I just banned the Green Lantern from this blog. I believe that a full investigation would probably reveal that he/she had a previous identity that was also banned.
While he/she avoided certain key phrases and obsessions, there were habits — particularly a certain preferred method of covering tracks — that caused me to eye this individual from the first use of this nom de plume. But you know what? Even if this is not our same old familiar nemesis, it doesn’t really matter. The problem is with the behavior pattern. I think I’ve put up with it long enough — again. And I’m sure I’ll get the opportunity yet again.
I’m in one of those moods. I think it’s time, after warnings in the past, to ban LexWolf, too. This is a place for good-faith discussions. This recent comment is a classic example of how he imputes motivation without grounds. I have this blog so that I can explain what I think, and other people can explain what they think. It’s not for people who get their jollies from saying, "No, this is what you think…."
I’m certainly not going to allow it from people who hide behind pseudonyms. Y’all know the long-standing rule.
Not that rules are not subject to change. I’ve been considering taking a big step. For over two years, this has been a sort of Wild West town where I play sheriff and occasionally toss somebody out of the saloon or even lock them up — while all the other cowboys keep blowing off steam, but hopefully with a greater awareness of where the limits are.
The wild and woolly stuff is way past tiresome, though. I’m considering, but have not decided to adopt, a suggestion that one of y’all made a couple of months back: To require registration — everybody with his or her real, verifiable name. Maybe I’ll doing it on a trial basis.
What do y’all think?
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Brad:
I think that verifiable names and email addresses is the way to go. When I was operating my blog, the gravy train, on a daily basis…that was the only way I would accept comments. I tended to get a lot of negative comments both from what I posted and from critics from my time at the statehouse and from working on campaigns but that was to be expected. however I was more than willing to post the negative comments on the blog if the commenter actually posted their real identity with their comments.
I am sure that you are open to the same with your blog. Goodness knows that your newspaper publishes as many negative viewpoints as positive ones as letters to the the editor as long as there are legitimate names to go along with those views.
Your blog commenters should be willing to go along with the policy you outlined above.
I’m not exactly sure what you mean. What did Lex do wrong?
It’s important to understand that “explaining what you think” isn’t necessarily going to be accepted by everyone. Are you asking that we accept whatever you say at face value? When you explain what you think, it’s possible that you are explaining what you really think, but it’s also possible that you are simply saying what you want others to believe that you think.
Sometimes the thoughts of our hearts are not what we want to present to the world, so we hide our true thoughts behind others that are more palatable, and more fit for public expression.
Let’s take an example. You say that you advocate some sort of federal ID, because you believe that it will keep us safe from terrorists. OK, maybe you believe that. But it’s possible that you have another motivation. As you may know, the Republicans have been raising phony claims of vote fraud for many years, and have been working feverishly to use the specter of vote fraud to try to prevent black people from voting. One of the mechanisms that they have used is to advocate a new requirement for some sort of combersome, expensive federally approved driver’s license, together with an expensive and burdensome new infrastructure for providing it. The real intention is simply to create a new layer of bureaucracy between the people and the franchise, one that would be subject to manipulation – for example, failing to promptly provide ID’s to applicants living in primarily black neighborhoods.
Now, of course, if you advocate the introduction of a new federally approved ID for that purpose, certainly you aren’t going to admit it. You might, instead, raise the specious argument that such an ID would somehow prevent terrorism – which, in fact, you have done.
Now, do you advocate the new ID for the reasons you say, or for a more nefarious reason? It’s not possible to know the answer from a mere statement of your reasoning and motivation. We have to look at your history and behavior – to determine if you uniformly come down in favor of measures that have the effect of disenfranchising black people, for example.
In short, we can’t simply accept your statement of what you think, because you may be a liar. We have to examine your motives.
As for requiring registration with real names, I say, yes, go for it. It’ll certainly increase the readership of your blog. You need to be careful, though, aren’t you straining the capacity of the servers as it is?
Go for it!
Exactly, "Matt Murdock." If you are inclined to disbelieve me, you can go to my history and behavior. In Lex’s case, you don’t have to go far. In fact, you have to go out of your way to misrepresent my positions to such an extent as what he does. We’ll begin with the first start of his statement:
We’ll set aside his repeated assertions that I have an ideology I do not have, and just go with his most absolutist assertion. He says my advocacy of "ever more taxes and more spending" is "unfailing." Here are three instances in which it failed in the past week (and mind you, just ONE would give the lie to "unfailing"):
Pay particular attention to that last one, for it directly belies the second part of his statement:
Pitiful, indeed. If you read this editorial, in which we yet again make an assertion that is very important to us when it comes to DOT reform: We all know that our road system has a serious maintenance backlog, and yet we have steadfastly refused to endorse an increase in funding for the agency (in fact, have taken the House to task for trying to do so), specifically because the agency must be reformed and made accountable first. In other words, our position is, and has been, the PRECISE OPPOSITE of his assertion that all we "an think of is how to put more gas into the car."
Finally, let me make something very clear to you: I will tell you what I think. I have no motive to do anything else. If you want to call me a liar, it is incumbent upon YOU to present evidence — as I have just done with our former correspondent.
It should keep you more than busy arguing with what I actually say. Is it not controversial enough that I give not a fig for the "privacy" arguments against a national ID? If you want to argue with someone who wants to disenfranchise black people, there are plenty of places to go. The Nazis aren’t a bit shy.
Anyway, thanks for the opportunity to explain. Now goodbye, Daredevil.
And thanks, Paul, for your thoughts.
Brad, the idea that you are a big government partisan seems to strike a very sensitive nerve with you. I’m not sure why. Everyone who reads your blog for any length of time quickly picks up on that. Now you ban Lex for once again pointing out the obvious. Don’t misunderstand me. I’m not critical of your big government partisanship. If that’s what you believe, and it clearly is, great! This free country of ours is open to all types of opinions. What puzzles me and most of the other readers is why you deny what you really are. I think you should go to the top of a mountain and shout at the top of the your lungs: “I’M A BIG GOVERNMENT PARTISAN. HERE’S WHY.” That would be so much more honest that trying to deny it. This is not a matter of reading your mind or trying to interpret your intentions it’s simply a matter of reading your opinions and doing the math. Simply put, you rarely, and I do mean very rarely, come down on the side of less government involvement in an issue. From Iraq, to video poker, education, health care, wire tapping, abortion, etc. you support the government intervention side of the argument.
Once you come clean on this issue you’ll feel a whole lot better. The truth will set you free!
I would if I were. I just don’t have any such ideology. I’m more of a conservative, and the debates go like this:
LIBERTARIAN: Let’s do away with this or that large, established institution!
ME: No, let’s not.
It hardly seems to add up to an ideology.
I AM moving more and more toward single-payer on health care. But as “ed” points out, that means I’m for doing away with a huge superstructure. Of course, that superstructure is private. But public vs. private matters more to actual ideologues. I just see it as wasteful and unnecessary, and it’s costing me money.
As I’ve said over and over again, government should do exactly what we, acting through our elected representatives, require it to do — no more, no less. All this “big” vs. “small” stuff strikes me as a red herring.
I’m clean! I feel free!
YOu do seem to want government to do things i’d rather it didn’t, Brad. Funny, you criticize Sanford and the legislature and DOT, but then you don’t seem to grok how inefficient government is when you speak in ideal terms. Single-player pie in the sky medicine, for example. Wny wouldn’t that turn out just like DOT or Congress?
Heck, I can understand why you might ban someone for disagreeing with you just to be disagreeable, but sometimes it seems as though you don’t understand why anyone would disagree with you, even when you offer almost no supporting argument for your position.
Granted, you are the editorial page editor, so someone somewhere thinks you’re a pretty reasonable guy.
But would occur to you that a physician running the health care system, like a teacher dominating the school board or a beat reporter controlling a newspaper budget meeting, might not be the best thing?
Sorry, but sometimes you seem just a bit naive about how government functions.
Go for the change, Brad. It’s time. It is simply wearisome to read rant upon rant, and the only way to cure that is get rid of the anonymous stuff. People are simply going to be a lot more careful about what they say if their name is attached to it. Well, even I figured that out when stuff I wrote appeared in the Monday edition of the paper!
However–I think maybe you might want to leave a loophole for exceptions, as in the cases of women, for example. In an age of stalkers, etc., I can understand Claudia’s reticence, for example. She often has thoughtful contributions; I’d hate to miss them.
I think Brad’s just a little grumpy today because the conventional wisdom is that John McCain’s aspirations for the Presidency are, well, toast. First Lindsey got a lesson in what happens when you think you’re smarter than the general public. Now McCain learns you can’t turn back the clock to 2000 and get a do over. Notice the trend – link yourself to Bush, you get crushed.
I’ll never figure out why McCain didn’t publicly denounce Bush for what his campaign did to him and his family in 2000.
Yeah, see, that’s the rub, Herb. Claudia does contribute positively. Sometimes bud does, for that matter.
And Weldon, I don’t think I have illusions about the inefficiencies of human endeavors. Study for instance, all the ways the gummint fouled up in the invasion of Normandy in 1944. Of course, we did whip Hitler in the end, and I find it hard to believe Halliburton could have done better.
Here’s the thing, though: I have spent my entire career in the private sector, and I know how silly libertarians’ faith in the wisdom and efficiency of the marketplace is. I look at the company I work for, and I look at other companies, and I think, ya know, it doesn’t matter how much they foul up, I don’t get to vote for ANY of those guys.
We don’t need gummint to give us Coca-Cola. In fact, we don’t need it to “give us” anything. It can’t (even though there are some folks who DO sort of believe in “Big Gummint” who seem to think it can). It can only do that which WE can do, working together through the maddening political processes that our Founders wisely bequeathed to us. In the United States, that’s what government is. It’s not something OUT THERE like King George. That would better describe General Motors, or the empire of Donald Trump. (And please, don’t tell me General Motors is a wise, efficient decision-making entity.)
It’s just whatever we make of it. Hence these discussions.
… in other words, water brother, do YOU grok the private sector?
Now, as to the subject at hand, what does “Claudia” think? (I’ll send an e-mail to alert her.)
It appears that not only is Brad blocking people posting to this blog run by The State newspaper, he’s also censoring posts. My last one was deleted. Like I said in the previous post, Freedom of Speech is nonexistant here unless you agree with Brad.
“Do Not Question The Power of The Great Oz!!!”
Good advice. But it’s spelled “nonexistent,” dude…
Bye-bye, Dakota/Matt/Hal/Carol/Mary.
Sheesh.
Brad,
As I’ve mentioned in the past, requiring true identities should lead to more civil discussions, which in turn may lead to a greater number of participants – both positive outcomes.
I waded into a discussion on abortion a few months back, which in hindsight was a mistake because it’s such an emotionally charged issue. The response I received from an anonymous poster (don’t remember the pseudonym) was stunning. Until now, I believe that’s the last time I’ve posted a comment on your blog. What’s the point of posting if you can’t engage others in a civil conversation?
Brad, another person to ask might be Annee. She hasn’t posted in awhile, either.
I had to laugh when I read Brad’s examples “proving” he’s not a big gubmint partisan.
Repeal of the Grocery Tax. Taxes may be a bit smaller but in effect this is an intrusion by government on individual decision making. The government is tacitly preaching to people that they should spend their money on groceries. Plus this adds another layer of bueracracy since someone must decide what constitutes groceries. Beer? Coke? Pretzels? How about dog food? At best this is a trivial example.
Additions to Edventure. Sure this is an example of less government spending. But it underscores the main point that Brad supports huge expenditures by government. After all, in this example Brad cited numerous examples of spending that apparently were ok by Brad. But even big government partisans have their limits. The ridiculous addition to Edventure is where Brad drew his line.
And finally, DOT reform. This is really funny. Brad’s solution is simply to substitute one form of government control for another. No mention of privatizing is mentioned. Heaven forbid that privatizing the maintenance shops would ever be considered as part of the solution. Or more privately run toll roads. No, Brad is simply arguing for a different type of government solution.
The 1993 restructuring bill is a good example of what doesn’t work. We know for a 100% fact that a cabinet form of government can be just as corrupt as one run by the legislature. We had parallel agencies created from the old highway dept: One cabinet (DPS), one run by a commission (DOT). Both ended up with cronism, corruption and mass wastage of tax money. One (DPS) was ignored by Brad because it didn’t fit with his preconceived thinking. The other (DOT) has been hounded to death for additional “reform”.
testing
Bud, it’s been a long day, but just to touch on your two weakest points (“hit ’em where they ain’t”):
— With DOT, I’m demanding “government control.” Well, hell yeah. It’s a government agency. The problem with it is that it ACTS like a private entity. It is utterly lacking in any sort of political accountability, because the lines of connection between it and people ELECTED by the voters are diffuse and unclear. About the only way I can imagine making it less accountable than it is would be to privatize it, so the operators would actually have an excuse for once to tell the taxpayers, “None of your damn business.” If you consider wanting a GOVERNMENT agency to be accountable to voters a statist solution, then we’re not likely to connect on much of anything in the way of definitions.
— I’m not even sure what you’re trying to say with regard to DPS. That might be because whatever you’re trying to say is based upon a fallacy. DPS was not included in the Cabinet. As I recall (and I’m not taking time right now to look it up; if I turn out to be wrong I’ll just admit error tomorrow), it’s one of those quasi-accountable deals, sort of like SLED, where the governor can remove the head guy FOR CAUSE, but unless things get to that extreme, he has no statutory or constitutional say over how it’s run.
It’s a commonly held misunderstanding that SLED and Safety report to the governor; they don’t.
OK, being the obsessive type, I went and looked it up. Here’s part of a column Cindi Scoppe did in 2003 explaining the relationship:
Let’s just deal with facts for a moment.
First, the DMV was a part of the old highway department. Part of it was briefly part of the Department of Revenue, part went to DPS with the 1993 restructuring. Splitting DMV up was a huge mistake that was quickly corrected. It was eventually reunited with DPS and later became it’s own agency. All this constant shuffling and moving was incredibly inefficient owing to the constant moving and personnel shakeups.
Second, DPS was not a full blown cabinet agency but the governor did have a measure of control over the agency director. In one of the rare instances where David Beasly did something right he fired, for cause, the director of DPS. Boykin Rose was as corrupt as they come. He even had his own private bunker built. What eventually brought him down were financial shenanigans.
But Boykin was nothing if not a political animal with a huge measure of pride. So he campaigned for Jim Hodges. Thinking about those ads still makes my stomach churn. In an apparent quid-pro-quo Hodges re-hired Rose. Rose kept quiet during his second stint. He’d made his point, and Jim Hodges was elected governor. For the only time in my life I voted for a Republican, Mark Sanford, for governor. Rose saw the hand writing on the wall and left.
Brad, can’t you see the obvious flaw in your whole theory that having a director accountable to the governor will make everything alright? Rose was held accountable by David Beasly, but only after much damage was done. As retaliation Rose helped get Hodges get elected and the disasterous Boykin Rose was appointed director in return. A governor appointed agency head can be just as corrupt as the worst commision. DPS at it’s worst was much more corrupt than DOT. I can’t prove it but it’s the truth. The scandal-plagued agency (SCDHPT) of which you speak was actually a model of efficiency by today’s standards. Sure there were problems with contractors and favoritism, but the taxpayers got a pretty damn good bang for their buck in those days. There were plenty of Troopers, highway maintenance workers and DMV counter help. And the scandals became much more pronounced later on.
But you can check some facts out that directly affect the interests of the public. For one trooper strength dramatically declined during the late 90s. This was the period immediately following restructuring. The agency was underfunded due to the extreme costs associated with “reform”. Just check the utility bills for the old trailer park if you think that made things more efficient. Check with some of the people who moved 5, 6 and even 7 times over a 3 year period. Each time the move shut down that person for days at a time. How did any of that make things more efficient? How do taxpayers benefit when an entire agency is shut down by SLED? Do some fact checking on that episode. Hundreds of people missed an entire day (or more) of work.
In the old days the Highway Department had one of the most efficient accounting systems in state government. Travel checks were handed to employees within days after returning from trips. The current DOT HQ on Park Street housed all the support personnel for what now are 3 separate agencies. DPS is now headquartered in Blythewood. Yet meetings are conducted between DPS and DOT frequently thus necesitating substantial mileage and lost time.
As for DMV, there’s an agency that has emerged in relatively good shape. But only after substantial turmoil. The computer upgrades were put off while the chaos of restructuring unfolded. Lines grew long and by the time money was available our good friend Andre Bauer was in office to take the credit. But the original plan was actually far more ambitious than what we ended up with. Initial plans called for the DMVs to allow customers to pay county property taxes. Why this was not implemented is something I don’t know. Nevertheless it’s clear that DMV was well on it’s to improving services long before restructuring. But some things were lost along the way. One is the downtown DMV branch. That served thousands of customers for many years. Now people are forced to go to Shop Road, something not feasible for most downtown workers at lunch time.
The bottom line is this. The old highway department was a fantastically efficient agency that delivered all services related to driving on the highways. Sadly there were some serious problems that needed correction. Thanks to the misguided reform efforts the general assembly managed to not only thrown out the baby with the bath water, they actually threw out the baby and kept the bath water! So Brad whenever I hear you speak of “accountability” my skin starts to crawl.
A strong reaction, indeed. I have some rather bad allergies myself, but not to accountability. One of the more intriguing aspects of the resistance to restructuring that I’ve encountered over the past 16 years is this phenomenon — knowledgable people who care about public service being extremely averse to agencies being accountable to the public.
It’s been an interesting first full day of this experiment with approving comments. Of 23 comments, I’ve allowed all but three. We’ll see how it goes tomorrow. I won’t be able to check as often, because Fridays are very hectic. But I’ll do what I can.
Again, I see this approach as temporary. Once I can work out the technical problems with registration (what I tried to do yesterday), I think that will be the way to go.
For now, goodnight.