Heroes and History

Just saw a news feature on President Dwight D. Eisenhower. He was the president when your Wizer was young. They say that a person's perspective on history generally dates to when they were born.

So, let's see. There was Eisenhower, then Kennedy, Johnson, Nixon, Ford, Carter, Reagan, GHWBush, Clinton, GWBush, and now the 44th POTUS, Barack Obama. Eleven presidents since I was born. That means I have experienced 25% of the presidents in our nation's history. A great many "baby boomers" have too.

I think that qualifies us, and especially me to comment on the state of the presidency.

When we were kids, we were told that the country was founded by a number of bright men whose lives and times we were encouraged to celebrate. We were taught that there was this succession of heroes traceable to our country's sacred founding. They were the presidents.

Every school room had a poster with the first 36 presidents on it. Listed in chronological order, and numbered 1-36. The universe started with George Washington, and included other famous Americans one right after another, with Abe Lincoln somewhere there in the middle, and still other guys for whom the stories were written.

At the time of the first 36, these men were all presented as heroes. Andrew Jackson. Calvin Coolidge. Teddy Roosevelt. They carved faces in the mountains for them. Put their likenesses on pieces of paper we were all meant to carry around. In my grade school, each of the presidents, in turn, were featured on a cafeteria milk carton. Collectors items. We learned about Tippecanoe, Millard Fillmore, and John Quincy Adams. I remember when JFK showed up on the carton. This was a real live president. What an impressive guy he must be to merit association with the rest of these heroes, I thought. This was 1962, he was our current president, and we got to see him all the time on the news.

In a short while, some sniper decided that JFK should no longer be president (or even alive for that matter). This had devastation written all over it. How can someone so important, the present successor to George Washington, be snuffed out like an extra in a bad western movie? Presidents were human? News seemed to travel faster all of a sudden. We weren't learning things from the milk cartons, any more.

We were hearing about it from Walter Cronkite and Chet Huntley now. We weren't seeing things through the dusty lens of history any more. We were seeing them through a grainy live picture tube, and the newscasters were providing the color commentary. Welcome to the brave new world.

It was no longer possible to hide who the president was, or what he did, or really even present him in a different light. We now get to examine our heroes in real time, and decide for ourselves whether we have a leader, or we don't.

Funny thing is, with all the talent in this country, we seldom get the leadership we should expect. Out of the last 11, only one gets into the top ten. That's right, the Gipper, the last president to acknowledge that government is the problem is the only one in our lifetime to merit an honorable mention, ...and he finishes 10th. 11 of the 44, and we get one passable president.

How did this happen? Could it be because we let two political organizations control who gets presented in the championship round? Since Reagan, here's what the elections looked like:

1988
GHW Bush (who had supposedly embraced voodoo economics by then)
vs.
Michael Dukakis (the one candidate that could make GHWB appear bright)

1992
GHW Bush (Revving up the desert storm machine)
vs
Ross Perot (This is all crazier than I am.)
vs
Bill Clinton (the democrat antidote to Gary Hart - can we find another Jimmy Carter?)

1996
Bob Dole (Tax cuts will fix everything)
vs
Bill Clinton (What? I gave you welfare reform! What else do you want?)
vs
Ross Perot (Still crazy after four more years)

2000
Al Gore (If I was worth a damn, I would have been president in 1992)
vs. Not Al Gore (whew, that was close)

2004
John Kerry (This country is not elite eastern liberal enough)
vs. Not John Kerry (whew, that was close)

2008
Barry Obama (change is necessary)
vs
John McCain (I see your random draw, and raise you a wounded ex-POW)

2012
Barry Obama (change is risky)
vs
Mitt Romney (If you like your Obamacare you can keep your Obamacare)

Were these choices really the carefully made choices? Really America? We just couldn't find anyone more qualified in each of these job hires? I think our executive search method is deeply flawed, and now that we are down to two democrats and a socialist, I know it's broken.

Do yourself and the rest of us a favor. Don't play along. We haven't had a decent pick since Reagan. We need someone in the top 10 once again. We're not going to get it this time, but that doesn't mean we have to vote for what we are going to get. This time, vote for someone else. At least vote for someone you like. Write in someone you think could do the job instead. Mike Rowe. Curt Schilling. If you want a billionaire, write in Buffett for heaven's sake. At least he isn't going to look like a mistake on the milk carton.

Then, we can begin to break the stranglehold these two self serving parties have on our elected leadership. It's a perfect time to break from this system, and begin to exercise our choice in a more meaningful way. Vote for Pedro if you must, but please, please, do not endorse these clowns.
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As an aside, I don't know how the Libertarian Party convention is going to go next weekend in Orlando; but I am rooting for Austin Petersen.  If he makes it through that gathering, he will likely get my vote.

Indiana Matters

There are no easy answers, but there are simple answers. We must have the courage to do what we know is morally right. -- Ronald Reagan

It comes down to Indiana, it appears. If Cruz wins, it starts to look like he can hold serve on the first ballot, after which some interesting political dynamics will emerge. Most people who have voted in this election won't be able to follow the nuanced difference between a bound and unbound delegate, or first ballot abstentions and other parliamentary maneuvers. If Indiana goes to Cruz, it's very possible that Trump will not be the candidate. If, instead, Trump wins, he may eventually get a majority strong enough to withstand some convention floor defections.  

I lived most of my adult life in Indiana, so I am intrigued by watching this. What I can tell you about Hoosiers is that they are as likely to vote for the son of a businessman as they are the son of a preacher. Either way, they expect they will be hiring a guy who can fix a system that's been broken for 8 years. Whichever one it shall be, depends a lot more on style than it really should. Substance is a dicey thing. If substantive issues are raised, Hoosiers will give it due consideration. If no substantive issues are raised, then it all defaults to style.

Trump has ensured that no substantive issues are getting any oxygen. It's all about hand size, apparently. Or the rigged system. Or maybe it's the Mexicans. Who knows? Can anyone tell me what Making America Great Again actually means? There's a reason why this slogan sounds a lot like "Change You Can Believe In" and Yes, We Can".  The reason is that there is no practical difference between Trump and Obama, and no difference at all between Trump and Clinton.

So why would Hoosiers be as likely to vote for Trump as Cruz? The answer is they watch the news. When he says he will build a wall, and the press doesn't call him on it, they think that maybe a wall is a good idea. When he says he will make better trade deals, and the press doesn't challenge it, it sounds like a good idea. The easy challenge that a news person can make is that there is a world of difference between "trade deals" and "free trade". People conflate the two, because .... well because isn't government supposed to help the economy?

That rhetorical question is why the Donald gets so much benefit of the doubt. Hoosiers still trust that government can be used for the good of the people. They just don't believe politicians are likely to help, so the best choice, instinctively, is someone other than a politician. Another group of Hoosiers are paying close attention and find that there actually is a choice that fights for the people, and against the Crony establishment. It's not the one they press tell you it is, it's the other guy.

This is why it could go either way. There are still a lot of Hoosiers who believe that government can be a positive force, just not this government. Like Obama, Trump is not the guy they want to believe he is. 

History rhymes again

Recently, I received an email from a friend highlighting the concern that conservatives are treating Donald Trump like the Republicans of 1964 treated Goldwater. The point was that all the lies and distortions about Goldwater, having originated in the Republican primaries, were then used by LBJ to destroy the Republican's candidacy. I'm going to dismiss the premise quickly by saying that Goldwater actually had his heart in the right place, where the Donald's heart is invisible. Trump could not be strategically lied about, because, hey it might actually be true and what if it is? (Answer for Trump supporters: We don't know and we don't care).

But history is rhyming now in an entirely different way:

One of the problems with the current administration is that Obama wasn't at all who he presented himself to be to be. From all appearances, he was a person who could transcend identity politics, reduce misunderstandings about race, and present a fresh start to our friends and allies; while winding down an unfocused war. Instead, we saw a president who doubled down on identity politics, inflamed racial mistrust, stonewalled every attempt at transparency ,and conducted his own pointless wars.

A guy who was elected in the first place because foreign and domestic policy was no longer working, and the voters wanted to re-roll the dice.

Here we are today. Foreign and domestic policy is no longer working, and the country wants to re-roll the dice.

Only this time it's going to come up Trump. From appearances, here is a guy who transcends ideology, will address the festering issues of the economy, play tough guy with our enemies, and finally shake up the status quo in Washington. Instead, what we will get is a guy who has no ideology because he has no principles, has not a single idea of what it takes to fix an economy, totally misunderstands the aims of a foreign policy, and is one of the main contributors to the problem of cronyist Washington.

If you can explain to me how this all works out as a positive, please comment below.

Average Punditry

I'm not your average political pundit. Probably not a pundit at all, if it requires an opinion on everything. People who want to be left alone aren't really interested in knowing more about people who want to lord it over us. Maybe I follow it for a glimmer of hope that someone will get up there on the podium and say "I am going to get government out of your life". Ha. I crack myself up. Those aren't the kind of people who want the job. 

It is a well-known fact that those people who must want to rule people are, ipso facto, those least suited to do it... anyone who is capable of getting themselves made President should on no account be allowed to do the job. -- Douglas Adams

It's not supposed to be this important a job anyway. I bet if Trump would simply read the job description, he would immediately withdraw. In fact, I'm certain of it.

There's a book out now that makes the case that the best presidents were not the ones whose pictures we put on federal reserve notes, but the ones who strived to protect the constitution. Ever heard of John Tyler or Calvin Coolidge? Outside of seeing their pictures on a grade school chart? These guys knew how to run a country.

I cycle in and out of the political landscape regularly each election season. Usually go away for the rest of the year when the last candidate standing (i.e., the one that I'd like to see more from) is eliminated. That hasn't happened yet. But there's only one left that they still show on TV.

Here I am down to Ted Cruz. Ted Cruz, you say? Yes, I would vote for Ted Cruz. More to the point, I would vote for Tom Cruise before I'd vote for Trump. Ted would at least know what to do with a supreme court nomination.

I could make a case for not voting. Doug Casey sums it up pretty well here. But if there is a candidate worth getting out of bed to go vote for, I will still do it. Sometimes I'll even vote in self defense. You can thank me now for voting against Al Gore, but most of the time my guy simply finishes out of the money.

Phil Gramm may have been the last GOP candidate who cared about the economy. Ones who do tend to make better decisions. And this was only four years after WJ Clinton ran on "it's the economy, stupid". I'll vote for the next politician who says "it's the stupid economy" now. 

My prediction is that in 3 weeks the race will be down to the two democrats. The one who declared as a republican, and the one who managed to stay out of jail. I will probably vote for Gary Johnson again, but that's all I can do for you this time. 

What I think

Hello all, I find myself with a small amount of time here on New Year's Day to say hello, and to extend my best 2016 wishes to all. Note that I have not made a resolution to blog more, but it could still happen.

This post is just to jot down a few things; impressions if you will, about current events and themes that may survive into 2016.

• Paris and San Bernardino.

I have one piece of advice for our friends in Paris. Not only Paris, but San Bernardino, New York, and any other city that is or is likely to be victimized by evil destruction: Learn to return fire. It's that simple, and that urgent. Learn to return fire. We outnumber the enemy. If the sentiment is to solve this particular problem, the solution is to arm as many free citizens as we possibly can.

Learn to return fire. Spread the word.

You might be surprised that I also believe there is a government role that can be played here: Congress should enact a law making it illegal to create gun free zones. Gun free zones are exactly what the bad guys like to see. If we eliminate those, it will never be safe for a gunman to create the kind of havoc that we see and read about. 

Learn to return fire. Eliminate gun free zones. Take back our freedoms.

• Climate change.

If you ask scientists if they believe in global warming, 89% of them would say that, yes, the current trend is for global temperature rise. That's enough for some players to demand billions of dollars in new regulations and academic research expenditures. They don't even get to the second question, which is: What do you believe is causing it? It matters little what causes it, they demand money and government interference to be tossed around as if our lives literally depend on it. 

Don't fall for it.

If there is global warming (and that's not necessarily a bad thing - warmer temperatures are conducive to longer growing seasons in developing countries, for example), then we would be far better served preparing for consequences of said warming. Rather than spending our money on willy nilly carbon-phobia schemes, we would be better served by saving our hard earned wealth, so that we can address the feared catastrophes in a more systematic way.

Instead of shutting down coal plants because they believe it would reduce the land surface of a distant Pacific atoll, how about doing a little conservation work on the atoll itself. 

Learn to be resilient.

Seriously, we can't stop global warming anymore than we can redirect a cold front. To think that we have that kind of control over a planet that has seen unimaginable cataclysms without our help requires a particular form of arrogance. 

These people are to be ignored. The best we can hope for is to develop resilience.

Resilience against whatever the planet delivers is what got us this far; and it's our only effective tool for withstanding anything that comes later.

• Mars

The people who think we have irretrievably broken this planet already are thinking about Mars. I'm okay with spending the money to send everybody who feels like that there. Let's see if they can make socialism work up there.

• Diversity

Setting up enclaves of Syrians, Mexicans, Cubans, or any other identity group you want to name in separate communities in the US is not diversity. It is unAmerican. Allowing immigrants to come to the US as individuals, each with their own dreams, to raise their own families, and contribute to society is diversity, it is America, and it is to be encouraged. One family at a time. 

Maybe this time is different

Charles Hugh Smith is a very smart guy, he writes regularly at "of two minds" blog. In a recent article he observes that the economic landscape seems rife with a form of magical thinking:

1. We can grow our way out of debt by expanding debt
2. We can pay for everything we want if we print enough money
3. Some miraculous new technology will provide limitless energy/food at near-zero cost
4. We can solve big problems with small reforms 
5. More jobs magically appear because ...technology!

The sheer level of magical thinking alone seems different. The debt, the printing, the near-sightedness, and the reliance on technology-as-messiah are all at historic levels. 

We are told by learned economists that this time is not different, and the collapse will be predictable, predicted, and unavoidable. That this next crash will be just as bad as all crashes before.

So, which is it? Are we at historically bad conditions? Or is this next crash merely a tiresome sequel to a dismal movie? 

As with many significant chapters in our lives, we get many possible points along the continuum. Consider the best case scenario, that history does repeat itself, we will simply get a reset of the stock market; the uninvolved will be financially clubbed on the side of the head, and the American people will trudge back to work on Monday, trying their best to dig out of yet another government sponsored landslide. 

On the other hand, this could really be a big one, where the unprecedented magnitude of debt, red ink, corrupt politicians and unprepared financial institutions, leads to a major turn in the fortunes of every company in the S&P-500. What then? 

Maybe this time it is different.

Processing the eliminated

Popularity should be no scale for the election of politicians. If it would depend on popularity, Donald Duck and The Muppets would take seats in senate. -- Orson Welles

I wonder if Welles foresaw Al Franken, or whether it was a lucky guess. It is popular among pundits these days to handicap the race for president. At this time, few pundits have really tried to reduce the election to a manageable set of characters. After all, in a card game, you don't throw away until you have to, and certainly pundits don't have to before the fat lady takes center stage. People who rely on pundits usually get bad advice, however. At the risk of sounding like one of those pundits, I am giving you the August scorecard, showing who is (or should be) eliminated, and who still stands to have a shot at the oval office.

I don't want to overstate importance of this office. Certainly it's going to be either a republican or a democrat, so how good can he/she be? Besides, if they stick to the constitution, they could be as great a president as Calvin Coolidge, or not, and become a miserable failure like his successor Herbert Hoover. If you don't know much about either of those two, than you have been victimized by your 12th grade history teacher, and should therefore follow my lead..

Here is my list of candidates that still have a decent chance of earning a vote, vs the ones who belong in the early debates.

First, the democrats and near democrats:

Hillary Clinton:  All her good ideas are illegal.

Bernie Sanders: Have you seen his platform?

Mark O'Malley: Thinks the problem is wages. Blames the climate for stuff. But someone has to win his primary, so I'll leave him in for now.

Joe Biden:  It could be a big effin deal if he runs. No way to know what he thinks, but he could win.

Chris Christie: Thinks he can stand in front of the next jet to take aim at a building. Picks fights with weed. Likes Obama money.

Donald Trump: Wants to ban guns except for police and military. Likes Obamacare. Hates the Constitution. Thinks Hillary is wonderful. Knows how to bankrupt things.

Now the republicans and near republicans:

Lindsey Graham: Wants to pick fights with everybody in the middle east, and half the citizens of the US. OTOH, he is okie dokie with limited government, and wouldn't start any wars all by himself.

Rand Paul:  Should know better than to get in a wrestling match with a pig. This probably isn't his year.

Mike Huckabee: Not Mike's year either. In Fact, Mike doesn't get a year.

Rick Santorum: Ditto

Rick Perry: I like him as governor of Texas. He should probably be preparing a secession brief; but as long as he's in there, let's hear about a few more departments he would eliminate.

Carly Fiorina:  And they say that Trump is a truth teller. He doesn't hold a candle to Carly.

Jeb Bush: Would make a better president than "W". What else ya got?

Bobby Jindal:  Gets a pass for now.

Marco Rubio:  VP material

Ted Cruz: Will probably inherit the Trump vote. It won't be enough. But I like him.

Ben Carson:  Talks a good game. Probably good to have in a scalpel fight, too.

Scott Walker: Oh yeah, I almost forgot about Scott Walker.

Here's what I think

• To hear people talk, there must only be two colors. There's black, and there's white. You're either black or white. But look around. How many colors are there really? Dozens? In my family alone, there are that many. Hundreds? Thousands? How do you devise any sort of different treatment based on color when there are thousands of different pigments and features of all kinds in this human race?What do you do; line people up by Pantone color? Then where do you draw a line? "All of you in front of this line get a break on college admission".  How white do you have to be to be white? And when do the benefits start accruing for that? (right). The fact is that any preference based on color is as ridiculous as it seem.

What ever happened to "Question Authority"? The same people holding up those signs in the 60s and 70s are the ones who want you to shut up and toe the line now.

• I suppose it's telling that 6-1/2 years into this president's time, few people have learned to spell his name, It's Barack. Barack Obama.

They say that history was made with the hiding of the flag of the Confederate States of America. I'd say the history it represented was buried. It's going to be harder to gain full understanding of the conflict now. Perhaps we are indeed doomed to repeat it.

• Nobody has a "right" to marriage. Gay or straight. Suppose you did, and you walked up to the marriage window; wouldn't they have to issue you a bride? Marriage is a commitment, a contract, and agreement between consenting parties. Calling it a right makes people think the uninvolved have to do something about it. We don't. 

Flags, Guns, Alexander Hamilton, and Rachel Dolezal

If you can blame a flag for the South Carolina murder of innocents, it's not a deep stretch to blame the guns next. If you fall for the former, get ready for the very short trip over to the latter. 

This society is stuck on symbolism. I have said many times, that persons who look for racism will invariably find it. Today, they find it in a flag. It's not just a flag, it's the colors flown by the last states that tried to leave an oppressive government. What the flag really represents is a memorial to freedoms lost. 

Maybe those who view the flag as a symbol of racism really do want the final image of lost freedoms to be suppressed. Getting rid of this memorial will make people forget about the most important of their lost freedoms. Ironically, this will make slaves of all of us. 

Now it seems they want to put a woman, any woman on a 10 dollar bill; and a woman, even a Hillary Clinton in the oval office. Why? It would be symbolic. After all, look what putting Obama in the White House did for race relations.

Perhaps Bernie Sanders should self identify as a black woman. Think of the ratings bonanza for the debates we'd have there.

And perhaps Rachel Dolezal should be on the Sawbuck. Or better yet:

 

On the Way to Samaria

There is no virtue in compulsory government charity, and there is no virtue in advocating it. A politician who portrays himself as "caring" and "sensitive" because he wants to expand the government's charitable programs is merely saying that he's willing to try to do good with other people's money. Well, who isn't? And a voter who takes pride in supporting such programs is telling us that he'll do good with his own money -- if a gun is held to his head.  ― P.J. O'Rourke

We are occasionally accosted with the "Christian view" that government should grow it's charitable activities. It's what Jesus would do, we are told. When I hear this, I mentally sort through the countless parables and gospels I have heard to try and understand how the Christ supposedly delivered this message. I am at a loss. Ticking through the various scenes, all more or less memorable in their message, you see Jesus washing feet, tending to the sick, and feeding the hungry. In no instance is he portrayed as a social worker, city councilman, or as a community organizer. Those are clearly extra-religious appointments, and do not seem to have any basis in religion.

His most memorable story about charity is "The Good Samaritan", which is the story of a man who had been beaten and left for dead along the road. The man who came along gives direct assistance to the stricken man, and takes him into town, where he arranges for proper care, giving his own money directly to the innkeeper to pay for the cost of the recovery.

Notice the story was not about arranging a charitable trust, running around town and collecting dinars for the cause. No, it was about rendering aid. Personally making a positive difference in a man's life. That, my friends, is charity. Pledging your neighbor's tax money is not.

So, the religious argument always misses the mark with me. Ironically, many of its advocates are "for" the separation of church and state. So much for the principle of the thing.

A good summary of the bible and the government was written by Doug Bandow for the Acton Institute.

Did you know that private charity was outlawed in the Soviet Union?

In a limited government, charity is one of the many things that are best tended to at the personal level. The next time you see someone in need of help, cut out the middle man, and help him yourself.