The Courts and Death

As I’m sure most of you by now know Terry Schiavo died today. Yes my last entry I stated that I believed that the tube should remain removed and that Terry should be allowed to die. She should have been allowed to die in 2001 the first time the tube was removed. Even so I give my sympathy to her parents, and hope that now that it is final that they will be able to move on with their lives and continue to live their lives with happy memories of Terry rather than the years of legal battles and television interviews that they forced themselves to go through. It is my hope that they can come to see the this final answer is what was best for Terry, even if it’s not what they wanted.

However, I keep hearing certain things repeated over and over … and I’m tired of it.

The courts killed Terry.

No, they didn’t. That is simply the rhetoric of the ‘right to life’ crowd … the courts did not order that Terry be killed, nor did they order that anyone kill her. The court’s ruling was simple … that Michael Schiavo was Terry’s legal guardian and, as such, he had the legal right to have the tube removed. The court also ruled that it would be ‘unlawful’ for anyone to prevent him from removing the tube or otherwise interfere without Michael’s consent.

Given the fact that Michael wanted the tube removed did that ruling mean that Terry would likely die because Michael would remove the tube? Yes. But although it may seem cold and heartless, that isn’t the concern of the court … the concern of the court was … who in the eyes of the law has the authority to make that decision in the case of Terry Schiavo?

If she’d had a living will we wouldn’t be having this fight.

More than likely this is incorrect. First off, living wills aren’t quite so cut and dry and they ultimately rely on an executor that is willing to carry them out. Secondly, just like a normal ‘last will and testament’, they can be contested by family members that disagree with the situation. From what I’ve seen of the parents they would likely have contested any living will bringing us right back to the court battle that we’ve had over the last several years.

This creates a precedent that could lead to the court condemning handicapped people to death.

No, not at all. First there is the point I made above, the court ruling did not order Terry’s death. It ruled that Michael, as her legal guardian, had sole authority to make that choice and no one could interfere with it. Second off, because of the previous statement, there would have to be a legal guardian that was trying to kill the handicapped person through removal of a feeding tube or other form of life support …

The court ignored the law passed by congress and the President.

Well … there are a whole slew of issues there. Ignoring the issues with passing a law for a specific person and the questions of whether congress or the president should be involved at all, there is a very dangerous precedent in that. The ‘law’ that congress passed stated that the Court HAD to review the case as if it was a brand new case and had never before been heard by the court. … What’s the danger in that you ask? Simple … it opens the door to congress forcing ANY ruling that they don’t agree with to be reheard by the court as a new case. If the result of that review wasn’t to their liking they could just bounce it back to the court again … and again … and again … until they get a ruling they like and clogging up the judicial system in the mean time. (Or until they just couldn’t get enough votes to pass the ‘law’)

I don’t always agree with the courts, but I believe that in this case they did their job.

Time to Let Go

I’m sure by now that you have all heard about the Terry Schiavo case in Florida. The woman is brain damaged and some doctors say that she is in a ‘persistent vegetative state.’ She has been this way for 15 years. Her husband says that she had told him that she did not want her life artificially extended through life support, her parents deny that.

But her parents are in denial about a lot of things. Not the least of which is the fact that their daughter is already gone. I challenge just about anyone that reads this to watch the video of Terry that the family has released and tell me that you would WANT to live that way. What quality of life does Terry have … they say that her husband is trying to murder her … it looks to me more like they are trying to torture her.

The good news is that if Terry DOES somehow … against the best projections of doctors … ‘wake up’ she’ll have completely missed the Clinton presidency and all of the insanity that went with it.

They say that the courts and the doctors are ‘playing God’ in forcing the removal of the feeding tube … the only way that Terry is able to get the nutrition that she needs to keep her alive. I would say that the people ‘playing God’ are the people keeping her alive through artificial means. If you want to bring God into this then take the feeding tube out and let God decide if Terry lives or dies … if God wants her to live then she’ll recover enough to eat and drink in order to get the nutrition that she needs to continue to survive.

Terry’s parents say that her husband, Michael Schiavo, is just trying to get her life insurance money … but Michael has turned down offers of millions of dollars to let her live … they also say that he just wants her dead so that he can marry his girlfriend and have begged him to divorce their daughter and let them care for her.

That would have been the easy way out for Michael. This battle has been raging since 2001 … the first time that the courts ordered the tube removed … it was then ordered re-inserted when a new witness surfaced. The tube was ordered removed again in 2003 but 6 days later Gov Jeb Bush of Florida passed a law called “Terry’s Law” that effectively made Terry a ward of the state and took away Michael’s rights to her care and had the tube re-inserted again. The Florida Supreme Court later ruled that the Governor had overstepped his authority and declared “Terry’s Law” unconstitutional leading to the Feb 2005 court ruling to remove the tube for a third time.

So why would someone turn down millions of dollars to continue the legal fight to let his wife die naturally? Why would he refuse the easy ‘uncontested’ divorce in favor of long drawn out court battles? Money? Not likely … the trust fund from her malpractice suit has been emptied and I find it unlikely that her ‘life insurance’ would match the offers of millions. To marry another? I’m sure that Michael will likely re-marry after Terry dies … he has children and has been involved with this other woman for several years now … but it would have been much easier to do that if he’d just given in and divorced Terry. The only answer that truly makes sense is that he really believes that it is what Terry wants … and that he could not, in clear conscious, let her parents have their way against Terry’s wishes.

There are plenty of you that read this and know me personally … to all of you I say publicly don’t let that happen to me. I do not want to be kept alive through artificial means … I don’t want to be a lump in a hospital bed with machines keeping me alive. If it is me there in Terry’s place … pull the plug … and if the government tells you that you can’t pull the plug … put a bullet in my head instead.

To Terry’s parents I say … your daughter is gone … you are not helping her with this fight … you are not giving her a better life … you are not saving her. It’s time to let her go.

Garage Jumping

Okay … The lawsuit mentality in this country is flat out of hand. No matter how stupid, or illegal, an act you commit it seems that you are not only able to sue someone else for it, but WIN.

Two cases I’ve heard about recently have really got my blood boiling … its ridiculous and it needs to be stopped. The problem, however, goes beyond just the courts system … it goes all the way down to the juries themselves. The juries have it in their power to STOP the nonsense but they continue to encourage it instead.

This isn’t a small problem either … it has MANY implications on things that too many people just don’t consider.

First let’s look at a case out of Orlando, FL. Just a bit of background … Some of the younger population of the Orlando area have taken to the trend of “Garage Jumping” … the art of jumping from the top of one parking garage to the top of another.

Well in the recent case, reported originally on Feb 28th 2005, one local teen was following his friends when he failed to reach the other side and fell 6 stories where he was knocked unconscious. So what is the father’s answer to his son’s stupidity? SUE THE GARAGE OWNER! Get me some phat cash for this one!!

Never mind the fact that they were trespassing … never mind that they entered the garage illegally … never mind that they chose of their own free will to try and jump between these garages. They knew the risk when they jumped … it was 6 stories to the ground … chances were pretty good that it would be a fatal fall. So the kid gets lucky and survives a failed attempt … and they are going to sue the city and the garage owner for not stopping him.

Okay … so now it is the responsibility of the city and private property owners to make sure that YOU don’t do something completely STUPID. Screw it … lets just make it so that everyone is completely safe no matter what stupid thing they try … lets gate all the sidewalks in cities so that people can’t stupidly step out in front of a car or truck. Require padding on all the walls and doors so people don’t accidentally run into them and hurt themselves.

How about this … lets lock the kid up for trespassing and reckless endangerment (of himself and anyone he might accidentally land on) … lets teach the kid a friggin lesson in personal responsibility because it’s obvious that his dad doesn’t have a clue.

The other case that I heard about in conjunction with this was a reported case (I haven’t been able to find specifics) in which a thief broke into a house, and in the process of robbing it fell down the stairs and broke his leg. After his arrest the thief sued the homeowner for personal injury and won the case…. I didn’t hear what the jury awarded the thief … but it was apparently a good sized sum of money.

Yes … that’s right … if someone BREAKS INTO YOUR HOUSE and gets injured robbing you they can SUE YOU … so make sure it’s safe glass and put safety equipment around to make sure that potential robbers don’t slip and fall or anything.

These lawsuits fail to teach people the lessons of personal responsibility that they need to be learning, but they have other detrimental effects as well. Namely and most importantly they drive up EVERYONE’S insurance premiums. Because, you see, they juries look at it as “well it’s just those rich insurance companies that have to pay … give them the money” … they always seem to conveniently forget that the insurance companies GET the money in the form of Insurance Premiums … as more of these suits go through and the awards get higher the Insurance companies have to raise premiums in order to cover possible law suits.

In other words … EVERYONE ends up paying for this crap. Do you know how much the imbedded liability cost is on everything you buy? Well … about 20% of what you pay at the store is sales tax and other imbedded taxes … about 40% is imbedded liability costs both the Liability Insurance that the companies have to carry AND the cost of the lawyers that the company must retain to help protect itself …. In other words … that parking garage has liability insurance … that cost makes up about 40% of the cost of parking there … if the suit is successful their insurance is going to go up … therefore the cost of parking is going to go up … plus they will tack on a portion of the cost associated with preventing other idiots from doing the same thing.

Not to mention that crap like this fills up the courts and is the result of about half our legal problems.

Let’s get a grip on this folks … charge the kid as I mentioned above, and slap the father with about a $500,000 fine for a frivolous lawsuit.

On Diplomacy

Okay … I was listening to the news on the way into work this morning. They were reporting on President Bush’s current trip to Europe where they have been discussing Iran and nuclear weapons. Germany, France, Britain, and just about everyone else agrees that Iran ‘must not get nuclear weapons’ but the reporter continued to say that several of the European leaders are disturbed that President Bush had ‘not ruled out the military option.’

Well “DUH!”

Let me give you a little hint … ‘the military option’ is what makes diplomacy work. If there is no threat of military retaliation then there is absolutely NO reason for anyone not to do just whatever it is that they want to do. Economic sanctions DON’T WORK … they never have. The only people such sanctions are going to hurt are the average people … the leaders of the country won’t be effected in the least and frankly could care less if the people under them suffer as a result of the sanctions … it’s too easy to take that and turn it into hatred of the ‘western demons.’

So no, he hasn’t ruled out the ‘military option’ because to do so would be to weaken the diplomatic effort to the point of being pointless.

I’m not saying that the leaders of Iran are ‘savages that only understand force’ I am saying that ANY people or even any individual will only react to the threat behind diplomacy. Yes, I know that you like to think that you are above all that … better than that … but face it … if you KNEW that there would be absolutely NO consequence to your actions … or no consequence that would effect you at least … there would be almost nothing that you wouldn’t do.

Paying taxes … why do you do it? Because if you don’t the government will come arrest you and throw you in prison … if you resist that then they will use their guns to make you comply … if you resist forcefully enough they will use deadly force to enforce the law. So ultimately it is the ‘military threat’ that makes you pay your taxes or obey the laws … why would we expect any other county to respect our wishes or the wishes of the ‘global community’ any more than that?

President Bush is playing the game the way that it must be played … military force is the strength behind diplomacy it is ALWAYS ‘in the folder’ he’s just not hiding it under pretty flowers.

Communication and other thoughts

I started thinking about this after reading my friend Quadrazu’s article The Two Barriers over on The Vertex, and was originally going to leave it at just my comment there. However, I was listening to the radio on my way home last night and heard something that clicked that magic lever and got my writing wheels turning as it picked up nicely on that theme.

I was listening to Sean Hannity’s show as he spoke to Paris Anderson, the NAACP’s Media Coordinator who was presenting Sean with the NAACP Excellence in Media Award. During the course of their conversation about the award Mr. Anderson said to Sean ‘more people in this country are separated by communication than by color or race.’

The quote may not be exact as I was driving at the time and didn’t have time to jot it down until I arrived at home, but that is reasonably close. He continued to express his opinion that a majority of the problems in this country, and the world, are a result of communication failures.

He went on to discuss how one of the biggest communication issues was in communicating the conservative ideals to the black community. That the black community has predominately embraced the liberal in part because they are direct, immediate, and easy to see and understand, where the conservative ideals are more difficult to understand because they are, generally indirect and occur over a period of time. (Not to mention that they involve the un-popular ideas of work and responsibility.)

Of course it is not that the black community is stupid, rather that there is a problem in the communication … part of that problem is that the conservative movement has done a poor job of communicating the benefits of conservative economics, and in part because there are others interfering with that communication. For a generation or so the ‘civil rights leaders’ have told the community ‘don’t worry, we’ll take care of you’ and it’s been all too easy to scare the community with the ‘loss’ of these programs … much as the liberals are now trying to scare the senior citizens with the ‘loss’ of Social Security … but that’s another rant.

Now the communication problem itself is multifaceted … it comes in part from poor education (not just of the black community but of children in general) … education hampered by ‘political correctness’ and grade inflation among other things. We have an education system that, in many cases, no longer requires that a student learn the basic functioning of government … a system that, much like our government, discourages individual achievement … a system that often labels bright, creative, and intelligent students as ‘problems’ and recommends that their parents get drugs prescribed to eliminate the ‘problem’. We have a system that is largely staffed by people who believe and expound the ‘liberal’ agenda … not always the teachers themselves … but the textbook writers and planners … and the administration as well.

Almost every year the burden of the cost of government falls on fewer people … the system relies on the ‘achievers’ of society pulling up everyone else on their shoulders … As this burden gets heavier there are fewer achievers … as some give up, discouraged by the punishment society places on achievement, and others move their wealth out of the country or decide that they have reached a point where they no longer need to achieve and cease to collect ‘income’ at all. At the same time, more and more hungry mouths turn to the government …. If this trend is not reversed, or at least stopped it could itself destroy this country.

A quick note

A coworker of mine handed me this today and I thought I'd share it here real quick.

It was an opinion article from WSJ.com last January written by Pete Du Pont and can be found here.

Death

What is death? Why do we, in America at least, make such a big production of it? In short, why do we dwell on it?

Why do we mourn and carry on … in some cases for weeks or longer … over someone that has died? Certainly it is a loss, and particularly painful when it is the loss of someone that you’ve loved very closely over the years. To be saddened by the loss is understandable … to miss the individual is to be expected … but why do we, on the whole, feel the need to remember the Death more than the Person? Why do so many of us grasp onto that pain and wrap it around ourselves dwelling on the loss rather than the memories of the life?

Does it help the departed love one? Do we feel that in so torturing ourselves that we some how make it easier on them? Do we think it makes them feel better? Do we think that by wrapping ourselves in that pain and loss that we somehow love them more, or remember them better?

Death is a part of life. It is as natural as breathing and it is inevitable for all of us. Those of us left behind to live our lives should not dwell on the Death, but remember with gladness the memories that we have of the loved one. Celebrate their life and cherish their place in yours, but do not dwell on their passing or your loss … for that route … though often ‘romanticized’ … does neither them, nor you, any good.

Certainly this is easier to do when the person dies of natural causes such as age or disease … but those whom we loose to accident, disaster, or to the acts of others, either negligent or malicious, need to be treated the same. The dead are beyond our reach …. The living must continue to live.

Valentine's Day

Well … it’s Valentine’s Day … probably the absolute worst of the ‘made-up’ holidays. To be certain I know that there is some history to the holiday … but it, like so many holidays, ceased to hold any real meaning long ago and became a way to sell cards, flowers, and candy in large quantities.

However, it does serve, if nothing else, as a means of getting us to step back and think about the ones that we love. We don’t love them MORE on that day, or less on any other day, but it reminds us of those that we care about … whose love is sometimes taken for granted.

I myself am blessed to have a wonderful wife; smart, funny, and caring, who shares the same hobbies and interests as I, and who shares many of the same opinions. A wife who supports the man I am and urges me to become better. Through all the years together and all the arguments, misunderstandings, miscommunications, and trials of life, she is still as beautiful and cherished to me as ever she was. And if I could take my knowledge today back in time to the day we met, I’d only marry her sooner if I could.

To my wife – I Love you.

Vacations

As most of you probably already knew or guessed, I was away on vacation last week. As usual I returned not so much refreshed and rejuvenated, but exhausted. To be certain I did have a lot of fun and got to see friends and family that I have not seen in quite a while … it was a ‘good’ vacation. So, why do I feel like I need a vacation after my vacation?

Simple really, I over planned. Since I get so little vacation time I try to do ‘everything’ at once. The result is either I don’t get everything I want to do done (unfulfilled expectations … the number one cause of stress), or I rush and hurry everything not enjoying it nearly as much as I should (Time management worries … IE Stress). Usually it ends up being some combination of both. Once you add in the additional stress and expectations of visiting family, well, in the end a ‘fun’ vacation usually ends up draining energy more than it recharges a person.

I also know that I’m not alone in this feeling; I hear it all the time from friends and co-workers that come back from vacation, and I’d be willing to bet that if most of them analyzed it they would come to much the same realization. In general, Americans at least, tend to put ‘fun’ over ‘rest and relaxation’ or to put it another way … we just try to do too much with the limited time we have.

I tend to believe that this comes from a couple different factors … first, as a society, we tend to value productivity over almost everything. Don’t get me wrong, productivity is certainly important, but more than a few people have taken it above and beyond … to the point that they feel guilty taking a vacation, or, when on vacation, they feel ‘guilty’ if they aren’t doing something … rather than sit back and read a book, or just relax they feel like they have to go ‘do something’. Second is the fact that Americans, on average, get the least amount of vacation time of any country … as a result people try to cram more ‘fun’ into their limited time off, they try to do everything that they don’t have time to do normally.

On the one hand many employers could help themselves and their employees by realizing that workers with 4-6 weeks vacation a year are usually healthier, happier, and more productive overall than those with 3 or less weeks of vacation a year. On the other hand people (myself included) need to remember that it is important to rest and relax on a vacation, plan a few days of ‘nothing’ this will not only give you time to recharge, but it will also help with ‘over planning’ by giving you more flex time and maybe give you that time to really enjoy and savor the company of friends and/or family.

State of the Union

Last night President George W. Bush stood before a join session of the US Congress and delivered his annual State of the Union Address. In my estimation quite likely the best state of the union speech that he has delivered and certainly one of the better ones that I’ve heard.

The President spoke last night of what he intends to try and accomplish in the coming year and in his second and final term as president. However, he made a very important distinction in his speech … he is focusing on the long term stability and growth of this country. We have here a man that is taking the responsible approach to government and doing, not what needs to be done to meet current needs, but what must be done to ensure that those needs are met for generations to come.

Too often our leaders seek only to guide us through the waters of the here and now, with little or no regard to positioning us into calm and steady waters for the future. Too often they only worry about what needs to be done to ensure that they get re-elected in 4 or 6 years, concerned more with maintaining their power than doing what is right for this country and its citizenry.

Do not mistake me here. Both parties share an equal blame in that short coming. Just as most of our problems are the results of short sightedness of both parties. The state of the Social Security system is a prime example of this. It’s not just one party that has been spending the surplus income to the Social Security system … both parties have willingly borrowed that money from the future of the country in order to fund their little projects here and there. ‘Republicans’ are not saints, and ‘Democrats’ are not demons … they are ALL something much worse … they are politicians.

The President spoke at some length about the need for the congress to reform the Social Security system, and provided some landmark dates where certain problems are projected to arise. He did a very good job in explaining WHY we need reform, and why that reform should come sooner (now) rather than later (after the system collapses). The American people heard him and, largely agreed. Polls run just after the State of the Union showed a 10% or more increase in the number of people that agreed with the President that reform was needed and that he had made a convincing case of it … moving the percentage of people that agree with the President into the 60-70+% range … a clear majority of those polled.

He is receiving a lot a ‘flak’ today in that he did not detail a specific reform plan, but it should be remembered that while the President can SUGGEST a plan, it would be just that … a suggestion. Congress has to write the law … ultimately it is THEIR responsibility to come up with a plan. Certainly the President should present them with a plan, but to speak of specifics in the State of the Union would be somewhat irresponsible in that he can’t say “I am going to do this” and then have Congress do something else entirely … the American people would feel lied to and betrayed.

The President also spoke of the need to reform the “archaic, incoherent federal tax code.” Something I’ve already mentioned here that I believe is one of the most important things that need to be done for the future of this country. I have more to say about the specifics of tax code reform but for now I will simply say that I support the Fair Tax Plan (Currently proposed as HR25 and S25 in the House and Senate respectively) as the plan that I feel provides the best tax reform.

Of course he also spoke of the War on Terror on going in Afghanistan and Iraq, honoring the sacrifice of our soldiers and the courage of the Iraqi people. Many of those present showed their support for the President and the Iraqi people by dipping their index finger in purple ink as the Iraqi’s did to ‘sign’ their ballots last Sunday. One of the most touching moments in the televised coverage and for those present was when Safia Taleb al-Suhail, an Iraqi human rights advocate present at the speech who lost her father to Saddam, turned and hugged Janet Norwood who had lost her son, a Marine corporal, in the assault on Fallujah.

The President, however, brought up several points that I disagree with and I did want to take some time to talk about those as well, and explain why I disagree with the policy.

First, the President spoke of the need for the government to make it easier for more Americans to afford college. I don’t believe that is what the country needs … First off you are, in essence, talking about increasing a government spending program, but more than that, I believe that in this country we place too much ‘value’ in a college diploma and too little on apprenticeships and work training programs. Too often colleges do not really prepare people for the ‘real world’ that they are going to have to work in, and the common nature of the diploma ultimately devaluates the degree in the end.

There was a time in this country where anyone could get a job in a mail room and with hard work move up in the company … learning the skills needed through immersion and practical application. Now … if you want to be a mail room or shipping clerk you need at least an associate degree … and the pay rate can’t cover the student loan payments.

No … I don’t think we need to make it easier to pay for college … we need to get back to college is required less. The government needs to get AWAY from the income re-distribution plans, not add to them. We need to strengthen the education so that a High School diploma is a valid starting point and prepares our children to start work.

While I will agree that the government needs to stay out of the realm of teaching morals, I also believe that the government needs to stay out of defining marriage as well. I do not support a constitutional amendment that DENIES people rights. If a religion wishes to define marriage as the union of one man and one woman, then that is the right of the religion, and the government should have no say in the matter. I do not believe that government should prevent the union two adults on the basis of sex.

The right to be joined in a legal union should not be denied to a group of people solely on the basis that they wish to be joined to a member of the same sex. It is discrimination, pure and simple. Now, if religions do not want to ‘wed’ the two individuals due to the beliefs and teachings of the religion, then that is the right of the religion … but the legal status of two individuals should not be dictated by religion.

Basically, if two people … be they man and woman, man and man, or woman and woman … go to the courthouse to be legally joined they should be able to do so. If you want to call what is done at the legal level ‘civil unions’ instead of ‘marriage’, fine do it that way. The legal ‘rights’ of such should be the same in the eyes of the government, courts, and law to ensure that ALL groups have EQUAL protection under the law, and are not discriminated against.

The President also spoke about reform to the outdated and highly ineffective immigration system. I agree that something needs to be done to immigration, I don’t, however, believe that the temporary worker program is the proper answer to the situation. Boarders and immigration are a huge issue though with many levels of complications and no easy answers. I believe, however, that for any serious and meaningful reform in this area can be achieved that the government must work to better secure our borders to better manage illegal immigration.

People have begun to take offense to the term ‘illegal alien’ but, lets face it …. That is EXACTLY what they are. They did not come to the country by legal means and are, therefore here illegally, and they are from a foreign country which makes them aliens … so illegal aliens. Maybe it would be preferable to call them criminal foreigners? I’m sorry … they don’t respect the laws of this country enough to come here through the established legal channels then I don’t CARE if I offend them when I call them illegal aliens.

The problem I perceive with the Temporary Worker program is that it seems to reward those who have entered the country illegally while sticking those who have used the legal channels into an archaic system that is hopelessly backlogged. Meanwhile illegal aliens continue to come to the country and many send money back ‘home’ to take care of their families … money that is siphoned from our economy … money that is earned largely without tax paid on it (also a reason I support the Fair Tax legislation) … by people who often draw from government social programs as well.

Despite my disagreement with some of the President’s plans, I believe that he has an optimistic view for the future. He has set himself and this country on more responsible course trying to steer us into the calmer, safer, waters in the future. Trying to build a stronger country not for us, but for our children, for our future.

Professor called to task

Okay … some of you may have stumbled across this, some may not have. I’ll start with a brief synopsis of the situation and current developments in the ‘case’.

Professor Ward Churchill of the University of Colorado wrote an essay entitled “Some People Push Back: On the justice of Roosting Chickens” in which he describes the victims of the World Trade Center attacks of September 11^th as “little Eichmanns” (A reference to Adolf Eichmann, who executed Adolph Hitler's plan to exterminate Jews during World War II.) and refers to the attackers as “combat teams” who gave a “gallant sacrifice”

The essay, written shortly after the attacks of September 11^th, was largely ignored until recently when Professor Churchill was scheduled to speak at Hamilton College in Clinton, N.Y. The essay received national attention when the students and several members of the faculty at Hamilton College protested the scheduled speech. Amid the flap created over the last week, however, Professor Churchill has stepped down as the head of his department, Hamilton College has canceled the speech (due to death threats and security concerns), and the Governor of Colorado has written a letter requesting the professor’s full resignation from the college, and this week the school’s board of reagents will vote on the tenured professor’s fate.

Now certainly some would argue that this is a violation of his right to free speech … to which I direct them to my previous topic on free speech. His speech on the Hamilton College campus was canceled because of security concerns, and while I’d like to think that people could cope with the discussion of differing viewpoints in a more civil manor I have to admit that there was a possibility of violence. As such it is better that the speech be canceled ‘for the public safety’ than have people get injured or killed as a result. (Keep in mind that the College originally simply changed to a larger venue to accommodate the increased number of people, and tried to do all they could to hold the speech, they didn’t just up and cancel it.) He stepped down from the department head position of his own free will because he felt that he was not properly representing the school. And if the University’s Board of Reagents votes to ‘fire’ the professor they are within their rights as an employer to do so.

If I were the one making the final decision, however, I would have to look, not at this essay, but instead at what he was teaching in his classes. What a professor chooses to write outside of the classroom, whether it be published, webloged, or spoken, are the choice of the professor. As long as he is teaching his subject properly and within the guidelines of the school I don’t see that it should be grounds for removal. (Now if he chooses to resign that’s a different matter.)

I don’t recall who I once heard say this but “Freedom means that some people are going to do things that I don’t like or agree with, and that’s okay.”

He is a professor of Ethnic Studies; there is nothing that says that someone who has this, in my opinion, distorted view of the world can’t be a perfectly good Ethnic Studies professor. This is why I think that Colleges and Universities should keep a close eye on their professors and how they choose to teach their classes so that if a situation like this comes up they know whether the professor is teaching his subject appropriately despite his political views, or if their political views are interfering with their ability to properly present the material.

Personally I think that he should resign his position and, with his obvious dislike of American freedom and capitalistic economy, pack his bags and move to a country better suited to his world view.

They essay itself … there’s not a whole lot to say about it. It is a vehicle to spread his anti-capitalist views and dislike for American policy. His disagreement with President Bush’s statement that the attacks of 9/11 were the first shots of a war is technically accurate. The war with Islam started back with the crusades and to a degree even earlier than that. His facts are skewed and often at odds with history, but that is not his concern.

He refers to the US imposed sanctions on Iraq … except the sanctions were UN sanctions ….. Enforced by the US, but UN ‘imposed’ … as the cause of 9/11 … and yet almost all the terrorists in those attacks came from Saudi Arabia, not Iraq. He refers to the actions of Desert Storm and Desert Shield with tones of disgust and so obviously believes that the US (actually it was the UN again) should not have protected Kuwait when Saddam invaded … we should not have protected their rights as a country against a foreign aggressor. I suppose we should have sat back and let Saddam take it over much as the world governments sat back and let Hitler start taking over Europe before the start of WWII.

He says that the ‘combat teams’ were not Islamic Fundamentalists, yet they were members of Al-Qaeda … a group that claims to be Islamic Fundamentalists waging a Jihad on the infidels. (Basically he prefers to say that “they were secular activists – soldiers, really – who, while undoubtedly enjoying cordial relations with the clerics of their countries.” Sounds a lot like Radical (or fanatic) Islamic Fundamentalists to me.)

So what, in the end, is his answer? Remove the sanctions and hang Kissinger, Madeline Albright, Colin Powell, Bill Clinton and George the Elder as war criminals. Never mind that the sanctions were put in place by the ‘global body politic’ in the form of the UN, never mind that they were put in place by the UN in retaliation to Iraq’s leader’s overt hostility and disregard for human life. Iraq who had launched chemical attacks on Iran and Kuwait, and killed several hundred thousand of its own people. And never mind the fact that the attackers were not from Iraq, were not born in Iraq, and aside from some training had nothing to DO with Iraq.

His answer is basically ‘just do what they say and no one will get hurt’ … the problem is the proven result of that method of foreign relations is that they keep putting the gun to your head and demanding more, until eventually they ask for something that you aren’t willing to give up … putting our heads in the sand may have worked when the country was founded, but the world is much too small for such a policy today … it is too easy for our enemies to get here, to move about the globe and come at us again.

Recently our enemies have made it clear that they are not after us for our foreign policy … they are after us because of our freedom … our freedom represents a threat to their power, to their influence, to their rule. They will not be happy until all such threats are removed from the world and they remain unchallenged.

No … 9/11 was not the start of the war … it was a reminder to the free countries of the world that the war is ongoing.

Elections and Freedom

Well, it is done and the votes in Iraq are being counted. Counting the votes and the independent certification of the election may still take a few days, but the vote is in, and I can already tell you who won.

The Iraqi people.

Current estimates are that 60-70% of eligible voters turned up at the polls to cast their votes. With many of them walking miles to reach the polls. One elderly Iraqi reportedly traveled 3 miles in a wheelchair so that he could vote.

Very good news indeed … this shows that, despite ‘naysayers’ the Iraqi people ARE interested in freedom and in choosing their leaders. Despite reports that predicted widespread violence, the Iraqi people chose to exercise their freedom and vote. Despite media report depicting the mission in Iraq as a failure, the elections of Jan 30, 2005 were a success.

Now … let’s take a step back and look at something. We just elected a new president back in November. Americans went to the polls just as the Iraqi people did on Sunday and voted on who would be our new leader. However, in the US, less than 60% of American voters actually went to the polls. In the 2000 presidential election only 51% of voters bothered to cast their ballot.

Yes. Here in the US where we are safe and secure, where we are not threatened by terrorists, where we are protected and free. Here almost half of us can’t be bothered to go to the polls. And too many of those that do, couldn’t pass a simple civics test if you were to require it to vote (as I think there should be … if you can’t take a test and show that you at least understand the basics of how the government functions I don’t believe that you need to be voting).

Now there are allegations here in the US that voters were ‘disenfranchised’ in the November elections. That their right to vote was taken away because they didn’t want to wait in long lines, or because a police car passing by ‘intimidated’ them into leaving, or that they had to show picture ID to vote.

To vote in the US you HAVE to do 3 things – Be a legal citizen of the US, register to vote, and show up to vote (or if circumstances make that impossible request and cast an absentee ballot within the appropriate timeframe as described by law). If you are not willing to wait in a long line, you have not been disenfranchised … you’re just too lazy to vote. If a police car passing by ‘intimidates’ you then I have to wonder what you’re hiding from police, but unless the officers physically keep you from voting you have not been disenfranchised. And I’m sorry, but a picture ID is how we prove that you are who you say you are, and that you’ve met the first two requirements … if you are unwilling to do that then I’m sorry but you can’t vote because we can’t confirm that you’re a citizen or that you’re a registered voter.

I have yet to see ANY evidence of people not being ALLOWED to vote. Yes, there is some evidence that for various reasons some people CHOSE not to vote, but they are free people … they are allowed to make that choice for themselves.

If the Iraqi people can vote under threat of death by terrorists and in some cases by their own countrymen, then the American people need to take notice. Our freedom is a wonderful thing; we shouldn’t allow anything to keep us from legally voting. And if you do CHOOSE not to vote … don’t blame it on something else … take responsibility for the choice, don’t complain because you don’t like the outcome.

Just over 40 Iraqi people died because of Election Day violence; these are some of the true heroes of Iraq … the people that went out to cast their vote for freedom and gave their lives in that effort. But it is a statement to the success of the efforts in Iraq that the violence was as limited as it was. Iraq is entering a dangerous stage in its democratic development, and I believe that it is in the interests of all free people in the world to help this new government emerge and flourish, to shelter this new flame so that it may be a new light in the darkness.

The Will to Fight

Has the US lost the will to fight? Have we lost the will to stand up for what we believe in? Some have … I call them the ‘peace at any price’ crowd.

They are willing to throw our hands in the air and come home in defeat rather than fight a difficult battle to achieve victory. They are willing to encourage our enemies with their words even as our troops struggle to bring order and peace to another people. They are willing to sell out the sovereignty of this county and its people out to the anti-capitalist UN.

You have Senator Ted Kennedy calling for US Troops to be removed from Iraq because “There will be more serious violence” if we don’t. Leaving aside the fact that without a crystal ball no one can KNOW what’s going to happen if we stay, there is only ONE way that troops should be removed from Iraq – with their job completed and the new Iraq government established and secure.

Anything else is tucking our tail between our legs and retreating … not for military or strategic reasons, but because of caving to political pressure and fear.

Never mind the fact that a US withdraw from the region is strategically BAD. Never mind the fact that it would leave Iraq in a situation of vulnerability and the region more unstable than it was. Never mind the fact that it would equate to a victory for the terrorists which would embolden them further and endanger American lives around the world.

Most of that is, after all, based on a projection of the current situation … Just as Senator Kennedy’s statement is.

Let us take a look back at some of the other conflicts that we have pulled out of for political reasons. Specifically, let’s look at Vietnam and Somalia. Many veterans of these two conflicts hold some bitter resentment, not because they didn’t feel that they should be there, not because they didn’t agree with the mission, but because they were pulled out and kept from completing their mission because of politicians that didn’t have the spinal fortitude to let them complete the job.

But Senator Kennedy isn’t interested in the well being of our troops … he doesn’t care that a significant majority of US Military personnel in Iraq agree with the mission and feel that they are helping to appreciably improve the living conditions of the Iraqi people. He doesn’t care about any of the strategic analysis that I mentioned before.

He has one goal in mind - A US Military failure. He WANTS Iraq to be another Vietnam … he WANTS the troops to come home defeated, not by the enemy, but by political pressure. He wants it because it would hurt Bush and the Republican Party and he is willing to encourage terrorists around the world to do that.

To be fair, Senator Kennedy is not alone in his goals, Senator Kerry, Senator Boxer, and an American Mainstream Media that refuses to show the successes in Iraq all support the cause, as do many special interest and protest organizations in the US and abroad.

Kennedy is entitled to his opinion, and is certainly free to say it, but I believe that people in leadership positions have a responsibility to take care in what they say. What is said by Senator Kennedy, or any of the others, is reported around the world … to our allies, to our enemies, and to our troops. Statements like that embolden the enemy and lower the moral of our troops … they BECOME self-fulfilling prophesy.

This is not going to be an easy fight. I didn’t think it was going to be easy when we initially invaded … these types of things are never easy. US troops occupied Germany for about seven years, fighting hold outs of Nazi forces and SS after WWII. Will things get harder for our troops in Iraq? I expect that they will, especially with the media breathing down their neck, questioning everything they do and ignoring success. With reports of an Al-Qaeda member trying to buy nuclear material in Germany of late, I dare say that the terrorists are looking to ‘up the ante’ so to speak.

An animal fights the hardest when it is cornered, as the attacks increase it is likely because the enemy is getting desperate and wants us to withdraw … hoping that we don’t have the strength, the guts, the will, to fight it through and achieve our goals. Now is not the time to withdraw, it is the time to press for victory and show that we have the strength to stand up to our enemy and defeat it … to show that will stand against their attacks and that we will not falter.

Now is the time for victory.

Emanate Domain

Emanate Domain – the power of government to condemn and seize privately owned property in order to use it for government purposes.

While this will be my first rant on the subject here, those who know me know that this is not the first time I’ve been fired up on this particular subject. Over the last several years there has been a dramatic increase in the use of ‘emanate domain’ … with MANY of the cases involving city councils condemning private property under emanate domain and selling that property to private developers for the development of private businesses.

The ABUSE of emanate domain is on the rise in this country and the American citizens need to WAKE UP and smell the coffee while we still have some private property rights.

The state government in Florida tried to pass a bill last year that would have given any state, county, or city government in Florida the right to seize any land through emanate domain if they could show increased tax revenue. So if the government (city, county, or state) can show that it could get more tax revenue from a new BMW dealership than it can from your house it can seize your house and sell that land to the BMW dealership. Now they do have to provide ‘reasonable compensation’ to the private property owner for the property seized. But it is the government that is seizing the land that determines what ‘reasonable compensation’ is, and it does NOT have to be ‘fair market value’.

Of course … the government maintained its right to use emanate domain for the traditional ‘public use’ as well. So if the Florida government needed a new police station, some new government sponsored housing, or a new road, they could still seize the needed land as normal.

In other words … they could seize your property for virtually ANY use.

Thankfully the word about the bill got out to the people of Florida and the bill was withdrawn without a vote by the state legislature. I can only HOPE that the name of the sponsoring politicians got out as well and that they will find themselves out of a job next election.

Well, now it seems its Georgia’s turn.

It seems that State Senator Eric Johnson has written up a lengthy piece of legislation currently referred to as SB5. The brief given by Senator Johnson seems innocent enough at first glance:

“The New Georgia Infrastructure Act (SB 5) proposes a sensible way to meet the needs of the citizens of Georgia in coming years without having to implement tax increases at the state and local levels. It would encourage the use of future anticipated fees and revenue to leverage construction costs by private companies today. This is the same mechanism used by business to finance their projects and developments”

But, as always, the devil is in the details. In and of itself, the bill doesn’t increase emanate domain specifically. It doesn’t give that power to private developers. Rather it gives private developers a way to specifically ask the government to use its police power to seize private property that they can not buy or are unwilling to pay the price that the owners are asking.

Unlike normal government projects where the government would have to propose the project, hold a vote, and go through a bid process to find a contractor. Here, the contractor comes to the government and proposes a project and part of that proposal is:

(C)A statement setting forth the method by which the operator proposes to secure any necessary property interests required for the qualifying project. The statement shall include:

(i) The names and addresses, if known, of the current owners of the property needed for the qualifying project;
(ii) The nature of the property interests to be acquired; and
(iii) Any property that the responsible public entity will be asked to condemn;

Replace the words ‘responsible public entity’ with ‘government’ and remember that ‘condemn’ is effectively ‘seize’. Now … what can they use this to build? “Any property which any public entity is authorized to construct, erect, acquire, own, repair, remodel, maintain, add to, extend, improve, equip, operate or manage under the laws of Georgia.” Oh … nice broad terms, and given Georgia law that equates to roughly anything from Apartments to Strip Clubs to Schools to Office Buildings.

So this effectively boils down to “Private developers can submit a project to build anything and let us know what property that they want seized to complete the project, and they can do so with a streamlined process that avoids public notification.”

Come ON people … Personal Property Rights are one of the main pillars of our freedoms. What GOOD is freedom of speech if the government can walk up and seize your house … well I guess it means that they can’t put you in jail for all the things you say when they do it.

This is an issue that EVERY American needs to be aware of and pay close attention to because it CAN happen to you, and there’s a pretty good chance that if you don’t stand up NOW and do something to prevent it, sooner or later the government will come knocking on your door.

Government abuse of ANY of its powers should not be tolerated … we have to remember that the government exists to serve us, NOT the other way around. The ONLY powers government has are what WE give it.

Eternal Vigilance……

The price of freedom

What is the price of freedom? Well, there are a lot of answers to that question … But I will go back to a quote from one of the Founding Fathers of this country to start with:

“The price of freedom is eternal vigilance.”
Thomas Jefferson - 3rd president of US (1743 - 1826)

Eternal vigilance … why, you ask? Because there will ALWAYS be someone out there who will try to take away your freedoms. There will always be those whose goal is the subjugation of all others. It may be a person, a religion, or government and the threats to freedom can come from outside the country, or from within its boarders.

Unfortunately I feel that there are those in this country who, over the years, have not been as vigilant as they should have been. We, the citizens, have allowed the government to erode our freedoms, allowed the government to take some things that it was never intended to take from us. There is a growing population even within our own country that have no love of freedom … who would willingly surrender all to the government or, worse still, the UN.

There are many out there that believe that they can trade away freedom in exchange for peace. But not only is that exchange a terrible price, but the peace found with it is only temporary and short lived for there is greater conflict among repressive governments than among the free countries of the world. Iraq and Iran, for example, were nearly constantly at a state of war fighting over land and oil. Yet countries that value freedom value it not just for themselves, but for others as well, and respect the freedom of others.

Does this mean that there is never conflict among free countries? Of course not. There will always be conflict among people … the difference is that free people, governed by the rule of law, can usually work things out with less violence, and can, more often, come to an agreement that can benefit both parties.

I still believe, however, in the views of the Founding Fathers. I believe that we have rights, not as citizens of the United States, but as human beings. These rights are held by every person on the planet. There are those, however, who live under governments that take these rights away. Our rights are not given to us by the Constitution, or the Bill of Rights … our rights are ours by virtue of life, and NO government should have the ‘right’ to take that away.

Some ask, ‘when is the cost too high?’

Freedom is priceless; no ‘price’ can be attached to it … not in US Dollars or in human lives. No price is too high because the alternative is subjugation and oppression, the loss of liberty and of human rights.

Is it the job of the US to ‘spread liberty to the world’? I would argue that if the Free do not make it their job to spread freedom, than those that would oppress freedom will make it their job to take it. Freedom in the world can grow and prosper, or recede and fail. I, for one, would rather live in a world where freedom is growing, and economic and personal liberty being brought to more people. I would rather see a world that valued freedom and human rights, a world ruled by law where anyone can work hard and succeed in the ‘American Dream’.

I salute our soldiers in their duty … and I mourn those that give their lives in the name of freedom. I salute our allies in their support of freedom. I also salute the people of Afghanistan, who late last year defied the threats of terrorists and took their lives into their own hands, voting in free elections. I salute the people of Iraq who will do the same in a few days time … they are all heroes. They will face many threats, now, and in years to come, and I hope that with our help and the strength of their own will they will weather the test of time and flourish in the freedom that they now have.

I will pay the price of freedom. Will you? Or will you accept the shackles of the oppressed?

Shards of Truth

Okay, I’m a little behind. Working too much and just getting too many good things to rant about lately … so this is a few days later than it should have been.

Listening to President G.W. Bush’s inaugural address last Thursday I caught the line “There can be no human rights without human liberty.” There is a lot of truth in that statement for much of the ‘rights’ that we celebrate here in the US require liberty and freedom to really prosper. However there is another requirement to true human rights … personal responsibility. (You’ll find that this tends to be a recurring theme here … as I feel that Personal Ownership rights and Personal Responsibility are two of the most important things in this country … and both are things that I feel no longer receive the respect that the deserve)

When a person ceases to be responsible for themselves … for their actions and choices in life … then a fundamental freedom has been taken away from them. That freedom is the freedom of self destiny, the ability to shape themselves into who they truly are. Without that central freedom none of the others can be attained. Without personal responsibility, the muscle of the other freedoms is useless … a body without bones.

Part of the freedom of personal responsibility, however, is the freedom to fail, and as a result people tend to let this central freedom be impeached.

Stand up for yourself as an individual, take charge of your life and accept the responsibility of your actions. You will be a freer person in the end, whether you succeed or fail.

“Whoso would be a man must be a nonconformist”
Ralph Waldo Emerson

The 'evil' rich

Okay … While surfing around Blogger the other day I happened across the blog of a young college student. She was studying Political Science and wrote a piece on the misconceptions of where our economic problems lay.

In short her conclusion was that the economic problems were not caused by ‘cheap undocumented labor’ or ‘over ambitious Jews’ but rather on the greedy corporations and rich people who fight against minimum wage increases … who increase their prices while trying to pay less for labor. All of our economic problems stem from these ‘evil’ rich people. (No, those are not her words, but it is in essence what she was saying.)

Why do I sense that this is a Poly Sci major that would whole heartedly agree that this country should operate under the auspice of the quote “From each according to their ability, to each according to their need”?

I hate to break it to people … but a business … any business … exists for one single purpose – to make a profit. They are going to do whatever is in the best interest of succeeding in that goal. If a worker wants more money than an employer is willing to pay for a set of skills then the worker can look elsewhere for employment. The problem you run into is minimum wage laws …. Minimum wage laws artificially inflate the wages of entry level positions (and thereby everything above them as well) often leading to a situation that we’re seeing in the US economy now … Companies moving non-skilled positions to other countries where they can pay a lower wage.

(Oh, and quit with the “They’re shipping our jobs overseas!” nonsense … they are the employers jobs, not yours. You have skills to offer employers to fill jobs … you don’t have jobs to offer employers … if you had jobs to offer, you’d be an employer. You do not have a ‘right’ to those jobs.)

Okay … a couple of things real quick. We live in a capitalist economy. That is an economy in which people build wealth by capitalizing on the laws of supply and demand. Everything falls into that model. I have skills … the more people that have those skills, the less they are worth (Greater supply = lower value … the Law of Supply) The more people that need the skill the more the skill is worth (Law of Demand) … so if you have a very common skill and there are only a few jobs you have a High Supply, Low Demand situation … and you will be lucky to give your skills away.

In the US we have a situation where a large part of the workers have, over the years of economic ‘boom’ priced themselves out of the market. One field this has hit particularly is the Computers field … early on this field was growing rapidly, much more rapidly than skilled workers could be found to fill the need. The result was huge salaries and great benefits. However, as economists predicted, the field could not maintain that rate of growth as the market began to saturate. Combine this with the fact that, due to the large salaries and benefit packages a large number of college graduates were entering the workforce … the result … the boom went bust and people who had once made six figure salaries were thrown back into the job pool … where they were competing with more people than there were jobs. (This is the danger of chasing the current trend in search of riches.)

Remembering that a business exists to make a profit, if I can hire 3 people to work 10 hours a day for $4 an hour (thus getting 30 man hours for $120) or 1 person to work 10 hours at $6 an hour (10 man hours for $60) which is the better value? Am I ‘evil’ for preferring to hire the 3 workers at $4 an hour to the one that wants $6? Am I exploiting them in their willingness to work? If I don’t employ them then they remain unemployed, doing no one any good and helping neither themselves nor the economy. If I offer the job to the guy that wants $6 an hour at the $4 an hour rate, and he declines to work for that amount that is his choice.

Any increase in minimum wage increases a company’s expenses (both in terms of pure payroll increases and in terms of higher payroll taxes) this, in turn, causes a raise in the cost of the company’s product. Since a minimum wage affects all employees in the country that means an increase in the cost of all products … this helps neither those who work for minimum wage, nor does it help those who are already making more than minimum wage.

As for companies raising their prices … well a company may raise its price on goods for several reasons. Increased taxes, increased wages due to increase in the minimum wages or general cost of living, increased material cost, increased utility costs, etc. Just because a company is increasing its prices does not mean that the company is making more profit.

The ‘Evil’ rich are the ones in this country creating jobs. If you want to raise their taxes, then expect them to create fewer jobs … if you hit them hard enough, expect them to stop creating jobs, or worse, fold their companies and close all those jobs. Do they become richer as a result of this? OF COURSE THEY DO. I’ll give you a little hint about life out there … if they didn’t (say it with me now) THEY WOULDN’T DO IT. Should the ‘rich’ give up the pursuit of wealth simply because they have more of it than others? Should the government take their wealth and distribute it to those that have less? (“From each according to their ability, to each according to their need”) Heck … why don’t we just do away with the who concept of private ownership and give everything to the government … we’ll all live in government housing, collect government paychecks, eat government rations and stand in government lines for them….

There is a sound reason that socialism doesn’t work on a large scale … if I’m going to get X whether I work for it or not … WHY would I ever WORK for it? Socialism/Communism can work in small groups that are in relatively small areas. Like in villages where everyone knows one another and relies on each other for the things that they can’t make themselves. Once you start getting to a point where you have more people than are needed or that don’t have a ‘job’ that are living off the work of others it begins to fall apart.

No, thank you. I’d rather live in a country where I can work hard, earn money, and own private property. I prefer a country where I can be free to speak my mind without fear, where I can invest MY money into businesses and in return receive a profitable return on that investment. Sadly there are many in this country that would rather live off the government and would prefer that the government just give them everything so that they don’t have to work for it.

Change can be good (Part II)

Okay ... President G.W. Bush has been re-inaugurated, whether or not you feel that he should have been doesn't matter at this point, the deed is done, and we don't need to discuss it here. Now the President has made statements in some of his speeches that have some people on edge. Specifically he wants to make some serious changes to the Social Security program and he wants Tax Reform.

First, on the subject of Social Security - currently Social Security tax is taken out of your paycheck and sent to Washington where it is doled out to pay the people currently collecting a Social Security check. Now ... what happens with anything left over? It's rolled into the general fund and used to fund highways, work programs, welfare, or any other program that the government wants to spend it on. Social Security is the government’s slush fund and your guarantee of being able to collect Social Security when you retire is zero.

Since the system, as it stands now, is using current income to pay current debts, the money paid into the system by individuals does not guarantee the individual paying the money anything. And, as more people begin to retire over the coming years (and the fact that on average people are living longer than they did when the system was established) we are likely looking at decreasing Social Security benefits and possibly eventually reaching a point where the system simply can no longer support itself. At which point the people currently paying Social Security could well find themselves with nothing to show in return, and nothing to retire on.

There are a few ways to 'reform' Social Security ... you can increase the amount people pay into the system by withholding more from their paychecks. This method, however, gives less money to those people working for a living which in turn gives them less to spend which harms economic growth and the overall prosperity of the county ... it also simply gives the politicians more money in their slush fund for the present and, while it may prolong the system's life, it doesn't fix the problems inherent in the system.

Another option would be to place all the money remaining after paying the people currently collecting their retirement money from the system into a secure general account and not use it for general funds. Technically this is supposed to happen already, but there is no such thing as a government owned account that won't be used for general funds. If congress controls the account directly they'll just 'borrow' the money needed for whatever little projects they need to fund ... saying that they plan pay it back later. Rumor has it that there is a filing cabinet in Washington filled with these IOUs ... that may be an urban legend or it may not I don't know personally.

A third option is ... privatization. There it is ... I've said it ... the word that seems to scare so many people, particularly in regards to Social Security. In a privatized system the money paid into Social Security by Klikhizz Grimscale would go into an account in the name of Klikhizz Grimscale and, upon retiring be paid to Klikhizz Grimscale. In the mean time it would be in some form of account owned by Klikhizz Grimscale earning some form of interest rate. The key being, since it is owned by Klikhizz Grimscale the poly-ticks in DC can't use the funds, and the funds are guaranteed to be there for Klikhizz Grimscale when he reaches the pre-set retirement age. And this is one of the main reasons that those poly-ticks in DC don't want such a system put into place.

As I’ve also mentioned, in a privatized system, since the account is OWNED by the individual the contents of that account can be willed to surviving family members or anyone that the individual cares to pass it to in the eventuality of their death. The money paid into these accounts is, in most forms of these plans, guaranteed to be paid to the individual upon reaching the set retirement age, and usually with a varying interest rate. Such that the individual, through the magic of compound interest, would generally receive much more than the total paid into the account.

A couple of arguments that I often hear from the anti-privatization crowd.....

1 - You'd be cutting off current recipients!

No. Most federal plans 'phase in' the reform. Effectively creating a hybrid system to start where a portion of the collected money is put into individual accounts and the remainder used to pay those people currently drawing on the system. The plans neither end current benefits, nor in any way lower the payments.

This is a scare tactic used to try and get those living on Social Security to vote against privatization. It is a scare tactic to pit grandparents against their grandchildren. It is used by those that would prefer a government that controls people’s financial lives so as to maintain their own power. It is used by those that would rather maintain their power now than concern themselves with the future of this country.

2 - Stocks are risky people could loose everything!

Well, first off while stock market accounts would potentially earn a person the highest return on their Social Security investment, it is, by most plans, considered too risky for this type of plan. Most privatization plans call for simple savings accounts or secure investment accounts with guaranteed returns. These are low-to-no risk plans. In some cases the plans allow for some minor control on the part Klikhizz Grimscale and may give him some options in how his money is handled, possibly even allowing him to invest a portion (but not all) of the money in his account into stocks for a potentially higher return on the investment.

Besides ... you aren't guaranteed anything under the current system anyway. If you keep that in mind even a privatization system that just stored the money and returned to you what you’d put in over the years would be a better system than what we have now.

3 - It would require too much manpower, it would only increase the size and cost of government!

Well, realistically the best way to do these plans is to contract out to a private organization. The private organization hires the people needed to handle the job of managing these accounts ... in so doing it employs people, which in turn will help the economy grow. Besides, name one thing that the government does better than private companies ... I can only think of one thing that the government is better at ... creating inefficiency, they've got that down to a science. The company handling these accounts would, of course, be under government contract, subject to government regulations, auditing, etc, etc, etc.

4 - It's never been done before!

Wrong again. In the late 1970s there was an 'opt out' clause in the Social Security Administration allowing local governments to withdraw from the system with a 2 year notice, and between 1981 and 1982 three counties in Texas opted out of the system (The clause was removed by a 1983 reform to the system that raised taxes, increased the retirement age and lowered benefits to allow the system to continue to function.) These three counties in Texas each set up their own privatized 'Social Security' systems which are still operating to this day.

While I haven't found specific numbers from the other two counties I did find published numbers (and comparison to Social Security payments) for Galveston County...

"A person retiring today at age 65 with 40 years of deposits and an annual salary of $20,000 would retire with $383,032 in a personal account."

And

"A retired $20,000-per-year worker with the personal retirement account would receive $2,740 each month at current interest rates, while Social Security benefits would be about $775 per month." (Yes someone who had made 20,000 a year could retire and start making 32,000 a year)

This is from a plan investing in annuities with a highly rated insurance company, though the interest rate may vary from year to year, the company must guarantee a rate for the year.

(More info on Galveston's system can be found here: National Center for Policy Analisis and Texas Public Policy Foundation)

Privatization CAN be done and it CAN work, but until public awareness of the options forces the poly-ticks in DC to get out of the way of reform, we the people are going to continue to wallow in an out dated system. It should also be noted that the DC poly-ticks have their own retirement plan and neither pay into, nor collect Social Security - they're already set for life. (*Ground shakes* 'umm, you guys stay here in the top of this high rise, we're going to get in this hot air balloon and tell you that you can't redesign the building you in.')

Now certainly any plan for privatization or reforming Social Security needs to be looked at in detail, but my point is that people shouldn't start running around and panicking at the mention of the word 'privatization'. Undoubtedly the poly-ticks will try and wrap any plan to their advantage and will take credit if it succeeds and blame their opponent if it fails.

Look into proposals about this with an open mind, but look closely ... this could affect you and your children's lives directly and shouldn't be taken lightly, it's your money.

I’ll tackle the issue of Tax reform in another piece because I believe two of the biggest issues facing this country today are the need for immediate and meaningful reform of the Tax and Social Security Systems

Change can be good (Part I)

Social Security reform … to a degree I’ve stepped around this subject … I’ve wanted to wait until I had done some more research and had some more recent numbers to give you, but given recent discussion I think I should at least say something.

I’ll likely have more to say on this subject later, but for now I want to address some things that I’ve heard recently in the news. I don’t have exact quotes, nor do I know specifically who said them so I’m going to keep it to a discussion of the concepts and why, in my opinion, we are seeing the political opposition to Social Security reform that we are.

‘Social Security can run as it is for 50 more years … we don’t need reform’

First off the person that said this is spreading misinformation. There are laws in place that automatically kick in at points where the Social Security outflow reaches a certain percentage of the Social Security income … these laws automatically CUT benefits in order to maintain the system. Current projections show a 28% reduction in benefits within about 15 years. That is a 28% reduction from CURRENT benefits within 15 years … folks have you watched the cost of living? Do you think that the cost of living is going to go DOWN 28% in the next 15 years? I don’t.

Even if we take that cut in benefits out of the equation basically you have a politician saying ‘well it isn’t going to be a problem while *I* am in office, why should I bother to FIX it?’

‘There is no Social Security crisis; it doesn’t have to be fixed now.’

Okay … again ‘I’ll be dead by the time this is a problem, why should I worry about it? I’ll just let my kids or grandkids worry about it.’ Or ‘Sure the boat is taking on water, but I’ll be off it before it sinks why should I worry about patching up the holes?’

Aside from the sheer irresponsibility of such a statement, let us take a look back 8 years. What were then President Bill Clinton and Vice President Al Gore saying on the subject? Why, they were saying that Social Security was in a crisis and congress needed to fix it … problem was … no one could agree on HOW to fix it.

And now we get to the crux of the matter … HOW to fix the system …

You see … there’s the REAL problem. The left doesn’t want to fix the system now for a couple of reasons.

1) There is a Republican in the White House and the House and Senate are controlled by the Republicans. To fix the system now would be a feather in the hat of the Republican party and specifically for President George W. Bush.

2) George W. Bush and the Republicans favor a privatization option that the left doesn’t want to see passed.

Now, why don’t they just present their plan to the American people and let us decide which we’d prefer? Simple, really … their plan is to patch the system the same way they have every other time … raise Social Security tax rates and/or cut benefits to current recipients … and they know that this option is not going to receive popular support.

Recent polls show that a majority of Americans agree that Social Security needs to be reformed … most current American workers believe that Social Security will not be there when they retire.

Currently the system takes the money paid into the system and uses that money to pay those who are currently receiving benefits under the system. Technically any money that is left is supposed to be put into a trust fund. The trust fund, however, is a myth … the excess money from social security is siphoned into the general fund to help pay for various projects and an IOU is put in the file. … Sooner or later those IOUs are going to come due … and when they do Social Security will collapse.

Whether that day be tomorrow or 50 years from now doesn’t matter … if I know that a volcano is going to erupt and kill millions in 50 days should I wait till the day before the eruption to tell them or to start getting them out? No … that would be irresponsible.

Why are these people opposed to privatization?

Well … mainly because it reduces the dependence of the society on the government and promotes individual ownership and rights. It gives individuals a personal account with a guaranteed benefit upon retirement (or disability as provided under the plan) since this money was earned by the individual and they own the account the benefit can be willed to surviving family members in the eventuality of the individual’s death … before or after retirement.

I will be gathering together some more information and writing something up specifically about privatization plans and common criticisms by the media and the left.

But for now I will say, privatization is not just a theory … it has already been done. Chile modeled their Social Security plan after the US … and realized several years ago that it was a flawed plan and adopted a privatization plan in its place. Also, in the US, Galveston county and a few other counties in Texas opted out of Social Security through a loophole in the plan in 1981 (Congress closed the loophole in the 1983 Social Security reform act … which also cut benefits) … in both cases retirees are getting considerably more in terms of benefits than the plan they left would have provided.


A couple of pieces if you care to know a little more about privatization:

How Galveston Opted out of Social Security

Some Americans already have Privatized Social Security

“Things aren’t the same anymore”

Okay … today’s observation got started as the result of a series of calls to the Neal Boortz show (http://boortz.com/) while I was driving in to the office. The content of the calls is of little importance really, but a brief run down was that a father of a boy in 6th grade in a local government school was calling in for Neal’s advice about how he should go about handling a situation in the school of bullies on the basketball team (of which his son was a player) that had shoved his son’s head in a toilet.

Neal’s advice was simple … tell the son to suck it up and keep playing and that the next time the boys do it … grab something heavy and clobber one of the bullies. He also said that the father should maybe have a quiet word with the team coach to make sure he keeps a better eye on things so that it doesn’t become something worse than a ‘swirly’.

Several callers, however, disagreed with this line of advice. Primarily using the argument that the world has changed and “things aren’t the same anymore.”

And they are right … things are not the same. Kids with weapons in schools are more prevalent than the have been in the past. In general things are more violent and the violence is more wide spread than it was in the past. This is true in government and private schools … while gangs are nothing new – particularly in the cities – their presence is more wide spread than it has been in the past and the mind set and culture of many young people is considerably different than it used to be. (Particularly in Hip Hop and Rap dominated areas)

However, ultimately I have to stand by Neal’s advice. It is true that ‘things aren’t the same anymore’ … but it’s also true that some things never change.

One of those things that never change … is that the son NEEDS to learn to stand up for himself. Because in the real world … when he’s out of High School … there isn’t going to be anyone else that will do it. Fighting isn’t always the best answer … but there are times when it’s the ONLY answer. If he doesn’t learn to stand up for himself now … he may as well tattoo “Welcome” on his chest and lay down on the floor.

If dad goes in there and raises hell over this, things will NOT get better for his son … bullies will see that they got to him and he will become a regular target. That’s NEVER going to change … bullies will ALWAYS go after the weak. In MOST cases the one that stands up to them will be passed over … bullies aren’t looking for a fight … they are looking for a victim.

In fact I would argue that BECAUSE ‘things aren’t the same’ the lesson of standing up for yourself is even MORE important today. We don’t live in a ‘kinder, gentler world’ we live in a world where the strong prey upon the weak, where crazy people will strap bombs to themselves or fly planes into buildings. We live in a world where the only person that can protect you IS you.

And, yes, standing up for yourself can get you hurt or killed in some situations, but rolling over and being a victim will only encourage it to happen again and again.

That’s a lesson that repeats in many aspects of life … and in many world issues as well.