I’m coming up on a birthday, and let’s just say I’m approaching full Geezerhood. Certainly I am well into my ‘curmudgeon’ years. My point is that as much as I’d like to buy into the belief that the Donk Party is about to implode and give the Congress back to rational adults, I have too much experience with Republicans at the Give-Orders-Don’t-Learn level to expect them to suddenly live up to their promises and hype. The GOP, after all, is the party which figured John McCain was our best candidate for President in 2008, which couldn’t decide whether President Bush should be supported or deserted during his terms in office, which had the stones to impeach President Clinton for clear felonies committed while in office, but not to actually convict him, that figured Bob Dole was as good as they needed to do in 1996 ... you get the idea. The only reason I can stand the Republican Party at all, is because the Democrats are much worse.
So, I get this letter today from Michael Steele. A form letter, of course, no one high up in politics pays any attention to me, and he wants money of course … subtle man, he only asked for money … let me count it up here … NINE times in the letter. What strikes me as odd, being an accountant, is that the man never actually says why he should get money from me. Oh sure, he has a lot to say about Obama and the Democrats, but that’s not telling me why giving the RNC money is a good idea. I look back at the past and what the GOP has done with money which I and other Conservatives have paid in, and well sir, I can’t say as I am impressed with the RNC’s track record. Accountable, they are not. Trustworthy, not so much. That is, I figure it makes more sense for me to decide on a candidate I like, send him or her my donation, and Mr. Steele can go on TV shows and earn his money instead of playing political evangelist – all hype and no solid answers – to con me into sending him money just because he plays up the fear of Donkeystein.
The letter bugs me, as well. I opened it because it is headlined, in big bold letters that were visible through a clear section of the envelope, 2010 CONGRESSIONAL DISTRICT SURVEY. OK, I think to myself, I have ideas and concerns for my district, let’s see what they’re asking. Turns out the title is dishonest – there’s sixteen questions in there, not counting #17 which – again – asks for money as if we can return sanity to D.C. by simply spending enough money. Somehow that scheme is familiar, but it didn’t sound like a good game plan the first several times I heard it, either. Anyway, not one of those 16 questions had anything to do with my specific Congressional District, and yes Mr. Steele that makes you a liar. I don’t like liars and you can’t pretend this letter reflects well on your or the RNC.
What else bugs me, is the content of those sixteen questions. I won’t copy them all here, since just reading them hurts my brain cells to think that anyone could think they are serious in asking them, but here’s a few to give you an idea of what they asked:
2. Should Republicans fight congressional Democrats’ efforts to grant full unconditional amnesty to illegal immigrants?
4. Do you believe that the federal government should maintain a permanent ownership stake in large auto companies?
15. Do you believe that this nation’s Founding Fathers intended for the federal government to micro-manage state and local functions such as healthcare, child care, and unemployment assistance?
The whole thing was like that, questions I could not believe that the RNC did not know its position on, or which they seriously intended to tabulate as a feedback source on their issue targeting. The questionnaire was clearly intended to play on emotion rather than reason, and that’s something despicable to me. The RNC clearly has no interest in the key issues I care about, and I notice there was no place for me to write down my concerns or thoughts. It was all about them, getting money and pushing buttons, not about them working for the people they claim to represent.
If Mr. Steele and the RNC really want to win this November, they had better stop playing these tired old games and grow up. The TEA parties are not anti-Democrat, they’re anti-arrogance. People are not so much fed up with one political party, as they are with being liked to and ignored. A real Congress works for the people, so they’d better stop acting like they own us. We are strong Republicans and Conservatives. We are not, however, fools or morons.
Showing posts with label politics. Show all posts
Showing posts with label politics. Show all posts
Tuesday, April 27, 2010
Wednesday, April 21, 2010
Reason and Politics
I have been reading a very badly-done book written by a very lazy author. The book is titled “The Successor”, and the author is Stephen Frey. I found the book at the library when trying to find new books for my daughter and myself, and seeing that the library had several books by the author, I decided to give him a try, because if he was good there would be a lot of material to enjoy. However, Stephen Frey is to good writing what Al Gore is to personal integrity – he claims the honor but does nothing to deserve it. The characters are shallow and predictable, stereotypes abound, and while the plot moves along, the reader is neither enriched ethically nor challenged intellectually in reading this sludge. If Big Macs can be said to be bad for your physique, then this author is a threat to brain cells and rational analysis.
Leaving aside the horrid fiction of Mr. Frey though, I pondered the way this man thinks. He happens to be not only a liberal but also a managing director of a private equity firm in Florida. In this regard, Frey seems to be of the common liberal aristocratic mold – like the Kennedys, he expects the common people to be unable to govern themselves, and therefore the election of a liberal is by the grace of some unnamed ethical force – perhaps the Shiny Pony Unicorn, since Frey’s characters never mention God except when swearing – while the election of a conservative is (in his mind) a swindling of the sheep by the appointment of a crook by his cronies. As if that tired old libel were not enough, Frey is clearly unable to recognize an accurate image of the professional American soldier, the notion that ordinary working-class Americans have worthwhile values and noble ideals they live by, or even to respect the notion that people who earn their money are perhaps better judges of what should be done with their taxes than men who have never worked for a living, like Congressmen, Equity firm directors and novelists who spew out a book with less than a third of the effort needed to develop the characters, plot, and theme.
I could go on disparaging Mr. Frey for a long time without insulting him half so badly as he deserves, but the man would probably enjoy the attention, fail to understand the issue, and in any case the larger question take precedence. That question for here, is how to make sure that we, as conservatives, do not commit the same offenses as Mr. Frey. That is, it is tempting to caricature liberals according to the worst behavior of their leading slimeballs, but in all honesty, they can’t all be as corrupt as Harry Reid, as stupid as Nancy Pelosi, or as brazenly self-serving as President Obama. Some liberals are honest, sincere in their desire to help as many people, to address suffering and seek justice. Sure, they’re going about it the wrong way, in much the same way that a lot of good, honest Germans somehow failed to see Adolf Hitler and the Nazis for what they were (kneejerk spittle attacks from the Leftists reading this in 3, 2 …), but they do mean well. What else is odd, is that many of them are reasonably smart, like Mr. Frey. Foolish and astoundingly short-sighted, though, as if they only use their intelligence every so often, like some people I knew in school. In a way, that’s a kind of hint from Life. People get romantically involved with individuals they know will be bad for them, throw away opportunity and every good thing for some stupid thrill of the moment, and yeah, they vote for people that – down deep – they know will turn out to be frauds and liars. And sorry folks, there’s no shortage of that kind of foolishness on either side of the aisle. Sure, the Republicans found Reagan, or more likely God took pity on America and sent him – then got angry at us and punished us with Obama – but the GOP also gave us Bob Dole and John McCain. And sorry, I know this will get me some flak from our side, but no, Sarah Palin is not Presidential timber. She’s a fine person and stands for some great values, but … no. The thing is, millions of Republicans supported candidates they knew would lose, and in any case were not what the country needed. That does not make it rational for someone to vote for Senator Chicago-Way, but we need to understand that politics is not often about what is right and reasonable.
Of course, most drunks sober up, most kids eventually grow up, and once you think seriously about the future you can’t have a conscience and a three-digit IQ and not be a conservative. But the real world has alcoholics, career criminals, and Democrats, and even an Equity Fund director is not immune to the complete collapse of his moral framework. So, the next time some troll plasters the blog with some screed that even Hillary Clinton would consider going too far, just remember that for some folks, that’s the only universe they know.
Leaving aside the horrid fiction of Mr. Frey though, I pondered the way this man thinks. He happens to be not only a liberal but also a managing director of a private equity firm in Florida. In this regard, Frey seems to be of the common liberal aristocratic mold – like the Kennedys, he expects the common people to be unable to govern themselves, and therefore the election of a liberal is by the grace of some unnamed ethical force – perhaps the Shiny Pony Unicorn, since Frey’s characters never mention God except when swearing – while the election of a conservative is (in his mind) a swindling of the sheep by the appointment of a crook by his cronies. As if that tired old libel were not enough, Frey is clearly unable to recognize an accurate image of the professional American soldier, the notion that ordinary working-class Americans have worthwhile values and noble ideals they live by, or even to respect the notion that people who earn their money are perhaps better judges of what should be done with their taxes than men who have never worked for a living, like Congressmen, Equity firm directors and novelists who spew out a book with less than a third of the effort needed to develop the characters, plot, and theme.
I could go on disparaging Mr. Frey for a long time without insulting him half so badly as he deserves, but the man would probably enjoy the attention, fail to understand the issue, and in any case the larger question take precedence. That question for here, is how to make sure that we, as conservatives, do not commit the same offenses as Mr. Frey. That is, it is tempting to caricature liberals according to the worst behavior of their leading slimeballs, but in all honesty, they can’t all be as corrupt as Harry Reid, as stupid as Nancy Pelosi, or as brazenly self-serving as President Obama. Some liberals are honest, sincere in their desire to help as many people, to address suffering and seek justice. Sure, they’re going about it the wrong way, in much the same way that a lot of good, honest Germans somehow failed to see Adolf Hitler and the Nazis for what they were (kneejerk spittle attacks from the Leftists reading this in 3, 2 …), but they do mean well. What else is odd, is that many of them are reasonably smart, like Mr. Frey. Foolish and astoundingly short-sighted, though, as if they only use their intelligence every so often, like some people I knew in school. In a way, that’s a kind of hint from Life. People get romantically involved with individuals they know will be bad for them, throw away opportunity and every good thing for some stupid thrill of the moment, and yeah, they vote for people that – down deep – they know will turn out to be frauds and liars. And sorry folks, there’s no shortage of that kind of foolishness on either side of the aisle. Sure, the Republicans found Reagan, or more likely God took pity on America and sent him – then got angry at us and punished us with Obama – but the GOP also gave us Bob Dole and John McCain. And sorry, I know this will get me some flak from our side, but no, Sarah Palin is not Presidential timber. She’s a fine person and stands for some great values, but … no. The thing is, millions of Republicans supported candidates they knew would lose, and in any case were not what the country needed. That does not make it rational for someone to vote for Senator Chicago-Way, but we need to understand that politics is not often about what is right and reasonable.
Of course, most drunks sober up, most kids eventually grow up, and once you think seriously about the future you can’t have a conscience and a three-digit IQ and not be a conservative. But the real world has alcoholics, career criminals, and Democrats, and even an Equity Fund director is not immune to the complete collapse of his moral framework. So, the next time some troll plasters the blog with some screed that even Hillary Clinton would consider going too far, just remember that for some folks, that’s the only universe they know.
Saturday, April 10, 2010
The Whiskey Boys
After the end of the American Revolution, a set of problem worried the new government. High on that list was the question of how to pay back the war debt. In order to show itself a truly functional government, the United States had to resolve a large debt owed to all manner of creditors, including foreign powers, businesses, bond buyers and war veterans, who in the main had been paid only in scrip. The chosen plan to address the United States’ international financial credibility, was the Bank of the United States, the brainchild of Alexander Hamilton, who enjoyed the blessing of President George Washington, whose favor all but guaranteed its support in Congress.
The bank, however, depended on a special security, bonds sold to bring in capital for the government, yet the government needed capital to pay for those bonds as well. Hamilton’s answer, blessed by President Washington and the Congress, was an excise tax on whiskey. To the mind of Congress, this was a perfect solution, as whiskey was considered not only a luxury, but sinful because of the behavior of many men who drank it. Note also that the Congress chose to target whiskey, not wine or any other spirit likely to be imported from a country where the United States wanted to build a commercial relationship. The tax was assigned to whiskey, specifically whiskey distilled in the western territories.
To the pioneers in western Pennsylvania, Ohio, and Kentucky, the tax was not only onerous, but an outrage built upon another outrage. Many veterans of the Revolution found that they had lost land and property during the war, and so were ‘paid’ with promissory notes, which the Congress dithered about repaying for more than a decade in some cases. Many of these men ended up selling their notes to speculators for land in the western territories, finding out only later that the land was often neither arable nor valuable, and in some cases the new settler discovered that he had not in fact really bought the land at all. Even where the settlers were able to live on the land they bought, they were offered far less than the notes were worth. For these settlers, it was an outrage that having been fleeced by speculators once, they were to be taxed in a manner aimed directly at them, and them alone.
Cash was scarce in the new territories, so barter and various mediums of exchange came into use. While some settlers were successful farmers, because no highways had been built, there was no way to ship produce to the East, and the Spanish who controlled the Mississippi River barred the settlers from shipping goods on it. After some time, the settlers discovered that whiskey was a valuable commodity. Unused grain and fruit would spoil and become worthless very soon, but whiskey could be stored, and in fact gained value as it aged. The whiskey tax, therefore, targeted the principal means of the settlers’ commerce.
Worse, the tax had to be paid in hard currency, and worse still, the tax was not based on cash sales or even proportion of inventory, but on the tax collectors’ estimates of whiskey production. A tax collector could assign literally any dollar amount on a whiskey producer, and many did so because their enforcement rights allowed them to seize property and land. Given that many of the settlers had fought in the war against unfair taxation, this was unconscionable on its face. Protests rose up in short order in many places, including the South where landowners saw the Tax as a prelude to government takeover of anyone in its way. Armed rebellion began in 1794 near Pittsburgh, but no one was killed – the rebels made it a point to voice their anger but stop short of lethal force.
President Washington, under the authority of the Militia Law passed in 1792, called up a military force larger than the entire Continental Army used in the Revolutionary War, and set it under the command of Virginia Governor Harry “Light Horse” Lee, whose grandson, Robert E. Lee, would surpass him. Lee considered the post unsuitable and handed control over to his civilian advisor appointed by President Washington – Alexander Hamilton. Hamilton drove his army into and all about Western Pennsylvania, but the rebel forces refused to give him a target and melted away into the mountains and hills. What’s more, the local citizens were hostile to the government forces – the army was commonly asked why they were unwilling to protect the settlers from attacks by Indians, but were so quick to hunt down veterans of the Revolution, patriots who merely opposed an unfair and discriminatory tax that any free man would find abhorrent – so the army eventually drew up charges – on dubious evidence – against twenty men, two were convicted (but not in Western Pennsylvania), and seeing the futility of the move, President Washington pardoned those two and called the matter closed.
The tax remained fiercely unpopular, helped bolster the fortunes of the young Democratic-Republican Party and Thomas Jefferson, and was repealed in 1803.
Since History is not a popular course these days, either with students or the mostly PC school districts, the lessons of the Whiskey Rebellion are not commonly discussed, much less considered in the light to today’s conditions and events. But men who deem themselves better than the common man, who imagine that their solution will be painless for all just because it benefits them personally, would do well to consider the one notable blunder in Washington’s terms as President, which consequences altered not only political history but the character of American finance – it should be remembered that the Bank of the United States failed, not once but twice – and the lessons of how anyone, when pushed far enough, will push back.
The bank, however, depended on a special security, bonds sold to bring in capital for the government, yet the government needed capital to pay for those bonds as well. Hamilton’s answer, blessed by President Washington and the Congress, was an excise tax on whiskey. To the mind of Congress, this was a perfect solution, as whiskey was considered not only a luxury, but sinful because of the behavior of many men who drank it. Note also that the Congress chose to target whiskey, not wine or any other spirit likely to be imported from a country where the United States wanted to build a commercial relationship. The tax was assigned to whiskey, specifically whiskey distilled in the western territories.
To the pioneers in western Pennsylvania, Ohio, and Kentucky, the tax was not only onerous, but an outrage built upon another outrage. Many veterans of the Revolution found that they had lost land and property during the war, and so were ‘paid’ with promissory notes, which the Congress dithered about repaying for more than a decade in some cases. Many of these men ended up selling their notes to speculators for land in the western territories, finding out only later that the land was often neither arable nor valuable, and in some cases the new settler discovered that he had not in fact really bought the land at all. Even where the settlers were able to live on the land they bought, they were offered far less than the notes were worth. For these settlers, it was an outrage that having been fleeced by speculators once, they were to be taxed in a manner aimed directly at them, and them alone.
Cash was scarce in the new territories, so barter and various mediums of exchange came into use. While some settlers were successful farmers, because no highways had been built, there was no way to ship produce to the East, and the Spanish who controlled the Mississippi River barred the settlers from shipping goods on it. After some time, the settlers discovered that whiskey was a valuable commodity. Unused grain and fruit would spoil and become worthless very soon, but whiskey could be stored, and in fact gained value as it aged. The whiskey tax, therefore, targeted the principal means of the settlers’ commerce.
Worse, the tax had to be paid in hard currency, and worse still, the tax was not based on cash sales or even proportion of inventory, but on the tax collectors’ estimates of whiskey production. A tax collector could assign literally any dollar amount on a whiskey producer, and many did so because their enforcement rights allowed them to seize property and land. Given that many of the settlers had fought in the war against unfair taxation, this was unconscionable on its face. Protests rose up in short order in many places, including the South where landowners saw the Tax as a prelude to government takeover of anyone in its way. Armed rebellion began in 1794 near Pittsburgh, but no one was killed – the rebels made it a point to voice their anger but stop short of lethal force.
President Washington, under the authority of the Militia Law passed in 1792, called up a military force larger than the entire Continental Army used in the Revolutionary War, and set it under the command of Virginia Governor Harry “Light Horse” Lee, whose grandson, Robert E. Lee, would surpass him. Lee considered the post unsuitable and handed control over to his civilian advisor appointed by President Washington – Alexander Hamilton. Hamilton drove his army into and all about Western Pennsylvania, but the rebel forces refused to give him a target and melted away into the mountains and hills. What’s more, the local citizens were hostile to the government forces – the army was commonly asked why they were unwilling to protect the settlers from attacks by Indians, but were so quick to hunt down veterans of the Revolution, patriots who merely opposed an unfair and discriminatory tax that any free man would find abhorrent – so the army eventually drew up charges – on dubious evidence – against twenty men, two were convicted (but not in Western Pennsylvania), and seeing the futility of the move, President Washington pardoned those two and called the matter closed.
The tax remained fiercely unpopular, helped bolster the fortunes of the young Democratic-Republican Party and Thomas Jefferson, and was repealed in 1803.
Since History is not a popular course these days, either with students or the mostly PC school districts, the lessons of the Whiskey Rebellion are not commonly discussed, much less considered in the light to today’s conditions and events. But men who deem themselves better than the common man, who imagine that their solution will be painless for all just because it benefits them personally, would do well to consider the one notable blunder in Washington’s terms as President, which consequences altered not only political history but the character of American finance – it should be remembered that the Bank of the United States failed, not once but twice – and the lessons of how anyone, when pushed far enough, will push back.
Sunday, March 07, 2010
The Comfort Zone
Some years back when I was much younger and more naïve, a friend talked me into joining Amway as a distributor. The premise seemed simple and attractive; Amway offers a range of cleaning and household products that – so they claim – are superior in quality and comparable or cheaper in price. In addition, Amway’s system of compensation – as they described it – allowed the opportunity for distributors to build a network which would lead to income based on other people’s work – a Ponzi scheme, as it turned out, although Amway laid things out carefully to avoid prosecution for fraud – everyone knew what the company was doing, but could not prove it. Since discovering the lies and hypocrisy of Amway and cutting my losses, I have encountered a number of other people who believed the company’s promises and quit when they found out the promise was false, but never yet anyone who made a successful career with the company. The relevance to today’s post, is that Amway pushed its distributors to ‘get out of their comfort zone’, to take risks without carefully considering the full costs against desired benefits. In that light, it should hardly be surprising that so many people who joined Amway suffered losses they never expected, and who found the company lacking in integrity and ethics.
Most of us have heard of the ‘comfort zone’. We are told that we get into habits and certain ways of doing things, and that we get used to the routine and resist change, even when it can be good for us or even necessary. People telling us to ‘get out of our comfort zone’ include doctors, bosses, and teachers, but we also run into this from people trying to get us to do things for their benefit more than for our own. A key sign of what sort of motive a person has for pushing you to ‘get out of your comfort zone’, would be whether they are willing to let you think through the argument, and consider in detail what risks and benefits you are facing if you accept or decline the offer or proposition. Anyone pushing you to accept their demands without proper consideration may reasonably be considered a con man more than someone with your interests as a priority. For example, when I was first diagnosed with abdominal cancer in 2006, my initial oncologist wanted to schedule radical surgery, and became very upset when I wanted to get a second opinion. His conduct verged on unprofessional then, as he hid my medical records in a childish attempt to keep me from sending them to the other oncologist. I had a rare condition he wanted to treat for his own intellectual interest, and he could not have cared less about me as a person facing a serious condition. Like others, he pressed for me to agree to major surgery simply because he felt I should have it, and in his argument he argued that my reluctance was more from my ‘comfort zone’ than to reasonable concern to make sure it was the best course of action. In the end, I had to threaten his office with HIPAA to get the records released, but my experience with my oncologist at M.D. Anderson was night and day better, as MDA found a non-invasive way to treat my condition. In truth, staying in my ‘comfort zone’ became impossible once I was diagnosed, but demanding my rights and pursuing all of my options were not at all to do with a ‘comfort zone’, but responsible deliberation of the situation.
The ‘comfort zone’, of course, also shows up a lot in politics. We have seen this with the Global Warming hoax, best demonstrated by the demand from activists that there is no time to verify their claims of cataclysmic climate change, but draconian measures must be immediately undertaken without debate, let alone proof. The con men doubled down with the laughable lie that the science is proven and the debate settled. The hoax has begun to fall apart in recent weeks, but the scheme progressed alarmingly far with little public scrutiny of the hoaxers’ motives and claims. The same propaganda tool was used to pass massive spending programs through Congress, hundreds of billions of taxpayer dollars spent on pet projects on the pretense that immediate action was needed to avoid a rise in the unemployment rate – which continued to rise after the legislation anyway, largely because the spending in the bill had nothing in truth to do with protecting or creating jobs in major industries or to help small companies, which make up most jobs. It was, the public is beginning to realize, a lie to cover a money grab for their buddies. More than the Tea Party protests, more than preference for a political party, the public outrage over being lied to is what is fueling the move to throw out incumbents.
That’s not to say that no one should worry about the need to get out of their comfort zone. Those politicians who think they can support Obama’s Chicago Con bills in March and still enjoy re-election this November are in for a nasty shock, as are the party leaders, Republican as well as Democrat, who still ignore the need for reform and attention to their grass roots and the ideals that made them relevant to Americans before the present era. Earmarks and special interest favors are the comfort zones of politics that the public is demanding be ended. The future of American politics depends on the leaders who first recognize and acknowledge that the people are America, and not deep-pocket special interest groups.
Most of us have heard of the ‘comfort zone’. We are told that we get into habits and certain ways of doing things, and that we get used to the routine and resist change, even when it can be good for us or even necessary. People telling us to ‘get out of our comfort zone’ include doctors, bosses, and teachers, but we also run into this from people trying to get us to do things for their benefit more than for our own. A key sign of what sort of motive a person has for pushing you to ‘get out of your comfort zone’, would be whether they are willing to let you think through the argument, and consider in detail what risks and benefits you are facing if you accept or decline the offer or proposition. Anyone pushing you to accept their demands without proper consideration may reasonably be considered a con man more than someone with your interests as a priority. For example, when I was first diagnosed with abdominal cancer in 2006, my initial oncologist wanted to schedule radical surgery, and became very upset when I wanted to get a second opinion. His conduct verged on unprofessional then, as he hid my medical records in a childish attempt to keep me from sending them to the other oncologist. I had a rare condition he wanted to treat for his own intellectual interest, and he could not have cared less about me as a person facing a serious condition. Like others, he pressed for me to agree to major surgery simply because he felt I should have it, and in his argument he argued that my reluctance was more from my ‘comfort zone’ than to reasonable concern to make sure it was the best course of action. In the end, I had to threaten his office with HIPAA to get the records released, but my experience with my oncologist at M.D. Anderson was night and day better, as MDA found a non-invasive way to treat my condition. In truth, staying in my ‘comfort zone’ became impossible once I was diagnosed, but demanding my rights and pursuing all of my options were not at all to do with a ‘comfort zone’, but responsible deliberation of the situation.
The ‘comfort zone’, of course, also shows up a lot in politics. We have seen this with the Global Warming hoax, best demonstrated by the demand from activists that there is no time to verify their claims of cataclysmic climate change, but draconian measures must be immediately undertaken without debate, let alone proof. The con men doubled down with the laughable lie that the science is proven and the debate settled. The hoax has begun to fall apart in recent weeks, but the scheme progressed alarmingly far with little public scrutiny of the hoaxers’ motives and claims. The same propaganda tool was used to pass massive spending programs through Congress, hundreds of billions of taxpayer dollars spent on pet projects on the pretense that immediate action was needed to avoid a rise in the unemployment rate – which continued to rise after the legislation anyway, largely because the spending in the bill had nothing in truth to do with protecting or creating jobs in major industries or to help small companies, which make up most jobs. It was, the public is beginning to realize, a lie to cover a money grab for their buddies. More than the Tea Party protests, more than preference for a political party, the public outrage over being lied to is what is fueling the move to throw out incumbents.
That’s not to say that no one should worry about the need to get out of their comfort zone. Those politicians who think they can support Obama’s Chicago Con bills in March and still enjoy re-election this November are in for a nasty shock, as are the party leaders, Republican as well as Democrat, who still ignore the need for reform and attention to their grass roots and the ideals that made them relevant to Americans before the present era. Earmarks and special interest favors are the comfort zones of politics that the public is demanding be ended. The future of American politics depends on the leaders who first recognize and acknowledge that the people are America, and not deep-pocket special interest groups.
Wednesday, February 24, 2010
Wealth Theory
One characteristic which separates Republicans and Democrats in most people’s minds, is their attitude towards wealth. Democrats often believe that Republicans are biased in favor of the wealthy and against ‘the poor’, who are commonly imagined as minorities, women, and the elderly, and that Democrats stand for fair outcomes, so made by actions taken to punish greed. Republicans often believe that Democrats are biased in favor of special interest groups and against ‘working Americans’, who are commonly imagined as America in total, and that Republicans stand for equal opportunity, so made by elimination of subjective barriers and penalties used to punish business success. Democrats and Republicans both claim to speak for Main Street, although Democrats claim Republicans are buddies of Wall Street, Republicans claim Democrats are buddies of Broadway, and far too many members of both parties act like they live on Bourbon Street. This article is written to set out my understanding of how wealth is created and developed, and to begin a discussion on perspectives of the same concern.
There is a sense in the modern culture that money is a bad thing, and that rich people are bad people. Democrats promote this sense in politics by accusing business leaders and major companies of “greed” whenever the business community is opposed to a policy or bill supported by Democrats. Opposition by Democrats to financial success, however, does not appear to extend to criticism of celebrities and actors, to lawyers or doctors, or to special-interest groups which support liberal causes. This hypocrisy is salient to the matter, since it demonstrates that Democrats are inconsistent in their application of their theory, designating non-productive wealth as acceptable while maligning wealth from production of useful goods and services demanded by the public. America will not be in crisis if Michael Moore’s film fails, but as we have seen, it does fall into crisis when major auto manufacturers cannot produce profits. It should also be noted that it is inherently illogical for politicians, who receive money while producing no useful product, to sit in judgment of people and companies which do produce useful goods. That way lies madness and the myth of Man-created Global Warming.
The liberal lie about wealth depends on the zero-sum fiction of wealth. The idea is that there is only so much of any good thing, and it’s human nature to want as much of it as you can get. That’s greed, as they think of it. Everyone is entitled to their “fair share”, which is almost never how it works out in practice, making the real world “unfair” by their rules. The idea that everyone should have a share of something, even if they did nothing to create or build it, sounds a lot closer to greed than those people who work hard to make a thing themselves. And anyone who’s ever done farming understands that production is not a zero-sum equation. Come to that, farming is counter-intuitive in some ways. The idea that you take edible seed and bury it makes no sense until you understand how germination works. That’s why Agriculture is the ‘First Wave’ of technology mentioned by the Tofflers.
And Industry, by the way, is the Second Wave, and it’s no zero-sum matter either. Not everyone can make all the goods he or she wants and needs, nor equally well. Industry provides a means for a community, country or planet to raise its living standards and quality of life without increasing its cost of resources to the same degree. Capitalism works for many reasons, not least of which include the fact that major capitalist nations have healthier, happier citizens. One of the most basic laws of business is that to succeed, a business must have relatively low prices, superior features and convenience, or superior quality and customer satisfaction, or some two of the three if it wants to lead in its industry. Only a monopoly, like the Post Office or Congress, is immune to these economic laws, and even there, over a period of time degradation is inevitable. Anyone who tells you different is running for office with a jackass for a logo.
There are a few basic rules of how one creates wealth. One may receive it, as in inheritance; one seizes it, as in conquest or eminent domain or nationalization; or one may actually build wealth. Wealth is not simply manipulating numbers a la Bernie Madoff to create the illusion of wealth creation, nor is it the parasitical behavior of people living off other people’s work, like people who make money off things like ‘residuals’ and other gambling-based activities. Wealth creation only occurs when the net wealth of all stakeholders in an enterprise grows. This is why farms, savings and loans, factories, and corporate labs are good investments, while law firms, casinos, and eco-thug restrictions are generally liabilities for a culture. The farmer’s tools, land, and work combine to create food which is worth more than he puts into it. A savings and loan – properly run – protects savings and provides capital for worthwhile ventures, which grow to far beyond their initial investment and outlay. Factories produce products which improve the quality of life for their customers, employees, and communities, especially if they are run by people who live in those same communities, which creates a desire for good corporate citizenship. Corporate laboratories seek answers to pressing medical needs and provide improved options for people living with disease, impaired ability, pain, or other maladies. On the other hand, law firms not only consume assets while producing no goods or valuable services, they also leave impacts which damage communities as a whole. This is not to say that the law is not necessary, but it is abused by lawyers far more than communities are abused by businesses. Casinos also consume resources without creating any physical goods or valuable services; the net effect on a community with a casino is inevitably negative. And politics-based restrictions on corporate operations damages the effectiveness of those businesses, costs jobs, and consumes assets and resources with no production of goods or useful services. The point is that government, even when absolutely necessary, is by definition destructive, wasteful, and a liability to be minimized whenever possible.
All wealth creation involves risk. There is always the risk of failure, such as the farmer whose crops suffer from bad weather or insect blight, or the factory which must stay abreast of consumer demand and the cost-effectiveness of its methods. All successful corporations begin as small businesses, so protection of small business interests is not only quaint, it’s Economics’ version of Pediatric Medicine. As for public corporations, they exist under specific laws and requirements. A lot of people don’t seem to understand that what Enron did, for example, was already against the law, even before the passage of Sarbanes-Oxley. While there are crooks in business, there are crooks everywhere, as Congress and most city councils have proved well beyond dispute. There are far more good businessmen than bad, something Congress can hardly claim for itself. That’s not to say that business should operate without reasonable rules and laws, but there’s something very wrong with a Congress that knows so little about Economics and Business, with its own pallid record in Ethics, setting business leaders in general out as the enemy of the nation. And the results of the Auto Bailout in the year just past stand as a painful reminder of just how poorly Congress understands the effects of its actions. The Bank, Auto, and who-knows-what-else-is-to-be-bailed-out industries have not improved in financial stability or health, despite all the money poured into them. Because risk is not mitigated by government meddling, anymore than blaming Wall Street for blundering disasters in the White House is an effective means of improving job creation.
Risk is disliked, of course. But because you cannot escape it completely, risk tolerance is a factor in all economic activity. And as a natural function, the only way to persuade someone to accept higher risk, is to offer commensurate rewards for success under those conditions. Also, refusing to reward risk tolerance will inevitably damage performance, as the consistent results of Socialism demonstrate. As an example, consider at-will employment. A man has some money, and an idea. An idea he thinks will produce profits. So he hires employees to help him make the product or provide the service that is his idea. That’s how most people these days make a living – working for a company that hired them to do a job. They could have started their own company, worked by and for themselves, but they did not like the risk, so they agreed to an arrangement where they could be assured of a certain income by doing a certain thing under certain conditions. If things didn’t work out, the boss could fire you or you could quit. Simple, direct, and functional. Companies with good bosses, a good plan, and good employees grew strong. Companies without those things died out. Here in the bailout age, a lot of people would not believe that most of the original automobile companies eventually went under – Stanley, Packard, Deusenberg, Haynes, Studebaker, and Duryea were all major automakers at one time or another but which died out, even though some were successful for some years. The Studebaker was a popular company well into the 1950s, for example. And in addition to government intervention to protect selected industries and companies, there was also the drive to create protected classes of employees. Unions, for example, originally created to protect employee rights to safe working conditions and equal opportunity to advancement and compensation, were soon corrupted to become means to manipulate workstaff and extort money from businesses; the Mafia’s gruesome history alone confirms that unfortunate development. Governments, from local councils to the Congress, have also interfered with business through initiatives meant to accomplish job growth or to advance selected outcomes, but inevitably such programs have cost well in excess of their benefits. The most obvious example would be Medicare, which controlled medical costs for a selected demographic of Americans but only to a degree and only for a finite time span, while the attendant costs have rocketed far beyond all projections. Darwin’s theory of Natural Selection may not prove true with regard to biological cross-species evolution, but it is a truth of economics that cost and benefit can not be artificially manipulated to serve a political aim. While it is true that behavior can be influenced by rewarding desired behavior and punishing undesired behavior, this practice breaks down as the scale of subjects, cost, and time increase. The best examples are black market economies and attempts to legislate moral preferences.
For this reason among others, every nation depends essentially on small business first and foremost. This is because small businesses are most sensitive to new opportunities and dangers, and because small businesses exist for pure business reasons, paying in taxes and compliance for government and special interest interference but operating for valid business purpose. The effect of new policies upon small business is therefore a significant barometer for the economic wisdom of those actions, and should be carefully considered in historical context. An action which was ill-considered in 1934 is not a wise choice in 2010 simply because time has passed.
This brings us to present politics. The plain lesson of History is that policies based on the subjective values of the minority of the population, such as Carbon taxes, ex post facto taxes on executive bonuses, and arbitrary manipulation of mortgage and credit rates, may work for a limited time but in the long term prove ineffective, inefficient, and do more damage to the economy than any good. Any action taken will inevitably affect and influence the behavior of the whole economy, and focusing only on one part is going to lead to unpleasant surprises. Government actions will inexorably damage economic performance, with the exception of actions which reduce government restrictions. This is not to say that government regulation is not needed, but to observe that even the most necessary statutes mean accepting poorer performance for greater stability or control. Consequently, it never even possible for Obama’s “Stimulus” to work as intended, anymore than a perpetual motion engine can function in real life, and for the same reason; economic performance comes from the actions of wealth-producing entities, which are individuals and businesses, never the government. The government is parasitic in economic nature, and therefore any government action which controls and redirects wealth will reduce the total amount in that process; it was therefore impossible ab initio for a plan to spend huge amounts of public money to result in anything but diminished economic performance. Cross-reference East Germany, 1945-1995 and compare to West Germany for the same time period.
This essay says nothing that was not already generally known. The emotional reactions from some folks may, however, serve as a sort of economic literacy test.
There is a sense in the modern culture that money is a bad thing, and that rich people are bad people. Democrats promote this sense in politics by accusing business leaders and major companies of “greed” whenever the business community is opposed to a policy or bill supported by Democrats. Opposition by Democrats to financial success, however, does not appear to extend to criticism of celebrities and actors, to lawyers or doctors, or to special-interest groups which support liberal causes. This hypocrisy is salient to the matter, since it demonstrates that Democrats are inconsistent in their application of their theory, designating non-productive wealth as acceptable while maligning wealth from production of useful goods and services demanded by the public. America will not be in crisis if Michael Moore’s film fails, but as we have seen, it does fall into crisis when major auto manufacturers cannot produce profits. It should also be noted that it is inherently illogical for politicians, who receive money while producing no useful product, to sit in judgment of people and companies which do produce useful goods. That way lies madness and the myth of Man-created Global Warming.
The liberal lie about wealth depends on the zero-sum fiction of wealth. The idea is that there is only so much of any good thing, and it’s human nature to want as much of it as you can get. That’s greed, as they think of it. Everyone is entitled to their “fair share”, which is almost never how it works out in practice, making the real world “unfair” by their rules. The idea that everyone should have a share of something, even if they did nothing to create or build it, sounds a lot closer to greed than those people who work hard to make a thing themselves. And anyone who’s ever done farming understands that production is not a zero-sum equation. Come to that, farming is counter-intuitive in some ways. The idea that you take edible seed and bury it makes no sense until you understand how germination works. That’s why Agriculture is the ‘First Wave’ of technology mentioned by the Tofflers.
And Industry, by the way, is the Second Wave, and it’s no zero-sum matter either. Not everyone can make all the goods he or she wants and needs, nor equally well. Industry provides a means for a community, country or planet to raise its living standards and quality of life without increasing its cost of resources to the same degree. Capitalism works for many reasons, not least of which include the fact that major capitalist nations have healthier, happier citizens. One of the most basic laws of business is that to succeed, a business must have relatively low prices, superior features and convenience, or superior quality and customer satisfaction, or some two of the three if it wants to lead in its industry. Only a monopoly, like the Post Office or Congress, is immune to these economic laws, and even there, over a period of time degradation is inevitable. Anyone who tells you different is running for office with a jackass for a logo.
There are a few basic rules of how one creates wealth. One may receive it, as in inheritance; one seizes it, as in conquest or eminent domain or nationalization; or one may actually build wealth. Wealth is not simply manipulating numbers a la Bernie Madoff to create the illusion of wealth creation, nor is it the parasitical behavior of people living off other people’s work, like people who make money off things like ‘residuals’ and other gambling-based activities. Wealth creation only occurs when the net wealth of all stakeholders in an enterprise grows. This is why farms, savings and loans, factories, and corporate labs are good investments, while law firms, casinos, and eco-thug restrictions are generally liabilities for a culture. The farmer’s tools, land, and work combine to create food which is worth more than he puts into it. A savings and loan – properly run – protects savings and provides capital for worthwhile ventures, which grow to far beyond their initial investment and outlay. Factories produce products which improve the quality of life for their customers, employees, and communities, especially if they are run by people who live in those same communities, which creates a desire for good corporate citizenship. Corporate laboratories seek answers to pressing medical needs and provide improved options for people living with disease, impaired ability, pain, or other maladies. On the other hand, law firms not only consume assets while producing no goods or valuable services, they also leave impacts which damage communities as a whole. This is not to say that the law is not necessary, but it is abused by lawyers far more than communities are abused by businesses. Casinos also consume resources without creating any physical goods or valuable services; the net effect on a community with a casino is inevitably negative. And politics-based restrictions on corporate operations damages the effectiveness of those businesses, costs jobs, and consumes assets and resources with no production of goods or useful services. The point is that government, even when absolutely necessary, is by definition destructive, wasteful, and a liability to be minimized whenever possible.
All wealth creation involves risk. There is always the risk of failure, such as the farmer whose crops suffer from bad weather or insect blight, or the factory which must stay abreast of consumer demand and the cost-effectiveness of its methods. All successful corporations begin as small businesses, so protection of small business interests is not only quaint, it’s Economics’ version of Pediatric Medicine. As for public corporations, they exist under specific laws and requirements. A lot of people don’t seem to understand that what Enron did, for example, was already against the law, even before the passage of Sarbanes-Oxley. While there are crooks in business, there are crooks everywhere, as Congress and most city councils have proved well beyond dispute. There are far more good businessmen than bad, something Congress can hardly claim for itself. That’s not to say that business should operate without reasonable rules and laws, but there’s something very wrong with a Congress that knows so little about Economics and Business, with its own pallid record in Ethics, setting business leaders in general out as the enemy of the nation. And the results of the Auto Bailout in the year just past stand as a painful reminder of just how poorly Congress understands the effects of its actions. The Bank, Auto, and who-knows-what-else-is-to-be-bailed-out industries have not improved in financial stability or health, despite all the money poured into them. Because risk is not mitigated by government meddling, anymore than blaming Wall Street for blundering disasters in the White House is an effective means of improving job creation.
Risk is disliked, of course. But because you cannot escape it completely, risk tolerance is a factor in all economic activity. And as a natural function, the only way to persuade someone to accept higher risk, is to offer commensurate rewards for success under those conditions. Also, refusing to reward risk tolerance will inevitably damage performance, as the consistent results of Socialism demonstrate. As an example, consider at-will employment. A man has some money, and an idea. An idea he thinks will produce profits. So he hires employees to help him make the product or provide the service that is his idea. That’s how most people these days make a living – working for a company that hired them to do a job. They could have started their own company, worked by and for themselves, but they did not like the risk, so they agreed to an arrangement where they could be assured of a certain income by doing a certain thing under certain conditions. If things didn’t work out, the boss could fire you or you could quit. Simple, direct, and functional. Companies with good bosses, a good plan, and good employees grew strong. Companies without those things died out. Here in the bailout age, a lot of people would not believe that most of the original automobile companies eventually went under – Stanley, Packard, Deusenberg, Haynes, Studebaker, and Duryea were all major automakers at one time or another but which died out, even though some were successful for some years. The Studebaker was a popular company well into the 1950s, for example. And in addition to government intervention to protect selected industries and companies, there was also the drive to create protected classes of employees. Unions, for example, originally created to protect employee rights to safe working conditions and equal opportunity to advancement and compensation, were soon corrupted to become means to manipulate workstaff and extort money from businesses; the Mafia’s gruesome history alone confirms that unfortunate development. Governments, from local councils to the Congress, have also interfered with business through initiatives meant to accomplish job growth or to advance selected outcomes, but inevitably such programs have cost well in excess of their benefits. The most obvious example would be Medicare, which controlled medical costs for a selected demographic of Americans but only to a degree and only for a finite time span, while the attendant costs have rocketed far beyond all projections. Darwin’s theory of Natural Selection may not prove true with regard to biological cross-species evolution, but it is a truth of economics that cost and benefit can not be artificially manipulated to serve a political aim. While it is true that behavior can be influenced by rewarding desired behavior and punishing undesired behavior, this practice breaks down as the scale of subjects, cost, and time increase. The best examples are black market economies and attempts to legislate moral preferences.
For this reason among others, every nation depends essentially on small business first and foremost. This is because small businesses are most sensitive to new opportunities and dangers, and because small businesses exist for pure business reasons, paying in taxes and compliance for government and special interest interference but operating for valid business purpose. The effect of new policies upon small business is therefore a significant barometer for the economic wisdom of those actions, and should be carefully considered in historical context. An action which was ill-considered in 1934 is not a wise choice in 2010 simply because time has passed.
This brings us to present politics. The plain lesson of History is that policies based on the subjective values of the minority of the population, such as Carbon taxes, ex post facto taxes on executive bonuses, and arbitrary manipulation of mortgage and credit rates, may work for a limited time but in the long term prove ineffective, inefficient, and do more damage to the economy than any good. Any action taken will inevitably affect and influence the behavior of the whole economy, and focusing only on one part is going to lead to unpleasant surprises. Government actions will inexorably damage economic performance, with the exception of actions which reduce government restrictions. This is not to say that government regulation is not needed, but to observe that even the most necessary statutes mean accepting poorer performance for greater stability or control. Consequently, it never even possible for Obama’s “Stimulus” to work as intended, anymore than a perpetual motion engine can function in real life, and for the same reason; economic performance comes from the actions of wealth-producing entities, which are individuals and businesses, never the government. The government is parasitic in economic nature, and therefore any government action which controls and redirects wealth will reduce the total amount in that process; it was therefore impossible ab initio for a plan to spend huge amounts of public money to result in anything but diminished economic performance. Cross-reference East Germany, 1945-1995 and compare to West Germany for the same time period.
This essay says nothing that was not already generally known. The emotional reactions from some folks may, however, serve as a sort of economic literacy test.
Friday, January 22, 2010
Jobs and Politics
Earlier this week, I heard a couple radio guys discuss the rumored severance package for talk show host Conan O’Brien for an estimated thirty million dollars. “If I got a 30 million dollar severance package”, quipped one of the guys, “I’d announce my retirement!” Certainly, many people would stop working if they found their way into a lot of money – a lot of people only work because they need to pay the bills. But I remember reading about people who win the lottery, then their lives are effectively ruined – turns out that even winning a ton-o-bucks can be traumatic and the cause of all kinds of problems. Strange as it sounds, the routine of life gives a person a sense of identity and purpose that affects everything important when it’s disrupted, and so the work we do, even when we don’t like our job, provides us with a sense of who we are and what we are worth. Consequently, the question of whether a person is employed, unemployed, or under-employed is a very important one, beyond the obvious financial perspective.
Imagine you woke up tomorrow and discovered you now had all the money you’d ever need. Doesn’t matter if you won the lottery, an inheritance, whatever, you now have complete financial freedom for the rest of your life. Your kids too, for that matter. Let’s also say that you have done a whole bunch of travelling and vacationing; you have gone every place you were ever curious to see but never had the money or time to do, and you are at peak health and fully relaxed. So, what do you do now with the rest of your life? A lot of people have trouble answering that question, falling back on making more money or doing more traveling. It’s simply too strange to seriously consider living your life with a truly open horizon.
The opposite is also true; the loss of employment or a serious change in your work conditions can create an environment which may well seem impossible to face. While the at-will concept has its virtues, it is pretty much undeniable that the concept makes it possible for employers to treat their people as disposable assets, and some businesses do just that in practice. It’s my opinion that most such businesses doom themselves to mediocrity or worse if you think it through, but that’s small comfort to an employee who is turned out simply because the company chose to cut them loose. The best remedy to that, is to become as close to indispensable as possible. The aphorism that no one is indispensable needs to be linked to the fact that certain people still matter very much. Oddly, while companies are generally careful to consider the value of their property and equipment, it’s all too common to discount the value of the talent and experience of your staff. But that’s getting away from the topic.
Economic crisis causes social tension, aside from the financial stress. For example, the Great Depression not only caused people to lose their businesses, savings and homes, it also forced migration to cities and regions where people believed they could find employment or better financial opportunity. The recession of the 1980s forced the city of Houston to diversify its industries, because the loss of the oil industry as a constant economic anchor had a disparate impact on Houston than the rest of the nation (Hint, that’s how to repair Detroit’s infrastructure – build on more than vehicle manufacture). The industrialization of the United States came to pass in part because of economic opportunities in urban factories that could not be matched in rural communities after the 1870s, a generation of human capital having been wiped out by the Civil War.
This brings us to politics, which finds its way into every human endeavor, and not often in a benevolent manner. The plain fact is, that as much as people dislike having to work to pay the bills, they really don’t like seeing their jobs put in danger. And, hate being the most convenient emotion to conjure in election campaigns, candidates from long history have run on promises of job creation and warnings that their opponents will take jobs away. This is hardly restricted to American politics, nor indeed did it begin here. Even in Ancient Rome, nobles took careful consideration of the public mood, and made sure to couch their plans in terms of the public weal. Taxes were always to be collected from someone else, and the providence of the dear leader, whatever his title or country, was always focused on making sure the people were fed and occupied with work, whatever else was done. Some cynical types have claimed, not without evidence, that wars have been brought about for this reason of giving people an occupation; in more modern times this has become unfashionable, so we have seen the rise of welfare in its place, the problem being that simply giving money to unproductive citizens is not only unsound economics, it fails to provide the occupation which is, in the end, the main point of things.
Moving to more modern times, the short version of things is that Democrats have presented themselves as the champions of the employees, while Republicans have presented themselves as champions of economic freedom. Of the two, voters have traditionally resonated more easily with the Democrats, ignoring the cost of Democrats’ taxes and bureaucracy – it’s not often considered, for example, that besides raising tax rates far more than Republican administrations and Congresses, Democrat administrations and Congresses have established costly and burdensome bureaucracies, such as Medicare and Social Security which, while perhaps useful in concept, have greatly increased their cost far beyond projections not only in financial terms, but also in legal complexity and burden of compliance. However, the Democrats have focused on the sense that voters have that they stand at a disadvantage when their jobs are in peril, that the Democrats are more concerned with protecting their specific jobs. Republicans have forfeited that advantage in order to press the more holistic condition, that the nation as a whole can ill afford cumbersome rules and tax rates which always go up. Republicans understand that the overwhelming majority of businesses are small businesses, especially one-owner businesses, and that the overwhelming economic base for employment comes from protecting the freedom of economic opportunity. All other arguments aside, this moral position explains the reason why Republicans are generally opposed to taxing Carbon Dioxide and other harmless gas emissions. The Democrats are concerned with creating an industry in compliance with government programs, economically, while Republicans are concerned with protecting businesses from the absurdity of paying for release of a harmless gas, and taking resources that could be used to grow the business and pay productive employees, and waste them on frivolous hobbies of politicians. To put it another way, Democrats focus on the immediate short-term benefits of an action on a minority of citizens, while Republicans focus on long-term economic costs and effects of an action on the nation as a whole. In the short term, the appearance of this contrast benefits Democrats, as their programs are served well by sound bites and local appearances, where those benefited by their proposal can be seen and heard, while those who pay the longer cost are invisible to television. However, when such programs are taken to excess, such as the ill-conceived and worse-executed Stimulus Bill promoted by Barack Obama, the long-term effects become apparent more readily and the lack of proportional benefits also becomes obvious. When that happens, the Democrats tend to lose credibility and Republicans are – for a time – in the ascendency.
Imagine you woke up tomorrow and discovered you now had all the money you’d ever need. Doesn’t matter if you won the lottery, an inheritance, whatever, you now have complete financial freedom for the rest of your life. Your kids too, for that matter. Let’s also say that you have done a whole bunch of travelling and vacationing; you have gone every place you were ever curious to see but never had the money or time to do, and you are at peak health and fully relaxed. So, what do you do now with the rest of your life? A lot of people have trouble answering that question, falling back on making more money or doing more traveling. It’s simply too strange to seriously consider living your life with a truly open horizon.
The opposite is also true; the loss of employment or a serious change in your work conditions can create an environment which may well seem impossible to face. While the at-will concept has its virtues, it is pretty much undeniable that the concept makes it possible for employers to treat their people as disposable assets, and some businesses do just that in practice. It’s my opinion that most such businesses doom themselves to mediocrity or worse if you think it through, but that’s small comfort to an employee who is turned out simply because the company chose to cut them loose. The best remedy to that, is to become as close to indispensable as possible. The aphorism that no one is indispensable needs to be linked to the fact that certain people still matter very much. Oddly, while companies are generally careful to consider the value of their property and equipment, it’s all too common to discount the value of the talent and experience of your staff. But that’s getting away from the topic.
Economic crisis causes social tension, aside from the financial stress. For example, the Great Depression not only caused people to lose their businesses, savings and homes, it also forced migration to cities and regions where people believed they could find employment or better financial opportunity. The recession of the 1980s forced the city of Houston to diversify its industries, because the loss of the oil industry as a constant economic anchor had a disparate impact on Houston than the rest of the nation (Hint, that’s how to repair Detroit’s infrastructure – build on more than vehicle manufacture). The industrialization of the United States came to pass in part because of economic opportunities in urban factories that could not be matched in rural communities after the 1870s, a generation of human capital having been wiped out by the Civil War.
This brings us to politics, which finds its way into every human endeavor, and not often in a benevolent manner. The plain fact is, that as much as people dislike having to work to pay the bills, they really don’t like seeing their jobs put in danger. And, hate being the most convenient emotion to conjure in election campaigns, candidates from long history have run on promises of job creation and warnings that their opponents will take jobs away. This is hardly restricted to American politics, nor indeed did it begin here. Even in Ancient Rome, nobles took careful consideration of the public mood, and made sure to couch their plans in terms of the public weal. Taxes were always to be collected from someone else, and the providence of the dear leader, whatever his title or country, was always focused on making sure the people were fed and occupied with work, whatever else was done. Some cynical types have claimed, not without evidence, that wars have been brought about for this reason of giving people an occupation; in more modern times this has become unfashionable, so we have seen the rise of welfare in its place, the problem being that simply giving money to unproductive citizens is not only unsound economics, it fails to provide the occupation which is, in the end, the main point of things.
Moving to more modern times, the short version of things is that Democrats have presented themselves as the champions of the employees, while Republicans have presented themselves as champions of economic freedom. Of the two, voters have traditionally resonated more easily with the Democrats, ignoring the cost of Democrats’ taxes and bureaucracy – it’s not often considered, for example, that besides raising tax rates far more than Republican administrations and Congresses, Democrat administrations and Congresses have established costly and burdensome bureaucracies, such as Medicare and Social Security which, while perhaps useful in concept, have greatly increased their cost far beyond projections not only in financial terms, but also in legal complexity and burden of compliance. However, the Democrats have focused on the sense that voters have that they stand at a disadvantage when their jobs are in peril, that the Democrats are more concerned with protecting their specific jobs. Republicans have forfeited that advantage in order to press the more holistic condition, that the nation as a whole can ill afford cumbersome rules and tax rates which always go up. Republicans understand that the overwhelming majority of businesses are small businesses, especially one-owner businesses, and that the overwhelming economic base for employment comes from protecting the freedom of economic opportunity. All other arguments aside, this moral position explains the reason why Republicans are generally opposed to taxing Carbon Dioxide and other harmless gas emissions. The Democrats are concerned with creating an industry in compliance with government programs, economically, while Republicans are concerned with protecting businesses from the absurdity of paying for release of a harmless gas, and taking resources that could be used to grow the business and pay productive employees, and waste them on frivolous hobbies of politicians. To put it another way, Democrats focus on the immediate short-term benefits of an action on a minority of citizens, while Republicans focus on long-term economic costs and effects of an action on the nation as a whole. In the short term, the appearance of this contrast benefits Democrats, as their programs are served well by sound bites and local appearances, where those benefited by their proposal can be seen and heard, while those who pay the longer cost are invisible to television. However, when such programs are taken to excess, such as the ill-conceived and worse-executed Stimulus Bill promoted by Barack Obama, the long-term effects become apparent more readily and the lack of proportional benefits also becomes obvious. When that happens, the Democrats tend to lose credibility and Republicans are – for a time – in the ascendency.
Saturday, January 16, 2010
Haiti and the Indulgence of Hate
The earthquake which ravaged Haiti this week has been used by a number of people as an excuse to make attacks on their political enemies. Some of the attacks have been generic, like the ubiquitous media insinuation that the delay in aid must be due to First-World disregard for the suffering of poor Haitians rather than the chaos of Haiti’s weak government and lack of emergency management planning, to the specific attempts at character assassination on Rush Limbaugh and Bill Clinton. At this writing I do not know whether the talk show host or former President of the United States made the remarks which their enemies claim (I am inclined to think not), but in any case the fact that such people use their voice to attack enemies rather than build coalitions to help people in need, speaks about a sad situation indeed, and to my mind the chief cause why we shall continue to see needless, avoidable suffering in places like Haiti.
There was no real way to avoid the earthquake, and given Haiti’s history of corruption and political feuds, it was perhaps inevitable that when a disaster struck again, the men in place to request and direct the flow of help would prove far inadequate to the need of their people. For example, Texas Task Force One and Ohio Task Force One, urban search & rescue groups with long experience assisting FEMA, international search and rescue groups, and the Red Cross in disaster relief, were in position at Ellington and Wright-Patterson Air Force bases within hours of the news of the disaster, ready with medical and surgical supplies, construction equipment to move debris, and together more than 160 experts and more than 120 tons of critical equipment to find survivors, provide on-scene surgical care and build shelters, bridges and repair phone and utility lines. The teams, however, have not been able to be deployed, because the Haitian government has not authorized their participation, even though these groups are arguably the most expert large-scale search and rescue groups on the planet, (having assisted in Hurricanes Ike, Rita, Katrina, and Wilma, the Tsunami which devastated Indonesia in 2004, other natural disasters like floods and earthquakes, and even terrorist acts, like recovery at Ground Zero in New York City; Texas Task Force One’s first assignment was recovery work at the Murrah Federal Building in Oklahoma City in 1995) they have not been allowed to even leave for Haiti. Not because they are not needed (both teams performed an earthquake scenario in the summer of 2009, for example), or because the United States has not requested their help, but because the Haitian government refuses to allow them entry. This is not to impugn the Haitian government, but it is a sad reminder that even the best intentions are not going to be enough to overcome some of the difficulties to be faced here.
The real problem for Haiti, however, is the same as from past disasters, like death-dealing storms in every year from 2002 through 2008. In fact, one reason Haiti was so unprepared for the present disaster, was that it was still reeling from 2008, when four tropical storms or hurricanes hit the nation. There simply is no Haitian equivalent of FEMA, no emergency response network of first-responders; people are left to fend for themselves as soon as a crisis hits. Because Haiti is so poor, roads and utility lines were never developed beyond the most primitive conditions, and building codes, even for schools and hospitals, are non-existent. In such a condition, blame and bitterness are perhaps inevitable, but solutions cannot be produced unless anger, justified or not, history, however painful, and personal pride, however habitual, are put aside in the interest of building for the future.
Because in the end, Haiti’s future depends on building. Not only rebuilding homes and businesses, but putting together a functional infrastructure that allows families and towns to have confidence not only in a given project, but in a system of financial, political, and personal responsibility that makes the nation viable, not only to its own people but also to its neighbors, in order to bring in the capital that leads to growth and stability. The one hope from this disaster, is that because Haiti has been building a government more responsive and accountable to its people, it may also build confidence in its nation through financial cooperation and the equity of the infrastructure it builds in recovery now. To that end, we all may lend help as best we can, but whatever our politics and ideology, this is no place to make political attacks or attack those who are trying to help the people now in pain and peril.
There was no real way to avoid the earthquake, and given Haiti’s history of corruption and political feuds, it was perhaps inevitable that when a disaster struck again, the men in place to request and direct the flow of help would prove far inadequate to the need of their people. For example, Texas Task Force One and Ohio Task Force One, urban search & rescue groups with long experience assisting FEMA, international search and rescue groups, and the Red Cross in disaster relief, were in position at Ellington and Wright-Patterson Air Force bases within hours of the news of the disaster, ready with medical and surgical supplies, construction equipment to move debris, and together more than 160 experts and more than 120 tons of critical equipment to find survivors, provide on-scene surgical care and build shelters, bridges and repair phone and utility lines. The teams, however, have not been able to be deployed, because the Haitian government has not authorized their participation, even though these groups are arguably the most expert large-scale search and rescue groups on the planet, (having assisted in Hurricanes Ike, Rita, Katrina, and Wilma, the Tsunami which devastated Indonesia in 2004, other natural disasters like floods and earthquakes, and even terrorist acts, like recovery at Ground Zero in New York City; Texas Task Force One’s first assignment was recovery work at the Murrah Federal Building in Oklahoma City in 1995) they have not been allowed to even leave for Haiti. Not because they are not needed (both teams performed an earthquake scenario in the summer of 2009, for example), or because the United States has not requested their help, but because the Haitian government refuses to allow them entry. This is not to impugn the Haitian government, but it is a sad reminder that even the best intentions are not going to be enough to overcome some of the difficulties to be faced here.
The real problem for Haiti, however, is the same as from past disasters, like death-dealing storms in every year from 2002 through 2008. In fact, one reason Haiti was so unprepared for the present disaster, was that it was still reeling from 2008, when four tropical storms or hurricanes hit the nation. There simply is no Haitian equivalent of FEMA, no emergency response network of first-responders; people are left to fend for themselves as soon as a crisis hits. Because Haiti is so poor, roads and utility lines were never developed beyond the most primitive conditions, and building codes, even for schools and hospitals, are non-existent. In such a condition, blame and bitterness are perhaps inevitable, but solutions cannot be produced unless anger, justified or not, history, however painful, and personal pride, however habitual, are put aside in the interest of building for the future.
Because in the end, Haiti’s future depends on building. Not only rebuilding homes and businesses, but putting together a functional infrastructure that allows families and towns to have confidence not only in a given project, but in a system of financial, political, and personal responsibility that makes the nation viable, not only to its own people but also to its neighbors, in order to bring in the capital that leads to growth and stability. The one hope from this disaster, is that because Haiti has been building a government more responsive and accountable to its people, it may also build confidence in its nation through financial cooperation and the equity of the infrastructure it builds in recovery now. To that end, we all may lend help as best we can, but whatever our politics and ideology, this is no place to make political attacks or attack those who are trying to help the people now in pain and peril.
Sunday, August 02, 2009
A Clear Sign, But What Does It Say?
I have not written much at all about President Obama’s Approval Ratings in the polls since he was inaugurated in January, but noting the recent trend it seems appropriate to do so now.
I have said many times that for me, the gold standard in opinion polling is the Gallup Organization. This is due not only to Gallup’s long history, but also because Gallup follows a very consistent methodology and set of questions. This allows interested researchers the opportunity to track support within a poll over a period of time, to better gauge the actual cause and effect of his policies and decisions.
The people at Real Clear Politics provide a very useful resource, where general polling support can be easily tracked.
Looking at these polls, the following polls provide a track of Obama’s job approval since January:
Gallup: 68% when sworn in, 56% now, loss of 12 points
Rasmussen: 62% when sworn in, 50% now, loss of 12 points
CBS/NYT: 63% February 22, 58% now, loss of 5 points
NBC/WSJ: 60% March 1, 53% now, loss of 7 points
Pew: 64% February 8, 54% now, loss of 10 points
NPR: 59% March 14, 53% now, loss of 6 points
FOX: 65% when sworn in, 54% now, loss of 11 points
In every case of long-term tracking, President Obama’s levels of job approval are the lowest overall he has seen since taking office, across the board.
But a closer look shows the problem may be more serious, nothing to worry about, or paradoxically, both.
In addition to a high-level overview, the Gallup Organization also publishes support by demographic groups.
An examination of those 28 demographic groups, determined by gender, age, geographic region, race, education, wages, political affiliation and orientation shows that in 22 of 28 demographic categories, support for President Obama is at its lowest or tried for the lowest level since he took office. The six demographic areas where support for President Obama is not at its nadir, are Non-White voters (85% support highest on April 26, 75% lowest on April 5, presently at 79%), Black voters (96% highest on July 5, May 4, and March 8, lowest at 86% on January 25, presently at 95%), Hispanic voters (85% highest on April 26, 70% lowest on April 5 and March 22, presently at 72%), Voters making below $24,000 a year (76% highest on May 4, 66% lowest on June 21, presently at 68%), Republicans (41% highest on January 25, 20% lowest on July 12, presently at 21%), and Liberals (90% highest on June 28, May 31, May 24, and April 26, 83% lowest on January 25, presently at 86%). All of those demographics are relative minorities to the voting population at this time.
Even with the loss of support, however, President Obama still enjoys support levels above 50% across the board, indicating that his personal popularity is strong and the general theme of his administration is well-received. Therefore, it may be reasonable to consider the loss of support nothing more than a shaking out of the fair-weather support, and displaying a strong core of support for the President. That is, of course, assuming his numbers do not continue to fall.
It should, however, be noted that President Obama has lost significant support among major demographic groups. Between February 1 and July 26, President Obama lost twelve points of support from female voters, who were the dominant gender in the 2008 election. White voters made up 74% of the electorate in the 2008 election, and since taking office President Obama’s support among whites has fallen sixteen points according to Gallup. The largest demographic age group in the 2008 election was the 30-49 age group; among this group President Obama has lost twelve points since taking office. Among moderates, the largest political philosophy demographic, President Obama has lost ten points since taking office. The South was the most important geographic region in the 2008 election, and among Southern voters, President Obama has lost twelve points of support since taking office. In the 2008 election, the largest demographic by education was the ‘Some College’ category, and in that category President Obama has lost fifteen points of support since taking office. And among voters earning between sixty thousand and ninety thousand dollars a year, again the largest demographic in their section, President Obama has seen his support fall by twenty points since taking office. The conclusion is unavoidable that, if this loss of support is not rebuilt and assuming the Republicans can present a credible candidate, that at this time President Obama has seriously damaged his re-election chances, since every dominant demographic group from the 2008 election has significantly reduced support for the President since his Inauguration.
I have said many times that for me, the gold standard in opinion polling is the Gallup Organization. This is due not only to Gallup’s long history, but also because Gallup follows a very consistent methodology and set of questions. This allows interested researchers the opportunity to track support within a poll over a period of time, to better gauge the actual cause and effect of his policies and decisions.
The people at Real Clear Politics provide a very useful resource, where general polling support can be easily tracked.
Looking at these polls, the following polls provide a track of Obama’s job approval since January:
Gallup: 68% when sworn in, 56% now, loss of 12 points
Rasmussen: 62% when sworn in, 50% now, loss of 12 points
CBS/NYT: 63% February 22, 58% now, loss of 5 points
NBC/WSJ: 60% March 1, 53% now, loss of 7 points
Pew: 64% February 8, 54% now, loss of 10 points
NPR: 59% March 14, 53% now, loss of 6 points
FOX: 65% when sworn in, 54% now, loss of 11 points
In every case of long-term tracking, President Obama’s levels of job approval are the lowest overall he has seen since taking office, across the board.
But a closer look shows the problem may be more serious, nothing to worry about, or paradoxically, both.
In addition to a high-level overview, the Gallup Organization also publishes support by demographic groups.
An examination of those 28 demographic groups, determined by gender, age, geographic region, race, education, wages, political affiliation and orientation shows that in 22 of 28 demographic categories, support for President Obama is at its lowest or tried for the lowest level since he took office. The six demographic areas where support for President Obama is not at its nadir, are Non-White voters (85% support highest on April 26, 75% lowest on April 5, presently at 79%), Black voters (96% highest on July 5, May 4, and March 8, lowest at 86% on January 25, presently at 95%), Hispanic voters (85% highest on April 26, 70% lowest on April 5 and March 22, presently at 72%), Voters making below $24,000 a year (76% highest on May 4, 66% lowest on June 21, presently at 68%), Republicans (41% highest on January 25, 20% lowest on July 12, presently at 21%), and Liberals (90% highest on June 28, May 31, May 24, and April 26, 83% lowest on January 25, presently at 86%). All of those demographics are relative minorities to the voting population at this time.
Even with the loss of support, however, President Obama still enjoys support levels above 50% across the board, indicating that his personal popularity is strong and the general theme of his administration is well-received. Therefore, it may be reasonable to consider the loss of support nothing more than a shaking out of the fair-weather support, and displaying a strong core of support for the President. That is, of course, assuming his numbers do not continue to fall.
It should, however, be noted that President Obama has lost significant support among major demographic groups. Between February 1 and July 26, President Obama lost twelve points of support from female voters, who were the dominant gender in the 2008 election. White voters made up 74% of the electorate in the 2008 election, and since taking office President Obama’s support among whites has fallen sixteen points according to Gallup. The largest demographic age group in the 2008 election was the 30-49 age group; among this group President Obama has lost twelve points since taking office. Among moderates, the largest political philosophy demographic, President Obama has lost ten points since taking office. The South was the most important geographic region in the 2008 election, and among Southern voters, President Obama has lost twelve points of support since taking office. In the 2008 election, the largest demographic by education was the ‘Some College’ category, and in that category President Obama has lost fifteen points of support since taking office. And among voters earning between sixty thousand and ninety thousand dollars a year, again the largest demographic in their section, President Obama has seen his support fall by twenty points since taking office. The conclusion is unavoidable that, if this loss of support is not rebuilt and assuming the Republicans can present a credible candidate, that at this time President Obama has seriously damaged his re-election chances, since every dominant demographic group from the 2008 election has significantly reduced support for the President since his Inauguration.
Friday, June 12, 2009
On Political Hate
On Wednesday, a gunman with a rifle opened fire on people at the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum in Washington, D.C. A security guard was killed and the suspect, 88-year-old James von Brunn, a white supremacist previously sent to prison for trying to kidnap the Federal Reserve’s board of governors, was shot and is now hospitalized. Assuming he recovers, Brunn will be charged with murder. By any decent person’s understanding, the crime was senseless and hateful, ‘hate’ being the apparent prime motive.
A predictable flood of left-wing media has used this crime to claim that Brunn represents a valid and significant threat, that conservative political opinions lead to extremism and hate.
Dan Gainor wrote a pretty comprehensive summary of just how hypocritical the left-leaning media and blogs are being about Brunn.
Some conservative pundits have been claiming that the crime demonstrates that leftist politics are the source of Brunn’s hate, or at least a major reason why he returned to violence.
AJ Strata posted a very intelligent article on Wednesday, noting that this not an ordinary Left-wing or Right-wing supporter, or even a fanatic, but a flat-out evil man whose politics are frankly irrelevant to the matter, except that political dialogue in the U.S. has become even more polarized and hysterical.
It turns out that von Brunn was not merely a white supremacist and anti-Semite, he also despised President Bush and Senator McCain, and considered 9-11 to be a government conspiracy. He is no conservative, and he is no liberal. Anyone claiming such is ignorant, a liar, or worse.
In short, Brunn appears to be both insane and violent, no more a valid example of considered political opinion than Charles Manson or Ted Bundy. James von Brunn is solitary example of corrosive hatred, and while I must agree that there are others out there who hold similar beliefs or who consider murder a reasonable response to conditions or leaders they dislike.
This brings me to the murder of Dr. George Tiller. The man accused of that crime is Scott Roeder, who allegedly justifies the murder of Tiller on Dr. Tiller’s abortion of unborn babies. A similar cacophony of anger has occurred between Left and Right on this incident as well, some on the left claiming that Tiller’s murder demonstrates that abortion opponents do not really value life and do not condemn violence against abortion providers whose actions are legal and, to the mind of the Left, important and necessary. Some on the right claim that the outrage over the death of a man who made a fortune through the deaths of countless innocents proves the hypocrisy of the Left’s claim to compassion. Both extremes insult the majority of Americans, who would not condone killing either babies or doctors, whatever their politics.
I am not about to pretend that Democrats and Republicans have similar opinions on the major issues, let alone the same ones. But neither am I willing to agree to the broad brush condemnation of millions of intelligent, mature individuals, simply because they have a different perspective and want to pursue different policies than I do. Also, in my experience I have seldom found any large group that was a proper fit for me in all respects. I am a republican and a conservative (small 'r', small ‘c’) yes, though that is partly in default to the fact that the democrats have abandoned all of those principles that – before 1964 – would have attracted me. I also know from personal experience that it can be painful to take exception to certain expected positions – I was once cut from a prominent national blog for not agreeing to promote the site owner’s specific positions on every political issue. I have strong opinions, but respect the law and the Constitution, as written. It seems to me that the leadership in our political parties, like the political factions which chase contributions and viewers/readers/voters, seeks only to provoke and outrage, counting on strong negative attacks rather than offering real solutions. And what solutions are proposed, far too often are merely demands and political payback to cronies, cynically couched as leadership or crisis response. Consensus exists in the dictionary, but never in the Congress.
Stephen Johns did not die for a political cause. He died defending innocent people, doing his job. What happened at the Holocaust Memorial Museum should outrage both Republicans and Democrats, because a good and decent man died because of the hatred in an indecent man’s heart. Dr. Tiller’s murder should outrage both Republicans and Democrats alike, not because of Dr. Tiller’s beliefs or actions, but because the law was ignored and a man took it upon himself to kill another man because of the hatred he had against him. William Long did not die because of his political beliefs, or anything that could rationally be construed as a crime or moral offense. He died because another man acted in hatred, hatred against America and hatred against her defenders.
There are real and important differences between differing political parties and there are many political viewpoints and opinions. These differences should be discussed candidly and civilly, using the blessing of a free and functioning democratic republic to decide the nation’s course and actions. But all decent people should all be able to agree that hatred and violence against other citizens is abhorrent, and is not the result of any mainstream political party. These crimes were not born from either Democrat or Republican policies or candidates, and it is petty and false to pretend they were. The spirit which moves a man to murder someone is not concerned with how they voted or who is in office. Even political assassins are often unconcerned with the politics of their victims. John Hinckley shot President Reagan for reasons that made sense only to him, and which had nothing to do with his politics. Lee Harvey Oswald is on record as saying he liked and admired the Kennedies. There simply comes a point where it is necessary to realize that insanity does not operate in ways that rational people can explain, and it serves no one to try to attack the beliefs of tens of millions of people for the actions of one or a few madmen. It insults the victims to do so, as well.
A predictable flood of left-wing media has used this crime to claim that Brunn represents a valid and significant threat, that conservative political opinions lead to extremism and hate.
Dan Gainor wrote a pretty comprehensive summary of just how hypocritical the left-leaning media and blogs are being about Brunn.
Some conservative pundits have been claiming that the crime demonstrates that leftist politics are the source of Brunn’s hate, or at least a major reason why he returned to violence.
AJ Strata posted a very intelligent article on Wednesday, noting that this not an ordinary Left-wing or Right-wing supporter, or even a fanatic, but a flat-out evil man whose politics are frankly irrelevant to the matter, except that political dialogue in the U.S. has become even more polarized and hysterical.
It turns out that von Brunn was not merely a white supremacist and anti-Semite, he also despised President Bush and Senator McCain, and considered 9-11 to be a government conspiracy. He is no conservative, and he is no liberal. Anyone claiming such is ignorant, a liar, or worse.
In short, Brunn appears to be both insane and violent, no more a valid example of considered political opinion than Charles Manson or Ted Bundy. James von Brunn is solitary example of corrosive hatred, and while I must agree that there are others out there who hold similar beliefs or who consider murder a reasonable response to conditions or leaders they dislike.
This brings me to the murder of Dr. George Tiller. The man accused of that crime is Scott Roeder, who allegedly justifies the murder of Tiller on Dr. Tiller’s abortion of unborn babies. A similar cacophony of anger has occurred between Left and Right on this incident as well, some on the left claiming that Tiller’s murder demonstrates that abortion opponents do not really value life and do not condemn violence against abortion providers whose actions are legal and, to the mind of the Left, important and necessary. Some on the right claim that the outrage over the death of a man who made a fortune through the deaths of countless innocents proves the hypocrisy of the Left’s claim to compassion. Both extremes insult the majority of Americans, who would not condone killing either babies or doctors, whatever their politics.
I am not about to pretend that Democrats and Republicans have similar opinions on the major issues, let alone the same ones. But neither am I willing to agree to the broad brush condemnation of millions of intelligent, mature individuals, simply because they have a different perspective and want to pursue different policies than I do. Also, in my experience I have seldom found any large group that was a proper fit for me in all respects. I am a republican and a conservative (small 'r', small ‘c’) yes, though that is partly in default to the fact that the democrats have abandoned all of those principles that – before 1964 – would have attracted me. I also know from personal experience that it can be painful to take exception to certain expected positions – I was once cut from a prominent national blog for not agreeing to promote the site owner’s specific positions on every political issue. I have strong opinions, but respect the law and the Constitution, as written. It seems to me that the leadership in our political parties, like the political factions which chase contributions and viewers/readers/voters, seeks only to provoke and outrage, counting on strong negative attacks rather than offering real solutions. And what solutions are proposed, far too often are merely demands and political payback to cronies, cynically couched as leadership or crisis response. Consensus exists in the dictionary, but never in the Congress.
Stephen Johns did not die for a political cause. He died defending innocent people, doing his job. What happened at the Holocaust Memorial Museum should outrage both Republicans and Democrats, because a good and decent man died because of the hatred in an indecent man’s heart. Dr. Tiller’s murder should outrage both Republicans and Democrats alike, not because of Dr. Tiller’s beliefs or actions, but because the law was ignored and a man took it upon himself to kill another man because of the hatred he had against him. William Long did not die because of his political beliefs, or anything that could rationally be construed as a crime or moral offense. He died because another man acted in hatred, hatred against America and hatred against her defenders.
There are real and important differences between differing political parties and there are many political viewpoints and opinions. These differences should be discussed candidly and civilly, using the blessing of a free and functioning democratic republic to decide the nation’s course and actions. But all decent people should all be able to agree that hatred and violence against other citizens is abhorrent, and is not the result of any mainstream political party. These crimes were not born from either Democrat or Republican policies or candidates, and it is petty and false to pretend they were. The spirit which moves a man to murder someone is not concerned with how they voted or who is in office. Even political assassins are often unconcerned with the politics of their victims. John Hinckley shot President Reagan for reasons that made sense only to him, and which had nothing to do with his politics. Lee Harvey Oswald is on record as saying he liked and admired the Kennedies. There simply comes a point where it is necessary to realize that insanity does not operate in ways that rational people can explain, and it serves no one to try to attack the beliefs of tens of millions of people for the actions of one or a few madmen. It insults the victims to do so, as well.
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