Letters to Congress

Mike's Eyes blogged about a letter to the editor that was picked up by a talk-show host. Myrhaf mentioned a blog post being linked to by Malkin. It struck me that the audience for lettrs and posts

One of the things I have decided to do is to email politicians about bills/laws.

Such emails may not be acknowledged, or may get a standard reply. Maybe an aide will usually look at the email, add it to a tally ("for" or "against"), and archive the original. On the other hand, my election-time vote might be 1 in 1,000,000 (or more); but, on any particular issue, my email might be 1 in 10,000 (or less). It is low-impact activism; but it is easy activism.

Such activism only makes sense if it takes a minimal amount of time. I recently discovered the Congress.Org site . It tracks what Senators and Congressman are doing and what Bills are coming up. It makes it easy to enter one's details one time, and then send emails out every now and then with very little effort.

All that one has to do is come up with a simple message for the email. All I need is a single subject line: "Thank You for Voting against Eminent Domain", and perhaps one or two additional sentences in the body of the email. That ought not to be hard. I figure that the bulk of the effort will actually be in checking to see what's going on in Congress.

I figured that it would be even easier if the research part was shared. So, whenever I do send an email, I'll post a copy here, in case anyone else wants to send something similar to their rep. I'd ask that if anyone else sends an email to a rep about a bill, they could do the same: post the text here. Again, for me, this particular strain of activism is not about making arguments, but about "being counted", so to speak.

(Telling a legislator that one liked his vote on a bill does not imply one's wholehearted support for the bill, the mixed-economy, or anything else the legislator might be up to.)

I started with an email on stem-cell research. Check how your senator voted here.

For senator who voted "Yes":

Subject: Thank you for supporting Embryonic Stem Cell research

Thank you for keeping religion out of government, by voting
for H.R. 810

For senator who voted "No":

Subject: Please support Embryonic Stem Cell research

Please keep religion out of government. I am disappointed that you voted against H.R. 810

Next, I figured an email to Karl Rove's office would make sense after the election:

This year, many of my votes did *not* go to the GOP, and I thought you
might be interested in reasons:

1. In Iraq, Bush did not stand up for individual-rights and against religious governments on principle, Instead, his half-hearted war has created a religious
   government in Iraq.
2. Bush has a religious agenda, with his stance on stem-cells and partial-birth abortion. The government must stay out of these areas.
3. No-child left behind was worse than Democratic "do nothing", because it makes schools focus on "passing grades". i.e. on poorly performing kids, at the cost of the kids who do well.
4. Medicare: Bush took a step toward socialization of medicine. The Democrats will now use that to extend its scope.

Then, talk about the military draft provoked this one:

SUBJECT: Oppose: Bring Back the Military Draft or other type of "service" requirement

I oppose bringing back the military draft. I also oppose any type of mandatory "service" requirement. To force people to serve is to make them slaves to society -- it is wrong.

Finally, searching for an anti-religion theme, I found a bill that was introduced in the house a while ago, saying that someone who wins certain categories of court cases cannot get their attorney fees reimbursed. The types of cases covered are those where the winner successfully shows that the government is not respecting the separation of church and state requirement.

Subject: Oppose: Public Expression of Religion Act

I am opposed to the so called "Public Expression of Religion Act" because it gives special status to a religious organization like the Boy Scouts of America. Usually, I support Republicans in the hope that they will encat better economic policies. However, I find that the Democrats are the only one's keeping the religious right at bay. I am disappointed that you have voted with the religious right on this issue.

A new genre of Fiction: Business novels

David blogged about business decisions, asking: Do you have a sense yet for the excitement of markets? ... Why doesn't Hollywood make movies about THIS, rather than yet another gang of thieves bickering with each other as they complete yet another caper?

Made me wonder why there is no "business story" genre of fiction. If we have "sci fi" novels and "war novels" and "crime novels", why not a genre like "business novels"? Non-fiction biographies of businessmen sell pretty well, as do the various "pop" books on getting rich, investing, being successful and so on.

There is some fiction in this category, but not enough -- I wonder if the topic does not interest most authors. As someone who prefers reality-based fiction (I don't care for fantasy and sci-fi, qua fantasy and qua sci-fi), I'd love to see more fiction of that type.

Syndrome Inflation

Psychology seems to be beset by "syndrome inflation". Here's a new one: "Toilet Phobia".

"The National Phobics Society estimates at least four million Britons are affected - but the true number could be many more. "

Is that believable? The U.K. has a population of 60 million, of which we can assume that about 20 million are too young to count (unless they're counting all the kids in potty training). So, the article wants us to believe that 1 in 10 people have this phobia, and have been hiding it as a guilty secret. It is unlikely that this is a blatant lie, so I assume the problem lies in the definition of "phobia" that these people are using. Even without knowing more, I'm happy to dismiss this as completely invalid -- an excellent example of "syndrome inflation".

I do have a question though: why?

Do they do this to get funding? I could understand a "cleanly" mercenary reason like that. However, I wonder if it's something worse: a genuine corruption of science and reason, or the desire to promote and "original sin" sense of "we're all phobics".

A metaphor for U.S. politics

Recently, someone tried decribing the two major U.S. parties with a poor visual metaphor. It got me wondering what a good metaphor may be. This is what I came up with... (Caveat emptor: Metaphors and analogies can be hazardous to one's health.)

I see a rational person at the center of the metaphor, someone who does not want the political parties interfering in his personal life nor in his economic life, someone who dislikes both parties. I visualize this as a person who is being set upon by two dangerous animals: say, a rabid elephant and a dangerous donkey (play along). Each of these animals is being restrained by a keeper.

The keepers are trying their "best" to hold the animals back, but the keepers are getting weaker and the animals are getting stronger. These keepers did a deal with the devil, trying to use their animals to get power, and now they're scared of the animals turning on them. Still, for now, the keepers are really trying (in their own pathetic way, and while still feeding the beasts) to keep them at bay.

Right now you do not have the strength for a frontal attack that will vanquish either beast. So, you try to set them on each other. You slash out at one, allowing the other to attack it as well. Then, that one gets too close, and you slash out at that one, and so on. You were about to slash out at one when a friend shouted: "Watch out! the other one is closer than you think."

A party-line vote is like a weak shot-gun fired in the direction of one or the other. Sometimes, that's all you've got, so you make a choice and shoot in one or the other general direction. The trainer might be weakened to, but that's the chance you take.

What's the way out of this mess? I suggest you do the following:

• Grow stronger yourself
• Help the trainers get stronger
• Whenever possible, shoot at the beast without injuring the trainers