"Imagine"

As a (self) righteous child of the Sixties, I was inspired and enthralled by John Lennon’s iconic Imagine, released in 1971. “Yeah,” I thought, “it’s all those stupid grownups with their ‘countries’ and their suffocating ‘religions’ that are the problem…not the inherently sinful nature of humans.”
Though many ‘grownups’ at the time, I’m sure, saw through the shallow pop philosophy of Lennon’s ode to utopian humanism, it took me a long while.  Even today, the song is still very poetic and lyrical to me---and just by changing a few words (as apparently some musicians like Cee Lo Green have done, to the dismay of their fans), the song could be re-written as a psalm, exhorting the faithful to be Christ-like and love their neighbors. 

Except the word “love” would have to be inserted—imagine a Beatle writing a song and omitting that word!  But that’s what happens, when even (or especially) intelligent and thoughtful writers like Lennon get swept up by the group-think of their tribe and culture (wait, that sounds like a religion!) and fail to continue seeking the truth.  They abandon the fresh thinking that propelled them to fame and fortune. They come to confuse their popularity with wisdom.  Although, I do believe, had Lennon lived long enough, he might have “changed his tune”—even when he was alive, he was quoted as saying that if he could, he’d vote for Reagan (maybe only for the tax savings Reagan promised--but Lennon wasn’t echoing his peers, that’s for sure).

But the enduring theme of this song, providing consolation to its supporters and ammunition for its detractors, is the title and oft-repeated word, “imagine.”  With that word, the song disparages the stereotyped limited intellectual capacity of the faithful who “imagine” an afterlife but can’t imagine it occurring here on earth in real time (“I wonder if you can”)---yet praises the dreamers who envision an earthly paradise created and maintained not by God but by ordinary humans.

Which is more fanciful—the existence of heaven and hell, or a utopia where humans live like saints, “sharing all the world”?  We have no visible, universal, physical evidence of either –all we really have is the history of how these competing beliefs have affected human behavior and happiness.  We can’t imagine a world without religion because it has never existed, except in the confines of Communist or other totalitarian systems (and how have those worked out?).  Religion exists because people need it, because they crave meaning, structure and moral guidance—because they are not super-humans.  Super-humans, of the kind imagined by secular humanists, have evolved beyond sin, self-interest, and arrogance.  Super-humans never stumble and fail, and are all-knowing when it comes to how best to organize the lives of others.  In short, they are supernatural gods and don’t exist, except in the imaginations of humanists who believe in the potential evolution of the human soul, absent any historical evidence of this possibility. 

This Christmas, I’m trying hard, in the wake of the election, to imagine that we may someday live in a nation in which children are universally understood to be gifts from God---welcomed into loving families and raised by committed two-parent (gay or straight!) families—families which do not think themselves entitled to happiness, but which know they must work for it, every day.  If you don’t share my vision (and sorry, if you voted for Obama, you don’t), well, I’m not the only one—I hope someday you’ll join us. 

Peggy Noonan's Love Potion

Peggy Noonan’s prescription of love for the depraved London rioters (Wall Street Journal, After the London Riots, August 13^th) may sound to secularists as too close to the Christian message to love thy neighbor as we love ourselves, especially the poor and the poor in spirit (as these young insurgents so obviously are).  Even those more devout might scorn her less-than-novel “cure” as weak-kneed and as impotent as the social welfare advocates defending the urchins.   

Though Ms. Noonan hesitates to proselytize, the lack of other good refuges in the face of fear and uncertainty has often led wise and curious men back to God.  Really, what else is there? The bureaucracies and promulgations of the UN? The ignorant, albeit often well-intended, machinations of men making plans for other men’s lives?

What the UK (and the USA) could use right now is a modern-day C.S. Lewis reading out loud to the nation (as he did to a besieged Britain in 1942-44), reminding us that the strength and courage to confront terror in the streets and timidity in our hearts are close at hand, if only we open (or re-open) our minds to the possibility that God can help us.

And really, how can the nation with the highest abortion rate in Europe pretend to be interested in the welfare of its children?  Countries like ours and the UK, where adults can take fertility drugs to achieve pregnancy late in their child-bearing years and then abort one or more of the multiple babies conceived (too much work for an older mother), where less-than-perfect (in human eyes) Down’s syndrome babies are swiftly aborted--cultures where abortion is acceptable and spanking is not—might consider the possibility that even the stupidest of our offspring may have picked up the idea that they, not the Church or God or their parents, ought to be the arbiters of their own moral fitness.

Tribal Bible

Several years ago I watched a PBS documentary about the declining number of abortion clinics in the South. The filmmakers interviewed the clinic operators, who bemoaned the community pressure to close the clinics, and filmed (but didn’t interview, as I recall) the protestors outside one of the clinics.

As I watched, I realized how “tribal” personal philosophy often is---all the operators of the clinic were college-educated, sophisticated, well-spoken white women with whom I would have felt fairly comfortable at a social gathering---professional women like the ones I went to college with.

The women protesting outside looked the stereotype of a Deep South Christian fundamentalist—also white, with big hair, Southern drawls and lacking evident erudition (they were yelling things to the young, mostly black women entering the clinic, things like, “Can you hear your baby? She’s saying, Mommy, please don’t kill me!”).

It struck me that, in background, culture and education, I was much more like the clinic operators than the protesters. But in belief, ideology, and “world view”, I was becoming much more like the women outside the clinic, with whom I probably had very little in common culturally.

I was becoming an apostate of the elitist “tribe” that convinces itself that a female’s need for personal comfort and economic security is paramount--far more important than the life of a child, or a woman's own unrecognized need for a moral anchor in a modern sea of unprincipled relativity .

To which tribe would you rather belong, the class-based one, or the ideologically-based one?

Perhaps none of us feel as though we belong to the former type: we’re certain that we've chosen to associate with people based on their ideas and world view, not their similar social class. And, since like backgrounds and experiences often generate comparable political beliefs, it’s not surprising when world view and social class coincide---just painful for those of us who lose friends when we challenge tribal ideology.  Is it equally painful for those who remain in the tribe?  Not painful enough, it seems to me, for extant members to examine and defend their beliefs to the apostate.

The usual response, in my experience, is strained politeness and topic avoidance---unpleasant, but petty compared to the risks undertaken by those who leave the tribe of Islam---a religion that dictates not only spiritual beliefs, but political, commercial and social actions as well.

God bless those brave souls trying to reform Islam from within--modern day Martin Luthers such as Dr. Zuhdi Jasser or Irshad Manji.  May their tribe increase!

Diversity Is the New Racism

I was going to write a letter on this topic until I saw that someone else had pretty much said all I had to say on the subject..  Thought I was an original thinker---but that old objectivist and standard bearer for the individual, Ayn Rand, apparently inspired some other individuals who, on this subject, think exactly like I do (how conformist).

The only Ayn Rand novel I've read, a long time ago, is Fountainhead.  I loved it, as a self-righteous young landscape architect expecting to take the world by storm--always staying true to my singular creative vision, of course.  Since then, the "world" and I have become much less sanguine about my exceptionalism, and I've lost much of my admiration for the sanctity of talent over wise and observant experience. (Too bad the 2008 electorate didn't share this insight.) 

But have I gone full circle philosophically and returned to my youthful fling with objectivism just because I agree with Ayn Rand adherents on the issue of multiculturism? I shy away from objectivism now, unwilling to invest time in a re-examination of that philosophy, perhaps for some of the same reasons otherwise intelligent liberal Democrats refuse to honestly engage Republican ideas of self-reliance and limited government intervention as superior to the (ineffective, but emotionally satsifying) "compassion" agenda of the Welfare State. These Democrats instinctively and permanently attach the stigma of greed and self-interest to Republicans, much as I cannot align myself wholeheartedly with libertarianism (which I--mistakenly or not-- identify as part and parcel with objectivism) due to its proponents' rabid isolationism (international and domestic).  And since I've found a moral and intellectual home in neoconservatism, I've no need to try to squeeze into the libertarian/objectivist box.  I would hazard an unresearched guess that many neocons agree with Ayn Rand and me about the virutes of Diversity Programs anyway.

The dream of a post-racial America, seemingly within our grasp with the election of a purportedly moderate African-American President, is still far from realization.  In my mind, every new diversity "training" workshop and affirmative action program  pushes that goal further away.

In response to legislation that would provide dollars and power to "ethnic" Hawaiians by virtue of their race, Ray Parker, of Annapolis, expresses my sentiments exactly:
                    
          Letter To The Editor, Wall Street Journal, March 5, 2010

        "The current congressional effort to grant ethnic Hawaiians the powers and privileges of self-government--including authority to tax and of eminent domain--is the latest example of the Democratic Party's schizophrenia when it comes to race relations. On the one hand, the Party encourages and exploits ethnic identities and grievances to build its big-tent coalition, while on the other hand it preaches an idealistic "we are one" sermon to anyone who's not in the tent. Those who are not supportive of ethnic-based privileges are labeled racists and bigots; to avoid those labels, one must be colorblind but in favor of racial preferences."

Yep.

 

Democrats, Remember JFK? Part Two

Democrats seem to think that by repeating the words “small business” they demonstrate sufficient economic knowledge to fix the currently bleak employment situation. If today’s Democrats would emulate JFK’s rather than FDR’s economic policies, not only would the national economy improve, so would Democrats’ political fortunes.

A tax credit to hire new employees is useless to small businesses until customers are knocking on doors to spend their money. Since most of these potential customers are corporations or individuals whose taxable income exceeds $250,000, the Obama administration could do far more to help generate jobs and growth if they would extend the Bush tax cuts for “the rich”, cut the corporate tax rate (second highest in the world), cut the dividend rate, and keep the capital gains tax rate at 15%. Even better, Congress should adopt the Ryan Road Map tax reforms!!!

The rich are the customers of and investors in small businesses---they are the de-facto “job creators” without whom small businesses fail. You can’t on the one hand laud small businesses for creating two-thirds of the nation’s jobs and on the other hand force their customers to spend more of their disposable income on taxes instead of purchases and investments.

Remember the ill-fated “luxury tax” on new yachts (and other items deemed extravagant by the egalitarian elitists) in 1990? Enacted as a “tax on the wealthy”, it was repealed three years later due to the depressing economic effect it had on the boat-building industry and its blue collar employees. Obama’s War on the Wealthy/Banks/Business will have the same effect on industries and employees if he continues on his ill-conceived crusade.

If Obama were as diligent a student of the Bush administration’s successes as he is of its failures, he might have discovered the truth of the 2003 Bush tax cuts---they created record tax revenues in 2005-2007---because the cuts spurred investment and growth. Unemployment was half of what it is today—because the economy was booming, not because Bush raised taxes on the wealthy.

Promoting class warfare and spouting faux-populist demagoguery will not restore the nation’s economy. It will take leadership that is serious about cutting spending and taxes—leadership I’ve only seen coming from the likes of Congressman Paul Ryan. I’ve read his GOP Road Map; I’m 55 and I’d volunteer for reduced benefits, vouchers, or personal Social Security savings accounts even if my age would exempt me. Our experience with H.S.A. s (my husband and I have had one for the past three years) and 529 plans (all three of our children have or will soon graduate from college debt-free) has shown me the value of placing personal financial decisions in the hands of the taxpayers who actually earn the money, not the legislators who would like to spend it.

The Gettysburg Address Redux: Obama-Style

Two score and seven years ago, my father brought forth, on this country’s far flung island state, the handsome man who is now your President. I was conceived out of wedlock and soon abandoned by my father, dedicated as he was to the proposition that his happiness superseded that of his family’s.

Now I am engaged in a four-to-eight-year speaking tour, testing whether this nation, or any other nation so conceived, can long endure the constant repetition of my inspirational and multicultural biography.

We are met on a great ideological battlefield, the final resting place for those hapless conservatives crushed by the Big Government Steamroller that I have won the right to drive.

It is altogether fitting and proper that I continue to whine and blame my predecessor for his failures of leadership, without yet exhibiting any sign of becoming a great national leader myself.

But, in a larger sense, as a wise African-American (but totally post-racial) male, I cannot consecrate our national struggle for unity and prosperity by championing our virtues and achievements, or by vigorously and instinctively defending America against her jealous detractors, at home or abroad.

The world will little note that my every speech rarely advances any new ideas, but merely describes (eloquently though not always accurately) two opposing viewpoints or historical positions, as though I am sort of “Great Interpreter”, clarifying the issue at hand for a confused and illiterate citizen-jury.

It is for the living journalists among you to continue the unfinished work of allowing no criticism or advancement of better ideas from the political opposition to take hold in the court of public opinion, and I humbly thank you for your noble service in this cause to date.

We must dedicate ourselves to the great task remaining before us, namely to avoid making any difficult or unpopular decisions which might tarnish my future post-presidential memoir (to be ghostwritten by a guy in my neighborhood), or God forbid, return the opposition party to power.

From the ranks of the honored dead---Susan Sontag, Saul Alinsky, Edward Said, George Tiller and others---we take increased devotion to the cause for which they gave the last full measure of devotion, that they shall not have died in vain.

We here highly resolve that this oppressive, racist, capitalist nation, under an unfair and antiquated God, shall have a new, un-aborted(!) birth, into the family of the One World EU/UN politburo, in which our democratic republic--the government of the people, by the people, for the people--shall be irrevocably changed to make everyone’s income and accomplishments equal. Thus individual liberty and innovation shall perish from the earth.

Moral Relativism Run Amok

The intellectual shortcomings of the Obama administration these days remind me of the “War Is Not Pro-Life” bumper sticker. How narrow-minded and ordinary to express moral outrage at the waterboarding of three murderous and unrepentant jihadists, all the while blithely absolving thousands of U.S. physicians annually performing over a million abortions of any complicity in an immoral act.

The CIA officers who carried out “enhanced interrogation techniques”, and who sought legal cover from Bush White House lawyers are apparently safe, even though they were the ones who invented the techniques, not the lawyers. The lawyers merely provided the legal support for procedures whose aim was to prevent another attack on Americans. The Obama administration abstained from including CIA agents in the indictment “trial balloon” only to avoid political fallout from attacking those who put their lives on the line for the country, not because of any close parsing of culpability. The Bush guys are just far safer political targets.

And, just like the afore-mentioned physicians, the CIA guys were operating within a legal system, under procedures sanctioned by lawyers. The CIA officers are sworn to protect this country, while the physicians take an oath: “First, do no harm” (and then proceed to do just that). The CIA “tortures” adults who’ve directed and celebrated the killing of Americans; the doctors end the lives of babies whose only crime was to be conceived.

I must be so stupid not to see the clear intellectual and moral superiority of the current administration to the previous—if only a single Democrat could explain this puzzling conundrum.

By all means, let’s “restore science to its rightful place” and help our President figure out when life begins.

Democrats Need A New Frederick Douglass

Even before reading The Radical and the Republican by James Oakes, I mentally connected the issues of abortion and slavery as twin evils, pathological blots on our national self-image as a free and just country. During the course of reading the book (which doesn’t mention abortion at all), I found myself wondering if Barack Obama, wont as he is to draw comparisons between Lincoln and himself, might need only a modern day Frederick Douglass to prod him into working to overturn Roe v. Wade--just as Lincoln nullified Dred Scott. Granted, Lincoln was of the same general opinion as Douglass--that slavery was wrong, wrong in every case for moral reasons--whereas Obama has no such common conviction with pro-life supporters. Yet perhaps the argument could be made in such a way as to stroke the ego of our new President to picture himself Lincoln-like for having engineered such a coup, and he would abandon prior “principle” for future historical acclaim.

Were I to obtain the necessary influence to even offer such an argument, it would go something like this:

President Obama, you have much in common, at least in temperament and political philosophy, with former President Lincoln. Certainly, you both seem to have read and heeded Benjamin Franklin, who strongly advised against letting others know what “you really think”, in wise subjugation of ego to potential accomplishment. You also share with Lincoln a justifiably proud sense of your ability to inspire and communicate with your fellow citizens. This gift, combined with your innate ability to constantly redefine and shift the debate (about any subject) and the eager backing of a fawning press, may be all you need to lead the populace where they’re not sure they want to go---without having to overreach your executive powers in time of war as Lincoln did.

Frederick Douglass was a reformer, only gradually converted to the value of politics as an agent of change, while Abraham Lincoln believed that true reform could only occur when the majority of the citizenry was ready for it—even if it must be coaxed and beguiled at every possible opportunity by gifted orators the likes of him. Frederick Douglass made no excuses for the slaveholder; Lincoln made many. Lincoln treated slavery the way the Catholic church today addresses homosexuality—as a sin, but with compassion and accommodation for the sinner (the slaveholder, in Lincoln’s case).

Lincoln had the exigencies of war to help convince the nation of the need to abolish slavery. You have no such platform to abolish abortion, but you do have tremendous political support for whatever agenda you choose to promote. If you really want to distinguish yourself as a new kind of politician, start to slip subtle references to the shadow injustice of abortion into your speeches. Change, almost imperceptibly, your position as an abortion “rights” supporter to a defender of the real rights of unborn children. You and Lincoln, both lawyers and pretty fair writers, share the ability to never pin yourself down to an undeniable, prosecutable position—there is always a possible nuanced interpretation of prior statements that can transmogrify your “beliefs” to match prevailing public sentiment—which you yourself help, in no small measure, to modify.

Democrats in Lincoln’s time were the strongest political supporters of slavery, just as they are now the party that supports abortion. You can change the history of not only the country, but of your party! Relieve yourself and your fellow Democrats of the need to shamefully and awkwardly defend this national blight.

These are the similarities I see between slavery and abortion as political issues:

1. Advocates of slaveholding and abortion “rights” dehumanize the slave and the fetus as not fully human and therefore not deserving of full human rights. Pro-slavery Constitutional authors inserted the provision for slaves to count as only least 3/5ths of a human being, while abortion supporters argue that surely 3/9ths of a human is unworthy of personhood.

Slaveholders said that their slaves couldn’t fend for themselves without the “protection” of the plantation, while abortion rights advocates talk about unwanted children as though they’d be better dead than alive with a mother or a world that doesn’t want them. Both seem to argue that a life controlled (or aborted) by human masters is better than a life “outside” (the plantation or the womb).

2. Politicians of both eras are loath to discuss such a divisive, emotional issue: contemporary Democrats and Republicans both bemoan “one-issue” voters (the distasteful issue being abortion), while pre-Civil War political parties avoided the issue of slavery whenever possible for fear of having to pin themselves down on one side or the other of an issue which might lose them whole blocs of voters. Lincoln himself called the slavery issue a “distracting question” (where have we heard that lately?) in 1847, but by 1859, acutely sensitive to changing public opinion, he sagely noted, "An evil can't stand discussion. What kills the skunk is the publicity it gives itself". (Oakes, page 83)

3. The religious and moral high ground naturally claimed by opponents of both slavery and abortion is taunted by the proponents as being sanctimonious and doctrinaire, and (albeit clumsy) attempts are made to reclaim at least part of that perch for their cause. Justifications of Biblical support for slavery were put forth by nineteenth century pastors who noted that the two thousand year old document fails to condemn slavery and in fact occasionally advises readers on the “proper treatment of slaves". According to Southern pro-slavery advocates, Northern sympathizers of abolition were "hypocrites" who offered only a life of discrimination and misery to Negro "wage slaves" if universal emancipation became law.

4. Hardliners like Douglass (and those to the left of him like William Lloyd Garrison) hated compromise; nothing short of complete abolition and equality would do. Moderates like Lincoln (and perhaps, we’ll see--Obama), as lawyers and politicians, seek just that whenever possible. Pre-war Northern Whigs and Republicans hoped to contain, not eliminate slavery, or at least keep the balance of slave and free states equal. They weren’t, at that point advocating eliminating slavery in the same way that the Northern abolitionists like Douglas would have preferred them to do. Moderates hoped that slavery, deprived of slaveholding soil to expand and flourish, would eventually wither on the vine. Lincoln, before and during the War, hoped to hasten that process by offering to compensate slaveholders for the loss of their “property” should their state self-elect free statehood.

Similarly, the Democrats and Obama’s current narrative on abortion is that, surely we all want to “reduce the number of abortions” (a modest containment, not an radical abolitionist approach) until such time as economic circumstances improve to the point that women can afford to have children as often as they have unprotected sex. As with slavery, sympathy for the economic plight of abortion seekers justifies, in the minds of its supporters, absolution of their actions.

5. Lastly, legal support for both abortion and slavery was obtained at the hands of activist judges, operating with the weakest of legal foundation for their decisions, but with the strongest of biases and personal agendas. “‘Dred Scottism’, said Lincoln, was ‘a burlesque upon judicial decisions’—it covered over slavery with the ‘deceitful cloak’ of self-government in an effort to conceal the ‘hateful carcass’ beneath” (Oakes, p.74). Substitute the word 'abortion' for slavery, and the word 'privacy' for self-government, and how different is ‘Roeism’ from ‘Dred Scottism’? The 1857 Dred Scott decision, with its overreaching defense of slaveholding, so deeply offended many Northerners like Lincoln that it may have helped awaken in them the realization that slavery was not going to just “die a natural death” without more of a fight. It’s been 36 years since Roe vs. Wade, with no Civil War to overturn it (and none desired by any but the modern-day abortion-clinic-bombing John Browns) but perhaps all we need is our version of Frederick Douglass to shame our budding “Lincoln” into action.

How about this for a legacy, Mr. President---“Obama abolishes abortion in his first term”? Now, that would be audacious!

Defeat with Honor

To my surprise, my tears started flowing during John McCain’s concession speech on election night, as I realized the emotional attachment I unknowingly had for the man and his record. Time will tell if Obama’s contributions to this country will match McCain’s, but for now, all I see is a man who has devoted his life to serving this country, and serving it well---a man of flesh and blood and “authenticity”---defeated by a life-sized cardboard cut-out symbol.

All I've asked of my Democratic friends is that they admit their vote for symbolism, or defend Obama’s record, character and positions on issues as reasonable support for expectations of good governance. So far, in this long campaign, I've heard one or two grudging acknowledgements of the first stance, and only feeble attempts at the second.

I saw an Italian headline—“Today, the world changed”. Yes, I know Barack will soon begin to “cool the earth, and heal the sick”, but here’s what hasn’t changed—human nature. The last big change in the world, in my opinion, was on September 17, 1787—when the members of the Constitutional Convention in Philadelphia, PA adopted the US Constitution---a document that I believe changed the course of human history in a far more dramatic way than any single person has, save Moses, Jesus, Buddha or Mohammed. The authors of the Constitution crafted a document that ingeniously addressed both the strengths and weaknesses of the human character, and yet Obama, in his wisdom, thinks the Constitution has “a blind spot” because it doesn’t address income equality. Karl Marx’s document, The Communist Manifesto, had no such shortcoming---which document has proved more enduring?

In eighth grade I was the sole voice in my Social Studies classroom in Maryland arguing for the passage of the Civil Rights Act, defending my ideas against classmates who slyly snickered the “N” word---only to be corrected by the teacher that the proper word was “colored”. (My Republican parents taught me that the proper term was Negro, and supported the NAACP with their pocketbooks, and passage of the Act in their dinner table conversations.) In class, I repeated what I had heard at home---that people, as MLK said, should be judged on the basis of their character, their behavior, and their intellect, not on the color of their skin. I’m still arguing that philosophy today, but I’m betting at least some of my old Maryland classmates voted for Obama, and did so based on the color of his skin (for what other reason is this election "historic" if not for race?), not on the content of his character. Maybe, at last, they’ve atoned for their earlier shameful views. Me, I haven't changed my positions on race much--except to deplore the politics of victimization adopted by contemporary black "leaders", but I still don't agree with the majority of Maryland voters, at least not in this election.

If Obama had defeated anyone other than McCain, this would not be nearly as painful. I might worry just as much about our country sliding towards the European style of governance and defense, but it would be from a more emotionally detached perspective.

Democrats, Remember JFK?

Since most of what I get in the way of rhetorical response these days are the Democratic talking points, spun back to me unhampered by any enlightening facts or even reasoned argument, I'm going to revive some old JFK quotations to remind Democrats how far they've strayed ideologically from their old favorite son, the engineer of the first "Camelot" (second coming soon to follow, if the media is right--and of course they always are, except--oops, Harry Truman). In other words, lets just drop the pretense of thoughtful discourse and retreat to slogans.

The only time I've heard Obama quote Kennedy is from his inaugural address, because Obama thought this quote provided defense for his desire to sit down and talk with leaders of terrorist-sponsoring states without precondition. Only problem is, Kennedy's inaugural address preceded his disastrous meeting with Kruschev, which brought us to the brink of nuclear war---"Let us never negotiate out of fear, but let us never fear to negotiate". Words do matter, but they must be supported by contemporary or historical fact in order to be instructive, right?

Decide for yourself which current presidential candidate best expresses the Kennedy doctrine:

"Let every nation know, whether it wishes us well or ill, that we shall pay any price, bear any burden, meet any hardship, support any friend, oppose any foe to assure the survival and the success of liberty."

Most of old Europe may be praying for (strike that, substitute "channeling") an Obama victory, but you can bet that Georgia and the Ukraine are lighting little candles for McCain. Without (much) additional comment, here are some more Kennedy quotes to compare to those of the current aspirants to his old office:

"It was involuntary. They sank my boat." ---Remark when asked how he became a hero.

"And so, my fellow Americans, ask not what your country can do for you; ask what you can do for your country."

"In the long history of the world only a few generations have been granted the role of defending freedom at its hour of maximum danger. I do not shrink from this responsibility, I welcome it."

"It is a paradoxical truth that tax rates are too high and tax revenues are too low and the soundest way to raise the revenues in the long run is to cut the rates now ... Cutting taxes now is not to incur a budget deficit, but to achieve the more prosperous, expanding economy which can bring a budget surplus."

"Lower rates of taxation will stimulate economic activity and so raise the levels of personal and corporate income as to yield within a few years an increased – not a reduced – flow of revenues to the federal government."

"Our tax system still siphons out of the private economy too large a share of personal and business purchasing power and reduces the incentive for risk, investment and effort – thereby aborting our recoveries and stifling our national growth rate."

"A rising tide lifts all boats."

"There is always inequality in life. Some men are killed in a war and some men are wounded, and some men never leave the country....Life is unfair."

When was the last (or only) time you heard Barack Obama defend freedom as more important (and more achievable) than ensuring, through government action, "fairness for all"?

According to our Constitution, we are endowed by our Creator with certain liberties, and it is the purpose of this nation to protect them. The Constitution does not grant freedoms, it merely enumerates them, recognizing them as God-given (as opposed to government-given) rights.

Fairness, having never been dispensed to men by God or life, can only be mandated by men and their governments. Freedom is only the guarantee of opportunity, while Fairness is the implied guarantee of success, and, as far as I know, is not listed as a protected "right" in the American Constitution. In the archival cases in the halls of the European capitals, maybe, and it seems that most modern-day Democrats are quite comfortable with this bedrock of socialist philosophy, "fairness for all".

I wonder if JFK would be...

Some Answers I Wish John McCain Had Given Last Night

Obviously, I’m a big admirer of John McCain, and while nobody’s perfect, Obama served up a few easy lobs last night that McCain failed to smash back, so I’ll do it for him:

Bill Ayers: McCain did say, “Who cares about an old, washed-up terrorist?”, but what he should’ve added, I believe, is that the problem is not Ayers, it’s Obama associating with Ayers when it was politically convenient, and then distancing himself as much as possible when it was not. His campaign has used every possible lever to make this story disappear, only changing Obama’s original line of “just a guy in my neighborhood” when forced to face the facts.

The Mayor of Chicago, member of the old boy network that included Ayers’ father, did everything he could to prevent researchers from reviewing the files of the Annenberg Challenge, possibly buying enough time to have clues to the relationship between Obama and Ayers expunged before the researchers were able to finally gain access to the files. Obama supporters were alerted to jam the call lines of a local radio station to prevent a public discussion of this issue, on a call-in show to which Obama or one of his staff were invited to appear, but refused. Why, if it is such a small, insignificant matter, the extraordinary effort to prevent disclosure?

The main researcher into this matter has been a left-leaning blogger named Stephen Diamond, whose blog is normally devoted to global labor issues (globallabor.blogspot.com), and who has more of a problem with the cover-up than the actual association—remember Watergate?—it wasn’t the crime that brought the President down, it was the amateurish effort to conceal the crime. So far, the Obama campaign is far more adept at this than Nixon’s.

Obama fairly adroitly dodged this question, by in part, referring to the people who advise him now, and would be a part of his administration. Notice, however, that his current “good associations” (Warren Buffet, Dick Lugar, etc.) don’t pre-date his decision to run for the Senate. Again, he chooses his comrades on their value to his political career, principles be damned.

Equal pay for women: This was stupidly brought up by Obama in the middle of the abortion discussion, and McCain, absorbed in the topic at hand, failed to mention another glaring example of Obama’s rhetoric not matching his record. Deroy Murdock (http://article.nationalreview.com/?q=NmEzMTZmNTk5MDI0NTZmNjUwMjllN2ZlZTc0MWFmYzY=) delved into publicly available records of Congressional staffers and found that Obama pays his female staffers $.83 on the dollar for every dollar his male staffers earn, while McCain pays the women on his staff $1.04 for every dollar the men on in his Senate office earn. Read it and weep at the missed opportunity to point out the difference, again, between what Obama says and what he does.

Healthcare: The Obama campaign has stopped repeating their distortion of the McCain plan as a tax increase, because it has been discredited by so many other sources, (Michael Dobbs, "Vice Presidential Debate: St. Louis," Washington Post Fact Checker, 10/2/08, to name just one), but still paints the McCain plan as one that would cause millions of people to lose their coverage under their current employer-sponsored plan.

This is entirely wrong, and in fact, as pointed out by Yuval Levin in the October 20, 2008 issue of The Weekly Standard: http://www.weeklystandard.com/Content/Public/Articles/000/000/015/680cwvaz.asp
Obama’s plan, by providing benefits equal to the coverage Senators enjoy, sets up the government plan as an alternative even employees currently covered by their employers will prefer, creating a mass exodus from the private market to the government-run public one. Obama has said he prefers a single payer system, like those in Canada and England, and that’s where this plan will take us.

Obama says he’ll subsidize these new plans for the uninsured with the fines received from employers who don’t provide health insurance for their employees. (And not only has he still not named that number, now he’s saying small businessmen would be exempted from this fine, (without, you notice, defining “small”, but that only “large" businesses would have to pay--still an unspecified amount--the fine.) But wait, how many “large” businesses don’t already cover their employees? So who will be fined??!! It has to be a large enough source to pay for very nice insurance policies for all the currently uninsured—approximately 40 million times say, $6000 per policy—he needs at least $240 billion in fines to pay for this, not to mention the administrative costs involved in setting up a new Medicare-type entitlement program!

Again, not wanting to frighten anyone who thinks of himself as a small businessman, he offers a 50% tax credit to those businesses that do offer provide health coverage. But again, don’t they already have that credit, at 100%, by being able to expense premiums paid on behalf of employees, prior to calculating taxable income? Maybe he is doing, on the employer side, what McCain is doing on the employee side (removing the current tax deduction, but then giving back a tax credit when health insurance is purchased). The difference is, the McCain credit gives the uninsured and insured employees more choices than they now have, while the Obama plan offers only one new choice to employers ("Pay or Play")—and it all hinges on the eligibility for and size of the “fine”.

As I noted above, the fine has to be large enough to pay the cost of this massive new health plan, otherwise the plan is underfunded. It also has to be very close to the cost employers now pay for group coverage not to cause employers to drop coverage, pay the fine, and tell their employees to apply for National Health Insurance. And if the Obama plan is free to individuals, why would they choose to stay with their group plan if they could leave for better benefits and less cost? It seems to me that employees would be begging their employer to drop group coverage so that they can become eligible for the government plan. Again, unless the fine is high enough (higher than the cost of a current group premium), what rational business would continue to cover their employees, comply with all the regulations concerning group health insurance, etc., when the government will do it for them?

McCain’s plan is much less radical and will keep most employees currently covered right where they are (which he failed to point out!), but gives the uninsured a big boost towards purchasing their own insurance. His plan also has the greatest potential to bring down health care costs, by introducing more competition into the individual policy market, as opposed to the Obama plan, which looks a lot like Medicare the more we hear about it.

Socialism: McCain slipped, but not enough, when he called Obama “Senator Government”. It should’ve been “Senator REALLY REALLY BIG Government”.

Questions I Wish Someone Would Ask Barack Obama

What is the greatest crisis or challenge you have faced in your adult life, and how did you deal with it? What qualities of leadership did you demonstrate during this crisis that would give Americans confidence in you as their Commander-in-Chief?

Where were you the Sunday after September 11, 2001, since you have said that you were not in Jeremiah Wright’s church to hear his “the chickens have come home to roost” sermon? Did you attend another church that day, or just skip it? Or did you hear that speech, and lie, knowing no MSM interviewer would ask this?

Are you really as naive as you pretend to be or do you rationalize every association within the context of how it may or may not further your career? I refer to William Ayers first—did you ever express your disgust at the time with his 2000 portrait standing on the flag in a Chiacgo alley or with his 2001 NYT article stating that “America makes (him) want to puke” and that he wished he had done more bombing? No, you waited until a journalist, in 2008, impolitely brought up your numerous associations (interned at the same law firm where Ayers’ wife--the despicable and sadistic Bernadine Dohrn--had been sheltered by her father-in-law Tom Ayers, worked on education reform--the Developing Communities project under the wings of Ayers’ ABC campaign for school reform in the late 80s, appointed to the chair of the Chicago Annenberg Challenge by Ayers in 1995, sat on Woods Foundation Board with the man in the late 90s, and gave a “rave review” (NYT) to Ayers’ 1997 book, A Kind and Just Parent?) to express your dismay!

How about when Ayers travelled to Venezuela in 2006 to give a speech with Hugo Chavez looking on in satisfaction? Afraid to confront him directly? How are you going to convince enemy leaders of your inner strength in the face of danger if you can't even stand up to "a guy in your neighborhood"? Maybe, after all, it isn't lack of courage, but a lack of disagreement with Bill Ayers and his philosophy that prevented your assailing him. You can understand why neither possibility is comforting to American voters, so that is why your minions construe every mention of this issue as a personal attack, in order to distract voters from pondering either your faint-heartedness or your radical tendencies.

You know, I was eight years old when Castro demanded that the Soviets launch a nuclear strike from his island nation against the U.S.—do I now, or will I ever countenance the United States working cooperatively with such a man without a murmur about his evil past?

Your delayed reaction to Ayers calls to mind your initial defense of Jeremiah Wright as someone you could “no more disown than you could disown the black community” (what a racist statement that was!). It wasn’t until Wright himself slurred your good name that you rose in anger to thoroughly disown him. Is it all about you, Barack? Curse your country, and you’re mildly perturbed (maybe), but not enough to react out loud. Disparage you personally, however--now that’s serious!

A few more evil associations that have received little attention: your support of Rashid Khalidi, (in the form of testimonials, and grants from the Woods Foundation) of the Arab American Action Network (Khalidi is an unrepentant former director of the PLO’s news agency), and Edward Said (Israel-hating, Ayers-admiring Columbia prof), with whom you and Michelle had a pleasant dinner in 1998 at the Arab-American annual event.

Do you have any friends or acquaintances that don’t Blame America & Israel First for All That is So Terribly Wrong with This World? Really? Name one, whom you’ve known before 2006.

How can you promote yourself as post-racial when you refer to your grandmother as “a typical white woman”, see the “black community” as monolithic in thought and deed, and try to goad voters into expecting racial undertones to the campaign (“They’re going to say 'he doesn’t look like us' or 'he has a funny middle name' " before any were forthcoming (at least from Republicans)? Isn’t that incendiary rather than unifying?

Do you appreciate capitalism? Have you ever held a job in the private sector? Which do you think has brought more people out of poverty in the developing world—foreign aid, government grants, or self-generated capitalism? If you think the latter (and I know your answer, for I’m willing to bet that you are oh-so-smart on multiple choice tests), then why would you castigate companies, as you did in your “race” speech, for taking jobs overseas “just for a profit”? Don’t you realize that for-profit companies cannot survive without profit? Even socialist Europe, idol of the left, is beginning to realize that lowering corporate tax rates is the best boon to economic success. Ireland’s rate, for instance, is a third of ours, and their economic success and per capita income rise the envy of Europe.

What new idea do you have that is not an expansion of an idea that has already failed? The Annenberg Challenge, all 160 million dollars worth, failed to increase education levels of the Chicago students it bankrolled any more than non-Annenberg programs did. Head Start, according to a Clinton-era study, also failed to make a significant difference in preschool achievement levels after forty years of trying, yet your Zero-to-Five proposal advocates expanding it, throwing good money after bad. Universal government-run health insurance? Ask the Canadians. Tax the rich—more? Remember the luxury tax on yachts? Sounded like a good idea--make those wealthy bastards pay for their extravagant lifestyles--except for the unintended consequences to the laid-off blue collar yacht builders.

Who wins in an arm-wrestle match between you and Hillary? You and Sarah? You and McCain? Don’t answer, because I know that you’d best all three today--you’re young, male and the most physically fit. (McCain, before torture, no contest--he’d take you). Why is this stupid macho kind of question important to me? Because, in my heart of hearts, I think you’re a lightweight—not physically, but internally—who have you stood up to that was scary, that you knew could pummel you but you took them on anyway, all by yourself (see Bill Ayers, above)? Could you face down Ahmadinejad, alone, without a coterie of fawning journalists in tow? I hope so, but I don’t know so, not from what I’ve seen so far.

Why McCain: My Top Three Reasons

1) Defense, National Security, and Understanding of the Military

McCain’s military career, POW experience and family legacy gives him a perspective that may be unique among Presidential candidates in the history of this country. He knows generals and admirals to be human, capable of brilliance and blunder—not wizards whose word must be taken as golden. He knows soldiers need technology to succeed against our enemies, and to protect themselves, but understands better than most the importance of the morale & training of the individual soldier, sailor or airman. He will not send, as Reagan (Lebanon), Carter (Iran hostage crisis), Clinton (Somalia) and W (Iraq & Afghanistan) have done, the American military to places where the mission is vague, troops are ill-equipped or ill-prepared, or where multiple combat and post-combat strategies are not considered. He will ensure, as he has done in Iraq (to the best of his power as a senator) that when troops do leave a combat area, they leave in victory, with the stature of the United States military intact. When today's soldiers defeat the enemy and leave a better, freer state behind them, that reputation protects future troops and lessens the likelihood of emboldened enemies risking engagement.

My uncle died as a young POW of the Japanese in the Philippines, so John McCain's epiphany during his captivity in Vietnam regarding the exceptionalism of the United States strikes home in a very personal way. His story created an emotional connection for me that underwrites not only my loyalty to McCain, but my view of the world. Imagine that you have a son, daughter or spouse in the Armed Forces, because they also believe that this is a country worth fighting for. Honestly, whom would you trust more as his or her Commander-in-Chief: McCain or Obama?

Those who continue to call McCain a "warmonger" have never listened with an open mind to his thoughts on the subject of war, as expressed here in March of 2008: http://www.johnmccain.com/Informing/News/Speeches/872473dd-9ccb-4ab4-9d0d-ec54f0e7a497.htm. McCain is far more reticient about sending troops into Pakistan than Obama, who seems anxious to send more troops everywhere except Iraq.

On January 10, 2007, the night the surge of troops to Iraq was announced, Obama declared, "I am not persuaded that 20,000 additional troops in Iraq are going to solve the sectarian violence there. In fact, I think it will do the reverse." Yet to admit his original error, and subsequent denials of the effectiveness of the surge-in-progress to the contrary, Obama finally recently expressed his amazement that the "surge had succeeded beyond our wildest dreams" (what--Petraeus, Kagan and Keane are lucky lunatics?) and removed all prior criticism of the surge from his campaign website.

I agree with Senator Obama that sound judgment is a much more essential trait for a wise leader than a resume of experience, but he has yet to provide any strong example of either characteristic, while in McCain I see plenty of both.

Finally, I'm confident that McCain's foreign policy will not invite emergency responses by adopting weak, vacillating postures against our enemies, and against the enemies of our allies. For the bitter breakdown of the value of assuming the dulcet tones of one's own voice are sufficient to prevent conflict, see: http://www.commentarymagazine.com/viewarticle.cfm/obama-s--talking--cure-12504 by Joshua Muravchik.

2) Taxes & Spending

The differences between Democratic and Republican economic plans boil down to this: Democrats want to take your tax dollars and redistribute them to people and programs they think are deserving, while Republicans (the fiscally responsible ones, anyway, like McCain) want you to keep more of your net earnings to purchase products and services that you think are deserving (and which happen to be the most sustainable sources of jobs and income, rather than government-funded programs). In other words, Obama and Biden don’t trust you to make the correct decisions about what to do with your money, but McCain and Palin give you a little more credit.

Perhaps you’re thinking, "I’m not rich, so Obama/Biden won’t tax me, and maybe I’ll get some of those redistributed dollars (in the form of a universal healthcare plan, for instance)". Maybe, for the first year or so, that works. Then “the rich” (which, in good years, according to Obama/Biden, includes many subchapter-S small business owners such as yours truly, who combine business & personal income on one tax return) will adjust by downsizing, deferring projects and capital purchases—so that the anticipated tax revenue gain is never fully realized. Earlier this year an article appeared in the WSJ ("You Can't Soak the Rich", May 20, 2008) describing the work of a San Francisco-based economist, Kurt Hauser. Accompanying the article was a graph depicting the significant decline in the top income tax rates from 90% in the Fifties to about 35% today. The graph shows little blips upwards in the late Sixties and the Nineties, thanks to Democratic administrations, with big drops in the early Sixties and the Eighties, courtesy of JFK and Reagan). Here's the astonishing thing, though--at the bottom of the graph was an almost perfectly horizontal line indicating the history of tax revenues as a percentage of GDP in the same period---it remained almostly constantly at 20%, no matter what tax-cutters or tax boosters did to try to affect it. The state of the economy is a far greater influence on income, both personal and federal, than tax policy. If GDP increases, so do revenues; if it drops, revenues also drop.

So what happens to the “affordable” healthcare plan funded by those supposedly increased revenues? As with Medicare, the guarantee of government backing removes the risk that usually keeps costs in check in the private sector, so the program's costs soon start to exceed initial projections, and "universal healthcare" becomes yet another entitlement deficit-buster.

Democrats who support Obama’s tax increase on the “rich” and tax cuts for the “middle class” claim that the Clinton era from 1993 to 1999 proves the argument that such increases will help decrease the deficit. While it is true that the federal budget went from a deficit to a surplus in those years, a Senate Finance committee study determined that only 13% of the deficit reduction could be attributed to the tax increase, according to a floor speech by Senator Chuck Grassley in July 2008. The rest of the reduction resulted from economic growth (which Democrats can reasonably argue was not hurt by the tax increases, but Republicans can argue was helped by the end of the Cold War and Bush One’s prevention of a Saddam Hussein takeover of the Kuwait oil fields) and spending cuts—mostly in defense (Clinton cut eight divisions from the Army, in response to the above-mentioned "Peace Dividend"). Without substantial spending cuts, such as those addressed in McCain's proposed one year spending freeze on all budget items except defense and veterans' benefits, the deficit will continue to expand. McCain has also promised to balance the budget by the end of his first term, something Obama never even mentions as a commitment.

Anyway, Bill Clinton dropped his plans for a middle class tax cut just before the 1992 election, privately calling it “intellectually dishonest” (The Agenda, by Bob Woodward). Besides, which would you prefer--the $500-$1,000 Obama has promised as his tax cut/refundable credit (actually a refund of Social Security payroll taxes paid, meaning this will have to be paid by other, higher-earning taxpayers) or a private sector job created and sustained by businesses unburdened by mandated benefits or the second highest corporate tax rate in the world?

Obama's sliding tax credits phase out as individuals earn more (over $75,000), as well, putting them into higher tax rate brackets than the current system, and thus, as with all "progressive" tax policies, provide a disincentive to work to earn more (taxable) income.

Further justification for my support of McCain as a friend to small businessmen and taxpayers comes from a couple of congressional watchdog groups who have compared McCain's record with Obama's:

McCain gets a 100% rating in both the 109th & 110th Congress from the National Federation for Independent Businesses (we belong to this organization), while Obama got a 13% rating his first year, and in the 110th (as he began his run for President) a 50% rating (the rating indicates the number of times his vote matched the recommendation of the NFIB).

From the Citizens Against Government Waste, McCain gets an 88% lifetime rating (sixth highest in the Senate), Obama lifetime 18%, Biden, in 2007--0%. Comparing records, not rhetoric, puts McCain way ahead in this category.

3) Healthcare

Is the goal of universal health care to make citizens healthier? Or is it just to make those of us who have health insurance feel less guilty, and hospitals more profitable? As Mike Huckabee has said, having health insurance does not automatically make you healthier, nor does it guarantee that you will seek out preventative medical care even when it is free or cheap to do so. How else does one explain the higher survival rate of American women diagnosed with breast cancer than their British counterparts, who’ve had free healthcare for decades?

As an employer who subsidizes 75% of our employees’ health insurance premiums, I figured out that I could afford to give each of our 40 covered employees an average annual raise of about $4500 ($2000 +/-more for families, $2000 +/- less for singles) if I didn’t have to pay any health insurance premium at all on their behalf, which they could then deposit in their own individual Health Savings Account, supplemented by their former 25% contribution. Throw in the savings gained by cancelling thousand-dollar contracts with the compliance industry and there's more than enough to pay a family's HSA premium (granted, at group rates). A reluctant monarch, I would much rather have my employees choose their own plan and make their own healthcare decisions, free from my decidedly un-omnipotent interference.

I detest the current paternalistic, privacy-invading system that encourages employers to oversee their employees’ personal health, chiding perfectly self-aware adults for smoking or overeating to try to keep group rates low. Obama’s plan, which encourages people to seek government rather than private plans, will have the government doing the scolding, but if individuals ignore those admonitions, I’ll still have to pay for their poor decisions in the form of higher premiums or higher taxes—or will individuals face individual consequences for poor decisions under the Obama plan? That doesn’t sound “fair”, so I doubt it.

Who pays for Obama's health plan? He says that, in addition to raising $50-65 billion from tax increases, additional funds will come from "eliminating waste and inefficiency" in the health care system. How will he extract those funds from the system? Why, by spending $50 billion to promote ways to "eliminate waste and inefficiency"!
http://www.aei.org/publications/pubID.28755/pub_detail.asp
Does this sound like the definition of a circular argument?

McCain’s plan to remove the current deduction for group-covered employees, and to issue a tax credit ($5000 for families, $2500 for individuals) to all taxpayers (not just those covered by a group plan) who purchase health insurance (individually or through payroll premium contributions) is the first step towards allowing the currently uninsured, or individually insured, the same access to credible coverage as their group-covered peers. Even one of Obama's senior economic advisors, Jason Furman, endorsed removing this deduction two years ago, as a step towards greater equality of access to health insurance (Jason Furman, "Our Unhealthy Tax Code," Democracy: A Journal of Ideas. Issue 1, Summer 2006).

Employees can still remain with their current plan, and use the savings from the credit to make deposits in an individual HSA, which they can use for out-of-pocket medical expenses, or to save for a future job change. Employees or individuals enrolled in an HSA may obtain even greater savings through incentives for healthy behavior from the insurance plan.

Those who are currently uninsured due to the cost of covering their high risk medical conditions would, until all states began to require Guaranteed Access Plans, would still face exorbitant premiums--but would receive help from the tax credit if they used that to help purchase insurance, as well as income-level assistance. Also, McCain's plan to allow insurance companies to sell plans across state lines would allow individuals whose only choice now is their state "pool" far more options.

Why McCain: My Next Three Reasons

I've already spoken at length (to put it mildly) about my Reasons Four & Five (Immigration Reform, Pro-Life Agenda) for supporting McCain, so I won't repeat myself. Here's my Sixth Reason for Supporting McCain, which is really just a chance to talk about a subject important to me, not to echo anything the Senator has said.

Education Reform

Well-educated children grow into adult citizens that can solve almost any of the daunting problems our country faces. Although McCain seems a bit of a lightweight on substantive education reform ideas, that doesn’t mean I believe that any of Obama’s policy proposals will significantly improve our current system. And, as with most Democratic proposals, I believe we will pay through the nose for negligible results.

Neither candidate has advanced any plan as dramatically innovative and far-reaching (albeit failed, in some eyes) as NCLB, and perhaps that’s a good thing. Rather than creating entirely new programs, why not study, publicize, and copy the programs and methods that have been already been proven to be successful (Massachusetts, for instance, leads the nation in achievement levels, even though they increased their standards above the norm)? A successful school system is its own reward to its community—what the federal government ought to do is find creative ways to dispense this valuable information to other communities.

Instead of building on successes, however, the main feature of Obama’s education platform is the expansion of a forty-year-old program that has had little success in improving the cognitive abilities of young, disadvantaged children, Head Start (this negative evaluation courtesy of a Clinton-era commissioned study http://www.aei.org/publication23373). Obama’s Zero to Five Plan envisions educating infants as soon as they’re born instead of waiting until they’re three—which may be a good idea---I just don’t know how that works practically without somehow forcing parents to participate, and it’s a little creepy to think about the State taking away infants who should be bonding with their parents in order to mold them into future scholars. Even now, many children eligible for Head Start don’t participate, because their parents are disinterested or because they enroll their children in private pre-school programs, despite their cost.

Imagining that we can improve the education of disadvantaged children through increased funding for a program that has continually failed to do just that seems illogical--at best. Since the evidence from the study shows that the improvements over time for a child enrolled in Head Start are negligible, perhaps no institutional early education program, no matter how expansive, can really improve a child’s educational ability beyond what his genetic predisposition and his home environment provide. That may seem discouraging and defeatist, but many teachers complain that NCLB is forcing them to raise every child to an educational level that many cannot meet, due to these factors (genetics and home life).

Perhaps the focus of education policy, instead of exhorting teachers to jump higher and higher, ought to work on those factors that educators feel helpless to control, and find ways to better prepare students for school, where educators do have more control. The government has, for a long time, been doing an excellent job of preventing birth defects and promoting pre-natal health, and I can’t think of any ways to improve pre-school readiness in that area that a free society could tolerate. However, maybe policy should concentrate on enlisting parents themselves (the “home environment” part of those currently uncontrollable factors) to improve their child’s learning potential in those early years, and beyond, through the use of financial and tax-related incentives.

What if, instead of redistributing wealth in the form of dependent child tax credits (checks in the case of those who pay no net taxes), those tax credits or checks were issued on the basis of your child’s behavior and performance in school? It would have to be coupled with a mass marketing parent education kit (handed out at the hospital?) to explain goals and parameters, and contain information on ways to meet those goals, but it would get folks who might otherwise be discouraged by the long term goal of their child’s eventual success to focus on short term goals (set by teachers and school boards). This would reward effort rather than mere existence, as the current tax credit system does, and enlist those who have the most contact with their children to share the educational burden with their teachers and society. Society would benefit much more from a system that rewards parents for raising civil children who want to learn rather than just rewarding parents for having children.

The devil is in the details, definitely, but school systems that are struggling to cope might welcome self-interested (and therefore genuine) assistance from the parents in their community, with no new bureaucratic system to enforce it. Simply generate the entry level standards for each grade based those already in existence, add a behavior component (the “Conduct” grade on a report card), and distribute it to the IRS and parents in the same way that employers distribute W2s. Teachers would appreciate the help on behavior and learning from previously disinterested parents. The parents of newborns might receive the standard “existence credit” for the first two years of their child’s life, but that credit would be replaced at age three by a credit (or no credit) based upon a preschool report card. Thus even the parents of newborns would know that they need to begin at birth to prepare their child for school. If they chose to educate and nurture their child at home, performance on a test conducted by a private sector educational testing service that uses the standards set by the local school district would determine their eligibility for the credit. If that seems too invasive, well, eventually home-schooled children will need to participate in the workforce, and so they need to meet or exceed the same standards as their institutionally-schooled peers.

Coercion of teachers by parents unhappy with their child’s report card might be a problem, but would it be worse than the situations teachers face every day in their classrooms with unruly, disrespectful, truant students? This system rewards good behavior and attendance, as well as at-home support without publicly embarrassing poor (in an ethical, not income sense) parents in a way that might cause retribution. Entering and exiting grade and conduct report cards might reflect both on the parents and the teacher, and pinpoint the problem more specifically. If a child enters a grade on par with his peers, and his performance drops that year, but picks up the next, it may be the fault of a situation at home, but it may also not be the parents’ fault—this may be a bad teacher. Fire the teacher if this trend continues with his students. Conversely, a student who continually underperforms, no matter who the teacher, may have bad parents, and should be a candidate for intensive outside help in all categories (and fund this outside help with the tax credit/check that you DON’T give to his parents).

The situation of learning-disabled kids would naturally need to be handled separately---but, with a nod to NLCB, I wonder if some children aren’t prematurely labeled, and if their parents had access to educational aids in their homes from birth (that marketing kit), there wouldn’t be fewer kids entering the system already labeled as failures. I’m very ignorant of the educational needs and expectations that should address learning-disabled children, but I would think that similar standards could be set by the educators of those children, to make their job easier by focusing on the amount of readiness for school education provided at home, even if it is just simple behavioral standards.

And just as differing natural abilities to learn should not condemn learning-disabled children to a life of bleak poverty or state support, neither should their more “average” peers all be expected to point towards college as the only suitable educational goal. Charles Murray of AEI has written extensively about the need to elevate vocational education to the status of higher education, and a number of educators agree that many children either don’t want to, or simply cannot achieve the academic levels necessary to be successful at a white collar job. Again, publishing studies accurately comparing the lifetime earnings and workplace satisfaction of skilled craftsmen versus bachelor-degree-holding office workers might encourage more children to seek out occupations desperately in need of workers---welders, carpenters, pipefitters, etc. The tax credit system could just as easily reward the parents of a high school student who behaved, came to school regularly, and passed his welding certification test instead of College Prep English. Don’t get me wrong, I think core knowledge of history, literature, writing, science and math is critical to the citizens of a democracy, and should never be neglected in any curriculum. But if a kid can’t do well in college preparatory classes, shouldn’t we insist that he demonstrate sufficiency in some workplace skill, so that he doesn’t leave our educational system unable to support himself? Perhaps, if vocational education began at an earlier age, a high school graduate might leave school able to earn far more, and contribute more to the economic growth of the country, than his peers heading to college will in a decade, or ever.

In a nutshell, I think education and spending policy should amplify what has already been proven to work, and focus on parents as the missing link in today’s education policy proposals.

Biden's Blunder

My IQ is nowhere near the stratospheric number that I can only imagine Joe Biden’s to be--
(http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FyEqyYUGk4I)
--so I’m sure he could condescendingly explain to me why his support for abortion rights and his belief that life begins at conception are not contradictory, and therefore not subject to easy challenge in debate by lesser minds, such as those of his Republican opponents.

Here’s how I interpret his recent statements:

1) A woman is carrying a human life inside her womb, not a yet-to-be-determined something that is not human life.

2) Whatever the woman does with that life, as long as it remains inside her womb, is her business and her business only (he would not support turning his personal views into law).

3) Meanwhile, society has every right--even a responsibility--to interfere with her actions towards that life once it is outside her womb—unless Biden supports a woman’s right to neglect, murder or abuse her child without civil or criminal consequence---which, I think I can safely say without checking, the Senator does not. So, in this case, when life exists outside the womb (unless you voted against the Born Alive amendment, like his running mate), it is perfectly acceptable to impose personal views, in the form of law, upon individual women who injure or attempt to harm their child.

4) In effect, Biden answered the Saddleback question that Obama sidestepped—a life doesn’t acquire human rights in the United States until it is outside the womb. A life, an American citizen’s life, with fewer rights by virtue of location? But aren’t the protections of the American government extended to its citizens even in locations outside the U.S.? So, location can’t be the legal support, as of course the crafters of Roe vs. Wade knew, which is why they promoted privacy rights as the basis for that law.

5) Thus women, by virtue of Roe vs. Wade, may injure or kill their child only as long as it is still inside the womb. If Democrats would admit that as their position, and argue its justifications, instead of dancing around it with euphemisms like “choice”, they just might persuade me that some of the party’s other positions---on defense, taxes and health care, are also intellectually and practically sustainable. Until they drop the sophistry on abortion, though, I can’t respect their analytical thinking on any issue.

6) There used to be a saying that intelligent Catholics (I’m sure Joe Biden considers himself one) had to “leave their brains outside the door” in order to attend a church promulgating antiquated and outdated dogma. Perhaps Senator Biden’s big brain should come inside the Church with him next time, and consider adopting the Church's very defensible stance on Life: Just wars are okay, but abortion, euthanasia, and the death penalty are not. No nuances there--if you don’t favor killing the rapist, don’t kill his child, even when it is still in the womb (unless its birth may take the life of the mother). That’s just as disconcerting a stance for me as it must be for Joe Biden to condone the taking of what he knows to be innocent life, but even to my little brain, it’s forensically sound.

Is this the debate in which Obama's eager to engage? Really?