The Magic Market Meets the Covid Pandemic

The Magic Market, or, more precisely, Magical Market Thinking, has met the Covid-19 Pandemic and been found wanting. Magical Market Thinking, the fantasy that Capitalism and the Free Market can address every problem better, faster, and more completely, has been ascendant among the proselytizers and acolytes of Capitalism for several decades and has now found a home in the White House in the persons of Larry Kudlow, Peter Navarro, and the President himself, Donald Trump. Whatever the problem, whatever the outcome desired, all they have to do is wave the Magic Market Wand and everything will work out fine. Need healthcare, let the Market do it. Need education, let the Market do it. Need to solve inequality, let the market do it. No problem is too big or too complex that the Market cannot solve. (Never mind that the Market has been doing its thing in the US for several hundred years and we are no closer to solving these problems than we were at the beginning.) These beliefs can lead to poor policy decisions and, sometimes, very bad outcomes. They can blind policymakers to urgent problems that need to be addressed in a different way. They also led to the single most monumentally stupid decision by a President in the middle of a crisis - Trump changing our policy for dealing with a health crisis during the biggest pandemic in 100 years without warning, consultation, public discussion, or preparation. The abrupt change from a Federal Government lead assault on the crisis where the Feds help to coordinate the response and supply assistance when necessary to one where every state and even individual hospitals are on their own and fighting it out in the markets for supplies is akin to the US being invaded and the President declaring that he wasn’t going to use the military to fight it, but each state would have to get their own tanks and planes to do it. Trump is the general who sits in his tent, holding back his troops, while the outcome of the battle raging around him remains in the balance. No one outside the administration was aware the change was going to happen so when it was thrust upon the country, the public and private sectors were unprepared. There is a discussion worth having about whether the Federal Government, the states, or some mixture is the proper way to meet such pandemics, but in this case there was just a unilateral, unannounced determination by Trump that the Federal Government would not lead in this crisis, but also would not serve as the supplier of last resort to aid those places which were overwhelmed. Had the states, cities, and healthcare system known that this was going to be the case, they could have planned better for how to meet the crisis. The same goes for the private sector, which would have worked with the public sector to parse out production and supply lines so that it did not turn into the Wild West where everyone competed separately for limited supplies, driving up prices and creating scarcities. But that is the Magic for its proponents, especially Trump. Demand and high prices, market signals, would draw more providers in and solve the problems of shortages. How did Magical Market Thinking do with the Pandemic? It’s too soon for a final answer, but not too soon for a definitive one. Markets performed well, but too slowly and inefficiently to keep the potential pandemic from becoming a real one. A lot of companies responded, but no matter how quickly, they were starting at a standstill and unprepared for the speed of response required. To the extent that supply has met demand, it is due more to efforts to slow or halt the spread of the virus than it is to increased supply. Had the initial rate of spread prevailed, the healthcare system in many places would have been overwhelmed no matter what the supply increase was. And some critical supplies, such as PPE, remain far short of need. It is not fair to blame the private sector for this shortcoming; they were just as surprised by the policy change as anyone. It took longer for them to realize just what their mission was and slowed their response. When you have a crisis where the only thing you cannot waste is time, any lag is too much. It only allows for the further spread of the virus. Why would such a destructive change be made so abruptly and secretly in the middle of a crisis? Other than the mercurial nature of the President, that is. Magical Market Thinking and the use of The Magic Market Wand have led Trump to this moment. His absolute belief in the power of the Magic Market to save the day. All that was needed was to let loose the Animal Spirits and the pandemic would be beaten, defeated utterly. The Market would seamlessly move to ramp up to meet the challenge. The Gospel of Capitalism and unfailing Market Success are the roots of this. But Capitalism is not a religion and the Market does not perform miracles. There is no economic system more powerful than Capitalism and nothing more efficient than the Market, but there are times where they are insufficient to meet the challenge of the moment. The damage is not limited to the Covid response, either. It is no coincidence that as Magical Market Thinking has ascended, the attraction of socialism among the young has too. They see that Capitalism is failing them and many of those around them and are looking for an alternative. The inflated claims cannot be met in reality and this failure has disillusioned many. We saw a similar outcome in post-colonial countries which embraced Socialism in counterpart to the Capitalism of the colonial overlords. So, let’s put down the Wand, start thinking clearly, and begin to tackle the pandemic the most effective way, leadership from the top.

The Worst President In History, But Not Why You Think

Two polls of historians have been held since Donald Trump became President. He tied for last. It’s not hard to see why. He wants to kill us with poison, put children in cages, shoot us down like dogs in the street, and promote White Supremacy and Neo-Nazi ideologies. He degrades women, African Americans, and Native Americans. He lies – several dozen times daily – while tweeting vile garbage of every kind from his porcelain throne. He loves our enemies and savages our friends. He wants to imprison his enemies and create a kleptocracy for his family and friends. He foments violence and racism wherever he can. He has dismantled our State Department and emasculated our intelligence services. He uses the military as props for his political theater. He schemes to corrupt our elections. Rather than marshal all the country’s resources and unite us together to mount a massive assault on the Covid – 19 threat, he chose to pick petty fights. He couldn’t damage our domestic and foreign policies any more effectively than if he were doing it deliberately. But none of that is what makes him the worst president in history. He is the worst because he could have been so much more, a potentially transformative figure along the lines of Lincoln, Roosevelt, or even Washington. When he took office, he had the GOP in his back pocket and the Democrats in disarray. All he had to do was move to the center and use his clout over the GOP to keep them in line and provide enough sweeteners to attract the Dems. He could have passed a generation’s worth of legislation in his first two years. He even got Nancy Pelosi to offer him $25 billion for his wall in exchange for the Dreamers and all he had to do was say yes. He had an agreement on an infrastructure plan if he could have seen a way to do it. He has had very few defectors in the GOP no matter what the bill with the exception of the repeal of Obamacare. The moment was made for him to bring the two sides together to push through immigration reform, tax reform, an infrastructure program, and even health care reform that required both parties to successfully address. But Trump was not made for the moment. He didn’t have a clue what to do or how to do it. If he had even an ounce of strategic vision or political acumen, he would have recognized where he stood. But, alas, he has neither. And, apparently, no one else in the GOP did either. He chose instead to be a petty, vindictive ignoramus who spent his four years in one tiny cesspool after another as he chased demons only he could see. Trump decided to carry on his petty squabbles, insults, and grandstanding, while the rest of his party schemed how to give the money to the rich and manipulate the system to try to remain in power. It was a stunning display of incompetence that may have no parallel in American history. There has never been another President who did so little with so much. Someone who stood on the cusp of greatness and chose instead to wallow in the manure. What would drive him to make this choice, especially for a man so desperate for adoration, which he surely would have gotten by the bucketful if he had chosen the path open to him. It may never be known, but clearly Trump has no ability to understand what he is presented with and no idea how to self-reflect on how to change his course or on what he has lost. It is clear that Trump’s growing list of outrages, incompetencies, lies, and pettiness will get longer and the nation’s appraisal of him as the worst President in history will grow, but that only makes the true depth of his awful choice to be a petty would-be tyrant instead of a transformational leader all the more clear. To paraphrase Shakespeare, some people are born failures, some achieve failure, and some have failure thrust upon them. Trump will be unique. He is a failure and the worst president in history because he chose to be.

Random Thoughts on A President Who Lives in A Random Universe

As we approach the election, a few random thoughts on a President who lives in a Random Universe. Trump is disappointed that he never won an Emmy for the Apprentice. Given his convincing portrayal of a racist, misogynist, anti-Semitic, White Supremacist President he absolutely deserves one. He says that’s not who he is which makes the performance all the more authentic. Donald Trump says he’s the chosen one. In the year after he was sworn in, the US was hit by 3 Category 4 hurricanes, Biblical flooding in Texas and Louisiana, the largest mass shooting in US history, and the largest wild fires in California’s history to that time. And just when it looked like he was going to cruise to reelection on the strength of a strong economy, a pandemic struck that wrecked the economy, killed thousands of Americans, and threatens to send us into a depression deeper than the 1930s. And we may yet be wiped out the day before the election by an asteroid. Even the seemingly wonderful gift of a s\Supreme Court seat may prove to be a poisoned chalice instead. And now he has Covid. They say God works in mysterious ways, but I didn’t know he was a counterfactualist. Diogenes went forth with a lantern looking for an honest man. What does it say that it went out when he put it in Trump’s face? Trump is a money guy so you always look where he puts his money for what he really believes. Does he believe in Climate Change? He says he doesn’t but he is certainly putting a lot of money into building a sea wall to protect his property in Scotland for someone who doesn’t. If aliens came to Earth and asked Trump to sell the planet to them so they could use its people as cattle to feed their population, does anyone believe he’d take longer than 30 seconds to agree other than to haggle over the price? The only thing that anyone who put their eggs in Trump’s basket ever got was smashed or stolen eggs. No one has ever enjoyed a chicken dinner on Trump. Trump fancies himself a Mafia tough guy. He’s just a Cigar Store Don. He’s no more a Mafia Godfather than a cigar store wooden Indian is a Native American Chief. So stop flattering him. Trump’s a kiss up, kick down kind of guy. He kisses up to Putin, Xi, MBS, and Un then kicks down on everyone he disdains including a teenage climate activist, disabled people, women, minorities, and even dead people, especially soldiers. Trump loves to dish dirt on people. He and Stephen Miller must role play Mean Girls in the Oval office to get him in the mood. I wonder if they do cosplay. Trump has criticized Obama for his supposed Apology Tour, but even if true it still has nothing on The Trump Kiss the Feet of the Dictators Tour. Donald Trump whines like no other President before him. He must have the biggest “Kick Me!” sign on his backside. Trump says that he saved America from having 2 million deaths from Covid. That is true, but it’s also true for every other country in the world. China and India would have 4-5 times as many dead as the US if they had done the same job as Trump. The only other countries that have done as badly as the US, Mexico and Brazil, are run by Trump Left and Trump Right. Trump said before he was elected that he had a health insurance plan that was cheaper, covered everyone, and included anyone with a precondition. We have yet to see that plan, he still has it in his pocket. For all those without insurance, paying exorbitant amounts for coverage, or who have a preexisting health problem, ask yourself why he won’t stop your suffering. Why doesn’t he think you deserve the benefits of the plan he keeps tucked in his pocket? And why is it always two weeks away? Trump most reminds me of a 5-year-old who is trying to one up his friend “My dad can beat up Superman!” “My dad can beat Superman and the Hulk at the same time!” “We’ll give them something even more powerful than nuclear!” “They will be met with fire and fury like the world has never seen!” I find it interesting that almost no one from the intelligence or Federal law enforcement sectors endorsed Trump in 2016 or now. What do they know that they’re not telling us? Trump is one of those people who belong on a party line so that everyone can listen in to hear what he says. Can you hear me now Carl? One thing we know for sure, he wasn’t calling from his Panic Room. When Trump sees the forest fires destroy towns and kill or burn their residents, all he can think about is grooming the forest floor. I’d say give him a rake, but he’s never done a lick of manual labor in his life. Has there ever been anyone else so desperate for attention that he was willing to kill all his supporters and risk being left all alone? I guess we’re going to find out if he can kill 200,000 people and get away with it. The total obliviousness of Trump and his minions at his convention to the Covid virus casualties and the growing economic despair while he carries on like nothing has ever changed brings me memories of the prince in the Masque of the Red Death. Sometimes when I see Trump having a meltdown, I keep looking for those little steel balls to come out. Trump is doing his damnedest to fix his reelection. It appears golf is not the only thing he cheats at. Trump still doesn’t understand how Mitch McConnell made him the patsy in his own impeachment. Trump saying he didn’t collude with the Russians is like the guy who says he didn’t have an affair with his neighbor. Well, maybe he saw her a few times. Perhaps it was more than that. Ok, it was 128 times. Then there were all those phone calls. And isn’t it interesting that her new baby has his eyes? Donald the Quack -A quack is a “fraudulent or ignorant pretender to medical skill” or “a person who pretends, professionally or publicly, to have skill, knowledge, qualifications or credentials they do not poses: a charlatan or snake oil salesman.” Bleach anyone? Trump calls Kamala Harris a madwoman. The Mad Hatter thought everyone else was off their rocker and told them so. Trump has told more than 20,000 lies since he was sworn in. Is he a liar? He probably could pass any lie detector test because he doesn’t really know what truth is. Trump calls everyone names and ridicules them. He must have absolutely ruled the playground. He must long for the days when he was the only bully around. Too bad he’s no longer back there. Trump says being Presidential is easy, he can do it anytime. He’s like the guy who looks at a rowboat and boasts it would be really easy to row across the ocean. Once he’s out a little ways he starts whining “Who knew it was so hard?” Just everyone else His own advisors won’t let him testify. They know it would be like giving a 3-year-old a roll of tape and watching him get all balled up in it. Donald Trump whines like no other President before him. He must have the biggest “Kick Me!” sign on his backside. He also reminds me of the star High School quarterback who spends the rest of his life reliving his greatest moment of glory 30 years ago. Now he’s an overweight, potbellied snake oil salesman. Is there something I admire in Trump? He won a nomination and an election that absolutely no one thought he would. And, from the look on his face election night, he didn’t believe it either. That’s why he didn’t prepare, doesn’t try to learn anything, and operates from his gut. Considering that only junk food goes into that gut, it’s not surprising that only garbage comes out. The Fickle Finger of Fate touched him four years ago. He’s likely to get a different finger this time.

Why Learning From Your Mistakes Is Not Enough

It is well recognized these days to stress the impact that the methodology used for making decisions can have on the selection of those decisions. How one goes about making a decision and the structure within which the decision is made will have profound effects on what actions are considered and which is chosen. One approach will result in one set of options and decisions while another approach may yield an entirely different universe of values. Selection of an approach is very important to the eventual outcome and the probability of success. Regardless of the methodology, however, the recommended approaches seem to have some points in common that do not appear to be fully thought out. One of these is reviewing your past decisions and learning from them, in particular any mistakes that were made. While the importance and benefits of this is obvious, why would one wittingly screw up again, the importance of reviewing one’s successes curiously is not recognized. The stress is on not repeating past mistakes and using them to build up one’s base of knowledge and experience for future decisions rather than focusing in on how to perform at one’s peak. The hope is that future decision-making will be improved and fewer bad decisions made. The assumption of this approach is that successful decisions are their own reward and simply confirm the decision-maker’s ability. Such an attitude, however, can have very bad consequences. Just because a decision proves to be correct does not mean it will lead to correct decisions in the future. In fact, it may lead to precisely the opposite outcome. How can that be? In part the answer lies in how we perceive our ability to make correct decisions. Most of us flatter ourselves into thinking that we are better at making correct decisions than our track records warrant. If we are correct only 2 times out of 10 we will perceive that we were right more frequently and consequently be more confident in our powers of decision-making than is justified. We tend not to learn from our failures because it is our successes we focus on and magnify. It is a natural tendency to play down our failures and build up our successes, sometimes to the point of relying on a single success to rest our laurels on. Wall Street is replete with such “one hit wonders.” In general, people who make a lot of decisions believe they are doing better than they actually are, which can set the stage for bigger mistakes as confidence unwarrantedly increases. A second drawback in not evaluating our successes is that often we are right, but for the wrong reasons. If we do not examine how we arrived at the correct solution and that in fact our reasoning was valid, we will remember that we chose correctly and not that we did so for spurious reasons. When confronted with the same set of circumstances in the future we will remember that last time we got this right and repeat our same decision without much reflection. It is reminiscent of experiments with pigeons where researchers reward them with food when they make an odd body movement. Soon they walk around exhibiting this bizarre behavior “knowing” that will produce the desired results even though there is no real correlation with their behavior and the reward. This approach is fine if we got it all right the first time around and it truly is a similar situation, but a potential disaster if our reasoning process was flawed or the situation is altered somehow. Worse, since we have confidence in our decision-making abilities we are likely to raise the stakes, magnifying the potential damage. What are the real world implications of our delusions about thinking correctly? Recent history has been witness to financial disasters by investors and money managers who, after some extended period of success, have stumbled into financial disaster magnified by their inability to acknowledge their mistakes—Orange County, Barings Bank, the London Whale, and others. What they all seem to have in common are individuals convinced of the soundness of their capabilities as decision-makers and the fundamental rightness of their thinking as they sink further into a financial abyss. They see no reason to change their course because they “know” they are right. Other times the poor judgement manifests itself over an extended period and not in a spectacular flameout. Why is it that so few money managers can consistently do better than a monkey with a dart board? Funds that do well one year are dogs the next and over time do not do better than the average return. Could it be that initial success tends to straightjacket the thinking of these managers and so to repeat their “successes” with ever diminishing precision? The bottom line is that, just like learning from your mistakes, you should also learn from your successes. There are keys to success just as there are patterns of failure and both should be incorporated into one’s decision-making calculus. You should learn what allows you to perform at your best and repeat those patterns; you are looking to raise your performance level as well as keep it from dropping. A decision-maker also must evaluate whether the correct decisions in the past were due to luck or ability and whether or not conditions have changed so as to adversely affect previously correct decisions. Decision-makers must constantly recalibrate their thinking processes, fine-tuning their abilities with the latest available data on a regular basis. Otherwise, the stakes get higher, the mistakes bigger, and the headlines larger. The push for new modes of thought and approaches to decision-making carries with it the danger that they will not completely address the full series of challenges facing a business today. Even if implemented with the best of intentions and to the fullest extent possible, if these prescriptions are not complete they will at best buy time and at worst lead to spectacular failure. There are no magic bullets to ensure success. It takes hard work, discipline, and not a little daring to meet the challenges of the current and future competitive environment. Any new system or approach to decision-making must be examined carefully for incompleteness as well as to its perceived efficacy. If not, a decision-maker will mistakenly go confidently into battle with his flank exposed.

Thinking Outside The Box Is Just The Beginning

Another half-truth (See previous post on Why Learning From Your Mistakes Is Not Enough) about decision-making being promoted is “thinking outside the box.” Businesses want people who can think outside the existing structures, culture, and worldviews that govern the organization in the belief that such thinking will yield results that the firm can successfully exploit. Such entrepreneurial thinking is seen as allowing a firm to respond more nimbly to competition and not find it falling behind. The business can reinvent itself to meet the ever-changing environment and improve its chances of prolonging its existence. But is being able to “think outside the box” sufficient? Is that all that is required of the decision-maker? It would seem that the ability to think outside the box alone will not ensure success. All it may produce is a lot of ideas of unknown quality that the business, used to one way of operating, is ill-equipped to evaluate and successfully implement. What is required is that the process of thinking outside the box provide new structures, worldviews, and processes by which the ideas can be evaluated as to their quality and how best to implement them for maximum success. To construct a new box, in other words, in which to successfully move the business forward. Then you have to be able to think outside that structure for the inevitable turning of the cycle to a new environment. It is a constant state of destruction, construction, destruction, and on ad infinitum. A good analogy might be the relationship between a hitter and a pitcher over their opposing careers. When the batter gains the edge over the pitcher, the pitcher has to figure out a way to adjust his pitching to get ahead again. It is then incumbent upon the batter to adjust to the new pitching style to avoid striking out. As they face each other in a game and over the course of a season, they are constantly reworking their strategy to stay one step ahead of their competitor. Then they start all over again the next year. The danger of creating new structures is that, successful though they may be, they tend to focus thinking into the new paradigm and away from new ideas. The natural tendency is to push forward into new territory gradually and settle down to enjoy the fruits of one’s labors. If you do that, however, you risk being passed by those more willing to push into terra incognito and explore all its potential riches and dangers. Unlike the common wisdom that settling down and building a life in one place is the best course, modern businesses must be more like Daniel Boone, moving further into the wilderness as the neighborhood fills up. Modern businesses must be Pioneers of the Future and not Builders of the Pyramids. Apple may be the best representation of this phenomenon today, which is what has made them so successful. It is also why Apple takes a hit whenever the market thinks they’ve run out of new, transformative ideas. Apple cannot rest on its past successes – just ask Motorola, Nokia, or Blackberry if that is a viable strategy. Thinking outside the box is not always rewarded, though, as Microsoft can attest. Trapped by its legacy programs and customers unwilling to make the leap with it, the attempts by Microsoft to bust out of the Windows box have been largely unsuccessful. Microsoft, in order to break free, would have to do something entirely different, a leap forward past itself and its rivals. Depending on how and what it did, Microsoft could keep its legacy products or cannibalize the old lines as the new product takes over. If they kept the existing products there would have to be a commitment to upgrading and improving them to keep the old customers while the new line attracted different ones. Cannibalizing the old line may be the best long term strategy, but is fraught with the danger that the new line is less successful and leave Microsoft worse off rather than better. The push for new modes of thought and approaches to decision-making carries with it the danger that they will not completely address the full series of challenges facing a business today. Even if implemented with the best of intentions and to the fullest extent possible, if these prescriptions are not complete they will at best buy time and at worst lead to spectacular failure. There are no magic bullets to ensure success. It takes hard work, discipline, and not a little daring to meet the challenges of the current and future competitive environment. Any new system or approach to decision-making must be examined carefully for incompleteness as well as to its perceived efficacy.

Capital Punishment is Inherently Cruel

At the heart of the recently argued case by the Supreme Court, Moore vs. Texas, is a simple question, how smart do you have to be to be executed? It joins a stellar lineup of previous capital punishment cases with a long list of seminal, unresolved issues: , How young is too young, How crazy is too crazy, How racist is too racist a jury, How incompetent is too incompetent representation, How late is too late an appeal, How much brain damage is too much damage How much withheld information is too much information We are no longer arguing over the merits of capital punishment, we are arguing over the details of its demise. That extends to the current method of execution. Lethal injection has a long and illustrious list of predecessors: Burning at the Stake Crucifixion Stoning Drawing and Quartering Beheading Hanging Firing Squad Electric Chair Gas Chamber The early methods were not chosen for their justice, but for their cruelty. Capital punishment was meant to be cruel, else why were burning at the stake or drawing and quartering chosen? They were chosen to scare and intimidate, so they were brutal and public. While it is argued that capital punishment is a deterrent, its history suggests otherwise. Even when capital punishment was at its cruelest and most capricious, people still engaged in activities that would get them executed. How effective a deterrent can today’s humane, hidden executions be if these others failed? Throughout the arc of history, societies have searched for more acceptable methods of execution. It is an acknowledgement that what they want is something less cruel and less public for executing people. The current execution proponents have tried to shield us from this cruelty by hiding it away so that now it is safe from prying eyes in windowless rooms with a curtain that can be drawn whenever too much cruelty appears. They know this is the only way they can continue doing it. The current method of punishment is acknowledged to be cruel as a historical matter; it is also unusual in both senses of that word – uncommon and strange. Capital punishment is no longer used as a deterrent or even revenge. It is used when we’re shocked, disgusted, or outraged by a crime. The logical connection between crime and punishment has been severed; it has relevance only to our level of sensitivity to a crime. Given the rise of torture porn and its ilk, the level of desensitivity will continue to rise, leaving only the unimaginably shocking cases as acceptable. Even that may not last long and we will be executing only a disfavored few. Capital punishment long ago lost its legitimacy when executions were no longer held in public, when lynchings were rampant, when they tried to make it less cruel, when they tried to hide the executioners and their tools from scrutiny, when innocence was no longer theoretical but proven, when they continued to prosecute defendants when it was clear they were not involved. Capital punishment has also lost legitimacy because of the proponents seeming indifference as to the correctness of their convictions. They have chosen speed over justice as their goal, ignoring the questions that have bedeviled many convictions and pushed onward towards execution. Too much junk science Too much tainted evidence Too much misconduct Too incompetent the counsel Too late the appeal Too much contradictory evidence What of the victims, should they not have a say in whether to execute or not? That would add yet another layer of capriciousness to an already irretrievably capricious system of selecting who should be executed. And what if they change their minds later, do we change the sentence? What if they said no, would we then not execute the killer? Capital punishment is inherently cruel, what else could snuffing out a life be? Capital punishment is unusual – so few receive it and in increasingly bizarre ways. Capital punishment deserves to go, the question is very simple for the Supreme Court, “Are you smart enough to execute it?”

The Biggest Chicken(Bleep) President Ever

So, your GOP Senate friends are going to throw you a show trial where the fix is already in? I am elated. Elated, overjoyed, besides myself with glee, almost giddy with happiness. For this ensures that you will go down in history as the Most Chicken(Bleep) President Ever. You think they’re doing you a giant favor, but they aren’t doing this for you. They know if they allow any evidence and acquit you anyway, it’s they who will go down in infamy. They won’t allow witnesses. Why? Because they know the witnesses will show you’re guilty, you’re a cheat, incompetent at your job, a traitor, and a profoundly cowardly juvenile. Even if they lied it would be obvious to everyone. The thought of putting you on the stand makes them absolutely pee their pants in fright. It would be like watching a 5-year old with a roll of tape as you entangled yourself in your deceits and fantasies. Worse, you might tell the truth. So, you should say “Thank you, Mitch!” and “Thank you, Lindsay!” for cementing your legacy for posterity, the Biggest Chicken(Bleep) President of All Time, who had to have a rigged trial in order to get off. You’re always the one who leaves the suckers holding the empty bag, but this time you get left holding the bag of chicken (Bleep). I am absolutely agog with delight at the prospect.

Why Religious Freedom And States' Rights Create A Strong Federal Government

The irony of the fight over the provision of birth control by religious organizations and state control over such things as immigration is that the proponents of the primacy of religious freedom and states' rights provide the most convincing case for why we have federal laws and programs. It is the failure of private organizations and states to protect and guarantee the exercise of civil rights for everyone that leads to the passage of laws and creation of programs to rectify this failure. The Federal response has been as a countervailing force to ensure that civil liberties are not dependent on who you are or where you live.
Our constitution does not allow for a differentiation in the protection, exercise, or enumeration of rights dependent on whether you are male or female, black or white, Alabaman or Iowan, gay or straight, Jewish or Atheist. A Catholic Latina woman in LA should have the same rights and free expression thereof as a male WASP in NY. Americans have the same basic rights regardless and any denial, restriction, or differentiation is unconstitutional. It is precisely this failure to adhere to this constitutional principle by private and religious organizations, businesses, and states that prompted the intrusion of the Federal government to enforce the protection of the rights of everyone in all circumstances.
You do not have to go far back into history to find Jim Crow laws, restrictive real estate covenants, denial of admission into colleges, job discrimination, and many other instances of violations of the rights of some class of people to realize that the exercise of religious freedom and states’ rights has been used in large part to suppress a political, social, ethnic, or gender group that is deemed less worthy. There are echoes of this in the current controversies with states trying to suppress voting by voter ID laws and loss of rights by felons, depictions of Obama as a monkey, or churches denying coverage for things they object to on religious grounds. Bob Jones University objected to interracial dating on religious grounds – is that so different?
It is fashionable now to argue that The Civil War (or The War of Northern Aggression as it is known in the South) was fought not about slavery, but about states’ rights. Perhaps, but the state right they fought for was the right to own Black people and treat them as they saw fit.
The Catholic Church wants to protect the unborn, yet failed to protect the rights of the already born from predatory pedophile priests.
There is nothing inherent in these two, just how they are practiced.
One of the problems, particularly for religious institutions, is that they venture into the public realm when they move beyond merely running a religious house to operate schools, hospitals, and charities. As befits most religions, these institutions are open to all, or at least most, and serve as an extension of their religious service. It is precisely this openness, though, that creates the problem of constitutional equality. These institutions, in some broad sense, no longer serve merely as extensions of the religious institution, but as providers of a public good that requires them to provide constitutional equality to all their employees and clients. It is particularly incumbent on those who provide services in areas and ways that are otherwise not well served.
It is not incumbent solely on government to ensure our civil liberties are respected and their exercise freely available. It is also the responsibility of the private and non-profit sectors to be guardians of our rights. We do not give up our rights when we walk through a door to work or move to another state. We have the same rights and the same freedoms to exercise those rights no matter who we are or where we live. There are some allowances made for practical restrictions, such as political speech in a workplace, but these apply to everyone, not just a subset of the workforce.
It is unclear just what has pushed these two issues to the forefront. Proponents state it is because of the overbearing intrusion of the Federal government. Cynics might say it is a political foil to defeat Democrats. Conspiricists might say it is to once again allow for discriminatory behavior as in the old days.
In a conversation a few years ago, I expressed my dismay at why there was such a push on for returning so many powers to the states. “Don’t they remember what it was like back when states ran things?” I asked. To which my good, Republican mother answered, “Perhaps they do.”

Poem For September 11

FOR THE FALLEN

In The Unblinking Eye
We Watched You Fall
We Turned Away
But Your Image Remained

We Knew You
Our Fellow Travelers
Taking A Journey
None Had Prepared

The Journeys You Led
Taken From Your Grasp
Given To Others
For Completion

We Tread Now
In Your Footsteps
Your Past
Serving As Our Guide

Where Do We Go
When We Reach Your Last Step
The Way Ahead
Unmarked

Then We See
Like Fireflies At Night
Your Dreams
Leading Us Onward

We Shall Miss You
Fellow Travelers
Our Hearts, Our Souls
Cry In Loss

But You Shall Rise Again
Forever In Our Lives
And Not Be Forgotten
Nor Your Works Ignored

When We Gather
All Our Memories
And Tell the Old Anew
You Shall Be There

And When All Is Past
And All Is Finished
We Shall See You
In God’s Unblinking Eye

Tech Connection

Technorati Profile

TET Is Not The Best Comparison

Much is being made of late that the current situation in Iraq is similar to the 1968 TET offensive in Vietnam. I think the more accurate comparison would be further back in history - Hitler's invasion of the Soviet Union in 1941 or Napoleon's invasion of Russia in 1812. In both cases the invading army was pushed forward by leaders who sent their troops into battle ill-equipped for a long-term war, so certain were they of immediate victory. Initially, both invasions were wildly successful, but the lack of a long-term plan and insufficient resources lead to their defeats. Both invasions were defeated in large part by guerilla-style warfare that their troops were not trained to defeat. President Bush is finding, as did Napoleon and Hitler before him, that taking ground is not the same as winning the war.

Safekeeping Our Freedoms

With the five year anniversary of the attack on the World Trade Center towers, the price we have paid in lost liberties has become more apparent. What is disturbing about this loss is not the willingness of the general population to forgo their freedoms in the hope of securing more safety, but the ease with which those in power convinced themselves to take them. As technology progresses, the ability to restrict our freedoms becomes easier and it will only be by the virtues of those in positions of power that we will maintain them. The reaction of the Bush administration does not give comfort that we will be in good hands