I usually write all my own blog material, rather than quote others or cite some other source just to fill space and keep current.  However, today I am making an exception, for reasons that will be clear when you read this.  While I have not verified this independently, I understand that this is a real letter that a small businessman wrote to his employees.  It expresses more eloquently and poignantly than I can the crossroads we are at as a country:  whether we will continue to encourage in the human spirit those values and ideals that made America great and prosperous, or whether we will sacrifice those virtues in exchange for the mediocrity and pudgy, starch-fed lethargy that have become the hallmarks of the citizens of the semi-socialist European countries.  The choice is before us.

To All My Valued Employees,

There have been some rumblings around the office about the future of this company, and more specifically, your job. As you know, the economy has changed for the worse and presents many challenges. However, the good news is this: The economy doesn’t pose a threat to your job. What does threaten your job however, is the changing political landscape in this country.

However, let me tell you some little tidbits of fact, which might help you decide what is in your best interests.

First, while it is easy to spew rhetoric that casts employers against employees, you have to understand that for every business owner there is a back-story. This back-story is often neglected and overshadowed by what you see and hear. Sure, you see me park my Mercedes outside. You’ve seen my big home at last year’s Christmas party. I’m sure all these flashy icons of luxury conjure up some idealized thoughts about my life.

However, what you don’t see is the back-story.

I started this company 28 years ago. At that time, I lived in a 300 square foot studio apartment for 3 years. My entire living apartment was converted into an office so I could put forth 100% effort into building a company, which by the way, would eventually employ you.

My diet consisted of Ramen Pride noodles because every dollar I spent went back into this company. I drove a rusty Toyota Corolla with a defective transmission. I didn’t have time to date. Oftentimes, I stayed home on weekends, while my friends went out drinking and partying. In fact, I was married to my business — hard work, discipline, and sacrifice.

Meanwhile, my friends got jobs. They worked 40 hours a week and made a modest $50K a year and spent every dime they earned. They drove flashy cars and lived in expensive homes and wore fancy designer clothes. Instead of hitting the Nordstrom’s for the latest hot fashion item, I was trolling through the discount store extracting any clothing item that didn’t look like it was birthed in the 70’s. My friends refinanced their mortgages and lived a life of luxury. I, however, did not. I put my time, my money, and my life into a business with a vision that eventually, some day, I too, will be able to afford these luxuries my friends supposedly had.

So, while you physically arrive at the office at 9am, mentally check in at about noon, and then leave at 5pm, I don’t. There is no “off” button for me. When you leave the office, you are done and you have a weekend all to yourself. I unfortunately do not have the freedom. I eat, and breathe this company every minute of the day. There is no rest. There is no weekend. There is no happy hour. Every day this business is attached to my hip like a 1 year old special-needs child. You, of course, only see the fruits of that garden — the nice house, the Mercedes, the vacations . . . you never realize the back-story and the sacrifices I’ve made.

Now, the economy is falling apart and I, the guy that made all the right decisions and saved his money, have to bail-out all the people who didn’t. The people that overspent their paychecks suddenly feel entitled to the same luxuries that I earned and sacrificed a decade of my life for.

Yes, business ownership has is benefits but the price I’ve paid is steep and not without wounds.

Unfortunately, the cost of running this business, and employing you, is starting to eclipse the threshold of marginal benefit and let me tell you why:

I am being taxed to death and the government thinks I don’t pay enough. I have state taxes. Federal taxes. Property taxes. Sales and use taxes. Payroll taxes. Workers compensation taxes. Unemployment taxes. Taxes on taxes. I have to hire a tax man to manage all these taxes and then guess what? I have to pay taxes for employing him. Government mandates and regulations and all the accounting that goes with it, now occupy most of my time. On Oct 15th, I wrote a check to the US Treasury for $288,000 for quarterly taxes. You know what my “stimulus” check was? Zero. Nada. Zilch.

The question I have is this: Who is stimulating the economy? Me, the guy who has provided 14 people good paying jobs and serves over 2,200,000 people per year with a flourishing business? Or, the single mother sitting at home pregnant with her fourth child waiting for her next welfare check? Obviously, government feels the latter is the economic stimulus of this country.

The fact is, if I deducted (Read: Stole) 50% of your paycheck you’d quit and you wouldn’t work here. I mean, why should you? That’s nuts. Who wants to get rewarded only 50% of their hard work? Well, I agree which is why your job is in jeopardy.

Here is what many of you don’t understand . . . to stimulate the economy you need to stimulate what runs the economy. Had suddenly government mandated to me that I didn’t need to pay taxes, guess what? Instead of depositing that $288,000 into the Washington black-hole, I would have spent it, hired more employees, and generated substantial economic growth. My employees would have enjoyed the wealth of that tax cut in the form of promotions and better salaries. But you can forget it now.

When you have a comatose man on the verge of death, you don’t defibrillate and shock his thumb thinking that will bring him back to life, do you? Or, do you defibrillate his heart? Business is at the heart of America and always has been. To restart it, you must stimulate it, not kill it. Suddenly, the power brokers in Washington believe the poor of America are the essential drivers of the American economic engine. Nothing could be further from the truth and this is the type of change you can keep.

So where am I going with all this?

If any new taxes are levied on me, or my company, my reaction will be swift and simple. I fire you. I fire your co-workers. You can then plead with the government to pay for your mortgage, your SUV, and your child’s future. Frankly, it isn’t my problem any more.

Then, I will close this company down, move to another country, and retire.. You see, I’m done. I’m done with a country that penalizes the productive and gives to the unproductive. My motivation to work and to provide jobs will be destroyed, and with it, will be my citizenship.

So, if you lose your job, it won’t be at the hands of the economy; it will be at the hands of a political hurricane that swept through this country, steamrolled the constitution, and will have changed its landscape forever.

If that happens, you can find me sitting on a beach, retired, and with no employees to worry about . . .

Signed,

Your boss

CJ Galiano

No related posts.

The New York Times recently published an editorial by Nicholas Kristof citing several studies showing that conservatives not only give more money to charity overall, but give a greater percentage of their income to charity (“Bleeding Heart Tightwads,” Dec. 20, 2008). And lest anyone makes assumptions that people with more money need tax write-offs and are more likely to be conservative, let me add that the studies also concluded that: the working poor give a greater percentage of their income to charity; conservatives more often volunteer to help charitable causes than liberals; and conservatives donate more blood than liberals. Thus, the amount of money one has is not an accurate proxy for calculating how charitable one is.

To anyone but a conservative, these findings are probably a surprise. That is because there is a world of difference between what political conservatives and political liberals regard as “compassion.” In a nutshell: to the conservative, compassion is simply helping a poor person in need; to the liberal, it is telling someone richer than he is to help a poor person in need.

For many years now, the liberals have been able to bank, politically, on the notion that you can be “compassionate” simply by wanting to help the poor—whether or not you actually help them. Thus, the liberal Congressman casts himself as compassionate because the liberal wants to give one person’s money to another person under the mistaken notion that the other person deserves it more than the person who had it in the first place. In comparison, the conservative politician is cast as a stingy, greedy, heartless individual simply because he does not see why the government should be allowed to take one person’s earnings and give it to another person.

This has translated down into our culture as well, so that one can call himself “compassionate” not because he himself shows compassion, but simply because he votes for liberal politicians and favors liberal causes. The essence of the liberal’s position vis-à-vis the needy is not, “I will help you,” but instead “I will force someone else to help you.” Through this subterfuge, the liberal can rationalize to himself that he is doing his part to help the needy. Thus, Mr. Kristof casts Democrats as those “who speak passionately about the hungry and homeless,” and Republicans as “the ones who try to cut health insurance for children.” But what Mr. Kristof fails to appreciate is that he is merely exposing his own impoverished viewpoint. To him, government policy, alone, constitutes the sum of America’s social conscience.

Time and again, I am confronted by this crabbed imitation of true compassion. What the liberals fail to realize is that you can neither stimulate nor salve a conscience through enforced “charity.” It is neither “compassionate” nor “charitable” to compel a wealthy person to give portions of his bounty to the downtrodden. It is nobler and more rewarding to give freely—something that conservatives apparently understand better than liberals, judging by the studies.

But even more, compassion is not about money, and money is not how to measure moral obligation. In the end, the only rational assessment of the liberal-inspired masquerade of compassion is that it has nothing at all to do with true compassion, but is simply a sterile and completely misguided egalitarian notion of wealth redistribution. Compassion is a human virtue, and a human emotion. The government, being an institution, is not capable of bestowing compassion. It is neither “compassionate” nor “charitable” to give a poor person a government-issued check or voucher to which he is entitled simply by virtue of meeting a laundry list of objective criteria.

This is precisely why the liberals cling to government handouts rather than encourage and rely upon private charities. Their own elitist pride cannot entertain the idea that anyone might have to entreat anyone else for charity. Instead, it is much more comfortable to submit a form to a cold and faceless institution under the pretense that you are entitled to it, where you will not be subjected to anyone’s judgment or pity.

Granted, it is difficult for those in need to ask for help; it is humbling and, occasionally, humiliating. But I wonder: is it really better to sanitize our society of experiencing these less enjoyable aspects of our own humanity? Having to humble oneself may not be fun, but it is self-enlightening. And it is tremendously motivating. Confronting our own weaknesses is one of the ways we develop character.

But under the current system of government-sponsored “compassion,” we have fostered an environment where no one has to deal with his own weaknesses. Thus, everyone, including corporate America, is lining up at the government trough as though their well-being is an entitlement owed to them not through any merit or worthiness, but simply because they have suffered a setback and are more shameless in their pursuit of government handouts. The notion of entitlement even saves them from the inconvenience of having to feel or express any gratitude. Is this really an adequate substitute for dignity?

It is not that liberal individuals themselves are all stingy. In fact, as a general matter, all Americans are very generous when it comes to helping people all around the world, particularly when natural disasters strike. But there is a problem with the liberal concept of what constitutes compassion. They convey the completely mistaken notion that, somehow, one person’s financial well-being alone creates an obligation to give money to others, as though only the wealthy bear responsibility for society’s social problems and that the wealthy therefore need to feel guilty about their good fortune or success. The liberal is more apt to behave as though giving up your money is how you can prove to them that you are not a greedy, selfish jerk. But a bank account is not the same thing as a conscience.

In the end, the liberal’s concept of compassion is a tremendous insult to mankind, and demonstrates a decided lack of respect for his fellow man. It is based on a belief not in man’s goodness, but in his baseness. Thus, “charity” must be mandated by the liberal because he does not trust people to do what is right through the force of their own consciences. Instead, people are compelled to be “good” in spite of themselves, and those with more money have to be “better” than everyone else. And there’s the rub: forcing someone to do anything is to remove all human will, good or bad. In short, the liberal concept of compassion is the antithesis of real compassion, because it removes volition from the equation completely.

And that is the ultimate irony. Perhaps what the charity studies cited by Mr. Kristof really demonstrate is that liberals simply ignore the promptings of conscience that should motivate them to shoulder moral obligations themselves. Instead, they translate those pangs into railroading the rest of America into succumbing to a raft of government mandates according to what they deem is “fair.” They believe that this counterfeit compassion is a sufficient surrogate for the character and conscience that they lack, but that most other Americans possess in abundance. If liberals truly understood dignity, they would feel humiliated by what their politics say about them.

Related articles by Zemanta

• Red Cross: Free Travel for Lucky Blood Donors
• Facebook Inspires Donor Drive

No related posts.

For some reason, I receive Parenting Magazine. I have never subscribed to it. I know that for a fact—this is not some, “Gee, I subscribe to so many, I don’t remember” things. The reason I know is that I have only ever subscribed to two magazines in the last 10 years. Who has time to read magazines? Besides, the two I do subscribe to I only subscribe to because they were ridiculously cheap offers, and I was hoping to find a few recipes in them. That’s all I want. If a year’s subscription nets me at least five recipes that the family likes and that I know will be keepers, I feel the whole effort has been worth it. Believe me, finding a recipe for a meal that the whole family will eat—with six individuals ages 50 down to 1 year—is a major accomplishment.

But getting back to this magazine: the problem is that I feel like I have to at least give each issue a quick perusal before I toss it out. Now, to be fair, there are some useful things in Parenting magazine. But for some reason, the whole tone of the magazine sticks in my craw. I’m not sure what it is, exactly, but I think it is the assumptions the magazine makes about the parents who may be reading it. There’s this whole presumption that you’re, well . . . kind of an idiot. It is amazing how many things in the magazine are things that should not have to be said to a parent if that parent has any sense. I don’t mean everything, of course; but overall the editorial perspective seems to assume things about the modern American household that are entirely foreign to our own modern American household. I suppose that is why the people who read Parenting magazine are having all the problems that Parenting magazine talks about: they need someone to save them from their own foolishness.

Well, over Christmas I was doing a run-through of the back-issues stacked up here, and I came across an article from the October issue that just cements the whole problem for me. It is an article about a book called “Eat This, Not That,” and the book is billed as a guide for kids. Across the top of the book is a bright yellow banner stating “Be the Leanest, Fittest Family on the Block!” Sounds okay so far, right? Only the book is not a guide to teach kids about basic nutrition, or about which foods you can eat to address specific health issues or concerns. Instead, it is a book about which menu items are better choices at fast food franchises and chain restaurants, and which pre-packaged processed foods are better for you. No . . . I’m not kidding.

According to the article, the book has all sorts of fascinating tidbits that would surprise moms, like the fact that a greasy Arby’s Melt with some sort of concoction labeled “cheese sauce” is, despite artificial colorings and chemical preservatives, a better choice than a less-greasy and seemingly more healthful Arby’s Roasted Turkey and Swiss Sandwich, which has more calories, more fat, and more sodium. It explains how Spaghetti-Os are better than Kraft Macaroni & Cheese. To be fair, I have never read the book. I have only read a four page article about the book. But believe me, that is enough.

The article actually states, and I quote: “It is not the culture that is endangering our children’s health. It’s the food.” Huh, what? I thought food was part of our culture. But my take is: it is not the food that is endangering our children’s health, it is the parents, if they are the ones feeding their children this glop.

Now my husband and I, like many urban parents these days, sometimes find our family having to eat on the go. Sure, there is the occasional fast-food hamburger or taco. But the key word is “occasional.” We’re talking, oh, maybe . . . once a month? And as for eating out rather than cooking at home: are you kidding? If there is anyone in America who believes you can be truly healthy eating chain restaurant food, or who would want to feed canned and boxed processed meals to their children on a regular basis in the belief that they are providing healthy fare, they are simply being willfully ignorant.

Now, the book may be an interesting catalog of information on its own, especially when it comes to outing misconceptions about fast food. After all, it surely is curious to note that an order of Taco Bell’s deep-fried chicken grilled taquitos is less fattening than a chicken quesadilla. And it might be handy to have around to show your teenage daughter how awful that cheeseburger really is, or to sit together leafing through the book to say “eeeyeeww” at how amazingly atrocious most fast food and processed food is. But, the magazine article and book do not cast themselves as a compendium of strange and disgusting facts; instead, they seem to regard the book as a serious reference tool.

The bottom line is this: if you are eating fast food or processed food so much that the recommendations in this book are actually going to make a difference in your diet, you are probably already in big blood-congealing, heart-stopping trouble. I cannot imagine for the life of me that anyone who cares about health would actually use the book as a menu guide. If you care enough about your family’s diet to buy the book, it seems to me the only sensible thing to do is read it through once, then decide ever after to avoid all chain restaurants, and consign all your processed foods to the garbage can, never to be bought or consumed again. This book is like telling you that cyanide is more painless than strychnine.

And, heaven forbid, if the meals discussed in the book really do make up your regular family fare, for goodness’ sake, you are probably better off not knowing what you are putting in your body. For those who truly want to eat healthily, but don’t have a clue what you ought to be feeding your children, don’t buy the book. Here, I’ll give you some advice for free that is tremendously more healthful than the book, and it will only take about eight seconds of your time: cut out all sodas, all foods and drinks with added sugar of any form, cut out processed foods, and stop eating at restaurants, then replace them with home-made meals made from fresh fruits, fresh vegetables, whole natural grains, and natural meats. Add a bit of TLC, and you will save yourself a lot of time, money, doctor’s bills, and fat farm visits.

As I said above, almost every family and every individual, even those who are generally health conscious, probably indulge in the occasional fast food meal now and then. But it seems to me that it is a sort of guilty pleasure, and one you usually regret within about two hours, anyway. And while I can appreciate the novelty of finding out that that I would be better off ordering a chicken sandwich than a Caesar salad: what fun is that? If I can’t enjoy the indulgence of eating something I just have a craving for, however unhealthy it is, then there’s no point to the exercise. Just give me my double-double animal style fix every couple of months, and I’m good.

Related articles by Zemanta

• The Top Five Cheapest–But Least Healthy–Fast Food Choices
• Cheap Meal Ideas – 3 Alternatives to Fast Food
• Penny-Wise And Health Foolish Fast Foods

No related posts.

It may seem uncharitable during this Christmas season to write an essay that is basically a rant, but I cannot help it. I went to the store to buy a traditional Christmas card—not a box of cards, but just one card, a special Christmas card—to hold some movie passes we bought as a gift for our babysitter. Our babysitter, like us, is Catholic. Or, shall we say, we are all practicing Catholics, as it seems that in this modern world, there is a not-so-small distinction between practicing and non-practicing Catholics.

And in this store, which shall remain unnamed, I could not find a single card that was remotely reminiscent of, well, Christmas. The card section was overflowing with Santas, snowmen, reindeer, trees, ornaments, stockings, snowy villages, wrapped gifts, and so on. Now, I do not want to be too presumptuous here, but doesn’t Christmas have something to do with a very special baby being born in a manger in Bethlehem?  You would never know from the card selection.

To make matters worse, the Christmas card section had a separate heading for “religious” cards. I understand when there are separate “religious” headings for birthdays, mother’s day, or even weddings, but putting up a separate heading of “religious” for Christmas is incredibly irritating, as though Christmas is first a secular holiday, and only incidentally related to religion. After all, the day is named after Christ, in case anybody cared to notice. I mean, how come the Hanukkah cards did not have a separate “religious” section? This, to me, is like having a “religious” section for baptism cards.

But even in the religious section, I could not find a suitable card. One had a gilded angel, but the only one that showed a manger scene was a sort of cartoon depiction of the blessed event. Now, a child’s drawing of the Nativity may be cute and dear if it is drawn by one of your own children or by a young niece or nephew, but a printed, mass-produced, happy-face line-drawing card is distinctly lacking in the sort of reverence and solemnity I had been hoping to convey as a proper commemoration of the day.

I am now thoroughly sick of the blatant effort of “progressive” malcontents to suck any vestige of Christ out of Christmas whenever it may appear in any public forum, even in a shopping mall. Apparently, only a fragment of these frantic, harried shoppers scrambling to conquer their gifts lists believes that Jesus Christ is the son of God.  But after all, the fact that we—those of us who are Christian—share gifts is specifically to emulate those Three Wise Men who gave gifts to the holy child. Since this is where the Christmas gift-giving tradition originated, it seems remarkably peevish to nevertheless celebrate the day with friends and family, yet simultaneously resent Christmas’ religious significance.

Nothing seems to escape. Christmas music is also being sanitized with more and more “seasonal” songs. I enjoy a good old croon as much as anybody, but apparently it is becoming taboo to play traditional carols that mention Jesus, Mary, angels, or God. We are getting plenty of Bing’s White Christmas and Dino’s Winter Wonderland, and, I shudder, a selection of today’s hip young wailers destroying some modern classic with grating vocal gymnastics. But for the most part, gone are any carols with references to that first Christmas, it seems, except for instrumental versions. Heaven forbid—excuse me, earth forbid—that Christians should be allowed to acknowledge just what we are celebrating.

And that’s dreadful. Because here in our home, we are trying to raise our children to view Christmas in the proper light. Of course it is a time that they receive presents, but it is also a time to give presents, to remember what those presents signify, to spend time with those we love and to show our love not only by giving gifts to friends and family, but giving also to those who are less fortunate whom we don’t know. But it is difficult to convey even this small lesson to our children, when so many people they see are simply engaged in a frenzy of ill-tempered consumption. It is galling, to say the least, to have a day that we regard as spiritually meaningful secularized to the point, not of meaninglessness, but worse: of meaning something that is the opposite of what it ought to mean.

I certainly do not want to imply that everyone must celebrate Christmas as we do. Rather, all those of other faiths, agnostics, or atheists should simply and respectfully allow those of us who do believe to celebrate the birth of the Christ child consistent with our time-honored traditions.  I suppose I have no strong objections, in the abstract, to anyone who wants to celebrate Christmas in their own way.  But I do not understand why Christians must therefore be forced to forsake any mention of Christ when that is the whole point of  our holiday. It seems rather ridiculous for non-Christians to get so exercised about it by militantly insisting upon a holiday filled only with cartoon Santas, inane music, and generic “holiday” greetings.

Atheists could hold their own holiday, which I would most happily ignore out of respect for their beliefs. They could celebrate Darwin’s birthday, for example, by sending each other cards with pictures of chimps and singing about the wonders of stepping forth from a blob of primordial slime. But it is the height of irony, isn’t it, that those who would denigrate Christianity bring more attention to Christmas day, and, not incidentally, to themselves, by their boorish anti-religious behavior and even more boorish insistence on the importance of Christmas by their unceasing efforts to secularize it completely. Rather like mohawked, tattooed, and pierced “non-conformists”, if they weren’t so antagonistically obsessed with what conformity IS, they might realize how silly and foolish they looked.

So I say to all of you out there who joyously celebrate the birth of Jesus in the best Christmas tradition:  I share your joy on this special day.  And I wish to everyone in the world–yes, everyone–a very Merry Christmas.

Related articles by Zemanta

• The joy of celebrating a godless Christmas.
• Is Christmas Only for Christians?

No related posts.

A lot of people talk these days about how much they care about one cause or another. They are plastered all over the covers of magazines. Some people want to save the planet, others want to help all the starving children in Africa, or to free the people of Tibet, or oppose the atrocities in Darfur. I do not want to make light of these things; they are serious matters, (that is, all but the first one). But I’m not sure all this caring about the whole world is actually making the world a better place.

In particular, I am bemused by people who seem to make a contest of simply caring. They will say and do anything to prove that they care. They study what they care about; rarely do they question what they study, but they study, anyway. And when you run into those people, let me warn you: do not try to compete. They care about everything more than you do. They care so much that they buy T-shirts, bumper stickers, jeweled brooches shaped like ribbons, rubber bracelets, and baseball caps. This way, you can see that they care by what they wear, even if they have never been within 1,000 miles of what they care about. Apparently, their willingness to wear obnoxious fashion accessories is intended to demonstrate to the rest of the world how selfless they are.

Lots of people also care by going to balls, dances, dinners, speeches, rock concerts, and rallies. Sure, it may just look like they are having a lot of fun with their friends and rubbing elbows with a bunch of celebrities, but, for them, this is “charity work.” Mother Teresa, it would appear, had nothing on them.

I would guess that at least half the stars in Hollywood have entered into some sort of implicit caring contest. They all search for a unique cause that they pin their names on: for some its animals, for others it’s one disease or another, and so on. Now that AIDS is passé, they are madly scrambling to try and find some unique niche that has not been staked out by an even more illustrious celebrity. I can appreciate the fact that some of them believe their famous names can be used to bring needed public attention to serious matters, but even then, I cannot fathom why all of America needs to care about every problem in the world.

I can also applaud when someone donates money to this or that worthwhile cause. Everyone should endeavor to be charitable. However, it is incorrect to presume that this is the moral equivalent of a “good work,” as that term is properly understood. Going to a rock concert to benefit the victims of a tsunami is, well . . . it is simply going to a rock concert. And as for the performing band: they are simply doing what they usually do, they are just not making their normal profit for a night’s work. That may be commendable, but is not the same thing as bringing a poor man on the street a hot bowl of soup and a pair of shoes.

I do not want to belittle the benefits of providing funds to worthy causes (assuming that the money actually gets there), I simply find it disturbing that people necessarily equate this sort of sterile “giving” to more concrete virtues. In particular, it is easy to be generous when your bank account shows six or seven zeroes before the decimal point, but it is hard for me to get exercised about a faraway cause, or to feel guilt when I decide some cause does not justify more than an honorable mention in my nightly prayer intentions. If people have the time and wherewithal to be extravagantly generous, more power to them, but I sincerely wish these people would spare me the wisdom of their worldly insights as though I have some personal obligation to share their passion du jour.

It is especially galling when some of the same individuals who try to preach about our “humanitarian” obligations simultaneously treat the humans around them—spouses, children, family members, friends, and associates—like expendable or inconvenient appendages that can be cast aside in pursuit of some other goal. This is simply moral confusion. It is easy to care about pet causes when that is what they are: pets. Like having a pet dog, these people can just dump some food in their pet’s bowl, then pat their heads now and then when it suits their needs and makes them feel better. It is a much more commendable, if less glamorous, thing to bear the daily responsibility of being a dependable, patient, forgiving, present, caring, and loving spouse, parent, child, sibling, neighbor, and friend. Dedication to a grand cause, in the way these people do it, is an indulgence. As a matter of fact, I sometimes think their zeal for these causes is directly proportionate to the guilt they feel for being obscenely wealthy or dissolute.

By questioning the worthiness of this hip trend toward caring for every outlandish and far-flung cause under the sun, I certainly do not wish to tar everyone with the same brush. There are very many wealthy people who are also good people, who feel that giving toward a worthy cause is the right thing to do given their good fortune, and it is their way of sharing their bounty with others less fortunate. But I would just as soon dispense with the insinuations of people whose overt caring is manifestly aimed at making normal, hardworking, middle-class Joes believe that they really need to care or do something about some injustice operating 6,000 miles away. Caring about such things is truly a luxury for those with too much time on their hands, and one that many normal people cannot, and need not, afford.

For those of us who are simply trying to provide a safe and nurturing home for our families, with enough food to eat and enough financial security to see our way through an uncertain future, the welfare of Tibetan exiles comes in, oh, a distant fiftieth or sixtieth place on our lists of priorities. My own moral obligations are pretty well staked out between these four walls; what is not covered here is generally spent in my church, my neighborhood, and my town. After all, if I simply take a short drive, I encounter plenty of people within eyeshot that would clearly benefit from a kind word or deed. Beyond that, there is little room or time in my life for pie-in-the-sky world-saving. I will leave that to the super-heroes of Hollywood and Manhattan.

However, I sincerely wish that these people, like any good superheroes, would hide their true identities and accept thanks from those they have helped as reward enough. Not only do I have no authority or desire to canonize such worthies, I would respect them more if their efforts did not seem so palpably calculated to provide some depth to their otherwise shallow and superficial public personae.

Let me be clear: I am all for caring. But just caring about some obscure cause does little, by itself, to create a better world. All of this energy and money given over to publicity and charitable “events” might be better spent modestly lending a helping hand or sympathetic ear to one’s downtrodden neighbors. Compassion requires a human hand, and a human face. And that human face should not be of Benjamin Franklin, peering out from a hundred dollar bill, spent on a trendy T-shirt intended to show the world how much you “care.”

Related articles by Zemanta

• Ben Affleck Do-Gooding in Congo, Africa
• Naomi Is Not Wanted

No related posts.

Now that the election is over, Obama’s win seems, in retrospect, to be the natural result of the farce that has become our presidential election. I mean, if anyone in the media had any sense or brains, why was no one mining the one obvious and vein-rich question troubling our political landscape: is this really the best America can do?

But it is one thing to accept that at least one of these fools had to win, and another to confront the fact that a disturbingly large number of young Americans have an incomprehensible adoration of Barack Obama. I can only conclude that it is the manifestation of some variety of premature dementia. At any rate, it is inexplicable by rational processes.

Let us take Obama’s meaningless campaign themes of “Hope” and “Change.” This same weightless aura is also conveyed by the insipid title to his book, “The Audacity of Hope.” This seems to me to be the essence of his persona: every vocal outpouring of his has the same overflow of practiced, smooth, grandiose . . . nothingness. It is like listening to Jesse Jackson without the theatrics and Muhammad Ali poetry, but with good grammar and diction. Is this what impresses Americans today: a stream-of-consciousness ether of abstract nonsense? Is this what Americans interpret as intelligence, conviction, and purpose?

Because when you boil down all his flowery verbiage into actual policies, they are of the same regurgitated big-government boondoggle variety that has been doled out by the Democratic Party at least since George McGovern. At his best, Obama has the gift of dressing them up very stylishly, but without a teleprompter, he sounds like a delinquent student trying to con his way through an oral exam.

The idea that all these young pups believe that Barack Obama not only is, but is capable of being, some kind of messianic savior is, in a way, grotesque. Because whatever kind of president he turns out to be, his caliber as a man is troublingly dubious. And while I could draw this conclusion by reference to a sizable selection of his questionable relationships and activities, I need only examine one: his church.

Like many other Americans, I saw Reverend Wright’s ranting spiel against America. The man has clearly got a race chip on his spiritual shoulder. But the fact that Obama attended Reverend Wright’s church for 20 years does not bother me. What bothers me is: Obama left it.

Believe me, I am no fan of Reverend Wright’s brand of “liberation theology.” Indeed, his invocation asking God to damn America clearly smacked of political discourse rather than theological sermonizing, insofar as America, being a country, has no immortal soul to damn. It also strikes one as a startlingly un-Christian sentiment: turn the other cheek, my kingdom is not of this earth, and all that. But after watching other more extended videos of Reverend Wright, it seemed to me that his sermonizing, as a general rule, was no more remarkable than other garden-variety Bible-thumping. And, much as I hate to agree with Bill Maher on anything, I suspect he is correct in that this sort of preaching has been going on in America’s black churches for decades; it is just that most non-black Americans have neither witnessed it, nor had any particular reason to pay attention to it.

But then we have Barack Obama.

Initially, Obama stated that he never personally witnessed the America-bashing in 20 years of attending the church, and never had even an inkling of Rev. Wright’s views despite his obvious close association. That, quite simply, is very hard to believe, especially since Rev. Wright himself explained on national television that his views were nothing remarkable within the bounds of liberation theology. It also explains, very plainly, Michelle Obama’s sentiment that she had never before been proud of America. But fine, let it go; I will willingly suspend my disbelief, and take Obama at his word.

But then what happened? After offering a rather feeble defense of himself and his church, Barack Obama and his family resigned their membership. Just on the surface, that would seem to validate the criticisms, rather than diminish them. But even more: what does that resignation tell us about Barack Obama’s spiritual convictions? Instead of standing by his friends, his pastor, his church, his congregation, and his faith, of 20 years, the Obamas resigned in June: a full five months before the election. That is quite an act of recantation. In short, Barack Obama took the low road. He preferred to surrender the integrity of his immortal soul rather than risk a continued publicity fallout that might impact the election.

In comparison, take JFK: his nomination was directly responsible for a strengthening of the Republican Party, as many Democrats had a difficult time accepting his Catholic faith and abandoned the party. The idea now seems almost quaint, given the lukewarm adherence to dogma practiced by so many nominal Catholics today, but a fair number of Americans believed that Kennedy, as president, would split his allegiance by doing the Pope’s bidding. Of course, it seems now to have been a fear that was wholly unfounded, but JFK was unapologetic—and he prevailed anyway.

We have no such worry with Obama. We know where his allegiance lies: it lies with his ruthless pursuit of the ambition to power.

And before anyone takes umbrage, Obama’s behavior cannot be rationalized by claiming that he was trying to protect his church. That justification simply does not stand up to scrutiny: Rev. Wright is hardly a shrinking violet when it comes to the glare of klieg lights. His already public profile and his eager willingness to appear on national television to further espouse his uncharitable views could hardly support the claim that the Obamas were trying to shield the congregation from negative publicity. Besides, the worst had been done; little more could have been exposed that would have adversely affected the church.

No, the clear import of the Obamas’ decision was to deflate any objections Americans could have to Rev. Wright’s anti-American rantings. Barack Obama offered a perfunctory expression of surprise and astonishment that Rev. Wright could be so unpatriotically irreverent, and, to put substance behind this posture, he resigned his membership. So middle America shielded its eyes, and consoled itself that, See? Surely, Barack Obama himself could not really share such unpalatable views. And Obama’s die-hard followers never had a problem with it anyway, since they most likely agreed with Rev. Wright’s sentiments.

While those of Obama’s followers who are atheistic or agnostic are probably not troubled by Obama’s resignation, given that they view religious faith as nothing but a delusion, they would be missing the point. If Obama truly believes in God, as his longstanding church membership would suggest, then resigning his membership says a great deal about his character and his priorities. If a man is willing to sever such longstanding ties to his faith and his community, what sort of allegiance can anyone expect him to demonstrate with respect to any other principle or relationship?

Since winning the election, the Obamas have relocated to Washington, D.C., and instead of trying to find another spiritual home, he has chosen to spend his Sundays working out at the gym. While by no means would I expect Obama to spend every waking moment trying to find a new church in his new city, I can’t help but wonder what message his sudden lack of interest in setting aside time for God sends to his two young children. I know what message it sends to me.

What kind of a man sacrifices a relationship of 20 years in pursuit of ambition? What kind of a man abandons spiritual succor to embrace worldly power? Whatever the answer, Obama is that kind of man. Believe it or not, as someone who does not support him, that is somewhat consoling to me: at least I can be assured that any belief he purports to espouse is likely to be a product of political expediency rather than true conviction.

So Obama himself does not particularly bother me. No, I am troubled by something else. And that is: what sort of person idolizes a man like Obama? Because that is the sort of person who put him in the Oval Office, and that is the sort of person who is populating this once great nation of ours. In four or eight years, Barack Obama will be irrelevant. The real struggle facing America is for the minds and character of our electorate.

Related articles by Zemanta

• How Obama Got Elected
• “I think most people voted for Barack Obama because they decided they wanted him to be in their living room for the next 4 years explaining policy.

No related posts.

It is amazing how often I hear liberals talk about wealthy people. They seem to be obsessed with them, knowing exactly how much money they spent on this or that house or boat or car or outfit. And most of the time they are discussing these things (which is none of their business, anyway), they do so with this resentful, sour look. Now, personally, wealth doesn’t bother me; I would like to be wealthy myself, as a matter of fact.

But a lot of liberals talk as though wealthy people are evil simply because they are wealthy. But here’s the thing: they usually only hate wealthy people who became wealthy by hard work. They never seem to hate movie or television stars, pop stars, liberal writers, liberal politicians, or professional athletes.

This is very strange. I mean, a movie star or pop singer can make millions of dollars for a few months of mediocre work, and he or she only makes himself or herself (and maybe an agent) rich. And they get paid outrageous sums even when they produce garbage. Moreover, the money they make usually comes from teenagers who sponged the money off of their parents. In fact, while I like to be entertained as much as the next person, I cannot see that they provide anything of practical utility to anyone.

In contrast, a top oil company executive usually works 60 to 70 hours a week, month after month, keeping tens of thousands of people employed, keeping food on their tables, roofs over their heads, and medical care for their families, plus they try to make sure all the stockholders in the company, like union pensioners, get a good return on their investment and can retire in comfort. Oh, not to mention, they make their money off of people like me, because they provide gas for me to travel and so that all the goods I want to buy can be delivered to my local supermarket.

Now, to my mind, if someone can do all that and still bring in a hefty profit for their company, I say: terrific! But a liberal just seethes at the fact that a person who does all that should get a few million in compensation. Keanu Reeves made $200 million off of the Matrix movies. (Astounding.) Yet I’m supposed to resent the CEO of Exxon? And it’s even worse than that. Because what the liberal wants to do is to tax the heck out of the CEO’s salary so that it can be given to some deadbeat on welfare.

To me, this demonstrates the stupidity of resenting wealth. A person only works hard if he or she obtains a benefit from the hard work. When you don’t get any benefit from hard work, you have a tendency to become lazy, and do only what gets you by. And when you give something to someone who is lazy because they are lazy, they continue to be lazy. The one thing liberals just can’t figure out is that the difference between wealthy people and poor people is seldom money. Oh, there is a second thing. The second thing they don’t get is that wealth is not a zero sum game. They don’t understand that wealth can be created.

And for those liberals who are scratching their heads, let me explain. There is one primary reason that countries like Japan and Switzerland are wealthy. And it has nothing to do with natural resources; both countries would be unable to grow enough food or mine enough ore or grow enough trees to support their populations. What they do have is people with a strong work ethic, and people who take pride in producing top quality goods. You see, it is still prestigious to own a Swiss watch, and people travel to Switzerland because they run things well—banks, hotels, resorts, spas, chocolate factories. And Japan produces top-quality automobiles and electronic equipment. A mere 40 years ago, the phrase “Made in Japan” used to be a joke—it meant something was cheap and shoddy. Not anymore. Today, it means something is made well and packaged attractively. (China has now taken over the cheap and shoddy department.) The Japanese work ethic created the fastest growing national economy the world has ever seen.

These countries have become wealthy primarily as a result of human effort—adding value to meager resources and inexpensive raw materials. This also explains, incidentally, why America is becoming poorer. The difference between wealth and poverty is: human effort. People can create wealth simply by the exertion of effort. For example, if two neighbors lived side by side in identical houses (which happens pretty often these days, with tract neighborhoods), and made identical salaries, but one person sat on his duff, watched television, and drank beer while the other person regularly mowed and watered his lawn, picked weeds, eradicated pests, tended the plants and trees, cleaned the house, maintained the structure, and so on, the weed-picker’s house would be worth more.

Yet, despite the obvious truth of this statement, the liberal mind simply cannot wrap itself around the idea that hard work—the right kind of hard work—can create wealth out of almost nothing. They, like their mentor Karl Marx, sit around on their duff thinking they are smart, and that, by virtue of being smart, they deserve to have the wealth that other people have created through effort. Or else, they equate hard work with simply spending a lot of hours digging up holes and filling them in, rather than actually producing anything of value. This is why we see so many silly bumper stickers.

Liberals want to live in a sort of fairyland of liberal meritocracy, where people who do things like spout liberal aphorisms at college universities live the lives of kings, while other people, like corporate executives, who actually have to bear responsibility for the tangible results of the decisions they make and produce goods that people actually want and need, get zilch. No wonder liberals are liberals. Basically, they don’t understand that a thing is worth only what someone else is willing to pay for it. And nobody wants to listen to college professors. Students only listen because their parents are paying for a college education, and because they want a lucrative job at a software company when they graduate.

I mean, the liberals got all steamed up because Cindy McCain wore a $20,000 dress. (How come they don’t mind when Jessica Simpson wears a $20,000 dress?) But they should be happy—ecstatic, in fact—that she’s wearing that dress. I mean, when a liberal buys a dress at Wal-Mart for $35, she (or he, I guess) is only supporting a lowly Chinese pinko running a sweatshop, whereas Cindy is supporting a New York City cocktail liberal or a snobby Paris socialist.

Now, Cindy’s family made its money distributing beer. If ever there was a family that earned its keep, Cindy’s family is it. They distribute a product that people are willing to pay for in either an up or a down economy. The liberals’ problem is that they think it is possible to create an economic system in which someone is willing to pay them a lot of money just to drink it.

No related posts.

In my last post, I explained how audacious the California Supreme Court and Proposition 8 foes were in ignoring standard legal procedure with regard to the lawsuit challenging Proposition 8. As of yesterday, the Court went ahead and decided to accept the lawsuit for review. The good news is that the Court refused the stay. That is: as of now, Proposition 8 is in effect. This was a prudent measure, since, should the lawsuit fail, we would have the law yo-yo-ing back and forth a little too much even for this Court.

But ignoring legal procedure, of course, was just the tip of the iceberg. Let us now confront the insult to the injury, and get to meat of their argument.

Here is what the lawsuit claims: Proposition 8 is not an “amendment” to the Constitution that can be enacted by ballot proposition. Rather, it is a “revision” to the Constitution, which requires passage by the legislature as well as the voters. Ergo: Proposition 8 has no effect. Nada. Zilch. We just wasted a lot of time and money and anguish for nothing.

Okay, let’s back up a little bit. How come no one brought up this “amendment/revision” argument before November 4, or even questioned it? How come California’s Attorney General did not suggest this or even hint at a problem in its published analysis of the ballot measure? And why did California’s Secretary of State certify this Proposition for the November ballot, without getting a legal opinion on this point? Anyone? (Sound of crickets chirping.)

If you find the distinction between an “amendment” and a “revision” mind-numbing, that is because it is. This is the sort of thing lawyers get paid outrageous sums to argue about. And the worst thing is, nobody really knows what these terms ought to mean, at least insofar as they relate to our Constitution. In a way, the meaning is left largely up to the Court. I know: Oh, great.

But even if you don’t appreciate the legal niceties, here is a step-by-step analysis of what is going on:

–To begin, a statute is different from the Constitution. A statute is a law, but if a statute violates the Constitution, the statute is invalid, because the Constitution sits at the top of the legal hierarchy. Before the Court’s May 15 opinion, there was a statute on the books (passed by Californians in 2000) that defined marriage as between a man and a woman.

–On May 15, the California Supreme Court declared that the statute defining marriage as between a man and a woman, and thus denying marriage to gay couples, violated the state Constitution’s equal protection clause. In this opinion, the Court acknowledged that the State of California, since its inception, had understood marriage as only between a man and a woman. The California Supreme Court’s opinion therefore constituted a reversal of all of California’s legal history (not to mention world history, but never mind . . . never mind).

–On November 4, the people of California told the Court where they could stick it, and passed Proposition 8 as an amendment to the state Constitution. Because Proposition 8 is now part of the Constitution, and not merely a statute, the California Supreme Court must accept it as the final word on the law of the state.

–Those opposed to Proposition 8 are now arguing before the Court that Proposition 8 is not an “amendment” at all, but a “sweeping revision” of the Constitution, and, because it was not passed by the legislature, it has no force or effect.

Now, here’s the problem; please follow, if you will. If I understand this argument correctly, when the Court changed California’s entire legal history on May 15, 2008, by throwing out the statutory definition of marriage and rejecting 150 years of California law, this was NOT a “revision” of our Constitution (which the Court is not allowed to do), but merely an “interpretation.” And now, if we want to go back to how the law existed those many eons ago on May 14, 2008, to how it was interpreted since the very first statute on marriage ever entered California’s code books, we now have to “revise” our Constitution? Haha! Oh . . . wait. I’m not sure if this is one of those situations where, if this were not so funny, it would be pathetic, or if this were not so pathetic, it would be funny.

This is incredible. In fact, I kind of relish the idea of the Supreme Court entertaining this spurious argument by declaring that the California Constitution revised itself, all on its own, while nobody was looking, and if we Californians want it to mean what it always used to mean, we now have to revise it back. No . . . really.

Let’s just take a good hard look at what the Court did on May 15. I know most people could not be bothered to slog through that frankly ludicrous tome that was intended to pass for a legal opinion, so I will try to explain it here. In fact, I think the Court went out of its way to make that opinion long and convoluted . . . because if the average Californian understood what they said, they’d be really pissed off.

We will start with standard Equal Protection analysis. It goes like this: first, you have to decide if the class of persons being discriminated against is a “suspect” classification. That is, it is okay for the law to discriminate sometimes, such as when females should get separate bathrooms from males, or illegal aliens should not be allowed to vote (ACORN notwithstanding). Other times, the classification is “suspect”—that is, no one can think of a reason to discriminate other than just bald prejudice, such as when blacks were forced to sit in the backs of buses.

Second, if you do find a suspect classification, Courts have to give the challenged statute what is called “strict scrutiny.” That is, when you have a statute that discriminates against a group, the Court looks at the statute really hard to see if there is any conceivable sound and good reason for the discrimination. The challenged statute may only be upheld if the court finds that: (1) the state has a “compelling interest” in achieving the goal of the statute, and (2) the statute is “narrowly tailored” to serve that purpose. Got all that? Okay, now to the Court’s analysis.

On May 15, the Court held that homosexuality is a “suspect” classification. It said that, in the matter of marriage, there is NO rational reason to differentiate between homosexuals and heterosexuals. I’m not kidding. Let’s move on: now we apply strict scrutiny. (Just to warn you: basically, in law, nothing stands up to strict scrutiny.) The Supreme Court said that California has no compelling interest in defining marriage to limit it to heterosexual relationships. NO COMPELLING INTEREST. Consequently, the statute that defines marriage is invalid.

Before I continue, I want to discuss this idea of “no compelling interest.” I have a hard time with this. Why? Well, because California has an entire code book dedicated to marriage law, which has applied exclusively to heterosexual couples throughout California’s history. Laws relating to marriage have existed since statehood because marriage has been, historically, the foundation of the family, which in turn has been the foundation of society as a whole. As a result, married couples have special legal treatment with respect property, contracts, criminal law, testimony, wills, estates, tax, and so on. You need a special license at the county office in order to get married, and counties keep records of marriage permanently. Marriage also creates certain presumptions in the law with respect to children. We have an entire court system dedicated to families. Family law is a specialized area of law practice, as is divorce law. Lawyers can make entire careers out of focusing just on these specific subjects. Law schools teach entire courses just on community property, which is a legal relationship that applies only to married couples. In fact, Community Property is one of only twelve subjects tested on the California State Bar exam, beating out such subjects as tax, intellectual property, securities, environmental law, and administrative law. So here we have whole bodies of California law relating to the protection and preservation of marriage, and marriage as the foundation of the family unit. We have whole bureaucracies that deal with matters related to marriage. These laws and administrative agencies represent untold hours of deliberating in the state legislature, in our state court system, and in our local government, and considerable sums of public money. And so, I am truly puzzled: can the California Supreme Court explain why the state of California spent so much time, money, energy, and resources on something the state has NO COMPELLING INTEREST in? Mind- boggling, to say the least.

How in the world did the Court arrive at its peculiar perspective? The Court reasoned (if you can call it that): (one) the legislature treats gay couples almost the same as married couples; so (two) it is therefore unfair, as a constitutional matter, to treat them differently. Hence, the equal protection clause DEMANDS that we give gay couples the right to marry.

You see, it all started when the legislature began to give a few rights here and there to homosexual couples. Even though California had a statute that said the term “marriage” applied only to heterosexuals, the legislature enacted a whole raft of other statutes giving homosexuals treatment very similar to married couples. So, instead of letting the legislature just do its thing, the Court said: “Ah, what the heck. Let’s go whole hog. If the legislature treats them as though they are sort of equal, even though we have a statute that says they are not, we may as well declare them equal as a matter of constitutional law.” Voila!

Now this is an interesting way to reason. Essentially, the Court contended that domestic partnership statutes, by treating gay couples similarly to married couples, governed their equal protection analysis. But how can statutes dictate the meaning of the Constitution? Especially when, at the same time, the Court is confronted by another statute that unequivocally states that marriage and domestic partnership are two different things. Ultimately, in trying to resolve a non-existent conflict between these statutes, the Court just decided to just declare the inconvenient one unconstitutional.

And what is even more interesting, you see, is that if Californians had only been smart enough to not give gay couples any rights at all, we would never have made them equal. Apparently, it is not enough that Californians were happy to let people have the freedom to live life as they choose, regardless of their personal views. It is not even enough that Californians were willing to recognize a slew of legal benefits to accrue to gay couples. No, Californians put themselves in a pickle. The Court concluded that Californians are a bunch of bigots because we didn’t go all the way, and declared that we could not be bigots anymore.

And then, along came Proposition 8 to put everything back to the way it was. Proposition 8 added just one simple sentence to the California Constitution. That sentence reads: “Only marriage between a man and a woman is valid or recognized in California.” And within a couple short weeks, we now have a brand new lawsuit to hash it all out again. The Court has a brand new opportunity to tell the majority of California voters that what they want and what they believe does not matter. I can just imagine the Court’s (unwritten) opinion:

Californians tried to take away privileges that we bestowed out of our ineffable wisdom and superior understanding of what California really needs—things that California’s citizens don’t understand because they are just ignorant voters. Honoring and revering thousands of years of tradition and law, and adhering to their most deeply held moral values, is unimportant . . . worthless. It is nothing more than an expression of “hate.”

Related articles by Zemanta

• More on the anti Prop 8 lawsuits
• The plot thickens in California
• AG Brown Asks CA Supreme Court to Review Prop 8 Constitutionality… Now

No related posts.

I have been reading about the reaction the gay community has had to the passing of California’s Proposition 8. And it is dismaying, to say the least. I will ignore for the time-being the repugnant mobs and thugs who are trying to intimidate pro-Proposition 8 donors with their brownshirt methods, although that aspect of the reaction ought to be aired. For the moment, let me just say that it is surprising, to say the least, that the gay community would adopt methods so transparently reminiscent of treatment that they themselves have had cause to decry. Disgusting.

But in this post, I want to express my disgust at another aspect of the reaction.

Rather than respectfully accepting the vote and leaving the fight to another day, a number of groups have filed petitions with the California Supreme Court to have Proposition 8 stayed by the Court, while the Court reviews the case on the merits. In lay terms: these people want the Court to prevent Proposition 8 from going into effect until they get a chance to throw it out. These groups are led by a selection of 43 Democrats in the California State Senate and Assembly, and their efforts have been supported by the usual liberal suspects.

To those of you who are not lawyers, let me emphasize that this is astoundingly high-handed. Never before have I seen this sort of abrogation of the most basic legal procedures.

Let me explain. Generally, legal challenges to propositions have to be filed in the appropriate state superior court. After the superior court makes its decision, if any party is displeased with the result of their case on a question of law, then, and only then, can they appeal the decision to the appropriate court of appeal. And then, after that court makes another decision, if any party still feels aggrieved, the case can finally be petitioned to the California Supreme Court, which takes cases on a discretionary basis. The California Supreme Court is a court of last resort.

The process outlined above can take years, but that period is significantly foreshortened when you are talking about preliminary motions, such as injunctions or stays, and often when the courts feel that there is a need to respond to a matter of significant public import. But even so, it still has to run the legal gamut. Apparently, not so here. No, the anti-Proposition 8 forces want to go right to the top—the California Supreme Court—without going through any intermediate steps. Not only do they want the Court to invalidate the voters’ will, they contend that normal legal procedures (to which the rest of California’s citizens must submit) ought not apply to them.

For purposes of comparison: in 1994, Californians passed Proposition 187. Proposition 187 would have denied welfare and other tax-supported entitlements, such as public school and medical care, to illegal aliens. Cases challenging that proposition were filed in federal district court the day after it passed. That court issued an injunction—that is, the Court prevented the measure from going into effect. The injunction was appealed, and the case languished in the court of appeal until 1999, when then-Governor Gray Davis “mediated” a resolution. So even there, in a case which determined whether a certain group of people would even get basic government services, litigants had to follow standard legal procedure.

Just for the record, let’s review that scenario: the Proposition 187 case was filed in 1994, when California’s governor was Pete Wilson, and the Attorney General was Dan Lungren. Both defended Proposition 187. But the case sat in the notoriously liberal 9^th Circuit Court of Appeal until the administration changed. Then Governor Davis and his AG, Bill Lockyer, agreed to mediate Proposition 187 into oblivion. No wonder Proposition 8 foes are in such a hurry: the stars are all aligned between Governor Schwarzenegger, Attorney General Jerry Brown, a liberal state legislature, and a sympathetic supreme court. So bear in mind, California voters, that California’s government has already been known to sell out the will of the voters without a fight.

Now, let’s get this in perspective: the right of gay couples to “marry” had been in existence for a mere 174 days before Proposition 8 was passed—from May 15 until November 4. Are we really to believe, then, that the Court’s decision has become such a fundamental bulwark of our legal system, has become such an integral facet of our social fabric, and presents such a pressing and dire legal emergency, that all normal legal requirements may be recklessly thrown out the window so that our highest court must dump the rest of its docket and DECIDE IT RIGHT NOW?

Here’s the kicker: the California Supreme Court is seriously contemplating this nonsense. The Court has so far been willing to entertain this blatant disregard of standard legal procedure that it has asked the AG to respond to the petition. And Jerry Brown recommended that the Court take it. Talk about audacity. If ever there was an argument for throwing these bums out, this is it. Recall election, anyone? I don’t care what the issue is; I can’t think of a single legal matter, with the possible exception of an execution order, that is so critical that the rest of the state’s business can summarily be shunted aside and legal process ignored in order to appease a special interest.

I suppose I could entertain the Court’s eagerness a bit more blithely if I didn’t have the feeling that what is really going on is that the Court wants to take the ball because they brought the ball to the game and now they don’t like the way the game is going. The Court’s willingness to ignore its own procedures is either because it wants to appease the gay community for the sake of political peace (in which case its members ought to grow spines), or because it is miffed. Let’s face it, the Supreme Court has had its nose tweaked pretty severely by the voters in this case. Proposition 8 was placed on the ballot in a direct effort to overturn the Court’s May decision. And the voters did just that—in record time.

Why am I so incensed? Not because of the substance, even though I voted in favor of Proposition 8. No, I am incensed because if we entertain this sort of legal chicanery, then we are willing to entertain any abrogation of our laws in the service of some expedient end. And if the liberal community sits by and lets this happen because THIS TIME it happens to be one of their pet causes, how will they justify a different response when the cause is not to their liking? The precedent is being set.

For the sake of appearances, it would be nice if Lady Justice at least kept up the pretense of being blind. But I’m afraid, in California, Lady Justice is not only not blind . . . he’s in drag.

Next post: if you think this is bad, wait until you hear what the Proposition 8 foes are claiming . . .

No related posts.

I am reasonably sure that some people who read the title of this post are either preparing to argue with me, or are bracing themselves for something that is going to make them uncomfortable. That is because discrimination has become a dirty word in our political culture, even though its literal meaning is rather innocuous. Our mindset has become so used to condemning discrimination, or at least tiptoeing around the word, that, if you say it is okay, you can pretty much expect a fight. But please hear me out. Discrimination means: the ability to distinguish between two different things.

What I want to discuss is California’s Proposition 8. Let’s start with the basics: Proposition 8 is not about denying substantive rights to the gay community. In fact, if you want to get down to it, marriage is not a “right” at all, but, in legal terms, a privilege and a contractual obligation. I will, for the moment, leave its sacramental character aside—not for lack of importance mind you, but because you don’t have to go that far or deep to see how utterly reprehensible the Proposition 8 dispute is.

The California Supreme Court’s May 15 opinion made it very clear that California statutory law provides “domestic partners” virtually every privilege afforded heterosexual married couples in California. Indeed, the court cited only nine specific statutory distinctions between the law’s treatment of married couples versus domestic partners, and, notwithstanding the Court’s ultimate decision, it even described these distinctions as “minor.” For example, two of the cited distinctions provided that domestic partners may dissolve their partnerships without going through a court-ordered divorce. In sum, the differences were not necessarily adverse to the gay community.

So what Proposition 8 was about is not the law, at all, but about the word “marriage,” at best, and a few technicalities, at worst. But here is the bottom line: no matter what you call it, a “marriage” between a man and a woman is NOT THE SAME THING as a “marriage” between a man and a man or a woman and a woman. Heterosexuality and homosexuality are simply different. And before anyone gets all excited about what I am saying, ISN’T THAT THE WHOLE BLOODY POINT?

It is a fact that all heterosexuals discriminate against homosexuals, and all homosexuals discriminate against heterosexuals. Don’t believe it? Okay, try this on for size: the last time you went out on a date, did you care whether it was a man or a woman? Did you care about your date’s sexual orientation? Let’s not worry about who is being hyper-sensitively offended by our answers. Let’s all stiffen our backbones and look the truth in the face.

Here, I’ll confess first, if it will make anyone feel any better: I have never had a date with a heterosexual woman; neither have I ever dated a homosexual of either sex, and if anyone who characterized themselves as any of the above had ever asked me out on a date with a view to romance, I would have unhesitatingly and very firmly answered “no.” Whew. I’m glad I got that off my chest.

Come on! It is not as if George gets up one morning and says, “Gee, Joe, I never really noticed it before, but . . . you’re a man!” Homosexuality and heterosexuality are as different as men and women are different. In fact, that is EXACTLY how different they are, and you cannot pretend that they are the same, or that the differences don’t matter. The very definition of both heterosexuality and homosexuality DEPENDS upon how men and women view other men and women. Is this really that hard for anyone to understand?

All of the poor-mouthing about “second class” treatment is simply bizarre. I mean, I hate to tell the gay community this, but having to stand in a separate line at the county registrar’s office for a domestic partner form as opposed to a marriage license is not what makes you different. And no amount of futzing with the English language, by redefining spouses, husbands, wives, and what-have-you, is going to change the appearance or reality of a homosexual relationship. Indeed, the very fact that the State of California has to modify its licensing forms in order to accommodate gay “marriage” rather serves to substantiate the distinction, does it not?

So when we all finally admit that what we are talking about are two different things here, I have to ask myself: is forcing all of California to call a homosexual relationship a “marriage” somehow going to validate someone’s sexual predilections? Is the gay community so insecure in its embrace of its “alternative lifestyle” that it needs the imprimatur of the California government to vindicate it? Because frankly, the only reason I can see for forcing Californians like me to call a homosexual relationship a “marriage” is to destroy the meaning of the word marriage as that term has been understood since the moment it was first coined.

And isn’t that the irony, here? By calling a homosexual relationship a “marriage,” you are not conforming the relationship to the word, you are conforming the word to the relationship. I mean, you can decide to call a cow a horse, but that does not change the nature of the cow. And frankly, I don’t see how calling the cow a cow instead of a horse is unfair to the cow. Further, even if you decided to treat a cow and a horse as though they are both horses, it neither makes them both horses, nor makes them equal.

A vote for Proposition 8 was, unfortunately, largely symbolic, but absolutely critical, nonetheless. It was an effort to preserve this one vestige of the language, one tradition, one hallmark of a culture, rather than have it sacrificed upon the altar of political correctness, like so many of our other cultural traditions. If that is something that other Americans simply cannot live with, we may as well consign the First Amendment to the garbage heap. Because if we have to bastardize the meaning of an English word that has existed since the 13^th century because its age-old definition is now offensive to someone, we are foolishly forfeiting the ability of the words in our language to mean exactly what we intend them to mean, and, accordingly, the ability to express independent ideas and independent opinions with some notion that others will be able to comprehend what it is we are trying to communicate.

Do not kid yourself that this is not what is going on. This is not about rights or respect. The assault on language here is nothing less than an assault on an idea. This attempt to destroy the heterosexual component of the definition of marriage will leave our language with no word that precisely denotes the union that has been at the foundation of all civilized societies. And now the State of California (and much of the rest of the nation) has been turned completely upside down—lawsuits, multi-million dollar elections, protests, boycotts, demonstrations, defacement of churches, and more lawsuits—not because someone’s “rights” are being infringed, but because the left no longer has a use for the word “marriage” as it has existed since it was first uttered.

If this is “progressive” politics, we are in for a long, bumpy ride, America. Check your common sense and your sanity at the border.

No related posts.

I’m not sure who or what started it. Who cares? I want to end it. American television is full of programs in which dirty laundry is not only aired, but people actually volunteer to air it: cheating spouses, love triangles, sexual polygons of all dimensions, nasty in-laws, deadbeat relatives, you-name-it. Radio call-in programs are flooded with callers willing and wanting to reveal things they have done or seen that you never would have even had the imagination to imagine.

Disgraceful conduct by movie stars, politicians, professional athletes, and pop stars are splashed across supermarket tabloids and countless “entertainment” magazines, their unfortunate children’s faces and pitiful plights right out there for everybody to see. And even if it isn’t awful news, do we really need to know what celebrity is dating whom or see pictures of their newborn baby? What do I care about these people?

And as if all this isn’t enough, so-called “reality” shows create situations and scenarios to encourage repulsive and peculiar conduct by otherwise seemingly normal people—and they actually want to go on television and participate. Then, rather than lift us up out of this muck, there are fictional movies, television shows, and novels that regurgitate, embellish, and glorify this same nauseating material.

People are just dying to tell you something you don’t need or want to know, even if it is not material of the sordid variety; they want you to know everything, whether its lurid, unusual, funny, or strange, and, if it has anything to do with anyone famous, they will go ahead and tell you every detail no matter how meaningless, boring, distorted, inconsequential, or downright false those details are. I mean, none of us minds sharing the occasional story, joke, or anecdote, but I’m tired of being bombarded.

Okay, so turn off the television and don’t buy these books, magazines, and newspapers. Sure. But do I have to stay in my house, too? It seems like everybody is walking around Wal-Mart with their Bluetooth headsets on, discussing their problems and everyone else’s to someone on the other end, while you’re trying to shop. And this is nonstop blathering, mind you, while they shop, pay for their sundries, roll out to the parking lot, load, get in the car, and drive away. Do these people ever shut up? Do they realize that complete strangers now know their personal business?

Another question: do these chatterers ever actually visit the people they talk to? I mean, why don’t they get together in their homes or in a restaurant at a quiet table, have a cup of coffee or a meal, and talk quietly among themselves? Are their lives so busy that they don’t have the time to visit anybody, so they prattle incessantly on the phone? Because the way I see it, if they stopped concerning themselves with everybody else’s business, or sharing their own business with people who do not need to know it, they would probably have a lot of free time.

Here’s what I propose: a media free day. Call it National Mind Your Own Business Day. Turn off the television and radio. Turn off the mobile phone. Don’t buy or read any newspapers or magazines. Turn off the computer. No e-mails or text-messaging. Instead, let’s all wake up in the morning and get a cup of tea or coffee, and spend a little reflective time thinking about our lives, our families, our goals, our faith, our friends. Then let’s spend the day together as a family, or go out and visit a friend or a family member, and talk to them, face to face, about something pleasant. Enjoy a meal together. Do some gardening, or walk the dog.

Because the bottom line is, all these other things are just noise. And when you pare down all those things that suck up your time but have no actual bearing on your life, you might just have enough time to create a life worth living. All the time spent reading, watching, talking, or caring about people you don’t know and places you’ve never been, or the more time spent discussing other people’s problems and lives, is time that is taken away from our own lives and from the people around us, people who really matter, people whose lives we could make better just by being there and by paying attention.

If we restore to our own lives the discipline of discretion, we will do ourselves, the American people, and American culture a tremendous favor.

Be an American.

No related posts.

American society is suffering in the youth department. America’s young people do not seem to know what it means to be courteous, how to listen, or how to carry themselves comfortably among people they don’t know.

What has happened? It is getting so that you are surprised—and enormously pleased—when you are able to carry on a meaningful, intelligent, and pleasant conversation with anyone who is under 25.

Over and over, I will walk into a shop, go into a restaurant, or attend some social event, to find that I am surrounded by young Americans who don’t have the faintest idea how to behave toward their fellow Americans. “Good Morning!” I might say, as I walk into a shop, and the young clerks give me a blank look, like I invaded their space. And when I need to ask them for help . . . watch out! They skitter away like frightened mice. Gee, I hate to interrupt you while you count hangers or fold shirts, but, aren’t you being paid to, um, excuse me, actually help customers?

Or I meet someone’s teenage son or daughter, and try to strike up a conversation by asking them questions about themselves. They look at you— if you are able to get them to look you in the eye at all—as if you are a lab specimen (or maybe, like they are the lab specimen), and it is difficult to get anything more than a conversation-stunting monosyllabic grunt.

Forget smiling or laughing. Forget even being able to talk about the weather: they have no notion of small-talk. Yes, I know small-talk is not particularly interesting, but a person should nevertheless be able to engage in it, if only to have decent social intercourse with an individual with whom you have absolutely nothing in common.

Maybe it’s because these kids have never had many opportunities to talk to other humans face to face. Here’s what I imagine: they have grown up in homes where both parents work, and they were stuck in a room with 20 other screaming kids all day. They have no brothers or sisters, or maybe one sibling. When their parents picked them up from daycare or school and came home, the children were put in front of the television or at the table, while the parents tried to do all those things that have to be done to keep a home and a family running. And as they grew up, these children occupied themselves with computers, computer games, television, cell-phones, and text-messaging. But they rarely got to actually engage another human being in social interaction.

I don’t mean this to be an indictment against parents for working; people will do what they feel they have to do. And in a lot of ways, the working parents of today have no choice but to curb their children’s outside activities—after all, it’s not like when I was a kid, where I could just ride my bicycle to a friend’s house or go to the park or playground by myself.

But if a child’s life develops a pattern in which he has severely limited opportunities to interact with different people, there has to be some extra effort to instill in him good social skills. Without them, a young person is facing a terrible disadvantage.

It is not that these kids do not have friends, but they seem to be comfortable only with other kids who “speak their language.” When confronted by someone outside of their limited social sphere, they have a difficult time adapting, and they lack the rudiments of basic polite intercourse that can help them overcome social hurdles.

I am absolutely sure they have personalities . . . somewhere . . . but they haven’t been trained to direct those personalities outward, to project who they are and what they think positively and respectfully. They lack confidence in an unfamiliar situation, and they lack perception in judging what social skills need to be applied in a given situation. Mostly, they seem to lack the knowledge that there is such a thing as a social skill.
Someone who does not know how to read social situations and adapt to them by employing the appropriate conduct is usually doomed to live within the confines of one social sphere. That is not an evil, in itself, but it limits life’s possibilities. You cannot fault a person for being reluctant to place himself in a situation where he is acutely uncomfortable. Worse, it is hard to fault someone who hasn’t been trained to sense when everyone else is uncomfortable with him.

And it is not that everybody has to be a society gadabout. Someone who has good manners, is comfortable in his own skin, and is genuinely congenial can usually handle himself equally well at a country barbecue or the royal opera, no matter what his social background.
But in my observation, not enough young people are being given the tools they need to feel at home in any situation, and, furthermore, I don’t think they are even taught that social skills are as important—and in some cases, more important—than other skills they may need in life to succeed.

To some Americans, this may seem like a trivial thing. But the quality of life—our happiness—usually hinges upon how well we interact with other people: our family members, our spouses, our friends, our communities. If we cannot open ourselves up to find new friends and new experiences by developing healthy and productive relationships with a broad range of people—at home, at work, in our communities—we stunt our own opportunities to live a full life.

America has traditionally been the land of opportunity; it would be a shame if America’s young people never saw life’s opportunities, let alone allowed those opportunities materialize into the fulfillment of their aspirations. Americans need to work on developing American youths into happy, confident adults who can relate well to other people.

The well-being of America’s youth is not someone else’s responsibility. It is yours. Be an American.

Related articles by Zemanta

• “Are computers and the Internet making people a little bit autistic?”
• Study: On Teens, Games, & Civic Engagement

No related posts.

Okay, I know there are millions of people in America who are perfectly decent. But there is a notion being pushed in American society today that it is somehow old-fashioned to be decent. Daily, I see infidelity, inconstancy, and mendacity dressed up a something harmless, and I observe that people have been seduced by this mistaken idea. Through endless repetition, Americans are being desensitized to what faithlessness really means, and the result is an assault on American moral tradition.

For example, some 60 years ago, the film actress Ingrid Bergman was shunned by American audiences when she had an affair with, and had a child by, Italian director Roberto Rossellini while both were still married to other people. Americans were scandalized. She did not make movies in the United States for a number of years afterward, and those foreign films she did make were box office bombs in the United States.

Some 50 years later, in 1998, President Clinton was caught having had an affair with a White House intern. When many Americans, and particularly his political foes, expressed outrage, Clinton apologists responded with a two-fold argument: first, they engaged in a “scorched earth” policy of digging up and exposing every instance of infidelity ever engaged in by an opposition politician; and second, concluded with the astounding assertion that “everybody does it.”

Here’s the problem: Ingrid Bergman and President Clinton did something gravely immoral. And even if you reject the idea that morality is constituted of a fixed set of rules, there is no way to paint faithlessness as harmless. But Americans are told constantly that moral judgment has no place in modern society: in movies, in television shows, in books, everywhere.

Today, if you read a biography of Ingrid Bergman on her official website, it will describe her rejection by the American public as a moral relic of the period, and then justify her conduct on the basis that she and Rossellini were estranged from their respective spouses. I say: so what? What she did was wrong.

And President Clinton behaved despicably. So did every other congressman and senator who cheated on his or her spouse and family, whatever their political affiliation. I find it disgusting that the phrase “everybody does it” was seriously contended as a justification for President Clinton’s conduct, rather than a condemnation of the whole sleazy bunch.

In fact, the tactic revealed a great deal about the state of the apologists’ corrupt morality: they purported to support the Clintons, but, gee, guys, I somehow doubt that the contention that the argument “everybody is unfaithful” was particularly consoling to Hillary and Chelsea.

And that’s really the point, isn’t it? People are partially right in saying that infidelity is someone else’s private business, because the lives that are hurt and the families that are damaged are of the people actually touched by the behavior. But moral judgment is not private business. It is the role of American society to establish social standards, and it should be our responsibility to apply social pressure that forcefully discourages and condemns conduct that is destructive and hurtful. Even President Clinton conceded that he committed a “terrible moral error” and his reasons for engaging in it were “morally indefensible.” That is not a personal judgment, and it should not be. He should be ashamed, and we should be ashamed of him because he was the President of our country, whether or not you agree with his politics. Is his conduct really excusable just because you and he may be democrats?

Today, every time I walk up to a grocery store check-out, I am exposed to the “news” that all manner of celebrities—politicians, actors, musicians, businesspeople—treat the other people like fungible goods, casting off relationships—parents, spouses, children, friends—as often as they cast off used bath towels. The reporting is done in such a way as to relish the predicament, as though the public is observing lab rats in an experiment to see how they will behave.

But faithlessness is not an abstract idea. Real people are affected, and it is those affects which demand our attention. We should not blithely accept a nation full of conscienceless sleazebags; they ought to be made to feel ashamed of themselves, and those who suffer at their hands ought to receive our compassion and sympathy.

Now, there may be Americans who think that what I am saying is antiquated. They are dead wrong. We are perfectly entitled to pass moral judgment: look how strongly and quickly racist statements are condemned and redressed by American society. How ironic that the American public will raise a stink every time some random bigot makes an offensive remark, and yet will piously claim “it’s none of our business” when a man engages in disgraceful conduct that tears up the life of his wife and children.

Don’t kid yourself that the distinction is morally meaningful. The sad part is that, if anything, Americans ought to express more vehement disapproval of faithlessness, since moral responsibilities flow more directly to those around us: spouses, families, friends. Instead, today, the merely offended are vindicated, but the seriously injured are met with a moral wasteland in American society.

Americans need to reclaim the high road, and not get cowed by people who want to destroy America’s moral traditions. All they are really doing is trying to dictate a different morality—one that gives no weight to America’s traditional values.

The moral health of American society is not someone else’s responsibility, it is yours. Be an American.

No related posts.