Pretext, Not Context

Hollywood is alive and well—in the Middle East and the United States. What else could explain the fantasy-world interpretation of the recent disaster in Libya and Cairo by the White House and his administration? Those who have been duped by this flagrantly false narrative, that these recent attacks were perpetrated by “spontaneous” demonstrators outraged by a film’s negative portrayal of Islam would do well to listen to the words of Libyan President Mohammed el-Megari: “The idea that this criminal and cowardly act was a spontaneous protest that just spun out of control is completely unfounded and preposterous,” said el-Megari, adding “We firmly believe that this was a pre-calculated, pre-planned attack that was carried out specifically to attack the U.S. Consulate."

The problem with this reactive reasoning from our President and his sycophantic supplicants (beyond the fact that they are hell-bent on doing damage control for President Obama while savaging Mitt Romeny) is that the public is now confusing two very different words: context and pretext. The ersatz media would have you believe that the poor Muslim radicals, along with their ordinary, Middle-Eastern equivalents of Joe Six Pack, inflamed by a “hateful” film (read parody in poor taste), had no choice but to attack our embassies and slaughter innocent Americans. The film was simply so overwhelmingly insulting, so revoltingly contemptuous, and so unassailably insensitive that all manner of reason and sense of ethics was banished forthwith, and the primordial Id given license to create carnage and suffering.

Here is context offered by the Moslem world and promulgated by the likes of Susan Rice and left-leaning media talking heads: Best not insult Islam, or defame the prophet Mohammed, lest we slaughter your diplomats. Be careful about political cartoons that depict Moslem extremism in an unflattering light, or you will die at the hands of jihadist. Do not write literature that describes Islam in a pejorative manner or there will be a life-long fatwa with the penalty of death on your head. Insult their sensibilities in any perceived manner, and Allah will use them as a blunt and unyielding weapon of destruction.

But this is really just a pretext, because Moslem extremists, like ALL extremists, live in a perpetual state of moral indignation and outrage. They inhabit the periphery of reality, utterly and intentionally disconnected from reason, insufferably wrapped in self-righteousness, suffused in the accelerant of a narrow and perverse ideology. Thus their world is tinderbox, just waiting for the tiniest of sparks to justify conflagration.  Oddly enough, it was the moderate Muslims of Libya who recently took to the streets to demonstrate their outrage with the radicals who perpetrated their heinous acts on our embassy. And while their actions may have been inappropriate, at least hey did not become apologists.

Ultimately, it doesn't matter what we do or don't do, what we say, or how we say it, only that they have the opportunity and the convenient excuse to seize the moment to foment terror, and then fall back upon a twisted fairy tale that we are merely witnessing the natural reaction to our unbelievable temerity to question the validity or ethical reasonableness of an ideology based on conformity, oppression, and violence in the name of God.

So this is where we are today. We not only condone the creation of Piss Christ, but bankroll the "artist" with taxpayer funds via the National Endowment of the Arts. Then we tell American citizens who object to having their hard-earned dollars prop up anti-Christian trash that they cannot trample upon the free speech of the artist.  When the artwork (not the artist) was attacked and destroyed by protestors, the gallery director, Eric Mézil, said it would reopen with the destroyed works on dispaly "so people can see what barbarians can do".  It is worth mentioning that the aforementioned objet d'art was afforded protection behind thick plexiglass and extra guards, security conspicuously absent on September 11, 2012 in our embassies.

In contrast, when confronted with the moral inconsistencies and excesses of acts of murder and violence, we don't recoil in terror and threaten strong retaliatory measures, but rather backpedal, fabricate context, and obsequiously and profusely apologize. As White House Press Secretary Jay Carney stated, it was “a film we have judged to be reprehensible and disgusting." That’s right Mr. Carney, the film was reprehensible, but the acts of murder and destruction, they were, well understandable. After all, parody of religion has always been punishable by death…oh that’s in countries run by radical Moslem jihadists. Not America. Not yet, anyway.

Our French counterparts are also floating in the pick juice of political correctness. As Dalil Boubakeur, first president of the French Council of the Muslim Faith once intoned, “Words have a price, one can kill with a word. Freedom of expression stops at the point at which it does damage and the Muslim community feels insulted.”

Moreover, regional responses to the embassy massacres should stand as proof of the rhetorical and political aims endemic in radicalized Moslem organizations. In “reaction” to the video in question, Sheik Hassan Nasrallah, leader of the militant group Hezbollah, called for an international ban on insulting Islam, stating: "Since you officially represent the governments and states of the Muslim world you should impose on the United States, Europe and the whole world that our prophet, our Quran and our holy places and honor of our Prophet be respected." In Saudi Arabia, the Human Rights Commission of the Organisation of Islamic Cooperation (OIC), which has 57 members, has requested "an international code of conduct for media and social media to disallow the dissemination of incitement material". Such inflammatory rhetoric flies in the face of the separation of church and state, something liberals regularly remind us should a public high school have a prayer during a graduation ceremony. 

These attitudes and behaviors are, ironically, most problematic for the peace-loving, progressively-oriented Moslems, whose voices have been silenced or removed by their oppressors, or marginalized by our own media, which is complicit in the stratagem of discounting their concerns in the name of political correctness. These people also live in very real fear from truly xenophobic extremist groups, such as neo-Nazis, as well as misguided, stupid, or just evil individuals who cannot seem to accept people who don’t have the same skin color or faith. And so they must straddle evil from both sides, a difficult, if not impossible job.

In the end analysis, we can no longer bury our proverbial collective hands in the sand. We must start dealing realistically with these kinds of acts and the ideology that fuels them. We must quit hiding behind political correctness, or we will find ourselves ensnared in an ideology that will continue to undermine not only the values of many peace-loving Moslems, but Western society in general. As the Muslim cleric Omar Bakri Mohammed once threatened: “We will use your democracy to destroy your democracy.”

Vindication for Blaming Bush?

Rarely a day goes by that the Democrat party or the drive-by media doesn’t peer backwards through the telescope of time and say, “This is President Bush’s fault!” Whether it’s a sputtering economy, prolonged unemployment, staggering debt, or a national tragedy involving guns, the mantra from the liberal media is unwavering: blame Bush. In many instances, they are ignoring facts, obfuscating self-damning evidence, or distorting reality the way a black hole bends light.

But there is one claim that would be frighteningly true if they were to make it: Our struggle to deal with the nation of Iran, its anti-Western theocracy, its treacherous influence on Syria and Iraq, and its grand and obscenely dark designs to obtain and use nuclear weapons in order to destroy Israel are not only existential threats to the Middle East stability and peace, but foreshadow a new age of terrorism in which the fledgling democracies of Iraq and Afghanistan are immolated in a rapacious march towards regional hegemony.

But the American public, and international allies, are war weary, and rightfully so. Many people look at the intervention in Iraq as not only predicated on distortions, hyperbole, and outright lies, but also a dangerous distraction from an enemy far more dangerous, organized, and vituperative. In plain language, our involvement in Iraq has spread American forces, finances, and will perilously thin. At a time when we need internal solidarity and global cooperation, we lack the needed resolve and international backing.

It is one thing to saber rattle in times of relative peace, when the horrors of flag-draped coffins and graphic, debilitating injuries recede into our collective rear-view mirrors. It is quite another to call for unilateral action as we wind down two major, yet interconnected theatres of war.

Make no mistake about: Iran is a threat that needs to be dealt with vigorously and aggressively, with a steadfast global alliance and unwavering commitment. Yet, it is our very involvement in Iraq, a war we arguably could have avoided, that has mired our determination and sapped our willpower, making us incapable on multiple levels of confronting the evil in our midst. 

When we put ideology above logic and foresight, we pay a steep price. Ironically, this is the same path the Obama Administration has taken us in the domestic sphere. If Mitt Romney is elected as our new president in November, he will have to straddle the divide between staying true to a philosophy of keeping America strong, and judging the empirical evidence that overwhelmingly points the way ahead, a Solomon-like decision last faced by John F. Kennedy in the Cuban missile crisis. 

The Method in the Madness: Americans and Their Collective Cognitive Dissonance

In the well-known Shakespearean tragedy, Hamlet, the namesake protagonist tells Ophelia: “That if you be honest and fair, your honesty should admit no discourse to your beauty." In doing so, Hamlet exposes an underlying philosophical truth about the contradictory nature of the human condition. This theoretical stance is deeply rooted in man’s psychological substrate, and is featured in literary, scientific, and cinematic themes. From the Shakespearean tragedies, to Doctor Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, to Sigmund Freud’s vision of the ego and the id locked in a constant struggle for domination of an individual’s mind, to the conflicted nature of the Hulk, we are, for better or worse, seething with contradictory impulses, beliefs, and behaviors, resulting in a myriad of irrational decisions and behaviors.   

In 1957, The American social psychologist Leon Festinger shed some light on why we act in ways that contradict logic and drive us to not only make poor decisions, but also to stand by and justify these decisions. Festinger’s theory is called cognitive dissonance. Simply put, when people have a contradiction between their belief systems (and resulting behaviors) and information that refutes these beliefs, they experience an unpleasant tension. This tension creates a motivation to reduce the contradictory and unpleasant feelings. Either the individual must change their behavior, or modify their beliefs to create harmony between the two conflicting worlds. This theory explains precisely why Barrack Hussein Obama remains popular and why so many people are ready to vote him into office again, despite his atrocious record.

No matter how bad the economic crash was in 2007, no one, save Obama, his cronies, and a quasi-sycophantic press, really believes we are any better off now. Real unemployment is close to 16%. Foreclosures are still rampant. People are draining their retirement accounts in desperation to pay their daily bills. The Middle East is on fire, and the revolutions we supported in Libya and Egypt are bearing dubious fruit. And thanks to Mr. Obama’s rhetoric, we are more divided as a nation, along social, economic, political, and gender lines, than we have been since the Vietnam War. We have lost credibility in the world as we have spent ourselves into oblivion, laughably tracing the footsteps of our European cousins while expecting different results. We even have a group of Democratic senators and representatives willing to plunge our economy and our people into ruin (damn the poor who would be hurt the most, a few morsels of welfare largesse will suffice) in order to auger their belief in social justice via a tax hike on the supposedly heinous and villainous people who dare to make a seemingly arbitrary figure of $250,000.

And yet, day after day, I meet people who praise the President, laude his decisions, celebrate his policies, and support his reelection. In the black community, where unemployment is at a historic high, support remains steadfast. What is our president’s response? President Obama takes to the bully pulpit, offering support for a community grieving and writhing with anger over the death of Travon Martin, bolstered by our attorney general’s accusations that we lack the courage to engage in honest discussion about racism. Meanwhile, in Chicago, where Rahm Emanuel presides as equal opportunity destroyer and purveyor of corruption, somewhere between 30-50 young adults, mostly black men, die at the hands of other young black men every month. The silence from D.C. is deafening. 

Amid the increasing poor, Obama is perceived as the last bastion of empathy, rather than the causative agent of their woes, further miring them in the welfare state that has so rapaciously, yet systematically, destroyed and continues to destroy families in our inner cities. The President chides them to "take of your slippers and put on your marching shoes." But it's difficult to march when you can't pay your rent or feed and clothe your family. Meanwhile Obama has met only tow times with his economic team in the past six months. nothing shows commitment like inaction, at least in the Obama White House. 

Then, there's academia. Recent college graduates, their $30,000, often meaningless diplomas held aloft, are promised a slightly lower loan repayment and a health care system they will not be able to afford in the future, a debt that will burden them all of their adult life, and little prospect for attaining a decent job in the near future. Yet they press the flesh and beat the drum for their man, the champion of the oppressed and underserved, whose disdain for the cupidity inherent the free market knows no bounds, save for the universities, who gush money  for Obama's campaign coffers, and who pilfer these very students so their elite professors can teach comparative politics six hours a week whilst they engage in tax-payer funded “research” to unearth new evidence of the greatness of Che Guevara and other Marxist revolutionaries. It would not be shocking if Che himself votes for Obama in 2012, especially if he does not have show a legal form of ID, courtesy of Eric Holder’s Heroes who selectively enforce the Voters Rights Act as long as it tilts the tables in their favor. 

And among women, Obama is still the hero who protects reproductive rights while fostering the illusion of a “wage gap.” Ironically, the only real wage gap is the one that has resulted from women who are involuntarily unemployed and who now outnumber men in joblessness. And given the lack of career opportunities for women, they will need birth control, because they certainly cannot afford another mouth to feed, much less save for their child's inflated college education. 

He is also the guardian of our public school system, so corrupted by the apathy propagated by teacher's unions as they shovel unapproved campaign funds fleeced from union members to the Democratic party. The result? Hundreds of thousands of kids regularly fall through the cracks, cracks wide enough that our society as a whole will eventually fracture if left unaddressed. By almost every measure, America and her people are lessened as a result of President Obama’s stewardship; yet polls show almost a dead heat between President Obama and Mitt Romney.

The only logical explanation, the only credible reason, is mass cognitive dissonance. The vast majority of those who installed Obama in 2008 (including the liberal media) cannot come to grips with the consequences of their collective decisions; rather, they justify and hyper-rationalize their way out of their dissonant state. Hence, instead of holding the thin-skinned narcissist-in-chief responsible for his agenda and decisions, thereby admitting a sense of culpability, they resort to baser instincts. Opposition to Obama’s feckless and reckless agenda becomes colored by the emotionally charged language of racism, cloaked in the calculus of righteous self-indignation over perceived socio-economic justice, or obscured by empty, hypocritical accusations of capitalistic malfeasance or lack of transparency over taxes. So the most corrupt administration in the last sixty years, whose Fast and Furious scandal makes Watergate look like mere child’s play, whose political appointees and czars are steeped in corruption and ethics breeches, and whose senior -level security members seem unable to hold national secrets anymore than a newborn can control their bladder, escapes largely unscathed. Shakespeare once again portends this universal condition through the role of the Player King in his tragedy Hamlet:

Our wills and fates do so contrary run

That our devices still are overthrown;

Our thoughts are ours, their ends none of our own.

Shakespeare used this contrivance of a play in a play to provide commentary on our moral dilemma. And so now America’s fate is now in the hands of a populace that must reconcile our present condition and undeniable future with the ephemeral and duplicitous slogan of Hope and Change. It's time to step out of the play in the play and face the harsh light of truth.  It's time for an entirely new script, one in which our ends are our own. 

Obamacare:The Cure Worse Than the Disease

We should all celebrate the U.S. Supreme Court's recent decision to uphold the majority of the components of The Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (PPACA)  in general, and the individual mandate, in particular, as Constitutional. After all, millions more American Citizens will have access to health care insurance. We will reduce the number of "free riders" who don't contribute to health care pools and reduce that overwhelming flood of people who misuse our emergency rooms as primary care. As a result, people will be healthier and more productive. It is a "win-win" situation. 


At least in the short run.


The long run, however, portends a much darker scenario, one in which unforeseen dynamics will cause the entire system to eventually collapse, leaving more Americans vulnerable than ever. Here is glimpse into the darkness to come:

1. Corruption Will Reign--Because money will be appropriated to finance the purchase of health care insurance, Congress will have access to another slush fund. They will undoubtedly use this money to feather their nest, and roll more than just a few logs. Just take a look at Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac if you want to know what our government does with taxpayer money aimed at serving helping the "disadvantaged" and "underserved." 
2. Debt will Rise---Considering the CBO has already re-projected AHCA (A.K.A. Obamacare) to cost double their first estimation, you can bet it is going to run a gigantic tab at taxpayers expense. This has been the truth with almost every government program, including medicare and medicaid. With the new qualifications regarding poverty, an untold number of Americans will end up in Medicaid, pushing an already stressed system into premature insolvency. And as the baby boomers retire in droves, they will put downward pressure on society not only through Social Security, but also medicare and medicaid. Unlike previous generations in which the labor force outnumbered retirees by a 12:1 ratio (and therefore able to adequately finance their retirement and associated benefits),  we now find ourselves in a situation in which there are only three people for every retiree. This intergenerational wealth transfer will become so burdensome our government will respond by monetizing the debt (read "print" money), inflation will run rampant (it is already in the cards), and economic stagnation will set in as the value of the dollar erodes to the point that wage increases will never keep up, forcing more and more Americans into poverty. At this point the only option left is to offer, you got it, government assistance, complements of the seemingly bottomless well of tax-payer subsidies. And around and around we go, where we stop...well we know where we stop. Europe is already the model, with Greece and Spain as our poster boys. 
3. Docs will Take A Holiday--As doctors get ensnared in the legal and bureaucratic morass of centrally planned health care, they will drop out of the insurance game and conduct a pay-as-you-go approach, or opt for working for hospitals. Doctors cite the payment system of Medicare as primary reason for abandoning this sinking ship. Ironically, Medicare was gutted to the tune of a half a trillion dollars to pay for Obamacare. How can this make any sense unless you have swallowed one of the two pills that Alice was offered in Wonderland? Obamacare will accelerate this trend, leaving fewer doctors to treat an ever-increasing number of patients. This will mean, ultimately, that only the wealthy will be able to afford quality, individualized care, thereby widening the gap even further between the haves and the have nots. 
4. Care will be Rationed--Critics of our current system (which I must point out is heavily controlled by government mandates and monies) point out that we already ration care via health care insurance companies. While this is a fair and valid criticism, the words of Bachman, Turner and Overdrive, "BBBaby , you ain't see nothin' yet," now have a prophetic ring. As cost overruns, inefficiencies, and corruption create a mountain of debt, the bureaucratic  resposne will be to ration care. So now instead of being denied by some cold, faceless perfunctory from a health care insurance company, we will be denied by some cold, faceless perfunctory from D.C. 
5. The Tax Man Cometh--In order to pay for the costs inflated by corruption and ineptitude and resulting burgeoning debt, taxes will have to be raised significantly. This will hit  middle-class families like a load of bricks. No my liberal friends, there will not be enough from the 1% to pay for this disaster, even if you doubled their taxes. This will ultimately send the American economy into another nosedive, and many people from middle-class families will find themselves jobless and dependent upon unemployment insurance, food stamps, and whatever measly scraps and soupcon the federal government might toss to them out of pity. And the welfare state will proceed as planned. 

These dynamics will create collective fiscal, economic and political crisies that will test the cohesion of our society and our ability to maintain social order. Much like Greece, citizens will take to the streets, precipitating the need for a police-state style intervention. The handwriting is on the wall; all the warning signs are there that this is an untenable system, an unsustainable approach. And when all the dust has settled, those of us who knew better and tried to sound the alarm will be left scratching our heads, and wondering how how the American public, or at least half of it, couldn't, or wouldn't, see the truth. 

Are We in Selma Again?

Tensions are running high in the aftermath of the Trayvon Martin shooting, and rightfully so. Americans are already politically, culturally and economically polarized, thanks in no short part to the divisive rhetoric spewing out of D.C., and so-called civil-rights leaders. 

To be sure, this case is tragic from any perspective. A young man lies dead, his future taken prematurely, his parents left with a gaping hole that no amount of time or prayer can fill, while another man’s future hangs in the balance. Pundits and analyst, critics and activist have been talking nonstop, lighting up the blogosphere, conjecturing, accusing, impugning and invoking the dreaded word: racism. The narrative runs that Zimmerman, a biracial man, killed Martin because he could not tamp down his tendency to stereotype. Possibly so, but even if this is the case, are we missing the bigger picture?

If we presuppose that Zimmerman is merely a symbol of the heart of America, that white Americans are all collectively “guilty” of stereotyping young black males, than what is the cause? Are we just born that way, or did we learn these stereotypes somewhere?

You have to look no further than the very media that has so hastily pointed the finger of racism. Hip-Hop and Rap music, movies that glorify gangs, violence, drugs and the humiliation of women abound in our culture. Kids, especially young black males, are constantly exposed to this melee of degradation and misogyny.

And this is not merely a perception issue. Because of our misguided war on drugs, young black men, seizing on the opportunity of riches, high-end cars, and compliant women, are going to prison in record numbers. This oppressive police state, in conjunction high rates of substance abuse, a growing dependency on government assistance, and schools corrupted by teachers’ unions and a pervading sense of apathy, have created the perfect storm, one that has destroyed the integrity of many black families (and quite a few white) and devastated whole communities. We are bearing witness to, and have been for some time, the blighting and ultimate destruction of black communities across the United States. Just a few weeks ago, 10 people with various racial backgrounds were gunned down in Chicago, all victims of gang violence. This is not a racial problem; this is a moral and legal problem. 

The unfortunate result, however, is to generalize a problem in our legal and justice systems (primarily the drug war policy), along with a general deterioration in the family, to America as a whole. In other words, while racism is an element of American society, we our not a racist country as a whole.  We have progressed, not regressed with regard to race relations. Until now.

On a personal level, my wife and I have persevered to raise our child with colorblindness. The result? Our son has friends from a wide variety of ethnic and racial backgrounds. This is no accident, nor a product of “diversity training.” Rather, we are simply following the words of Dr. King to judge by “content of character,” rather than by skin color. I truly fear that all of this progress is going to be undone by a society and media hyper focused on racial divisiveness. We are becoming a society, ironically, that cognitively segregates, throwing out the race card at the slightest indication, fanning and feeding the flames of anger and retribution, hastily forming opinions processed through the filter of skin color.

 We are simply hung up in placing each other in groups, and then making judgments according to our own groupthink. And so while Dr, King and others, many white Americans included, marched our country forward, we have race-baters and a media hell bent on marching right back to the ugliness we fought so hard to overcome. Are we back in Selma, Alabama, in the late 1950s?  Is this the place we want to go?

So yes, I believe in some sense Zimmerman responded to a stereotype, and we know this is a foundation for racism. But that does not make Zimmerman a racist, anymore than anyone else.

 The bigger issue we should be talking about is how we are going to help the black community lift themselves out of this horrid mess they find themselves in, and this is all of our responsibility. Pointing fingers and crying racism, however, is merely a distraction; while it allows us to puff our chests in self-righteous indignation, it does little to shine the sunlight of disinfection on the disease. The disease is not racism, merely a disturbing symptom of an underlying necrosis. The disease is bad policy, a lack of economic opportunities, a disintegrating family structure, growing dependency on government largesse, and a moral compass that has been compromised by the media-powered GPS which has led black youth into nothing but dead ends.

Until we are ready to talk about these matters, until we are willing to be honest and real with each other, I fear we will be burying more Trayvon Martins, and as a result, touching off a wave of race-driven violence, and this is something no civil society should tolerate.

The Lesser of Two Evils

Is it possible, just for a moment, and then maybe a few minutes, to cut the crap on both sides of the political divide? For many people the biggest problem we face in America is a coarsening of public dialogue regarding political matters. There's not doubt the rhetoric is heated, hyperbolic, and even hateful at times, and the verbal barbs come from both Left and Right. However, the greatest threat to making progress on our debt, our failing schools, our entanglement in the Middle East, or any other political issue is that neither side is being honest because they hold fast to their ideological grip on reality. 

If conservatives were to be honest, they would straight-up admit that Bush was not a great president. Until Obama took the leadership mantle, Bush had racked up more debt than any U.S. president by far! He expanded entitlements via Medicare, made no real progress on restructuring Social Security or Medicaid, was an advocate of increased home ownership via the Community Reinvestment Act, and deceived the public about his true intentions and justifications for invading Iraq, a war that has not only cost us in blood and treasure, but has weakened our ability and resolve to deal with a far more ominous enemy--Iran.  In essence, Bush "greased the skids" for Obama's ascendency. 

However, Liberals refuse to admit to the foibles, deceptions, and duplicities of Obama and his cronies. Obama has increased our debt more than Bush did over the course of just 3 years, and it does not matter that the economy has improved minimally as a result.  The size and the scope of the debt load translates into nearly $150,000 per federal taxpayer, and that does not include his new budget, nor the fact that sooner or later, our interest rate will increase, destroying our ability to pay down this ever-growing fiscal fiasco. It is a ticking time fashioned by both a Republican and a Democrat. Neither excuses the other. 

Moreover, Obama's Department of Justice, under the guidance of Eric Holder, has grown increasingly hostile and opaque with regards to the botched Fast and Furious program, and its insidious abdication of impartiality regarding its oversight of voting fraud issues. The bitter truth is that Obama is the equivalent of his right-wing counterpart, Richard Nixon. Both can be characterized by their thin-skinned, ego-maniacal, and secretive, back-room approach to wheeling and dealing legislation and rhetoric. And, like Nixon, he is one of the most divisive leaders in modern times. He just seems superficially affable enough to get a pass by the media, and in due course, the public.

We could all argue about who is better, Bill Clinton or Ronald Reagan, but the truth is both were fairly centrist presidents. Both Reagan and Clinton understood how to compromise, how to lead, how to get things done. Both received votes from the other side, hence the Reagan Democarts, and Clinton conservatives.  But more importantly, we all felt proud as Americans, and we all saw ourselves, rich/poor, black/white, Republican/Democrats, as Americans first, and everything else next.  How pitifully far we have fallen. How precipitously low we have dropped. And how shameful it is. 

If we were worth our rhetoric and worthy of our passion, we would never again elect a Bush or Obama, each trying reshape the world in their ideological vision, as if the ends justified any means. They do not. They never will. That is not how an open, democratic republic conducts itself if it wants to prosper. 

In the end, I will cast my vote for whatever pathetic choice was made in the primaries for the Republican candidate. I do so not because I am passionate and proud to do so. I could say I am just voting for the lesser of two evils, and this rationalization still has a kernel of truth. And I suppose those who support Obama will do the same. But if I were really honest, I would reframe this belief as voting for the "lesser of two evils."and so would those who cast their vote for Obama.  If we really want true change, we will seek a different kind of candidate in the future. But that would require being honest with each other. 

Any takers?

The Right to Choose vs. The Right Choice

Whenever "reproductive rights" (read birth control and abortion) are even broached by conservatives, there is an immediate and visceral backlash to characterize us as troglodytes who wish to rewind history so that women are perpetually "barefoot and pregnant" so as to serve their chauvinists masters. Setting aside the stereotypes and hyperbolic tone, can we just step back and look at what we have as a result of this reproductive revolution? Because the evidence is contrary to every major assumption about the liberating effects of reproductive rights and their associated tents of intellectual enlightenment.  According to the Brookings Institute:

•        In 1965, 24 percent of black infants and 3.1 percent of white infants were born to single mothers.
•     By 1990 the rates had risen to 64 percent for black infants, 18 percent for whites. Every year about one million more children are born into fatherless families.

This is the direct result of the abrogation of long-held mores that have husbands and wives at the sides of their mates, and fathers at home with their children. As George A. Akerlof, Nonresident Senior Fellow at Center on Social Dynamics and Policy points out:

"We have found that this rather sudden increase in the availability of both abortion and contraception ... is deeply implicated in the increase in out-of-wedlock births. Although many observers expected liberalized abortion and contraception to lead to fewer out-of-wedlock births, in fact the opposite happened because of the erosion in the custom of "shotgun marriages."

So, instead of reproductive rights leading to improved conditions for women and lower birth rates of unwanted children, it has created the polar opposite: an absolute dissolution of the atomic family structure and a meteoric rise in out-of-wedlock births. A myriad of studies by federal government organizations, medical research institutions, and universities have uncovered the following disturbing data:

• the absence of the father in the home affects significantly the behavior of adolescents and results in the greater use of alcohol and marijuana
• the majority of sexually abused children come from single parent homes
• teens living in single-parent families are not only more likely to commit suicide but also more likely to suffer from psychological disorders, when compared to teens living in intact families
• black children in single-parent households are more likely to engage in troublesome behavior, and perform poorly in school

So while the sexual revolution and easy access to birth control may bring moments of ecstasy for hormone-driven teens and a measure of control for people who use it appropriately, it has been more of a curse than a blessing for our youth. A report by the University of Maryland's School of Public Policy points out that every year,"...there will be about 1 million (teen) pregnancies, resulting in 406,000 abortions, 134,000 miscarriages and 490,000 live births. Of the births, about 313,000, or 64 percent, will be out of wedlock. And about 3 million teen-agers will suffer from a sexually transmitted disease, including AIDS." 


But you don't have to be an economist, a psychologist, or a social worker to know what happens in staggering numbers to the unfortunate children from these situations, especially children of single mothers. Our schools are overwhelmed with their behavior problems, our streets are covered in their blood, and our prisons house their scarred and battered bodies. It is a sad, pathetic, and seeming endless procession of pain, death, and degradation of our youth, their minds, dreams, and potentials.

This is no way glorifies the concept of a shotgun wedding, nor does it mean we should not have birth control. Nobody wishes a loveless or forced relationship on a potentially mismatched couple, and contraceptives have allowed responsible couples an unprecedented measure of economic and personal control over their lives. Moreover, as people with individual liberties guaranteed by the Constitution, we have the right to choose whom we marry, and how many children we bring into the world. However, it begs a bigger question: What do we do about it?

One seemingly reasonable response might be sex education. It seems only logical to assume that equipping kids with appropriate knowledge and behaviors would lead to better decisions about when to have sex and how to avoid an unwanted pregnancy. Yet, the data seems to be cloudy at best. A recent report by the University of Washington in Seattle indicated that comprehensive sex education seemed to "lead to less teen pregnancy" as measured by self-reports of sexual behaviors by teens. The study indicated "teens who received comprehensive sex education were 60 percent less likely to report becoming pregnant or impregnating someone than those who received no sex education." And, according to lead author of the study, Pamela Kohler , “It is not harmful to teach teens about birth control in addition to abstinence." 


Moreover, the study found the effects of abstinence education was statistically insignificant. This seems to be a slam dunk for sex education proponents. However,looking into the details of the study raises some important concerns. 

First of all, the study relies on self reports from teenagers. This type of statistical analysis is fraught with issues of validity. In a 2009 report from the Archives of Pediatric Medicine found there was a significant degree of discordance between self-reports of consistent condom use and empirical data.  Why such a discrepancy between what teens state and reality? The researchers offered the following  plausible explanations: 1) teens and young adults inaccurately reported condom use; 2) teens used and young adults used condoms consistently but incorrectly; 3) teens and young adults responded with socially desirable answers.


Should anyone be shocked that young people are out of touch with reality and make mistakes? But the third reason offered, that teens responded in ways that conform to expected social norms, is at once disturbing, yet promising. It is disturbing (though not shocking) that teens are likely to lie in order to make them look better in the eyes of adult society. However, it offers a potential insight into the mindset of our youth. For if teens feel compelled to lie in oder to be held in esteem by their adult counterparts, isn't it then rational to suppose they actually wish to conform to the moral framework which prevented such reckless behaviors because they inherently know it is beneficial for them in the long run? Is it possible that adolescents are asking us to restore, at least to some degree, the healthy respect for for sexual boundaries and delayed gratification that constrained generations prior to the cultural revolution of the 1960s? Is it possible that sex education, as well as abstinence education (which also typically relies on self reporting of sexual behaviors) both fail because they are not framed by a larger moral dimension?

For years, conservatives have advocated that a consistent moral code, while far from perfect, and often fallible, was the best overall deterrent to reckless behaviors because it provides a strong ethical imperative that prioritizes a stable family structure over individual fulfillment.  Though it may be easy for progressives to dismiss such as system as antiquated, naive and unrealistic for contemporary youth, they are at a loss to explain what should replace it.


I am in no way dismissing sex education, nor advocating for a return to suffocating Puritanistic  values. What I am saying is that in the absence of cohesive, stable family unit, amidst the milieu of a permissive view of sexuality and the elevation of individual wants over what is best for children, we will continue to get minimal results from our interventions, be they sex education, access to contraceptives and abortion, or even abstinence education. 


In the end analysis this is not about curtailing choice or individual freedom. Though the argument has been framed as the right to choose, this does not mean that people, especially young people, always make the right choice. 

Gary 

The Glass Darkly: A Glimpse into a Possible Prufrock Future

Many Americans are beset by images of a dark future. Even the most dispassionate and grounded of us cannot help but wonder if we will ever pay down our enormous national debt, much less reinvigorate our economy and standard of living.

Others, however, see an even starker image through the glass darkly, an Orwelian future in which every aspect of our lives is dictated by a central apparatus that uses the police state to maintain authority and control. They see a future bereft of civil liberties, in which human rights become tortuously compromised with unfeeling functionaries.

This is an unlikely, if not impossible scenario in the United States, however. We may be sheepish, but we are not devoid of all life. We have a storied history of standing up to this type of oppression and tyranny. I don't believe a brutal, totalitarian government will take root here.

However, this does not mean the future is sunlight and rainbows, for a threat is surely looming, one more subtle in form and scope, yet pernicious nonetheless. For as or government grows in size and power, it becomes a bureaucratic juggernaut, an inscrutable machine that surreptitiously spins a labyrinth of rules, regulations, and restrictions that become oppressive in their totality. Over time, this web of fiats, much like a tool of Shakespear's Iago, ensnares us all in its pettiness and complications.

Over time, people fear an American citizenry weighted down by procedural excesses as they create a collective drag on our very being, warping our individualism with group-think, consuming our time with trivial tasks and meaningless motions. It is not the gulags we fear, but rather the tiresomeness of a contrived and unthinking artifice.

Thus, government becomes a wet blanket that smothers our aspirations and entrepreneurial spriit. Much like a small fire in a light, yet persistent mist starts to smolder, our inner drives and passions becomes mere aspirational embers. Our zeal and fierceness that defined the American landscape for more than 150 years will be swapped for endlessly long lines, pointless and redundant paperwork, and undue delays in the ordinary civil processes of life, much like the inhuman mundanity imposed in the former Soviet Union.

And so we will half-heartedly stagger through life with careful measured steps> In an intimation of T.S. Eliot's protagonist in The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock, we become:

Deferential, glad to be of use,
Politic, cautious, and meticulous;
Full of high sentence, but a bit obtuse;
At times, indeed, almost ridiculous—
Almost, at times, the Fool.


But even fools have choices. How ridiculous is it to choose such a path?

Externalities and The Folly of Liberalism

Liberal theory, at least the modern brand of it practiced today, is mired in its own statist substrate. Its societal prescriptions are impractical, its ethics suspicious, and its economic policies would be laughable if the consequences were not so dire. Behind all of these dynamics lays an over-generalized, if not fallacious, assumption about the very nature of consequences, and the costs policy decisions have on the market and the individual’s quality of life. These assumptions are based on an economic tenet known as “externalities.” According to Paul M. Johnson, professor of political science at Auburn University, an externality exists “whenever one individual's actions affect the well-being of another individual -- whether for the better or for the worse -- in ways that need not be paid for according to the existing definition of property rights in the society.”

For example, global warming has led to onerous regulations of the oil, natural gas, and coal industries. The argument behind these regulations is based on the concept of an externality. In this case, logic dictates that each time we choose to keep our house cool, drive cross country in our SUV, or, God forbid, drill for oil, we are in due course, via carbon emissions, melting the polar ice caps, flooding an island, causing wide-spread drought, or the latest prevarication, that we are “killing children” with toxic emissions.

Okay, even if for the sake of argument we dispense with any rational thought and buy wholesale this spate of potential externalities, we are still left with a host of other government-induced externalities that are not only very real, but also very immediate and impactful. To illustrate, when we don’t build coal factories, the cost of electricity, by way of supply and demand, goes up. This means the consumers feel a direct impact in not only in their energy bills, but also indirectly at the grocery store, at restaurants, and any place that consumes energy, because these businesses pass their energy costs on to consumers in the form of higher prices. This means families struggling to make ends meet suffer, whether it be in delaying a medical procedure or a major appliance purchase, or simply being able to adequately feed and clothe their children. These decisions in turn lead to a plunge in aggregate demand, thus forcing business owners to cut back, leading to layoffs, delays in investments for the future, and ultimately, in a decrease in the standard of living for themselves and their families. And because they have less disposable income, they further suppress overall demand, consequently furthering the vicious economic cycle. The bottom line is that these are very real externalities that directly impact our health, well being, and our sense of security and happiness. They are not potential and futuristic; they are ever present and need to be a factor in any reasonable policy formulation.

Of course, those who regulate are typically immune to these externalities because they are congressmen or congresswomen who are, ironically, part of the evil and contemptuous “1%,” or have well-paying jobs in the bureaucracies that enforce these regulations. And this becomes overwhelmingly hypocritical when you consider the recent debacle about extending the payroll tax reduction. President Obama recently held a press conference, astride with handpicked representatives of the “common man,” in order to spin a series of narratives to illustrate the crushing externalities these individuals will pay without the continued tax break. From foregoing a night of pizza with the family, to a reduction of visits to grandma in the nursing home, to an inability of a family to buy oil to heat a chilly house, the President painted a grim procession of personal sacrifices, of impinging externalities that needed the power of the bully pulpit to be brought to light lest we fail to extend the tax breaks. And the President is correct in his assertions. These are the consequences, the hidden externalities, of inaction. Yet, if you can manage to get past the obvious rhetorical manipulation of emotions without choking on the saccharine sentimentality, you still run into a mountain of hypocrisy piled high with externalities created by the President and, until recently, a congress controlled by Democrats.

Take for example The Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (PPACA), otherwise known as Obamacare. Although the PPACA is designed to “bend the cost curve” (something impossible without broadening competition) it has pushed the cost up from an average 7% yearly increase to a 9% increase. Leftist pundits decry this is only a 2% increase due to the legislation. But that is fuzzy math at best. A 2% increase is really a 22% rise in the cost. You don’t have to be an accountant, much less an economist, to see how this causes economic hardship even greater than reverting to the previous payroll tax, simply because the payroll tax break will eventually disappear, while the PPACA, like all other government revenue and taxations schemes, will escalate due to fraud and bureaucratic inefficiencies; witness the U.S. Post Office, Amtrak, Medicare and Medicaid as proof positive. Then, there is the 3.8% Medicare tax assessed on house sales that starts on 2013. True, this only applies to those with AGIs of $200,000 (individual) and $250,000 (married), but is there any sane argument for adding another stressor in a very stressed housing market? What if the gain from a sale was seed money for a business? What if that business would have employed five currently unemployed people? What is the total cost when you consider the company will not pay taxes, because it does not exist, and the would-be-employed, instead of contributing to the economy, continue to instead rely on unemployment funds, and that those funds are being financed with borrowed or printed money that causes price inflation, dollar deflation, and debt overhang? The externalities are incalculable, yet staggering in totality.   And when you consider that the phrase “the secretary shall” occurs more than seven hundred times in the 2,700 page PPACA, can anyone really deny there will not be a host of negative externalities for the consumer beyond economic burdens? Such vagueness invites corruption, manipulation, and a myriad of unforeseen problems, more than offsetting any gains.

Which brings us to the greatest and most pernicious of externalities: the unprecedented size and scope of government itself. Logic dictates the bigger any system is, the more (un)intended externalities will beset it. We have reached the tipping point at which the expansion of the power of the federal government impinges on the freedoms of the individual. As the government rapaciously consumes resources, land, people, and money through taxation and inflation, the ability of the individual shrinks in response. Currently, national debt now stands at an astonishing 100% of GDP. We have faced this before after WW II. But that was arguably a price worth paying. However, destroying the Nazi regime, saving Europe from tyranny and brutality, and providing the support our soldiers needed to be integrated back into society and the American economy were well worth it. What do we have to show for two wars, 4,000 dead soldiers, and 16 trillion in debt? Has the Middle East really changed, and have we achieved economic revival anywhere close to what is needed to stop the suffering?  We have more people on food stamps than any other time in history, and according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, real unemployment, is 15.2%. What types of externalities face families whose parents are unemployed?  Policy matters, and these people are paying a price that is painful and real. Talk about hurting children!

Ultimately, the true cost of this path of behavior will not be merely economic. We will eventually pay for our trespasses by sacrificing our liberties, by surrendering our gift of self-determination, by forfeiting our pursuit of happiness guaranteed by the Constitution. This is an intangible we cannot finance with time or credit; we cannot “bail out” the loss of autonomy or individualism. Ultimately, it is an externality that will be felt at our very core.

Gary