Much political discussion involves terms and phrases used in ways contrary to their definition. The cynical call it spin. President Obama says he wants to “invest” in research, education, and infrastructure. In part, his motivation for this “investment” is to get ahead of the Chinese in the green technologies race and fabricate a “sputnik” moment. He wants us to “Win the Future.” On the surface, this sounds great, after all who would not want to “Win The Future”, which I will abbreviate WTF. Would I be a loon if I wanted to loose the future green race to the Chinese? After all, they are so interested in being green in China, they have a head start, right? They have demonstrated some technological advance on par with the Russians beating us into space to prompt a Sputnik moment, right? So what could the President possibly mean? As an attorney, he understands that words have meaning, and that reasonable people turn to the dictionary to determine the common accepted definition, so let’s start there. He obviously did not intend for us to understand a meaning different from the common accepted definition. Did he? He would not count on us reacting to our feelings about the word instead of critically checking to see if he used it properly. Would he?

I have to believe his intentions are pure, that he thinks he is doing this for our own good. But his perspective, and belief in economic salvation through government fiat makes me skeptical that he has the usual understanding of the word investment. So consider the following, recognizing my skepticism, and decide. For example, an office manager might invest in training for the staff, invest in education. But buying everyone beer one evening after a training session is spending on a consumable expense. The training should lead to improved production, team cohesion, etc., payback in excess of the costs. The beer, leads to trips to the bathroom. Similarly, truthful investment in research would be in technologies with potential for a return on that investment. Spending on research in thousand year old technology with physical or chemical limitations that limit financial feasibility, would not be investment. Do you agree? We would not, for instance invest in research in windmills or ethanol. If we are to invest in education, like the office manager, we should choose those areas in which we expect the greatest, financial, return on our investment. Such investment might be in the form of incentives to attract medical students to increase medical professionals and lessen the shortage, especially in anticipation of all the new people expected to be on Medicaid in 2014. Investment in education would not be in subjects with no practical use, except to produce future professors. Investment in education would be in science, economics, and business management. There would be no investment in educating people in trades with no market demand as there would be no return on that investment. And any investment in infrastructure would be along the lines of the Panama Canal. We would invest in infrastructure with proven economic advantage over our current methods. We certainly would not invest in more government operated railway, for instance, high speed or otherwise. It would be easy to see the evidence of sincerity and understanding of the word investment. We should not see a line waiting outside the men’s room, or hear talk of free beer.

Simple investment is made in assets which are expected to go up in value with time. This can be raw materials which are tooled or modified so as to add value to them, or it can be real estate which can be improved to add value. Investment can be in people, by increasing their ability to do such things. In other words, investment is the act of taking wealth (capital) and using its ability to produce work to create more wealth. A factory owner might invest in more efficient tools and in the education of the workers to operate them, only if it allowed that owner to increase production value and therefore see a return on that investment. Without a return, spending is consumption, or charity, not investing. A factory owner could find busy work for his employees and call it investment, for a while. But just as beer is a fools investment, his capital would soon be flushed down the proverbial toilet, and he would not long be a factory owner.

“Green” is not relevant to this discussion.. When we spend tax money on research on such limited use technology as solar panels or windmills, we are duplicating research conducted for generations by the private sector. The areas where this method of power generation is preferable to other methods is well understood and found unfeasible outside of limited, remote situations. My family uses solar powered devises and I have seen solar powered wells provide water where it was not feasible to bring power lines. For as long as there has been written record, windmills have lifted water into elevated tanks for later use. But, whenever we must rely on such devices, we must have an alternative for days when the wind does not blow or clouds persist. Any savings in the “free’ energy is lost in redundant spending on duplicate structure. When we can tolerate intermittent failure, we put up with the inefficiency and losses for the savings. But, make no mistake, energy companies have thoroughly tested known material and aerodynamic technology and continue to do so secretly. Each is desperate to be the marketer of the next nuclear fusion plant or any other fossil fuel replacing technology. Are we likely to get that kind of fanatical zeal for discovery through government-grant-investment research? Perhaps, but will the zeal be to find something economically feasible, or something popular, or the answers which bring more congressional funding?

We know how much energy reaches the earth from the sun. There is not enough energy in sunlight to power our country if we could capture it all, with 100% efficiency. Solar panels and windmills will never be 100% efficient, nor will the energy storage arrangements they charge. Anyone who suggests we could have a breakthrough to change our understanding of physics sufficiently to overcome this fact is praying, not planning. Such a person is praying for a change in the natural, physical world, not planning for an improvement in our understanding of it. They are banking on an answer existing in the realm of what we do not know, no in the overall expansion of what we know. A cynical person might attribute such folly to spin as well.

I suggest we let the private sector spend its own money when something new is to be gleaned, instead of spending the money confiscated from all of us because we wish it were so. Following the real Sputnik moment, we didn’t beat the Russians to the moon, we ran there alone. No one was following us. The world was more than willing to let us spend the resources, and watch for the occasional discovery when we stumbled onto one. The world is doing the same now that we are in the “green race”. We performed a technological feat with no financially viable use for it. The world knew it could be done, but only government would do it without answering the question of why would we. I think it is really neat that we have been to the moon, and love the romantic images of doing so with a slide rule. But I would never condone outpacing the Russians if it meant borrowing the money from the Chinese, giving our discoveries to them, and mothballing the program a generation later to rely on Russian rockets to get our satellites into orbit and our astronauts to a space station we share with them. We went to the moon to prove that American ingenuity can solve any problem, the Russians went into space to prove to the Russian people that the Russian government was the solution to any problem. Which more closely resembles the arguments President Obama makes for, “investment”? Let us not spend money we borrow from our kids to mothball another technology without financial feasibility when we can do it now for free.

When we have invested (spent) tax money on education, we got more expensive education. Don’t believe me? Why would anyone spend the tax money to educate their kids in a public school, and also spend the tuition money to educate them in a private school, (as all private school parents do), if one were not better than the other? As education spending doubled in this country, our student’s performance relative to the rest of the world did not change appreciably. When we spent tax money to help students pay for college tuition, we got a corresponding increase in tuition costs. When we use government loan guarantees, we get students studying subjects and pursuing degrees they never would on their own dime, much less if a private bank had to be convinced that demand for workers with those degrees was sufficiently high to empower the graduate to repay the loan. Only the idle rich would pay their own money for degrees in un-marketable subjects. A musician of moderate skill and disadvantaged background can get a loan and earn a music degree with no hope of being employed as such upon graduation. This is not investment, it is entitlement. We believe that this mediocre musician has a right to pursue this career path and some believe he is entitled to have the rest of us pay for it. But more importantly, is such a young musician well served in being led to believe that a music degree and loan payments provide a better future than being a brick mason, for instance?

When we spend tax money on our “crumbling infrastructure”, we are doing maintenance, not investing. Such maintenance is a consumable, not an investment. This is not to say that maintenance is not necessary, but it is not investment. I suggest a restructuring instead. I suggest that we go back to the funding scheme that built much of our crumbling infrastructure. I suggest that we use the gasoline tax for road construction and maintenance as it was originally sold to us. I suggest that we end the practice of raiding that tax to subsidize public transportation like Amtrak and city buses.

I challenge you to find any area where the government operates in even tangential competition with the private sector where the government efficiency is on the same order of magnitude as the private sector. Find any activity where the government keeps its promise of controlling costs and continuously improving customer satisfaction. There is no private concern which can survive any substantial length of time without doing just that, and paying a return on investment. There are legitimate uses for government, such as refereeing and national defense. But anytime government spending is recommended as an investment, or to control costs, or as a way to provide for those who cannot provide for themselves, there has been and by the very nature of it will be, an ever increasing collection of resources and liberties in an attempt to react to the cascade of disappointments and demands. Spending tax money on beer leads to well used toilets, not return on investment. Unfortunately, it also assures votes from the brewer’s union, big toilet manufactures, and drunks.

Why then are progressives just as unhappy as conservatives with his reaction, or lack thereof? Is one perspective accurate and the other politics? The answer to these questions can be reduced to the heart of all the modern day debates about the appropriate roll of a national government in a modern society. In a word, it is about theology. This story serves to contrast the two apposing perspectives.

First, progressives believe that intellect and ideology are more important than experience. They believe that a person who has the greater good at heart, will draw better conclusions than someone with their own self interest at heart, intelligent or otherwise. They believe that all intelligent people come to the same conclusion, that serving the greater good of humanity always leads the intellectual to the correct answer, in other words, the perfect solution. Looking after one’s own personal interests seems not only selfish to the progressive, but inefficient as it cannot lead to more than an imperfect, self serving solution.

Second, conservatives believe, as the founders did, that individuals seeking to better their individual lives discover the best answers in a world where almost all answers are compromises in outcome. They believe the more complex the variables, the more likely the answer will be a compromise. In other words, there are no perfect solutions, but everyone can adopt the solution that minimizes the compromises most important to the individual while maximizing the benefits most important to the individual.

As it relates to the oil spill, the progressive believes that the collective intellect, concentrated in academia and national government, better considerers appropriate action than leaving private individuals and groups of individuals called companies to consider the risks of doing business and preparing to meet their responsibilities. Progressives passed a law, the Oil Pollution Act, et. al. which put coordinating oil spill discharge abatement and cleanup funding and coordination squarely in the federal responsibility column. They used the crisis of the Exxon Valdez spill as an example of the imperfect disaster response produced by the private sector. This act limited the liability of an individual company and put the responsibility on the taxpayer. The result is a skewed view of liability and responsibility and more potentially catastrophic, the view of risk tolerance. The EPA describes it like this,

The Oil Pollution Act (OPA) was signed into law in August 1990, largely in response to rising public concern following the Exxon Valdez incident. The OPA improved the nation’s ability to prevent and respond to oil spills by establishing provisions that expand the federal government’s ability, and provide the money and resources necessary, to respond to oil spills. The OPA also created the national Oil Spill Liability Trust Fund, which is available to provide up to one billion dollars per spill incident.

(Please know that I am sure this was written by some public relations liaison or similar who liked the way this sounds, without any concern that it gives insight into the liberal leanings of the writer or that taking it grammatically literally changes the meaning to one that could not have been intended. I suspect the writer was more interested in saying thank you for the increased funding than in stating liberal intent. But the hair splitter in me must be appeased. – Shannon)

Consider carefully the wording. It was in response to, “public concern.” It was not in response to cleanup technology or techniques, but in response to opinion. No politician ever poled public understanding of technology or techniques, they all pole opinion. The assumption was that the shortcomings in the Valdez spill response were not human or technological shortcomings or the best combination of compromises, but an imperfect response when a more perfect one obviously existed, evidenced by public opinion.

Second, and more profoundly, the assertion that the, “OPA improved the nation’s ability . . . by establishing provisions.” This statement asserts that such national ability improving provisions are affective by, “expand[ing] the federal government’s ability.” Can one really say that, “our nation’s ability to prevent and respond to oil spills” shows any signs of improvement? Just as confusing is the assertion that our abilities improved, “by establishing provisions that expand the federal government’s ability to prevent and respond to spills.” I read this as asserting that simply writing “provisions” to expand federal government abilities, increased the nation’s abilities. Remember for a minute that the federal government gets its “money and resources,” its abilities, from the nation. The presumption and blatant statement is that simply shifting money and resources, and by doing so transferring responsibility and authority, from state governments, individuals and companies of individuals to the federal government, improved the nation’s abilities to prevent spills. How is that working out.

Ok, so what does this have to do with the collective diametric ideologues’ agreement to be offended with the President’s response? There are two areas where big government is the appropriate blunt instrument. One is when a hindrance is wanted to deter some behavior, such as controlling immigration or the import of dangerous materials like e coli tainted lettuce from Mexico. The second is when we want something done which has no immediate economic justification but has general populace support, like putting a man on the moon or using the military to spread democracy and free markets.

The progressives believe that the President had everything he needed to save the Gulf region because he had authority and resources to do so, but did nothing. The President could have denied requests for safety waivers, perhaps preventing the spill, and could have commandeered cleanup vessels and started burning off excess oil after the spill, in accordance with the established safety plan. He did none of these things. The conservatives are unhappy because the blunt instruments of hindrance were not waived when the circumstance warranted it. The environmental hindrances to private development have been misapplied to disaster prevention and the Gulf state’s governments are awaiting permits pending environmental review intended to derail said private development. Oil skimming boats sent by other governments are being held pending safety inspections, not inspections to prevent damage or injury to Americans and our property, but to prevent danger to their crews. They are checking to see if they have enough life boats, life jackets, and fire extinguishers to be allowed into our waters. These people came in the boats they work in every day, to waters patrolled by the U.S. Coast Guard, a decidedly safer condition than they left behind, only to be stopped for their own safety.

Simply, progressives consider President Obama a traitor. He must certainly have access to the best liberal intellects and therefore must be able to determine the best solution. They decide the only reason he would not implement such a solution, must be to better himself politically at the expense of the Gulf ecology. This is not just traitorous, but blasphemous to their theology. They see him as having said the right (left) things to get elected but was not a true believer.

Conservatives see a President who surrounds himself with legal experts in legal hindrance, who refuses to talk to the experts in private industry because he does not trust them to be honest with him. Why would a private expert (even one working for BP) not be honest with the President, especially when it is their shinny hinny’s on the line? The conservative believes his reason is based in the theological belief that all oil industry employees are evil, selfish and insincere.

There are only two things in my opinion that President Obama could possibly do to help things in the Gulf. Both are contrary to his theology. Recognizing that they are nonetheless the most feasible compromise, could establish him as a great leader. First, he could suspend the hindrance culture and let the experts do their thing. Second, he could convene a group of BP-competitor experts to determine how to put the proverbial man on the moon. They have self interest motivation and expertise. The worst he could do, and I suspect will do with religious conviction, is to convene a group of Harvard Law professors to decide who’s ass to kick, and threaten criminal prosecution of those responsible. In other words, listen to his cabinet and advisors.

If he continues to float the idea that he might hold people on the lost oil rig criminally responsible post mortem, I predict he will be contemplating what went wrong, post Gulf economy, and ultimately post political defeat.

1. a theory or system of social organization that advocates the vesting of the ownership and control of the means of production and distribution, of capital, land, etc., in the community as a whole.
2. procedure or practice in accordance with this theory.
3. (in Marxist theory) the stage following capitalism in the transition of a society to communism, characterized by the imperfect implementation of collectivist principles.

There is a socialism rumbling in the media about President Obama. There are those who label him a socialist, and those who find this ridiculous. I will simply point to the facts, all of which you can check for yourself. Consider the following, and make up your own mind. Challenge my observations with your own or admit the facts do not matter.

First, what is a socialist? In laymen’s terms, a socialist finds preferable a system where the community as a whole should control the means of production and distribution of goods and services and the use of property and resources, as opposed to systems where individuals decide such things for their individual situation. A socialist thinks that the entity in control (government) decides best how things should be, and individual decisions waste resources.

But asking if President Obama is a socialist is similar to asking if he is hot, or cold. You cannot say that something is hot or cold without comparing it to something. When we say the temperature outside is hot or cold, we are saying this in comparison to our comfortable, preferred temperature. Socialism is a spot on a continuous scale with anarchy on the one extreme end and Tyrannical Dictatorships on the other. To determine if President Obama could be accurately labeled as a socialist, we would have to reference some position or person to compare him to. There are only two comparisons with any relevance to me. First, how does he stack up to the founding principles of this country. Second, how does he compare to current American society. I can easily point to the ideals this country was founded on, but will leave it up to you to decide where you fit on this scale and use that as the indication of today’s society.

To define the scale, lets look at the ends. At the freedom, far end of the scale is anarchy. You would be able to do anything you could get away with. The faster draw would survive the gunfight, the wealthier person could hire the better body guards, etc., and would rule those under him while he could hold it. There would be no government control of anything. Much of human history tells tales of anarchist times and places. Anarchy controls places like Somalia today. I think we can all agree that this oppresses those who cannot defend their human rights at the hands of those who can oppress them. On the other end of the scale are monarchies and dictatorships. In these systems, a single person decides everything, or at least has the authority to do so. No one owns anything or controls anything except by the permission of the tyrant. Much of human history offers examples of times and places where such tyranny controlled. Cuba, Venezuela, and North Korea are examples in existence today. I think we can all agree that this oppresses those who cannot defend their human rights at the hands of those who can oppress them. The founders advocated the federal government being as close to anarchy as possible and let the individual states decide for themselves nearly all issues. They believed that such an atmosphere put in the hands of individuals the power to control local government instead of the other way around. Countries like Russia want to be as close to dictatorship as possible and still claim that the total community is in control (ergo communism). This tyranny can exist just slightly right of dictatorship when a group is in total control, called totalitarianism. Russia, Iran and others are totalitarianist countries.

Ask carefully, as the founders did, which end of the scale promotes freedom and which promotes oppression.

So consider the things that President Obama claims are important to him. The most notable recently is healthcare. Does, in your observation, President Obama favor central control of healthcare or does the President favor leaving the decision making in the hands of doctors and patients?

Next, in your observation, does the President favor allowing the customers in the market determine which banks and finance companies succeed or fail, or does he favor the government stepping in and closing some and spending tax money assuring others remain open?

Next, does your observation indicate that the President thinks that government should prevent private manufacturers from failing when demand for their products falls, or that the free market should determine how often weaker producers should be eliminated from the economy?

Next, does the President seem to favor individuals in the labor market negotiating what they can get in benefits from employers based on their skills and employability, or does he favor larger, central labor unions controlling these discussions by tolerating “closed shops” where employment is dependent on union membership?

Next, did the founders write the Constitution so as to limit government or individuals? Does President Obama, who holds himself out as a Constitutional expert, believe that the founders got it right, or missed the mark?

Next, does President Obama advocate government taking from each according to his ability and re-distributing that to each according to his needs when he says, “I think when you spread the wealth around, it’s good for everybody.” Or does he mean that individuals should be free to decide where their wealth goes.

Lastly, and more philosophically, can you point to any good or service which is not controlled in some way by federal law, which the President has advocated keeping free from federal law, or any area which he advocates allowing less central control? On the other hand, can you name any areas the President has characterized as out of control or otherwise deserving more government control?

Can you point to any area of your life where you think there is unnecessary federal regulation or where the federal government spends money on things you would not? If so, then you are less socialist than the President.

Do you think that the founding fathers would have tolerated taxing your attempts to feed yourself, much less for the purpose of supporting “the arts?” If not, then the founding fathers were less socialist than our President.

Bill O’Reilly has taken to asking those who advocate calling President Obama a socialist, paraphrasing, “Do you think he wants to take your house? I don’t see anything that indicates he wants to take your house!” He has missed a slight difference between socialists and communists, socialism is about control, communism is about ownership. President Obama advocates use of “the smart grid” whereby the electrical company can change your thermostat in your home, presumably to control energy use. President Obama advocates forcing you to make your house “green” enough to meet federal limits prior to being allowed to sell it. O’Reilly is correct that President Obama does not want to take your house, but it seems obvious to me, that he would gladly control it. This begs the question, “What President was more socialist than President Obama?” I have determined that President Obama is more socialist than our founding principles, more socialist than I am, and more socialist than anyone I have ever talked to. He is the most socialist President we have had. Am I disconnected from current society, or is our President?

Today I spoke with a friend on the phone while I waited to for a little Chinese restaurant to open and I could get lunch to take back to my desk. We talked about the idea of praying for a business miracle. We agreed that such powerful mojo should not be wasted to defy the laws of reason for such an individual serving end with limited mass market appeal. One has to consider unintended consequences and trickle down economics when pondering the effects, post-miracle. Please pray responsibly.

I just got a chill. I felt the collective eye roll as you read that. “Does this guy really think he is capable of ill effect from a poorly considered prayer”? I’m just saying, be careful what you wish for.

Too close to a Bible thump for you? How about applying the same logic to legislation, where I am obviously less reluctant to offend people. Why? One is based in belief and faith, with or without proof. The other is based in history, logic, mysticism, and superstition with or without proof. I know that was as clear as an Oreo crumbled and dissolved in a half glass of milk. Can you tell the cookie from the milk? I doubt it makes any difference. Some practice politics with religious fervor and view skepticism as heresy.

I am a Methodist, or claim to be. This was the denomination of church I started attending as a child, so I must be one. Right? It turns out it suits me. I later learned, Methodism was a label applied to the methodical, critical evaluation of the basis in the historical documentation of the teachings of the Church of England, and at times, the lack thereof. The original Methodists believed the actual words were the source of information instead of the interpretations of previous generations. Each generation could re-discover the facts instead of being bound by dogma. I wondered as I was scooping up a half a pound of coconut shrimp in a styrofoam box if this is my political belief. (Being free from dogma, not the shrimp in the box.)

So what am I? I am regularly in a conversation with someone who says, “So you are a libertarian, or conservative, or constitutionalist, or neocon, or moron,” or fill in the blank. I usually say, yes, but. . . then I have to explain exceptions. I am not a libertarian, not always. I don’t think that we should be as close to anarchy as possible without killing one another. I think that there are some limited areas where I am willing to give up some personal liberties to get some other benefits. Investors from other countries need a certain amount of confidence that our laws will protect them from anarchy, for instance. In years past I have benefited from that investment in American growth but suffer now from the hesitation caused by the political anarchy in Washington today.

Likewise, I am not always conservative, which Mike Church points out begs the question, “What are you trying to conserve”? Not everything, I think that we should constantly be attempting to improve on our current strengths, sometimes moving forward, sometimes back. This is why I don’t think that the Constitution should be left alone as a sacred document and should, from time to time, be changed. (Notice I did not say updated or improved.)

Moron . . . well . . . I’m not sure my defense would benefit me more than my silence.

We Americans have an obsession with being able to label people and put them in classifications. So I guess I have to be classified but can’t find one that always fits. Logically, there can be only one fix. I have to make one up. Then I have to change it whenever it doesn’t seem to fit, until it doesn’t need tweaking again. Here goes.

I feel ethics and emotion and empathy should be lead us when setting our goals and direction. But, I think that facts, logic, and reason should direct our actions toward those goals. I am a political protestant, unhappy with the established government priesthood scolding us into dogmatic ritual with unclear connection to the original core truths. We want to feed the less wealthy in this country, but discourage food production in this country and promote more expensive importing of it. They can’t work here in food production and can’t afford the imported food. We want to end hunger in other countries, then put free food in their market which runs local production out of business and food becomes more scarce. We want to help the poor to rise from poverty but incentivize it with protections for self esteem and other non-poverty related acts of “social justice.” We take good intentions and implement them with good intention. We ignore what has improved the standard of living for the most people in human history for fear of looking uncaring. Shouldn’t we care about helping, not looking like we care about helping?

I want to be a policy result scientist, of sorts. I believe in poli-logic. I suggest applying the scientific principles to public policy that we advocate for global warming and other scientific concerns. Test, conclude, confirm, then open the results up to public scrutiny. Simply, prove that the intended outcome actually comes out of our policy. When I am asked to give up personal liberties, I want some scientifically substantial logic that the promised benefits will actually come to pass and if it still does not, that we are committed to giving me back my liberty. Limiting American manufacturing pollution to the point that our manufacturing moves to countries where they are worse polluters, will not pass this test. If the reason for the imposition is to limit pollution, the end result cannot be higher pollution in another country.

Likewise, any restriction on Americans and American business must be shown to be important enough to extend those restrictions on any imports from other countries. Anything less is dishonest. When an idea is supported on the premise that we should “give it a chance,” it is still in the research stage and is not feasible enough to insure that infringing on someone’s freedom could be justified. The first tenant of poli-logic: Be careful what you wish for, be certain that your actions actually lead to what you wished for, and be ready to take it back if you are wrong. Pray responsibly.

At breakfast this morning a friend lamented the state of things and how bad it would be before it would get better. I gave my standard, wore out, response that all democracies have dissolved when the populace voted themselves a larger share of the community grain than those left to harvest grain could provide. On the face, this looks like an economic principle and this is where our discussion wandered to. But it really is about individual rights. Specifically, the right to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.

When I was in high school, our history teacher, Rick Zeller, stated that the Civil War was a war for state’s rights, not a war for slavery. I remember him fondly. He was wrong, sort of, but right. Back to that in a minute. I have very strong opinions on the act of succession in terms of rights and the constitution, but generally keep them to myself. People cannot, and perhaps should not, separate the Civil War from the slavery debates of the day. This is especially pungent as that is the only succession in our nation’s history. But Chris Mathews equated succession with racism on his show on Tuesday and I could not keep this quiet any longer. If there were a predominantly Black state, and said state succeeded, would it still be racist? Certainly not. Because the right has nothing to do with the motivations. Speak freely without fear of persecution by those who don’t like your agenda.

I go back to the difference between rights and privileges. What is a right, and what is a privilege? The example I often point to is of the stranded man on the deserted island. He has the right to free speech without an audience, but cannot have the privilege of health care without a similarly stranded doctor with a concern for his survival. I have posted an old email distribution entitled, “If only the hens were less partisan,” in case you want to get a feel for my opinions of such things.

But the idea that came up in Mr. Mathews’ throat a little, is that succession is contrary to the founding principles of our country. I assert that the right of succession was THE founding principle of our country. More specifically perhaps, the right of succession was the straw that broke the powers-of-government-come-from-the-governed camel. This is the most basic founding principle of America. Mr. Zeller lost me on a nuance, but the core, is that the Civil War was about the state’s right to succeed, (so as to infringe upon the individual right to freedom) without federal intervention. The south was right in that the states have the right to succeed, and the north was right in that no government has the right to enslave people. This is the principle I cite in defending ousting tyrannical despots oppressing other peoples. America either has the right to stop tyranny and oppression now, through military force if needed, or did not have the right to do so in the Civil War.

All of this is tied to the most basic of American principles: A person cannot sign away their rights, they can only tolerate the infringement of them. A government can only infringe on the people’s rights so long as people are willing to tolerate it. The south infringed on slave’s rights because they were able to. Slaves tolerated slavery because the alternative was torture and death and watching their families tortured and murdered. This lasted until the north was able to stop the southern states by forcing the south to tolerate the northern infringement on state’s rights.

What does this have to do with our founding and why could Mr. Mathews not be more wrong? Government only exists, can only act in our interest and to our oppression, so long as we tolerate it. Some governments are able to force such tolerance to an extreme state through violence, torture, and fear. Ours to a lesser degree does so with insecurity and coercion. Much of the coercion comes in terms of infringement on the rights of the unborn. We borrow now to pay us to agree to borrow more later. The next generation will pay back the 30 year bonds that cover this borrowing. (Or not) Are they taxed without representation? You bet!! If they refuse to work toward replacing past consumption, who will pay the IRS to arrest them for not paying their share? Who will work for the IRS or be jailers if not paid? Without people willing to serve as volunteer government employees, what government would there be? None.

The King of England signed a treaty with 13 colonies, called sovereign states, to end the war of succession from the crown. IF those states gave away some of their rights to form the Union, they have the ability to take them back, to rejoin Britain if they chose. If Congress has the authority to make a law, it has the authority to repeal it. If the states had the authority to join the Union, they would have to have the authority to leave it. If the states had the authority to adopt a constitution, they would have to have the authority to change it. So, even if the Civil War “settled the succession thing,” the debate would be, to what extent we go to force a state to remain a member of the Union. If so forced, they were stopped from infringing on the right of the union to exist as Mr. Mathews ignorantly implies, then we infringed on the right of Britain to rule us. This is silly of course, Britain had no right to govern us, only the ability.  Regardless if we change government through apathy for its actions or by Constitutional Convention, we have the right to do so. We are under no moral obligation to be governed. Succession is a form of apathy whereby the state thumbs its collective nose and says, “I don’t care, you’re not the boss of me.”

My Virginia ancestors (not familial necessarily) agreed to form the Commonwealth which later agreed to declare its independence from the Crown, years before the Declaration of Independence was signed. We agreed to join the Union and to succeed from it. We agreed to rejoin when we could not fend off the federal infringement and tolerate further Civil War. Was that all bad? Certainly not. Is slavery the only issue which would motivate a state to succeed? Certainly not.

Mr. Mathews in the progressive mold, believes that our founding fathers were small minded racists who forced their agenda of personal freedom and liberty on a defenseless population and that their decedents indoctrinated innocent children with this belief. He believes that the countless millions who fled countries without freedom and liberty to come here, did so out of ignorance to make this the greatest country in the world at the hands of greedy companies preying on their ignorance. Mr. Mathews justifies forcibly controlling people who disagree with the government by asserting that such disagreement is racially motivated and people cannot simply leave. Mr. Mathews would do well to consider that the right of succession enables states to resist governors he considers stupid and racist as well. Would he call California racist if it had succeeded under Bush? Massachusetts could succeed if the Union forbid the collection of taxes for the purpose of purchasing health insurance for those who could not pay otherwise. It is hypocritical for Mr. Mathews to attack conservatives as being hell bent on controlling what people do, but unwilling to allow succession should they succeed.

I assert that his logic is flawed, in that a right is self evident, and therefore cannot be provided, denied, or limited by government. It cannot be a universal right to get a medical procedure on the one hand, and morally acceptable to deny such a procedure on the basis of political will, or budgetary limitations and priorities, or on the basis of age. It cannot be a moral imperative to provide “free” healthcare to the young, but expect the elderly to resign themselves to the reality that they only have a decade or so anyway and should medicate themselves into a blissful end. It is either morally required that we treat everyone, or that everyone take the blue pill.

But the flaw that struck me the strongest was a flaw of faith. The President is a self described Christian and claims to be his brother’s keeper and his sister’s. But he is not suggesting that he personally provide for them and does not have a history of making such efforts. He is suggesting that the government collect the assets of the unwilling, with threat of imprisonment, and disseminate those assets for medical procedures for the able. Some of these procedures are immoral to some of the unwilling. He is not passing the plate, he is picking up the congregation and shaking money from them, and don’t make him come to your house!! And, he is suggesting that the government limit people’s ability to help their neighbor with their medical needs outside of the government process because it would not be “fair” that some people live with wealthier, kinder neighbors. He suggests that this be done so that he can be acting morally.

I assert, that you cannot hire someone to do a moral act for you. If ignoring people who do not get adequate healthcare is immoral, then hiring someone to “collect” money from the unwilling and use it to assure that no one is ignored, all the while blissfully ignoring the fact that the healthcare has declined for everyone is doubly immoral.

You cannot act morally by proxy. The idea that you could hire someone to pray so that you don’t have too is laughable. The idea that we could hire the government to take care of matters of individual morality is just as laughable. If it weren’t so serious, that is.

But it does not appear that this is a moral issue for the President. If I were the President, and I were fighting for morality, I would be selling the important points to the House and Senate who write the Bills, not trying to sell
it to the American people when Congress was preparing a Bill that contradicted me. It appears that the point is that the industry be moved from private hands to public hands and any argument/excuse/outcome will suffice. He is
concentrating on selling the idea to us, while leaving the details to Congress. This is not a man acting on a moral imperative.

Promising us that he intends to protect the hen house, but leaving security details to be negotiated between the roosters and the foxes (that would be the Congress and the special interest groups/lobbyists/industry representatives)
makes the hens nervous. If he were really morally motivated to protect the hens, he would not leave the details to anyone else.

When it was common for a doctor to visit the sick’s home and order, “Take two aspirin and call me in the morning,” aspirin was the state of the medical art. How ridiculous would it seem if the people of that age complained that access to aspirin was a basic human right, to be provided by the government at taxpayer expense? How ludicrous would it have seemed if someone would have suggested that we all pay taxes to hire people to buy the aspirin from Bayer and then deliver it to us for “free”? That generation would have wrinkled their noses at such a suggestion and said, “No thank you, I can buy my own aspirin.”

The only difference is that Bayer, and others in the industry, took the profits and invested them in the future. Little did they realize that once they expanded our medical knowledge, their efforts would be demonized and labeled evil.

Think what might have happened if the “progressives” could go back and “fix the oversight” or our founders and included life, health care, and the pursuit of happiness in the original inalienable rights. We would still be having 15 kids a generation, several of which would die before they were old enough to have kids of their own. We would still be amputating limbs as a method of fighting infection. There would be no cat scans, dialysis, open heart surgery, Botox, or Lasik eye surgery.

OK, so maybe there would have been the last two. Interestingly enough, Botox and Lasik have gotten cheaper and better, more people are getting them with fewer side effects, all without government mandate. They are generally not covered by insurance and people generally pay for them out of their own pocket. They are now more available and the prices are going down as competition for patients increases. Procedures covered by Medicare, on the other hand, are more expensive and fewer Doctors are providing them to Medicare patients who are also increasing in number.

In order to limit expenses all known socialized medical systems in the world ration treatment and drugs. President Obama suggests that we can save $500 Billion in Medicare by simply refusing to pay doctors once the lower amount is reached, in other words by rationing procedures once we have spent $500B less than before. If we only buy a few of something, we can limit what we spend on that something. This has an additional affect on the research industry which further limits costs: There will be no new drugs or treatments. Sure, there will be the occasional discovery by a housewife who mistakenly mixes the last few drops of her old brand of fabric softener with a healthy dose of her latest choice and discovers that her skin cleared up after exposure to the green cloud coming from the washing machine. Give me enough orangutans with typewriters and enough time and one of them will accidentally type out the U.S. Declaration of Independence. Some of you don’t know what typewriters were. They were like laptops running Microsoft Word with the printer built in, only noisier and less likely to spontaneously produce the Declaration of Independence or auto-morphed emoticons.

The problem with rationing access and stifling development of new technology is that these are exactly the problems we are told such efforts will solve. We complain that not everyone has access to treatment, then calmly discuss rationing. Then we complain that new drugs cost too much while ignoring what it would cost to research new ones in government run labs staffed with government employees overseen by Congress.

If we could go back, would we freeze health care at a level available 40 years ago? There was no arthroscopic surgery, no cat scans, and no contact lenses. We would not have witnessed the last fatal case of Smallpox. No? How about only 30 then? We still loose MRI’s, implanted cardioverter defibrillators, and laser eye surgery. There would be no Hepatitis B vaccine. No, want to keep those? At 20 years we loose several cancer treatments and a vaccine for Lyme disease and in the last ten we loose more cancer treatments and the advances in stem cell research. These are only a small example of the progress, (not the stuff of the progressive movement but the other direction) made in medicine over this time period. Just think what we will know tomorrow.

My question, then, is why now? Why is this the right time to stop advancing medicine? Why is now the time to limit access to future levels of quality health care by future generations so that we can claim to offer universal access to most everyone now? How ridiculous and ludicrous will we seem in 40 years when they look back and ask what were we thinking when we tried to eliminate the system that, although it does not offer all levels of treatments to everyone, it constantly adds to the list of treatments that are available to everyone. No one goes without aspirin or an X-ray for that matter because they cannot pay. One day, no one will pay for stem cell therapy. Only after the rich buy it first, and then those with “Cadillac Insurance Plans”, and then common off-the-shelf plans, and then uninsured people who pay cash. Just like aspirin and X-rays.

1. Shot 54 U.S. soldiers while shouting Allah Akbar;
2. Tried to contact Al Qaeda twenty times via his spiritual mentor turned recruiter in Yemen;
3. Asked his mentor what he could do to help with the Jihad;
4. Told fellow staff and soldiers that infidels (non-Muslims) should have their throats cut;
5. He is and ardent Muslim who views the war on terror as a war on other Muslims;
6. Warned his superiors that Muslims should be allowed to avoid deployment as conscientious objectors to avoid “adverse events”;

We know more about this guy than we did about President Obama when he convinced us to let him remake America.