A thumbs up to Michael Medved

I am linking to a piece written by Michael Medved on Townhall.com. (here). It has a similar theme as something I wrote just after the election about how Republicans can win. Now since I know my limitations very well and knowing Mr. Medved has forgotten more history than I have ever known, and can is a professional writer where I am, well not, I believe anyone who should venture to my blog should give him a read. He says it much better than I did or could.

I especially like the section on clarity. The Congressional Republicans that took the House in 1994 followed the Reagan lead and clarified their beliefs in the Contract with America. I dare anyone to in a few words explain what modern Congressional and Senatorial Republicans believe in their gut. This is also what kept the Democrats out of power for 12 years. They have addressed this at least in rhetoric in the last election. They attempted to clarify what they believe. It is now up to them to follow through. I am skeptical, but it got them the first step of the way.

My previous post titled "My Candidate for President and why he/she cannot win" I think describes this Passion I have for clarity of belief's. Michael Medved and Dennis Prager do this so well as Talk show hosts. It is time for some candidates to do the same. When will they learn, you win by doing this not lose?

24 The family Affair

Poor Graem Bauer. Brother Jack was always the cool one. Probably was better at sports, always got the girl, including Graems wife, foiled his Centox plot. I can see where he would be a little miffed. Especially after the plastic bag over the head.

He sent him off to die with his father. He has to be thinking that his time is limited, brother or not, send Jack to die and you will be gone soon. Luckily for him he won't be close enough for Jack to eat his jugular vein.

I am starting to see the pattern of 24 where the first four episodes are the out of the gate excitement, followed by some four to six episodes where the meat of the manhunt are setup, so I'm not to worried about the lack of substantive action in this episode. I expect many people to die at Jack's hand soon.

Many a time in my youth I wished I could torture my older brother. Never thought to actually do it.

Return of the Fossils

I did not see any of the anti-war rally this last weekend. That being said I have heard some sound bytes from it. It occurs to me listening to these people that I had teleported back to 1970. Jane Fonda, Jesse Jackson, Dennis Kucinich (Although in 1970 he was preparing for his mayoral term where he bankrupted Cleveland later in the Seventies). These people have no relevance to today's problems. A satire piece at scrappleFace.com illustrates this beautifully (See it here), better celebrities may help them.

They spoke from the bytes I heard of learning the lessons of Viet Nam. Well, which lessons should we learn. We have a direct example of what they want us to do. After Nixon resigned and the Democrats enlarged their margin in Congress they did indeed cut off funds to our ally and our troops. What followed was a mass evacuation of our personnel and troops. After we left thousands of people that we abandoned went to re-education camps, and thousands of others were killed outright. Cambodia felt comfortable creating the killing fields of the Khmer Rouge. Why would we believe that if we left Iraq would be any different? Jane Fonda talks of Hubris in regard to the Bush administration. Looking at similar historical events and believing they would turn out different for no other reason that we have 'Good Intentions' to me is the height of hubris.

How can they get a following considering how wrong they are? I think partially because of the goodness of the American people. A good percentage of our society seems young men and women, both American and Iraqi dying and just want it to stop. While this is certainly compassionate, it is naive and immature. I also believe the abject failure of our schools to teach history and civics contributes. If young people understood the connection between Congressional action and the death of our past allies, they could make the connection and say to their representatives not again!

We have brave men and women that have given their lives to make Iraq free. They do this because if we don't fight terror in the middle east we will fight it here. Iran and Al-Queda have verified this over and over in their communiques. If we don't take our government's word for it, can we at least believe the butchers fighting in Iraq? To cut off their funds now would be to have those brave dead men and women to have die in vain.

In closing I am entertained by the fossils of the seventies. Let me pray that society as a whole regards them what they are, fossils of a bygone era, and not to be considered relevant today. We need to have real conversations about Iraq, benchmarks, troop levels, security are issues that should, and need to be talked about. Recycled speeches from the seventies aren't helpful. Since they expected 100, 000 and got much less to show up bodes positive, but we as voters and citizens need to be informed, whether you agree or disagree with the fossils.

Freedom and Rights

In preparation to write this I looked up the word freedom and found many, but all similar to "Freedom is the right, or the capacity, of self-determination,as an expression of the individual will. ".

With that in mind lets look at what some people have found to be rights and freedom. I believe many have expanded the definitions of both freedom and rights. Rights for the purpose of our constitution and given by God and are given freely to all men and women. With this in mind a right should never extend to a single group of people but not all. Our country has not always done a good job of enforcing this standard, but in our humanity, what we codify into law should always be the standard and not our imperfection.

A big problem with our current society is that we change the language to fit our beliefs. One of the most basic rights is the Freedom of speech. This guarantees that Congress cannot pass laws inhibiting the freedom of speech. Sounds pretty simple, but over the years we have had many challenges to what that means. Recently we had the McCain Feingold bill. It was signed by President Bush and upheld by the Supreme Court. This is constitution on the basis that this applies to public airwaves which are governed by licences granted by the government and can be restricted by the government. That means it is something the government CAN do, not something the government should do. This gave rise to the so-called 527 groups we saw in the last election cycles such as the Swift Boat Veterans and Move-On.Org. People simply moved their money from the parties to these groups. What this has caused is a nastier brand of campaign, exactly one of the things the legislation was supposed to avoid.

Lets look at some things that don't make sense to me when you look at them in comparison. The American left has for some time and upheld by the Supreme Court that burning a flag is protected speech. The same groups want to revive the Fairness Doctrine. This would require that all opinion shows would need to be balanced by a dissenting opinion. The was repealed in the Reagan administration and gave birth the Talk Radio as we know it. This of course is objectionable to the left because they don't control this medium. Many attempts have been made, and some local and regional successes are present in left wing talk radio, but they have not found the left wing national host. Many arguments can be made as to why, and are interesting to have, but not in this essay.

Implementing the Doctrine would effectively kill talk radio. It would also kill your favorite talk TV shows. Keith Olberman (OK no one watches him, but he gets posted to YouTube a lot so there are some fringe people that like him). Chris Matthews gone! Amazingly I think Hannity and Combs might last since it is a debate show. Bill O'Reilly would probably not make it past muster. The crime that all of these people have committed against free speech? Elaborating an opinion. Since we now know the evening anchors of the main stream media are not impartial, we would have challenges to anchors like Katie Choric. it will be argued correctly that Katie should be balanced. All over the country Television and Radio licenses would be challenged and one of two things would happen. 1. They would lose their license for airing opinion not balanced, or 2. They would switch to safe non-opinionated programing. I believe this is what they would do. Financiers don't like to take risk with their capitol in broadcasting. Imagine this, demands to balance the last place network for network news.

For now I believe President Bush would not sign this into law and I don't believe they can override his veto, but what happens after the next election? It very well could be a Democrat who would rather see rioting and protests in the street as speech than people talking about Conservative politics on the radio peacefully. Not much of a choice to me. I simply cannot understand the views of people that want the Fairness Doctrine. I always respect others views, but simply cannot understand the rationale of them.

My Candidate for President and why he/she cannot win

My choice for President would launch their campaign similar to this. "my administration will work to loosen the shackles of the things that get in your way. I will not try to fix your lives. I will not fix your schools. I will not fix your Universities. I say this because as a thinking, intelligent person to promise that would be a lie.

My administration will provide for the common defense. If needed we will provide troops on foreign soil. These troops will fight for American interests, not the worlds interests. If I get the opportunity to select a Supreme Court Justice they will convince me that they will not make laws. I am against abortion, and think that Roe Vs Wade is bad law, and should be repealed but not because it is about abortion. It is bad law because it was not based on a single constitutional principle. I also believe if it were repealed it would not result in a single abortion not to be committed. Fifty states would in short order pass their own laws as to what to regulate and that would be the correct course. To stop abortion women would need to decide in their hearts that it is wrong. As a President I can urge them in that direction but cannot make them, no matter how many laws we pass and I sign. If we have not stopped murder yet, we will not stop abortion through a law. The people however can decide at the state level as to how much of this brutal procedure they will tolerate. Politicians running for office will have to be on the record as to how much of this brutal procedure they will tolerate rather than the meaningless "Women's right to Choose".

I will speak out about Free Markets. I will not promise to you that I will stop off-shoring. Short of making private enterprise illegal, I as a human cannot do that. I will request Congress to repeal the federal minimum wage, phased down and out through the next ten years. This will allow businesses to pay workers whatever they like, and workers will have the right to accept or not accept the job. If a region has too low of a standard of living, workers would have the right to move to a region that has better opportunities (which they have now by the way). The people who govern in regions that lose large numbers of people would either change their regulatory environments, or be seen as the people who emptied their region of workers and companies.

I will promise to phase the government out of health care. I know that this will be unpopular, but only this can bring down the cost of health care, and not merely the price. The first step is to allow people purchase insurance out of their state. This involves interstate commerce so it is within the commerce clause. This would allow the insured to seek the best policy for them, and not what is best for the states' regulators.

I would request that Congress eliminate the IRS with a Constitutional Amendment and replace it will either a flat tax or a consumption tax. In my administration I would not sign the replacement until the IRS is eliminated with the Amendment. Congress cannot be trusted to not bring back the traditional tax so the people must require it through the Constitution.

I would request Congress to eliminate the Department of Education and take that money and return it to the states in the proportion that it was paid. I could make the states act responsibly with this money, but I would encourage the people to hold them accountable, and replace them if they do not act accordingly."

My candidate would respect religious people, but I could care less whether they are religious or not. My only requirement is that this person respects liberty and freedom. I do not know of such a person running for office today. I know of many people who believe this way, but none that are running for President. I would vote for this man/woman, but I suspect they would not service the first primary. As a society we seem to want a nanny, or maybe a genie. We want a person that will promise to fix our lives, whether they have any chance to do it or not. I hope someone will step forward that will do a few of the things I proposed. I am not confident that will happen though.

24 Revival of my Addiction

I am not a big TV watcher but I am addicted to 24. I am a late comer only getting into it last year. I am catching the first four season a little at a time on DVD. The new season is here and it does not disappoint.

I had lots of shocks in hour 4. If you have not seen it and want to don't read on. When Jack shot Curtiss a little part of me died with him. Too much reality. The soldiers and people who really do this and not just on TV have to face death of good guys a lot. Fortunately we get shielded from a lot of it as civilians. In the story line I believe Jack had to do it, but I still get invested in the good guys.

They really are trying to show the human side of Jack. That has to come out once in a while. You saw it some in previous seasons, Terri's death, the on again off again relationship with Kim and so on, but this year we see Jack near the breaking point. If there are any real life Jack Bauers out there I wonder if they get near the brink in that way, I believe they must from time to time.

I don't approach this as a TV reviewer would. I just watch it for good entertainment and it also shows us would could happen if we aren't careful. If the terrorists ever get a nuke, I hope there is someone out there doing everything they can to stop it as Jack does, but also I worry that the scenario of the civil rights violations and the mutual mistrust between civilians could get to the point that it is in season six. I don't think it would take weekly attacks, I think one more 911 could cause many people to take to the streets and demand blood. That is scary and I pray that will never happen.

In the meantime, it is good TV.

What is a Job?

With Congress voting to raise the minimum wage (along with many states in the last election cycle including Ohio where I live) I am encouraged to look at this subject.

Is a job a right? Is it a privilege? I say neither. It is a contract. It can be implied or explicit. a person or persons are contracting you to do work to help them accomplish a goal. That goal can be making a profit or in a not for profit setting it could be efficient use of resources.

Whatever the setting your participation is important, but the goal to be accomplished should be the foremost priority. It is your responsibility to become employable toward a goal. When the market determines that you are not helping that goal, you participation should end. This of course has been turned on its ear by union contracts, and expectation of employment for life.

Here is the part that I may annoy some people and I assure you it is not intentional. I believe any minimum wage law should be repealed immediately. If you and your employer agree to work for nothing you should have the right. This is not slavery. Slavery is involuntary. Of course someone could force another and say that it is voluntary, but that is already illegal and would continue to be. Very few people work for the minimum wage and for the most part they are young and they don't stay at that wage long. If employers could add workers at a lower wage the worker could gain valuable experience, and the employer can get a valuable, but menial task competed. If not enough people decide to take the job, the rate of pay will have to increase.

Minimum wage laws hurt in so many ways. First they are a killer for small businesses. These entrepreneurs have to put an increased amount into labor, with no increase in productivity. Their only way of recouping this is to either raise revenues, (raise prices) or cut other expenses. Usually that means cutting jobs either through outsourcing, often offshore, or automation, which of course eliminates jobs.

One way that hurts us as a whole, especially in order states is that many employers turn to illegal immigrants who will work under the table for lower wages. This encourages illegal activity, keeps taxes from being paid, and takes jobs away from legitimate employees. Let me say I have no sympathy to the employers that do this, but it contributes to a large problem in our society.

By making it harder to employ people and terminate people we hurt new workers, and unskilled workers. They continue to be under or unemployed. Many of these people then turn to gangs, drugs, or choose to live a life of slavery to the welfare state. This is largely why our inner cities have become war zones. While I am not blaming all of this on minimum wage laws, they do contribute to this dangerous situation. By trying to protect all, we make them slaves. This is inhuman. It is time for the good intentions crowd to look at the results of their policies. Good intentions should not be tolerated as good enough. Policies that do not work should be repealed for the good of all.

What is a Job?

With Congress voting to raise the minimum wage (along with many states in the last election cycle including Ohio where I live) I am encouraged to look at this subject.

Is a job a right? Is it a privilege? I say neither. It is a contract. It can be implied or explicit. a person or persons are contracting you to do work to help them accomplish a goal. That goal can be making a profit or in a not for profit setting it could be efficient use of resources.

Whatever the setting your participation is important, but the goal to be accomplished should be the foremost priority. It is your responsibility to become employable toward a goal. When the market determines that you are not helping that goal, you participation should end. This of course has been turned on its ear by union contracts, and expectation of employment for life.

Here is the part that I may annoy some people and I assure you it is not intentional. I believe any minimum wage law should be repealed immediately. If you and your employer agree to work for nothing you should have the right. This is not slavery. Slavery is involuntary. Of course someone could force another and say that it is voluntary, but that is already illegal and would continue to be. Very few people work for the minimum wage and for the most part they are young and they don't stay at that wage long. If employers could add workers at a lower wage the worker could gain valuable experience, and the employer can get a valuable, but menial task competed. If not enough people decide to take the job, the rate of pay will have to increase.

Minimum wage laws hurt in so many ways. First they are a killer for small businesses. These entrepreneurs have to put an increased amount into labor, with no increase in productivity. Their only way of recouping this is to either raise revenues, (raise prices) or cut other expenses. Usually that means cutting jobs either through outsourcing, often offshore, or automation, which of course eliminates jobs.

One way that hurts us as a whole, especially in order states is that many employers turn to illegal immigrants who will work under the table for lower wages. This encourages illegal activity, keeps taxes from being paid, and takes jobs away from legitimate employees. Let me say I have no sympathy to the employers that do this, but it contributes to a large problem in our society.

By making it harder to employ people and terminate people we hurt new workers, and unskilled workers. They continue to be under or unemployed. Many of these people then turn to gangs, drugs, or choose to live a life of slavery to the welfare state. This is largely why our inner cities have become war zones. While I am not blaming all of this on minimum wage laws, they do contribute to this dangerous situation. By trying to protect all, we make them slaves. This is inhuman. It is time for the good intentions crowd to look at the results of their policies. Good intentions should not be tolerated as good enough. Policies that do not work should be repealed for the good of all.

Let the demogoguery begin

We have new imperial rulers. Long live the Demagogues. Of course I am referring tongue in cheek to the new Congress. In recent days our new Congress has approved legislation to raise the minimum wage which will destroy many small businesses, are poised to pass legislation that will allow the government to "negotiate" with drug companies. I have never yet heard of a government entity that will negotiate. This will turn into price controls in short order. With that we can say goodbye to private research on new drugs. So much for treatments for cancer, AIDS, because they will not fit into the Medicare price targets. This of course will be good for the Democratic congress because it will be fresh reasons to refer to them as "Greedy".

Recently here in the Akron area the Mayor for Life Don Plusquellic has been making headlines by ranting about housing subsidies. The imperial mayor questioned President Bush's Christian values (an oldy but a goody in Democrat circles). So many problems here. First I sincerely doubt that President Bush personally decides which cities get which subsidies. Second I cannot find one word in the Bible where Jesus or any of the authors advocate government policy. Jesus spoke and preached about person behavior and belief.

The Mayor for life also made comparisons between housing subsidies and the war in Iraq. Last time I checked the Iraq budget does not come from the Housing and Urban Development budget. I think if his highness would check the Constitution he would find detailed verbiage about providing for the common defense, but would find not one word about providing money for housing subsidies.

The good mayor also spoke to people who need help through no fault of their own. This of course is true. This is also false. I suggest Mayor Plusquellic take a walk through some of the AMHA neighborhoods (without security and without his multitude of Deputy Mayors) and talk to some of the people who live in the projects. I think he would find a lot of people are incredulous about why the city cannot protect them from the crack houses, and thugs that run the projects. Maybe since AMHA will receive less money from the feds he will find a way to keep the good people in the projects which most certainly do exist safe from the thugs. Maybe then that money could be used to more good!!

This of course is fantasy because Mayor Don has no need to perform. He will be re-elected even though during a good economy this region which they share with Cleveland is one of the poorest in the country. Never is the Mayor asked to explain why Akron never recovers even though many industrial areas do. He never has to answer why while the rest of the country has a vibrant economy, Akron seems to languish and allow suffering. He never has to answer why businesses will not come to Akron at the rate they do in other areas. Mayor Don only has to put his name on the ballot, and since he has a 'D' after his name he will be re-elected.

Broken Heart

The BCS championship is over and all of Ohio is broken hearted again. After the most dominant season I can remember, my beloved Buckeyes dropped the championship, and really were never in the game after their opening kickoff return for a touchdown.

Fans in Ohio are used to being taken to the brink, and let down. The Browns in the eighties, the Indians in the nineties, all of the great Buckeye teams in the nineties that always lost the big game.

This one was very painful because of the way they were dominated. No offense, no defense, no special teams.

We love our Bucks and tip our cap to Florida, and I will love them next year!

Thoughts for a New Year

This is not a resolution essay nor a call for others to make resolutions. I have never kept a resolution yet, and don't expect to be able to keep any this year. That being said the New year does give us a logical beginning, to take stock of what we are doing and where we want to go.

In all areas of our society I see extremes. In politics we hear loud obsessive voices that say they are right and if only those other intolerant people would just listen to me they would see the light. We have the secular folks that tell us because they don't believe in God, than it must be false, therefore those of us who do believe, are leading people astray. We have racial advocates that tell us if we don't believe affirmative action solves all ills than we are racist. We have Gay marriage that tell not only must we agree with them, we must if necessary have judges institute this as law. The November election show us that we have political parties that tell us even though they present no vision, direction or leadership that if just vote for them they will show it to us then. Which party am I talking about? Unfortunately both.

All of those things can be negative, and in many ways are. They don't have to be. I intend this to be a positive essay. The new perspective we can take is rather old in its roots. If you are a person of faith, read your holy scripture whatever that may be. Take comfort in the teachings. Share the teachings with others, but no means be dogmatic. Share, don't inflict.

Read the constitution again, or for the first time. Look at the beauty of its simplicity. Read some of the Federalist papers. These explain the heart and soul of the founders. I can find no article or amendment that by explicit, nor implicit instruction gives powers of lawmaking to judges, activists, nor pundits.

Get involved. by this I don't mean give money, although that is important to give to groups you believe in. I prefer to give my money when I can to humanistic charities like Salvation Army or a local shelter, but my money is somewhat tighter than some others. By getting involved I mean try to keep up on current events, using more than the evening news. Read, explore, and be curious. By the end of the coming year the Presidential candidates will be in full swing for 2008. Look beyond the rhetoric. When both parties give their platitudes and promises ask yourself, how will this person accomplish this? For example surely they will promise to get us our of Iraq, what will they do? Just leave, or find a way to give the country a functioning government. If they have a sure fire plan have they shared it with the President and joint chiefs?

On economics, the next thing they will promise is to end offshore outsourcing and job losses from it. Ask yourself how will they do it. If you believe this is caused by greed, will this person end greed? If it is caused by normal economic events, will they change the basic laws of economics? They can't change economic laws, but they can change the environment, by adding government oversight. What will be the consequences beyond that? Will they cause other things not so positive to happen?

This is where the Constitution and Federalist Papers come in. If the candidates for President promise to fix our problems by giving you security over freedom, be suspicious, very suspicious!!!