Judicial Independence versus Activist Judges: American Intelligence Test #9

One of the more prevalent political themes that is and will perpetually be used by both Democrats and Republicans whenever some constitutional-oriented ruling is made by a federal or state court is that the said court's justice(s) is/are acting proactively (and wrongly) based on their personal views and inconsistent with the “true meaning/intentions” of the applicable constitution. Yes, the infamous “activist judiciary” as it has become known in the popular parlance. So it would behoove us to consider what the general understanding the public has regarding the underlying issue at question here. Perhaps even to determine if the political parties are, as they ever like to do, creating a lightning-rod issue that draws the attention of the public or at least their own constituency to, so as to distract the public away from issues that are more pertinent to their individuals' lives and to the nation's interests.

How better to focus on this issue then to assess the insight of popular opinion, the intellectual prowess of the electorate and the attention span of the huddled masses.

Remember as Lincoln almost said:

Some of us can fool ourselves all of the time, and all of us can fool ourselves some of the time, but all of us can not fool ourselves all of the time.

So, gentle-persons: Start your engines!

Question 1: Our laws are based on clear and precise written statutes, including the Constitutional framework of laws that create and govern our democratic system.

True or False

Context: Consider that a lot of our laws are based on common law inherited from legal systems that predate our Constitution.

Question 2: When ruling on a case before the court, a judge (or justices) should adhere to the “original meaning/intent” of the law; there is no justification or need for the judiciary to interpret the law.

True or False

Context: Do you want to appear before a judge who should not have the right and duty to consider the situations and circumstances that prevail in our daily lives? [This is not a test question.]

Question 3: If you believe in Constitutional 'Originalism' rather than it antithesis a 'Living' Constitution then which of the following topics would you agree are beyond the scope of our laws as they are not contained in the text of the Constitution or for some topics that were not within the realm of understanding that our founding fathers could have conceived or thus intended?

A. genetic engineering

B. marriage

C. equal rights – required an Amendment

D. income tax – required an Amendment

E. Women's suffrage – required an Amendment

F. Desegregation of public schools

G. All of the Above

H. None of the Above

Context: While the ability to amend the Constitution is provided for in the Constitution it can hardly be considered as providing the original meaning of what was intended by the founding fathers regarding any topic that required an Amendment.

Question 4: Preserving the independence of the judiciary requires that the judiciary has not only the right but the obligation to interpret the Constitution, and to do so in the context of the society that we have today, not the one that we have at the founding of the country.

True or False

Question 5: The founding fathers' vision and understanding represented in the Constitution is completely sufficient to guide and direct the legal decisions presented by our society and national situations confronting us today.

Agree - Disagree

An extra, but Critical Question X: Would you be willing to live under the social systems that were our American reality at the time of the Founding Fathers, today?

Yes - No

Please close your books, the test is over. You now must decide how well you did. I assume you got a perfect score, else you have an unusual concept of taking a test. For those of you with an interest: here are my answers.

Q1: False Q2: False Q3: G. Q4: True Q5: Disagree Q-X: No

The Constitution defines the nature of our government and the structure upon which it will operate. It includes limits upon the government for the protection of the people from the government and upon the people to protect them from themselves. The Constitution does not and never did hold the secret mysteries for running a free and democratic nation; and it particularly does not allow the members of any generation of citizens of this country from being responsible for and accountable for applying their skills, talents and wisdom in pursuit of seeking to better understand and apply themselves to developing the laws and institutions that we use to govern ourselves.

Suppose that at least one founding father stood before us today and counseled us to accept this responsibility. Who then among us would not recognize that we are and must be responsible for deliberately seeking to understand the Constitution in today's context. Further that we must strive to apply it's principles in a meaningful way so as to take into consideration our knowledge, perspective and judgment about the issues that we have to contend with in our times, given our society, with our resources, and with a mind to better the nation that they envisioned to be a living democracy.

And we have founding fathers that stand before us today, in their own words. One need look no harder than at Jefferson, who some might agree had a notion of freedom, democracy and a people's responsibilities.

Congress: The Legacy of Unsuccessful Students

We have to step back in disbelief when we observe the intellectual ineptitude displayed by Congress, even when Congress strives to do the right things. The things for which they are Constitutionally responsible. The things for which they advocate and champion policy, laws and governance. The things for which they collect our taxes, institute public agencies to carry out, and allocate their budgets to paradoxically over and underfund simultaneously. And often those essential things that are at the heart of our democratic nation. This is no less the case for American education than for any of the other gladiatorial arenas that our representatives contest over with the feckless skills of an untrained juggler attempting five balls simultaneously before a live audience.

Once the best educated citizenry in the world, we are witness to the accelerating retrograde of our global educational position in general, scientific, technical, business, and even knowledge of the arts to a lesser light in the darkness. And this intellectual recession is not a brief momentary period brought about by some small transient error in judgment or direction by a small dedicated though misguided group of Congressional leaders; but rather is the result of the prolonged diligent efforts on the part of every amalgam of Congressional compositions assembled by the American electorate over decades.

Sure Congress has had the occasional serendipitous stumble into some legislative actions that promoted either a slight impetus toward advancement or at least impeded our rush toward decline; but overall Congress has not managed to pass the grade. Oh yes, they have managed and continue to spend an enormous amount of the public treasury on education. But only with the results that we see about us daily, and hear about now and again when some study illuminates the accumulating anti-achievements from their accredited attention to the education of the nation's children and our society's future.

Perhaps it is not to be unexpected that a nation that has failed for decades to maintain an adequate level of public education, let alone a superior one, has produced political leaders (and correspondingly their electorate) that are unable to face and especially unable to meet the challenge of national education. We may only have to look to science to provide an explanation, something of course difficult for the ill-educated to do. Many of these politicians were of course educated by the same educational system that has failed so many others. As products of these institutions they are thus the recipients of the quality of intellectual DNA transferred from annual school crop to crop. And as genetics will tell you, if you create a selection bias for recessive or harmful traits then you will progressively year over year, generation over generation cultivate a weaker and weaker species. Hence, even if you subscribe to the theory of 'the best and brightest' in pubic service, you will find that the quality of individuals at the 'top' is ever declining.

How then to salvage the American educational system? For Congress the answer to this lies in the same process that saves alcoholics and addicts; they have to admit that they have a problem and that they cannot solve it on their own. Congress's strength (enfeeblement?), their courage (cowardice?) or their vision (blindness?) requires that they seek out wisdom and understanding beyond their comprehension. They may find that the same principles that have fostered the decline can be employed to guide the improvement of the breed. Oddly, Congress could rely upon a basic American principle to gain success in this endeavor; they could depend upon capitalistic competition to restore America to preeminence in education. They only need to find people who can show them how to make it work because their only excuse for not having already done so is that they are not sufficiently capable of doing it by themselves.

Whether they are Republican or Democrat, our legislators and administrations of the moment must learn to hold true to ideals of our founding fathers, to forgo the personal advantage from special-interests, and to serve the pubic need. Education must be returned to a primary obligation of the nation and hence of federal, state and local politicians. Education must be more important than party, than affiliation, than special-interest; it must be once again a pillar of our freedom.

Congress on Failure: It's Our Motto

And now for the final part on how our political leaders succumbed to their lesser sides of their philosophies.

Congress passed and President Obama signed the extension of the Bush (now Obama) era tax-rates. Everyone in fool-ville is hooting for joy because they all agreed (compromised in agreement anyway) that this is best thing since Congress figured out how they could just raise the nation's debt ceiling. It's not just the the middle-class got a couple more dollars in temporary tax relief (temporary because with the debt increase they will have to pay it back and even more), but most importantly the very well to do got really big tax relief gifts from the politicians. These abundant and lavish gifts are a repayment by our legislators' to the wealthy for their control of the political funding machinery that runs the parties' campaign financing processes.

Now we cannot fault the politicians for bowing to the pressures that the well-healed special-interest groups exert, after all the most important thing is getting elected not what you have to give up or agree to to get there. This is a parallel to the public's lemming-like race toward whatever politician promises to support some totally meaningless or inconsequential policy or position that is more critical to the electorate than any of the responsibilities of a free and democratic society. Besides you can flood the media with tons of lies that satisfy and entertain the public while completely avoiding any meaningful discussion of issues and solutions to the problems that are the true business of the government and the governed.

But surely the continuing the tax-rates at this time are essential to the economy, and particularly the lower tax rate for the rich. All the economists that the government consulted agreed that now was not the time to raise taxes, because consumer spending accounts for the bulk of the economy and … Uh, Wait! The consumers, most of them anyway, are not wealthy and the upper rate tax rate doesn't apply to them. I am sure that the upper 1% spends a lot more than you or me, but I also know that it is the rest of us that makes and sustains the economy. So the tax-cuts for the rich isn't needed because of their spending, which they will continue to do and are able to do regardless of this tax-cut.

I know, the tax-cut for the 1% is because these are the people who create jobs for the rest of us. And if we tax them more, then more of us won't get employed. Yeah that must be it. Wait! If these folks create the jobs that make the economy robust then why haven't they been creating these same jobs already? In fact, shouldn't the bad economy have provided a better opportunity for these folks to have created lots of new jobs by now? Oh, and are most of these folks the small-business owners that we hear about creating most of the jobs in the country? Surely, they're not the CEO of large corporations that are so essential that only they can run our major industries effectively, the heads of the banking and finance institutions that have protected us from fiscal irresponsibility so well, the lawyers and law-firms that do most of their work pro bono just to benefit society, or the politicians who serve the public at great expense to themselves and their families.

Ok, but then the tax-cuts for the rich were necessary because we need to give the Republicans this tit-for-tat in order for the Democrats to get their important gifts. And these Democratic party needs were also essential to the economy because without them the economy would suffer. I guess this just means that our legislators and we ourselves are so stupid that we can't figure out that you could let one bill fail and propose another bill that addresses everything else but that didn't include the cornucopia for the rich.

But now that we have the extension, we can all look toward an economy that will absolutely recover. And if it doesn't work out at least we can't hold the politicians responsible because they did everything that was possible.

Besides the politicians need to start focusing on how to make everyone pay their fair share for the debt we just increased. And they need to make damn sure that the 1% don't get hrt by that.

How To Fail Again. Again (Part 2)

Before getting to the main Christmas gift from Congress – extending the Bush/Obama-era tax-cuts, there are still more lessor gifts tucked, shoe-horned, wedged, cobbled, and stuffed under the national tree. Given it's a tax bill, it's not surprising that Congress used their hammer to pound more and more tax cuts/credits/exemptions/deferments into the bill as a compromise to gain support. Now compromise isn't a bad thing, in fact it's an essential ingredient in politics. The structure of our legislature is a compromise, the Constitution is a compromise and the Bill of Rights is a compromise. So the fact that Congress and the Administration compromised in drafting the bill is to be expected, especially since neither the Republicans nor Democrats could get a bill through Congress and signed by the President without some give and take. Whether its a good bill or not is not tied to the compromises that have been made, that question has more to do with the all-or-none nature of the tax-rate extensions, its affordability, and the true worth and impact that it will have to the nation's economy. But that is for the Part 3. Here let's shake all those other boxes chock-full of goodies for those who have been uhh! Is it naughty or nice?

We have an environmental gift for renewable energy development. Good intentions no doubt, but couldn't Congress have thought about how to make it target market conditions that impede the development of renewable energy?

There's a gift from Social Security rates, wage earners will find that the government's hand will leave more behind in their pockets as it withdraws its take this year. While few like the pay-day mugging, is reducing the extraction really going to help address the real problem with Social Security? It's underfunded and proceeding toward yet another crisis, and the solution that's going to help is postpone doing anything about the growing cancer in the system itself. Yeah, now that's leadership!

The stockings are filled with all sorts of credits and incentives: child-care, college, use of mass-transit, hybrid cars, energy efficient products, and economic development support for Gulf Coast states. All things that lots of people like, support and don't want to give up. But all things that either cost money or redistribute wealth. (FYI, redistributing wealth is a given in government and societies; but usually the redistribution, as in this case, is not from the wealthy but to the wealthy.)

The justification of everything is that it will help the economy and will create jobs (or will prevent more jobs from being lost). Sounds good, sounds important, sound critical doesn't it. But do you really believe these politicians? When was the last time that they were right? When was the last time that they did something that people liked and then turned out to help the public, as opposed to when they did something that the public thinks was completely wrong but probably was both necessary and benefited the nation?
Everyone likes getting the presents under the tree at Christmas. But how often do people regret the costs that they have to struggle to pay after Christmas because they went out and bought things that they should have known were extravagant or beyond their mean.

The Tax-Cut Resolution, or How To Fail Again

We are on the verge of an Administration and Congressional agreement on extending the Bush-era tax-cuts for all Americans. As usual our illustrious and politically savvy leaders have failed to demonstrate a smattering of intelligence in their usual and pathetic legislative manner. The Republican side staked out a non-negotiation position that they would only support an extension of tax-cuts if it included every American. The critical aspect of this position being the preservation of the tax-cuts for the higher income individuals (particularly the very wealthy or it would not have been at all important to the Republicans). The Democratic position represented via the Obama Administration was to patch together a variety of attachments to the Republican position so as to create the sludge that feeds the politicians and the political process. Before considering how the tax-cut position is more of the same special-interest disaster for America, let's look at the the decorations added by the assorted visionless champions of the American electorate.
A couple of presents being offered up as a placating placebo for the economy are for ethanol. We get a subsidy for corn-based ethanol production and tariff protection from ethanol imports. Now I am sure that there are a couple of folks who will benefit from this, mostly politicians but there will even be a farmer here and there that get a little benefit. Of course, both could have gotten a really good benefit and the public would have benefited even more if they had crafted the law in an effective manner rather than the simple-minded and dysfunctional way that they always do.
So if encouraging ethanol production is good for America, then here's a couple of questions:
Why just limit it to corn-based ethanol? Wouldn't the same amount of ethanol produced via other organic matter be good for our economy, environment and electorate? It gets the same amount of money in the economy, and may do it at a lower cost to our food supply. And does subsidizing corn-based ethanol really add any jobs to the economy?
The tariff on ethanol imports extends the costs but doesn't actually promote any derivative benefit. So how does this generate more jobs? Might it not actually cost more jobs since it adds to the cost of the fuel used by other employers?
Finally, why not make the bill a productive impetus for the farmers and the energy industry, an economically stimulative action in support of the country, and something beneficial for the public both monetarily and in terms of new jobs? Just because these legislative light-weights can't see beyond their own limited horizons shouldn't prevent them from seeking the guidance and creativity of those who could serve the country's interests far better then they seem able to. After all, really good leaders don't actually have to know much or be able to do anything on their own, as we have evidence from many of our corporations' leadership; they just need to have people who can get things done show them the way.

No Child Allowed Ahead – An American Education

While the US economy is struggling to recover from the recession wrought from our imprudent ways, we have received yet another reality check on the soundness of our societal commitment to educating our children. Relative to other nations that we compete with on the international stage, the US continues to decline as others advance. We recede in math, sciences and reading and wonder why our nation struggles to provide the skilled and capable employees needed by American businesses. And what was the great undertaking by our political leaders, an unfunded mandate called “No Child Left Behind” by the Bush administration that seems to have achieved its goal not by elevating the achievement of our schools but by holding back those students who managed succeed thus preventing any other child from being left behind. If no one succeeds, then no one is left behind.
With the Obama administration, our school system is going to succeed by a “Race to the Top” spending more money on education. It does sound more achievement oriented then its predecessor's touchy-feelly random walk approach; but its going to run up against some significant resistance in the cut-spending campaign that will be a non-stop political whipping post for the next two years.
Is it possible that the political parties are in favor of a poorly educated public. We just had a Republican and Democratic compromise on the continuation of the Bush era tax-cuts (now to be known as the Obama era tax cuts) that continues to underfund Government revenues while simultaneously spending more. I suppose as long as Americans can't do the math, aren't capable of reading and understanding what is happening in the world, and don't have a scientific comprehension of the forces at work in their lives that I can't be surprised that they have elected the type of politicians who would continue to pursue the most idiotic and addle-brained policies that have failed to make a difference.
If America wants an education system that creates the competitive and world-leading citizenry essential to sustaining our democracy and economic vitality then the public (and their representatives) need to link the performance of our education system to the interests of our governmental, industrial and commercial entities. If a failing education system penalizes the interests of the powerful then like the hangman's noose, it will focus the mind's attention quite effectively on making sure that we succeed.

Politicians’ Progress: One Steps Sideways, Two Steps Back

We need to cut taxes! We need to cut spending! We need to protect the Military’s budget and allow it to grow! We need a balanced budget!

These themes seem to echo from some recent national exercise just barely beyond the recollection of the public awareness, an attention span deficit disorder if ever there was one. Given the citizenry’s ire about their government and the collective perception of an inept governmental vision, we have every politician and political party panicking and trying to find some course to sail their leaking and unseaworthy skiffs through the winds of this erratic Zeitgeist.

Let’s do the math!

The Military and Social Security are competing for the top position in the Federal budget. Social Security will win in 2010, but the Department of Defense is projected to take the lead in 2011. Health Care comes in next, although if you slice the pie a little differently it may be able to take first place in either year. We then get to Welfare and Interest on the Debit. We are now well past 80% of the budget. And let’s face it, we haven’t done much actual government yet! But we have accounted for $2.84 Trillion of the $3.55 Trillion 2010 budget. Surely if we cut half of the remaining $710 Billion, that’s $355 Billion for those Americans who helped put us in the 34th place in math among leading industrial nations, we would all save such an enormous amount that all our problems would disappear. Now if there are ~310M citizens (let’s not go there, it’s not a salient point here) then that budget cut would reduce taxes by $1,145.00 per person. Now I would like to have another thousand dollars to use to benefit myself; but I am not at all sure that it is enough to make up for a lot of that stuff that the federal government, albeit it very poorly and inefficiently, did with that money. And I am pretty sure that in the long run I would be better off if that $355 Billion were applied to paying down to national debt.

Returning to our political leaders (sorry I can’t think of a more apropos term but it’s hard to identify what they represent since it is not leadership), they are all about to line up behind the tax-cut, spend-cut, grow military, and balance budget scam under which they will do nothing significant to solving America’s problems. Cutting taxes and cutting spending while sounding good is not a guaranteed or even a likely solution to the deficit, to the economy, to jobs, or to the long-term interests of the American people. But it will do the one thing that is important, the one thing that is more important than the costs that every citizen will incur, the one thing that every politician pursues at any expense and at any consequence – their re-election.

Before these sycophantic plague bearers venture forth to save us with their promised solutions, perhaps it would be wise to remember the capitalistic maxim: caveat emptor. You are going to get what you paid for with your vote. Can you at least not whine about it when you get it!

Why Politicians Deserve No Credit

The sage insight and wisdom provided this week by recognized leaders from both the Republican and Democratic parties will be tossed aside by the self-absorbed politicians striving to enshrine themselves as demigods of their respective political philosophies. While it is more indirect, assessing the position that Tea Party members would take is likely to place them at immoveable odds with key aspects of the guidance being offered as the life-saving medicine for our nation. For a party that advocates fiscal responsibility, I suspect that in their heart-of-hearts tea party members mean they want to have what they want, and they want it now; but they don’t want to have to be held responsible for anything. Particularly they won’t be accountable for what they benefitted from in the past that they never paid for. You can hardly blame these weak-tea patriots, they have only recently been required to face the facts or consequences of their inattentive lifestyles. And even here, they managed to turn their mind’s eye inward on a utopian view of their future, where they expect anyone who is willing to lie to them to fix everything by promising to go forth and do what they want as long as it doesn’t affect anything that they see as good for them.

Who are the enablers of these irresponsible Lazarus-es of the American “Do Nothing” party? They are our politicians! Be they Democrat, be they Republican, or be they Tea Partyites or any other fractal variant of a party; these media crafted, sound-bite limited, issue distorting, bloviating sychophants are the bane of our democracy. These politicians always have the solution but never deliver it. They always promise to restore America to its rightful place in the world, but seem to do everything in their power to diminish, degrade and debase the vitality of America and its values.

Every politician in office today and those shortly to join the ranks of the incredibly incompetent will continue to avoid their primary responsibility; they will evade their responsibility for protecting the nation as obligated by their oath of office. The country is in debt. For decades politicians, particularly Congressional politicians, have been the sole builders of the debilitating debt deadfall that increasingly threatens America’s very way of life. Our politicians have done this by actively and knowingly passing budgets and legislation that either directly incurs greater debt or by ignoring the existing debt as if there were no consequences.

So let’s continue to follow these lackluster leaders and their new band of latter-day lackeys in pursuing the preservation of tax-cuts for everyone; thus advancing the day that crushes everyone under the uber-deficit created by their selfish partisans pandering to their respective special interests parasites. But since tax-cuts won’t pay off our debt, this chest thumping exhibition is just another log thrown onto the deficit deadfall we all get to enjoy when the trap collapses.

We certainly cannot depend on our political leaders, and extending them the country’s line of credit is just repeating the same act over again, and hoping for a different outcome. Yes, just going more insane.

If only there were an American value that we could live by, or some example from our history that illustrated the collective sacrifice that Americans made to protect the nation from destruction and preserve our principle of freedom, or even some document that provides some guidance that “as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness”. But we would appear to be devoid of any such lessons from our past that might illuminate a fiscally responsible path we must find to escape this labyrinth of self-imposed liabilities.

After Stand Up Comes What Again? – American Intelligence Test #8

The mid-term elections have come and gone, and the world (more precisely the world-view) has turned upside down for many folks. The Democrats have lost their unilateral partisan initiative in Congress. The Republican elite have lost their established internal party leadership control. The Tea Party has gone from “I’am not going to take it anymore!”protester status to student drivers of the family car. And Independent voters have affirmed that they don’t like either party (or any party if you consider the Tea Party other than a sub-species of Republican) and want to kick out the current contenders for most egregious Congressional incompetents of the moment.

Now will this reconstituted amalgam of extreme positionists accompanied by a sprinkling of moderates and a couple of independents be able to address and more critically solve the core problems facing America? Before you think you have the answer, it’s test time. To solve these problems even the best and brightest of these dullards require the same thing that the worst and dimmest ideologue would require to solve these problems; and now you have our test.

Scoring is your responsibility to assess. As always a willingness to deceive yourself, as to the correctness of your answers or beliefs, is just another measure of the actual intelligence being measured. To paraphrase Lincoln:

Some of us can fool ourselves all of the time, and all of us can fool ourselves some of the time, but all of us can not fool ourselves all of the time.

The opportunity to fail is at hand.

Question 1: What is the most important issue that must be addressed if America is to guarantee its future as a free, democratic and competitive world-class society?

A. Taxes B. Gov’t Spending C. Deficit D. Education. E. Employment

Question 2: Does reducing taxes guarantee that the economy will improve?

Yes No

Question 3: The Government cannot create jobs?

True False

Question 4: American’s tax rates are ____

A. to high B. to low C. appropriate D. a choice

Question 5: Who benefited from creating the American deficit?

A. Government bureaucracy

B. Wealthy class (say over $1M/year)

C. Middle class

D. Poor and welfare state

E. Industrial/Military complex

F. Everyone

The Critical Question X: What is the only rational, logical and acceptable requirement for addressing America’s top problem?

A. Reduce taxes B. Reduce spending C. both A & B D. there is no problem E. Pay off the debt

That’s it, you are done, and you can now decide if you scored high, low or in the middle. For anyone with an interest, here are the/my answers.

1: C    2: No    3: False    4: D     5: F     X: E

The problem is that our politicians, bureaucrats, special interest lobbyists and stupidly ourselves agreed to go into debt. We choose to indebt ourselves at any price rather than stand up and be responsible for our country and democracy. We ignore that our Constitution gave the responsibility for Federal spending to Congress, and we naively not only listen to but we believe (actually believe) politicians.

Can a people that stupid, that unprincipled, that devoid of the American values of our founding fathers have a chance at preserving our life, liberty and happiness? Naaa! Let’s fight about Constitutional Originalism.

Let’s Try Something Different – Smart Politicians

Many Americans are confronted with a persistent, periodic and pernicious problem: who to vote for. Most of those assailed by this dilemma of choosing between the lesser of two evils are non-aligned Independent voters. Although there are even some amongst the ranks of the Democratic and Republican parties’ faithful, that actually think before they vote, that are just as confounded and perplexed about whom to support.

There are a number of reasons contributing to this consternation of the electorate, not limited to: distortions and lies in negative campaign ads; pathetic and paltry attempts by the news media to scrutinize the campaigns of either encumbering party; or the enfeebled, addle pated, and intellectually challenged candidates. With this dearth of worthy aspirants to the highest offices of our nation, we can hardly blame the majority of Americans from being disenchanted with the choices they must make among the insipid and misguided standard-bearers of their respective parties.

While it is far too late in this election period to seek out better choices, to quest for worthier representatives; perhaps there is a lesson to be gained from the bleak political landscape we travel. After our populace is plagued by the consequences wrought by these legislative mites, and their myopic societal visions weave their defective governmental fabric; we will have the opportunity viewing the on-going travesty as our American tapestry unravels into another season of self-serving, special interest driven, unreasoned congressional misrepresentation. Whether the Democrats retain majorities in the House and/or Senate, or the Republicans gain a plurality in either; the vitriolic and divisive uncompromising posturing of each partisan tribe will ensure that the American people will be disregarded in favor of power politics and extremist policies. From this corrosive and poisonous atmosphere, our citizenry must find an antidote to this dysfunctional dichotomy of a free society where neither the left nor the right seems to comprehend the basic principles our Founding Fathers conceived of in the establishment of our constitutional democracy.

Recognizing the need for a rebirth of American values in our government, our politicians and particularly our political parties; the independent voters of America, who control the outcome of our elections, need to look for candidates that are worthy of their votes. When polled prior to the elections, if neither party’s candidate measures up then they need to say they will choose from an alternative party but not the Democratic or Republican incompetents endorsed by the cultish rabble of their respective party members. There is only one way to evolve these pandering parties into organizations that strive to serve the American people, and that is to apply the ‘survival of the fittest’ principle to them. The Parties can adapt and respond to the needs of the independent voters; or they can go the way of other dead-end organisms unable to meet the challenges of their new environment.

What qualities should we seek in viable political candidates? Well, if you were hiring someone to work for you in a position that required sound and reasoned judgment, and who was going to determine how to establish the approaches that we would follow to achieve our common interests and goals; then I would advocate that you look for someone who you think is actually smarter than you are. What business man would consciously hire someone for such a job that they think is less qualified than they themselves would be? Would you really want someone who is just able to understand the world and issues as well as yourself? If so, then you have the results of your criteria. The lagging economy, the loss of status and prestige in the world, the deterioration of our national infrastructure, and the decline in America’s standard of living are the fruits of your quality of leaders.

To return America to a strong, vibrant and prospering society we need leaders with sufficient knowledge to know what they do not understand, to see the errors of their (and their parties’ past), and to put the interest of the country and its people before their own. In other words, we need politicians that are nothing like the kind we have today. We need persons who can speak intelligently and meaningfully about the issues that confront us, and not that can barely nor accurately recite the meaningless sound-bite of the day given them by their handlers. We need American leaders, not the Democratic and Republican sophists we are shackled with intent on following some self-delusional path to paradise. In truth, we need the ‘best and brightest’ from amongst us to step up to the task of dealing with our real problems and in protecting our rights and freedom from those who would limit them.

Our nation was founded upon the exceptional efforts that our forefathers made; it will not be preserved by the mundane squabbling of politicians bought and paid for by the highest bidders.

Who Knows How To Create Jobs: Democrats or Republicans?

Come on! You had to know the answer to this one. Who has a better broad, in-depth and sound understanding of the economic factors that create jobs? Who has the experience and real-world knowledge of business and job creation? Who would you turn to to formulate a national strategy for revitalizing employment in the United States?

The answer, of course, is that both Democrats and Republicans are completely unqualified, clueless and delusional about their individual partisan approaches to what will create jobs in America. Both parties, particularly their leadership, are career politicians who barely understand what an economy is, let alone how to guide one. As politicians they are philosophically and intellectually unprepared to address the issues and problems that have to be confronted in a competitive and capitalistic economy.

So as we approach the mid-term elections with the economy and jobs as two of the front-runner issues, the public will be bombarded with political ads, speeches and talk-show discussions about how their opponents’ plans are misguided and inadequate to dealing with these issues. We may even hear every now and then about how they will however work to bring jobs back.

None of them will tell you however that a Government, neither Republican nor Democrat, actually create jobs; at least not jobs that are self-sustaining. You don’t get a robust and resilient economy and jobs environment because of what the Government chooses to do. At best a Government can take actions to minimize the negative consequences of bad economic conditions, to the best of their abilities (which of course if one of our problems); and all too often the Government will take actions that will actually harm the economy (thought that of course was “not their intention”).

After all, if the Government could fix an economic downturn or crisis, you have to ask yourself: How did the Government allow the problem to get to the point required to become a problem? But you don’t have to ask yourself this question: Hasn’t the Government been doing things (or not doing things) for years that contributed to the problems that we are suffering for now and have suffered for many times before? And haven’t both Democratic and Republican parties been the “leaders” that have cast the stones into the waters that are now inundating us today?

Here is the question that your preferred politician should answer for you: If small businesses create the most jobs in our economy (which I hear they do), what is the critical and essential requirement for them to be successful in terms of the US economy?

Oh, and if the answer you get is either a tax-cut (or relief) or easy access to capital then you are still dealing with a politician who doesn’t know.

Where Is Divine Guidance? The Mosque Controversy at Ground-Zero

What we have here is a failure to find divine guidance, heavenly inspiration or spiritual revelation. You would think that with all the different religious groups contributing to the controversy over the proposed Ground-Zero mosque that someone amongst the rabble would have seen the opportunity rather than the conflict. Surely somewhere in the tenets of their numerous faiths that, at least in one, there is some authoritative source that provides them with instructions on how to approach problems in their lives. Some principles to apply when there is a conflict that they need to deal with.

Wait! Perhaps it is not reasonable to expect the faithful of any of these religious groups to be knowledgeable practitioners of their faith’s orthodoxy or understand the practical application of their beliefs to real world situations. If only we had some recognized leaders or teachers of these faiths, or individuals that hold some authoritative position or standing within their respective communities involved in discussions and negotiations of the issues then we might hope for wise and sage guidance. I am not sure, but I do believe I have seen one or two acknowledged religious leaders attempting to weigh in on this issue. And thus with such knowledgeable spiritual leaders, particularly with their prayers and meditations on the dilemma confronting them, certainly we will see the wisdom of their faith illuminated in their comprehensive solution to the conflict.

After all, I would expect something much better than the trite and hackneyed positions offered by every media outlet, news anchor and politician salivating over the attention that they can glean from this strife-ridden conflict. The defense of religious freedom is a salient argument and position, but not exactly inspired. Most American’s of any religious or non-religious orientation know about the principle of freedom of religion; even if a surprisingly large number of them don’t seem to be able to apply the principle to anyone but themselves.

Religious tolerance is yet another argument put forth by some among the chosen, but clearly sprouting more from our traditional American values than a illuminating blessed vision from above. Not exactly the making of a new parable teaching the multitude or the faithful about the wisdom of the Almighty.

We even have the business moguls, diplomatic gurus and political luminaries offering to arrange for an exchange of site locations to alleviate the ire of the self-righteous hate and fear-mongers and to assuage the affront to the Islamic community of being ostracized. There is no indication whatsoever in the different versions of these proposals of a divine revelation toward a solution to the problem.

I just can’t believe that none of the leaders and representatives of the religious communities have even received a glimps of inspired insight about the opportunity presented by this conflict. That they are allowing the moment to slip away to demonstrate the bounteous rewards and blessings that their spiritual beliefs and principles gain for them, if only followed in the here and now.

Well there is still time. Perhaps a favored one will open themselves to the power of their God and hear the small gentle whisper that forces open the gate obstructing the way to paradise. Just make that simple choice to ask, “What can we do here to turn this turmoil of anger into a triumph of understanding?” With just a little thought, a little thinking out-side the box, a little opening of their own hearts, and a little faith in their Faiths; someone will surely find at least the mustard seed from which a powerful solution can grow. I suppose I could offer a hint, but then I think I have.

Burning Quran is to American Values, as Protesting Building a Mosque is to ___?

“As you sow, so shall you reap.” One of those often quoted sage insights into life that we rarely attend to because it is clearly too simple to be actually valid. Of course the same sages who would offer that advise would also council you that “to fail to learn the lessons of history will doom you to repeat them.” It makes you wonder what one can and should learn from our cultural legacies whether religious, political or societal.

Consider the Florida minister that plans to burn copies of the Quran on the anniversary of the 9/11 terrorist attack. What lessons has he learned from his religious background? Does his proposed action of burning another religion’s authoritative text spring forth from any particular biblical text or Christian principle? Surely burning a religious text is what we would expect from the teaching to “do unto others as you would have them do unto you”, or to “judge not, least you be judge”. But I am having difficulty reconciling his logic in connecting the “What would Jesus do?” test to assessing the righteousness of his position. And you have to wonder, even if the minister forgot to ask himself this question, did every member of his congregation also fail to see a lapse in the Christian values judgment that his decision suggests? Not clear that the minister has learned from his Christian faith much about how to treat others with humanity, charity or kindness.

But perhaps the minister is reacting from the teachings of his political milieu, from an American values tradition. Burning the Qurans would be protected by our American value in defending our freedom of speech or expression; however, while this value grants us the right to do such things the burning of books is certainly not viewed as an action that in any sense defends this right. And burning a religious text because you don’t approve of the religion yourself is not an action that supports or defends our right to religious freedom and tolerance. I suppose that here again members of his congregation can clearly explain how this event will bring honor or pride to their group even while they will have failed to live up to those American values that are so connected to preserving the freedoms our nation was founded to insure.

This leaves the minister with acting according to current social mores where hate and fear are common motivations for engaging in any number of behaviors. Now here we have a justification for his approach. In his narrow and primitive view that anyone who does not belong to his clan is a threat he is lead to take some offensive action that will cause them to be driven off. This reaction of hate and fear for anyone outside their own group is not uncommon in our country today. It resonates with the our political parties’ inability to work together, to find common cause, to compromise to achieve something of value for the public good, or to place country before party.

If the minister is wrong to burn the Quran based on any Christian, American or humanitarian value even though he lives in a society that recognizes his right to do so and will defend that right; then what do we conclude from efforts to stop a mosque being built ‘too near’ to the 9/11 Ground Zero site? Which American value is not betrayed in the case of the mosque that we see as being besmirched by burning Qurans?

Elections and the Economy – American Intelligence Test #7

Worried about the economy, concerned about your job, despairing over unemployment; then certainly you know what you need to do in the upcoming elections. At least this would be the conclusion one might reach in listening to the news anchors and political talking heads and wonks. But of course, what is obvious and patently clear to those with common sense and conventional wisdom need not be connected to reality nor demonstrate a modicum of wisdom or a smidgen of sound judgment. So what we have here friends and neighbors is another chance to gauge the vox populi’s intellectual gravitas.

The test format is just five questions plus a bonus question, and in some instances commentary to place a particular context to the question. Following the questions, I provide my answers. However you don’t use my answers as a guide to correctness. Your score is your responsibility to assess. A willingness to deceive yourself, as to the correctness of your answers or beliefs, is just another measure of the actual intelligence being measured. To paraphrase Lincoln:

Some of us can fool ourselves all of the time, and all of us can fool ourselves some of the time, but all of us can not fool ourselves all of the time.

Prepare yourself to be employed in a brief endeavor.

Q 1: Which political party is primarily responsible for the current economic environment?

Democratic Republican Neither Both Other

Context: Your answer should be able to withstand the ‘test of time’, it should encompass governmental actions and decisions over the last twenty, thirty or more years. In essence, it did not take just one or two years to get to where we are.

Q 2: Which political party’s policies and principles are best suited to deal with the current economy and restore the country to a sound prosperity?

Democratic Republican Neither Both Other

Context: Your answer should account for what a given party actual did when they were in power or not and not just what they said they were going to do when they were pandering for you vote.

Q 3: Which governmental action(s) are most likely to solve the problems in our economy?

  A. Tax cuts

  B. Stimulus packages

  C. Infrastructure projects

  D. Federal Deficit reduction

  E. Government spending reductions

  F. Reform Foreign Trade policy

  G. Reform government bureaucracy

Q 4: After the election, how quickly can the government turn the economy around?

  A. Within 1 year

  B. 2 to 3 years

  C. 4 to 5 years

  D. Over 5 years

  E. Never

Q 5: Who has the most power to address and solve the nation’s economic woes?

  A. Presidency – the administration

  B. Congress – the legislative body

  C. You – the public

  D. Financial industry – banking and investment companies

  E. None of the above

Context: The power to control something necessitates the possession of the means to affect change and the ability to enforce adherence.

The Critical Bonus Question: During the upcoming political campaign which of these issues will be most important to your choice of candidate(s)?

  A. Tax cuts

  B. Education

  C. Immigration

  D. Family Values

  E. Jobs Creation

  F. Deficit reduction

  G. None of the above

Ding! Times up. You’re done, and you can now evaluate if you scored high, low or in the middle. For those with an interest, here are my answers.

1: B   Both parties have eagerly created their contributions to the economic policies and structures that have culminated in our current distressed conditions.

2: N   The parties only have policies and principles that they espouse often and loudly, especially during their campaigns; but neither appears to understand that they have to build upon and be held accountable for delivering on those policies and principles for them to even have a chance of mattering. And more importantly, they have to acknowledge and accept responsibility for the failure of their efforts when they have demonstrated that they did not understand or appreciate the consequences of their actions.

3: C,D,F   These activities come the closest to positive initiatives that the government could engage in to help the economy; but these items don’t directly address the underlying factors that cause our economic problems. The other items on the list can help treat the symptoms but are not agents to cure the economy.

4: E   The government can’t actually fix the economy, the best that they can hope to do is to provide stabilizing actions to help contain the extent that the economy goes completely off the rails. So the government can never deliver the turn around, no matter how much time you allow them to stumble around trying.

5: C   The economy is a product of the public’s behavior. “You reap what you sow” comes to mind. To add to those direct responsibilities that you need to own up to, the extent that the government contributes to the solution or the problem is derived from your choices anyway. See Question 1.

Bonus: G    If you haven’t figured it out by now, the items in the list are not solutions. They are just political bait dangled before you to tempt you into swallowing the hook. If your candidate cannot clearly explain how they will implement a policy or program that will address any of those slogan issues and then explain clearly how that will produce a positive effect on the economy then welcome to the cook-out, you will be served up for dinner shortly.

You don’t have to care about this test or your view of my answers. But you are about to take a test that you won’t be able to shrug off, whether you pass it or fail it. The election doesn’t give you as many choices for each question, and it doesn’t give you any latitude in the consequences resulting from your choices. You will get what you asked for; because the reality of the world is that for every action/cause there is a reaction/effect.

Bad Eggs, an Egg-cellent Opportunity to Reform Regulatory Process

Half a billion eggs recalled resulting from the salmonella outbreak traced back to two Iowa egg farms; or lets be accurate egg-corporations. Now that’s a colossal Humpty-dumpty event.

And what helped bring about this potential epidemic of disease-ridden eggs, two huge home-grown entities. First and primary are the egg-producers, mega-farm companies that operates expansive egg mills with the sole purpose producing the most eggs at the lowest cost to generate the largest profits. Almost the very definition of the capitalistic enterprise model we all learn about in school; and egg-actly what we expect in America. What then went wrong with this successful approach to market-place production?

The failure that took place here is the same one that has taken place throughout the our nation and throughout the world whenever an enterprise owner(s) put their profit motive before any and all other considerations. In this case, the egg factories viewed that making their profit was more essential than the health and safety of the American consumer. Did they do it consciously and deliberately with full intention to spread a serious and potentially deadly disease across the country? No, they did not intend to purposely infect their product. However, they did overtly make decisions and impose operational procedures and conditions that promote the potential for such consequences.

How can we know this, that they knew they were taking risks with the public health? Well if you are issued environmental law violations and food safety violations, then you cannot claim that you were unaware of the potential risk your product represents. If you define operating procedures that increase the opportunity for conditions that either inadequately treat the containment of such disease outbreaks or that fail to monitor and detect the occurrence of the disease in your production facilities then you made overt decisions for which you are responsible. If you fail to take corrective actions in response to citations of operating procedures or environmental conditions then you are making a definitive decision to allow the risk and even to promote the risk.

Besides being held accountable for their on-going violations, these egg-producers are subject to and vulnerable to the lawsuits that harmed and endangered citizens could make against them. We will have to wait and see if and how this path may play out. But it will probably not be a swift journey, and there may well be some legal protection that has been enacted by the wise and informed leadership of our political legislative bodies.

But there is another set of players in this debacle, there is the governmental agency or agencies and their legislative creators that have failed to provide an adequate authority to perform the explicit function of protecting the public’s food supply. In the case of the legislatures, they have not endowed the agencies with an effective means and authority to penalize violators. In the case of the agencies, they have failed to employ the power that they do have to the best of their ability, and they have failed to adequately present information to their controllers (U.S. Congress or state equivalents) to the effect of the threats represented by the current circumstances in the system.

What will we see as a result of this egg-asperating situation? The House and Senate committees will hold hearing and may even propose some regulatory reforms that they will tout as the ultimate solution that will insure the safety of the American food supply. They may even find a way to pass the regulation despite the partisan bickering and obstructionism. Of course if they do find a way to pass the legislation, it will be weakened by caveats and constraints carefully crafted into the clauses and context to which the code will apply. Not to mention the attachment of ear-marks and amendments that will be unrelated to and either unsupportive of or detrimental to the egg-plicit purpose of the bill.

What won’t happen is Congress will not recognize nor seize the opportunity to actually create a efficient and effective approach to changing the nature of the regulatory approach to bring about a safe food supply for America. They will not see the way to reduce the cost of government bureaucracy to achieve these goals and at the same time incent the private corporations engaged in food production to compete for safety in their products not as a regulatory budget but as a profit seeking motivation under their own control.

In the end, the America people will be left with an unhatched opportunity for improving the safety of their food, and with the rotten egg of ‘business as usual’ government.

A Timely Proposal: Let’s Have A National Referendum to Kick Them All Out

Let’s give the American public the opportunity of a life-time. Let’s give them a national referendum on whether or not to completely dismiss (fire) every Senator and Representative currently holding a seat in the Senate and the House. No exceptions. We could even be gracious and require that the referendum only passes if more than 60% of voters support the referendum. [And that’s 60% of the votes cast, not one of those duplicitous procedures to preclude action so loved by our self-serving political parties that requires 60% of all registered voters to decide the issue.]

This referendum would allow the public to affirm whether the American people truly are fed up with the Washington ‘politics as usual’ shenanigans that have produced the deplorable economic, social, educational, national security, ecological, health care, and national debt situation for the country. It would provide the ‘mother of all wake-up calls’ to the political establishment, or it would signal that Americans are satisfied with their approaches to confronting the issues of the day. [Side note: If passed there would have to be a special election held to replace everyone, and the referendum would have to include precluding these just ousted individuals from running in the follow-up special election, or voters might be foolish enough to put them back in place.]

It has to be an all-or-none vote, because Americans have demonstrated over and over that they don’t like any other politician but they are happy with their own current Senator or Representative. It seems a small sacrifice to lose your own favorite son/daughter; but hard times call for hard choices. And I am sure that your political favorite would understand the value of their sacrifice in this just cause.

Imagine the staggering reaction that this would bring to all levels of government. If we could do it for the nation, we might also choose to do it at the state level. Politicians might actually start thinking about how to serve the public rather than the special interest groups. A double benefit to the voters is that this not only will scare the hell out of the politicians, but it will demonstrate to the special interest groups that they are vulnerable to the voice of the people too. What good will their huge contributions do for them, they can’t buy influence since the choice is to remove the objects they intend to influence.

So get out there and start asking your elected representatives to put this referendum on the ballot. What have they got to lose, if they think they have been doing a good job. And if they haven’t then aren’t they going to lose anyway? Ooop! No they won’t because you will vote them back in.

Well, it’s still a good idea.

Americans Don’t Give-Up The Fight and Don’t Give-In To Fear, Why Would We Succumb To Hatred?

We take pride in America in our American Spirit, our Yankee ingenuity, and our can-do attitude. Americans rejoice in our commitment to freedom and its defense throughout the world. We acknowledge that “There is nothing to fear, but fear itself.” This is the country of immigrants, where you can pull yourself up by your bootstraps and attain anything; the land of the free and the home of the brave.

Why then do Americans seem to lose the perspective these beliefs should give us on issues involving the Islamic religion? I suppose it could be that political leaders and operatives are always willing to latch onto any issue or message that provides them with the opportunity to get money. Just as we honor the Americans who have given their lives for our country, we generally despise our politicians who generally trade in lies, deceit, graft, and fraud; and we cultishly vote for which ever politician is running under the banner of the political party that we are devotedly aligned with regardless of their consistent and unrelenting failure to serve the public interest.

The conclusion from this philosophical dissonance between our allegiance to freedom and our disregard for supporting the rights that are defined by that freedom is that far to many Americans are willing to trade-in their principles, to abandon their responsibilities and run with the mob rather than stand up and be counted in defense of America. A defense of America by demanding that our laws are applied equally to everyone; that our liberty is preserved for all citizens; and that the rights of the minority are not sacrificed to the interests of the majority with disregard for justice.

Are we really willing to accept politicians who mislead us, who cultivate hate as a means of garnering political power, and who demean the very principles of America in which we take so much pride?

When A Separate Church And State Both Advocate A Common Principle

During this morning’s church service I had a serendipitous insight into a commonality of principle between a teaching of my faith and one of the tenets of our democracy. On the faith side, the homily emphasized the principle that discipline is a salient aspect of life. This insight relates to how that discipline carries not only to my faith but equally to my political philosophy.

Discipline is a normal part of growing up; and then if successfully acquired becomes a life-long lifestyle requirement if we are to endeavor to live righteously (or democratically in a narrower context). The discipline that God brings into one’s life is intended to provide instruction to guide and to strengthen the mind and the body to be able to endure and even flourish in our lives. If we are not taught the principles that we should live by, learn and understand them, and then be held responsible to adhere to those principles even when they are difficult, unpleasant or unpopular then we will suffer the consequences from our lack of discipline. It must cause us to expect that we will not be rewarded with the benefits and blessings that following those very principles provide. Many of us understand later in life that the discipline that our parents imposed upon us in our youth was beneficial to us; some I am sure never come to that realization. But we grew stronger and more prepared to deal with life because of that discipline.

Many people who believe in God also believe that He places trials and burdens into our lives that are also intended to strengthen us. It is often cited that “God does not place any burden on us that we cannot carry”. The take-away from this is that you cannot know what is righteous and gain the rewards that come from it unless you actually lead a righteous life. And that requires the discipline to follow what you believe in; including the fundamental principles that Americans have regarding our democratic system.

The same disciplinary perspective is demanded of a people that are dedicated to being free. The democratic nature of our nation is dependent upon our ability to follow the principles that define our freedom. This includes the principle that we are a nation of laws and not of men. It may be difficult to accept that principle when you see someone or a group doing something that you disagree with, and it may require you to accept the rights of those individuals to choose to act as they have despite your views. And while this may be especially hard where there are emotional, religious or political issues at the point of contention between groups that you don’t approve of or accept into your own view of being American; it is explicitly in these circumstances that your need for discipline is the greatest. It may only be through discipline that we can retain and preserve our freedom. We must as surely have the discipline to hold fast to the principles that we are a nation of laws and that we must uphold the freedom of each and every citizen to their rights guaranteed by those laws.

Thus both the principles of my faith and of my country demand that I have the discipline to live in accordance with those principles. If I do not have the strength or the wisdom to follow those principles than I cannot hope to gain the advantages that they offer. If we do not do what is right according to our laws then how can we expect justice for ourselves? It does not matter if that right is based upon my faith or my politics. To expect a democracy to protect your freedom, it must be a democracy that protects everyone’s freedom in exactly the same way. If our desire to be a free nation is a righteous principle to live by and to live for, then we have to exercise the discipline of insuring that that same freedom is given to all citizens and is protected by our laws and our efforts.

Another American Freedom – Freedom From Hatred

American ideals sprout from our fundamental principles of being a fee people. And spurred by these principles, our founding fathers strove to establish a system of government that would serve and protect our freedoms in perpetuity. The ideals and the freedoms that Americans hold to today are embedded throughout the historic records of our nation. America presents its absolute right to freedom in our Declaration of Independence. We structured the form of our governing bodies to focus their powers to the service of the people and limited their power over the people in our Constitution. We extended the supremacy of the people over the government through the adoption of our Bill of Rights to expressly state particular freedoms upon which the government is forbidden to tread. And in accordance with these seminal seeds of a free nation, the United States has established the American societal contract of a free and democratic people who are bound together by their mutual interest in being a nation that follows our ‘rule of law’ in pursuit of those freedoms and principles.

We hear about any number of our freedoms everyday from ever increasing sources: the news media offering coverage of people exercising or espousing their freedoms, political parties jockeying for public opinion, campaign ads alerting us about the eminent threat to our freedoms, decisions from courts (Supreme or otherwise) that cite said freedoms, and even in the artistic medias where we seek our amusements of the day. If you have not heard about freedom of speech, freedom of the press, the right to bear arms, or freedom of religion recently then you have not been paying attention.

What then do we make of the current ‘ground-zero’ mosque issue and the torrent of opinions, positions, charges, and rants regarding the mosque in the context of our American ideals? We could say that this is nothing more than a healthy debate on the issue. But ‘healthy’, really! is what you see and hear an open, rational and intelligent discussion of the question? Does your heart swell with pride when you hear the reasons offered for someone’s side of the debate, is your American spirit lifted by the moral virtue being presented, and is your sense of justice and equality satisfied by the way the debate is conducted?

Oh, by the way; what do you think the actual question surrounding the ground-zero mosque is? It is not whether they have the right to build the mosque, or community center or both. There are any number of legal rights guaranteed by our laws that make it clear that building the mosque is perfectly legal. The question is not whether they should build the mosque. Presumably they have already determined that this is a course of action that they believe is appropriate and advisable for whatever reasons they have considered. Their right to choose is no less endowed then another’s right to choose to state that they are against it. But not liking their decision in no way diminishes nor restricts their right to choose to do it. So again what is the question?

I think the question is whether in America we collectively hold that like Rockwell’s Freedom from Fear and Freedom from Want that there is a right to a Freedom from Hatred. Do we believe that under our democracy that hatred is a valid reason for our citizens, even if it were to be a majority of our citizens, to restrict the rights and freedoms of other citizens? Is this what the founders of our country fought a revolution for; is it what America fought two World Wars, the Korean conflict, the Vietnam war, the wars in Afghanistan and Iraqi, and a plethora of other conflicts around the globe for? Did Americans die so that even any single one of our freedoms could be limited for some but not all? You all know the answers to these questions. There is not even a question of what our American ideals are in this matter.

Americans always have and always will have to struggle with the difficulty and troubling demands placed upon a free people who strive to fulfill the blessings that freedom bestows upon us and our posterity. I do not expect or require others to do what I would do, but I do expect and require them to allow me to choose as freely as any other free citizen has a right to choose. I expect that in America I have a right to my liberties not being overshadowed by hate; that I have right to a Freedom from Hatred.

See, Curing the Border Is A Problem

The failure of Congress to properly and effectively address United States’ Immigration laws and policies has provided the opportunity for a number of States to demonstrate their ineptitude at understanding what causes and promotes illegal immigration, what the real problems are that are derived from such immigrations, and what laws and policies should be created as effective means for addressing the causes, the problems and the law.

I don’t suppose that it is to be unexpected that State politicians are as worthless as our elected national Congressional and Presidential leaders are. They seem to succumb to the same let’s choose an easy answer solution that sounds good to one constituency or other. First defend the border, do whatever it takes to prevent illegal aliens from physically crossing the border. Once we do that then we can deal with other illegal immigrate issues and problems. Or, first we need to deal with the 11+ million illegal aliens [some sources push counts that put the number at almost twice that] that are already here in the US. Do either the national or state politicians really think that these are the immigration problems that need to be addressed, and if addressed that these would solve the immigration mess that our state and federal governments has allowed to infect, fester and endanger our social fabric?

Neither securing the border nor deciding how resident illegal aliens should be dealt with will solve the immigration problem. Yes, both would change the conditions around illegal immigration; but really! Why would either stop illegal immigration?

Making the border harder to cross will guarantee that we accomplish one specific result. It will make it ‘harder to cross’; but it will not make it impossible to cross. As long as there is a good enough reason to want to get here, there will be folks who will provide a way to achieve it. And the cost to perpetually improve, upgrade and enhance the ‘secure’ border will become just another one of our politicians’ favorite phenomenon: a budgetary gold mine for special interests, campaign contributors, and themselves. There will be a final solution just another $2 billion (plus annual operating cost and increase) away. And the worst thing is that there will be superior solutions that cost one-tenth the cost that will never be recognized nor accepted because it will not serve the vested interests.

Dealing with the population of current illegal aliens in the country does not solve the immigration problem, because it doesn’t stop border crossing nor does it account for the social and economic consequences to the US from either deportation or from amnesty. Just choosing to deport or to provide a ‘path to citizenship’ for illegal aliens does not assure us that there are no negative consequences to either or both actions, and it does not guarantee that in balance the results will be advantageous.

It would be wise to understand the consequences of what we are proposing to do, before we do them.

And it would be even more essential that we understand what causes illegal immigration so that we can develop well reasoned and logical solutions to address the causes and the consequences of illegal immigration.

This is clearly something that neither our federal nor state politicians nor their respective bureaucracies are prepared to or competent to handle.

Angry Over Their Own Ineptitude

Congressional members, mostly Republicans, are angry that President Obama has used the executive branch power to make interim appointments to make Donald Berwick the administrator of the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services. They are upset because they feel he has ignored their responsibility to advise and consent to such appointments. Surely this is a justified reaction to the President’s unreasonable use of a completely legal use of a procedure used by many Presidents before (both Republican and Democrat).

After all, Congress had the ability to hold their hearings and to make their ‘advice and consent’ vote if they had chosen to just do it. But that would not have served their desire to delay the hearings and to try and try and achieve a political benefit out of their own delaying tactic. Is there any American who would not agree with these Congressional self-righteous individuals are being unreasonably taken advantage of just because they didn’t want to do their Constitutional duty and were instead looking for a self-serving opportunity? Of course not! No one expects our elected legislative officials to do their jobs. What responsibility does Congress have to serve the public! Is their oath of office something that they should be bound by, just because they made it on a bible (or other text appropriate to their faith)? No! These are Congress-men/women who are not expected to serve honorably or living up to American principles of civic duty.

And besides, how dare President Obama undertake to put someone into a governmental position to do something to serve the public! He has a lot to learn about being a politician.

Yuan a Do Something About the Chinese Currency

The Chinese announced that they are allowing their currency to be adjusted against the dollar. In part they are taking this step in advance of the G20 Summit to avoid being isolated from the other nations in attendance and thereby being pressured to yield to international pressure. But the Chinese are still rigidly controlling the ‘floating’ of the yuan within narrow limits that perpetuate the de facto pegging of the yuan to the dollar. So the question I have is: why do the leading world economies wait for a trading ‘partner’ to participate with them in a free-trade, level playing field, open markets system?

If I recall and understood correctly a principle of Milton Friedman’s economic theory or principles it was that if someone wanted to sell you something for less then it cost you to produce yourself or particularly if for less than it actually costs to produce that you should take advantage of their offer. Now the currency exchange problem is that if the US or any country keeps buying more and more from China and selling them less and less is that China will eventually hold an excessively large quantities of dollars (or other currency) which could render the value of that currency vulnerable to manipulation by China. This is part of the problem that the US has today, with the large trade imbalance with China.

So it would seem that what the G20 really needs is a way to deal with the yuan being controlled independent of the global markets and with passively permitting the Chinese to gain increasingly large leverage against their respective currencies. What then prevents these economic leaders for taking some pro-active policy or approach, although by now it would seem it would have to be considered re-active, that would limit their vulnerabilities from a non-cooperative global partner? The most likely answer is either being innovative enough to actually conceiving of one, or not having the “will” required of true leaders to face the responsibilities that they owe to their individual countries and to the global community as a whole.

And as the self-thought leader of the free world, what does America bring to the table? I really don’t know.

Three Things Congress Can’t Do

We all know that there are many things that Congress can’t do. However, there are things that they can do, ought to do, and were elected to do; but it appears that the residents of the House and Senate are ill-prepared, ill-advised and ill-suited to do their jobs. Among their many inadequacies our Congressional leaders lack are the intellectual prowess to confront the issues of the day, lack the Yankee spirit & fortitude to persevere in tackling our country’s problems, and lack the American integrity for fulfilling their responsibility to their countrymen.

Congress shows no talent or ability in three areas where they should be able to step up to the challenge, and where they ought to be actively engaged in creating the legislative and policy directions to craft an American future that will be sufficiently strong to fulfill its fundamental promises and obligations to its citizens. And unfortunately for us, these areas have one vitally important consequence for us: Congress takes our money to subsidize the budget to cover for their deficiencies.

First, Congress continues to create programs that require increasing governmental spending. Now if these programs produced corresponding benefits to the country and/or growth in the private sector that outweighed the costs, then the costs might make sense. But they are not; most programs are fraught with mismanagement, waste & fraud. And it’s not that these Congressional stalwarts are unaware of the abuse of the budget, they are usually neck deep in the morass. The indications can be observed in obvious and visible ear-marks peppered throughout the mire of their bills.

Second, our members of Congress are addicted or subservient to numerous special interests that urge, prod and coerce them into forging bad laws and bad policy. The results of their pandering to their special interest masters is that the public is provided with the opportunity to fund not only their special friends but we get to pay for the interest on the monies that we likely borrowed to fund it. Now isn’t that special!

Third, Congress refuses to recognize or admit to the one problem that supersedes all other problems combined. They will do nothing to address the Public-debt, a mere $13 trillion dollar problem. To put this in prospective, think the USA’s GDP for this year. Essentially we owe as much as we produce in a year. And to make things more impressive, Congress lets us pick up for the tab on having borrowed the money to pay for this excess. Now don’t go off and think that this is a Democrat problem just because they are in office, the Republicans are as aggressive a set of co-conspirators as you will ever meet.

Be they Democrats, be they Republicans, or be they the uber-wealthy new political candidate of your dreams; if they do not step up to the real problems for our country then you have just elected another politician who is telling you what you want to hear and who is the champion of your most sacred single issue. Of course, your most sacred single issue is one of the reasons that the country is in the sad sorry state that it is. The persons you want to serve you in Congress need to be people who can tell you why you need to do those hard and difficult things that we are all going to have to sacrifice to achieve.

Blockading Any Solution: Continuing the Israeli – Arab Impasse

The Israeli boarding of the latest Gaza destined flotilla this week, which has sparked the International outcry regarding the intolerable action on Israel’s part, will spur numerous proposals and plans for international action and sanctions against Israel. But will anyone seize the moment to use this event to set forth a new approach to making progress toward a path to resolving this decades long conflict? No.

The Israelis and Hamas-governed Gaza Palestinians are locked into their well-practiced and behaviorally conditioned stimulus-response mentality. They are not likely to find a solution as they are both doing the exact opposite of the old joke about “looking for their keys under the street-lamp because the light is better over here”. They are both looking for their solutions in the dark with blind-folds on and both hands tied behind their backs.

The international community is divided among countries that advocate the complete destruction of Israel, that support the right of a nation to protect itself by all means necessary (which oddly can apply to either party in this conflict), and those countries that counsel that only a diplomatic solution will be able to settle the dispute. The first two positions do nothing to resolve the conflict as they are the conflict; and the diplomacy approach has demonstrated its efficacy for this situation by essentially failing to do more than produce occasional and sporadic lulls in the conflict.

What then to do, how do you find a resolution to the Israel – Palestinian dispute?

An alternative to diplomacy, to sanctions, to threats or the continuation of madness might be contracts. A contracts approach could be used in smaller instances, on manageable issues and between any particular parties that can help play a role in breaking through the impasse brick by brick. The concept of using contracts to resolve the conflict may not be clear to some; but it offers a number of advantages, not the least of which it is an essential underpinning of any diplomatic approach that is chiefly espoused by most nations.

Other advantages of the contracts approach include allowing different parties to address their own interest-centric needs directly and specifically, it allows multiple issues to be dealt with simultaneously and without being contaminated by side issues or other groups, it allows for small steps to be made without being held hostage to negotiations on some unrelated or a currently unresolvable issue; and it requires each party to clearly define the conditions of the agreement.

It is this last part that makes the most difference. In addition to detailing the points of the contract agreement, the contract specifies the responsibilities, consequences and penalties that go into effect should the contract be broken. This advantage contains within it one of the motivating forces that helps invest the participating parties with self-interest in complying with the contract.

If you don’t think it would work, consider how a contract between Turkey and Israel might be able to deal with their current problem of the Gaza blockage versus the delivery of humanitarian aid. What would Israel require of Turkey to provide aid delivery and what consequences would Turkey be held to if they failed to fulfill the contractual terms and conditions? Likewise what would Turkey expect of Israel, if they did not allow for delivery of humanitarian aid under the terms and conditions of the contract?

Establish a contract on this issue, put it into effect and then there is one less brick in the wall. Keep weakening the wall brick-by-brick and eventually the impasse is broken.

Don’t Ask [the Right Questions], Don’t Tell [the Truth]: The Logic of Congress and Other Special People

Watching and listening to politicians wrangle over the “Don’t Ask; Don’t Tell” policy regarding gays in the Military is yet another instance of the peoples’ elected representatives failing to deal with the issue in a complete and informed manner. Given the historic homophobic and anti-homosexual biases that have run rampant through our society, it is not surprising that there has been an issue on whether gays in the military are a socially, politically and militarily practical or acceptable concept. But now is not then. Today, Americans are generally aware enough to recognize and accept that being gay is an accepted and protected status under our Constitutional framework and democratic principles. This does not mean that there are not plenty of persons who treat gays as social pariahs and occasions in which they are at risk of being maligned, maltreated, and murdered. So while Congress and the Military leadership determine if it is acceptable for some who is gay to be ‘openly’ gay while in military service, shouldn’t they have raised some pertinent questions on this issue as part of their responsibility to the public that they are expressly dedicated to serve? [I recognize that the following questions may have been asked by someone earlier, but I haven’t noticed that these issues have been given any noteworthy attention by Congress, the Military, or the Media and thus appear to me to be unasked.]

By disallowing gays to serve openly in the military; the Government, Congress, Military, and other like-policy supporting organization/groups are limiting the representation of gays in the armed forces which effectively increases the representation of heterosexual individuals in the Military. Thus the lives of heterosexual men and women are placed at greater risk simply on a statistical basis. And why would the country, Government, Military, and Congress place a lower value on a heterosexual life? There is no way around the fact that excluding one group from the risks that military personnel face places it’s contra-group directly in the position to absorb that risk. Thus injuries to and the deaths of heterosexual military personnel are proportionately increased. If you accept an scientific perspective on evolution, you might want to consider what unintended consequences follow from the current policy.

On another front, why are the Government, Congress and Military creating a security risk for themselves and America? It seems odd that the very people charged with securing the blessing of life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness are and have been instrumental in establishing a means to coerce military personnel to fear for their life and/or career? It doesn’t take much mental effort or insight to deduce the consequences of a “Don’t Ask; Don’t Tell” policy or harsher previous incarnations of the military’s policies toward gays with respect to the security vulnerability that they directly create. Further, even with their current policy, they haven’t recognized the inherent advantages that their own policy gives them if they established a process for protecting individuals exposed to such threats.

Lastly, what do our governmental and military leaders think the consequences are to expressly and aggressively treating one group of people as unequal and unacceptable in either our general society or even just within our military society. Do they think that such mental and behavioral distinctions will have no consequential implications for how the broader governmental and military policies will view other groups: be they racial, gender, ethnic, or religious in nature? When we accept that it individuals can be treated unequally for one dimension of their being; is it not easier to treat another group in some other rationalized unequal manner?

In our society and system of government, we should be striving to have everyone held to the same high standard of freedom, liberty and responsibility. While it is not simple or easy to live and exist in a pluralistic society, and I struggle to be open-minded about many groups myself; I don’t see why I can’t find a way to accept lifestyles that I don’t personally identify with. Perhaps it has helped to have lived through some of the turbulent social changes that America has struggled through over my life. Is extending the inclusive principle of our Democratic way of life any more unreasonable for gays than it has been for race, gender, nationality, religion, or even members of Congress?

Congress and Other Politicians: Illegal Immigrates in the Country of Intelligence?

What with immigration being one of the hot issues of the day, month, year, decade, … you would think that Congress and states’ legislatures would have found some viable and functional approaches to setting the legal and policy direction on it. But of course they have not. Is it because the two parties cannot find a way to work together? No, even when they have had the opportunity to pass whatever bill they have wanted the ‘best and brightest’ have flounder without a concept; or vacillated on some direction; or lurched toward some ‘tough on illegal aliens’ bill that was toothless, blind, and addle pated in its efficacy.

Is it because the solutions are beyond the ability of men and women of good will to conceive of or comprehend something of value? No, even politicians, including some members of Congress, have the wherewithal to understand a good idea when they hear one. Makes you wonder why they haven’t heard one doesn’t it?

Is it because the public would not accept a reasonable, prudent and principled approach to reforming immigration? Harder to answer, but in general at least 7 of 10 Americans would support both an informed and practical immigration policy and law. They would even vote for those politicians who sponsored and backed such legislation. Most Americans are not inflexibly bound to either major Party’s failed and outdated positions on immigration; as the public is fundamentally interested in the impacts that the past and present immigration laws have wrought upon the land. At this point, the public would welcome a political leader who stood up and presented an immigration strategy that addressed those facets of American society that are being dealt real and significant damage from the ineffective and unproductive process that exists today.

So where is the politician that will seriously think about immigration and develop that creative position to bring intelligence, insight and innovation to the fore? Who will recognize the factors that motivate and drive the illegal immigration and the counter-measures that are appropriate to deal with them?

It appears that they are not in the Democratic or Republican Parties. It appears that they are not in the State legislatures, nor are they members of the staffs of these politicians. It appears that the politics of the day have stagnated the imaginations, and solidified the mind-sets of the very people that are supposed to tackle these problems for the American people.

Maybe it would help if we gave them a hint. To solve this problem there is an essential principle that needs to be attended to: First, you have to understand the problem. And that is where the immigration reform effort needs to start, and the politicians need to exert their energies. Only when they see the real problem will they have any chance of finding an effective solution.

Financial Derivatives: Coming from Foolishness, Fallacies, or Fraud?

Derivatives are a hot topic today. There are various groups assembling to defend the purpose and value of derivatives in the financial markets, others who decry their abusive and destructive nature, those who want to regulate them, some who want to constrain where and to what they can apply, and certainly other interests that have their own particular bent on derivatives. And of course there are the Congressional hearings on the Financial markets collapse and on the Financial Reform effort to address regulatory needs, if any, that the government should establish.

Derivatives are not a new financial concept they have existed in different forms for centuries if not millennia. The derivatives that were created in conjunction with the housing mortgage bubble and other financial bubbles that have contributed to the devastating financial markets’ near collapse were perhaps more ‘complex’ instruments but they were based on the same financial principles that derivatives have always been created upon. And if regardless of what Congress decides to do in terms of regulating, restricting, or intervening on with respect to derivatives; they will not change the need for nor the availability of some financial instrument that will function to the same purpose as derivatives. So the question is will Congress recognize what the real issue is that they need to address?

Where derivatives foolish investments? No, some derivatives did very well for those who invested in them. In fact, they made literal fortunes. Of course others got wiped out. So they were not foolish investments unless you had misjudged the situation that they related to, or you invested in them without any understanding of what the risk was versus the reward potential that they offered. There does appear to be a foolishness factor with some of the investors in the derivatives like the collateralized debt obligations. Even big, smart, sophisticated, and “best and brightest” financial institutions got sucked into buying derivatives that they did not understand or have any means of properly evaluating. And on the other side of the equation, there were those putting together derivative packages that they may have not understood.

But foolishness alone is not the story. Did anyone make plain and simple mistakes or base their actions on false assumptions? Yes. There were fallacies aplenty. People used information given to them about derivatives without any attempt to verify it, to assess it, or to apply the information that the derivative was formulated on to how it affected or influenced the value or risk of their other investments. The derivatives were being treated by many individuals/entities as if they were independent of other financial consequences in the market. So fallacy played its own contributory role in the melt-down.

Now for the last factor: Fraud. Was fraud involved in the derivatives? Yes it was, but don’t assume that it was strictly and exclusively only the banks and financial institutions. Fraud was probably present in every layer and part of the process that created not only the derivative instruments, but that was involved in the underlying investments that seeded the housing mortgage bubble. And fraud was an essential component in the marketing of the derivatives and in the underlying investments. Both instruments were not marketed in the same context, to the same customers and with the same disclosure information.

The issue that Congress, the financial industry, the investment community and the public need to focus on and demand be addressed by way of business, government and societal reform is the very principle that capitalism is based upon: an open market place where everyone has access to the same information and has the same opportunity to compete. This is where the derivatives market went woefully wrong. Deals were made behind closed doors, information was kept for some groups and provided to others, and false and misleading information was used to mislead some investors for the benefit of others.

If Congress is to succeed in protecting the country, the pubic and the free democratic system that they are sworn to serve then Congress is going to have to see beyond the special interests, beyond the public outrage, and beyond the political opportunity and perceive the valid principles of American capitalism.