Abortion: Judgment or Compassion

“Beta O’Rourke May Benefit From an Unlikely Support Group: White Evangelical Women”, Elisabeth Dias, New York Times, 2018-10-09

This shift is that these women are seeing O’Rourke as a “stark moral contrast to Mr. Trump.”  They are seeing other moral values that Trump does not have; values that are just as important as opposing abortion.

The problem with abortion as a political issue is that it ignores many problems that are not controlled by an “unwilling” mother.

Shall a teen-age girl be responsible for a child fathered by force, whether by a known or unknown male?

Shall a woman of any age be forced to bear a child whose birth will kill her?  What would that do to any previous children she had?

We really cannot make any sweeping pronouncements about abortion without knowing all facts in each individual case.

If we make all abortions illegal, who will be punished?  Will it be the unwilling mother?  Will it be the “back alley abortionist”?  Will it be the not present father?

Ironically, some of these “value” voters are supporting a party that is quite willing to cause unwanted abortions in other countries.  How many pregnant women are killed in wars?  How many of these pregnant women even support the wars in their countries?  And some of these politicians with the “big buttons” are quite willing to obliterate large numbers of women and children.

Hard-working Americans?

The following was inspired by “Washington clichés, fake news and ‘poiticianese’ by Jim Heffernan.

Oops!  That old newspaper guy let a typo get through!  At least he did better than many newspapers do: he used a diacritical mark in the right place.

Politicians of all stripes appeal to all Americans as “hard-working”.  How do they know that all that they appeal to are really hard-working?  Some have jobs that are almost fun.  Some have jobs that the only hard-working part is boredom.  Some have jobs that seem to be one crisis after another.  Some have jobs that not only are hard but dangerous (and interestingly some of these politicians think reducing the danger is “over-regulation”.

I think I’ve had jobs that have had one or more of these features: programmer, consultant, presenter, Santa Claus, line painter, grocery bagger, stocker, and cashier, and many others.

I’ll mention one that had many of these features: bus driver.

I had the stress of being on time. I had the stress of unruly students.  I had the stress of non-working buses. And I had the joy of attending events on the clock.  I had the joy of napping while my riders toured their site.  I had the joy of reading a book while waiting.  I met lots of really nice people and a few that weren’t so nice.  In short, it was a job that I was glad I did that I am glad that I’m not doing now.

Foxconn’s foxy con

Foxconn want’s to build a factory in Wisconsin that will employ three thousand workers possibly becoming 13,000 workers.  Foxconn plans to invest up to $13 billion in the  plant.  Gov. Scott Walker said that the Wisconsin will supply up to $3 billion dollars in incentives.  See http://www.duluthnewstribune.com/business/technology/4303440-foxconn-announces-major-new-manufacturing-plant-wisconsin.

Oops!  Aren’t Republicans the ones who believe in standing on your own two feet and not accepting government handouts.

If it makes business sense to build such a project, then shouldn’t business be the one investing its own money.

See “Foxconn’s long con”, John Biggs, TechCrunch, 2017-07-28.  Politicians around the world have been out-foxed by Foxconn.  Don’t these politicians read Adam Smith: “This order of men is not to be trusted.”

Shouting is not free speech

It seems more and more demonstrators for whatever cause claim they are exercising their free speech rights.  Are they exercising free speech or freedom to disrupt?

Is it “free speech” to shout down a speaker?  By doing so, isn’t a shouter impinging on the speakers right of free speech?  Is it free speech to demonstrate outside a building in such large numbers that others can’t exercise their freedom to come and go as they please.

Some supporters of Bernie Sanders threaten to disrupt the Democratic National Convention.  As far as I know, Sanders has not yet disavowed these supporters.

Similarly, Trump supporters have disrupted other meetings.  Or anti-Trump supporters have tried to disrupt his meetings.

Consider that vocal opposition can arouse to unknown actions those you oppose.

Here is a better protest.  Silence.  Get a seat or a place to stand at a meeting of a politician you disagree with.  Then do nothing.  Don’t applaud.  Don’t boo.  Don’t cheer.  However, do stand for the singing of the Star-Spangled Banner or the Pledge of Allegiance.  You don’t want to be called unpatriotic.  You don’t have to sing or recite.  Lots of supporters do likewise.

You may be alone, but you are not yourself supporting or disrupting the speaker.  If you can get a couple dozen friends to join you, you have multiplied the silence.  If your action catches on, it could happen that a politician encounters a very quiet audience.  Nothing can be more disconcerting to a politician than silence.

See also "Free opinion vs. free speech",
http://magree.blogspot.com/2016/04/free-opinion-vs-free-speech.html

Rogues, clowns, politicians, and statespersons

Whether in government, business, unions, or any other human activity, we can find people who are rogues, clowns, politicians, or statespersons.  And sometimes a person can be any of these at various times.

Rogues are those who are only for themselves.  They may merely be selfish or they may work to destroy others.  Clowns are those who have no connection to reality.  Politicians are those who try to work with others to accomplish something they can’t do by themselves.  Statespersons are those who have a vision for the common good and succeed in implementing some portion of that vision.

Richard Nixon was an example of someone who was all of the above as candidate and President.  He was a rogue in his first campaign for the Senate when he misrepresented Helen Gahagan Douglas as a Communist.  He was a rogue when he authorized the Watergate break-in.  He was a clown when he said “I am not a crook.”  He was a politician in that he did work on legislation that was supported by many in both parties, for example Marshall Plan funding.  He was a statesman when he looked beyond his anti-Communism to visit and recognize China.

The genial Ronald Reagan was certainly not a rogue.  He was a clown in that he thought the Laffer Curve showed that decreasing taxes would increase prosperity.  He was a politician in that he did get legislation passed that had significant bi-partisan support.  He was a statesman in that he worked with Mikhael Gorbachev on a nuclear arms treaty.

A good portion of the current Republican candidates are clowns and at least one is a rogue.  They are clowns in their continued attacks on President Obama, including continuing to label him as a Muslim.  They are clowns in their continued belief that giving more money to the rich will make the general public richer.  Their schemes will make the whole country poorer with an even more rapidly deteriorating infrastructure and more rapidly warming climate.  And they don’t seem likely to be good politicians because they seem incapable of compromise to get something done.  As I looked at a picture of them in the Star Tribune of 2016-01-17, I thought that the only gray matter was their gray uniforms, I mean gray suits (“Give candidates a little time to think and a little time to speak – you know, kind of like presidents have.”, Stephen L. Carter, Bloomberg).

As for the current Democratic candidates, they may be politicians working with others, but I don’t see them as statespersons.

Rogues in business include those who ran Enron (into the ground) and those who gave misleading information to get people to sign mortgages they couldn’t afford.  The Koch brothers are certainly rogues in that they buy a lot of legislation at the state and local levels that is advantageous to them and detrimental to the people.

The rogues in Oregon do not represent the people.  Those “patriots” occupying the Malheur National Wildlife Refuge are only after some Ayn Rand “freedom” to do what they please rather than the freedom to govern ourselves.  The Tea Party types seem to completely ignore the General Welfare clause of the Constitution and the establishment of a Congress to provide laws.  If law enforcement doesn’t bring these rogues to justice, it will be our misfortune (malheur in French).

The magical thinking of the anarchists in Oregon is of the same ilk as another set of rogue anarchists: the so-called Islamic Jihadists of ISIS, Al Qaeda, and Boko Haram.  These “Islamic” rogues no more represent Islam than the Bundy anarchists represent the American people.  Consider that there are only about 100,000 “Jihadists” but 1.6 billion Muslims

As a measure of how non-Islamic these rogues are, consider that they may not even have copies of the Qu’ran. “Because it has nothing to do with the Quran. They didn't even have the Quran; they didn't want even to give us a Quran.” - Al Arabiya News, 2015-02-04, reporting on Didier François’ interview with CNN’s Christiane Amanpour.

If you want a better sense of Islam, see www.trueislam.com.

But “Islamic” rogues are not the only misusers of “religion”.  If we are a Christian nation, why do some “Christians” call for the expulsion of Muslims?  Why do some “Christians” call for bombing women and children because there are “Islamists” in an certain area.  What kind of Christian nation would have nuclear weapons that would indiscriminately kill thousands of innocent citizens?

On the one hand, we had the rogue Fred Phelps whose Westboro Baptist Church would picket veterans’ funerals as a protest against gays.  I couldn’t confirm this memory but I did find a long list of non-Christian behavior.  On the other hand, we have the Christian statesman, Martin Luther King Jr., who eschewed hate and worked hard to spread Christian love, even against those who would hurt him.

We don’t get to choose many of our rogues, but we can choose many of our politicians and statespeople.  But to do that, we have to show up at each and every election.  If we stay away, we bring on the clowns, and the rogues, too.  Every vote counts and your vote counts only if you cast it.

Also published in the Reader Weekly of Duluth, 2016-01-21 at http://duluthreader.com/articles/2016/01/22/6588_rogues_clowns_politicians_and_statespersons.

Writing to editors, authors, and other public figures

This article was "triggered" in part because of a letter I recently received and in part by the email conversation I mentioned last week with Michael Mann, author of "The Hockey Stick".

I have an unopened letter sitting on my desk.  It has no return address and the envelope is covered with a diatribe against Obama.  I generally put these unopened into the recycle bin.  Maybe I kept it as a fodder for this column.  I assure you that I will eventually put it unopened into the recycle bin.

My brief conversation with Michael Mann began with appreciation for his book and a quote that Adam Smith warned about "the denial machine" Mann mentioned.  I was surprised that the conversation went on so long; I should consider that he has many more things to think about than the wandering thoughts of an old man in Duluth.

After I finished a series of fantasy novels, I sent the author a letter of appreciation through her website.  She emailed a nice reply, but I didn’t follow up except possibly with a thank you.  I think these were all through her website because I have no copy in my mail box.

I had read a book or two by an author of military-political affairs, and I sent him an email thanking him for them.  He replied with a thank you and a suggestion for another of his books.  Then he came to Duluth and I got to meet him briefly.  I didn’t say anything significant; I’m a writer not a speaker.

And sometimes an email to an author leads to a long-standing friendship.  Some time ago I sent an appreciative email to a regular "Local View" contributor to the Duluth News Tribune.  We have some major differences of opinion, but our common ground is a basis for lunch every month or so.

Another local writer had a website that invited conversation.  I had had many email or face to face conversations with this writer.  I was surprised when he cut me off that he had more to do than have email conversations with me.  I wonder if I had written something he found offensive or if he really was very busy.  I hope he is very busy with many lucrative projects.

Over the years I've submitted many a letter to the editor or even an opinion piece.  Some of them were published; probably many more were assigned to the circular file.  But basically your letter or article should be timely, concise, and based on "facts".  I put "facts" in quotes because “facts” are too often some group's talking points rather than some observable set of information.  The hard part is that a fact in one situation is not a fact in a similar situation.  But be forewarned, many editors rewrite letters to conform to the publication's guidelines.  In doing so, they can "flip" your meaning to just the opposite from what you intended.  It has happened to me at least twice in two different publications.  If you are lucky, the editor will send you a copy of his or her revision for your approval.

I have all but stopped writing to politicians.  Almost all of them have staff send a position paper.  Too often these position papers are barely related to the subject of the letter or website comment.

Probably with electronic communication, even their staffs are overwhelmed.  Count opinion for or against.  Find position paper that seems to address issue.  Send it out with politician's automatic signature.

I miss Rudy Boschwitz's replies.  Whether he agreed with my letter or not, he would send it back with a one-sentence germane comment and a smily face.  I wonder if I have any of these in my very disorganized files.

Two letters from famous people that I thought I had kept I have not been able to find in several years of trying.

One was to Alex Haley, author of Roots.  I was sysop of the Genealogy Roundtable on GEnie, GE's competitor to CompuServe.  I invited him to attend one of our weekly online chat sessions.  He responded with a kind letter declining the invitation.  I think his reason was that he was a typewriter guy and hadn't really moved to use of computers.

The other was to a well-known movie actor.  I was going to write that you should note my middle initial.  But it isn't in my byline.  It is "D".  If you are under sixty I'm sure you will have no clue to what D stands for.  Your clue is the movie Being There Shirley McLaine, Peter Sellers, and ...

I wrote to this actor posing this same question.  He wrote a delightful reply.  Again, I can't find it in my messed up files.

What’s the point of all this bragging of hobnobbing with famous people?  Well, my original title was How to write to editors, authors, and other public figures.  With my catalog of correspondents this article became longer and longer, and it had only a nod about how to write a letter to the editor or an opinion piece.

So, here is my brief advice on corresponding with a famous person.

If you have something important or interesting to write, don’t hesitate to do so.  Many appreciate comments from their readers, customers, or constituents.  For many famous people, you can easily find an email address or website that takes comments. You only need three guidelines: be polite, be factual, and be brief.

Also published in the Reader Weekly of Duluth, 2015-07-23 at http://duluthreader.com/articles/2015/07/23/5661_writing_to_editors_authors_and_other_public

Proof of poor education system

From my note pile:

We must have a poor education system.  Just look at the quality of the politicians and at the judgment of the voters who keep electing them again and again.

Politicians kiss what?

Once upon a time, the running gag about political campaigning was that vote seekers were out kissing babies.  Now it seems that politicians are out kissing rich old men and not on their foreheads.

The latest kowtowing was the parade of Republican hopefuls to visit Sherman Adelson to seek his blessing on their quest.  The worst groveling was when Gov. Chris Christie apologized to Adelson for a remark about Israel.

This obscene parade is a sign of how much we have moved from a “democracy” to a definite plutocracy.

Have we become like Iran where the ayatollahs have to approve the candidates?

I can’t say it too much.  The best way to stop this trend is to be sure to always vote in every election.  We have too many elections where the “winner” comes in a distant second to a de facto “none of the above”.  A majority of the registered voters don’t show up for the primaries.  More people don’t vote in the regular elections than vote for the supposed winner.

U.S. oligarchy, history repeats itself

"The Penguin democracy was not ruled by itself: it obeyed a financial oligarchy that put its opinions in the newspapers, and held in its hand the deputies, ministers and the president.  It was the final power in the finances of the republic and directed the foreign policy of the country."

Anatole France, L'Ile des Pingouines (The Isle of Penguins), 1908
My translation based on Google Translate

"La démocratie pingouine ne se gouvernait point par elle-même; elle obéissait à une oligarchie financière qui faisait l'opinion par les journaux, et tenait dans sa main les députés, les ministres et le président. Elle ordonnait souverainement des finances de la république et dirigeait la politique extérieure du pays."

Or as Jean-Baptiste Alphonse Karr wrote in 1849:
"Plus ça change, plus c'est la même chose."
http://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/plus_%C3%A7a_change,_plus_c%27est_la_m%C3%AAme_chose

Across-the-board cuts are always a bad idea

To avoid making decisions, politicians and executives often talk about across-the-board cuts.  Not only are the cuts a bad idea because they rarely include politicians' and executives' salaries and perks, but because the cuts often include both the essential and the frivolous.

Let's take a family example.  Dad gets a wage cut because the execs decide there should be across-the-board cuts.  Now should Dad decide his family should have across-the-board cuts?  Is he going to cut the mortgage payment?  Is he going to take the bus instead of driving?  Probably neither.  Is he going to cut the kids' milk budget and his beer budget by the same percentage?  If he wants to invest in his kids' futures, he better cut his beer budget a lot and leave their milk budget the same.

A clever but off-the-mark sign

"Politicians are like diapers, they need changing often".

This sign has been on a signboard for a business on Woodland Avenue in Duluth for sometime.  I'm not sure if the sign belongs to the auto repair business or to a small office that seems to be attached to the auto repair building.  Google street view is a bit blurry on the details.

I didn't double check, but many references attribute it to Mark Twain with the added phrase "and for the same reason."

We could also apply this slogan to CEOs.  They get entrenched and get the board they selected to give them larger and larger compensation.  Boy, talk about a stinky deal!

The problem with this slogan is that it assumes that a frequent turnover of politicians will ensure new ideas.  It might on occasion, but like all serious jobs, being a politician requires a lot of effort and learning.  If we had the turnover as the sign implies, then the politicians would be at the mercy of their staffs or lobbyists.  The degree that they do depend on these two groups is bad enough, but a greater number of new politicians would make the situation even worse.

Besides, we do get to vote against politicians.  We have a hard time voting against CEOs.  And we want neither our politicians or CEOs to be like diapers.

An afterthought!  A complaint about politicians is a bit of elitism.  The people get to choose the politicians; the plutocrats get to choose the CEOs.  This phrase then implies that the people are ignorant and not to be trusted with governance.

Three cheers for independent stores

A twist switch on a kitchen wall light wouldn't stay in the on position.  I kept putting off looking at it, but finally did last week.  We turned off the circuit breaker for the kitchen and I disassembled the light.  Hurray, there was enough wall wire to reconnect it.

I took the switch to Denny's Hardware for a replacement.  Denny Moran, the former owner, who now spends his time on the floor, was in.  He said he didn't have exactly the same thing but something close.  The difference was the new one had screws to attach wires rather then wires soldered to it.  Close enough and in fact even better.

This afternoon I reassembled the light and it works fine.

Now if I'd gone to a big box hardware/lumber store, I would have wandered the aisles to find the right shelf.  If I didn't find what I needed, I might wait five minutes for a clerk.  The clerk may or may not know if the store had the part.  I might have paid a few cents less for the part, but I would have used up the savings in the gas to get to the box box store.

As it was, I parked right at the door of the local hardware store, I was waited on right away, I got exactly what I needed, and was in and out in less time that it would have taken me to walk from my car to the correct aisle, walk to the cashier, and walk back to my car.

Three cheers for the dying breed, the local hardware store.  Two bigger ones have closed in the last five or six years in Duluth.  Killed not by policies in Washington, but by big box stores.

And maybe by local politicians who are always trying to attract businesses to town.  Often those new businesses put local businesses out of business.  The key to business success in a city is not to attract businesses but to attract people.  People start businesses.  Businesses don't start people.

Quote of the day: watering the weeds and pulling the flowers

In "The Dow has recovered, but what about 'The Doug?'" 2012-09-03, Jim Hightower wrote:

"[T]oday's corporate and political leaders are wretchedly-bad gardeners – by tending to the moneyed elites and ignoring America's workaday majority, they're watering the weeds and pulling the flowers. Where's that going to lead us?"

One of the ways that this is done is taxing dividends at a lower rate than wages.  If we tax dividends at a lower rate to encourage investment, do we discourage work by taxing labor at a higher rate?  Would anybody get dividends if there weren't people to do the work to generate those dividends?

Maybe I shouldn't complain. I am retired and derive a portion of my income from dividends and capital gains.  But how hard am I working to do that?  As for the dividends, my work consists either of having requested reinvestment by a financial institution or by typing a request to have accumulated dividends transferred to my bank account.

Sure, I'd like to pay less taxes, wouldn't we all?  But if we don't pay taxes, would we have any kind of civil society?

Don't like Washington? Look in the mirror!

I'm kind of with Pete Seeger who sang "Our leaders are the finest men, we elect them again and again".  And I feel just as sarcastic as he did when he wrote this in "What did you learn in school today?"

Basically we elect those who bring home the bacon, those who look out for local interests even when not in the national interest.  And we've been doing it for over 200 years to the dismay of many of the writers of the Constitution.  See "The Radicalization of the American Revolution", Gordon S. Wood.

For a more lengthy screed on this conflict of interest, see "I don't blame Congress; I blame you!", Andrew Heaton.

The majority favors our view, whatever it is

Don't we all fall into this trap.  We believe such and such and think "everybody" else agrees with us.

We have politicians who get elected by a majority or even a plurality of the votes cast and claim that they have a "mandate from the people".  Does that mean that people who didn't vote for them or didn't even bother to show up are not people?

We have demonstrators who claim that they represent the wishes of the people.  Maybe the wishes of "their people", but the rest of us are opposed to them, agree with them but are lukewarm about the issue, or could care less about their issue.

There are writers all over the political map who think they are making statements that "the people" care about an issue as much as the writer does.  Maybe the only "people" that care are the editors who can fill some space with material that shows the editors "cover both sides".

In the side bar of a Huffington Post page, the following caught my eye: How Many Anti-Pot Politicians Will be Ousted Before They Realize the Will of the Majority?

Excuse me, but I could care less about the use of marijuana.  Well, not quite.  I care very much if you smoke it around me.  Just like tobacco, one should not force others to participate in one's indulgences.  I do care that a lot of tax money is used to enforce use of a substance.  Prohibition showed the futility of that.  Punish the public use or damage to others caused by use of certain substances.

Give me those old-time politicians

Write a short letter or email to a contemporary politician and get back a lengthy position paper that may or may not address the issue that you brought up.  Read a contemporary politician's newsletter and you find that the I's have it.  Both Republicans and Democrats do this.

OK, I'll back off a bit.  Most local politicians in Duluth respond briefly and to the point.

OK, maybe I've been spoiled by two Republican former members of Congress.

I generally agreed with Bill Frenzel, former Representative from the 3rd District of Minnesota, which covered many of the western suburbs of Minneapolis.  He wrote model newsletters that related objectively what Congress was doing, not what he sponsored or voted on.  He was elected again and again, partly with my vote and maybe a small contribution.

I generally disagreed with Rudy Boschwitz, former Senator from Minnesota.  Among his mantras that I didn't like was "across the board cuts".  Yeah, cut the kids' milk budget and Dad's beer budget an equal percentage.  Why not leave the milk budget the same and let Dad do without beer?  Anyhow, Rudy served in the days before the internet and communication with him was by letter.  He answered by returning the letter with a short to-the-point comment on it and a smily face.  I hope I can find at least one of these somewhere in my files.

Exceptionalism or arrogance

Once again we are having politicians claiming American exceptionalism.  In other words we are the best country in the world and anybody who denies it is unpatriotic.  If you go around town claiming that you are the richest or the best-looking, will you gain many friends?  Similarly, if you claim to the world that you are an exceptional nation and have the right to tell other countries how to behave, will you gain many friends, or world peace?

History is filled with countries that thought they ruled the world, or at least the part they knew.  They thought they had the answer to everything and the power to bend others to their will.  Where is the Persian Empire, the Roman Empire, the Aztec Empire, the Incan Empire, the Russian Empire, the Japanese Empire, the Third Reich, the Soviet Empire, or even the British Empire?

This arrogance is often that of many an Old West gunslinger.  He had outdrawn and killed many men, but then one day he was killed – either by a luckier shot or by a sniper.  Because of his arrogance, he had made himself a target.  If lucky, old age made him a shadow of his former self.

If we are a democracy, how can we claim our President is "the Leader of the Free World"?  Who elected him to that position?  The minority of the eligible U.S. voters who cast their votes for the President are an even smaller minority of the citizens of the world's democracies. What qualifies an American President to know how to run the rest of the world when, more often than not, his leadership is questioned in his own country?

Two things made the U.S. great – lots of free or stolen land and a bunch of extremely well-read career politicians.  The free land is all gone and today's politicians don't even read the bills they vote on.

Don't get me wrong.  I like living in the United States.  Having moved to Europe, I could have stayed there.  But I preferred coming back to the U.S. because it is my country.  To me, it doesn't have to be the "best country" or an "exceptional country"; it just is my country.  My house doesn't have to be the "best house"; it is my house and I plan to stay in it for some number of years more.  See "I Live in the Best House in the World" and "We're exceptional 'cause we say so".

Quote of the day – politics or statecraft

"As 19th century author, preacher, and abolitionist James Freeman Clarke said, 'A politician thinks about the next election. The statesman thinks about the next generation.'" - Wayne Baker, "Are there any true 'statesmen' left in America", annarbor.com, 2011-06-07, quoted in "30% Consider Third-Party Option", Americans Elect, 2011-06-15.

How to know "sound science"

"Sound science" is a set of opinions that confirm certain politicians' agendas.

"Junk science" is that which scientists have shown to be true but is contrary to the agendas of certain politicians.

The Velcro controversy - equal opportunity satire

Jim Heffernan is at his best when he satirizes public figures (or himself or other journalists).  He really takes on many politicians of different persuasions in "Disaster feared as worldwide Velcro failure spreads".

Be sure to read Jim's latest blog entry sitting down in a chair with arms.  Neither Jim nor I can take responsibility for anyone falling out of his or her chair laughing.