An FYI to the RNC

Dear Republican National Committee,

I am no longer so naive as to think that my thoughts matter enough to you to actually be read and thought about, but am sending them anyway, perhaps out of my own  (apparently out-of-date) sense of duty and obligation.

I am a long term Republican approaching my 70th year. I've contributed to the Party, and more often to individual candidates, in every election cycle for as long as I can remember. Not large amounts, but for a person of my means, significant. "Out of my want, not my surplus" in Biblical terms.  In short, I shall do so no more.  The Ryan "Omnibus" bill compromise was for me the last straw. Truly, and I expect, permanently.

Do you know how many there are such as I?  Do you care?  Does Trump's outlandish "success" teach you nothing?

Every election for years it has been the same. Promises that "this year it will be different." But it never is.  Now I will no longer be looking to the Republican Party. I no longer believe we share a common interest in preserving what I value, and  what this country as a whole once valued.

Obama. Hillary. You have folded over and over to them -- and, I suppose, to what you perceive as your own interests.  Not my interests.  Not others like me -- hard working, involved, dedicated to traditional American values such as individual liberty, family, faith -- all those quaint but now apparently to you meaningless notions.

So I am gone.  Republican candidates' election flyers will follow those of the Democrats (and the AARP) into the trash. I will from here on in concentrate on my own personal interests. The things that matter to me and that pay some dividend for expended energy. Books. History. Science. The arts.

Gone. Completely, Forever.

Got it?

  * * * * *

The above thoughts were submitted to the Republican National Committee on Saturday, Dec 19th. As expected there was no response.

The above was also submitted, with permission to publish, to a widely-read national political web journal. There it was read, not only by the journal's Founder and Editor-in-Chief, but by several others of its editorial staff. A lively discussion ensued.

In the end it was decided that it would be better not to publish it, for if such a viewpoint were encouraged, and was to become common place, the election of Hillary Clinton would be assured, and along with it all the damage to our Republic that would/will by course follow.

The journal's editors were not wrong.

Alas (sigh), neither am I.

Trump and 'Roughing People Up'

I suppose I was as "shocked" as anyone when Donald Trump's comment about someone deserving to be roughed up aired. But then I thought about it and even apart from the fact that I know one cannot trust the reports to be accurate as to what was done and by whom, another thought came to mind: That we as a society have come to accept the rudeness such as seen at the Dartmouth library as "acceptable." No, not meaning just polite (few would think, much less say, that), but "acceptable" in the sense that we simply accept it going on and do nothing.

"Roughing up" could mean -- as some have suggested -- a modern Kristallnacht where Nazi brown shirts attacked Jews and Jewish businesses. But the silencing of the these rude, in your face "protesters" hardly means that.

I asked myself how I'd react if I were in a university library and such went on? Or eating brunch at a nice restaurant? Not, I trust (and hope!) violently. But oh boy would I favor someone shutting such people up and evicting them. Yet no one does. Indeed they get apologies, cover ups -- whatever will make them appear to be the innocents they most surely are not.

Trump is not that sort. And although I am anything but a supporter, am I not at least on some level glad?

Vigilantes happen when proper authority does not enforce the law. That is where we are today. And more, the powers that be on every level seem to reinforce such lawless conduct. Apologizing university heads. Pols who turn their eyes away. Media twisting accounts of what is happening. Gutless. Lawless.

That is what got us here. Trump is simply reading the market and doing what he knows will 'clinch the deal.'

No, I do not "support" him in this. But I can see it for what it is. And know where the real blame lies.

Why I Have Come To Support Dr. Ben Carson for the Presidency

From the first time I heard Dr. Carson speak (at President Obama's "National Prayer Breakfast") I, like so many others, took note.  Not that his name was unfamiliar to me. No. A career spent working with some of the nation's top pediatric physicians at Boston Children's Hospital had assured that. But still, to have heard him speak on the occasion of the Prayer Breakfast with such honesty and clarity -- to his then and there being willing to take up themes that some, he knew, would likely find offensive -- of that I just had to take note.

Despite this, when others mentioned with excitement the idea of Dr. Carson running for the Presidency I have to say that I did not quickly join them. Only slowly have I come around -- turned around really -- and only now has he come to fully have my support.  Why?

I believe the United States is in crisis. Indeed I am of the view that the whole Western World is in crisis. That human progress over hate and ignorance and poverty -- including the poverty of fresh ideas -- is in crisis. That we have lost faith in so much! In freedom. In equality. In the liberal ideals -- the very way of thinking -- that led to emancipation from so much of the evil that makes up human history

We need things to change radically. We need to rebuild trust, not only in those ideals, but also in the institutions our forefathers built to support them.

What is needed to accomplish this is not, IMO, so much a "strong leader," but an inspiring and capable one. Not a man or woman who will vanquish everything and everyone that stands before them, but one who will stand with We The People in supporting the ideals upon which continuing human progress depends.

Light, throughout history, has conquered darkness. Knowledge, throughout history, has conquered ignorance. Good, throughout history,  has conquered evil.  If, and only if, it has been expressed and acted upon with boldness and consistency. Without fear. Without compromise.

Those are the very qualities Dr. Ben Carson has brought to this debate. Not just with words, but with deeds. With a lifetime of experience. Of thoughtfulness. Of hard work. Of clarity. And of no less importance, of goodness.

Dr. Carson is, I truly think, what America needs. For our own sake. And for the sake of our children.

The Parable of the Mouse Hole

The Parable of the Mouse Hole

Once upon a time there was a family. A hard working, well behaved family, who moved into a nice apartment in a good, if not wealthy, part of town.

Every morning the kids went off to school well fed upon a breakfast of cereal and milk - a breakfast the mother had lovingly set before them. Then mom and dad each got busy with their respective responsibilities, working hard always with a mind focused on the well being of the family as a whole, and the future of the children in particular.

This went on for some years as the children grew. But all was not right. The neighborhood itself started to go down hill. Land owners -- including this family's landlord -- seemed to stop caring. Paint started to peel, roofs to leak, lawn and gardens to become overcome, first with weeds, than with trash.

Mom and dad soldiered on. The kids did too, but all was not as it was. Dad, who had held one steady job for years suddenly found himself jobless. He quickly sought another but could find nothing that paid as well as the old one.  Mom, too, started looking for work outside the home. This was needed to make ends meet.

Getting to school safely started to become difficult for the children, and the atmosphere in the classroom -- once a place of quiet, serious, teaching -- changed to one of noise and strife. Homework became mere exercises, and the children sensing this, and with minds focused elsewhere, started to do less well in their studies.

Still, month in, month out, the family soldiered on.  Then IT HAPPENED. It wouldn't seem like much to an outsider. -Nothing worthy of a headline. But for this family this little event -- caused by a few little mice -- changed everything.

Mom had gotten used to the peeling paint, the chipped sink and the dripping faucet. But one morning when she went to the cabinet to get the children's cereal she found the box had been chewed through by some mice, and the cereal was spread out on the cabinet shelf mixed with chewed cardboard and mouse droppings.

That morning the children went to school with no breakfast. And the next. And the next.

Complaints about the mouse infestation started to spread throughout the building. The landlord promised change but the change never came.  Families who could move away did. Others, with nowhere else to go, suffered in silence.

With family breakfast no longer part of their lives the children each started going off on their own. Mom and dad started to lose hope too, and conversation slowly ceased. Where once there had been a hard working happy family -- a household filled with joy, hope and promise -- now there was only sullen quiet and sometimes anger; a family adrift. Just one more among many such families in a neighborhood that suddenly saw itself with no future.

The landlord himself rarely showed except, of course, when rent was late. He himself had long ago moved elsewhere.

Then one day there was a knock on the door. Standing there was a bold and brash man in a bright suit jacket. "I'm going to make this neighborhood great again" he proclaimed.  And when invited in he looked around and told the people that he would NEVER live like this. He was a rich and powerful man. And that if they'd support him in his attempt to take over the building and the neighborhood all would again be wonderful.

"But what do you plan to do?" asked the husband. The man in the bright suit jacket gestured broadly, walked across the room, and pointed to a hole in the baseboard. "Close this in!" he proclaimed. "Then the apartment will be sound again!" "Are not mice eating the food? Your food. Food you worked for. Food that should be feeding your children!"  "Yes" said mom and dad, thankful that finally someone was going to make things right again. "That is where and when everything started going badly" they thought to themselves, "with the intrusion of those mice!" It was all suddenly so clear!

And so a campaign started and more and more people got behind it. "Make the neighborhood great again!" "Chase away the mice!" "Fill in the mouse holes!"  For the first time in years the family, and many of their neighbors, had become believers.

How does our parable end?

We don't know yet.  But the mice will be going. That he promises.

Published by American Thinker
9/16/1015

Laws Are For the Lawless

Some thoughts on the Obama Admin's new overtime law.

Here's a surprise for some no doubt... I'm with Obama here. To me the problem with unions, union rules and government meddling with business, is that the unions lost their focus on supporting the general workforce and focused instead on simply helping themselves.

The forty hour week -- the assuring that working people should be able to have a life for themselves and their families -- is a great good. That law had to mandate this was and is a shame, but ending sweatshops and crushing work demands sadly DID require intervention.

Today many employers have looked for and found loopholes to allow them to demand long hours far beyond the forty hour week. Calling a mid-level worker a "manager" or worse, a "management trainee" has simply become a way to take advantage of workers -- making them give the employer what amounts to unpaid time, often doing things that are a far cry from "management."

Should the government have to intervene? No. But businesses have  brought this upon themselves. (Those who have practiced no such abuse will see little if any change in their labor costs.)

The argument that this will "cost" workers hours seems to me bunk.  What it will "cost" them is UNPAID hours - a price that I expect most are more than willing to pay.

Don't like regulations?  Then regulate yourselves! Law is, as the old proverb says, for the "lawless."

Confessions of an (Almost) Hopeless Reactionary

During my morning workout I was thinking about what a reactionary I'd become. Why I still sometimes smile when I think about the success of the American Revolution. Can you imagine? Worse yet, I actually fly an American flag at my home.

No! I am past it. I have to come to admit that and be willing to change. Indeed, if I were starting over in family life I'd no longer call my son a "boy," or if I had a daughter, a "girl." Think how hurtful that is to the gender confused! Better by far to confuse my own children so those others don't feel ostracized. I realize that now.

The American flag would have to go. Seeing it must be far too troubling to a passing Mexican immigrant. He or she has enough troubles already having to hide the fact that he snuck into the country. I have been thoughtless. No more!

I'd never again speak of things like "bacon" or "pork chops." Such might offend the folks at the Mosque built up the street on land donated by the city.  I'd also buy some black burlap for Jan. (Although I'm not sure she'd agree to wear it. She may not have come to grips yet with the error of her ways.)

And most important of all I'd not teach my son or daughter to read properly. How unfair to the dyslexic kid who can't!

Nope. I'd do none of those things! And I'd most certainly vote Democrat to make sure no one else did either!

See! A behind the times reactionary can change! I feel so much better now that I need no longer think.

Slightly edited version published on American Thinker Blog
Oct. 10, 2014
"Confessions of an (Almost) Hopeless Reactionary"

The Coming of the Morlock

Earlier this morning I got a PM from a valued and respected friend living in Europe that included the comment "I see the flag flying from your wood pile and it disturbs me."  He equated my flying the US flag on my home with "nationalism" which, in his eyes, along with religion, is the source and cause of much of the world's sorrow.

After several back and forths I shared this thought: If things 'go south' with ISIS and their breed you and your more 'advanced thinking' European friends will likely be looking to 'backward-thinking' American southerners bearing the US flag to (once again) come and save you.

Why might this be?  The answer can be found in history, both ancient and modern, but also in works of thoughtful fiction.

H.G. Wells is known, today, mostly as a writer of "science fiction."  And indeed that he was. But underlying most of his works is the voice of a concerned student of history.  One who saw the ideas trending in the Europe of his day, and who, via his "fiction," tried to warn us of the future he saw coming our way.

In one of his most famous, interesting and thoughtful books, "The Time Machine," he spoke of a future where mankind had come to be split into two separate races. An effete group, living lives focused on daily pleasures, totally dependent on others for their food, shelter and the literal cloths on their back, and a barbaric offshoot of humanity -- violent and depraved, living off the flesh of others

The effete group -- called the Eloi -- lived in total acceptance of whatever came their way, hoping, simply, to be allowed their days of simple pleasure and taking as little note as possible of the quickly encroaching ugliness. And as they did, the Morlocks -- their barbaric 'cousins' -- daily expanded both the scope of their barbarity and the depth of their depravity -- that until it came to completely threaten the Eloi's seemingly paradisaic world.

In the end it was the Time Traveler -- the hero of the book -- who had to save the day. He did that (with what success Wells left unanswered) by attempting to reawaken within the Eloi any old-fashioned  manly virtues that might remain -- the (even in his day -- and far more so today) seemingly archaic values of Victorian England.

Wells book was amazingly prescient. But as even he realized, its message was possibly coming too late.

Today, if we are saved from the all too present "Morlock" -- they who comprise ISIS and their ilk, that salvation will come I think, not from England, nor from New England, but, from the old-school thinkers and doers that (Thank God!) still exist in such places as the American rural south.