Comment on Ferguson

Trust is the Glue of Life – Stephen Covey

The View from the Middle

I hate to launch my column with an often-derided cliché, but some of my best friends are black, and that has always been the case.  It could be my upbringing or my life long love of sports, but I count this collegial cocktail as a real blessing in my life.

So in the wake of Ferguson, it was natural to me to reach out to my friends to get their take, and what I got back surprised me and educated me.  What I accepted as fact was questioned by my comrades who suggested that law enforcement and judicial representatives were simply lying.

And these men are hardly revolutionary anarchists.  They are solid citizens, family men, businessmen and thoughtful people.  They have just had different life experiences than I have.  Each talked about bogus traffic stops and or harsh treatment by law enforcement throughout their lives. 

These life experiences have destroyed the trust they have in our legal system.  To quote Benjamin Watson in his current viral Facebook post, “Power is a responsibility not a weapon to brandish.”  This reminded me of the importance of “trust” in life in general, but particularly in government.  When we feel we can’t trust the people we elect or whose salaries we pay, they lose their legitimacy.  For my friends it is law enforcement and for me it becomes the government, especially in Washington.

So, when Hillary Clinton said, “What difference does it make” during her testimony on Benghazi in front of Congress, she couldn’t have been more clueless, in my opinion.  The outrage about Benghazi goes beyond the deaths of four loyal and brave Americans who were just doing their jobs.  The anger is driven by the idea that our government was simply not honest with us.

This is just one more thing that dilutes our trust in government.  Let’s add ObamaCare on to the “lack of confidence” pile that our government is creating.  First, the President earned the lie of the year by Politifact for his promise that, “if you like your plan, you can keep it.”  Then we have promise after promise being broken.  Premiums have NOT come down.  Deductibles HAVE gone up.  And the cost of ObamaCare is now nearly three times what was originally promised.

If all of that was not enough to earn every American’s skepticism, enter Jonathan Gruber.  This MIT professor was unquestionably a key architect of ObamaCare, no matter what Nancy Pelosi says.  In a recent lapse into honesty, this arrogant elitist informed Americans that the law had been devised to intentionally mislead not only average Americans, who he called “stupid”, but also the supposedly non-partisan Congressional Budget Office.

All of these acts of deception, arrogance and outright prejudice erode the faith of the public in our government.  Every police officer that pulls over a black man for some phony violation contributes to this erosion.  Every politician who abuses the truth to get elected has violated his or her fundamental pledge and contributes to our country’s overall mistrust of government.

This accumulation of mistrust in the government has been a team effort, and reversing it will take the same. 

Part of the fix is making every police department look like the communities they protect.  Ferguson is project #1.  Why are there only three black police officers out of the 50 in Ferguson despite the fact that Ferguson is 67% African American?  And don’t tell me you don’t have enough applicants.  You just need to try harder.

The next part of the fix will certainly be the most difficult.  We need our politicians to tell the truth.  We are far from that today, but the good news is that we control their fate with our votes.  We need to pay attention.  We need to become informed voters, and we need to vote the lying manipulators out of office.  But a recent development gives me some hope in this area.

Charles Shumer, democratic Senator from New York, just admitted publicly that focusing on ObamaCare back in 2009 was a mistake.  He was not saying that healthcare didn’t have issues that needed to be addressed; he was just saying that it should not have been “the” priority at that time.  Specifically, he said, “that was not the job we were hired to fix.”  I agree with him.

I’m sure he will be attacked, especially by members of his own caucus, but for me, his honesty gives me new hope that our government can work.  It is this kind of veracity that can begin to rebuild the trust that we so desperately need in our government.  I applaud you, Chuck.

Dead Men Tell No Tales, But Often Vote

Dead Men Tell No Tales, But Often Vote

The View from the Middle

Your vote, is it a right, a privilege or a responsibility?  The short answer is “yes”, it is all three.  It is a right that is guaranteed to all citizens by the 15^th, 19^th, 24^th and 26^th amendments to the constitution.  It is a privilege that we are all blessed with because we were born in a country that honors individual rights over the whims of the government (at least for now).  And, it is a responsibility that our founders expected us to exercise with thoughtful wisdom.

But a right can be abused.  We all have the right to free speech, but that right can be violated by, for example, yelling “fire” in a crowded theatre, according to Supreme Court Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes.  You can breach your right to vote by voting more than once in any particular election.  And you ask, how big of a problem is this?  It depends on whom you ask.

There are some that say that voter fraud is as rare as getting struck by lightening.  Of course, these people, who include our Attorney General Eric Holder, point to the sparse number of successful prosecutions for voter fraud in the United States.  This does not capture the incidents of voter fraud, however, it only captures the ones who have been caught.  Others will suggest that those caught represent a small fraction of actual violations.  We miss many abusers because we simply are not looking for them. 

A recent study in North Carolina found over 35 thousand people registered to vote in two states.  They found 13 thousand dead people still on the voting register and 81 deceased people who actually voted in the last election.  Other studies have suggested that the real voter fraud occurs through abuse of absentee ballots.  Obviously, there is more abuse than our government leaders think, which is why 74% of Americans are in favor of using voter ID laws to protect the sanctity of the ballot.

While I don’t think voter impersonation is a big source of the fraud, I think the requirement of voter ID would be an important step in winning back confidence in our voting process.  Almost 90% of Americans already have the required photo ID’s via their driver’s license or student ID cards, etc.

We need to insure, however, that every person can acquire these ID’s with a minimal effort.  I support the proposal that the state or federal government make these available for free.  Now, you all know that I am not a big money spender, but this is one example of an expense that I would support in order to mend the mistrust our voters have in our electoral process.

Everyone in this country has to provide a photo ID to buy alcohol or cigarettes or to apply for welfare or food stamps (among other things).   Isn’t the right to vote worth the minimal effort to go to the DMV or other governmental office and apply for a free voter ID card?

A life rule is, “when there is NO cost to something, that thing soon becomes worthless.”  Is that the way we want people to think about their vote?

And all this could be done without suppressing one vote.  The Government Accountability Office (GAO) looked at 10 studies of voter ID laws.  Five of those studies showed no difference in turnout.  Four studies showed a minimal impact, which could have been caused by other things, and one actually showed an increase in turnout.  With a little education and effort we could improve the integrity of our electoral process AND even expand voter turnout.  That is truly my wish!

We also need harsher penalties for voter fraud (a $200 fine is just not sufficient).  Make that fine $10,000 and we might have an impact on non-citizen voting and absentee ballot abuse, which is where the real fraud action is. 

Finally, we must take our responsibility to vote seriously.  We must understand the issues and know the positions of our candidates on each of them.  Thomas Jefferson warned that one of the greatest threats to the Republic and to liberty itself was “an uninformed electorate”. 

The Founder Fathers expected “the people” to be the ultimate check on government abuse.  They were depending on us to be “the true corrective of abuses of constitutional power.”  Let’s not let them or ourselves down.

So, VOTE this Tuesday.  It is your right, privilege and responsibility.  But first, study the real positions of the candidates on the issues.  Look at both sides of the political equation.  There is wisdom and extremism on both sides.  Sift through the mountains of negative commercials and personal attacks to find the crumbs of truth that will help you make your decision.

And remember, “Freedom is lost gradually from an uninterested, uniformed and uninvolved people”…Thomas Jefferson.

Terrorism's Dirty Little Secret

Terrorism’s Dirty Little Secret

The View from the Middle

Terrorists around the world have discovered a fundamental truth about life on this planet.  It is easier to divide, destroy and kill than it is to unite, build and create.   

The Twin Towers, for example took about seven years from start of construction to ribbon cutting to build, but it took only about an hour and a half to bring them both down.  Think of any controlled implosion of a building that you have seen.  The buildings have usually taken years to build and have required the efforts of thousands of people, but can be taken down by a few people in a matter of seconds.

If any of you have studied the creation of life, it is amazing to say the least.  It takes nine months for one man’s sperm and one woman’s egg to create the trillions (yes trillions) of cells that comprise the human body.  Yet, it takes only a fraction of a second to put a bullet through someone’s head and end that life.  And, if you want to be more brutal and inhuman, it might take a person a few seconds to chop that head off.

The United States, The United Kingdom and Germany are unquestioned, sovereign countries today, but each took hundreds if not thousands of years to unite the people within their borders.  The citizens of these countries feel a part of their governments because they are free to participate in its direction through their votes.  And, if they don’t like the outcome, they are free to stay or leave.

Terrorism doesn’t care what the people of any region believe.  They force their beliefs on all people through violence and coercion.  There is only one way to think, their way.  And, if you don’t, you die.  That’s not exactly a pro-choice platform in my book.

ISIS (not ISIL) Hamas, Hezbollah, al-Qaeda and Hamas are all the same (a rose by any other name…).  They take the easy way out.  They don’t know how to build or unite so they divide, destroy and subjugate.  Look at where they dominate.  Want to live in Syria, Iraq or Palestine right now.  Even the official Islamic states like Iran and Pakistan are hardly vacation spots.

According to the Human Development Index, the real Republics like the US, Canada, Germany, the UK and Israel all rank in the top twenty places to live in the world.  Iran, on the other hand, is ranked 75^th and Pakistan is rated 146^th.  Syria, Iraq and Palestine all rank over 100.

The most important thing these Islamic countries offer to people is Sharia law.  This is the system that can resort to cutting off the hands of people who are caught stealing.  Sharia also condones the “honor killing” of a girl for something as simple as looking at a boy in what her father considers an inappropriate way.  And heaven forbid if you are a woman or gay.  You will either be a second-class citizen or stoned to death.  More bad choices.

Who on earth should tolerate, let alone support these barbarian murderers?  Why isn’t every country on the planet outraged by ISIS and joining the US alliance against these savages?  Why would we limit what we are willing to do to destroy these monsters?  Why would we tell our enemies what we WON”T do?

What we need is a real leader who can speak with passion and commitment to rally our allies to join us in this righteous and absolutely necessary battle against pure evil.  FDR did it to rally our countrymen against Hitler and the Nazis, and Ronald Reagan did it when he told Gorbachev to “tear down this wall”. 

We don’t need a leader who is “too cool for school”.  We don’t need a leader who wants to weaken his own argument by brining up Ferguson, Missouri and giving that situation some sort of moral equivalency to the slaughter that ISIS has performed in Iraq and Syria.  We don’t need a President who will call these goons ISIL.

When the war started, the west named this group ISIS (The Islamic State of Iraq and Syria), but that wasn’t good enough for these thugs.  They wanted to be called ISIL (like we should care what our enemies want to be called).  Why is that?

It’s because ISIL stands for The Islamic State of Iraq and The Levant, which is a very aspirational title.  The Levant is a term that describes an ancient area that includes modern day Iraq, Syria, Jordan, Lebanon and Israel.  ISRAEL!!  Why would our President comply with their desire to be labeled with this goal-oriented moniker?  I liked it better when George H.W. Bush mispronounced Saddam Hussein’s name on purpose just to tick him off!

Race in America Part 2

This is part two of "Race in America".  Part one was the history of race in America, and this is "where we are today".  Click on the link below or copy it into your browser.  If you haven't seen part one, check that out as well when you get to my site.  Please pass this on to your friends.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_Kl152zvFvo

Race in America - VFM video

Here is the VFM's first of three short videos on Race in America.  Just click on the link below or copy this address and paste it into your browser.  It will get us started with the promise of more to come.  Feel free to pass this on to all your friends, because who ins't interested in Race in America.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kwcJ0QW_D3U

Governmental Insanity - Quick thought

First, we all have to remember that "THE GOVERNMENT HAS NO MONEY".  All the money it spends comes from me and you.  So, as President Obama takes off in Air Force One on one of his fundraising trips, keep in mind that WE are paying for it.  Oh sure, they'll try their best to sell us on some cock-and-bull "official" business excuse for the trip, like visiting a woman who wrote the President a letter, but we all know the purpose of the trip.  By the way, I wrote a letter to the Pres.  When is he coming to visit me?

Now, they keep Presidential travel costs top secret (probably because it would make us all sick if we saw it) but let's do a quick logic checklist.  You have advance teams, multiple planes, including Air Force One to the tune of about $175,000 per hour, and of course we have send at least 10 doctors with the President in case he gets a hangnail while he is in Austin.  This trip could easily cost us, the taxpayers $10 million so that the President can raise $2 or $3 million for his Democratic buddies.  Only in our government would anyone consider that a wise investment of tax payer dollars.  If this doesn't tick you off, you either have too much money or too few brains, so I hope you're ticked!!

The Errors of Ayers

The Errors of Ayers

The View from the Middle

As I write this column, I’m surrounded by my family on the 4^th of July weekend thinking of how blessed I’ve been in so many ways.  All the holiday activities, historical snapshots on TV and the patriotic “man on the street” interviews remind me that my blessings began when I had the good fortune to be born in this great country. 

While America is not perfect, in my opinion it is the best thing this world has going for it.  It is the only country based fundamentally on the belief that the rights of its citizens are above the rights of the state.  We all have a God-given right to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness that no one can take away from us, and our countrymen have fought and bled and died to preserve that right for us and to extend it to others around the world.

With this backdrop, I watched Megyn Kelly (of Fox News) interview Bill Ayers, co-founder of the Weather Underground, a radical and arguably terrorist group that opposed the Vietnam War in the 60’s and 70’s.  As I listened to Mr. Ayers describe the country that I have lived in for 62 years and read about for most of those years, I felt a profound disconnect.  One of us must have lived in a different America.  So, where has Mr. Ayers gone wrong?

First of all, he focused only on America’s shortcomings.  I readily admit that America is not perfect.  No country is.  So, if you ignore all of the positive impacts that America has had on our own citizens and the rest of the world and just focus on our miscues, you’ll get a distorted view of the US. 

Mr. Ayers played hopscotch with our history jumping from our treatment of the American Indian to the days of slavery.  He then jumps forward to the Vietnam War and then the war in Iraq.  I agree that these are all dark and questionable periods in our history, but Bill offers no solutions, just ridicule.

He hops right over the great risk our Founding Fathers took and the sacrifices they made in the name of liberty, justice and the rule of law.  He leapfrogs over the Civil War where hundreds of thousands of white men and women died to overturn the injustice of slavery. 

He side steps World War I and World War II when millions of Americans gave their lives to save Europe from a ruthless dictator and tyrant that would have surely brutalized hundreds of millions of people had the outcome of those wars been different.  Amazingly, he drew a blank concerning the struggles of Martin Luther King, Bobby Kennedy and millions of other Americans of all races who fought for the civil rights of Black America.

We could debate forever the motives of America’s involvement it Iraq.  Mr. Ayers suggests that we spent almost a trillion dollars to fight a war in Iraq so that Halliburton could make a few billion in profits.  Not only is that a cynical view, but Mr. Ayers offers no proof.  He simply points a conspiratorial finger and demands that we take his word for it.  He uses a similar defense when questioned about the murders and murderous plans of his Weather Underground during his fugitive years.

I would suggest that we had a nobler motive in going to Iraq.  First, we went to protect our own country from another terrorist attack similar to the one we suffered on 9/11/2001.  I believe that we went to rid the world of another heartless dictator who had brutalized his own people and threatened the stability of the Middle East and the world.

Mr. Ayers also overlooks the pure generosity of America.  Whenever there is a tsunami or an earthquake or a hurricane anywhere in the world, who does the world turn to for help?  It is the United States government, followed closely by the American people. 

Abraham Lincoln once said, “If you look for the bad in people, expecting to find it, you surely will”, and I guess the same applies to countries.  To Mr. Ayers I would suggest that he take his political blinders off.  America is not perfect, but we are working at it.  We will continue make this country better unless we allow people like you (Mr. Ayers) to dismantle it.

In America we are all free to put forward new ideas on how to make our country even better than it is today.  Even you, Mr. Ayers, are free to spew your one-sided vitriol about America, only in America.  Try that in Russia or China and see how that works for you.  I’ll buy your ticket – one way.