Bugs in the Volkswagen System

It looks like the biggest corporate scandal of 2015 will be the cheating by Volkswagen on emissions tests, which might come to be called Volksgate. The scale is breath-taking. Since 2008 Volkswagen made 11 million diesel cars designed to cheat on emissions tests. These cars could never have passed the tests. They produce 10 to 40 times the legal limit of nitrogen oxides.

Cheating on an unprecedented scale was a simple business decision. Volkswagen executives had spent billions to develop a new diesel engine, but executives realized it could not meet the pollution standards of many nations, including the US and Germany. They could have scrapped the new model. Instead they put a software “bug” into the cars’ computers.

The fix was clever. Emissions tests are done under controlled laboratory conditions. The software could sense a test was being conducted by monitoring speed, engine operation, air pressure and even the position of the steering wheel. Then the engine was put into a kind of safety mode, where power and performance were reduced, cutting down on emissions. Back on the road, the engines were switched to “normal”, chugging out nitrogen oxides. The secret switch is called a “defeat device”. Meanwhile, VW created a huge advertising campaign about its cars’ low emissions.

Staff in the EPA already suspected something was wrong in 2014. An organization devoted to reducing air pollution and slowing climate change, the International Council on Clean Transportation, commissioned West Virginia University’s Center for Alternative Fuels Engines and Emissions to test VW diesel cars. The results showed very high emissions. The EPA questioned Volkswagen, who claimed the results were just a technical problem. Only after another year passed did VW admit it had bugged the cars.

The dishonesty of the top leadership at Volkswagen will be expensive for them – who wants to buy, or even drive, a Volkswagen now? The international bank Credite Suisse estimates the scandal will cost the company from $30 to $80 billion, about the same cost as BP’s Deepwater Horizon oil spill.

But it’s also expensive for us. There are 500,000 American cars which have been spewing poisonous gases into our atmosphere. Their owners had no idea, but now their cars have lost significant value.

There is a reason for the legal limitations on nitrogen oxides. Every year they kill nearly 6000 people in London alone, and 50,000 people in the US by weakening the heart. That’s now, many years after those and other deadly emissions gases have been limited in the US and Great Britain. Since the first Clean Air Act was passed in 1963, emissions of major pollutants including nitrogen dioxide have been reduced by 72%.

Seth Borenstein of the Associated Press wrote an article published in many newspapers across the country, including here in Jacksonville, quoting scientists who estimate that the extra pollution from VWs will probably cause an additional 5 to 20 American deaths every year. That number comes from complex computer models which consider data about which VWs have been on the road, regional air movements, and disease studies, along with estimates of how much pollution the cars actually spewed out. Hence the large range from 5 to 20 as an estimate.

Who knows how many people will be sicker, what additional medical bills will be incurred, how many hours of work will be lost?

Republicans today hate the EPA, even though it was created by President Richard Nixon. Donald Trump said in 2011 that “the EPA is an impediment to both growth and jobs.” Carly Fiorina says the EPA must “roll back” regulations. Jeb Bush has proposed a sweeping rollback of regulations on the environment and the defunding of the EPA. Ted Cruz has introduced a bill in Congress to prevent the EPA from regulating nitrogen oxide, as well as many other pollutants.

Regulations and regulators save lives. Just between 1980 and 2000, reductions in air pollution led to an increase in life expectancy of 7 months. The government workers in the EPA saved future lives by discovering VW’s cheating.

That truth is buried by conservatives under constant attacks on the EPA. They are right that regulations cost businesses money. Reducing air pollution and preventing oil spills are expensive for giant corporations, who pass their costs to the consumer.

Would we rather live in Beijing, where normal people wear gas masks, people are warned not to go out on bad days, and schools are building artificial domes to keep children away from the air? Should we go back to more polluted air and shorter lives?

Without regulations on our food, our water, and our air, America would be less healthy. Why do Republicans want that?

Steve Hochstadt

Jacksonville IL

Published in the Jacksonville Journal-Courier, October 6, 2015

Ben Carson’s Religious Tests for Candidates

Ben Carson, the Republican neurosurgeon who wants to be President, recently said that a Muslim should not be our President. The divisions in the American body politic immediately announced themselves. That remark was widely criticized as being prejudiced, discriminatory and insulting against Muslims. Money poured into his campaign from those who support him.

On NBC’s Meet the Press on September 20, Carson laid out a general principle that certain religions need extra scrutiny. Chuck Todd asked, “Should a President’s faith matter? Should your faith matter to voters?” Carson replied, “Well, I guess it depends on what that faith is. If it’s inconsistent with the values and principles of America, then of course it should matter. But if it fits within the realm of America and consistent with the constitution, no problem.”

Carson then used that principle to exclude Islam as he understands it. Todd asked, “So do you believe that Islam is consistent with the constitution?” Carson said, “No, I don’t, I do not. I would not advocate that we put a Muslim in charge of this nation. I absolutely would not agree with that.”

Last week in Cedarville, Ohio, he repeated his principle:  “Who should be allowed to be President of the United States. And I said I think anybody, regardless of their religion, if they are willing to embrace the values and principles of America and our Constitution and subject their beliefs to the Constitution. I have no problem with that at all. And that's perfectly reasonable.”

This Sunday, he specified what is wrong with Islam: “I would have problems with somebody who embraced all the doctrines associated with Islam. If they are not willing to reject Sharia and all the portions of it that are talked about in the Quran, if they are not willing to reject that, and subject that to American values and the Constitution, then of course, I would. If you are not willing to reject that, then how in the world can you possibly be the president of the United States?”

He told ABC that Muslims should rewrite their sacred text: “What I would like for somebody to show me is an improved Islamic text that opposes Shariah.  Let me see -- if you can show me that, I will begin to alter my thinking on this.  But right now, when you have something that is against the rights of women, against the rights of gays, subjugates other religions, and a host of things that are not compatible with our Constitution, why, in fact, would you take that chance?”

I agree with Carson that if someone’s beliefs contradict our Constitution, they should not be President. And I agree that some Muslim religious interpretations contradict our Constitution. The trouble is that Carson applies his tests of religious suitability only to Islam. He does not advocate that a Christian specifically renounce the Biblical passages which violate our Constitution, such as approving discussions of slavery and of stoning women accused of adultery.

Dr. Carson does not advocate that Mike Huckabee drop out of the presidential race because he supported Kim Davis in Kentucky, when she placed her religious beliefs against the rights of gays above her sworn Constitution responsibilities.

Ben Carson is a Seventh Day Adventist. On their own website, they hold up “the Bible as the only standard of faith and practice for Christians.” If Seventh Day Adventists assert that the Bible is the only standard of practice, shouldn’t Seventh Day Adventists who want our votes be clear that they “subjugate their religious beliefs to our constitution”?

If Carson thinks Islam is unacceptable because it is “against the rights of gays”, then I ask him to reject the Seventh Day Adventist teaching that “Homosexuality is a manifestation of the disturbance and brokenness in human inclinations and relations caused by the entrance of sin into the world.”

On Thursday, he told Bill O’Reilly, “When I look at Islamic nations, what I see are people who don't give women equal rights.” What about the controversy among Seventh Day Adventists about whether women should be ordained? At the General Conference in July this issue came up again, and was rejected again, as it has been for more than a century. Should Carson renounce his own religion’s discrimination against women in order to be a candidate?

His claim that Islam fails his Constitutional tests resonates with Christian fundamentalists who would never accept those tests being applied to their own faith. Nor would they appreciate the suggestion that the Bible be rewritten to remove offensive passages. Carson finds support among people who are ignorant of the many varieties of Islam, as many as there of Christianity, ignorant of the Quran as a source of Muslim belief, ignorant of the long history of Islam in America as a native African American religious movement.

As Kareem Abdu-Jabbar, who converted to Islam in 1971, said, “People do not condemn all Christians for the acts of the group that calls themselves the Christian Knights or the Ku Klux Klan. I don’t think that Mr. Carson has any idea, or knows very many Muslims, because if he did he wouldn’t say the things that he’s saying.”

Steve Hochstadt

Jacksonville IL

Published by the Jacksonville Journal-Courier, September 29, 2015

What Do Republican Voters Want?

I’m not a Republican voter. I could have voted for Paul Findley, but I didn’t live here. I study in detail what people do, and I listen carefully to what they say. But I’m speaking from the outside here.

Some people might say that Republican voters don’t know what they want. More than a dozen serious politicians are risking their political reputations, and lots of other people’s money, hoping that Republican voters still aren’t sure who they want.

I think that Republican voters are expressing what they want pretty clearly. They want a political outsider. Maybe that’s their main message so far. That’s news.

In 2011, after Donald Trump made all the right moves to enter the Republican presidential primaries, he dropped out in May: “After considerable deliberation and reflection, I have decided not to pursue the office of the presidency. This decision does not come easily or without regret.” He was polling about 14%, behind Mike Huckabee. Besides Trump, every other name among the dozen Republicans that Opinion Research asked about in May 2011 was an elected office holder, present or former. Trump had the highest negative ratings of anyone, 64%.

No longer. When Morning Consult asked those who watched last week’s debate, who won, the top three were Carly Fiorina, Donald Trump, and Ben Carson, none of whom ever held public office. 60% chose a non-politician. When asked who they would vote for, the same top three emerged.

NBC took a broader online poll in the days after the debate. Marco Rubio just edged out Carson for third as debate winner. When asked who appeared “most presidential”, Marco was out and Jeb came in, edging out Carson for third. A total of 44% of all Republicans think a real estate tycoon and reality show star, a tech company CEO, and a neurosurgeon look “more presidential” than the dozen politicians in the race. 54% would vote for one of the outsiders, who take the top three spots.

We now have the most Republican Congress since 1928, but Republicans don’t like their own politicians. Polls by Pew Research show that only 41% of Republicans surveyed approve of the Republican Congressional leadership. That number was 60% in 2011 and 78% in 1995. In 1995, 80% of Republicans thought their party’s leaders were keeping their campaign promises. Now it’s 37%. The proportion of Republican voters who disapprove of the new Republican leadership in Congress jumped from 44% in February, right after they were elected, to 55% in May.

But being an outsider is not enough. Republican voters want a confrontational outsider. Not necessarily a belligerent lover of personal confrontations like Trump. Carly Fiorina and Ben Carson act more decorously, but their policies are belligerent.

Here is Carson’s website on how he would fight in the Middle East: “If a bully faction or bully nation is beating up on those with whom it disagrees, we should immediately stop them with brutal force, if necessary, because it is the right thing to do. If that were done consistently, such incidents would cease almost immediately. I mention political correctness here because it only hampers effectiveness. For example, a lot of time, effort, and lives were wasted in Fallujah, Iraq, because the terrorists were hiding among the people and using them as shields. Political correctness dictates that we play their game. I would have announced via bullhorn and leaflets that in 72 hours Fallujah was going to become part of the desert because there were substantial numbers of terrorists hiding there. This would have given people time to flee.”

Carly Fiorina said in May that she would “stand up and arm Ukraine”, and conduct more aggressive military exercises in the Baltic nations, to “send a very clear message to Vladimir Putin.” In last week’s debate, she went further: “Having met Vladimir Putin, I wouldn’t talk to him at all. We talked way too much to him. What I would do, immediately, is begin rebuilding the Sixth Fleet, I would begin rebuilding the missile defense program in Poland, I would conduct regular, aggressive military exercises in the Baltic states. I'd probably send a few thousand more troops into Germany. Vladimir Putin would get the message.”

Political outsiders and their supporters owe nothing to the cumbersome process of governing in a democracy. They haven’t tried it. They don’t appreciate the checks and balances built into our system by centuries of  political evolution of all three branches.

These political outsiders trumpet their success in systems where things get done because they say so. They seem to believe that if they say, “I’m sending more troops to Germany,” or “The Mexicans will pay for that fence,” everybody will hop to it. That’s not presidential. That’s what dictators think.

That’s okay with many conservative voters. Earlier this month, 55% of Republicans surveyed said they would “support the military stepping in to take control of the federal government” if elected leaders pursued Constitutional politics they didn’t agree with.

That’s a dangerous political mood supporting dangerous candidates.

Steve Hochstadt

Jacksonville IL

Published in the Jacksonville Journal-Courier, September 22, 2015