Socialism, another word for Liberalism, is regressive, not progressive. Free-market capitalism has  brought unparalleled prosperity to our nation. Socialism has brought economic disaster everywhere it has been tried. Instituting failed socialist systems as solutions to today's problems is a huge step backwards. This is regressive, not progressive. Expecting hard-working people who make good choices to perpetually support people who consistently make bad choices is an expectation that will fail. Redistributing wealth places far too much power in the hands of the central government, because THEY will decide who gives and who receives. Rewarding bad habits and practices and imposing confiscatory taxes on (punishing) hard-working entrepreneurs is bad fiscal and social policy.

December 22, 2007, afternoon. Enforcing immigration laws leads to self-deportment. Something I have been saying for a long while is that if we remove the economic incentive, criminal immigrants will go back home. They are economic refugees from countries that do not provide opportunity for their citizens. "Immigrant rights" groups are protesting against the wrong country.

Arizona passed tough new laws that will crack down hard on employers who hire illegals. As a result, criminal aliens seem to be leaving the state in large numbers. This is a very positive development.

December 22, 2007, morning. Income equality and economic mobility are tricky and hard to understand. Taking income numbers in isolation from other factors paints an incomplete picture, and the story being told is painted in the colors chosen by the storyteller. Look at the study by The Heritage Foundation, and contrast it by the studies by the Economic Mobility Project (the Key Findings is the quickest way to compare). Then look at the "non-partisan" Urban Institute publication on Economic Mobility in the United States. Another, somewhat older, study is covered at the Brookings Institution site entitled Moving on Up? Economic Mobility in America. As you see, the subject is complex, not simple. So liberals and conservatives use simple numbers to bash one another over the head. Cold-heartedness and mean-spiritedness versus bleeding hearts and nanny state. A pox on both their houses (and senates for that matter).

So what do I think? IMNSHO, This is still the land of opportunity. We are far from perfect. But people who work hard, get an education, show some initiative and really care about doing a good job are people who succeed in life. Others don't. Rich people are rich because of their work ethic, their attitude, their intelligence, their drive and initiative, and their willingness to make good choices and take calculated risks. Poor people are mostly poor for the same reasons.

Certainly, some people experience bad luck. All of us are handed challenges in life. Some rise to the challenge. Some fail and don't get back up again. But the idea that people are rich or poor due to luck is mostly false. If you drop out of school, have a kid as a teenager, in or out of wedlock, abuse drugs or alcohol, fall in with the wrong crowd, and generally make poor choices, you will probably screw up your life and end up poor. If you make good choices, you are more likely to have a happier and more successful life. Making poor choices does not make you a victim, and I just don't feel all that sorry for such a person. I believe in helping such people back on their feet, but frankly, if they want to just sit on their asses and have some politician take money out of my pocket and give it to them, I would prefer they starve.

December 18, 2007, morning. It is hard for me to understand why civilized countries cannot more readily agree on what they should do to combat barbarism in the world. The deluded and the power-hungry have hijacked a religion and are twisting it and turning it into a force for evil in the world. They readily agree that they are targeting Western civilization. While some entire countries force their citizens to abide by Sharia law, most terrorist acts are led by and carried out by believers who owe allegiance not to a nation-state, but to a religious leader. What do we do when we capture such fighters? How do we deal with stateless terrorists who wear no uniform and adhere to no codes or laws but their religious ones?

We cannot agree on what we should do. We need a new Geneva Convention to provide guidance on the treatment of combatants who are conducting a terrorist war on behalf of, not a country, but on behalf of religious leaders who have convinced them that their religion is more important than their lives. There is no fanatic like a religious fanatic. 

Criminal courts cannot deal with the problem. Terrorists are not committing crimes in the traditional sense. Traditional courts cannot deal with the problem. One mistake can cost hundreds or thousands of lives. This is a war, whether the West agrees or not, but the battlefield is wherever, many targets are civilian, and the "soldiers" wear no uniforms and abide by no rules of civilized conduct.

Our priorities are screwed up. We should not be dealing with this problem in isolation. 

December 14, 2007, morning. In real life, cream rises to the top. In the cesspool of politics, scum rises to the top. It's the silly season, and the candidates are bashing one another now.

December 13, 2007, evening. I live just northwest of Austin, TX. The local marketing campaign urges us to "Keep Austin Weird". There is probably little danger of Austin ever being anything other than weird. They are not as weird as Berkley. Hell, Berkley is just to the left of Hugo Chavez, but Austin tries.

Austin is a "sanctuary city". In other words, the Austin City Council forces its employees to ignore criminal activities by persons who are in violation of federal law. Austin is a city that does not believe in the rule of law. The City Council is above the law.

Austin has also repealed the laws of economics. They have instituted a "living wage" that requires that companies doing business with the city pay their employees what the People's Commissars, I mean City Council, dictates they be paid, not what their labor is worth in a fair marketplace with a level playing field. So, the city imposes taxes on everyone, hires companies at above-market fees so they must pay employees inflated wages to transfer wealth from one class of taxpayers to another without their consent.

Why am I picking on Austin? Because they're there (and all this is true, so they deserve it). They are not really more arrogant and elitist than many other city councils. Nor are they less arrogant and elitist.

Will they follow San Francisco's lead? I heard today that the San Francisco Unified School District Board was allowing JROTC to operate one more year, but after that, it would be banned. Why? JROTC is associated with the military (REALLY?), and the military is homophobic; therefore JROTC must be banned. The perceived value of JROTC instruction by student participants is very high. The fact that 74% of student cadets felt "safe and appreciated" in high school because of the program is irrelevant. The school board will dictate how students must think. And that, my friends, is that! Of course, the leftist media labeled the one-year extension a pro-war move and described JROTC as "war training". Sad. Really sad that some people hate our country so much that they have to deny school kids freedom of thought, the freedom to try out the training to decide whether they might want to continue and serve their country in the military.

Equal Opportunity Bashing. Some outfit that calls itself the Heritage Alliance decided that, since I am on both the National Do Not Call List and the Texas No Call List, I am exactly the sort of person who would love to receive an unsolicited automated pre-recorded phone message to hear a 45-second message by Pat Summerall talking about how our country was founded on Judeo-Christian values.

I emailed this organization the following response to info@heritagealliance.com:

Subject: A message on how our country was founded on Deist values
Attachments: 

Since you called me at home with a pre-recorded message about religion,
it seems obvious that you are soliciting a dialog about religion in
American politics.

Thank you for the invitation. It is a subject I enjoy discussing,
especially with deluded fundamentalists like evangelical Christians.

Our country was founded by Deists and freethinkers such as Thomas
Jefferson, John Adams and Benjamin Franklin. The Declaration of
Independence makes clear references to "The Creator" and "Nature's God",
which is how Thomas Jefferson made it clear that he was invoking the
Deist concept of the deity in our Declaration. There is not one word in
there about Christ or Christianity. Jefferson, of course, supported the
notion of "a wall of separation" between church and state, a principle I
hold most dear. One of my favorite Jefferson quotes comes from 1787:
"Question with boldness even the existence of a god; because if there be
one he must approve of the homage of reason more than that of
blindfolded fear." Clearly agnosticism leaning towards Deism.

The Heritage Alliance, an organization that claims to honor our heritage
and traditions, must of course recognize that the word "God" appears in
our Constitution exactly zero times. On the other hand, our founders
were very careful to require in the Constitution that "no religious Test
shall ever be required as a Qualification to any Office or public Trust
under the United States". Oddly, the Heritage Alliance seems to grade
legislators on their adherence to Christian religious principles, which
appears to be an unconstitutional religious test that legislators must
pass to qualify for office in the eyes of the Heritage Alliance. I would
love to hear an explanation for this dichotomy.

Again, thank you for soliciting this dialog. Should you change your mind
and want to stop receiving email from me, please reply and ask to be
removed from my address book. Otherwise, I must conclude that you wish
for the free exchange of ideas to continue.

C. H. C.
Cedar Park, TX

November 26, 2007, evening. Back to The Economics of Public Issues. The authors point out that in politics, as in economics, everything comes at a cost. Politicians operate on assumptions, projections, soft numbers. They don't necessarily want you to see true costs. They want you to see what they want you to see.

E.F. Schumacher wrote an interesting book some years back entitled Thinking Small: Economics as if People Mattered. I didn't buy into everything it offered, but it did provide some interesting ideas for me to ponder. The key thing I remember is that incomplete accounting - faulty balance sheets - provide a very poor idea of what goods and services really cost. If a manufacturer spews pollutants into a waterway or the water table at no cost, the true cost of that manufacturer's goods is based on faulty information. The cost of the cleanup must be factored in. Otherwise, you do not know the true cost of that manufacturer's goods. If a factory produces toxic waste, the cost of disposal is a cost of production.

A current issue is a good example of selective and inaccurate cost accounting. What is the true cost of illegal immigration? 

A misleading statement I hear often (and I think it is intentionally misleading) is that illegal immigrants are doing jobs that Americans won't do. A more accurate statement is that illegal immigrants will work at tough jobs for lower wages than an American worker will accept. I live in Texas. If someone is in the roofing business, and they go out to find workers who will crawl around on rooftops in 100 degree weather at $9 per hour, they can find illegal aliens who will do it at those wages. An American skilled laborer will not perform that obscenely hot and back-breaking labor for less than $11 an hour (these are just made-up numbers used to provide an example). Pretty soon, any contractor who tries to compete with American workers against contractors who use cheaper illegal labor finds that he is getting his ass kicked. People want to replace roofs at the lowest costs. Insurance companies only want to pay the lowest bidder. Soon, unless you hire illegals, you are going to go out of business. Contractors, by law, should not be able to hire illegal labor to undercut traditional labor costs. The playing field is no longer level in many industries, and illegal immigration is to blame. 

Illegal is illegal. If someone was undercutting the competition by using slave labor, there would be a hue and cry from everywhere. Someone would go to prison, and this is a certainty. But when someone breaks the law by using illegal labor, we hear a different tune. And if we complain or point out the fundamental unfairness of this practice, we are called "racists". Hmm. Last I heard, Hispanics are Caucasians. So some have come up with a new pejorative: "nativist". So you are now a terrible person if you prefer native-born Americans over illegal aliens. Go figure.

But my simple example above does not come even close to providing a true cost accounting for illegal immigration. What are the education costs for the children of illegal aliens? What are the medical costs? What are the non-monetary costs? What are the costs incurred by victims of crimes committed by illegal aliens? What is the cost in terms of human suffering for the victims of rapists, sex offenders, drunken drivers and violent criminals who just happen to be in the country illegally?

How much does that roof really cost if you include all the TRUE costs of that "cheap" labor? 

November 26, 2007, morning. Ah, a crisp fall morning. A brisk walk has my brain churning.

I've started reading The Economics of Public Issues. It is a very good book. This edition was published in 2003. I got it a Half Price Books, one of the wonderful places on the planet. I didn't have to read too far before my mind began to wander and ponder the fact that politicians are coming preciously close to really screwing up our country. And we are at fault.

We? Yes, we. We, the voters of this great nation are letting politicians ruin the country. We are apathetic and uninformed, and, God help us, some of us vote. We don't know squat about what the country needs, but some of us still run out and vote for someone who hardly knows more than we do. 

Neal Boortz has posited that stupid people should not be allowed to vote. That is a great idea, but who would decide who is stupid? Aye, there's the rub.

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