Progressives and determining the definition of 'progress'

In any election cycle, but particularly this one, you hear a lot about "Progressives" and the "Progressive Movement."

Like any political term, "Progressive" can be defined as many ways as you can define "Conservative" or "Liberal," depending on who is doing the defining. A Southern Democrat is not the same as a Northern Democrat, and a Midwestern Liberal is certainly not the same as a California Liberal. (Just as northern Conservative Republicans are not the same as Southern Conservative Republicans.)

Of course, saying you're a "Progressive" just sounds so right. Who can be against progress, right?

But "Progressive," as used by Hillary Clinton and many Democrats, is a political term, just like Conservative. It might be worth knowing where the Progressive movement is generally credited with its foundation.

Progressives or the progressive movement came out of the Industrial Revolution, when a group of people believed – among other things – that the Civil War proved the failure of the Constitution and America needed a new way of thinking because times had changed. They looked to governments in Europe as their model.

And they believed there are no – or are very few – absolute ‘truths.’ Progressive Charles Merriam, in 1920, wrote “the idea that men possess inherent and inalienable rights of a political or quasi-political character which are independent of the state has been generally given up.“

So while Conservatives believe the Founders believed in limiting what government could and could not do, Progressives sought to establish a government dedicated to bringing about “progress” – whatever that takes.

And while that sounds good, the question becomes, when do you finally achieve progress? When can you say “progress has been fully realized and now we’re through?” Doesn’t the future always promise more change, more progress to be made?

So how does this apply to government?

By seeking the limitless goal of “progress,’’ progressives necessarily reject the idea of limited government. Limits on government are unnecessary because government grows or contracts (yeah, sure) as a matter of expediency or need. Rather than asking if government had the POWER to do something, progressive asked whether, practically speaking if government COULD do something. And anything that stood in the way of government doing something – like amendments to the Constitution – was an obstacle to progress.

Therefore, “rights” aren’t established by nature and Nature’s God – as the Founders said - but rather government creates rights to address problems as needed. The founders believed rights pre-exist government. Progressives believe rights are granted by government, and cannot be permanent because times change.

Where the Founders said rights guarantee people the ability to pursue social and economic gain, the progressives want to ensure equality in the pursuit by guarantying everyone’s economic and social security through government.

We see that today. Congress has delegated law-making power to unaccountable administrative agencies. These agencies issue rules, enforce them, and judge disputes. Congress seems to be no longer part of the equation.

For Founders, the end purpose of government is to protect natural rights. For progressives, government is a Darwinian organism with no fixed end or purpose, except to continually evolve and change to strive toward the undefinable goal of ‘progress.’

So the Founders relied on private associations such as the church and the family to form morals and habits necessary for free government. Progressives viewed these as obstacles, and believed the public education system was the proper way to direct social change and establish the so-called virtues of the new society.

Progressives argue that the Constitution is a “living” document. By that they mean one that evolves, changes over time, and adapts to new circumstances, without being formally amended. Progressives argue that laws develop to reflect the needs of the time. Justice Marshall once said “I do not believe the meaning of the Constitution was forever ‘fixed’ at the Philadelphia Convention.”

There is a famous quote by the late Justice Scalia where he says of the Constitution of the United States – and I quote – “It’s not a living document. It’s dead, dead, dead.” He added,"If you somehow adopt a philosophy that the Constitution itself is not static, but rather, it morphs from age to age to say whatever it ought to say — which is probably whatever the people would want it to say — you've eliminated the whole purpose of a constitution. And that's essentially what the 'living constitution' leaves you with.”

Conservatives argue that while society evolves and issues change, there are certain rules or laws that never change, whose interpretations are fixed. Progressives say there are no unchanging rules or laws, that everything has to be interpreted to fit the times in which we live.

Justice Brennan in 1986 wrote “The genius of the Constitution rests not in any meaning it might have had in a world that is dead and gone, but in the adaptability of its great principles to cope with current problems and current needs.” He went on to say it is the responsibility of judges to provide that adaptation through “a personal confrontation with the wellsprings of our society.”

Which side you fall on goes a long way in determining your political view, and defines “Conservatives” and “Progressives.”

So, the key question is for all of us, which do you think is right? For that will determine the future of the country.

Picking your oppression label

So to what oppressed group do you belong?
If you're not part of one, you're not relevant, not cool, you apparently don't matter.
We all know the "groups" that matter: African-Americans and women, of course. Hispanics (or Latinos, depending on your choice of labels). The Gay community.
But there are Native Americans. Native Hawaiians. Native Alaskans. Migrant farm workers. Illegals. Union members. Tea Partiers. The 99 percent. Environmentalists.
The young and the old (The advocates for Senior Citizens have, in one case, banded together under the clever label "Gray Matters").
Muslims, of course. Jews. Evangelical Christians. Atheists. And nobody seems to like Hari Krishnas (at least not at the airport).
And then the sub sets: Working women. Single moms. Soccer moms. NASCAR moms. And USA Today not long ago introduced a new group it called "Wal-Mart moms."

There is something about our society that awards some sort of perceived moral authority to people we label "victims" or "marginalized" or "oppressed" - perhaps because we love to fight for "rights" - human rights, women's rights, civil rights, animal rights, gay rights ... again, if you don't think you're being denied some basic right, call the ACLU or the Southern Poverty Law Center; I'm sure someone on staff at one of those two organizations can find some way you've been oppressed.

This will come as a shock to many of the people in many of the above lists, but this very idea of the oppressed having such standing can be traced to .... Christianity.
Yes, I know. It's popular to blame Christians and Christianity for being the cause of so much oppression. And I am certainly aware of the many times in history that people, animals, and the environment (just to cover my bases) have been victimized by certain groups in the name of Christ.
But Jesus - who lived as part of an oppressed group under a harsh and repressive occupying government - instructed his followers to take the side of the underdog: the widow and orphan and prisoner and the hungry.
Consider that Jesus himself died as a prisoner, and his early followers continued to be victimized throughout the early years after Jesus' death (and resurrection). Most of history is the story of the powerful oppressing the conquered, and nobody wanted to identify with the powerless.
But Christianity is the story of the victim becoming the hero by becoming the victim. That was Jesus' example, and it's an model that Christianity has followed time after time.
And the way early Christians conducted themselves won over the populace in Europe, and did so without weapons or allies or any semblance of earthly power.
And even as Christianity became identified with political power in Europe and, therefore, throughout the world, it is also true that throughout the subsequent centuries Christians took the lead in the move to end slavery and educate the illiterate and bring medical care and, yes, elevate the oppressed by fighting to end the idea of "classes" of people in societies all around the world.

So if today we lift up the victimized and oppressed and bestow upon them a level of recognition or popularity, it is because of the influence of Christianity. As someone once wrote, "in a great irony, the politically correct movement often portrays itself as an enemy of Christianity when in fact the gospel has contributed to what has made possible the existence of such a movement." (I can't remember where that came from; I found it written on a scrap of paper in my Bible).

Even when accused (and sometimes being guilty) of oppression, the Church's influence to make our society better continues.

Geraldo, 'Woodstein', and rock star reporters

Grandpa Ray! Tell us a story about when you were growing  up!
   When I was a young man in Journalism school (or "J-school" as it was called), there were two "rock stars'' that influenced me and most of my classmates: Geraldo Rivera, and the two reporters that brought down the Nixon government collectively known as "Woodstein," actually Bob Woodward and Carl Bernstein.
   Why we admired Woodward and Bernstein was obvious. Two reporters who stumbled upon Watergate, the event that brought about the conviction of so many White House staffers and presidential advisers and ultimately led to the resignation of the President, Richard Nixon.
   That seemed to be the ultimate example of the power of the "Fourth Estate," the unofficial fourth wing of the United States' governmental system of checks and balances. A free media is there to be a watch dog on public officials, and no one emerged as more of a watch dog than the Washington Post in the early 1970s.
   As for Geraldo - one of the first pop culture stars to be known simply by one name - he was a passionate "journalist" who crossed the line that we were taught was sacrosanct of impartial observer to involved, impassioned story-teller. In class we often made fun of the way Geraldo so obviously took sides in his reporting, but we loved the fact that he didn't sit behind a desk and tell the story, or do his reporting from a nearby media center, but rather put on his fatigues and walked into the middle of whatever story he was "doing." (He "did" stories, rather than 'report' them).
   Yes, it was sensational. But it was exciting, too. I always wanted to be a war correspondent along the lines of Ernie Pyle or Michael Herr (an embedded journalist who covered the Vietnam war and wrote a fascinating book called "Dispatches"). Both of those men - and many others like them, but those two were among the most famous - lived with, ate with, slept with, marched with the soldiers they covered, telling the soldiers' story from the front line. Indeed, after Pyle made the European theatre so real for Americans in the way he covered that  part of World War II, he turned his attention to the fighting that was still going on in the Pacific (after the surrender of Germany) and was killed in action.
   So Woodward and Bernstein and Geraldo became the rock stars of journalism, opening up to many of my generation the idea that not only could we report on the most powerful and famous  people in the world, but we could actually join the most  powerful and famous people in the world.
   This was not new, by any means. People who talk about media as being objective don't know their history. The media in this country has rarely been truly objective. Go back in history and see the way the media attacked even George Washington; how the media abused Andrew Jackson; the influence of editor Horace "Go West Young Man" Greeley in making the New York Tribune the mouth-piece of first the Whig party and then the new Republican Party; and so on.
   So what we're seeing now with the proliferation of cable news networks and talk radio shows that barely try to hide their political agendas is not new.
   However, this idea of journalists becoming rock stars really took off with Geraldo and the two-headed  monster often referred to as "Woodstein" - particularly when Robert Redford and Dustin Hoffman played them in the movie "All the President's Men."
   Even as I was part of the media for so many years and believed in it and defended it, I worried about it the profession. "Watergate" and Woodward-Bernstein created a position known in every media room as "investigative reporter,'' which too often became little more than a professional bounty hunter in pursuit of the great evil doers of society. The problem with that was/is that there is often not enough evil to go around, so to justify having that position, investigative reporters had to make everything they report sound as if it were going to be the next Watergate.
   And too often, reporters moved from the ununofficial "fourth estate'' relationship to the government into something akin to the Secret Police.Unlike real police, however, reporters are not bogged down by due process or legal procedure, and they have the power to indict, prosecute, and convict anyone as long as the story sells papers or generates improved ratings.

   I have been part of "investigative teams" that were assigned to look into a story, only to realize there really wasn't a story there after all. But because the paper had invested so many resources (manpower, time, money) into the investigation, we pretty much had to justify ourselves by coming up with something, anything. So we did.
   One of my favorite stories occurred during the early days of the internet. I was in sports, and often we'd get these rumors on the internet that went viral. It seemed like everyone was repeating it. I had an editor who told me I needed to write a story about this rumor. I said I had looked  into this particular rumor and it was not true. The editor then said I should write a story saying the rumor wasn't true. I laughed and said, "This is great. You want me to write a story about things that aren't true? I can do that all day, every day. I can fill the paper writing about stories that aren't true!"
   At that time, to this editor's credit, he realized what I was saying and left the idea alone. But I dare say that these days, that same editor is forced to have his reporters address wide-spread rumors in print or on air because "that's what  people are talking about."

   Add to that the fact that reporters know they can make their reputation by being the one people talk about, that they can not only report news, but make news, and that makes them famous - mini "Geraldos'' and "Woodsteins."
Which has been and remains the goal of so many J-school graduates since the 1970s.
   And just like you have to be wary of politicians who become addicted to power, so do you have to be wary of reporters who seek that kind of power. Because power and recognition is addictive; it makes crack look like caffeine in comparison.

   At the same time, I still believe in the necessity of a free and unfettered media. I'd rather have the current system of agenda-led media than a state-controlled media (and yes, I realize some would argue that some of the media appears to have become state-controlled). Because somewhere in the middle of the extremes lies the truth, and "we the people" have a responsibility to educate ourselves - often by reading through the extremes - to decide for ourselves what is true, or at least what we believe to be true.
   And, yes, I'd jump at the chance to be something like a war correspondent again, to put myself in the middle of the biggest story to be as close to a neutral observer as I could be. There is nothing, for me, like the rush of confirming and breaking a story and racing to meet deadline, of being the one "in the know."
   Because knowledge remains power.
   But we all know what power does ....

Obama and Lincoln: if one president is going to quote another, at least get it right

Context.

We all know how important context is when trying to understand history. Or The Bible. Or the Constitution. Or NCAA rules. Or the instructions your father gave you of what he expected you to do in exchange for certain privileges.

We all know of cases where people pull a verse of the Bible out because it sounds like it supports their particular point of view, but when you read the chapter or book the verse was pulled from, you realize it didn't mean what they said it means after all.

Monday in President Obama's State of the Union, he quoted President Lincoln as a way to throw a bone to the Republican Party (which, oddly enough, has done more for minorities - see Emancipation Proclamation and Civil Rights) and yet continue to make his point for big brother-style government.

Obama quoted Lincoln this way: "I believe what Republican Abraham Lincoln believed: That Government should do for people only what they cannot do better by themselves, and no more."

Except the closest I can find (and other historians who have researched the quote seem to agree) is a quote from Lincoln that actually says: "The legitimate object of government is to do for a community of people whatever they need to have done, but cannot do at all, or cannot so well do, for themselves in their separate and individual capacities."

That, to me, is just different enough from the point President Obama was trying to make so as to change the context of the quote. Given what the government, over time, has convinced the American public are "entitlements," Obama seems to argue that Lincoln agreed Government should only do for citizens what they cannot do better by themselves.
I read Lincoln's actual quote as saying Government should do what people need to have done but "cannot do at all, or cannot so well do, for themselves ..." "
Now, maybe I'm just being picky, but I see a difference there.
Particularly when you go on to read the rest of Lincoln's speech, entitled "The Nature and Object of Government, with Special Reference to Slavery.”

And in it, Lincoln also said:
"Equality in society alike beats inequality, whether the latter be of the British aristocratic sort or of the domestic slavery sort. We know Southern men declare that their slaves are better off than hired laborers among us. How little they know whereof they speak!

There is no permanent class of hired laborers amongst us. Twenty-five years ago I was a hired laborer. The hired laborer of yesterday labors on his own account to-day, and will hire others to labor for him to-morrow. Advancement—improvement in condition—is the order of things in a society of equals. As labor is the common burden of our race, so the effort of some to shift their share of the burden onto the shoulders of others is the great durable curse of the race."

Unfortunately, government - and this began way before President Obama - has created a class that has to decide whether it's better to 'labor' or just continue to live off the rest of us.
One of the things we hear regarding illegal immigrants is that "those people" do the jobs Americans refuse to do, and without them who would do those hardest or dirtiest or lowest paying of jobs?
That's ridiculous.
The free market dictates that if those jobs need to be done, employers will pay whatever it takes to hire people to do them. So by not having illegals to bully into working for next to nothing, it might actually help the economy by raising wages!
That is, unless what is offered in wage is still less than what the government pays people not to work, to forget that "labor is the common burden of our race" but that some continue to try to "shift their share of the burden onto the shoulders of others."

President Obama is hardly the first president or politician or congressman or preacher or teacher or parent or neighbor to take something out of context in hopes of making a point.

Certainly he won't be the last.
That's why it's important for you and me and the rest of us to educate ourselves, to make our own decisions, to debate in the public square as to the way we believe is best for all of us to live together in peace.

And remember that a little context can make a big difference.

Simple but radical ideas we take for granted

Interesting to listen to soon-to-be-former Governor Haley Barbour of Mississippi recently.
He gave a little reminder of basic civics lesson for a Republic.
State-wide elections - including governor - were Tuesday, Nov 8, in Mississippi. Barbour, who has done the maximum two terms and so isn't running again, told a crowd in Jackson something along the lines of "I don't care who you vote for - no, that's not right. Everyone knows I'm a Republican, so I do have a preference. But what I do want is for everyone, regardless of party, to get out and vote."
Then Barbour told an interesting story about his first election as governor.
"When I won, running against the incumbent, the incumbent got 10,000 more votes than he'd gotten in the previous election when he won,'' Barbour said.
Barbour went on to say that kind of turn-out was good for him, and for Mississippi. It showed participation, and gave him as the new governor a good indication of what his mandate for office was going to be.
Essentially, what Barbour reminded me of was that numbers of votes matter. If a candidate wins by an landslide, he can be sure he has an overwhelming support for his positions and platform. He can enter office with confidence.
Likewise, if he wins by a narrow margin - and there is a large turnout of voters - the elected official knows his constituency is somewhat divided and that should help guide him going forward.
We do not live in a Democracy, where every citizen votes on every law or amendment that comes up. Such a government is unwieldy and inefficient.
We live in a Republic.
- - - - -
It's easy to forget that our government really was one founded on ideas. Nothing like it - at least in terms of scope - had ever been tried before. Parts of it, yes; and maybe smaller versions of the bigger picture.
But for most of the world's history, the power of government either belonged to those who could take it and control the people being ruled, or it belonged to those who inherited (from someone who, somewhere in the past, had demonstrated the ability to take the power and hold on).
Then came this great idea hammered out by a variety of 'thinkers' back in the late 1700s. One of their most revolutionary ideas was to turn the idea of power in government upside down with the notion that power should rest not in institutions but in individuals. No nation had ever embraced human equality and God-given individual rights as fundamental to organizing the rule of law; never had a nation recognized the sovereignty of the citizen over that of the government.
Before this, all governments' power rested either in the "divine right of kings," or else the authority that comes from brute force against the people being ruled.
But in America, the individual has always mattered above all. Power is to reside in the individual, not the government - but individuals do temporarily, and with conditions and limitations, give power to the government for the purpose of maintaining social order, the public good, and national defense.
That's just one reason why the "group think" of socialism and communism and even many in this country considered "liberal" just doesn't work. When you become concerned about "groups" of people, you lose sight of individuals.
And by looking out for the rights of 'groups,' you inevitably cripple the individual, who becomes a nameless, faceless part of that group.
For example, there is nothing wrong with saying we're going to provide a certain level of income for widows or single mothers who are having trouble taking care of their children. That's a great idea, in general.
But when you start to look at the idea in carried out individually, you see that it has had the case of causing generations to believe that's the best standard of living they can hope for; the standard they even come to depend on. And so while the bigger "group" might be build up, individual parts of that group are crippled.
How else can you explain that the number of people in this country living below what we call the poverty level has actually increased since the government declared its "War on Poverty" in the 1960s? With all the trillions spend in aid and education, shouldn't we be seeing results in terms of fewer people in poverty?
But we don't.
And I've addressed the "group vs. the individual'' concept previously, here (and the sub-link inside that link).
This is why we should always have a healthy dose of skepticism about government, while realizing the form of our government remains the best man has been able to come up with.
It just needs a return to basics.
-----------
We keep hearing this concept of "justice'' in our politicians and protesters. Even so-called conservatives buy into ideas like "economic justice."
And while I'm all for justice when it comes to dealing with individuals, this country is not and never has been about "economic justice."
This country has always been about "economic opportunity."
-------------------------------
I recently had a conversation with an ardent supporter of President Obama. I asked him why, and he came back with "why not?"
That's not much of an answer, of course. We discussed it for awhile, and he told me that President Obama had not had any support from Congress. I pointed out that for two years, the President had a Democratically controlled Congress. He said even so, the President still didn't have support, that Obama's motto was not "Yes I Can!" but "Yes We Can!"
Eventually - and with great political incorrectness, I admit - I told him that in 1976, my first Presidential election, I voted for Jimmy Carter because Carter was from Georgia (as I was) and I really wanted to see a Georgian become President!
Even more than that, for years after (sometimes to this day) I still defend Carter.
So I absolutely understand when black Americans, or African-Americans, want to support President Obama. They rightfully take great pride in seeing someone who looks like them in the position of being the head of the government. I would expect no less.
However, that also doesn't work.
See, the point of self-government is not to be a venue to express love for the president. The point of self-government is to be able to work toward programs that can bring Americans together to get something good for the entire country.
For most of us, our self-government is limited to the act of voting.
So for the Constitutions' sake, let's not forget that.
It's one clear voice that politicians understand.

A Do-Nothing Government

Right up front, let me apologize if you thought, from the title of this missive, that I was going to attack the current government as a "do-nothing government;" nothing could be further from the truth.
This current government, like so many before it, is far from "do-nothing."
Very far, I'm afraid.
I know this will offend the people who are concerned about the poor and feel the government should be doing more to help them; the people who believe the political system is corrupt and the government should do something to fix it; and the people who believe the economy is a mess and the government should do something to straighten it out.
But quite honestly, at this point, I think the best thing that could happen is that the president and congress stay deadlocked, unable to get anything done.
See, I have this great faith that, eventually, people will fined the best solutions.
I've seen it over and over. Go back to the horrible tornadoes that ripped apart much of north Alabama last spring. Go through north Alabama now and you'll find the people who are still waiting for help are those who are waiting for the government and FEMA, while the areas where things are getting done - where houses are being rebuilt and lives put back together -are areas where organizations like Christian Service Mission (just to name one of many) organized churches and volunteers and regular people from all over the country and provided the means to get started successfully rebuilding lives and communities.
Visit the gulf coast of Mississippi, ground zero for Hurricane Katrina. While New Orleans - which wasn't devastated by the actual hurricane but by a levee that broke because government hadn't taken care of it - still complains about people not moving back and government not keeping its promises to rebuild the communities, in places like Pass Christian and Bay St. Louis and Long Beach ordinary people organized by civic groups and churches came in to clean up and start the rebuilding process. Every day it seems like a new road is being finished and a new business being opened. As Biloxi mayor A.J. Holloway said, "This is going to be the year of ribbon-cuttings."
In 2008, a flood in destroyed huge parts of Cedar Rapids, Iowa. FEMA predicted that 40 percent of the city would be never recover. But Cedar Rapids is back on its feet today because citizens stepped up when needed and united to save property, rebuild, restore, and get the community back on its feet.
After World War II, the poverty rate in America consistently fell, until in 1969 it was at the lowest point in almost a century at 12.1 percent. But in 1965 then-President Lyndon Johnson instituted the well-meaning War on Poverty, and despite spending more on this war than in all the wars from the Revolution to the year 2000 (roughly $16 trillion), the poverty rate has not been affected.
I read a story the other day that was written to point out the unfairness of the state of Alabama's tough anti-illegal immigration law. In it, the owner of Max's Deli in Birmingham spoke out, saying that out of fear of reprisal even his legal immigrant workers had quit. But then the story goes on to say "To replace his legal workers, who he says feel compelled to leave because of the law, (deli owner Steve) Dubrinsky said he offered one job to a woman who wouldn't take the work because she would lose her food stamps. He also said he offered a job to another person who worked two hours before quitting. 'It's easier said than done,' he said of finding new workers."
Did you get that? A unemployed woman wouldn't take the job because she would lose her government benefits! With the government providing so many free benefits, many people simply choose not to work.
And can you blame them?
Maybe you remember reading about activists in Pennsylvania who believed government should provide the poor with free cell phones. And then there is this story where Connecticut's U.S. Representative Rosa DeLauro wants government to provide free diapers.
Talk about your "nanny state" - this, to me, robs people of their dignity; the dignity that comes from being able to take care of yourself and your family.
Yes, I know the argument is that these people are not in a position to take care of their families if they wanted to.
But we've seen that all the good intentions of the government to take care of people over the last 60 years has only taken care of government employees, because it creates processes that create government jobs that enrich those people who get government jobs but only continues the cycle of poverty for those who find being taken care of by the government is easier than actually taking jobs (like working in Max's Deli) that could lead to self-sufficiency, dignity, and the beginning of the end of the poverty cycle.
That's why I'd like to see a "do nothing" government.
It would hurt for awhile. But eventually, I'm convinced, good people would step up and do what they should have been doing all along, what they used to do in the 1700s and 1800s during the times of the First and Second Great Awakenings when charitable organizations sprang to life all over the country to care for the poor.
We could learn from our forefathers. From 1818 to 1824, New York's "Society for the Prevention of Pauperism" annually printed its top causes of poverty. The first three causes were ignorance, idleness, and intemperance; then came "want of economy," imprudent and hasty marriages, and lotteries; then three specific institutions: pawnbrokers, brothels, and gambling houses.
And as hard as it would be to preach those nine issues now, even in the early 1800s the 10th reason for poverty might surprise you: "charities that gave away money too freely." (Taken from "The First Annual Report of the Managers of the Society for the Prevention of Pauperism in the City of New York, pp 12-22).
Even then, too easy subsidy of people's lives was seen as destructive, both morally and materially.
Somewhere, I read the story about a former advisor to one-time presidential candidate Michael Dukakis who said he did not give money to beggars because "I pay taxes for social workers to determine who is truly needy."
As long as government says it will solve the problem, citizens won't have to.
That's why if government would just stop, I believe even more good people would join in, and then we'd really see something good start to happen.

Honestly, is a new government really so unthinkable?

I said it before (here: "Why Are Egyptians Protesting in English ..." ) so let me say it again:
The smartest way to overthrow a government is recruit college kids. It's smart, because college kids are at that age when they believe they are immortal.
They believe they can change the world.
They are always looking for a cause.
And when the cause also involves missing classes ... so much the better.
They are young, and everyone likes youth. They are articulate. .
There is one more huge reason why college kids make the best protesters, but I'll come back to that in a minute.
So when I watch the Wall Street Protests that are spreading to a big city near you, and I hear the organizers pushing for college kids to not only join in but, at one point, even organize a class walk-out to show support for the movement, I can't be surprised.
Hey, I was young once. And rebellion is in the historical blood line of America.
When I was in college, I made a point of memorizing the Declaration of Independence  -- some of which I still remember to this day! And of course one of the great lines you rarely hear quoted is the one about "... when ever any form of government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the right of the people to alter or abolish it ..."
That has always been that part of the system of checks and balances that our founding fathers so believed in that has been the people's threat (for lack of a better word) over the establishment.
However ... there is another line in that same document that is not quoted enough, either. It goes "...Prudence, indeed, will dictate that Governments long established should not be changed for light and transient causes ..."
Meaning we don't overthrow governments on a whim, or without first experiencing a "long train of abuses and usurpations ..." And the truth is, this great experiment in government that is the United States of America is not so broke that the system, as designed by the founders, can't fix it. I honestly believe that.
But it will take a revolution.
Here is what we sometimes forget about our country: every four to eight years, we actualy undergo a revolution. The ruling head of the government is removed from office by the will of the people, only without guns but with the ballot box. And sometimes I think it is easy to forget, in the entire history of the world, how rare such a peaceful regular revolution is.
But back to what I'm hearing from these Wall Street Protesters.
The more I listen, the more I find myself thinking that so many of what these protesters are against are the same things conservatives are against:
They protest Wall Street bankers from getting preferential treatment from the Government, major corporations who benefit from huge tax breaks, the lack of opportunity for the poor.
So do most Conservatives.
The difference, of course, is that Conservatives (generally speaking) believe it was government that gave preferential treatment to Wall Street through bail-out money that most citizens opposed, that those major corporations that were "bailed out'' by the government then didn't have to pay taxes on that money; and that opportunity for the poor doesn't come from government taking care of the poor but from the free market allowing for the encouragement of creating businesses that need to hire more and more workers to meet growing demands.
The protesters, for all their protest of the government, seem to believe the answer is more government because governments are created to look after people and should therefore force some brand of equality - which is what socialism, in theory, is supposed to do.
And in a perfect world, socialism would work. However, what history tells us is that this is far from a perfect world, and when there is a limit to what people are allowed to accomplish when creativity and ambition are stifled.
As for the belief that government should somehow "level the playing field," I wonder if they understand that government makes money by forcing people to use its services, or by taxation?
Not that I complain. But it's true. And that is an interesting debate in itself.
I heard a guy the other day who, reflecting upon the passing of Steve Jobs, wondered how many of those Wall Street protesters carrying Apple products understood how those gadgets came to exist.

Do they realize that what started out as two men in a garage with ideas and passion would have been nothing more than two guys in a garage with ideas and passion had it not been for an IPO on Dec. 12, 1980, when Apple went public at $22 per share? 

And that 'Big Bad Wall Street' raised $101 million that enabled Jobs to expand his ideas, create jobs and revolutionize the landscape of technology?

How ironic that the next time one of these Wall Street protesters makes, say, an iTune purchase, it can be traced back to some Big Bad Banker’s belief in Mr. Jobs and his company!

But the absolute best reason to use college kids when you're protesting the government?
Eventually, college kids go back to school.
And when they leave, what they leave behind is a power vacuum. And who will be ready to step in and fill that vacuum?
That's the real question, isn't it?
There is no question we're getting ready, in 2012, for a revolution. Either the current administration will be removed, or it will withstand the challenge and remain in power.
(There is a third option, of course, of an actual over-throw of the government, but as reprehensible as that idea is, it should never be "unthinkable." We have to always be guarding against that possibility until, as the Founders said, it seems unavoidable to protect our "future security.").
Like Hermain Cain, I wonder why these protesters aren't surrounding the White House or the Capitol Building.
They might find a lot of other people willing to support them if they did.
And a government might finally feel compelled to listen.

Suspend elections? Don't make me laugh!

Maybe nobody should take what North Carolina Gov. Bev Perdue said seriously.
I admit, it's very hard to believe she could have meant what she said.
For those of you who might have missed it, the honorable Democratic governor of North Carolina addressed a recent Rotary Club in Cary, N.C. and, when asked about fixing the economy, said: "You have to have more ability from Congress, I think, to work together and to get over the partisan bickering and focus on fixing things. I think we ought to suspend, perhaps, elections for Congress for two years and just tell them we won't hold it against them, whatever decisions they make, to just let them help this country recover. I really hope that someone can agree with me on that. The one good thing about Raleigh is that for so many years we worked across party lines. It's a little bit more contentious now but it's not impossible to try to do what's right in this state. You want people who don't worry about the next election."
Perdue said she was joking, and I believe her. After all, it's such an outrageous statment that it's almost impossible to take seriously - although I'm also sure a lot of politicians (Democrats AND Republicans) who would actually be happy to go along with the idea if they were really being honest. Staying elected has become as important as getting elected to these people.
Generally speaking (and I say "generally" because the last statistics I saw were from the 1990s), something like 90 percent of all incumbents get re-elected. After the first re-election (meaning after being sent to Congress for a second time), about the only way an incumbent, regardless of party, failed to return to office again was if either he or she decided to retire or decided to take a chance on running for a different office or got caught with their pants down.
 Literally.
That's the kind of congressional consistency and solidarity that has gotten this country into the mess we're in, and Gov. Perdue's point - even if made jokingly, the point is the same - is that we should leave Congress alone to let them "work out the problem?"
Preposterous. Ridiculous. Outrageous.
It's almost like taxation without representation, because the people who have been up there "representing'' us for so long use the power of their office to overwhelm opposition and do whatever it takes to stay in office.
Now, I am fully aware that politicians would say they have term limits; that they face the possibility of an imposed term limit in every election; that if the people want them out of office, they can vote them out.
But when the point of reaching Congress is to stay in Congress, politicians build alliances and do things to keep their 'base' of voters in line.
The truth is, we need term limits. If politicians go into office knowing they only have a set amount of time to get things done and then they go home, back to business, they can actually be "citizen statesmen."
Most governorships are limited to two terms. The presidency is limited to two terms. In essence, every four-to-eight years we have peaceful revolutions in this country as the power transfers from one "head of state" to another. And it's been a pretty successful system.
So why shouldn't it work in Congress?
Here is what I propose, and I admit this idea is hardly original with me: 12 year term limits. That's three elections for Senators (four year terms) and six elections for Representatives (two year terms). It gives them enough time to understand the way the system works, to get things done, and it also keeps their time in office relatively balanced. It allows them to go beyond one presidents' potential maximum time in office so they can continue to operate outside that presidents' influence (they'll either be in office before the president takes office or stay in office beyond the presidents' term).
Anything shorter and what you'd have is a string of elected officials who arrive in Washington, DC, and have to rely on pre-existing staffers and bureaucrats who, even now, tend to remain while politicians come and go.
Twelve year terms allows for new blood to be constantly introduced into the system, yet keeps the institutional knowledge that is necessary to keep the government being ground to a halt.
Gov. Perdue was dead wrong. We don't need to suddenly trust our elected officials to fix the problem. After all, our whole system of government was built on a sense of mistrust - checks and balances, Congress making laws, Presidents signing or vetoing, Supreme Court Justices ruling on the Constitutionality of those laws.
Our founding fathers recognized the old Calvinistic concept of the basic depravity of man, that power corrupts, and everyone entrusted with the public trust needs careful watching.
Calvin - and the founders - understood it's a lot easier for an honorable man to do the right thing when he knows he's being watched.
Suspend elections?
Perdue is fortunate we're not like some countries that have elections whenever there is a loss of confidence in what the ruling party has done. If that were the case, I have a feeling we wouldn't be waiting until Nov. 2012 for a national referendum

Suspend elections, Gov. Perdue?

Don't make me laugh.

 

George Washington and Benedict Arnold and qualities that feel just too familiar

It's funny, sometimes, how you come across a really good book.
With all this current free time I have in the evenings, I've become a regular at the Pass Christian library - not in the evenings, because it closes at 5:30; but sometimes I stop by on the way in to work (it opens at 8), or get by with a few minutes left before closing. Neither of those options gives me much time to really look around, so the first few times I went I'd go straight to authors I knew I wanted to read.
But then I began to branch out and just grab stuff at random, based on titles, because what the heck? If I don't like the book, I don't have to read it. I'm not buying it. And nobody will care if I don't read it and simply return it unread.
So while wandering through the history section (because I love history), I stumbled across a book called "George Washington and Benedict Arnold: A Tale of Two Patriots."
Catchy title, right? Because we all know of Washington as the greatest of patriots. But Arnold, whose name is synonymous with being a traitor?
Yet Arnold had been a great general in the Revolutionary War before changing sides. And this book is written by a former superintendent of West Point, which is interesting because West Point also happened to be the point of Arnold's treachery. He was going to arrange the capture of West Point, of which he was commander, by the British, in exchange for money.
 As many great battles as Arnold won leading American forces against the British - and he was arguably a far more successful general and American hero early in the war than Washington - Arnold also felt betrayed by the Continental Congress, by rivals within the Army, and cheated by the amount of his personal fortune he spent on the cause that Congress delayed and then refused to reimburse.
Still, at one point there was talk of Arnold replacing Washington as Commander in Chief of the Continental Army - that's how highly he was thought of and how frustrated Congress got at times with Washington.
But you can read the book.
It's an interesting study in character.
The ancient Greeks defined character as the sum of four virtues: Fortitude (strength of mind and the courage to persevere in the face of adversity); Temperance (self-discipline to control emotions and appetites); Prudence (making the right choices); and Justice (fairness, honesty, keeping your word).
Major General Joshua Chamberlain, a hero of the War of Northern Aggression (even though he was a Union officer), told a group of war veterans his definition of character: "I do not mean bravery. Many a man has that. What I mean by character is a firm and seasoned substance of the soul. I mean such qualities as intelligence, thoughtfulness, conscientiousness, right-mindedness, patience, fortitude, long-suffering and unconquerable resolve."
I like the phrase "A firm and seasoned substance of the soul."
And Ronald Reagan said that character takes command in moments of crucial choices. I really like that, because "crucial choices'' are often not just what we consider "big" moments of decision, but very often "small" decisions that we make, decisions that no one will ever know about or that seem to affect no one else. You know, the old "what you do when nobody is looking'' idea.
One historian described Washington's character as "an absolute unwillingness to be led astray by personal gain or ideological distractions."
I like the use of the word "absolute'' there. Absolute unwillingness to be led astray ... that's powerful, because it enforces the idea that character is a choice.
The book ends with the words of Len Marella in a book on ethical leadership, "In Search of Ethics:"

Your thoughts become your words.
Your words become you actions.
Your actions become your habits.
Your habits become your character.
Your character becomes your destiny.

I know that reads like wall-poster philosophy. But I think it says it all.
As we enter this coming election year, I find myself comparing all these candidates to Washington and Arnold --
And find way too many leaning toward the attributes of the latter than the former.
Much to this country's chagrin.

The economics of history; or everything I know about the economy I learned while being in debt

I'm no economist. If you don't believe me, ask my mortgage company, check my credit rating and bank account ... never mind. Don't bother. Trust me. Investments and all that have never interested me.
But history does. While in college, even though it was not my actual major, I took enough hours in history to have a degree, enough to get me into graduate school where I hoped to get a masters in history with the idea of teaching.
I never finished graduate school, simply because it is difficult to work the crazy hours and writing deadlines of the sports section of any newspaper and take classes and work on writing a thesis.
However, I did get to teach history for about seven years - high school history, American history mostly but also some world history. I did well enough that when some of my students went on to some of the better high schools in the area and took history, they felt they were ahead of what they were being taught. It was gratifying.
Over the years, I developed two theories of history. One is that everything is financial. Follow the money. Economic history is usually the key to any incident in world history.
The second - and the one I tried to use to help my students understand events - was that events that motivated conflicts between nations or competing parties can usually be broken down to the same motivations that create conflict between people. Nations and governments are, after all, made up of people. And whether kings or premiers or generals - they're still just people.
What I'm trying to get to is this economic crisis our country finds itself in - you know, out-of-control debt and loans that we're having to borrow just to make interest payments and looking at where the money goes and seeing everything as a necessity and nothing is a luxury.
So one side, the liberal side, says the answer is we have to just raise our debt limit so we can borrow more money. Or else we need to print more money.
Of course there is the option of earning more money - but let's face it, anyone of us knows that's the hardest way to go. It takes work. And there are only so many hours in a day and so many jobs to go around, and borrowing based on the idea that I'm going to get a better paying job somewhere in the near future is kind of how the housing market bubbled and burst.
Further compounding the issue is that government really doesn't earn money. It collects money based on what its citizens earn. Import taxes, export taxes, income taxes, interest earned - it's all off money made by what someone else produces, and the government simply expects its cut.
And that's OK. It's what we do to fund government to provide the truly necessary services like national defense, courts, protection, roads.
Wow, I'm preaching.
But here's the thing: what do you do when your own personal debt is getting out of control? Well, you can borrow more hoping that you'll get a better job or win the lottery or Publisher's Clearinghouse will ring your doorbell or that somehow, magically, the bank will lose your note and suddenly you're free and clear...
Or, while hoping those things happen (after all, they could), you take what you have and start to figure out what you don't need, what you can sell, what you can do without ... you know, the same way that your parents got out of debt, the same way your grandparents got out of debt, the same way their parents got out of debt, and their grandparents and their grandparents and their ... do you see the pattern?
The fact that some generations cut back and reduce debt and the nation's economy improves and creates an economic environment that the next generation abuses and gets into debt and drives the economy back into trouble is not the fault of the system. It's the fault of people not understanding some things always hold true, that eventually you pay the piper and if you do it on a loan, there will be interest involved that has to be paid.
What I don't understand is why certain people in government or public policy seem to think that despite generations and thousands of years of the repeating cycles of history, they have a better way.
Instead of looking at what has gotten people out of debt for centuries - or what has kept people out of debt - they are convinced this other way that has failed so often in the past will work this time because this time is different.
And they refuse to recognize that what works in their own house is also what works for a nation. Economic principles are the same.
Over-simplification? Probably. But tell me that it doesn't work, that it wouldn't work.
Did you hear Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke tell Congress that gold is not money? That it's just "tradition" that we value gold so much?
There they go again, trying to throw out thousands of years of economic history to try something that has never worked.
Sure, we could use other things to back the value of money: silver, copper, clam shells, bubble gum wrappers. It has to be something we all agree has a certain amount of value however.
And since the world has already accepted gold has having value, why change? Why not just use the tried and true practices that have been proven over time and centuries, and stay with them?
I absolutely believe in the need for two political parties. And I absolutely believe the two parties can have different priorities, and different ideas on what is crucial to the well-being of the country.
But when we forget history, as Santayana said, we're doomed to repeat it.
Which means ultimately we have to look to the same solutions to get us out of whatever mess we've gotten ourselves in.

History: No guarantees, but certainly an indication that shouldn't be ignored

There is this radio commercial for a business in Mobile for one of those companies that sells gold. It's not one of those national companies that advertise on talk radio, but a local company that uses local "talent.'' You know the pitch: gold has doubled in price, and never loses its value, so it's never been a better investment.
And then comes the disclaimer that drives me crazy.
"Of course,'' the announcer says, "history is no indication of future performance.''
Yes, that's exactly what he says. At first I thought it was a mistake by the guy doing the commercial, but recently I was driving through Mobile and heard it again, only this time read by a different voice. And again, toward the end, the very same disclaimer: "History is no indication of future performance."
As anyone who has heard the countless "invest in gold" commercials knows, the line is supposed to be, "History is no guarantee of future performance."
Because if there is one thing history should be, it is an indication of future performance.
And I love history. The other day, I was reading about  Rome and Julius Ceasar - the historical Ceasar, not the one that most of us know about from the works of Williams Shakespeare (as great as that story is).
Rome tried to build a society based on multiple gods, to be inclusive and try to draw on the strengths all offered. Unfortunately, Roman gods were limited because - like the Greek gods they were drawn from - they were essentially human; larger than life, exaggerated in their abilities and passions, but still simply a reflection of the humans that worshiped them.
The gods, as Francis Sheaffer put it, "were amplified humanity, not divinity." And so there was no absolute, no definitive "truth'' that served as a foundation for value, morality, life, and the critical decisions that determine the future of a culture. These kind of gods depend on the society that created them, rather than the other way around.
Julius Ceasar was able to come to power because the Roman Senate had lost its ability to keep order. The normal process of government was disrupted by rival factions fighting for power, which led to street gangs terrorizing the streets of Rome. Self-interest became more important than was in the best interest of society as a whole. Conspiracies abounded, "truth" was relative.
And so Rome turned to Ceasar in the hope that an authoritarian figure could restore order to their lives. They hoped that the government would be strong enough to give the people time to breath again and recover from wars and civil unrest and environmental disasters.
Is it any wonder that, in time, the Ceasars that succeeded Julius came to consider themselves gods? And that Roman Emperors tried to dictate morals and define family life with a series of impressive social reforms and welfare programs that was supposed to create loyalty to Ceasar, but instead - because the Ceasars themselves were human - really only created demands from the populace that became harder and harder for government to fulfill.
Christians, of course, stepped in with an absolute basis for judging the government and its actions, which is the one thing an authoritarian state can't have. Christians were not persecuted because they worshiped Christ; they were persecuted because they worshiped Christ and no other gods. And even though the Christians sometimes got it wrong, they continually came back to the foundation of their faith as written out in what they believed to be God's Word, Holy Scripture, and could always go back to that to try to work out the right course of action.
And yes, eventually Christianity became the official state religion of Rome, and became corrupted (because power corrupts, and absolute power corrupts absolutely). And as much as anything, the Romans became apathetic. They just wanted to be left alone to live their lives in peace, but had become so dependent on government to provide that peace that they were faced with ridiculous inflation and unbearable taxes required to pay for that ever-expanding government.
Perhaps this is an over-simplification, but I believe the premise is correct.
And perhaps some of that appears relevant to us today in this country.
Rome is not the only time in history that this pattern has occurred. History is full of similar risings and fallings. But just because there is a pattern, it doesn't mean history has to repeat itself.
After all, history does not "guarantee'' future results.
But there is no question it gives us a strong indication.

The shot that marked the beginning of the end of "states rights.''

As I write this, it is April 12 - the 150th anniversary of what is generally considered to be the start of the Civil War.
Or, as it was known in my house, the "War of Northern Agression."
There has been and will continue to be a lot of discussion about what is commonly called The Civil War (although there was nothing 'civil' about it). CNN ran a poll that said "Four in 10 Southerners still side with the Confederacy."
In fact, the poll said 38 percent of Southerners remained sympathetic to the Confederacy, which to me is a completely different thing than 'siding.'
And the results of the poll were not quite as shocking as that headline suggests. In fact, it went pretty much the way you'd figure - unless you think all Tea Party members are right wing wackos one generation removed from wearing a white sheet and hood.
But here is why I think so many people do indeed "sympathize'' with the South: it was the last stand of States' Rights.
Let's try to keep emotion out of this discussion if we can. I'm not advocating the issue that caused South Carolina and 10 other Southern states to succeed from the Union. Clearly, slavery was and is wrong.
And let's not get all misty-eyed about Abraham Lincoln. At his first inauguration, he said he had no intention of freeing the slaves in the South, only of making all new states that joined the union 'free' states. He believed the tide was turning against slavery, and that it was inevitable that right-thinking people in the South would, before long, recognize the evil of slavery and do away with it.
And if you think about the history of the Civil Rights movement and how long it has taken to get where we are, a case could be made that it might have been better had the South come to the realization on its own rather than have the issue forced. It's kind of like any change of behavior: it is always more successful when voluntary than when externally forced on you.
Slavery might have ended legally. But look at the history of Blacks in America - all over, not just in the South - and I can show you how a legal end to slavery did not bring about a practical end to the sub-standard treatment of a race of human beings.
But let's get away from emotion for a minute and remember history.
When the nation was formed, the debate was over whether we were a voluntary union of independant states; or if we were actually the United States of America.
If the union was voluntary, then disolving the union should be voluntary as well. If we were one unified country, then Andrew Jackson was right.
I bring Jackson in because as president during the early 1830s, he threatened to bring troops to South Carolina to stop that state from seceeding over the "Tariff of Abominations.'' Jackson, despite being a Southerner, believed the Union could not be broken.
The "tariff of Abominations'' was, simply put, a tax voted in by Congress over Southern objections that basically forced Southern planters to trade with Northern industries rather than make more money by trading with industries in England and France, which were paying a higher price for Southern goods than Northern industry could afford.
The tariff, in a sense, killed free enterprise by forcing Southern planters to profit less no matter which way they wanted to sell, and built up Northern factories by giving them access to the raw materials they needed from Southern planters without having to pay fair world-market prices.
That led to talk of seccession, and it wasn't the first time a state had threatened to seceed.
During the War of 1812, northeastern states whose shipping industry was hurting because of the war decided at the Hartford Convention to seceed from the Union if the president, James Madison, didn't imediately stop the war. Unfortuantely for them, the U.S. won the war before they could make their demand, and so began the end of Federalist Party in the United States.
So there was already ground work for states believing they had voluntarily joined the union, so they should be able to voluntary leave at their pleasure.
And there was already a backdrop in which Southern states had seen the United States government make laws over their objections. In fact, one of the great problems that preceeded the break was that Lincoln never bothered to campaign in the South, so sure was he that he could win the election without needing a single Southern state.
As a result, Southern voters weren't given a chance to hear Lincoln say he wasn't going to free the slaves by force.
But Lincoln's election, to Southerners, was one more sign that the United States government was going to govern without their cooperation or input. And so before Lincoln was inaugurated, Southern representatives to the United States Congress walked out - thereby losing their voice in the great debate that should have taken place in that ruling body and eliminating any chance of a compromise that might have preserved the Union.
So whatever you think about secession and the South, the bottom line was that Southern states believed they knew best how to govern themselves.
The North said no, the federal government knew best how to govern the entire country.
And that's a debate that continues on today, doesn't it?
Slavery was and is an abomination.
But this war was about so much more.
And while you're at it, remember all those Southern States that were ruled under martial law for up to five years after the Civil War; all those white Southerners who lost the right to vote during those years of martial law; and the brutal way the Federal government and Northern industrialists continued to abuse the South for decades, claiming the "spoils of victory.''
California Gov. Jerry Brown said recently that this country was the most divided it had been since the Civil War.
If he's right, the division is over the same thing it was way back then.
Not slavery, but how far government should be allowed to be involved in our every day lives.
That's just my opinion.
 And, as Dennis Miller says, and I could be wrong.

The United States of Ponzi

OK, the title of this little opinion piece - "the United States of Ponzi" - is not exactly fair.
To Ponzi.
First, some of my beloved history. In the 1920s, Charles Ponzi was convicted of running what we now have come to call a "Ponzi scheme,'' although he didn't invent it. Simply put, a Ponzi scheme is a fraudulent investment operation in which investors are recruited to put up money in expectation of some phenominal return on that investment, a return that is paid out from the money of subsequent investors who are recruited to put up more money. Nothing is earned or produced; it's simply money changing hands - with a considerable amount skimmed off the top for the guy organizing the scheme - until eventually either the originator skips town with the bulk of the money or finally the scheme collapses because it is unsustainable and the scheme implodes (and law enforcement arrives, as in the case of Bernie Madoff).
Another version of the Ponzi is a pyramid, although experts would say while there are similarities, there are also significant differences. For example, in a Ponzi, one man does all the recruiting, while in a pyramid scheme everyone who is recruited becomes a recruiter, because the fastest way to a profit is to bring in new people, from whom you earn a percentage of the profit they make from the people they recruit, and so on and so on.
A Ponzi scheme claims to be paying off on a return from an existing investment, while a pyramid explicitly claims that money is made from new recruits who buy into the pyramid.
And a pyramid scheme will typically collapse much faster because it requires exponential increases in participants to sustain it, while a Ponzi scheme can survive by persuading existing participants to simply "reinvest'' the money they've already "made,'' eliminating the need for new participants.
What's the point?
Perhaps you read or heard, as I did, that today in the United States there are nearly twice as many people working for the government than in all of manufacturing. More Americans work for the government than work in construction, famring, fishing, forestry, manufacturing, mining and utilities combined.
That's scary.
It's scary because the people that work for the government don't really produce anything. Oh, they produce services, but they are not services that are offered on the free market. They are services that are primarily paid for through taxes, meaning whether the services are good or not, efficient or not, necessary or not, they are still paid for.
In a free enterprise system, someone providing inefficient or unecessary or unwanted services or products would not be expected to expand their business and hire new people, and certainly not reward that expanding employee base with yearly raises.
It strikes me as a scheme, kind of like a pyramid. More and more people are brought in, and are rewarded by being paid from money that they pay back into the government through taxes. Except, of course, there isn't enough money collected to pay all those workers, so more money has to be collected from non-participants, which often causes those non-participants in the government pyramid to suffer to the point that they need to go to work for the government.
But at some point, not producing goods means the pyramid will collapse. In 1960 there were twice as many people in manufacturing in this country than in government service. But we have moved from a nation of makers to a nation of takers. Nearly half of the $2.2 trillion cost of state and local governments is the $1 trillion-a-year tab for pay and benefits of state and local employees. Instead of taxes going to make life better for all, more and more of our taxes are going to pay for government employees, who perform services in a non-competitive arena which produces little income and apparently no profit (given the current level of governmental debt).
Is it any wonder that so many states and cities are having trouble paying their bills?
I read where every state in America today except for Indiana and Wisconsin has more government workers on the payroll than people manufacturing industrial goods. Wyoming and New Mexico lead the way, with more than six government workers for every worker involved in manufacturing.
Somewhere along the way, we've forgotten that government is only supposed to do those things that we can't do for ourselves. Government is supposed to provide for the common defense, enforce the law, and respond to disaster. But over time, we've come to think that government is supposed to take care of us - feed us, clothe us, educate us, make people like us, make us successful, fulfill our dreams for us.
That pyramid that appears on the one dollar bill, that is one of the symbols of our country?
The pyramid is supposed to represent strength and durability. And it is uncapped to suggest that the country  isn't finished, and the "eye'' is supposed to represent the "Eye of Providence,'' or God - just as the Latin motto over the symbol "ANNUIT COEPTIS" means "God has favored our undertaking.''
It wasn't supposed to represent a scheme.

Section 2: George Washington's Left Hand

I have always loved history. I don't know when I learned to read, but my earliest memories are of reading stories of heroes of the past.
The first book I remember reading was The Child's Story Bible. I read two stories over and over: of the young David and his exploits as an outlaw, and of the prophet Ezekial, when he stood up to the prophets of Baal on Mt. Carmel. I read them almost to the exclusion to every other story in the Bible.
And then stories of the Civil War (the War of Northern Aggression). I couldn't get enough of Robert E. Lee and Stonewall Jackson. I remember one time at the dinner table when Frank Clark - my parents' best friend, a man whose family my family took vacations with, and spent what seemed like every weekend in their basement eating chocolate ice cream and watching The Flinestones - told my mother that Lee was the greatest traitor in American history. My mom was as mad as I'd ever seen her with someone who was a friend. I thought for sure it was the end of chocolate ice cream and summer camping trips with the Clarks.
King Arthur and the Knights of the Round Table ... Arthurs' charge that "God make you a good man and fail not of beauty. The Round Table was founded in patience, humility, and meekness.Thou art never to do outrageousity, nor murder, and always to flee treason, by no means to be cruel, and always to do ladies, damosels, and gentle women succour. Also, to take no battles in a wrongful quarrel for no law nor for no world's goods. ..." I learned to both love and loathe Lancelot, even as I imagened Arthur did.
But America's colonial period and the Revolution was my favorite. It was a war of great ideas, really a revolution of ideas and beliefs. I read stories of Lighthorse Harry Lee (an ancestor of Robert E.), and Francis Marion (the Swamp Fox); Ethan Allen and the Green Mountin Boys, and Thomas Jefferson and Ben Franklin and John Adams ...
And of course George Washington.
When George Washington was finally convinced to accept the presidency of the United States, he was sworn in with his right hand in the air and his left hand on the Bible.
Nothing ever seemed to be random back then. While at his first inauguration, Washington asked for a Bible and apparently because everyone was in a hurry it was opened and he placed his left hand over a random verse.
However, at his second inauguration, tradition has it that Washington specifically put his left hand over a particular verse: Micah 6:8: "He has showed you, O man, what is good. And what does the Lord require of you? To do justice, love mercy, and walk humbly with your God.''
Washington established a tradition, as American President after President was sworn in with his left hand over that same verse. At one time it was true - and it may still be - that the majority of the Presidents of the United States were sworn in with their left hand placed over Micah 6:8.
Because it sums up what is indeed expected of those of us to whom God has indeed shown what is good: to do justice, love mercy, and walk humbly.
A lot of people talk about justice. We all say we love justice, but what most of us really mean is we want justice. And there is a difference.
We want justice for ourselves. And we want it for other people, but usually only when it doesn't infringe upon our being treated with justice - or what we consider as "fair."
The truth is, life is not fair. Think about it. Most of us get away with far more than we should if life were truly fair. I can't tell you how many times I've gotten away with things that, in a truly fair world, I'd have faced consequences. Stupid things, dangerous things, hurtful things I've done to others, things that were just plan wrong. Speeding, little deceptions, warnings I ignored successfully.
Oh, I know that's not what most of us think of when we think life is not fair. We like to think about the times that we were treated unfairly. But come on - be honest: haven't you gotten away with far more in this life than you've been unjustly punished in some way for?
Now I'm not saying loving justice means we make sure we pay for all those indiscretions that are known only to ourselves. Heavens, no!
But maybe a good start is realizing that the fact that life is not fair tends to work in our favor more than not.
So what does it mean to really love justice?
Not making sure we're treated fairly. There's nothing particularly difficult or noble about crying when we're not treated fairly Babies do that instinctively.
No, loving justice is when you are willing to see justice done even if it works against you. And sometimes when one side has had the advantage for a long time, it means giving the disadvantaged the upper hand for a time - yes, being what we'd call "unfair" to the other side.
It means to stand up for what is right; standing up for the poor, the picked on, the weak, the outcasts, the helpless and the hopeless. It means when you see wrong being done, you take it upon yourself to try to make it right. It means never being afraid to stand up for what you know is right, even if it is unpopular or – especially, perhaps – when being fair may actually work against you.
God is not "fair,'' because He does not give us what we "deserve." 
But God is a God of justice, and as such He recognized a wrong (sin) had to be atoned for, so He took it upon Himself to take the punishment that we could not possibly have survived and place it on Himself in the form of His Son.
And God means for us to follow His example. ,He has left it to us, as men and as His sons, to see that justice is executed for all; not just ourselves, but in fact probably more so for other people than ourselves. We're called to represent God to the World, including His concept of justice. That means doing what is good, right, honorable, noble, and true. To "do justice'' is to act according to God's heart in our individual actions as well as in the institutions that we are a part of.
I have been a part of insitutions that had no interest in "doing justice,'' just as at times in my life I have had no interest in really seeing justice done.
I have been part of institutions - such as the church - that honestly desired to "do justice'' but struggled with the social implications, just as at times in my life I have honestly wanted to represent God's Justice but had the same struggle of social implications.
Confucius is credited with saying, "To see what is right and not do it is cowardice."
Which brings me back to George Washington's left hand, the one he placed over Micah 6:8 as he raised his right hand and swore to do all these things "to the best of my ability."
Or, as Thomas Jefferson once said, ``It is reasonable that everyone who asks for justice should do justice.’’
Tempered, of course, with mercy ....

Don't forget good St. Patrick, lest we see ourselves surrounded by those snakes again!

I went to a St. Patrick's Day Parade with as much of the family as I could gather down here on the coast of Mississippi, then we went to dinner surrounded by people dressing in green and wearing beads (this is the land of Mardi Gras, after all), wearing tee-shirts that said things like "Kiss Me, I'm Irish" and "Wanna Get Lucky" and various variations of all the themes we've come to associate with St. Patrick's day - including a "pub crawl,'' the enticement to go from drinking establishment to drinking establishment (the city even closed off several blocks to make it easier for 'crawlers' to move about).
Being me, I also decided to educate myself on traditions of St. Patricks' Day, primarily that people started wearing green because leprauchans were supposed to be blind to the color green, and if they couldn't see you they couldn't "pinch" you, which in the old days meant kidnap you. Leprauchans were the bogey-man of Irish fables, not the kind of people who gave you breakfast cereal or granted wishes or any of the other happy-go-lucky attributes that the modern marketing campaign has led us to believe.
But then, I also looked up St. Patrick himself.
He was not Irish, but British. As a boy, he was captured by Irish raiders and held as a slave. He managed to escape back to Britian, where he studied and became a Catholic Priest, at which time he felt called to go back to Ireland and bring the Gospel of salvation, love and hope to his former captors. He used the Shamrock - a three-leaf clover - to explain the Trinity of God the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. And while he is credited with driving the snakes out of Ireland, it is probably closer to the truth that he drove out those who were deceivers, those that twisted the truth, the human "snakes'' that have plagued us always.
Patrick died on March 17, 461 - St. Patrick's Day.
I wonder what Patrick would be doing on "his" day now. I have a feeling he'd be sad at first, then realize his work was not done, and he'd probably be out there in the midst of the revelers, with his shamrock, quietly trying to explain the love of The Father, The Son, and the Holy Spirit in hope of driving out the snakes that still torment us all.
To quote Patrick himself, from his "Confessions" (written around the year 450):

"I am Patrick, yes a sinner and indeed untaught; yet I am established here in Ireland where I profess myself bishop. I am certain in my heart that "all that I am," I have received from God. So I live among barbarous tribes, a stranger and exile for the love of God. He himself testifies that this is so. I never would have wanted these harsh words to spill from my mouth; I am not in the habit of speaking so sharply. Yet now I am driven by the zeal of God, Christ's truth has aroused me. I speak out too for love of my neighbors who are my only sons; for them I gave up my home country, my parents and even pushing my own life to the brink of death. If I have any worth, it is to live my life for God so as to teach these peoples; even though some of them still look down on me."

That is a life worth celebrating.

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"He was a terror to any snake that came in his path, whether it was the cold, slimy reptile sliding along the ground or the more dangerous snake that oppresses men through false teachings.  And he drove the snakes out of the minds of men, snakes of superstition and brutality and cruelty. " ~Arthur Brisbane

Saint Patrick was a gentleman, who through strategy and stealth
Drove all the snakes from Ireland, here's a drink to his health!
But not too many drinks, lest we lose ourselves and then
Forget the good Saint Patrick, and see them snakes again!
~Author Unknown

Non-workers of the world: Unite!

It was Karl Marx' belief that, one day, capitalism would end through the organized actions of an international working class (leading to the famous - or infamous - slogan that was adopted by the Communist government of the former USSR: "Workers of the world, unite!").
However, I'm beginning to wonder if Marx missed his mark.
In this economy, it is becoming frightfully clear that most of us can't count on big corporations to look out for us anymore, the way our fathers and grandfathers did.
But just as clearly, because of the struggling economy, labor unions have become little more than political organizations, increasingly unable to protect members' jobs.
I'm beginning to wonder if the real power doesn't lie in that growing class of the unemployed.
Think about it: much of the rhetoric of the entire Democractic party and the current president is geared toward taking care of the unemployed: extending unemployment benefits, provide health care, and generally do all those things that unions and/or businesses have traditionally have done for the working class.
The assumption, of course, is that people who are unemployed really want to be employed.
The problem is that the unemployed now have a choice: do they take just any job? Or are they better off being cared for through unemployment? Particularly if unemployment benefits continue to be extended to cover longer and longer periods of time?
Now, please, don't misunderstand me. I'm not saying everyone who is out of work wants to be out of work. I know that's not true. I was out of work (briefly, thankfully), and I wanted to work. Most of my friends who are out of work really want to work, and some are taking the view that any job is better than no job, willing to start over if necessary and try to work their way back "up" - whatever "up" might look like in the limited time many of the middle-to-late-aged unemployed are left with.

On the other hand ... ask people what they'd do if they won the lottery, and the most common answer you get is "quit work.'' Everyone I know talks of hoping to "retire early.'' We're constantly bombarded with ads from financial advisors who are trying to help us figure out how to retire early.
And it doesn't seem to matter how we get to that point. Hard work, creativity, lottery winner, inheritance - it's like a national epidemic: the goal of work seems to have become to get to the point where we don't work anymore.
If the goal is to get to a point where we don't have to work, is it really that far of a leap to say that, once people get used to getting paid for not working by the government they begin to expect and even like it?
Sure, there are limits to how long the unemployed can draw unemployment. But those limits keep getting extended.
The premise that our goal is to get to the point where we don't have to work anymore is wrong. Man was created to work. Hey, even Adam in the Garden was given a job to do. You think naming animals was easy? You know Adam had to be running out of ideas when he came up with "aardvark'' and "duck-billed platypus." I figure it was near the end of a hard work week and he was anxious to get back to the cave and this thing known as "Eve" when he came up with "bee'' and "Yak."
We're supposed to work. Otherwise we run the risk of all becoming a nation of Paris Hiltons.
Now, the difference in those people who have money and don't work and those people who don't have money and don't work seems obvious; but is it really?
Someone once said the difference between men and boys is the size of their toys. Maybe the same could be said of the difference between the unemployed wealthy and the unemployed poor. If you get used to not working and living off whatever benefits you get from the government, well ... I know a guy in California who tells me he expects to draw unemployment for three years, and prefers to do that than take a job that's "beneath'' him where he may not make that much more money.
Again, I'm making sweeping generalizations (which doesn't pay nearly as well as simply sweeping).
I'm all for helping people who have lost their jobs and want to work. Shoot, I have been there. And I have been helped by more people than I can name, people whose generousity I can never repay.
But not the government.
It occured to me one day on my 500th re-reading of the book of Job (a terrific book, by the way; I highly recommend it), that at the end of the book, we get the happy ending: Job's wealth and family is restored.
What gets lost in the ending however, is how Job's wealth and family is restored.
First, his wealth: friends and neighbors came by and gave him gifts to get him back on his feet, which he then used to rebuild his wealth. Somehow, I don't think it happened overnight. I'm betting it took Job years to get back to the status he had before he became the chip in that cosmic poker game between God and Satan.
As for his family: I'm guessing it was restored in the usual way of nine months of labor and delivery. Unless his wife had a litter, I'm guessing this, too, happened over time. Throw in the fact that Job was older and he was having to work twice as hard at perhaps twice the age and I have this feeling it wasn't quite like Job simply won the heavenly lottery (except for the fact that Satan wouldn't mess with him again, which is a pretty nice prize).
Again, the point - and, to quote Ellen Degeneres, I do have one - is that neighbors and friends helped Job get back on his feet, then Job went to work.
With God's help and blessing, of course (and I do not say that lightly).
Which brings me back to where I started.
There is a growing political power in this country: the unemployed. It's becoming a movement.
If the government allows the movement to get comfortable and truly become a political force, well then, capitalism will end through the organized actions of an international non-working class.
And we all know how well that worked out for the USSR.
Or course, this is just a blog. Nobody said I had to be right.

 * But then after I wrote this, I came across this story:

Unemployed get another jobless benefit _ free yoga

http://www.google.com/hostednews/ap/article/ALeqM5hTp5DVv4Qisj9CFdbTFX-j1rBE6Q?docId=4d140ccf08a0495f9f55429d89b5afe6