Faith in a Paragraph

The author is Amy Welborn, writing about Pope Benedict XVI in today's USA Today.

The thing is, he really believes the stuff. Really. He believes that God exists and we exist because God loves us. We're free to love him back, or not. So the basic job of the church is to be Christ in the world, inviting human beings to find love and truth. To find themselves.

Exactly.

Happy Thanksgiving

It's the time of year to take a break, spend time with family, and count our blessings.

Happy Thanksgiving!

Ranking the Twelve

Sort of like the twelve disciples, Fox is looking at a group of potential candidates for President on the Republican side. I'm not sure how they picked these twelve exactly, but it's an interesting list.

Just for grins, here's my ranking of the 12 as of today.

1. Mitch Daniels - He's what we need. A no-nonsense CEO of America. Plus he's a Hoosier.
2. Mike Pence - I really like Mike. He's a decent guy and has Reagan's quality of an ability to disagree without being disagreeable. He also is an unabashed Christian, which will earn him vilification by the media if he becomes the nominee.
3. Mike Huckabee - Tough call, but again I think he's genuine and honest. Not sure he has the foreign policy chops, but he'd still be better than the guy sitting in the Oval Office today.
4. Newt Gingerich - Smart guy, you should find a way to catch a policy speech from this guy. Way too much personal baggage, and the press hates him.
5. Mitt Romney - I actually have serious issues with him being too moderate. But he might have the best chance to win in the general election, so we have to consider him.
6. Sarah Palin - She's in my top half partly to tweak all the Palin haters out there. I like the lady, and find it weird that she's hated so viscerally by the Left. I'd prefer someone higher on the list, but again, she's still way better than the current guy.
7. John Thune - From here on down I don't see much difference. The little bit of exposure I've had with him is positive, so I decided to give him the first pick in the second half.
8. Tim Pawlenty - He's got good reviews for his job as Minnesota Gov.
9. Chris Christie - Come on, he's from New Jersey. I can't help but wonder if he's being overrated.
10. Bobby Jindal - Another governor who seems like a decent guy.
11. Haley Barbour - Another southern governor I must admit I know very little about.
12. Jim DeMint - Seems like a great guy for energizing the conservative base, but I have trouble picturing him in the top spot.

Maybe I'll come back in 6 months and resequence the list after we start learning more about all these folks. I admit to putting our Indiana guys first, partly because I know them best and partly because I'm being loyal to fellow Hoosiers.

It will be interesting to see how it shakes out. Somehow I hope we can avoid the stupid process of last time, when the party cooked the process to make sure we didn't get to choose anybody but McCain.

Indy Teams

I took in a Pacers game last night, the second in this early season. They may be mariginally better than last year, but if they manage to make the playoffs, I doubt they survive the first round.

My assessment of the team is middle of the pack. Danny Granger and Mike Dunleavy are their main guys, and both were inconsistent in the two games I saw. Granger's a decent player, but isn't built to carry a franchise. Dunleavy's a streaky shooter who wasn't hitting much in the two games I've seen.

Roy Hibbert shows tremendous promise in the middle. He looks at times like a big man who can dominate. Then on other times he looks lost. Coaches should work with him every day on post moves, and make him shoot 100 hooks a day. Get him playing with some consistency, and develop a couple of go-to post moves, and he could be a star. But not this year.

Collison is a good looking point guard with obvious skills. But he doesn't seem to know when to pass and when to take the shot. I saw him run a number of fast breaks, where there were two defenders ready to stop his drive to the basket, but teammates running the floor with him. In every case, instead of dishing to the big man for the dunk, he decided to take on the two defenders. Sometimes he drew the foul, and the other times he turned the ball over. I also observed him missing open guys on the pick and roll, again while trying to force his own shot. Collison seems to need badly to learn that winning is better than personal stats.

Tyler Hansbrough tends to play like a rookie, but I appreciate his hustle. He plays hard and hungry, and makes plays through force of will. Like Hibbert but in a different way, he shows promise for the future, but probably won't take the Pacers to a competitive level this year.

The entire team stinks on the defensive end. They're burned on weak-side rebounds so often I wonder if they've ever heard words like "weak side help" from a coach. They're embarassingly easy to break down off dribble penetration by their opponents' point guards.

Moving on to the Colts.

I'm not sure I want to put myself through the pain of watching the Colts play New England this weekend. The crippled team barely survived the Bengals last weekend, a game the Colts of the past several seasons would have blown out of the stadum.

Jacob Tamme is playing bravely in place of Dallas Clark, but alas is no Dallas Clark. Pierre Garcon drops more passes than he catches. The Colts are down to their fourth-string running back, which doesn't give them much punch there either.

All defenses have to do is double-team Reggie Wayne and contain Tamme, and they can shut down Peyton.

The only questions left for the Colts this year are, how many starters will be back off the injury list this season, and when they come back, will they be able to ramp back up in time to make the Colts a Super Bowl contender?

It doesn't look like a good sports year in Indy.

Root Causes - Education

There was an article in today's Republic that, without realizing it, represented just one more direct linkage between a major societal problem and it's root cause.

We're a nation of people who insist on burying our collective heads in the sand, failing to recognize that almost every serious problem we face today can be linked directly to our precipitous moral decline.

Today it's about education.

I wish I could link to the article, but can't locate it online. Substantially the story outlined the results of a study of failing students. In a result that surprised me not one bit, it discovered that children without stable homes and parents are most likely to fail in school.

The story went on to describe the "typical" dysfunctional family, for some reason most prevalent in cities. Child is born to an unwed mother, who most of the time is still at least friendly with the child's father. He might even provide some financial support, and sometimes lives with mother and child. For awhile, anyway.

But there's no marriage tying the couple together, so pretty soon Dad's gone. Interstingly, the article suggested that lots of those Dad's want to stay involved with their child, but go away when Mom hooks up with a new guy.

The most shocking finding was that most of these women were likely to have a few more children by different Dads within the first 5 years of that first baby's life.

These kids are confused, angry, undisciplined, and get worse with each turn of Mom's revolving door. Not to mention that some of the guys going through her revolving (bedroom) door will abuse her children, which naturally makes things even worse.

Education is a big topic in Indiana, and Republicans have the power to implement their will. They want to build lots of new Charter schools, implement a merit pay system for teachers, and possibly begin experimenting with vouchers.

But the fundamental question comes down to this: If a kid isn't being raised by parents who care even a litle bit, how could any of these programs make a difference? If a child comes to school angry, hungry, abused, and broken, you can't fix it with any teacher or special school - you need a miracle worker.

Maybe it sounds harsh, but if these irresponsible and narcissistic mothers aren't separated from their children until they decide to grow up and become a parent, nothing is going to help their children succeed in school. If nobody's allowed to mentor children and try to instill basic values in them without facing a lawsuit from the ACLU, who is going to teach them right from wrong?

When will people pull their heads out of the sand and realize that all of our problems - Education, economic, healthcare, crime, etc., all boil down to the same root cause?

The only way to solve a problem is to understand it.

Defining My Version of Conservatism

Whether or not this attempt to explain my personal views succeeds in finding agreement, I somehow seem to have failed thus far with this blog's total body of work in getting across the fundamental definition of my personal conservative beliefs. So let's give it a shot:

Social: Conservative
I don't think there's any question that I'm a Social Conservative. I believe that what made America great is its founding under Judeo-Christian fundamental values. And that America's decline is due to its abandonment of those values.

However, you are badly mistaken if you think that means I think the government should somehow impose those values on its citizens. And there is no contradiction in that statement.

Government can and should be thankful and friendly with Christian churches across the country, but should not either hand out taxpayer dollars to those churches or invite church leaders to set the legislative agenda directly.

However, tax exemptions for churches and their charities should remain. The government should step in on behalf of those who must fight constant ACLU lawsuits that seek to intimidate them from expressing their faith in public; whether at public school events or on their city hall lawns.

Because the historically proven source of the best and brightest citizens of our country is the nuclear family, the intact, undivorced, committed family unit should be the first to benefit from tax incentives. That policy will pay for itself many times over with well-adjusted, intelligent, and productive citizens from one generation to the next.

I do not believe that gays should be persecuted by anyone. Neither do I believe that gays have the right to take federal benefits out of my pocket for their partners. I have what I think is an interesting solution in this area, which if you missed it can be found here.

Healthcare, education, welfare, and any related social programs now run by massive Federal bureaucracies are outside the mandated constitutional role of the Feds, and should be solely the province of the individual states.

That does not lead to the common Democrat charge against people who hold that view that I don't care about the poor. States have every right to tax their citizens as they see fit to fund these programs in whatever forms they choose. If New York and California want to be havens for the chronic poor, that's their choice. If the heartland prefers to develop welfare-to-work programs such as those that proved so successful in the 90's, that's also their choice.

I believe that nobody should be given preference over anyone else because of their race, gender, sexual preference, religion, country of origin, eye color, hair color, weight, favorite movie or what car they drive.

If our society wishes to find ways to lift people out of poverty, I believe everyone in poverty should have access to the means to pull themselves out, and individuals who care should be encouraged to help guide them. Simply handing them money, patting them on the head and tut-tutting about how poor and unfortunate they are destroys them.

Economic: Conservative to Moderate?
I suppose the label for my economic beliefs depends on definition.

Some on the Right would call me a moderate for my view that completely unfettered capitalism is not ideal.

I support strong enforcement of AntiTrust law. I believe a lack of attention to these laws played a big role, along with government meddling, in our current economic crisis. There should be no American companies "Too big to fail", ever.

I also believe importing foreign workers simply because they work cheaper than their American counterparts approaches un-American. Our companies should be first-and-foremost Americans.

Being a realist, I know we can't simply dissolve the departments of Education, HHS, Agriculture, Homeland Security (an unnecessary and duplicative organization), and other expensive and counterproductive bureaucracies cannot be done overnight.

Neither can we simply cancel Social Security and Medicare.

But if enough people can be educated about the excesses of Washington, perhaps we can begin the siege and chip away at the walls little by little.

Let's take Social Security as an example. Start by admitting it's not a retirement and disability insurance program for all of us, but a plain and simple wealth redistribution from current working Americans to retirees, disabled, and dependents of deceased Americans.

Then start a program to transform the program from what it is today to an actual retirement savings, disability, and life insurance program with a cash-value account for every American. The account earns a guaranteed annual rate from the Federal Reserve, who uses those funds in place of bond sales or just as a giant money-market account with guaranteed returns.

Current retirees and those retiring in the next 10 years would see no change. Those retiring each decade following would see a gradual shift from the transfer program to individual accounts, until eventually the program covers everybody directly in individual accounts that they can will to their heirs with whatever remains unused at their death.

Oops, I didn't mean to go off on a tangent of specifics like that.

Let's back up to basic economic policy.

We need to balance Free Trade with Fair Trade. Our trade negotiations should be focused on opening the US market to foreign traders to the same extent those partners are open to US products.

Regulation of US business is necessary to protect employees and consumers from abuse and fraud, but must be reasonable and not unnecessarily onerous on employers.

Employees have the freedom to organize into unions if they choose. Union books should be subject to audit and scrutiny by members and open to prosecution if fraud is found. Union members should have a say in whether their dues are used to support political parties or candidates. Nobody should be forced to join a union.

Employers should be offered an exemption from Unemployment Insurance if they provide their own funded version of unemployment insurance: They fund an interest-bearing account with 2 percent of each employee's wages. When the employee terminates, whether voluntarily or involuntarily, they receive the proceeds from that account, and may choose either a lump sum or an annuity. Or they can roll it into an IRA or roll it into their Unemployment account at their next employer. If the employee chooses, they can contribute up to 2 percent of their earnings into the same account tax-free, just like a 401K. Simple solution, easy to administer by employers, and a great benefit for employees.

Close Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac.

Stop using tax dollars to subsidize government cronies who pretend to be developing "Clean Energy". Open up the oil fields wherever they exist for exploration, under reasonable safety regulations. Open up all domestic sources of energy, whether natural gas, coal, oil shale, etc. If on Federal land, simply auction the rights. This is the path to true energy independence.

There's much more, but I'll end with a major one that I've proposed before: Pass a constitutional amendment regarding tax policy.

All taxes imposed on citizens, companies, or other organizations must apply to all equally without exceptions. Likewise all deductions, credits, deferrals, and abatements offered to any citizen, company, or organization must be available to any and all based on criteria that may be met by everyone if they choose to do so.

See, if you take away the ability of congress to provide special tax favors to constituents in return for campaign money, you solve a big piece of the campaign finance mess.

So much more, but if I kept going I'd be typing for days.

Projection

Flipping channels, I happened on Crazy Eddie, or Ed Schultz on MSNBC. I held it there for a minute to see how he reacted to the election. The main thing I got from the minute of Crazy Eddie's ranting was that John Boehner might need to take out a restraining order.

It sort of illustrated a psychological problem of the far-left folks like Ed, Olbermann, Behar, and Maher. Even Obama projected when he strongly suggested that the Republicans need to discover civility, even while he called them "enemies", and proclaimed they needed to be "punished".

Sure, folks like Limbaugh are the flame-throwers on the Right. But I've never heard Rush wish horrible illness and death on any liberals. I don't hear him viciously attacking people personally like Ed did with Boehner yesterday, or like Behar did with Sharon Angle.

I used to visit CNN and MSNBC a bit more often, back when I thought I would get serious policy discussions that would help me learn more about the arguments from the Left.

But even though I have tried to do that for a few years, I can't say that I've ever heard a reasoned, logical argument explaining why the policies of the Left would be good for the country as a whole. It seems the arguments always degenerate into personal attacks on the right-wing villain of the day, and I never get to hear the policy argument.

Most of the social arguments seem to be misleading at best.

Gay Marriage: People need equal freedom to choose who they love. (Huh?)
Abortion: Women have the right to control their own body. (Doesn't a baby have a body too?)
Legalize Pot: We can tax it! (That's your argument, really?)
Illegal Immigration: They just want a better life. (So why don't we invite everybody in and forget about our immigration laws?)
Voter ID Laws: They are designed to disenfranchise voters. (What voters? Illegals and Convicts? Dead people?)
Taxes: The rich don't pay their fair share. (What exactly is anybody's "fair share"? Fair share of what? If 35% isn't a fair share, what percentage is? Who is rich?)
Obamacare: It's good because it forces insurance companies to cover people and not drop people who get sick. (What about the massive new bureaucracy, Federal control of the entire system, Federal decisions about what companies are priviledged enough to be chosen to offer insurance, and the unconstitutional mandate?)
Deficits and Debt: Those were Bush's fault. (How is it that tripling it after Bush left office makes it still Bush's fault?)

Weak arguments devolving into ad-hominem incivility, then projecting that incivility onto your opponents is the rule of the day for Democrats.

It's very much like the bully who beats up a kid every day and steals his lunch money, so the victim gets some self-defense lessons and fights back one day. Then the bully screams to an adult, "He punched me!".

And the poor kid who was only fighting back gets punished.

What Happens Now?

The House went big time GOP, the Senate not so much.

My main objective in voting yesterday was to fire Baron Hill. Mission accomplished.

Disappointments were Barbara Boxer and Harry Reid, both of whom I thought were the most deserving of a pink slip.

But California is way too blue.

And reports are that the Casino bosses demaded that all their employees get out and vote for Reid. Plus rumors that there was a massive push to get illegals registered and voting. In a close race, all the Dems have to do is cheat, I suppose.

Which brings me to Washington State. It's too close for Rossi to win, given his own experience in the governor's race a few years back. King County (Seattle) miraculously "found" a few hundred ballots after the counting had Rossi winning the Governor race, they just happened to be enough to put his opponent in front, and what do you know, every one of them was for the Democrat!

Alaska is weird, with all the dirty tricks pulled against Joe Miller in the last couple of weeks. And Murkowski, who seems to believe it's her personal right to hold that Senate seate. What's strange is that Alaskans appear to have agreed with her and failed to recognize how they were manipulated into doing so.

The House will have a strong enough majority to make a difference, and even though Dems hold a smaller majority in the Senate, they will be forced to work with Republicans in both houses to get anything passed.

So I'm thinking that Obama's agenda is toast. Bush tax cuts will probably get extended. The budget will probably get pared down, but not enough. The House will vote to kill Obamacare, but the Senate won't go along. So the House will vote to defund Obamacare, but the President will veto, which could lead to an interesting fight and possible government shutdown.

It will be interesting, but I think better for the country in the long run.