Last night I checked out the Google Map API. It's a way that Google allows site designers to incorporate the Google Maps into their own sites. As I was studying it, I remembered a site I'd stumbled across that used this same API. Someone had combined the national database of sex offenders, with Google Maps to produce a map of where sex offenders live. My wife and I were shocked to see how many lived near us.
For some reason that site is now down. It may have been because the national sex offender registry has been making it harder for others to compile their information. Some people think that registry poses a danger to sex offenders, especially after some nutcase killed two several years ago, after locating them via the public registry. But quite a number of parents feel the registry helps protect their children from those who would exploit them.
Unfortunately, it appears that those who manage these registries aren't very efficient, because while addresses are supplied, they are often wrong and very hard to locate. Based on the current addresses of 5 of the sex offenders listed as living in the same town I live in, they all live within 500 feet of a school. According to state law, they're not supposed to live within 5,000 feet of a school. But another site shows their location (same exact address) at another part of town. The geocode locators provided for addresses don't seem to be very efficient, and ironically enough, one sex offender in the registry had a comment by city police that the address was bad, but that seems to be as far as anyone's actually done anything.
One problem I see is that the sex offender registry has been abused by tossing people into it who do not belong. One person listed locally was convicted of "allowing abuse", which usually means her child was abused by someone else, but she didn't do enough to stop or prevent the abuse, based on some DA's standard. Should that be someone listed on a sex offender registry? Men who are accused of abuse by bitter ex-wives would also find themselves on the registry, along side people whose parenting style don't match the whims of whatever social worker wanted to make an example of them.
But, there are dangerous people on that list as well. People parents need to know about. According to the national registry there are ten sex offenders that live within the same zip code as my family, but based on the addresses provided, it's almost impossible to know where exactly they live. Many of the addresses don't match local streets. Presumably there's someone that supposed to make sure the data the taxpayers are paying for to be in that registry is actually usable, but it seems that presumption is wrong.
Why have a national registry if it can't be used?
The answer is because having the registry offers the illusion that something's being done, which is the real goal of many bureaucrats, the appearance, not the reality.
Why waste taxpayers' money on programs that fail to provide what's needed?
Because to those bureaucrats and politicians, the appearance is all that matters. We have entire generations of Americans well trained in situation ethics, which means they determine right or wrong based on their own rules, their own needs. They want to appear to care, but really don't, so they make a system that, on the surface, perpetuates that illusion, but in reality is a sham.
But isn't making up your own rules based on your own needs and perceptions pretty much what make sex offenders, sex offenders?
The societal impact of moral relativism creates abusers, then prevents us from responding to them correctly, because those we trust to do so, think it's okay to "fake it".
How hard would it be to actually locate these sex offenders and monitor their whereabouts? Not very. A simple latitude and longitude to accompany the address would allow parents to quickly see what locations to avoid. It would also help determine of the locations the sex offenders chose, fit the law. Why is that so hard?
We took morality out of schools, we took the foundation out of the nation. Let's start rebuilding it by electing leaders who won't compromise on the need for moral absolutes in government, rather than leaders who hide from any stand that may demonstrate they understand right from wrong.
America stands at the climax of her strength, power and success. We are the lone super power in the world, having caused the collapse of the oppressive Soviet Union by attacking their weak economic foundation. We could crumble the Communist government of China the same way, but they aren't near the threat the Soviet Union was, and too many Americans are now helplessly addicted to cheap, slave-produced products from China.
We reached this point in our nation's growth because we provided freedom and opportunity for America's citizens. We know that while so many of the world may criticize us for various reasons, few wouldn't give their right arm for the opportunity to live and work here. We stand at the pinnacles of what every nation wishes they could become, and we beckon to them to emulate our own path, in making their nation free and prosperous as well.
Meanwhile we are throwing our achievements away with wild abandon.
America is free because the Founding Fathers recognize a set of core principles that any free nation must posses. America is prosperous because the Founding Fathers also recognized a set of core principles that individuals in a free society must posses. Those core principles have been under attack for quite some time.
While the Constitution outlines the form and function of the US Government, the Bill of Rights was added as a leash on that same government, limiting it's scope and power.
The First Amendment was supposed to provide for freedom of speech and religion. Yet we now face "hate crime" laws which will make speech which a minority of the population find "offensive", criminal. Freedom of religion has been so curtailed that the moral influence our nation's pastors, priests, rabbis and other religious leaders once had, has now been declared illegal, and a political speech by religious leaders is punished, unless it conforms to a specific political agenda—then it is allowed as is exampled by the practice of Democrat candidates making political speeches from the pulpits of Liberal churches.
The Second Amendment was supposed to protect the right to bear arms, yet in many parts of the nation it is impossible to legally own a gun.
The Fourth Amendment was supposed to guarantee the freedom from unreasonable search and seizure, but the court have conveniently allowed the local governments to seize private property for public use, which can be defined as nothing more than what the local government determines is a more "profitable" business. The courts have also allowed the ridiculous farce of the "arrest" of property, which allows law enforcement to "detain" the property, while then placing the burden of proof of "innocence" on the property. A measure supposed to allow for more control fighting drug distributors, but has been used repeatedly on people with no evidence of involvement in any crime.
The Fifth Amendment guarantees a speedy trial, as well as protection against double-jeopardy and forced self-incrimination. Admittedly the lack of speedy trial comes more from the use of delay tactics on the part of some defense lawyers than the government, but it is disturbing when some guilty verdicts result in prison sentences shorter than the time already served waiting for the trial to end. But what about double-jeopardy? I was amazed when the four police officers accused of beating Rodney King were tried twice, once in local court, then again in Federal court, for the same crime. The hypocrisy of self-incrimination really bugs me. What the Founding Father's wanted was to eliminate torture, yet many police tactics regularly used, seem unusually harsh, especially when they can and do result in false confessions.
What do each and every one of these aberrations stem from? A lack of moral foundation. These core principles that a free nation must posses, we see cannot be maintained unless those core principles that the citizens of that nation, also posses, maintain and pass on to the next generation. What are those core, individual principles?
1. There is a God, and He is in control 2. God makes rules. 3. We cannot change those rules.
Moral relativism allows any rule to become a suggestion. That's why we see our Bill of Rights stripped of it's meaning and relevance as courts and politicians redefine them for their own convenience.
Two approaches to freedom
Two men tried to explain the value of the Democratic process.
One was a Deist, who passionately believed in God, but stopped short of acknowledging any personal relationship with God. Hardly someone in step with most modern religions.
The other was an Atheist. Intelligent, articulate, passionate in his own ideas and philosophies, but firmly believing there was no God.
Both men wrote famous treaties on the value of Democracy—literature still available and widely read today.
The Deist was Thomas Paine, who provided valuable philosophical support for the newly formed United States as they wrestled with what type of government to form. Thomas Paine argued in "Common Sense"...
But where, says some, is the King of America? I'll tell you. Friend, he reigns above, and doth not make havoc of mankind like the Royal Brute of Britain. Yet that we may not appear to be defective even in earthly honors, let a day be solemnly set apart for proclaiming the charter; let it be brought forth placed on the divine law, the word of God; let a crown be placed thereon, by which the world may know, that so far we approve of monarchy, that in America THE LAW IS KING. For as in absolute governments the King is law, so in free countries the law OUGHT to be King; and there ought to be no other. But lest any ill use should afterwards arise, let the crown at the conclusion of the ceremony, be demolished, and scattered among the people whose right it is.
The Atheist was a man named Sun Yat Sen, a Chinese politician. In his book "Principles of Democracy" he admitted that democracy ran contrary to nature, but because he and others believed it was best, it should be adopted. His arguments were ultimately unpersuasive as history has shown. China rejected democracy and embraced Communism, leaving Sun Yat Sen and his followers to relocate to the Island of Taiwan.
Without those core principles outlined above, embraced by a significant part of the population, especially the leaders, a nation cannot long maintain freedom—it can't even begin to accept it. It is only by acknowledging a moral foundation outside our own right and ability to alter, that the strong can submit their ambitions to the protection and betterment of the weak. That is the essence of what has made America strong, free and prosperous.
It is only by electing leaders who unashamedly embrace and support traditional values that we can hope to avoid the trap of moral relativism, and the devastation it would wreak on our nation.
Why the Federal Minimum Wage is such a stupid idea
Question. A boat is floating in 24 feet of water. A ladder off the side of the rope has water up to the fourth rung from the top, and the rungs are exactly 9 inches apart. If the water rises at 1 foot an hour, how long until the water reaches the third rung from the top.
Before you grab a pencil and paper and try to figure it out, it's a trick question. The boat rises with the water, so the water level on the ladder hung from the boat will always be exactly the same no matter how much higher it gets.
Question. If the purchasing power of the poorest people in the nation is currently at $5,000 per year in 1980 dollars, by raising the minimum wage 70 cents a year how long until their purchasing power is increased to $6,000 in 1980 dollars?
Wait, put down that pencil and paper. This is the same trick question. Our economy adjusts to supply, demanding and most importantly, purchasing power. The more money people have to buy things, the more expensive things get. Also, the more money employers are forced to pay their employees, the more expensive those goods and services that employers provides, will be to the rest of us.
Raising the minimum wage is nothing more than political snake oil. It makes some politicians look good, but hurts business, raises prices, reduces the number of minimum wage jobs and does nothing to improve those who slick politicians are pretending to help.
Proponents of the Minimum wage/snake oil scam claim that raising the minimum wage helps poor families. Dab that tear, then let's look beyond the scam.
The Heritage Foundation reports that 53% of minimum wage employees are teenagers or young adults under the age of 23. The other 47% have an average family income of $38,100 per year.
Less than 21 percent of minimum wage workers are the sole breadwinners of their families and less than 5 percent are sole breadwinners that work full-time year-round.
The average family income for all minimum wage workers is $45,200 and their wages account for 35 percent of their total family income.
The US Department of Health and Human Services places the 2007 poverty line for a family of four (close to the average family size) at $20,650. So how exactly are these poor families when they make well above the poverty line?
As John Cox said, "Raising the Federal minimum wage is one of those ideas that sounds good on paper, but is in fact very destructive, and could cripple our economy by forcing wages upward and creating higher prices for nearly everything we buy."
Several decades ago Japan was rocked with an epidemic of a condition known as Subacute Myelo-Optico-Neuropathy (SMON). Two drugs had been quickly developed when the condition first surfaced, Emaform and Entero-vioform, both brand names for a drug known as clioquinol. But the epidemic raged on. By 1966 over 2,000 people were suffering from the painful and as yet incurable stomach malady. It took the government of Japan almost two decades, untold millions of dollars and intense research by numerous health experts to finally conclude that SMON was caused by...clioquinol the very medicine they had been prescribing patients who were suspected of being in danger of the disease. The source of the disease was the supposed cure.*
Raising the minimum wage hurts America's poor by focusing the government's efforts in the wrong place as well as crippling those who are best suited to helping the poor, small businesses looking for employees. Making it harder to hire people is not the way to ensure people get jobs. It is, however, an easy way to get votes from people too naive to understand the real economic impact of an artificially inflated minimum wage.
No, it's not fair that China uses slave labor to produce cheap goods to flood our markets. It's not fair that in spite of their human rights abuses the dictatorial and oppressive Communist Chinese government continues to enjoy "Most Favored Nation" status (recently renamed "Normal Trade Relations" in an attempt to appease those who find trade with murderers and torturers unpalatable. China's abuses didn't change, just the name of trade status. Don't we all feel so much better now.)
While notably the worst, China is not our only problem when it comes to unfair trade. Much of Asia and Latin America have substandard living for most of their population therefore wages are extremely low, making production costs low, giving them an advantage against American produced goods. The problem is not just that we can't sell the stuff we make, but the imbalance gives an incentive to unscrupulous governments to maintain poverty levels in order to compete. That causes the people of those nations to suffer.
But trade is an awkward thing. If we raise tariffs too high, then many nations will retaliate with their own tariffs, reducing the markets for our goods. To a point, we can ignore some, as we have with habitual human right abusers like Vietnam, Cuba and North Korea. But those nations don't export much of anything that we consider all that important (Cuban cigars aside). On the other hand we have grown dependant on the exports from oil-producing middle-eastern nations as well as cheap, communist-Chinese produced garbage.
So the "Fair" part of Fair Trade is interpreted differently depending on who's doing the interpreting.
Wide-open trade with third world nations supposedly gives them an economic advantage, but after years of such attempts, we see that it only marginally and very much slowly affects the bulk of the people in those nations. Hugo Chavez is a perfect example of why too much trade can seriously hurt a nation.
At the same time we have our own economy to worry about. We've developed a standard of living far above what the vast majority of the world's population enjoys. But we earned it honestly, and rather than a mark of shame it should be a badge of honor noting our ingenuity and hard work. But, no, rather than something to emulate, we are treated as if we've done something wrong.
So there's the conundrum. We have a high standard of living, which much of the world doesn't. Rather than working at solving their problem the same way we did it, they want us to sacrifice our standard of living so they can improve theirs, except that's not what they'll do. No, a handful in power will get the giant's share and dole out spoonfuls to the hard working, impoverished masses while socialists in our own country whine that it's all our fault.
There are three approaches to a solution.
One, design our trade policies to optimize our own economy. This isn't actually as heartless as it seems. This was more or less Reagan's approach and it did produce positive results. For one thing it allows foreign nations to be treated as equals, something they do respect, even if they rarely voice it. Second, it places corrupt leaders in a very untenable position, because they cannot maintain their own oppressive control and maintain economic stability. Something has to give. During Reagan's administration the Soviet Union fell, precisely because they couldn't maintain economic viability (Okay, Reagan gave them a swift kick in the pants by escalating the arms race, but their weak economy was their Achilles Heel, and that was Reagan target). The Sandinistas in Nicaragua also fell from power in part because their Marxist ideologies could not maintain any sort of stable economy. The biggest problem with this approach is that while it helps our economy, the benefit it gives foreign economies is much like pulling a tooth with no pain-killer. It will stop the pain, but not before causing a tremendous amount of more pain in the process. But sometimes, that's the only option.
The second approach is to design our trade policies in order to assist impoverished nations. This sounds very compassionate, but in practice is anything but. This was both Jimmy Carter as well as Bill Clinton's approach, and resulted in empowered despots, who ruled suffering people—as well as fostering a growing hatred for America for contributing to the problems of third-world nations. It also required our diplomats to treat foreign nations like children we needed to parent. No adult likes that, least of all foreign diplomats.
The third option is one that hasn't been tried, because it takes too much cooperation, something Democrats with their infatuation for cruel despots refuse to give. Design our trade polices to primarily optimize our own economy, but with leeway for the encouragement of freedom and industry in impoverished nations. If Mexicans would apply the same effort to improving their own economy and politics that they do in trying to sneak into this country, Mexico would be competing with us as a world leader. They have the people, they have the resources, they just lack the ambition because they seem to think it's easier to simply swim across the Rio Grande and mow someone's lawn than take a risk on starting a business back in Jaurez. The same is true for most nations with struggling economies. The reason they come here is because of the opportunities, opportunities that don't exist in their countries because of the lack of freedom that they won't bother to fight for. Freedom make people less malleable, and despots don't like that, but freedom is attainable if you simply fight for it.
While truly fair trade will definitely help us, in the long term it also helps third-world nations by forcing corrupt leaders to offer freedom in order to maintain economic stability. The alternative simply makes the problem worse.
If this were just one kid who has gotten too big for his britches, then it would only be a small part of the passing parade of human foibles. But school children all across the country are being encouraged or assigned to engage in letter-writing campaigns, taking up the time of people ranging from journalists to congressmen and presidents. Worse, these pupils are led to believe that having opinions is more important than knowing what you are talking about.
Few things are more dangerous than articulate superficiality. Glib demagogues have been the curse of the 20th century and tens of millions of human beings have paid with their lives for the heady visions and clever talk of political egotists. Yet the danger is not that a particular child will follow in the footsteps of Lenin, Hitler or Mao. The danger is that great numbers of people will never know what it is to know, as distinguished from sounding off....
If our so-called educators cannot be bothered to teach our children knowledge and logic, they can at least refrain from undermining the importance of knowledge and logic by leading students to believe that how you feel and express yourself are what matter.
It takes considerable knowledge just to realize the extent of your own ignorance.
When I see the awkward contortions President Bush has gone through in order to attempt to merge Conservative principles with his wife's indoctrination by the Education Industry, it evokes images of the fictional Duke Leto Atreides of Frank Herbert's Dune. The Duke's love was a woman named Jessica who had bore him a son, Paul, but was forbidden to marry him by the strict, cult-like group she belonged to, the Bene Gesserit. The Duke's action and ultimate death were manipulated by the Bene Gesserit mainly through Jessica, but mostly against her will. But she could never fully escape their control.
Bush's infamous No Child Left Behind attempts to crossbreed the Conservative principles of local control, basic education and fair accommodation with Liberal/Socialist concepts of so-called "outcome-based education", standardized testing (for students, not teachers) and substituting glossy sounding words for actual substance. It initially had support on both sides of the isle, but everyone except the Whitehouse soon realized it failed to provide much of anything other than red-tape and lots and lots of cheating.
President Bush's strong suit is supposed to be compromise. It's been said he can get differing parties to come together better than anyone else. But in this case there really was never any common ground. While Conservatives see education as a tool to empower the individual, Liberals see it as a method of maintaining control of the individual by the state—the opposite of empowerment. It's been said that if you give a man a fish you feed him for a day, but if you teach him to fish, you feed him for a lifetime. But Liberals have discovered that if you convince him that all fish are poisonous that don't come from you, then you make him a slave forever. That, in a nutshell, is how Liberals use education.
At one point in our history it was recognized by communities that educated citizens made for more productive and honest citizens. It was decided that land-owners benefited the most from an educated community, because they would be the first to suffer from theft by those unable to earn a living otherwise. Thus was born the property tax to fund education. Eventually the states started taking control of the schools until by the middle of the 20th century all of the states controlled school districts, consolidating many smaller districts into larger ones. It was inevitable that the Federal government got involved and wrestled as much control as they could. After all whoever controls the education of today's children controls the attitude of tomorrow's political leaders.
The problem is that we forgot one of the most important lessons we had learned when we'd won our independence from Britain—the strength of decentralization. While the British troops were organized polished and "professional". American soldiers in the 18th century utilized what the French called "Little War" or Guerilla warfare. Keeping troops in small groups, attacking quickly, giving the enemy few targets to hit and minimizing damage by never having too many troops in one spot. It worked as a handful of "peasants" whooped the snot out of what was thought of as the most formidable army on the planet.
By centralizing our education system, we make the same mistake the British did in the late 1700s. If one department controls education, then that one department can be manipulated and controlled. The Department of Education itself is the single biggest liability to our education system. Former Secretary of Education William Bennett, himself argued for the dissolution of the Department in order to minimize the deleterious affect the nation's teachers' unions had on education. While most unions have a clear distinction between labor and management, the NEA and the AFT both allow teachers and administrators to join, thus declaring rather than helping labor fight management, they are helping labor and management fight parents, and the children those parents want educated. And their efforts are only made possible by the existence of the US Department of Education and the centralized control of America's schools.
That's why schools fight the ideas of vouchers, merit pay, homeshooling, teacher testing or any other measure that would actually improve education. Our schools are controlled by members of power-mad unions that fights for what benefits the teachers (and their own Liberal/socialist agenda) at the expense of the education of the children.
Digging through some old papers a few years ago, my mother-in-law came across the hospital bill for when her second son was born in 1958. They had no insurance. Few did in those days, and the bill totaled $75. That included a week's stay in the hospital.
In 1993 we were expecting our second child, and also had no insurance. We managed to save up some money and contacted the hospital regarding paying the bill ourselves. They said prepaying meant we could spend only $2,000, only if there were no complications and it included only 3 days in the hospital. But this was the hospital, and the doctors, both the OBGYN and the Pediatrician. The whole shebang.
Last year I had my gall bladder removed. Because my liver was also affected I had to stay in the hospital a week. The hospital billed our insurance company over $25,000 dollars, of which the insurance company paid $10,000. The hospital then billed us a bit over $1,100 and wrote the rest off. Then followed an army of specialists, anesthesiologists, and other varied and assorted -ists—each also billing both the insurance company and us. I was actually expecting to get a bill from the janitor, but that never came (Maybe they need to change their title to "Janitorists").
What in the world happened between 1958 and 2007?!?
In 1958 few people had insurance, so hospital bills were scrutinized carefully by the people paying them. Today patients are so far removed form the eventual billing process that they rarely see the actual bill. And while insurance makes us feel better about those occasional needs for medical care, we ultimately pay for all of it and more. It may be skimmed off your paycheck before you ever see it, but it's still your money—you earned it.
I used to work as an optician, so have seen the "game" played from a health provider's perspective. I also, obviously, understand it from a patient's perspective. But it's still a game, a silly one at that. The provider charges more than they expect to get. The insurance company pays less than what's billed, but doesn't look too carefully at the bill, and the insured eventually pays for everything—$10 aspirins and all.
But the question that still bothers me: If a health care provider intentionally overcharges knowing the insurance company will underpay—how is that not insurance fraud? Is it because the patient, who ultimately pays the bill, is the only one that doesn't understand the "rules"? If the insurance company is not monitoring the bills all that carefully, how do they know they only over-charged, 20%, 40%, or 60%? And why has this system been allowed to continue so long? Could it be the $265 million plus in political donations made by the insurance industry over the past 9 years? Maybe the almost $350 million in political contributions made by health care providers over the past 9 years has also had a "tiny" affect. Both industries profit heavily from the current confusion which leaves the average Joe paying out the nose for outrageously-priced, health care.
Oh, the Democrats have a solution, identical to Karl Marx's solution to the imagined evils of Capitalism—cement the problem into the bureaucracy so everyone suffers equally. In other words—socialized medicine. Except there's always a group that somehow manages to escape the suffering everyone else is expected to endure: Those who make and enforce the rules. Isn't that convenient.
Another disastrous idea Democrats have pushed is tax deduction for employee health insurance. The problem with that is it endorses an additional layer into the already confusing mix. If you thought having three players in the game was confusing, adding a fourth would make it almost incomprehensible. The problem isn't that employers aren't offering health coverage, but that health care itself is too expensive as both the provider and the insurance industry milk the public of money that all too often never needed to be spent in the first place. Individual health tax credits would keep a fourth player (the employer), possibly even a third (the insurance company) out and encourage the individual to do more to minimize their own medical expenses.
The status quo isn't working, and socialized medicine simply puts a government label on the status quo, which solves nothing. Pushing more people under the umbrella of corporate health plans masks the problem and allows it to grow and fester.
Ultimately, the bottom line, is the bottom line. Would you knowingly pay $10 for an aspirin? Then why tolerate a system that allows someone to do it for you, while pretending to be helping you and hiding their dishonesty? Why elect leaders who won't address the problem?
Boasting of his participation in the 1876 Hamburg Massacre, in which seven Black men were murdered by a mob of white southerners, Benjamin Tillman pursued dominance in South Carolina's political arena. Serving as governor in 1890 he bemoaned the fact that Blacks still resided in South Carolina. "...we have scratched our heads to find out how we could eliminate the last one of them. We stuffed ballot boxes. We shot them. We are not ashamed of it." So naturally when he ran for the US Senate he felt most comfortable in the Democrat Party and became the "noble" pioneer of campaign finance reform, setting a "moral" standard future "reformers" could emulate. Tillman's Magnus Opus was the Tillman Act, which barred political contributions from corporations. Apparently corporation didn't measure up to Tillman's lofty moral standards.
In 1974 Democrats were once again outraged at such egregious campaign finance abuses as W. Clement Stone's donation of $2 million to Richard Nixon, which helped defeat Democrat challenger, George McGovern. It was Stone's money, and perfectly legal, but since it helped defeat a Democrat, the Democrat controlled Congress saw it as an obvious example of "corruption" and "financial abuse". Being Democrats, though, they weren't all that bright and made the mistake of believing their own hype. Assuming their contributor base was actually "the people" rather that "the rich" they amended the Federal Election Campaign Act of 1971 to cap individual donations at $5,000. By the time they realize that Republicans actually had more grassroots contributions, it was too late. They'd promoted donation caps to the point that they couldn't take it back. But like all good Democrats, they knew that rules were for suckers who couldn't find the loopholes.
First the Supreme Court ruled that the caps couldn't be applied to what the candidate himself could donate, so the rich politicians breathed a sigh of relief, and the average Joes aspiring for political office were cut off at the knees. The world was once again safe from all those average Joes.
Democrats quickly found other loopholes. Funding political parties and other organizations was left fairly open, especially if the money was used specifically for "voter registration". So an organization that worked to register voters only in heavily Democrat parts of the city was declared "non-partisan" and could receive unlimited funding. Also, every time ordinary people found a way of reaching other voters, political insiders led by Democrats would slam the doors on their efforts. The 90s found people pooling their money to run commercials addressing issues they were concerned about. In 2002 McCain-Feingold stopped that "horrible abuse". Can you imagine the gall of some people thinking they can just simply tell other people what they think. I mean where do they think this is, America?
In 2004 we saw billionaire George Soros flood the campaign season with $15 million, while the Democrat party smiled on approvingly. (By the way, W. Clement Stone's $2 million in 1972 would have been $9 million in 2004 dollars, but somehow "corrupt" while Soros's $15 million wasn't.) The FEC eventually, grudgingly fined Soros funded MoveOn.org a paltry $150,000 while fining the [gasp] Average Joe funded Swift Vets for Truth almost twice as much for allegedly doing the exact same thing. What exactly it was they did was never really explained all that clearly, mainly because it's doubtful the FEC itself actually understands McCain-Feingold. It's doubtful McCain or Feingold even understand McCain-Feingold. But any government agency worth its salt has to do something to appear to justify its budget. So MoveOn.org was fined $150,000 for an alleged $5 million campaign violation. I bet their wrists are still stinging.
This Presidential election promises yet another exciting "race for the loophole" competition between any of a crowd of well financed organizations wearing their "I'm pretending to be non-partisan" buttons. Soros still hasn't squandered his $8.5 billion estimated net worth, so there's plenty to pay off token FEC fines as he attempts again to buy a presidency.
Ultimately every attempt at campaign finance reform ever enacted in the US turned out to be an embarrassing Maginot Line that caused more problems than it solved. In fact, since our ineffective efforts at campaign finance reform predate the actual Maginot Line, it should have been made fun of by calling it a "US Campaign Finance Reform."
The "Child Protection" Industry v FLDS: the lessor of two evils?
Excellent OpEd..
Jacob Sullum of Reason.com "I'm not quite as old-fashioned as the Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints (FLDS), which hews to the early-marriage customs of the 19th century and the polygamous practices of biblical times. But I'm old-fashioned enough to believe the government needs a good reason to pull a crying, clinging child away from her mother and hand her over to the care of strangers."
In spite of the contention by Liberals that Wright does indeed represent all Blacks (a view allowed by the Liberal tendency to see Blacks as a mindless, easily-controlled, monolithic group with limited ability of individual thought) many Black pastors have now spoken out against what Wright has said.
African American ministers in Los Angeles expressed angst and concern Tuesday that a fresh round of comments by Sen. Barack Obama's former pastor was hurting the Democratic presidential candidate's campaign and skewing public understanding of the black church....
"This didn't have anything to do with the black church -- it was basically an attack on the individual message he proclaimed, which hurt some individuals," said the Rev. K.W. Tulloss of Weller Street Missionary Baptist Church in Boyle Heights. "My own members were offended by Rev. Wright's words. His views have cast a wedge between people, and that's the exact opposite of the unity Jesus represented."...
Kerman Maddox, a member of First AME church in Los Angeles, said that he had listened to hundreds of sermons in black churches nationwide as part of his political and community work, and that Wright's messages did "not represent mainstream black thought on Sunday morning."...
"I am hurt and disgusted that one of the most historic political campaigns in the nation's history could be derailed by this pastor who has been needlessly callous, careless and insensitive in his remarks," said the Rev. John J. Hunter of First AME.
Others commenting...
Rev. Jesse Lee Patterson "Black men were deceived into leaving their homes in order for the women and children to receive welfare. As a result, the moral fiber of the man who left and the abandoned family were weakened.
Meanwhile, welfare gave the black woman a false sense of empowerment and independence. She felt as though she no longer needed a husband to provide....
...Absent the leadership of God-fearing, upstanding men, the congregation was weak and susceptible to the corrupt preacher. The weaker they became, the more they looked for scapegoats (i.e., the "evil white man") to explain away their failures.
One need only look at Rev. Wright's Trinity United Church of Christ and many other black churches to see this lie being played out."
Larry Elder "While most Americans feel sympathy for the "black plight," they do not feel responsible for slavery, Jim Crow or legalized segregation. They resent those who continue to blame past injustices for current problems and inconveniences. And they recoil at the apparent widespread victicrat mentality that forms the psyche of so many blacks, including, but not limited to, Jeremiah Wright, Jesse Jackson, Al Sharpton, et al. This includes much of the Democratic Party, which tacitly and explicitly endorses this mindset in order to get the monolithic black vote, without which the party cannot prevail."
JackLewis.net is in all my experience -- and don't get me wrong -- I don't mean to overstate the matter, but
after all things considered, I can unequivacably state that it is. At least in my book. -- Glenn Reynolds
