Eventually, the unions put up candidates of their own for government positions and the practice of government enforcement of unfair labor practices was replaced with regulatory protections against them. However, just as business used this influence to their advantage, unions worked to enact legislation favorable to themselves through their elected officials. Eventually, all truly unfair business/employment practices were eliminated by legislation. Unions were no longer relevant in matters of fairness. To remain relevant, they negotiated from a position of solidarity for better than fair pay and benefits. Pay to union employees rose above non-union pay and unions could not persist. Businesses resisted hiring union employees, knowing pay and benefits would be extorted above market price. In some areas of the country, unions were influential enough to successfully support a sufficient number of elected officials to make it legal to force businesses of a certain size to only hire union employees. The concept of a closed shop was born. Join the union, or don’t bother applying for a job. Favoritism and nepotism replaced merit and production.

Businesses that could not survive the new burdens of employee strikes and unfair legislation, did not survive. They either moved to more business friendly environments following the paths of looms past, or businesses formed by others in such friendlier locals put them out of business. This cycle of business start up, unionization of the successful ones, and their eventual demise continued until all but the large industrial employers with factories and plants too large to move easily were gone. Now, a business opens in a union state and makes a profit long enough to get the attention of a union. The union convinces the employees that they deserve a larger portion of the difference between their current pay, and the profit retained by the owner, real or imagined. This is an easy sell in union states as it is common knowledge in such states that union jobs can pay several times what non-union work pays. The owner is told that the union will supply well trained employees and the increased pay will be an advantage as the unions will not tolerate non-union shops which might open to compete with the union shop. This is an easy sell as well, since the owners often grew up in the union rich society of the union state. The owner tolerates the union and can sometimes negotiate help from the union elected government officials in the form of competition limiting regulation in return for better pay and benefits for the employees. Over time, the negotiated arrangement is re-visited and changes in favor of the employees creep in. Rarely does an economically weak company gain relief with newly negotiated employee contracts, as the union continually attempts to get as much of the profits for employees and the union as is possible, while threatening to interfere with commerce if any reduction is requested. Often, concessions in good economic periods render the business unprofitable in another. High labor costs in high skill, labor intensive fields encourage automation in competitors where such automation would prove too costly without the union bolstered pay scales. Eventually, unionized industries fail more often in union states and less often in non-union states or countries. Unions fail and disappear in direct relation to the death of the host organism they helped starve. As profits shrink in favor of high pay, even the large industrial employers are replaced by foreign competitors. Unions could have educated and trained their members to be more competitive than non-union workers, instead they worked for conditions where they would not have to compete.

There is one industry however, which can never be outsourced. There is one industry which has almost no connection between the existence of the employer and the financial feasibility of the employee pay package. There is one industry where competition for survival has no connection to the production of the workers. This industry is government. Union organized public employees can pay dues to support the election of union compliant officials, and then “negotiate” a “fair” pay and benefits package with those same officials. Since unfair business practices or unfair pay and benefits are no longer left to fight, the union must fabricate such in order to remain relevant. This is exactly what happened in Wisconsin. The “union busting” legislation proposed in the Wisconsin legislature, if passed, would only make Wisconsin state teachers’ bargaining abilities equal to those for unionized Federal employees. The proposed legislation would not however bring the teacher’s union employee’s pension or health insurance contributions in line with either non-union Wisconsin residents or in many cases, other union employees. So why would the unions and their members take an extremely hard stance on an incremental loss in abilities which are out of line with most other employees’ abilities? They are not fighting for safe working conditions. They are fighting to be able to re-negotiate when the electoral pendulum swings back in their favor and they once again choose the government negotiator. They are fighting to continue to negotiate from both sides of the table. They are trying to make the voters, their employers, regret challenging the status quo.

The unions have drawn the line in the sand. The risk is that voters will not regret challenging the unions, but regret allowing them to exist at all. If the proposed Wisconsin legislation passes, I believe this will be the first time that public sector employee unions have lost any significant gains for their employees. There have been some temporary decreases in benefits, or temporary freezes on pay raises, or temporary freezes in hiring. I assert that this is the first permanent setback in the slow progression of pay and benefit improvements. I assert that this is the first setback that will not be re-negotiated with the elected official of their construction. If this legislation passes, the unions will have to negotiate in the open venue of public elections directly with their employer, the voters, instead of behind closed doors with someone who owes them for their job. They will have to stand in the public square and convince them that union members are entitled to pay raises when everyone else is taking cuts. They will have to convince the public that higher union pay will lead to better educated students, . . . this time. They will have to convince the voting public that tax increases best balance a bloated education budget, coincident with rising teacher pay. If the proposed legislation passes it could indicate a realization by the public that unions are obsolete, to be replaced by automation or at least, lower paid labor. I first suspected they recognize this too when I noticed the unprecedented pressure being brought to bare on Madison Wisconsin by the union friendly, union elected power players outside of Wisconsin. The unions are calling in their chips and the union elected officials are doing what they promised to do, knowing this will not go unnoticed by the voting public. President Obama publically put his support behind the unions. I assert that he does this as a knee jerk reaction resulting from his coming through the union rich political machinery of Chicago somewhat oblivious that his actions caused most of the rest of the country to pause at their own jobs and look up to see what he has done. The DNC sent their chairman, Tim Kaine to help with organizing protests, knowing(?) the people in the right to work state of Virginia will not understand his support for a union fight against negotiating directly with the tax payer over tax payer supplied pensions, and may not vote him into office again. President Obama put his left-over campaign resources into the fight via his campaign organization, Organizing for America. Solidarity. President Obama’s oath is to the Constitution. He is an employee of the very tax payers he has sided against. It seems lost on him that the fact he cannot represent “US” and “THEM” at the same time and that he chose to move to this side of the table. It seems lost on him that the fact the taxpayers have realized this is the very basis for the November upset in Wisconsin, and the new support for union restraint there. Is it more likely that such support for a union is because teachers are barely being fairly compensated in union negotiated contracts, or that the union contracts are so lucrative that the union members will pay dearly to keep them?

Consider this: If the school system took bids for teaching jobs, union and otherwise, would the low bids from out of work teachers be the same as the current teacher pay? Or, could current teachers be replaced from the free market for a price much lower?

So long as there are out of work teachers, the pay is too high. We expect the highest moral character in our teachers. We want them to be attracted to teaching because of a heartfelt desire to be in the profession. We want teachers driven with a desire to encourage such character in our children through example. What I see in Madison are teachers apparently attracted to teaching by a strong union, lying to their employers the taxpayers, saying they are sick and cannot work. I see them doing so in public, in front of their students, in front of an electorate not stupid enough to believe them. I see them doing so, knowing that no one believes the obvious lie, yet they persist. I see doctors lying on camera, writing notes to the very teachers who would not accept a bogus doctor’s note from their students. I see the kind of lying and cheating that money buys. I see teachers claiming that an education is a right while interfering with said education. I see them causing a stop to education activities and claiming without the union, education of the children will cease. I see teachers willing to teach children that lying for money is acceptable. I see teachers deliberately confusing the difference between rights and privileges, for their personal monetary gain. I see teachers using school yard bully tactics against legitimately elected officials with whom they disagree, for the purpose of interfering with the sworn duties of teacher and Congressman alike. I am not alone when I plainly see what an entrenched union will do when challenged.

What the union members do not realize is that much of the country is watching. Most of us did not grow up believing that such poor behavior is acceptable in the protection of the union interest. What they do not realize is how disgusted I am with the thought of my personal friends who are teachers, being forced to support and pay dues to such an organization as a condition of their being allowed to teach my children. I find it particularly unsavory that one of my teacher friends would be required to pay to support the election of a particular candidate as a condition of employment. I am not alone. The line has been drawn. Tremendous force is being applied in Madison in the protection of the unions. I find it a little ironic that their “fight for the freedom to negotiate” as unions could lead to Wisconsin’s freedom from them. All that stands between union survival and union oblivion is freedom to work without paying the union for the privilege. Simply allowing a teacher to work as a non-union teacher for the same pay as a union teacher will mark the end of teacher’s unions. The teacher’s union could have simply allowed this proposed bill to pass, quietly, then wait a couple of years and have the union supported Congress that would one day return, “fix it,” and get back to negotiating ever increasing benefits. Instead, they want to end challenges to public employee unions by their employers, and punish those who dare to do so. I wholeheartedly hope they succeed in doing just that. I hope that freedom ends this debate once and for all. What a fitting place for the progressive movement to have gained an early foothold, and ultimately the place where it shot itself in the foot, marking the end of the belief in the long term sustainability of socialist tenants. What a fitting end to public sector union conflict-of-interest, at the hands of voter solidarity.

I was surfing for some news this evening on my Sirius Radio while driving in my car. The dreaded drive hours, more advertising than music. Today reminded me of those days, I was flipping through my news channel presets and thankfully the BBC doesn’t care as much when we are in our cars. But eventually I stumbled onto Stuart Varney filling in for Neil Cavuto on his business news program Your World. He was doing an acceptable job in being politely cynical of the assertions of Dennis Kucinich, (D-Representative of Ohio’s 10th). I feel no need to be impolite, but ration is neither polite nor rude so I feel no desire to ignore the truth in the name of being polite. Nor do I feel the need to be disrespectful of Mr. Kucinich, he is willing to put his feelings out here for the likes of me to challenge, which is more than I can say for many of his 535 or so Congressional colleagues. But fallacy deserves no respect, as misleading people, no matter if inadvertent or well intended is to be eliminated whenever it is discovered. You be the judge of my reasoning.

The discussion that caught my attention, (in addition to not being another advertisement extolling the virtues of buying physical gold or online data backups), was about President Obama’s stated intent to “invest” in, among other things, an expansion of the Smithsonian Library to the tune of $100 million. Small change compared to the high speed rail President Obama wants to replace the mostly empty slow speed rail the government currently “invests” in every year. Mr. Varney asked how the conversation could be about lowering the deficit in the same breath as suggesting that we borrow more money to build infrastructure. Mr. Kucinich said several incorrect things but I will only challenge one of them, “We need to have good paying jobs in America, and when the private sector isn’t creating the jobs, the public sector has a moral responsibility to do that.” His assertion was that government spending on infrastructure creates jobs for people who then pay taxes and tax revenue will go up, reducing the deficit. Sounds good, a kind of Government-Reagan-Trickle-Down on steroids, investment for short.

First think back to high school (I know, it hurts), do some math using the Smithsonian expansion as an example since the round $100 million price tag makes it somewhat simple. I am a simple man, I need simple explanations. If all the money went to pay people doing these new jobs, none for materials etc., and all the new employees make more than the magical $250K, and do not take advantage of any of the myriad deductions like employer provided health insurance, so they all pay the maximum 35% back in the form of income taxes, the tax revenue would be $350,000. Tax revenues cannot be increased with the spending of tax revenues, as this is not an “investment” but rather an expenditure. Even if we grant poetic license to the use of the word investment, spending $100 million in hopes of getting a maximum $350,000 return is a terrible investment. But, I can cut the guy some slack since he blurted out his financial rationale in the middle of making the bigger point that this is a moral imperative.

I looked on Mr. Kucinich’s website where he claims to be “America’s Congressman,” and “America’s most courageous Congressman.” He also asks that visitors sign a petition to make healthcare a “civil right”. I know from such that he is drawing on people’s feelings more than their logic. If health care is a right, a person could infringe on someone else’s rights simply by choosing to become something other than a doctor or a nurse, or an orderly. The government could put people in jail for such infringement on people’s right to their health service. It seems obvious to me that Mr. Kucinich turns to his sense of morality for guidance instead of his sense of reason. It does not take courage to do what feels right. Courage is doing the right thing when people like Kucinich want you to feel like it is wrong or immoral. I contend there is no contradiction and that logic will give you the morally superior direction. People who do not turn to logic first, often disagree with me. I could be wrong. This is such an instant.

If you want to put more people to work, do you borrow money to hire them and then tax the pay to pay it back, with interest? Or do you let them keep the money to start with and save the overhead and interest? Logically, you choose the most efficient method which is the one without the interest. The one who would get the money now, and be taxed later may not like it, but in the end, some wealth is consumed in the borrow-spend arrangement. If your answer requires some leap of faith and ignorance of logic with an explanation that sounds something like, “the prosperity if creates will employ more people and amplify the effect,” then I suggest your answer is based on hope not reason. Los Vegas was built and thrives on people waging their own money on hope and a roll of the dice. Consider how powerful such hope is with other people’s money and a belief in “moral responsibility. If people hired by government investment would be able to pay back the loan with interest in the form of taxes, then government subsidy would not be needed. They would be able to borrow the money themselves, which is an investment by the lender in the worker. They would pay it back themselves, right? This is the logic behind school loans, borrow now and pay it back via the job you get later. The benefit of teaching a man to fish far outlasts the original investment. But where will the job be for the person working on the Smithsonian expansion once it is finished? This is the fallacy of all government “investment.” They all rely on a ponzi scheme of some sort where more and more people pay more and more into the scheme to keep it going. The Smithsonian job is an example of a Government bubble; take away the subsidy and the job is gone. The private sector is not investing in the project because there is no economic return. To keep the job, more borrowing or taxation and subsidy will be required. This is not creation, but consumption. But this spending is not about investing, or even getting a larger Smithsonian, or putting people to work or any other morally admirable goal. It is about getting money from some people, namely those of the future, and giving it to others, namely those of the now. You can try to assign any number of motivations to this desire, for example now people vote now, and future people vote later. Maybe Mr. Kucinich prefers to entice people to vote for him now as apposed to hoping they will vote for him later. But I don’t need to question his motivation, I can simply point out that his logic is flawed.

As I have pointed out, government infrastructure spending, although tolerable in some circumstances, is a form of consumption. But I assert his main failing in logic, which prompted this post, is that Mr. Kucinich suffers from selective morality. Albeit well intentioned, he is a hypocrite, although I suspect he is not aware of it. He is like the person who insists that the rich pay their share of income taxes, and then do not disclose all their income on their own tax return. Mr. Kucinich took a solemn oath to defend the Constitution of the U.S. He did this freely as a condition of the job of U.S. Representative. There is no provision in the U.S. Constitution confirming Mr. Kucinich’s assertion that the Federal Government has any authority to provide American jobs because he is unhappy with how the private sector does so. This does not change for good paying or otherwise. It does not change because Mr. Kucinich would choose industries different from that of the private sector. Further, there is no provision in the U.S. Constitution with which moral responsibility is implied. Mr. Kucinich is attempting to use the office which he holds for personal motives of morality, as he defines it. Mr. Kucinich took an oath to defend the Constitution from all enemies and then ignores that oath and the Constitution or assumes the Constitution is flexible to fit his own morality. Even if he were attempting to persuade me to donate to his cause of my own free will, I must be skeptical of his description of moral responsibility when he has turned his back on his freely accepted responsibility to the Constitution. His oath did not stipulate enemies who would attack the Constitution, or break it, or bend it to their will. His oath stipulates ALL enemies. He is the domestic enemy he is sworn to defend against.

If I substitute President Obama for President Mubarak, how different is the story. Does President Obama demonize revenue producing business as President Mubarak does the gift giving west, all the time relying on such funds to pay for his endeavors? Did President Obama not promise better government but deliver more government? Are the Tea Party attendees much different than the protesters in Cairo, simply without the violence? Would President Obama have attempted to physically shut down the news media and internet if such were within his power? I assert that he certainly tried to marginalize those portions of both which questioned him in the hopes that we would effectively do so. We have net neutrality, whatever that will turn out to be.  Proposals for reviving the fairness doctrine and giving the President an internet cutoff switch are ever in the Washington D.C. vernacular.

We are different from the Egyptian people in so many ways, mostly differentiating our heritage from the vision President Obama has for America. Our press will always be free as long as any of us are. We will be free to express ourselves to each other without fear of government prosecution so long as any act is without such fear. But when I saw President Mubarak arrogantly offering a 15% raise to government employees who had been told for years that the public coffers were dry, I could remember the self admitted “amused” President Obama smirking about Tea Party protests, “You would think they should be saying Thank You,” to Democrat-fundraiser applause.

Are we different from Egypt? Yes vastly. But will these differences prevail or will the vision President Obama has for us? Will we remain the shining example of what free people can do and lead Egypt by example to their new future? Or will we follow them as every socialized society before us, into the cycle of promise, tax, oppress, and collapse? We get to decide. Will we be content with borrowing a 15% raise from our kids and simply say, “Thank you President Obama”? Time will tell, but I like the odds, given the increasing size of the crowds in the streets during Tea Parties.

Oops:  In discussions about the situation in the middle east, my friends and I speculated about the state of Egypt and what affect other conditions in other countries would have if they coincided with the unrest in Cairo.  One such country that received considerable amounts of our time was Turkey.  I prepared this post well after midnight the first night, and proof read it the second and decided instead of using a generic country in the middle east, I would use the events in Egypt specifically.  I opened the document and replaced the generic language with Turkey and Turkish, instead of Egypt and Egyptian.  Those of you who know me, probably simply read in the proper language as you read, the rest of you now have a glimpse into the hell endured by the first group.  You both have my sincerest apologies.

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.

I was pleasantly surprised to hear his words and will take it as a sign of hope that he does not want to fundamentally change America as he led me to believe.  Also, Jon Stewart, who I also disagree with frequently, elevated my respect of him by saying in part, “I wouldn’t blame our political rhetoric any more than I would blame heavy metal music for Columbine.”  Again, look up the rest of his well spoken words if you are so inclined.  Unfortunately, his view is not shared by the bulk of his more conspicuous knee-jerk supporters in the media, if I am to take them at their word.

In case you have not been watching, the local Sheriff started blaming his political foes for encouraging violence.  There was a collective gasp in the more liberal members of the media and a clamor to be the first or loudest to cheer, “Yeah, what he said!”  I had the same reaction as most of the more conservative members of the media and blamed this piling-on as following Rham Emanuel’s advice, “Never let a serious crisis go to waste.  What I mean by that is it’s an opportunity to do things you couldn’t do before”.  But earlier today, my good friend Brian shared a discovery he made.  He was discussing the ludicrous attempt to convince people that this could have been stopped, if only we did not sell guns to the public.  Among other claims are assertions that ending the Fairness Doctrine led to this tragedy, as did the “loophole” that allows people to say unflattering things about elected officials, leading the insane to get the idea that people are unhappy with the elected official’s conduct.  We should protect ourselves from insane people learning that we are unhappy with the state of affairs in Washington?

How ludicrous does a claim need to be, before we skeptically view it critically?  Has Critical thinking died?  Let me make a ludicrous claim and seemingly back it up with facts you can check.  Please tell me if you would accept my claim if it were presented in the news media as serious analysis and commentary.  I will make an attempt to identify the facts and the gratuitous assertions as we go along and ask that you correct me when I miss one, like my English teachers used to correct my grammar.  I do not expect political correctness, but critical thinking, so the use of red ink and exclamation points is encouraged.  So, here it goes.

In Tucson a lone gunman, shot Rep. Gabrielle Giffords, a Democrat U.S. Representative of Arizona, (fact) as reprisal for her recent vote against House Minority Leader and former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (gratuitous assertion).  Gifford was obviously unhappy with Pelosi (gratuitous assertion) for leading Democrats into the largest shift in party power since the 1930’s and the lowest Democrat representation in the House since the 1940’s (fact)  Former Speaker Pelosi has a reputation for holding a grudge against Democrats who publically disagree with her (common gratuitous assertion).  Recently the House of Representatives held elections for the position of Speaker.  All of the Republicans voted for current speaker Boehner, except Boehner himself who abstained from voting.  This is historically benign; nearly all such elections are without dissention, along party lines.  However, an historic 10% of Democrats did not vote for the Democrat nominee in this election.  18 Democrats, including Giffords, voted for someone other than Democrat nominee Nancy Pelosi.  One humorously voted “present”, and one dissenter had more important things to do and did not show up.  In 1923, twenty three Republicans voted against the speaker-to-be in a preliminary round, but voted the party line in the final vote.  Otherwise, there has never been a dissention numbering more than single digits in U.S. History, much less to vote for a record 7 different alternative candidates, 6 of whom were not even running as was the case in this election.  (facts)  It seems that in a calculated response to Ms. Pelosi’s hate filled desire to meet out revenge for her public humiliation, the gunman started with one of the more vocal of Pelosi dissenters, Giffords.  (Patently false fabrication)

(If replacing Pelosi with Boehner and telling you we are talking about 2006, with Bush as President makes this sound plausible when it did not before, stop reading, you are too lost to benefit from any further discussion.) If I demanded that Ms. Pelosi is a coward unless she personally denounce this gunman and deny he is an arm of her office or upholding in any way her convictions, would I be reasonable?  I think not.  I have not shown any link between Ms. Pelosi and the shooter in any stretch of my imagination.  Would this change if I inserted another political cause in place of the election of the House Speaker?  Certainly, that would not point to new connections and should not be treated with any more credibility.  What if I substituted someone for Ms. Pelosi in my assertion?  Again, no.

But this is exactly what has happened in the last few days.  The local Sheriff blames the hateful vitriol and rhetoric of the right, and, “believes the hard right is deliberately fueling the fire against public officials, elected officials, government, and the administration”, admitting when asked directly that he has no evidence of a connection between the two.  He does this with a veteran lawman’s knowledge that the gunman’s legal defense will use the Sheriff’s statements against the prosecution to establish bias in the collection of evidence or in mitigating his sentence.  A reporter characterizes Sarah Palin as a coward for not defending herself, presumably to him, for her roll in the shooting. Her website has cross hairs on a map of political opponents and she recently said after some political setback to not retreat but to reload.  The MSMBC crew seems dedicated to naming names and blacking eyes of those on the right who were warned that protesting “progressive” policies via Tea Parties et. al. would lead to such lunacy.  Our Secretary of State tries to make friends in the Mideast by painting the shooter as an extremist (not a criminal, not a lunatic) and equating him with the sane, organized extremists from their world who attack us.

Similar talk comes from all parts of the political world and practically nowhere else.  I would be guilty of the same if I did not point out that this is true, regardless of party or affiliation.  Hard core political beasts do bloodthirsty battle on a blood drenched field of combat before the ravenous gaze of vultures and sympathizers alike.  Is it irony that such violence-metaphor is the target of the current campaign?  But you and I are not political beasts, presumably.  I know hardly anyone who assigns political motivation to hardly any behavior other than perhaps the act of voting, or not.  My challenge is aimed at the pedestrians on the sidewalk outside the stadium, not into the fray inside.

How hard is it for you and I to check the facts?  Should those in the media be able to check them?  What about the Sheriff close to the investigation?  Would he not have the best information available?  Would we not be best served to believe him when he states that he does not have anything to back up his assertion that right wing rhetoric contributed in any way to the motivation of this shooter?

I find it interesting that those who are appalled at the incitement of violence by the right, are uninterested when the left demonizes President Bush.  The outrage is selective and no side is innocent in this regard, but there was no outrage in the media when a liberal director made a movie, The Death of a President, about the assassination of the President of the United States.  Would it surprise you to know that this was not a story about a generic President, but about the then current, sitting President George Bush?  There was certainly no outrage when Ms. Pelosi used metaphors about para-trouping over Republican resistance to the Democrat health care bill, no outrage when President Obama bragged about bringing a gun to a knife fight.  There was no outrage when Joe Manchin, a Democrat Governor, made a political add where he carried an actual gun, loaded it with an actual bullet, took actual aim and an actual target, and actually shot a hole in a copy of the cap and trade bill.  This was allowed since it was metaphorical, and from a Democrat.

I assert that people who think that ALL actions are politically motivated had to assume that the shooting of a Democrat in Arizona must be motivated by non-Democrat forces.  They could not conceive of a person being willing to shoot ANY, RANDOM elected official, without regard for political affiliation.  Since this was a liberal victim, and a liberal tenant is to blame the lack of government control for bad things, they immediately look to expose the gap in the law that allowed this person to snap.  Case in point, there are legislators calling for tighter gun control with the idea that the gunman would not have used an illegal gun to commit murder.  I will get back to my friend’s genius on this point in a moment.  Also, there are proposed laws to make illegal any speech or symbol that could be construed as encouraging violence against a member of Congress.  Too bad they didn’t think about such controls when people were burning effigies of  President Bush portrayed as Hitler hanging from a noose.  Rahm’s lead notwithstanding, there is no functional connection between such control of speach and the tragedy in Arizona.

I encourage you to listen critically to outrage.  When the victims of a shooting are enroute to medical treatment and a first responder blames someone, it can be excused considering the excitement of the moment.  When several days go by and they maintain this blame, consider if the one casting blame knows something to logically lead them to that determination, in other words, could it be factually based.  When people totally uninvolved with the shooting, blame everyone of a group who disagrees on unrelated issues, critically consider if the accusations could possibly be true.  Could the person making the claim have the bit of information to fill in the logical gap between them?  When someone defines a “problem” as if it were fact, without offering any facts to support the link between the “problem” and the crisis, then insists on a “solution” in the form of restrictions on people they disagree with, carefully consider that it may not be a solution at all, but a tool of political gain.  Don’t believe me, think for yourself.

So, how does my friend’s revelation fit in with this?  It has to do with the cries for gun controls.  Let’s look at the facts we know.  This young man was in trouble in school more than once for disrupting class with claims such as the school is using grammar for mind control.  He was once asked to leave and refused in such a way that a security guard was posted outside the room from then on.  His classmates were afraid he would show up one day and start shooting people.  He had a similar record in college where one professor said he was afraid to turn his back on him for fear he would be shot in the back.  We know that although he was arrested more than once, the charges were dropped each time.  His mom works for the County Board of Supervisors, and although I have no reason to believe the leniency he received is related to her employment influences, such would cast more doubt, in my mind, on the Sheriff’s objectivity.  We know that he was pulled over for running a red light, hours before the shootings, and let go with a warning.  And, we know that he legally bought a handgun that he then used in this shooting.  We know these things because of the records, not the least of which was the gun purchase.  This made me realize two things.  First, making people go through the background check and waiting period and so on do not prevent committed criminals from proceeding with their plans. What would have changed if guns were not legally available?  There would be no record of where he bought the gun.

Second, and most profoundly, is that the liberal idea of relativistic enforcement of the law, the idea that they should be enforced sometimes and not sometimes, enabled this man to pass the background check.  The fact that his unacceptable behavior did not have him kicked out of school and evaluated, at the high school and collegiate levels, in the name of political correctness, allowed him to pass the background check when he should not have.  The fact that he was arrested, more than once, and allowed to go free perhaps due to favoritism, may have kept him from being diagnosed as the paranoid schizophrenic he seems to be, kept him from being treated, and allowed him to pass the background check.  It is easier to attempt to keep law abiding people from buying guns, than to admit that the system failed this man, and the people he attacked, including the 9 year old girl he shot in the face at point blank range.  It is easier to think that only the system is broke and can be fixed by new restrictions on the speech and other behavior of the law abiding.  It is too hard to realize that this man is broke and no system can catch someone committed to acting outside of it.  Utopia cannot exist in a human world, regardless of the level of government control.  This man certainly would not have been deterred from using an illegal gun when he did not hesitate to shoot a child, in the face, close enough to see her anticipation and reaction.  Believing that controlling speech on the radio, or the guns in the stores, would bring this ill man productively back into society is simply bizarre.  Do we prefer to control the largest number of people, or to discover the largest number of mentally disturbed people?  Critically consider how to best do that, and the other rhetoric seems too ludicrous even for TV.

But it occurred to me that I have noticed a series of events recently which made me remember her. I take some consolation for the friendships that ended over the years, in that each person who is no longer a friend, at least learned to recognize those traits they would not be able to tolerate in their next relationship, just as she served this purpose for me. We learn that the Jeep CJ-5 with the V-8, big tires and rag top is a lot more trouble than it is worth. We learn over the years to respect substance and view rosy promises with suspicion. We learn this not because we have been wronged, but because we better defined the difference between what we think will make us happy, and what does so over the long run.

President Obama recently promised the world that America will not use nuclear weapons in response to non-nuclear attacks against us. My suspicion was aroused immediately and the really important points about this assertion are in the stated, and implied, and effective exceptions to this promise.

First, you may remember me saying that limits placed on the town council by the town council are meaningless. If the council has the authority to place a limit on itself, it has the authority to release that limit. For the President to promise not to use nukes in response to an attack on America is at least arrogant, at most naive. For such a promise to have any meaning, one would have to assume that an attack on America would be so benign that our sovereignty would not be at risk. Could anyone really believe that they could attack us with the intent of occupying this country and ANY defense would be off the table? So this promise can only have meaning to those people who would attack us, in the belief they could prevail, but were deterred from doing so for fear of nuclear retaliation, but would now reconsider. We would gain no benefit in so limiting ourselves much less stating so publicly. Would we not prefer that they postpone their attack for such a fear?

So, if this promise is not for the benefit of our reluctant but nearly emboldened enemy, then who? The theories abound as there seems to be no immediate explanation. One such theory is that this is for Iran’s benefit. The theory is that Iran would not want to be on the naughty list of countries who are not protected against US nuclear attack since they have not agreed to non-proliferation. Come over to the light side of the force and we will agree to settle our differences with conventional weapons? Again, I am skeptical. Does anyone believe that this will result in an Iran who prefers a cozy relationship with the Great Satan over their stated religious imperative of destroying it?

Again, our enemies will not be impressed. Those we hope to pressure do not view this as a carrot and it certainly cannot be interpreted as a stick. Our allies, who we are sworn to protect, certainly cannot say that the US should not use ANY method to protect them from annihilation from non-nuclear attack when conventional weapons cannot prevail. Who is left? Who is he talking to? Well, this is where the cynic in me comes out.

This leaves our reluctant allies. This leaves those who tolerate us as long as there is a mutually agreeable arrangement. Greece, Saudi Arabia, Pakistan, in short, mostly middle eastern countries who do not like us being in their back yard much less the threat of nuclear attacks in their part of the world. We want to tell them that we will not attack anyone in their back yard since we can handle any skirmish in that part of the world without having to flex our muscles that hard.

The bottom line is this: we will not stop at any limit to defend ourselves. No country would expect any different and few would hesitate to use nuclear weapons if available, to defend themselves, even if they would wait until it was the last resort. Indeed, the countries that spend most of their money on social programs and also have nuclear weapons, have little options prior to nuclear escalation if the US military does not fill in the gap. The President cannot take nukes off the table because he can just as easily put them back on, without prior notice, and potential aggressors know that. The explanation that stands out to me, mostly because I recognize it from my past, is that the President wants to be liked. The only explanation that makes sense to me, is that the President is trying to say that which will be well received by someone.

The President is most certainly assuring our non-nuclear allies that we will still do anything to protect them, including nuking the bad guys, and most certainly aware that our enemies who might attack us still know that we will do anything to protect ourselves, including nuking the bad guys. So the only ones who this could be directed at are those he has enough contempt for to tell them what they want to hear and enough confidence that they will believe him.

The promises seem shallow and meaningless and I expect him to lose friends just as my friend’s crush lost hers. The world is a suspicious place, where the US is concerned in particular. Very few places have populations gullible enough to believe promises of restraint prior to an uneven or unfair fight. Protected and secure people are often the most gullible and I suspect that the President is accustomed to talking to and hearing from such people in this country. I fear that the rest of the world will react in much the same way they have to the rest of the President’s speeches suggesting that the US should be a softer presence in the world. I fear that they will applaud his words, and continue with the same principled foreign policy they had before such proclamations. I fear that the shallow promise, not based on any clear principle, will stand out in contrast to the principled foreign policies of these countries and of America past. I fear that only those who have temporarily suspended disbelief will believe our President, and that only those who would attack us or our allies will consider acting on it. I fear that advertising some arbitrary limit to our defense has only rhetorical gain, but considerable potential loss.

Specifically, he said then candidate Obama stood a good chance of winning because he was, “light skinned” and spoke with, “no Negro dialect, unless he wanted to have one.” I say, cut him some slack. Why? Mostly, because I am on the right but not a Republican. I can forgive him for letting his colors show, so to speak, but don’t feel the need to attack him because he is a Democrat.

The flack he is catching from the right is over the hypocrisy of how the left, and Democrats in particular, react to such comments from their own, verses someone from the right and Republicans in particular. Why, they say were George Allen, Jimmy the Greek, Al Campanis, James Watt, and others treated so harshly for words that were more insensitive than racist? Why does Biden get a pass for characterizing convenience store clerk jobs as requiring an Indian accent et. al.?

The public’s concern is lost in all the rhetoric. This is representative of a larger issue in American politics which I suggest is at the heart of why we are tired of American politics. I have in my head the caricature of our elected officials playing a football game. Imagine the flapping neckties and soft bodied tackle attempts and whinny insults from the bench, the breathless attempts at power-walk like blitzes and the squeak squeak squeak of plastic surgery parts stretching under the exertions. Imagine the hair; imagine errant comb overs, a muddy postiche near the Gatorade cooler, that crackling sound when hairspray teased poof scrapes Astroturf, and the hair stylist/team managers clamoring on the field when the whistle blows to attempt to save a $400 hair do. I think they are all ridiculous when they shake their fists shakily at the camera, two fingers taped together, and claim to fight for us. Where are the real athletes? But the issue that screams at me has more to do with why would people who appear to be so inept at the game on TV, choose to play the game, and how do they so passionately choose to play for one team or another? And why are we so angry at both teams?

Is the answer in Harry’s words? Let’s see, is Obama light skinned? I guess you could say so, or not. Does he have any particular dialect? I don’t think so. Could he fake one? If Hillary can get away with what she contrived as a southern draw, I am certain he can pull something out of his hat. How about the words of Trent Lott’s praise of Strom Thurmond at Strom’s 100th birthday party? “When Strom Thurmond ran for president, we voted for him. We’re proud of it. And if the rest of the country had followed our lead, we wouldn’t have had all these problems over the years, either.” Is that racist? Not on the surface. The answer depends on whether you believe he was referring to Strom’s strong support of state’s rights, or his support for racial segregation. Care to guess which the Republicans chose? We can’t know a man’s heart, but the way we react to such statements shows our own.

The difference is seen in who each group tolerates in their midst. In general, conservatives agree on more conservative principles than we disagree on. I like to think this is because the truths we hold are self evident, that the conclusions we reach suffer reason. We tolerate people who do not hold one or more of these beliefs, but once you do not hold several as true, it is more likely that you will side with the liberals anyway. For instance, a conservative might agree with limited government, fiscal responsibility, a strong national defense, and personal liberty, but believe that a woman should be allowed to abort a pregnancy for reasons entirely her own. Liberals and Conservatives alike would label such a person a Conservative. Liberals on the other hand, tolerate almost anyone who agrees to vote for their cause. Liberals tend to be ardent liberals with only one or two issues they are passionate about, and willing to feign passion for all the others. Each group saw themselves in candidate Obama and are puzzled when theirs was not his first priority once elected. I have a good friend, for instance who hates the Iraq War and wants to legalize marijuana, (both would be better served by Conservative policies, but another day for that) but he is rather conservative in every other way, but would never openly support a Republican program even if they were offering legislation he would otherwise support. There is considerable hypocrisy on the left and so they are rather tolerant of it as long as it does not hinder their pet agenda. Case in point; they want the government to “stay out of my womb” but insist that regulating every other health issue for everyone is OK. They believe that the government should not be able to limit the use of “medical marijuana” but should definitely criminalize incandescent light bulbs or trans-fats.

How does this relate to the racism label being thrown around differently for conservatives than for liberals? It has to do with political correctness and critical mass. When someone says or does something, like cheat on his wife, a conservative is willing to give that person time to redeem themselves. Shame on you, take a break, talk to me about it again in a year or so and convince me that you have come to your senses. The liberal does not care unless the infidel is playing for the other team. If a politician lies on his taxes, conservatives expect him to step down, if that politician is a conservative, liberals agree, if that person is also a Republican, the Democrats agree and some where along the way critical mass is reached and he is forced out. If a liberal Democrat cheats on his taxes, conservatives expect him to step down, the liberal points to this as a smear tactic and claims that he has a good heart and should be pardoned, so long as the tax cheat supports the agenda, and the Democrat will defend him because on April 15th, a Democrat cheat beats a Republican of any shade every time. Alas, no critical mass. If you think I am talking about Tim Geithner, do a Google search for “democrat tax evasion –democrats.com, and poke around a little in the 1.4 million hits, many not Geithner. Don’t think for a minute that this is somehow an endorsement for Republican tax virtue, replace the word Democrat with Republican and peruse the 324,000 hits you get. Again, I imagine the shaky little fists and Barney Frank’s lispy claims of fighting for me.

Harry Reid, a strict PC public figure “used an unfortunate phrasing” and just as importantly, President Obama immediately forgives him and hopes the whole thing will just go away, so it is misspeak, not a view into his character. George Allen makes up what he thinks is an Indian sounding name, and it is an obvious Freudian slip, indicates the deep seated white supremacy hatred he has for people not like him. Worse than that, he did it in public with a complete disdain for political correctness. What an amateur, using a fake word without focus grouping it first. He is obviously not first string material.

Give Harry a break, he has been elected to the level of his incompetence and cannot possibly be expected to get it right on light bulbs and supporting Obama for President and knowing what phrase to use when labeling African American dialects. We are, after all, just human.

The real call for his removal should come from his Nevada constituents and the non-Black community.

Oops, I heard the screeching tires and the resounding crash. Did I change gears too fast? What can I possibly be talking about? Well, in Harry Reid’s private comments he revealed that he didn’t necessarily respect Obama for his charisma or his intellect or for his commitment to principle, or ability to perform the duties, but for his electability, his packaging. He viewed Obama as a well presented candidate who would bring the Black vote along, without offending too many white people as would one with darker skin and a Black dialect. Obama voted the right way, and was minority enough, but not too minority so as to scare the White people. In one careless and revealing phrase, Harry Reid insulted Blacks by predicting they would vote for race, insulted whites by predicting that they wanted to, and insulted most moderate voters as being gullible enough to be so manipulated. President Obama was looked at as a ringer brought in from out of town to play in the Church league, and the opposition would never see it coming. Harry Reid doesn’t think Whites are better than Blacks, he is just a political hack. No shock, one has to be to become majority leader. I agree with the liberals we should give him a break on the racism front.

The truth is much more sinister than a racial bias. Harry Reid, thinks that his political allies are better than EVERYONE else. His People automatically know that everyone supporting Strom Thurmond is racist, and they KNOW that they make better decisions about YOUR personal life than you could ever make if left to your own devices. This is why we are tired of American politics. Not because Harry recognized a racial political fact, or was careless enough to let the world see that Democrats can actually see race. Not because Trent Lott should have carefully prepared a PC preface to every compliment he made to an old man at his birthday party. We have tired of hearing how hard the last game was or how hard they are training now. Both parties are campaigning for first string, which we select like we choose homecoming queen. We end up with professional campaigners but the football games look like an exhibition game with Congress and the White House officials on one side and paid, private sector lobbyist professional ball teams on the other. Guess which side has skin in the game. From the bleachers it looks ridiculous, even entertaining, you can see small groups of drunks humming the Harlem Globe Trotters theme, except that we are getting our butts handed to us by the pro’s. Any given day, the first string blames the second string and visa versa, and the opposing team takes home the spoils. The home team is getting our butts kicked and the post game talk is full of complaints about towel fights and locker room welts and who refuses to shower.

It has nothing to do with race. It has nothing to do with different standards for first and second string. It has everything to do with professionalism. We are running out of money for tickets and we are tired of loosing every season.