The Gravy Train

Reliably Practical

2011-12-26T11:30:00.000-08:00

It's amazing how practical God is.

That's a conclusion I've come to over the last who knows how long. It is especially amazing when you consider how impractical God seems when you're a youth forming your first opinions on the world around you.

When I was young and sitting in a pew at church, it was not uncommon to hear Philippians 4:8 in a sermon or youth group lecture: "Finally, brothers and sisters, whatever is true, whatever is noble, whatever is right, whatever is pure, whatever is holy, whatever is admirable - if anything is excellent or praiseworthy - think about such things." Often Philippians would be coupled with 1 Thessalonians 5:16-18: "Rejoice always, pray continually, give thanks in all circumstance; for this is God's will for you in Christ Jesus."

As a young adult I'd read/hear such things and in my mind envision these qualities in some sort of mystical holy man, always praying, always worshipping, always being in constant communion with God. The concept wasn't something I believed to be attainable for me, certainly not in the short term. How could you even become such a person? My thoughts were always on the task at hand, the trouble of the day, or on troubles in the future. I always pictured this type of person as being magically touched by God to desire such things, because if I was ever honest with myself I'd have admitted that doesn't sound like a very fun person to be. Or to be around. I would imagine God desiring to morph us into something like this Holy Man:

Daniel: "Hello Holy Man, how are you today?"

Holy Man: "Rejoice always! It's a wonderful day!" (1 Thess 5:16)

Daniel: "uhm, okay. How was work? I know you've got that big review coming up."

Holy Man: "I don't worry about tomorrow friend, for each day has enough trouble of it's own." (Matt 6:34)

In my own life, how could I become like that? Which would come first, I'd often wonder: the desire to actually spend time praying, always meditating on good things and over all being a good holy person, or would being a good and holy person inspire me to pray continually and meditate on good things? I could never decipher this riddle, so I concluded there was a bit of magic involved.

As I've encountered difficulties in my own walk I've discovered that God has a practical side I've often ignored. Thinking of the adjectives applied to God I am reminded of a Just God, Honorable, Holy, Powerful, Merciful, Omnipresent, and the list goes on. But a Practical God? Not ever. But is He not?

If you were to invent some type of machine (let your imagine run wild), would you not also write an instruction manual with it? Instruction manuals aren't magical. They're very practical. For a toaster, "Do Not Use in Bathtub." That seems like a very practical suggestion. For glass cleaner: "Do not spray in eyes." Again, that seems practical.

As God created us, would he not give us an instruction manual for our lives? Why is it we can say of the Bible, "Oh yes, it definitely shows us how to live" but then when it comes to actually applying what the Bible says we receive it as though it is mystical or magical or impossible to understand?

I've come to understand God as being much more practical. Let me use my marriage as an example. I desire to be a good husband. I really don't wish to suck at it. And yet there are plenty of areas in which I fall woefully short. It's pathetic, really. But if I wish to improve at my husbandly job, which would better assist my efforts: to come home after a long day and relax watching Monday Night Football, or to come home after a long day at work and read James Dobson's What Wives Wish Their Husbands Knew About Women? Should I come home and watch Transformers, or would I be better served to read 1 Corinthians 13:4-5: "Love is patient, love is kind. It does not envy. It does not boast. It is not proud. It is not rude, it is not self-seeking, it is not easily angered, it keeps no record of wrongs."

This is the practical application of "if anything is excellent or praiseworthy - think on such things." As a human being, I've got horrible perspective. I am constantly drawn in by the events of the day. Even if I desire to become a better husband I can't think of it all day, as I'm too busy trying to not get fired at work. However, if upon returning home from a long and difficult day I read Dobson's book, I am reminded or my desire to be a good husband. I'm reminded about my struggles and how I desire to improve on them. I'm encouraged by his anecdotes. I'm encouraged by scripture. In that way I'm much more likely to be successful in becoming a better husband than I am if I watch Monday Night Football. There is nothing wrong with watching MNF, but it certainly isn't as edifying as focusing on something like Scripture or reading a book like Dobson's.

I wish I could go back and tell my pre-teen and teenage self that God's instruction to 'think about such things' isn't some bizarrely magical device we can't understand. It's a practical instruction on how to best live our lives. That God's practicality is found in other areas as well: He knows we can't function as a society if we are constantly killing each other, hence "Do not murder." He knows it's hard to live next to someone if you're sleeping with his wife, so He says "Do not covet your neighbor's wife.'' Sure, these instructions have other dimensions to them as well, but they are immensely practical too.

So to answer the questions from my youth, which causes which? Does reading Scripture result in becoming more like Christ? Or does God's Spirit impart holiness on us which causes an increased desire to read Scripture? The practical answer is: read Scripture and you'll become more like Christ as it reminds you who you want to be, and gives you strength to follow in His footsteps. Stop worrying about not wanting to read. In the immortal words of Nike, Just Do It.

There will always be facets of God's personality I do not understand (He is God after all, and I just a man), but I find it reassuring to understand He is also practical.

Does God Bring Any Clarity To Current World Events?

2011-05-22T02:23:00.000-07:00

As humans, Christians tend to be a poor replacement for God. Consider the following:

According to one religious fundamentalist, the Rapture was supposed to occur last week. When it didn't, he adjusted his forecast and is now claiming it'll happen in October.

When the earthquake and tsunami hit Japan in March of this year, another prominent religious leader said it was God's judgement on the Japanese people.

Two years ago, a third popular Christian leader said God told him He would destroy the Northwest with a massive Tsunami that summer.

Christians tend to muddy the water. So can God, through Scripture, explain the following?

Last week a volcano erupted in Iceland, just one year after another volcano eruption closed European airspace for five days.

Iran seems intent on the annihilation of Israel, whenever they aren't preoccupied with the aftermath of their own earthquakes.

There are wars in Afghanistan, Iraq and Lybia. Violence is escalating in Syria, Saudi Arabia, and much of the Middle East.

And according to some analysts China is less than 5 years away from overtaking the American economic system, becoming the largest economy in the world.

With an onslaught of Tornadoes, this has been the most active Tornado season in the U.S. in over 50 years.

It certainly is an interesting time to be alive. Christians have had a difficult time answering questions such as 'What in the world is going on?' We tend to isolate and judge people. But can God, through Scripture, provide any clarity? This is my own opinion, derived through many hours of thoughtful contemplation. But this is the answer I believe God presents through Scripture and observation of natural events.

When you combine all of the above with Biblical prophecy, large amount of Christians believe that Christ's return will come sooner than later, perhaps even in their lifetime. While I'm not privy to when Christ will return (in fact, none of us are), there is a lot of confusion in both the religious and secular world as to what in the world actually is going on. Some religious leaders proclaim that events like what transpired in Japan are Judgements from God, while other religious leaders suggest God is less involved in natural events than we have been led to believe. Of course, the secular community removes involvement of the divine all together.

What answer does God supply? What is happening to our world and why would God allow such things? The answer lies with both the divine and the natural. In order to understand what's happening today, let me take us on a quick tour of the past.

In the beginning(pun intended), when God created our universe and solar system, He created on Earth an environment that was designed as a perfect host to life. The system he created didn't know Death, and had Adam and Eve never sinned their way out of the Garden they'd still be alive today. We know this because the introduction to Death was a consequence of Adam and Eve's sin against God.

However even when kicked outside the Garden men & women experienced what we today would consider to be an insane life expectancy. Adam died when he was 930 years old. Methuselah lived even longer, dying at the ripe old age of 969 years. As we can't even dream of living so long today, some have been led to believe these Biblical records must be myth. Or exaggeration. Or maybe we've just translated them wrong. However if we take the Bible at its word and accept these long life spans as fact, then let's contemplate the type of environment necessary to sustain them.

We don't need to detail the type of environment necessary right now. That's for another time, another place. We'll just accept that the environment existed, and ask the follow up question: Because we know that no one lives even close to 969 years these days, why do people die so 'young' today, when before we lived for hundreds of years? What changed?

The answer lies in two words: The. Flood.

Imagine you have a box of popsicles in the freezer. As long as you leave the popsicles in the freezer, inside the box and inside their individual plastic wrapping those popsicles will last a very long time. The freezer is the perfect environment for them. But say you alter their environment a little. Remove the plastic wrapping and they'll get freezer burned. Turn up the heat in the freezer and they will melt. Place the popsicle on the counter beside the fridge and they'll melt even faster. What happens if you leave the popsicle unattended on the counter for a week? When you attempt to come back to eat it, will there be much of anything left for you?

Residing in an idyllic environment is important. Someone created those popsicles and they know how you need to store them in order to have them keep the longest and the freshest. Human life span is like that of the popsicle and planet Earth works the same way as the freezer. Try and imagine what a world-wide flood would do to the planet (yes, the Flood was world wide. I'll offer one quick proof: after the Flood, God promised to never flood the planet again. And yet many placed on Earth experience local floods every year. God couldn't have promised to not send something that happens to us every year). The consequences would be drastic.

Take a step back, if you can, and visualize two planet Earths in your hands. In your left hand you hold one that sustained human life so well we could live to almost 1,000 years. In your right hand the human life is generally extinguished well before 100 years. Human life on this planet is 1/10th what it is on the Earth in your left hand and is ripe with disease and death. Biblically speaking, our lifespan began decreasing right after the Flood.

In Genesis 7:11, the Flood waters are described this way: "all the springs of the great deep burst forth, and the floodgates of the heavens were opened." Think of 'the springs of the great deep' as water contained underneath the Earth's crust. The crust fractures, and the water bursts up with amazing force, akin to an inter tube bursting when it is filled with too much air. The fractured crust can now move back and forth. What was once stable is now an amazing force of destruction.

It is the advent of tectonic plates. Fault lines form. The hot magma previously contained beneath finds paths to the surface. Earthquakes on the magnitude of the 9.7 quake that hit Japan weren't part of the perfect environment God created. They didn't exist pre-Flood. What about volcanoes? Hurricanes? Tornadoes? How about the radiation from the sun? The pre-Flood world contained none of the natural disasters we experience every day. What was once the perfect environment is now a ticking time bomb, just waiting for the next time two pieces of the Earth's crust collide or a suitable path to be found for the magma to burst to the surface.

Fast forward 6,000 years (or so...I don't mean to date the Flood). Would this type of environment become more stable over time or less? The obvious answer is less. Like that popsicle sitting on the counter for a week, the longer the Earth is left in it's broken state, the more broken it becomes. As Christ warns in Matthew 24:8, "all these are the beginnings of birth pains." Not only will conditions worsen, there comes a point when it all comes to a head.

You can also imagine how this system, previously stable but now adjusting to a radically different and entirely new condition, would experience changes in temperature and environment. Changes akin to the mini Ice Age during the Middle Ages. Or perhaps even what we currently call Global Warming. Or the cooling we experienced in the 1980's. Our planet is trying to stabilize the environment, but is not able to because of the new reality. In a very real way, the Flood wrecked the world 6,000 (or so) years ago and will directly cause the end of our world as well.

The Flood was God's judgement on mankind for its wickedness. Christ says that in the last days it will be "as in the days of Noah". This is not a coincidence. Due to the Flood, the Earth has an expiration date. God sent the Flood when humanity was at its worst during Noah's lifetime, and then Christ will come back at the end when it again is like ''the days of Noah". The Flood wasn't just a Judgement for Noah's generation; it is a Judgement of the generation in the last days as well. Only God could write a story with such eloquent irony. It is almost unfathomable to contemplate understanding the mind of One who could plan two events, thousands of years apart, involving radically different societies and have one Judgement fall on both of them just as they degrade to the same point of unrighteousness. God is a wondrous and fearsome Being.

But the Earth expiring can help us understand things we see today. Global Warming, or at least what I'd call Global Temperature Vacillations, is very much real. Are our carbon emissions contributing to it? Perhaps. But, the Earth will fall apart with or without our help. Floods will come, earthquakes will continue and increase, as will many other natural events. It is certainly possible that we will contribute to our own demise as a result of being willfully unwise (another Judgement of God; to remove wisdom from those who do not love Him). In our rebellious state, we could create a society we are very proud of, but is actually very dangerous and destructive. Think Titanic. Or take, for instance, our infatuation with cell phones, even though the World Health Organization recently said they probably cause cancer in the long run. We love plastics and yet the manufacturing of plastics is a direct source of carcinogens that cause cancer. The list goes on and on and probably contains many things that hurt us we aren't even aware of.

One of life's mysteries is how stubborn mankind is prophesied to be in the Last Days. For example, the Left Behind books represent the judgements in Revelations as miracle after miracle, presented to mankind from God, and yet none turned their hearts to God. I have always wondered at that. If presented with the moon turning red, an event the Bible predicts and the Left Behind books interpret literally, would you not turn your heart towards God? You would think so. Unless perhaps someone opposed to God offers a 'natural' explanation.

It is my opinion that there will be natural explanations for much of Biblical End Times prophecy. If the environment is actually breaking down, that is a quite convincing explanation for natural phenomena. I believe the mean temperature goes up and down as a result of the Flood, a judgement of God. But have people turned their hearts towards God as a result? No, they prefer to believe in Global Warming (or Global Cooling, if you lived in the 80's). While you cannot remove God from these temperature changes, there is nothing overtly miraculous about it. Not in the sense that healing a paraplegic is obviously miraculous. Have you ever seen a harvest moon? What if Yellowstone erupts, casting smoke into the sky so thick it turns the moon red? Would the Bible have predicted that? Yes. But is there a natural explanation? Yes again. However, if you know that Yellowstone itself is a Judgement brought about by the Flood (unstable crust), then you can see the miraculous in the not-so-obvious. You can see God's judgement even though most will brush it off as a natural occurrence.

Think of the earthquake outside of Japan. Was that a Judgement from God? Yes, because the natural circumstances for earthquakes were created as a result of the Flood. But read closely: this is a Judgement on mankind as a whole, not the Japanese as a race. Just as the hurricanes in the South or the tornadoes in Bible Belt aren't specific to those people either. Hurricane Katrina flooding New Orleans is another great example. Was it a Judgement on New Orleans deplorable moral conditions? Do you really think they are more evil then anywhere else in the United States? Probably not. But there were people in that area who were prideful in the great and amazing levees they had built that would contain the water from the sea. What caused the flooding of the city: Mardi Gras or the levees breaking? Obviously I can't speak for God, but New Orleans more reminds me of the Titanic than it does of Sodom. Our pride caused our downfall, whereas if we were humble, we'd build our levees better.

If we don't view the history of our planet this way, then current events don't hold any meaning. No one can tell you whether the planet has 1 year left or 1,000. But we do know it'll get worse because God told us so. It all fits into his divine plan of coming a second time to create a new Earth. Normally Christians believe He creates a new Earth because, well, He just does. But it might be more likely that this one is too trashed to live on any longer. He is going to restore the Earth to pre-Flood, Adam-&-Eve-in-the-Garden conditions. From the moment He broke things with the Flood, this was all only a matter of time. It all fits together perfectly as only God could plan things, but nonetheless it was going to happen one way or the other.

God has presented this to us through Scripture, so we could ponder it and be humbled. To me, God's answer is a much more satisfying answer to events such as the earthquake in Japan than "the Japanese are evil." God has a plan, and the plan is unfolding in front of us with magnificent complexity. If we understand the past and contemplate the future through that lens, I think God has given us all we need to witness Him working in our world.

Lessons Learned

2011-04-02T21:33:00.000-07:00

I am appreciative of two important lessons I learned with the help of President Barack Obama: 1. Capitalism is pretty resilient 2. The economy is a living, breathing thing that doesn't always react as you would expect. As an example, I would argue that carrying a mind melting $1.4 trillion debt (for this year alone) is incredibly debilitating for the country. However, as it turns out, it isn't as immediately destructive as I thought it would be. What perplexes me is that our economy, and the world economy in general, hasn't reacted more negatively to our deficit. I suppose it shouldn't be that surprising though, considering the reaction I was expecting was pretty much a total meltdown. But the situation is pretty dire. Imagine you make $100,000 per year. Last year you spent every cent of it and added $50,000 in various debt. Your creditors would quickly be at your door and would move to limit your future line of credit. So, to loosen the purse strings you set up a meeting to present your budget for the next 5 years. In it, you list how you plan to get out from under your debt burden by continuing to spend $150,000 every year, effectively adding $50,000 in debt per year. Obviously at this point you wouldn't be surprised if the bank laughed you out of the building and began repossessing all your assets. And yet this is what the U.S. is currently getting away with. At the rate we're borrowing money, why isn't our economy affected more negatively? Considering how interconnected the world economy is nowadays, the failure of the American economy would be devastating to the wold economy. Even our creditors are afraid to cut our line of credit, for to do so would be to cripple their own economy. Our position as the big kid on the block allows us to throw our weight around. When the economic crisis hit at the end of 2008 our government said we needed to bail out the banks because they were 'too big to fail'. Perhaps that is the best analogy for the U.S. economy as well. It continues to stand even against the most amazing odds. Initially I believed the repercussions for our extravagant spending would come much sooner. While I wouldn't ever suggest that the Stimulus Package has helped the unemployment rate, I also cannot argue with the fact that the unemployment rate has been dropping, currently at about 8.8% (depending on your source). So what gives? I believe there are two things at work. Firstly, capitalism is a pretty robust economic system. Because it is based on human ingenuity, and because humans do not enjoy starving to death, that ingenuity will drive economic growth even when opposed by government excess. Obviously those conditions can't hold forever. But as long as there is some type of promise for the future entrepreneurs will continue to work and innovate. Secondly, as alluded to earlier, it helps that the U.S. is the largest economy on the planet. We are interlinked with the Chinese so closely that even though they continue to be our largest creditor, our line of credit with them hasn't been shut off....yet. If the U.S. were Greece, it would be more difficult (and have more dire consequences) to run a continued massive deficit. This bears out in Greece's recent economic instability resulting from their unsustainable economic policies. Still, even the world's largest economic beast cannot do this forever. While I'm learning new things, I don't believe I was entirely incorrect. I expected the President's policies to have had greater negative impact in the short term. While that hasn't born out, it won't always be this way. In fact, signs already indicate life might get more difficult for the U.S. in the future. More and more countries are moving away from the dollar. The ECB (European Central Bank) has recently raised their interest rates instead of waiting for the U.S. Federal Reserve to make that move first. That is something they haven't ever done. China has recently hinted that they aren't ok with continuing to loan the U.S. money, especially with no hope that the U.S. will get our deficit under control and actually repay the loans. So my lessons are thus: in the short term capitalism can overcome even some of the most ridiculous economic decisions. With capitalism, people will always strive to innovate, and that is what drives the economy. Also, any economy has so many moving parts that while it is tempting to believe in a direct cause & effect relationship (a raise in taxes will always and immediately result in lower employment), that's not always the case. Common sense would lead you to believe that running a massive debt year in and year out would, at the least, cause extreme rises in the interest rate. However political pressure (a bad economy) coupled with the 'too big to fail' mentality can keep them low when they probably shouldn't be. While general principles can help guide us in the long term, short term behavior can be difficult to predict. What this means is that it takes longer for people to recognize bad politicians. They can hide the poor results of their decisions and still get re-elected. I am genuinely thankful that President Obama has provided the unique circumstances necessary for me to learn what I have the last two years. The major benefit to knowing this is it makes compromise easier. If you know that it won't always destroy the economy to raise taxes, for example, then why not make that compromise for the benefit of healthy debate? Seems like it'd be worth knowing this if you were serving in government.

Smallville is a joke

2010-09-25T15:45:00.000-07:00

I realize this is completely off topic for my blog, but I have to get something off my chest.

Smallville is a joke.

I cannot believe the writers of this show continue to treat the fans like 12 year olds. The writing on this show runs the gambit between mind-numbingly awesome, and dumbfoundingly stupid. Case in point: Last night during the premier Lois, now aware that Clark is the Blur, plays along with him in a couple different circumstances that are quite entertaining. Good job writers, that was fun. And then in the same episode, after performing a stunt requiring Clark to launch himself off the ground, grab an object mid-air and place it on the top of a sky scraper, Clark tells a character "For a moment there it felt like I was flying." Really Clark? I believe you said that exact line in Season 2. Maybe you felt like you were flying because you WERE flying!! Either you can't figure that out because you're the dumbest hero the world has ever seen, or the writers continue to believe that they can treat the viewers like infants. Since I don't believe Supes is a moron, I'm going with the latter. Shame on them.

Here we are, 10 years out from Clark's freshman year in High School. The guy is what, 24 years old? He flew above his bed in the SECOND EPISODE of the first season, and he hasn't yet tried to replicate that? He hasn't thought it odd that every person that comes from Krypton has the ability to fly, except for him? How about the fact that when he is under the spell of red Kryptonite (or any other color for that matter), he can fly at will? Nor has he questioned why he can fly in the future, when he's caught glimpses of that. Maybe it wasn't odd to Clark when his cousin told him he could fly? Or that one drop of his blood bestowed the gift of flight on Zod just last season. The writers don't even bother with these questions.

Fact is, the writers stopped stretching credibility about 8 seasons ago. Now, they're just stomping on it. Clark's inability to fly isn't just awkward, it's the big massive elephant in the room. And for them to pull out a line first uttered almost 8 years ago in the season 10 premier is completely unbelievable. Well, WAS unbelievable.

Until I read an interview with Tom Welling today. In that article, Welling said the following:

"The whole point was to try to elongate this journey or this transition that Clark has to becoming Superman."

That's right. Those feelings you get while watching Smallville, that you've seen this plot point or this episode before (haven't we all experienced that about 100 times?), those are intentional. They are actually stringing this out on purpose. And the reality is, they aren't even good at it. If they were, then we wouldn't notice. We'd be too wrapped up in how awesome this weeks episode was. Instead, we're treated to the same worn out plot points we've seen countless times before on this show. Congratulations Smallville writers, you've managed to turn my breathless anticipation for the season premier into a nagging pessimism that makes me want to sit out this season entirely. Good job.

Oh, and then Welling drops this gem:

"At this point you're like, 'Why doesn't he just put on the suit? I mean, come on, he's doing the same stuff now, so why not?' That's the challenge, to make that last until the end."

Let me get this right: the challenge is to make sure Clark behaves exactly OPPOSITE what common sense would suggest. Wow, that sounds like the foundation of a GREAT writing decision.

So congratulations Smallville fans, Clark won't be putting on the suit until the last episode. Which figures. The only interesting question left is, when will he fly?

If he doesn't fly until the last episode as well, I swear, I'm going to write a letter.

Surprised by Amazon

2009-11-28T21:23:00.001-08:00

As I was laying in bed tonight I was navigating my way to Amazon.com on my laptop to update my Wish List. When I pulled up Amazon's homepage my eye was attracted to the cover of a book that Amazon was kind enough to suggest I might be interested in. It wasn't so much the subject of the book that interested me as much as it was the photo on the cover. It was a photo I hadn't seen for a few years, but I used to have up on my desk when I was working administration for RE/MAX. I placed it on my desk back then because I found it mesmerizing:

The photo was taken by Michael Yon, an ex-special ops soldier who is now a free-lancing photo journalist. It was taken in May 2005 in Mosul, Iraq, of an American soldier holding an Iraqi child. This soldier was on patrol in Mosul in his Stryker vehicle when he came up to a group of 20 or so children who had come out to wave at the American soldiers. Off to the side a suicide bomber drove his car, loaded with explosives, into the Stryker vehicle. This little girl, named Farah, was injured in the explosion. Major Bieger ran over to her, cradled her and spoke gently to her as he hugged her. He took a group of soldiers with him as he rushed her to the Military hospital so she could receive the care of our Military Surgeons instead of sending her to an Iraqi hospital. Sadly Farah never made it to the hospital and died in his arms. You can read about the encounter on Yon's blog here.

This particular photo had always been able to reduce me to tears, even four years ago, but it seemed especially poignant now that I myself have a daughter. As I lie there in bed tonight
just staring at this picture, a whole slew of emotions ran over me. I know that for some of us this picture represents all that is wrong with the war in Iraq. You'll say that Farah would be alive today if only we hadn't been running patrols through Mosul to begin with. Perhaps you are right. To others it will represent the very reason why we are in Iraq, fighting those who are so intent on killing other that they would be willing to sacrifice their own children in the process.

As I stared at this picture tonight I cried for a lot of reasons. As a Dad of a young girl I of course immediately imagine the parent's grief and the little girl's horror. But I also imagine the blessing in knowing that this soldier was there to comfort her, and she didn't die alone. My heart was saddened as I mourned for humanity, as we are capable of inflicting pain on each other on an unimaginable scale. But I am thankful for God's grace, without which there really is no hope for a better tomorrow for mankind. And I was moved by the humbling reality that my perspective can be so horribly flawed, as I was online to update a list of things I want, and yet all over the world there is so much pain and sadness experienced by so many.

I've written a lot on this blog about perspective and how it is so difficult to maintain a good perspective. As an American it can be particularly difficult, because we have so many distractions pulling for our attention. Indeed, even the Hebrews, God's chosen people and witness to a great many of His miracles, had to be constantly reminded by God himself to 'remember' all that He had done for them. The sad reality of what you could call the 'Human Condition' is that for us, it really isn't possible to maintain proper perspective on all issues at all times. We just cannot live our daily lives with the type of focus that would require. But our inability to do that doesn't change the reality that without the proper perspective we cannot possibly make informed decisions. In reality we are constantly making poor decisions based on a flawed perspective.

The photo also made me think of the incredible burden our leaders carry, and the in-enviable amount of responsibility they have. It is another reminder for us to pray that God graces them with the wisdom they so desperately need to make wise policy decisions. Because no matter how good our Military Intelligence is, how thoroughly we plan our political and military engagements, or how advanced our weaponry is, we will never possess the wisdom, knowledge or perspective needed to accurately weigh the pros and cons of whether to engage the enemy or not to. Only God possesses that type of thorough knowledge. Which only further adds to the tragedy of this image, the knowledge that no matter how long we debate the pros and cons of the Iraq War the reality is we'll never know if it was a necessary action or not. No matter how strongly someone will push their position one way or another, we will never really know. Only the Lord can know that. But what we do know is that another human being did drive his car into that armored vehicle resulting in the death of a little Iraqi girl, and there was nothing we could do to stop it or foresee it. And for perhaps the first time we identify with the writer of Ecclesiastes when he exclaims that it seems that no matter what man does, whether we perceive it to be wise or folly, always seems to end the same, and we cannot stop this maddening cycle of feeling helpless.

In this one photo we see both the evil mankind can perpetrate and the tender aspect of this soldier's heart, who in the middle of a war zone risked his life to comfort a dying child. Those two truths are in constant conflict with each other, and this photo is a member of that special class of photos that are able to capture both the miserable condition mankind finds itself in and the depth of love these hearts God gave to us are capable of. The dichotomy of this photo will, I'm sure, always make me cry.

The Wisdom of Men

2009-09-30T10:17:00.000-07:00

"The fear of the Lord is the beginning of knowledge." Proverbs 1:7

"Although they knew God, they did not glorify Him as God, nor were thankful, but became futile in their thoughts, and their foolish hearts were darkened. Professing to be wise, they became fools, and changed the glory of the incorruptible God into an image made like corruptible man - and birds and four-footed animals and creeping things. Therefore God also gave them up to uncleanness, in the lusts of their hearts, to dishonor their bodies among themselves, who exchanged the truth of God for the lie, and worshiped and served the creature rather than the Creator." Romans 1:21-25

"The wise men are ashamed, they are dismayed and taken. Behold, they have rejected the word of the Lord; so what wisdom do they have?" Jeremiah 8:9

I've been considering the above passages the last month or so. They are both humbling, and worrisome. It's humbling to consider that without the Lord mankind posses no wisdom or knowledge worth possessing. It is disconcerting to know that so many leaders in our world have no use for God, and the result of that stance is that God removes all wisdom from that person.

There is something about human nature that makes pride such an easy trap for us. On one hand we know enough about the universe and how the natural world works to realize that we've only just begun to understand how things work. To put it another way, you could be twice as smart as the smartest person on earth and still know nothing. Imagine for a moment that you're the most knowledgeable person on the planet in your field. Even if that is the case, outside of your field you're little better than a novice. Yet we approach all our government and social issues today as though we, as a collective, have found all the answers to life. Case closed. There is little room for debate anymore among even the most divisive of issues such as Global Warming and Abortion. People are generally split down partisan lines, end of story.

Do we not live in a world where many have no faith in the authority of the Scripture cited above? And even among those who do submit to the authority of Scripture, we sure aren't able to live under it every day, every moment. As humans we lack the ability to keep the right perspective at all times. We forget the past, we forget to pray for the future and get caught up in the small things daily life is filled with. It is really quite remarkable.

Consider that the above scripture is in fact true and speaks with authority: how then are we to view public policy? If we aren't led by those who fear the Lord or seek His wisdom, then the policies those people draft aren't even close to being good or right. That thought alone should inspire us to become more active in our government. But active how?

In the United States we've been led to believe that the most important thing about us is the letter behind our name. Whether it be a 'D', an 'R' or 'I', our party affiliation is supposed to shape our thinking and be the prism through which we view all opposing politician's actions. Every now and then I'll speak critically of the Federal Government, and all too often it is followed up with some snide remark about how the previous administration was no better. It doesn't matter if I was referencing the current administration or not, some people just make the assumption that I was. So their reaction is to immediately become defensive, defend 'their guy' and attack who they perceive as 'my guy.' It's too bad, because not only does it prohibit us from working together constructively, but it prevents us from aiding those who hold office even when we disagree with their policies.

But again we have to ask ourselves, how do we aid those who hold office above us, especially if we disagree with what they are doing? In a letter Paul wrote to Timothy, he said "I exhort therefore, that, first of all, supplications, prayers, intercessions, [and] giving of thanks, be made for all men; For kings, and [for] all that are in authority; that we may lead a quiet and peaceable life in all godliness and honesty." Because we are aware that the Lord withholds His wisdom from those who do not seek it, God is desirous of us to have a different attitude towards those who oppose us than the world would have. We are to pray for them, that God would impart his wisdom to them 'that we may lead a quiet and peaceable life in all godliness and honesty.' Solomon spoke of this in his Proverbs: "When the righteous are in authority, the people rejoice: but when the wicked beareth rule, the people mourn." Without God's wisdom, no society will have peace. Not just in war, but peace in the way society is built, structured and run. We will form bad institutions, bad forms of government, bad government programs. Our attempts to reform health care or social security will fail. In fact, our attempts will produce oppressive forms of government that waste our money and solve no problems. Problems enough to make 'the people mourn.'

But we cannot just pray for them against our will, snidely and without confidence. God's would like us to go a little bit further than than just praying for those who oppose us and for those in power. He wishes for us to love them. "If you love those who love you, what reward will you get?"

It isn't love when we're so quick to assume the worst in people. And it isn't love when the first thing to come to our mind is the desire to come to the defense of 'our guy.' At that point, we are no longer searching for the truth of the matter as much as we're looking to win an argument. And it isn't important who is right as much as it is important what is right.

Quick Hit Sunday

2009-08-23T13:22:00.000-07:00

For those who express a desire for an option in regards to health care other than the status quo or government involvement, I'd suggest a few different ideas as a starting point to reduce costs:

- Electronic record keeping could improve efficiency.
- Re-work the doctor/patient relationship. Instead of a 'one size fits all' approach to doctor visits, offer different options such as video-conferencing visits, phone visits or emailing visits.
- Re-institute doctor home visits, which could cut down on the doctor's overhead in regards to leasing costs, property taxes, staffing, etc.
- Lower malpractice insurance premiums.
- Health Savings Accounts (HSAs), with higher deductibles but low max annual out of pocket expenses.
- Revert back to a pure consumer/provider relationship. Right now the consumer (patient) rarely directly pays for their provider's (doctor) service. Normally a third party (insurance company), hired by a fourth party (employer), pays the bill. There is too much confusion in the marketplace to sufficiently determine what the actual cost of care is. In order to better know how to reduce costs the fog needs to be removed from the equation.
- Charity. If you're concerned about someone not being able to pay for their medical care, quit complaining and do something about it. And I don't mean outsource the responsibility to the Federal Government. Start a charity. Give to a charity. Pharmaceutical companies have programs for those less fortunate as do some hospitals. Get involved in that arena. The truth is in the United States it is illegal for a hospital to deny someone care if they don't have insurance, so people aren't dying on the streets for lack of care. The question becomes how to best help them when the bill arrives, and private charities full of people who love others and funded by people who care for others has always been the best way to help.

Keep in mind that health care is expensive for a reason. You're paying for cutting edge services every time you go in no matter if it is your annual visit, blood work or an MRI. No one provides medicinal care learned 10 years ago. And the more exotic your condition the more expensive the care becomes as the doctors scramble to simultaneously treat your symptoms and determine what your illness is. You're being treated on million dollar machines developed at great cost and run by people who are in some instances being paid hundreds of thousands every year. When you buy a car you have the option of buying a brand new Lexus or a 10 year old Camry. That isn't the case with health care and I think we'd all do well to keep that in mind. 100 years ago if you had cancer you'd pay the doc 10$ to visit your home, at which time he'd tell you to chew a root and call on him tomorrow. And in a year, you'd be dead. If you want cheap health care you can get it, but the 'best' always comes with a price tag. Certainly we can take steps to make it more affordable, but there will always be those of us who struggle to afford a 2009 Lexus and in the same way there will always be those who struggle to afford services such as hospital stays.

On a lighter note, about the Broncos:

- I'm not excited about him being a Bronco, but Orton is serviceable. He is the same type of player Jake Plummer was, and I'm not just saying that because both share an affinity for left handed jump passes. As long as the game plan calls for short dunk passes Orton will be successful, but once that is shut down he isn't the type of player who can put the team on his back and carry them to glory. Think Jake Plummer in the AFC Championship game in 2005. Lucky for Orton there is more offensive talent on this team than there was for Plummer, so perhaps he won't have to shoulder the load all that often.

- If the Broncos are 3-3 at the Bye they'll be doing pretty good. They should beat Oakland, and defeat either Cincinnati or Cleveland. However I don't see them defeating Dallas, New England or San Diego. If they manage to take one of those games they'd be doing well.
- I wouldn't be surprised to see them finish 5-11, and 8-8 should be considered a success after everything that has happened.

The President Stumbles Upon the Truth

2009-08-19T17:48:00.000-07:00

A mounting concern for those against a public run health care option is the private industry's inability to compete with the government in the marketplace. When the government is able to avoid the costs of running a business (things like local property taxes, etc) it theoretically makes it easier for them to provide the same service and charge less for it. In the health care debate the private industry is represented by insurance companies who some are worried would be driven out of business if the government gets involved.

At a recent town hall the president was asked about this very issue by a young man in the audience. In an effort to assuage the man's fears that the government would run the private insurance companies out of business President Obama made reference to how both UPS and Fed/Ex have been able to thrive in the package delivery business even while competing with the government run/backed USPS. In fact, he made this comment:

"UPS and FedEx are doing just fine. Right? They are. It’s the Post Office that’s always having problems."

I happen to agree with this statement 100%. But in his effort to calm fears on one issue he hit upon another serious concern that those opposing his efforts have: that everything the government touches eventually turns to manure. Government run programs that are either failed or in some degree failing such as Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid, Cash for Clunkers, Education, the War on Drugs and even the DMV hardly lend credence to the idea that while the government has failed in those fields they will be successful with running our health care. A simple question illustrates the issue: If you had the option of using a public rest room or a private rest room which would you chose?

To be fair to the president, everyone of us has had their share of "Ah hah!" moments, where a previously confusing issue suddenly becomes crystal clear. These moments directly result from our stumbling through and examining the issue. For me most of my "Ah hah!" moments came in math class as I labored over algebra problems.

I hope this was an "Ah hah!" moment for the president. What he said was a simple mistake of the tongue, but if he takes the time to investigate the simple truth it contains it'll be one of those rare occasions when the truth jumps out at you and forces your attention on it, even against all your attempts to quiet it.

Health Care Confusion

2009-08-08T08:54:00.000-07:00

When it comes to health care everyone seems to be up in arms about something whether they are for or against the current House bill. Along with the emotion has come a lot of confusion. In my discussions with people both online and off I've noticed that the first obstacle that needs to be overcome is miscommunication. Here are the top three items I see people being most confused about.

1) Health Care vs. Health Insurance.

These terms are not interchangeable though people seem to use them as though they are. Health insurance is a premium you pay in advance to ensure a limited economic exposure in the event your health takes a turn for the worse. It shouldn't be used to cover every day events or menial costs but instead should be purchased to avoid catastrophic events from plunging you into bankruptcy under a mountain of hospital bills.
Health care is a service provided to human beings by other human beings. Too many of us don't recognize that but instead believe it to be some sort of magical creature that comes hopping out of the woods when you're hurt to blow colorful rainbows on all your injuries: It's free, plentiful and we're entitled to it.
The problem is it doesn't work like that. Care is provided by someone who has $100 grand in student loans to pay off, a mortgage and their own family to provide for. When you receive care you're paying for the doctor's knowledge, their education, their staff, their malpractice insurance, their expenses, their rent and everything else that goes along with it. When you have your blood drawn draw it is processed by a technician, someone with their own bills. When you're prescribed a medication, that drug was researched by a company for years on end, all the while paying their researchers and their rent and their staff. When you have an X-ray, you have it on a machine someone else had to research, design, manufacture, transport, house and run.
When you think about health care in these terms it is easier to understand why this service tends to be expensive. That's not to say we should be accepting when our system out prices people with limited income, but it does change our perception of the problem. Too many people think they posses a 'right' to health care but that's just an easy way of saying you have the right to another human being providing you a service. Possessing a right to another's work isn't health care, it's slavery. No one has that right.

2) Government System vs. Status Quo.

Often times when discussing the new House bill my opposition to it is taken as an endorsement of the status quo. I'm convinced this is a natural reaction by those who are looking more for someone to debate than they are for an actual solution to the problem. Otherwise their reaction would be to inquire about my position rather than to project some sort of love of insurance companies onto me. It is essential that we approach this issue with open minds. We can't authentically discuss the future ramifications of any plan if we're not only presenting our view but also assuming what everyone else's opinion is. People tend to make the assumption that if you're against government control you're for insurance companies because they don't see any other option. This leads to confusion #3.

3) Our Options: Government or Insurance Companies.

Sometimes it is difficult to think outside the box. Because of our limited perspective we aren't always able to see options that aren't immediately presented to us. For this reason people tend to frame this debate as a fight between those who want Government control of our health care provision and insurance company control. That isn't the case.

One of the main difficulties in our current situation is that the consumer is no longer paying for the product. For instance, if you go to the store and buy a candy bar you're telling the manufacturer it is worth 90 cents to you. But when you go to the doctor rarely are you paying for the service you receive. Most often an insurance company is paying for it. To make the matter more difficult is the fact that a lot of us don't even pay for our insurance, our employer does. So not only do we not pay for the care we receive but we don't even pay for the service to pay for our care! Going back to the candy bar illustration, how difficult would it be to establish what a candy bar really costs if you hired someone to hire someone to buy it for you? It'd be impossible. The situation would quickly get out of control as the manufacturer would automatically realize they can start charging more for the product because the consumer really isn't aware of what they are paying. The solution is to make people aware of a third option besides just government and insurance companies: returning the consumer to their rightful place and give them control of their own health care options. Not only would this help clear the confusion about prices, but it would give us the consumer a lot more control over what care they do receive. The 'manufacturer', in this case the health care provider such as your doctor or hospital, would have to adjust their service to appeal to the largest possible consumer base. A drastic change in how health care is provided would be expected as the industry makes the adjustment. Nonetheless in order to have a productive conversation it is important that the average American voter realizes that their is at least a third option beyond just government or insurance company control.

Solving the difficulties in our health care industry won't happen quickly, but in order to get to a point where we can actually have the necessary conversations we all need to get on the same page. While understanding these three points wont get everyone there, I think it'd be a great first step.

Common Sense?

2009-07-31T17:45:00.000-07:00

A salesman at a car dealership in New York was gushing about the "Cash for Clunkers" program, under which the government will give $4,500 to those willing to trade in an older, less fuel efficient car for a new more fuel efficient car. He was quoted as saying, "It's a great stimulus package."

At face value it would appear as though the salesman's observation is spot on, as this program has certainly been a shot in the arm for the auto industry. But here is the dirty little secret: this money the government is giving away is borrowed. They don't have the money, they're printing it. It's money that you and I will have to pay back, with interest, in order to give some of our fellow citizens extra motivation to go buy a new car. Even though I myself cannot afford a new car my government finds it perfectly acceptable to add to my debt by lending my future money to someone else. For the politician the best part is a whole slew of people like our salesman will give them all the credit in the world for doing so. Are we really that happy that our money keeps getting spent on our behalf? It reminds me of that scene in Animal House where Kevin Bacon is getting hit in the rump with a wooden stick, and after every bruising slap he grunts "Thank you sir may I have another?"

Since when did borrowing money to grow the economy seem to make sense? Oh, yes, I remember. The Stimulus package. The problem with programs like this is that the best possible outcome is that the economic downturn slows or stops. But even in that best case we'll emerge with even more debt. Strange, but that doesn't seem like progress to me.

Here's what I would have suggested: every time you buy a new car you pay sales tax on your purchase. If the government would provide a holiday from that tax it could have the same stimulating effect on the industry without the negative effect of adding to our debt. As it is if you buy a $25,000 car you'd pay about $1500 in taxes with a 6% sales tax rate. Not as much money as in the "Cash for Clunkers" program, but it would have been worth a shot before adding to our debt even more.

Unfortunately for us, the current mindset in this country doesn't permit for such thinking. Being financially conservative would require more restraint on consumer spending, less grandiose promising on the part of our politicians and would contrast too much with our rising deficit. Until we change our way of thinking we'll continue to find ourselves being fooled into thinking that programs like this are good for our country and unable to see them for what they are: vehicles for our politicians to gain support and power.

Lessons in History

2009-07-17T21:52:00.000-07:00

If you were living in May of 1776 you would be right in the middle of one of the most pivotal events in the last 500 years. Allow me to paint a picture.

You're living in the British colonies in the Americas and are currently at war with the British Empire, the most powerful empire on the planet. Roughly 30% of your countrymen side with the British in the struggle. The Second Continental Congress is currently meeting in Philadelphia, and you're naturally interested in what your delegates come up with. Especially considering the last time they met they drafted the Declaration of Independence. This Congress produces the first document that will bind the 13 colonies into a confederation: The Articles of Confederation. And on March 1, 1781 the Articles are officially ratified and the Congress is renamed the Congress of Confederation. For the first time it seems as though a nation is pulling together, a scant six years after the official start of the Revolutionary War.

The Articles of Confederation were our Founders first attempt at creating a government over a sovereign nation. Because of their experience with tyrannical government, in forming their own government they were first and foremost concerned with limiting the power any central government would have over them. As such they made sure that most of the power resided with the individual states (small, local government being their ideal). That was the intended goal of the Articles of Confederation.

However after only five years problems within the Articles began to manifest to such a degree that most started calling for their replacement. In meeting at the Second Continental Congress and in their desire to create strong local governments our Founders had underestimated the amount of power the central government needed to be effective. Under the Articles the central government could not regulate national or international trade. It could not levy taxes to generate revenue. And it could not draft a military, instead having to rely on the states to provide men on their own accord. Because of these deficiencies our Founders met again, and the Articles of Confederation were replaced by the Constitution on June 21, 1788.

The consensus in the early years of our nation's life was to avoid a strong centralized government. That desire is evident in the Articles, and even within the Constitution that followed. In the Constitution the powers of the Federal government are severely limited by the individual Articles and further more by the first ten Amendments (the Bill of Rights). It was never the intent of our Founders that the Federal government should get too large or powerful, because the reality for them was they just fought a war to be out from under such a government.

Over time our nation has evolved, and what was once meant to be small and in some ways subordinate to the State government has grown much larger and more powerful than at first intended. Because politicians all believe that the system is broken and must be fixed by them, the natural growth of the Federal government began almost immediately. Thomas Jefferson thought Alexander Hamilton was a traitor for proposing the creation of the First National Bank. Abraham Lincoln greatly expanded the office of the President while fighting the Civil War.

But things got really interesting in the 2oth century. This evolution in the basic structure of our government accelerated under Franklin Delano Roosevelt. Consider this: in 1929 all government expenditures accounted for approximately 3% of the Gross Domestic Product (GDP; the value of all goods and services provided in the U.S. during any given period of time, usually a year). Next year that number will rise to 28% before factoring in any new spending with the health bill our government is considering. That is an increase of almost 1000%. Today the government is almost ten times as large as it was 80 years ago.

It is difficult to over state how large that increase in the size of government really is, especially in terms of how it impacts our daily lives. So what happened?

Social Security. Followed by Medicare and Medicaid. All three of which are either currently bankrupt, or soon to be. But what really changed was the mentality of the American public. No longer possessing personal experience with tyrannical government we lost the desire to be free from their involvement in our lives. There is no fear in America of a government. We have moved away from "That government is best which governs least." When we experienced difficult times during the Great Depression we allowed the government to assume a much larger part in our lives. And that involvement continues today in all new ways.

Whenever someone is disappointed in the direction the country is headed they often lament about how sad it is that our nation has moved so far away from our Founder's original intentions. But normally those lamentations are motivated by disappointment in some policy decision. Even before we complain about how gay marriage, abortion, capital punishment or even the War in Iraq has changed America, in some very important areas this country already no longer resembles the United States at its founding.

This might be something to keep in mind when considering President Obama's new health bill. Not only have we just passed a $1 Trillion deficit (and it's only July!), but as a % of our GDP our government is already spending way more than our Founders could have ever conceived of. And that fact has drastically changed the function and fabric of our society. Whether people want to believe it or not, in setting up our society the way the Founders did they were warning us about the perils of a strong central government. They were trying to protect our personal lives by encouraging as little government involvement as possible. If we continue along the course we are taking we're going to discover why our Founders were warning us against the dangers of giving politicians too much control over our lives a lot sooner than most of us believe. And that isn't a comfortable situation to be in.

Rush Limbaugh reading The Gravy Train?

2009-06-30T15:49:00.000-07:00

Is Rush Limbaugh reading The Gravy Train?!?!

On Thursday, June 18th the topic on this here blog was a prediction I was making that President Obama, if he is re-elected in 2004, would make a run at a third term in 2016 (you can read the entire post here.

Imagine my surprise to learn that today, June 30, Rush Limbaugh made a prediction on his radio program reflecting the same prediction I made a mere 12 days earlier (you can read about it on his website by clicking here.

So is Rush Limbaugh reading The Gravy Train? Well, I doubt it. But it does amuse me when I make a prediction before someone in the popular media, thus providing more evidence that blogs are becoming more and more interesting to read.

History Repeating

2009-06-25T07:29:00.000-07:00

The last few days I've been pondering how more than any other creature on earth, human beings deserve to be pitied. Our amazing ability to gravitate towards self-destruction is truly profound. And I'm not talking about ways of self-destruction that are so in fashion nowadays; I'm not talking about Global Warming or Nuclear War. In the end those means of annihilation are way too spectacular for our species. The truth is we lean towards much more subtle ways of destroying ourselves.

In the animal kingdom we most resemble lemmings. We learn precious little from our own history, get way too caught up in the current trends of things and are find hero-worship way too attractive. John Adams often lamented the elevation of the Founders from regular old men to something almost folk-like. And Adams was a Founder. Hero-worshiping our political leaders is nothing new, and it blinds us to their faults or even their ulterior motives. Like a driver who spills hot coffee on their lap, it is very difficult to avoid disaster when you're not even looking out for it.

Ronald Reagan said that democracy was never more than one generation from extinction. We certainly don't live by that creed today. The average citizen doesn't protect his/her rights with their own blood or sweat. We'd be lucky if 1/3 of us proactively read about current events, much less put the effort into trying to figure out what our leaders are doing behind the scenes.

On this site I blog mostly about political things so I don't expect as many hits here as, say, my wife gets on her blog. As a reflection of that most of the hits to my blog came between October 1, 2008 and November 4, 2008, election day. Only one month. Once an election is decided, interest in keeping the government accountable drops off a cliff. Not even clothes fashions go out as fast as interest in politics.

But why pity mankind? We have a saying: In Polite company, never talk about politics or religion. But in your day to day life does anything affect you more than those two things? The answer is clearly no, yet we have willingly set up rules to exclude those two items from our day to day conversations. It is fundamentally backwards, but almost universally accepted.

Humanity also suffers under another self-imposed cycle. We forge nations and set up their governments, then watch as they get corrupted and either implode from within or are conquered from without. Free societies willingly cede their own freedom to the government in exchange for broken promises. In reality those who don't fight for their 'rights' seemingly have very little use for them. In this fashion we usher in our own destruction.

In the history of this world our nation is no different. I often refer to democracy as an old battleship with tall wooden masts and wide glorious sails. The United States is the strongest of these battleships ever constructed. But like every ship it isn't perfect and was built with tiny holes in the hull. It doesn't really matter what we do or how fast we fix the holes because in the end the ship will sink, as every ship before her has. Additionally, the sad truth is there are some people on the boat who have no appreciation for the original construction, and as fast as you plug up the holes they attempt to re-design the ship under your feet. In doing so they create all new holes for you to fix. They won't listen to your attempts at reasoning, because to them this ship is old, outdated, and in need of some remodeling. 'The world has changed!" they say. To them you're holding up progress. They believe that mankind is always evolving and getting better, which necessitates their own brilliance over the past generations feeble mindedness. To them, Old = Bad. Old needs to be fixed, and they are doing you a favor in fixing it. But really their own 'fixing' only leads to the ship sinking faster.

So why pity mankind? Even if I were twice as smart as the smartest person on earth I'd still know nothing. The United States of America is the most powerful nation on Earth. We have a standard of living here that has never been seen on this planet. In fact, those living at a level we place in our poverty index live in more square footage per person than the average citizen of France. Our poor live larger than the average person in France. That is a profound statement. And yet regardless of those facts we still suffer under politicians who tell us the system is fundamentally broken and we must elect them to fix it. We are told rather pointedly that our health care system is broken beyond repair, never mind the fact that no hospital in this country can turn away a patient for not having insurance. It is 'common knowledge' that there are 42 million without health insurance, but no one ever mentions the 260 million who have insurance. That's a pretty big number. Instead we are told we need these politicians to come in and fix what is so obviously 'broken'.

Why pity mankind? Because not only do we have these politicians who constantly want to tinker with our ship, we also have those on board who welcome it. Politicians can't do this without support and they have plenty of people who aid them. There will always be people who look at the original holes and panic, having no foundation in anything but their faith in Government. It is all too easy for politicians to feed off their worry and get elected on the back of their concerns. We live in the United States, but based on the amount of items our politicians tell us we need them to address you'd think we live in Somalia.

That is why mankind needs pity. How could you not pity such a self-destructive race? A race that's aware of extreme injustices in the world, not capable of curing all those injustices, but isn't wise enough to know they aren't. A race that will destroy all that is good in this world at the behest of some politician or leader they worship and who promises them some sort of comfort. A race so in love with themselves they don't even look towards God?

During the Great Depression we looked towards Washington for our salvation, and it failed. After Hurricane Katrina we turned to the government for help, and it failed. After September 11th we turned to the government for aid, and again it failed. More recently during this economic downturn we are again turning toward government to solve our pain and we continue to expect a different outcome. Perhaps it is because the political faces have changed and re-newed our hope, but I don't think so. I believe our looking to the government for our health, our retirement, our safety, our education and everything else from the breast to the grave is an indication of something much more sober transpiring: our lack of a foundational faith in God, with which we wouldn't want government in our lives at all.

The Israelites sacrificed God for a King. David sacrificed God for a census. Solomon sacrificed God for chariots. And Americans sacrifice God for promises of security from the government. In November we traded the lives of the unborn for 'hope' of financial success. We traded friendship with Israel for (potential?) friendship with Iran. We bought into the message that economically we needed to fundamentally re-create the most successful economy this planet has ever known. We placed our hope in a man with intentions to re-design the ship we are on, instead of placing our hope in Christ.

Too often in our history a leader has preached security and prosperity only to deliver pain and suffering. It has happened before, and it will happen again. As long as we continue to look amongst ourselves for our salvation we will continue to be bitterly disappointed. It is unwise, and it is our nature.

So why pity mankind? In our fallen state, mankind is pity. If more people would recognize that they'd find peace in a Man who once said: "Take my yoke upon you and learn from me, for I am gentle and humble in heart and you will find rest for your souls. For my yoke is easy and my burden is light." If more people placed their hope in Him, we'd have no need for politicians asking us to place our hope in them.

Prediction

2009-06-18T22:07:00.000-07:00

Here is my prediction. If you remember it in 7 years and I'm wrong, I'll welcome the criticism.

If Obama wins re-election in 2012, his administration will try and figure out a way for him to run for a third term.

Here is what needs to happen first: President Obama needs to deflect responsibility for the current and future economic difficulties onto someone else. He's doing his darnedest to blame everything on the previous administration, and if the American people buy into it and re-elect him, I believe he will want to serve a third term by capitalizing on that popularity.

History is our best source for predicting the future, because when it comes down to it human beings don't really change. I wouldn't be the first to compare President Obama to FDR. FDR and Obama have a few things in common that lead me to believe Obama will want to follow in FDR's steps and seek additional terms.

1) FDR wanted to fundamentally change the structure of the American government, which
is a goal of President Obama's.
2) The changes FDR implemented resulted in more government control and power centralized in
the Federal government. Obama has the same goal in mind.
3) They both believe that these changes are necessary and good. They have more faith in
government than they do in individual citizens.

People who want to change things in radical ways tend to believe that they are the only ones capable of bringing about those changes. FDR was no exception. Does President Obama think the same way? I believe he does, which is why I'm coming out with what I think is a pretty bold prediction. If he manages to stay popular as things continue to be difficult (which FDR managed to do by getting re-elected three times in much worse circumstances), then I don't see him letting go of that power any time soon.

The test comes in 2012. Think of this: President Obama has added more debt than every previous president before him combined, yet still talks of 'fiscal responsibility' and 'pay as you go' without the American people taking him to task on it. How long that generosity will last is any one's guess, but if our current president is as slick as FDR was at deflecting criticism (done primarily through preaching solidarity and promising more government help), then he will be able to win re-election. And I will go on the record right now saying I think a second term wouldn't be the last we'll see of President Obama.

Land of our Forefathers?

2009-06-08T21:44:00.000-07:00

"Remember, democracy never lasts long. It soon wastes, exhausts, and murders itself. There is never a democracy that did not commit suicide. " John Adams

It is true true that no democracy has lasted forever. But neither has any monarchy, empire or dictatorship for that matter. So why make the statement?

Statements we make come from our opinions and our opinions are shaped by our individual experiences. The differences between generations of humans can be attributed to our lack of shared experiences. My generation lacks experience of an economic downturn, and thus have difficulty understanding why things are more difficult now than in any time in their lifetime. Who can blame them, having been less than 10 years old through the 80's and only beginning to pay attention to things during the roaring 90's?

THE SET UP

Our Founders created a system of governance born from their shared experiences of tyrannical government. They had daily experience with a government that was neither of the people, by the people or for the people.

Today the average American has no life context to understand that mindset, no contact with tyrannical government, no experience of government oppression of their rights. Most of our difficulties revolve around not being able to find work, expensive health care bills, and the endless pursuit of trying to divorce consequences from our actions. Is it any wonder that we continually vote to give the government more power over our lives? It isn't madness that plagues us, but a basic failure to understand the context of our founding.

Once we understand that our experiences shape our opinions we can begin to understand why Adams would state that democracy will lead to its own destruction. A people who have grown so fond of success will panic when that success is threatened. They vote for the candidate who promises the most, not for the candidate who promises tough love.

For the average American voter, who is more attractive: the candidate who promises to raise taxes only on the richest 3% to pay for health care for the other 97%, or the candidate who says they are against such programs? Can anyone honestly speculate that our Founders, the same men who originally forbid the Federal government from printing money, would want them to have control over our health care? If our system of government was designed to prevent that type of government control, why do so many today favor it?

The lack of understanding the historical context of our founding leads to further difficulty. Our rights are no longer understood to mean what they were created as.

Our Founders were afraid of government tyranny over speech, so they prohibited it from interfering with our right to express what we want. Today our right to free speech is understood to mean that we are free to print pornography, free to say hateful things and free to stand on the corner and shout at everyone whatever we want.

Our Founders were afraid of the government forcibly employing their will on the people, so they wrote in our right to bear and keep arms. Today we are told that in order to protect us the government needs to remove that right from everyone, not just the dangerous.

THE TRANSITION

We are products of our own success, and our success has become a detriment to our freedom. As Adams predicted we are slowly voting away what our Founders put in place. Our primary deficiency is that we no longer share the experiences of our Founders. Because we as a nation no longer have the capacity for this understanding, our politicians have run amok. Over time the Federal government's power has grown at the expense of the States' power and at the expense of our rights. We now have government programs that provide for our welfare, our medical care, our education, our infrastructure and our retirement. The Fed spends our money by the trillions of dollars against the will of the public. The government owns what were previously privately held enterprises such as banks, insurers, and car manufacturers. Recently our government fired the head of a publicly traded company.

Our judicial branch has abandoned its intended purpose of interpreting law and embraced legislating from the bench, a fact embraced by a president who wants judges to have empathy for those whose cases they are deciding.

Our legislative branch has willingly ceded power to the executive branch.

How far have we strayed? Thomas Jefferson once called Alexander Hamilton a traitor for proposing the creation of the First Bank of the United States. Hamilton thought that there should exist a bank to provide for the financial needs of the Federal government, and Jefferson thought that ceded too much authority to the Fed and was unconstitutional. Considering the recent actions of the Federal government with the stimulus package and TARP plans, was Jefferson so wrong in his opinion?

THE FUTURE

On our current path it will not be long until the United States exists in name only. Just as Rome survived its own change into an empire, the name "United States" will survive whatever political mutations occur in the future. For instance, with the government now having ownership of what used to be private and public ownership of industry we are presented with two options: socialism and fascism. A reversion back to smaller more local government is unlikely, as politicians rarely relinquish power. Considering the current mindset of Joe Voter, it seems even more unlikely that he would request his political leaders to relinquish that power any time soon.

In socialist governments, the government (the people) own the means of production and decide how it is run. With fascism those industries are held privately, but the government tells them what to do. We have current examples of both over the last year. Where we go from here, is any one's guess. One thing is for sure, however: where we end up will be light years away from where we began.

Making the Grade?

2009-04-30T08:43:00.000-07:00

Grading the President at 100 days is an exercise created by the media, intended to drum up interest in their 24 hour news programs. Not only is it entirely impractical, but I would argue it does a lot of damage to our ability to work together on bipartisan terms. I was listening to this subject being debated by Rosen and Sirota on the way to work today, and it didn't take long for the conversation to descend into political blaming rather than actually looking for solutions to problems. I've said it before and I'll say it again: Once you start looking to assign blame to one politician or the other, or to one party or the other, you're no longer looking for solutions, you're looking to cover your own behind. Once someone starts saying, "Well, it was actually Clinton who started that" or "Reagan greatly increased the debt before Obama did", constructive conversation has essentially ended.

Rather than handing out grades, I would like to make a suggestion to both parties at this point:

Democrats need to stop blindly supporting the President's every move, and Republicans need to stop jumping on every little misstep he makes.

Our current reality is that a man was elected who promised unrealistic levels of domestic spending. During the election he promised so many new programs, Republicans cried that it was impossible to fulfill them all, which proves Barack Obama was just a normal run-of-the-mill politician making promises he couldn't keep. Well, with a look at the President's stimulus and budget it appears that he was entirely genuine in the promises he made, whatever the cost. But where are the moderate Democrats? Just because you have a 'D' behind your name doesn't mean you have to agree with everything the President does, and our political system needs to have that type of honesty in it. Certainly there are some Democrats who don't agree with everything Obama is doing? Just as there are socially liberal Republicans, there are fiscally conservative Democrats, and they have remained completely silent during the first 100 days of President Obama's term.

Republicans need to get over the fact that the new Administration is composed of neophytes who are going to make their mistakes. The fact that his team of advisers do some mind numbingly stupid things should surprise no one. As long as those mistakes stay generally minor, there is no reason to constantly berate the man for them. The gift to the Prime Minister of Britain (20 DVDs, encoded for the U.S.), a typo on a red button given to the Russians, Obama's reliance on teleprompters, Obama's weak reaction at being used for propaganda by Hugo Chavez, are all rather amusing missteps. But Republicans risk being viewed as shrill bellyachers when they complain about everything, the type of people they so despised during the Bush Administration. That degraded position makes it difficult to be viewed objectively when complaining about legitimate concerns, such as the budget, deficit, or even the recent fly-by in New York by Air Force One.

100 days does present a good opportunity to take a step back and evaluate how things are going overall. We can all benefit from deconstructing our past actions. But just as I prefer my professors to withhold giving me a grade 10 days into the semester, I prefer to withhold giving a new administration a grade this early into things. Grades come at the end of the term for a reason.

Our Moral Authority

2009-04-17T11:46:00.001-07:00

President Obama's recent statement that techniques such as water boarding "undermine our moral authority and do not make us safer" caught my eye.

I wasn't so much interested in his assertion that water boarding does not make us safer. That particular question can't really be answered, at least not well. There are plenty of people out there who will argue one way or the other, and I have no interest in compiling a list of Ph.Ds who love to differ with each other and argue their respective points on endless political talk shows.

Actually the most interesting statement comes in the beginning of what he said, that these techniques "undermine our moral authority."

It left me curious about what our "moral authority" is. What is he referring to exactly? Whose respect are we trying to garner by being morally superior to them? Does having 'moral authority' give us a stronger position when negotiating diplomatic matters? And exactly how are we morally superior to anyone else? What gives us our moral authority over them?

Do we draw our moral superiority from the increased rate at which our kids are failing out of high school? Or perhaps it comes from our advanced political evolution, which allows to see the moral benefit to aborting millions of children every year. Or maybe it's our colorful history in the field of eugenics that so inspires the world to our advanced morality. Then again, our flirtation with Gay marriage certainly would gain the respect of the devoutly religious Muslim, increasing his desire to be 'just like us.' Our image of being greedy and selfish obviously inspires others to model their society after ours. Maybe it's our tenacious hunger for all things pornographic that so interests people in democracy and gives us our moral superiority. If it's not those things, it must be our history of slavery that gives us the moral authority needed to lead the world with such confidence.

Out of all the characteristics of our society that so infuriate and disgust some in the Muslim world, are we seriously suppose to believe that sticking someone under water intending to scare them into telling us where a bomb is located is really the thing that causes people hate us? Is that what causes us to lose our 'moral authority'? I mean, really? It certainly isn't helpful, but I believe terrorists flew planes into the WTC before we started water boarding. We were still hated enough to be attacked, and our supposed 'moral authority' wasn't enough to lead the world into happy Utopia before September 11th. Have we since become so pious that we have gained a moral authority we lacked before those attacks?

The idea that we posses any type of 'moral authority' is, quite honestly, ridiculous. In this the President is grandstanding: trying to impress those who believe they are morally superior to others because they are so refined (that'd be Europe) or because they live in a democracy (that'd be us). We are just as screwed up as a people as any other culture on Earth. If we don't have that moral authority, it is impossible for us to lose it by water boarding. But understand this: I'm not advocating water boarding, I'm merely stating that we don't posses any moral authority over others that could be lost with increased interrogation techniques.

But where does this idea that we posses any heightened morality come from? Our religions? Where in the Bible does one draw their right to vote? Or to own property? Or their pursuit of happiness? Our government was designed to limit the powerful destruction that can be brought by sinful man. Small, local government was the order of the day. Weak, Federal government was what was originally designed. But even that does not provide us with any 'moral authority' with which we can dictate to the world what they should do. Moral authority lies with Christ alone, not with us. Democracy might be better than a theocracy, but a system of government can't provide anyone with moral authority over others. If the President honestly believes that we lost our moral authority because of water boarding when so much about our culture indicates that there is nothing intrinsically moral about us, he is sorely mistaken.

Let me ask a question: do you think there is something morally wrong with allowing only landowners to vote? How about only letting men vote? Or only women? Do you think any of us posses a moral right to vote? If you said yes you're drawing your moral bearings from recent interpretation of the Constitution, not from God. Not from the Bible, the Koran, or any other religious text. Christ didn't advocate democracy or voting. I have no right to vote in a deomocracy any more than I have the right to be under a King. Voting 'rights' don't exist other than in a democracy, and yet we think that by employing them here in the U.S. we gain some type of moral superiority over those who don't employ them in their country. Perhaps our system is preferrable, but morality has nothing to do with it.

What is amazing to me is that we live in a society where our culture is utterly despised by many in the Muslim world (and even here in the West), and yet we're arrogant (dumb?) enough to think that water boarding is what causes us to lose our 'moral authority.' The most difficult part of all this is that our freedoms permit our debauchery. Much like God doesn't intervene when we sin, and thus permits us to chose sin (for a time). It's why Adams said our government is only viable when the citizenry is highly religious and moral, and it is completely ill-suited for the government of any other type of people. Once we stop realizing that free speech was designed to protect us from government imprisonment and start believing it was designed to protect our rights to peddle porn or sit on a corner with a sign that says "Obama is Satan," then we've completely missed the boat. When we lose our bearings and no longer understand that our rights protect us from government and are given to us by God, and start believing but that our rights exist so our government can provide us with things (health care, welfare, social security, etc), then we are no longer in agreement with Thomas Jefferson, James Madison, John Adams, or and our our Framers. We will no longer understand why this country split from Britain, and we'll no longer resemble the country as it was founded. Once we get there (are we there already?), we're on the shore watching the boat sail into the sunset. Or as Ronald Reagan said, "one day we will spend our sunset years telling our children and our children's children what it was once like in the United States where men were free."

Sadly, I think President Obama is one who has missed the boat. And in my opinion the worst part is I don't think he knows he missed the boat; and he's leading a bunch of people who don't know they missed the boat either.

Who said that?

2009-04-09T15:39:00.000-07:00

I find quotes to be very interesting. It's like a tiny little snapshot into what someone is thinking. While a single quote cannot represent the entirety of someone's position on an issue, it does provide significant insight into their way of thinking. It's also fun and insightful to compare and contrast quotes from different people who lived at different times.
Thus, I've put this little list together of what I find to be a few meaningful quotes. I've written a quote and given some options for who might have said it. In order to read the answer highlight it with your mouse (the type color is white).

Who said:

1) "I've abandoned free-market principles to save the free-market system."

A. Franklin Roosevelt

B. George W. Bush
C. Barack Obama
D. Jimmy Carter

Answer: George W. Bush, on activating the TARP program in fall of 2008.

2) "To be prepared for war is one of the most effectual means of preserving peace."

A. George Washington
B. Thomas Jefferson
C. George W. Bush
D. Winston Churchill

Answer: George Washington. January 8, 1790, in his first annual message to Congress.

3) "If Congress can do whatever in their discretion can be done by money, and will promote the general welfare, the government is no longer a limited one possessing enumerated powers, but an indefinite one subject to particular exceptions."

A. John Adams
B. Karl Marx
C. Newt Gingrich
D. James Madison

Answer: James Madison

4) "The federal government is the only entity left with the resources to jolt our economy back into life. It is only government that can break the vicious cycle where lost jobs lead to people spending less money which leads to even more layoffs."

A. Al Gore
B. Hillary Clinton
C. Barack Obama
D. Jacques Chirac

Answer: Barack Obama

5) "In this present crisis, government is not the solution to our problem; government is the problem. From time to time we've been tempted to believe that society has become too complex to be managed by self-rule, that government by an elite group is superior to government for, by, and of the people. Well, if no one among us is capable of governing himself, then who among us has the capacity to govern someone else? All of us together, in and out of government, must bear the burden." (emphasis mine)

A. Ronald Reagan
B. George W. Bush
C. Thomas Jefferson
D. Bill Clinton

Answer: Ronald Reagan

6) "I would rather be governed by the first two thousand people in the Boston telephone directory than by the two thousand people on the faculty of Harvard University."

A. Milton Friedman
B. Al Gore
C. George H.W. Bush
D. William F. Buckley

Answer: Conservative thinker William F. Buckley

7) "Of all the dispositions and habits which lead to political prosperity, religion and morality are indispensable results...And let us with caution indulge the supposition that morality can be maintained without religion."

A. George Washington
B. Abraham Lincoln
C. Lyndon Johnson
D. Bobby Kennedy

Answer: George Washington, in his Farewell Address

8) "Ours is a government set up for the governance of the highly religious and moral. It is wholly inadequate for the governing of any other."

A. Dwight D. Eisenhower
B. John Adams
C. Ulysses S. Grant
D. Billy Graham

Answer: John Adams

9) “One of the great strengths of the United States is ... we have a very large Christian population — we do not consider ourselves a Christian nation or a Jewish nation or a Muslim nation. We consider ourselves a nation of citizens who are bound by ideals and a set of values.”

A. Jimmy Carter
B. Martin Luther King, Jr
C. Bill Maher
D. Barack Obama

Answer: President Barack Obama, at a press conference in Turkey

10) "Freedom is never more than one generation away from extinction. We didn't pass it to our children in the bloodstream. It must be fought for, protected, and handed on for them to do the same, or one day we will spend our sunset years telling our children and our children's children what it was once like in the United States where men were free."

A. George Washington
B. Ronald Reagan
C. John F. Kennedy
D. Bill Clinton

Answer: Ronald Reagan

11) "Let not him who is houseless pull down the house of another; but let him labor diligently and build one for himself, thus by example assuring that his own shall be safe from violence when built."

A. Ronald Reagan
B. Abraham Lincoln
C. Benjamin Franklin
D. Margaret Thatcher

Answer: Abraham Lincoln

12) "In the most advanced countries the following will be pretty generally applicable: a heavy progressive or graduated income tax."

A. Karl Marx
B. Jimmy Carter
C. Teddy Roosevelt
D. Dan Quayle

Answer: Karl Marx, in his Communist Manifesto

13) "I think when you spread the wealth around it's good for everybody."

A. Jimmy Carter
B. Karl Marx
C. Bill O'Reilly
D. Barack Obama

Answer: Barack Obama

14) "Government's view of the economy could be summed up in a few short phrases: If it moves, tax it. If it keeps moving, regulate it. And if it stops moving, subsidize it."

A. Herbert Hoover
B. Ronald Reagan
C. Bill Owens
D. Jeff Foxworthy

Answer: Ronald Reagan

15) "Of all tyrannies, a tyranny sincerely exercised for the good of its victims may be the most oppressive. It would be better to live under robber barons than under omnipotent moral busybodies. The robber baron's cruelty may sometimes sleep, his cupidity may at some point be satiated; but those who torment us for our own good will torment us without end for they do so with the approval of their own conscience."

A. J.D. Salinger
B. Mark Twain
C. C.S. Lewis
D. JRR Tolkien

Answer: C.S. Lewis

Wednesday Quick Hit

2009-03-18T10:04:00.001-07:00

The cap and trade system that President Obama is proposing has been estimated to cost anywhere from $700 Billion to over $2 Trillion over ten years. Let's take a look at the goals of the program, and see if the benefits outweigh the costs.

When we consider our current energy issues, there are two ideologies at conflict today. The Liberal position is to punish carbon producing businesses to force them to change their ways. By his own admissions, President Obama's plan would place such high cap and trade costs in place that building any new coal plants would prove economically impossible, and the price of existing coal-produced electricity would skyrocket. The Conservative position is to make the alternative green technology so attractive that people want to switch. There is a small but important distinction between the two: one is a negative approach that punishes industry and consumers, and the other is a positive approach that inspires change by rewarding idustry and consumers. And ironically, it isn't President Obama who is inspiring change.

Here would be my solution:
Open up drilling off the coast of California.
Open up drilling in the Gulf coast.
Open up drilling in Alaska.
Open up mining oil shale in Colorado and Wyoming.
And double our oil refining capabilities.

Here are the benefits to this solution:

1. It doesn't cost the American Taxpayer a dime. With oil companies experiencing record profits, that income can be directed to expand their business rather than just sit in their coffers.
2. It would create tens of thousands of jobs. People need to build and work the new drilling platforms and refineries. With more oil being moved around, more truck drivers will be required, as will more train operators.
3. It would generate new taxable income, at both the corporate and private level. In California this would be especially beneficial.
4. It would relieve the American people of their dependence on foreign oil. Strategically that makes us about 100% safer, as we would now provide for our own energy consumption.
5. It would kill the price of gasoline. That would be the equivalent of another Stimulus package, only this one wouldn't be financed by our children. And the lower price allows us to do one very important thing: raise taxes on every gallon of gas sold. Nothing lavish, say 20 cents per gallon. That money could be directed toward building new wind mills, financing electric/solar cars, rebuilding our power grid, or even water desalination of ocean water for the coast.

The point is this: the President's goal is the same as my goal, to move us off an industry that produces carbon, to create jobs (and thus new taxable income), and to make the U.S. safer. The difference is that while the President's plan raises taxes on us and our employers, spending all our kid's money, and hoping to force our move to 'greener' pastures by punishing our way of life, my solution creates jobs, creates new taxes, creates wealth, saves consumers money, and achieves the same end. His solution is all about the negative, mine is about the positive. His is consumed by destroying wealth, mine creates wealth.

The reality is we need money to move to new technologies. Money that cannot be created by taking it from the very companies we need to make the change, or the very consumers we want to buy the new and more expensive cars. My solution would create that wealth we need to make the move, and all with LESS government involvement.

Economic Recovery: "A Modest Proposal"

2009-03-08T19:34:00.000-07:00

With Reverance to Jonathan Swift:

Today President Obama lifted the restrictions on embryonic stem cell research. The Bush administration had restricted federal funding to only those stem cells that weren't harvested from human embryos. The President's decision should be celebrated. Leadership requires bold initiative from time to time, and this particular initiative couldn't come at a better time.

The United States is in quite a predicament. Economically, we're blindly passing stimulus packages with little faith in their ability to bring us back from the brink of insolvency, let alone into genuine prosperity. Our workers are being laid off in numbers not seen in thirty years. Politically we are as divided as ever. Our medical system cannot provide for people in need of transplants, blood transfusions, limb replacement, or any other costly measure to fix our bodies because of high insurance costs. Our troops come back from Iraq and Afghanistan maimed, as our battlefield medicine has advanced enough to keep even the most horribly injured alive. We are a society based on consumption, and are much more wasteful than we should be. Some would argue we're destroying the Earth as we know it.

Our restrictions on sciences such as embryonic stem cell research are choking our ability to solve our own problems. As President Obama said this morning, "Some of our best scientists leave for other countries that will sponsor their work. And those countries may surge ahead of ours in the advances that transform our lives." These problems can only be solved if we take immediate and bold action, and thankfully President Obama is beginning to do just that.
However, a society facing such diverse problems as the United States would be wise to consider taking further action. Ideally, a solution could be proposed that could begin to solve our health, environmental, and economic problems all at the same time. President Obama has begun to tackle those issues, but I believe further work needs to be done.

The first step would be the creation of the Bureau of Applied Bureaucratic & Individual Economic Solutions and its sister program, the Save A Life Effort. The second step would be to fund them through the next stimulus package.

There are around 4,000 abortions in the United States every single day, which amounts to 1.4 million every year. The majority of those abortions are performed for lifestyle choices, not for life/death reasons. As such, the U.S. government needs to step in and stop this cycle of waste. With every abortion, a perfectly good heart, liver, kidneys, brain, blood, and various other body parts are wasted. These organs could certainly be harvested for the benefit of others.

The Bureau of Applied Bureaucratic and Individual Economic Solutions, or B.A.B.I.E.S, would be a federally funded program whose sole purpose is sponsoring women to carry their baby to term. The their hospital of choice would capture the donor body, store it, and harvest the organs when needed. The President's plan to harvest stem cells from human embryos is a good first step, but this proposed program would enable us to stop wasting all the tissue from aborted fetuses.

At a time when the public is divided politically, this would be a positive move to resolution on debate over abortion. Pro-Choice proponents would be satisfied, because no longer is a woman forced to carry an unwanted baby to term. As our President has said, no one should be punished with a child if they do not want it. However, if she signs up for the Save A Life Effort, or S.A.L.E., B.A.B.I.E.S. will sponsor her to the tune of $100,000, enabling her to donate her child to those who really need the help: our wounded soldiers, those in need of blood transfusions, transplants, and the like.

The Pro-Life crowd would also be quieted. Life would no longer be casually discarded but would be treated with value and respect. As things currently stand, the perfectly good stem cells and organs of the aborted fetus go to waste when we could be helping millions of people who suffer from paralysis, Parkinson's, heart failure, and various other medical problems. Pro-Lifers would celebrate the selfless giving of the donor fetus' life. We would no longer discard perfectly good material, all the while keeping the fetus unhurt. Since the donor fetus is not yet capable of conscious thought, the doctor would remove the donor via C-section weeks before the woman's due date and place it in a medically induced coma; thereby removing any questions of inhumane treatment. The body would then be transported to the donor wing of the hospital and grown until the organs, blood, and epidermis are ready for transplant.

Painful skin grafts would be a thing of the past, as ready-for-transplant skin tissue would be ready at every hospital. We would be able to remove the need for blood donors, as donor bodies would constantly donate blood as quickly as it could be replenished. Recycling in this manner would not only provide us with new transplant-ready organs and blood ready for transfusion, it would be good for the environment at large.

In today's world we need to conserve all we can. Medical facilities would no longer have to throw out plastic bags filled with fetus remains; saving on millions of year’s worth of decomposition. S.A.L.E. would also reduce our population growth and environmental footprint on the natural landscape, as a stored donor body requires less storage space and less resources than a living child. Especially when considered over the course of its lifespan.

The economic benefits would be of particular interest in today's economy. Women who were previously unemployed could be employed to culture donors instead of build roads. This would be ethically preferable, as it wouldn't force someone to work in the hot sun and ruin their quality of life in a job they didn't aspire to. Five million women could be taken off the streets and given $100,000, and we'd still save $300 billion over the current stimulus which could only create 3.5 million jobs. Those women in the program would be permitted to take additional work as well; doubling their economic productivity. We could literally expect the economy to skyrocket within months.

In addition, the President could rescind his decision to fund abortions internationally and stop pursuit of the Freedom of Choice Act. With the S.A.L.E. program, those politically charged issues would become unnecessary federal expenditures. We could also cease legally requiring insurance providers to pay for abortions, as abortion would no longer be necessary. Health care costs would plummet, leaving Americans with more discretionary spending power.

In order to create a situation of equality, and in support of the President's policies of spreading the wealth and economic fairness, we'd limit applications to the S.A.L.E program to those currently earning under $100,000/couple. It wouldn't be fair to give federal money to someone who doesn't really need it, no matter how strong their ability to culture donors.
The poor would especially appreciate this program. Never before in the history of the world would a government so benevolently provide funding for the education and economic betterment of the poor. With only one donation to the S.A.L.E. program, a woman and her husband could pay for their education without accruing additional debt. To avoid discriminating against those who are no longer fertile, one could always donate those children who are currently too burdensome on their parents, up to a certain age. Poverty could literally be a thing of the past.

An additional benefit of this program would be the progressing of medical science well beyond its current rate, something our current president was particularly concerned with. We don't want to limit the resources our scientists have to pursue new discovery. Those who lose a limb to accident or war could have a new one waiting for them at the hospital, no matter how destroyed their original was. This further helps reduce discrimination since S.A.L.E. would require donors of all races and both sexes in order to ensure matching skin tone from donor to recipient. Imagine placing a white donor hand on a black child. We don't want to be cruel or unfair to the one receiving the new limb, so we'd have to maintain a properly diverse donor base.

This could also be the key to increasing our average lifespan. As our bodies break down with age, a useful replacement would be easily available. Cosmetic benefits would include softer, more youthful skin not just for the rich but for the maimed and disfigured. Since the donor would be kept in ideal conditions, the limb/blood/organ being transplanted would be softer, healthier, stronger and generally more preferable than the one being replaced. Gone would be the need for Botox. Why inject poison into your forehead when you can exchange your entire face for a more youthful one without additional procedures? If smoking for 30 years has given you lung cancer, there would be a new set of healthy, young lungs available to you.

B.A.B.I.E.S funding would also act retroactively. Someone struggling economically shouldn't be discriminated against and removed from eligibility into the program because their donor is of a certain age. The guardians of the poor, mentally handicapped, and generally depressed should be eligible for admittance to S.A.L.E. well into their teens, if not twenties. Just because your donor was born before this law was enacted shouldn't remove you from program eligibility. That wouldn't be fair to those who are economically oppressed but in possession of older, qualifying donors and would prohibit the government from taking advantage of all available donors. In this case, the only restriction on donation would be that the donors not have all cognitive abilities or a developed consciousness, determined by B.A.B.I.E.S personnel.

The federal government's obligations to orphans would be drastically reduced. Donating orphans to the S.A.L.E. program is the ethically preferable way to help abandoned children. As a society we need to take pity on these kids who have no quality of life. Raising them in foster care is not respecting the quality of life of the individual. Donating them early would remove the financial obligations of the taxpayer and free up funding for infrastructure programs. After all, our infrastructure is falling way behind even the Chinese. We would also avoid having to pay for their eventual future in our welfare programs. Those savings could be redirected to Social Security, enabling an even better quality of life for our retired citizens. However, the elderly would remain ineligible for donation to the S.A.L.E. program, because they have established consciousness and to deprive them of that would be cruel and unusual.

At the end of its usefulness, the excess body tissue of the donor would be ground up and recycled back into nature. Each donor body would have an expiration date, as after a certain age the donated organs cease to be upgrades to the one receiving them. The recycled tissue could be used as fertilizer or even animal feed. This would further reduce our impact on the environment.

CONCLUSION

How moral is a society that doesn't provide for their ailing comrades, while simultaneously forcing children on those who don't want them? Is it ethical to watch someone die of disease, but not take pity on those with a bad quality of life by donating them to aid those who are dying? Is it right to consume our way through life and selfishly discard of perfectly good genetic material?
With the visionary creation of the Bureau of Applied Bureaucratic & Individual Economic Solutions, our President could diffuse the political differences that tear us apart, jolt us into economic recovery, help the ailing, the elderly, and war-injured, and move us towards a Green Economy. No other single government authority would do more to help humans live more ethically on this earth than B.A.B.I.E.S. for S.A.L.E.

I have no personal interest in seeing this policy adopted. I love my child dearly, and wouldn't place her up for sale for anything. My proposal is made only out of concern for my countrymen and countrywomen. I cannot bear to watch those whose lives are ruined with a child they do not want. Nor am I comfortable watching those who die from lack of medical care, or whose quality of life is reduced because they lost a limb. Truly I only have their best interests at heart, as our clear moral duty dictates us to provide for those in need.

As our President so eloquently put it today, "Medical miracles do not happen simply by accident. They result from painstaking and costly research." It is time we follow his lead.

Please note: this piece is satire. Please don't write hate mail, or leave hate messages on my phone.

Some Observations...

2009-03-01T13:34:00.000-08:00

-There is a very fine line between trying to assign blame in order to ascertain the cause of a problem, and assigning blame to play partisan politics. Generally when the massive spending passing through Washington these days is discussed, someone will defend that spending by saying, "What did President Bush and the Republicans do for 8 years?" That isn't trying to figure out truth of the matter, that's playing politics. Democrats do it, Republicans do it, we all do it, and it's lame, lame, lame.

-In case any of us were tempted to think that Democrats were the sole problem in Washington, the Republicans swept in last week to remind us that they too are capable of mindless spending. Republican earmarks account for 40 percent of the 9,000 earmarks in Congress' new budget.

-President Obama says he is trying to return the country to what made it so great. If that is true, why is he embarking on programs that are so opposite of what every U.S. President did before him? How is changing our financial systems and expanding entitlement programs returning us to our original promise? Is it naive to assume that if our Founders wanted the banks nationalized, our taxes to go higher, our health care to be nationalized.....that they would have done so from the beginning?

-The worst thing about politicians is their odd tendency to believe that nothing was really working until THEY were elected. Where does this desire to 'shake things up' come from? Is it taught at 'politician school'? What makes them so comfortable saying "You know the Founders did an OK job, as did the subsequent Presidents, but it is up to me to really get this country rolling."? Was the U.S. not the most prosperous nation in our history before our current politicians took office? And for the love of everything good, why does the taxpayer fall for this line every time?

-What's with the President constantly reminding us that he "inherited this economy."? With all due respect Mr. President, your mother did not die and leave this job to you in her will. You actively sought it out. You campaigned for it. Your right to complain about the current state of things expired when you won the election. I don't remember President Bush complaining that September 11 happened because of President Clinton, I don't recall reading Lincoln complaining that the previous Presidents left him a country in chaos, and I nor anyone else should have to listen to you complain about this situation either.

-Gas being cheaper than it was last summer is saving Americans hundreds of billions of dollars annually. It seems to me that a great shot in the arm for the economy would be to further develop our own oil reserves. Taking this action would simultaneously make the transition to alternative energy smoother, lessen our exposure to foreign oil cartels, create thousands of jobs, and keep gas cheap. The government should love the additional taxes. And best of all, with our oil companies enjoying record profits, this expansion would require no additional federal funds, unlike the pursuit of alternative energy in the current stimulus package.

Saturday Quick Hit

2009-02-21T07:57:00.000-08:00

STIMULUS BEST CASE SCENARIO

The stimulus package the House passed without reading and signed into law totaled $787 Billion. The housing bailout plan proposed would add another $275 Billion. That would bring the total stimulus money targeted in the last week to over $1 Trillion, not counting the $150 Billion passed last spring, or the $700 Billion TARP package passed last fall.

Here is the best case scenario for success with the current stimulus:

The $787 Billion is injected into the economy this year, creating 3.5 million new jobs.
The private sector, reacting the the influx of cash, expands, adding additional jobs.
The housing bailout keeps people from foreclosing, slowing the skid in housing prices.
The housing market stabilizes.

Even with the best case scenario, there are glaring problems. First, if 3.5 million new jobs are created, when the stimulus cash runs out in a year or two those people will have to be laid off. If you're working in a job that exists only because of a one time injection of capital, once that money runs out you're out of luck. The private sector could react to the stimulus cash by expanding, but unless it expands at a rate that can absorb the 3.5 million jobs created you're still going to have massive unemployment within two years.

The housing market is currently purging itself of every bad mortgage that shouldn't be there to begin with. Even if you allow people to refinance, some analysts are saying those people just aren't making enough money to justify it. For example, some project that even if you reduce someone's interest rate to 1%, only 5% of the bad mortgages would be able to avoid foreclosure. Even with the lower interest rate, those loans aren't justifiable because the mortgage holder just doesn't make enough money. There won't be any stability in the housing market until we can reduce the amount of bad loans, and the only way to reduce them is to purge them from the system and start over. Any other measure is more like a band-aid than successful healing. We can't get a good idea of what homes are worth if the government is subsidizing the market by artificially funding bad home ownership. That speaks nothing to the political and moral arguments about whether we should be doing that to begin with.

Even if this package manages to create 3.5 million jobs for the long term, the housing market stabilizes, and everything we're hoping for comes to fruition there is still one glaring problem: we've just increased the national debt by over $1 Trillion in less than a month. This is a phenomenal amount of money we're talking about. President Obama will have spent over $1 Billion for every HOUR he has been the President. And his administration isn't ruling out additional stimulus packages. The amount of debt we're adding is at a level previously unheard of. It is more money than the United States spent on the Great Depression and WWII combined. In the future, we're going to have to service that debt, along with crumbling programs like Social Security, Medicare, and Education. Would the success of the stimulus package be enough to offset the negatives with carrying that much debt? Or are we taking two steps back so we can take one step forward?

When it comes to the stimulus, you can hope for the best, but even the best isn't a winning situation.

Hope Gone Stale

2009-02-12T11:09:00.000-08:00

COUNT ME SURPRISED

Electing Barack Obama president created an ironic situation. While candidate Barack Obama promised Hope, all President Barack Obama has delivered is Doom and Gloom. I realize that politically he has to lower expectations. Some of his more loyal followers will be very disappointed if he isn't walking on water by the end of February. No politician can survive under those types of expectations, so he has to lower them. But to come out and say things like, "Pass this stimulus or we may never recover"? What's that all about? One of the most important ingerdients in a healthy economy is good news, or even good spin. The President must find a way to temper expectations while not simultaneously dumping cold water on everyone and everything. It's an incredible mood killer, and the markets are showing it.

Interest rates are at all time lows. Housing prices continue to fall, making homes more affordable for everyone. But watching the stock market fall like a rock (an incredible 2,000 points since President Obama's inauguration) you can't help but observe that there is an phenomenal amount of pessimism out there. And who could blame people for being pessimistic? Our media continually claims we're on the brink of a depression, when unemployment numbers aren't even as bad as they were in the 70's. While that isn't a good thing, it certainly isn't as bad as they indicate. And to have our President continually using such heightened rhetoric isn't going to help things. I conceed that he may be receiving information from his advisors that the economy will be getting much worse, but as a leader he needs to say "We will get this ship turned around" instead of "ditch the ship, we're all going to die."

It's called Jawboning. A President publicly states one thing or the other, and based only on his words the markets react. It's the reason the stock market dropped 480 points the day after Obama was elected: investors took his public comments on raising taxes on the rich and business at face value, and reacted with pessimism on future recovery. If you continually lament how bad things are, people can't help but be afraid and react in kind.

You cannot state that recovery will take well into your second term, and then expect businesses to respond positively and hire new people. You can't encourage investment in the stock market while injecting fear into the masses. Secretary of the Treasury Tim Geithner learned this the hard way, as he gave his update on the economy and promised more gloom with no specifics on how to fix it, and the market dropped 200 points before his testimony was finished.

COME TO JESUS MOMENT

This cuts to the core of our problem: we rely on our government too much. Politicians have serpents tongues covered in gold. They promise things they can never deliver. As a country we can mature greatly if we'd just look into our hearts and ask ourselves, "why on earth do I place my hope in government?" What does it say about us as a people when we vote for the politician who promises more government help, even in times of financial instability? Where are our hearts aligned? If we are hoping in the government, who are we NOT hoping in?

So yes, the phrase "come to Jesus moment'' is indeed a common colloquialism used by a great many people for a great many things, but in this case I meant it just as it reads. I would implore everyone to ask themselves why they vote the way they do.

John Adams said that democracy is only temporary, for there has never existed a democracy that did not destroy itself.

There will come a day when the United States no longer exists. Perhaps not in name, but certainly in function. Our Founders started a revolution over being taxed without representation. Currently, our government is spending trillions of our dollars on programs that largely have no public support. What good does our representation do if it will not listen to us?

Our Founder's first attempt at establishing a government resulted in a Federal branch so weak that they had to re-write the Articles of Confederation. Now we have a government that is leveraging trillions of our dollars against our will and our States have abandoned their Constitutionally given prestige for begging at the feet of the Fed for bailout money. Soon, this country will no longer resemble the one it was founded as.

So we should ask ourselves: are we voting for leaders because we are so worried about our temporal surroundings that we can't realize we've given our hearts to a master that cannot deliver?

Jesus once asked "what benefit is it to gain the world but lose your soul?" So I ask: what benefit is it to me to elect a man who may help my wallet, but increases Federal funding for domestic AND foreign abortions? What good is it to vote for hope in government, while fast tracking Embryonic Destruction Research? Why would I hope for mortgage relief and sacrifice State and Local power to the Fed?

Tough times reveal in all of us our true devotions, because when we're squeezed into a tough spot we show the world what we truly believe.

Even if President Obama is successful I am worried what our temporary economic relief might cost us politically, but in a greater sense, spiritually.

PREDICTION

If the Senate votes this stimulus package into law, three months after the unemployment numbers will only continue to go up. The White House will ask us to 'give it time.' In another three months, among more layoffs, the President will remind us that he said this package would "create or save 3.5 million jobs", and while we have indeed seen more layoffs, things would be much worse without his stimulus package.

Politically, the President is playing the game how he needs to. He is simultaneously lowering expectations and setting himself up for 'victory' whether his stimulus package is effective or not.

I said that Obama's election created a sense of irony, and here it is: the President needs to lower expectations so he can better dodge political blame for the economic collapse, so he dogs on the economy and the future prospects of recovery. But the economy can't get better until the President stops dogging the current situtation and future prospects of recovery. Indeed, President Obama is going to have to decide between listening to his political advisors, and trying to reassure the American people.

Hope is in the air

2009-01-19T15:40:00.000-08:00

WE HAVE ARRIVED

I love it: The Gravy Train has literally and officially pulled into Washington D.C., taking the same route to the Capital as former President Lincoln. Watching every Celebrity known to man descend on our nation's capital and watching the festivities of Inauguration Day 2009, it seems appropriate to look at the cargo (i.e. message) that arrived earlier this week. I am sure that today we are in store for a speech filled with soaring rhetoric, unable to inspire only the most cynical among us. The President-elect is certainly capable of delivering some of the more poetic speeches. Perhaps the most common theme espoused by the President-elect is that of Hope.

I like hope. When things are at their worst, Hope always gives us something to look forward to. It's almost necessary in certain circumstances. Consider the cycle of negativity we're currently in: doubt about the economy lead to fear about where things are headed, which leads to negative growth in business by shrinking investment, which leads to more layoffs, which leads to more fear, and so on and so forth, feeding the cycle.

However, Hope is also one of the more ingenious political narratives, enabling it's master to encourage the best in all of us, while riding the wave of positive emotion onto victory without getting heavy on policy specifics.

Along the way, or at least at some point, we really need to start asking what we're all Hoping for. Are we hoping in the policies the politician is promising, or are we hoping in the politician? Are the policies worth hoping in, or should we be more wary? Whenever things get tough, everyone wants something to believe in. Mike Tomlin, coach of the Pittsburgh Steelers, said "Barack Obama is selling Hope. I'm buying."

When you get down to it, what does that even mean? Hope should be rooted in something tangible, something that inspires a reason to hope. Otherwise, we aren't so much hoping as much as blindly following. I would love to avoid being the country that elects itself a leader that changes it's core principles so greatly, that it only vaguely resembles the country at it's origin. That is a story written in many different languages, all throughout history, by a great many hurting citizens who were hoping for what was promised, only to be delivered heartbreak. When you don't look at the core principles of the one promising hope, and only focus on what he/she promises to deliver, only negative things can happen.

Obama's campaign posters of Hope and Change resemble posters used by Lenin or Mao. That isn't to suggests that the President-elect will pursue policies similar to those two, but rather to suggest that those posters were used to inspire the same reaction among the citizenry: inspiration. Our hope cannot just be in an individual, but in the foundational principles he/she builds upon. And if those principles are misguided, only more heartache will follow. What our elected leaders believe about the role of government is critically important to how they will govern, and I believe our public servants should have similar governmental theories as those held by our Founders: small, local government.

So in the end, what IS the President-elect 'selling'?

GOVERNMENT, GOVERNMENT, AND SOME MORE GOVERNMENT

Recently the President-elect, perhaps the President when I finish this post, was quoted as saying that the only force strong enough to get us out of our current economic situation is the government. He is leveraging hundreds of billions of dollars not to free up credit institutions, but to create millions of new jobs, with the government as the primary employer.

If the man Barack Obama believes the only the government can solve our problems, how will that influence how the President Barack Obama will function while in office? What happens when our problem becomes identity theft? How will someone who believes that government deserves that large of a role ensure that no one's identity can be stolen? (http://www.verichipcorp.com/).

Once establishing that the government is responsible for ensuring our financial stability, how will the presidents who follow Obama use that power now that it has been established?

CONCLUSION

It is more important to know where the politician stands on the role of government than it is to know what their policies are. After all, the President-elect has been on record supporting Gay marriage before he went on record being against it. He has been on record supporting gun ownership restrictions, before he went on record saying he isn't for gun ownership restrictions. He is also on record saying that he believes the great failure of the Civil Rights movement, and the Constitution of the United States, is that it doesn't give the Fed the power to redistribute wealth among the population.

We don't need to be paying as much attention to what they are saying, as much as we need to be paying attention to WHY they are saying it. What good is it to know they are promising us wealth, only to realize that they intend to invade another country and take theirs?

I hope the policies of the Obama Administration are successful, but if in being successful we need to betray our founding principles, I do take issue with that. Supposing we're successful at turning things around economically, but give government control over our financial institutions, the power to borrow against the future, and expansion of power in ways we haven't thought about, will it be worth it? Or will the United States forever be a different nation? Is that the change we want?

Do the ends justify the means?

Quick Hit for Friday

2008-12-12T12:19:00.000-08:00

THE AUTO BAILOUT HYSTERIA

Michigan Governor Jennifer Granholm had this to say after the bailout didn't pass Congress yesterday: "It is unacceptable for this un-American, frankly, behavior of these U.S. senators to cause this country to go from a recession into a depression."

First: how is voting against giving taxpayer money to corporations 'un-American'? What about our Constitution would imply that a facet of our system of government is giving bailout money to failing companies?

Second: who knows if the bankruptcy of these three companies will cause a depression. Besides, even if it does, whose fault is that? The people who voted against a measure to give them money? Or the people in charge of the failing company? How about the people who passed government mandates that made it more expensive to make/sell automobiles in this country? Do they have any blame? Or is it the fault of the people who refused to clean up the mess afterwards?

Third: is it definitive that a $15 Billion loan at this point will solve all the auto industry's problems? GM sales went down 41% in November compared to last November. How will the government loaning them $15 Billion help them become more competitive? Might it just delay the inevitable? Will we be stuck loaning them more money in three months?

This is the type of hyperbolic lunacy that leads to nothing being solved. The thinking goes like this:

1. Blame someone else for the problem, preferably members of the other party.

2. Create some outrageous statement that will frighten people into acquiescing to your demands.

3. Repeat.

Personally, I'd like more from our elected officials. Bankruptcy will not cause these companies to disappear. Sure, it could be damaging in the short run, but if bankruptcy was good enough for the airline industry, is it now not good enough for the car industry?

I have almost as big an interest in the continued success of these companies as the next guy. My industry (real estate) relies heavily on the success of others. If no one is making money, no one is buying houses. But if the New Deal and other FDR policies was cause for lengthening the Depression by 7 years (see my post about that), then why are we repeating those policies? Why not diagnose the problem, fix it, and start over as fast as possible? Propping up failed industries might do nothing but lengthen the recovery period.

Global Warming: Fact or Fiction, & What To Do About It

2008-12-09T05:18:00.000-08:00

"There are some ideas so wrong that only a very intelligent person could believe them."

- George Orwell

Orwell's observing that relying too much on our intelligence can tempt us to close our mind. We rely too much on certain research, and not others. Our biased attachment to one idea prevents us from seeing the truth in another, and we become loyal to the idea, not the truth.

Last year in 2007, the U.N. Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) stated that Climate Change is "unequivocal, is already happening, and is caused by human activity."

What happens once a scientific theory becomes generally accepted as fact? Once the vast majority of people have settled on a particular opinion, what force in the world is powerful enough to move them? Our movements from Geo-centric to helio-centric, flat Earth to round Earth, Spontaneous Generation to 'not so much', weren't easy or quick. Mankind has the peculiar ability to be prideful about the positions we hold. Even against the greatest of demonstrable evidence, we refuse to change our minds. In the instance of Global Warming, the doubters can be equally prideful as the supporters. Our pride closes our eyes to new discoveries. When new evidence is presented that seems to contradict our beliefs (because truly we are no longer defending the theory, we are defending our belief in the theory), we don't change our beliefs and scrap the theory: we incorporate the new contradictory evidence. For those who support man-made Global Warming, it looks like this: if temperatures get warmer, it is because the planet is warming. If we experience colder temperatures, that is also because of Global Warming. If we experience extreme weather on a heightened scale, it is because of Global Warming. And if we have a slow extreme weather season, it is because Global Warming has made things erratic and it's increasing our chances for 'The Big One'. We find ourselves in a situation where we can no longer have an honest discussion about the theory of Global Warming.

CAN WE DISPROVE MAN-MADE GLOBAL WARMING?

As a result, what evidence would we accept that could possibly change our minds once we have made them up? In 2007 the IPCC released the Summary for Policymakers regarding Global Warming. It was authored by 52 scientists from around the globe, who came to the conclusion that Global Warming is real, man caused, and dangerous. The report was hyped on every news network, and referenced in too many Al Gore speeches to count. As a result of that and other proclamations, man-made Global Warming has been generally accepted as fact.

So what would happen if in 2008, 52 scientists came out with a differing opinion? Would that be enough to change our minds? The IPCC is meeting in Poland right now, and they are being faced with serious opposition. 650 International scientists are quoted in the U.S. Senate Minority Report stating they do not believe in man made Global Warming. Is 650 scientists enough reason to change? That is over 12 times as many scientists who authored the previous years summary. If 650 isn't enough, how many scientists would have to come out of the skeptic-closet for us to feel comfortable changing our mind? How about Al Gore's mind? Like Al Gore, we have a lot invested in our opinions. Sometimes it can be difficult to change them.

How about 31,000 scientists? The Petition Project was formed by a group of physicists and physical chemists who didn't believe in man-made Global Warming, and noticed that many of their peers didn't either. So they started writing to and asking their scientist peers to join the Petition Project if they were Global Warming skeptics. So far they have over 31,000 American scientists who have signed on, over 9,000 with Ph.Ds. Is that enough scientists to cause doubt?

If the number of scientists for/against doesn't matter, what about the raw data? What if the earth starts cooling? How cold would if have to get for us to ditch the theory of Global Warming and pick up a theory of Global Cooling? Right now even cooling trends are accepted as proof of Global Warming. Even so, most would be surprised to learn that worldwide, temperatures dropped in 2007? In fact, would you be further surprised to know that they dropped so far, that it wiped out all warming over the last 100 years? It was the fastest change in temperatures ever recorded, whether up or down. Sure, one year's temperature may not be proof against man-made Global Warming, but it should at least cause us pause.

Most of the warming is blamed on carbon dioxide. Carbon dioxide accounts for about .003% of the atmosphere. But what about alternative causes for Global Warming not associated with man? Some think methane produced by plants could be a cause of Global Warming. Others blame cow farts, saying they produce more greenhouse gases than cars, trucks, and planes combined. Because the cows are ruining our planet, they have suggested a $175 tax on every dairy cow, and $87.50 on every beef cow. Solar activity, mainly sun spots, are another area of research. How about water vapor?

COOL OUR HEADS

A belief in Global Warming necessitates a foundational belief in a couple of things. First, that right now we have on earth the perfect set of weather conditions. You're motivated to prevent change because you believe that we are living in the perfect set of circumstances, and anything else would be a step down. Second, you have to believe that mankind is doing the damage. So you have to believe that what is happening is bad, and that what is happening is being caused by humans.

Before we even begin to contemplate man-made Global Warming and other things we don't know, we should be contemplating the things we do know.

1. The earth has never been a stable environment. Whether we're talking about the Ice Age, the Mini-Ice Age, the Interglacial Warming trends, or any other change in the earth's weather patterns, we are aware that the environment has been vacillating long before mankind's Industrial Age. Because of this knowledge, we can no longer use effects as proof of a particular cause. For example, we cannot look at receding glaciers (which is happening) and use it as proof that mankind is causing warming. We cannot look at rising oceans and say we're making the oceans rise. Because we know that the environment has gone through very drastic changes without mankind having anything to do with it, we need to focus on demonstrably proving that not only is the warming happening, but that we are directly influencing it.

2. Polar Bears are not the only species on the planet. While their plight is regrettable, there have been a lot of species now extinct due to changes in the weather, and mankind didn't cause those. Where are the mammoths, or the saber-toothed tigers, or dinosaurs? In fact, this planet is already way to warm for some species. Using the situation in which the polar bears find themselves is certainly an effective way to drum up emotions, but isn't an indication of mankind's involvement.

3. Mankind has a tendency to be wrong about our scientific assertions. Whether it was the coming Ice Age promised in the 1980's, your local newscaster's amusing ability to be completely wrong day to day, the Titanic, the Hindenburg, Eugenics, or any other embarrassing marks in our collective history, our mistakes should keep us humble. Unfortunately, it doesn't. The earth's weather is an extremely difficult thing to predict, and would require the accumulated knowledge of all weather patterns, water temperatures, glacier activity, solar activity, weather history, and other environmental predictors. Knowing how difficult it would be to become an expert in all these things, at all times and all places on earth, it would seem prudent to have a healthy dose of skepticism when it comes to blaming Global Warming on man. A perfect example of our hypocrisy on the issue: "A 2006 United Nations report found that methane and nitrous oxide released from livestock operations add more to global warming than carbon dioxide emissions do." And yet, in 2007 they reversed their position and claimed that mankind and our carbon dioxide emissions are causing Global Warming.

SO, IS GLOBAL WARMING REAL?

I am not attempting to disprove Global Warming, just encourage a well rounded approach to the issue. If you're sold on the issue even knowing what I said above, that is fine. Me, I have an innate distrust in the knowledge of man, especially when discussing something this complicated. As a result, I'm not sold that the Earth is warming, and certainly skeptical that mankind is the cause. Put me on the side of the 31,000 American scientists who aren't sold on the idea either.

Al Gore, he is sold. In 2006 he said we only have 10 years to reverse the trend before it is too late. That type of doomsday talk leads a lot of people to capitulate to things they normally wouldn't, like strict economic sanctions on carbon emissions. I want us to realize that a significant portion of the scientific population isn't convinced that this is happening, and certainly not that we are the cause. An emotional response based on talk of Armageddon is the last thing we need.

SO WHAT DO WE DO? PUNISHMENT VS. ENCOURAGEMENT

No one would look out their window, view the smog around a big city, and surmise, "Mankind has no impact on the environment." Obviously our actions do have an impact. The question is what is the impact, and is it severe?

We should all try and live like Boy Scouts, who try to leave an campsite so there is no trace that they were there. We aren't going to achieve that level of conservation, but it should be our aspiration. Everyone should be conscious of our impact on the environment, because the negative consequences aren't pleasant. Whether it is the oceans rising or our factories and junkyards polluting our water, our actions have serious consequences. A smart population would try to conserve, because it lessens the damage when things come to a head. And we should try and live cleanly, because our toys have a tendency to be bad for us.

However, considering our limited knowledge on the environment as a whole, a tempered course of action would be prudent lest we do something drastic and make things worse. For example, in our desire to be more energy efficient we created a government mandate that by 2012, we only use Compact Fluorescent Light bulbs (CFLs) instead of traditional light bulbs. We will save millions on electricity, but that doesn't come without drawbacks. CFLs contain Mercury, so if one breaks it needs to be cleaned up properly. Additionally, when disposed of they need to be taken to a Hazardous Waste Disposal site, not the trash can. If one breaks in your home, here are the instructions on cleaning it up:

1. Remove children, pets, and pregnant women from the room and clean up the mess as quickly as possible.
2. Increase the ventilation in the room by opening all windows and doors. Turn off the A/C or Heat.
3. Use index cards to pick up the broken pieces of glass. Do not use your bare hands, and do not use a vacuum cleaner as that will disperse the mercury into the air.
4. Use sticky tape to get up the smaller pieces.
5. Stay out of the area for a few hours. Some have recommended removing the carpet you cleaned up and throwing it away.
6. Take the trash bag to a Hazardous Waste Disposal site.

I realize we're all trying to become more carbon-friendly, but at what cost? These bulbs will get better with time, but the question is should the government be mandating changes at this point, or are they making things worse?

GOVERNMENT: SAVIOR OF THE PLANET, DESTROYER OF ECONOMIES

Certain directions our leaders want to take us would have serious implications on our country. Both the Clinton and Bush administrations refused to ratify the Kyoto Protocol, which would place a cap & trade system on U.S. businesses. It would sell a certain amount of carbon production units (called Carbon Credits) to each industry, and levy fines for going over their allotment. We have avoided that policy for three reasons: one, our skepticism on man-made Global Warming and the level of danger from carbon dioxide. Two, the fact that it is anti-business and will have negative effects on our economy. Three, the agreements have ignored countries like China and India, two of the worst carbon polluters on the planet.

Senator John McCain favors a cap & trade, and so does President-elect Obama. In fact, the President-elect favors a system so strict, that according to his own words it will drive the coal industry into bankruptcy and result in skyrocketing electricity costs (I have blogged on that in the past).

I do not believe that is the way to go. There are so many problems with a cap & trade system, it requires a whole different discussion (one problem being that fossil fuels provides approx. 85% of our energy, and with our move away from fossil fuels and towards electric powered cars, we cannot afford the increase in price that would be a result of Coal plants closing at a time when demand is about to go up). The European Union enacted their own cap & trade system in 2005, and their carbon emissions have increased since. The effects on their economy haven't been favorable, and the system is ripe for fraud.

Here are some alternatives:

- Focus our energy (no pun intended) not on anti-business policies, but on pro-alternative policies. We need the capital to invest in our research into alternatives, so we can't eliminate the capital-generating income by increasing taxes on the current technology.
- Give tax breaks (with sunset provisions) to companies as they increase fuel efficiency. A car getting better MPG would result in the business being taxed less. This will result in cars being cheaper, as the company has less overhead.
- Give financial incentives (w/sunset provisions) to people buying energy efficient cars. Make them more affordable.
- Give tax incentives to homeowners who take steps to make their homes more fuel efficient.
- Sell these technologies to other countries. Even if the U.S. has no carbon footprint at all, in less than 20 years we wouldn't be the largest producer of carbon anyway. China and India together will produce much more carbon than we would, and we'd be right back where we were to begin with.
- Clean Coal. There is no truly 100% clean version right now, but we are continually making it a cleaner industry. Researching this avenue will help us reduce our pollution.
- Diversify. By getting electricity from multiple sources, we not only make our selves more secure but also reducing our carbon footprint. Wind and Nuclear need to be pursued as healthy alternatives to Coal.

Punishing our current way of life doesn't help us make the transition to cleaner ways of living. Placing more taxes on an industry, or requiring car companies to meet certain standards at the risk of penalties isn't the way to go. Those policies make energy more expensive, cars more expensive, research more expensive, and slow the process of change. People need to make the movement towards new technologies because they want to and because it is makes financial sense, so we should focus on creating that type of atmosphere. Taxing the crap out industry removes the capital they can invest in newer tech, thus making the transition more difficult and expensive. More and more hybrid cars are sold because they are getting cheaper and more people can afford them. People will chose hybrids when they are cheaper than gas guzzlers, so our government needs to help the car companies make them cheaper, not make gas guzzlers more expensive.

Think of it this way. Our society has a huge amount of money invested in fossil fuels, and we've been moving in that direction for the past 100 years. We are the Mississippi river of the industrialized world. If you want to change the direction of the river, you don't jump in the middle of it and try to push it in the direction you want. First you dig out an alternative route, and then you guide the river into it. That's the difference between positive policies (tax breaks) that encourage growth, and negative policies (higher taxes, cap & trade) that stifle growth.

The government can provide encouragement one way over the other, and it should. But the government cannot and should not be the principal financial backer of the change. It should provide incentives; not financing. Remember, the government doesn't have any money that it didn't first take from the private sector. Leaving that money in the hands of those who earned it gives them the capital needed to invest in cleaner technology. Taking the money and giving it to the government to invest in new technology is a less efficient way of doing things, and will delay our progress.

CONCLUSION

There is enough doubt about man-made Global Warming to justify slowing down the rush to punish ourselves for our way of life. At the very least, the idea of Global Warming has brought to our attention the need for us to change how we get our electricity, what powers our cars, and even our national security. It has helped bring about a new respect for our surroundings. Those are good things. We should resist the alarmist demand that we punish our industries while simultaneously move towards greener fields. Cutting off our nose to spite our face won't solve anything.

Quick Hit for Tuesday

2008-12-08T19:00:00.001-08:00

INTERESTING TIMES

During the election Obama's doubters main concern with the possibility of an Obama presidency was that no one seemed to really know all that much about the man, especially how he would govern. Given that he had only been in the Senate for four years, hadn't held an executive position in government, didn't have a very long resume, and wasn't exactly consistent on certain positions led some to be very wary of his candidacy. Because of that doubt, everyone is watching what he is doing very closely. Each new cabinet appointment, each new press junket, reveals something new about the man behind the politics. And what has happened recently has been very interesting.

LIBERAL OR NOT?

The greatest question about the man, Barack Obama. In the primaries he campaigned as a liberal (the National Journal reported that his voting record was the most liberal in the Senate, even left of Bernie Sanders, a self-proclaimed socialist), moved to center-left during his campaign against McCain, and so far seems to be staying there. Stealing a page from Abraham Lincoln's playbook, the President-elect is appointing people to his cabinet that don't necessarily match his views. Being inspired while reading Team of Rivals, he has pulled together a team of people ideologically opposed to each other in hopes of creating an environment rich with debate. A long held liberal criticism of President Bush was that they viewed his cabinet as being filled with nothing more than glorified yes-men. As such, the President-elect has reached out to people with opposing viewpoints, and ever appointed his formal rivals to cabinet positions.

The President-elect's theory isn't without its risks, as he could find himself with a cabinet rank with bickering rather than healthy debate. We'll let time tell that story, but what is interesting is watching people's reactions to his picks.

THE CONSERVATIVES

The President-elect is a Democrat, so no Conservative or Republicans were expecting him to appoint people with Conservative ideas. So far, they have been pleasantly surprised, calling Hillary's appointment a 'best of the worst' type scenario. The only person who really riles Conservatives is Eric Holder, the man appointed to be the next Attorney General. If the President-elect was trying to pick a cabinet that wouldn't alienate Conservatives, he did a pretty good job. He did promise during he campaign to appoint Conservatives to his cabinet as well, and so far we're still waiting for that to happen.

He also is going to keep Defense Secretary Robert Gates for at least one year. That is pleasing to Conservatives, since he is one of the men who pulled The Surge together.

THE LIBERALS

He isn't pleasing liberals, which could be the most interesting thing coming out of his appointments. Underlining the point that no one really knows what Obama is all about is the fact that some of his most loyal supporters, those on the extreme left, are being left a little frustrated. While Obama's cabinet is being filled with center-left appointments, Obama's foundational support was from the far left. At a time when Hillary was dominating the primaries, then-Senator Obama was able to court the far left with promises of tough gun control, a 16-month timeline for Iraq withdrawal, support for Embryonic Destruction Research and the Freedom of Choice Act, a refund to every American taxed directly from Oil Company Profits, raising taxes on the top income earners, among other things.

With Obama recently stating he won't repeal the Bush tax cuts, instead will wait for them to expire in 2010, Obama has irked his earliest supporters. In addition, he has reneged on his pledge to tax Oil Company profits (they are already taxed at 50%) to supply a refund check to every American, has publicly supported gun rights, and lightened up on his Iraq pledge by keeping Sec. Def. Gates and saying he'll withdraw when the time is right. While these moves might be indicative of the President-elect getting advice that the economy couldn't sustain his policies right now, thus giving Conservatives hope that Obama is susceptible to what they would view as good advice, it does nothing to please those on the left.

However, Liberals are encouraged by the President-elect's proposal of a new stimulus plan, that would go towards creating government jobs to re-build our infrastructure, and hopefully create new green jobs in a new green energy production industry.

THE MODERATES

Perhaps the people most calm right now are the people who voted for Obama out of hope, not knowing for sure what he was all about but trusting that he'll be better than the alternative. Everything he has indicated since he won the election points to his attempt to be middle of the road as much as he can. He will never please Conservatives, that should be obvious. It's perplexing to Liberals that he is moving so much to the center. But the Moderates are probably the happiest group, because in their minds they know both Liberals and Conservatives are frustrated, so Obama must be doing something right.

WHAT CAN BE CONCLUDED?

It is fun to talk about, but I don't know that we can draw any conclusions about Obama yet. The only thing that does seem clear is that Conservatives weren't being alarmist when they labeled Obama as an enigma. It should seem clear that with everyone seemingly surprised by his appointments and his reversal on certain policies, no one really knew much about the man to begin with.

As someone who claimed before the election that I didn't think Obama would have a successful administration if he didn't reverse some of his economic policies, I am pleasantly surprised that he has. I don't know where he will be going from here, but I'm sure that it will be interesting to watch.

Harry Reid: Representative of The People

2008-12-02T08:26:00.000-08:00

The Capitol Visitor Center (CVC) opens today, December 2. Running four years late and over $400 million over budget, it might seem about time. Congress ended up spending $621 million to finish the project. The Citizens Against Government Waste call it "among the most wasteful examples of botched construction projects ever promulgated by the federal government." That should immediately give pause to anyone who thinks a new stimulus package that includes federal funding for government projects will be successful. President-elect Obama and the Democratic controlled Congress have proposed such a package, which we should all be leery of. But I digress. As far as the CVC goes, I have no doubt it possesses redeeming qualities, and I read that if you can get past the "ocean of dollars it took to make this place, you'll see that here, content is king."

The real success of the Capital Visitor Center was best pointed out to us by the Democrat Senator from Nevada, and current Senate Majority Leader, Harry Reid when he said that because the Center syphons visitors away from the actual Capital building, in the summer he will no longer have to smell the tourists. "In the summer because of the heat and high humidity, you could literally smell the tourists coming into the Capitol. It may be descriptive but it's true." But thanks the the air conditioned, indoor space, that will no longer be the case, noted Reid.

I would like to humbly point out that those ''tourists" are the American people, who Harry Reid works for. I do always feel the pain of those who are elected to office and forced to smell their constituents. I believe that ranks among the worst injustices in our nations history. Thankfully we have people in power like Harry Reid, and other men and women of action, who recognized that problem and are free to spend over $620 million of our money t0 build another capital building to funnel us losers away from Congress. The last thing we would want is to have our Kings coming into contact with the masses. Oops, what did I say, 'Kings?' I meant "humble representatives." Actual availability to the voters ranks just below accountability in the least desirable qualities we want for our leaders in Congress. America is blessed that while we have a budget deficit, two wars raging, a sagging economy, and millions out of work, we still have visionary leaders like Harry Reid who don't get distracted with the petty issues, but recognize the real problems in our country. With people like him in Congress, we should all be very secure knowing our government is in very capable hands. Long live the King....er I mean, Congressman!

Sniff, Sniff. "Do you smell something?"

On a less sarcastic and more serious note, a very wise man once said "those things which proceed out of the mouth come forth from the heart." I cannot claim to look into Harry Reid's heart, and I don't want to. But if the saying is correct, then what we say is indicative of what we're really thinking. After being four years behind schedule and $400 million over budget, if one of the first things that comes out of your mouth is that you are pleased you don't have to smell the tourists anymore, then I do believe that says something about how you view yourself, your constituents, and maybe more importantly how you view people in general.

Obviously I was quite put off by his comments, and I'll leave you to draw your own conclusions about the comments. I don't know what those comments say about Harry Reid, but I don't think it is anything complimentary.

Quick Hit for Wednesday

2008-11-26T20:12:00.002-08:00

CAN THE GOP BE SAVED?

Personally, I couldn't care less. I'm not a party man, I'm a conservative. If the GOP isn't going to be conservative, then someone else will. Though I am not unaware of the importance of having a party counterbalancing the left, ultimately my allegiance isn't to a party. I have an easy time not voting for someone who brings "Hope" and "Change", because I already have a Savior and am in no need of someone attempting to be another.

However I do think that if they want, the Republicans can salvage themselves. Here is what they need to do.

1) Offer solutions. Too much of the party platform is summed up in one word: 'no.' Abortion? No. Gay marriage. No. If the GOP wants to be significant, they need to be able to provide answers to common issues. Why vote for someone who is just against something but doesn't provide any alternatives? The GOP is up against a modern Democratic party that has whored itself out to every cause they can think of. If the GOP is against it, they'll support it. With a few exceptions, that's where we are. Politics cuts both ways, with the GOP being against whatever the Democrats are for. People are much more likely to vote for a party that acquiesces to everything they want than a party that just says no to everything.

2) Actually follow through with what they promise. Lowering the deficit is a good thing. Decreasing spending is a good thing. Lower taxes are a good thing. All of those are things people generally like, and they're fundamentally conservative tenants. But when a liberal Democrat is perceived as being the tax-cutting candidate, you know your party has messed something up. It doesn't help that the deficit and spending increased exponentially under Republican leadership.

3) Communication. The GOP is horrible at communicating their message (when they have one). Whether it is through the internet or your average stump speech, they just aren't communicating with the average voter. Ironic, considering it is the party of Ronald Reagan, "The Great Communicator."

4) Don't assume anything. Even if the economy tanks over the next four years, Obama is a good enough communicator that he could still pull off re-election. Heck, FDR was able to get re-elected twice during the Great Depression. If he can do it, so can Obama. The GOP can't sit back and assume that the American public is aware of anything. If the Zogby poll and heinous media bias taught them anything, it should be that they can't rely on Americans getting the most reliable information without them actively making sure they know.

I think if the GOP sticks to those four fundamentals, then they'll be alright. People always want 'hope', but they'll respond even more to actual specifics.

The Bush Legacy

2008-11-26T10:05:00.001-08:00

TOO HARSH A CRITIC?

The Media is a very interesting thing. In it you have a conglomerate of people who get together, have mostly the same interests (much like you would if you got a lot of doctors together), who create a rabid mob mentality. As humans they have tendencies to miss the big picture and focus on whatever pop culture item everyone else is talking about. I have the same tendency, as does everyone I know. The only difference is I'm not shaping public opinion.

The Bush Legacy is a matter of perspective. I was having dinner with a friend of mine the other night when he made a remark that President Bush is going to go down in history as the worst U.S. President ever. So I posed a question to him, "What policies of President Hoover's do you disagree with? What is your impression of President Harrison's term? Where would you rate President James Polk?" There aren't a lot of people who have a really thorough knowledge of every single president. I certainly don't want to make that claim. Yet my friend made the assertion that even without a working knowledge of every other president, he knew that President George W. Bush will no doubt be the worst. Where did he get that impression from?

No doubt some of that comes from politicians. President-elect Obama has spent the better part of two years traveling the country and blaming President Bush for everything from terrorism, high food prices, high oil costs, to the troubled economy while promising "Help is on the way." While certainly partisan, the President-elect isn't a moron, so the case he makes isn't tantamount to saying Bigfoot exists. It can actually make sense. How long can someone listen to that before it starts to sound true?

Add the media, in love with the candidate and giving very favorable coverage of him, and you have quite a formidable opponent if you are trying to keep things in perspective. You have to go out of your way research how the President is really doing.

FARM BILL: 2008

Who has heard of the farm bill that was passed in May of this year? Do you know the details of it? Take this into consideration:

- The average U.S. farm family income is $90,000.

- The Farm Bill provided for a total of $300 Billion in funding. Two thirds went to food stamps, $40 Billion in U.S. Farm subsidies, $30 billion in 'environmental initiatives.'

- President Bush wanted the per-farm subsidy cap at $250,000. The bill called for a pre-farm subsidy of

$750,000.

An important reminder: do you remember what food prices have been like the last year? Extremely high. We witnessed some of the highest inflation in food prices this nation has ever seen. American farms have been experiencing record profits as a result of the spike in cost of corn and other products. A major reason was ethanol production, as the U.S. tried to more towards bio-fuels and away from oil. All that movement did was create another, more financially beneficial, market for farmers to sell their goods in. Think about it this way: our government directly funded and helped create a market in direct competition for our food. In practice that means a farmer could either sell their product as food, or to bio-fuel producers to convert into ethanol. Because of the competition, food prices skyrocketed.

Because President Bush wanted lower per-farm subsidies, he vetoed the bill. And because you can always count on cross-party cooperation when it comes to supporting each other's pork projects, the Senate got together and voted 83-15 to override the President's veto. In an odd piece of historical irony, then-Senator Obama didn't show up to vote that day. However, he was still campaigning against President Bush and had this to say about the process: "By opposing the bill, President Bush and John McCain are saying no to America's farmers and ranchers, no to energy independence, no to the environment, and no to millions of hungry people (emphasis mine)."

So who remembers the farm bill? I guarantee my friend doesn't, even though he is more conservatively minded than he'd like to admit and might actually support the President on this move. The point is, when the candidate isn't afraid to throw around such wildly hyperbolic accusations against the sitting President (and yes, all politicians do this), and the media doesn't offer any perspective but instead focuses on pro-Obama stories, how is the general perception going to be formed? People are going to come to the exact same conclusion that my friend did.

SO WHAT DOES THE PUBLIC ACTUALLY KNOW?

Zogby International just completed recent poll about the knowledge of people who voted for Obama. They asked 512 Obama voters 12 different questions. Here are some interesting findings.

- only 17% of Obama supporters knew that he won his first election by getting all his opponents removed from the ballot.

- only 12% knew that Obama said his economic policies would likely bankrupt the coal industry.

- only 28% knew that Biden quit a previous Presidential campaign because he plagiarized a speech.

- only 43% knew which party controlled Congress leading up the the election.

- only 54% of those polled were able to answer at least 1/2 of the 12 questions correctly.

On the flip side, while they weren't generally knowledgeable about Obama, they were aware of the GOP:

- 94% knew that Governor Palin's daughter was pregnant.

- 86% knew that the GOP spent $150,000 on clothes for Palin.

- 81% knew that McCain was unable to identify how many houses he owns.

- 87% identified Governor Palin as saying she "could see Russia from her house", even though she never said that (it was a SNL skit)

This poll does not expose Obama voters as moronic. I think what it reports is where Obama supporters get their information. In previous blogs I have asserted that the media representation of the campaigns was a little off-kilter, something now being echoed in places like Newsweek. If people are so aware of the negatives surrounding the GOP candidate, and oblivious to the negatives surrounding the Democrat candidate, the natural conclusion would be to vote for one you view more favorably. Carrying that over, how would that impact the perception of the sitting Republican President?

GOING DOWN IN HISTORY

History has its own judges, and it isn't really possible to say how they'll interpret things. Napoleon was fond of saying "What is History but a myth agreed upon." Historians have the maddening tendency to report things the way they want to, and they won't stop now. The War in Iraq has suffered quite a few set backs to be sure, but so did WWII. People are generally taught that FDR's New Deal helped the country recover from the Great Depression, but economist at UCLA have said it lengthened it by 7 years. Who knows how historians will decide to sum up the current Administration.

President Bush is by no means perfect, but I don't think he has gotten a fair shake either. Historians can write whatever they want, and they will. And then some bureaucrat in Washington will read the different books and decide what he/she thinks should be taught. And our kids will grow up believing it. What needs to be avoided is teaching opinions. For instance: instead of teaching "FDR's New Deal saved our nation," teach "FRD introduced the New Deal, which did this and that" along with "FDR was president for almost 10 years before the Great Depression ended." Let people make up their own minds about how effective the New Deal was. Currently we teach too much opinion, not enough fact. The Zobgy poll exposes that, if it does nothing else.

In the end, I don't know what the Bush Legacy will be. Certainly it hasn't been realized yet. It takes a long time to know how each policy decision will impact the future (It took over 30 years for Carter's decision not to support the Shah in the Iranian Revolution to produce an Islamic government creating nuclear weapons). The fact that people are already forming their opinions demonstrates our own hubris, our partisan nature, and our lack of perspective.

Farm Bill - Washington Post

Farm Bill - LA Times

Farm Bill - The Nation

President Barack Roosevelt?

2008-11-22T08:11:00.000-08:00

THE NEW NEW DEAL?

I was reading today that President-elect Obama has a plan of creating 2.5 million new jobs in the first two years of his administration by re-building roads and bridges, modernizing schools, and developing alternative energy sources and more efficient cars. I am a little skeptical for three reasons.

1) The Unites States is projected to have a possible $500 billion deficit for the year 2008. Guaranteeing the creation of 2.5 million new jobs at the billing of the Ferderal Government seems to me, at this time, an unwise move. I would rather see the government cut spending than pick up a couple more million employees, or begin billions in spending for new projects. Adding in the contraction of the economy we are seeing right now and educated guess would project that the government will likely see less revenue over the next year than they did in 2008. More expenditures with even less funding is a losing proposition. In order to create more spending the government needs to raise more money. The government can only raise more revenue by taxing us more or when the entire economy expands. The later doesn't seem very likely at this point. As such, it would seem an unwise time to increase spending, since the end result is either taxing more in a down economy, or increasing the federal deficit.

2) The government cannot by itself create jobs unless they first take the money out of the private sector. The government is not in the business of making their own money, the only money they have was first produced by the private sector. I am not as confident in the government's ability to use that money in positive ways as I am the private sector. I have arrived at that conclusion by watching the government's lack of efficiency in other programs, mainly Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid. And that brings me to point number three.

3) I just finished reading a paper by two economists at UCLA. In 2004 they completed four years of research into what made the Great Depression so prolonged. What they found was that President Roosevelt's policies had a major play in it, as they were directly responsible for lengthening the recovery period by 7 years. In effect, without FDR's policies of pro-labor, misplaced stimulus and anti-competition, the Depression might have ended 7 years earlier.

It is also important to remember that not all policies have an immediate effect, whether for the good or the bad. Some really nefarious policies start out looking really good, but end up being very bad. For instance, in an earlier blog I wrote about the Community Reinvestment Act. Passed by the Carter Administration in 1977, it took 30 years for the effects of that piece of legislation to contribute to an economic implosion. One might even be able to suggest that Social Security, an original FDR policy, is another policy that is failing. Originally signed into law as part of FDR's New Deal in 1935, some historians have suggested that it led to what has been called the "Roosevelt Recession" in '37 and '38. Perhaps Medicare, adopted in 1965, is another social program that is on tract for failure.

To be fair, the President-elect hasn't done anything yet. It remains to be seen exactly what his economic plan would be. President-elect Obama deserves a fair shot at succes, but it does seem as though he is modeling his economic recovery efforts after FDR in some limited sense. It is impossible to know where he would go with things once he gets into office, but this plan to create 2.5 million new jobs by employing them in government projects is reminicent of FDR's New Deal.

Overall, I don't think that would be the best way to go. I think if we cut spending, cut taxes, and let the market correct itself, we would better be able to cut our losses. Nothing we do can stop the pain that occurs when a market corrects itself, as a contraction of the market necessitates job losses. But if we start passing measures that help in the short term while lengthening the overall economic recovery, I don't think we're the better for it. We need to get to a point where we can identify the problems, fix them, and go from there. Even more than that, we need to resist the desire to impliment anti-growth policies in order to lessen the pain in the short term. We need to be able to mass all our resources into figuring out the problem, fixing it, and starting from there. Using those funds to pretend that nothing is happening only hurts our recovery efforts over the long run.

Take a Breath...

2008-11-13T15:30:00.000-08:00

CONGRESSMAN PAUL BROUN

Congressman Paul Broun has gotten himself into hot water this week by referring to President-elect Obama as a 'Marxist,' and saying Obama's plan to create a civilian security force as strong and well funded as the military is what "Hitler did in Nazi Germany and what the Soviet Union did." He did, however, go on to clarify his comments, saying "I'm not comparing him to Adolf Hitler." Of course, the Congressman has now come out and apologized to whoever was offended.

I realize it is tricky to bring up the Nazis and not get caught up in the emotional aspect of it, but it should be obvious that the Congressman was not saying 'President-elect Obama is just like Hitler.' Forget for a moment whether his original analogy is a good one. Is it not a good thing to be able to learn from history, the good and the bad? If we can't model our society after the good that came before us, we are doomed to guessing games about which policies might work. Conversely, if we cannot try and avoid policies in the past that have proved unwise, how are we supposed to make sure our civilization doesn't travel down paths that have proved to have bad consequences?

There have been many leaders in many governments that existed on this earth who have done some horrible things. Are we only able to learn from their bigotry? Can we not also learn from the failures of their structure of government as well? The Soviet Union and Nazi Germany were gigantic failures, would it be wise to understand why? How else are we to know whether we're on the same path? Even if President-elect Obama had a policy similar to one of Hitler's or Stalin's it doesn't mean he IS Hitler or Stalin. After all, Germany was a democracy when it elected Hitler, just as we are a democracy. Does making that comparison mean I am saying all Americans are Nazis? Of course not.

Unfortunately, I believe we are so partisan now that we're all just waiting for someone on the 'other side' to say something we can twist and make into a political victory for 'our side.'. We have lost the ability to have civil conversations. The Congressman could be wrong about how President-elect Obama's civilian security force will be structured, I don't know. Or he could be wrong about how Hitler's was structured. His comparison could be entirely in-accurate. But he should be able to make the comparison. Especially since he isn't even talking about Hitler's bigotry, but rather his rise to, and consolidation of, power. If we can't have a dialogue about that, we're damning ourselves to repeat the same mistakes those before us did.

Lets all just calm down, take a breath, and more importantly stop looking at each other as though we are enemies just waiting to be exploited.

Tuesday Quick Hit

2008-11-11T11:52:00.001-08:00

We just finished a 23 month long campaign, where a good many politicians promised us everything from tax cuts, rebate checks, mortgage security, national security, wealth, health care, and basically anything else they thought might get them elected. Considering the frequency at which the electorate is lied to, I would hope that most would view these promises with a healthy dose of skepticism.

According to a new poll, 72% of Americans think that President-elect Obama will fix the economy. In my opinion, that is 72% of Americans drinking a lot of Kool-aid. I don't want to speculate on whether his plan (whatever it turns out to be) will be successful, but considering that he hasn't even taken office (and won't for another two months), wouldn't it be wise to temper those hopes a little bit? If things improve next spring, no doubt both parties will try to claim responsibility, which will be an entirely different discussion I hope we're having in 8 months. However, we don't even know what plan the President-elect is going to go with, so placing a lot of hope in him seems a little naive. Especially considering that if the economy improves, it is going to be the private sector doing the work, not the government. It is impossible for the government to create jobs, unless they tax us more to do it. The best they can do is enact policies that encourage growth, and we won't see what the new administration will do for quite some time.

Of course, I've always been one to believe that every elected official should be held to pretty high standards, and trusted as far as we can throw them. No one we put in the office is going to be our savior, and in fact I already have One. I wish the President-elect all the success in the world as his policies will directly affect me, but am prepared for the very real possibility that he'll do more harm than good. He has promised us the world, and I will give him the benefit of the doubt until I see exactly what it is he plans on doing, at which point we can dissect his plans.

For now, I'd suggest those 72% get off the gravy train and start viewing our government officials with a little more guarded skepticism.

Reactions

2008-11-05T11:43:00.000-08:00

FIRST THOUGHT

As an American I am extremely excited at the reality of a Black American as president. 146 years ago President Abraham Lincoln issued the first part of the Emancipation Proclamation. The Civil Rights Act didn't come for another 102 years. It has been a full 221 years since the U.S. Constitution was ratified. It has been a long and painful struggle for Black Americans, and the election of Barack Obama should be celebrated across party lines. All Americans, no matter their vote yesterday, should be proud of that fact.

I am extremely desirous of a successful Obama Administration. I am hopeful that wounds can be healed, the economy can be resurrected, and the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan can be brought to a successful conclusion. Everyone one should be willing to give Obama respect as our president, and give him the benefit of the doubt as he selects men and women to fill posts in his administration. His presidency should begin with grace from both sides of the political aisle, which would enable him to freely pursue the policies he thinks best for the country without having to feel the pressure of people just salivating at the thought of him screwing up.

President-elect Obama starts with a clean slate. He should have the freedom to implement the economic policies of his choosing, and only be judged on the success or failure of his actions. Whether I believe his policies will eventually fail or not is of little consequence, because he hasn't done anything positive or negative at this time. The only way we'll find out whether his policies will work or not is to let him implement them and judge them on the results. And that is how it should be. Like Senator McCain, I wish Obama Godspeed and will be praying for his success, sanity, wisdom, and discernment.

ACCURATE PREDICTIONS? THE DAY AFTER

It looks as though my first prediction proved accurate. I predicted that the day after an Obama victory the stock market would drop 400-500 points as investors weighed the ramifications of Senator Obama's tax policies. Today, the day after Obama's historic victory, the stock market dropped 486 points, the largest percentage drop after an election in the history of the market.

My second prediction was that Obama wouldn't be able to impliment his entire tax policy. I'm not sure where is administration will start, but in Obama's acceptance speech he downplayed expectations, stating that the economy might not rebound even in the next four years.

Another one of my predictions was the escalation of Russian aggression, and today Russia announced the placement of missiles near the Poland border. Russia has always been against the missile shield the U.S. is placing in Europe, so it would be difficult to blame this move directly on the election of Senator Obama. But it also would seem mighty suspect that they would pull a move like that the day after Obama's election.

Predictions

2008-11-04T10:43:00.000-08:00

TWO QUICK THINGS

1) The Washington Redskins lost last night, which if history holds means our next president with be Senator Obama.

2) I am not normally one to speak in hyperbole or gross exaggerations when it comes to discussing the candidates. I'm not like Matt Damon, who is 'frightened' at the thought of a VP Sarah Palin. I'm not going to say it'd be disastrous if Senator Obama won, or that I'd move out of the country. I wouldn't even call the Senator dangerous. Though there is one thing I am very concerned about, and would come close to violating my own policy on, and that is Senator Obama's interpretation of the Constitution.

When Senator Obama was being interviewed about the Civil Rights movement, he said a failure of the movement was not establishing a system to redistribute the wealth from the wealthy to the needy. I mentioned this in my last post, but he went further in saying that the great failure of the Constitution was to limit the power of the Federal government, and he was disappointed that the Supreme Court didn't do anything to change that policy.

The reason that is so disconcerning to me is that the Constitution's primary focus was to limit the power of the Federal Government. In fact the first draft of the Constitution, the Articles of Confederation, established such a weak federal power that the document ended up failing. The Founders would have rather failed in their first attempt by creating a powerless government than to err on the other side and create an overly powerful one.

After the Constitution was ratified, they began immediate work on the Bill of Rights. The Bill of Rights were designed to further ensure that the government didn't have certain power over us, and in very specific ways. This wasn't by accident, it was very purposeful. Some of the Founders even threatened to vote against ratifying the Constitution because it didn't provide enough protection from the federal government. As a result of the Bill of Rights, we enjoy the right of free speech, the right to bear arms, the right to assemble, etc. The primary ingredient for those rights to exist isthe specific removal of all federal power. In fact, the Founders set up our system of government as a way to remove government from our lives and ensure that the power it did retain was extremely limited. That was the design of the Articles of Confederation, the Constitution and the Bill of Rights.

So I am very concerned that a man is running for the highest office in the land while holding contempt for the very purpose of our founding document. Either Senator Obama doesn't understand that the Founders wanted to establish a system of government that was limited in nature, or he doesn't care. I would prefer that he be oblivious, but I don't think Senator Obama is a moron. I think he knows exactly what he is saying when he says that the Constitution failed when it limited the power of the Federal government. And that concerns me more than just about any other of his positions (except possibly his radical position on abortion). It is now possible that the United States might find a man in the Oval Office who finds our very Constitution as one of his established enemies, and that should make anyone who is even the slightest bit conservative very nervous.

Now on to my predictions for....

AN OBAMA VICTORY

Economy -

With an Obama victory, the stock market will experience a quick dip. Obama's policy of taxing corporations higher and raising the capital gains tax will make the stock market less attractive for investors. As a result, if Obama wins I would expect a 400 point dip in the stock market the day after. This might be tough to discern, since it is trending downwards already. Additionally, a good many people much smarter than myself have suggested the market is already continuing its downward spiral because of an anticipation of an Obama victory, but that is hard to prove. In any regard, this will only be a temporary decline as people will continue to invest in the market anyways. After a while, the stock market will climb as people re-invest, but I wouldn't be surprised to see an initial dip.

I don't think we'll see the Obama tax cuts as he has promised. At least, he won't be raising taxes on those he has indicated he will. Not until the economy has recovered. I would imagine his advisers would tell him that it would have a negative affect on the economy, and as a result I'd expect him to cut taxes on the 'poor' but not let the Bush tax cuts expire until the economy starts to recover a little.

He won't be able to implement his entire economic plan, at least not for the first couple of years of his term. To do so would be economic suicide, and I don't think he'll do that. If he does, I would expect the economic situation to worsen before his term is up.

I would also expect the Democrats to pass another stimulus package, to the tune of $200-$300 Billion. I don't think it will do much to stimulate the economy more than the current one, but they would want to be in the position to claim leadership on the economic situation.

By the end of his four year term, I see little to no improvement in the economy if his plan is implemented. Corporations, now being charged 10% more in the U.S. than in other countries, will continue their migration out of the U.S. We'll lose more jobs, as Obama's plan to force small business to pay for health insurance, higher taxation, and generally more hostile business policies will keep the market stagnant. No one will have an interest in expanding their business, as doing so will only result in more taxes. Of course, that is if he actually implements his campaign promises, which I doubt he will.

Foreign Policy

Israel will get serious about Iran. With only two months remaining in the very pro-Israel Bush Administration and Obama being a little vague on his support for Israel (especially in case of a war with Iran), Israel might be interested in attacking Iran while a pro-Israel president is in the Oval Office. This might be the 'international disaster' Biden guaranteed with an Obama presidency, because Israel will have a very serious problem in not knowing where Obama stands, especially after his statements about Iran being 'tiny', 'not dangerous', and his willingness to hold talks with them. Will Israel be willing to risk attacking Iran at a time when they can't be sure of United States support? I doubt it, I would think Israel would accelerate their plans while Bush is still in office.

The world at large will celebrate the victory as the United States finally wising up. This will last until the first trouble in the Middle East, during which Obama will either alienate the world by placating the wishes of those at home, or vice versa. Senator Biden did say that the U.S. wouldn't be satisfied with Obama's response to the first crisis he encounters, so perhaps that is an indication that Obama would placate the world and risk alienating voters at home. At any rate, Americans don't view the world the same way as Europeans, so Obama will have to make a decision as to which body of people he wants to satisfy.

Since Obama is perceived as being so weak on Foreign Policy, I would expect him to call some sort of international meeting of world leaders, something like a summit. In the very least, he will arrange to address the U.N. within the first 5 months of his taking office.

I would imagine nothing on the Iraq front will change. Because the success of the Surge has enabled the military to draw down troop levels with the support of the Iraqi government (current troop numbers are already at pre-Surge levels), he won't have that issue to tackle. He'll be able to satisfy the wishes of his base and those of conservatives at the same time by just maintaining the status quo.

I think Russia will be more aggressive, much more aggressive. Considering Obama's pretty weak reaction to Russian aggression into Georgia, and Russian movements toward re solidifying their previous federation, I see Putin salivating at the thought of an Obama presidency. If Obama is elected, expect Russian movements into more of their former states, like Ukraine and Georgia. They have already been aggressive on the world stage, but expect that to accelerate if Obama is elected.

Domestic Policy

The Fairness Doctrine will be re-introduced, and with a super majority in the Senate and control of the House and Oval Office, it might pass. The Fairness Doctrine states that no matter what the media, they must give equal time to opposing viewpoints. House Majority Leader Nancy Pelosi has already discussed implementing this. Naturally, as someone who supports the free market of ideas, I would be against the Fairness Doctrine. With an Obama administration, I would expect the issue to be re-introduced.

Obama will resume public financing for abortions, and will resume international funding for abortions.

If Obama is serious about bankrupting the Coal industry like he promised, then expect electric prices to skyrocket. We won't start producing any more of our own Oil under an Obama presidency, so expect gas prices to continue their climb next summer. Perhaps when prices continue to rise he'll reconsider due to public encouragement. Since Obama's energy plan consists of 'fast tracking' alternative fuels and I don't believe you can fast track something that doesn't exist, I would expect no progress to be made on that front during his presidency (especially if he is here for one term). At least no more progress than already would be made in a free market anyways.

Obama will elect liberal judges, and depending on the composition of the Senate this will either be a serious problem for Obama or the Democrats will confirm his nominations with ease. I would expect his judges to add to the current crop of those who legislate from the bench, since he has indicated his desire to nominate those who would tend to perform that way.

Odds of being Re-elected

I would imagine Obama will be moderately popular at the end of his term, depending on which of his promises he keeps and which he does not. Since I disagree with the odds of his economic policies being more than moderately successful, I cannot imagine him actually following through with them. If he does, his term will be quick but painful, much like Jimmy Carter's. Jimmy Carter had much the same policies as Barack Obama (taxing the rich at a much higher rate, higher capital gains tax), and by the time he left office interest rates were in the 20s, inflation was in the teens, and the economy lost millions of jobs.

If Senator Obama deals with his first foreign policy disaster well, I don't think he'll suffer from the ill affects of a failure on that front. I'm not sure how he will react to a disaster like Israel bombing Iran, though I'm sure his first act will be to convene a summit about it. I am a proponent of diplomacy, but we all need to keep in mind that appeasement is only diplomacy taken one step too far. Those who appease are really only those who don't know when to call off diplomacy. I am not sure which kind of leader Obama will be since he has no specific foreign policy experience or record, but if he is too much Neville Chamberlain and not enough Winston Churchill, he might suffer in the public mind much like President Carter did.

Senator Obama is promising so much through his campaign that honestly I don't see how his presidency would be anything more than a failure. He has the middle class believing that he is going to give them more, the upper class believing that he is going to take more, all the while trying to convince both that somehow that policy will result in more job creation and an expanded economy. I don't see that happening.

Overall, I think Obama's re-election depends primarily on whether he follows through on his campaign promises. If he does, he will be a one term president. If he does not, he has hopes of being re-elected.

And now my predictions for......

A MCCAIN PRESIDENCY

Economy

McCain has admitted that he doesn't know much about how the economy works, and as a result his success on this issue largely depends on who he has advising him. That said, if McCain wins the nomination I would expect a modest jump in the stock market in reaction to his pro-investment policies of lower capital gains taxes and pro-growth policies of less taxation in gerneral.

To prove his worth on economic issues, McCain will try and put together another bipartisan stimulus package if the economy isn't better by summer 09.

McCain will follow through with his tax policies, which really amount to lower taxes on corporations and capital gains (investments). I see this helping the economy recover faster, but of course that is purely subjective and impossible to prove. I think if we could compare the economy after a year under Obama and McCain, the economy would improve 6 months faster under McCain than Obama.

At the end of his four year term, I see more economic growth under McCain than Obama. It would be impossible to actually compare, as only one of them will actually be elected, but McCain's plan favors economic growth so I would expect more growth under it than Obama's.

Foreign Policy

McCain has more foreign policy experience, and his presence in the Oval Office will command a different amount of respect than Obama's. I wouldn't expect Russia or Iran to test McCain as much as they would Obama. We still might see Israel bombing Iran, but knowing they still have an ally in the White House would stay Israel's hand for a longer time period, thus allowing for more diplomatic relations.

Iraq will be handled the same as Obama would handle it, but if a hiccup comes along McCain will be much better suited for it than Obama. McCain's position on the Surge, when it was unpopular, was the correct one. I'd have a lot more confidence in his adjusting to a battlefield change than Obama's.

McCain will try to prove he is different from President Bush by being more active in foreign relations. I would expect him to visit foreign countries pretty soon after his term begins, but probably not as quickly as Obama. His goal, unlike Obama, won't be to prove his worth in foreign policy areas, but rather to prove how different he is than President Bush. However, McCain's first allegiance is the this country, so I believe he won't try and cater to the world population like Obama does. You'd never see McCain giving a speech to 200,000 people in Berlin talking about international healing. He would rather give a speech about kicking someone's ass, which would be both good and bad. But I don't think he'll take that route. While he will seek their approval, he will in the end do what he thinks is best for this country, and will always speak in those terms.

Russia won't be as big of a problem under McCain as they would under Obama. With an Obama victory, Russia will be more willing to test his resolve. Under McCain, they wouldn't be so bold. While I believe in the long run Russia has imperialistic desires, I don't see them challenging McCain the way they would challenge Obama. They might wait until after McCain leaves office, or wait until his attention is on some other crisis.

Domestic Policy

McCain will seek bipartisan relations within Congress to a degree President Bush wouldn't have. He will encourage legislation that will anger conservatives, like more immigration and campaign finance laws.

His judges will have a strict interpretation of the Constitution, and won't tend to legislate from the bench. I don't think he would go as far as nominating only judges who would over turn Roe v. Wade, but would more stick towards the middle, moderate routes he is familiar with.

There won't be as many changes Domestically under McCain as there would be under Obama, and not just because McCain is a moderate conservative like President Bush. More so because Senator Obama is just so liberal. On the energy front, McCain will push for more oil drilling while supporting alternative fuels. Gas prices will rise at a slower pace than under Obama, though of course that is impossible to substantiate. As a result of increased drilling, more jobs will be created and more wealth will be created. That will be a large boom for the economy, as will his desire to create more nuclear power plants.

Odds of being Re-Elected

I don't believe McCain has as good of odds at being re-elected. Unless things are vastly improved by the end of his term, I don't see the American public re-electing him. Either candidate is going to have a very difficult time, and I don't see them having crazy amounts of success on the economic front. I think by the time McCain's term is over, we will only just be beginning to see the benifits of his economic policies. While I think McCain would have more success than Obama would, I don't know if it would be enough for him to be able to justify his re-election. Much more likely, in my mind, is the succession of Governor Palin. If McCain's presidency is successful, and he opts out of running again (which is always a possibility), then it would be easier in my mind for Governor Palin to get elected than it would be for McCain to get re-elected. I would wager that Governor Palin would have as good a chance at getting elected in 2012 as Senator Obama would have at being re-elected.

Those are my predictions. What are yours?

An Obama Administration

2008-11-02T20:40:00.000-08:00

Anyone who has spent time reading this blog knows I am no fan of Senator McCain. I disagree with him on quite a few issues, ranging from immigration to campaign finance reform. I would prefer that he be a little more small government oriented, as I think he has a tendency to lean towards a larger government than I would like. It isn't that he is without his benefits (pork spending, lowering taxes, etc), it is just that I would prefer someone who is a little more conservative. That said, I also haven't hid that I think a moderately conservative McCain Administration would be preferable to a Liberal Obama Administration. Here are my reservations about Senator Obama winning on Tuesday.

THE CONSTITUTION AND THE FOUNDERS

I don't think Senator Obama has a firm grasp on what the Constitution was written for, or what the Founders intent was. He continues to call for a larger government, when our Founders were extremely wary of a strong Federal government. Listen to what he says about the redistribution of wealth and the Constitution: "The Supreme Court never ventured into the issues of redistribution of wealth.....It didn't break free from the essential constraints that were placed by the founding fathers in the Constitution." He went on to say that the Supreme Court interpreted the Constitution as "a document of negative liberties, says what the states can't do to you, says what the federal government can't do to you, but it doesn't say what the federal government or state government must do on your behalf." What Obama said was we need to "break free" from the constraints placed on the powers of the Federal Government by the Constitution. Essentially, that the Founders were wrong, the Constitution is wrong, and needs to be fixed. Like I have said before, if you agree with him then fine, agree with him. But know that when you vote for him, you're voting for someone who thinks the Constitution is flawed in limiting the power of the Federal Government, and should have mandated redistribution of wealth. In an earlier blog I wrote about Senator Obama's belief that Health Care is a right, and what that says in regards to his theory on government. This further confirms what I said, in that when he says that the Constitution failed the mention "what the federal government or state government must do on your behalf" he is essentially saying that the function of the federal government is to provide us with tangible things, like wealth. To do that, it has to be very powerful, because tangible things don't exist in a vacuum, they have to be created.

The Founders wrote the Constitution to ensure the government doesn't take away our rights that already exist without the governments intervention (life, liberty, pursuit of happiness). Obama thinks the Constitution should actively create tangible rights for us: redistribution of wealth, health care, etc. I think Senator Obama would be in direct conflict with Jefferson, Adams, Madison, Washington, and even Andrew Jackson. I think he fundamentally doesn't understand the function of our Constitution, and I believe that is further evidenced by other issues I have with his policies.

CIVILIAN NATIONAL SECURITY FORCES

Senator Obama has called for the creation of what he calls a Civilian National Security Force, "just as strong, just as powerful, just as well funded" as the military. I don't think even the Senator has hashed out this policy in full, but there are a series of serious issues here. One, the Constitution hasn't given the authority to create such a force. To create one would mean having to deal with a slew of serious problems, like who is in command of the force? When the Constitution allows for State militias, why do we need yet another Civilian National Security Force? To be honest, and I'm not trying to be gratuitous about this, the Civilian National Security Force reminds me a lot about the Hitler Youth (in design/function, not the group's ideology). A private security force, controlled by the executive branch? In the wrong hands, it is extremely dangerous. I'm not on board with that. Our Constitution was very specific in making sure the military is NOT part of the executive branch, to avoid problems that would no doubt rise from one branch controlling that much power. In fact, our military was set up to be exactly what Obama wants, a civilian force, not controllable by the executive. That is why the President's cabinet has no direct control of the military.

JUDGES

Senator Obama has declared that when it comes to nominating a judge, he would nominate someone "who's got the heart, the empathy, to recognize what it's like to be a young teenage mom. The empathy to understand what it's like to be poor, or African-American, or gay, or disabled, or old. And that's the criteria by which I'm going to be selecting my judges." I'm all for empathy for those less fortunate, but that particular characteristic is misplaced in the Judicial Branch. I realize the Senator is probably trying to create a more human judicial system, but in doing so he is changing the function of what the courts were set up to do. The Judicial Branch was created to interpret new laws constitutionality and make sure the laws are enforced. They aren't there to be empathetic towards those less fortunate. Once you start electing judges who interpret the law not based on precedence or the letter of the law but instead based on what they think the law should state, you create judges that legislate from the bench. We have a branch of the government designed to be our representatives and have empathy for those less fortunate, and that branch the legislative branch. Our system of government is set up to function that way as a check and balance, and I would be concerned with a leader who has stated that he wants to redefine the way our system of government functions. That is a massive change in the Constitutional definition of the judicial branch.

TAXES

Forgetting for a moment the vacillating definition of wealth that the Obama campaign is struggling to concretely define, the very policy of redistribution of wealth is a bad idea. Again, our system of government isn't set up for that. The $1,000 tax rebate that Senator Obama is offering is NOT a tax rebate in the traditional sense. It is NOT money that people paid in taxes that the government doesn't need, and is returning to them. Senator Obama is proposing to get the money directly from a tax on Oil Company profits, and then re-distribute it to everyone else. I realize that Oil Companies are currently making quite a bit of money (though, as a % of revenue it is less than the profits of Microsoft and Google), but as soon as we let our politicians convince us it is ok to tax those more fortunate than ourselves we are traveling down a slippery slope. Who is to say exactly where Senator Obama will stop defining people as "wealthy"? If we give our politicians the authority to make that distinction, they won't stop at just those making $14 Billion profits. Eventually they will get to taxing you as well. More than that, this exhibits a fundamental difference between the candidate's view on the function of government. Senator McCain wants the government out of our lives to protect our rights. He believes our rights exist only when the government is least involved. Senator Obama wants the government to create rights for us, to be actively involved in our lives.

Additionally, think about what their individual policies are really saying. Senator Obama is essentially saying that your cut of the pie is too small, and to make sure "your cut of the pie is bigger", he will take from those who have larger pieces and give it to those who have smaller. Senator McCain wants those who have smaller pieces of the pie to get bigger pieces as well, but he doesn't want to accomplish that by taking from others. McCain's theory is, why not enrich everyone? McCain would say, why not make the entire pie bigger. Expand the economy, so we all benefit and make more money. That exhibits a very fundamental and important difference in how these men approach the government and how to create wealth, and I am not comfortable with Senator Obama's interpretation of things. To him, he'd rather take from those who have more than expand the economy as a whole. Not only will his plan shrink the economy in the long run, but it doesn't even benefit those he claims.

Think of it like this. If you make $60,000/year, you are taxed at about 10%. So you paid $6,000 in taxes. Say Obama gives you a $2,000 tax break. so now you effectively made $62,000. In reality, that change benefited you very little. In addition, under his plan your boss' taxes were raised and he is now paying 45% on his income taxes, is required to pay for your health care or is fined, and pays 33% more on his capital gains. After all that, as his employee would you expect to get a raise any time soon? But what if you took the conservative approach, and tried to make sure you were able to get a better education, a better job, and thus more money? Or take the conservative plan to tax your employer less, and not require them to cover your health care costs (it might be nice that you have employer paid health care, but effectively that is money they aren't paying you directly, and you didn't even get to chose your health plan!). Under which plan would you expect to flourish?

ABORTION

Abortion is largely an emotional reaction to a very real issue. It is the answer, for some, to all kinds of legitimate questions: what if I get raped? What if I get pregnant as a teenager? What if I get pregnant and my boyfriend leaves me? Those are legitimate concerns. I don't really want to get into the issue of abortion right now because my concern with Obama isn't just whether he is Pro-Choice or not, it is how Pro-Choice he is. First, people need to understand that if Roe v. Wade is overturned, abortion will NOT be made illegal. What would happen is abortion law would revert back to the states, where the Constitution wanted it. Roe v. Wade is bad interpretation of Constitutional law and the jurisdiction granted by the Constitution to the Federal and State governments. Roe gives the Federal Government powers that it should not have, as the Constitution states that all issues not addressed in the Constitution are to be considered State jurisdiction. The real issue is that Obama goes further than wanting to hold up the Roe v. Wade decision. In a speech to Planned Parenthood the Senator promised that his first task in office would be to sign the Freedom of Choice act, which further solidifies abortion as a Federal issue by removing any state restrictions on abortion. It would attempt to make abortion legal up until the moment of birth, a procedure called partial birth abortions. Here is the definition of partial birth abortions: A partial-birth abortion is performed in the second or third trimester and entails inducing a breech delivery with forcepts, delivering the legs, arms, and torso only, puncturing the back of the skull with scissors or trochar, inserting a suction catheter into the skull, sucking out the contents of the skull so as to collapse it and completing the delivery by removing the collapsed skull." Ron Fitzsimmons, former Exec. Director of the National Coalition of Abortion Providers, has stated that "in the vast majority of cases, the procedure is performed on a healthy mother with a healthy fetus." According to previous statements by Mr. Fitzsimmons and estimates provided by others, there are between 2,000-5,000 of these procedures performed each year in the United States. In 2007, the U.S. Supreme court upheld an Act signed by President Bush in 2003 that prohibited this type of abortion, but the passage of the Freedom of Choice Act would be in direct opposition to that law, and a legal situation would ensue. My point isn't whether or not Partial Birth Abortions will continue to be illegal, but rather to illustrate the danger of a policy making the issue solely the domain of the federal government.

In addition to partial-birth abortion, the Freedom of Choice Act would remove state rights in regards to requiring parental notification, age restrictions, etc. Essentially, it creates federal domain where there should only be state domain. As someone who believes in the Founder's intent to keep the Federal government limited in scope, I take issue with Senator Obama's intent on this issue.

Senator Obama also supports EDR, Embryonic Destruction Research. EDR provides for the fertilization and destruction of human embryos for genetic research. The goal of that research would be to create a database of embryos that would represent every genetic variation, and every disease. They would want all variations of embryos to represent all variations found in human beings, so their research could be specific as possible. This would necessitate the fertilization and experimentation on tens of millions of embryos, literally the harvesting of human life. Senator Obama supports this type of research, as indicated by his opposition to President Bush's policies restricting it, voting against legislation that bans human cloning while in the Illinois state senate, and his c0-sponsoring of the Human Cloning Ban Act of 2005, which ironically enough protects human cloning when it comes to genetic research and then requires the destruction of all embryos created for that research. Senator Obama also voted against a bill in the United States Senate that provided funding for stem cell research other than embryonic. Research that did not require the creation or destruction of any embryos. The office of the President, through the National Institutes of Health, is in charge of allocating all Federal money for genetic research. As such, it would give me great comfort to know that the person in charge is not in favor of the creation, experimentation on, and then destruction of human embryos.

ENERGY

Recently it has come to light that Senator is willing to place a cap-and-trade system on the Coal Industry that would not just encourage clean and renewable alternatives, but would in fact run them out of business. Here is a direct quote from the Senator: "If somebody wants to build a coal power plant they can, it's just that it will bankrupt them because they are going to be charged a huge sum." Currently, coal power plants generate 54% of our electricity. I realize that in the future Senator Obama wants to move to more renewable energy which is a sound, responsible policy. However, placing large charges on coal plants today, before the infrastructure is in place for renewables, would create crippling prices for today's energy. Since Obama has recently indicated he is for coal power (but his above quote would indicate he actually is not), I would be curious if Obama holds the same thoughts on Nuclear power. Seeing as he publicly says he is for coal power but is obviously for taxing it out of business, I would like to know if he holds the same view for nuclear power.

I do not believe it is sound policy to move towards renewable energy while at the same time cripple your current energy producing sector. Not even to mention the tens of thousands of Americans who work in the coal industry. To hear a presidential candidate speak candidly about destroying a section of the American economy, regardless of his good intentions, is worrisome. It is bad policy to try and force change like that. It will result serious financial consequences, and it will hit the poor the hardest.

FOREIGN POLICY

Even most Obama supporters I talk with are concerned with his lack of experience on this issue. For someone who wants to become Commander and Chief and will be running two wars for our country, it is amazing to me that the first time he visited Iraq was only a few months ago. I would prefer he have a little more first hand knowledge of the issue. His lack of experience in foreign policy leads me to my next point.

WORLD VIEW

This is what I placed at the top of my list for qualifications of a president, and it is something of which we know very little about Obama, as he is known principally through his books and his speeches. What we do know about his friends, associates, and religious affiliations aren't comforting to say the least. The fact that his spiritual mentor is a man who speaks of the "US of KKK -A" and "God Damn America", and September 11th as the US's "Chickens coming home to roost" is troubling. I have personally never heard a pastor say that, and if he/she did I would have left the church immediately, not stayed for 20 years. The fact that Wright was his pastor for 20 years, baptized his children, married him, and served as his "spiritual mentor" is a little foreign to me.

On the foreign policy side of things, his response to Russia's invasion of Georgia was to call for both sides to stop their aggression and for the U.N. Security Council to get involved. Either he doesn't know that Russia holds a veto on the Security Council, or he knows that calling for their involvement will get nothing accomplished. Neither option is, to me, reassuring. He either doesn't know enough about the situation to comment on it wisely, or doesn't want to hold Russian aggression responsible, and seeing as that aggression was against a US ally I find that distressing.

HIS SUPPORTERS

I admit this is a bit satirical, but there is a certain amount of reassurance I get from knowing that I disagree with a great many of the people who have publicly supported Obama. Who wouldn't find it reassuring to know they're on the opposite side of issues from people like Madonna, Lindsey Lohan, Hamas, Iranian Parliament Speaker Ali Larijani, Perez Hilton (yes, I spelled that correctly), Matt Damon, Ben Affleck, Anne Hathaway, Europe, etc? When a cause is that popular, it is normally on the wrong side of things. Civil Rights, Civil War, Women's Rights, Abolition of Slavery, even our own Revolution, were not supported by a majority of people, especially not at the speed at which Senator Obama has been embraced at. Public acceptance of a movement this quickly shouldn't necessarily be seen as a positive indication of where things are heading. In fact, history is littered with quickly-embraced movements that turned out to be very bad for everyone involved.

To be fair, I realize a great many good people support him, which is a plus. And a great many crazies support McCain. But I don't support McCain either, so I feel I'm safe on that side too.

GUN RIGHTS

Obama's public support for Coal Power while privately holding the belief that it should be taxed into bankruptcy makes me contemplate a couple of things. 1. Where was the press on this issue, and why are we finding out his blatant hypocrisy the day before the election? 2. What else is Senator Obama pretending to be for while is is actually against?

Obama has indicated in the past that he would be in support of making hand guns illegal, and prosecuting people who use them against intruders in their own home. As someone who supports the Second Amendment, gun rights, concealed weapons permits, this makes me worry because Obama is also now indicating he supports all these things. If he is pretending to be centrist on coal power, is he also pretending to be centrist on this issue? If he is elected, with a Congress controlled by his own party, will we find out how liberal he really is only after the election?

THE UNKNOWN

I am concerned with what we don't know. We know that the media has been biased in this election, and we are finding out things about Obama just now. The Los Angeles Times is currently holding a tape of Obama at a function with anti-Israel speakers that they are refusing to release. What else would they hide?

Obama is a first term Senator who began his run for president a mere 143 days after being elected into office as a senator. His 129 votes of 'present' in the Illinois senate are of some concern to me. I don't think it disqualifies him for the job of president, but I'd rather have a president who knows whether they are for or against a bill and isn't afraid to stand up for it.

The media's inconsistencies in reporting on Senator Obama is odd to say the least, and dishonest at the worst. I don't believe they did their job when it came to looking at Obama and reporting back to the public, and when he is running against someone in McCain who has one of the most visible records imaginable, that is a little of a disappointment.

CONCLUSION

These are a few things that bother me about Obama. While this isn't an exhaustive list, his misunderstanding of the Constitution is quite unsettling. His extremely left views on abortion, and admittance to not being able to identify when human life begins are eye opening. He is the most liberal senator in the Senate, which is amazing because to be labeled that he had to beat out Bernard Sanders, a member of the SOCIALIST party.

I am not in love with Senator McCain, but I honestly think that the only person who could make me vote for McCain would be Obama.

Tomorrow I'll write my predictions for a victory of each candidate, and examine what I think will happen for each circumstance.

Saturday Quick Hit

2008-10-31T10:52:00.000-07:00

A TALE OF AUNTS

It has recently been discovered that Obama has an aunt on his dad's side that is living in Boston in Public Housing. Not that we need to know everything about the candidate's families, but I find it odd that Obama has been campaigning for over a year and the media is just now reporting on that. But the story is really interesting considering Senator McCain has an elderly aunt of his own, who he houses in a condo he owned in California. You would think the media would sensationalize a story like that: one candidate lets his aunt live in public housing and calls for more taxes so the government is able to take care of the poor, while another candidate, who pays for a home for his aunt to live in, calls for less government intervention. You can't make that stuff up. It certainly allows us to see where the candidates draw the line where personal responsibility stops, and the government takes over, which is after all what is important.

TAXES

I am trying to get a handle on Senator Obama's tax plan. Originally he stated that only those earning over $250,000/year would see a tax increase. Then he lowered that to $200,000/year. Three days ago, Senator Biden clarified that it would only be those earning more than $150,000/year who would be taxed more. This morning, Governor Richardson of New Mexico , currently campaigning for Obama, said the candidate's tax plan would call for increased taxes on those earning $120,000/year. I suppose it could just be little slip ups, but if that is the case I'd expect it to happen at larger amounts too, not just incrementally smaller earnings.

I suppose the lesson is to not trust a politician when they promise to tax one person and not another. If they demonstrate a love of taxes as policy, it might be just a matter of time before they get around to taxing you too. That's probably why the Wall Street Journal, when referring to Obama's economic plan, headlined the story "The Tax Man Cometh."

Quick Hit for Friday

2008-10-31T08:55:00.000-07:00

CAMPAIGN FINANCE REFORM

It is kind of ironic how things worked out in this election. Senator John McCain became the pariah of his own party and an herald hero in the Democratic party by crossing the political aisle and pursuing campaign finance reform. The vast amounts of money in politics, and particularly who was donating it, has historically been more of a concern to Democrats who worry about a politician being able to buy an election. Republicans had been more concerned with the limits placed on what they viewed as free speech when giving money to your candidate of choice was limited by the government. Democrats wanted to create a system that was more 'fair' by getting money out of politics, while Republicans saw it as a violation of Free Speech rights.

The most recent action to reform was the Bipartisan Campaign Reform Act, or more commonly known as "McCain-Feingold" after its sponsors Senator McCain (R) and Senator Feingold (D). Senator McCain's support for this Act, and campaign restrictions in general placed, him outside of the mainstream in his own party. Oddly, it made him very popular with the media and the Democrats, with people like Senator Biden saying that McCain is the one Republican he'd vote into the Oval Office.

Back in the primaries, both candidates signed documents accepting public financing for their campaigns. What that effectively does is cap the amount of money they will accept from donors and accept public money for their campaign instead(for commercials, etc). Senator Obama said he would accept Public Financing if his Republican counterpart did. Senator Obama made that promise when he was still an obscure politician trailing in the polls, hoping that his promise might gain him some attention and political traction. After he secured the Democratic nomination for president and realized the massive amounts of cash his campaign was capable of raising, he went back on his promise and did not accept the public money even though John McCain did.

The irony is this: here we have a situation in which the Democrats, historically being in favor of public financing and complaining about how unfair it is when one party is able to raise more money than the other, have opted out of public financing. On the other side, you have the sole Republican who was in favor of Public Financing accepting it, and even sticking to his word while his opponent did not. The Republican, McCain, is now ironically stuck in a situation of his own making. Senator Obama did break his word, but has managed to dodge any journalistic scrutiny for it. Additionally, he has raised enough money to drown McCain in advertising, running an average of four ads to every one McCain ad. In a society so attached to the media, how will such unbalanced media attention affect a general election? If it is actually possible to buy the presidency, it would appear now would be the best opportunity.

To add to the irony, I suggest the following: Senator McCain should suggest that in the spirit of Senator Obama's desire to 'spread the wealth', he should donate 1/2 of his campaign's money to the McCain campaign. Since Obama has decried how 'unfair' it is that some have more money than others, it would seem entirely appropriate for him to accept McCain's offer.

Media Bias Update

2008-10-28T09:27:00.001-07:00

To be fair to Jon Stewart, I wanted to mention that this weekend he reported on Senator Obama's remarks in San Francisco, calling small town Americans 'bitter' and what not. He made those comments in early April, but even 6 months late is better than never.

I also wanted to post this link in case anyone wanted to reads someone else's opinion on media bias in this election.

http://abcnews.go.com/Business/Story?id=6099188&page=1

Understanding Media Bias

2008-10-23T13:34:00.000-07:00

Media Bias doesn't exist as Republicans would have us think it does, as they would have us believe that there is an active liberal agenda within all facets of the media (print, TV, blog, etc). The first thing to know is that there is a big difference between a 'bias' and an 'agenda'.

LIBERAL AGENDA

I don't believe in a Liberal Agenda within the media. An agenda is knowingly going out and distorting the facts in order to promote your own personal views. I don't believe that is happening on a mass scale, certainly not as some sort of collective agreement between different forms of media. There are no dark rooms where Katie Couric and Chris Matthews are meeting and discussing ways to destroy Republicans. Brian Williams is not meeting over coffee with the editors of the New York Times, planning on new and awesome ways to distort the public record and get Obama elected. That just isn't happening, and in order to have an effective Liberal agenda you'd have to prove some organization between the different media outlets. On the flip side, a journalist portraying themselves as un-baised while holding a personal agenda is obvious, and generally more annoying than damaging (Chris Matthews, I'm looking at you).

LIBERAL BIAS

Liberal Bias is something completely different than Liberal Agenda. Every single person on this earth has a political bias, even if there is no conventional name (Republican, Democrat) for it. If you have an opinion, you have a bias. Bias can certainly lead to an agenda, but even an agenda isn't a necessarily bad thing. Personally, I don't care if a journalist has a bias. But there are questions about their bias that are important to know the answers to. 1) Is their bias publicly known, or are they pretending to be unbiased? 2) What is their bias? 3) Why do they hold that bias?

I believe it is important to know the answers to these questions. As an example, lets look at this blog.

THE MILBURN GRAVY TRAIN

1) Is my bias publicly known?

It is important for bias to be publicly known, because the pundits out there trying in vain to be completely bias-free are dangerous. Once the perception that they are bias-free is accepted, whatever that person says or reports is much more likely to be accepted as fact. Not only that, but people believe it to be the whole story, which might not be the case. It would be much more powerful if we knew where they were standing from the get go. I don't try to hide my bias on this blog. I don't pretend to be opinion-less. I present my case for the issues based on the opinions I have formed (my bias), and leave it at that. I want people to take it further though, and in order to really understand where I am coming from, you have to know what my bias is. What is it that motivates my opinions?

2) What is my bias?

There are certain quotes that help clarify my opinions (bias) about government, and I've mentioned most of them here before.

Thomas Paine: "That government is best that governs least."

"Government, even it its best state is but a necessary evil. In its worst state, an intolerable one."

Daniel Milburn: "If government is the answer, it must have been a stupid question."

Daniel Webster: "There are men in all ages that mean to govern well, but they mean to govern. They promise to be good masters, but they mean to be masters."

I am naturally inclined to be skeptical of government and those who want to take part in it. Our first presidents, Washington, Adams, Jefferson, had to be coaxed out of retirement to take the office of President. And when their campaigning began, the candidates themselves didn't do any of the actual leg work. Jefferson sat at Monticello and left convincing the public to James Madison and others. He didn't do any of his actual campaigning. To do otherwise was actually viewed as automatically disqualifying the person for the job! The early presidents wanted nothing to do with government, with Jefferson going as far as saying "every government degenerates when trusted to the rulers of the people alone" (translated to the 20th century, "people suck, and they'll ruin the government if you let them") and "I have no ambition to govern men, it is a painful and thankless office." As of yesterday, Senator Obama has spent over $600 million trying to convince the American public that he is the one who can bring change to Washington. Senator McCain hasn't spent nearly as much, but only because he isn't popular with his party's base, and no one wants to give him their money! We're treated to campaign slogans about how one candidate is a 'Maverick' who will change things in Washington, while the other candidate has already designed his own presidential seal! Who wouldn't be skeptical of these people?

I make no effort to hide my bias because I am not biased towards a particular candidate or a party. I do not try to be objective when it comes to the politicians themselves, but I do try very hard to be objective towards truthful positions and policies, whatever they may be. I hold the positions I do because I think they have proved trustworthy over the history of our country. Since I try to be objective when it comes to policy decisions, I am not against changing my mind if I think the truth lies outside my current understanding. Having this type of mindset frees me to discuss both candidates with honesty. So if when reading my blog you come the the conclusion that I favor one candidate over the other, you know that I got to that position not because of a loyalty I owe to a party, but because of my loyalty to my underlying theory on government. To be clear, I don't like either one of the candidates. I do think one is wrong less often than the other, but I base that belief not on my bias towards a political party or tendency to being swayed by a beautiful political speech, but my bias towards small government and skepticism of political leaders.

3) Why do I hold that bias?

I believe it holds merit, based on these certain points. I think our Founders were wise men, certainly more wise than most of our current leaders. As a result, I believe it would be wise of us to listen to what they believed and how they set up this country to operate. I also believe God didn't design government, but our broken relationship with him necessitates it, so the smaller the better. And perhaps most basic, I believe human beings are imperfect even when well meaning. We screw stuff up, so the less power we give them the better. I believe all of this is very well documented throughout history, repeated time and time again, and is something that can be relied on in the future.

CURRENT MEDIA BIAS

Those in the media are like you and me, they talk about things that interest them. Because of that, the pertinent question isn't whether all media is conspiring to sink one candidate or another, but how each individual journalist is motivated to report on a particular story or not.

Example 1:

Recently Governor Palin made a pretty ridiculous comment about loving to visit certain parts of the country because they are more "pro-American" than others. Of course she is referring to her like of Republican areas, which I would imagine some left-leaning Americans would take issue with. Jon Stewart heard this comment, and replied in his own way by saying "F*$& You" and lamenting about it on The Daily Show. A lot of Americans heard about this story, as it was reported on most major news networks. The odd thing is, Jon Stewart didn't make a mention about Senator Obama's speech in San Francisco, where he said small town Americans "are bitter, clinging to their guns and their God with antipathy towards those not like them." Antipathy means a dislike or hatred, and hating those not like you is called bigotry. On one had you have a Governor calling certain Americans unpatriotic, and a Senator calling other Americans bigots. Jon Stewart focused on the story that interested him, which I have no problem with (other than studies have shown most 20-somethings get their news from places like the Daily Show, so perhaps some bias would negatively affect the campaign).

Example 2:

Everyone has heard of Dan Quayle misspelling Potato. Has anyone heard of Joe Biden saying, "For Obama, this election is about a three letter word: J-O-B-S, Jobs!"? We all know how Governor Palin didn't mention which magazines she reads when interviewed by Couric, and she was thusly portrayed as aloof because of it. She is also portrayed as a redneck with her accent and little colloquialisms. Does everyone know about Joe Biden saying "When the stock market crashed, FDR got on Television and said, "Look, here's what happened." Never mind the fact that the market crashed in 1929, Hoover was president, and there was no television. Had Governor Palin said that, we would still be talking about it. Why do we believe Governor Palin is a moron when she says those things, but just assume it's "Joe being Joe" when he screws up?

Example 3:

Charlie Gibson interviewed both Senator Obama and Governor Palin. Here is a list of the questions he asked each candidate.

Questions asked to Senator Obama:

- How does it feel to break a glass ceiling?

- How does it feel to "win"?

- How does your family feel about your "winning" breaking a glass ceiling?

- Who will be your VP?

- Should you choose Hillary Clinton as VP?

- Will you accept public finance?

- What issues is your campaign about?

- Will you visit Iraq?

- Will you debate McCain at a town hall?

- What did you think of your competitor's (Clinton) speech?

Questions asked to Governor Palin:

- Do you have enough qualifications for the job you're seeking?

- Specifically, have you visited foreign countries and met foreign leaders?

- Aren't you conceited to be seeking this high level job?

- Questions about foreign policy:

- Territorial integrity of Georgia

- Allowing Georgia and Ukraine to be members of NATO

- NATO treaty

- Iranian nuclear threat

- What to do if Israel attacks Iran

- The motivations of Al Qaeda

- The Bush Doctrine

- Attacking terrorists harbored by Pakistan

- Is America fighting a holy war?

Now, I think all the questions asked of Governor Palin were legitimate. But, what was going on with the questions Gibson asked Senator Obama? Palin isn't running for president, but Obama is, and I think here Gibson exhibits a perfect example of how a bias will affect a journalist. We know that the Gibson and Couric issues had a very profound affect on people's views on who Governor Palin is, so in this case Gibson's bias (or, playing devil's advocate, perhaps he is just really bad at his job) had a really potent affect on Senator McCain's candidacy.

The issue isn't collusion between media outlets, it is rather each individual journalists bias and how it affects their reporting. If you get enough liberal or conservative journalists, their bias will lead to a trend towards more negative stories about one candidate than the other.

A recent study by the Project of Excellence in Journalism, after comparing stories in print and on TV, found that stories about McCain are more often negative on a 2-1 margin compared to those about Obama. Additionally, late night comedians malign Republicans more than Democrats on a 7-1 margin. How dangerous this is is really in the eye of the beholder. I would hope that people read more than just one paper, watch more than just one news organization, and actively read political papers from both Republican and Democrats in order to get a well rounded view. This only becomes a real problem if most voters don't follow due diligence, but are rather convinced to vote for someone based on what they hear in the every day media. In reality that might be more the case, as Churchill has said "The best argument against democracy is a five minute conversation with the average voter." I doubt he would have been so skeptical if the average voter was more informed than they are.

CONCLUSION

Bias isn't that big of a deal, I just want to know what people are biased towards. I started this blog referencing the sad fact that most aren't biased towards the truth or even a theory on government. Most people are biased towards a political party, and by extension a particular politician. That leads to more emotional debates, as people are now defending "my guy" rather than trying to get to the heart of the matter. If taxing corporations more actually generates more jobs in a real world application, and someone can give an example of that, then lets talk about it. If someone can demonstrate that a move towards socialistic policies (including those passed by President Bush recently) are a good thing, then please demonstrate that. Until that time, I feel very comfortable resting on the side of our Founders, whose political philosophies have produces the most prosperous nation with the best standard of living in the history of the world.

'Quick' Hit for Wednesday

2008-10-21T12:57:00.000-07:00

Quick Editor's note: When people become allied with an individual candidate, they get emotional when discussing politics and tend to automatically defend that candidate's actions. I would hold us to a higher standard, realizing that these people mean to govern us and we should be able to constructively discuss their positions without getting personal. I'm an American way before I'm a Republican/Democrat, and pledge no allegiance to any candidate (and not just because I don't like either candidate). If we ever want to be able to work out our issues, we need to think that way. If someone states "Senator McCain has no vision, his plan on energy is worthless and he is erratic (to borrow from Obama)" we should be able to react without emotion. If I say "Obama is way too far left, and his economic plan will have disastrous effects on our economy" does your pulse quicken? If so, you're too close to the candidate, and I would gently suggest reorienting your priorities.

ENERGY

I like to take what I feel is a pretty middle of the road, common sense approach to energy. I am not delusional enough to think that oil will last well into the next century while satisfying both our needs and those of our friends overseas at the rate our global consumption is increasing. We need to find either a new way of living, or a new source of energy.

Examining the candidates positions has become ever more difficult, since both have moved to the center on the issue. It would be much easier to examine their positions as they held them in the primaries. A quick survey would find McCain against offshore drilling, and Obama against drilling (offshore or not), coal, and nuclear. Of course, now both candidates now favor all those positions, while adding their support for wind, solar, and whatever else they can think of (including Obama's vague position to 'fast track alternative fuels.' 10$ to whoever can tell me how you fast track something that doesn't, as of yet, actually exist).

There are two types of energy of concern to us: energy for the production of electricity, and energy that drives our modes of transportation (mainly cars). Lets start with the later.

DRILLING FOR OIL

There is only one reason to be against drilling for more oil: Harming the environment. There is no other good reason to not do this, including Global Warming. The reason Global Warming should have no affect on our decision to drill or not to drill is the very plain fact that we are going to use the oil whether it is ours or not. Not drilling won't reduce our consumption. So it darn well better be ours. Here is the logic behind drilling:

In June 1998, the price per barrel of crude oil was $11. Ten years later in June of this year, a barrel of crude oil cost $126. In ten years oil prices went up $115 per barrel, a ten fold increase. In June of 1998, the average cost for a gallon of gas was $1.23. In 2005 it was $2.10, a 'nominal' increase of 70% over 7 years. In June of 2008, the average cost for a gallon of gas was $4.07. In the three years from 2005-2008, gas went up by $2/gallon. If you extrapolate that out as a percentage doubling every three years, in ten years (2018) gas would cost $32/gallon. Unrealistic, obviously. If you extrapolate it as a real number ($2 increase every 3 years) gas would cost $10/gallon in 2018. Either way, in the next ten years gas is going to be very, very expensive. This is not only possible, but very likely because a cartel of oil producing countries set the price of oil, and people need to realize that some of those countries have publicly expressed a desire to destroy our economy (Iran and Venezuela). Letting them price the lifeblood of our economy is at best incredibly stupid, and at worst traitorous.

I didn't use a 10 year example as some random point in time. I am speaking in terms of 10 year blocks because that is the time frame Senator Obama uses for getting us off foreign oil and on to alternative fuels, without additional drilling (well, to be fair in the last month he has sort of embraced limited domestic drilling with certain caveats having to be met first).

Here is where I need Obama supporters to be emotionally detached from their candidate: Obama's plan on energy is perhaps the dumbest plan anyone has proposed in quite a while. While it is not devoid of it's benefits, overall it brings nothing to the table that would in any way benefit me or you or the average citizen. Let's look at things as they are, currently.

Statistically speaking, it takes 9 years for 1/2 of the American fleet of automobiles to turn over. In a real life application this means that if every single car sold in the U.S. this year was a fully electric automobile, then in 9 years 1/2 of all U.S. cars would be electric cars. The other 1/2 would still be a form of car we're driving today (gas guzzler, or hybrid of some sort). This is very important because it means that in 10 years the 1/2 poorest Americans (those who can't afford to buy a new, expensive automobile) will be driving gas run cars when gas will cost $10/gallon. The poorest Americans. Those who cannot afford those types of costs are going to be the ones paying it. Obama's plan does absolutely nothing to avoid this reality (except raise corporate taxes on the U.S. automobile companies trying to get us cheap electric cars to begin with...but that is a discussion on taxes, not energy). I believe this analogy is realistic, because right now the best cars we have only add 100% fuel economy with their respective hybrid versions. That may sound like a lot, but to get ourselves off oil we'll have to reduce our consumption of it by a lot more than getting 50 miles to the gallon instead of 25. Hybrid cars are a great step, but won't solve anything in the long run, because gas prices will continue to rise.

OPEC (Oil Producing and Exporting Countries) controls the price of oil, by getting together and deciding what to charge based on what they view the market's ability is to sustain those prices. Today, OPEC called for a decrease in the amount of barrels of oil produced per day. OPEC is reacting to a $70 decrease in the cost per barrel of oil over the last couple of months. Their reaction should alarm all of us. If we were paying $4.07/gallon this summer, what will lowering production do? Where will prices go if there is less oil to buy? It certainly won't lower prices. They only way to lower prices is to increase output. Or at least threaten OPEC's monopoly on the oil market by threatening to open up your own domestic drilling. And who in OPEC is calling for the reduction? Iran and Venezuela. Two countries very hostile to us, and two countries Senator Obama wants to sit down and talk without preconditions. Do we really want our economy and livelihood to be at the behest of dictators who have called for an end to the 'Great Satan'? Is that sound energy policy? Would it not be better to produce our own oil?

To bring stability to our energy market, Senator McCain wants to drill offshore. Our current government enforced restrictions on off shore drilling allow Cuba to install oil platforms closer to our shore than we can. Yes, you read that right, Cuba has oil rigs closer to American beaches than the U.S. government will allow U.S. companies to drill. Does that make sense to you? Removing those restrictions would allow our companies greater access to the rich resources in the ocean floor. And just so you don't think this means we'll have tons of platforms 200 yards off all our beaches, a lot of these oil rich areas are over 50 miles from the beach (the horizon is 25 miles away, so you wouldn't be able to see them). Opening those areas up to drilling would have multiple benefits: create jobs, create new taxable corporate income, increase the supply of oil, while sending a message to the world that the U.S. is serious about our oil consumption/production and our energy security, which would bring prices down.

We should also drill in ANWR, the Alaskan Wildlife Refuge. I realize there is a lot of opposition to this, but the area most likely to be drilled is extremely small. If you picture a football field, this area would be the size of one link of chain on the first down marker. That is very, very tiny.

Senator Obama states that drilling wont bring down the cost of oil before 10 years. Ignoring for a moment that Shell was able to take an oil platform from conceptual drawings to operation in less than two years, our previous price estimations noted above would indicate that bringing the cost down in 10 years would be beneficial. Drilling now is an investment in the future, and perhaps if our past politicians had recognized that we wouldn't be in this mess.

No one is suggesting that we can replace all the oil we import with our own domestic supply. Although, current estimations have projected that the United States has more oil shale in Colorado and Wyoming than the entire Middle East has in 'liquid' oil. We also cannot rely on oil forever. It should merely be used as a stop-gap measure. Here is the general idea: If we start producing our own oil, with our own companies, and our own citizen-employees, to offset our costs while strengthening our domestic security, then as we gradually decrease our consumption over the next 20 years (by increasing automotive efficiency and moving towards alternative fuels) not only will we have given ourselves those new jobs, taxable base and security, but we will end up with an oil EXPORT rather than an oil IMPORT. When we are finally using more electric vehicles than gas guzzlers, we will be in the amazing situation of actually exporting oil to other countries rather than importing it. This is phenomenally important, as we are spending $700 Billion/year on importing oil. That weakens our dollar and increases our trade deficit. Think about it: a complete reversal of fortune in only 20 years.

Senator Obama completely lacks the vision of a situation like that. In fact, the last 30 years of both Republicans and Democrats have lacked that vision. Of course, when gas was 11$/barrel it was easier to look the other way. Senator Obama doesn't really have a policy that addresses fuel economy, except 'fast tracking alternative fuels.' Most of his policies are about electrical production, like wind, nuclear, or clean coal. So lets look at those next.

CLEAN COAL

Both candidates now support clean coal, which is good. It's clean, and since it is an American resource using it would 1) create jobs, 2) create $ for the economy and the government through taxing, and 3) would be relatively cheap as the product is local. As an additional plus, there is no international cartel (OPEC) to artificially inflate the price.

WIND

Before being overtaken by the UK this October, Denmark was the world leader in getting their power from wind farms. While wind is a fantastic means of getting power for our homes, it isn't without it's issues. More recently however, Denmark hasn't been building any more wind farms. They get approx. 20% of their energy from wind, and the reason their production has peaked at that amount is because wind is, generally, not reliable. Some days it is really windy, and some days it isn't. Additionally, there isn't any good and affordable way to store the energy on above than average windy days.

In the United States, we have a few hurdles to wind energy. First, our entire energy infrastructure would have to be rebuilt. The windiest parts of the country aren't the ones that use the most energy, and currently there is no way to transport massive amounts of energy from the Heartland to the Coasts. With no way to store the surplus power, we'd have to re-build our entire electrical network. Another problem is simple: on the days we'd require the most energy (very hot days), it is generally the least windy. Again, with no means to store the surplus power on good days, we would be faced with rolling blackouts. Both political parties have failed at making this a priority, voting over and over against establishing wind farms offshore or on hundreds of thousands of acres in the middle of the country. Which brings us to another problem, the massive amount of wind mills required to generate the amount of power we would require.

Again we're faced with the reality that this technology does not currently exist. It would be extremely difficult to 'fast track' a technology that doesn't exist, and if you're talking about redesigning the entire power grid for the United States, get ready for a massive increase in taxes to fund that construction.

NUCLEAR

Nuclear power is another good alternative. France gets 80% of its power from 58 nuclear power plants. Of course, 64 million people live in France while over 300 million people live in the United States. To get the same ration of energy production would require 5 times the amount of nuclear power plants for the U.S. We would need build 300 or so plants, and McCain is only proposing 48 additional plants to add to the 33 we already have.

The other problem is nuclear waste. Currently in France a family of four, using energy for 20 years, produces waste about the size of a cigarette lighter. Their current system has them store the waste, not bury it. They do this because they want to have access to it in the future when they are planning on scientists being able to deconstruct it in ways we don't know yet.

SOLUTION

There are two types of energy we need to worry about: automobile, and electrical power generation. On the first front, only Senator McCain offers anything even remotely helpful. His support for offshore drilling (and a running partner who supports drilling in ANWR) would drive oil prices down, create jobs, create revenue for the government, and increase our security. Senator Obama, because of his politically leftist affiliations, is very much against drilling. His solution, to 'fast track' alternative fuels is unrealistic. Additionally, the only way for the government to fast track them is to give money to the private sector to do the research. Essentially, they tax us more and give it to someone else. This relies way to heavily on the government. Again, we get a peek into his theory on how government should function, and in his world he would have a large government take over the role of the private sector. There is $7.5 Trillion in the private sector, compared to the $2.5 Trillion in the government's budget. Where would the discovery of alternative fuels probably arise?

As for electrical power production, they both have fair policies. A mixture of sources would be wise. While Senator McCain didn't originally preach wind energy, he has migrated towards that position. For his part, Senator Obama has changed his position on Clean Coal and Nuclear Energy. But for us to be able to capitalize on those technologies would require a massive change in their certification process, as right now the process is so convoluted it basically eliminates any new license applications before they are submitted.

The solution would be to diversify. We should have wind energy, nuclear, clean coal, and we should drill for oil and natural gas. The candidate who most believably offers that solution would be the most desirable. To me, that would be McCain. Senator Obama is so far left in his political ideology and affiliations, it is difficult to believe that his support for anything other than renew ables is more than lip service. He mentions his support for offshore drilling, but then doesn't want to lift the current restrictions that make it almost impossible to drill anyways. I can't believe his support of nuclear and clean coal is different.

Quick Hit for Tuesday

2008-10-21T12:33:00.000-07:00

CORPORATE TAX

Set-up: The United States charges a corporate tax rate of 35%, making it the second highest corporate tax rate in the world.

McCain's plan: Reduce that tax rate, marginally, to 25%.

Obama's plan: Close corporate tax loopholes to ensure American corporations pay the most possible tax and spin things by saying McCain wants to give Big Oil another $400 million in tax cuts (a natural default by cutting corporate tax rates for everyone).

Result: Think about it this way: if you're in charge of General Motors, and you suddenly have 10% more money for your business; is that better or worse? Is it now easier to hire more workers, give raises, pay down your debt, expand your business, and invest in alternative fuel-run cars? Or is it now more difficult? Additionally, if you're trying to expand a slowing economy, stimulate growth, spur on alternative transportation, and create jobs, wouldn't it be wise to cut the taxes of the people who do all of those things really well?

In case you're thinking "that is nice in theory", look to Ireland as proof that it works. 20 years ago, Ireland had one of the most stagnant economies in Europe (technically, the second lowest per-capita GDP). In order to better compete, Ireland lowered its corporate tax rate to 12.5%. The result: today Ireland has the second largest per-capita GDP in the European Union. Interesting, but some would argue that is Europe and we're the United States, we're strong even WITH the taxes being high. Well consider this: compared to the United States, Ireland raises 50% more corporate tax revenue. That is while their tax rate is 22.5% less than ours (US=35%, Ireland=12.5%).

The natural question is, if cutting taxes raises MORE money for the government, what happens when you RAISE taxes?

What Makes a Good Leader?

2008-10-13T10:57:00.000-07:00

When the campaign nears the end, both candidates have generally done a pretty good job of moving to the center. Thus, it becomes more difficult to determine what they actually stand for. Taking a break from examining particular policy positions, let's ask:

WHAT MAKES A GOOD LEADER?

Wouldn't it be prudent to ask ourselves this question before examining the candidates? What are the most important qualifications for being president? Too often our political leadership is able to make us believe our allegiance is to them and to the party, so we forget to constructively tear through the campaign rhetoric and look at the facts. As a result, who among us feels really comfortable voting for the 'other' party? Emotional and blind allegiance to a political party should have nothing to do with our vote.

It is from that vantage point we should ask: what do we value in our leaders? Intelligence? Faith? Allegiance? Wisdom? Experience? Patience? Here is what I value in a leader.

GOD FEARING

John Adams: "Our Constitution was made only for a moral and religious people. It is wholly inadequate to the government of any other."

What happens when the people defend their right to free speech not in order to evade government prosecution for their dissent, but in order to ensure their right to publish pornography? What happens when a society doesn't realize that being created equal doesn't mean redefining marriage, but is intended to protect against government abuses? And what happens when their elected leaders can't tell the difference either? Well, what did happen when society refused to believe that ''all men are created equal'' applied to all races, not just whites?

George Washington: "It is impossible to rightly govern a nation without God and the Bible."

I would be more comfortable with a man/woman who is Muslim, Jewish, Christian, Hindu, or any other religion than I would be with an atheist or someone vaguely religious. With someone who is devoutly religious (and by religious, I mean someone devoted to something larger than themselves, on the very most general of terms), you know where they are coming from and what they value. With an atheist or someone who is 'sort-of' religious, who knows what you're getting. Does the atheist value human life? Why would they, to them humans are just glorified pond scum. Where do your rights come from, who provides for them? The true atheist would be completely unreliable, a constant variable you couldn't trust to react the same way twice. The religious pretender is almost even worse, because they are essentially lying to you about what they believe. I would much prefer someone devout, even if they are of a differing religion.

Again, John Adams: "Because power corrupts, society's demands for moral authority and character increase as the importance of the position increases."

It is profoundly important for the person who resides in the presidency to be a person of great moral character. A very large part of that is their religious beliefs. Argue about their religion, but the person who is honestly religious is the only person you can trust at their word. Those people protect your rights not because government gives them to you, but because God does.

VALUES

"For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also." Jesus Christ said that. The natural follow up question would be what do the candidates value? Life? Liberty? Or just the Pursuit of Happiness? What does how they act and who they socialize with tell us about them? If we can decide what a candidate values, we know who they really are. Then we can get a better idea of how they will react as president. It is one thing to say what you'll do on the campaign train; it is quite another to follow through when you have the job. Most people presented with an ethical dilemma default on the side of what they value most, so it is important to know what the candidate truly values. In order to know this we need to know a lot about them. What company do they keep? What do they say when they think no one is listening? If we are honest with ourselves we will acknowledge that this is the most difficult thing to discern about a candidate.

GOVERNMENTAL THEORY

Are we electing a libertarian? A communist? A socialist? Someone who loves freedom above all else? Someone who values a small/large government? A powerful military? It is important to not only know their positions on issues, but know how the implementation of those positions will impact the way the government functions. At its core, that is their philosophy on government.

It isn't just the promises a candidate makes, it is how they will deliver on those promises.

Let's take prosperity as an example and examine different philosophies on how to spread it. For instance, lowering your taxes.

The Conservative will tell you that the government should tax you less, let you keep your own money, and invest it where you like. Thus, through hard work and getting the government out of your way by keeping it small, you can achieve whatever dreams you want in a free society. Ultimately, the limit is only what you chose to achieve. It isn't without its drawbacks, as Winston Churchill noted, "the inherent vice of capitalism is the unequal sharing of blessings; the inherent virtue of socialism is the equal sharing of miseries."

The Socialist, however, will tell you that the rich are holding you down, and it is unfair that they possess so much. As such, we should tax them more than you and redistribute that wealth to those less fortunate. They will tell you the government is your salvation, and you just need to give it more power and money so it can solve all your problems. You don't need to earn prosperity, the government will provide it for you.

Both candidates are promising the same thing (lower taxes), but are motivated by very different agendas. Followed through to their logical conclusion, both leaders would want to fashion vastly different governments. We should have some interest in the 'end' our candidates want to achieve.

EXPERIENCE

Experience is the most overrated qualification, really only important in specific circumstances. What I mean is if you're trying to solve an economic crisis, it might be nice if you could demonstrate that you had solved one in the past. If you're trying to win a war, it'd be nice to be able to demonstrate some accuracy on past military conflicts. That is specific experience. General experience just means you're older or have been in the political machine longer, and really of what value is that?

George Washington, when appointed General of the Continental Army for the Revolutionary War, stopped by a local book store on his way to take up his new post. He bought books on how to lead an army. He didn't have any experience up to that point, but he was successful because he was motivated by what he valued. In his case, primarily freedom from British oppression.

Abraham Lincoln had political experience in line with what Governor Palin or Senator Obama has. He wasn't a good leader in a time of war because he was in the Senate for 95 years, but because he followed through on what he valued: a united country. When he freed the slaves, he did so because he thought it was morally wrong, saying "Now I confess myself as belonging to that class in the country who contemplate slavery as a moral...evil." What a candidate values is what they are going to try an implement when they get the presidency, so we need to be seriously examining our candidates.

SENATOR OBAMA

There are things that worry me about McCain, but in the interest of space I just want to examine Obama here based on the above points.

God Fearing: I honestly don't know where he stands on this one. He has said he is a Christian, and I'll take his word on that. However, I haven't heard him come out and say anything about how his views would affect how he would lead, especially nothing so definitive as to what Washington said. It would seem he is sort of quasi-religious, which I don't find appealing in any candidate. For when does someone who is quasi-devoted find it acceptable to violate their beliefs?

Values: As I said above, this one is more tricky. We really have to know the person to know what they value, and there is little the media focuses on that help us get to know them. Instead, we have to dig it up on our own. From what I do know, Senator Obama's values worry me much more than McCain's. The people around him now and those in his past don't seem to be the type I would expect in a leader I'd like. He has a 'spiritual mentor' (his words) who blames whites for everything and preaches that the government created the AIDS virus to kill black people. His pastor of 20 years also believes that September 11th was justifiable, and that we had it coming. He has a 'close friend' (his words) in a man named Ayers who has bombed the U.S. Congress and N.Y. Police department, and has said as recently as Sept. 11, 2001 (bad timing) that he wished he did more. Then there is the man he has spoken well of claiming that Obama is the Messiah (Louis Farrakhan). His wife has said she hasn't ever been proud of this country. And when Obama thought no one was listening, he told a group in San Francisco that small town Americans are "bitter, clinging to their guns and their God with antipathy towards those who aren't like them." If we are being fair, we'll look at the friends we keep, and ask ourselves if we know one person who has bombed a building, or who thinks September 11th was anything but evil. Have we known anyone who believes that white people created AIDS to kill blacks? And if we did know these types of people, would we listen to such garbage for over 20 years and call the person saying those things a 'spiritual mentor.' If that is what you're being mentored to be, what are you becoming? Would we have that man baptize our kids? Would we have him officiate our wedding, one of the most important days of our lives? If you're a Christian, would that person be the one who finally showed you how Christ loves you and died for you? Would we chose to launch our careers out of the home of an American terrorist? If we are a politician, could we marry someone who has never been proud of our country? Would we find that attractive in a potential mate? If we wouldn't do those things and keep those friends, and Obama has, I think it is fair to ask what his values truly are. We all can understand one person in our past turning out to be a real tool, but what would it say about us if the same type of people kept popping up time and time again?

"Show me your friends and I'll tell you who you are." What do his acquaintances tell us about the man? I'm not sure, but it certainly isn't anything positive.

Governmental Theory: As a Conservative, Senator Obama worries me.

He has said he intends to tax the rich and give it to the poor. He wants to raise taxes on the rich only, while the lower 40% of us pay no taxes to begin with.

He supports legislation that would take State's rights away in regards to abortion and marriage, providing more power to the federal government.

He has requested, in his four years in the Senate, over $800 million in pork projects, and promises over $700 Billion more worth in new programs. Is he conveniently ignoring how one would pay for that while currently running a $450 Billion deficit.

He has said that paying taxes equates to being a 'good neighbor' and his running mate said it is 'patriotic,' but I don't agree we owe the government anything, I think the government owes us. "Government for the people, by the people."

He supported legislation to prosecute a home owner for shooting an intruder.

He looks to the government to solve the financial crises, welfare, abortion, gay marriage, gun control, natural disasters and the like through larger federal problems.

He wants to tax us in the U.S. to the tune of $80 Billion, and give it to poor countries throughout the world. Sounds good, but again he thinks government will solve the poverty problem when only freeing those people and letting them create jobs will get them out of poverty. At the end of the day, even $80 Billion will eventually run out.

He doesn't ever say that the government should be smaller, and only when McCain said he wants to cut pork projects did Obama say the same.

Those are stands he has taken that indicate what his theory on government is. Those beliefs have long standing and serious consequences on the way our government works. Every president wants to spread their ideology, and Senator Obama will spread his by appointing judges and working with a Democrat controlled House and Senate.

Electing Senator Obama does mean change, because we were founded with the intent of small government. The real question is do we like the change he promises? If after knowing all we do about Senator Obama you still support him that is fine. Just know that what you're supporting isn't what our Founders fought for. It isn't free enterprise. It isn't small government. It is the beginnings of socialism, pure and simple. No major party candidate has espoused redistribution of wealth without failing miserably in the end. Could this time be different? Have we as a society really become this liberal? Is this why John Adams said "Remember, democracy never lasts long. It soon wastes, exhausts, and murders itself. There is never a democracy that did not commit suicide."?

CONCLUSION

The things I chose as being important in a candidate might not be the same that you list. I don't know how religious Senator Obama is, or how far he is willing to compromise those beliefs. I do not like what his acquaintances say about his character. And I do not like his theory on government. To me, those are the three most important things about a potential leader, and Senator Obama doesn't meet any of them.

I also realize that McCain isn't exactly the pillar of conservatism I would prefer, but how far left or right are we willing to take this country before we say enough is enough? We have in Senator Obama the most liberal major party candidate in the history of this country. Most of his policies, while well-meaning, would mean implementing a government that would be totally foreign to our Founders.

So three questions await:

Are we willing to elect someone who is vague about his religious beliefs, whatever they may be?

Are we willing to elect someone who, if like those friends he keeps, has such radical values?

Are we willing to change from a system of government and trade that has produced the most prosperous nation in the history of the planet to a system that has demonstrably failed every time it has been attempted?

Debate Round 2

2008-10-08T10:16:00.000-07:00

ALL ABOARD!

The Gravy Train left the station last night in a big way. Perhaps this election will come down to who promises more to the American people, without actually being able to follow through on any of it.

Last night's debate did nothing more than further solidify the average voter's position. Whether that be in Obama's camp, McCain's camp, or undecided I cannot fathom that anyone saw anything that would convince them to switch their vote. What we witnessed last night was a scathing condemnation of our debate system as it stands right now.

Might I make a suggestion? Lets have Rush Limbaugh question Senator Obama, and Bill Maher question Senator McCain. At least then we'd get interesting questions, and the candidates would have to really grind it out against someone who literally is out to destroy them. It would be a great way to get more than 40 million to watch the debate, and it would answer a lot more questions about how these men would govern than the same softball questions that they answered in the first debate.

A FEW QUESTIONS I'D LIKE ANSWERED

"Senator Obama, how is it that during the primaries you were against drilling domestically, using coal or nuclear power, but are now a supporter of all three? Is it better to have a leader who is willing to change their mind when they're wrong, or a leader who wasn't wrong to begin with?"

"Senator McCain, a big tenant of your campaign has been your opposition to pork spending in Congress. So why did you vote for the latest Bailout plan knowing it was heavy loaded with hundreds of millions worth of pork projects? How can the American public trust you to veto legislation in the future if you don't vote against it now?"

"Senator Obama, what do you say to Americans who are uncomfortable with your position that abortion should be legal up to and including the 9th month of pregnancy? Or your opposition to providing children born alive due to botched abortion medical care, preferring that they are left to die because it might undermine the legality of abortion if we give them medical rights? How do you support those positions on an ethical level, and how do you get the American people to agree with you?"

"Senator McCain, how do you justify spending an additional $300 billion on buying bad mortgages on top of the Bailout plan, when we are in such difficult financial times already? Where is the money coming from?"

"Senator Obama, why did you launch your political career at the home of Bill Ayers, someone you said you are 'friendly' with, someone you worked with closely in Chicago, and who provided you with $50 million of funding in Chicago to disperse as you willed? What do you think the American public would think of your close association with him, considering he has bombed the American Capitol and Pentagon and said he wished he bombed more?"

"Senator McCain, what does your choice of Governor Palin say about your judgement and view on government?"

"Senator Obama, when you referred to small town Americans as being "bitter, clinging to their guns and God with antipathy towards others" what did you mean by that?"

"Senator McCain, was your support for the War in Iraq justified and why?"

"Senator Obama, when you supported the idea of prosecuting someone who shoots an intruder in their own home, were you at all concerned with violating the 2nd Amendment to the U.S. Constitution?"

"Senator Obama, why do you want to provide the federal government with so much more power when time and time again, with FEMA, Social Security, Education, Welfare, the War on Poverty and many more programs like that the federal government has demonstrated it's complete inability to successfully implement strong and effective programs? Why is now different?"

DEBATE MEMORIES THAT WILL STICK

Senator Obama, in an effort to balance his opposition to the Iraq War and support for U.S. rights to military intervention in foreign countries, made the point that when genocide is occurring, the U.S. should get involved. Either the Senator doesn't know that Saddam Hussein killed over 300,000 of his own people, or he

ignores that fact. I don't know which is better.

Senator Obama still refuses to explain how, when we are already running a $450 Billion deficit and just spent $700 Billion on a bailout, he will find money for his $700 Billion in new spending (I realize he says that number is incorrect, but I'm using it based on what independent economists estimate his plans will cost). The Senator says he'll get rid of wastefully spending, but there are two problems with that. First and foremost, taking into account his spending and the deficit and the bailout, we're talking about a $1.8 Trillion swing from the red into the black. In a government with a $2.8 Trillion budget, how are you going to cut enough costs to 'find' an additional $1.8 Trillion? You would have to cut over 50% of the current spending. Secondly, can we trust the man who has requested $900 Million in his own pork spending to eliminate wasteful spending? How against pork could he be if he requests it in the tune of that amount?

Senator McCain needs a strong debate performance more than Senator Obama does. There is a large section of Senator Obama's fan base that, no matter what they learn, are so on board his rally for 'Change' that they won't switch to McCain for anything. However unfortunate that is, it leaves room for McCain to point out just how liberal Senator Obama is. According to the National Journal, which records our representatives voting record, Senator Obama's voting record shows he is the most liberal Senator in all of the Senate. What that means is he votes straight down party lines, rarely (if ever) crossing over to work with Republicans on any measure. That should cause people to pause when he calls for a new kind of politics. While that might not bother people in love with the image of Senator Obama, it certainly will bother the moderates. People who would be concerned with the Democrats controlling both the House and the Senate, and sending their most liberal representative to the White House.

Senator Obama's assertion that Health Care is a 'right' is an indication of how he views things and how he would govern. The Socialist state wants everything to be owned by the public. Not only the food that is grown, but where it is sold and the profit it makes, all is to be owned by the public at large. Conversely, the rights guaranteed to us by our Constitution, "life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness" are free and are designed to keep us free. What that means is the only way to take those away is for the government to get involved and forcibly remove them from us, or provide us with additional 'rights'. That is why our Founders wanted small, limited government: so it doesn't have the power to do that. What Senator Obama is saying with Health Care is the opposite of what our Founders wanted. The only way to implement a 'right' to Health Care is for the government to force people to provide it to us, at whatever rate we deem 'fair.' Either by taxing everyone to pay for it, or forcing prices down with legislation (neither of which has worked in other countries), it isn't about removing the government as an obstacle as the Founders did with our rights to "life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness." Contrarily, it is about imposing the government on us, with enough power to force this 'right' into our lives. Once again, at his very core Senator Obama has revealed that he is way too close to Socialist principles for us comfortable with.

CONCLUSION

These debates are only useful for one thing: telling how a person would govern. Let's be honest, the individual points the candidates speak of are just regurgitated political talking points. We have to get our hands dirty and examine what their policies mean for how they would govern, and what they reveal about their theory on what a successful government is and does.

At this point, it should be pretty clear that for good or bad, Senator Obama thinks a big, strong, federal government is best. Senator McCain thinks the opposite, although frequently he isn't Conservative enough to really get a lot of support from the Conservatives among us. There is a saying among Conservatives that the only person who could make them vote for McCain is Obama. Meaning, while McCain isn't a true Conservative on many issues, Senator Obama is so far left that there is no other option than voting for McCain.

Whether we like individual policies or not, this election comes down to big government vs. smaller government. What we decide will impact us for years to come, as the president will have power to elect judges to the courts who agree with their interpretation of how the government should work. Do we want someone who is as Liberal as Senator Obama appointing judges, who are unelected, to posts that they'll hold for the rest of their lives?

Additionally, if Senator Obama wins the election, he will have a House of Reps controlled by the Democrats, and the Senate controlled by the Democrats. So we really need to ask ourselves, what is the cost for the 'change' that Senator Obama is selling?

Senator Obama the Conservative?

2008-10-07T18:00:00.000-07:00

SENATOR MCCAIN

Senator McCain missed an opportunity. With the passage of this massive bailout package, Senator McCain missed an important opportunity to show the American people that he is good on his word. The Senator has been really big on stopping pork barrel spending. When the Congress passes a bill, in order to grease the wheels they back load it with tons of additional spending. To get the approval of their fellow senators/representatives, they throw in additional spending on frivolous programs. Senator McCain has made getting rid of pork a tenant of his campaign. To be true, Senator McCain hasn't over the course of his career requested any pork projects (compared to the $900 million that Senator Obama has requested over the first four years in the Senate). The opportunity he missed was that loaded into the bailout package was:

$223 Million for Alaskan Fisherman
$192 Million for Rum producers in Puerto Rico
$128 Million for auto racing
$33 Million for companies in the American Samoa
$6 Million for the producers of wooden arrows

If Senator McCain acted truthful to his promise of vetoing every bill with pork that comes across his desk, then he would have voted against it. He didn't. So we have to believe one of two things: either the Senator isn't really going to veto those bills, or he isn't trustworthy to follow through on his promise on that issue. I'm not sure what is better.

SENATOR OBAMA

If the wise thing to do is keep government small, keep their power limited, and be very skeptical about our leaders, I don't know how wise it would be to elect Senator Obama. If the Founders were right in asserting that the government that governs least, governs best, and God is correct in warning his people of the dangers of strong government, then I don't know if it would be smart to ignore them and vote for Obama. If we have any conservative blood left in our body, then I don't know how we could vote for the man. Let me explain.

ABORTION

Lets not debate the ethics of abortion right now. Instead, lets examine the Freedom of Choice Act that Senator Obama supports. This act would make it illegal for any state to pass any restriction on abortion. What that means is that no state could make partial birth abortion illegal (abortion up to the moment of birth, which does happen in this country). No state could pass laws regarding parental notification for minors. The Act would strip the states of all their rights in passing legislation in regards to abortion. Additionally, Senator Obama would re-instate federal funding for abortion. The Constitution granted the states every right that was not explicitly given to the federal government in the Constitution. The Constitution does not give the federal government any rights regarding restricting (or not restricting) abortion. To give them that right is a gross violation of the Constitution. Stripping states of their rights and giving them to the federal government is something totally foreign to the Founders.

MARRIAGE

Senator Obama opposes the Defense of Marriage Act passed by President Clinton in 1996. This Act re-inforces the state's right to not recognize another state's marriage laws. In action, that means if Colorado says a man can marry a goat, Nevada doesn't have to recognize that as a legal marriage. Senator Obama's opposition to this act means that every single state would have to recognize any marital relationship from any other state. Again, this strips the state's of their Constitutionally guaranteed rights and sets a dangerous precedent for a movement towards a powerful federal government. Not just a powerful federal government, but one that is unrestricted by states power that was designed to counterbalance the federal power.

TAXES

Senator Obama advocates cutting taxes on the bottom 95% of wage earners in this country. Ignoring for a moment that 40% of those people pay no taxes at all to begin with, we still have to acknowledge that the top 5% already pay over 40% of federal income tax. The top 1% pay over 60% of federal income taxes. I realize that people don't like how 'unfair' it is that people make more money than they do (Paris Hilton, anyone?), but as an economic policy, taxing people who have more money does in no way put more money in our pockets. What it does is increase the power of the federal government, set a precedent of taxing the rich at insane rates, and move us toward a socialistic system rather than capitalistic. The idea that this would become acceptable is pretty mind boggling, considering that just 17 years ago we won a decades old war against a failed socialist state....why move closer to become what we defeated? The last time I looked, being the exact opposite of the Soviet Empire created the most powerful and prosperous country, with the best standard of living, this world has ever seen.

Furthermore, who do you work for? Where do you buy gas? Where is it you pick up your groceries? Who makes your clothes? Who owns your TV station? Even if you're not rich, raising taxes on the people who own these things that provide for our basic needs does not make our bills less expensive. Who in their honest opinion thinks that when the government raises Comcast's taxes, they just say "oh, bummer, looks like we're making less money this year"? That's ludicrous, from an economic standpoint. They pass that fee right on to you and me. It might hurt less when it happens to Comcast (we can always cancel that service), but it will hurt plenty when it happens to our food producers (not just the stores, but the suppliers). Big government thinks backwards on these issues. You don't create wealthy by taxing companies that create jobs. You create wealthy and jobs by letting our companies (both small and large) use their own money to expand their business.

ENERGY

Senator Obama wants to "fast track alternative fuels." I think everyone is for using renewable, alternative fuels. In two years, we have GM releasing the Chevy Volt. That car will get 40 miles on its battery after 6 hours of charging. Nice, but by no meant impressive, and it is the best we have. So, he wants to throw hundreds of billions into new research into solar, wind, geo-thermal, and other energies. Let's look at this further as well. First off, that is yours and my money. The idea that you take money from the private sector to give back to the private sector to encourage research into something that doesn't exist is a policy of a big and powerful government. Again, it sets a dangerous precedent. Secondly, who invented the car? Was it the government? Who invented flight? The President? Did the Wright brothers get $100 billion from the government to spur on their research? Today GM, which is drowning in debt, is using its own capital to research the next, best, greatest thing, in order to make money and expand their business. Likewise, so is Toyota, Honda, Ford, and every single other car maker. If the government throws $100 billion of your money at GM, would that make them discover a new technology any faster? The government can't throw enough money at the problem to solve it, there is way more money in the private sector than in the government. In fact, the government can't get money to begin with without taking from the private sector to begin with. Aren't we tired of seeing these huge spending programs crash and burn?

REDISTRIBUTION OF WEALTH

Senator Obama has called for supplying a $1,000 tax rebate to all Americans. What he hasn't telegraphed is that he is getting this money from taxing 'Big Oils' profits. This is very lain and simple redistribution of wealth, a tenant of socialism. Senator Obama has called this 'fair.' Fair is nice, but it isn't an economic policy. A socialist government can steal money from whomever it wants, but that doesn't encourage growth, and it certainly doesn't reduce your bill at the pump. Consider this: Big Oil, while making a ton of money, has a profit margin of 7%. Google has a profit margin of over 20%, as does Microsoft. The reason Big Oil makes so much money is because of how expensive oil is to begin with. If oil didn't cost so much, then they wouldn't make as much profit. Lowering the cost of oil will lower their profits, if that is your goal. But it shouldn't be the goal to begin with. The government makes more money per gallon of gas than the oil companies do. For every gallon you spend, there is a 17 cent federal tax. Then, depending on where you live, you have a state tax ranging all the way up to another 68 cents.

A very large federal government is already screwing us when it comes to gas, much more than the oil companies are. If we taxed governments profit on oil instead of the oil company's profit, we could actually get an even larger refund than the one Senator Obama is promising. Either way, the Senator's plan is socialist in its core.

We cannot afford to put a man in the Oval Office who represents socialist principles. I cannot imagine how that would be a wise idea.

RESULTS

Big government has resulted in many failed policies. Social Security, Welfare, a War on Poverty, and many more. Not even to mention the fantastic failures of socialist principles throughout the world in the U.S.S.R., China, Vietnam and others.

The problem lies at the core: Senator Obama believes that the government can solve our problems. When we are presented with a problem, the answer is tax more. Another issue pops up? Create a new program. States want to do something we don't like? Take away the state's right and reserve it for the federal government.

Thomas Jefferson thought Alexander Hamilton was a traitor to his country. Why? He wanted to create the National Bank. He wanted the federal government to have a little more control over the country's finances. What would he think about the Bailout our congress just passed? What would he think about the feds taking control over defining marriage and abortion? What would the man who warned of the dangers of "mob rule, where fifty-one percent of the people may take away the rights of the other forty-nine" think of a politician gaining votes by promising to take money from others and give it to you?

If there is a conservative bone in our collective body, these are policies we cannot support. I don't believe that they are policies our Founders would support.

This election, we have been asked to embrace 'Change.' We could elect a monkey and that would constitute as 'change,' and that is not the point. The real question is, what should we change to? We have a candidate in Senator Obama who says, in his own words, that he is a product of the American dream, and yet told a ten year old that America isn't as good as it used to be. It is fair and just to ask what direction someone who thinks like that would like to take the country.

The people in Russia faced a populist push by Lenin during a very difficult time. The Italians faced the same opportunity to change things up with Mussolini. The Israelites yelled for change as well, and exchanged a governmental relationship with God for a human king. And the Germans, under post WW1 oppressive economic conditions, were promised change and a fight for the common man. Be sure: I don't bring these men up to compare Senator Obama to Lenin, Mussolini, or Hitler. I make reference to it to highlight the importance of making sure we realize what change is being peddled to us. Change for the sake of change isn't going to cut it.

If it did, we might as well elect a monkey.

V.P. Debate

2008-10-02T20:24:00.000-07:00

IMPRESSIONS

The debate was full of political talking points with very little substance. If all you base your vote on is which side sounds better and just trust them to come through on their promises, than this was the debate for you. If, on the other hand, you want to know how they're going to come through on what they promise and, more importantly, what that effectually means in terms of the government's power, than you must have been left wanting like I was.

To be honest, the debate left me very conflicted. I want to talk about everything they discussed, from taxes to Iran, from the War in Iraq to Health Care. But I've been thinking this over for an hour and a half and have come to realize that to really treat each issue with the attention I want, I am going to have to do it in successive posts. Which was my plan all along, so that works out quite nicely. But I can't not comment on the debate so here are some of my quick hits:

- People wanting to see a train wreck must be disappointed. Governor Palin didn't self destruct like many were hoping and thought she would. She proved she is more than capable of going toe to toe with someone who has been part of the political machine for over 30 years. On the other hand, Senator Biden didn't get himself in trouble by saying something silly, insulting, or by plagiarizing someone else's work like some on the right were hoping. It was a pretty uneventful debate on that front.

- I can't help but watch Senator Biden and end up thinking that the Democratic ticket should be reversed. Senator McCain and Senator Biden both have the experience, have been to the foreign countries, visited the rural areas of which they speak, and discussed policy with the foreign leaders that they quote. Senator Obama and Governor Palin are much more similar in how they can speak in general terms about what they would like to do, but can't draw on a wealth of experience. Senators McCain and Biden honestly look like they are teaching their respective opposition as much as they are debating them.

- It was nice to see Governor Palin call out Senator Biden and the Democrats for constantly referring to President Bush as though they are running against him. I have grown quite tired of every one of their answers being premised with, "If the failure of the Bush Administration has taught us anything..." It is a political trick that should have been addressed a long time ago.

- I was impressed with Senator Biden's restraint in not correcting Governor Palin when she misspoke the name of the Commander in Afghanistan. He just kept on debating as if it never happened. Pretty classy.

- On the other hand, did Senator Biden honestly talk himself up for his insight in advocating action in Kosovo and Bosnia, and then chastise President Bush for doing the same thing in Iraq? He spoke of the great success in uniting the different cultures in those areas, while mocking President Bush for thinking he could do the same things in Iraq with the Shiite and Sunni. I don't know if Palin missed that, or if she was returning the courtesy favor.

- When asked how each candidate would get past all the partisanship that cripples the Congress, I think their answers were telling. Governor Palin said that you lead by example, as she did by appointing Democrats in her administration in Alaska. Senator Biden said you do it by not second guessing people's motives, but second guessing their judgement. I would tend to agree with the Governor on this one, I don't see how thinking that everyone else is a moron would help you work with them better.

- The most poignant thing mentioned in the debate goes to Governor Palin. When asked what makes her qualified to be V.P., she said, among other things, her World View. Amen! Shouldn't this be the single most important think about a candidate? Their personal philosophy about government will play an enormous role in how they govern, and as such should be something everyone should question.

Lastly, I don't think anyone won this debate in the traditional sense. Both did a good job, and while I don't agree with a lot of the principles Senator Biden asks us to adopt, he does a superb job communicating and speaking about them in a rational and well thought out way. Governor Palin did a great job of holding her own, and in the minds of a lot of people who were getting worried about her should look a lot better.

I wish I could get into the issues more, but since the debate was pretty superficial I'll keep my post the same. I'll get into more specifics in future posts.

Current Economic Woes

2008-10-01T09:56:00.000-07:00

THE BAILOUT

$700 Billion is a lot of money. It is roughly the amount of money we pay to import oil every year. The question we are all faced with is should we let the government use our money to invest in the credit market? Before any of us decide on that, I think we need to have a better understanding of how this happened.

MAJOR PLAYERS: FREDDIE MAC AND FANNIE MAE

The first and most obvious question about these two entities is: what are they? Both are Government Sponsored Enterprises (GSE), meaning that the government, while not exactly 'owning' the property, was the primary proponent behind it. Fannie Mae (Federal National Mortgage Association) was created as part of FDR's New Deal in 1938. It was designed to participate in the secondary mortgage market. When 'Bank Awesome' makes a loan to a homeowner, they can then take that loan and sell it to someone else on what is called the secondary mortgage market. Fannie Mae was designed to buy up and guarantee loans so that 'Bank Awesome' could then take their new money and re-loan it to another wannabe homeowner of small business owner. The result would be freeing up credit for the next person who needs/wants it.

Congress chartered Freddie Mac (Federal Home Loan Mortgage Corp) in 1970 to balance their budget and provide competition to Fannie Mae in the secondary mortgage market. In practice, shat Freddie and Fannie do is buy and guarantee the liquidity of mortgages. By 2008, Fannie and Freddie owned or guaranteed 50% of the $12 Trillion worth of mortgages in the United States.

As a result of their growth, we now have two entities controlling over $6 Trillion worth of the mortgages in the U.S. The process 'worked' until the Real Estate market took a turn south, interest rates increased, mortgage payments went up, and people who couldn't afford the home they borrowed on started foreclosing. The ownership went back to the bank (in many cases Freddie and Fannie), who couldn't sell the property because the market tanked and the property wasn't worth the mortgage on it. So Freddie and Fannie, guaranteeing or owning 1/2 of these mortgages, are in serious financial trouble.

But why would Freddie and Fannie take such risks on bad loans to people who can't afford them?

THE COMMUNITY REINVESTMENT ACT

The Community Reinvestment Act was passed under Jimmy Carter in 1977. This Act was an attempt to get people who couldn't qualify for a loan for whatever reason the ability to obtain some financing for a home purchase. Essentially, get poor people in houses that they owned instead of rented. Despite serious opposition from the banking industry, Congress passed this Act and it became law. The loans given out to people with bad credit, poor income, who couldn't originally qualify for a loan are what is commonly referred to as 'Subprime' loans. Basically, 'less than ideal' or 'high risk' loans.

The Act evolved over time. In 1992, the U.S. Congress passed another Act called the Federal Enterprises Financial Safety & Soundness Act. It required Fannie and Freddie to devote a % of their lending to offer and guarantee mortgages for affordable housing. Affordable Housing is also designed to get people who financially find it straining to buy a home into something they can afford.

In 1995 the Clinton Administration made more changes, forcing financial institutions to make loans to distressed rural and inner city areas. In addition, it encouraged people to sue financial institutions that they believed were violating the Community Reinvestment Act (CRA) by not providing financing in the form of subprime mortgages.

Between 1993 and 1998, CRA loans increased by a whopping 39%, while conventional loans increased by only 17%. In addition, home prices 'values' at a pace no longer closely related to inflation, created an illusion of value.

In 2002, the Bush Administration responded to a review of the changes made in 1995 by suggesting heavy regulation of Freddie and Fannie. That move was opposed to Democrats in Congress, and since the Republicans didn't have enough of a majority to override them the motion stalled. In 2005, Senator McCain offered the same warning.

Government for the people?

2008-09-30T11:26:00.000-07:00

Before I ever decided what I think about issues like abortion, gay rights, a strong military, or any other hot button items, I had to decide what type of government I support. How could I really know what I think about abortion rights if I don't know what the ramifications of supporting that are? What is my philosophy about how government should be structured?

A FAITH GUIDED APPROACH

The children of Israel, God's chosen people, spent hundreds of years as slaves in Egypt. After God's miraculous intervention they were saved and delivered from slavery, and promised something better. On their journey to the Promised Land, they were blessed to see God's provision for them manifested in miracle after miracle. Since they had no governmental structure, in order to manage the peace and judge wrongdoing amongst the people, God had Moses set Judges in charge of each of the 12 tribes of Israel. God appointed Himself a High Priest in Aaron, someone to represent Israel before God. This constituted their government when they entered the Promised Land.

After encountering some difficulties with the Philistines, the Israelites demanded of Samuel (a prophet of God) that they be given a king. Samuel discouraged this idea, but they pressed him until he sought God's permission. Here is what God said to Samuel, in slightly abbreviated fashion (1 Sam 8:7-18):

"You shall solemnly forewarn them, and show them the behavior of the king who will reign over them. He will take your sons and appoint them for his own chariots.... he will take your daughters to be ...cooks, and bakers. And he will take the best of your fields, your vineyards, and your olive groves and give them to his servants. He will take a tenth of your grain.... He will take a tenth of your sheep. And you will be his servants. And you will cry out in that day because of your king whom you have chosen for yourselves, and the Lord will not hear you in that day."

We can read further in vs 19-20 the response of the people of Israel: "No,... we will have a king over us, that we also may be like all the nations, and that our king may judge us and go out before us and fight our battles."

Thus, Israel got her king and as they say, the rest is history. What I find interesting is God's reaction to the people's desire of having a king. God told them that they weren't meant to be governed by men, which is why God told Samuel "Heed the voice of the people in all that they say to you; for they have not rejected you, but they have rejected Me, that I should not reign over them." vs. 7. God had set us a unique relationship with Israel that they were now rejecting. God knew what a king would bring, and warned them. They rejected His warning and chose a king for themselves, and each king, even the best of them, took what they wanted, killed their subjects, got drunk with power, led them away from God and enslaved the people.

If that isn't a direct, divine endorsement for limited government, I don't know what is.

I realize we don't have as unique a relationship with God as His chosen people do, but His warning is the same: we aren't meant to have men govern over us. Not just because mankind is sinful and will abuse the power. But also because we were meant for relationship with Him, and a love for a strong government to protect us and to provide for us, in reality, goes further than just having a differing view on government. It is a direct rejection of Him.

The Christian believer has been instructed by Christ to "worry about nothing, for who can add one day to his life by worrying?" We have been encouraged to trust God for our provisions, knowing He provides for birds and fish and won't hold back from us. So why do we look to government for health care, retirement, welfare, unemployment benefits, and the like? Don't misunderstand me, I am not saying those are bad things. But a good question for the believer to ask themselves is this: ultimately, where have I placed my faith and who do I trust? Who can and will make good on the promise to provide for me?

A SECULAR APPROACH

Thomas Paine: "Government, even in its best state, is but a necessary evil; in it's worst state, an intolerable one."

Another quote from Paine: "There are men in all ages that mean to govern well; but they mean to govern. They promise to be good masters; but they mean to be masters."

Patrick Henry: "The Constitution is not an instrument for the government to restrain the people, it is an instrument for the people to restrain the government - lest it come to dominate our lives and our interests."

Our Founders came here to escape the power that God had warned the Israelites about thousands of years ago: a strong government. As a result, before they drafted the Constitution we all know and love, they authored the Articles of Confederation. People often forget this document because, in part, it was a miserable failure. The Founders were so wary of a strong, centralized government that the government they created with the Articles was inept, powerless, and eventually, a failure. It provided for a loose federation of states, with a federal government so weak it had to request that the states share taxes. It didn't work, and the document was replaced by the more powerful Constitution we have now.

Fast forwarding to today in the United States, we have a federal government that controls our education, our retirement, our welfare, our unemployment, our disaster relief, and as of recently owns many of our financial institutions. It does none of these things well, as each program is in serious financial trouble. Yet with that truth in place we have leaders telling us we need to give them control of our health care because only they will take care of us. The same government that bankrupted our social security, is failing miserably at educating our youth, and can't seem to get the local DMV working efficiently is now asking us to trust them with our medical care and asking for public ownership of the oil companies. I'll address Health Care in another post, but I bring it up here to make a very specific point: we no longer have a population that fears government like our founders did. We now have serious socialist tendencies, even after defeating the Evil Empire just 17 years ago. In addition our government taxes us on income, then on saving that income, or investing that income, or spending that income, or dying while holding that income.

I think it is very fair to ask ourselves: when did we forget to be wary of government and those seeking to govern us?

Thomas Jefferson: "A wise and frugal government, which shall leave men free to regulate their own pursuits of industry and improvement, and shall not take from the mouth of labor and bread it has earned - this is the sum of good government."

I believe that a small federal government, working in conjunction with state and local governments, is the best course of action. I agree with our Founders, and I want to heed God's warning to the Israelites that a strong government will take what it wants, when it wants. I am inclined to listen to Thomas Paine, when he warned that even men meaning to govern well are still meaning to govern. And I will trust what I have witnessed, that even the best intentioned people have only limited foresight and wisdom.

Ronald Reagan: "Public servants say, always with the best of intentions, "What greater service we could render if only we had a little more money and a little more power." But the truth is that outside of its legitimate function, government does nothing as well or economically as the private sector."

Paine: "That government is best which governs least."

It is possible to debate issues like health care and taxes without ever realizing what the implications of holding our positions are. It is important to understand this fundamental point: what type of government we want and like, and what the consequences of giving the federal government more or less control over our lives are. People can disagree about whether the government should take control of health care, keep control of education, social security and the like. What they need to realize is what they're really arguing for is a strong centralized government, or a weaker centralized government. Being for those policies is desiring a stronger federal government to administer those services, taking them out of the private sector. In order to be able to do that, they tax more and "take the bread out of the mouth that earned it", which in my opinion is in direct contradiction to what our Founders and God have warned us about.

That is the prism through which I view things, and I believe the Founders viewed things. It is with that viewpoint I look and dissect the candidates promises to us, and the implications of such plans.

First Blog Post

2008-09-29T21:17:00.000-07:00

I started this blog to talk about politics, and here is why.

I used to go out to lunch with a good friend of mine about once a week. He and I would eat really bad food (all you can eat) and talk politics. Well, not so much politics as government policy. Although he leaned a little more left than I, I greatly appreciated what he had to say. What was valuable about his mentorship was his emphasis on finding the truth. Getting through all the partisan fluff to really finding out what the truth of the matter is. I didn't realize at the time how truly unique this line of thinking was.

I tried to establish a discussion on Senator Obama's convention speech at my office the morning after he spoke at Invesco Field. The guy I was talking to, though extremely friendly, immediately got cold when I mentioned politics. He said something along the lines of, "Hey, that's my guy. You aren't going to change my mind, I'm not going to change your mind, so let's just not go there." He managed to get all that out while walking backwards away from me, and before I had an opportunity to reply he was around the corner and out of sight.

My question is, if you're after the truth, aren't you always up for changing your mind?

Amazingly, party leaders on both sides have managed to convince us that our primary and most important identification is with our respective political parties. They know that when we identify ourselves with their label, we are no longer open to the truth of the matter: our only concern is with the position our side has and making sure it comes out victorious. As a result we internalize and personalize what should be left impersonal. Who cares if we begin life with one view on Social Security and finish life with another? Is there now shame in learning?

There was a time where I wouldn't argue with the identity of Republican. Nowadays, I firstly identify myself with Christ. Then Husband and parent (parent being a recent addition). Then Friend. American. And further down the list comes Conservative (notice, NOT Republican).

What I want to accomplish with this blog is a quest for the truth of the matter. Whether the issue at hand is abortion or taxes, getting through the political talking points and attacking the issue at its heart should always be the goal.

I named this blog The Gravy Train because I feel like all too often gravy is what we're peddled by our political leadership. We're promised this or that, and expected to jump on board motivated not by what is right but what is expedient and satisfies our carnal desires. Or what sounds good. Presidential elections quickly get out of hand with hyperbole and wild exaggerations replacing constructive reasoning. Each side promises different things, the only goal is trying to shove those promises down our throats faster than the other guy. It is my hope that with some serious questioning about the issues and ourselves, we can get off their Gravy Train. We desperately need to know why we believe what we do, beyond the fact that we read it some where or a politician spoke it.