Debate Prep

I am in the process of preparing myself for tomorrow night's big debate. I'm told that perhaps 100 million of my fellow Americans will be watching. During the primary battles, I watched only one of the Republican debates and one Democratic one. That was enough. But this is different.

I have been writing over and over again during the past couple of years how I believe that Hillary Clinton is a shoe-in to be the next President of the United States. Despite all of her shortcomings as a candidate, I found it incomprehensible that she would get beaten by the likes of Donald Trump. I still hold to that view . . . but with far less confidence.

Unfortunately, Donald Trump has this knack of making political pundits look like fools. Every time any of them declares him finished because of some mind-numbing idiocy that has come flying out of his mouth, his poll numbers go up. Of course, Hillary hasn't helped herself with that cough of hers, and video of her knees buckling waiting for her SUV on 9/11 was a horrible contrast to Trump's energizer bunny campaigning style. Television screens full of rioters never helps the party in power either, so there's that. But, never fear, the Hillary people say...she will destroy him in the debates. Trump has never, ever had to stand on a stage for 90 minutes with one adversary and debate policy. His ignorance will be exposed, they say. He will have no place to hide, they say. Political order will once again be restored, they say.

Ok.

But, her people better hope and pray that she doesn't have a coughing jag.

So, yes, I will be watching. Pam and I have toyed with maybe employing some sort of drinking game to make it more tolerable. But neither of us are big drinkers, especially Pam. If we took a gulp or even just a sip of something every time one of these boobs says something stupid, Pam would be unconscious a third of the way though. So we thought, maybe we should substitute donut holes for alcohol. Every time either of them says something embarrassing, we would throw back a donut hole. But that runs the risk of one of us going into a diabetic coma at some point in the proceedings.

But wait. We are adults here. We are grown up people, mature, educated Americans. There's no reason why we can't sit still for an hour and a half and do our civic duty without having to devise some childless distraction to get us through it. No reason of course other than the two people we will be forced to watch.

Trying to Understand

This blog is nearing its sixth year of existence. In that time I have written about an African-American being killed by a police officer 22 times.

22 times.

My instincts find common cause with a law and order message. My experience with the police has been positive, as positive as can be expected when being issued a ticket for speeding. I have clients, friends and family members who serve or have served as police officers. There isn't enough money in the world to entice me to trade places with any of them. Their job is stressful, dangerous and thankless, the hours are horrendous, and they don't make much money. No thanks.

But something is wrong.

22 times.

Statistics are for losers, so I won't cite any. I know that blacks commit a lot of crimes. I also know that many more whites than blacks get killed by cops every year. But, when I watch footage of rioters in the streets I feel two strong, competing emotions. The first is rage. Watching some gleefully destroying the few functioning businesses still standing in the inner city, and lining their pockets with loot is infuriating. But, if I'm honest with myself, if I try to place myself inside the heart of a black man for just a second, I feel something else. My heart nods it's understanding. Let me explain.

Yesterday I read somewhere about how every time there is a shooting like this, a familiar narrative emerges. After initial reports of the incedent, subsequent reports begin to appear which go into great detail about what a rough character the victim was. We are treated to a photograph of his long rap sheet and testimonials about his violent past. The subtle message is clear, with his death, no matter how unfortunate the circumstances, have we really lost anything of value?

Contrast this to how the news media covered the case of that punk Stanford swimmer who spent all of three months behind bars for raping a girl. We were told how a twenty year prison sentence would ruin his entire life. The judge received hundreds of letters from other members of his country club, urging compassion. Should this bright young man's life be destroyed because of one youthful discretion? Hasn't he suffered enough? This subtle message is also clear. Some lives are more valuable than others.

If I were a black man, this is the sort of thing that would fill me with rage, the sort of rage that we see on the streets of Charlotte.

I am not offering an excuse for violence here. Nothing could be further from the truth. I'm not even taking a position on whether this particular shooting was justified or not. All I am trying to do is break out of my comfortable corner and try to understand the world around me. Although I will never be able to walk a mile in another man's shoes, at least I should try to see the world through his eyes every once in a while.

Now, Charlotte.

This time it's Charlotte. A black man gets shot and killed by a police officer during a traffic stop. Before any details are even known, the protest begins. The family hits up social media with their account of events. The police counter with their version. But by this time, the essential facts don't matter. The protests have a life of their own.

We discover that the cop who did the shooting was also black, as was the police commissioner who informed us of this news. It still doesn't matter in the streets. An interstate highway gets blocked. Several fires are started. A second night of violence is worse than the first. Police cars are destroyed. Stores are looted, a Carolina Panthers gift store is emptied of its content. A Walmart is ransacked. A protester is shot during the melee. Two narratives emerge, one claiming that the police pulled the trigger, the police tweet out a denial. A CNN reporter is tackled during a live broadcast. My television is filled with flashing lights, smoke, tear gas and sweaty, screaming men. Most of the protesters look aggrieved and angry, some look like punks having the time of their life.

As I watch, I know two things to be true. First, we are one traffic stop gone wrong from this happening in my city. Second, this isn't good for the political party in power. Fair or not, the party in the White House owns this sort of violence and disorder. These scenes playing themselves out on the TV screens of a million homes across America will hurt Hillary Clinton and help Donald Trump. When there's a sense that things are spiraling out of control in the streets, that always hurts the incumbent.

Now, there will be more football players kneeling during the anthem. Now, there will be louder calls for the further militarization of our police. Reasonable questions about police tactics will be drowned out by the law and order crowd. Criticism of looters and suggestions that rioters are just using the protests as cover for mayhem will be derided as dog whistles for racism.

This is America in 2016.

The Finished Product

About a month ago, I told you all about my wife's painting exploits, about how she had decided that my library and the dining room were in need of a new color. Along with the new paint would come new curtains and new accent pillows. It just occurred to me that I have never showed you the finished product. But, before I do, a word about this accent pillow business.

Pam is big into pillows. They are everywhere in our house. They are beautiful and stylish. Only, I'm not allowed to actually USE THEM. The other night I was sitting in one of my library chairs, relaxed and reclining when she walked through the room and gave me one of her famous sideways glances . . . 

Pam: Um . . . could you not sit on the pillows that way. You’re squashing them, and they are getting wrinkled.

For a second I thought about asking her just how she proposed that I sit on the pillows without wrinkling them, but thought better of it.  It reminds me of those dainty hand towels that my mother used to put out in the downstairs bathroom growing up whenever guests were expected. If you wanted to get good and chewed out all you had to do was dry your hands off on one of those babies!

So now, when I sit down in here, I first remove the pillow from the chair and lay it on the piano bench. Happy wife, happy life.

Anyway, here is my view as I look out across my desk . . . 

Here's the library view from the foyer and dining room . . . 

And here's the view of the dining room from the library . . .

The girl's got skills. Just don't touch the pillows!!

The Truth Dilemma

This past Sunday I heard a very wise sermon. One particular sentence stood out and I've been mulling it over ever since.

"I know more now than I have ever known, but far, far less than there is to know."

He was making a point about the nature of truth, the fact that knowledge is progressive, that each succeeding generation learns more about the world than the generation it replaced and that it will always be thus. But no matter how much we know, what there is left to learn is inexhaustible. I probably would have said it less elegantly...I'm smarter than I've ever been, but far dumber than I should be.

The part of this that has me perplexed is, what has been the net effect of all of this accumulated knowledge? In the hard sciences, medicine, engineering, physics, yes...we know so much more than any preceding generation. The advancements in science and technology have made life infinitely easier to live. Each generation labors less, each has more free time, each lives longer. And yet...

We still hate each other, envy each other's success, covet each other's stuff. We are still selfish, spiteful, arrogant and proud. Despite a million calls to peace, we still prefer war. The call to do unto others as you would have them do unto you is two thousand years old, yet most of us stubbornly pursue our own self interest first, last and always.

In economics there is a school of thought that says that the solution to too much debt is to grow your way out of it. For humanity the hope has been that we could learn our way out of conflict. To a degree it has worked. Kids today don't carry the virulent strains of racial hatred that kids did a hundred and fifty years ago. We don't burn heretics at the stake any longer...well, most societies don't at least. But any fair minded examination of our world must concede that human beings today are plagued by the same social pathologies that have always plagued us. It's as if we are cursed, stained somehow, flawed beyond the power of self-help regimes, damaged beyond the capabilities of psychoanalysis. We all long for some transcendent truth to bring meaning and purpose, but bristle at the possibility that transcendent truth might make demands on us. Don't be bringing your Ten Commandments down here Moses, who is God that he should tell us how to live??

So, we're stuck. As long as we pridefully reject any truth claim that requires any accommodation on our part, we continue to drift along perplexed as to how a world which knows so much more than has ever been known still can't stop killing each other.

My Presidential Endorsement

Like most of my fellow Americans, I have had a difficult time processing the 2016 election. It's not unlike the five stages of grief, only I find myself stuck between depression and acceptance on an annoying loop. But, at some point a decision has to be made. One has to accept the choices that we have been presented with, and make an imperfect call. For me, now is that time.

The most overused cliche of this election has been the lesser of two evils trope. There are two problems with this analysis. One, the lesser of two evils is still...evil...and two, there will be four candidates on the ballot. Of course if anyone votes for a third party candidate in this country, he or she is declared an unfit citizen since that third party vote only served to put candidate X into office. On the margins there may be some truth to that. But judging the candidates purely on the merits, and grading on an absurdly generous curve, I have made the decision, with all the confidence of a Saharan pearl diver, to endorse the Libertarian ticket of Gary Johnson and William Weld.

If you would take the time to go to the Libertarian Party website and read their party platform, you would find several nuggets of Solomon-like wisdom. You will also find a remarkably short and thoroughly readable treatise that makes the major party platforms read like exactly what they are...grievance group pandering shopping lists written by policy wonks.

How about this for a statement of over-arching principle...

We believe that respect for individual rights is the essential precondition for a free and prosperous world, that force and fraud must be banished from human relationships, and that only through freedom can peace and prosperity be realized. Consequently, we defend each person’s right to engage in any activity that is peaceful and honest, and welcome the diversity that freedom brings. The world we seek to build is one where individuals are free to follow their own dreams in their own ways, without interference from government or any authoritarian power.

How about this for a summation of what American foreign policy should be...

American foreign policy should seek an America at peace with the world. Our foreign policy should emphasize defense against attack from abroad and enhance the likelihood of peace by avoiding foreign entanglements. We would end the current U.S. government policy of foreign intervention, including military and economic aid. We recognize the right of all people to resist tyranny and defend themselves and their rights. We condemn the use of force, and especially the use of terrorism, against the innocent, regardless of whether such acts are committed by governments or by political or revolutionary groups.

How does this sound for an economic plan?

Libertarians want all members of society to have abundant opportunities to achieve economic success. A free and competitive market allocates resources in the most efficient manner. Each person has the right to offer goods and services to others on the free market. The only proper role of government in the economic realm is to protect property rights, adjudicate disputes, and provide a legal framework in which voluntary trade is protected. All efforts by government to redistribute wealth, or to control or manage trade, are improper in a free society.

But one does not endorse a party platform, one endorses candidates. What about Gary Johnson and William Weld? Do they possess the requisite talent, temperament and experience to lead the country?

With virtually no empirical evidence to back up this assertion, I say yes. As governor of New Mexico, Gary Johnson was not a disaster. He actually did some good things like cutting taxes and leaving his state better off financially than he found it, a promising prospect. Moreover, as someone with actual executive experience running an actual government, I can say with the slimmest intellectual cover that both Johnson and Weld will not need a tutorial on how a bill becomes a law during their first week on the job. In coming to my decision in this race, it has come down to who I believe is least likely to be a colossal embarrassment. Using this matrix, Johnson/Weld offer much comfort.

Of the major party candidates, who would be least likely to drag us into a war? Who would be least likely to pile up more and more debt? Who would be least likely to inflame our already raging racial divide? Above all else, who would be least likely to govern us out of an oversized, ego-driven confidence in their own genius? The answer to all of these questions is Gary Johnson and William Weld.

My preferred candidates are not without problems. Their complete devotion to free trade with no restrictions is troubling. I'm pro life, they are not. But their instincts favor restraint in all things:  less government, not more; less adventurism, not more; fewer laws, not more. The ascension of a Libertarian administration in the United States would reverse a decades long expansion of state power and roll back the Imperial Presidency that has been constructed by the worst instincts of both parties.

So, with the thinnest possible reed of evidence and based upon nothing more reliable than the nebulous tract record of my trick knee, I hereby endorse Gov. Gary Johnson for President. I believe him to be the least imperfect of the choices presented to us and the best bet not to embarrass us over he next four years . . . I think . . . probably . . . maybe.

For The Children.....

 " The choice in this election is about who will have the power to shape our children over the next four years of their lives."

                                                                                            Hillary Clinton, September 15, 2016


I consider myself a reasonable man on the subject of politics. For some of you I might be too conservative, for others insufficiently so. Some of you are more than a little suspicious of my libertarian tendencies. Fair enough. But, I feel that I am able to find the good that exists on both sides of the aisle. However, there is one thing about the left that drives me crazy and it's perfectly encapsulated in the above quote from a campaign speech given yesterday by Hillary Clinton. It's the creepy obsession which has followed collectivists everywhere they have trod on God's green earth...the children.

I would like someone from the left to explain to me why anyone would think that it was the job of the President of the United States to shape our children. Is there an obscure codicil to the Constitution that I am unaware of that gives our chief executive the responsibility of child rearing? And even if there were, with everything going on in the world today why would any candidate for the office offer up such a ridiculous premise...that THE choice of this election is not about immigration, trade, or even war and peace...but who gets to shape our children???

I have been a parent under four U.S. Presidents now and I can assure you that not a single one of them has had a role in shaping my children. George H.W. Bush, nice guy...Bill Clinton, creepy pervert, George W. Bush, doofus, Barack Obama, classy....but none of them had a hand in raising my kids. That job fell exclusively to my wife and me with the tangential help of grandparents, youth pastors, and an assorted group of sainted teachers along the way.

It's not so much the policies that the statist has in mind for all of this shaping, its the enormous amount of hubris necessary to believe that the federal government is equipped for such a monumental job when it can barely deliver the freaking mail.

Vladimir Lenin and Adolph Hitler had one major belief in common which was if they could get ahold of the children early enough they would have them for life. NO...I am NOT comparing Hillary Clinton to either of those psychopaths. But whenever I hear this sort of maternalistic hogwash coming from the mouth of a big government liberal, it gives me the creeps. No deal, Hillary. You may  very well win this election, but if you do it won't be because the American people were clamoring for  you to shape their kids for the next four years. It will be because they were afraid that Donald Trump might start a nuclear war the first time a foreign leader made fun of his tiny fingers.

So, for all of you good leftists out there...keep toiling along with your plans to make everything free and all, but stop looking at our kids like that. It's just weird and creepy and makes people think about the Hitler Youth. Ewww.....