on faith, politics, life & design
Let’s start with Houston –
Our city charter requires that the mayor receive a majority vote. When this doesn’t happen the top two vote-getters go at it again in a run-off election. Such is now the case between Annise Parker and Gene Locke, who will go face to face in December.
Per my explanation below, I voted for Parker. She wasn’t the perfect candidate, but the perfect candidate didn’t exist, and the only other decent contender had no real chance. Either way, I’ll be backing Parker for the run-off and I think the majority of conservatives who voted for Roy Morales, the self-proclaimed standard bearer for the conservative cause in this race, will be with me on this. Gene Locke is a lawyer and lobbyist with very liberal leanings. Should he win, his policies and management style will have very real effects on our lives.
Parker is is the current City Controller and a former City Councilwoman with a solid record of responsibility. The only thing people can pin on her is that she is gay, and a lot of people will have a hard time seeing beyond that. Honestly, I don’t think that has anything to do with her ability to govern, and I’m not sure what people are afraid of. Texas already amended our constitution to ban gay marriage, so that shouldn’t be an issue. What is it that we require in a Mayor that their sexuality would be a deal-breaker? No one seems to care whether our elected officials are overweight, or whether they smoke or drink. They just want responsible leaders who will perform their job well, serve the public and for us conservatives, preserve our liberties. Undoubtedly, if we elect Parker it will be a national story, and some may decry the godlessness of our society. But we are not appointing clergy, we are appointing a city manager, and we have to live with this person’s decisions for the next few years. I want the best person for the job, and I’m much more interested in my freedoms and the future of our city than one person’s personal life. I’d like to poke around into this subject further and get other people’s thoughts, but that will have to be another day, another blog.
On New York’s 23rd congressional district:
A little backstory: Three individuals ran for the 23rd district’s seat. One was a Democrat (Bill Owens), one was a very liberal Republican (Dede Scozzafava), and the third was a very conservative one (Doug Hoffman). Before it hit national headlines the leading Republican was Scozzafava, soaring above both of the others by wide margins. When the national GOP endorsed her many conservatives were outraged, pointing to such an act as the very problem with the party. They feel that left-leaning republicans are responsible for diluting the message and weakening the party. And for most part they are right, but more on that in a moment. A few national conservative figures decided to protest the decision by endorsing Hoffman. His popularity began to soar and Scozzafava’s dipped. A couple of days before the election she dropped out and threw her support behind… Owens.
As I warned in Monday’s post, the right-leaning voting bloc was split, giving Owens the seat by 4,593 votes. Though Scozzafava was no longer in the running, 6,976 people still cast their ballots for her – enough to have put her over a majority if she had Hoffman’s votes. The traditionally red district would have been easily won by just about any conservative had the infighting not divided the team. Some are trumpeting this as a win for Hoffman supporters, praising the relatively slim margin, but others are calling for party unity, even if it means compromise. I have problems with both of these arguments.
First, handing Democrats a seat is not a winning situation, no matter how you put it. If disagreeing Republicans can’t learn to work together, and talk of third parties gains ground, we’re going to see a whole lot more of this same situation, and if the end result is to increase the current supermajority in congress I have to withdraw my support for such a plan.
On the other hand, Republicans who pull out to endorse Democrats don’t belong in the Party. If we send them to congress just to have another Olympia Snowe we have effectively done nothing to support our cause, while sending the wrong message to the public about where we stand and the principles that guide us. The national GOP should have stayed out of the election until local Republicans could decide on who best represented them.
People have a responsibility to get involved early on and support the candidates that best fit your personal convictions. Be it the evangelical Christian, the Atheist, the lesbian, the extreme conservative or liberal, or the moderate independent. We all have a right to our interests, and to voice them. However, once a clear front-runner is decided upon to represent the general right or left, we have to coalesce into a strong support for the candidate who has the best chance of winning. We have to think offensively and defensively. Yes, much like a sport, except in this sport the winner will determine the rules.
This Tuesday Houstonians will be voting on a number of important issues, including Mayor, Controller, several City Council positions and a handful of State Constitutional Amendments. The exceptionally small voter turnout at local elections reveals a great public misunderstanding about the institutions and individuals that affect our daily lives. On the other hand it allows those of us who do vote to have an increased influence on local issues.
National figures often climb their way up from local roots – like Bill White, who is seeking a U.S. Senate seat next year – so putting the right people in the queue early on is one reason to vote in local elections. But there are far more important reasons. While the Federal Government has vastly increased its reach into our personal lives since the 1930’s, it is primarily the responsibility of State and City governments to oversee things like waste disposal, water management, transportation, education, property taxes, building codes, law enforcement, and so on. You encounter local government restrictions on a daily basis, and when you violate them, it’s the local courts and bureaucracies that will handle your case. Considering all of this it seems strange that there’s hardly anyone talking about the election.
The Mayor of the City of Houston is the most powerful mayor of any large city in the U.S., mostly due to his power to appoint many department heads, and the fact that he is a voting member of City Council. There are four individuals running for Houston Mayor: Peter Brown, Gene Locke, Roy Morales and Annise Parker.
Before I say how I’m voting I should explain what I’m looking for. If you’re a regular reader of this blog you know that I’m a conservative. I believe in small government, less regulation, lower taxes, fiscal responsibility, sound economic policies, state’s rights, individual rights, and strong security. I’m looking for people and policies that support these ideas, but I’m also looking for experience, expertise and leadership.
Seeing as how Roy Morales is the only “Conservative” candidate I would like to vote for him, but I think he has run a poor campaign, he is not prepared for the office, and his platform is the same as the others – all four candidates are in agreement on major issues. The Texas Conservative Review rates Parker as the second most conservative candidate. She has had experience as both a City Council member and City Controller, giving her a better understanding of how things work. She has also spent 20 years in the oil and gas industry – a vital industry for the region. Her record in public office is long, and clean. That’s something that the lawyer (Locke), the architect (Brown) and the “Security Consultant” (Morales) can’t say for themselves. In one sentence, Parker is a moderate liberal with a good amount of respect from the community and a lot of experience at City Hall – and she happens to be a lesbian, but I will leave you to decide what that is worth.
Locke and Brown are both further left. I had initially liked Brown, until I began to connect the dots. Having a plan – or “blueprint” – is great, as long as you’re not going to force everyone to comply with it. I mean, Obama had lots of interesting ideas… they just happen to cost trillions of dollars and reduce our freedoms. In a Texas Conservative Review questionnaire, Brown was the only candidate to say that the city should be able to raise taxes without a 60% majority, and the only candidate to to say that the government should be able to seize private property from individuals and corporations for the “good of the community” without fair compensation. Those two answers alone were enough to sway my vote. Locke was rated as the least conservative, which added weight to my prior decision not to support him.
This brings me to ultimately choose between Morales and Parker. Since a Morales win is basically impossible, and the race is essentially down to Brown and Parker, I’m going to throw my support to the least liberal, and most experienced of the two – Annise Parker.
As for other offices that we will be voting on this Tuesday, it would take far too long for me to list the strengths and weaknesses of each candidate, and argue each amendment, so I’ll just give a run-down of how I will be voting.
City Comptroller – MJ Khan
City Council at Large #1 – Stephen Costello
City Council at Large #4 – C.O. Bradford
City Council at Large #5 – Jack Christie
My City Council District (G) – Oliver Pennington
District Picks according to the Texas Conservative Review voter guide:
City Council District A – Brenda Stardig
City Council District C – Anne Clutterbuck (incumbent)
City Council District E – Mike Sullivan (incumbent)
City Council District F – Kalid Khan
In addition to these offices we will be voting on 11 amendments to the Texas Constitution, in the form of propositions. The Texas Constitution was written very stiffly as a reaction to abusive power by a union-appointed governor after the Civil War. This strict constitution forces the state legislature to propose new amendments after nearly every session. Once the legislature has voted on it we are allowed to approve or disapprove through our vote. You can go here to see the actual wording and arguments for and against, but I will be voting as follows:
Prop 1 – FOR
Prop 2 – FOR
Prop 3 – FOR
Prop 4 – FOR
Prop 5 – FOR
Prop 6 – FOR
Prop 7 – FOR
Prop 8 – AGAINST (allows use of valuable state resources to help build federal hospitals for veterans)
Prop 9 – AGAINST (allows the state to seize private beach-front property for public use and makes laws harder to change in the future)
Prop 10 – AGAINST (doubles terms of emergency board members, making them less accountable to public. These members have the power to raise taxes)
Prop 11 – FOR
If you need info on where to vote, or for a sample ballot, check www.harrisvotes.com
Please comment if you have information that I, or my readers, should know before we go into the booth on Tuesday. Thanks for stopping by.
In 2003, a Houston, Texas real-estate-agent-turned-attorney by the name of Kay Staley successfully sued Harris County to have a Bible, which had been on display for decades in front of the courthouse, removed on claims of unconstitutionality, per the “Establishment Clause” of the First Amendment.
Staley is now on a new mission. The Houston City Council opens its regular meetings with a short prayer. Sometimes members of the public are invited to pray, and other times the council members themselves do the bidding. Ms. Staley apparently took so much offense at the Lord’s Prayer, uttered by councilwoman Anne Clutterbuck, that she decided a new lawsuit was in proper order.
This isn’t new. We’ve been hearing about suits like this all over the nation, ever since Madalyn Murray O’Hair tried to sue the Federal Government because NASA read from the Book of Genesis as Apollo 8 orbited the moon in 1968.
The argument goes a little like this:
The American Founders believed in the Separation of Church and State, and religious freedom, so they wrote the First Amendment to erect a “strict wall of separation” to restrict Government and Religion to their own appropriate spheres. Therefore, no government official or institution should endorse or promote a religious point of view.
This opinion seems to be the widely accepted meaning of the “Establishment Clause.” The only problem with it is that it is completely and absolutely wrong. Right away we should clarify that “Separation of Church and State” is nowhere to be found in the Constitution or any Amendment. The phrase is quoted from one of Thomas Jefferson’s personal letters. But there is a much stronger argument against this ridiculous notion. Let’s go to the actual words (novel idea):
“Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; …”
For the sake of brevity I dropped the irrelevant parts – we’re just focusing on the religion segment. It’s important when reading the Constitution to keep in mind that it essentially an agreement between states over what kind of power the new Federal government would have. These were individual states that were very uneasy about giving up their sovereignty, but knew that it was necessary for stability. So the “Congress” referred to in the First Amendment is the 535 men and women currently working in the U.S. House and Senate.
So what can’t they do? It says here they “shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion…” and also that they shall make no law “prohibiting the free exercise” of religion. Go ahead, read it again if you’d like. It’s quite clear. There is nothing that says government can’t reference, endorse or even blatantly promote religion, it just cannot do so through law.
The “Establishment Clause” that is repeatedly used to silence religious expression in government and just about every other public venue outside of church is actually supposed to do just the opposite. There can be no doubt that Ms. Staley is attempting to use the fist of law against Ms. Clutterbuck to “prohibit the free exercise” of her religion. Does the Amendment make any exceptions for public officials? Are we to believe that freedom to exercise one’s religion stops at the doorway of the court room or the council chamber?
We are free people, and unless my understanding is flawed these United States form a government of the people, by the people and for the people. If our personal convictions call us to embrace the full implications of our faith, then we should do so in our homes, in our cars, on the job and anywhere else we may end up – perhaps most importantly when we are summoned to the responsibility of public service and the solemn authority it entrusts us with.
The majority of Americans in the late 1700’s, including many of our founders, were Christians who believed that religion was important in society, and certainly in governance, and that is still the case today. But if we remain silent, ceding defeat to a minority voice that seeks to establish a public religion of secularism, we will slowly lose the right to free religious expression – a freedom so valuable to our ancestors that they addressed it in the very first sentence of our Bill of Rights.
Here’s to hoping you remember this blog next month when you purchase your Holiday Tree.
David Frum had a good piece on the special elections in New York, Virginia and New Jersey, from which an important quote should be observed:
“And if the Republicans pick up an Arkansas Senate seat and a dozen blue-dog Democratic House seats in 2010, you can see this “tea party” mentality taking strong hold of the GOP in the run-up to 2012. But a political formula that encourages Republicans to write off the suburbs, the Northeast, and California is not a formula for a national majority. It’s a formula for a more coherent, better mobilized, but perpetually minority party.”
I, for one, have never been a fan of zero-tolerance policies. They remove human intelligence and judgement from the equation and treat similar circumstances as though they were exactly the same. That is not reality. Every situation has its own set of circumstances which must be considered and weighed. Something we could use less of in our society is knee-jerk reactions that attempt to solve problems with swift, broad strokes, leaving the collateral damage to be cleaned up by someone else down the line.
Conservatives who hope to change the direction of politics in 2010 by booting out the moderates and rallying around the campaigns of “true” conservatives ought to stop and think before they act.
I’ve seen these kinds of images on signs and stickers lately, calling for us to “fire congress” or “re-elect no one.” The irony of this particular advertisement is that people who actually listen to this are already shooting themselves. For those of you who are offended because you have supported merchandise like this, give me a moment to explain. It is better to understand the truth and get results than to run blindly and stumble.
A German Prussian politician, Otto Von Bismarck, once said, “Politics is the art of the possible.” As abstract that may sound to many, it alludes to a sobering reality: thanks to the many competing interests in society, very few of us will ever have exactly what we want. The best we can hope for is that we can manage to build enough consensus on the things we can agree upon in order to push through at least some of the things we want. The next time you hear someone complain that we only have two major parties, ask them how they plan to have any influence upon legislation with less than 50% of the vote.
While lots of passion, principle and great ideas sound like characteristics for the ideal politico, in actuality such a person can do very little without the support of others. The founders had this in mind when they created the Congress. They wanted to make sure that one person, or one small group could not have an influence on the whole country. This makes sure that most of our laws are supported by most Americans. In the Senate, the vote on whether to even hear a bill on the floor must be unanimous.
If the realm of “possibility” is the one to which we are confined, then we must prepare for a degree of concession to those whose goals are slightly different than our own. This is not a betrayal of one’s principles, it is merely “the art of the possible.”
Am I saying that the GOP should claim a more moderate position and endorse center-right candidates? Not at all. As Florida Senate candidate Marco Rubio said on “The Morning Joe” today, “for Americans that want more government involvement in the economy, they already have an option on election day.” Republicans must advocate the alternative view and present it in a way that provides clear choices to the American people. But the idea that we have to remove any person that doesn’t completely support our specific platform, like some sort of party cleansing, is only going to shift majority power the other way. How can conservatives point to factions within the Democratic Party that have already weakened this administrations effectiveness, yet not see the speck in their own eye.
We should also consider that the current congressional incumbents are there for one reason: the people of their district voted for them – usually more than once. Since districts are typically drawn to favor a certain party, “firing” congress to put in a fresh batch doesn’t mean that you’re going to get a different ideological make up. It only means that there will an inexperienced but zealous conservative minority, vying for attention from a professional and well-networked Democrat majority.
If alarmed conservatives oust moderate Republican incumbents in favor of hard-right conservatives they risk splitting their own voting bloc in two, giving Democrats a seat in a majority Republican district. The way to make your voice known is to speak up early, vote in primaries, and promote your cause in the off-season, but once your party’s candidate is chosen, the game play must shift toward a team win, because a loss for your team is a loss for your cause.
Obama owes his presidency to “Independents” – a group made up largely of people who really aren’t that interested in politics. And if a Republican wins office in 2012 or 2016, as a result of his inability to fix all of Americas problems as he said he could do, it will likely be these same individuals who put them there. They don’t want a watered-down message, but they don’t want extremists either. They just want someone with solutions that make more sense than the other guy. I believe that conservatives have the right solutions, they just have to be able to communicate them effectively.
The Mayoral race in Houston includes only one “true” conservative. He believes in limited government and fiscal responsibility, but in all fairness has no business running the fourth largest city in the U.S., with the second largest port in the world. He doesn’t belong and everyone can see it. The other candidates are more qualified, have better funding and are much further ahead in the polls. Though it is a sure bet that he will lose the race, he may also keep us from electing at least a moderate Democrat. It would be far better for him to pull out and declare support for one of the other candidates. If Ron Paul had pulled out of the primaries in 2008 and put his support behind Romney or Huckabee perhaps we would have run someone against Obama who could actually provide a challenge.
It is important for us to consider exactly what we want in our society and why we want it. We should be vocal about it and be active participants in our communities. True change comes from the bottom up. But we also have to be sensitive to the needs and wants of others, and understand that sometimes we have to give a little to take a little. I don’t believe in putting party before principle, but I do believe in cooperation. I understand that my desire to not “play” politics only gives advantage to others who will. The game will be played, and we are a part of it whether we like that fact or not. We can build consensus and have an influence on our future, or we can hand the ball to someone else as we shout from the sidelines.
I’m asking this question in hopes that we can generate an interesting discussion, and because I really don’t have a solid position on this controversial issue. Traditionally, I have leaned toward “No” – after all, marijuana is seen as a “gateway drug” that leads people into playing with much greater fires. Also, there’s the question of whether we want to make such a vice more prevalent in society.
BUT…
The prohibition of Marijuana, which is arguably less destructive than alcohol, has created a huge black-market economy with all of the shady characters that go with it, and it is rampant in our schools and on our streets. If and when a teen decides to try it out, there is no telling what is in it or where it came from. On the positive side I can think of several things that legalization – which does not necessarily mean an endorsement – would immediately do:
1. It would allow for the regulation of the production and sale of marijuana, making it safer and cleaner.
2. It would reduce the load (and cost) on our law enforcement, court system and detention facilities.
3. It would make the $11 billion per year marijuana industry (by most estimates) a taxable commodity
4. It would take profits out of the hands of criminals, and allow law-abiding entrepreneurs to start businesses, create jobs, etc.
If regulated, the most dangerous aspect of marijuana use that I can foresee is that the drug’s effects are much more immediate than that of alcohol, and more debilitating than tobacco. Whereas most people need several drinks to induce intoxication, marijuana can do the trick in minutes. This could lead to a dramatic increase in fatal accidents and sexual misconduct, among other things. On the other hand, the effects of marijuana are very different from alcohol. How often do you hear of some guy beating up his wife because he smoked a joint? Perhaps making marijuana a legal option would curb alcohol use. Then, maybe not.
One of the benefits of a federal system in the U.S. is what political scientists call the “laboratory of democracy,” which means that states can try things out and see how they work before trying them on a national scale. While I could see this argument being made for experimenting with legalization I think that doing so in only a few states would drive crime into those areas and add another dimension to the black market. I think in order for legalization to have any positive outcome it would have to be nationwide.
Please contribute.
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Disclaimer: This post should not be taken as an endorsement of marijuana use, nor does it address moral values. I am simply raising questions for the sake of discussion.
It’s true. An insider memo to Republicans, from a strategist who has been working with the party for years, encouraged party leaders to use the word “Government Takeover” when referring to the Democrat’s plan. His name is Frank Luntz, and he is an expert on the power of words in marketing. He understands that communicating is less about what is said, and much more about what is heard, so crafting language carefully is essential when building support (and Democrats understand this well). Even though from a technical standpoint the plan does not clearly state that the government will take control of the health care industry, it sets the deck for it, and Luntz has encouraged the use of the phrase in order to tune people in to what the plan ultimately means. Obviously, you may disagree… but that’s why we have parties.
I’ve heard several Democrats, including the President, accuse Republicans of misleading the public – that the government takeover thing is nonsense, and that they just want “choice and competition” in the insurance industry, as if the free market does not already supply choice and competition. Interestingly, they are against the Republican plan of allowing people to use insurance companies from other states.
The problem with the “competition” claim is that it’s bunk. The government doesn’t compete – it declares victory at will.
Think about it for a moment. How do businesses succeed? How do those fat-cat CEOs make sure that the company does well? To answer that you have to go to the source of profit – the consumer. So ask yourself, why do you shop at the grocery store you shop at, instead of the one down the street? How do you decide where to purchase gas? The clothes you are wearing, the cell phone provider you have a contract with, and the movie you’re going to see this weekend – why are you giving them your hard-earned money?
The answer is very simple: You can, and you want to.
But those two things are taken for granted too often in our society. The reason you can is because you have a job (someone pays you money in exchange for skill or labor). Also, you can because you are not prevented by the government or other factors. When jobs become more scarce people are willing to do harder work, and if the demand for work is high, wages drop. At this point that movie ticket, those new shoes and the cell phone are dropped from the budget in favor of food, shelter and clean water. Since jobs are created through the opportunity to produce and make a profit, free markets have the power to raise the standard living for all of us. I find it aggravating that the strongest advocates of the “Shared Prosperity” mantra (nice word-smithing, by the way) are fighting for policies that will eliminate half of that equation. “Shared Poverty” just didn’t have the same ring to it I suppose.
So you can buy things because jobs are available and you have one. But you want to buy things because you perceive the value of the benefit as greater or equal to the value of the cost. You are presented with the choice of keeping your money or trading it for something else, and you will only do so if it is worth it. This means that in order for a company to get your business they have to provide what you are looking for, and maybe a little extra, but the price tag has to be reasonable, otherwise you’ll go elsewhere. The more competition there is the harder the companies have to work for your business. A cell phone provider that is twice as expensive as the rest and offers fewer incentives isn’t going to do well, and they’ll go under. Then the companies who are working hard to satisfy their customers will grow. The customers, resources and jobs will shift to the better players.
Now that we’ve spelled out what is required for a company to be successful, we can look at what happens when the government runs a business. We can be sure than any government-run service will be 1) cheap, 2) inefficient, 3) low-quality, and 4) highly influenced by politicians.
The cheap factor is the main selling point for the public. Middle and low-income citizens want it, and politicians want to promise it. But why is it cheap? Because it is subsidized by people with higher incomes, made possible via the progressive tax system. Since making other people pay is far better than having to pay yourself, the government gets a lot of customers. Other companies simply can’t compete with that. And as with all things that are paid for by someone else, money is spent frivolously and with little oversight. Since there’s no concern for profit, there isn’t much concern for operational efficiency or quality either. And by the time the millions of people who bought into the idea realize its true value, it’s usually too late to back out.
But you may be thinking that if private companies offer a better product then most people wouldn’t use the public option. But this assumption is mistaken on two points. First, the government is the government. It is the one entity in our lives which has the authority to dictate your behavior, with physical consequences for disobedience. What a nice perk! Companies that do not have that power are forced to rely on actually satisfying customers. But government can just tweak this and tweak that until results come out in their favor. For example, you can personally choose to buy a product or donate to a charity, but you had no part in choosing whether to pay taxes, how much, or where it goes. You can choose how much to spend in accessories for your car, but the inspection and registration sticker regulations are set by politicians and bureaucrats.
But even when you have a choice, there is a point at which the scales are so tipped that private businesses simply can’t get a fair competition. Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac were two government-backed mortgage loan companies. They were pressured by politicians to lower standards in order to get more people into homes. They could do so because they were backed by other people’s money. When they did lower their standards, other banks had to drop theirs. When people started defaulting on loans Fannie and Freddy had a way out (and we decided to bail out a few more as well), but many other banks had to close their doors.
Look at public and private schools today. It is very difficult for anyone to send their children to the school of their choice. While I think government-run schools are necessary, the education system is plagued by the same things which I have pointed out here. Since education is primarily the responsibility of states, there is more accountability and less waste, but government tends to operate a certain way no matter how large or small.
It should be clear then. Government-run business is not fair business because it is not interested in competition – it is purely interested in dominance. Government has a natural tendency to seek control (in the name of service, of course), and it can only acquire control when there are no opponents. But the government’s opponents are the private businesses that provide products, services jobs and opportunity that we want and need. Government and private businesses can work together for great things when their roles are appropriately separated – much like church and state. But allowing the government to have its own “public option” for everything we buy and sell will inevitably lead to a very real “Government Takeover,” where politicians determine what you can buy, and it’ll have very little to do with what you want.
I haven’t historically been a big TV watcher. It is a vortex through which potentially productive citizens are eternally lost. However, if used correctly and with moderation, it can be a source of leisurely entertainment and even education. Last night was one of those occasions.
I happened to catch the Discovery channel’s special on “Ardi” – the latest in hominid paleontological discoveries. It was actually discovered a decade ago, but it has taken this long to piece together the evidence and figure out just exactly what they had found and what it meant. Ardi is 4.4 million years old, trumping the previous title holder for oldest human fossil – Lucy – by a million years! But the fossil isn’t quite what scientists expected to find in a specimen of that seniority. She walked upright, had grasping feet, and lived in Woodlands, where she would often walk on all fours amongst the tree limbs– palms down.
For years, since Darwin wrote The Origin of Species, scientists have declared that humans evolved from knuckle-walking apes. The theory has been taught in every public school as hard fact. The image of the monkey growing into a man is probably tracing through your mind as you read this. Anyone who has stopped short of accepting the theory has been ridiculed as enemies of science – dogmatic mercenaries of faith and fairy-tales who refuse to bend under the irrefutable evidence of evolution. Yet, today we are told by the leading scientists who have been studying Ardi that everything we previously suspected is… wrong.
I won’t go into too much detail about how this has changed scientific understanding of human history, but you can find the national geographic article here. See video at the Discovery.com site.
This story isn’t so shocking to all of us who have held that there is something more to truth than what we can conclude through limited empirical evidence. It’s not that our faith was so stubborn, or that our intelligence was a hindrance to our ability to reason. No – our problem was, in fact, a lack of faith – a lack of confidence in men and women in lab coats, who tell us that their conclusions are definite and conclusive, as if all the possibilities in the universe had been counted, measured and catalogued. We know there is so much more to learn and understand, and we would not be so arrogant to think that our senses are so honest, that our calculations are so absolute or that our physical laws and principles are necessarily universal.
The point is this: science is a journey – a search for truth which must remain objective in order to find it. Too often people have made premature conclusions out of assumptions, preventing an honest understanding of our world. They want so badly to solve the puzzle –especially if they are trying to prove their own version – that they will insert fictitious placeholders to make the necessary connections. What we end up with is a story with reasonable believability, but lacking in hard-proof, becoming the status-quo of scientific dogma. It becomes an even greater danger when these stories are used to discredit, marginalize and attack members of society who don’t buy in.
I’m very interested to see how this translates into our education system. What I learned in biology and history has effectively been wiped off the chalkboard. They’ll have to rewrite whole chapters of the text books. Does this weaken the case against the teaching of Intelligent Design theory in school, considering that the main reason was that is wasn’t credible enough?Turns out, credibility isn’t what it lacks – just acceptance as an equal player.
Recommended reading:
What’s So Great About Christianity, by Dinesh D’Souza
The End of Secularism, by Hunter Baker
The Reason for God, by Timothy Keller
The Nobel Peace Prize has been given to two sitting presidents – one for settling a major conflict and the other for creating the League of Nations. This morning Barack Obama became the third laureate “for his extraordinary efforts to strengthen international diplomacy and cooperation between peoples.”
My first reaction was surprise. That’s not unreasonable, as even the White House admitted a bit of shock. I thought to myself, “he’s been in office less than a year and he hasn’t actually accomplished anything of importance.” But then I remembered that it is, in fact, Barack Obama we are speaking of. Then I thought “you know, they gave one to Gore too… for the global warming movie, and that didn’t have anything to do with peace.” Then I hear about Jimmy Carter getting it back in 2002. So at this point I’m realizing that this prestigious medal is apparently a political endorsement – the official mantle of progressivism in the west.
Whatever the case, it seems to me that the prize has gradually lost its honor, and today it was made a punchline.
Now, let’s be honest. While it’s nice to have the President of the United States presented with something like this, many of us have a right to be irritated. First, because he really hasn’t done anything. You can say he’s a nice guy, that he’s the first black president or that he’s trying to make this a better world… but every president is trying to make this a better world. And trying doesn’t really count for much unless there are visible results. The black president premise is just silly – if it speaks for anything it speaks for the progress of American attitudes, not one man’s accomplishments.
The second reason to be irritated follows from the first. This man, Barack Hussein Obama, ever since he came on the scene, has been showered with praise and credit from Hollywood to Bollywood and everywhere in between, for all sorts of things, regardless of how little he has to show for it and the very few, if any, actual results. It’s like the guy on the football team who can’t throw a pass for his life, but he looks so darn good in his uniform that everyone in the stands is holding signs with his name on them, and the coach just keeps putting him in the game, while blaming losses on the other players.
But even beyond those things, what really bothers me is that there are so many other people who have made significant strides toward a more peaceful world who just got dissed. The Nobel nominators could have made famous people like Jessica Kackley from Kiza.org, who developed a loan program so people in developed countries could help third-world entrepreneurs start businesses, or Blake Mycoskie, who started “TOMS” shoes – a company that gives away a pair of shoes to a child in need for every pair that is sold. Now, these efforts aren’t exactly changing the face of the earth, and they’re not specifically geared toward peace, but they are making a difference in the quality of life in less developed nations through creative means, which leads to less poverty and more stability, and that deserves some credit. Surely there are plenty of people out there doing things like this that are geared toward peace, specifically.
Having said that, I have to offer a critique to many conservatives that have pointed out the irony of the fact that Obama is currently overseeing wars in two nations, and that he was meeting with advisers today about sending more troops. I’ve heard this used several times to infer that Obama really isn’t a good candidate for peacemaking. If you have made that statement please slap yourself. We know that the current fight against terrorism is a war of necessity (as all wars should be) that is a means toward peace. The idea that the presence of conflict indicates a lack of peace-seeking is ridiculous, and we shouldn’t try to turn that around on Obama just because it’s his turn to do the explaining. It is kind of funny though, listening to him navigate around some of his far-left supporters who thought he was going to walk in and demand an end to all war. Sorry folks, eternal social harmony cannot be reached by executive order.
On Term Limits
November 13, 2009 in Elections, Political Commentary | Tags: term limits | Leave a comment
I sympathize with many fellow conservatives who are trumpeting a constitutional amendment proposal to cap terms of U.S. Senators at two terms, but this is down right bad policy, and understanding why requires a look into the design of the Senate.
Per Article 1, Sec. 3 of the Constitution, Senators serve staggered 6 year terms. The reason for this is to protect against sudden movements that may not be in our best long-term interest. Popular ideas are not always good ones, but when the public grabs hold of a concept that it believes to be virtuous (say, healthcare… cap and trade…) it sometimes takes a few years of debating an issue before reason overcomes passion and a bill is dropped from the docket. By staggering terms we are given an additional line of defense from such bad ideas by only allowing the public to vote in 1/3 of the Senate on any given election. The wheels of change that turn slowly are those that result in better policy. Some of today’s Senators have been working on public policy for twenty or thirty years. They’ve stood the test of time and remained a favorite among their constituents. Newcomers often ride in on a wave of change that is short lived. Since Senatorial elections are every two years, limiting them to two terms means an entirely different Senate every 16 years. Anyone that entered the chamber before 1997 would already be gone.
Allowing politicians to serve multiple terms allows them to gain experience and understanding. It also discourages new congressmen from entering with a grand agenda that they can push through within a couple of years. Sure, they will have an agenda, but the current system makes it very difficult for them to accomplish anything until they’ve “paid their dues.” If congressmen are limited to 8 or 12 years in the House or Senate, respectively, pushing through a list of bills in the first term will be status quo, and as a gesture of good politics, every member would be expected to support every other member’s bill, because there’s just not enough time to bicker, and if you want help with your agenda you’d better find a log and start rolling. As busy as congress is today, it would be a picnic compared to the utter chaos that would exist under such a pressured system.
To those who decry the current system of corrupted professional politicians, you should remember that there is already a way to boot out those we don’t like – they call it “voting.” A novel idea really. “But,” you say, “incumbents get so many benefits, like free mailers, better financial backing and way more name recognition, they’re almost sure to win.” Okay, then I suppose you should work a little harder to support the challenging candidate. Can we try to make it a little easier for up-and-comers? Probably – and perhaps giving members of every generation a decent shot is a commendable cause that deserves attention. But do we need to make it impossible for people to run after only two terms? No, that’s ridiculous. Ron Paul supporters who champion plans like this forget that their lead man would have been term-limited out long ago. The point is, some we like, some we don’t – but we get the choice over which one’s stay or go. That’s liberty!