A Philosopher's Blog

Philosophical Essays on Many Subjects

president

Congratulations, Mr. President

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I am writing this on election day, so I do not know who has won. However, no matter who is elected I will still hold to these words.

Congratulations on your victory, Mr. President. You have a tough time ahead of you. We are still involved in war. While the economy has improved since 2008, people are still suffering. We can also expect trouble from Iran and other parts of the world.

As always, you can count on me to support you when I have a good, logical reason to do so. My commitment has consistently been to the good of the country and not to a particular political party or ideology.

Naturally, you can also count on me to be critical when I have good, logical reasons to do so. I am not mindlessly committed to a party nor in the thrall of a specific ideology. As such, when I have a legitimate disagreement I will make it clear in a rational and fair way.

I want you to succeed in bringing America out of the economic trouble that remains and I want you to lead us safely and boldly through the times of trouble that are sure to come.

I believe in America and I believe that we can work together to do what must and should be done.

Congratulations-enjoy your victory, for soon you must get to work.

Benghazi

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By popular demand I am adding a post on Benghazi, specifically the attack launched against American personnel. This will allow a thread for people to present the talking points of their specific parties/ideologies.

My views on the matter:

  • Murdering people is morally wrong.
  • The murderers should be found and punished (most likely via Obama’s favored instrument of justice: the drone launched Hellfire missile).
  • If the administration acted improperly before, during or after the incident, then those responsible should be held accountable and punished appropriate (presumably not with a Hellfire missile).

That is what I have to say about the matter. This is the same view I had of the original 9/11 attack. It is interesting to see the difference between the reactions to these incidents in terms of the political leanings of those reacting.

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Predictions about Romney

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Romney
Romney (Photo credit: Talk Radio News Service)

Interestingly, pundits generally make predictions that turn out to be wrong yet this seems to have no impact on their status as pundits. In this spirit, I call on you to make predictions about what Romney will do, should he win the election. The more specific the prediction, the better.

For example, Romney claims that he will create 12 million jobs, so one possible prediction is that he will do so. Another is that he will not.

If he gets elected, we can return to this post and see what predictions were accurate and which were not.

If possible, limit the comments to predictions. No mention should be made of Obama. Naturally, anyone who is physically incapable of resisting the commands of Fox and must type out talking points against Obama will be forgiven.

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Coercing the Vote

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Official photographic portrait of US President...
Vote for this man and get fired? (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

David Siegal, the Florida real estate tycoon who claimed he was responsible for Bush’s 2000 victory, recently sent a rather interesting email to his employees. While Siegal is careful to avoid directly threatening his employees, he does say that “if any new taxes are levied on me, or my company, as our current President plans, I will have no choice but to reduce the size of this company.”

On the one hand, this can be taken as merely a statement of fact and not a threat that he will fire people if Obama gets elected. That is, the email could be interpreted as simply Siegal saying that if taxes are raised, then he will have no option but to fire people.

Since Siegal does have the choice to do other things (he could lower salaries, including his own compensation rather than fire people), he seems to be presenting a false dilemma. Of course, perhaps he is simply reporting that he will, in fact, just fire people if taxes go up-even if there is no need to do so and there are other options. On  certain moral views, he would have every right to do so. Of course, those same moral views would also morally allow people to walk by a dying Siegal without lifting a finger to help him.

On the other hand, this seems like a rather clear case of innuendo and scare tactics.  After all, he did claim to be the person who made Bush’s election possible and even hinted that he might have used illegal methods. As such, by his own professed narrative, threatening employees would seem to something he could do.

In any case, Siegal’s email seems to be aimed at threatening his employees with termination if Obama is re-elected. That is, on this interpretation he is trying to intimidate the workers into voting for Romney. If this is true, then his actions are certainly immoral an contrary to the principles of democracy. The apparent implied threat could also be taken as creating a hostile work environment which could be grounds for a lawsuit.

Naturally, it can be countered that he was just expressing  company policy and preparing his employees to be fired in the event that Obama is re-elected and raises taxes. However, one might think that an ethical professional would  present a report indicating the impact of proposed tax increases on the company’s revenue and develop a rational response plan with various options.

It could even be argued that employers have the right to motivate employees to vote a certain way as a condition of employment. After all, some folks contend that people have no right to employment and job creators should have free reign to do as they will.

As might be imagined, I regard such coercion or even the appearance of coercion to be morally unacceptable. While an employer should certainly have business plans in place for various occurrences, sending out a general email that seems to imply that employees should vote for Romney unless they want to be fired is wrong. After all, even if the intent is not to coerce employees that would certainly not be an unreasonable interpretation. After all, if I got an email from my university noting that if Obama is not re-elected, then I would be fired, I would take that as an implied threat.

 

 

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Rhymes for the Times

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IMG_9032
Get a job, fluffy! (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

There once was a man named Mittens
who said things like “no free rides for kittens.”
No one knew what next he might say,
but his handlers prayed it would not be on a slow news day.

There once was a man named Obama
who was not much for drama.
But each night he gave Republicans a fright
as they dreamed of his socialist agenda.

Obama, Republicans and Choice

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Official presidential portrait of Barack Obama...
Image via Wikipedia

I went running Saturday with a Republican friend and a friend who is now a former Republican. In between admiring a purple house and numerous friendly dog encounters, we talked  a bit about the 2012 election.

One rather interesting point that came up is that a majority of voters prefer a Republican over Obama, yet prefer Obama over any of the candidates who have declared their candidacy. This reminds me a bit of some of the odd examples and counterexamples brought up when we discussed decision theory in graduate school (like people preferring A to B and B to C, yet preferring C to A). It also provides just a hint of metaphysics: people prefer the universal Republican over the particular Democrat Obama, but prefer the particular Democrat over any particular Republican. As such, if the Republicans could put the Platonic form of Republican up against Obama, they would win in 2012. Unfortunately for the Republicans, they have to run specific Republicans.

While these preferences might seem odd, they can be explained easily enough. When people claim they would prefer a Republican over Obama, this most likely reflects three facts. First, many people do not approve of his performance. Second, because of this, people would prefer and alternative. Third, the only viable alternative to Obama is a Republican. In terms of Obama being preferred over any specific Republican, this can be explained in at least two ways. One, which is favorable to Obama, is that Obama is actually seen as being better than the Republican candidates. To use an analogy, this would be somewhat like being low on food and having only canned peaches and canned pineapples to eat. I might like pineapples more than peaches, but I might like the  the specific brand of pineapples less than I like the specific brand of peaches. Hence, I would rather have a pineapple than a peach, but I’ll pick the specific canned peaches over these specific canned pineapples. If this explanation is correct, then Obama has a decent chance of winning in 2012.

Another explanation, which is less favorable to Obama, is that the preference for Obama is created because of the competition between the Republican candidates. Going back to the food analogy, I might like pineapples more than peaches, but the pineapples might be of so many varieties that my preference is thus divided up. So, I go for the peaches because there is only one sort to pick. If this explanation is correct, then things might improve for the Republicans when they finally settle on their candidates. At that point, the choice would not be between Obama and numerous Republicans, but between Obama and a Republican. As such, even if the specific Republican is not well liked, enough voters might vote against Obama so that the Republican is elected.

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