If you haven't figured it out by reading the previous chapters, I'm a constitutionalist. Rather than buying into the modern Liberal philosophy that says the Constitution was written by a bunch of 200-year-old white men who wore powdered wigs and bizarre wool clothing so it has no bearing on modern society, I believe those founding fathers were a smart bunch of fellows. Certainly they were better educated than 80 percent of Americans today. They were well versed on history, philosophy, religion, and had terrific insights on human nature.
We're a republic, not a democracy. We were founded to be a tolerant society, not a libertine anarchy. Freedom is the preeminent value of America.
We live in a time where people are demanding majority rule over a representative republic, and consequently have made it their mission to destroy all opposition to insure their majority by silencing their opponents. There are things public figures dare not say in public - those things may not get them put in jail, but they'll certainly be driven out of their jobs and forcibly banished to a life in hiding from the persecutors. Expressing any thoughts opposing or even questioning gay marriage, climate change, or abortion continues to cost high profile people their jobs. All at the same time as those on the left openly fantasize about assassinating George W. Bush and openly expressing their wish that Dick Cheney die from his heart condition.
The Federal Government must only be permitted those enumerated powers granted it by the Constitution. That means that nearly the entire alphabet soup of federal agencies should not exist. No department of Agriculture, Environmental Protection, Education, Communication, Public Broadcasting, Social Security, Health and Human Services, and so on ...
The Federal Government may provide the standing army, and is first and foremost responsible for our country's security. They may oversee the building and maintenance of our interstate highway system. They may act as arbiters to help resolve disputes between states. They may help America establish and maintain trading relationships with other countries.
For better efficiency and less corruption, the Federal Government should contract the building and maintenance of the interstate highway system to private contractors. In a perfect world, the projects may be bid on by any company with the ability to complete them in line with the parameters required. American business should create a trade organization that takes the lead in negotiating trade agreements with foreign countries, with the agreements only required to fit withing the guidelines set by congress. A partnership between the private trade organization and the State Department should be forged, which would produce much less corrupt and more equitable trade policies than those created by the current government bureaucracy.
Citizen education and welfare is solely and specifically left to the states. If Massachusetts and California want to create a generous welfare system that takes 70 percent of wages away from earners to give to the non-productive residents, they have the freedom to do so. Conversely, if Texas and the Dakotas choose to take no income taxes and provide much lower benefits to their poor residents, they also have that freedom.
Liberals argue that such a system would overload the welfare systems of the most generous (or in their parlance, "fairest") states, which they claim is "unfair". But if the productive flock to the low-tax, low-regulation states and the non-productive flock to the high-tax, high welfare states, each state legislature and governor can blame nobody but themselves.
Liberals also argue that without federal oversight, states with the worst schools will sink lower. If anyone can give me a single example of a federally-imposed education policy that produced a measurable improvement in student performance, perhaps you can soften my bad attitude toward federal tyranny in education. I'm pretty certain that there are no such examples.
What if a handful of states do everything right and are able to entice many companies to locate there? What if their well-educated citizens become the best employees for those companies and are able to help those companies dominate the marketplace? It seems to me it would result in a few states becoming leaders, with the most prosperous citizens in the country.
Wouldn't it make sense that the states that don't perform very well in comparison might ask themselves, "what are they doing to be so successful?", and eventually decide to emulate them? As the most extremely liberal states fail, isn't it more likely that their unproductive citizens might begin to decide to try their luck finding a good job in a successful state? Who says we need a federal government to impose mediocrity on the country as a whole and call it "fair"?
Government exists to keep order, protect us from those who wish to do us harm, and sometimes provide things that are more difficult for individuals to do on their own. Freedom is the most important American value. Fairness tends to be found only in the eye of the beholder.
We now have a government that openly declares their primary value to be "fairness", and has yet to acknowledge any interest in freedom. Obama and Company define "fairness" as those things that benefit only them - that fails any reasonable test of the word.
Freedom!
Friday, August 30, 2013
Wednesday, August 28, 2013
Book Break
I'm taking a break from my little blog book.
The hot topics this week were Miley Cyrus and Syria. Miley's merely the next Britney Spears and Lindsey Lohan, and deserves none of the attention she's getting. MTV should be taken down for showing that trash. No, I didn't watch, and I am avoiding it on the web. There's no point.
So let's tackle the more serious topic. It was over a year ago that Obama announced his "red line". Now that Assad has crossed it twice (or possibly more), our president is getting ready to retaliate. Once again, it's not about national security. It's not even about protecting Syrian citizens from their tyrannical dictator. It's only about Obama, as is everything else he does.
The irony of this president doing with Syria exactly what he and his supporters so viciously accused George W. Bush of doing in Iraq is certainly not lost on me. Although it sure is lost on all the media outlets. Oh well, such is life in wacky America.
If the plan is to take out Assad, that might be worthwhile. But they've already said it's not that. If the plan is to take out all of their chemical weapons, that would be a positive objective. But that ship's already sailed because the administration has announced their intentions. All Assad needs to do is move his weapons somewhere else so we bomb empty buildings.
So it looks like Obama's going to have the military launch a bunch of cruise missles that most likely will destroy a bunch of empty buildings in Syria. But at least he can say he took action!
Meanwhile there's a rally in Washington today memorializing Martin Luther King. Republicans were neither invited nor welcome, so it was merely a Democratic Party Rally.
The congressman who claim to be Republicans and claim to oppose Obamacare are trashing their colleagues who are trying to lead an effort to leave funding for that horrible law out of the next funding bill. There is no courage to be found among the Republican party leadership, which means the Democrats win.
Overall it's been a discouraging week.
The hot topics this week were Miley Cyrus and Syria. Miley's merely the next Britney Spears and Lindsey Lohan, and deserves none of the attention she's getting. MTV should be taken down for showing that trash. No, I didn't watch, and I am avoiding it on the web. There's no point.
So let's tackle the more serious topic. It was over a year ago that Obama announced his "red line". Now that Assad has crossed it twice (or possibly more), our president is getting ready to retaliate. Once again, it's not about national security. It's not even about protecting Syrian citizens from their tyrannical dictator. It's only about Obama, as is everything else he does.
The irony of this president doing with Syria exactly what he and his supporters so viciously accused George W. Bush of doing in Iraq is certainly not lost on me. Although it sure is lost on all the media outlets. Oh well, such is life in wacky America.
If the plan is to take out Assad, that might be worthwhile. But they've already said it's not that. If the plan is to take out all of their chemical weapons, that would be a positive objective. But that ship's already sailed because the administration has announced their intentions. All Assad needs to do is move his weapons somewhere else so we bomb empty buildings.
So it looks like Obama's going to have the military launch a bunch of cruise missles that most likely will destroy a bunch of empty buildings in Syria. But at least he can say he took action!
Meanwhile there's a rally in Washington today memorializing Martin Luther King. Republicans were neither invited nor welcome, so it was merely a Democratic Party Rally.
The congressman who claim to be Republicans and claim to oppose Obamacare are trashing their colleagues who are trying to lead an effort to leave funding for that horrible law out of the next funding bill. There is no courage to be found among the Republican party leadership, which means the Democrats win.
Overall it's been a discouraging week.
Tuesday, August 27, 2013
If I Made the Rules - Part 9: Welfare
One of the major points of contention between conservatives and liberals is about how generous the government should be in providing an economic "safety net" to those who find themselves in poverty. As president Obama moves forward in his second term, we've seen a massive explosion in the welfare rolls. Huge increases have been seen since Obama took office in the number of Americans receiving Food Stamps, Disability Benefits, Housing Assistance, Medicaid, and benefiting from myriad other federal, state, and local programs created to assist the poor.
As a Roman Catholic Christian, I believe it's important for me to do what I can to help people who need it. Therefore I've got firsthand experience dealing with the poor and their problems.
During a training class I attended to prepare me to become a Court-Appointed Special Advocate (CASA), perhaps the most memorable thing I learned was this:
There are two basic categories of the poor. The temporary poor, and the permanent poor. The temporary poor are the people who have suffered a setback of some sort. They've lost their wealth to divorce, a lawsuit, a business failure, or a medical bankruptcy. These temporary poor don't like being poor, and are highly motivated to escape that condition. Therefore, these are the easiest people to help. All they need is temporary assistance to get past their immediate problems, but once they get back on their feet they will rapidly become self-sufficient and no longer need or want assistance.
The permanent poor, however, are much more difficult to help. Because they are often third or fourth generation poor, and being dependent on services from the government and charity is a way of life. You could reasonably say that their profession involves maximizing their benefits. These folks make it their business to know about all of the government programs that will give them money, housing, food stamps, and other benefits. They also know about all of the local charities and their rules, and show up at the charities for whatever handouts are offered. The permanent poor have no intention of finding a job and becoming self-sufficient; in fact, they can't even imagine such a lifestyle.
In my experience working with the poor, most are high school dropouts or if they graduated high school did so just barely. Many of them are illiterate and have no idea how to do simple things like balance a checkbook or go grocery shopping with a budget and a meal plan. They often lack basic skills in simple things such as cooking, cleaning, or basic home repair.
The welfare mom is a modern tragedy. Imagine a young woman, 20 or 21 years old, who is raising 4 children on welfare. The first of her 4 children was born when she was only 14 or 15, sometimes younger. The father of that child is almost always an adult, and should have been prosecuted for statutory rape. But the overloaded social services agencies are too overloaded to pursue justice in those cases, because they are so common.
The welfare mom doesn't marry any of her baby daddies because if she were to do so she would lose her benefits. Those benefits are significant, and if we added up the value of all of them we would find that she's making a much better living from taxpayers than she ever could working as a clerk at the local fast food restaurant or convenience store. Baby momma gets a decent house, paid for by HUD. She gets free healthcare, courtesy of Medicaid. She gets hundreds of dollars worth of Food Stamps, now issued on a debit-like card called EBT. And she maximizes her monthly welfare salary check by virtue of her 4 children, giving her plenty of spending money.
She probably has a boyfriend, who may or may not be the father of one of her children. He lives with her, but knows that if he gets caught it could result in a reduction in her benefits. In most cases I've observed personally, the house has little to no furniture, aside from the 50-inch flat screen TV in the living room. The house is a mess, with dirty clothes piled up in every room that have been soiled by the dog(s) and/or cat(s) that roam the house.
In many cases, baby momma is addicted. Unfortunately that can mean she sells her food stamps to get more money to buy her drugs and there's nothing in the house for the kids to eat. So if the kids are in school, they get fed there. Or they figure out where they can go to get a free meal and fend for themselves. Also, the kids have to be wary of the boyfriend. He's more likely than not to abuse them, molest them sexually, or both.
The poor have their own neighborhood watch. Only they're not watching for criminals. They're watching for cops and social workers. They have elaborate alarm systems, that alert everyone on the block when the social worker is driving up. The boyfriends all high-tail it out the back door and disappear, knowing that if they're caught in the house they might have to answer some uncomfortable questions or perhaps even get arrested.
My conclusion is that the welfare system is broken. Republicans got Bill Clinton to sign their Welfare Reform bill in the 90's, which make a huge impact on getting people more self-sufficient and into the job market. But president Obama has repealed that law without the approval of congress (I still can't figure out how he got away with that) and has reverted the system back to the bad old days.
If I were in charge, I'd have to realize we can't move so many millions of unwed baby mommas off the rolls overnight. But I would set up programs that form partnerships between the government agencies and charities, with the goal of eliminating duplication. I would build incentives for the government agencies whereby they are rewarded for the number of people they get off the welfare rolls, rather than current policies that reward them for bringing more people onto those rolls. The stated goal for all government social services agencies will be to work themselves out of a job, when the day comes that nobody needs them anymore. Perhaps that would be achievable someday and the charitable organizations could meet all of the needs of the relative few who hit a string of bad luck.
Addiction treatment would be an important component in freeing up welfare moms so they can hold down a job. Although I'm not a fan of daycare, it would also need to be a component in removing one of the biggest obstacles to welfare moms taking a job.
It is past time to stop the nonsense of the popular culture, which encourages irresponsible behavior that leads people to illegitimacy. Leaders, churches, and schools must be united in spreading a positive message to everyone that our best chance for a happy and prosperous life is to find and marry someone for life and become partners in raising smart and successfuly children.
There is a category of people that need outside assistance to survive. That category is the physically and mentally disabled. Our government has turned the mentally disabled out and closed their hospitals, causing chaos. (Evidenced by just about all of the mass shootings we keep hearing about, for example). My preference would be to see the churches and charities band together to take care of these folks when their families cannot. But I wouldn't raise a fuss if the government decided to re-open the mental hospitals for the low-functioning people who will never be able to live independently. And of course the physically disabled deserve whatever help we can provide them.
This is a multi-generational problem that was begun by Lyndon Johnson. It was only briefly solved in Clinton's second term and through the Bush years, but now has reverted back to the dysfunction we see today. It can be resolved, but not until we elect people smart and principled enough to enact the right solutions.
As a Roman Catholic Christian, I believe it's important for me to do what I can to help people who need it. Therefore I've got firsthand experience dealing with the poor and their problems.
During a training class I attended to prepare me to become a Court-Appointed Special Advocate (CASA), perhaps the most memorable thing I learned was this:
There are two basic categories of the poor. The temporary poor, and the permanent poor. The temporary poor are the people who have suffered a setback of some sort. They've lost their wealth to divorce, a lawsuit, a business failure, or a medical bankruptcy. These temporary poor don't like being poor, and are highly motivated to escape that condition. Therefore, these are the easiest people to help. All they need is temporary assistance to get past their immediate problems, but once they get back on their feet they will rapidly become self-sufficient and no longer need or want assistance.
The permanent poor, however, are much more difficult to help. Because they are often third or fourth generation poor, and being dependent on services from the government and charity is a way of life. You could reasonably say that their profession involves maximizing their benefits. These folks make it their business to know about all of the government programs that will give them money, housing, food stamps, and other benefits. They also know about all of the local charities and their rules, and show up at the charities for whatever handouts are offered. The permanent poor have no intention of finding a job and becoming self-sufficient; in fact, they can't even imagine such a lifestyle.
In my experience working with the poor, most are high school dropouts or if they graduated high school did so just barely. Many of them are illiterate and have no idea how to do simple things like balance a checkbook or go grocery shopping with a budget and a meal plan. They often lack basic skills in simple things such as cooking, cleaning, or basic home repair.
The welfare mom is a modern tragedy. Imagine a young woman, 20 or 21 years old, who is raising 4 children on welfare. The first of her 4 children was born when she was only 14 or 15, sometimes younger. The father of that child is almost always an adult, and should have been prosecuted for statutory rape. But the overloaded social services agencies are too overloaded to pursue justice in those cases, because they are so common.
The welfare mom doesn't marry any of her baby daddies because if she were to do so she would lose her benefits. Those benefits are significant, and if we added up the value of all of them we would find that she's making a much better living from taxpayers than she ever could working as a clerk at the local fast food restaurant or convenience store. Baby momma gets a decent house, paid for by HUD. She gets free healthcare, courtesy of Medicaid. She gets hundreds of dollars worth of Food Stamps, now issued on a debit-like card called EBT. And she maximizes her monthly welfare salary check by virtue of her 4 children, giving her plenty of spending money.
She probably has a boyfriend, who may or may not be the father of one of her children. He lives with her, but knows that if he gets caught it could result in a reduction in her benefits. In most cases I've observed personally, the house has little to no furniture, aside from the 50-inch flat screen TV in the living room. The house is a mess, with dirty clothes piled up in every room that have been soiled by the dog(s) and/or cat(s) that roam the house.
In many cases, baby momma is addicted. Unfortunately that can mean she sells her food stamps to get more money to buy her drugs and there's nothing in the house for the kids to eat. So if the kids are in school, they get fed there. Or they figure out where they can go to get a free meal and fend for themselves. Also, the kids have to be wary of the boyfriend. He's more likely than not to abuse them, molest them sexually, or both.
The poor have their own neighborhood watch. Only they're not watching for criminals. They're watching for cops and social workers. They have elaborate alarm systems, that alert everyone on the block when the social worker is driving up. The boyfriends all high-tail it out the back door and disappear, knowing that if they're caught in the house they might have to answer some uncomfortable questions or perhaps even get arrested.
My conclusion is that the welfare system is broken. Republicans got Bill Clinton to sign their Welfare Reform bill in the 90's, which make a huge impact on getting people more self-sufficient and into the job market. But president Obama has repealed that law without the approval of congress (I still can't figure out how he got away with that) and has reverted the system back to the bad old days.
If I were in charge, I'd have to realize we can't move so many millions of unwed baby mommas off the rolls overnight. But I would set up programs that form partnerships between the government agencies and charities, with the goal of eliminating duplication. I would build incentives for the government agencies whereby they are rewarded for the number of people they get off the welfare rolls, rather than current policies that reward them for bringing more people onto those rolls. The stated goal for all government social services agencies will be to work themselves out of a job, when the day comes that nobody needs them anymore. Perhaps that would be achievable someday and the charitable organizations could meet all of the needs of the relative few who hit a string of bad luck.
Addiction treatment would be an important component in freeing up welfare moms so they can hold down a job. Although I'm not a fan of daycare, it would also need to be a component in removing one of the biggest obstacles to welfare moms taking a job.
It is past time to stop the nonsense of the popular culture, which encourages irresponsible behavior that leads people to illegitimacy. Leaders, churches, and schools must be united in spreading a positive message to everyone that our best chance for a happy and prosperous life is to find and marry someone for life and become partners in raising smart and successfuly children.
There is a category of people that need outside assistance to survive. That category is the physically and mentally disabled. Our government has turned the mentally disabled out and closed their hospitals, causing chaos. (Evidenced by just about all of the mass shootings we keep hearing about, for example). My preference would be to see the churches and charities band together to take care of these folks when their families cannot. But I wouldn't raise a fuss if the government decided to re-open the mental hospitals for the low-functioning people who will never be able to live independently. And of course the physically disabled deserve whatever help we can provide them.
This is a multi-generational problem that was begun by Lyndon Johnson. It was only briefly solved in Clinton's second term and through the Bush years, but now has reverted back to the dysfunction we see today. It can be resolved, but not until we elect people smart and principled enough to enact the right solutions.
Sunday, August 25, 2013
If I Made the Rules - Part 8: Education
The case can be made and has been made by many that many of our country's most serious problems can be traced to a root cause which is the dismal failure that is our education system. Liberals propose solutions that involve ever-increasing intervention by the Federal Government, plus of course throwing lots more money at the teachers. Republicans (which I'm purposely separating from Conservatives on this issue) seem to like testing and grading as a tool to shame poor-performing schools to turn things around "or else".
I come from a family of teachers, and must reluctantly admit to having been a teacher once a long time ago. This is a topic I think I'm qualified to address, and let me start by stating that Republicans and Democrats are both wrong. Certainly my teacher friends and family would happily accept more money, but even they would have to admit that just paying them more won't solve the intransigent problems in our schools.
What everyone must come to realize is that our schools reflect us. Kids don't learn because their parents don't value their education. So let's start with the lower levels and work our way up.
I entered elementary school in the 60's. It was so exciting for me to start with half-day Kindergarten at age 5. But only 2 months into the school year, we moved across town to the more prosperous and growing side, where the elementary school had not yet begun to offer Kindergarten. So my parents let me go to my old Kindergarten class' Halloween party, then I waited impatiently the rest of the school year to turn 6 and be allowed to enter my new school as a first grader.
My elementary education was excellent, at least from my memory. Every subject challenged me. I was pretty much average within my class. I was below average in Math and Science. I was horrible in Handwriting and Art Class. But I excelled at Reading and Spelling, and won all my class spelling bees.
What actually took me by surprise was the fact that as I moved up into Junior High (it wasn't called Middle School in those days) and High School, I found myself ascending steadily to the top of the class in most subjects. Except Science and Art, both of which remained elusive and mysterious to me the rest of my life - I wouldn't be any good at Art still today, although I like to think I might be able to pass a Science class by now.
Why did I become a top-flight college-bound student, while so many of my classmates faded well behind? I think the answer is very simple: because my parents cared, and consequently I also cared. So many of my classmates had no parental pressure to succeed, or the parental pressure was more focused on athletic pursuits. Sure, I was an athlete, and also a band member.
So by high school, I felt a bit like a freak. Our school had distinct social groups; the jocks, the band, the eggheads, the hoods, and the heads. In case you aren't familiar with the lingo, I'll translate in the same order: Athletes, Musicians, Geeks, Delinquents, and Hippies.
The reason I thought I was a freak was that I belonged to multiple groups. I was a member of the jocks, band, and eggheads. Although I didn't hang out much with hoods or heads, I sometimes felt more welcome among them than among the jocks. The social rules were puzzling, and very difficult to navigate for me as an adolescent teenager. I'm sure many people wish they had been less concerned with being "cool" during those years - I know if I had the self-confidence to just be myself, I would have been much happier.
What does all this have to do with education? That's the best question. It has nothing to do with education. And everything. It means that kids are more influenced by their peers than by any adults. So being a member of the band, egghead, and to a lesser degree the jocks group meant I was destined for college. The other groups didn't stand a chance. What's unique is that with few exceptions, these groups were all insular. You belonged to one, not several. Yes, there were a handful of jocks in the band, but many of the other guys disdained the company of their fellow band members. Yet as far as I can recall, there were no other jocks in the egghead group. It must have been some kind of social suicide for a jock to be seen with the eggheads - perhaps that partly explains my feeling of being a freakish exception. Your group affiliation determined your future.
So in the early 70's while I was in high school, the hippies became our teachers. And they were strange people who introduced us to strange ideas. Not the math and science teachers, of course - they remained the same nerdy guys with pocket-protectors they always have been. But the other teachers did weird stuff: They started wearing jeans and tie-dyed t-shirts to class. They were using modern slang and trying to be our friends rather than our teachers. They tried to influence us to always question authority, disrespect our parents and especially politicians and administrators, and abandon our parents' stodgy old religion.
In the meantime, I coasted through high school. Nothing was hard, except my Chemistry class, in which I was lost from day one and never did figure out how to understand that old periodic table. I had a couple of outstanding teachers though, one math and the other English literature and composition. They actually forced me to apply myself to find and use my brain, and I'll always be thankful to both of them.
What if we could deliver children to our schools who are ready to learn and excited to learn? What if behavior problems could be all but eliminated? What if we eradicated drugs and assault and sexual behavior and make our schools safe for all students? What if we could influence social groups to become less exclusive and made up of a majority of kids who really want to learn?
It starts with rebuilding the family. Many of the things I talk about in the other chapters are focused on that fundamental solution. Other solutions like mentoring programs and the adult education that might be offered in my post titled "Life Academy" can help rebuild the family. Every child must have the message hammered into them on a daily basis - "Knowledge is power". Kids need to be indoctrinated to a single theme - if you want to be successful in life, learn as much as you possibly can in school.
I favor breaking up the mega-schools and going back to neighborhood schools. When the "experts" proclaimed that we needed to build these huge schools and close the little neighborhood and small-town schools, they said it would provide efficiency and improve the education experience. I don't think it did either, and we all have seen the depths to which educational outcomes have sunk. Why should schools be public? Let's encourage lots of private schools as well. I'm a Voucher fan when they provide an escape route for children stuck in failing public schools.
Implement innovation in education, using technology and the Internet to deliver content and turn the focus of schools from rigid classroom education to a varied experience that we can measure by how much kids learned, not how good they are at raising their hand to be recognized by the teacher to speak.
Stop marching kids in lockstep with their class. If a kid is advanced in English but a bit behind in Math, let her skip to the next level English class and fall back to the next lower level Math class. Graduation needs to mean you've met the requirements - if you meet them at age 16, you graduate at 16. If it takes you until age 19, you graduate at 19. Partner with community colleges to let the advanced students get started with their college career while they're finishing high school.
Most of all, make the primary mission of each and every teacher in each and every school to get their children inspired to learn. Then just give them the resources and guidance and help them learn!
I come from a family of teachers, and must reluctantly admit to having been a teacher once a long time ago. This is a topic I think I'm qualified to address, and let me start by stating that Republicans and Democrats are both wrong. Certainly my teacher friends and family would happily accept more money, but even they would have to admit that just paying them more won't solve the intransigent problems in our schools.
What everyone must come to realize is that our schools reflect us. Kids don't learn because their parents don't value their education. So let's start with the lower levels and work our way up.
I entered elementary school in the 60's. It was so exciting for me to start with half-day Kindergarten at age 5. But only 2 months into the school year, we moved across town to the more prosperous and growing side, where the elementary school had not yet begun to offer Kindergarten. So my parents let me go to my old Kindergarten class' Halloween party, then I waited impatiently the rest of the school year to turn 6 and be allowed to enter my new school as a first grader.
My elementary education was excellent, at least from my memory. Every subject challenged me. I was pretty much average within my class. I was below average in Math and Science. I was horrible in Handwriting and Art Class. But I excelled at Reading and Spelling, and won all my class spelling bees.
What actually took me by surprise was the fact that as I moved up into Junior High (it wasn't called Middle School in those days) and High School, I found myself ascending steadily to the top of the class in most subjects. Except Science and Art, both of which remained elusive and mysterious to me the rest of my life - I wouldn't be any good at Art still today, although I like to think I might be able to pass a Science class by now.
Why did I become a top-flight college-bound student, while so many of my classmates faded well behind? I think the answer is very simple: because my parents cared, and consequently I also cared. So many of my classmates had no parental pressure to succeed, or the parental pressure was more focused on athletic pursuits. Sure, I was an athlete, and also a band member.
So by high school, I felt a bit like a freak. Our school had distinct social groups; the jocks, the band, the eggheads, the hoods, and the heads. In case you aren't familiar with the lingo, I'll translate in the same order: Athletes, Musicians, Geeks, Delinquents, and Hippies.
The reason I thought I was a freak was that I belonged to multiple groups. I was a member of the jocks, band, and eggheads. Although I didn't hang out much with hoods or heads, I sometimes felt more welcome among them than among the jocks. The social rules were puzzling, and very difficult to navigate for me as an adolescent teenager. I'm sure many people wish they had been less concerned with being "cool" during those years - I know if I had the self-confidence to just be myself, I would have been much happier.
What does all this have to do with education? That's the best question. It has nothing to do with education. And everything. It means that kids are more influenced by their peers than by any adults. So being a member of the band, egghead, and to a lesser degree the jocks group meant I was destined for college. The other groups didn't stand a chance. What's unique is that with few exceptions, these groups were all insular. You belonged to one, not several. Yes, there were a handful of jocks in the band, but many of the other guys disdained the company of their fellow band members. Yet as far as I can recall, there were no other jocks in the egghead group. It must have been some kind of social suicide for a jock to be seen with the eggheads - perhaps that partly explains my feeling of being a freakish exception. Your group affiliation determined your future.
So in the early 70's while I was in high school, the hippies became our teachers. And they were strange people who introduced us to strange ideas. Not the math and science teachers, of course - they remained the same nerdy guys with pocket-protectors they always have been. But the other teachers did weird stuff: They started wearing jeans and tie-dyed t-shirts to class. They were using modern slang and trying to be our friends rather than our teachers. They tried to influence us to always question authority, disrespect our parents and especially politicians and administrators, and abandon our parents' stodgy old religion.
In the meantime, I coasted through high school. Nothing was hard, except my Chemistry class, in which I was lost from day one and never did figure out how to understand that old periodic table. I had a couple of outstanding teachers though, one math and the other English literature and composition. They actually forced me to apply myself to find and use my brain, and I'll always be thankful to both of them.
What if we could deliver children to our schools who are ready to learn and excited to learn? What if behavior problems could be all but eliminated? What if we eradicated drugs and assault and sexual behavior and make our schools safe for all students? What if we could influence social groups to become less exclusive and made up of a majority of kids who really want to learn?
It starts with rebuilding the family. Many of the things I talk about in the other chapters are focused on that fundamental solution. Other solutions like mentoring programs and the adult education that might be offered in my post titled "Life Academy" can help rebuild the family. Every child must have the message hammered into them on a daily basis - "Knowledge is power". Kids need to be indoctrinated to a single theme - if you want to be successful in life, learn as much as you possibly can in school.
I favor breaking up the mega-schools and going back to neighborhood schools. When the "experts" proclaimed that we needed to build these huge schools and close the little neighborhood and small-town schools, they said it would provide efficiency and improve the education experience. I don't think it did either, and we all have seen the depths to which educational outcomes have sunk. Why should schools be public? Let's encourage lots of private schools as well. I'm a Voucher fan when they provide an escape route for children stuck in failing public schools.
Implement innovation in education, using technology and the Internet to deliver content and turn the focus of schools from rigid classroom education to a varied experience that we can measure by how much kids learned, not how good they are at raising their hand to be recognized by the teacher to speak.
Stop marching kids in lockstep with their class. If a kid is advanced in English but a bit behind in Math, let her skip to the next level English class and fall back to the next lower level Math class. Graduation needs to mean you've met the requirements - if you meet them at age 16, you graduate at 16. If it takes you until age 19, you graduate at 19. Partner with community colleges to let the advanced students get started with their college career while they're finishing high school.
Most of all, make the primary mission of each and every teacher in each and every school to get their children inspired to learn. Then just give them the resources and guidance and help them learn!
Saturday, August 24, 2013
If I Made the Rules - Part 7: Energy
I was a fifth grader when we saw a film about our cooling planet. Scientists were predicting that an Ice Age was on the way within the next 20 years. Because of course humans were putting so many contaminants in the air that they were blocking the sun's rays. And right around that time the scientists were reporting that our average temperatures were cooling.
Sound familiar? Only this time those contaminants we humans keep pumping into the air aren't bringing a new Ice Age - this time they're giving the planet a "fever", at least according to the eminent climate scientist Al Gore.
We also were treated to frequent film strips telling us about overpopulation. Why, if we didn't stop having so many children, the billions of people on the planet would strip it bare of resources.
When I graduated from High School, gas prices were climbing at the pump. We had already experienced the first OPEC oil embargo, which turned out to be sort of a dry run for the new association of middle eastern countries. OPEC was formed by those countries who had nationalized their energy companies and sent their sons to be educated in American universities. Those sons went home and helped their dictator fathers collaborate with the other dictatorships in oil-producing nations to control production in order to drive up prices and make them rich.
Fast-forward to today. American companies have figured out how to get oil out of massive shale deposits in the Dakotas, and the Canadians are producing massive amounts of oil just to the north. So a pipeline was recently proposed to pump the crude down to refineries on the Gulf of Mexico. Unfortunately, we elected a president who is a soldier for the cause of eliminating fossil fuels as a source of energy. Either he is incredibly naive to think we can power our homes and factories and cars and trucks exclusively with windmills and solar panels, or (more likely) is bent on chopping America down to size, so we're no longer the world's economic powerhouse.
The president has also padlocked all public lands, where in several cases there lie vast untapped energy reserves. He has also ordered his EPA to issue draconian regulations intended to bankrupt the coal industry, which has traditionally provided the majority of electric power to the country. I don't think he's doing all that because he's stupid - rather I'm pretty well convinced he's doing it because he wants to destroy America's wealth and make sure we are no longer a world superpower.
So if I'm in charge, obviously I'd open up public lands for oil exploration, especially ANWR in Alaska. I'd immediately approve the pipeline, and use it to carry Canadian crude as well as the crude from the Dakotas to refineries. I'd flood the market with American oil, effectively neutering OPEC once and for all. I'd reverse all of the Obama regulations on coal, but work hard to find ways to work with the industry to make "clean coal technologies" affordable to keep the pollution levels from rising to those being experienced in China today.
I'd also cut the Federal fuel tax rates and encourage states to do the same. Ordinary Americans need lower gas prices at the pump so they can afford to drive themselves to work every day. We need to make work a better choice than welfare (and unemployment) once again.
Something Obama may or may not understand is that energy drives commerce. We need as much cheap energy as we can produce to transport goods, transport ourselves to work, heat and cool our homes, and run our factories. It's time to stop abusing our rights to cheap energy.
It's also well past time to bring the hammer down on monopolies. Most of our oil production is relegated to about 2 or 3 global companies that earn more than most countries each year. It's time to bring competition back to the marketplace. We need to bring antitrust suits against these mega-companies and break them up. We need to lower the barriers to entry into the marketplace to encourage more competitors to enter.
Ultimately, these are the steps that will bring American prosperity back and improve the lives of every American. The president is on precisely the wrong path, which is already proving disastrous to the American standard of living.
Sound familiar? Only this time those contaminants we humans keep pumping into the air aren't bringing a new Ice Age - this time they're giving the planet a "fever", at least according to the eminent climate scientist Al Gore.
We also were treated to frequent film strips telling us about overpopulation. Why, if we didn't stop having so many children, the billions of people on the planet would strip it bare of resources.
When I graduated from High School, gas prices were climbing at the pump. We had already experienced the first OPEC oil embargo, which turned out to be sort of a dry run for the new association of middle eastern countries. OPEC was formed by those countries who had nationalized their energy companies and sent their sons to be educated in American universities. Those sons went home and helped their dictator fathers collaborate with the other dictatorships in oil-producing nations to control production in order to drive up prices and make them rich.
Fast-forward to today. American companies have figured out how to get oil out of massive shale deposits in the Dakotas, and the Canadians are producing massive amounts of oil just to the north. So a pipeline was recently proposed to pump the crude down to refineries on the Gulf of Mexico. Unfortunately, we elected a president who is a soldier for the cause of eliminating fossil fuels as a source of energy. Either he is incredibly naive to think we can power our homes and factories and cars and trucks exclusively with windmills and solar panels, or (more likely) is bent on chopping America down to size, so we're no longer the world's economic powerhouse.
The president has also padlocked all public lands, where in several cases there lie vast untapped energy reserves. He has also ordered his EPA to issue draconian regulations intended to bankrupt the coal industry, which has traditionally provided the majority of electric power to the country. I don't think he's doing all that because he's stupid - rather I'm pretty well convinced he's doing it because he wants to destroy America's wealth and make sure we are no longer a world superpower.
So if I'm in charge, obviously I'd open up public lands for oil exploration, especially ANWR in Alaska. I'd immediately approve the pipeline, and use it to carry Canadian crude as well as the crude from the Dakotas to refineries. I'd flood the market with American oil, effectively neutering OPEC once and for all. I'd reverse all of the Obama regulations on coal, but work hard to find ways to work with the industry to make "clean coal technologies" affordable to keep the pollution levels from rising to those being experienced in China today.
I'd also cut the Federal fuel tax rates and encourage states to do the same. Ordinary Americans need lower gas prices at the pump so they can afford to drive themselves to work every day. We need to make work a better choice than welfare (and unemployment) once again.
Something Obama may or may not understand is that energy drives commerce. We need as much cheap energy as we can produce to transport goods, transport ourselves to work, heat and cool our homes, and run our factories. It's time to stop abusing our rights to cheap energy.
It's also well past time to bring the hammer down on monopolies. Most of our oil production is relegated to about 2 or 3 global companies that earn more than most countries each year. It's time to bring competition back to the marketplace. We need to bring antitrust suits against these mega-companies and break them up. We need to lower the barriers to entry into the marketplace to encourage more competitors to enter.
Ultimately, these are the steps that will bring American prosperity back and improve the lives of every American. The president is on precisely the wrong path, which is already proving disastrous to the American standard of living.
Tuesday, August 20, 2013
If I Made the Rules - Part 6: Liberal Social Priorities
I heard a liberal somewhere recently proclaim that the most important issue in America today is the right to Gay Marriage. Liberals also fight with a sort of religious zeal the "right" to abortion. President Obama himself often extolls his belief that every citizen has the "right" to healthcare.
Throughout the entire history of mankind, nearly every civilization has supported the institution of marriage. And until the second millenium after Jesus Christ, there has never been a historical account of a single civilization creating a new definition of marriage other than the one we've all understood. One man, one woman, make babies, have a family, raise your family to carry on your civil society.
OK, there have been civilizations where powerful and wealthy men maintained multiple wives. Solomon sounds like he just might have been the most prolific husband in recorded history, with too many wives to count. But even the Romans, who were reputed by their own historians to dally with young boys often, never proposed laws to recognize "marriage" with the boys.
So the homosexual activists of today are rather touchy about the fact that Christianity frowns on their activities. They want to force people to accept their behavior as perfectly normal, or perhaps even laudable. Homosexuals are no different from pedophiles or bisexuals or polyamorists or bigamists. They are just as able to rein in their desires as the others, they just want special treatment that they don't necessarily advocate for them. It's not about your desires, it's about whether you choose to act on them.
Just from personal observation, I have been noticing that homosexual males cultivate their look to approximate a 12 year old boy. Strangely enough, it seems that many lesbian women seem to be going for the same look. Hmm. It would seem that it is very dangerous out there these days for 12 year old boys.
Anyway, they don't want to get married. I just saw a speech online given by a lesbian activist who openly admitted that fact. She doesn't care about marriage, she cares about the destruction of the religious institution called "marriage". Getting the state to recognize same-sex marriage cheapens the institution to the point where nobody will want to get married. It's already happening.
The irrefutable fact is that we do permanant damage to children when we destroy the insitution of marriage. And we can't lay all the blame on the homosexuals. Epidemic levels of divorce has done plenty to destroy the institution without their help. Men and women, some of whom I've known over the years, treat their solemn and holy marital vows as irrelevant to their own feelings and pursuit of happiness.
When people get bored with their partner, they throw out that vow that promised "till death do us part" and found somebody else. Divorce is so common it resembles high school kids "breaking up" with their girlfriend/boyfriend in order to move onto a new flame. The only problem is that the spouse he's broken up with is the mother of his two or three children. While he's messing around with his exciting new squeeze, the ex-wife is raising children who (rightly) believe their Dad has abandoned them.
If I'm in charge, all talk of gay marriage ends. If homosexuals want to go out in the woods and make promises to each other in front of some Pagan priestess and call themselves married, that's none of my business. Just don't make me pay taxes to provide them with health insurance or survivor benefits or spousal social security.
Divorce becomes much more difficult. "No-Fault" divorces come to an abrupt end. If one or the other spouse wants a divorce so he or she can hook up with somebody new, fine - take the clothes on your back, maybe your car so you can get to work, and start over from scratch. The innocent spouse gets everything, including custody of the children.
If both spouses want to divorce for other reasons, then an equal division of property is appropriate. If the spouse filing for divorce is doing so because they caught the other partner in adultery, the cuckolded spouse gets to decide how much property the court may grant to the other.
Non-custodial spouses never are free of their financial responsibilities to their children. Child Support must be imposed on every non-custodial spouse, but must be tailored to the paying spouse's level of income. It seems reasonable to me that child support payments should have a cap of no more than half of the non-custodial spouse's income. Details could be worked out, but the basic principle stands.
Abortion should never have become the law of the land and should be illegal. Just to head off the common arguments focusing on a tiny percentage of abortions, those exceptions are open to discussion. Rape, pregnancies that endanger the life and/or health of the mother, and other such arguments can be resolved. If we could somehow move beyond the abortion-on-demand reality of today, I'd be more than happy to engage in negotiations over the rare exceptions.
What if we had a country (or world) where most people got married and stayed married? What if they had children and raised them with actual moral values and a sense of responsibility and a sound work ethic? What if we rewarded responsible behavior and discouraged irresponsible behavior? Just imagine how safe and prosperous we would be.
Throughout the entire history of mankind, nearly every civilization has supported the institution of marriage. And until the second millenium after Jesus Christ, there has never been a historical account of a single civilization creating a new definition of marriage other than the one we've all understood. One man, one woman, make babies, have a family, raise your family to carry on your civil society.
OK, there have been civilizations where powerful and wealthy men maintained multiple wives. Solomon sounds like he just might have been the most prolific husband in recorded history, with too many wives to count. But even the Romans, who were reputed by their own historians to dally with young boys often, never proposed laws to recognize "marriage" with the boys.
So the homosexual activists of today are rather touchy about the fact that Christianity frowns on their activities. They want to force people to accept their behavior as perfectly normal, or perhaps even laudable. Homosexuals are no different from pedophiles or bisexuals or polyamorists or bigamists. They are just as able to rein in their desires as the others, they just want special treatment that they don't necessarily advocate for them. It's not about your desires, it's about whether you choose to act on them.
Just from personal observation, I have been noticing that homosexual males cultivate their look to approximate a 12 year old boy. Strangely enough, it seems that many lesbian women seem to be going for the same look. Hmm. It would seem that it is very dangerous out there these days for 12 year old boys.
Anyway, they don't want to get married. I just saw a speech online given by a lesbian activist who openly admitted that fact. She doesn't care about marriage, she cares about the destruction of the religious institution called "marriage". Getting the state to recognize same-sex marriage cheapens the institution to the point where nobody will want to get married. It's already happening.
The irrefutable fact is that we do permanant damage to children when we destroy the insitution of marriage. And we can't lay all the blame on the homosexuals. Epidemic levels of divorce has done plenty to destroy the institution without their help. Men and women, some of whom I've known over the years, treat their solemn and holy marital vows as irrelevant to their own feelings and pursuit of happiness.
When people get bored with their partner, they throw out that vow that promised "till death do us part" and found somebody else. Divorce is so common it resembles high school kids "breaking up" with their girlfriend/boyfriend in order to move onto a new flame. The only problem is that the spouse he's broken up with is the mother of his two or three children. While he's messing around with his exciting new squeeze, the ex-wife is raising children who (rightly) believe their Dad has abandoned them.
If I'm in charge, all talk of gay marriage ends. If homosexuals want to go out in the woods and make promises to each other in front of some Pagan priestess and call themselves married, that's none of my business. Just don't make me pay taxes to provide them with health insurance or survivor benefits or spousal social security.
Divorce becomes much more difficult. "No-Fault" divorces come to an abrupt end. If one or the other spouse wants a divorce so he or she can hook up with somebody new, fine - take the clothes on your back, maybe your car so you can get to work, and start over from scratch. The innocent spouse gets everything, including custody of the children.
If both spouses want to divorce for other reasons, then an equal division of property is appropriate. If the spouse filing for divorce is doing so because they caught the other partner in adultery, the cuckolded spouse gets to decide how much property the court may grant to the other.
Non-custodial spouses never are free of their financial responsibilities to their children. Child Support must be imposed on every non-custodial spouse, but must be tailored to the paying spouse's level of income. It seems reasonable to me that child support payments should have a cap of no more than half of the non-custodial spouse's income. Details could be worked out, but the basic principle stands.
Abortion should never have become the law of the land and should be illegal. Just to head off the common arguments focusing on a tiny percentage of abortions, those exceptions are open to discussion. Rape, pregnancies that endanger the life and/or health of the mother, and other such arguments can be resolved. If we could somehow move beyond the abortion-on-demand reality of today, I'd be more than happy to engage in negotiations over the rare exceptions.
What if we had a country (or world) where most people got married and stayed married? What if they had children and raised them with actual moral values and a sense of responsibility and a sound work ethic? What if we rewarded responsible behavior and discouraged irresponsible behavior? Just imagine how safe and prosperous we would be.
Monday, August 19, 2013
If I Made the Rules - Part 5: Church and State
The United States of America was founded as a place people could come to escape religious persecution. The Founding Fathers enshrined freedom of religion in the very first amendment in the Bill of Rights. But the Athiestic Communists from the Left have been chipping away at that freedom for 50 years, and are on the cusp of turning America into just another state where people are not free to practice their religion.
Europeans flocked to America when their small start-up Protestant sects were suppressed by the holy mother Catholic church. In an unfortunate and dark period of history, the bishops often wielded more power than the elected officials across the former Roman empire. That meant they became corrupt, driving a priest named Martin Luther to rebel.
As the corrupt bishops felt their power slipping through their fingers with the popularity of Lutheranism, lots of other protesting folks broke away to found their own churches independent of Rome. My own ancestry research uncovered the suggestion that my Great times 8 Grandfather Johan may have emigrated from Alsace, France to New York City in 1709 to escape the Church's persecution. Family members were jailed and their property confiscated because they had committed the mortal sin of abandoning the Holy Catholic Church to join a start-up Protestant Anabaptist Church.
What liberals did years ago was dig up an old letter penned by Thomas Jefferson, from which they grabbed an out-of-context phrase "wall of separation between church and state". They trumpeted that phrase and dishonestly claimed it meant that there can be no expression of faith in any public forum. So bible lessons and prayer were outlawed from the schools. Attempts continue to be made frequently to outlaw prayer from city council meetings, eliminate the ten commandments from courtrooms and courthouse lawns, and silence those who might dare to pray before school sporting events or at commencement ceremonies.
What most Americans do not know today is that the original intent of the First Amendment, supported fully by Jefferson himself despite the misused phrase from his letter, was to eliminate the direct interference of religious organizations with governing. It doesn't mean we can't pray in public or at public gatherings, but it does mean we can't pass laws that give special recognition to Methodists over Presbyterians. We can't levy a ten percent tithe from each citizen to go directly into the coffers of the Mennonites. We will not allow a priest, bishop, or minister to sit beside the President, Governor, Mayor, or other elected official to tell him (or her) what the church demands be done on a given topic.
If you object to a prayer being said before a football game, tune it out and say your own prayer by yourself. If you don't like the ten commandments monument on the courthouse lawn, petition to post the principles of your own religion in the town square. I think that anytime somebody doesn't like somebody else's free speech, the answer isn't to try to silence them, but to speak out with one's own free speech.
We now have a government that is violating that most sacred of constitutional rights by telling citizens we no longer have the right to our own conscience. Despite the fact that millions of Catholics feel strongly that contraceptive and abortifacient drugs are a chemical form of infanticide, Obamacare now forces them to pay for those drugs to provide them for free to anyone who wants them. That's a clear first amendment violation.
Gay Marriage is becoming the law of the land. The Supreme Court begged homosexual activists to bring another case asking to impose it as a brand new institution for all of America so they could dictate its implementation nationwide. This too is a violation of first amendment rights.
The imposition of homosexual marriage "rights" is already leading to oppression of people of faith who refuse to participate. In those states that have already legalized homosexual marriage, businesspersons are being sued for discrimination for turning away business from same-sex couples planning weddings. Soon the clergy will be sued, and I believe the day is fast approaching when priests and pastors will be jailed for refusing to perform marriage ceremonies for homosexuals.
Atheist educators everywhere can be found extolling their goal of purging all religion from society by teaching our children that there is no God. They've been engaged in that crusade since at least the 70's, and have all but succeeded. God has turned his back on the United States, and we are beginning to experience the inevitable suffering that comes once God has abandoned a people.
If I made the rules, faith would be encouraged across the land. While I would not allow any particular sect to gain control and pass laws for their own benefit, I would make sure all people of faith have the ability to express their faith wherever and whenever they wish.
What about Muslims and wierd religions, you might ask? Muslims should enjoy exactly the same freedom of religious expression as anyone. As long as they aren't sending their followers out to blow up buildings and kill other citizens, something that would not be tolerated. And Muslims may not convert anyone to their faith by force, no matter what the Prophet said.
Even religions I do not appreciate, like pagans and witches and even those misguided few who worship Satan, have the right to practice their religion. But again, if the practice of their religion includes murdering of others or animal sacrifice or other destructive behavior, they will be prosecuted. Not prosecuted for their faith, but for their antisocial behaviors.
I've found that the atheists who scream loudest about tolerance seem to be the most intolerant. They tend to be easily offended by anyone who even mildly mentions God in their presence. Especially anyone who might attempt to proselytize in their presence gets especially vilified. When will they realize that Christianity is a religion based on a personal conversion to the faith, and each individual has the right to choose to join or stay away?
Perhaps the atheist's desire to eliminate Christians overcomes any inclination to understand them.
Europeans flocked to America when their small start-up Protestant sects were suppressed by the holy mother Catholic church. In an unfortunate and dark period of history, the bishops often wielded more power than the elected officials across the former Roman empire. That meant they became corrupt, driving a priest named Martin Luther to rebel.
As the corrupt bishops felt their power slipping through their fingers with the popularity of Lutheranism, lots of other protesting folks broke away to found their own churches independent of Rome. My own ancestry research uncovered the suggestion that my Great times 8 Grandfather Johan may have emigrated from Alsace, France to New York City in 1709 to escape the Church's persecution. Family members were jailed and their property confiscated because they had committed the mortal sin of abandoning the Holy Catholic Church to join a start-up Protestant Anabaptist Church.
What liberals did years ago was dig up an old letter penned by Thomas Jefferson, from which they grabbed an out-of-context phrase "wall of separation between church and state". They trumpeted that phrase and dishonestly claimed it meant that there can be no expression of faith in any public forum. So bible lessons and prayer were outlawed from the schools. Attempts continue to be made frequently to outlaw prayer from city council meetings, eliminate the ten commandments from courtrooms and courthouse lawns, and silence those who might dare to pray before school sporting events or at commencement ceremonies.
What most Americans do not know today is that the original intent of the First Amendment, supported fully by Jefferson himself despite the misused phrase from his letter, was to eliminate the direct interference of religious organizations with governing. It doesn't mean we can't pray in public or at public gatherings, but it does mean we can't pass laws that give special recognition to Methodists over Presbyterians. We can't levy a ten percent tithe from each citizen to go directly into the coffers of the Mennonites. We will not allow a priest, bishop, or minister to sit beside the President, Governor, Mayor, or other elected official to tell him (or her) what the church demands be done on a given topic.
If you object to a prayer being said before a football game, tune it out and say your own prayer by yourself. If you don't like the ten commandments monument on the courthouse lawn, petition to post the principles of your own religion in the town square. I think that anytime somebody doesn't like somebody else's free speech, the answer isn't to try to silence them, but to speak out with one's own free speech.
We now have a government that is violating that most sacred of constitutional rights by telling citizens we no longer have the right to our own conscience. Despite the fact that millions of Catholics feel strongly that contraceptive and abortifacient drugs are a chemical form of infanticide, Obamacare now forces them to pay for those drugs to provide them for free to anyone who wants them. That's a clear first amendment violation.
Gay Marriage is becoming the law of the land. The Supreme Court begged homosexual activists to bring another case asking to impose it as a brand new institution for all of America so they could dictate its implementation nationwide. This too is a violation of first amendment rights.
The imposition of homosexual marriage "rights" is already leading to oppression of people of faith who refuse to participate. In those states that have already legalized homosexual marriage, businesspersons are being sued for discrimination for turning away business from same-sex couples planning weddings. Soon the clergy will be sued, and I believe the day is fast approaching when priests and pastors will be jailed for refusing to perform marriage ceremonies for homosexuals.
Atheist educators everywhere can be found extolling their goal of purging all religion from society by teaching our children that there is no God. They've been engaged in that crusade since at least the 70's, and have all but succeeded. God has turned his back on the United States, and we are beginning to experience the inevitable suffering that comes once God has abandoned a people.
If I made the rules, faith would be encouraged across the land. While I would not allow any particular sect to gain control and pass laws for their own benefit, I would make sure all people of faith have the ability to express their faith wherever and whenever they wish.
What about Muslims and wierd religions, you might ask? Muslims should enjoy exactly the same freedom of religious expression as anyone. As long as they aren't sending their followers out to blow up buildings and kill other citizens, something that would not be tolerated. And Muslims may not convert anyone to their faith by force, no matter what the Prophet said.
Even religions I do not appreciate, like pagans and witches and even those misguided few who worship Satan, have the right to practice their religion. But again, if the practice of their religion includes murdering of others or animal sacrifice or other destructive behavior, they will be prosecuted. Not prosecuted for their faith, but for their antisocial behaviors.
I've found that the atheists who scream loudest about tolerance seem to be the most intolerant. They tend to be easily offended by anyone who even mildly mentions God in their presence. Especially anyone who might attempt to proselytize in their presence gets especially vilified. When will they realize that Christianity is a religion based on a personal conversion to the faith, and each individual has the right to choose to join or stay away?
Perhaps the atheist's desire to eliminate Christians overcomes any inclination to understand them.
Tuesday, August 13, 2013
If I Made the Rules - Part 4: Foreign Policy
The most successful foreign policy I've ever seen came from Ronald Reagan. Simple and concise. "Peace through Strength". "Trust by Verify". Teddy Roosevelt's famous old line, "Speak softly and carry a big stick".
Those form the roots of the foreign policy I would support. The next President should give a speech to the world and say something like this:
"The United States of America desires your friendship. We have much to offer as an example to any country that desires to achieve the same level of freedom and prosperity that our citizens enjoy. Extend your hand to us in friendship, and you will find us the best friend you could ever hope for."
"But if you choose to be our enemy, we'll be your worst nightmare. If you choose to be America's enemy, we probably won't take military action against you unless you foolishly choose to attack us. But we will cease to trade with you and we will wield our considerable influence to see that other countries also stop visiting your ports. Abuse your own people and we'll support citizens who choose to fight for democracy in your country. Attack any of America's interests and we'll destroy you."
We need to stop propping up petty dictators and funding jihadist revolutionaries. We need to re-establish our unflagging friendship with countries like Israel and England, and seek similarly close friendships with as many other countries as possible.
We must value free AND fair trade. We must no longer be afraid to sanction China for abusing our trading relationship by stealing American technology and dumping Chinese products on the American market in order to drive out competition. We need to seek balance between imports and exports with every country in which we trade.
We must change our system of immigration to something that appropriately values and protects American jobs while still offering opportunity to talented foreign workers. It is time to stop allowing American companies to favor foreign high-tech and professional workers over our own homegrown talent.
Our military might must never become weaker than anyone else in the world. Like it or not, peace does come through strength, and we must recover that reputation we lost with the Obama administration in which rogue dictators exploit our weakness and indecisiveness.
Those form the roots of the foreign policy I would support. The next President should give a speech to the world and say something like this:
"The United States of America desires your friendship. We have much to offer as an example to any country that desires to achieve the same level of freedom and prosperity that our citizens enjoy. Extend your hand to us in friendship, and you will find us the best friend you could ever hope for."
"But if you choose to be our enemy, we'll be your worst nightmare. If you choose to be America's enemy, we probably won't take military action against you unless you foolishly choose to attack us. But we will cease to trade with you and we will wield our considerable influence to see that other countries also stop visiting your ports. Abuse your own people and we'll support citizens who choose to fight for democracy in your country. Attack any of America's interests and we'll destroy you."
We need to stop propping up petty dictators and funding jihadist revolutionaries. We need to re-establish our unflagging friendship with countries like Israel and England, and seek similarly close friendships with as many other countries as possible.
We must value free AND fair trade. We must no longer be afraid to sanction China for abusing our trading relationship by stealing American technology and dumping Chinese products on the American market in order to drive out competition. We need to seek balance between imports and exports with every country in which we trade.
We must change our system of immigration to something that appropriately values and protects American jobs while still offering opportunity to talented foreign workers. It is time to stop allowing American companies to favor foreign high-tech and professional workers over our own homegrown talent.
Our military might must never become weaker than anyone else in the world. Like it or not, peace does come through strength, and we must recover that reputation we lost with the Obama administration in which rogue dictators exploit our weakness and indecisiveness.
Monday, August 12, 2013
If I Made the Rules - Part 3: Taxes
The argument about taxes is nearly always about "fair share". Mostly Democrats insisting that the rich are getting a free pass, and not paying their "fair share".
I don't hear enough of the question, "fair share of what?".
My proposal is that arguing about fair share is putting the cart before the horse. The first discussion needs to be about the proper role of government, including Federal, State, and Local. Hate to break it to you folks, but the Constitution already settled that question; the problem is, the Federal government hasn't applied the constitution to tax policy since before Franklin Delano Roosevelt was president.
So let's start there. It might require a number of years to get there, but it's way past time to begin rolling back all of those unconstitutional agencies now operating in Washington, DC. Department of Education, Department of Health and Human Services, Department of Agriculture, Environmental Protection Agency, Corporation for Public Broadcasting, Endowment for the Arts, Department of Energy, and so on. Just phase them out over time.
To the extent the people decide they need and want a government-run organization to serve some purpose, let them petition their State Legislature. Agriculture, for example, can be much better managed at the state level, which would allow each state's organization to fit its programs with the needs of their own farmers. Education has always been and should return to a locally administered program. The federal government simply is the wrong place for most of these agencies to build their massive, one-size-fits-all bureaucracies.
Then I'd go with a simple flat tax. Once our Federal Government is returned to only those activities allowed it by the constitution, figure out the annual budget and divide by the annual GDP to get the tax rate. OK, if we must, we can extend an exemption from income tax at a floor of, say, $20K. But I would prefer to throw away the graduated tax rates that are designed to soak the rich.
You know, I'd even be willing to compromise on the progressive tax system as long as the Left reciprocates by agreeing to transition the federal government back to only its constitutionally authorized activities. But the top rate can't ever exceed 1/3 of any individual's earnings.
I've looked at the "Fair Tax", which is a tempting alternative. It's basically a national sales tax. But I can't figure out how they enforce it without turning the government into an uber-intrusive tax collector prying into all of our private transactions. So I'm more of a flat tax guy.
The current tax code is the first bit of evidence presented on behalf of the prosecution that the federal government is hopelessly corrupt. The tax code is thousands of pages containing tax exemptions and credits and deductions targeted at specific individuals and corporations in return for their continued financial backing of the congressperson who anonymously wrote the exception into the unwieldy code. If we achieve nothing else, slicing all of that graft out of the tax code would be a tremendous accomplishment.
Wouldn't it be terrific if every one of us filed our annual tax return on a postcard? Here's how much I made this year, and here's how much tax I paid in. Here's my calculated 15 or 20 percent (whatever the rate ends up to be), and I am sending a check for the difference. Or the government owes me a refund of my overpayment. Done.
Perhaps the most important part of my proposed solution needs to be mentioned here. If necessary, use a Constitutional Amendment that says something like this:
No tax assessment, credit, reduction, or any other type of adjustment can be applied to any individual or organization without it being applied or available to all individuals or organizations. The effect of this constitutional requirement would be that congress would be specifically precluded from giving tax breaks to their friends and supporters. Likewise it would stop legislators from levying punishing taxes on individuals or industries (i.e. Oil Companies) they don't like.
I could see this leveling the playing field in all aspects of tax preferences that occur around the country. State and local governments would no longer be allowed to bribe companies to locate into their area with tax abatements. Professional sports teams will no longer be able to extort money and expensive stadium projects from their host cities with the threat they may move the team to a more generous city.
The fundamental policy is simply this: Everybody pays the same rate, everybody is subject to the same laws, and nobody can get preferential treatment nor be punished for belonging to an industry that's out of favor with the party in power.
I don't hear enough of the question, "fair share of what?".
My proposal is that arguing about fair share is putting the cart before the horse. The first discussion needs to be about the proper role of government, including Federal, State, and Local. Hate to break it to you folks, but the Constitution already settled that question; the problem is, the Federal government hasn't applied the constitution to tax policy since before Franklin Delano Roosevelt was president.
So let's start there. It might require a number of years to get there, but it's way past time to begin rolling back all of those unconstitutional agencies now operating in Washington, DC. Department of Education, Department of Health and Human Services, Department of Agriculture, Environmental Protection Agency, Corporation for Public Broadcasting, Endowment for the Arts, Department of Energy, and so on. Just phase them out over time.
To the extent the people decide they need and want a government-run organization to serve some purpose, let them petition their State Legislature. Agriculture, for example, can be much better managed at the state level, which would allow each state's organization to fit its programs with the needs of their own farmers. Education has always been and should return to a locally administered program. The federal government simply is the wrong place for most of these agencies to build their massive, one-size-fits-all bureaucracies.
Then I'd go with a simple flat tax. Once our Federal Government is returned to only those activities allowed it by the constitution, figure out the annual budget and divide by the annual GDP to get the tax rate. OK, if we must, we can extend an exemption from income tax at a floor of, say, $20K. But I would prefer to throw away the graduated tax rates that are designed to soak the rich.
You know, I'd even be willing to compromise on the progressive tax system as long as the Left reciprocates by agreeing to transition the federal government back to only its constitutionally authorized activities. But the top rate can't ever exceed 1/3 of any individual's earnings.
I've looked at the "Fair Tax", which is a tempting alternative. It's basically a national sales tax. But I can't figure out how they enforce it without turning the government into an uber-intrusive tax collector prying into all of our private transactions. So I'm more of a flat tax guy.
The current tax code is the first bit of evidence presented on behalf of the prosecution that the federal government is hopelessly corrupt. The tax code is thousands of pages containing tax exemptions and credits and deductions targeted at specific individuals and corporations in return for their continued financial backing of the congressperson who anonymously wrote the exception into the unwieldy code. If we achieve nothing else, slicing all of that graft out of the tax code would be a tremendous accomplishment.
Wouldn't it be terrific if every one of us filed our annual tax return on a postcard? Here's how much I made this year, and here's how much tax I paid in. Here's my calculated 15 or 20 percent (whatever the rate ends up to be), and I am sending a check for the difference. Or the government owes me a refund of my overpayment. Done.
Perhaps the most important part of my proposed solution needs to be mentioned here. If necessary, use a Constitutional Amendment that says something like this:
No tax assessment, credit, reduction, or any other type of adjustment can be applied to any individual or organization without it being applied or available to all individuals or organizations. The effect of this constitutional requirement would be that congress would be specifically precluded from giving tax breaks to their friends and supporters. Likewise it would stop legislators from levying punishing taxes on individuals or industries (i.e. Oil Companies) they don't like.
I could see this leveling the playing field in all aspects of tax preferences that occur around the country. State and local governments would no longer be allowed to bribe companies to locate into their area with tax abatements. Professional sports teams will no longer be able to extort money and expensive stadium projects from their host cities with the threat they may move the team to a more generous city.
The fundamental policy is simply this: Everybody pays the same rate, everybody is subject to the same laws, and nobody can get preferential treatment nor be punished for belonging to an industry that's out of favor with the party in power.
Sunday, August 11, 2013
If I Made the Rules - Part 2: Immigration
One of the most frustrating aspects of congressional corruption is seen in the multiple attempts they've made to contravene American sovereignty by failing to enforce immigration laws, then forcing through legislation that grants amnesty to millions of foreigners who break those laws. The unholy alliance between Democrats who see illegal immigrants as a permanent underclass beholden to Democrat politicians and Corporate interests who see illegal immigrants as a prime source of cheap labor. Meanwhile neither has the best interests of average Americans, nor the illegal immigrants themselves, at heart.
I've posted my proposal to solve the problem of illegal immigrants before in this blog. The solution is actually very simple, but only if and when politicians become willing to put aside their petty desires for power and wealth to find a truly just solution.
My solution remains the same.
First, get truly serious about protecting the border. Rather than arguing about fences, my proposal is to beef up the Border Patrol to a level that permits them to actually be effective. Give them the tools and resources they need to finally stem the flow of economic refugees streaming across the border. Supplement them with State and Local Law Enforcement, to not only assist with capturing illegal border crossing, but also detain those illegals found in the normal course of police business. Stop the unilateral policies of Obama that declared that all captured illegal immigrants be released unless they have a criminal record.
Second, enforce severe sanctions against employers who knowingly employ illegal immigrants. Simply make e-verify required rather than optional. Whenever the government receives a W2 they cannot match to a legal citizen, they simply contact the employer that generated that W2 and ask them to confirm or correct the record, in case there was a mistake. Fines should be significant, perhaps double the annual earnings of each illegal immigrant employed for the second offense, with possible jail time for company officials if they continue to get caught breaking the law.
Third, the "path to citizenship". I recognize there has to be some process created for the current millions of illegals in the country. My proposal is to contract with Employment Agencies who work closely with a group of immigration judges to go through the paperwork of everyone here illegally that wants to stay and receive a temporary work permit. The Employment Agencies work with the employers to confirm the first requirement for granting a work permit to an illegal - an employer that has agreed to employ that individual (or probably already has done so - this process must occur during a 1 year grace period in place before the full force of the employer enforcement)
The other requirements for illegals to receive a temporary work permit are as follows:
Demonstrate a baseline proficiency in spoken and written English
Have no criminal record beyond being in the country illegally
Or if those two criteria are not met, they may also be admitted if they can demonstrate they have sufficient personal wealth that they can guarantee they will not try to access welfare or food stamps or any other form of public assistance beyond those provided to citizens upon retirement (Social Security and Medicare)
Finally, those employment agencies will work closely with ICE to help supply labor to American companies. They will first seek to fill company openings with American citizens. Only when they cannot fill the openings will they seek a foreign worker, interview and test the foreign applicants, then serve as the conduit to issue the work permits from ICE and help place the foreign workers with their employers.
If cmopanies are telling the truth about needing good employees and being unable to find them among American citizens, this approach will help prove or disprove that claim. It also will give preference to qualified foreign applicants, rather than the current reality that lets illegals who sneaked across the border grab the available jobs without more qualified applicants getting a fair shot.
It's very simple and cost-effective, as well as fair to everyone. Why have we never heard a single politician propose anything like this? I think its because a politician will gain nothing from this solution. I've come to believe they won't do anything unless there's something in it for them.
I've posted my proposal to solve the problem of illegal immigrants before in this blog. The solution is actually very simple, but only if and when politicians become willing to put aside their petty desires for power and wealth to find a truly just solution.
My solution remains the same.
First, get truly serious about protecting the border. Rather than arguing about fences, my proposal is to beef up the Border Patrol to a level that permits them to actually be effective. Give them the tools and resources they need to finally stem the flow of economic refugees streaming across the border. Supplement them with State and Local Law Enforcement, to not only assist with capturing illegal border crossing, but also detain those illegals found in the normal course of police business. Stop the unilateral policies of Obama that declared that all captured illegal immigrants be released unless they have a criminal record.
Second, enforce severe sanctions against employers who knowingly employ illegal immigrants. Simply make e-verify required rather than optional. Whenever the government receives a W2 they cannot match to a legal citizen, they simply contact the employer that generated that W2 and ask them to confirm or correct the record, in case there was a mistake. Fines should be significant, perhaps double the annual earnings of each illegal immigrant employed for the second offense, with possible jail time for company officials if they continue to get caught breaking the law.
Third, the "path to citizenship". I recognize there has to be some process created for the current millions of illegals in the country. My proposal is to contract with Employment Agencies who work closely with a group of immigration judges to go through the paperwork of everyone here illegally that wants to stay and receive a temporary work permit. The Employment Agencies work with the employers to confirm the first requirement for granting a work permit to an illegal - an employer that has agreed to employ that individual (or probably already has done so - this process must occur during a 1 year grace period in place before the full force of the employer enforcement)
The other requirements for illegals to receive a temporary work permit are as follows:
Demonstrate a baseline proficiency in spoken and written English
Have no criminal record beyond being in the country illegally
Or if those two criteria are not met, they may also be admitted if they can demonstrate they have sufficient personal wealth that they can guarantee they will not try to access welfare or food stamps or any other form of public assistance beyond those provided to citizens upon retirement (Social Security and Medicare)
Finally, those employment agencies will work closely with ICE to help supply labor to American companies. They will first seek to fill company openings with American citizens. Only when they cannot fill the openings will they seek a foreign worker, interview and test the foreign applicants, then serve as the conduit to issue the work permits from ICE and help place the foreign workers with their employers.
If cmopanies are telling the truth about needing good employees and being unable to find them among American citizens, this approach will help prove or disprove that claim. It also will give preference to qualified foreign applicants, rather than the current reality that lets illegals who sneaked across the border grab the available jobs without more qualified applicants getting a fair shot.
It's very simple and cost-effective, as well as fair to everyone. Why have we never heard a single politician propose anything like this? I think its because a politician will gain nothing from this solution. I've come to believe they won't do anything unless there's something in it for them.
Saturday, August 10, 2013
If I Made the Rules - Part I Healthcare
Part I - Healthcare
Since it's the hottest topic out there right now, I might as well make it the first chapter.
It's perhaps the most complex topic, made mostly so because of government meddling.
Heathcare is something everybody needs. So naturally, power-grabbing government types have a default setting that they believe requires them to control all aspects of citzens' medical care.
The Left wants a Nationalized system, run by the federal government. They have made that goal their top priority for the last 50 to 60 years. Thus far they've succeeded in incrementalism, managing to impose Medicare, Medicaid, then Prescription Drug coverage under Medicare and the SCHIP program to cover children.
Obamacare is the next step in the process, but skipped ahead to fully socialized medicine against the wishes of the majority of the American people. Democrats think they mollified the free enterprise capitalist types by the fig leaf of allowing private insurance companies to participate in their government controlled "exchanges", but that's far from a free market. A free market is one where any company can participate and offer plans for medical coverage that they believe fit people's needs, and the companies make profits based on how accurate their predictions were about the most popular insurance plans that will attract the largest customer base.
Unfortunately, the Democrats who crafted this law think they're smarter than everybody else. So they passed a one-size-fits-all law that allows their bureaucrats to decide what's covered (and what is not), how much the premiums should be, and what companies will be permitted to participate in the exchange. That's a law obviously designed to fail, and at least we can grant that those Democrats were at least smart enough to know that much.
It will fail, in fact in many ways it already has failed. The number of insurers who signed up and were approved by the government to participate in the exchanges are having second thoughts about the wisdom of that decision. They're now realizing that they won't make any money, and in cases like in California, they've found out they will be asked to lose money on the program. Soon it appears California's exchange will have only one insurance company participating, and that company may drop out as well.
So Democrats, who have no imagination of course, will simply say, "We tried our best, but those greedy insurance companies refuse to cooperate with us. There's no choice left, but to move to a single-payer solution. Medicare for everyone!".
What if we threw it all out the window and started over with new ideas? Based on individual freedom rather than Big Brother socialism?
Let's start with what I need. Rather than being forced to buy an insurance policy loaded down with coverages I'll never use and mandated coverages that use my money to pay for baby-killing drugs that violate my rights of conscience and faith, how about letting me choose one that fits my needs?
If I were allowed to build my own insurance policy, it would generally look like this:
1. No coverage at all for routine doctor visits, medications, common illnesses and injuries that don't require hospitalization. Let me keep a tax-free savings account where I can put aside the money to cover those expenses.
2. Major Medical coverage for the serious illness or injury. If I need in-patient surgery or cancer treatment, I'm covered. The subject of lifetime limits is a sticky one, so I'll refrain from discussing that one and consider it cause for celebration if we ever reach the point where that becomes the major problem remaining to be resolved in heathcare.
OK, bleeding-heart liberals, I know what you're going to say. "What about people who can't afford that kind of insurance and need help paying for the routine medical expenses?"
I recognize that folks who don't earn much are going to struggle to pay for anything in life. They have a hard time making rent, they rely on Food Stamps for their meals, and have no room in their budgets for a $100 visit to the doctor's office to get treated for a sinus infection.
A few thoughts on that subject:
First, believe it or not, I was one of those low wage people when I was young and just starting my adult life. I had a dentist bill when I was about 24 that ran into the hundreds of dollars, money I simply did not have. The dentist allowed me to set up a payment program, and I sent him something like 60 dollars a month until my debt was settled. My siblings also told me about big medical bills they paid off over time. As long as we were consistent and on-time with our payments, we had no problem.
Second, I recognize we can't just drop this approach on everybody all at once. We'll probably have to gradually transition the program. We certainly can keep Medicaid intact to cover the medical bills for the poor. The only difference is that I would insist that we never stop working to help people find ways off the Medicaid dole and into self-sufficiency.
My dream is that one day Americans will be self-sufficient and the only role for the federal government is the one originally defined for it by the Constitution. All the feds do for us is maintain the military to protect us from foreign invaders, build and maintain our interstate highway system, and act as a referree in commercial financial disputes and criminal cases that cross state lines.
One day there will be so many self-sufficient Americans able to handle their own medical bills and Major Medical premiums that the very small number of poor can easily be accomodated by our Churches and other charitable organizations.
I'm for repealing Obamacare fully and permanently. Then we can begin having the discussion about what sort of healthcare system is best for the country. I only hope my ideas would be embraced by the political class, but only if our representatives decide to legislate for the good of the country rather than personal gain.
Since it's the hottest topic out there right now, I might as well make it the first chapter.
It's perhaps the most complex topic, made mostly so because of government meddling.
Heathcare is something everybody needs. So naturally, power-grabbing government types have a default setting that they believe requires them to control all aspects of citzens' medical care.
The Left wants a Nationalized system, run by the federal government. They have made that goal their top priority for the last 50 to 60 years. Thus far they've succeeded in incrementalism, managing to impose Medicare, Medicaid, then Prescription Drug coverage under Medicare and the SCHIP program to cover children.
Obamacare is the next step in the process, but skipped ahead to fully socialized medicine against the wishes of the majority of the American people. Democrats think they mollified the free enterprise capitalist types by the fig leaf of allowing private insurance companies to participate in their government controlled "exchanges", but that's far from a free market. A free market is one where any company can participate and offer plans for medical coverage that they believe fit people's needs, and the companies make profits based on how accurate their predictions were about the most popular insurance plans that will attract the largest customer base.
Unfortunately, the Democrats who crafted this law think they're smarter than everybody else. So they passed a one-size-fits-all law that allows their bureaucrats to decide what's covered (and what is not), how much the premiums should be, and what companies will be permitted to participate in the exchange. That's a law obviously designed to fail, and at least we can grant that those Democrats were at least smart enough to know that much.
It will fail, in fact in many ways it already has failed. The number of insurers who signed up and were approved by the government to participate in the exchanges are having second thoughts about the wisdom of that decision. They're now realizing that they won't make any money, and in cases like in California, they've found out they will be asked to lose money on the program. Soon it appears California's exchange will have only one insurance company participating, and that company may drop out as well.
So Democrats, who have no imagination of course, will simply say, "We tried our best, but those greedy insurance companies refuse to cooperate with us. There's no choice left, but to move to a single-payer solution. Medicare for everyone!".
What if we threw it all out the window and started over with new ideas? Based on individual freedom rather than Big Brother socialism?
Let's start with what I need. Rather than being forced to buy an insurance policy loaded down with coverages I'll never use and mandated coverages that use my money to pay for baby-killing drugs that violate my rights of conscience and faith, how about letting me choose one that fits my needs?
If I were allowed to build my own insurance policy, it would generally look like this:
1. No coverage at all for routine doctor visits, medications, common illnesses and injuries that don't require hospitalization. Let me keep a tax-free savings account where I can put aside the money to cover those expenses.
2. Major Medical coverage for the serious illness or injury. If I need in-patient surgery or cancer treatment, I'm covered. The subject of lifetime limits is a sticky one, so I'll refrain from discussing that one and consider it cause for celebration if we ever reach the point where that becomes the major problem remaining to be resolved in heathcare.
OK, bleeding-heart liberals, I know what you're going to say. "What about people who can't afford that kind of insurance and need help paying for the routine medical expenses?"
I recognize that folks who don't earn much are going to struggle to pay for anything in life. They have a hard time making rent, they rely on Food Stamps for their meals, and have no room in their budgets for a $100 visit to the doctor's office to get treated for a sinus infection.
A few thoughts on that subject:
First, believe it or not, I was one of those low wage people when I was young and just starting my adult life. I had a dentist bill when I was about 24 that ran into the hundreds of dollars, money I simply did not have. The dentist allowed me to set up a payment program, and I sent him something like 60 dollars a month until my debt was settled. My siblings also told me about big medical bills they paid off over time. As long as we were consistent and on-time with our payments, we had no problem.
Second, I recognize we can't just drop this approach on everybody all at once. We'll probably have to gradually transition the program. We certainly can keep Medicaid intact to cover the medical bills for the poor. The only difference is that I would insist that we never stop working to help people find ways off the Medicaid dole and into self-sufficiency.
My dream is that one day Americans will be self-sufficient and the only role for the federal government is the one originally defined for it by the Constitution. All the feds do for us is maintain the military to protect us from foreign invaders, build and maintain our interstate highway system, and act as a referree in commercial financial disputes and criminal cases that cross state lines.
One day there will be so many self-sufficient Americans able to handle their own medical bills and Major Medical premiums that the very small number of poor can easily be accomodated by our Churches and other charitable organizations.
I'm for repealing Obamacare fully and permanently. Then we can begin having the discussion about what sort of healthcare system is best for the country. I only hope my ideas would be embraced by the political class, but only if our representatives decide to legislate for the good of the country rather than personal gain.
Thursday, August 08, 2013
If I Made the Rules - Introduction
For several years, I've been posting entries into this blog that mostly present my personal take on the hot-button issues of the day. It recently occurred to me that I have so many ideas on so many topics I could write a book.
There's not much point in trying to publish an actual book, but I realized that this blog will serve just fine. Since I don't expect the book would ever make me any money, and although I would love it if my ideas found a wider audience, I figure the best approach might be to use the free forum provided by Blogger to share them.
My goal is to post a new chapter every week. I'll post my take on timely topics of the economy, social questions, immigration, law enforcement, race relations, taxes, and more generally the appropriate role for government.
The fundamental approach I take with every topic is consistent with my core values. I'm a Christian first and foremost, and even though I would never impose my beliefs on anyone, neither will I ever support any attempts by non-Christians to suppress the freedom of expression granted to my religion by the United States Constitution.
I'll remain true to the Constitution whenever it applies. I'm not a liberal who thinks it's a musty old document written by a bunch of dead white men 200 years ago, and has no relevance to modern society. I'm appreciative of the timeless wisdom in both the Holy Bible and the Constitution, which actually adopted many biblical principles. The Constitution is as applicable to today as it was 200 years ago, and does not deserve to be destroyed simply because a large and growing group of liberal thinkers find it overly restrictive to their agenda.
So any issue I tackle is going to follow those fundamental principles. What public policy preserves individual freedoms but goes no further than to protect citizens from fraud or physical harm? What policies treat everyone equally and do not favor any one group over another? And what policies are most conducive to the principles of Life, Liberty, and the pursuit of Happiness?
If you've found this blog and enjoy my "book", welcome. Feel free to comment or to tell your friends to check it out.
There's not much point in trying to publish an actual book, but I realized that this blog will serve just fine. Since I don't expect the book would ever make me any money, and although I would love it if my ideas found a wider audience, I figure the best approach might be to use the free forum provided by Blogger to share them.
My goal is to post a new chapter every week. I'll post my take on timely topics of the economy, social questions, immigration, law enforcement, race relations, taxes, and more generally the appropriate role for government.
The fundamental approach I take with every topic is consistent with my core values. I'm a Christian first and foremost, and even though I would never impose my beliefs on anyone, neither will I ever support any attempts by non-Christians to suppress the freedom of expression granted to my religion by the United States Constitution.
I'll remain true to the Constitution whenever it applies. I'm not a liberal who thinks it's a musty old document written by a bunch of dead white men 200 years ago, and has no relevance to modern society. I'm appreciative of the timeless wisdom in both the Holy Bible and the Constitution, which actually adopted many biblical principles. The Constitution is as applicable to today as it was 200 years ago, and does not deserve to be destroyed simply because a large and growing group of liberal thinkers find it overly restrictive to their agenda.
So any issue I tackle is going to follow those fundamental principles. What public policy preserves individual freedoms but goes no further than to protect citizens from fraud or physical harm? What policies treat everyone equally and do not favor any one group over another? And what policies are most conducive to the principles of Life, Liberty, and the pursuit of Happiness?
If you've found this blog and enjoy my "book", welcome. Feel free to comment or to tell your friends to check it out.
Tuesday, August 06, 2013
Why We Lose
There were two things I heard today that wrecked much of my hope for the future of the country.
First, I heard Bill Bennett on my way to work in the morning. He had on a congressman, I don't know the name but think he was from Maryland. I didn't know there were any Republicans in Maryland.
Anyway, it was the first time I heard a clear explanation of what strategy of Obama and the Democrats are running with Obamacare. By delaying the Employer mandate for a year, they soften some of the bad press. He also has paid off congress by guaranteeing them a 75% premium subsidy, protecting them from the high costs of the Insurance Exchanges. At the same time, they're pushing extremely hard to protect the implementation of the Exchanges for everybody this year. There's no way they will permit the Republicans to pass a delay on the Individual mandate to parallel the Employer mandate. Nor will they allow any defunding or repeal legislation to pass.
The reason they're so determined to push the individual mandate this year is simple. Yet I don't think I fully comprehended it until this morning. The first people to sign up in the exchanges will be the low-income folks who qualify for the largest subsidies. People like me and so many others who earn more than the threshold for premium subsidies are mostly going to choose to skip the expensive insurance from the exchange and pay the fine instead.
That's what they want! They are counting on millions of people signing up for the exchanges and getting subsidized. They don't care even a little bit that it will bust the Federal budget, which has been busted for a long time now. It means that Obama is what used to be known as a "Pusher". A word I haven't heard in probably 30 years.
Pushers were the guys that would troll neighborhoods and schoolyards looking for gullible teens. The Pusher would introduce those teens to the illegal drug for free. As soon as the teen got hooked and came back for more, the Pusher started charging for it.
That's how Obamacare is designed to work. Get everybody hooked on subsidized health insurance premiums and they'll be Democrats for life. One day, very soon, the government will push the insurance companies aside and simply switch to what they call "Single Payer". Government health insurance for everyone, paid by those of us who work for a living to subsidize those who don't. At that point Obama and his friends have total control - they decide who lives and dies, "death panels" do indeed exist, and they will use the dependent classes to destroy the productive classes in a classic communist transformation of a free society to a communist dictatorship.
Then in the evening drive I heard Michael Medved. He was talking about the explosion in Food Stamps plus a summer feeding program targeted at kids. And how there is no income threshold for school-age kids to qualify for the free meals all summer long. Plus the "Organizing for America" activists hired and paid bounties to bring as many kids as possible into the program. The activists get paid to go find kids in the playgrounds and parks and invite them over to the government's free meal site.
The food stamp and child feeding programs is another prong of Obama's Pusher strategy to hook as many Americans as possible on government handouts. People are happily taking Obama's free stuff, and his minions around the country are making sure they know it's Obama who is providing the free stuff. And all income thresholds have been eliminated to hook as many people as possible.
We've all heard about the "Obama Phone", which is simply another prong in the larger strategy of Obama and the Democrat Pushers to hook every low-income person in America on government freebies. I suspect it's working spectacularly well for them.
That's how they get all the addicted Americans to happily show up to the polls and pull the levers for them on voting day. Those millions of ignorant grabbers are happy to be bribed to vote for Democrats. They're so thoroughly hooked that they've lost all initiative and sense of responsibility to care for themselves and their families. They've been transformed into children, relying on Daddy Obama and Momma Pelosi for their very existence.
That's why the rest of us lose. Not just Republicans. We've lost to the tyranny of the lower and lower-middle class, who have discovered that they can vote themselves benefits. Which is the same as voting to steal most of what the rest of us earn by the sweat of our brows. Something they don't know or don't care is that those government bureaucrats who do the confiscating stuff most of it into their own pockets before passing along the scaps.
I'm beginning to wonder if the high unemployment and horrible economy were part of the design to explode the size of that needy class who have been unemployed for 5 or 6 years now.
So the productive Americans are abused and our pockets are picked. Where can we go to escape the tyranny of the Socialists? Only the hated millionaires and billionaires have the means to move out of the country to protect their assets. Those of us stuck in the middle will be forced to join the dependent classes and bow to the new all-powerful God named Obama.
First, I heard Bill Bennett on my way to work in the morning. He had on a congressman, I don't know the name but think he was from Maryland. I didn't know there were any Republicans in Maryland.
Anyway, it was the first time I heard a clear explanation of what strategy of Obama and the Democrats are running with Obamacare. By delaying the Employer mandate for a year, they soften some of the bad press. He also has paid off congress by guaranteeing them a 75% premium subsidy, protecting them from the high costs of the Insurance Exchanges. At the same time, they're pushing extremely hard to protect the implementation of the Exchanges for everybody this year. There's no way they will permit the Republicans to pass a delay on the Individual mandate to parallel the Employer mandate. Nor will they allow any defunding or repeal legislation to pass.
The reason they're so determined to push the individual mandate this year is simple. Yet I don't think I fully comprehended it until this morning. The first people to sign up in the exchanges will be the low-income folks who qualify for the largest subsidies. People like me and so many others who earn more than the threshold for premium subsidies are mostly going to choose to skip the expensive insurance from the exchange and pay the fine instead.
That's what they want! They are counting on millions of people signing up for the exchanges and getting subsidized. They don't care even a little bit that it will bust the Federal budget, which has been busted for a long time now. It means that Obama is what used to be known as a "Pusher". A word I haven't heard in probably 30 years.
Pushers were the guys that would troll neighborhoods and schoolyards looking for gullible teens. The Pusher would introduce those teens to the illegal drug for free. As soon as the teen got hooked and came back for more, the Pusher started charging for it.
That's how Obamacare is designed to work. Get everybody hooked on subsidized health insurance premiums and they'll be Democrats for life. One day, very soon, the government will push the insurance companies aside and simply switch to what they call "Single Payer". Government health insurance for everyone, paid by those of us who work for a living to subsidize those who don't. At that point Obama and his friends have total control - they decide who lives and dies, "death panels" do indeed exist, and they will use the dependent classes to destroy the productive classes in a classic communist transformation of a free society to a communist dictatorship.
Then in the evening drive I heard Michael Medved. He was talking about the explosion in Food Stamps plus a summer feeding program targeted at kids. And how there is no income threshold for school-age kids to qualify for the free meals all summer long. Plus the "Organizing for America" activists hired and paid bounties to bring as many kids as possible into the program. The activists get paid to go find kids in the playgrounds and parks and invite them over to the government's free meal site.
The food stamp and child feeding programs is another prong of Obama's Pusher strategy to hook as many Americans as possible on government handouts. People are happily taking Obama's free stuff, and his minions around the country are making sure they know it's Obama who is providing the free stuff. And all income thresholds have been eliminated to hook as many people as possible.
We've all heard about the "Obama Phone", which is simply another prong in the larger strategy of Obama and the Democrat Pushers to hook every low-income person in America on government freebies. I suspect it's working spectacularly well for them.
That's how they get all the addicted Americans to happily show up to the polls and pull the levers for them on voting day. Those millions of ignorant grabbers are happy to be bribed to vote for Democrats. They're so thoroughly hooked that they've lost all initiative and sense of responsibility to care for themselves and their families. They've been transformed into children, relying on Daddy Obama and Momma Pelosi for their very existence.
That's why the rest of us lose. Not just Republicans. We've lost to the tyranny of the lower and lower-middle class, who have discovered that they can vote themselves benefits. Which is the same as voting to steal most of what the rest of us earn by the sweat of our brows. Something they don't know or don't care is that those government bureaucrats who do the confiscating stuff most of it into their own pockets before passing along the scaps.
I'm beginning to wonder if the high unemployment and horrible economy were part of the design to explode the size of that needy class who have been unemployed for 5 or 6 years now.
So the productive Americans are abused and our pockets are picked. Where can we go to escape the tyranny of the Socialists? Only the hated millionaires and billionaires have the means to move out of the country to protect their assets. Those of us stuck in the middle will be forced to join the dependent classes and bow to the new all-powerful God named Obama.
Friday, August 02, 2013
Something I Know a Little About
It happens to be the Detroit bankruptcy. I worked in the automotive industry for a couple of years back in the '80's. I might not be an expert about every facet of the story of US automobile manufacturing, but I think I know enough to present a relatively cogent case for why things crumbled so disastrously.
There's an old story in the annals of family mythology about my great-great-grandfather Wilson. Wilson was an entrepreneur from Northern Indiana. Around the turn of the century, he owned and operated a carriage factory. The story claims that the Dodge brothers, Horace and John, who had moved with their families from nearby Niles, Michigan to Detroit. They had been machining parts for Ransom Olds and had recently partnered with Henry Ford as well.
The Dodge brothers had become very successful and were ready to create their own start-up automobile manufacturing company. The purpose of their visit to Grandpa Wilson was to propose a partnership for Wilson to convert his carriage factory into an automotive body manufacturer for the Dodges.
Well, grandpa said no. "Those motorcars won't catch on, they just get stuck in the mud", said Wilson. So much for that opportunity.
Anyway, I went to work for a fairly large automotive parts manufacturer in the mid-1980's. Ours was a union shop, beholden to the UAW, of course. I helped develop and implement systems that contributed to significant improvements in productivity, efficiency, and quality. I believed that we had successfully transformed our big Indiana plant, plus the two smaller satellite plants I worked with, into perhaps the best in the company, at least in terms of efficiency and quality.
But I could see that the pressures were building. The UAW contract was coming up for renewal. And the Big 3 (GM, Chrysler, Ford) had just given us the news - yes, they would continue to use our parts in their big Detroit assembly lines. But they were going to pay 10 percent less for them next year. Take it or leave it.
I thought I saw some handwriting on the sooty plant walls, so I accepted a new job elsewhere shortly before those new developments were scheduled to take place. Not to mention the fact that those two developments included me being transferred to the Corporate office in Toledo, which was actually the primary motivation for my moving on to a new adventure. Toledo, just an hour south of Detroit, was suffering the same urban decay as Detroit, so I had no enthusiasm for relocating there.
Why did Detroit die such a slow and agonizing death? The obvious answer is politics. Here in Columbus, we have Cummins Engine Company, which has a history of showing a positive cooperative partnership with the city to keep Columbus a nice place to be. After the race riots frightened the white folks out to the Detroit suburbs, the radically leftist city governments who ruled the city for 50 years were more like gangsters than partners with the Big 3.
Should the Big 3 executives done more to try to keep Detroit safe and decent and a great destination city? Probably. But I suspect the Detroit mayors and city councils were not in a partnering mood, but instead were focused on lining their pockets with graft and trying to constantly hold up the automakers for more and more cash, too much of which ended up getting diverted into their own pockets.
In the plant I got to know the engineers and operations managers reasonably well. They constantly decried the top-down management style out of Detroit that failed to understand the growing trend coming from Dr. Deming and Japan. Japan was shipping Hondas and Toyotas to the United States and consumers were discovering that those cars were much better engineered and crafted to stay on the road two to three times longer than their American competitor's vehicles.
Detroit, meanwhile, was already becoming a wasteland. Whenever we traveled north for a meeting in Detroit, our boss would caution us to avoid walking in the city after dark. Detroit's downtown in the mid-80's was already a ramshackle city full of empty, vandalized buildings. Everybody we met with who worked for the Big 3 lived in the suburbs. Except for the big glass towers on the river where they worked, the city was dying even then.
American cars today are better built and more reliable, but still have not cast off the impression from the 80's and 90's of being inferior to the Japanese and now German cars. The government bailout of General Motors didn't turn around the company's fortunes, but merely gave them a transfusion of cash to keep them solvent a bit longer. That's why I am resolved to never buy another GM vehicle as long as the government owns any stake or has any say in their operations.
I used to wonder, even back when I worked in the industry, why don't some young, energetic automotive engineers get together to form a brand-new American car company? I think I now know the answers:
Because the government won't let them use non-union labor.
Because the government will erect barriers to protect the Big 3 (or is it 2 now?) from competition.
Because the banks won't finance them, at least partially because they might be instructed not to do so by the government.
Back in the plant, we kept hearing about this secret project at GM. They had some sort of code name for it, and it was supposed to be this new autonomous automaker that would be allowed to break free of the restrictions of GM's top-down management. That turned out to be Saturn. I guess we saw how that experiment worked out.
I wonder, will some Americans find a way past all the government-imposed obstacles one day to prove that we are the home for ingenuity and the American Dream? Where people like the Dodge Brothers, Henry Ford, and Ransom Olds started with nothing and built the automobile industry from the ground up? I think it could be done, but only by a very determined and persistent group of visionaries.
There's an old story in the annals of family mythology about my great-great-grandfather Wilson. Wilson was an entrepreneur from Northern Indiana. Around the turn of the century, he owned and operated a carriage factory. The story claims that the Dodge brothers, Horace and John, who had moved with their families from nearby Niles, Michigan to Detroit. They had been machining parts for Ransom Olds and had recently partnered with Henry Ford as well.
The Dodge brothers had become very successful and were ready to create their own start-up automobile manufacturing company. The purpose of their visit to Grandpa Wilson was to propose a partnership for Wilson to convert his carriage factory into an automotive body manufacturer for the Dodges.
Well, grandpa said no. "Those motorcars won't catch on, they just get stuck in the mud", said Wilson. So much for that opportunity.
Anyway, I went to work for a fairly large automotive parts manufacturer in the mid-1980's. Ours was a union shop, beholden to the UAW, of course. I helped develop and implement systems that contributed to significant improvements in productivity, efficiency, and quality. I believed that we had successfully transformed our big Indiana plant, plus the two smaller satellite plants I worked with, into perhaps the best in the company, at least in terms of efficiency and quality.
But I could see that the pressures were building. The UAW contract was coming up for renewal. And the Big 3 (GM, Chrysler, Ford) had just given us the news - yes, they would continue to use our parts in their big Detroit assembly lines. But they were going to pay 10 percent less for them next year. Take it or leave it.
I thought I saw some handwriting on the sooty plant walls, so I accepted a new job elsewhere shortly before those new developments were scheduled to take place. Not to mention the fact that those two developments included me being transferred to the Corporate office in Toledo, which was actually the primary motivation for my moving on to a new adventure. Toledo, just an hour south of Detroit, was suffering the same urban decay as Detroit, so I had no enthusiasm for relocating there.
Why did Detroit die such a slow and agonizing death? The obvious answer is politics. Here in Columbus, we have Cummins Engine Company, which has a history of showing a positive cooperative partnership with the city to keep Columbus a nice place to be. After the race riots frightened the white folks out to the Detroit suburbs, the radically leftist city governments who ruled the city for 50 years were more like gangsters than partners with the Big 3.
Should the Big 3 executives done more to try to keep Detroit safe and decent and a great destination city? Probably. But I suspect the Detroit mayors and city councils were not in a partnering mood, but instead were focused on lining their pockets with graft and trying to constantly hold up the automakers for more and more cash, too much of which ended up getting diverted into their own pockets.
In the plant I got to know the engineers and operations managers reasonably well. They constantly decried the top-down management style out of Detroit that failed to understand the growing trend coming from Dr. Deming and Japan. Japan was shipping Hondas and Toyotas to the United States and consumers were discovering that those cars were much better engineered and crafted to stay on the road two to three times longer than their American competitor's vehicles.
Detroit, meanwhile, was already becoming a wasteland. Whenever we traveled north for a meeting in Detroit, our boss would caution us to avoid walking in the city after dark. Detroit's downtown in the mid-80's was already a ramshackle city full of empty, vandalized buildings. Everybody we met with who worked for the Big 3 lived in the suburbs. Except for the big glass towers on the river where they worked, the city was dying even then.
American cars today are better built and more reliable, but still have not cast off the impression from the 80's and 90's of being inferior to the Japanese and now German cars. The government bailout of General Motors didn't turn around the company's fortunes, but merely gave them a transfusion of cash to keep them solvent a bit longer. That's why I am resolved to never buy another GM vehicle as long as the government owns any stake or has any say in their operations.
I used to wonder, even back when I worked in the industry, why don't some young, energetic automotive engineers get together to form a brand-new American car company? I think I now know the answers:
Because the government won't let them use non-union labor.
Because the government will erect barriers to protect the Big 3 (or is it 2 now?) from competition.
Because the banks won't finance them, at least partially because they might be instructed not to do so by the government.
Back in the plant, we kept hearing about this secret project at GM. They had some sort of code name for it, and it was supposed to be this new autonomous automaker that would be allowed to break free of the restrictions of GM's top-down management. That turned out to be Saturn. I guess we saw how that experiment worked out.
I wonder, will some Americans find a way past all the government-imposed obstacles one day to prove that we are the home for ingenuity and the American Dream? Where people like the Dodge Brothers, Henry Ford, and Ransom Olds started with nothing and built the automobile industry from the ground up? I think it could be done, but only by a very determined and persistent group of visionaries.
Is it a Scandal?
Indiana's former State Superintendent of Education, Tony Bennett (not the singer), was defeated in last year's election by a teacher's union activist, Glenda Ritz. Although it was close, the election loss for Bennett illustrated the power of the teacher's union in Indiana.
It didn't take long for emails from Bennett's tenure to get leaked and widely reported as a scandal, claiming that Bennett improperly changed a grade of "C" to "A" for a Charter School opened by a well-known philanthropist who is being characterized as a major Republican campaign donor, Christel DeHaan.
The most comprehensive published report I could find came from Stacy Teicher Khadaroo at the Christian Science Monitor.
The story creates mostly questions for me. Tony of course has taken the position that it was a politically-motivated leak of an email out of context with the actual story. Certainly it is politically motivated. Glenda Ritz is a major opponent to the School Choice laws as well as any process that attempts to evaluate schools and teachers based on the performance of students. So it's easy to imagine that her first day in office, Ritz ordered some of her staffers to dig deep into the email archives to see if they can find something they can use against her predecessor.
Naturally, the left-leaning press is playing into Ritz's agenda by demanding the grading system for schools be scrapped. Anyone with half a brain understands that whether Bennett changed the grade for Cristel House for good or bad reasons, that single event neither validates nor invalidates the idea of grading schools. Ritz and the teachers who support her want no grading or evaluation of teachers, period. She was in Columbus recently delivering a message of "trust us, we're the professionals".
I don't know whether Bennett changed Christel House's grade out of a corrupt need to protect a donor and/or protect his educational evaluation programs at all cost, or there was an objective reason for changing the grade, which generated a "C" because of a low score in Algebra by students in that school. If, as the story seems to suggest, Bennett simply changed the formula used to assign the grade, and that new formula was applied equally to all Indiana schools, then he did nothing wrong.
It's not clear that we'll ever find out the truth of the matter, even though Bennett has called for a thorough investigation into the matter by the State of Indiana. If Bennett's actions were not corrupt, then he shouldn't have resigned from his job in Florida. That's a source of concern for me, so I'd like to see Indiana go ahead and investigate the charges and publish their findings. Unfortunately, even if the State does investigate, we'll never hear about their results if those results exhonerate Bennett.
It didn't take long for emails from Bennett's tenure to get leaked and widely reported as a scandal, claiming that Bennett improperly changed a grade of "C" to "A" for a Charter School opened by a well-known philanthropist who is being characterized as a major Republican campaign donor, Christel DeHaan.
The most comprehensive published report I could find came from Stacy Teicher Khadaroo at the Christian Science Monitor.
The story creates mostly questions for me. Tony of course has taken the position that it was a politically-motivated leak of an email out of context with the actual story. Certainly it is politically motivated. Glenda Ritz is a major opponent to the School Choice laws as well as any process that attempts to evaluate schools and teachers based on the performance of students. So it's easy to imagine that her first day in office, Ritz ordered some of her staffers to dig deep into the email archives to see if they can find something they can use against her predecessor.
Naturally, the left-leaning press is playing into Ritz's agenda by demanding the grading system for schools be scrapped. Anyone with half a brain understands that whether Bennett changed the grade for Cristel House for good or bad reasons, that single event neither validates nor invalidates the idea of grading schools. Ritz and the teachers who support her want no grading or evaluation of teachers, period. She was in Columbus recently delivering a message of "trust us, we're the professionals".
I don't know whether Bennett changed Christel House's grade out of a corrupt need to protect a donor and/or protect his educational evaluation programs at all cost, or there was an objective reason for changing the grade, which generated a "C" because of a low score in Algebra by students in that school. If, as the story seems to suggest, Bennett simply changed the formula used to assign the grade, and that new formula was applied equally to all Indiana schools, then he did nothing wrong.
It's not clear that we'll ever find out the truth of the matter, even though Bennett has called for a thorough investigation into the matter by the State of Indiana. If Bennett's actions were not corrupt, then he shouldn't have resigned from his job in Florida. That's a source of concern for me, so I'd like to see Indiana go ahead and investigate the charges and publish their findings. Unfortunately, even if the State does investigate, we'll never hear about their results if those results exhonerate Bennett.
Thursday, August 01, 2013
Joining the Race Discussion
The incessant drumbeat that won't stop lecturing all white people about our insensitivity to the plight of the young black man in America. I've become more than tired of it, and would like to move on.
First of all, the Trayvon Martin incident has nothing to do with racism. It even represents a dishonest theme of what they call "Racial Profiling". Let's just get something straight - the community in which the incident occurred had been experiencing a rash of thefts. The thieves were reported by witnesses to be a pair of young black males. So George Zimmerman sees a young black male wandering through the rain close to the homes aimlessly and looking around as if he's casing the houses. He's suspicious because Martin fits the profile of the neighborhood thieves and isn't walking briskly home but wandering aimlessly in the rain.
Technically that's profiling, of course. But if we see somebody in the neighborhood who fits the description of a known thief, isn't it reasonable to call the police on him? If profiling is based on experience, must it be labeled racist? Let's suppose witnesses had identified a fat white guy as the thief - if Zimmerman called the police because he saw a fat white guy wandering through the neighborhood that night, isn't that also profiling? Why would profiling only be inappropriate if the subject is black, but is perfectly OK if the subject is white?
We've heard a lot from black men who say they're pulled over by police for no real reason. Some say they're also getting arrested. How can I possibly comment on those stories unless I know something about the actual events? Did the black man who was pulled over fit the description of a fugitive being sought by police? Did the car he was driving match the description of a vehicle used in a robbery?
Maybe I'm naive, but I struggle to believe that police are randomly pulling over black men solely because they're black. Furthermore I refuse to believe that there's widespread harrassment following these stops. I get stopped now and then, usually for a broken taillight or some other minor issue. Do black men automatically assume when they get pulled over for the same reason that the cop wouldn't have bothered if they were white?
Blacks are the most likely of all Americans to commit crimes, especially violent crimes. That's not a racist statement, it's a fact. If the police anywhere are misbehaving, then bring suit against them or petition the state and local governments to put a stop to it. Stop whining!
And once and for all, please stop screaming at all of us about Trayvon Martin. That case was a simple self-defense case, nothing more or less. You want to talk race relations, at least stop trying to turn Zimmerman into something he's not.
First of all, the Trayvon Martin incident has nothing to do with racism. It even represents a dishonest theme of what they call "Racial Profiling". Let's just get something straight - the community in which the incident occurred had been experiencing a rash of thefts. The thieves were reported by witnesses to be a pair of young black males. So George Zimmerman sees a young black male wandering through the rain close to the homes aimlessly and looking around as if he's casing the houses. He's suspicious because Martin fits the profile of the neighborhood thieves and isn't walking briskly home but wandering aimlessly in the rain.
Technically that's profiling, of course. But if we see somebody in the neighborhood who fits the description of a known thief, isn't it reasonable to call the police on him? If profiling is based on experience, must it be labeled racist? Let's suppose witnesses had identified a fat white guy as the thief - if Zimmerman called the police because he saw a fat white guy wandering through the neighborhood that night, isn't that also profiling? Why would profiling only be inappropriate if the subject is black, but is perfectly OK if the subject is white?
We've heard a lot from black men who say they're pulled over by police for no real reason. Some say they're also getting arrested. How can I possibly comment on those stories unless I know something about the actual events? Did the black man who was pulled over fit the description of a fugitive being sought by police? Did the car he was driving match the description of a vehicle used in a robbery?
Maybe I'm naive, but I struggle to believe that police are randomly pulling over black men solely because they're black. Furthermore I refuse to believe that there's widespread harrassment following these stops. I get stopped now and then, usually for a broken taillight or some other minor issue. Do black men automatically assume when they get pulled over for the same reason that the cop wouldn't have bothered if they were white?
Blacks are the most likely of all Americans to commit crimes, especially violent crimes. That's not a racist statement, it's a fact. If the police anywhere are misbehaving, then bring suit against them or petition the state and local governments to put a stop to it. Stop whining!
And once and for all, please stop screaming at all of us about Trayvon Martin. That case was a simple self-defense case, nothing more or less. You want to talk race relations, at least stop trying to turn Zimmerman into something he's not.
About NSA Surveillance
Back in the old George W Bush days, the Democrats perhaps screamed loudest about what they were calling "Warrantless Wiretaps". The Democrats, notably including Barack Obama, expressed outrage that American citizens' telephone calls might be tracked by the NSA. The Bush government explained that they only tracked them if there was an established pattern of calls to and from known foreign terrorsts.
So the law was changed to require a judge in a court called FISA to rule on permission for the government to collect data on suspected terrorist communications.
With all the conflicting news reporting happening today on the same topic, I can't quite tell what the Obama administration is doing or how it compares with what the Bush administration did. Snowden says they're storing all of our communications and data mining them to look for potential terror plots. Others in the government are saying that Snowden is a liar - that it's only metadata that they mine to look for certain patterns.
The information leaked by Snowden has created an unlikely alliance between the Libertarian wing of the Republican Party and the Far-Left wing of the Democrat Party. They're both appalled at the idea that the government is collecting and storing our communications indefinitely.
I've sort of waited awhile before arriving at any specific conclusions or positions on the subject, and honestly I'm not sure I know enough even now to draw any conclusions. But based on what seems to be the logical likely truth of the matter, I tend to think the Obama administration has certainly violated our constitutional protections against unreasonable search and seizure.
Those who are telling us things like -
If you're doing nothing wrong, you've got nothing to worry about, and
Nobody's listening in on your telephone calls or reading your emails
are making me nervous simply by expressing those things.
Because the first statement seems to admit that they are listening in and reading our private communications, so the second sounds an awful lot like a lie.
Here's where I see the biggest problem with what they seem to be doing, if my interpretation is correct:
Say I decide to run for congress as a Republican. Suppose I'm projected as the likely winner against my Democratic Party opponent. The White House calls up one of their Democratic Party supporters inside the NSA and says, "Get on that computer and look for anything in his phone records or emails or text messages that we can use against this guy running for congress in Indiana against our guy". The planted operative at the NSA does just that, feeds the information back and my own emails or private conversations are parsed and taken out of context to make me look either corrupt or an idiot, then those heavily edited quotes are sent to their candidate to use in his campaign.
Worse yet, they start collecting a list of names of people who are self-identified conservatives, Christians, Tea Party members, NRA members, or all of the other groups that have been labeled the enemies of Obama. One day that list might be used to round us all up and imprison or execute us, just as the other major communist dictators did in places like Russia, China, Cuba, Mexico, and various other countries around the globe.
Of course, if it goes so far as to persecute those critical of the government, our Republic would have been lost well before that happened. I'm not all that certain the Republic hasn't already been destroyed.
So bottom line, I say no. The NSA does not have the authority to grab and store all the communcation records of Americans. If they have a suspect, they should use proper procedures to get whatever warrants they need from the judiciary to do their investigation. And anybody from either political party ever caught using a citizen's beliefs against him (a la the IRS scandal) must be put in prison for 20 years minimum. Even if it's the President himself who gets caught.
So the law was changed to require a judge in a court called FISA to rule on permission for the government to collect data on suspected terrorist communications.
With all the conflicting news reporting happening today on the same topic, I can't quite tell what the Obama administration is doing or how it compares with what the Bush administration did. Snowden says they're storing all of our communications and data mining them to look for potential terror plots. Others in the government are saying that Snowden is a liar - that it's only metadata that they mine to look for certain patterns.
The information leaked by Snowden has created an unlikely alliance between the Libertarian wing of the Republican Party and the Far-Left wing of the Democrat Party. They're both appalled at the idea that the government is collecting and storing our communications indefinitely.
I've sort of waited awhile before arriving at any specific conclusions or positions on the subject, and honestly I'm not sure I know enough even now to draw any conclusions. But based on what seems to be the logical likely truth of the matter, I tend to think the Obama administration has certainly violated our constitutional protections against unreasonable search and seizure.
Those who are telling us things like -
If you're doing nothing wrong, you've got nothing to worry about, and
Nobody's listening in on your telephone calls or reading your emails
are making me nervous simply by expressing those things.
Because the first statement seems to admit that they are listening in and reading our private communications, so the second sounds an awful lot like a lie.
Here's where I see the biggest problem with what they seem to be doing, if my interpretation is correct:
Say I decide to run for congress as a Republican. Suppose I'm projected as the likely winner against my Democratic Party opponent. The White House calls up one of their Democratic Party supporters inside the NSA and says, "Get on that computer and look for anything in his phone records or emails or text messages that we can use against this guy running for congress in Indiana against our guy". The planted operative at the NSA does just that, feeds the information back and my own emails or private conversations are parsed and taken out of context to make me look either corrupt or an idiot, then those heavily edited quotes are sent to their candidate to use in his campaign.
Worse yet, they start collecting a list of names of people who are self-identified conservatives, Christians, Tea Party members, NRA members, or all of the other groups that have been labeled the enemies of Obama. One day that list might be used to round us all up and imprison or execute us, just as the other major communist dictators did in places like Russia, China, Cuba, Mexico, and various other countries around the globe.
Of course, if it goes so far as to persecute those critical of the government, our Republic would have been lost well before that happened. I'm not all that certain the Republic hasn't already been destroyed.
So bottom line, I say no. The NSA does not have the authority to grab and store all the communcation records of Americans. If they have a suspect, they should use proper procedures to get whatever warrants they need from the judiciary to do their investigation. And anybody from either political party ever caught using a citizen's beliefs against him (a la the IRS scandal) must be put in prison for 20 years minimum. Even if it's the President himself who gets caught.
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