traditional breaking of the daily Ramadan fast.

“That includes the right to build a place of worship and a community center on private property in Lower Manhattan, in accordance with local laws and ordinances,” he continued. “This is America, and our commitment to religious freedom must be unshakeable.”

When you could say something like:

I know the wounds of 9/11 are still fresh in New York and across America and it shows our resilience as a people that, less than a decade after the attacks, these discussions are taking place.  Make no mistake: the right to worship is a constitutionally guaranteed right in the United States and I have no doubt that the elected officials in New York will act judiciously and wisely.

Boom!  It goes back to (almost) being a regional issue.  This one is a little different, though, because it involved a foreign-based attack, similar to the Japanese bombing of Pearl Harbor (and the part of the world containing Pearl Harbor hadn’t even become a state yet on 7 December 1941).

It also involves religion, a particularly tricky issue to discuss since it involves deeply personal revelations that cannot be proven to others.  William James, a 19th century psychologist and philosopher from Harvard University set matters best when he said (I’m paraphrasing) – I can’t explain my God to you any more than you can explain yours to me so let’s not even try.  Such a discussion cannot be held within the limits of logic and rationality even though it is real and important.

What probably sticks more than anything else is the fact that holy war was declared by Osama bin Laden over a decade ago.  We didn’t declare it, we couldn’t have.  We don’t declare holy wars: wars of opportunity, wars against drugs, wars against obesity, wars against poverty, sure, any of those, but we don’t do holy wars.  Granted, 4th generation warfare is troublesome with that whole lack of defined boundaries and national targets but that doesn’t make it any less real.

Certainly, should construction be approved, Muslims have every legal and constitutional right to worship where and how they see fit.  By the same token, if it is not approved, intolerance is not necessarily the reason.  If New Yorkers don’t like it (and polls show the majority of them don’t) it probably has more to do with the homicidal maniacs who hijacked God’s name for their evil rather than Islam itself.  Addressing that issue honestly would probably soothe troubled waters better than pointing fingers while screaming “RACIST” and “BIGOT!”

Let’s get honest here.  The Republicans let Scott Brown twist in the wind up until almost the bitter end, when it became very clear that he was going to do well, daresay even win.  What does the national Republican party get out of winning a majority on Beacon Hill?  Nothing really.  Anything in the executive branch or anybody going to Washington, well, that might be a little more interesting.  State House?  Please.

And who needs ‘em?  What’s encouraging is statistic #1 – over 50% of the races are actually races and not shoe-ins.  In 2008, only 30% of the races had a contender and those were mainly in districts where retirement, death, or other mishap had left the office free.  The notion that incumbents are inviolable is crumbling, and that’s a heartening sign.

And let’s look at major statistic #2 – most of us don’t belong to either party.  As of 2008, the registeres Democrats outnumbered the Republicans rather significantly: 1,559,464 to 490,259.  Independents made up more than both of them, coming in at a whopping 2,141,878.  Do we really need a political party to tell us how to think?  No, we really don’t and we need to make that message loud and clear.

Do we really think our situation would be any different if our legislature were majority Republican?  Of course not, there would still be the same lack of opposition to keep the more ethically challenged in line.  What’s more important is keeping the ones we send to Beacon Hill from getting too comfortable in those seats and that is where we, the voters, have been falling down on the job.

We can start doing that job anytime, though.  How about we start now?

Take a look at our list of candidates.  It’s not infallible, it’s just some men and women that we are impressed us.  Some came to us, we went to others, no favors or money were exchanged, promised, or implied.  If you think we’re missing some, let us know.  You can also let candidates know that we are interested.

If we want better, more responsible government, we need to replace those who are egregiously violating those principle, regardless of party.