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Journal pudge's Journal: Ports Deal Stupidity 10

Journal by pudge

There are many myths surround this apparently defunct deal. It's gotten to be very annoying.

  • We are safer if Americans own critical American infrastructure.

    Yeah, because it's not like Americans would ever commit or support terrorist acts against America, right, Oklahoma City?

  • Muslim Arab companies are more likely to support terrorists than British companies.

    Maybe. This isn't entirely clear. We have put a lot of trust into this particular company, and we've not regretted it. This only means we should perhaps provide more scrutiny (though I am not sure what "more" would be: we should provide as much as is necessary in every case, no matter who it is).

  • But some of the hijackers came from the UAE!

    And the shoe bomber came from London. And Tim McVeigh was from Buffalo.

  • Well, it only highlights the fact that Bush is not taking port security seriously.

    No, but it is being used to try to project that image.

    Worse, it's being used by Congress to project that image, even though the reason our port security is lacking is dearth of funds, which is the sole responsibility of Congress. Despite popular belief, the President does not have any budgetary authority. He presents a budget, but it is essentially worthless. Congress can junk the whole thing and do its own. The fact that the President wastes our tax money on a budget does not mean the Congress has to follow it.

  • At least Congress is listening to the American people for once.

    I heard Lou Dobbs going on about this today: "Someone once said, we're smarter as a group than we are individually." Perhaps, but that assumes that as a group, we are well-informed about the particular issue. As Edmund Burke said: "Your representative owes you, not his industry only, but his judgment; and he betrays instead of serving you if he sacrifices it to your opinion."

    Unfortunately, our representatives betray us all the time: if they didn't, they wouldn't win re-election as often. (Insert renewed call for a Constitutional amendment implementing term limits for the House and Senate HERE.)

Again, I don't know if this deal was a good one, or a bad one. The problem is that neither does pretty much anyone else who is up in arms against it.

But the American people don't care if they are ignorant, as long as they are angry enough, that's better than having facts. It's like the old SNL joke about First Citiwide Change Bank: "How do we make money making change? Volume."

So our representatives saw the writing on the wall: the people will not be swayed by any facts, no matter what they are, and most of them are up for re-election this year, so the deal died. It's that simple.

This discussion was created by pudge (3605) for no Foes, but now has been archived. No new comments can be posted.

Ports Deal Stupidity More

Ports Deal Stupidity

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  • This ports deal was 100% bogus. Too bad Congress hasn't had the cojones to stand up to the president on a real issue like the PATRIOT act and illegal warrantless spying.

    Or perhaps via back channels the GOP leadership got a free pass on this one? It all seems very Two-Minutes-Hate contrived to me.

    • This ports deal was 100% bogus. Too bad Congress hasn't had the cojones to stand up to the president on a real issue like the PATRIOT act and illegal warrantless spying.

      Yeah, that's the real joke. Not that I agree with you on PATRIOT or the NSA wiretapping, of course, but there are plenty of other more important issues I can think of, like No Child Left Behind or the Medicare expansion. By no means was this a big deal; it became a hot potato, because it symbolized so much for so many people: the right's c
  • "the reason our port security is lacking is dearth of funds, which is the sole responsibility of Congress"

    http://thinkprogress.org/2006/03/16/port-security- funding/ [thinkprogress.org]

    • Since that vote was this week, no, that is not the reason our port security has been lacking.

      And this amendment was not merely about money for port security, of course. It lengthened the review process from 30 days to a mandatory 75 days, and required specific action by the President (which frankly seems quite unconstitutional to me, as the Congress should not be able to mandate that).

      I don't know all the details, and maybe they are good ideas. But it's more than a bit deceptive of Think Progress (color m
      • It's been a week. Just a reminder to correct the record here.
        • A reminder to yourself, to correct the fact that you were simply wrong when you said this is the reason why there is not enough money for port security?
          • As I explained a week ago in chat, that was a misunderstanding. You had read too much into the subject line (I just typed in the first two words from the quote, rather than take the time to think of a real subject). I guess you just forgot that?
            • As I explained a week ago in chat, that was a misunderstanding.

              Right. And as I explained in that same chat, what I wrote was an honest mistake.

              You had read too much into the subject line (I just typed in the first two words from the quote, rather than take the time to think of a real subject).

              No, I did not. You were the one who made the error. I read it as you wrote it. You quoted "the reason why our port security is lacking is dearth of funds," and then you added a URL that obviously was meant to relat

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