Text of the SOTU – Updated

What if America Weren’t Racist?

The never ending liberal trope about conservatives being racists, holding racist beliefs, or saying racist things is getting very, very old. James Taranto of the Wall Street Journal has an excellent piece on this topic here and I’ve written on the subject before here. Frankly charges of racism have become so banal that many (this writer included) accept such a charge as evidence that whatever drew such allegation was most likely correct.

Well, I know the one event that will prove beyond a shadow of a doubt that America has overcome racism as a cultural imbroglio. That event is when the majority of American voters choose some other candidate, most likely a caucasian, as president instead of Barack Obama.

Wait, you say. Wouldn’t that ‘prove‘ this country is filled with racists? Au contraire dear liberal. Obama was elected not because he had such compelling policy goals; he never fully described his goals. Hope and change are not goals, though ‘Fundamentally Transform America’ is a bit closer to a real goal (he just wasn’t very clear on exactly what he meant). He wasn’t elected because of his overwhelming legislative or scholastic record; he has neither. So why was he elected to the highest office of the land?

Basically two reasons. First and foremost, he is a Democrat and many people would vote for a tomato juice can if it were running as the Democratic candidate (and yes, the reverse is true for many Republicans). Second, Obama is ‘black.’ Many voters decided that his race was the most important issue and pulled the lever for him over John McCain.

In some cases it was the historical nature of Obama’s campaign; the first black person to run for president with a serious chance of winning. In other cases it was ‘White Guilt,’ Shelby Steel’s phrase that is “a loose term that encompasses both an attempt by whites to regain the moral authority they lost after the Civil Rights Movement, and black contempt toward “Uncle Tom” complicity with white hegemony, resulting in a shirking of personal accountability.” I make it a habit to ask those I meet that admit voting for Obama why it was they selected him. In 80 percent of the cases where they respond, their answer falls into one of these two classifications.

So why would voting Obama from office be proof of America’s ascent beyond its racist sentiment? Because we would be saying we are going to treat Obama just like every other holder of that grand office that has not met the citizen’s expectations. Obama would be equal to:

• John Adams
• John Quincy Adams
• Martin Van Buren
• John Tyler
• Millard Fillmore
• Franklin Pierce*
• James Buchanan
• Andrew Johnson
• Ulysses S. Grant
• Grover Cleveland**
• Benjamin Harrison
• William Howard Taft
• Herbert Hoover
• Gerald Ford
• Jimmy Carter
• George H. W. Bush

None of the men listed above lost their office because of anything but the voters’ belief that another candidate could better lead the country. And if Obama looses his reelection bid in November 2012, it will be for exactly the same reason, which means the county has lifted itself above this pernicious, odious evil (okay, maybe a bit overboard but we are talking about racism! after all).

Notes: Franklin Pierce didn’t actually loose an election. His party failed to renominate him and James Buchanan was elected as his party’s candidate in 1856. Grover Cleveland lost his bid against Benjamin Harrison in 1888 but ran again in 1892 and won, making him the only president to inhabit two Presidencies; numbers 22 and 24.

State of the Union, Obama-style

Tomorrow night, President Barack Hussian Obama delivers his fourth State-of-the Union address. Don’t be surprised if his main theme is “a do-nothing Congress (to excuse his record on the economy and the lack of jobs) and more class warfare babble. In fact, expect this speech to sound far more like a campaign speech than something a governing leader would deliver during a time the country’s economy is the worst since the Great Depression.

I’ll be curious to find out how many of the points Obama makes tomorrow night align with the points he made during his Dec 6, 2011 speech in Osawatomie, Kansas. I’ve included the White House transcript below, just so you have a copy close at hand.

Begin Transcript:

THE PRESIDENT:  Well, I want to start by thanking a few folks who’ve joined us today.  We’ve got the mayor of Osawatomie, Phil Dudley is here.  (Applause.)  We have your superintendent Gary French in the house.  (Applause.)  And we have the principal of Osawatomie High, Doug Chisam.  (Applause.)  And I have brought your former governor, who is doing now an outstanding job as Secretary of Health and Human Services – Kathleen Sebelius is in the house.  (Applause.)  We love Kathleen.

Well, it is great to be back in the state of Tex — (laughter) — state of Kansas.  I was giving Bill Self a hard time, he was here a while back.  As many of you know, I have roots here.  (Applause.)  I’m sure you’re all familiar with the Obamas of Osawatomie.  (Laughter.)  Actually, I like to say that I got my name from my father, but I got my accent — and my values — from my mother.  (Applause.)  She was born in Wichita.  (Applause.)  Her mother grew up in Augusta.  Her father was from El Dorado.  So my Kansas roots run deep.

My grandparents served during World War II.  He was a soldier in Patton’s Army; she was a worker on a bomber assembly line.  And together, they shared the optimism of a nation that triumphed over the Great Depression and over fascism.  They believed in an America where hard work paid off, and responsibility was rewarded, and anyone could make it if they tried — no matter who you were, no matter where you came from, no matter how you started out.  (Applause.)

And these values gave rise to the largest middle class and the strongest economy that the world has ever known.  It was here in America that the most productive workers, the most innovative companies turned out the best products on Earth.  And you know what?  Every American shared in that pride and in that success — from those in the executive suites to those in middle management to those on the factory floor.  (Applause.)  So you could have some confidence that if you gave it your all, you’d take enough home to raise your family and send your kids to school and have your health care covered, put a little away for retirement.

Today we are still home to the world’s most productive workers.  We’re still home to the world’s most innovative companies.  But for most Americans, the basic bargain that made this country great has eroded.  Long before the recession hit, hard work stopped paying off for too many people.  Fewer and fewer of the folks who contributed to the success of our economy actually benefited from that success.  Those at the very top grew wealthier from their incomes and their investments — wealthier than ever before.  But everybody else struggled with costs that were growing and paychecks that weren’t — and too many families found themselves racking up more and more debt just to keep up.

Now, for many years, credit cards and home equity loans papered over this harsh reality.  But in 2008, the house of cards collapsed.  We all know the story by now:  Mortgages sold to people who couldn’t afford them, or even sometimes understand them.  Banks and investors allowed to keep packaging the risk and selling it off.  Huge bets — and huge bonuses — made with other people’s money on the line.  Regulators who were supposed to warn us about the dangers of all this, but looked the other way or didn’t have the authority to look at all.

It was wrong.  It combined the breathtaking greed of a few with irresponsibility all across the system.  And it plunged our economy and the world into a crisis from which we’re still fighting to recover.  It claimed the jobs and the homes and the basic security of millions of people — innocent, hardworking Americans who had met their responsibilities but were still left holding the bag.

And ever since, there’s been a raging debate over the best way to restore growth and prosperity, restore balance, restore fairness.  Throughout the country, it’s sparked protests and political movements — from the tea party to the people who’ve been occupying the streets of New York and other cities.  It’s left Washington in a near-constant state of gridlock.  It’s been the topic of heated and sometimes colorful discussion among the men and women running for president.  (Laughter.)

But, Osawatomie, this is not just another political debate. This is the defining issue of our time.  This is a make-or-break moment for the middle class, and for all those who are fighting to get into the middle class.  Because what’s at stake is whether this will be a country where working people can earn enough to raise a family, build a modest savings, own a home, secure their retirement.

Now, in the midst of this debate, there are some who seem to be suffering from a kind of collective amnesia.  After all that’s happened, after the worst economic crisis, the worst financial crisis since the Great Depression, they want to return to the same practices that got us into this mess.  In fact, they want to go back to the same policies that stacked the deck against middle-class Americans for way too many years.  And their philosophy is simple:  We are better off when everybody is left to fend for themselves and play by their own rules.

I am here to say they are wrong.  (Applause.)  I’m here in Kansas to reaffirm my deep conviction that we’re greater together than we are on our own.  I believe that this country succeeds when everyone gets a fair shot, when everyone does their fair share, when everyone plays by the same rules.  (Applause.)  These aren’t Democratic values or Republican values.  These aren’t 1 percent values or 99 percent values.  They’re American values.  And we have to reclaim them.  (Applause.)

You see, this isn’t the first time America has faced this choice.  At the turn of the last century, when a nation of farmers was transitioning to become the world’s industrial giant, we had to decide:  Would we settle for a country where most of the new railroads and factories were being controlled by a few giant monopolies that kept prices high and wages low?  Would we allow our citizens and even our children to work ungodly hours in conditions that were unsafe and unsanitary?  Would we restrict education to the privileged few?  Because there were people who thought massive inequality and exploitation of people was just the price you pay for progress.

Theodore Roosevelt disagreed.  He was the Republican son of a wealthy family.  He praised what the titans of industry had done to create jobs and grow the economy.  He believed then what we know is true today, that the free market is the greatest force for economic progress in human history.  It’s led to a prosperity and a standard of living unmatched by the rest of the world.

But Roosevelt also knew that the free market has never been a free license to take whatever you can from whomever you can.  (Applause.)  He understood the free market only works when there are rules of the road that ensure competition is fair and open and honest.  And so he busted up monopolies, forcing those companies to compete for consumers with better services and better prices.  And today, they still must.  He fought to make sure businesses couldn’t profit by exploiting children or selling food or medicine that wasn’t safe.  And today, they still can’t.

And in 1910, Teddy Roosevelt came here to Osawatomie and he laid out his vision for what he called a New Nationalism.  “Our country,” he said, “…means nothing unless it means the triumph of a real democracy…of an economic system under which each man shall be guaranteed the opportunity to show the best that there is in him.”  (Applause.)

Now, for this, Roosevelt was called a radical.  He was called a socialist — (laughter) — even a communist.  But today, we are a richer nation and a stronger democracy because of what he fought for in his last campaign:  an eight-hour work day and a minimum wage for women — (applause) — insurance for the unemployed and for the elderly, and those with disabilities; political reform and a progressive income tax.  (Applause.)

Today, over 100 years later, our economy has gone through another transformation.  Over the last few decades, huge advances in technology have allowed businesses to do more with less, and it’s made it easier for them to set up shop and hire workers anywhere they want in the world.  And many of you know firsthand the painful disruptions this has caused for a lot of Americans.

Factories where people thought they would retire suddenly picked up and went overseas, where workers were cheaper.  Steel mills that needed 100 — or 1,000 employees are now able to do the same work with 100 employees, so layoffs too often became permanent, not just a temporary part of the business cycle.  And these changes didn’t just affect blue-collar workers.  If you were a bank teller or a phone operator or a travel agent, you saw many in your profession replaced by ATMs and the Internet.

Today, even higher-skilled jobs, like accountants and middle management can be outsourced to countries like China or India.  And if you’re somebody whose job can be done cheaper by a computer or someone in another country, you don’t have a lot of leverage with your employer when it comes to asking for better wages or better benefits, especially since fewer Americans today are part of a union.

Now, just as there was in Teddy Roosevelt’s time, there is a certain crowd in Washington who, for the last few decades, have said, let’s respond to this economic challenge with the same old tune.  “The market will take care of everything,” they tell us.  If we just cut more regulations and cut more taxes — especially for the wealthy — our economy will grow stronger.  Sure, they say, there will be winners and losers.  But if the winners do really well, then jobs and prosperity will eventually trickle down to everybody else.  And, they argue, even if prosperity doesn’t trickle down, well, that’s the price of liberty.

Now, it’s a simple theory.  And we have to admit, it’s one that speaks to our rugged individualism and our healthy skepticism of too much government.  That’s in America’s DNA.  And that theory fits well on a bumper sticker.  (Laughter.)  But here’s the problem:  It doesn’t work.  It has never worked.  (Applause.)  It didn’t work when it was tried in the decade before the Great Depression.  It’s not what led to the incredible postwar booms of the ‘50s and ‘60s.  And it didn’t work when we tried it during the last decade.  (Applause.)  I mean, understand, it’s not as if we haven’t tried this theory.

Remember in those years, in 2001 and 2003, Congress passed two of the most expensive tax cuts for the wealthy in history.  And what did it get us?  The slowest job growth in half a century.  Massive deficits that have made it much harder to pay for the investments that built this country and provided the basic security that helped millions of Americans reach and stay in the middle class — things like education and infrastructure, science and technology, Medicare and Social Security.

Remember that in those same years, thanks to some of the same folks who are now running Congress, we had weak regulation, we had little oversight, and what did it get us?  Insurance companies that jacked up people’s premiums with impunity and denied care to patients who were sick, mortgage lenders that tricked families into buying homes they couldn’t afford, a financial sector where irresponsibility and lack of basic oversight nearly destroyed our entire economy.

We simply cannot return to this brand of “you’re on your own” economics if we’re serious about rebuilding the middle class in this country.  (Applause.)  We know that it doesn’t result in a strong economy.  It results in an economy that invests too little in its people and in its future.  We know it doesn’t result in a prosperity that trickles down.  It results in a prosperity that’s enjoyed by fewer and fewer of our citizens.

Look at the statistics.  In the last few decades, the average income of the top 1 percent has gone up by more than 250 percent to $1.2 million per year.  I’m not talking about millionaires, people who have a million dollars.  I’m saying people who make a million dollars every single year.  For the top one hundredth of 1 percent, the average income is now $27 million per year.  The typical CEO who used to earn about 30 times more than his or her worker now earns 110 times more.  And yet, over the last decade the incomes of most Americans have actually fallen by about 6 percent.

Now, this kind of inequality — a level that we haven’t seen since the Great Depression — hurts us all.  When middle-class families can no longer afford to buy the goods and services that businesses are selling, when people are slipping out of the middle class, it drags down the entire economy from top to bottom.  America was built on the idea of broad-based prosperity, of strong consumers all across the country.  That’s why a CEO like Henry Ford made it his mission to pay his workers enough so that they could buy the cars he made.  It’s also why a recent study showed that countries with less inequality tend to have stronger and steadier economic growth over the long run.

Inequality also distorts our democracy.  It gives an outsized voice to the few who can afford high-priced lobbyists and unlimited campaign contributions, and it runs the risk of selling out our democracy to the highest bidder.  (Applause.)  It leaves everyone else rightly suspicious that the system in Washington is rigged against them, that our elected representatives aren’t looking out for the interests of most Americans.

But there’s an even more fundamental issue at stake.  This kind of gaping inequality gives lie to the promise that’s at the very heart of America:  that this is a place where you can make it if you try.  We tell people — we tell our kids — that in this country, even if you’re born with nothing, work hard and you can get into the middle class.  We tell them that your children will have a chance to do even better than you do.  That’s why immigrants from around the world historically have flocked to our shores.

And yet, over the last few decades, the rungs on the ladder of opportunity have grown farther and farther apart, and the middle class has shrunk.  You know, a few years after World War II, a child who was born into poverty had a slightly better than 50-50 chance of becoming middle class as an adult.  By 1980, that chance had fallen to around 40 percent.  And if the trend of rising inequality over the last few decades continues, it’s estimated that a child born today will only have a one-in-three chance of making it to the middle class — 33 percent.

It’s heartbreaking enough that there are millions of working families in this country who are now forced to take their children to food banks for a decent meal.  But the idea that those children might not have a chance to climb out of that situation and back into the middle class, no matter how hard they work?  That’s inexcusable.  It is wrong.  (Applause.)  It flies in the face of everything that we stand for.  (Applause.)

Now, fortunately, that’s not a future that we have to accept, because there’s another view about how we build a strong middle class in this country — a view that’s truer to our history, a vision that’s been embraced in the past by people of both parties for more than 200 years.

It’s not a view that we should somehow turn back technology or put up walls around America.  It’s not a view that says we should punish profit or success or pretend that government knows how to fix all of society’s problems.  It is a view that says in America we are greater together — when everyone engages in fair play and everybody gets a fair shot and everybody does their fair share.  (Applause.)

So what does that mean for restoring middle-class security in today’s economy?  Well, it starts by making sure that everyone in America gets a fair shot at success.  The truth is we’ll never be able to compete with other countries when it comes to who’s best at letting their businesses pay the lowest wages, who’s best at busting unions, who’s best at letting companies pollute as much as they want.  That’s a race to the bottom that we can’t win, and we shouldn’t want to win that race.  (Applause.)  Those countries don’t have a strong middle class.  They don’t have our standard of living.

The race we want to win, the race we can win is a race to the top — the race for good jobs that pay well and offer middle-class security.  Businesses will create those jobs in countries with the highest-skilled, highest-educated workers, the most advanced transportation and communication, the strongest commitment to research and technology.

The world is shifting to an innovation economy and nobody does innovation better than America.  Nobody does it better.  (Applause.)  No one has better colleges.  Nobody has better universities.  Nobody has a greater diversity of talent and ingenuity.  No one’s workers or entrepreneurs are more driven or more daring.  The things that have always been our strengths match up perfectly with the demands of the moment.

But we need to meet the moment.  We’ve got to up our game.  We need to remember that we can only do that together.  It starts by making education a national mission — a national mission.  (Applause.)  Government and businesses, parents and citizens.  In this economy, a higher education is the surest route to the middle class.  The unemployment rate for Americans with a college degree or more is about half the national average.  And their incomes are twice as high as those who don’t have a high school diploma.  Which means we shouldn’t be laying off good teachers right now — we should be hiring them.  (Applause.)  We shouldn’t be expecting less of our schools –- we should be demanding more.  (Applause.)  We shouldn’t be making it harder to afford college — we should be a country where everyone has a chance to go and doesn’t rack up $100,000 of debt just because they went.  (Applause.)

In today’s innovation economy, we also need a world-class commitment to science and research, the next generation of high-tech manufacturing.  Our factories and our workers shouldn’t be idle.  We should be giving people the chance to get new skills and training at community colleges so they can learn how to make wind turbines and semiconductors and high-powered batteries.  And by the way, if we don’t have an economy that’s built on bubbles and financial speculation, our best and brightest won’t all gravitate towards careers in banking and finance.  (Applause.)   Because if we want an economy that’s built to last, we need more of those young people in science and engineering.  (Applause.)  This country should not be known for bad debt and phony profits. We should be known for creating and selling products all around the world that are stamped with three proud words:  Made in America.  (Applause.)

Today, manufacturers and other companies are setting up shop in the places with the best infrastructure to ship their products, move their workers, communicate with the rest of the world.  And that’s why the over 1 million construction workers who lost their jobs when the housing market collapsed, they shouldn’t be sitting at home with nothing to do.  They should be rebuilding our roads and our bridges, laying down faster railroads and broadband, modernizing our schools — (applause) — all the things other countries are already doing to attract good jobs and businesses to their shores.

Yes, business, and not government, will always be the primary generator of good jobs with incomes that lift people into the middle class and keep them there.  But as a nation, we’ve always come together, through our government, to help create the conditions where both workers and businesses can succeed.  (Applause.)  And historically, that hasn’t been a partisan idea. Franklin Roosevelt worked with Democrats and Republicans to give veterans of World War II — including my grandfather, Stanley Dunham — the chance to go to college on the G.I. Bill.  It was a Republican President, Dwight Eisenhower, a proud son of Kansas — (applause) — who started the Interstate Highway System, and doubled down on science and research to stay ahead of the Soviets.

Of course, those productive investments cost money.  They’re not free.  And so we’ve also paid for these investments by asking everybody to do their fair share.  Look, if we had unlimited resources, no one would ever have to pay any taxes and we would never have to cut any spending.  But we don’t have unlimited resources.  And so we have to set priorities.  If we want a strong middle class, then our tax code must reflect our values.  We have to make choices.

Today that choice is very clear.  To reduce our deficit, I’ve already signed nearly $1 trillion of spending cuts into law and I’ve proposed trillions more, including reforms that would lower the cost of Medicare and Medicaid.  (Applause.)

But in order to structurally close the deficit, get our fiscal house in order, we have to decide what our priorities are. Now, most immediately, short term, we need to extend a payroll tax cut that’s set to expire at the end of this month.  (Applause.)  If we don’t do that, 160 million Americans, including most of the people here, will see their taxes go up by an average of $1,000 starting in January and it would badly weaken our recovery.  That’s the short term.

In the long term, we have to rethink our tax system more fundamentally.  We have to ask ourselves:  Do we want to make the investments we need in things like education and research and high-tech manufacturing — all those things that helped make us an economic superpower?  Or do we want to keep in place the tax breaks for the wealthiest Americans in our country?  Because we can’t afford to do both.  That is not politics.  That’s just math.  (Laughter and applause.)

Now, so far, most of my Republican friends in Washington have refused under any circumstance to ask the wealthiest Americans to go to the same tax rate they were paying whenBill Clinton was president.  So let’s just do a trip down memory lane here.

Keep in mind, when President Clinton first proposed these tax increases, folks in Congress predicted they would kill jobs and lead to another recession.  Instead, our economy created nearly 23 million jobs and we eliminated the deficit.  (Applause.)  Today, the wealthiest Americans are paying the lowest taxes in over half a century.  This isn’t like in the early ‘50s, when the top tax rate was over 90 percent.  This isn’t even like the early ‘80s, when the top tax rate was about 70 percent.  Under President Clinton, the top rate was only about 39 percent.  Today, thanks to loopholes and shelters, a quarter of all millionaires now pay lower tax rates than millions of you, millions of middle-class families.  Some billionaires have a tax rate as low as 1 percent.  One percent.

That is the height of unfairness.  It is wrong.  (Applause.)  It’s wrong that in the United States of America, a teacher or a nurse or a construction worker, maybe earns $50,000 a year, should pay a higher tax rate than somebody raking in $50 million.  (Applause.)  It’s wrong for Warren Buffett‘s secretary to pay a higher tax rate than Warren Buffett.  (Applause.)  And by the way, Warren Buffett agrees with me.  (Laughter.)  So do most Americans — Democrats, independents and Republicans.  And I know that many of our wealthiest citizens would agree to contribute a little more if it meant reducing the deficit and strengthening the economy that made their success possible.

This isn’t about class warfare.  This is about the nation’s welfare.  It’s about making choices that benefit not just the people who’ve done fantastically well over the last few decades, but that benefits the middle class, and those fighting to get into the middle class, and the economy as a whole.

Finally, a strong middle class can only exist in an economy where everyone plays by the same rules, from Wall Street to Main Street.  (Applause.)  As infuriating as it was for all of us, we rescued our major banks from collapse, not only because a full-blown financial meltdown would have sent us into a second Depression, but because we need a strong, healthy financial sector in this country.

But part of the deal was that we wouldn’t go back to business as usual.  And that’s why last year we put in place new rules of the road that refocus the financial sector on what should be their core purpose:  getting capital to the entrepreneurs with the best ideas, and financing millions of families who want to buy a home or send their kids to college.

Now, we’re not all the way there yet, and the banks are fighting us every inch of the way.  But already, some of these reforms are being implemented.

If you’re a big bank or risky financial institution, you now have to write out a “living will” that details exactly how you’ll pay the bills if you fail, so that taxpayers are never again on the hook for Wall Street’s mistakes.  (Applause.)  There are also limits on the size of banks and new abilities for regulators to dismantle a firm that is going under.  The new law bans banks from making risky bets with their customers’ deposits, and it takes away big bonuses and paydays from failed CEOs, while giving shareholders a say on executive salaries.

This is the law that we passed.  We are in the process of implementing it now.  All of this is being put in place as we speak.  Now, unless you’re a financial institution whose business model is built on breaking the law, cheating consumers and making risky bets that could damage the entire economy, you should have nothing to fear from these new rules.

Some of you may know, my grandmother worked as a banker for most of her life — worked her way up, started as a secretary, ended up being a vice president of a bank.  And I know from her, and I know from all the people that I’ve come in contact with, that the vast majority of bankers and financial service professionals, they want to do right by their customers.  They want to have rules in place that don’t put them at a disadvantage for doing the right thing.  And yet, Republicans in Congress are fighting as hard as they can to make sure that these rules aren’t enforced.

I’ll give you a specific example.  For the first time in history, the reforms that we passed put in place a consumer watchdog who is charged with protecting everyday Americans from being taken advantage of by mortgage lenders or payday lenders or debt collectors.  And the man we nominated for the post, Richard Cordray, is a former attorney general of Ohio who has the support of most attorney generals, both Democrat and Republican, throughout the country.  Nobody claims he’s not qualified.

But the Republicans in the Senate refuse to confirm him for the job; they refuse to let him do his job.  Why?  Does anybody here think that the problem that led to our financial crisis was too much oversight of mortgage lenders or debt collectors?

AUDIENCE:  No!

THE PRESIDENT:  Of course not.  Every day we go without a consumer watchdog is another day when a student, or a senior citizen, or a member of our Armed Forces — because they are very vulnerable to some of this stuff — could be tricked into a loan that they can’t afford — something that happens all the time.  And the fact is that financial institutions have plenty of lobbyists looking out for their interests.  Consumers deserve to have someone whose job it is to look out for them.  (Applause.)  And I intend to make sure they do.  (Applause.)  And I want you to hear me, Kansas:  I will veto any effort to delay or defund or dismantle the new rules that we put in place.  (Applause.)

We shouldn’t be weakening oversight and accountability.  We should be strengthening oversight and accountability.  I’ll give you another example.  Too often, we’ve seen Wall Street firms violating major anti-fraud laws because the penalties are too weak and there’s no price for being a repeat offender.  No more.  I’ll be calling for legislation that makes those penalties count so that firms don’t see punishment for breaking the law as just the price of doing business.  (Applause.)

The fact is this crisis has left a huge deficit of trust between Main Street and Wall Street.  And major banks that were rescued by the taxpayers have an obligation to go the extra mile in helping to close that deficit of trust.  At minimum, they should be remedying past mortgage abuses that led to the financial crisis.  They should be working to keep responsible homeowners in their home.  We’re going to keep pushing them to provide more time for unemployed homeowners to look for work without having to worry about immediately losing their house.

The big banks should increase access to refinancing opportunities to borrowers who haven’t yet benefited from historically low interest rates.  And the big banks should recognize that precisely because these steps are in the interest of middle-class families and the broader economy, it will also be in the banks’ own long-term financial interest.  What will be good for consumers over the long term will be good for the banks.  (Applause.)

Investing in things like education that give everybody a chance to succeed.  A tax code that makes sure everybody pays their fair share.  And laws that make sure everybody follows the rules.  That’s what will transform our economy.  That’s what will grow our middle class again.  In the end, rebuilding this economy based on fair play, a fair shot, and a fair share will require all of us to see that we have a stake in each other’s success.  And it will require all of us to take some responsibility.

It will require parents to get more involved in their children’s education.  It will require students to study harder.  (Applause.)  It will require some workers to start studying all over again.  It will require greater responsibility from homeowners not to take out mortgages they can’t afford.  They need to remember that if something seems too good to be true, it probably is.

It will require those of us in public service to make government more efficient and more effective, more consumer-friendly, more responsive to people’s needs.  That’s why we’re cutting programs that we don’t need to pay for those we do.  (Applause.)  That’s why we’ve made hundreds of regulatory reforms that will save businesses billions of dollars.  That’s why we’re not just throwing money at education, we’re challenging schools to come up with the most innovative reforms and the best results.
And it will require American business leaders to understand that their obligations don’t just end with their shareholders.  Andy Grove, the legendary former CEO of Intel, put it best.  He said, “There is another obligation I feel personally, given that everything I’ve achieved in my career, and a lot of what Intel has achieved…were made possible by a climate of democracy, an economic climate and investment climate provided by the United States.”

This broader obligation can take many forms.  At a time when the cost of hiring workers in China is rising rapidly, it should mean more CEOs deciding that it’s time to bring jobs back to the United States — (applause) — not just because it’s good for business, but because it’s good for the country that made their business and their personal success possible.  (Applause.)

I think about the Big Three auto companies who, during recent negotiations, agreed to create more jobs and cars here in America, and then decided to give bonuses not just to their executives, but to all their employees, so that everyone was invested in the company’s success.  (Applause.)

I think about a company based in Warroad, Minnesota.  It’s called Marvin Windows and Doors.  During the recession, Marvin’s competitors closed dozens of plants, let hundreds of workers go.  But Marvin’s did not lay off a single one of their 4,000 or so employees — not one.  In fact, they’ve only laid off workers once in over a hundred years.  Mr. Marvin’s grandfather even kept his eight employees during the Great Depression.

Now, at Marvin’s when times get tough, the workers agree to give up some perks and some pay, and so do the owners.  As one owner said, “You can’t grow if you’re cutting your lifeblood — and that’s the skills and experience your workforce delivers.”  (Applause.)  For the CEO of Marvin’s, it’s about the community.  He said, “These are people we went to school with.  We go to church with them.  We see them in the same restaurants.  Indeed, a lot of us have married local girls and boys.  We could be anywhere, but we are in Warroad.”

That’s how America was built.  That’s why we’re the greatest nation on Earth.  That’s what our greatest companies understand.  Our success has never just been about survival of the fittest.  It’s about building a nation where we’re all better off.  We pull together.  We pitch in.  We do our part.  We believe that hard work will pay off, that responsibility will be rewarded, and that our children will inherit a nation where those values live on.  (Applause.)

And it is that belief that rallied thousands of Americans to Osawatomie — (applause) — maybe even some of your ancestors — on a rain-soaked day more than a century ago.  By train, by wagon, on buggy, bicycle, on foot, they came to hear the vision of a man who loved this country and was determined to perfect it.

“We are all Americans,” Teddy Roosevelt told them that day. “Our common interests are as broad as the continent.”  In the final years of his life, Roosevelt took that same message all across this country, from tiny Osawatomie to the heart of New York City, believing that no matter where he went, no matter who he was talking to, everybody would benefit from a country in which everyone gets a fair chance.  (Applause.)

And well into our third century as a nation, we have grown and we’ve changed in many ways since Roosevelt’s time.  The world is faster and the playing field is larger and the challenges are more complex.  But what hasn’t changed — what can never change — are the values that got us this far.  We still have a stake in each other’s success.  We still believe that this should be a place where you can make it if you try.  And we still believe, in the words of the man who called for a New Nationalism all those years ago, “The fundamental rule of our national life,” he said, “the rule which underlies all others — is that, on the whole, and in the long run, we shall go up or down together.”  And I believe America is on the way up.  (Applause.)

Thank you.  God bless you.  God bless the United States of America.

End transcript.

Watch for a follow-up to this post after Obama delivers his campaign State of the Union speech.

Newts in South Carolina?

After poking Fox News’ Juan Williams in the nose and b***h slapping CNN’s John King silly, Newt Gingrich came from a way-behind to win the South Carolina Republican primary quite handily.

It appears Newt will win with about a 12% margin, which has to give the Romney campaign heartburn at a minimum and the GOP elites cause to push some emergency campaign funding toward the Santorum campaign (who seems to have beaten Ron Paul by 4 or 5% for third). Florida is a new ball game, and we now have the top three candidates with one win each moving to a state that, while technically in the South, has a very diverse voter base. I suspect the winner of Florida will ultimately prevail in the GOP primary over all (not necessarily win all the remaining primaries, but end up with the greatest number of delegates).

Back to Newt: I have a great deal of admiration for his intellect, his ability to use his linguistic skills to connect with the average American, and his quick thinking to devastate any opponent in a verbal joust. However, as I’ve noted elsewhere, after coming off such a win as he pulled of tonight he has a tendency to allow his ego to overshadow his better judgement and end up sitting on a couch with Nancy Pelosi or something else equally stupid. Time will tell.

I could easily vote for Newt if he becomes the GOP nominee. I could just as easily (maybe more so) vote for Rick Santorum. There are things I like about each. I’m going to have a bit more challenge voting for Mitt Romney; not that I won’t vote for him should he become the nominee. I’ll write more about Mitt next week.

Newt won South Carolina tonight more for the way in which he went after the main stream media and the way he is aggressively taking the fight to Republican opponents than because of his ‘big thinking’ or ‘profoundly robust’ policy ideas. South Carolina voters saw someone who is willing to fight for the things they believe in, not a political insider and lobbyist.

Newt has captured the heart of many conservatives, something that has evaded Romney’s polished campaign. Can Newt hold on to the brass ring? Can Romney learn form what Newt has shown him?

Stay tuned for Florida.

US Constitution – Outdated … or Good As Is?

A Twitter friend, @ar20org, sent me a link to their web site and asked for comment. I sent back the following:

@ar20org responded, asking for my take on their plan for 10 specific amendments to the Constitution. The proposed amendments are:

• Balanced Budget with Termination of Office Trigger
• Term Limits & Ethics Standards for Federal Office Holders
• Shortened Federal Election Campaigns
• Automated Contiguous Congressional Re-Districting
• Integrity of Federal Elections
• Equal Treatment of Citizens
• Judiciary Qualifcations, Terms, and Accountability
• Presidential & Congressional War Powers
• Presidential Appointments
• Requirements & Restrictions Government Operations

I think I’ll deal with global statements before getting into addressing specific points. My initial thoughts on any proposed amendment(s) to the Constitution is first the difficulty of actually passing them.

The Founders were brilliant in their crafting of the most profond political document ever written, and the hurdles they placed in the path of amending it are just one example. It is difficult to amend by design and rightly so. Were it not difficult to amend the Constitution, try and imagine what our Republic would look like today (if it still even existed).

My second thought is that many of the proposed amendments really deal with the issue of States Rights. Currently, elections are controlled by the individual states. The Federal government has inserted itself into far to many issues and now demanding that it take tighter control of elections is not something I believe would help the situation. We don’t need any more top-down control!

The last global point I have is on trying to micro-manage our elected officials as to ethics, political contributions, et al.

We currently have the government we deserve, because we have not been paying attention for at least the last 30-40 years and probably longer. If we don’t start paying attention soon we’ll get exactly what we ask for! We citizens tend to blame those “dirty politicians” for all our woes, but like so many other areas of our society, every element of the system bares responsibility to do its part, and plainly We The People haven’t been standing up to our part of the bargain. Things were going along good and so we put it on auto-pilot and now we’re paying for our laziness.

So … on to each amendment:

Balanced Budget with Termination of Office Trigger

There is not much I disagree with in this proposed amendment with the exception of the “Termination of Office Trigger,” which I’ll discuss in a moment.

We desperately need a method of controlling the all-to-well-known urges of the politicians we send to Washington, and I’m not talking about carnal. The ability to spend becomes addictive for those who languish more than about four years in DC. I wrote here and here about balanced budgets and spending controls.

I like the idea of mandating a balanced budget not tied some arbitrary index (i.e., xx% of GDP). Spending should be based on what’s needed in any given budget period. If the need is 16% of GDP but the limit is 18%, magically the budget comes in at 18% … guaranteed!!

I don’t think we want to introduce anything akin to a vote of no confidence into our political process. Who defines “if they are unable to govern effectively.” Creating and managing something of this nature will introduce unintended consequences. The control really needs to come at the ballot box.

Term Limits & Ethics Standards for Federal Office Holders

I am against term limits of any sort. I used to think that was the way to better control politicians, but have since learned that at best it’s nothing more than throwing the baby out with the bath water. Best example; California passed term limits in 1990 … how’s that working out?

The state is now being run by the bureaucrats and the “elected” office holders are just there to pass out the candy and set themselves up for either higher office or get appointed to some commission or other. We Californian’s have lost some very good people (who just happened to be politicians) to term limits. The most current example is now Congressman Tom McClintock (R-CA04).

Increasing the minimum age for the different offices is okay, but from my perspective that’s getting way to deep into the trifling. As to citizens commissions to set salaries or benefits or anything else … how are they going to be held accountable? Frankly, I’m in favor of holding the elected officials accountable, again, at the ballot box.

While I agree we need to clean up the cronyism that takes place in Washington (revolving doors, lobbyists, etc.) , the remainder of the proposals under this topic are absolutely way, way, way to deep into the weeds for inclusion into our Constitution.

As this is taking far more ink than I anticipated, I’ll wrap up for today and address the remainder of the issues later.

Cain-Gringich Debate/Discussion

I watched the so-called Lincoln-Douglas style debate between Herman Cain and Newt Gingrich last night and while I would call what transpired more a discussion than a debate, I loved the approach. The entire debate can be seen on C-Span here and I encourage you to watch the event, beginning to end (even with the issues they had with the sound system).

The debate, held in Woodlands, TX and hosted by the Texas Patriots PAC, dealt only with entitlements (Medicare, Medicaid and Social Security).

Because the candidates mostly agreed with one another on almost every issue, I’d say there wasn’t a “winner” in the traditional context. From one perspective, both won for exhibiting the courage it took to expose themselves to such an open forum. Surprising no one, Gingrich clearly had a better grasp on each subject and in fact on a couple of occasions Cain actually deferred questions to Gingrich. Yet Cain still turned in a good performance primarily due to his positive attitude and good cheer,

In my opinion neither “won” because both evinced characteristics necessary for any leader to possess. If you only count depth of knowledge, Newt was/is far more knowledgeable about these and many other subjects than any of the candidates on the GOP ticket. But are we looking for a candidate that knows almost everything, or are we looking for someone who knows how to bring the right people together and charge them with coming up with recommendations for the president to consider and decide upon?

Frankly, in my experience people who believe themselves to be very intelligent and able to solve problems themselves are often reticent to listen to or adopt others’ solutions. In today’s complex world, no one can know everything. Ronald Reagan never professed to know his subject matter better than his staff; he used their collective knowledge to arrive at the right answer … based on Reagan’s firm principles.

I don’t know if Cain has “all” of the necessary leadership qualities, but I do know that Gingrich has demonstrated in the past that he didn’t possess them when Speaker. He did many great things, but if he hasn’t grown beyond where he was when he resigned, and knowing what I know right now, I would choose Cain over Gingrich.

I would love to see the other candidates that still have a chance to gain the nomination (meaning not Huntsman, Paul and the other want-to-be’s). I suspect Santorum and Bachmann could be convinced and maybe even Perry. But I’m not certain Romney has the fortitude required.

One last point …. be sure and watch when Cain and Gingrich ask each other a question at the end and Cain asks Newt what he would do if he were …. watch! Great fun!

Hey … Let’s have a protest!

I just finished the most hilarious article I’ve read in a long time. Micheal Tomasky wrote yesterday over at the Daily Beast that he has no idea what the Occupy Wall Street protest is about, but he’s for it! He opens wondering how it is that the Tea Party gained such strength.

How on earth is it that we were hit with the greatest financial crisis since the Depression, very obviously caused by deregulation and adherence to other conservative nostra, and yet the only protest movement to arise from these ashes is one … of the right? It has been, to put it mildly, exasperating.

It never occurs to Michael that it was in fact his beloved “Big Government” that caused the financial meltdown in 2008, just as to the distension of the Great Depression of the 1930′s. I find it amusing how the liberals get so wrapped up in their underwear for no other reason than they begin from a false assumption.

Michael then goes on to proclaim he doesn’t know what OWS is about, but he’s solidly behind them!

I want to stipulate up front that I am firmly on OWS’s side. I don’t really know who its leaders are, and I don’t especially care. I don’t know its exact goals—a subject on which the movement has been roundly, and in my view pointlessly, criticized. But it is desperately needed. It needs to succeed. And I fear it won’t.

So … protesting for an undefined cause is worthy of one’s support? Maybe the real problem is that the OWS protesters don’t have just one cause. Like many left-leaning protests of the past few decades, word gets out that there’s going to be a party protest and everybody and their brother shows up. Cause schmase, who cares? Protestin’ is cool … and besides, maybe I’ll get on TV!

However, our Michael is smart. He knows that protesting for the sake of protesting doesn’t achieve the goal of turning America into a “Workers Paradise.”

To succeed, it would have to model itself on 1963, not 1968. And I’m not confident that any left-wing protest movementtoday can understand that.

What do I mean? In 1963, we had the March on Washington. No one threw anything. There were no drum circles. The protesters of 1963 said to America, “We are like you; in fact, we are you.” There’s very little arguing that it worked. The protesters of 1968 said to America, “We are not like you; in fact, we hate you.” In France, the soixante-huitards were able, to some extent, to remake French society. In America, the protesters of ’68 accomplished little except to make Hubert Humphrey, one of the most decent human beings and progressive-minded mainstream politicians America had produced in 50 years, into some kind of reactionary, and help give us Nixon.

186,000 Miles per Second. It’s the Law!

Scientists from Switzerland’s CERN laboratory are calling into question one of the most recognized and established laws of physics discovered by Albert Einstein, the speed of light. Physicists have found that tiny particles called neutrinos are making a 454-mile (730-kilometer) underground trip faster than they should … more quickly, in fact, than light does. These scientists have said they will publish their results today (Sept 23, 2011) in hopes of inviting scrutiny that could make sense of such radical findings.

But wait! I thought the science was settled on the issue of the speed of light! How is it these deniers of the universal speed limit are allowed to question Einstein’s seminal Theory of Special Relativity?

Actually, this is exactly how science is supposed to work, unlike so-called “climate science.” Science is a process that ultimately produces a theory which in fact can be proven false if new evidence demonstrates the initial theory was incorrect. Climate “science” is a religion in which one must believe in a set of statements even when those statements are proven false, or at least questionable.

Praise be to mullah AlGore!

Life’s Shortcuts

Without using shortcuts, our lives would be far more difficult. What do I mean by shortcut? Shortcuts give us clues as to what decisions we need to make without having to conduct a detailed analysis in any given situation.

A simple example of a shortcut would be that when we encounter a foot bridge, if others are crossing and seem to be unconcerned (chatting with each other or admiring the scenery while on the bridge, etc.), we use that as clue that the bridge must be safe to cross. We do so without stopping to count the number of people, estimating their average weight, estimating the length of the bridge’s span, calculating the gross weight the bridge should carry, etc. We use shortcuts … and you would be amazed if you were to stop and think about how many situations you encounter every day where these shortcuts reduce our decision making time from minutes to fractions of a second.

In addition to physical issues, shortcuts are important in social, business and political situations as well. What was your reaction when you finally met the individual that your close friend holds in great disdain? Even if you’re someone who prides himself on keeping an open mind, you were probably cautious in your initial reaction, as you trust your friend’s judgment more than a stranger’s suave demeanor. The focus of our discussion on shortcuts however, is on the shortcuts we use in our political life.

In California there is a Constitutional amendment that allows for any citizen or group to place an initiative on the ballot to add, change, or get rid of a state law if the citizen or group meets certain qualifications (seldom if ever used for the later reason BTW).  On the surface this has the hallmark of true democracy. In practice, it’s more like making sausage; very messy.

Initiatives are generally written by professionals, knowledgeable in the ways of Sacramento. The most challenging aspect is that most initiatives are written not to clarify but to conceal. It is very difficult for even legal experts to read, then explain what the impact of most initiatives will be if passed and made the law of the land.

The state issues voter pamphlets prior to a statewide election that contain the language of each initiative, a summary of the intended purpose, estimated impacts on the state budget, and arguments for and against the initiatives. I suspect few voters actually read this pamphlet, much less study it. Nevertheless, it does contain one small bit of information that every voter can generally use to help make a decision as to which way would be best to cast their ballot on every initiative; the names and affiliations of the people writing the arguments for and against said initiative.

Granted, sometime the name(s) of the organization is so obscured as to be useless, i.e. Californians For a Better Future, etc. However, when the California Teachers Association (CTA) authors an argument in favor of an initiative, that tells me it is a good possibility I should vote against the initiative. While this may sound like a rather juvenile statement, there is absolutely nothing … N.O.T.H.I.N.G. … the CTA favors that I believe is in the best interest of the state, the voters, the schools and most especially, the children and their education. Shortcuts!

Political shortcuts come in as many flavors as any other type of shortcut, and the user must be aware and be as cautious of using a political shortcut as in many other circumstances. For instance, last week former one-term President Jimmy Carter was asked, if he were to vote for one of the current crop of GOP Presidential candidates, who would that be? He unhesitatingly answered Mitt Romney. I doubt the former governor will put that endorsement prominently on his web site, but if Jimmah likes Mitt best, what does that say about Mitt and his policies?.

The other candidates have provided us shortcuts as well. Ron Paul’s long association with Lew Rockwell is one, as well as Paul’s statement that he would he would consider putting the liberal congressman Dennis Kucinich on his Cabinet if elected President. Newt’s off-again on-again dalliances with Democrat Party leaders is another.

However, it provides us average conservative voters more data points to use in our search for a candidate that won’t say “read my lips” and then go on to do the opposite of what his lips said to us. I haven’t made up my mind as to who I think the best candidate will be to beat President Obama (I’m sure going to be glad when I can add Former to his title) and don’t expect I will until early next year. None of them meet all of my personal presidential criteria, but then I doubt even I couldn’t do that, but I ultimately will choose one who I will vote for in California’s primary. And … I will vote for whoever eventually wins the GOP nomination and hopefully not have to hold my nose as tightly as I did in 2008.

New shortcuts will be forthcoming.

Be on the lookout for them.

Updated 20110923 15:20PDT: One point I failed to mention. There is never a shortcut for a shortcut! Ever!

If he walks like a duck …

James Hoffa, the son of the legendary Teamsters union boss Jimmie Hoffa, caused a furor today as reported throughout the conservative media. Seems he gave a Labor Day speech and made a few comments one would expect from a union boss … comments that, let’s just say, wouldn’t have been a part of President Obama’s Tuscon speech last January.

Obama followed Hoffa with his typical blame, tax cuts for the rich, and infrastructure jobs (which I understand are no longer shovel ready). Unfortunately, the President didn’t take Hoffa to task for his less-than civil remarks as he should have based on his pronouncements of the ‘new civility.’

I’ve given up watching or listening to Obama speak. Nothing he says is new or profound. But there is something else that has crept into his oratorial quiver along side the stutter and in front of the teleprompter; jabs at his “enemies.”

For the past 230-some years, Americans have elected a President to represent the entire country … and all Americans. Even George W Bush pushed policies and programs that at times ran counter to his base constituency. Nevertheless, he was accused of being the ‘war mongers’ president,’ or the ‘neocon’s president. Even ‘Jimmah’ Carter didn’t speak ill of Americans that didn’t agree with the direction he took the country … at least publicly.

Richard ‘Tricky Dick’ Nixon probably came closest to bashing those that didn’t agree with him through his ‘enemies list.’ Yet he never reach the level Obama has achieved in speaking ill of those Americans who vocally disagree with the President. So Obama is the first popularly  elected President to occupy the White House that truly doesn’t represent all Americans.

I never dreamed that a US President would speak down to the patriotic Americans I affiliate with because we don’t subscribe to Obama’s policies or vision for this country. The next president we elect had better be prepared to represent every American, even those who would work for their defeat.

Update 20110906: Listening to Rush this morning, he addressed this whole sorry appearance by Obama but adds: “Why would Obama choose to speak in Detroit of all places? Unions are responsible for Detroit’s unemployment, one of the highest of all large US cities. The city is busy tearing down abandoned homes and buildings, turning the city back to farm land!”

Guest Post: The Human Playground

A twitter friend left a comment on the previous post, American Society and Bullying that I felt was rather profound and deserved to be promoted to a full post. So here is a piece by @Jimfact in it’s entirety. I did edit the layout for read-ability – alpip

The Human Playground

by @Jimfact

Sanitizing our children’s natural interactions has consequences, save ‘lord of the flies’ scenario’s. Because conditioning has its limits as the Goebbels experiment showed us.

This thread got me thinking about how everything in life/history is relative. Eg: In war it used to be commonplace to sack a city then to rape, pillage, and enslave the survivors, this offending General always received a commendation for his efforts, not so with Milosevic however, but is this best? As recently as Patton it was acceptable, now it is ‘genocide’. Are we just putting off an inevitable and greater tragedy by sanitizing war?

The reason home-field advantage was so profound was the direst of consequences associated with failure. Believe it or not this was motivation for some countries Monarchs to respect the needs of its citizenry. Think Queen Victoria as she contemplated the Spanish fleet sailing up the river Thames. The banana republic of today didn’t stand a chance in those days. Torture used to be dislocating joints or pulling fingernails, now it is pouring harmless water over peoples faces… As I’m sure you know, a practice we still use training some of our own troops today.

A bit theological I guess, but consider, we have gotten to the point that running up the score at a sporting event is unacceptable or ‘bullying’, be it you child’s little league game or a New England Patriots game (irony: where the New England leftists are the worst offenders but so often is the case that laws only apply to those not in power. Insert Cicero quote here).

This never ends very well as we saw when we tried to deal with the cultural war regarding the American Indians. Eventually, the Indians lost that PR war. Now they are packed in Communist re-education camps called Reservations after being systematically liquidated. Once again a leftist sociology experiment ending very badly. A once proud productive people whom were destroyed by the US after failing at ‘multiculturalism’.

Had we dealt with this harshly from the get go would it have been different; instead of only fighting it with equal brutality? This will happen to the Muslims eventually too because they will never be allowed in the club unless they embrace the West’s culture, which is, by FAR, superior (those who saw/see Soviets, Japan, Muslims, or China a threat are fear-mongering, none of them ever could match the west in a total war, nuke’s or not. eg: Alas, one of my favorite movies ‘Red Dawn’ was just propaganda).

I don’t care if there are 60% Muslims living in France … they will eventually lose the PR war and be slaughtered. Soon after we will, very harshly, criticize the bigots that wiped them out and move on. We know this cycle has been happening since humans put pen to paper; I’m sure it has been forever. Yet every society says ‘never again’ till the next time.

The Greek’s (democratic Athens no less) slaughtered all the male inhabitants of the island of ‘Lesbos’ creating a fatherless society of Lesbians. Rome slaughtered the Jew’s even though they thought themselves above such barbarity. The ‘enlightened’ Muslim Caliphate slaughtered Christians (Orthodox mostly, not often Catholics as Pope Innocent II might have us believe). The Hapsburg’s put every Muslim head on stakes for 900 years, even creating a real live Vampire named Vlad. All of these atrocities were unthinkable till the day they occurred.

This tribal thing… I believe it encompasses all human interaction. Beyond it there is nothing. No love, hate, religion, or compassion. We can justify just about anything considered extreme if we garner the support of the mob, masses, or our tribe. Look no further than young boys torturing their own household pets.

How about nobody ever considered that FDR could have allied with Stalin before he did it? You couldn’t have found 5% of the US population outside the commie unions that would have ever considered it. All it took was a PR campaign of lies from our POTUS. Even so, most Americans knew the Communists were our greatest enemy at the time.

MacArthur and Patton lost their commands over this exact issue and I bet they garnered popular support in the US if not the entire developed world. Think the Finn’s liked our cozy relationship… How about the Polish? Remember Katyn! Revisionist history books don’t teach this but I believe it to be true.

Would it have saved tens of billions of people from death or lives of misery had we kept marching on Moscow after Hitlers death as Patton wanted? Likewise marching to Peking after our military slaughtering millions of China-men, North-Korean’s, and Soviets in Korea as Mac had planned. What did we have at Chosin Reservoir? One ill-equipped marine division vs. two Chinese armies and another N.Korean with state of the art Soviet air support? Never-mind we had a monopoly on Nuke’s. Both opportunities if pursued would have cost relatively few US lives to liberate half the world from Communism. Who is the humanitarian? FDR… Truman… Even restraint has real consequences.

We can also simplify all human interaction to this simple phenomenon practiced rather innocently by our children on the play ground. No need to complicate it with a sociology degree from some unaccredited college. It is basic instinct and it encompasses everything from one on one relationships to nations dealing with each other.

Similarly we can simplify psychological diagnoses to natural personality differences, be it conditioning or instinct. Lets assume that the human psyche ranges 180 degrees and doctors try to get us all to 90 with drugs, rather than allowing for someone being content at the widget making machine or leave another alone who has a need to isolate and invent things.

Humans have their own way to get the masses near 90: it is called growing up and those that don’t fit either excel or die off. Natural selection. Wonder how generations survived with-out all these ‘anti-psychotic’ drugs years ago? The play ground. Some adapted, others fared worse … some even got drunk and said the wrong thing to the wrong guy. Now we are essentially breeding rejects as we make everybody ‘average’.

This worked for King’s too [for] a few generations at least… that is until some hereditary consequences caught up to them like stupidity, insanity, big chins, and an assortment of blood disorders eventually leading to an inability to reproduce, thank God, put them out of their misery.

As we disinfect our children’s environments we will continue to find more and more who need drugs to get by in life. I read somewhere that one in four kids are now on daily medications. Can you believe we are force feeding our kids with Cocaine only calling it (TM) Ritalin? Only if they rate 85 or less on my self made scale. Not unlike parents that don’t let their kids play in the sand box and get dirty. Eventually they die young from a simple infection because their bodies never developed immunity to… Wait… Wait for it… DIRT.

Kids are increasingly being kept from the sun… now we see a sudden spike in ‘rickets’ especially among young black city dwellers whom need more sun than their lighter skin peers. Good news for the vitamin D wholesalers but not for the kids plastering themselves with spf 30.

Antibiotics are stunting naturally created white blood cells. Anti-bacterial hand gels are creating super bacteria immune to everything besides isopropanol. Using DDT liberally, then the sudden lack of it has created super bedbugs and mosquitoes that can’t be killed by anything short of… wait… Wait for it… You guessed it –> DDT or a flame thrower. Charlton Heston said it best here … if I may Al (grin)!

We must allow for natural progress: evolution can’t be sanitized or some other culture will pass us by and persevere. I’m sure the Indians thought they had a better culture too, but what good did that do them when Conquistadors landed on their shores? Social justice, diversity, multiculturalism, are all just other words for rewarding backward thinking. I am not promoting hate or bigotry here … on the contrary leftists are often guilty of this as they point at people like me. “Those who point fingers always have three fingers pointing back at themselves.”

My point is that no matter how brutal the Greeks, Romans, or English Empires were they did spread prosperity to all under their umbrella who accepted it. You can see the regions that were accepting of the Western culture and have prospered. Compare the liberty and standard of living of those whom accepted it totally like Australia or Hawaii, to those accepting it partially like India or Puerto Rico, then not accepting it at all like Somalia, Kenya, and ever more-so in South Africa where Mandela had the chance to be Mahatma Gandhi but instead will be remembered as Oliver Cromwell.

Overall, was British colonialism all that bad? I suppose it was if you would prefer; being a slave to poverty, living under the foot of corrupt tribal warlords confiscating UN food as a weapon, and an economy based on Piracy.

“There is nothing as perfect and chaotic as children learning how to interact with one another on the playground” ~ @Jimfact 9/5/2011 @ 11:30am and way too much caffeine.

American Society and Bullying

Several days ago a twitter friend, @ur4everREagent, asked the twitterverse the question “What is your stand on bullying? Should the school expel the bully or should you remove your kid. What about cyber bullying?”

I, of course, had a flippant response; “That’s an easy question to ask in 140 characters! Answer … not so much!” Her reply was staggering: “I know! Just heard a heartbreaker @ my kids middle school. Dad of 13 year old who killed himself over 2 years of bullying.”

When she first ask the question I thought, now that would be an interesting subject to write about, having become bored with who’ll be the GOP nominee until next year when things start getting interesting, or when a California politician has a stroke of genius and … oohhh, never mind … that’ll never happen! But when she came back with that response, I knew I had to put pen to paper, digitally speaking, allowing my thoughts to crystallize on such a difficult subject.

My initial response was that school officials have become bureaucratic fence sitters, trying to not create controversy by never taking a position on any issue, thereby pushing hard problems like bullying off on everyone else. I still believe that is so, but what to do with the bully, and what if nothing is done by “authorities” … scare quotes on purpose … to stop the bullying?

My friend’s next tweet read “I am really thinking about this since I have a son with Aspergers, who may have 2 w this.” and then “very tough. We need 2 teach them how to defend themselves but we also have to protect them from harm. And what about the bullies?”

The Players

There are basically four players that have influence of one form or another on this problem. Parents are the obvious starting point, but I’ll refer to this group as family. It is the parents that provide a child with the core morals … the sense of right and wrong, imprinted during the the parent’s own upbringing. Parents were supported in child rearing by the extended family, primarily by grandparents.

The second player that was a crucial part of child rearing in our society was the clergy. It is difficult to believe today, but most Americans belonged to a church in the past. Many didn’t attend services on a regular basis, but they did belong to some church or other and their pastor often played a role in rearing children that could understand good from evil.

I’ll refer to the third player in this tale as the teacher. In the past it was an actual, living, breathing individual; a teacher. They generally changed every year, but most people who taught school formed a bond with most of the children in their (usually a her) class and would play a role in the child’s upbringing. Today it has turned into the education system … and that is a large part of the precise problem, of which I’ll expand on later.

The last player wasn’t involved in this issue 25 years ago, but is now becoming more and more an integral part; law enforcement. It is only in the last decade or two that law enforcement has become a member of what was a child rearing triumvirate.

Drivers

American society is always changing. That change is sometime driven by events … think Great depression, WWII, Vietnam or 9/11. It is also changed by non-events; the “roaring 20′s,” post World War II prosperity, the economic boom of the 1980s and 90s. An interesting thing about change: rarely can one predict what form the change will take nor what the final effect will be once the change is complete, which frankly is never really complete, especially in such a large society as ours.

World War II caused the greatest surge of patriotism in our lifetimes. This was a major change coming off an economy that saw unemployment at 20% or more for a decade. The outcome of these events was a society that just wanted their piece of the American dream where they could own a piece of Americana, raise their family, enjoy their grand children and look forward to a comfortable retirement.

One aspect often overlooked during the three decades beginning in 1950 was that most parents wanted to do what they could to make sure their children did not have to live through what they had suffered in the 1930′s and 40′s. This may be an eternal desire on the part of all parents … I don’t know. I guess I did the same with my children when they grew up from 1975 through the late 1990′s. Regardless, coupled with other events in the 1960′s and 70′s, changes were taking place that would have a profound impact on our society today.

With the desire to help their offspring avoid life’s difficulties, some American parents deprived many of my generation with the very experiences needed to build a character similar to that of what is now refereed to as “The Greatest Generation.” If one is to build one’s muscle, those muscles must regularly experience resistance.

The same thing goes for building character. Your mettle must be tested in real situations. A favorite quote of mine is “The gem cannot be polished without friction, nor man perfected without trials.” (Many other quotes on character can be found here or go to the Quotes tab at the top of the page.) In the past, a great deal of our moral character was derived from our association with our local church or synagogue.

However, today religion as a source of moral guidance plays a diminishing role in our society. While the vast majority of Americans acknowledge they are religious, about 40% attend a church, synagogue or mosque regularly. Sounds like America is still a morals based country. However, actual beliefs have softened like the rest of society.

It is not uncommon to find churches today with such liberal beliefs that most church-goers of 50 years ago wouldn’t recognize many of today’s denominations as a church … more a social club with a choir, or in the most extreme cases a political organization with a doxology. Most churches have more to do with something that is attended on Sunday mornings than with any part of our society’s moral fabric.

A short aside … please know that I am aware of many churches that still teach directly from the Bible and have not softened their beliefs in what is required to be saved … however your denomination phrases their process of becoming a believer and a practicing member.

I am a devout Christian, believe in a higher power, and believe that one must accept Jesus Christ as your Lord and Savior if one wishes to go to Heaven. So I am not blasting religion per se, only that part that has moved left and is aligning itself with the liberal and environmental agendas, thereby becoming much more political and much less devotional. Back to the narrative …

As time passed and most of America continued experiencing peace and prosperity, more people were being raised without any conflict to challenge their expanding perception of themselves. This is supported by all of the pop psychology telling us how important it is for children to not have their “self-esteem” damaged, along with other false notions of how to make ourselves “happy.”

Results

So where did five decades of “make love, not war” … “what ever feels good (turns you on, floats your boat)” and “I got no dog in this fight” lead us too? I believe it has caused us to be less giving and more narcissistic as a society. We have also become less apt to accept responsibility for our actions … or inaction. I offer two examples: the explosion of lawsuits and a greater dependence on government agency to solve our problems for us.

Today’s average American is more apt to blame someone else for any misfortune that befalls them, and quick to seek restitution for sometime trivial issues, often through legal means. It is also more common that one calls law enforcement to resolve matters that in the past were resolved by actually discussing the issue with the individual with whom we have the dispute. Most of us have heard of some of the more outlandish cases of this, such as the person who called 911 because a drive-thru restaurant wouldn’t serve them a hamburger because it was too early.

Which brings us to the role law enforcement plays in our narrative. Our society has decided that law enforcement’s role really begins when a law has been broken. Until that point, police will provide education and advise, but won’t actually do anything until there is an infraction of some nature. And this is a good thing!

We dare not move to a society where punishment is meted out for something one was about to do. So bullying behavior initially doesn’t raise to the level of involvement by law enforcement; name calling, words and taunts aren’t against the law … yet. One notable case of law enforcement attempting to address bullying was the woman who used Facebook to bully her daughter’s peer and cheer leading rival. But again, this was after the fact.

So who to turn to in addressing the solution for bullying?

Getting back to a point I began making earlier; we no longer have teachers for all intents and purposes.We now have “educators.” Educators are a part of the “education system” … where no one is responsible.

The individual in the classroom (let’s be nostalgic and call them teachers) must follow and abide by the dictates of the school administration, who in turn must follow instructions from the school district, who is required to follow both the school board and the state education agency, who is a part of the state government, administered by the Governor, who answers to the voters. Talk about a circular finger pointing convention!

So how do most educators handle bulling? Most ignore it for as long as possible and when it can no longer be ignored, they pass it up the line. It seldom is adequately addressed for many reasons. Most teachers are not equipped with the education nor the life experiences (after all, they grew up in the same society as the rest of us) to help them to handle a bully. Further, most schools have “policies” that dictate what a teacher can and can’t do in such situations.

A typical example of such a policy is this one (pdf) from the Broward County, Florida School Board. As you read through it, you find that everyone is responsible to be responsible. Ergo, no one is responsible! It does however create several administrative positions within the “Office of Prevention” who “collaborate” with school staff members,  families and “community stakeholders.” On yet another side note, I am so sick of the term “stakeholders.” What a wonderful way of including people who have no idea that they have a “stake” in the outcome of some policy decision.

Such policies are meant to serve one purpose; legal cover for the school district in the event of some tragedy as noted at the beginning of this piece.

In today’s America, almost no one in a school district will directly approach the parent of a bully and accuse their child of being a bully. At the very least, such action will earn the would-be hero a door slammed in their face. Such an accusation could result in a lawsuit (better hope that anti-bullying policy is crafted by very smart attorneys). As with religion, I am not painting every teacher nor every school principle with this broad brush (though I will stop at principle; anyone at any higher level in a school administration has has the common sense educated out of them).

So the bully is free to antagonize and browbeat their victim, making themselves feel more powerful in the process. And nothing will be done until such point it is to late … or an adult intervenes and removes the victim from their protagonist (such a litigious society does not allow for any effective action against the bully early in the bullying).

I’m afraid the answer to my friend’s question of what should she do is not very satisfactory. Our society has begun to turn from one that always looked out for the little guy into one that would rather not become involved if it doesn’t directly affect us (recall the phrase “first they came for the Jews, but I wasn’t a Jew …). We can see what we will become if we continue down this path. Just look at France, Spain, Great Briton, or Scandinavia … the citizens of which are more concerned with their vacations and retirement than with their collapsing social fabric.

We can and should teach our children to recognize bullying, even if it is being done to someone else, and to let us know. They are often either ashamed of being bullied or think they can handle the situation … until they can’t. Peer pressure can play a role in their not letting us know what is going on in their lives. The solution is for us parents to develop a trusting relationship with our children so they never hesitate to come to us with their problems. Oh how easy it is to write those words!

A Brighter Future

I can only hope that this latest awakening to what we’ve become and where we’re headed, embodied in the Tea Party movement, will gain traction. People need to take responsibility for their actions and their lack of action. We must realize that if we want a better society, we can’t wait for others to make it better. We have a responsibility to not just get involved; we must recruit our family, friends and neighbors to get involved.

This nation was founded by people not unlike ourselves. They wanted a better life for themselves and their families and they were willing to expend energy and treasure to achieve their goals. They took collective action … action! They didn’t hire a lawyer to write a policy. They took action and created a nation unlike any before it in all of history!

If we want to rid ourselves and our society of bullies at all levels, we also need to take collective action. Now … before Nov 2012.

A Difference Without a Distinction

Rick Perry was pilloried the other day by the MSM for calling Social Security a giant Ponzi scheme. What could possibly be found wrong with that statement? The comparison was first made in the 1940s, and an internet search uncovers stories using the same comparison ever since. The latest iteration of Ponzi was reproduced by Bernie Madoff, the Wall Street wizard who brought his clients returns of 30 percent for a long period of time before being exposed by his son for being a fraud.

Then what is the difference between Social Security and what Bernie Madoff did? What Bernie Madoff did was illegal and he ultimately went to jail for breaking the law. In the Social Security scheme, it is those who fund the scheme that go the jail for NOT participating, not those who run the scheme!

If only Marco Chris Ryan Palin would run!

This year’s GOP presidential primary is one of, if not the, most interesting primaries ever. The runner-up of the 2008 campaign, Mitt Romney, held the lead in Republican polls for several months, but that lead wasn’t as domineering as one would have expected. Traditional GOP politics presume that the second place finisher from the last campaign is the automatic choice of the party in the new election. Had that custom prevailed, Mitt would already have the nomination sewn up.

However, no candidate has yet jelled the party faithful or even gotten the bulk of the GOP leadership beginning to spout how this or that candidate is the only logical person capable of beating Barack Obama. Actually, I think the Washing Post said that about Huntsman, but I really don’t think that counts. GOP powers-that-be selected our last candidate, and that turned out to be disastrous on many levels. So, with no one sweeping voters off their electoral feet … this frankly is a good thing!

But there is another interesting phenomenon going on that I find fascinating … and that is the continual bleat for some particular individual to step up and run “for the good of the country.”

“If only Chris Christi would throw his hat into the ring, we’d finally have a candidate all Republicans could get behind!”

“Paul Ryan’s leadership on the budget is just what the country needs to get us out of the financial mess we’re in right now!”

“Marco Rubio so eloquent he … and he alone can unite both the hard-line GOP and the tea party members into a winning coalition that can beat Obama.”

“Sarah Palin is the most vetted candidate in US history. The media has nothing left by which to damage her and she is the only one that could survive the upcoming campaign unscathed.”

Do any of the above sound bites ring remotely familiar? Why is it that so many need another choice of candidates beyond the declared field? I don’t profess to know the answer; I just find it interesting that such a large portion of the conservative/tea party/GOP right-leaning electorate don’t find solace with those already running.

In my estimation, the four, uh … mmmm … non-candidates??? mentioned all have just as many foibles as those actually running, so no advantage there. Is this nothing more than a case of “the grass is always greener” syndrome at work?

Don’t know … but it sure it interesting!!!!!

Governor Moonbeam Awakens? Not!

Joel Fox, Editor of Fox & Hounds and President of the Small Business Action Committee, posted an article today on his site discussing government plans to bring jobs back to California. Pleas read Joel’s entire article at the link:

The powers that be in Sacramento are focusing on the job dilemma in California with pronouncements this week from both Governor Jerry Brown and Senate President Pro Tem Darrell Steinberg. This follows the focus put on economic policy by Lt. Gov. Gavin Newsom a couple of weeks ago.

Attention is being put where it belongs to help California reduce its staggering unemployment rate and stifling business climate.

The question is: Will there be follow through to make positive changes?

While some wonder if there is anything state government can do while the country is in the grips of a national recession, other states have managed to keep unemployment away from the sky-high figures with which California suffers. Positive steps can be taken at the state level.

This is laughable on it’s surface, but even more so because of a “fact-finding study” made by some ten or so top legislators last January where they traveled to Texas to learn what it was Texas was doing to create so many jobs. I mean heaven forbid California legislators realize those new Texas jobs are coming from where? … maybe California?

Fox continues:

The governor appointed former Bank of America executive Michael Rossi as a jobs czar. His mission is to advise the governor on ways to make job creation less difficult through regulatory reform or legislative actions. He will also try to create a cooperative atmosphere between business and labor working toward the goal of increased business and job creation.

In February, Senate President Pro Tem Darrell Steinberg said the legislature would take on regulatory reform as he displayed 28,000 pages on regulations at a press conference. The effort to pass reform went nowhere, partly stalled by the intense budget negotiations.

But, Steinberg announced the remainder of this year’s legislative session should concentrate on getting the reforms through the legislature. He told Capitol Alert, “I want to focus these three weeks on what we can do to increase the tax base by putting people back to work.”

Gee … who’d-a thunk we need fewer regulations in California to improve the business climate? Sacramento has spent 20 long hard years getting us to this environmental paradise we find ourselves … why start undoing all this fine work just to save California’s economy?

However, Mr. Fox has a suggestion for those hard working lawmakers:

So, the signs are good that the government leaders are focusing on the right priorities. Although they must be careful not to bite at any proposal because they believe it will create jobs but, in reality, hurt the taxpayers.

Yes, Governor Brown, I’m talking about your recent “green light” for the High Speed Rail project.

Fox is so very correct in addressing Gov Brown’s love of the High-Speed Rail project. Current cost estimates for this major boondoggle put final costs in the range of $80 Billion, and the organization charged with building this haven’t even gotten approval to build the first segment … which is in the least populated region along the entire planned length. Were this project to ultimately get completed, sometime after 2050, at four time the current cost estimate … we have got to kill this noose around our collective necks!

I responded to Fox’s article:

I hope you had your tongue firmly planted in your cheek when you wrote this article, because if you’re going to hold your breath for a solution to California’s economic woes, we had best call the paramedics now to come revive you. Any businessman or woman you stop on any street in California can tell you that state government is the problem.

Governor Brown and Senate President Pro Tem Darrell Steinberg are incapable of solving the unemployment problem because they and their brethren believe government can provide solutions. If they really wanted to start slowing the loss of businesses and the jobs they take with them, never mind beginning to add jobs, they would first repeal AB32. The minuscule amount of CO2 reduction that results from its implementation will be overshadowed by the massive growth in China and India, both eager to expand their economies (not to mention the businesses that left the state for more friendly environs).

Even Europe has begun to realize the Global Warming franchise represented by the University of East Anglia and NASA’s James Hanson is on its last legs as more and more serious scientists conclude there is little link between atmospheric warming and increases in atmospheric CO2.

Further, the High-Speed Rail project isn’t the answer either. California’s prodigious growth from the 1940′s through the 1980′s was driven by private industry flocking to our state after the war for its resources, climate and business friendly environment. Government infrastructure projects supported and enhanced the state as a good place to grow one’s business. Those infrastructure projects were not the reason we had such a good economy … we had a great economy that allowed those infrastructure projects we still enjoy today.

Building the High-Speed Rail project will not add jobs for many years, unless you’re a lawyer or environmental consultant, because the project is going to be strangled by litigation and environmental impact reports for years. Even were that not the case, spending government taxes taken from the economy does not add to the economy. Only private capital can add to the economy. Expecting tax spending to grow an economy is the same as trying to raise the level of a lake by pumping water from it’s depths to the surface.

Albert Einstein one said “We cannot solve our problems with the same thinking we used when we created them.” Asking the politicians who created the mess we’re in will get us right back to the mess we’re already in!

Does California slip into an economy rivaling that of some third-world country before its population realize life isn’t free and elections have consequences?