Philosophy, Politics & Culture, Religion

Obamanomics: Or, Reflections on the Redistribution of the Wealth of Others

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The spin by the major media is that the medium was the message, but the substance of the remarks delivered on April 20 by President Barack Obama to a crowd of Facebook employees deserves attention.

Indeed, for a speech panned as featuring softball, scripted questions, the Commander in Chief said a few things worth a raise of the eyebrows. Courtesy of Wired’s Ryan Sengal:

“If you are an entrepreneur with a startup in a garage, good luck getting health insurance,” Obama said. “Nothing is easier than solving a problem on the backs of people who are poor, who don’t have lobbyists and don’t have power.” … “We lose $4 billion a year on subsidies to oil companies. Now think about this: The top 5 oil companies have made between $75 billion and $125 billion each year over the last few years. No one is doing better than Exxon — well, maybe Facebook is. Why can’t we remove the tax cuts and spend the money on alternative energy to save the planet,” Obama said, to big applause.

First, some translation is in order. “Remove the tax cuts” is code for “raise taxes,” which is the centerpiece of Obama’s domestic economic agenda. To “save the planet” means to impose federal regulations that make it more difficult to be one of those start-up entrepreneurs in a garage. And the $4 billion in subsidies to oil companies pales next to the $8.8 billion in public-sector union dues that largely subsidizes the Democratic Party — perhaps eliminating these dues could help pay for health insurance for sick garage-bound entrepreneurs?

It seems that the more Obama speaks, the more he suggests that it’s necessary and proper for government to redistribute the income of those accursed “millionaires and billionaires” and put it to some public purpose. Recall his famous comment that “at some point, you’ve made enough money.”

Think about that for a moment, and ask the question: What moral right permits the government to expropriate the income of successful Americans in order to fund the pet projects of liberal activists?

Consider a hypothetical small town in Middle America — a small city, with bonds of community. If a family becomes financially strapped, perhaps because of the loss of a job, does a neighbor have a moral duty to render financial assistance? A good Christian soul should affirm with a resounding aye. The roots of that duty lie in a person’s link to other people, and taking care of one’s brothers and sisters is a virtue that requires both good intent and good action. If taking care of one’s neighbors becomes disassociated from private virtue — chiefly through taxation, and the replacement of local charity with public welfare — then the bonds of community fray. The donor obtains no moral benefit, and the recipient has no corresponding duty to the community or to remove himself with all due speed from the public dole. Public morality requires individual actors, not the mass transfer of assets with decisions made in a distant capital. The alternative is to turn needy people into anonymous casefiles and taxpayers into cash spigot turned on and off at governmental whim. You simply cannot enforce community values through the channels of large government. Real community happens among real people in small groups across the fruited plain.

President Obama is skilled at using red herrings and straw men to suggest that opposition to his redistribution scheme comes from the greed of wealthy special interests. Yet the real question is why Obama’s plans to confiscate income from the successful ought to be considered as morally proper on its face. Why should the wealthy pay a greater percentage of their income in taxation than the poor? Why must millionaires and billionares be excoriated for their success? What is the moral claim to the income of others? I have yet to hear a dedicated, coherent moral argument for why it’s appropriate for 1 percent of taxpayers to surrender almost 35 percent of tax revenues and the top 50 percent of taxpayers to cough up more than 96.5 percent of tax revenues. Why is this preferable to everyone paying the same relative tax rate?

You don’t hear Obama talking about the why of it, only about the how. He assumes the virtue of his position, but there’s no ethical paradigm on the books that’s comfortable with his redistributionist agenda (except, of course, egoism). A consequentialist would have to look at 60 years’ accumulated evidence that high taxation and government-sponsored welfare programs has led to the breakdown of poor families and the loss of jobs at the margin related to the tax squeeze. A deontologist would have to evaluate the relative duties of a taxpayer under the Constitution. A divine-command or natural-law theorist would have to study Scripture for its injunctions about chairty. The list goes on, but the result is the same: Redistributionist policies have no serious moral foundation.

Except, of course, in the “moral drama” of the political stage. Obama is promising bread and circuses for free for everyone but the small percentage of taxpayers who must foot the bill. Such a strategy gets votes, and power, but without the benefit of virtue.

Spending others’ money is easy. Finding a moral justification for it, not so much.

Politics & Culture

Election Review: We Remembered November, Now What?

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The Republican Governors Association encouraged us to remember November. We listened; after the midterm elections, the GOP picked up more than 60 seats in the House of Representatives, six seats in the U.S. Senate, a majority of governorships, a majority of statehouses, and — for the first time since the 1920s — an absolute majority of state legislators.

In Michigan, the GOP kept the offices of Attorney General and Secretary of State and, in a landslide, our “tough nerd” Rick Snyder reclaimed the Governor’s mansion for the first time since John Engler. In addition, Republicans took the state House, picked up two U.S. House seats, and earned a majority-conservative state Supreme Court. The Republicans have a solid lock on all three branches of state government and a majority of the state’s Congressmen (nine of 16). The lone ranking Democrats are the state’s two U.S. Senators, Carl Levin and Debbie Stabenow. And lest we forget, Michigan had a Republican Senator as recently as 2000, when Spencer Abraham — a good Senator but weak campaigner — lost his re-election bid to “Liberal Debbie.”

So now what?

On a national level, the House Republicans are sounding the best possible note. No triumphalism. No gloating. No elephants parading down Pennsylvania Avenue. Instead, John Boehner is making all the right moves, opening the door to compromise but making it clear that the major mandate the GOP possesses is to fix the problems that originated in Democratic profligacy. Marco Rubio’s victory speech was dead on — the GOP didn’t get a resounding endorsement, it got probation. The next two years will decide whether this probation is eligible for early termination or whether the Elephant goes back into solitary confinement.

On a state level, I sincerely hope that Rick Snyder’s election signifies a change of tone within the state GOP. Michigan is an easy win for Republicans who carry the Reagan Democrat banner, so the state party’s decade-long push for hardcore conservative candidates has been simply wrong-headed, and prior election results proved it. Don’t misunderstand; I want a solid conservative victory. But when the state still has strong UAW membership, conservatism must be taught, not imposed by fiat. The Michigan Republicans have not been up to the educational task these last few years. Ron Weiser’s tenure as chairman has been better, but the whole enterprise still feels a bit inbred and tone-deaf.

Nowhere does the dysfunction of Michigan Republicans play out more clearly than in Kent County. Access is circumscribed unless you have a membership to an Ada country club, or so it seems. There is something significant that this cycle, my three phone calls and emails to the county GOP never merited even a form response, yet both Hoekstra’s primary and Snyder’s gubernatorial campaigns eagerly contacted me to help. This is a sharp contrast to my experiences in Kalamazoo County, where a friend and I were eagerly welcomed into the Executive Committee during our undergrad days as officers at the WMU College Republicans, and my brief stay in Ottawa County, where the chairman asked me to coordinate youth activities for the county party. There are too many big-name, big-dollar fish in Kent County to turn it into anything other than an exclusive club, and that’s a damned shame. As long as the Kent County GOP remains the preserve of the elite, opportunities to expand the Republican message will surely be missed.

Of course, navel gazing gets us only so far. The midterm results suggest a few points worth considering:

  1. Republicans should keep in mind that this election was a referendum on Democratic incompetence and over-reach, and not a rousing endorsement of  a specifically Republican platform. Rubio is right: The GOP is on probation, and public-opinion polling supports this perspective.
  2. America is a center-right country. The ideals of the Tea Party resonate strongly with a disaffected mass in the center and right. Republicans should take care to incorporate Tea Party ideas — which, in fairness, are overwhelmingly conservative principles — into the GOP governing paradigm. Why? To avoid a third-party challenge in 2012 that would almost certainly restore the Democrats to power. We cannot risk a second Obama term because we couldn’t stop the next Ross Perot from grabbing a chunk of the disaffected electorate.
  3. The GOP owns Michigan. We must not fail in effecting the transition from a manufacturing economy. Snyder is saying the right things about innovation. We must work very hard to deliver on his promises if we want Michigan’s electoral votes credit the GOP presidential nominee in 2012. In particular, we need a new message to help bring rank-and-file union members back into the GOP.
  4. Republicans across the board need to do a much better job at candidate recruiting, starting at the local level. Justin Amash, the newly elected Congressman from the 3rd District, is a great example of the worst possible candidate earning the nomination. State Sen. Bill Hardiman and Kent County leader Steve Heacock split the “adult” vote in the primary, leaving Amash — a 30-something bomb-thrower who had his state House seat purchased for him by his parents — grabbing the nomination. But Amash, besides his lack of qualification, doesn’t speak to the tenor of Kent County. Amash would fit better in a solidly Republican district; I fear that in coming years, this seat will become vulnerable to takeover by a center-right (instead of far-right) candidate. I hope the Congressman-Elect will pay careful attention to why Ehlers, Henry and Ford did so well here, and why Kent County is not a solidly red county. And don’t get me started on Christine O’Donnell, Joe Miller and Sharron Angle.
  5. Republicans at all level, while retaining their humility about their probationary status, must also govern like conservatives. Center-left candidates were tossed out on their asses all across America. Although some compromise will doubtless be necessary from a purely political standpoint, Republicans simply cannot tax, spend and lobby their way to indolence like they did earlier this decade.

The next two years will be interesting.

Personal, Politics & Culture

Whaaaa..? I’m a White Guy Profiled by a Black Cop!

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So picture it. Your humble correspondent is hurtling down a divided rural highway, just north of Grand Rapids, Mich. He drives a 1990 Ford Ranger XLT with an uneven black-and-green paint job, because he does not care for a large car payment after the fiasco of his 2003 Jeep Grand Cherokee being totaled but the insurance company saying, “oops, better luck next time.”

So. Where was I? Oh, yes.

I’m traveling mid-pack in a herd of five vehicles, proceeding southbound on M-37, with the whole pod running about 7 m.p.h. over the posted limit. On the far side of an unusually wide, grassy median, pointed northbound along the shoulder of the outside lane, was a Michigan State Police patrol car; it was parked with the windows up and the engine running.

Soon, I see the trooper cross the median and accelerate toward us. He singles me out and pulls me over.

The officer, a middle-aged African American, politely requests my license, registration and proof of insurance. My insurance card was locally printed (I am a Progressive customer) and it took him a moment to figure it out — itself unusual, since every time I was pulled over in a newer-model vehicle, the insurance part usually consisted of the question, “Do you have valid insurance? Yes, OK then good enough.”

The trooper took all of my documentation and headed back to his car, where he sat for all of 45 seconds before returning to me, handing me my paperwork back, and telling me he pulled me over becuase my muffler was loud and I should get it looked at.

Now, permit me to share a few points of trivia:

  1. My muffler is, indeed, loud; the urban gang-banging previous owner of the truck installed a louder one than normal, but it was new and was well within legal decibel limits.
  2. I was traveling in a pack of vehicles; how did the trooper know which one was the loud one?
  3. The pack passed him 100 feet away, while he had his windows up. What exactly did he hear?

So, my thought — given how short of a time he spent with my paperwork — is that he saw an older truck with a crappy paint job and figured I was a slam-dunk ticket or arrest for something, even something as trivial as a paperwork discrepancy.

And when I wasn’t actually found guilty of anything, he sent me away faster than Rick Sanchez fleeing the local rabbi.

As I pulled away, I was struck by the irony of it. I was a law-abiding citizen, pulled over because I was profiled. And I was profiled by a black cop.

Who says race relations haven’t progressed much since the ’60s?

Personal, Politics & Culture

Whaaaa..? I'm a White Guy Profiled by a Black Cop!

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So picture it. Your humble correspondent is hurtling down a divided rural highway, just north of Grand Rapids, Mich. He drives a 1990 Ford Ranger XLT with an uneven black-and-green paint job, because he does not care for a large car payment after the fiasco of his 2003 Jeep Grand Cherokee being totaled but the insurance company saying, “oops, better luck next time.”
So. Where was I? Oh, yes.
I’m traveling mid-pack in a herd of five vehicles, proceeding southbound on M-37, with the whole pod running about 7 m.p.h. over the posted limit. On the far side of an unusually wide, grassy median, pointed northbound along the shoulder of the outside lane, was a Michigan State Police patrol car; it was parked with the windows up and the engine running.
Soon, I see the trooper cross the median and accelerate toward us. He singles me out and pulls me over.
The officer, a middle-aged African American, politely requests my license, registration and proof of insurance. My insurance card was locally printed (I am a Progressive customer) and it took him a moment to figure it out — itself unusual, since every time I was pulled over in a newer-model vehicle, the insurance part usually consisted of the question, “Do you have valid insurance? Yes, OK then good enough.”
The trooper took all of my documentation and headed back to his car, where he sat for all of 45 seconds before returning to me, handing me my paperwork back, and telling me he pulled me over becuase my muffler was loud and I should get it looked at.
Now, permit me to share a few points of trivia:

  1. My muffler is, indeed, loud; the urban gang-banging previous owner of the truck installed a louder one than normal, but it was new and was well within legal decibel limits.
  2. I was traveling in a pack of vehicles; how did the trooper know which one was the loud one?
  3. The pack passed him 100 feet away, while he had his windows up. What exactly did he hear?

So, my thought — given how short of a time he spent with my paperwork — is that he saw an older truck with a crappy paint job and figured I was a slam-dunk ticket or arrest for something, even something as trivial as a paperwork discrepancy.
And when I wasn’t actually found guilty of anything, he sent me away faster than Rick Sanchez fleeing the local rabbi.
As I pulled away, I was struck by the irony of it. I was a law-abiding citizen, pulled over because I was profiled. And I was profiled by a black cop.
Who says race relations haven’t progressed much since the ’60s?

Politics & Culture, Religion

On Mosques and Religious Tolerance

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“As a citizen, and as president, I believe that Muslims have the same right to practice their religion as everyone else in this country … That includes the right to build a place of worship and a community center on private property in lower Manhattan, in accordance with local laws and ordinances … This is America, and our commitment to religious freedom must be unshakable.”

So says President Barack Obama, in reference to the plans by an Islamic group to build a major mosque near the site of the former World Trade Center. Interesting perspective, that.

The response to the $100 million project sponsored by the Cordoba Initiative is depressing if only because of its banality: Lefties who ordinarily gloat at the erosion of the Judeo-Christian perspective in the public square nevertheless demand a mosque at Ground Zero to show how much America values religious pluralism, while conservatives who normally champion religious freedom demand that the mosque be suppressed or at least located elsewhere.

Both sides are wrong, and hypocritical. As usual.

Conservatives should know better than to impose a sectarian litmus test on the placement of mosques; building the facility a few blocks away from Ground Zero may be tacky, but it does not represent a threat to national security or to religious freedom, even if the project’s funders have shadowy ties to terrorism (hint: that’s what the FBI is for). Cries about the sensitivity of the “victims of 9/11” ring hollow, as well — the dead have no feelings to offend, and in any case, appealing to victimhood is hardly a staple tactic of the Right’s playbook, and for good reason. I cannot adduce a single non-aesthetic conservative principle that should justify opposition to the Cordoba Initiative’s plan.

However, liberals who assert that permitting a mosque in that location is a sign of America’s robust religious tolerance are not fooling anyone. The Left leads the assault against religious freedom in America, through incremental restrictions against the public display of Judeo-Christian sensibilities in the public square. No serious person believes that liberals are unabashed proponents of religious expression: Look no further than the ongoing drama over the Christian Legal Society’s funding for proof. If anything, this situation is a sign that the Left’s embrace of non-Western diversity is genuinely as muddle-headed and chronically unserious as many conservatives feared — that liberals cannot distinguish between Islam as a religion and Islam as a culture, nor grasp that the Muslim world has no American-style “wall of separation” between religious faith and political authority that allows for the purely private religious belief characteristic of WASP social mores.

The one aspect of this situation that disturbs me the most isn’t the hypocrisy of it, however. Rather, it’s the unspoken assumption that the Cordoba Initiative’s plan somehow marks a referendum on America’s commitment to religious pluralism.

You hear it from Barack Obama. You hear it from New York mayor Michael Bloomberg. You hear it from New York governor David Patterson. The refrain is the same: We must permit the Cordoba Initiative to do exactly as it wishes, because any restrictions on mosque placement will necessarily imply that the last 221 years of the U.S. Constitution and its First Amendment protections will thereby be  irrevocably refuted. Or, in its more crude form: We must let them do as they want to show how tolerant we are.

Conservatives have missed the boat on picking up on the substantive argument, instead preferring by-and-large to offer twofold opposition on the grounds that, first, allowing a mosque at Ground Zero means the terrorists win, and second, that a mosque so close to the allegedly sacred ground of the Twin Towers constitutes a fresh trauma for the survivors of 9/11. Both claims are unadulterated nonsense. This is a logistics issue, not a political-philosophy dilemma.

The real problem here is the astonishing failure of leadership by New York city and state leaders. If we concede the Cordoba Initiative’s inherent right to build a mosque, and we accept that there is a legitimate perception problem (as well as public opposition) for a mosque at Ground Zero, then the solution is pretty simple: Let elected leaders apply the incentives and dis-incentives of government to “facilitate” the mosque somewhere else in New York. If they can do it to preserve spotted toads in California, why not a mosque in Manhattan?

I seriously doubt that New York under Mayor Giuliani and Gov. Pataki would have ceded its moral authority to a group of shadowy imams the same way that Bloomberg and Patterson have allowed. The fact that this is even an issue speaks volumes about the leadership ineptitude from city hall and from Albany. The reason that American religious pluralism has been so robust is because the state serves as an impartial referee among competing interests without giving any particular interest the right to make an absolute claim. We didn’t allow the Mormons to engage in polygamy, we don’t allow just anyone to smoke peyote, we don’t say that molesting kids is OK as long as it’s only in the confessional, and we don’t let soldiers suddenly decide, a week before they deploy, that they have a religious opposition to war. So why should government abdicate its power to influence the placement of the mosque on the flimsiest of religious-freedom grounds? It’s hard to say which is more breathtaking: The irrationality of the situation, or the incompetence or cowardice of those at the helm of the involved governments.

Let there be no mistake: The Cordoba Initiative should be allowed to build a mosque. Placing the mosque at Ground Zero is tacky and insensitive and will be a thorn in the community for many years to come. But this whole brouhaha is less a referendum on America’s commitment to religious freedom than an indictment on the failure of political leaders to respond with foresight and wisdom to an entirely foreseeable controversy.

Let us pray that New Yorkers wise up to the real problem.

Politics & Culture

Michigan Politics: Post-Primary Edition

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The results of Michigan’s August primary are in, and the situation is … interesting.

Governor

The results from the AP:

Republican primary
5,715 of 5,732 precincts – 99 percent

Rick Snyder 379,245 – 36 percent ¶
Pete Hoekstra 278,584 – 27 percent ¶
Mike Cox 238,858 – 23 percent ¶
Mike Bouchard 126,807 – 12 percent ¶
Tom George 16,911 – 2 percent ¶

For the governor’s race, businessman and political neophyte Rick Snyder handily trounced the rest of the pack. Snyder’s candidacy is a curious one: A self-described “one tough nerd,” he was the president and COO of Gateway Computers and enjoys an admirable record as a business leader. Arguably, Snyder won because Hoekstra and Cox split the dedicated conservative/establishment vote. Regardless, the nerd gets his chance to pick up the party mantle.

From a purely political perspective, Snyder’s election is thrilling. He is not a hard-right Republican, and this is a good thing. I firmly believe that one of the most significant handicaps for the Michigan GOP is its slavish devotion to its country-club grandees — folks like the DeVos and Yob families, whose pocketbooks ensure compliance but whose social sensibilities are out-of-touch with a state that cares more about economic performance than contrived social mores. The Michigan GOP, like the Kent County GOP, is heavily influenced by the Ada-style country-club elitism that, despite its charms, is simply inconsistent with the culture of a state that remains “Reagan Democrat.” Perhaps Snyder’s candidacy will break open the state party to diverse voices and new faces.

Policy-wise, Snyder is growing on me. I had been an early Hoekstra supporter, and since I discounted Snyder’s potential, I paid him less heed than I should have. Snyder presents a solid pro-business plan for the state. He advocates policies that advance economic growth and more efficient state governance. You see much less by way of unnecessary grandstanding over touchstone cultural-conservative issues from him, and this is good. With Obama-style progressive Virg Bernero — darling of organized labor — as the Democratic nominee, keeping the argument solidly economic in this climate will likely work to Snyder’s benefit.

I dived a bit deeper into just one of Snyder’s points in his 10-point plan, giving a thorough reading into his healthcare white paper. I must admit — Snyder gets it right. Promoting medical homes for high-risk patients, emphasizing lifestyle modification to reduce the long-term cost of chronic illness, and managing Medicaid reimbursement rates will go a long way to fixing what ails Michigan’s creaky health care system. If Snyder can get MDCH to stop doing stupid things like simultaneously replacing both of its Medicaid eligibility systems with software solutions proven to fail in other states, we might be on to something.

Net result: I can stand up for Rick Snyder.

Congressional Races

CD2: Bill Huizenga barely squeaked out a primary win against Jay Riemersma. This is the seat vacated this cycle by U.S. Rep. Peter Hoekstra, who stepped down to run for governor. Although this is a deep-red district, and Huizenga is running as a red-meat Republican, the primary race was surprisingly competitive.

CD3: Justin Amash, a 30-year-old state legislator, took this race with 40 percent of the vote. Amash beat veteran county lawmaker Steve Heacock and state Sen. Bill Hardiman, who took 28 and 26 percent, respectively. The seat is vacant this cycle because U.S. Rep. Vern Ehlers is retiring. Amash benefited from the grown-up candidates splitting the serious vote, while the enthusiastic youngsters who listened to the vague promises and ultra-hard-right nostrums from the Amash campaign carried the day. Of course, it helps when the DeVos family bankrolls his federal race just as his parents bankrolled his state race. Among dedicated watchers of West Michigan politics, informal consensus is that Amash is something of a blank slate, like a Manchurian candidate sponsored by the Club for Growth; he is vague on specific policy and remains relatively unpolished, echoing hard-right pieties but lacking in the gravitas to be a major player in Washington. This fall will be fun: Amash will stand against Democrat Pat Miles. Miles, a local lawyer, is a bit more of a practical, middle-of-the-road Dem. In a district long-held by quiet moderates like Ehlers, Paul Henry, and Jerry Ford, it is an open question whether a firebrand conservative with relatively limited experience can persuasively carry the district. Conventional wisdom is that he wins in 2010 but will be vulnerable as his district trends slowly leftward thanks to changing demographics.

CD6: U.S. Rep. Fred Upton beat back a primary challenger, but the margin was surprisingly narrow; he won 57-43 despite his incumbency and absurd spending gap over his competitor.

CD7: Former U.S. Rep. Tim Walberg gets a rematch against the Democrat who displaced him in 2008, current U.S. Rep. Mark Schauer.

Analysis

The 2010 election cycle will be one for the history books — the spotlight will be on Congressional races, where the results will be largely viewed as a referendum on the Obama presidency and the stewardship of the Pelosi/Reid Congress. Pundits will therefore look to various competitive House and Senate races to the exclusion of most other campaigns — even to governorships, which are crucial this cycle because of decennial redistricting.

If the election were held today, Larry Sabato’s Crystal Ball suggests the GOP picks up 7 Senate seats, 32 House seats, and 6-7 governorships.

However, the real question for the GOP isn’t whether the House or Senate will be retaken or how many governorships it possesses. Rather, the party must focus on its message and its candidates. For every solid conservative with good credentials and a coherent program, there are candidates who have won primary challenges based solely on a populist message. These candidates may not be the best choice for the job — see “Amash,” above — but they won either because better candidates split the serious vote, or because voter anger propelled the “fresh voice” to victory.

For West Michigan, the election season will be competitive even though the certain races are foregone conclusions. We will see Huizenga and Amash in Congress, most likely. And barring poor performance or suprises this autumn, Rick Snyder will probably move into the governor’s mansion.

So yes, let’s focus on the elections. But the elections are going to change our political culture in ways it hasn’t been touched in a very long time, and this is the part of the equation that is the most interesting of all.

Let the election season begin!

Computers & Technology, Personal, Politics & Culture, Writing, Editing & Journalism

Dog Days

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‘Tis the dog days of summer. The heat and humidity have been consistently, oppressively high in Grand Rapids this month, punctuated only by the occasional thunderstorm. This has led to a wonderful case of the blahs.

A few reflections and updates, in no particular order:

  1. Technology. I continue to be frustrated by my lack of data synchronization across  platforms. My primary computer is an HP laptop, and my traveling machine is an Asus netbook. The laptop runs Windows 7 and Office 2010; the netbook runs Ubuntu Linux 10.04 LTS with Evolution as the default mail client. I lease a private Exchange server with SharePoint services, but Evolution cannot speak to Exchange 2007 or higher. I’m stuck in this horrid limbo where unless I wish to use a Web application for consistent PIM use (which, I really, really don’t — especially when I’m running the netbook offline), then I’m screwed. I have Hotmail, Gmail, a personal web host running Horde, a business Exchange server, and a BlackBerry that talks to the hospital.  And none of it will just work. As much as it pains me to say it, I may just wipe the netbook and install Windows 7 and Office 2010 and hope for adequate performance.
  2. Writing. I am being evaluated for a position as the media guide for About.com. The position pays pretty well — a monthly stipend of $675 minimum for the first two years, with additional bonuses for increases in pageveiws — but I have to do a fair amount of work to be considered a finalist.  Today I wrote a 950-word article on branding strategies for newspapers, which was the first requested work product.  I should know more in a few weeks. Additionally, some of my DS work is now showing up on the Small Business section of the Houston Chronicle‘s chron.com.
  3. Work. Hospital life is interesting. The transition into a pseudo-supervisory position has been successful so far, but a lot of work remains and we are likely going to have additional changes in staffing over the next six months that will color how things unfold.  On the bright side, I do have a nice new office with a door and my own pet giant orb weaver outside the window (I call her Bertha, and I would NOT want to be a fly on her web).
  4. Friends. Social life has been somewhat sedate. Last Friday, I had a meeting with Alaric that transitioned to Cambridge House. It was quite nice chatting business while sipping a Johnnie Walker Blue, and I even had the high privilege of seeing the lovely and gracious Sondra again for the first time since the wedding reception.
  5. Family. My brother is home from Iraq, although he is returning soon for a second year-long contract. Oh, and my mother’s kitchen renovation is moving along nicely. And Gradey had a nasty bacterial infection earlier this month.
  6. School. People seem to be doing well in school.  Ryan and Jess are doing great in their classes this semester (and they both got solid A’s in anatomy!) and my mom rocked out her American Government class. Almost makes me want to go back to grad school.
  7. Physical. My weight continues to be stable. I still think I’m about 40 pounds too heavy, but stability is good. I can go down from there.
  8. Hair. I dyed my hair yesterday. I was going to have it done the last time I went in for a trim, but the stylist nearly decapitated me so THAT was out of the question. The last time I had color done, I went a few shades lighter than my natural brown. Unfortunately, some gray was appearing and the old color was fading and I though I looked like some sort of queer calico cat, so it was high time to fix it. I went darker this time, a deep oak brown, and I did it myself. And I didn’t even stain anything, woohoo.
  9. Politics. I have been trading emails with a woman about the governor’s race, presumably off the “Vote Hoekstra” post (which was cross-posted to Red County). Interesting how diligent she has been in tracking down who supports whom. Speaking of the governor’s race, I still encourage support for Pete Hoekstra. Of all the candidates, I think he is the best choice for Michigan.
  10. Transportation. Looks like I’ll be getting a new car, as soon as next weekend. That will be nice. I think I’m going to just buy something outright and avoid a payment, so I may go the “short-term beater” route for now.  I’m sort of in a bind, insofar as I am now expected to do a lot more traveling for the hospital (e.g., to Freemont) and can’t spend as much time in transit as I used to.

All for now.

Politics & Culture

Vote Hoekstra, Vote Early, Vote Often

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As the political campaign season heats up, Michigan prepares for its primary election. The major race to watch, state-wide, is for the governorship, which is due this cycle. Democrat Jennifer Granholm is term-limited out, and Lt. Gov. John Cherry declined to run. Front-runners are emerging in both parties; Lansing mayor Virg Bernero and Speaker of the House Andy Dillon lead the Democratic ballot. On the Republican side, there are five credible candidates: Oakland County Sheriff Mike Bouchard, Attorney General Mike Cox, state Sen. Tom George, U.S. Rep. Peter Hoekstra, and Gateway mogul Rick Snyder.

So far this race, on the GOP side, looks like a close fight between Cox and Hoekstra. Cox has been aiming for the gubernatorial nod since his run for A.G. — and some of his practices (e.g., adding me to his political email list when I signed up through the state for his official AG email alerts) seem shady in the typical office-seeking vein. Word on the street, among Lansing veterans, is that Cox is ambitious, foul-mouthed and thin-skinned. He suffered a recent high-profile setback when he tried to join the state lawsuits against Obamacare only to be publicly slapped down by Granholm (herself, a two-term state A.G.).

The other candidates have their sundry charms. George is a solid guy but he has relatively limited name recognition and access to funds. Bouchard peaked early; he tapped Secretary of State Terri Lynn Land to serve as his No. 2, although doing so raised the usual Detroit/Outstate argument that still rankles the typical Grand Rapids sense of importance, and the Land selection proved to be not quite as powerful as Bouchard may have hoped. And Snyder? He is effectively painting himself as the candidate of the small-business outsider, and he has money, but not a lot of political experience. That may work for him in this anti-incumbent year — but maybe not, with the GOP grassroots that turns out for the primaries and the Tea Party trying to form its own recognized party organization.

I think the best choice for Michigan this year is Pete Hoekstra. The congressman has held powerful leadership roles in Washington, including most notably as a former chairman of the House Intelligence Committee, and he has been a reliably conservative voice that is rare for being sane and restrained as well as thoughtful. His emphasis on job creation, in particular, deserves careful consideration.

The proof of any candidate’s mettle is in the quality of his support staff. Hoekstra’s campaign is one of the few where I volunteered to help and actually got a real, non-form-generated response from someone who paid attention to what I wrote in my introductory email. Contrast that to the default response of Kent County Republicans, who won’t answer no matter what you do.

Elections matter. The current state of the political climate in Washington is proof of that. This August, Michigan Republicans have a choice — we can support a neophyte businessman, a too-eager attorney general, a sheriff, a little-known state senator, or … Pete Hoekstra.

Join me in supporting Michigan families and Michigan jobs by supporting Pete Hoekstra for governor!

Politics & Culture

Cry “Bully” & Let Loose the Dogs of Self-Esteem!

1 Comment

First, read this story on MLive.com about the Michigan legislature’s attempts to ban “bullying.”  Pay special attention to the part of the law, as passed by the Democrat-led state Senate, that “defines bullying or harassment as abuse of one student by another in any form … bullying includes but is not limited to conduct that is ‘reasonably perceived to be motivated by animus or by an actual or perceived characteristic.'”

Got that?  Bullying is “harassment” that is “reasonably perceived to be motivated” by a “perceived characteristic.” 

So if, as captain of the basketball team, I choose not to pick the kid who checks in below 5 ft. tall as my starting center, am I guilty of bullying?  Or if I don’t let you sit at the same table with me in the lunchroom because I have “animus” that you kissed my ex-girlfriend, am I a bully?

The law is being pushed by that most dangerous of citizen legislators: The aggrieved parent. You know the type — the one who suffered a legitimate tragedy and uses that situation as a hammer to force incoherent, liberty-eroding legislation in a vain attempt to assuage their sorrow.  The kind of constituent no politician can safely resist.

So we get utter nonsense dressed up as a child-protection initiative.  In the meantime, we deprive our children of the self-defense skills they will need to avoid predation as they get older in life, and we set them up for the false belief that conflict is intrinsically disordered and must therefore be addressed therapeutically, through the authorities.  We also send the message that basic human social behavior (the instinctive tribalism that is hard-wired into our social norms) is defective and requires legislative intervention to correct, because heaven knows that Lansing is more effective at imparting essential survival skills by fiat than hundreds of thousands of years of evolution did by flight-or-fight dialecticism.

I am sorry that the chief activist behind this bill suffered a personal loss when his son killed himself because of bullying. But honestly — grow a pair, dude. If you were a better, more attentive father, your son would not have become a statistic.  Juvenile suicides are completely preventable, if only parents would be parents instead of disengaged “adult friends” of their progeny. It is not the fault of school districts or teachers or the bullies themselves that the activist’s son took his own life.

The problem with anti-bullying legislation is that instead of criminalizing legitimately aggressive acts (like battery), it criminalizes intent.  Newsflash: Getting shoved into a locker is a physical assault that should be addressed by teachers; the act itself and not the “animus” that provoked it is the salient point. Follow-up bulletin: Kids are still figuring out who they are and how to engage with others in a mature way. A one-strike-and-you’re-out approach that tells kids that a normal part of childhood (i.e., figuring out how to overcome the instinctive tribalism into which we are all born, but must escape as we grow from infants into full-fledged members of a pluralistic society) is now a one-shot chance. Instead of learning, perhaps through cruel experience, why discrimination is painful and thus should be avoided, we learn that it’s objectively inappropriate for others to make us feel bad and we can get the authorities involved to restore our wounded self-esteem.

It surprises me that folks who understand child development aren’t being a bit more aggressive about blocking this law. Bullying — whether as a giver, receiver, or observer — is an adolescent rite of passage that provides an additional set of experiences about how the world works. Painful at the time, sure. Yet formative in ways that provide greater sophistication about life as a grown-up.

But, no. Instead of drawing the line at overt violence, we must now outlaw “animus” or awareness of a person’s “actual or perceived characteristics.”

A victory for a dad who seeks to lay blame anywhere but his own soul. A victory for the grievance industry.

But a real failure for Michigan’s kids.

Politics & Culture

Cry "Bully" & Let Loose the Dogs of Self-Esteem!

1 Comment

First, read this story on MLive.com about the Michigan legislature’s attempts to ban “bullying.”  Pay special attention to the part of the law, as passed by the Democrat-led state Senate, that “defines bullying or harassment as abuse of one student by another in any form … bullying includes but is not limited to conduct that is ‘reasonably perceived to be motivated by animus or by an actual or perceived characteristic.'”
Got that?  Bullying is “harassment” that is “reasonably perceived to be motivated” by a “perceived characteristic.” 
So if, as captain of the basketball team, I choose not to pick the kid who checks in below 5 ft. tall as my starting center, am I guilty of bullying?  Or if I don’t let you sit at the same table with me in the lunchroom because I have “animus” that you kissed my ex-girlfriend, am I a bully?
The law is being pushed by that most dangerous of citizen legislators: The aggrieved parent. You know the type — the one who suffered a legitimate tragedy and uses that situation as a hammer to force incoherent, liberty-eroding legislation in a vain attempt to assuage their sorrow.  The kind of constituent no politician can safely resist.
So we get utter nonsense dressed up as a child-protection initiative.  In the meantime, we deprive our children of the self-defense skills they will need to avoid predation as they get older in life, and we set them up for the false belief that conflict is intrinsically disordered and must therefore be addressed therapeutically, through the authorities.  We also send the message that basic human social behavior (the instinctive tribalism that is hard-wired into our social norms) is defective and requires legislative intervention to correct, because heaven knows that Lansing is more effective at imparting essential survival skills by fiat than hundreds of thousands of years of evolution did by flight-or-fight dialecticism.
I am sorry that the chief activist behind this bill suffered a personal loss when his son killed himself because of bullying. But honestly — grow a pair, dude. If you were a better, more attentive father, your son would not have become a statistic.  Juvenile suicides are completely preventable, if only parents would be parents instead of disengaged “adult friends” of their progeny. It is not the fault of school districts or teachers or the bullies themselves that the activist’s son took his own life.
The problem with anti-bullying legislation is that instead of criminalizing legitimately aggressive acts (like battery), it criminalizes intent.  Newsflash: Getting shoved into a locker is a physical assault that should be addressed by teachers; the act itself and not the “animus” that provoked it is the salient point. Follow-up bulletin: Kids are still figuring out who they are and how to engage with others in a mature way. A one-strike-and-you’re-out approach that tells kids that a normal part of childhood (i.e., figuring out how to overcome the instinctive tribalism into which we are all born, but must escape as we grow from infants into full-fledged members of a pluralistic society) is now a one-shot chance. Instead of learning, perhaps through cruel experience, why discrimination is painful and thus should be avoided, we learn that it’s objectively inappropriate for others to make us feel bad and we can get the authorities involved to restore our wounded self-esteem.
It surprises me that folks who understand child development aren’t being a bit more aggressive about blocking this law. Bullying — whether as a giver, receiver, or observer — is an adolescent rite of passage that provides an additional set of experiences about how the world works. Painful at the time, sure. Yet formative in ways that provide greater sophistication about life as a grown-up.
But, no. Instead of drawing the line at overt violence, we must now outlaw “animus” or awareness of a person’s “actual or perceived characteristics.”
A victory for a dad who seeks to lay blame anywhere but his own soul. A victory for the grievance industry.
But a real failure for Michigan’s kids.