Hey Congress, ban Narcissm

Normal thought processes would tell you that you cannot pass a law making narcissism illegal nor should you. But since our Congress acts on all sorts of things they should not, why not give it a shot?

They propose taxes on excess profits for oil companies. The obvious questions here that have none or just bad answers are: What are excessive profits and if the companies make less in profit than the government extracts in taxes shouldn't the government also be slapped with windfall profits?

How about this one, since gas prices are high because of inadequate supply to satisfy demand, wouldn't saying we can't drill our way out of this be, well stupid?

You don't want to talk about oil, OK how about this? Since national health care has restricted access to health care treatments everywhere it has been tried, why exactly would instituting it here be successful?

The answer is narcissism. The elected representatives believe they can implement it efficiently even though it hasn't been done anywhere else. Their thinking has their own plans at the center of everything.

Of course this isn't just limited to Congress or even elected representatives. In the run up to the Supreme Court decision about the Washington D.C. gun ban I heard a grieving widow say that governments need to be able to keep their citizens safe. If that actually happened when guns were banned I would agree. Putting results aside (which we should never do) the idea that because her husband was murdered by a gun wielding animal then we should be able to ban guns for everyone. I would not seek to diminish her personal suffering, and I do empathize with her. Narcissism explains this. Personally I would want the animal who killed her husband to meet the same fate, but a law biding citizen in some inner city hell should be able to defend himself by owning a gun if he so chooses.

In the dissenting opinion (Find it here) page 157 Justice Breyer states that "
The Court would have us believe that over 200 years ago, the Framers made a choice to limit the tools available to elected officials wishing to regulate civilian uses of weapons,
and to authorize this Court to use the common-law process of case-by-case judicial lawmaking to define the contours of acceptable gun control policy."

Admittedly I cannot expertly argue law with a Supreme court justice but I do remember from my high school government classes that the first ten amendments known as the Bill of Rights all limited the power of government not individuals. Additionally this decision does not take away a local governments' ability to regulate gun ownership, just ban it. They have the obligation to keep guns out of the hands from known violent offenders, criminally insane, etc. They do not have the right to keep them from private law biding citizens. Once again the Supreme court, the minority in this case shows its narcissism.

This is of course a hypothetical essay. No one can or should ban something as un-quantifiable as narcissism, but they also should not try to involve themselves in our lives as deeply as they do. Windfall profit taxes, etc should be just as silly to try to impose as a ban on narcissism.

Thank You Senator Obama

Much has been made of Senator Obama's decision not to accept public funds for the general election campaign. Ever since he became a candidate he talked at length about the importance of public funds. He thinks we need to get money out of politics.

His decision not to accept public funds has been called a flip flop, hypocrisy and a lie. There is a touch of all those things, but above all it shatters this myth that the government needs to provide the funds and access for candidates. He has been on this bandwagon forever and it hasn't limited the access he has given to shady characters. Look at his circle of friends. It is a motley crue of criminals, terrorists and downright America Haters. Has public financing laws helped that?

The theory is that you need to be rich to get elected. That is true to a certain extent. This is not a good thing, but public finance laws haven't changed that. By passing laws that you cannot use your own money all you will be doing is making sure incumbents will be unopposed. Unknown candidates will not be able to get their message out. That doesn't strike me as an improvement. Incumbents seem to me to be a large part of the problem, not a solution.

Listen closely, we need politicians of both parties that have integrity and a sense of what the constitution calls for. Public financing of campaigns will not accomplish that. Obama recognizes that even he won't publicly admit it.

MIchele Obama another look

Much has been made of the comments of the would be First Lady Michele Obama. Many people have commented about her comments and some are good comments and some not so insightful. There is one comment in particular that has bothered me and until recently I wasn't sure why.

I re-read the comments today and I think I know what bothers me. Here is the part that bothers me:

"We left corporate America, which is a lot of what we’re asking young people to do,” she tells the women. “Don’t go into corporate America. You know, become teachers. Work for the community. Be social workers. Be a nurse. Those are the careers that we need, and we’re encouraging our young people to do that. But if you make that choice, as we did, to move out of the money-making industry into the helping industry, then your salaries respond.”

I want to be clear here, I have nothing against nurses, teachers etc. These are all fine important careers. If that is your passion by all means be a teacher, be a nurse, be a social worker be what you want. I might mention that the laws of supply and demand have already not been good to teachers. If the Obama-nation all go into this type of career the supply will go up which will ultimately bring down the price this is what happens when the supply of a commodity goes up without a corresponding increase in demand. The young idealists will not be able to support themselves and I'm certain will turn to the government to fill in the gaps.

The comments bother me because they tend to taint any career where you are making commerce happen. I work as a software developer. I also didn't like being part of corporate America. My response was to go to work for a smaller enterprise. I find that very rewarding. I make a difference. I can do more that a single talk over and over and again I make a difference. I'm sure what would make Ms Obama upset is that I contribute to a profit making enterprise.

My industry is to help people make electronic commerce happen. Thousands of workers depend on our company doing our job. Most of these are factory workers by the way, the only people that the Obama seems to think are 'working people'. We deliver purchase orders, advanced ship notices etc between companies so that the people who work in plants can do their jobs. We format electronic records to health care companies so insurance can be administered effectively and efficiently. I am not a 'community organizer' whatever that is but I think I help companies make jobs available to employees.

What about a mega-sized company like Microsoft? Are they a benefit to the community? The Ms. Obama is telling people to not work in corporate America the hiring managers for Microsoft are looking overseas for qualified people to fill their high paying jobs here in America and overseas. Maybe if some of those young people would forgo their good feelings of 'community service' and be trained in some of these jobs, we wouldn't have so many jobs going overseas. I see that as a good thing. Maybe some of these young idealists could spend some time in corporate America to find out what doesn't work and then they could create their own business using their humanistic values. That would be a benefit to the community.

Now by writing this am I saying community service is not important? Of course not. I believe greatly in community activity. I believe in people volunteering their time and their money for causes they believe in. That can be through their church, for non-faith based causes, for training programs for the poor (non-governmental) parks and recreational groups, for homeless shelters. Volunteer for an organization that works with young people. The people that worship, er I mean support Obama don't like the Boy Scouts but what about YMCA, or Big Brothers and Big Sisters? You will note the things I have mentioned are not government jobs, but activities that we have to sacrifice for. When we give of ourselves we feel good and we make an impact. Just going to work for a bureaucracy as in the additional programs that Senator Obama is proposing doesn't help, it simply takes money away from producing people to give to non-producing people.

Lastly by encouraging people to shun profit producing enterprises we weaken the fabric of the backbone of our country, private enterprise. Without private ownership of profit producing enterprises we lose productivity and ultimately we lose freedom in all its forms. The more decisions are made by large governmental and quasi governmental groups the less productive everything is.

My advice is this, find what you are passionate about and that you have an aptitude for and pursue that career. I spent ten years in a job I hated and it affected me greatly in a negative way. After hard work and temporary reduction of salary I am now somewhat prosperous in a career that I enjoy and I thinks helps others even if the possible future First Lady doesn't agree.

How much pain is Congress willing to inflict

I am on the edge of a conspiracy theory here. It is unlike me but I am starting to wonder if Democrats in congress know the damage they have done and are willing to see gas prices go to the roof for their agenda.

The thing I am unsure of is why. Are they doing it to make Republicans look bad for the upcoming election or is it just to pacify their masters in the radical environmental movement. If they are doing it to keep the economy sinking under the weight of high energy prices that would be treason and anti American since they would be purposely hurting the country. I would like to believe that is not true and am leaning toward the belief that it is just their dedication to radical environmentalism. That would make them collasally wrong and not anti American.

Under that assumption it can only be one of two things. Either they are so ignorant of basic economics they should immediately resign en mass to make room for someone with a clue or they are so in debt to their masters in the radical environmental movement that they should resign immediately for putting special interests ahead of our citizens. Ironically the poor are being hurt the hardest, the very people they purport to champion. Since that is the normal outcome of modern liberalism I am leaning toward that view. Either way our economy cannot get along with these spikes in energy. Congress has the ability to change it, but I suspect won't. The reasons are still out for conjecture. I still haven't made up my mind on the question.

Conservatives, don't get stuck on stupid

I keep hearing people talking about Barak Obama in such stupid terms that it appals me. I hear about his 'twisted' Christianity, I hear about him once being a Muslim, I hear about so many things that may or may not be true.

Bringing up these inane things will not turn the public against his candidacy. It will most likely make some people more sympathetic to him. He will be seen as a victim and today's America loves a victim whether they are in truth or not.

Personally I don't care about the doctrines of his church. Saying that does not mean I don't care about his friends such as the Reverends Wright and Phleger. These people show his terrible judgement in mentors and friends, but the doctrines of his church are not terribly important to me, much as the doctrines of the Mormon church were not important to me with Mitt Romney.

Whether or not Obama was brought up Muslim as a child is also not important to me. Many people were taken to church as kids and call themselves atheists today. They religion as a child is of no importance to me.

His middle name is of absolutely no importance to me. He doesn't use it and I think he has a right to be called what he prefers.

What is important to me is his lack of knowledge and commitment to sane foreign policy. I also care about his absolute commitment to the most failed economic system ever to inhabit the world:Socialism. I also care that he gives the impression that if the rest of don't agree with him about Socialism that we have the character flaw.

I care that he sees the tax code as his way of creating little social laboratories. I care that he wishes to reward bad behavior and bad choices. This keeps the young and the down and out from ever improving their lives.

I care about these things a great deal. I also don't care to see him get more issues to make people feel sorry for him. He seems to have enough of those already.

Democrats just know more than the rest of us

That is what they think anyway. Two major examples here. In the legislation that did not muster the votes for cloture this week regarding the windfall profits tax, they would set up boards to determine what is appropriate profits. In the world of Wall Street these already exist. They are made up of people who know their craft. They analyze the public statements of companies and the guidance the companies provide to determine what their profits will be. They are fairly accurate but even they sometimes miss. When this happens we see huge spikes and valleys in Stock Prices.

I am willing to bet that any board setup by Congress to determine appropriate profit levels will not be industry experts. I expect they will be made up of patronage positions to payoff party faithful, also know as party hacks. Any industry expert will be someone who agrees with the Congressional Democrats. I don't think it would be any surprise that these boards would find that the entire mess of energy is to be blamed on evil corporations and their evil profits.

Profit drives business. This elementary but no less crucial to understand. When businesses make huge profits they expand. They hire more people, they do more research and development and they feed retirement plans with stock price increases and sometimes dividends (thanks to the Bush tax cuts). The idea that oil companies will make energy cheaper by being taxed heavier would be laughable if not so serious.

Another example of Democrat hubris is in ANWR. Unfortunately it is not just Democrats practicing hubris on this one. John McCain is a willing participant. He at least uses the ridiculous comparison to the Grand Canyon. I have heard quotes from several Senators saying that the research shows that it would not benefit the oil companies to explore there.

The shocking thing about this is that the public is not outraged. It is not the governments' job to determine proper risk for business to take. The companies will determine if they will commit their companies to that risk. If it is too great a risk, they have a win win situation. They pacify all of us by voting to open it up and the companies still won't drill. If the opposite is true, which is much more likely we would in a few years be reaping huge amounts of crude and drastically increasing supply which of course would be step 1 but only the first step toward bringing prices down.

Congress knows that they people will not explore the issue further than listening to the six o'clock news so they are safe to throw out whichever ridiculous explanation they feel and no few actual voters will hold their feet to the fire. Maybe we do deserve to be held hostage to these pirates.

Time for Obama to Prove he is serious

Up until now Barak Obama was auditioning in front of his family so to speak. The primaries were long and sometimes bitter but he was politicking to people that never disagreed with him. In all of the campaign there was little that any of the Democratic candidates disagreed with each other on.

Now that Obama is the nominee (or presumptive until the Convention). Between now and November he has to prove to people in the center that he can be there nominee. People on the right he cannot convince. Me being a person of the right could never under any circumstance vote for him. He is a Socialist plain and simple.

He has to convince religious people in West Virginia that his comments about guns and God were not really how they seem. He has to convince people in Texas that even though they may work for an oil company he isn't calling them evil. He has to convince the lower income people who's taxes he will be raising that by doing so he is really on their side. He has to convince the same people that by raising taxes he will be ensuring that the wealthy will be paying a lower percentage of the total taxes, and the poor will be paying a greater share of the total taxes.

Maybe he can convince those of us over forty five why, for a man that talks about constantly about change has campaign themes that sound distinctly like those of George McGovern. Lets recount them, surrender in an unpopular war, raising taxes to pay for goodies, and the overriding belief that if only we would talk nice to them the people across the world that want us dead won't want us dead.

That shouldn't be too tough. He is a talented orator after all. Being a believer in government he surely believes that all of us in the heartland are stupid.

I guess we will find out if we really are. If we believe that he can offer all of the services that he has promised and it will only be paid for by the evil rich and the corporations (which are made up of working people by the way) than maybe we are stupid.

To be on the left is to have no consequences

We have constantly seen the lack of consequences of the left. People on the left too often believe that people should not be held accountable for their words and actions. The latest is Father Phlager of racist ranting fame. He made some statement recently that he believed that his comments would be limited to the people in the church. I can guarantee that Trent Lott thought his comments at Strom Thurman's birthday party would be confined to his audience. He lost his leadership position in the Senate.

Hillary Clinton agreed to the rules about Michigan and Florida concerning primary scheduling. Now that she has lost she believes their votes should count. While on the subject of Hillary she believed in the action in Iraq when the resolution came to a vote. Now she believes the action to be wrong. People change their minds and that is fine. She however wants the blame to go to President Bush and not to her.

Barak Obama wants to make everyone who makes bad choices in life immune to the results. Just tax the evil corporations and everyone can be whole. If you make a bad investment with a shaky loan? Just make the banks refinance with a sweetheart deal. If you use check cashing services. Are you accountable? No the government will regulate them.

Speech is one of their favorites. Barak Obama says he should not be held accountable for the rantings of his lunatic pastor. As far as the statement goes I agree. What he should be accountable for is his lack of judgment of the people he considers spiritual leaders. He has a pretty bad track record there. He wants us to believe that he will have better judgement when he meets with the Arab thug dictators.

When the Dixie Chicks singing group make critical statements about the President in their concerts, they could not understand why their fans would punish them by not buying their records. Words matter and so does judgement.

Conservatives and right leaning people also say stupid things. The difference is they tend to apologize and make restitution to the people involved. Pat Robertson has said several stupid things. He has apologized. Franklin Graham has said stupid things. John Hagee has made some stupid and some mischaracterized statements. He made peace with the Catholic church in very public statements. Has Jeremiah Wright ever apologized for his rants? Have the Chicks? I am not saying they have any obligation to, but if they want people to reverse their judgements of them some kind of apology is in order.

Judgment and consequences is how we learn. I was arrested when I was younger for driving while intoxicated. Not being a stupid man I don't do this anymore. I learned from consequences. We can not expect people in our society to learn from mistakes if there are no consequences.