August 1, 2006

The Un-Principle.

I should post in this space more than I do, I suppose.

Part of why I don't is because, to justify posting here, given the format I've carved out here, I tend to post only thoughts that I can stretch out to a certain length. If I only have a paragraph worth of thoughts on a topic, however interesting those paragraphs might be (I suppose I take for granted that at least one person out there is going to find anything I say here at least mildly interesting, arrogance aside), it tends not to get here.

I've most recently seen this in a lot of people's defenses of Sen. Joseph I. Lieberman, who of course is facing a tough primary challenge based in part on his unpopular gung-ho support for the current unpopular war.

Lieberman is always defended on the grounds that he takes the stand he does based on "principle." As if it doesn't make any difference whether we think he's wrong; his constituents are not allowed to turn on him for a stand he's taken if his reasons are principled ones.

Results, apparently, mean nothing. What policies voters might actually want to see pursued, and their ramifications, take a backseat to the need to have leaders who are principled.

I can't say where this notion has its origins, but I've seen it before. I see it in the way both Republicans and most of the media were mystified that, when Bill Clinton's personal behavior evinced, in their view, a lack of principle, the public continued to support him. To many, it was evidence that the voting public itself lacked principles.

What it really showed was, while politicians and elite opinion makers may not view policy as important--they have money and security and are less likely to be significantly affected by as many policies as those with less of both--people lower down do notice when things are going well and when they're not. Under Clinton, the policies, by and large, seemed to be working, to most people, so they continued to support him.

This baffled those for whom everything is about politicians' "principle" and "integrity" and nothing is about the actual real-life effects of what those politicians actually do.

Of course, people lower down often fall for it, too; you can see it in the support commanded by John McCain, a man whose policy beliefs are significantly to the right of many of his supporters; those supporters will tell you they admire his principles and his honesty.

I suspect that in McCain's case, his "principles" are overrated. Lieberman, too. And, I think that if Bill Clinton is unprincipled, and he probably is, it's in ways that have nothing to do with infidelity.

But, let's put that aside, and ask one simple question:

Say you have two candidates. Candidate A has taken a stand clearly based on principle, in favor of eating babies. Candidate B opposes eating babies, but it's obvious he's only opposing it because polls show a majority of Americans are against baby-eating.

Are you going to vote for whoever's more "principled"? Or for the candidate who's going to enact the policy you actually want? (Can I presume near-unanimity on the not-eating-babies thing?)

I'm not saying principles are meaningless. I'd rather vote for a principled liberal than one who's only telling me what polls say I want to hear, of course; I'd rather have some faith that said candidate is going to continue to push for the causes I, a liberal, support whether or not it's politically expedient.

But I'd rather get those policies now, and precariously, than vote for someone who's never going to enact them under any circumstances. I'll take the poll-driven liberal over the principled right-winger, given that choice.

I admire principles. I vote for results.

OLDER THOUGHTS ARE HERE.

August 30, 2006

Taking a few days off to move into a new place. Back later this week with new material. Thanks for your patience.

June 10, 2006

I'm going to try to do two IDTs a week again, now.

Also, you may have noticed I've done the last two in monochrome ("bluescale," really) rather than full color. Actually I like it better, and it translates better into print. Really, the color, while a fun experiment, was never, I don't think, essential to the purpose of IDT; I mostly just did it as a sort of consolation prize when I cut down to one strip a week. So, I'll use it when I need it, but otherwise, I'm going blue, for a while.

April 7, 2006

You want him, you got him.

People keep asking me when Joe the Eagle will be on some stuff they can buy. No, really, people actually have been asking me that. I'm not being a shill.

Well, there is some, now, and I'm quite pleased with the design:

February 7, 2006

On Amazon.com, you can now preorder Attitude3: The New Subversive Online Cartoonists, in which I'm featured and interviewed and stuff.

You should do this, in my not-especially-humble-but-sincere opinion. Because it's the only place you can read an interview with me conducted by Ted Rall (who edited this compilation), and because it features a lot of other really great cartoonists.

And because the number of preorders will help determine the size of the book's initial print run in a couple of months, so the more people preorder it the better it's likely to do.

This is the cover, which prominently features panels from both O&M and IDT:

The collection features, in alphabetical order:

1. Rob Balder: "Partially Clips"
2. Dale Beran and David Hellman: "A Lesson is Learned But the Damage is Irreversible"
3. Matt Bors: "Idiot Box"
4. Steven L. Cloud: "Boy on a Stick and Slither"
5. M.e. Cohen: "HumorInk"
6. Chris Dlugosz: "Pixel"
7. Thomas K. Dye: "Newshounds"
8. Mark Fiore: "Fiore Animated Cartoons"
9. Dorothy Gambrell : "Cat and Girl"
10. Nicholas Gurewitch: "The Perry Bible Fellowship"
11. Brian McFadden: "Big Fat Whale"
12. Eric Millikin: "Fetus-X"
13. Ryan North: "Daily Dinosaur Comics"
14. August J. Pollak: "XQUZYPHYR & Overboard"
15. Mark Poutenis: "Thinking Ape Blues"
16. Jason Pultz: "Comic Strip"
17. Adam Rust: "Adam's Rust"
18. D.C. Simpson: "I Drew This" & "Ozy and Millie"
19. Ben Smith: "Fighting Words"
20. Richard Stevens: "Diesel Sweeties"
21. Michael Zole: "Death to the Extremist."

And, just for fun, a snippet from the much longer interview:

TED RALL: "I Drew This" features a bald eagle wearing a beret. Please explain yourself to the freedom-fries contingent reading this.

DCS: Okay. To all the right-wing French haters reading this: Joe Eagle wears that beret specifically to piss you off.

TR: Is this true?

DCS: Pretty much. After 9/11 I actually had an American flag pin on my jacket for a while, because it felt like, for the first time in my politically aware life, the flag belonged to all of us, not just to wingnuts. And then some time in the runup to Iraq, they stole it back and I had to take the pin off again. So when I created Joe, it was like "okay, I'm going to take another American symbol, and associate it as closely with things I know you hate as I can." It seemed funny at the time.

Like I said, preordering now.

January 9, 2006

As the graphical link above may have already informed you, the first "I Drew This" book collection is out at last.

I'm very pleased with it. The printing quality is excellent, and I put a lot of work into it--it's fully annotated, with commentary below each cartoon, and selected "I Think This" essays and journal entries fleshing it out to 120 pages (8.5 by 11 inches).

Order now, and learn even more about what I think about stuff (in case this site just isn't enough) and help support your local angry liberal!

June 13, 2005

Concept and site courtesy of Orv, my partner in thought crime. The right wants to name all sorts of things after Ronald Reagan? Well...

How about the national debt?

"Rush has a point when he calls Ronald Reagan 'a man to whom we Americans owe a debt that we will never be able to repay.'" -Al Franken.