Stirring up a hornet's nest

Apparently Candace Cameraon Bure has unleashed a firestorm of criticism for certain comments she made in her recent book; Balancing It All:My Story of Juggling Priorities and Purpose.

The passage in particular that these ladies are referencing is:

My husband is a natural-born leader. I quickly learned that I had to find a way of honoring his take-charge personality and not get frustrated about his desire to have the final decision on just about everything. I am not a passive person, but I chose to fall into a more submissive role in our relationship because I wanted to do everything in my power to make my marriage and family work.

Maybe because I'm a conservative male I'm missing something but I read this a testament of what SHE does to make HER marriage work. She wrote a book. The book can be purchased for money... or not. To my knowledge no women in America are being forced at gunpoint or threat of incarceration to read this book. Contrary to what at least one of the panelists in the clip above is insinuating, Ms. Bure is not FORCING her view of her particular role in her marriage on ANYONE. She did NOT say:

A WOMAN'S PLACE IS BAREFOOT AND IN THE KITCHEN SERVING HER MAN AND IF YOU DON'T AGREE WITH ME YOU ARE HEATHEN SCUM WHO WILL BURN IN HELL!

And maybe this is just me being a brain-dead conservative male again... but I thought the feminist movement wasn't JUST about empowering women, equal pay for equal work and all that... I thought it was also about women having that choice... It wasn't about women entering the work force... it was about women finally having that as an option.  Some women are career minded and choose to enter the work force and remain in it after having kids.  Some women, CHOOSE to stay at home after having kids, it's a different role.  It's not inherently bad or unequal... it's what works for those particular women.

Maybe it's just me but most of the arguing on this issue seems to be between women.  There aren't many knuckle-dragging neanderthal men who still believe a woman's place is barefoot and in the kitchen with an infant suckling at each breast left in this country... not saying they don't exist, just that such men are an ever-shrinking minority.

Most of the guys I know (and if any of you disagree with me, feel free to tell me so) are focused on the marriage/relationship they're in and making it work.  We love and respect the women we're with and consider them to be partners.  We learn our roles in our respective relationships and those roles tend to evolve with our marriages and relationships.  Because we love and respect the women in our lives we support them in whatever decision they choose to make... if they want to stay at home with the kids, that's great, we'll figure out a way to make it work.  If they want to go back to work after having kids, that's great too, we'll work together and make that happen.  We respect our women to support them in the life path they choose and we're willing to work with them as partners in following their path as they work with us in following ours.

To the ladies who continue to make an issue of this...  What works for you might not work for others.  Make your own way, your own choices and respect other women enough to let them do the same.

Global Warming

Since even before Al Gore's An Inconvenient Truth there was discussion of Earth entering a period of Global Warming.  Climate scientists were making claims about how man's adverse effect on the environment was driving the planet down a road to imminent demise... But it wasn't/isn't too late to change course...

I'm not saying I agree or don't agree about global warming.  And if the Earth is warming, I'm not certain of the extent to which we, as humans, can be blamed.  I'm not trying to be difficult, I'm not trying to deny it... I'm putting another idea out there...  Isn't it possible that it's still too early to tell whether or not we're entering a dangerous period of global warming, let alone determine how much we, as humans, are contributing to that warming?

Maybe the Earth is warming, and maybe we as humans are at least partially responsible for it.  But maybe we're not.

The age of the Earth is 4.54 ± 0.05 billion years.  Humans have been inhabiting the Earth for about 200,000 years.  Not to make anyone feel insignificant, but that means we've been inhabiting the planet for less than half of percent of the planet's entire existence.

Using a very liberal consideration of the origins of the science of climatology there was a Chinese scientist, Shen Kuo, in the 11th century that inferred that climates shift over a very large span of time.  Using Shen Kuo's climatological's inferences as an origin point, the science of Climatology has only existed as a science for about 900-950 years.  That works out to less than half a percent of the amount of time humans have inhabited the Earth.

Humans have inhabited the planet for less than half a percent of the Earth's existence, and using generously liberal estimates climatology has only existed as a science for less than half of a percentage of the amount of time that humans have inhabited the Earth.

Given the insignificant amount of time that we've inhabited the Earth and the even more insignificant amount of time that humans have been studying climatology, I submit there's a bit of hubris... a human conceit if you will when it comes to the Sciences in general, and in recent years this has been particularly true of climatology.

I'll concede that our climatologists (and for that matter our paleo-climatologists) have been learning about the climate at exponential rates over the past few decades.  We know far more about climate now than we did even as recently as 10 or 15 years ago.  But that being said, the Earth was around for literally BILLIONS of years before we were and I wouldn't be surprised if its around for billions of years after we're extinct.

Remember during the Cold War when there were all the fears of a Nuclear holocaust wiping out the planet...  Well such an event WOULD very likely have wiped out humankind and would also have had a substantial impact on the environment in the short term (and the amount of time it would have taken the radiation from fall-out to wear off would have been a drop in the bucket on a macro scale of the overall planetary lifespan) but, while we as humans would have been done as a species had such an event occurred, the plant would eventually have recovered and eventually all traces of our existence would have disappeared.

To put it into further perspective, let's say the Earth is a living organism, that would basically make us its "cells."  And while cells can have an adverse effect on the body as a whole, I submit our impact on the climate is more akin to a scraped knee than it is to cancer.  Yes we have the capacity to cause visible and real damage, but in the grand scheme of things that damage is largely superficial.  The damage doesn't run deep... we aren't significant enough to cause any macro-level long term damage.

I'd further contend these changes in lifestyle, economy, and general culture we're making to "go green" have minimal impact at best and are completely insignificant at worst.  I bring this up because, unfortunately, the politics of environmentalism and climatology tend to lose any sense of real perspective and often get blown out of proportion.

We as humans have also historically had a bad habit of acting on impulse and generally forgetting or ignoring the "law of unintended consequences."  That is to say, we tend to unleash a greater wrath upon ourselves through the unanticipated and unintended consequences of the actions we take to repair or fix things (including the environment) than we did in messing things up in the first place.  We act on what we THINK we know, and then we get more data and find out that the opposite of what we "knew" is true.

Science isn't about questions and answers, it's ever evolving.  Science is about the new questions we end up having to ask once we get the answers to the questions we initially asked.  Science is questions answered with more questions.  It's the evolution of not just learning what we didn't know before, but also about learning about what we didn't even realize that we didn't know before (or as our former Secretary of Defense, Donald Rumsfeld worded it, the "known and unknown unknowns").

So let's shed the intellectual human conceit, regain a bit of perspective and start discussing this issue a bit more rationally.

Maybe we're not as different as we think we are...

Maybe we're not as different as we think we are.

I'd even go so far as to say we have more in common than any of us even realize any more.  We live in a culture of increased comfort, increased choices, and increased convenience.  While these are all benefits they all have come at some rather hefty opportunity costs-- the largest of these I'd argue are increased divisiveness and seclusion.  The technology that has brought the world closer to us is also the world that is de-humanizing our neighbors, its driving wedges between us.

Think about it...  Before cable there were 3 major networks, PBS, and a handful of "superstations" (WPIX and WWOR out of NYC and WGN out of Chicago for example) broadcasting out of major urban areas.  Most people who owned TVs, if they were lucky, got maybe 10-12 channels.  Many only got the 3 major networks and a nearby PBS affiliate... 4 channels.  That means the chances that we and our neighbors were watching the same show on any given night was substantially greater than it is today.  That created a commonality of experience and that commonality of experience was a uniting force of sorts.  Who cares if our neighbor's politics differed from ours, we both watched M*A*S*H* the night before or maybe we both caught that Dallas season finale cliff-hanger.  It was something to discuss that wasn't politics, it was something that brought people together... rather than tore them apart.  A "commonality of experience" serves to humanize others in our eyes... it's a lot harder to actively dislike someone (no matter how different that person's politics might be from ours) when we have other things in common with that person.  This commonality of experience made for a substantially less divisive culture.

I grew up going on long road trips with my parents.  We'd listen to the radio together, we'd talk, we'd play "car games"... We interacted with each other.  Yeah sometimes I'd pop on headphones and listen to music, sometimes I'd get lost in a book for awhile... but that wouldn't occupy an entire trip.  It would be a brief distraction (there is such a thing as "too much togetherness" after all).

Today many cars have DVD players on the seat backs so the kids in the back seat can watch TV or DVDs to keep them distracted...  So Dad's driving and listening to the radio, Mom is checking her texts on her cell phone, the kids are in the backseat with headphones on watching a movie (or possibly even 2 separate movies)... What aren't they doing?  Communicating with each other.  Dad doesn't have to stop and get out of the car to actually interact with someone else to ask for directions because his Garmin or TomTom is there guiding the way the whole trip.  These conveniences that distract us, also serve to isolate us.  In our isolation our fellow humans-- friends and family included lose a bit of that humanity to us.  Over time we've started to shed our social graces that made us considerably more civil with one another.  When we aren't even communicating properly with our own families, how can we be expected to communicate civilly and respectfully with the strangers we come into contact with on a daily basis?

These new technologies aren't the cause of divide, they are merely enablers.  We live in a culture of excess.  We've long forgotten how to keep things small or simple...  everything is to the extreme.  So, while these new technologies in moderation provide wonderful new conveniences in excess they drive wedges between us, our friends, and our neighbors.  They isolate us from one another and they've caused us to, over time, forget our civility towards one another.

The Bridesmaid Should Never Upstage the Bride (or Yet another reason Romney Lost)

The reason bridesmaid dresses are so ugly is to make the bride appear that much more beautiful by comparison.  A bridesmaid should never be more attractive than the bride in any given wedding.

In my life I've witnessed five elections that were lost, at least in part, due to the vice presidential candidate upstaging his/her running mate.

1)  In 1984 former vice-president Walter "Fritz" Mondale chose Geraldine Ferraro as his running mate.  Ferraro was a better spoken and more dynamic candidate than Mondale.  

2)  In 1996 Bob Dole chose Jack Kemp as his running mate.  Kemp and Dole had actually run against each other in the 1988 Republican primary (with then VP, George H.W. Bush soundly defeating them both).  Kemp was a more dynamic speaker than Dole, he was charismatic where Dole was a bit wooden.  He had a Reagan-esque passion in everything he did that Dole seemed to lack.  Going up against a very popular and charismatic (not to mention pre-Lewinskygate) Bill Clinton, this pairing was a recipe for disaster.

3)  Don't ask me how it happened but in 2004, the rather wooden Lurch-esque John Forbes Kerry won the Democratic nomination for president.  I was baffled throughout that whole election cycle.  Prior to the Iowa caucus it seemed Howard Dean was the shoo-in for the nomination.  There was a strong grass-roots campaign for him leading into that caucus (arguably that grassroots campaign was the template that Obama used to catapult himself to the presidency and succeed where Dean had failed).  Before the whole Rielle Hunter mess, John Edwards was EASILY a more attractive candidate than John Kerry.  He was better spoken and he inspired a Kennedy-esque youthful enthusiasm among his supporters that I don't think Kerry was capable of doing even on his best days.  Kerry choosing Edwards was a huge mistake.  His own running mate actually made him a less attractive candidate than he might otherwise have been.

4) Sarah Palin... need I say more.  This case was a little different than the previous three...  Sarah Palin most definitely upstaged John McCain but for all the wrong reasons.  That VP pick caused some of his lukewarm supporters to question his decision making abilities and inevitably jump ship.  Sarah Palin was and is a decent and charismatic speaker... but public speaking and charisma alone can't make a president.  She was supremely ill-suited to the job and I'd argue her VP run cost her her job as governor of Alaska as well.  When she was governor people were coming out of the woodwork suing her... Some of the lawsuits may have been legitimate, but many were not.  Those lawsuits were inevitably too great a distraction (not to mention financial burden) for her to continue effectively executing the office she'd been elected to hold.  Incidentally, shortly after she resigned, many of the suits against her were dropped and/or dismissed.

5)  Paul Ryan is a more articulate speaker than Mitt Romney.  He is a Jack Kemp acolyte and shared with Kemp (and Reagan) a courage of conviction that Mitt Romney lacked.  Given his background he was far more in touch with the middle class than Romney, and in an election following a huge bailout of banks and the auto industry where the perception (rightly or wrongly) of many voters was that America had been screwed over by the wealthy who (thanks to their golden parachutes) were laughing all the way to the bank Paul Ryan should have strengthened the Romney ticket, but due to some of his gaffes, Ryan instead just made Romney appear that much more out of touch (by comparison).  I liked Romney in 2008, he ran from the middle, as the moderate that he actually IS not the neo-con far-right tea partier he had so desperately tried to pander to in the primaries.  Maybe Paul Ryan would have complemented a more moderate 2008 Romney.  Instead, Ryan's courage of conviction created a perception (some would argue, he shined the spotlight on) a 2012 Romney's lack of conviction.

All this being said, this is no harbinger of future elections.  I'm only in my mid 30s and five presidential candidates have made this mistake in my relatively short (thus far) lifespan.  That tells me this is a mistake that presidential candidates are yet to truly learn from.

I'm no fan of Joe Biden, but I can't argue that he was/is a brilliant choice for Obama.  There's no way he could or would outshine Obama and he makes a great "bulldog"-- he goes after the opposition and says things that there's no way Obama could ever get away with saying without being completely eviscerated by the opposition.  Democrats may hate me for this but I see him as somewhat Agnew-esque in that respect.  And I don't think Agnew-esque Alliteration would sound out of place coming from Biden.  It's only a matter of time before he refers to the GOP as "nattering nabobs of negativity" in much the same way Agnew referred to the press under Nixon's watch.

If the Republicans get nothing else from the 2008 and 2012 election, they should use Obama's VP selection of Biden as a clinic on finding the RIGHT running mate for the selected nominee (whomever that ends up being).  Given how much the Latin-Americans broke for Obama, I forsee Nevada governor Brian Sandoval, Florida senator Marco Rubio, or New Mexico governor Susana Martinez as players in the 2016 presidential race.

Fast Food vs. Crock Pot Social Interaction

I'm a a Republican.  Surprisingly to some, I don't twirl my nonexistent mustache, rub my hands together feverishly, nor cackle maniacally as I rob cheat and steal candy from babies, and money from the middle class to fill my already full grain silos with even more money (especially since I'm in the middle class myself)

I'm not going to take away a woman's right to choose... regardless of my views on the subject-- I don't have that power (for that matter neither does the president... but that's a civics lesson for another day).  I'm not going to run around with duct tape trying to tape the mouths of Justices of the Peace shut so they can't perform weddings or civil unions for homosexuals.  I wouldn't want anyone telling me whom I can or can't love and marry, so why would I go around telling others whom they can or can't marry?

My religious and my political views are mutually exclusive.  I believe a person's relationship with their higher being of choice (or lack thereof) is very personal.  A person's religious or moral beliefs can be a compass, but should never be a map, for their political beliefs.  At the same time it's something that can be shared with other like minded individuals if one so chooses, but not something to be forced down the throats of those who do not agree.

Over the course of my life I've both made friends with and distanced myself from people of many different walks of life, political affiliations, ethnic backgrounds, sexual orientations.  Respect isn't a right, it's a privilege, it must be earned. I was raised to give everyone equal opportunity to earn my respect and I was raised with the belief that the respect others extend to me must also be earned.

A person's ethnic background, sexual orientation, religion, and political affiliation are all aspects of who a person is.  They aren't the whole.  They are parts of a whole.  My life experience has taught me that when it comes to the good people I know in my life, the whole is greater than the sum of the parts.  Focusing on only the "parts" that make us up as individuals, we sometimes dismiss and miss out on the whole of that person, much to our own detriment.  I've also learned that learning "why" someone is, is far more enlightening and makes for far more enriching friendships and personal interactions than learning merely "what" or "who" they are.

Sadly, given the speed and pace of our culture, we've stopped taking the time to interact with one another.  We seek the safety of those who share our beliefs and backgrounds rather than the challenge of getting to know those who don't.  It's something we are ALL guilty of (self included).  Our whole culture, down to our interactions with one another has become "fast food/convenience" oriented.  We've stopped making the time to get to know one another better in favor of getting by on knowing just enough about one another to get by.  Assumptions are made and polarity based on those assumptions ensues.  Rather than focus on all the ingredients that separate us, instead we should search for the salt-- it's the ingredient found in everything, it's that which we all share.

Admit it, you meet a person for the first time and if the subject of politics comes up and that person self-identifies as conservative or liberal, Democrat or Republican you make a snap judgment on that person's entire character and if that person's political affiliation differs from yours, walls go up and both of you end up going on the defensive.  It's something I believe we're all guilty of from time to time (although, not necessarily EVERY time).  Unfortunately, this is a product of being far too focused on our differences and not focused enough (or at all) on our similarities.

So skip the fast food, take the time to make your friendships and social interactions in crock pots, they taste better and are far more fulfilling.  Oh and please pass the salt.

Brokered Convention

In recent weeks certain political pundits have been suggesting that there's a possibility of a brokered Republican Convention this year.

A brokered convention occurs when none of the candidates has won at least 50 percent of the pledged delegates by the time of their party's convention.  This hasn't happened since the 1952 Democratic Convention when Adlai Stevenson was chosen to run against Dwight Eisenhower.  It hasn't happened to the Republicans since 1946 when the Republicans chose Thomas Dewey to run against Harry S. Truman.

There was some similar scuttlebutt back in 2008 when Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton were running closely throughout the race.  If neither of them had been able to carry a majority it would have gone to a brokered convention in which the party elite would choose the candidate rather than those who voted.

However the way the system has been set up for years-- with each state's primaries or caucuses being all or nothing affairs does not lend itself as readily to the likelihood of brokered conventions... especially not in the information age when momentum is a much stronger factor than it was in the early pre-telegraph, pre-telephone days of our country.

That has changed in some states starting with this election cycle.  Some states are opting to go to a proportional allotment of delegates.

To clarify--

Historically speaking, whoever wins a state carries ALL that state's delegates regardless of how close the race might have been.  So in Iowa where Rick Santorum won by 30 some votes, he'd carry ALL of Iowa's delegates.

To my knowledge Iowa is not a state where that changed but let's say it was-- instead of Santorum getting ALL of Iowa's delegates, the delegates would be split proportionally to the number of votes won by each candidate.

If enough states end up going to the proportional allotment of delegates in the future brokered conventions will likely become a bit more common.

Where things get hairy is that many times the candidate chosen by the party elite ends up being a candidate who did not actually run in the primaries.  The name floated around in 2008 when it looked like Obama and Clinton might have split the delegates with neither of them getting a majority was not either of them... it was Al Gore.

Similarly, the names being floated around on the GOP side if this goes to a brokered convention are not Mitt Romney, Newt Gingrich, Ron Paul, or even Rick Santorum... some of the names rumored for consideration in the event of a brokered GOP convention include Wisconsin Rep. Paul Ryan and Indiana Governor Mitch Daniels (the chap who delivered the GOP rebuttal speech to Obama's most recent State of the Union address).

The logic behind choosing a candidate who did not run in the primaries is that if none of the candidates who ran in the primaries were strong enough to get that majority none of them are strong enough to face the other party's nominee in the general election so we should look at other possibilities.

Inconvenient Truths about the "Racist" Republicans

One of my liberal friends posted this on his facebook page and it rather annoyed me.  Largely because several of these points are historically false and inaccurate.  Let's go through point by point:

1) "Liberals got women the right to vote." - The 19th amendment which granted women the right to vote was drafted by Susan B. Anthony and was first presented to Congress by Aaron Augustus Sargent, a Republican Senator from California.  Unfortunately, at the time it failed.  In 1920 when the 19th amendment was finally passed by Congress, the House of Representatives was under Republican control.  The Amendment was signed into law by then Speaker of the House, Frederick H. Gillett, a Republican.

2) "Liberals got African-Americans the right to vote" - The 15th amendment was one of the Reconstruction Amendments, again passed by Republicans.  No Democrats voted in favor of this amendment and only 3 Republicans voting against it and one abstaining (Charles Sumner who felt it didn't go far enough to protect the voting rights of minorities).

3) "Liberals created Social Security and lifted millions of people out of poverty." - This one is true.  Social Security was established under President Franklin Delano Roosevelt.

4) "Liberals ended segregation." - In the landmark Brown vs. the Board of Education the Supreme Court led by Chief Justice Earl Warren (appointed by Republican President, Dwight D. Eisenhower) overturned the laws that allowed segregation and made it illegal.  It was also President Eisenhower who ordered in the National Guard to enforce the Supreme Court decision.

The rest of the statements are true... The Civil Rights Act of 1964 and Voting Rights Act of 1965 were both passed under Democrat Lyndon B. Johnson's presidency.

Medicare was created with the Social Security Act of 1965, also under LBJ.

The Clean Air Act went into effect in December 1963.  The Clean Water Act was passed into law in 1972 when Republican, Richard Nixon was president but it was passed by Congress which was controlled by a Democratic majority at the time.

In addition the above quote fails to acknowledge:

The first African-American governor, was Republican Oscar Dunn.

The first African-American elected to the US Senate was Mississippi Republican, Hiram Revels.

The first African-American elected to the US House of Representatives was South Carolina Republican, Joseph Rainey.

The first woman to serve in Congress, Jeanette Rankin, was a Montana Republican.

The first female Supreme Court Justice, Sandra Day O'Connor was nominated by Republican president, Ronald Reagan.

The first African-American Secretary of State, Colin Powell AND the first  female African-American Secretary of State, Condoleeza Rice, were appointed by Republican George W. Bush.

The first Latin-American attorney general, Alberto Gonzalez, was also appointed by Bush.

For that matter George W. Bush appointed more women and minorities to his cabinet than any president before him.

The first Indian-American governor, Louisiana governor, Bobby Jindal is a Republican.

The first female Indian-American governor, South Carolina governor, Nikki Haley, is a Republican.

The first Hispanic governor, Nevada governor, Brian Sandoval, is a Republican.

The first female Hispanic governor, New Mexico governor, Susana Martinez, is a Republican.

Politicin'

The muse has had really bad timing lately.  She gently flicks my ear to get my attention while I'm at work, she whispers ideas to me while I'm still half asleep in the shower, or sometimes when I'm driving home she tries to forcibly get ideas in my head....  But when I finally sit down to write, she's nowhere to be found.  She makes herself scarce and I'm left grasping at the ghosts of the ideas she planted in my head, the apparitions of thoughts that I can barely make out let alone put into words.

But, I'm here now so...

If you're a regular reader you already know my political beliefs fall right of center.  I've been following  the Occupy Wall Street/Chicago/etc. protests on the news with some level of amusement.  I know that the press is doing to them what they were doing to the Tea Party... finding the most asinine and outspoken idiots to use as a representative sample when it's anything but.

The truth is-- and I feel like a broken record here, the further on the fringe people are the more vocal they are.  The more vocal they are the more attention gets paid to them.  That does not mean they speak for the majority, it does not mean that they have the majority opinion... It just means they're the most vocal at expressing their thoughts and ideas.  

We human beans love a good circus and we tend to gravitate towards the freaks when we go to the circus, our media plays into that and contributes heavily to it.  The partisan rancor that exists in this country is largely the end product of the media... every story-- even in the news apparently there needs to be a good guy and a bad guy...  But reality is really just shades of grey, isn't it?

I still maintain that there are far more of us "in the middle" than on the fringes.  Most of us have opinions that are more similar than different.  Each of us has our own little leanings a little to the right here, a little to the left there...  but we all put our pants on one leg at a time, we breathe the same air, we live under the same sun and moon as everyone else... and maybe just maybe the rancor we have for "the opposition" is misguided.

In politics it's all about divide and conquer... and again the media plays into this.  Our politicians are like magicians.. they use deflection to distract us... and to "deflect" they get us to fight amongst ourselves.  And when we stop fighting amongst ourselves from time to time we realize they've made our taxpayer dollars disappear...  And it's not like pulling a rabbit out of a hat... It's not a matter of our money was there a second ago and suddenly highways or mass transit rail appear where the money once was...  the money is GONE... disappeared.  However sometimes when the money disappears, in its place you can clearly see tons and tons of red tape.

The American Dream for consumers creating the American Nightmare for employees

A common misconception that exists in this country is that we're entitled to the "American Dream."  While there is some variance from person to person what that dream entails-- for most it does entail at least a basic level of comfort with one's circumstances, for some it's a bit more posh (fancy cars, decent sized McMansion, a collection of bling worth greater than the GDP of several small countries combined, etc.).  We aren't entitled to the dream though.  What we are entitled to is the access to that dream.  The access to succeed or fail by our own hard-work, intuition, gumption, toil... or in the case of failure-- the lack thereof.

I've heard an argument that states the economic collapse was driven by corporate America being too greedy.  And I can't deny there's some truth to that.  The trouble is "corporate America" is just a very convenient scapegoat.  Corporate America is driven by the profit motive and who drives profits?  The consumers.  While corporate America is one of the dominos responsible for toppling the economy, it's not the original and direct cause...  Consumer America is the driver of the economy. 

Businesses are supposed to make money that's their goal.  In order to make money they have to keep the consumers happy with the product or service they offer and in order to do that they have to keep costs low and still provide at least a moderate level of customer service. With the ever escalating rise of salaries, keeping costs low is becoming increasingly more difficult for companies and the easiest way for them to do so is to reduce payroll and the easiest way to reduce payroll with the least negative impact on productivity and profitability is globalization.

Let's say a company wants to do right by its employees so it adjusts its costs to allow for it to maintain its domestic workforce. As time passes that company's competitors move overseas to keep their costs low. The consumer in the store looking at 2 products from 2 different companies isn't looking at the "Made in the USA" vs. the "Made in India/Tawaiian/China/etc." label the consumer is looking at the price tag. That price tag will drive the consumer to purchase the foreign made product. In trying to keep their employees happy the company starts to lose its profitability. With its prices being undercut by competitors who have opted for a more affordable workforce somewhere in SE Asia, the company's sales plummet and they're forced to increasingly lay off more and more of their work force until they eventually go out of business.

This ends up limiting the access to the American Dream.  Was it the fault of corporate America or consumer America that led to this limited access to that dream?

Where the fault DOES lie on corporate America-- through much of the 20th century several American companies were run by a conceit that Americans would buy their products first regardless of quality because those products were American made.  As the quality of goods from overseas improved the quality of American goods stagnated largely due to this nationalistic corporate conceit.  This was driven largely by the big 3 American auto manufacturers but it certainly wasn't limited to them. 

As consumers we want the biggest bang for our buck-- the best quality at the lowest price.  As we've shifted from a largely single-income household culture to more of a dual-income/dual breadwinner culture our perception of needs and wants have also changed accordingly.  Things that would have been considered luxuries by previous generations are today considered to be more necessities today.  With that shift has also come a shift in our expectations for what we believe we are entitled to as individuals and as a culture.

Our government, in its attempt to improve our access to the American Dream has taken the somewhat misguided tack of not trying to merely improve our access to that dream but to reduce the work we have to do to attain that dream.  Unfortunately, we have a government that is unable to look past the next election cycle that is driven by an electorate with an ever-shrinking attention span that wants instant gratification.  As such, as consumers we've been mortgaging our future for our present. 

Don't get me wrong, I'm not pointing fingers at individual consumers.  Nor am I placing blame.  This is the nature of the beast.  It's human nature.  We want bigger, better, faster, more and we want it for less!  This "need" has forced many of our employers to look overseas to give us what we want as consumers.  So in addition to mortgaging our future for our present.  We've been mortgaging our need for more income/benefits (as employees) with our employers ability to deliver us the bigger, better, faster, and more we crave so deeply as consumers. 

The TRUE story behind the Osama Bin Laden killing...

Since the story coming from the press seems to change by the second.  First he was armed and using one of his wives as a human shield, then he was unarmed and the Navy SEALS were rushed by his youngest wife whom they shot in the hip, but no here's what really happened...

A 1963 VW Beetle pulls up outside the compound.  10 Navy SEALS emerge from the Bug dressed as circus clowns.  One of them launches a RPCP (Rocket Propelled Cream Pie) at bin Laden but misses.  One of the other SEALS/clowns manages to get within point blank range of bin Laden and takes him out with his squirting flower directly to the eyes.  Osama clutches his eyes staggering around slips on a banana peel carooms off the end of a balcony and SPLAT!

A fellow dressed as Porky Pig shows up takes a few photos for proof before saying "That's all folks!"

In all seriousness, I mean no disrespect to the intelligence agents who were able to locate him nor the Navy SEALS who were inevitably able to take him out.  I'm more fed up with the way the story has been (mis)handled by the Obama Administration and/or the press.  While I believe most of the blame for how the story has been mis-handled is the fault of the press.  Some fault does fall on the White House for not doing a better job of controlling the message and making sure the message given to the media was a consistent one.

Don't get me wrong, Obama deserves tremendous accolades for bringing down Obama.  I may disagree with many of his political views but I have nothing but the utmost respect for how he handled the assassination of bin Laden.  It was a job well done. 

Where he's dropping the ball is on the PR side of things.  On Sunday night the regularly scheduled programming was cut into at about 10:45 ET indicating that bin Laden had been killed and the president was going to address the nation.  For over 45 minutes the American public was fed information indicating bin Laden had been killed, that he'd fired upon Navy SEALS and had been killed when they returned fire.  Various people from the Bush & Clinton Administrations and the intelligence community were interviewed for their reactions.  Then we were told that he used one of his wives as a human shield before he was taken out.  The next day the story started to change.  To borrow a term from comic book parlance, the original story was "retconned"  by the media by Monday morning with no acknowledgement from them that their story from the previous evening had changed.  In the new version, bin Laden was unarmed and his youngest wife had been shot in the hip when she rushed one of the Navy SEALS unarmed in an attempt to save her husband.

I realize that in the age of 24 hour news and each news agency doing their damnedest to scoop their competition ("Facts be damned!  It's all about being first!  We can always print a retraction later.") "sitting on" the information a little longer before announcing it to the press (thus less air time of media speculation and reaction interviews with intelligence officials) might or might not have been a feasible option.  I can also understand where Obama and the others in the room who watched the events as they happened would have been excited that we finally got bin Laden and would have wanted to share that news with the world posthaste!  But a few ounces of caution and planning would have gone a long way in the delivery of the information as accurately as possible the first time and would likely have reduced if not completely eliminated the various alternate versions of the story that the news media started delivering to the public.

I do have to reiterate that most of the blame for the bungling of this story lands on the lap of the US media and not within the White House.  The White House only failed in their control of the delivery of the message to the media.  However, in so failing it allowed and led to the media running wild with both information and misinformation as our media has shown themselves to be increasingly more prone to do.

Obama releases long form birth certificate

In case you want to see it for yourself:

Obama's Long Form Birth Certificate

I've got to give the president credit... well played, very well played indeed.  And letting Trump take credit for getting him to release it is even more brilliant.  I'm not being sarcastic here. 

To My Fellow Conservatives,

If you didn't believe that Obama was a US citizen he has for several years now and continues to play you for the fools you are.  His release of his birth certificate following Donald Trump's request was a brilliantly orchestrated political maneuver. 

Yes this makes Donald Trump look good.  He was able to do what no conservative pundit and no other GOP potential candidate was able to-- he got President Obama to release his long-form birth certificate.  I bet he looks really good to you about right now.  THAT is just what the President wants.

You may also have noticed that he's been praising Mitt Romney's "Romneycare" in Massachusetts.  I bet many of you aren't too keen on Mitt these days.  Some of you may find him to be a bit too moderate for your tastes.  Again this is exactly what the President wants.

Now is the time for you to either remove your tin-foil chapeau or to steal away to your toolshed for a DIY rectal craniotomy.  The president has just given the GOP two gifts!  He's telegraphed 2 punches-- Who he DOES want to face in 2012 (Donald Trump) and who he doesn't (Mitt Romney). 

Elections are won not by the conservative or liberal bases.  Elections are won by moderate independent swing voters.  Chances are you'll be voting for whomever the GOP nominates.  And I'm guessing most of the folks over at Moveon.org will be either voting for Obama's re-election or whomever runs on the Green Party's ticket.  We aren't the people the candidates are attempting to sway.  As far as they're concerned our minds are made up.  Obama and the eventual GOP nominee (whomever he/she may be) will be courting undecided voters.

Donald Trump is unelectable.  Most of the moderates and independents do not take him at all seriously.  If he were to win the GOP nomination we would essentially be giving Obama another 4 years in office wrapped up with a nice bow that resembles the Donald's hairstyle.

Mitt Romney IS however electable.  Yes, I know he's a moderate.  After all he was governor of that Liberal New England theme park known as Kennedyland (or more commonly referred to as the Commonwealth of Massachusetts).  Massachusetts does not elect conservatives.  In order for a republican to be elected governor there he/she would have to be at least a moderate if not a liberal republican.  I know that some of Romney's moderate views don't necessarily jive with all of your political beliefs.  But do we want to nominate someone whose views may be closer to ours but could not/would not win in the general election (the Donald) or do we nominate someone who actually has some chance of defeating Obama in the general election (Romney)?

Another thing to keep in mind-- even if you agree more with Trump's politics than Romney's.  Donald Trump is a notorious self-promoter.  If he does end up running for President it won't be for the betterment of the country, it will be for his own self-promotion.  Is he really the kind of man you would want running our country?

Just some food for thought!

Your fellow conservative,
Perplexio

Nixon, Agnew, Connally, Ford & Watergate

A few years ago I read Jules Witcover's Very Strange Bedfellows: The Short and Unhappy Marriage of Richard Nixon & Spiro Agnew.  The book was quite an intriguing read as it portrayed both Nixon and Agnew in a much more sympathetic light than the press ever had.  It didn't excuse them their transgressions but it did provide some insight into why they did the things they did.

I was born just a few weeks before the 1976 election in the waning months of Gerald Ford's presidency so I missed the Watergate scandal.  Witcover's book took me back to 1968 when Nixon chose Agnew as his VP and made me feel as if I'd actually been there and witnessed the political events of 1968-1974 firsthand.

Some interesting points that Witcover made:

1. Nixon regretted choosing Agnew as his running mate early into his presidency.  As such Agnew was largely kept out of the loop.  When Agnew wanted to meet with Nixon he often ended up having to settle for meeting with Haldemen and/or Ehrlichmann instead.  Agnew knew nothing of the Watergate break-in until the Woodward & Bernstein story broke.  He found out about it at the same time as the rest of the country.
2. Nixon wanted to drop Agnew from the ticket in 1972 and replace him with former Texas governor (and Democrat) John Connally on a cross-party ticket (the same John Connally who was injured in the Kennedy Assassination).  Incidentally Connally later switched parties and ran for president as a Republican in 1980 but was largely considered an "also-ran" candidate whose numbers didn't come close to Reagan or George H.W. Bush.
3. While Agnew knew he was being investigated for income tax evasion he felt he was innocent and that he would beat the charges.  Initially he was concerned and approached Nixon asking if the Watergate break-in was anything he should have to worry about.  Nixon reassured him that he shouldn't concern himself with it and that everything was under control.
4. Agnew wanted to fight the charges against him, he was willing to be impeached because he felt he'd be cleared in the impeachment hearings.  
5. Nixon wanted to resign long before he inevitably did.  The Watergate Scandal weighed heavily on him and he just wanted to put the whole mess behind him and get on with his life.  The trouble was Agnew was still the VP and Nixon felt the charges against him would bring him down.  He felt the last thing this country needed was 2 consecutive presidents brought down by scandal-- him resigning and Agnew likely being removed from office via impeachment.  Nixon only stuck around as long as he did to ensure that Agnew would not be the next president.
6. Nixon pressured Agnew to resign.  At first Agnew was adamantly against the idea.  He smelled blood and felt the Watergate Scandal would bring down Nixon making him the next president.  As the evidence against Agnew snowballed, Nixon was eventually able to convince Agnew to resign.  After Agnew's resignation the 2 men never spoke again.  Agnew finally forgave Nixon and attended his funeral in 1993.  As a sign of goodwill, Nixon's daughters in turn attended Agnew's funeral in 1996. 
7. Nixon's first choice to replace Agnew was John Connally.  He knew at that point he would be resigning and that Connally would inevitably be the next president.  However Connally had made a lot of enemies in his own party when he led a group called "Democrats for Nixon" in 1972.  Nixon adviser Alexander Haig advised him against appointing Connally as he felt that the senate confirmation hearings would be a long drawn out and largely controversial affair and that Congress would likely nix the appointment forcing Nixon to appoint someone else and having to go through the whole process all over again.  Nixon wanted out and wanted out bad.  Haig recommended the far less controversial Gerald Ford with the idea the confirmation hearings would be a mere formality and that he'd be approved without much fuss.

Being a student of (not to mention having a degree in) history and also being a fan of speculative fiction I do sometimes ponder the "what ifs."  What if Nixon had been brought down before Agnew had resigned?  What if Nixon had replaced Agnew on the ticket with John Connally in '72?  Would he have resigned sooner knowing his replacement was someone he actually liked as opposed to someone he viewed as a very regrettable mistake?  With Connally in line to take over, would Nixon have resigned soon enough to prevent his legacy from being tarnished as much as it was?  While Connally would likely have pardoned Nixon just as Ford did-- would the political fall-out from a pardon have been as bad if Nixon had resigned before his involvement in Watergate had been uncovered?  Let's look at this another way:

Nixon replaces Agnew on the '72 ticket with John Connally.  Because the ticket is bipartisan Nixon wins in a landslide (He defeated McGovern in a landslide anyway, but imagine how much more of a landslide it would have been with a cross-party ticket?) CREEP is never formed, the Watergate break-in never occurs.

OR

Connally replaces Agnew on the ticket in '72.  The Watergate break-in still occurs.  Connally is kept out of the loop (for very different reasons than Agnew was) and he finds out about it at the same time as the rest of the country.  Nixon resigns immediately saying something to the effect of "While I did not order the break-in, I was aware of it and I let it happen.  As president, that is unexcusable.  As such I will be resigning effective noon tomorrow at which point Vice President Connally will be sworn in."  I don't know a lot about John Connally-- at least not as far as his personality is concerned.  Would he have felt betrayed that Nixon kept him out of the loop?  Would he have felt relieved that in being kept out of the loop his reputation would have remained unsullied by the political fall-out associated witht he break-in?  If he had felt betrayed would he have pardoned Nixon the way Ford did or would he have let Nixon go on trial for his misdeeds?  Would the justice department even have pursued a trial if Nixon had resigned immediately or would they have considered his resignation from office in disgrace to be punishment enough and dropped the charges against him?

And here's another curveball-- If Gerry Ford had not pardoned Nixon would he have been elected in 1976 or would he still have lost to Carter?  Or if he'd pardoned Nixon but done so sooner would it have cost him the GOP nomination and put Ronald Reagan on the ticket in his place? 

There is a part of me that wishes I had been around for the spectacle of the Agnew vice presidency.  William Safire & Pat Buchanan wrote some brilliant speeches for Agnew.  All politics aside getting Agnew riled up and referring to the press as "nattering nabobs of negativity" would have been quite an amusing departure from otherwise dry political speeches.  And from what I've read Agnew was a considerably more adept public speaker than many of the subsequent vice presidents we've had.  I don't know how well or poorly he might have ended up executing the office of the presidency had a different turn of events landed him in the Oval Office. 

I think the closest we've come in recent history to an Agnewesque political figure is Rod Blagojevich.  Luckily, for our country (but unfortunately for Illinois) he was brought down before he was elevated to any political office at the federal level. 

The Federal Budget: Beyond the rhetoric...

Let's scrape away all the hyperbole and rhetoric.

Our government was set up, at least initially, that Congress would only be in session for a few months each year.  Our elected officials would return home to private sector jobs working in their communities and rubbing elbows with their constituents.  This gave the American people much greater access to those they elected it also made our elected officials a bit more human to their constituents. 

As the roles and responsibilities of government have grown and changed our elected officials have had to spend increasingly more time away from their communities and more time in Washington to the point where we are today with many of our elected officials becoming career politicians with limited exposure to the results and effects of the policies they draft into law.

For several generations the powers that be, those we elect-- the one's that are supposed to be (by JFK's definition at least) our "best and brightest" have been spending more than they've been taking in and passing the financial burden of their financial excesses on to the following generation(s).  This isn't a Democrat or Republican thing as there have been elected officials from both parties who have been egregious in this offense.  In the words of the late great singer/songwriter Kevin Gilbert "We're the clean-up crew for parties we were too young to attend."

I'm not going to quibble over whether the government had any right to increase its role in our lives or whether that increased role in our lives has been for better or for worse... that's another discussion for another time.

However, the more responsibilities the government takes on, the more expensive it becomes to run and if the government is spending more money than it's taking in something has to give.  The budget debate, at its core, isn't about whether certain government programs are good or bad.  That is corollary to the discussion.  The debate, a rather rancorous one at that, is about the financial sustainability of the programs the government is currently running and is responsible for.

Our government has been operating at a loss for decades now, spending far more money than they take in.  In order to balance our budget we have to decrease spending, increase revenue (via taxation), or some combination of both.  Considering we're still in a recession (although some would argue we're coming out of that recession) raising taxes is rather unpalatable to most Americans right now.  When you take into consideration Congress's financial history-- when taxes have gone up so has spending.  So the net increase in revenues disappeared and our government continues to chase its tail on the budget balance sheet...  at least until they throw the budget stick and tell the next generation to "go fetch."

History shows that the concept of "fiscal restraint" is completely foreign to the US Congress.  And I'd argue that most moderate Americans aren't so much against taxes because they're against many of the government programs in existence today (although, I believe that is the case for many of them).  They want the government to prove they can be responsible with the money we give them in taxes before we will agree to give them more of our money.  In other words-- "Show us you can cut spending before asking us for any more of our money."

Another proposition for increasing revenue is a simplification of the tax code and an elimination of loopholes and deductions that many wealthy American individuals and corporations use to either reduce the amount of taxes they have to pay or to avoid having to pay any taxes at all.  This would essentially be a massive tax hike limited to those who have been skirting and taking advantage of the complexities of the existing tax code for their benefit.  In lessesning their exposure to taxes these people have increased the tax burden for the rest of us.  Those of us who have been paying our taxes all along would see no difference in our taxes. 

Either way, spending has to be cut and many of those cuts will be difficult. 

Admittedly I'm no wizard of finance but here are some ideas for getting our financial house in order:

a) Re-establish the Social Security account and move all money that's supposed to go into Social Security into that account and all money that should be going into Social Security going forward should also go into that account.  This should be an account that Congress should have absolutely no access to.  Currently, when you look at your paycheck and see separate deductions for federal income tax and Social Security-- all of that money is going into the "general fund" which Congress uses to fund its programs.  Congress has been borrowing much more from Social Security than they've been paying back into it.  We can FIX Social Security by eliminating Congress's ability to access that money.

b) Any changes to Medicare should be grandfathered in.  Anyone who currently benefits from Medicare as it exists today should continue to benefit from it.  Medicare was set up to take care of these people that are currently benefitting from it and they paid into it with the expectation of receiving care upon reaching the age of eligibility.  Those who don't yet/don't currently benefit from Medicare-- changes need to be made.  The way it is currently set up is unsustainable not to mention it increases health care and insurance costs for the rest of us.  Medicare currently pays pennies on the dollar that money has to be made up somewhere and the health care industry makes it up with the rest of us who have private health insurance coverage.  This results in doctors ordering tests/procedures that might not actually be necessary in order to collect more insurance revenue.  Private health insurance has to pay more to off-set what Medicare doesn't pay and thus increases the premiums for those of us who pay into private health insurance policies.  Given our government's inability to pay doctors in full, a privatization of Medicare might be our only legitimate course of action.  By increasing competition in the private sector prices could be driven down and with doctors getting paid in full by a combination of insurnace and patient co-pays/deductibles/etc. the rate at which the cost or private health insurance premiums increase would be slowed substantially.

c) Term limits.  Washington exists in a vaccuum of sorts and the longer a person serves in Congress the more our elected representatives lose touch with the economic realities of our country.  Over time our elected officials become increasingly more out of touch with those who elected them.  If the 2006, 2008, and 2010 Congressional elections are any indication, we might not need actual term limits as the American people have come to realize the value of "fresh blood" and "new ideas" in Congress and many career politicians saw their political careers come to rather abrupt ends in each of those election cycles.  Those who serve us who are most recently from non-political fields are generally more in touch with the realities of their constituencies as they were most recently part of the very constituencies that elected them.

d) We need to wake up and realize that there are those in positions of power-- whether they be elected officials, pundits, newsmakers, pundits who are out to serve their own interests and agendas.  The easiest means to that end is to "divide and conquer."  Much of the division and rancor in this country is the result of the villification of the opposition.  I'd argue that most of us despite our political leanings in opposite directions from one another have more political common ground than those pundits, elected officials, and newsmakers would like us to believe.  Getting us to fight amongst oursevles gives them power and keeps them in positions of power.  If we stopped long enough to realize what these people-- on both sides of the political spectrum re doing to us as a country... those people would be in for a good old fashioned tar and feathering.  In the end we all want what is best for this country-- we just have different ideas of what actually IS best for the country and by what means to accomplish that end. 

Taxation: Changing the perception

I know the common perception of conservatives or at least the perception that seems to be perpetrated by many of the pundits whose politics fall to the progressive side of the spectrum is that conservatives are greedy lot who want something for nothing-- that we want all of the services provided by our government without having to pay for them. 

Whereas the view from this side of the political spectrum is that money is earned and hard work should be rewarded and not punished by higher taxes.  That is to say, our income is generally EARNED.  It's not given freely.  We have to work for it but before we get that earned income chunks of it get taken out and given to the public sector to pay for these services.  Some may argue the semantics and say that with the current income tax structure the money is merely being "payroll deducted" for the goods and services the government provides much like health insurance, 401k, etc. already are.

We are expected as individuals and families to balance our budgets and be fiscally responsible.  The money we pay in taxes, we expect to be spent responsibly and we expect the services the government provides to be delivered in the most cost-efficient manner possible. 

Our government is supposed to represent us.  We're supposed to elect our best and brightest to represent us in this little representative republic of ours, yet how can we be expected to be fiscally responsible when those who are spending our money lack that same sense of responsibility?

Recently my state increased the income tax by 66% (from 3% to 5%).  The corporate tax was also raised and the state unemployment rate is over 10%.  Let's reiterate, in a struggling economy with high unemployment the tax rate was RAISED.  Now this wouldn't be as bitter a pill to swallow if the state had at least made some attempts to cut spending first.  Unfortunately, the bill to increase the Illinois state income tax increased after midnight on the last day of the previous legislative session. 

In contrast, and normally I'm not a fan of Governor Moonbeam, but Jerry Brown is announcing massive cuts in government spending in California.  He's said that he might still have to raise taxes but he's going to do his best to make up their budget shortfalls by cutting spending so that even if he does have to raise taxes he won't have to raise them as much.  Did Governor Quinn even try to cut anything first?  There were small cuts made, but they were largely symbolic.  While Quinn inherited a bit of a budget mess from Blagojevich (a governor who added a tremendous amount of programs to the government without a means to pay for those programs) his first instinct was not to cut spending but to raise taxes.

I understand there are basic services that are provided by our taxpayer dollars but there are other states that are the same size as Illinois or larger in population that are able to provide those services more efficiently with a considerably smaller chunk of tax income than Illinois does. 

Illinois has one of the most corrupt and nepotistic state governments in the Union which explains the waste and general inefficiency of our government.  And I acknowledge the state needs to pay its bills for services rendered.  That is part of fiscal responsibility.  But if we don't make the necessary cuts-- and many of them will be painful-- it doesn't matter how much our taxes get raised because we'll always be falling short.  Maybe raising taxes will allow the state to pay its bills now but without some necessary cuts, how can we be guaranteed that we won't be perpetually in this situation?  The more taxes get raised the more business unfriendly this state becomes-- the more business unfriendly the state becomes, the fewer people there are paying taxes and thus the taxes will continue to go up for those of us who remain here. 

But lets rewind a bit-- what if we were taxed not on what we earn but on what we spend?  We already are to some extent (via state and local sales taxes). The perception of those tax dollars would likely change as we'd be paying into our government money we were spending, not money we were earning.

When we pay for something, we are giving money in exchange for goods or services rendered.  The money ceases to be ours at the point of exchange.  Thus if we were taxed on consumption rather than income it wouldn't be viewed as the government "taking" our money, the perception would be that we're "giving" our money to the government.  This creates the perception (rightly or wrongly, depending on your POV) that we have some semblance of control over where our money is going. 

Critics of this idea cite the potential for abuse-- the legislation of our behavior by our government via taxation.  The easisest way to control behavior, after all, is through our wallets and bank accounts.  For example, if the government were to raise taxes on foods that are high in sugar it would likely decrease our consumption of those foods (depending on how high the taxes on those goods is).  That being said I can certainly see how this would actually be seen as a positive not a negative in some circles.

I guess it comes down to-- taxes are necessary, but would you rather be taxed on the money you earn or on the money you spend?

Politicizing a tragedy

Attempting to link Sarah Palin's politics to Jared Loughner's shooting rampage in Arizona last weekend is akin to me linking my taste in music to the snowstorms that have been plaguing the East Coast this winter.  In an effort to curb the high volumes of East Coast snow, I'll stop listening to my favorite band.

...  and that's all I have to say about that.

Death & Taxes

I've been reading arguments in favor and in opposition to the "death" or "estate" tax.  And while I understand the logic of those who are in favor of estate taxes, I do find myself falling under the category of those who are opposed to estate taxes (or at least opposed to estate taxes at their 2011 levels).

The Estate Tax:
For: Inheritances are generally considered "un-earned" income.  That is to say the transfer of income from the deceased to his/her benificiaries requires no "work" on the part of the benificiaries.  They inherit the money based on the wishes of the decedent.  As such that income should be taxable.  People shouldn't freely receive income without taxation.  They should have to work for their income.

Against: It's my understanding that we're not supposed to be taxed twice on the same income.  That is to say our income is taxed on interest earned in investments (Capital Gains) or on income earned in good old fashioned employment.  That being said, if a person over his/her life has managed his/her finances wisely.  That income has already been taxed by the government when it was earned, and possibly even twice if some of the income is the result of interest earned from wise investments.  And we often get taxed yet again (at the state & local level at least) based on our consumption of goods and services (sales tax).  With the understanding that we've already been taxed for income we've earned, why should our benificiaries be taxed on our earned income?

Now I understand it takes money to keep our roads in drivable condition, to maintain our postal service, to pay public servants (whether they be politicians, mail carriers, FBI agents, or military personnel) and that money has to come from somewhere-- our taxes.  I'm not against taxation but it does seem that by taxing income whether it be earned or unearned we're in effect punishing success and rewarding failure by rewarding that income to people who may not have earned it. 

Generally most people who lean right of center politically aren't against being taxed but are more against HOW they are taxed and how their tax dollars are being wasted/spent (depending on your point of view) and thus they're proponents of a complete overhaul of the tax code:

The Flat Tax:
The flat tax basically states that everyone-- across the board pays the same percentage of their income in taxes (I believe most proponents of the flat tax have suggested 17% as the ideal rate of taxation).  The logic does make some sense-- after all 17% of Bill Gates billions and billions of dollars is a much larger chunk of change than 17% of the income generated by a college student on a summer job.  Where the flat tax gets a bit "sticky" are our dependents... Why should two people earning the same exact amount of money-- one person supporting 5 kids have to give 17% of his income (or 17% of the combined income of he and his spouse) when someone without dependents is getting taxed at the same rate?  In this situation the flat tax would actually discourage propagation of the species and the growth of the nation's population (some might argue that in some regions or for some people this would actually be a positive thing but that's another argument for another time).

The Fair Tax:
The fair tax on the other hand calls for the abolition of income tax completely and a shift to taxing based solely on consumption.  Thus you're rewarded for the fruits of your labors @ 100% and taxed instead on how you choose to spend your money.  In this system we'd end up paying more for our goods and services but we'd also be taking home ALL of our net earned income (not our gross as some of the earned income would still go to pay for employee benefits).  Many proponents of the fair tax have suggested a voucher system for the economically disadvantaged... Similar to food stamps.  People of lower income levels would be issued vouchers that they could use to purchase essential items (food, clothing, etc.) tax free.  Thus they'd only actually be taxed on non-essential expenditures (entertainment expenses and etc.).   

Of the two the fair tax does indeed sound more "fair" than the flat tax as it is consumption and not income based but I do still see possible negative reprecussions of a fair tax-- that is to say taxing based on consumption leaves the door open to our government essentially "legislating" certain behaviors based on taxation and thus the potential politicization of taxation.  Although, I have heard stories of things like this already happening based on the existing tax code (employers sending letters to their employees prior to election day essentially saying, "we're not telling you who to vote for.... but keep in mind if you vote for candidate B over candidate A we will likey be taxed more and that is income we will not be able to use for pay raises/hiring/benefits/etc.  Please keep this in mind when you cast your ballots.")

A more obvious example of "taxation" legislating behavior actually already exists in the airline industry.  Airlines that choose to charge extra for checked bags have seen an increase of occurrences of people trying to bring on over-sized carry-ons and has led travelers to pack more "efficiently" and purchase fewer tsotschkes (sp?) while on vacation to try to prevent the need for additional baggage and thus the additional surcharges for those extra bags. 

And that's the private sector.  Can you imagine the federal government doing the same thing?

And in the end...
Maybe the whole problem is that economists are not sociologists or anthropologists.  Economic theories are generally only perfect when existing inside a vaccuum free of human interaction.  Thus theories only apply 100% of the time in fantasy and are at best, flawed and imperfect in reality as they often fail to fully take into account human nature. 

Perhaps the problem is that we're yet to come up with the perfect economic system.  Both socialism and capitalism carry with them a certain naivete due to a surplus of trust on the public or private sector (respectively) and that either the government or corporations are acting in our best interests, not their own.

It wasn't about the race, it was about the economy!

On Tuesday New Mexico elected their first Female Hispanic Governor, Susana Martinez. South Carolina, long considered one of the most "racist" states in the Union elected their first Female Indian-American governor, Nikki Haley.  Florida elected a Cuban-American senator, Marco Rubio. 

From their inception in the 1850s until the Civil Rights Act of 1964, the GOP was the generally more accepting party when it came to minorities.  When Johnson passed the Civil Rights Act of 1964 a lot of White Southern Democrats felt betrayed by LBJ and his fellow Democrats in Congress and became Republicans.

Ever since then the GOP has been portrayed as a party of hate, racism, xenophobia, ignorance, big business, stupidity, etc. etc.  But George W. Bush, love him or hate him-- for all of his faults he had more minorities serving in his cabinet than any president before.  When you add Marco Rubio, Nikki Haley, and Susanna Martinez to the mix I'd argue there's an embracing within the GOP of people of minority.  There's been an embrace of putting ideas before race or gender within the party.  I believe this is in some part attributable to Obama's election and the heavy losses the GOP took in Congress in 2006 and 2008 forcing the Republican leadership to look inwards, retreat, and re-group. 

That's not to say there aren't still elements within the GOP, stalwarts who share the ideas of those who joined the GOP in 1964 with racist motivations.  That's somewhat unavoidable.  I'm not about to condemn the whole GOP for the actions of a small, but vocal, element of the party any more than I'd have branded the entire Democratic Party pre-1964 as being racist... There were racist elements within the party yes but if the whole party had been truly racist to the core they never would have been the party to have passed the Civil Rights Act and who knows we might still be dealing with Jim Crow laws today if not for those in government with the vision and courage to end centuries of racial discrimination and injustice. 

In reading some of the more left-leaning commentary on the results of Tuesday's election there's an undercurrent of intellectual superiority that's bubbling close to the surface.  I'll concede that for some who voted Tuesday our President's skin color was and continues to be an issue.  But I'd counter despite growing more vocal in some regards that contingent is growing smaller and smaller.  But it wasn't a bunch of ignorant racists that gave the House of Representatives back to the GOP.  The party faithful aren't the ones who decide elections, it's the independents and swing voters who decide elections.  And generally it's those voters who vote with their wallets.

The GOP lost control of Congress in 2006 with even more losses in 2008 due largely to their blatant disregard of any semblance of fiscal restraint during the Bush administration.  Under Clinton between 1996 and 2000 as volatile as it became at times Clinton and the GOP led Congress acted as counter-balances to one another preventing the country from drifting too far to either the left or right.  Under Bush many of those congressmen/women lost their way and any semblance of fiscal restraint they might have had/been forced to have under Clinton contributing to the financial meltdown in 2008.  The American people were hungry for a more responsible Congress... Instead the only thing that changed was how the money was being spent... "Meet the new boss, same as the old boss."  There was no more fiscal restraint since the Democrats took over the Congress than there was under the GOP in 2000-2006.  THAT is the core reason why the Democrats took such heavy losses on Tuesday.  They viewed their victories as pro-Democratic mandates... In reality, those were anti-Republican mandates.

The rhetoric coming from the newly elected Republicans is arguably far more humble than that of the Democrats in 2006 or 2008 or for that matter even their GOP predecessors back in 1994 and I do hope that humility stays with them that they learn from the mistakes of their predecessors in both parties.  Many of them DO realize their elections are not a pro-Republican mandate they're a call for more fiscal responsibility and the American people will keep "turning over" Congresses until we get the right batch of people to keep government spending in check and return to the days of balanced budgets.  If the Republicans continue the spendthrift ways of their predecessors, Congress will turn back over... maybe in 2012, maybe not until 2016, but it WILL happen.

Campaigning and Fiscal Responsibility

On one of the radio shows I listen to on my morning commutes, John Howell, commented that politicians campaign negatively because it works. 

I'm not going to argue the effectiveness or ineffectiveness of campaigning negatively.  But I do believe it begs another question.  If all the politicians in either party ever do is campaign negatively, how can we be certain that campaigning positively wouldn't work BETTER? 

Our elected representatives are our employees.  They are elected to serve us, not the other way around.  As such, shouldn't elections be treated more like job interviews?  If you had 2 candidates applying for the same job and in their respective interviews all they did was bad mouth their opposition, would you hire either of them?

Maybe the candidates of the 2 major parties should treat campaigning more like a job interview and less like a sophomoric name-calling contest.  Maybe the electorate would start to respect those who choose to run for public office a bit more if they were forced to run more on job performance and their stances on the issues (issues that they actually can effect change on-- thus, leave abortion off the table.  Last I checked Supreme Court Justices were the only ones who had/have the power to change that law and they're an appointed, not an elected office/position). 

One of the key issues of this election cycle has been the economy.  Which brings me to another point.  My views tend to fall right of center.  At its core the Tea Party movement makes sense to me.  The core belief of the Tea Party movement is one of fiscal responsibility.  Unfortunately the movement in many cases has been hijacked by fringe groups.  By mere association to the Tea Party these groups have largely taken the reason out of what should be reasonable argument and set of beliefs about the economic direction of our country. 

Once upon a time elected office was seen as an honor and privilege.  Our elected officials were supposedly our best and brightest.  As such they were supposed to lead by example.  Our Congress today lacks accountability on so many levels and perhaps most egregiously on fiscal responsibility.  How can our elected officials expect us to be more responsible with our money when they're not responsible with our money at all?

Political Indigestion

This election season has been particularly vitriolic leaving me feeling particularly uninspired about any of the options on this year's menu.  I did get a kick out of my state's recent voting machine gaffe with our state's Green Party gubenatorial candidate.  Somehow they managed to drop the "N" in Rich Whitney's name and he, perhaps rightly so, felt being listed on the ballot as "Rich Whitey" might cause potential African-American voters to take pause and vote for other candidates.  That has given some comic relief in an otherwise overly vitrolic gubenatorial campaign.

My wife-- whose politics lie a bit more to the left end of the political spectrum than mine once asked me why, with my strong views and convictions on many issues, I hadn't pursued a career in politics.  I actually do get a rush from speaking in public and enjoy meeting new people... All excellent qualities for anyone entering the political arena... But the one quality I posess which I believe is counter-intuitive to a political career.  I'm a private person.  Yes I share things about my life on here from time to time, but I'm in control of what does and doesn't get shared.  As soon as one enters the political arena, the power to control that diminishes exponentially the higher the office one seeks.  Or in the more blunt terms of a gentleman I met at debate for a NY State Assembly race back in 1994, "The higher up you go, the more you show your ass."  (In light of Illinois two most recent governors, it can also be said, "The higher up you go, the more you show you're an ass.")

An old friend of mine asked for advice on how to determine who to vote for.  In an attempt to be as non-partisan as possible I gave her the following advice:

- Unless he/she is running for president a candidate's stance on abortion is completely irrelevant. It is legal and it would/will take a Supreme Court decision to overturn that. No candidate for senator, governor,... or any other office has the power to change that.  Thus his/her views on that issue are as relevant to their candidacy as their taste in music-- not at all.

- There is usually SOME truth to the negative things the candidates say about one another, but often when you learn the true context behind all the mean/nasty things they're saying about one another it's really not that bad at all. And certainly shouldn't be a dealmaker/breaker.  Do your research.
- The one issue that many candidates do have some impact to effect some change on is the economy. Vote
with your bank account. Find out the candidates economic stances and let this issue be one of the stronger ones affecting your vote! Vote for the candidate you believe will most help the economy.

While I believe voting is a right, I also believe with that right comes a responsibility to be an educated and well informed voter.  Know what the candidates truly believe, but also keep in mind the candidate's abilities.  What good is electing a candidate who may agree with you ideologically but is a blithering idiot (John Tyler, maybe not an idiot per se but he managed to alienate not only the opposition but also his own party, ensuring that not only would he not get re-elected his party didn't even give him the nomination for a 2nd term-- in all fairness no one expected him to be President as he was elected as VP under William Henry Harrison who died of pneumonia after only 1 month in office), a doddering lush (Ulysses S. Grant.  Great General, but completely ineffective president), or in some other way completely unfit to hold public office.

For example, ideologically I may agree with both Christine O'Donnell and Sarah Palin on many issues.  But I couldn't and wouldn't ever support them in an election as I don't believe either of them would be effective in the respective elected offices which they are/were seeking. 

Ideologically my beliefs may have been more in line with those of John McCain than Barack Obama, but I couldn't bring myself to vote for a man I didn't support in the primaries let alone the man who was my absolute last choice of all of the Republicans in the 2008 primaries. 

So, for those of you who can vote and are planning to do so in just under 2 weeks.  Please do so responsibly!  And if you happen to be in suburban Chicago, IL and see a guy pull up and a bunch of empty bottles of Pepto-Bismol fall out of his car as he gets out to vote... That's probably me as I'm having a lot of trouble stomaching ANY of the candidates in either party this year.

"Hate Crime"

The very principle of "Hate Crime" is misguided and arbitrary.  It places an artificial weight on crimes perpetrated by people of one category against another.  If I get randomly assaulted in a robbery and get severely injured how is it any different than if I'm specifically targeted for being white/WASP/straight/whatever?  If the end result of the crime is the same-- why does the motive behind the crime make any difference?

The only "motive" that should be considered in any "crime" is self-defence.  Why should an African-American shooting another African-American carry a lighter sentence than an African-American shooting a Hispanic, Caucasian, Asian, or any other race?  Isn't that in and of itself somewhat racist?  Isn't that saying, "It's bad when you commit crimes against people of your own race, but it's even worse if you commit crimes against other races/minorities/etc.?" 

Why should it matter whether the targets of the crime are of the same or different races than that of the assailants? 

I thought justice was supposed to be blind... shouldn't that include color blindness?