Some Old Fashion Law and Order

Fred Thompson edged out Rudy in today's Rasmussen poll, 28%-27%, with McCain and Romney each garnering 10% in a national poll of likely Republican primary voters. There is a lot of speculation about why Thompson has risen so quickly in the polls with relatively little name recognition going into this race. Many people say he is garnering the support of conservatives disaffected with the perceived "moderate" candidates at the front of the GOP pack, Giuliani, McCain, and Romney. That might account for part of it, if Thompson were even that conservative; but he isn't. If being a hardcore conservative were the primary motivating factor, then Newt Gingrich's 9 months of trial ballooning would have landed him at the top of the polls in spite of not having announced his candidacy.

Clearly it is something else. My thinking, and I tend to like Fred Thompson actually, is that Thompson is just a sigh of relief from the last four years. Even though he is a former Senator and has been in politics, we just aren't tired of him (yet). That is why Barrack Obama is doing as well as he is, too. John McCain has been running for President since 1999. Giuliani has been in the public spotlight, for better and for worse since 1993 when he first ran for Mayor of New York. He is now on his third marriage, after a rather public divorce this last time around, and unfortunately for him, the magic that surrounded him in the aftermath of September 11th has faded into a distant memory. Mitt Romney, a fresh face on the national scene, has other baggage, namely his Mormonism and his classic John Kerry-esque ability to flip flop on an almost hourly basis depending on the direction of the political winds. The other "outsider" candidates in the race are plagued by having been in it so long already that they have been confined to the single digits, which is a death knell for fundraising.

Thompson, on the other hand, has a bit of star power, some mildly accurate comparisons to the Gipper, and was out of the spotlight enough not to already be a tired figure on the national scene. The trick for Thompson will be to prevent the voters of fatiguing of him too. If he can manage to do that over the next 7 months, then he has a fighting chance of grabbing the nomination. If he can manage to accomplish the feat of remaining a fresh face through November of 2008, he could defeat Hillary's bid to recapture the White House for the Clinton Clan. Absent a Bloomberg candidacy materializing at some point (and he vowed in a speech yesterday at Google that he had "done the government thing" and would be going back to philanthropy, intimating that he would not in fact be a candidate for the White House), then my bets are on Thompson, at least for the time being.

[As an aside...rumor has it in Republican circles that Thompson's campaign staff is a predominantly outside of the beltway crowd of young technorati who understand the Web and its importance to the future of campaigns and politics.]

You Can't Be Serious...

I'm naturally pretty skeptical of the United Nations and UN Diplomats. They generally come from more Leftist backgrounds and rarely understand markets and economics. But I think I will forever be a complete cynic regarding such diplomats after reading an AFP article this morning headlined "Climate Change Behind Darfur killing: UN's Ban." Ban of course is the successor to Kofi Annan, and hails from South Korea. According to Ban, "The Darfur crisis began as an ecological crisis, arising at least in part from climate change." He claims that drought conditions that plague the Sudan began as a result of a shift in monsoon seasons over the last twenty years. I literally laughed out loud when I saw this.

The hysteria that now surrounds all discussions about climate change completely eliminates the possibility of rational discussion between opposing sides. Global Warming is now being blamed for everything from the ethnic conflict in the Sudan to Hurricane Katrina. It challenges credulity in every sense. Ban and scores of other UN folks have a single focus in mind: unifying political power in international governance bodies. The issue of Climate Change, in their view, is the way to scare people into supporting economically disastrous treaties like the Kyoto Protocol that would not only cripple economic growth in developed countries (while unfairly subsidizing pollution in nations like China and others in the developing world), but would also hand over substantive portions of U.S. sovereignty to the omnipotent moral busybodies (My thanks to C.S. Lewis for that phrase) of the United Nations.

There are really three camps when it comes to the issue of climate change. There are the demagogues who have some nefarious political or economic agenda and who are using climate change as a vehicle to advance those ends (people like Ban, Al Gore, European Politicians, scientists applying for grant money, etc.), there are the dupes who have subscribed to this new religion (Leonardo DiCaprio, the rest of Hollywood, and Rank-and-File Democrat activists), and of course the rest of us who are "agnostic" with respect to Man-caused Global Warming. [An interesting aside. Notice the rhetoric of the Climate Change Crowd. A normally very Politically Correct bunch, they always use the phrase "man-caused" or "man-made" Global Warming, never "human-caused." I guess that's because the evil Male gender is singularly responsible for Global Warming; women have had nothing to do with it.]

This issue is beginning to reach fever pitch. We are on the precipice of making some really horrible decisions for future generations of Americans if we hand over our sovereignty to people like Ban and the UN while completely eliminating our ability to compete in the global economy. Global Warming cannot be viewed as a scapegoat for every ill that plagues humanity.

I'm pretty certain ethnic conflict has been around for a few years (read: centuries). So have hurricanes. So have droughts. So have famines. The earth has been through four major ice ages in its history. By definition, emergence from an ice age necessitates "global warming." In addition to global ice ages, there have been countless periods of glaciation and de-glaciation, and of inter-glacial periods. The geologic record is replete with evidence that these differences in global climate over the course of the earth's 2+ Billion year history have been caused by things such as solar activity, vulcanism, plate tectonic shifts, the position of the continents, the advent of certain mountain ranges (especially the recent emergence of the Himalayas), and so on.

The Left has really figured it out, though. In spite of all of the countervailing scientific evidence, alternate causes, etc., they have realized something that Social Conservatives have understood for centuries: when facts and reason aren't on your side, revert to a dogma and pound your fist while screaming. Through the promise of millions in grant money, Leftist politicians have made the scientists who agree with them into a new Priesthood, an omniscient group of people known as The Scientific Community and issuing Edicts called "The consensus in the Scientific Community." If you dare argue with them, you are ignorant and unintelligent or else in the back pockets of Big Oil. Let me give you a parallel. If you support equal rights for homosexuals, then you are either ignorant of what the Bible teaches or else you are an evil agent of Satan. The same kind of fervor that characterizes dogmatically conservative religious people (who try to impose their values on the rest of us by demagoguing political issues) is now mirrored by the Leftists who similarly want to impose their divinely-inspired policies on everybody else "for our own good." Perhaps tomorrow I will further develop the comparison between the Religious Right and the Neo-Religious Left.

As a conservationist who really enjoys clean air and clean water, I happen to be quite in favor of measures to reduce emissions from motor vehicles, power plants, and other human activities that make our air and water toxic. But I favor approaching this problem through market-oriented means and the development of new technology, not through top-down politically-imposed (and worse, internationally-imposed) policies that do not account for the complex reverberations of massive and immediate interventions in the multi-trillion dollar global economy due to a staged frenzy instigated by a cast of base political opportunists.

I plead with all reasonable people: be environmentally friendly, but don't buy into to this hallucination.

The Immigration Madness

I have been a bit busy lately and my blogging frequency has suffered. It is my hope to remedy that posthaste. I have yet to publicly write about the immigration issue, and so that is what today's post will be about.

Senate Minority Whip Trent Lott (R-MS) complained this week that "Talk Radio is running America," in reference to the public uproar against the immigration reform bill that was proceeding through Congress. I'm not sure that Lott helped himself by bashing the people who control the hearts and minds of the so-called "conservative base," but he has something of a point. Last week when accused of being in favor of amnesty,

John McCain quipped something to the effect of "if by amnesty you mean anything short of departing 20 Million people from this country, then yes I am for amnesty." Therein lies the trouble with the more hardcore conservative position on the subject of immigration: it's simply impracticable. The racist xenophobes that are fomenting hatred of immigrants are now the driving political force in this country. It seems that even the venom that engulfed the Left over the Iraq War has been eclipsed by the anti-immigrant feelings of the Right.

This issue has been simmering for the better part of the Post-9/11 Era, but has reached a boiling point. It is a virtual impossibility that the Right's fever will be alleviated. There is almost no conceivable way that this country could deport 10-20 Million people who are here illegally. The pure logistics of actually deporting tens of millions of people ignores whether this is even a desirable method for handling the problem. The shock to the U.S. Economy, which has already assimilated these immigrants, is almost incalculable. There are certain statistics, that if I had more time I could source, that estimate that deportation would result in a doubling of labor costs in U.S. Agriculture, pushing the already heavily subsidized industry over the brink, massively increasing Americans' cost for food, and worse, increasing our reliance on foreign agriculture, which exacerbates our thirst for already-expensive oil to transport such goods to the North American continent.

The inflationary impact alone is staggering, not to mention that there will likely be an outright shortage of labor in the service industries. For two hundred years, immigrants have dutifully filled the entry level jobs in order to begin the process of building a new life for their descendants. Irish immigrants filled the factories of the Northeast, helping fuel the Second Industrial Revolution. German immigrants filled the fields of the Great Plains, keeping our supermarkets full of victuals throughout two World Wars. Chinese immigrants built the railroads that connected the Atlantic to the Pacific, making possible the economic wonder that is the state of California. The Hispanic population that comprises most of today's immigrants ensures that the economy can continue to thrive by occupying the service industry and the agricultural labor pool.

With America's birthrate hovering around 2.1 children per couple, which is precisely the "rate of replacement" or "break even point" with respect to population growth, and with the growing imbalance between working and retired persons in this country (a problem that is on the verge of becoming crisis in 2011 when the baby boomers begin to retire), immigrants, if properly assimilated into the formal economy, will at least buy the country a little more time to deal with the impending balance of payments crisis that lurks amongst the shadows of the mammoth Medicare and Social Security accounts. This is why legalizing the immigrant population, and making them pay the same taxes all other Americans pay is an essential part of immigration reform.

All of these realities do not necessitate that we have a "free immigration" policy moving forward. Instead, we should actively work to enforce certain regulations that constrain people intending to relocate to America. One way of doing this is to grant automatic citizenship to anybody who serves in the uniformed services of the U.S. military for five years. If one of the major complaints from the Right about immigration is that they do not assimilate into American culture, and do not speak English, few things could substitute for engendering patriotic affection and a knowledge of the language than service in the U.S. military.

There should obviously be other avenues available for immigration into the United States, and we should harness technology to match employers who would be willing to hire immigrants with those people in other countries who are looking to move to the U.S. Ultimately, by assimilating those who are already here, and creating a more efficient mechanism for people to come here legally, we can solve the current immigration crisis as we did all of the ones that have come before. What we cannot do is revert to isolationist and xenophobic tendencies that further degrade America's credibility as the global hegemon, and damage our image abroad. Moreover, we cannot afford to decimate the U.S. economy by depriving it of an important source of human capital that is necessary to sustain longterm economic growth. While the bill currently before Congress is not a final answer to the problem, it is at least a first step toward reconciling the circumstances that are so unpalatable to millions of Americans, and millions of immigrants.

A Bloomberg Candidacy

Just when I was losing all interest (and hope) in the 2008 election, The Drudge Report hit me with a surprise the other day. Michael Bloomberg, the socially liberal, fiscally conservative, and wildly popular Mayor of New York is considering an independent candidacy for the White House, and is reportedly ready to drop an unprecedented $1 Billion of his personal fortune to wage the campaign. If all of this talk materializes into something real and meaningful, the lackluster prospects of 2008 will suddenly at least become interesting. With 3 of New York's most powerful pols on the ballot, and a true choice for the vast swath of fiscally conservative people in the electorate who couldn't care less about government intervening in social issues, the race could finally be about issues rather than about the star power of the candidates and the media fanfare surrounding them all.

People will argue that we haven't elected a third party candidate since Abraham Lincoln, and that is true. But never underestimate the power of a billion dollars. I, for one, am excited...

The End of the Blair Era

Throughout the 1990s, Tony Blair was frequently compared to Bill Clinton--a distinct mistake for those whose shallow ideological comparisons defined the administrations of each of these men. The end of the Blair government more closely resembles the fall from power of Lady Thatcher than it does any other modern political figure. In fact, the parallels between the Thatcher government and the Blair government, (in all but ideology), are rather numerous.

* Both were elected subsequent to a major economic crisis or under very poor economic conditions.

* Both were responsible for reviving their respective parties out of the doldrums after years of political defeat.

* Both were involved in major military operations (though in Lady Thatcher's case, the Falklands War was quite popular, and in Mr. Blair's case, the Iraq war has not been)

* Both were wildly popular at the peak of their political power, and won astounding re-elections.

* Both have been among the longest serving British Prime Minister of the last century.

* Both ultimately met their political end because of internal division and strife in their own parties.

* (Forward Looking Prediction) Both had successors who served under them as Chancellor of the Exchequer and who were promptly met with horrendous defeats in subsequent general elections (Though Major won the initial General Election in 1992, it was by a narrow margin. He then went on famously to lead the Tories to a loss in 1997 to Blair). Indeed, it seems that Gordon Brown has his work cut out for him.

Tony Blair also shares something in common with another world leader, George W. Bush, in that both of these men have, through the War in Iraq, decimated their political parties' previously unparalleled strength and dynamic majorities and prepared them both for defeat. The Labour Party at least has the benefit of Blair resigning to allow for a more graceful transition.

If only we had a Parliamentary System....

The Blogosphere Buzzes about Ron Paul

Texas U.S. Congressman Ron Paul has hit a major milestone in his interesting political career. I pulled up Technorati.com tonight to find that the most searched-for term in the blogosphere is nothing other than "Ron Paul." For an obscure libertarian Republican known as "Dr. No" for his refusal to vote for legislation that is not specifically allowed by Congress's enumerated Constitutional powers, this is a tremendous achievement. He has also had stunning success in online polls following the Presidential Debate on MSNBC between the flooded field of GOP contenders.

I do not think that being #1 in Technorati's blog search is going to translate to electoral success in 2008, but my bet is that underfunded candidates with a genuine, no holds barred, honest campaign style will covet such a position in 2012, when the Web will slay the juggernaut of the Mainstream Media once and for all when it comes to influence over the political process.

There is little doubt that Congressman Paul is a different kind of politician. In a certain sense in which he is truly a "Web 2.0" kind of politician. He isn't interested in spin; he has definable positions that are relatively consistent over time, and he is not afraid to express the core tenets of his political philosophy without reservation. And yet, he's being completely genuine. He does not masquerade as a Conservative under the guise of the hot button, must-have issues of the day; he does not demagogue the divisive social issues that so many Republican hopefuls feel they need to slam their fists on the podium about. Instead, he talks about the very real economic and constitutional issues facing the country, and he does so without the drama of so many who are in his business.

I'm not sure what the future holds for him. Perhaps the Web's influence will improve his visibility and pull him into the mainstream. I'm afraid we aren't there yet, though.

The Web can have a major influence in the shorter term, both by leveling the playing field for candidates like Congressman Paul, who truly have something useful to contribute to the dialogue and who otherwise would never be heard, as well as by beginning nation-wide draft campaigns for the candidates who everybody wants to run, but aren't currently (Collin Powell, for example).

Politics 2.0 on the march...

Living at Charing Cross

The center of London is the Charing Cross railway station. Samuel Johnson once said "I think the full tide of human existence is at Charing Cross." Perhaps this is why the poet Francis Thompson used Charing Cross as a metaphor in his beautifully penned "The Kingdom of Heaven," where he says:

But (when so sad, thou canst not sadder)
Cry and upon thy so sore loss
Shall shine the traffic of Jacob's Ladder
Pitched betwixt heaven and Charing Cross,

And yea, in the night, my soul, my daughter,
Cry, and clinging to heaven by the hems,
And lo, Christ walking on the water,
Not of Gennessareth, but Thames.

Thompson himself lived at Charing Cross--down and out in the streets of London, with a brilliant intellect that had been squandered when he dropped out of Oxford University due to his opium addiction. Lowly he sank into that grave-pit of life, living and breathing depression. But he magnificently portrays the salvation of his depression with the lines above.

There is a story, probably apocryphal, though helpful, of Martin Luther when he was battling immense and sincere depression. He could not muster the strength to pull himself out of bed for days at a time during the greatest period of difficulty early in his ministry as the entire force of the Papacy had been brought to bear against this young German monk. His wife, one day (as the story goes), walked into Luther's bed chamber dressed entirely in black and announced "God is dead." Luther shouted that his wife had utter unfettered blasphemy. She replied to him "Is it not equally blasphemy to behave as if God were dead?"

It was supposedly out of this episode that Luther was inspired to write the famous hymn "A Mighty Fortress is Our God," the third stanza of which is as follows:

And though this world, with devils filled, should threaten to undo us,
We will not fear for God hath willed His truth to triumph through us,
The Prince of Darkness grim, we tremble not for him;
His rage we can endure, for lo, his doom is sure,
One little word shall fell him.

Being something of a materialist (not to be confused with being "materialistic"), I don't exactly see the world "with devils filled" in some sort of literal sense wherein there are these red or green demonic creatures roaming about the earth. The world, however, is filled with devils, devils of the soul. These devils plague us by manifesting themselves as selfishness, as unloving sentiments, unkind words, unfaithful actions, uncontrolled behavior. They destroy us from the inside out. But they can also destroy us from the outside, too. You see, it is not just the devils within ourselves we have to encounter and fight, but the devils in everybody else too.

We have to meet the selfishness in others with grace and peace. We have to meet the unyielding opinions and motives of others with patience and self control. We have to break the bone of the purveyors of these ills with that kind word the Proverbs speak of.

In the midst of living at Charing Cross, we might be enticed to bow our head under the weight of the miseries of the world. But instead we must look upward, for it is only there that we can see the Ladder of Jacob. From the Book of Genesis,

"Jacob left Beersheba and set out for Haran. When he reached a certain place, he stopped for the night because the sun had set. Taking one of the stones there, he put it under his head and lay down to sleep. He had a dream in which he saw a stairway resting on the earth, with its top reaching to heaven, and the angels of God were ascending and descending on it. There above it stood the LORD, and he said: "I am the LORD, the God of your father Abraham and the God of Isaac. I will give you and your descendants the land on which you are lying. Your descendants will be like the dust of the earth, and you will spread out to the west and to the east, to the north and to the south. All peoples on earth will be blessed through you and your offspring. I am with you and will watch over you wherever you go, and I will bring you back to this land. I will not leave you until I have done what I have promised you."

The beauty of the literature of the Old Testament is its universal applicability to the circumstances in our lives. Francis Thompson understood it marvelously well. We see Jacob's Ladder, not by traveling to a far off land, but in the place where we are supposed to be, or at least the place to which we are to return. We are shown the vision of promise in our own milieu, our own land. Moses may have encountered God atop Mount Sinai, but he would never have done so had God not first reached out to him at the burning bush. Peter would never have witnessed the majesty of the transfiguration had Christ not met him at his fishing boat.

And so Francis Thompson closes his poem with that most beautiful line "And lo, Christ walking on the water, not of Gennesareth, but Thames."

Post Post-Modernity and Progress

"There is another proverb, "As you have made your bed,
so you must lie on it"; which again is simply a lie.
If I have made my bed uncomfortable, please God I will make it again.
We could restore the Heptarchy or the stage coaches if we chose.
It might take some time to do, and it might be very inadvisable to do it;
but certainly it is not impossible as bringing back last Friday
is impossible. This is, as I say, the first freedom that I claim:
the freedom to restore. I claim a right to propose as a solution
the old patriarchal system of a Highland clan, if that should seem
to eliminate the largest number of evils. It certainly would
eliminate some evils; for instance, the unnatural sense of obeying
cold and harsh strangers, mere bureaucrats and policemen.
I claim the right to propose the complete independence of the small
Greek or Italian towns, a sovereign city of Brixton or Brompton,
if that seems the best way out of our troubles. It would be a way
out of some of our troubles; we could not have in a small state,
for instance, those enormous illusions about men or measures which
are nourished by the great national or international newspapers.
You could not persuade a city state that Mr. Beit was an Englishman,
or Mr. Dillon a desperado, any more than you could persuade
a Hampshire Village that the village drunkard was a teetotaller
or the village idiot a statesman. Nevertheless, I do not as a
fact propose that the Browns and the Smiths should be collected
under separate tartans. Nor do I even propose that Clapham should
declare its independence. I merely declare my independence.
I merely claim my choice of all the tools in the universe;
and I shall not admit that any of them are blunted merely because
they have been used." -G.K. Chesterton, What's Wrong With The World

I have come upon something of an epiphany about this mortal life this morning that I thought I ought to share, rather than keep to myself.

[The whole notion of blogging, in fact, is sharing those thoughts that, in many instances, one might have previously kept to himself due to the cost of distributing them (having a physical conversation with everybody one knows is a high distribution cost; so is putting them into print). But the beauty of blogging is that distribution costs are zero. Consequently, if my marginal revenue from distributing my idle thoughts was high (conversations, books, printed materials) and my marginal cost was zero, I would not share. Now, however, my marginal cost is zero, thus matching my marginal revenue, and so I am free to publish and distribute thoughts which may or may not ever be read, and likely will not be remembered. But I get some sort of overall satisfaction for having shared them, and so it merits the brief amount of time required here to do the sharing.]

For some time, I have contemplated what would come after post-modernity. Post-modernity, essentially being the rejection of everything, could not sustain itself in perpetuity. It leaves a vacuum and a void. Chaos, historically speaking, always gives way to order, though frequently to bad order. The Post World War II Era has been philosophically chaotic. Skepticism reached its ugly extreme, where if Descartes had been writing in our present day, he would have never gotten past his First Meditation. In the wake of such philosophical (and thereby ethical) anarchy, the human race has splintered in its retreat to some ethic. Looking at the degeneration of society, the Left has retreated into two directions: Humanism and Environmentalism. The Right has retreated into Moralism and Religiosity. The Chinese have tried to retrench Marxism; the Middle East has embraced Radical Islam; the vestiges of genuine Capitalism have staked their claim in the camp of Individualism. Everybody has an ethic these days; the rejection of ethics could not last forever.

Yet, we have not found any new ethics, just old ones recycled. Environmentalism is nothing new; many cultures throughout history have worshiped the earth. Certainly the rise of Western religious fundamentalism is several iterations along. And so on. This, though, is what brings me to the purpose of quoting Chesterton. He was precisely right. "Progress," properly defined, is not about what is new, but rather what is right. This is why so many people embrace the term "progressive" when talking about their particular pet cause. What counts as progress is in fact the entirety of the ethical debate. Once that is defined, the other issues are minor.

In this light, it is interesting that King Solomon, in Ecclesiastes, talks of things being as they always have been, and that they will always be, and there is nothing new under the sun. He certainly was not speaking of inventions or gadgets or contraptions, but of the human condition itself. Perhaps Longfellow accurately sums up Solomon's counsel when he writes "Trust no future, however pleasant; let the dead past bury its dead." Chesterton, I imagine, would agree with that.

So the nature of the question, then concerns what we can in fact expect from the future. If it is not going to be some Brave New World and global Utopia, then what precisely will it look like? Well, if we focus on what it ought to look like, then it will be an amalgamation of the past. Those things of the past that worked pretty well, in different eras and cultures, for different people, all mashed up into one beautiful historical melting pot. That is the entire notion, in fact, behind America's "melting pot" mentality--assimilate people from all different cultures and backgrounds until you come up with the best practices, foods, etc. from all parts of the world. It has worked relatively well. It is the people who want to disassimilate who are the true regressives.

But we cannot be denied the tools of the past, as Chesterton points out. If we are to create this cultural-historical melting pot of perfection, then we have to have access to all of the ingredients. We cannot get rid of our religion simply because it is old any more than we can reject our computers simply because they are new. We should not excoriate the notion of family because it has existed for thousands of years any more than we ought to decry the expanded definition of what counts as a family merely because it hasn't existed for thousands of years. To again quote Chesterton, he accurately notes that "The whole modern world has been divided into that of Conservatives and Progressives. The business of Progressives is to go on making mistakes. The business of Conservatives is to prevent the mistakes from being corrected."

We must fill the post-modern black hole with something, lest we all be sucked into its void. But what we fill it with should be a carefully considered mashup of the things we have observed to work that is free of the things we have observed that do not. Simply reverting back to old ways and old theories and old dogma while calling them new does not progress make.

Web 2.0 Expo Day 1

I am currently sitting in the morning session at the Web 2.0 Expo about Community Evangelism. The speaker just raised an interesting question: is it possible for Web media to become as timeless and valuable as a book, song, move, or other classic work of literature. The reality is that we do not frequently revisit a YouTube video, or a blog, or something of the like for its artistic value, unless perhaps it is something we decide to share with a friend, in which case we enjoy it again as we see our friend laugh or cry or smile at the same content that gave us that pleasure.

Yet it is not quite the same. I cannot think of a time when I contemplated the depth of a 5 minute YouTube clip, or a 500 word blog article, no matter how insightful. I haven't encountered anything on the Internet that has impacted my life as did Fyodor Doestoevsky's The Brothers Karamazov. I am not sure where the resolution to this is, but I hope for the sake of culture and society that we figure it out, for as we turn our time and attention away from classic literature, and book form itself, we need to nevertheless harness the deep creative powers of the human spirit in our new technological era.

More to come from the Web 2.0 Expo....

Epiphany on the Treadmill

Fly Me to the Hebrides
(Skinner Layne, April 10, 2007)

When tumult seems to come in threes
And there is no shelter from stormy seas
And my mind just wants to convulse and seize
Fly me then to the Hebrides.

Can I not hide my troubles in Fingal's Cave?
Where in such solitude my soul I save?
And watch that cold-crashing Scottish wave?
Or is such a dream the thought of a knave?

Is there an Alchemist there to give me advice
On how to make diamonds from Chinese rice,
Or how to make men out of household mice,
Or how to turn fire into Arctic ice?

Perhaps instead I would meet Plato there,
To ask him if we are even Aware
Of our estate in this pitiful trifling affair
Called Life, ye unfair tearing despair.

Nay, I shall find Elijah in the crag and rock,
His place of refuge (though quite ad hoc)
Where together we'll hide 'til three o'clock
When our escapist defeat Almighty God should mock.

So when next it strikes me to fall to my knees
Or fly to the ends of Earth to find the keys
I should know there are sorrows worse than these,
And never swim the Atlantic to the Hebrides.

------

The gym is a great place to eliminate frustration and difficulty, and to calm both body and mind. Today was no exception, and a great truth was revealed to me metaphorically as I sweat away my anxiety on the treadmill. I was getting a bit winded, and most certainly ready to cease my arduous run, in spite of being only half way through my pre-determined course. Mustering up the will to continue was becoming difficult with every passing second. I continued (stupidly) to look down at the treadmill interface every few seconds to see how much distance I had left, and I found myself running out of steam. So I said to myself, in true motivational spirit "Don't think about how far you have to go, think about how far you've already come."

Although it didn't make my shortness of breath disappear or the fatigue in my legs fade away, I finished my laps in the allotted time, and I reflected on my little motivational diddy that got me through the run. "How remarkably applicable to life," I thought to myself. Whether it is my perfectionism in my professional life, my family life, my personal life, or whatever else, I recognized that when I reflect on how far I have come, and how far those situations have progressed, I cannot even begin to despair or be unhappy that at the moment there are strains.

The lesson, though, would be lost if the analysis ended there. If I had merely looked back on the miles run and said "ah, look at all all I have accomplished, why should I press on any longer? What I have already done is perfectly fine and sufficient," then I wouldn't have had the great accomplishment of finishing my run, or the reward of that accomplishment. The lesson, thus, is that there is a two-fold necessity in being able to finish the run: recognizing all the distance run so far, and knowing that it can be repeated, and then pushing, pressing, straining through those last few miles to finish. That means more pain, not less. But looking backward lets one know that the distance to go is within reach.

Abdication is No Honorable Option

"There is a time for everything, and a season for every activity under heaven...a time to embrace, and a time to refrain from embracing; a time to speak and a time to remain silent." -King Solomon, Book of Ecclesiastes

"If you can keep your head when all about you are losing theirs and blaming it on you...If you can wait and not be tired by waiting...If you can see the things you've given your life to broken, and stoop and build 'em up with wornout tools...If you can make one heap of all your winnings, and risk it on one turn of pitch and toss, and lose and start again at your beginnings, and never breath a word about your loss." -Rudyard Kipling, If

"Above all, keep loving one another earnestly, for love covers a multitude of sins." -The Apostle Peter, First Epistle

There are many people who are what we would call "Golden Agers," who think that if we were magically transported back in time, to some past era, we would see society in a much better condition than we see our own. These nostalgic dreamers make euphemistic claims about how wonderful life was in the "good 'ol days." There were no good 'ol days, only the same days as today from which we extracted the good parts for posterity's sake. History, like the news, tends to focus on the negatives: wars, crises, revolutions, famines, plagues, tyrannies, etc. Memory, like poetry, tends to focus on the positives: morality, great art, music, literature, architecture, order & peace, etc. Kipling speaks of "triumph and disaster" as "imposters," and so I think of history and memory.

With all of that being said, I wouldn't dare to claim that society has come to the point where things like commitment and perseverence no longer matter, a degeneration into some ethical slum. Nay, we have perpetually lived in such an ethical slum, as the human race has been perpetually human. The conservatives speak of the devolution of humanity, the liberals speak of its evolution. I would like to speak of its constancy.

One of the constants of humanity is our unwillingness to endure hardships. It is often easier to give up than to fight. It is easier to break a commitment than to keep it. I am tempted by this daily, on so many different fronts of my life. The easy route is so appealing, but it is a spurious appeal. The easy route is that mirage in the desert that parades itself as an oasis, but it is empty and full of disappointment. The easy route, I would say, is like Chesterton's "little place at Whatsitsname," the home of the Devil, of which he says this...

"At the little place at Whatsitsname, where folks are rich and clever,
The golden and the goodly house, where things grow worse forever.
There are things you need not know of, though you live and die in vain,
There are souls more sick of pleasure, than you are sick of pain,
There's a game of April Fool that's played behind it's door,
Where the fool remains forever, and April comes no more.
Where the splendour of the daylight grows drearier than the dark,
And life droops like a vulture that once was such a lark,
And that is the Blue Devil, that once was the Blue Bird,
For the Devil is a gentleman, and doesn't keep his word."

I find that when put properly in its perspective, abdication is not only no honorable option, but it is no rational option at all. Abdication leads one to a circumstance Napoleon decried so appropriately: "Death is nothing, but to live defeated and inglorious is to die daily." The man who abdicates his duties, breaks his commitments, and flees from difficulty lives defeated, for quitting is the most hideous form of defeat, for it is a defeat that one chooses to bring upon himself.

This is a pep talk I have had to have with myself lately, and thought I'd write it down for my own sake in the future, and for the sake of others experiencing fires and storms. There are few characteristics more lacking in human society than honesty about one's hardships. We love to play pretend, to say that everything is going wonderfully. The only time we let other people in on our problems is when we have that selfish desire for sympathy and reassurance. I think this is what St. Thomas Aquinas was referring to when he said in his Prayer for Ordering a Life Wisely "Oh Lord, my God, make me...humble without posturing." So I should pray for that hourly.

There is never a reason to abdicate; never a reason to quit; never a reason to surrender; never a reason to think that all is lost, for if one maintains his resolve, then by definition, all is not lost, for that one thing remains. The end of Kipling's poem summarizes the reward of the persevering and the wise "yours is the world, and all that's in it; but which is more, you'll be a man, my son."

The Gingrich Strategy

As a sign that Newt Gingrich might know what he's doing, he is actively avoiding officially announcing that he is going to run for the Presidency, and is consequently staying out of the media spotlight. For most of the narcissists who both run for office and run other people's campaigns, this would not merely seem counterintuitive, but utterly unfathomable. But the old conventional wisdom that used to govern politics is beginning to finally die away, and it is about time.

Gingrich has publicly stated that the candidates who have gotten into the '08 Presidential Campaign already are going to die of overexposure, which apparently in his opinion is a greater evil to be feared than lack of name ID. Obviously, the stealth candidacy wouldn't work for everybody. Gov. Bill Richardson (D-NM) has almost no name recognition amongst rank and file voters; neither does Gov. Tom Vilsak (D-IA), Gov. Mike Huckabee (R-AR), Sen. Sam Brownback (R-KS). Yet for candidates with the real star power like John McCain, Rudy Guliani, Hillary Clinton, and Barrack Obama, the name ID game really doesn't even need to be played.

It is quite possible that the voters are going to get candidate and campaign fatigue very quickly in the '08 cycle. I think this will be the longest campaign season that has ever been, and ever will be. 2008 will also likely be the least substantive campaign we have ever seen, and ever will see again. But it might just be that the only substantive candidate might win it for once. This is what is integral to Newt's strategy. He is going to talk about the issues facing the country, but not the candidates running for office. This keeps him out of the limelight, out of the mudslinging, and gives him opportunity to get his message out to the truly attentive voters who are already interested in the race without annoying the voters who aren't.

He's been honest and said "I'm going to decide if no front-runner has emerged by Labor Day," rather than the disingenuous garbage that has tended to flow from the lips of Presidential hopefuls, such as Hillary's favorite "I'm busy representing the people of New York in the United States Senate," and the countless Governors who have echoed similar rhetoric.

It will be interesting to see if Newt's strategy is effective. It will at least be different. And we all know America is clamoring for something different.

Agape

I have been intending to write about the call to Agape love, and my recent experiences of it for sometime. However, after reflecting on it, I have decided instead just to post one of the most moving and meaningful prayers I have ever read. For those of you who have been the givers of Agape love to me recently, you will know who you are--the estranged who have been reconciled, the closest ones who have endured with me the difficulties of the previous year, and so on. For all of us, I hope it is a meaningful reminder of our distinctive obligation as human persons to seek peace and love in all that we do.

Lord, make me an instrument of your peace,
Where there is hatred, let me sow love;
where there is injury, pardon;
where there is doubt, faith;
where there is despair, hope;
where there is darkness, light;
where there is sadness, joy;

O Divine Master, grant that I may not so much seek to be consoled as to console;
to be understood as to understand;
to be loved as to love.

For it is in giving that we receive;
it is in pardoning that we are pardoned;
and it is in dying that we are born to eternal life.

-Saint Francis of Assisi

Common Sense for the 21st Century

It is remarkable that several centuries after Thomas Paine wrote his most famous pamphlet, Common Sense his words now apply not to Her Majesty's Government, but to the very government that Paine was instrumental in establishing. Without I shall merely quote a small portion of Paine's great essay.

"I offer a few remarks on the so much boasted constitution of England. That it was noble for the dark and slavish times in which it was erected, is granted. When the world was over run with tyranny the least remove therefrom was a glorious rescue. But that it is imperfect, subject to convolusions, and incapable of producing whati t seems to promise, is easily demonstrated. Absolute governments have this advantage with them, that they are simple; if the people suffer, they know the head from which their suffering springs, know likewise the remedy, and are not bewildered by a variety of causes and cures. But the constitution of England is so exceedingly complex, that the nation may suffer for years together without being able to discover which part the fault lies, some will say in one and some in another, and every political physician will advise a different medicine."


This passage applies to the United States and its Constitution today. How tragic it is that history has repeated itself.

A Virtual Republic

If liberty and equality, as is thought by some, are chiefly to be found in democracy, they will be best attained when all persons alike share in government to the utmost.
-Aristotle

I spent a couple hours on YouTube last night, perusing the now South Park-devoid (thanks, MTV) video sharing site to see how the political spin doctors of our day are attempting to be trendy and harness the Internet for electoral gain. Sure enough, User-Generated political commercials have already populated Google's latest addition to its empire. There was this little gem:



That of course is nothing but the same staged political nonsense of the last fifty years of media-driven elections. The Obama campaign may know how to propagate a YouTube link, but they don't get what the Web 2.0 movement is all about: engagement. Hillary Clinton, on the other hand, gets it a little better:



She talks about "starting a conversation." That's closer, but it's not quite there. Do a search on any of the major candidates, Hillary Clinton, Obama, Rudy, McCain, Mike Huckabee, Sam Brownback, Bill Richardson. There's something for everybody. But none of them get it.

Web 2.0 is not about taking the same staged productions that have disillusioned America's voting population for the last half century, turned them away from politics, instilled abject cynicism, and implanted apathy at the heart of our nation's electoral process. Web 2.0 is about active participation, collaboration, and engagement from the masses. And that is the future of the American Republic as well, if it is to survive.

I quoted Aristotle at the top of this page, and it's clear that he understood, millennia ago, what it would take for genuine equality and liberty: participation from all. The American Republic was established to accomplish this very thing. It has taken generations for it to advance toward that goal, but it has had a good start. Because of the constraints of technology, States-Rights Federalism was engrained into the Constitution in order to protect the rights of minorities and the disenfranchised. Refusing to give the federal government complete and unbridled authority was the most effective way to protect liberty in 1787 It continues to have an effect today, but not to the same extent, thanks to the New Deal and a half century of government largesse being extracted from the people and re-distributed to meet out certain political ends.

The future of the American Republic is not in a return to Federalism, though without doubt, something could be gained from such a move. Rather, the future of the American Republic is in the Internet. Imagine a political party whose entire primary and nominating convention process were done online, where the candidates debated each other on YouTube, posted weekly (or even daily) video blogs, responded to the comments and questions of voters, etc. Imagine if, once elected, the new Internet-based Party's Congressman went to Washington and governed the same way. Instead of a staff of 10 people helping him sift through the monstrous amount of legislation, he had a staff a 10,000, through the (fictitious) website WikiBills.gov. These are the sorts of things that Web 2.0 is going to enable. The politicians who succeed in the next ten years will get it. Everybody else will be left behind.

The Partisan Identity Crisis

I am not a member of any organized political party. I am a Democrat.
-Will Rogers

Intellectually I'm probably a Republican.
-Sting

I recently blogged about the shifting tectonics within the Republican Party. It is likely to cost them the 2008 election. But today, I would like to discuss in greater length the identity crisis in both political parties, and the general malaise that is growing across the country with the Two Party System.

Having spent the vast majority of my conscious life involved in politics, it is a subject that inevitably comes up in the course of normal conversation. When I first meet somebody, the introducer generally notes my political past, and the first question then arises: Are you a Republican or a Democrat? This question is increasingly difficult to answer. When speaking of the 2006 Midterm elections, I frequently say "Well, I am elated that the Republicans lost, but am devastated that the Democrats won."

If you polled 100 people on the questions "What does it mean to be a Republican?" and "What does it mean to be a Democrat?" you would get as many answers. For today, the Democrat raison d'etre is opposition to the War in Iraq. Yet there are numerous Republicans in Congress and out in society who hold the same position, so certainly that isn't the defining issue.

There are Republicans who are Pro-Choice, Democrats who are Pro-Life, Republicans who support Gay Marriage, Democrats who oppose it. There are tax-hiking Republicans and tax-cutting Democrats; Republicans who favor massive federal spending and Democrat deficit hawks. There are pacifists on both sides of the aisle and war-mongers just the same. There are Green Republicans and Blue Dog Democrats. Partisan identity is increasingly more a function of geography than ideology. Candidates in both parties are forced to deal with the inertia of the aging population and simultaneously confront the disaffection of Generation Y. Gen X is apathetic, Gen Y would care if somebody cared about them. The Baby Boomers just want to make sure they get their Social Security when they retire, and the World War II generation just wants to die in peace. The Millennial Kids, the children of Gen X, are fat and lazy and who knows what their politics will be like in 5-10 years.

If there is any Climate Change, there is definitely a Political Climate Change brewing in the United States. The country cannot continue to endure the chaotic and sporadic, pseudo-ideological all-over-the-map style of policy making. There has not been a concerted effort at a national political agenda since Newt Gingrich in 1994, but it didn't last beyond the '96 election. Prior to that, there hadn't been one since Ronald Reagan in 1980--but it didn't carry through his administration. Lyndon Johnson's Great Society and FDR's New Deal were the only other two of the 20th Century.

Not only is there no agenda driving the nation today, there is not even an agenda driving the political parties that hold power Congress and the White House. Each is purely reacting to the other. There is no such thing as national policy in 2007. Everybody is looking to the Presidential Contenders of 2008 to provide that leadership and that direction--yet none of them are fulfilling such an obligation. And even if they were, it would be insufficient. There needs to be a massive engagement of the populous in the policy-making process, but it is going to require electoral reform and constitutional change. The abilities of modern technology must be embraced to enhance the national debate, and create national policy. Releasing a campaign video on YouTube isn't quite what I'm talking about here. Politics 2.0, Policy 2.0, will only come about through engagement. Politicians aren't there yet. American Politicians are trying to use 21st Century methods with 20th Century mindsets, and it isn't going to work.

The ultimate result of Politics 2.0, when it finally takes hold, will be the most disruptive force seen in U.S. politics since the Great Depression. The institutions of today will be badly damaged and perhaps even destroyed by the hurricane-force winds of creative destruction. What is rebuilt in the aftermath will define American destiny for the next hundred years.

Robin Hood is Back in Town

Presidential hopeful and former North Carolina Senator John Edwards announced this week (his first official week on the campaign trail) that he will raise taxes if elected. His supposed tax increases on the "rich" are to fund that euphemistically titled "universal health care," the successor to "socialized medicine," or my preferred moniker for it "Hillarycare." Let's take a closer look at this issue, and cut beneath the surface talking points and soundbites.

The Myth of the Wealthiest 1%

There is a pervasive myth in America that the "rich get richer and the poor get poorer" and that the so-called wealthiest of Americans do not pay enough in taxes. This is a pretext for Democrat politicians to offer "tax increases on the wealthy" in order to fund social spending programs for supposedly poorer Americans.

According to the Internal Revenue Service, in 2004 (after the Bush tax cuts), the top 1% of income-earners (those making $328,049 or more per year) paid 36.89% of all federal taxes. The top 5% (those making $137,056 or more per year) paid a full 57.13% of all federal taxes. The top 10% (those making $99,112 or more per year) supplied 68.19% of the funding for the federal government's largess, while the top 25% ($60,041 and up) rounds out 84.46%.

The top half of all income-earners in the U.S. pay 96.7% of all taxes, which means that the poorest 50% (those making less than $30,122) pay only 3.3% of all federal taxes. This means that so-called Middle Class America hardly pays taxes as it is. When 1% of the population pays more than a third of the tax bill, if there is to be a tax cut, it is going to be on the so-called "wealthy" because they are the only ones who pay any meaningful sum in taxes as it is.

While we shall not get into the merit of tax cuts from an economic perspective here, it is important to note that government receipts in the post-tax cut days of the Bush Administration have skyrocketed over the levels during the 1990s due to the massive economic growth that ensued as a result of the cuts.

The Looming Disaster of Transfer Payments

The second, and more egregious tragedy of Mr. Edwards' Robin Hood policy is the spending side of the equation. Raising federal income taxes will have a tremendously detrimental effect on the U.S. economy, but not as much as incurring even more future unfunded liabilities. The United States has already promised future beneficiaries of social spending programs far more than it can possibly deliver. According to a report issued in January of this year by the U.S. Government Accountability Office:

The federal government’s financial condition and fiscal outlook are worse than many may understand. Despite an increase in revenues in fiscal year 2006 of about $255 billion, the federal government reported that its costs exceeded its revenues by $450 billion (i.e., net operating cost) and that its cash outlays exceeded its cash receipts by $248 billion (i.e., unified budget deficit). Further, as of September 30, 2006, the U.S. government reported that it owed (i.e., liabilities) more than it owned (i.e., assets) by almost $9 trillion. In addition, the present value1 of the federal government’s major reported long-term “fiscal exposures”—liabilities (e.g., debt), contingencies (e.g., insurance), and social insurance and other commitments and promises (e.g., Social Security, Medicare)—rose from $20 trillion to about $50 trillion in the last 6 years.

Furthermore, according to the 2006 joint reports of the Boards of Trustees of Social Security and Medicare,

Both Social Security and Medicare are projected to be in poor fiscal shape, though Social Security poses a far more manageable problem-in analytic and dollar terms-than does Medicare. The fiscal problems of both programs are driven by inexorable demographics and, in the case of Medicare, inexorable health care cost inflation, and are not likely to be ameliorated by economic growth or mere tinkering with program financing.

The U.S. already owes future creditors $50 Trillion, and those creditors are the promisees of Medicare and Social Security, which are the existing "universal health care" ponzi schemes that have been thrust upon Generations X and Y to fund. With dwindling birth rates, low education levels among immigrants, and the Baby Boomers set to begin retirement in 2011, fiscal disaster is coming to a boil in the U.S. Treasury and John Edwards wants to turn up the heat.

Let’s look at the magnitude of this problem on a more personal level. The total household net worth in the United States is $53.3 trillion, and yet the government has made future promises of $50 trillion in transfer payments. This means that every man, woman, and child in the United States has a $170,000 burden to make good these future liabilities, but when examined on a full-time worker basis, that number skyrockets to $400,000.

By 2040, spending Medicare, Social Security, and interest on the National Debt will consume 30% of the nation’s Gross Domestic Product, with all other spending raising the number above 40%.

The GAO report goes on to conclude,

The “fiscal gap” is a quantitative measure of long-term fiscal imbalance. Under GAO’s more realistic simulation, even if the federal government continued to borrow money from the public at the current share of the economy (i.e., GDP), closing the fiscal gap would require spending cuts or tax increases equal to 8 percent of the entire economy each year over the next 75 years, or a total of about $61 trillion in present value terms. To put this in perspective, closing the gap would require an immediate and permanent increase in federal tax revenues of more than 40 percent or an equivalent reduction in federal program spending (i.e., in all spending except for interest on the debt held by the public, which cannot be directly controlled).

Conclusion

John Edwards and the other "populist" candidates for the White House who will be singing that old familiar tune of steal from the rich and give to the poor will soon be humming taps on behalf of the U.S. Economy and the Federal Treasury. To couple stagnating GDP growth (the result of the tax hikes) with explosive spending ("universla health care") will move more rapidly towards the edge of the cliff that we are inexorably approaching already. Not only should Edwards and his ilk be patently rejected for their mission of economic suicide, but proactive steps must be taken within the next decade if we are to stave off the 2nd Great Depression. China's rise in the East, and the economic upturn of Asia in general evidences that there is a country ready to fill the gap of the world economic superpower if we falter. Let us hope we do not make that mistake.

The Tectonic Plates of the Republican Party

For years Republican spin doctors and national political commentators have talked compared the Republican Party monolith to the Democratic Party's rampant fragmentation. It has been argued that the GOP maintains a strong coalition of Evangelical Social Conservaties and ardent Fiscal Conservative/Libertarian-leaning Free Marketers, while the Democrats have relied on often opposing constituencies to for their electoral success: Latinos, African-Americans, Gays, Women, Unions, Jews, and others.

Indeed, if elections were held only amongst white males, or even amongst whites, the Republicans would have a permanent and sustainable electoral majority. The converse of this reality is a phenomenon Dick Morris frequently refers to as the "browning of America," which he says indicates the Republican Party's long-term inability to win national elections. However, I would contend that there is a great underlying rift brewing within the Republican Party. The Bush Administration has brought to a boil the waters of discord between the factions of the GOP, and Bush Policy coupled with the emerging hot-button issues of the day, are about to set off a massive earthquake in Republican politics.

In order to understand the dynamics of the upcoming 2008 presidential election, and what is likely to ensue in its aftermath, we must first look at three factors: the existing GOP factions and their divergent ideologies, the policies of the George W. Bush Administration and how they relate to the constituencies who elected him, and the emergent issues of the day and how they create factional rifts within the GOP. Once we have looked at these three topics, we can better understand the future of the Republican Party and of two party system in the United States as a whole.

Dogmatics vs. Dollars
Without doubt, there are overlaps between the two primary factions of the American Republican Party, those being the Social Conservative wing and the Fiscal Conservative/Pseudo-Libertarian wing. And, of course, there are gradations of beliefs across the factions, and people who sit idly moderate on all of the issues as well, but we will not focus so much on those individuals since the Democratic Party has its equivalents, they end up cancelling each other out and merely serve as a limiting influence on the more fervent of the primary factions. In fact, many Social Conservatives are also Fiscal Conservatives, at least on certain issues, and in many cases, there are Fiscal Conservatives who are also Social Conservatives, again, on certain issues. The media, and the TV talking heads, frequently oversimplify the dichtomy of the intra-party politics of Republicans by talking about the "far right" and the "moderates." The divisions go far deeper than that.

The M.O. of the Social Conservative (in most cases) is to champion policies that are in line with his set of overarching religious and moral convictions. Laws against abortion and gay rights are not, to them, an imposition of their morality on somebody else, but an enforcement of the only morality on people who are grievously in error. To not legislate such morality would be to allow, and even promote, "moral decline," which is a particularly frightening notion for the Evangelical as it inheres in the concept a coming judgment from God. For the non-Evangelical social conservative, there is still a sense that the country cannot survive without the maintenance of centuries-old status quo on everything from the traditional role of women to gay rights. Because their primary motivation is fear, they find themselves unable to make policy concessions and compromises on any subject at any time. This has positioned them to be the squeaky wheel of the Republican Party, and Bush-Cheney-Rove has made sure to oil it frequently.

Social Conservatives, do not, however, limit their moral impositions to domestic social policy. They demand to meddle in foreign affairs as well. The Evangelical love affair with Israel is perhaps te most startling example of a completely non-pragmatic approach to foreign policy. To the social conservative, Israel can never be in the wrong, unless it pursues a policy of peace with Palestine, and Israel must be supported in all cases of military or diplomatic conflict regardless of its position on whatever matter is at-hand. This reality stems from the Evangelical's theological belief in the doctrine of Dispensationalist Pre-Millennialism, which tells of the imminent "rapture" of all Christian souls and an ensuing massive war of seven years amongst the nations of the earth before the ultimate War of Wars, the Apocalypse, catylized by the Anti-Christ, Jesus's physical return to Earth and reign from Jerusalem for a Thousand Years before God ultimately ends the Earth and starts all things anew. This fantasy interpretation of the Revelation of St. John is the intrinsic motivation of Evangelical foreign policy towards the Middle East, and is the ultimate root of the hatred of Muslims that has spiraled out of control in the conservative Christian community, exacerbated by 9/11.

The War on Terror is an outgrowth of the Evangelical view of Israel, and the threat American Evangelicals feel from Islam itself. Much like the great satan of the atheistic Soviet Union, Evangelicals have a common cause to rally against what they see as a challenge to Christendom, except that Islam's equivalent fundamentalism even more frightens the conservative Christian than the atheistic movement of Soviet Russia. The only thing worse than stamping out religion is promoting another one. Social Conservatives are amongst the most vitriolic warmongers of today, who, while spouting "pro-life" rhetoric on abortion out of one side of their mouths, promote full-scale wars on half the countries in the Middle East, and often going so far as to encourage bombing the entire region.

Conservative Evangelicals further desire interference in foreign policy on the subjects of immigration and trade. Because they view America as God's chosen people of today (resulting in quite un-Biblical notions of "America First"), Evangelicals oppose any measure that respects or accounts for the existence of competing cultural values, religious beliefs, or economic interests. Since all things to them are "black or white" and "right or wrong," they view all foreign matters through that dubious and narrow lense of the Zero Sum Game.

If Latino immigrants come to the United States, then the current people of the U.S. must lose something, jobs, seats in classrooms, etc. Like the Xenophobic racists of old who preached the impending doom of the country in the wake of massive Irish immigration and Italian immigration, the new xenophobes of the current Conservative Evangelical political movement use poor economics to justify their policies of hate. Similarly, when it comes to foreign trade, the leaders of the Social Conservative wing are skeptical of Free Trade Agreements and international trade organizations. Pat Buchanan, Pat Robertson, Jerry Falwell, Duncan Hunter, and Tom Tancredo play Chicken Little with American Trade policies, excoriating massively beneficial trade accords like NAFTA, GATT (and its successor, the WTO), FTAA, Most Favored Nation Status for China, and others. They fail to see, or perhaps refuse to see, the tremendous economic benefits gained from such free trade policies that have been long-established by the economic profession since the Ricardian Model of Comparative Advantage.

The Social Conservative wing is to be contrasted with the Economic Conservative wing of the Republican party, which itself is broken down into two sub-categories: the Libertarian/Free Market Republicans and the pro-Big Business Republicans. Many people think these two are identical, but that is far from the truth. Amongst those within the GOP whose agenda is primarily economic, there are those (the Big Business folks) who advocate such anti-free market policies as corporate welfare, massive tax breaks for large businesses, economic regulations favoring those who already control the markets, industry-specific protectionism, etc. On the other side are the Free Market/libertarian Republicans who favor across-the-board tax cuts, elimination of the Internal Revenue Code with the intent of replacing it with either a flat tax or national sales tax, the streamlining of government bureaucracy, elimination of waste and excess spending of any kind, reduction of economic and trade regulations, etc.

The Big Business Republicans are those whose elections are owed to their large donors, the owners of the big businesses who benefit directly from the massive and convoluted regulatory policies that shut competition out of the marketplace. They are the ones most vulnerable, however, in elections, because their policies do not support a massive number of voters. This is why Big Business Republicans often adopt a strong tinge of Social Conservatism to motivate the masses to vote for them at the polls. The overlap is due not to agreement on those issues but political convenience and opportunism.

Free Market advocates, typified by organizations like the CATO Institute, the American Enterprise Institute, the Hoover Institute, Ludwig Von Mises Institute, the Institute for Humane Studies, the Independent Institute, and the Ayn Rand Institute, have the benefit of a substantial following in the grassroots, but without the same kind of financial support gained by the Social Conservatives (who tap their financing from churchgoers who think that a political donation is as morally important as their tithe) and the Big Business Republicans (who obviously draw their funds from mammoth corporations and their PACs). They base their political arguments in economic analysis that is often subsumed by the mantras and dogmatics of the Social Conservative on the Right, and the Populist/Socialist on the Left. Consequently, Free Market Republicans have been the ones most marginalized in the public discourse. They are the ones that have been most ignored by the Republican Party's leaders in Congress, and by the Reagan-Bush-Bush Administrations. Although Ronald Reagan was one the most Free Market Presidents of post-World War II era, his fiscal policy was driven primarily by his desire to bring an end to the Cold War, and consequently is known for massive deficits and military expenditure. Bush 41 and Bush 43 have even worse records with the Free Market/libertarian economic movement, the former raising taxes and the latter unwilling to control deficit spending (as well as enacting more social welfare spending than FDR and LBJ combined).

The enmity between these factions has been compounded by the policies of the Bush Administration, which brings us to our second topic.

George W. Bush and the End of Republican Dominance

One could quite successfully argue that in a certain sense, the Republican Agenda dominated the American political discourse from 1968 through 2006, nearly forty years. From the time of Richard Nixon, the Republican Ideal was established to challenge America's slide towards socialism. The purely Socialist policies of the Democrats in the post-World War II timeframe, combined with the rise of pacifism and appeasement in the Democratic Party beginning with George McGovern's 1972 Presidential Campaign against incumbent Richard Nixon. Although the Republicans went through brief periods of darkness (the aftermath of Watergate and Bill Clinton's first two years in office), and although they did not have an iron grip on the White House and Congress until 2000, the discourse has revolved around the question "The Republican Agenda or Not The Republican Agenda?"

The five most powerful and important elected personalities during this golden era of conservatism were Barry Goldwater, Richard Nixon, Ronald Regan, Newt Gingrich, and George W. Bush. Goldwater was an ardent libertarian on economic policies and a hawk on foreign policy. Nixon was the archetype of pragmatism and diplomacy. Enough of a hawk to not seem weak, but the greatest diplomat to hold the White House in the 20th Century (it did not hurt that Henry Kissinger was his National Security Advisor and later Secretary of State). Reagan was part-free market, part-hawk, and supreme inspirer and communicator. Whether or not he knew of Napoleon's observation "a leader is a dealer in hope," he dealt in hope, and he sold a lot of it. It is no wonder that for this reasons he is ranked amongst Lincoln as the greatest and most admired President in American History. Newt Gingrich is by far the most brilliant of the bunch, and without doubt one of the best strategists in modern American politics. He is additionally the most articulate contemporary Conservative on policy issues, and engineered the most difficult electoral success the Republican Party has ever achieved. Finally, we have George W. Bush. It is likely that history will view him as the Czar Nicholas II of the Republican Party as we know it today.

The Bush Administration has not only divided the United States as a whole over issues like the Iraq War, but has also created deep chasms in the Republican Party concerning a series of policy decisions. The Farm Bill, an almost $200 Billion venture into failed agricultural socialism, No Child Left Behind, which further nationalizes the education bureaucracy and was co-sponsored by Ted Kennedy, the Prescription Drug Bill, a half-trillion dollar expenditure on socialized medicine, the 2002 Steel Tariffs, his response to Hurricane Katrina, Amnesty for Illegal Immigrants, and many other policies, have driven sizeable wedges between the factions of the Republican Party. His cavalier approach, and lack of diplomatic acumen have further compounded the problem.

In 2006, for the first time since 1964, the national debate ceased to be around the Republican Agenda and became purely a referendum on the Bush Administration and in favor of the undefined Democrat Agenda, centered around a withdrawl from the Iraq War. This was caused in part by President Bush's division of the Republican Party faithful. Republicans stayed home en masse, Independent and Moderate voters broke heavily for Democratic candidates, and Karl Rove's grand strategy failed miserably for the first in his career. The President had relied to heavily on the faithfulness of the Christian Right and Evangelical movement to carry the day. No matter how loudly Republicans screamed about gay marriage, they simply could not get enough people to the polls to stop Rahm Emmanuel's juggernaut. Now, with Nancy Pelosi as Speaker of the House, Harry Reid as Majority Leader of the Senate, and the likes of Hillary Clinton, Barrack Obama, and Al Gore in the spotlight of the national political scene, President Bush is scrambling to play defense for the first time of his tenure. If he had played a little defense 2 years ago, he might not be having to play it so heavily today.

With Republicans now distancing themselves from the President, we see the charade of the GOP Monolith. The aftermath of 2006 has exposed to the blinding light of day the inherent divisions inside the Republican Party. The factions have symbiotically co-habitated for the better part of four decades, but will the trend continue? Were George Bush the only element at play, it might be a possibility, but there is more to the equation as we approach the 2008 elections.

The Emergent Issues of the 21st Century

There are several issues appearing on the national and global scenes that will define the future of partisan politics in the United States. They are issues that challenge the traditional fracture of political ideology in America, and test whether the coalitions of the last forty years can continue to hold. The primary issues at-hand are: Climate Change, Immigration, the Rise of China as a Superpower and America's loss of Hyperpower Status, the Economic Influence of Europe, and the coming Balance of Payments/Unfunded Liabilities Crisis caused by the bankruptcy of Medicare and Social Security.

These issues will drive a wedge inside the Republican Party. The Evangelical Republicans' Sinophobia is already emerging, and their longstanding opposition to Immigration will provide a continued xenophobic and racist bullwark for their positions, while ignoring the truly important problems of the day, such as the impending collapse of the U.S. monetary system absent massive action to decrease future unfunded liabilities, either through tax increases or substantial benefit reductions. Furthermore, the Evangelical wing of the Republican Party (the likes of Pat Robertson) have joined the radical Environmental Lobby on the issue of Climate Change, and they, like the Chicken Littles of the Left, are proclaiming that the earth will be flooded inside of a century, and the only way to stop it is radical reduction of carbon emissions. This will push the Evangelical Republicans farther and farther away from both the Big Business Republicans and the Free Market/libertarian Republicans.

The Future of the Republican party is pretty grim. The party is going to face increasing fracture as these emergent issues come to a head. The party will have to survive the 2008 primary without ripping itself apart, and if it loses, must somehow band together to defeat the legislative agenda of the Hillary Clinton juggernaut. It likely will not. I predict that within a decade the Republican Party will splinter...but it may not be the only one. It could be the greatest realignment in a hundred years, and hopefully it will not come too late for the sake of the US Economy.

The Dimming Vision of Socialism and the Third Way

From each according to his abilities, to each according to his needs.
-Karl Marx

I have never known much good done by those who affected to trade for the public good.
-Adam Smith

A decade after Tony Blair and New Labour swept into power, supplanting more than twenty years of Tory rule in the United Kingdom, Blair can claim many policy and electoral victories in his quest to revive the Labour Party from its virtual non-existence in the wake if Margaret Thatcher's dominance. However, as Blair now begins making his less than graceful exit from No. 10, it appears he lost the most important battle, the battle of hearts and minds.

A recent report by the Henley Center shows that the newest generation to come of age now rejects the underlying principles of Blair's Third Way, as well as te European Socialist Ideal.

Michelle Harrison, director of HeadlightVision, part of the Henley Centre, said: “In 1997, when Tony Blair moved into No 10, almost 70% of our respondents opted for the ‘community-first’ approach.”

“This held steady for the first couple of Blair years but by 1999 individualism was on the rise. At face value, it seems that last year (when individualists outnumbered community-firsts) we formally fell out of love with the Blair project. Over the decade we have seen a fast-moving shift towards people feeling more individualistic.”

Today, 52% feel “looking after ourselves” will best improve the quality of life, according to the poll of more than 2,000 people.

The study indicates an ever widening chasm between the British and Europe, at a time when Gordon Brown, the archetypal Europhile of New Labour is poised to replace Blair at No. 10 before the next General Election. However, the study is strangely juxtaposed with David Cameron's version of Conservatism, one that is far less Thatcherite and much more Blairite in its nature. Cameron may be five years too late ideologically, but he has personality to spare, and will likely lead the Tories to a win in the next General Election.

This ebbing and flowing of public sentiment towards notions of "community" and "individualism" illustrates the ultimate trouble with all visionary reformers and their ultimate ends. The Thatcher Revolution was replaced by the Blair Revolution. Thatcher's government perhaps moved too rapidly toward privatization in an era when the political will did not exist to do it. Blair moved too rapidly towards governmental expansion in an era when the political will for such actions was waning.

Britain has had an on and off affair with Socialism for 50 years, and it appears that finally the people of the country want out of that abusive and one sided relationship. The people of America would do well to learn from Britain's experience. They likely will not.

The Good Shepherd

The Good Shepherd
I watched this Matt Damon film tonight, and was thorougly impressed with the film all the way around. There are few movies that would be worth a 2 hour, 40 minute commitment, but this one is well worth the investment. Matt Damon plays a stolid Skull & Bones Yalie turned CIA officer who dispassionately does his duty for King and Country. The movie successfully demonstrates the breadth of characters Damon can masterfully play. His character, Edward Wilson, is a almost a direct opposite of Damon's character Jason Bourne from Bourne Identity.
Wilson is confronted, throughout the film, with a series of what most people would consider "ethical dilemmas," but he handles them as they come, with an ever so slight hesitation coupled with a strong compulsion to duty, although it is never spoken.

Wilson's interactions with his wife, Margaret (Angelina Jolie) are predictably cold and distant, as are his interactions with his son. Because of the way the story unfolds, however, it shows that it is perhaps not so much that the Intelligence field turns people into cold, distant, introverts, but that instead maybe it attracts them. It is the first spy film that I can remember seeing that overtly draws parallels between the secrecy demanded of Skull & Bones and the secrecy demanded at CIA, and makes a particularly strong connection between the two organizations, and why the former became such a breeding ground for the latter.

Much unlike other films about spying and espionage, this movie probably draws a relatively accurate picture of the lives of Intelligence officers. Rather than being an action-packed adventure movie of intrigue and sex like James Bond or Spy Game, The Good Shepherd shows the immense personal and emotional hardships of the profession, and all that it robs from those who play that game with so little in return. In fact, there is a scene in the movie where Michael Gambon's character, Dr. Fredericks, suggests that Damon's character should get a new pair of shoes made by the King's shoe maker. He notes something to the effect that "but aren't we all just shoemakers for the king in our own way?"

DeNiro further proves his worth as a Director with this film. It was extremely well-cast, and the scenes flow with a progression that makes intuitive sense, even though the scenes are not chronological. There were only a couple of instances where I found myself questioning what exactly was going on. Yet, the secret hints and foreshadowing in the film was quite subtle, though still memorable. A couple of the twists in the plot were relatively predictable, but others were not.

I would highly recommend this movie to anybody looking for a quality viewing experience. This film is thoughtful and thought-provoking, and leaves the viewer with a sense of satisfaction at the end.

Writing to Yourself

I just endeavored to do something I've never done before: write a letter to myself. I have journaled for years, and in a certain sense it is like writing a letter to myself, but there is a difference. I have always written my journal entries in first person. "I this" and "I that," but I wrote this letter in second person (the only permissible time to write in second person). I found that I was quite harsh on myself, taking myself to task for all of my unmet expectations of 2006 and how I have reacted to my perceived failures.

It was one of the most fruitful and beneficial activities in which I have ever engaged. I gained more from that than hours of counseling sessions with an overpaid psychologist. It helped me crystalize in my own mind the things that have been troubling me for the past month or so, as I have approached my one year anniversary in Dallas, at my new company, in my new relationship, etc. There are a certain number of frustrations that accompany anniversaries of this sort, but I have a better idea about why I have had such a struggle in coping with this one year mile marker.

What I learned in the end was that I have much more to be thankful for than not, and I need to do less fixating on those things I wish were different and rather rejoicing for those things that are so wonderful. I'm pretty thick-headed, and this very thing has been suggested to me before, and I sadly dismissed it out of hand. I'm a fixater by nature. But no longer will that excuse suffice. Excuses in general do nobody any good.

"I'm like this" or "I'm like that and therefore that's why I engage in X stupid behavior" doesn't cut it. The status quo cannot be an acceptable choice for those who believe that progress is essential to fulfilled human existence. We cannot make excuses for the way we behave, whether it is in regard to things we do or in regard to things we don't do. I won't say I've learned my lesson, but I am making progress. That's something, at least. It means I'm still alive, which is better than nothing, eh?

Genuine Freedom

Having been involved in politics in the past, and being a rather avid spectator in the political arena, I have heard a lot of opinions about what constitutes freedom. Those on the Right have one view, those on the Left another. The religious sectarians have yet another view about freedom, and that differs from one faith to next, with almost no two demonination or religion having the same one.

For example, people of a libertarian philosophy argue that freedom means freedom from government involvement and government regulation. I am free insofar as there are no political restraints to my behavior. The socialist would argue that quite the contrary, freedom means freedom from economic need, and one cannot be free unless he has all of his basic necessities provided.

The Fundamentalist Christian would say that freedom means freedom from fleshly desires of certain kinds, mostly those that are sexual and involve alcohol. Buddhists would argue that freedom is freedom from all desires completely.

The Philosopher would argue that freedom is the power to exercise choice and make decisions (as opposed to being bound by determinism). The street definition of freedom is probably something to the effect of "doing what I want whenever I want," which is awfully vague and entails perhaps all of the other definitions provided above.

I'm not certain that any of these definitions adequately provides an explanation of what genuine freedom truly is.

Perhaps the religious definitions come closest to reality, in the sense that I believe Freedom is ultimately a Spiritual Condition. Yet I do not believe that it entails the freedom from one particular thing. Rather, it seems that genuine Freedom stems from the ability to exist and co-exist in a world of conflict without being a party to that conflict. Among other things, it is a liberation from our biological condition to first preserve the self, it is failure to be commanded by the desire to see the individual elevated above other individuals and above the rest of humanity. Nothing could better express liberation and freedom than this.

For what is it that can constrain me if I am not bound by some biological and psychological need to acquire things from other people and at the expense of other people. In a world of limited resources, I am constantly in a competition for the consumption of those resources, whether they are physical, emotional, or psychological. If I am freed from the need to fill those obligations to myself, then I am free to love and help all of those around me. What could be more liberating than this? Certainly not the fulfillment of basic physical needs, for one will only be unsatisfied and want more. Certainly not the fulfillment of emotional needs, for the same circumstance will result.

The Marxist is wrong--you cannot eliminate need by trying to fulfill it. It takes the elimination of the root, the Ego. This flies in the face ultimately of the Marxist and Capitalist alike, for the Marxist seeks a political solution and the Capitalist an economic one. The psychologist is incorrect for she argues for the establishment of the self. I want to be freed from the self. For if I am free from looking out for my own needs and instead am concerned only with the needs of others, then I am perfectly fulfilled at all times, for others will always be in need.

A Reflection on the Unspoken

Thou goest and returnest to His leeps
Like lightning: thou dost ever brood above
The silence of all hearts, unutterable Love.
--Alfred Lord Tennyson

An important lesson in business as in life is recognizing the power of the things left unsaid and excluded. In a negotiation, it is more valuable to consider what has been left out of the deal than the jots and tittles that have been so meticulously written into it. I frequently hear people say "what is wrong with this picture?" and most often the answer to that question is that this or that thing is missing.

Yet, sometimes a thing needn't be uttered or written or illustrated in order for it to have an effect. Indeed, sometimes that which is left unsaid is the most powerful. I said to one of my business partners today "give me some credit," laughingly, to which he replied "I give you a lot more credit than you think, I just don't always tell you about it." It made me think seriously about this subject of the unuttered and unspoken.

Tennyson's term "unutterable love" takes the notion even further. Beyond just that which isn't spoken, it is that thing that cannot be spoken at all. The early 12th Century monk Bernard of Clairvaux wrote the hymn "O Sacred Head, Now Wounded," in which he says this "What language can I borrow, to thank Thee, dearest friend, for this Thy dying sorrow, Thy pity without end." Bernard illustrates the difficulty of finding words for those things one considers to be of the highest level of love or gratitude.

It can be easier if we are consantly affirmed and re-affirmed in ourselves through the verbal expressions of others. This is not only unnecessary, but sometimes even counterproductive. For we in certain cases cannot put accurately into words the way we feel about others. It is not so much a matter of magnitude, for we certainly have words to express magnitude. We have words like "tremendous" and "grand" and even "infinite." Instead, it is that there can be so much complexity and subtlety, that truly makes the emotion special and unique, that we do not have enough shades of words in which to formulate the fullest expression of how we feel.

I am personally a verbal person. The fact that I blog on a regular basis in large quantities is perhaps proof enough of this. I have always prided myself in my ability to provoke a range of emotional responses from people using both the written and spoken word. I am finding, however, as I mature, that this is not always sufficient or even preferrable.

There is something beyond the word, beyond even the thought, that only some intangible energy can communicate. It is something of the Spirit, something genuinely metaphysical. It is that feeling, the overwhelming touch that one gets when walking away from the kind words or the bright smile or the twinkle in the eye. Sometimes it is felt from across the room, or across the span of oceans.

This intangible expression flows from the most genuine of love, the most real emotion, and the most verifiable of compassions. I also desire most intensely to more joyfully recognize and receive this kind of affection, for it is that kind that is given without ill motive to manipulate or hurt or to achieve any other hidden agenda. Perhaps all of this is why H.L. Mencken so brilliantly quipped "Love is the triumph of imagination over intelligence."

I am thankful for those in my life who communicate these things to me, and I hope I communicate them back.

Patience vs. Progress

It takes patience to appreciate domestic bliss; volatile spirits prefer unhappiness."
--George Santayana

I write a lot about the notion of patience. It is one of the virtues espoused by Paul when he talks of the fruit of the Spirit, "Love, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self control." Of those eight, I have problems with seven on an almost daily basis, but patience is by far my greatest difficulty.

I ran upon this quote by Santayana and it struck me. I recently had the displeasure of seeing an employee of my company self destruct, and I think Santayana's insight is quite applicable to that situation. I find a lot of people really do prefer unhappiness and drama. There have been people in my life over the last few weeks who are utterly miserable, and they are so because they want to be so. It's easy for me to fall into this trap too, because of my lack of patience. I'm impatient with so many things in my life.

Yet at the same time, patience is not a panacea, and frequently can merely be dressed up complacence. Thomas Edison, in fact, notes that "Restlessness and discontent are the first necessities of progress." Patience, then, is not so much a contentedness with the way things are, but an acceptance that they will not instantly be as one desires. Consequently, the ideal environment for progress is one that balances discontent with the status quo with an understanding that there is a trail that must first be traversed before the finish line is reached.

There is a great danger, in the patience-pushers, that they are not properly motivated enough to change things that really aren't working. This could either be because they do not recognize that what they are doing isn't working, they ignore that fact, or they are just resigned to thinking that nothing can be done about it.

In the philosophical discipline, especially within the context of the field called "Practical Reason," two of the models of decision making are "utility maximizing" and "utility satisficing," where the latter represents those people who take things as being "good enough" rather than "optimal." There are many times and ways that we are benefited by going with what is "good enough." Choosing a toothbrush, picking something to eat, deciding on what to wear, etc. are times in which making the effort to maximize utility might be unnecessary.

But when it comes to important facets of life: spiritual issues, relationships, and career matters, it is imperative to maximize our utility, push the envelope, challenge ourselves, and in a sense "living beyond our means." Only when we actively step outside of our comfort zones will we ever grow, expand, and learn.

So few people are willing to live outside of their comfort zones, and so they will have intermittent spurts of progress. It is not that these people, ipso facto, cannot be or are not happy, for they certainly can be. In fact, people can be happy without ever experiencing progress. But happiness is not a light switch. It is not an on-off button. There are divergent gradations of happiness, and those higher gradations can only be achieved through the difficulties that accompany progress.

Perhaps this whole notion can be summed up with the last stanza of Longfellow's poem "A Psalm of Life,"

Let us then be up and doing,
With a heart for any fate,
Still achieving, still pursuing,
Learn to labor, and to wait.