Richard Mourdock and Theodicy

Theodicy is a word first used by Liebnez in the 18th Century.   It is the attempt of human beings to reconcile the idea of an all powerful God who is also infinitely good with the reality of evil in the universe.    The attempt to do that long predates Liebniz, of course.  It is famously addressed, and most satisfactorily in my opinion, in the Book of Job.  Of course, there is no real conclusion there.  For those whose recollection of Bible stories is misty.  Job was a good man and a servant of God.  The provocateur challenges God suggesting that Job is good  and a believer only because  he is wealthy not only in material things but in family.  So God allows the provacateur to strip Job of everything, even his health, but Job still believes and still loves God.  When Job seeks an explanation, God shows him the universe.  And Job's heart is satisfied.  And, P. S., God gives him back a lot of material things so its not so bad after all.

My point in referring to the Job story is to let you know that the effort to reconcile the idea of a God who is all powerful and all loving with the evil in the world has been going on for a long time.

Some part of the answer has to do with the idea of free will.  God did not want a bunch of automatoms that he would completely control.  He wanted independent beings  who freely choose him.  Augustine and Aquinas discuss the interplay of free will and evil at length.  They regard evil not as a separate force but as a rebellion against God.

So what does this have to do with Richard Mourdock.  Well, it has a lot to do with his statement about abortion.  To say that  God intended life does not mean God intended rape.  God allows but does not cause evil.  The rapist is violating God's law.  But something beautiful can, nevertheless, result.  That is what Mourdock was trying to say.

It is like the story of Joseph.  Joseph, you may remember, was the favorite son of Jacob, one of the great patriarchs of the Bible.  His brothers became so jealous of him that they conspired to kill him and then decided to relent and sell him into slavery.  So he is taken to Egypt where he becomes very successful and the right hand man to the pharaoh.  He is so wise that when famine comes, Egypt has plenty of food.  Not knowing that he is still alive, his brothers are dispatched by their father to Egypt to buy grain so that Israel can survive.  After they buy the grain they are made aware that this guy selling them the grain is the brother they sold into slavery and fearing they might get from him what they deserve they are trembling.  But Joseph tells them not to be afraid.  He says to them, you meant it for evil, but God meant it for good.  The moral of the story is not that God caused the evil but that he redeemed it.  He made something bad turn into something good.

Just so, something that was evil, a rape, may be turned into something good when a beautiful baby is born.  The baby is an innocent life.  The fact is that many women who have been raped and become pregnant not only choose to carry to term, but raise their babies.  Here is a thoughtful discussion by a child born of rape.  I hope you will read it.

My Recommendations on California's Propositions

These are my recommendations on California Propositions:  You can go get all the basic information on them at http://voterguide.sos.ca.gov 

Proposition 30.My recommendation: No  (more taxes to Sacramento).  

Ignore all the flim flam.  Whenever we give Sacramento more money they use it to come up with new expensive projects like the so-called High Speed passenger rail between Madera and Bakersfield which is projected to cost 4 Billion dollars.

Proposition 31: My recommendation: NO

This proposition is an attempt to return power to the local level by returning money to the local level. Under certain circumstaces, money collected by the state must be sent to local governments to allow them to administer state programs.  Generally, I am in favor of the idea, but the devil is in the details.  As I read it is complicated and will result in lots of lawsuits and litigation over whether the details have been followed.  While I like the idea, I am generally opposed to complicated schemes and when in doubt I vote No.  So here it’s too complicated and seems to be an excuse for lawsuits.  So, I will vote no.

Proposition 32:  My recommendation : Yes

This proposition prohibits direct political spending by both Corporations and Unions.  It also limits the ability of public employees unions to collect dues from public employees without their consent and it requires them to obtain the consent of employees to the deduction annually.   Under present law, if the majority of employees voted for a union 30 years ago, all have to pay dues of as much $700 or $800 a year.  Public employee unions in California are the are one of the  biggest interest groups contributing to poltiical campaigns in California elections.  I am frankly uncomforatable with any prohibition on political spending but I am more distressed that public employee unions have, through the use of mandatory dues checkoff, become the single most powerful political group in California.  They elect their bosses and then negotiate sweetheart deals that leave other taxpayers  on the hook for pensions and health benefits that far exceed what is available in the private sector.  

I was a charter member of SEIU local 535, at the time a Social Worker’s Union.    At the time I believed that Unions were necessary for public employees.  But over time, the unions  have become professionalized institutions in which the union reps are paid far more than the rank and file and where contracts are negotiated that public entities cannot afford by threatening action at the ballot box.  California is nearly broke.  We can’t afford a system that pays police officers in some cities more than a hundred thousand a year when the average worker in California makes around $45,000 a year.  

Contrary to what the ads on TV say, there are no exemptions in the Act.  It applies only to state elections but it applies to all corporations and all unions.  If we are going to balance the state’s budget, we need to break the stranglehold the unions have on too many state elected officials.  

Proposition 33  My Recommmendation: yes

What you have to understand about this proposition is that insurance rates and the way in which they are set is highly regulated in California, as it is in most states.  One of the great concerns of any state in doing this is to make sure that insurance companies remain sufficiently solvent that they can pay claims.

This proposition allows auto insurance companies to offer you a discount if you had auto insurance with a different insurance company. Insurance companies are currently allowed to give you a long term discount if you have been with them for a long time.This proposition would allow them to offer you a discount for having had insurance with another carrier. I plan to vote for it because it increases competition in a responsible way allowing other auto insurers to compete for your premium dollars in a responsible way.

Proposition 34:  My recommendation: no

This proposition would do away with the death penalty.  I don’t think society will fall apart if the death penalty is eliminated but, on balance, I think it needs to be on the table as an option especially in dealing with career criminals who have already been sentenced to life in prison.  There needs to be something further for them to lose to allow some measure of control over them.  I don’t have strong feelings, but the balance is tipped toward No.

Proposition 35:  My recommendation: No

The intent of this law is to give law enforcement more tools to combat human sexual trafficking.  I am all in favor of preventing human sexual trafficking but the text of the law makes me really uncomfortable.  It reads too much like I can’t define human sexual trafficking but I can tell it when I can see it law.  As a lawyer that makes me uncomfortable.  When someone’s liberty is at stake, i. E. The person accused of trafficking,  I tend to like statutes that are well defined so that even minimally intelligent people know when they are violating the law.  This one leaves me too uncomfortable in that respect, so, a no.

Proposition 36:  My recommendation:  yes

This act amends the Three strikes law.  When I voted for the three strikes law, I was troubled that the “strikes”, i. E. Criminal convictions did not have to be violent or serious felonies.  But on balance, the tendency of too many courts to allow repeat felons out on the streets to prey on society was so great that I voted for what I thought was an imperfect law.   This act fixes that problem. The final strike ( i.e. The third conviction) has to be a serious or violent crime.  No law is ever perfect, but I think, on balance, the reason for a three strikes law is to keep people who present a threat to the physical safety and possessions of others.  There is a listing of serious crimes and I think it is sufficient to assure that most repeat felons who pose a danger to others will be behind bars.  At the same time, those who have poor impulse control but have no tendency to really harm others will not.  I am sure there will be some people who will get out that I won’t be happy about and others who are not dangerous in my opinion will be kept behind bars.  It is a human system and perfection eludes us.  But I think this makes the law more focussed. So I will vote yes.

Proposition 37: My recommendation: NO

This is the proposition that would require the labeling of genetically modified food.  Whatever that means.  This is a boondoggle which will primarily benefit a small group of litigation attorneys who    specialize in filing consumer lawsuits often raising issues that don’t affect anyone or cause any harms.  It will cost businesses billions of dollars in compliance and lawsuit defense costs and not provide any real benefit.  It’s a boondoggle for the benefit of litigation attorneys.  I’m voting No.

Proposition 38: My recommendation : No.

This is another tax increase proposition that has lots of potential for driving more businesses and rich people out of California and will have no long lasting benefit for California.  We don’t need more tax revenue in this state.  We need fewer legislators willing to vote 4 billion dollars for a railroad to nowhere.  We need to cut out fat subsidies for the friends of Jerry Brown and the state legislators  Then we can balance our budget.

Proposition 39: My recommendation : No

This proposition attempts to increase corporate income taxes by eliminating one of the options they now have for calculating what percentage of their profits comes from California.  AT present they have two options and can choose the one that benefits them.  This proposition takes away one of the options.  It promises to fund “green energy” projects with the increased money.  Woohoo.  More Solyndras.  NO. NO NO.

We need to pay off our debts and balance our budget.  This is another boondoggle that spends money we don’t have while we drive more businesses out of the state.

Proposition 40:  My recommendation: a reluctant Yes

I have looked at the proposition. What it will do is clear.  It has to do with redistricting.  I do not buy for one minute that the Citizen’s Commission is apolitical.  I applied to be on it and discovered that the vast majority of ordinary people where held not to be qualified.  Hey dude, I have been practicing law for more than 30 years and I am not qualified to sit on a commission that draws redistricting lines?  No, this was a cover to appoint their hand picked ringers who are still political hacks.  Having said that, I think this requires a different political solution like getting rid of the Citizen’s commission altogether.  If a bunch of political hacks is going to decide our districts we might as well have them operating in the open and be labeled as such.  On the other hand, it saves a million dollars to vote yes.  I’m in favor of saving money, but I am not fooled.

Newsflash Dems: Equal Pay Has Been the Law for Almost 50 years.

The Prez is now going around suggesting that Romney is opposed to Equal Pay for Equal Work for Women.  He says Romney wouldn't sign an act requiring that.  So, I, as a woman will now say, unequivocally, neither would I if I were president.  For the very simple reason that there is and has been such a law on the books since 1963.  That will be 50 years come next year.  And, in fact, we also have Title VII of the Civil Rights Act which also prohibits, inter alia,  discrimination in pay not only for women but also based on race, religion, or  national origin . (Other laws address disability and age).  So when you have not only one but two laws on the books, why would you sign another one.

If you have been hearing about the Lily Ledbetter act and thinking that that act prohibited, for the first time, pay discrimination, let me give you a link and an education.   I have given you a very left wing link so that you cannot suspect that the link understates the importance of the act.  Some would argue that the act was unecessary because the Supreme Court specifically stated, in footnote 10 of its opinion that they were not addressing a situation in which the plaintiff did not discover the discrimination until after the statute for filing a claim would otherwise have passed, BECAUSE THE PLAINTIFF ( I. E. LEDBETTER) NEVER RAISED THAT ISSUE IN HER ARGUMENT.   In other words, Ms. Ledbetter never told the U. S. Supreme Court what she told the Democratic Convention, which is that she didn't know about the discrimination until a long time after it happened.  Those same people would argue that the reason she didn't raise the issue is that she testified at her deposition that she did know about it.

So, I have already gotten too deep into the weeds here.  Because my real point is that the Democratic party has been running on the equal pay for equal work plank for all of my adult life and all of my adult life (I turned 21 in 1964) it has been illegal to discriminate against women in pay.  This is like running on a promise to ban drunk driving.  Dude.  It's already against the law.

Which leads to the really important question that no one ever asks Mr. Obama.  Given that discrimination is already illegal, what have you done to enforce the law?  Um, based on the statistics from the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, the answer is less than his predecessor in office.  Yep. More litigation was filed by the EEOC when George Bush was Prez than under Obama.  I am not making this up.

The Equal Employment Opportunity Commission is the entity that has responsibility for enforcing the Equal Pay Act and the Civil Rights Act of 1965.  It is the place to look to find out if the government is actually serious about enforcing this law.

In the first three years of the Bush administration, 1220 lawsuits were filed by the EEOC.  In the first three years of the Obama administration, 885 discrimination lawsuits were filed.  I used the first three years because that is the time period for which statistics are available for the Obama administration.  These are lawsuits filed on any statute which the EEOC enforces so they include lawsuits alleging only race or national origin discrimination as well sex discrimination lawsuits.  Go ahead and look at the statistics.  The summary of the statistics is this-- he talks a good game but he doesn't deliver.  He promised you everything and you didn't even get Arpege.  (You have to be over 40 to recognize that joke)

Here is the most interesting statistic if we are talking about the Lily Ledbetter Act.  Only 6 of the lawsuits filed by the Obama administration were filed under the Equal Pay Act.  6.  That's not 6 a year.  That's 6 in three years.  And, the lack of litigation does NOT reflect an improvement in the discrimination situation, not, at least, if you consider the number of charges filed to be an indicator of how much discrimination is going on.  There were more charges ( i. e. claims of discrimination) filed in the first three years of the Obama administration than in the first three years of the Bush administration. In the first three years of the Obama administration 2905 Equal Pay Act charges were filed.  Yet only 6 lawsuits were filed.


Yeah, Ms. Ledbetter, Obama really cares about the issue of equal pay for equal work.  That awful Bush guy filed   38 Equal Pay Act lawsuits  in the first three years of his Administration. That's more than six times as many.  If you measure who cares by how much they do to actually change the situation, Republicans care more about women's rights, by far, than Democrats do.

And for those who have read some of my other posts, I first learned that when I worked at the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission.  The Democrats thought it was a place to collect a government paycheck.  When the Republicans were elected, they thought all those EEOC employees should be spending their days enforcing the law.  And they demanded production of ummm lawsuits that actually benefited people who were discriminated against.

So the point is Mr. Obama, that  you talk loudly, but you carry a very little stick.

Capitalism and the Self Made Man

So, we are now getting back to all the attacks on the self made man idea.  The attacks are just a softer version of "you didn't build that".  And, really, the discussion is maddeningly stupid.  Why?  Because the statements are all so vague and lacking in definition of terms that people are constantly talking past each other.  Let me explain what I mean.

Each one of us came into this world naked and helpless.  There is no other way to come into this world.  Each one of us was taken care of by someone, usually but not always our parents or other relatives until we could talk, walk, eat on our own.  No one who is a conservative contends that life is any different than that.

Each one of us was supported as a child by a network of adults and other kids.  We are social animals.  We were not raised by wolves in the forest.  And even wolves in the forest are social animals.  No one denies this.

And this is why the current political discussion has become so stupid.  Because the dispute between the right and the left is not about whether there is a social network and whether that social network is necessary for human development.  The dispute is about the appropriate and effective role of government in fostering, changing and affecting the social network.

Government is, of course, part of our social network.  What distinguishes it from many other parts of our network is that the majority of us have agreed to give what we call the government the right to coerce otheres, including ourselves through use of force, through imprisonment and through less physically forceful means like taxation and penalties and other physical restrictions which are, ultimately, backed up by the right we have given the government to literally put a gun to our head if we don't comply with its demands.

The near monopoly of the government on the right to use physical force to achieve its ends makes it different from every other part of our present social network here in the United States.  There are parts of the world still in which the ability of a tribe to simply shun one member is a force majeur because the environment is so hostile that the help of the tribe is needed to simply survive.  That is much less true here in the United States.  Here we have lots of loose tribes and families such that we can reach out and create our own circles of support through friendships and all the ways that people have traditionally been able to create functioning supportive groups.

We have churches and rotary clubs and hiking clubs and small businesses and large businesses and all of these are voluntary associations.  Heck, once you are an adult, your family is a voluntary association.

The question is what role should the government play in the social network.

So let's get back to the self made man.  I am not a fan of Ayn Rand and have never read more than a few snippets of her works and seen a few scenes from her movies.  So I can't really describe what she means by self made man, but I suspect, given the context of her writing, that she is talking about a man who created his own social networks to help him accomplish his goals without the help of a patron or sponsor or family wealth and connections or special government favors.

So, for example, it would be a person who wanted to build a building and went out and borrowed money from people in exchange for promises to repay and hired people who worked for him in exchange for his promises to pay them and purchased materials from others and so on.  Of course we need a social network to build a building.  No conservative would argue otherwise.  And most conservatives, pace Ayn Rand, think that the government should have some role in approving the plans to make sure that the building won't collapse on innocent people who enter it.

But conservatives think that role of government should be fairly limited.  Yeah, we need a building and safety department but its role should be limited to assuring that the building is structurally sound, it shouldn't be deciding if we need a building or what color it should be painted.  And it certainly shouldn't be taking taxpayer dollars to invest in a building intended for private use just because government bureacrats like the design.

I could go into a lot of detail about government's proper role, but suffice it to say at this point that there are certain enterprises like building airplanes and building buildings where the safety issues are sufficiently serious and where it is not cost effective for ordinary consumers to explore those safety issues on their own ( note that I did NOT say that they are not smart enough to do it, its just that they don't have the time and money to check out the safety of every building they enter or every plane they fly on.)  such that the most practical way to assure the safety of everyone is for the government to do it. Having said that I would point out that Consumer Reports and Underwriter's Laboratory are just two of the venerable institutions in our society  upon whom people rely to make recommendations about safety issues and that both are private enterprises.  The libertarians argue that if we did not have a government department of building and safety or an FAA some private organization would spring up to do the job and they may be correct.

So one liners like "you didn't build that" and descriptions like "self made man" simply don't capture what the real debate is.  If we want a debate that produces agreement and policy and is productive of positive change, then we need to talk about the real issue which is the appropriate role of government.  Conservatives believe that government should have a very small role in our social networks and that we should be free to make our own choices to a great extent.

Government certainly has a role in enforcing the rules.  One of the great strengths of our social structure is that we have a government that enforces the business like promises that people make to each other, or  as lawyers call it, the law of contracts.   We have laws that make people pay when they are negligent and cause physical harm to others and conservatives are somewhat in favor of that.  They think that the definition of negligence has slipped way too far and that businesses are being made to pay for harm that they did not really cause, but they do not want to do away with the tort system altogether.

Conservatives believe we need traffic laws and criminal laws and that people need to be able to feel physically safe and protected from other people who would physically attack them or steal their property.

And the devil, as people like to say, is in the details.  Generalizations deteriorate into meaningless slogans.  Conservatives are not opposed to the idea of taxes, for example, but they are opposed to taxes that are so high that they rob people of any incentive to work.  So it is silly to keep speaking in generalities.  Arthur Laffer, for example, believes that a tax rate over 30% tends to dissuade people from working and investing.  It is much more reasonable to look at the evidence of whether he is correct than to talk in generalities about tax rates.

Talking in generalities is like arguing about whether medicine as an idea is good. It's a silly discussion.  It makes a good deal more sense to talk about whether Cipro is the right medicine for a kidney infection.  That is a discussion worth having with someone.  People can actually learn from that discussion.

So the offensiveness of the "you didn't build that" statement coming from Obama is not that it recognizes that all of us are social creatures and benefit or are hurt by the social milieu in which we live and try to grow but in failing to recognize the importance of individual effort in realizing individual achievement.

Planned Parenthood Does Not Perform Mammograms

One of the repeated claims made by supporters of Planned Parenthood is that it performs Mammograms.  Either this claim is false or it is doing so illegally. All facilities that perform mammograms are required to have a certificate from the Department of Health and Human Services.  In response to a request from the Alliance Defense fund, the Department of Health and Human Services stated that no Planned Parenthood clinic has a certificate to perform mammograms.  None, Zilch nada.  Read it for yourself.  Obama's statement that women are relying on Planned Parenthood for mammograms is either a lie or a negligent statement based on a failure to do even a minimal investigation of a program that receives hundreds of millions of dollars of federal money.

The Foia request was filed because of an undercover investigation in which more than 30 planned parenthood clinics were asked if they performed mammograms and all said no.  Wanting to find the clinics that did provide mammograms, the Alliance Defense Fund sent in a FOIA request.  The answer is, clearly, that Planned Parenthood does not provide mammograms.

The President made a false statement during the debate about this issue.  It is part of the new Obama war on truth.  It is time to call him on his lies.

Paul Ryan's Missing Children

The left has another lunatic  story that is making the rounds.  It started out on a so-called reality check website, and has been picked up by Daily Kos.  The claim is that Paul Ryan and his wife are lying about using contraception because they have only three children.   The story is so crazy that it is worth studying because it is an excellent example of the self created plastic bubble in which the left lives.   Some leftwing idiot starts pondering some aspect of a conservative politician's life and then piles assumption upon inference upon invention to create "proof" of some evil hypocrisy or lie in the conservative's life.  This piling on of unfounded inferences and imaginations is referred to by the left as "logic" and "reason".  In truth, it rather closely resembles the fantasies of schizophrenics.  Remember "A Beautiful Mind" and the room where Nash had posted magazine and newspaper articles connecting disparate events to find conspiracies that didn't exist?  Yeah.  Something like that.

Anyhoo, the new meme, based on faulty science, is that Paul Ryan and his wife would have many more children if they did not use any birth control.  There's a whole long list of supposed facts that are simply not true.   So, claims the left,  there are "missing" children and Paul Ryan is using birth control, and not just a condom, but some of the kinds of birth control that he wants to ban.

As usual, the argument is based on nonsense.  First of all Catholics advocate and are permitted to use natural methods of birth control based on a abstaining from sex during a woman's fertile period. Natural family planning is a method that is also used by people who don't want to take a lot of hormones.  In 2007 a study was performed of couples who use this  particular method based on temperature and cervical secretions to determine fertility.   Guess what?  It turns out that for couples who actually follow the method, this type of natural birth control is as effective as the pill.  OOPS.  So it is entirely possible that Paul Ryan and his wife are in complete compliance (or as complete as any of us sinners can be) with the dictates of their faith regarding birth control.


The article also argues that because some of Mitt Romney's grandchildren were conceived through in vitro fertilization, he has somehow violated his  expressed statements that life starts at conception.  I'm really not seeing this one.  First, Mitt Romney has never opposed in vitro fertilization.  Second, the embryos created by this method are implanted in the uterus.  As happens in nature, such embryos do not always successfully implant.  That doesn't mean they have been "killed".

No wonder fewer and fewer people want to have anything to do with these crazy people, by which I mean the far left.  They sound more and more like borderline schizophrenics.

Reversing Economic Decline:The Biggest Reason to Vote for Romney

Mort Zuckerman, over at U. S. News and World Report, sets forth in detail the depth of the problems in our economy.  He concludes "A job is the most important family program, the most important social program, and the most important economic program in America. The unemployment and income statistics are intolerable for a compassionate and wealthy nation.".  Romney says he will produce 12 million new jobs.    It's fair enough to question how he will do that.  The answer is that he will scale back regulation, keeping what is reasonable, ditching what is unreasonable.  Will he do that job perfectly, probably not, but I am pretty sure he will solicit information from businesses as to what they need and then will figure out where they are right and where they are pushing back too hard. 

The truth is, as I said when I opposed him for the Republican nomination, Romney is a moderate.  He will, most likely stay toward the center.  He will most likely get rid of the most onerous and stupid regulations and leave the rest alone.

He will try to scale back the corporate income tax.  He will try to expedite development and permits.  He will try to recapture the Keystone Pipeline and will expedite other pending permits.  Oil prices will drop in anticipation.  

But perhaps the most important thing he will accomplish will happen when the polls close and Romney wins, if he wins.  That is that business owners and venture capitalists will heave a great sigh of relief, and, believing that NOW they will be dealing with a guy who isn't out to put them out of business, will get back to the creative role of business, creating new services and new products.  They will feel freer to invest and that will mean more jobs.  And the rising tide of jobs and falling energy prices will ease the economic pressures and the economy will begin to grow again.

That's why I'm voting for Mitt Romney.

Medicare's Administrative Costs Are Higher Not Lower Than Private Insurance

The Heritage Foundation has already dissected the long time chestnut that administrative costs are higher in private insurance than Medicare.  The answer you get as to higher or lower depends on how you calculate it.  One way is to look at the per patient cost.  Measured that way, administrative costs for Medicare are far higher than private insurance.  Another way is to measure administrative costs as a percentage of total expenditures.  By that measure Medicare administrative costs are lower.

As the Heritage author notes, when you use the latter measure you are comparing apples and oranges and this is the reason why.

Medicare only insures people who are elderly or have been determined to be long term disabled.  Thus, these are people who are significantly likely to be more sick and have more serious illnesses than the public at large.

So let me give you an example of how this impacts measuring administrative costs.  I used to work for CIGNA, a company that processes a lot of medical claims.  They pay claims reps to process these claims and the claims rep is expected to process X amount of claims per hour.  Here is the thing.  It costs the company exactly the same amount of money to process a claim for $100.00 as to process a claim for $1000.00  Very complex medical claims may take extra time.

There is almost no insurance available for persons over 65 that is not a Medicare supplement.  That is, you have to be a Medicare participant to get the insurance.  Thus it is simply impossible to make an apples to apples comparison of Medicare administrative costs vs. Private insurance.  On a per patient basis Medicare administrative costs are higher than Private Insurance, but that is also not a fair comparison.

Flash News: Academics Discriminate Against Conservatives.

Years ago, I was discussing the three strikes initiative with a co-worker.  After explaining to her in detail why I was voting for it, she protested "but all the smart people are voting against it.".  I asked her if she thought I was smart.  Knowing, as she did, that I graduated in the top 10 percent of my class from USC law school, she said "Yes."  She feebly replied that all the OTHER smart people she knew were voting against it.  The idea that liberals have that they are smarter than conservatives and that their expression of liberal views is proof of their intelligence often causes them to blithely and with great self satisfaction, discriminate against conservatives.  Someone finally did a study that supports this from the mouths of the liberals who discriminate.

What is disturbing about this study is that the liberals who discriminate really regard conservatism as proof that the holder of the views is not as intelligent as they are.  They preen themselves with the proof  of their intelligence manifested in their liberal, sometimes anti-God views.  The atheist society, for example, want to be called the "brights".  By calling themselves that they are literally defining disbelief in God as the definition of intelligence.  Incredible.  If you are one of those who agrees with that point of view.  Here is my question for you Do you think that someone who teaches elemenatary particle physics at Cambridge University in England is probably very, very, intelligent?
If so, I can disprove your hypothesis that atheism means you are smart and belief in God means you are done with just one example:  John Polkinghorne.

Of course, there are so many very erudite people who write and lecture on the conservative side that I don't think it really possible of necessary to list them all.  But let me ask you if you think like some academics that being conservative means you are stupid, do you really think you are smarter than William F. Buckley?  Really?

2016:Obama's America -- a Review

So I finally got around to seeing 2016, the movie.  It was surprisingly good.  Let me explain.  I was familiar with the book by Dinesh D'Souza upon which the movie was based.  D'Souza is a conservative writer who wrote, inter alia, "What's so Great about Christianity?" a book I truly enjoyed, in which he discusses the unique aspects of the Christian belief that make it the most popular religion in the world.  But, having read the reviews of his book about the roots of Obama's belief, I thought his theory, that Obama is an anti-colonialist, a bit far-fetched so I never bought it or read it.  But in this political season I thought I sort of owed it to the people courageous enough to make a conservative movie to at least go and see it.  Wow.  For a documentary, a very good movie.  What is surprising about it is that he makes a very good case for his theory.  The movie, through liberal use of sort of stock footage of foreign countries and a lively score moves quickly and doesn't get caught up too much with talking heads even though it is sort of a talking heads movie.

What surprised me, having formerly moved in leftist circles a lot is that it is not really anti-Obama. If you are a leftist who supported Obama, I think you would come away from this movie liking him even more.  It is not a stridently anti-Obama movie.  It tries to present autobiographical facts in a straightforward and somewhat sympathetic manner.  It is an anti-Obama movie largely because the vast majority of American voters are not leftists.

D'Souza's theory is most likely more persuasive in the movie than the book because of the medium. The movie makes liberal use of Obama reading from his autobiography, "Dreams From my Father".  I assume they bought the audiobook from Amazon or Barnes and Noble and are relying on the fair use doctrine  for their right to use the quotes.   So a scene of Obama's father's grave in Kenya accompanied by Obama, in his own voice, talking about how he burst into tears when he visited the grave and how his sense of identity came together for him there in Kenya is probably far more persuasive than simply seeing the words on a page.   There is a little added drama because some paid actor whom we see only from the back kneels before the grave as Obama says he did, which is a little hokey but helps one to visualize Obama's own words.

D'Souza comes to the story from a similar background.  He is an Indian immigrant.  But unlike Obama, he has embraced the United States, economic freedom, and capitalism.  He does not try to disguise who he is or what his views are, but he shares with us his Indian grandfather's comment on learning that Dinesh was heading to the United States for college.  "it's all white there".  His grandfather, an anti-colonialist himself, didn't want Dinesh to go.

So, I highly recommend the movie.  I hope some of my avowedly liberal friends will go see it and report back to me about whether they like Obama even more, having seen it.  That's my theory, anyway.  For my friends in the San Gabriel Valley, it is playing at the Edward's Renaissance on Main Street and Garfield in Alhambra and they do give a senior discount if you remember to ask for it.

Obama's Anti-Jobs Policies: The Particulars

When you file a criminal indictment, you have to state the specifics.  What did the perp steal, when did he steal it, where did he steal it.  Similarly, those of us who say Obama is a job destroyer should be specific.

So here goes:

Obama's appointments to the National Labor Relations Board have been extremely anti-business and overreaching.  Example: the Boeing Decision:  The NLRB prohibited the Boeing Company from opening a new plant in South CArolina in which it had already spent hundreds of millions of dollars.  It was anticipated that about 1000 new jobs would have been created.  After hundreds of thousands of dollars in attorney fees, and congressional hearings, the administration dropped its case.  That is not cost free.  Smaller employers who cannot afford to fight back, will just give in to the combination of bureaucratic and union intimidation.  And then they will quietly go out of business.  The laws of economics are as inexorable as the laws of physics.  American goods, including airplanes, have to compete in a world market.  WE already saw the auto industry in the U. S. nearly destroyed because it couldn't compete with foreign auto manufacturers.  The Obama administration thinks that by giving unions whatever want they can somehow change that. It's craziness. They don't live in the real world.

The drilling moratorium in the Gulf of Mexico went on for much longer than necessary, putting some small oil related businesses our of business.


The drop in approval of new oil drilling permits on federal lands reflects an anti-business mode as well.

AS for the complaint that the oil companies get the permits and then don't drill, maybe you should consult Governor Palin about that.  She handled the problem in Alaska and the oil companies started drilling.

The EPA's carbon dioxide regulations, pushed by Obama as a solution to the allegedly rising sea levels
are another anti-jobs action.  It greatly increases the cost of manufacturing, which might explain why so many companies are moving overseas where they don't have to comply with such regulations.

Another example of the anti-business animus is what happened to the maker of Gibson guitars.  After spending around a million dollars on legal fees for what it believed was unjustified, the business threw in the towel and settled.  In the thirties in Chicago when small businesses gave in and paid the protection it was called extortion.  Now its the federal government.  It is bad for business, this extorting small and medium companies.  And people with ideas and money to invest in new businesses are becoming increasingly reluctant to start them because it feels more and more like we are living in a government thugacracy in which government agents hold up small businesses with extortionate lawsuits .

I will post more later.  This is just a beginning.
But the cumulative effect of these anti-business attitudes is that there are a lot fewer jobs because people who might otherwise start businesses see our economy, the U. S. economy, and the U. S. legal framework as just too risky.  And the risk isn't earthquakes or fires.  Its the Obama administrations anti-buinsess animus.

Obama Can't Find the Time

The president is oh so sorry he can't fit Bibi Netanyahu, prime minister of Israel, into his busy schedule, but he has time to give an interview to the Pimp with a Limp.  He also has time to go on the David Letterman show.  And Professor Alan Dershowitz is kind of unhappy about it.   And so am I.  That phrase "never again"-- I heard it first in high school or maybe before. Back in that time, Europe was still recovering from WWII.  When I was in grade school we filled little boxes to send to the refugees and displaced persons in Europe who had next to nothing after the war.   Most of the kids I went to High School, and middle school with, back in the 50's were Jewish.  They were the first generation after THE WAR.  (i.e. WWII).  Nearly everyone of them had relatives back in Europe who had been killed during the Holocaust.  While the Holocaust was, for me, a horrible story, it had no personal dimension other than the fact that my dad was wounded in WWII.  Being Christian, I had no relatives who had died in concentration camps.

But, having heard and read about the stories, I understood "never again".

And here's my problem, this whole world situation is feeling more and more like 1939. For those who aren't up on history, the second World War started in 1939 when Hitler invaded Poland.  England had warned them and they did it anyway.  

So today we have a regime that frequently calls for the eradication of all Jews and that  states that Hitler didn't do it right and we have, essentially, said that we will bow down to whatever they want.  It's disgusiting

The Making of a Republican Part 4: The importance of work

I was raised by a single mother for most of my life.  I saw my own father now and then, but the real father figure in my life was my grandfather.  My grandfather was a kind of enigmatic character.  He was short but never had a Napoleon complex.  He taught me so many things, I cannot even count  them all, but one of them was about personal responsibility.  You don't make excuses.  You do everything in your power to do what you are supposed to do.  Show up on time.  Do the job you are assigned.  All honest work has value no matter how lowly or grubby it is.  These are the values my grandfather lived and taught me.  The picture is of me, my mother and my grandfather on my graduation from law school.

When I was young, surrounded as I was by Democrats, I was shocked to find out, in my teens, that my grandfather was a Republican.  He was from Nebraska. He grew up on a farm, worked his way through Springfield College in Massachusetts where they trained people to become Physical Education teachers, and got a job teaching Phys. Ed at USC, where he remained his entire life.

He took care of his family.  That's what you do.  If your daughter is having a hard time and not making it, well, she moves in with you and you find a way.  We lived with him off and on.  So did my aunts.  He took care of his grandchildren and his great grandchildren.  Its what you do.

So I learned from grandfather about being responsible for your own life and decisions.  I learned that dealing with the hand that fate dealt you was the grown up way instead of sitting around and bemoaning all the barriers and problems and unfair breaks and problems.  You face them.  You deal with them.  You do your best.

What I found in life was that doing things for yourself is the best way.  To start out with, there are certain things that only you can do for yourself, like breathe and go to the bathroom.  Yes you can get assistance with those functions but really, not for long and its pretty awful.  It turns out that self esteem, is pretty much the same.  True self esteem comes from taking care of yourself, achieving your goals and making a contribution.  No amount of compliments from well meaning fools can give you real regard for yourself.  Climbing Mt. Whitney, running a marathon, in my case, walking up the 4 flights of stairs in the parking structure where I park near the Apple store.  These are the things that give you a sense of well being and accomplishment.

I was a welfare worker for 6 years.  I have literally sat in the living rooms of hundreds, if not thousands, of poor people, listening to their stories and dutifully writing them down and giving them advice.  I think I may have genuinely helped a few.  You have to want to be helped.  One 18 year old mother of three scoffed at the idea that she might go back to school and make something of her life.  I told her that that is what my mother did.  My mom was a teacher after having two children before the age of 20.  I pointed out to my client that there are still community colleges and her own mom could babysit while she was in school.  Her response was "That's different.  You're white".  "And yet", I replied, "so far as I know, they let black people go to community college for the same price as white people".  The LACK of hope that I saw so many places really had no foundation.  This is a country where people who come here with literally only the clothes on their backs not only survive but prosper.  How sad to have thousands of voices telling you that you cannot succeed or do well for yourself because of your skin color.  Sadly, most of those voices are coming from people who say they care about black people and other minorities.

I know too many people of all races who have pulled themselves up with their own energy, determination and ambition to fall for that pessimism.   Working in the welfare department, I was subjected to an enormous dose of liberal orthodoxy.  I was encouraged to tell one of my clients, a young woman who WAS determined to make something of her life, to quit her job as a hotel maid because it was a dead end job.  Nonsense.  She was going to school at night to become a Registered Nurse.  She had a plan and I encouraged her to stick with it.

That was my first experience with liberal snobbishness.  Many of the liberals who worked with me looked down their noses at people who worked with their hands or performed services for other people.  They would never have agreed with my grandfather that any honest work has dignity.  But how can we expect people to succeed and have happy and prosperous lives if we tell them that the jobs that they can actually get, like cleaning someone's house, cutting the grass in someone's yard, picking fruit, is beneath their dignity.  Nonsense.  Every job you have contributes to your experience.  Taking care of yourself, knowing that you did something productive to put food on your table and shelter over your head, has a great value.  And no job is truly a dead end job because it gives you experience to do something else.

As I moved through adult life I found that my attitude toward work was regarded as stupid and neanderthal by the enlightened liberals.  They thought everybody should be an accountant a poet or an artist.  Maybe a doctor or dentist was okay too.  They had no respect even for plumbers and electricians.  They considered them declasse.

One thing I found out about Republicans, on the other hand, was that they, on average, had a much greater respect for work of any kind.  I suppose since so many of them do run businesses they understand that the guy who empties the trash at night when everyone else is gone from the office, and the woman who polishes the floor, is just as important in his or her own way as the lawyer who walks out the door to the courthouse.  All of us contribute to the wellbeing of our community by the work that we do and all of it is important.

That attitude, I was to find later in life, definitely made me a Republican.

The Making of a Republican: Abortion and Me

It doesn't really come in chronological order.  My position on abortion has moved around a lot in my life.  When I was growing up abortion was a non -issue.  It was illegal and nobody really wanted to change it.  Heck, birth control was illegal in some states.  But then, in the 60's and 70's, with radical social change sweeping around the world and across the nation, people did try to bring the issue of abortion out of the back alleys and the illegal abortion dens.  And I encouraged it and was in favor of it.  In those days, in the 60's, being pregnant out of wedlock was a big shame.  Lots of people were having sex out of wedlock and no one tried to hide that fact, but getting pregnant, not cool.

But then I married and I tried to get pregnant and it took me a year to get a positive test.  Back then, medical people thought I was a little old to be getting pregnant.  I was 27 when my daughter Elizabeth was born.  And that experience changed me and my position on abortion.  Before I was pregnant I was willing to mouth approval of abortion any time before the baby was born.  Having experienced the actual fact, I knew that there was a new person growing inside of me.  That is just an undeniable fact.

We have become so disconnected from our own bodies and our own animal nature that we have a hard time with the undeniable reality of the reproductive process.  As strange as it seems, and sometimes it does seem strange, there is another person growing inside of you.  And that person has a personality even before he/she is born. Some babies move a lot.  Some are relatively quiet.  Some even seem to respond to touching your abdomen.  And just when you think that you know all about pregnancy and small babies because you have had one, you get pregnant again and the second one is different from the first.

And, while a fetus has a heart beat by the time it is three or four months along, we don't treat an early miscarriage as the loss of a person.  We don't.  In fact a fairly high percentage of babies spontaneously abort in the first trimester.  So, like the vast majority of the American people, my position on abortion is squishy.  While I believe that every pregnancy is a gift of new life from God, I am not willing to impose that belief in the first trimester of pregnancy.  Our social mores and the statistics both tell us that the baby isn't really fully formed yet.

Being something of a libertarian, I believe that people should be able to make their own decisions about health care and certainly women should.  But when pregnancy is involved, there is another life.  That is irrefutably true.  It is ancient.  It is what happens in the mammal world.  We carry new life within us. At some point, that life also has a right to exist.

While I believe that parents have the right to make almost all decisions for their children, that right does not extend to killing them.  It does not extend to causing physical or severe psychiatric harm to them.  (And I mean severe.  Every parent is viewed by his or her child of causing some psychiatric harm.  )  And the ineluctable fact is that by the time a woman is 6 months and maybe even 5 months pregnant, that life is capable of surviving outside of her body.

So I come down on the side of Roe v. Wade.  The dividing line is the viability of the baby.  Can the baby survive outside the mother?  And, thanks to great advances in neonatal care, the answer is yes earlier and earlier.

But what if a woman doesn't want to be pregnant?  The answer is simple, get an abortion earlier then.
But what about saving the life of the mother?  I absolutely agree that terminating a pregnancy must be an option when the mother's life is at risk.  The problem is that, once you are past 26 weeks, or even 22 weeks, terminating the pregnancy means having an emergency C section because that is the fastest way to terminate a pregnancy after 22 weeks.  T

So what is the difference between terminating a pregnancy and having an abortion?  Terminating a pregnancy is just that, removing the baby from the uterus.  The fastest way to get the baby out of the mother's body is to perform a C-Section.  The other alternative is to induce labor.  There is some controversy over which method is best, although C-section tends to be the prevalent way of delivering babies early.  Either way, the only difference between terminating a pregnancy and abortion is the necessity of killing the baby before it is removed if you want to call it an abortion.  That's reality.

If, like Camille Paglia, you think that is okay, at least be honest about it.  Late term abortions are NEVER necessary to save the life of the mother.  Late term terminations may be, but babies born after 26 weeks gestation, upon removal by C section or induced birth, tend to live.

So late term abortion is really  first kill the baby then deliver it.  Doesn't it take longer to  deliver if you have to kill the baby first?   REally?

So what about all those babies who are born to mothers who don't want them.  Well, actually in this country there are not many.  And those babies are just about 100 percent wanted by someone else.  

Does the birth mom suffer because she knows there is a child of hers in the world that she has given away?  Undoubtedly, but she has the consolation of knowing that her baby is alive and most likely having a happy life with another set of parents who really wanted him or her.  Steve Jobs was adopted. Would the world be better off without him?  I don't think so.

But the point is beyond morality when that baby is sufficiently formed to live apart from the mother.  The facts of late term abortion are, that what the mother is doing in choosing a late term abortion is not to her own body, but to the body of the person who has been growing inside her.   She is choosing to have someone kill it so that she will not be burdened with a living baby after it is removed.  That is the hard fact. Because if all she did was elect to have the baby removed from her body, in a late term procedure, the baby would almost certainly be born alive with a fairly high chance of survival.  That's the reality..  So, I would be fine with allowing the mother to terminate the pregnancy if she so chose. But not to terminate the life within her.  There is a huge difference.  If she terminates the pregnancy early the mere decision to terminate ends that life.  But in a late term abortion, it does not. The fetus must be killed.  And that is someone deciding that someone else, in this case her own child, is not entitled to live.


And what does that have to do with the making of a Republican, I believe the Democrat platform and support of late term abortion is wrong, very wrong.  And that, apparently, makes me a Republican.

The Making of a Republican 1:the Tipping Point

Malcom Gladwell, in The Tipping Point , talks about how change occurs.  Sometimes a myriad of conditions can create a situation in which one small thing can change the course of history.  I remember my tipping point when it came to changing my party affiliation.  I was working for Tony Gallegos at the U. S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission as his Attorney Adviser.  He had been in charge of Democrats for Reagan in California.  As a life long Democrat, I couldn't understand how he could have supported Reagan.  I still remember his response.  "Susan", he said, "it's not a religion".  Somehow, I was at a point in my spiritual journey as well as my political journey where that comment caused my own feelings to coalesce around it.  On reflection later that day I realized that I had, my entire life, treated my political affiliation as if it were a religion.  And its not.  Like Tony said, you pick the political party or candidate that gives you the most of what you want.  In a democratic society, because a political party must appeal to millions of people, you are unlikely to ever have a party that gives you everything you want, so you settle for a party or a candidate that gives you the most of what you agree with.  This is not a sign of the failure of our system but of the fact that we are a democracy.

Imagine if you were part of a committee (say, like your family) charged with redecorating a house.  It is very likely that nobody will get all of exactly what they want.  That is because no two individuals are identical (not even identical twins).  So compromises have to be made.  When no compromises have to made, it is likely because one person is a dictator and the rest submit.

I didn't become a Republican right away, but that comment touched off a reflection in me about my political beliefs.  I began to review what I believed and who I admired in a different light.  I didn't owe any political party my loyalty per se.  If that party did not produce for me the outcomes that I wanted, I was morally free to change parties.  That was really liberating.

I realized that, having been raised in a Democrat worshipping household, I had demonized Republicans just as my mother did and just as the entertainment industry and the main stream media do today.  But when Reagan came to Washington I discovered that the real Republicans I met, the flesh and blood appointees of President Reagan and their friends and associates, were actually, for the most part, nice human beings.  I was unprepared for that.    I had, for example, the opportunity to meet and talk with Senator Orrin Hatch.  He turned out to be a really intelligent, funny and interesting person to talk to.  Far from imposing his views on others he enjoyed the challenge of debating them.

That comment from my then boss was like an insidious challenge that broke down every preconception I had lived with and nurtured for 40 years.  The Democrat party had changed and had changed in ways that I did not like at all.  Under George Mc Govern, the socialist thinkers had been given a foothold and under Jimmy Carter they had taken over.  These are the people who think that the government should, if not own everything, certainly run everything  They think the government should decide what your wages are and what products a business makes.  I know this because I met a lot of them when I was younger and when I was in Washington.  Because I was a Democrat they assumed that I shared their belief systems and they were very open about what they wanted to do.

I knew that I was opposed to that kind of total control by the government and I still am.  And that is one of the reasons why I became a Republican.

The Making of a Republican: The Preface

In "The Secret Knowledge"  David Mamet, a very successful playwright and screenwriter, talked about how and why he became a conservative.  Reading that book inspired me to share my own story.  I call this post the preface because you, dear reader, cannot understand my conversion from a die hard Democrat who has once registered in the Peace and Freedom party to a Reagan Republican, unless you know how I got my political start.

I was raised by a single mother and had an older and a younger sister.  Although we didn't have much money and lived with my grandparents from time to time to get through, I have many happy memories of my childhood. I grew up in what I still believe to be one of the most beautiful places in the world, Southern California.  Back then it was more rural, and less crowded. The beautiful natural beaches with which Los Angeles is blessed and the majestic mountain backdrop that can be seen only when the sky is not smoggy, were a given when I was a kid.  I thought everybody had that kind of beauty in their lives.

My mother was a liberal, perhaps in rebellion against her parents (my grandparents' ) conservative views.  At any rate, one of my early memories was of being scolded by my mother for repeating the old sing songy rhyme, "eeny, meeny, money, moe, catch a ..... by the toe" the way I learned it was with a word my mother told me she would wash my mouth out if I ever used it again.  I have used it since only to report on the use of it by others.  You know, the "n" word.  I was also told that, even in that period shortly after WWII  when the bombing at Pearl Harbor was still as vivid to Americans as the memory of 9/11 is to this generation, I was never to refer to persons of Japanese American ancestry as Japs and that they were not responsible for the war. (meaning Japanese Americans as opposed to the Japanese government).  So, long before it was really fashionable, I was indoctrinated to be accepting of people without regard to race or ethnicity.  I was taught that Franklin Roosevelt (not Teddy) was the greatest American president and that we didn't like Ike.

I grew up content in this left wing belief system and, when I became interested in church and religion in my teens, I found myself believing that the Democrat party and Christ were pretty well aligned in their belief systems.  In high school I got involved with a left wing group that was picketing the old Woolworth's store  in downtown Los Angeles because their lunch counters were segregated in the south.  I walked on  peace marches calling for unilateral disarmament and listened to Linus Pauling.  The greatest moment of my 17th year was meeting Adlai Stevenson, who lost the nomination to Jack Kennedy.  Having just lost the nomination, Stevenson put his arm around me and consoled me in my disappointment.  In college I saw Jack Kennedy speak at USC and was awed.  

After I graduated from  college in 1964, I became a social worker and became involved in starting and growing an SEIU local.  I became ever more left wing, I think, mostly because it was fashionable back then.  It was the 60's.  I was what was called a weekend hippy flower child.  I worked at a regular job but affected a sort of hippy life style after hours and on weekends.  I lived in tiny apartments and drove foreign imports and, I think, really had a lot of fun.

Then I hit 25 and became more serious with life.  Married, back to law school, became a mom.  Graduated.  Went to work for a firm that represented labor unions because that was my dream.  Represented the Musician's Union.  Went to work for the EEOC, moved to San Francisco and then to Washington D. C.  I like to say that one of Jimmy Carter's great achievements was that he made me a Republican. In 1984, for the first time in my entire life up to then, I voted for a Republican, Ronald Reagan.  The thought of doing that when I had the opportunity to vote for him as governor in the 60's  would have been repugnant and totally rejected.  But my views on politics had become transformed.  Like Ronald Reagan, I believed that I had not left the Democratic party.  It had left me.

Looking back I realize that there were dozens, perhaps hundreds of incidents and experiences that contributed to that change of view, and finally, they all crystallized in 1984.  I changed my registration and have never gone back.  I intend to share a few of those experiences in the hope that other people will experience a wake up moment as Governor of New Mexico Susanna Martinez did, and as I did, and say, "I'll be damned.  I'm a Republican".

The Truth About Medicare

With the nomination of Paul Ryan, Mitt Romney has guaranteed that the much needed debate about the future of Medicare will take place in the upcoming campaign.  Leftists argue that Paul Ryan's voucher plan "guts" Medicare.  Ryan argues that he plans to save Medicare.

Let's start with the fact that the Affordable Care Act (aka Obamacare) projects that the changes in the Act will "cut" (i. e. reduce the otherwise expected increase in Medicare costs) 500 Billion from Medicare.  There is no real debate that the planned changes to Medicare are supposed to save money and supposedly will be used to fund the expansion of care to younger persons.  Both the left and the right agree on that.  What they disagree about is how that will happen.  Supporters of the Affordable Care Act contend that they will achieve these savings through innovative payment plans, increased efficiency and elimination of fraud, waste and abuse of Medicare.  One of the benefits, costs of being a senior citizen is that when someone tells a lie, you may have heard it before.  Maybe they even believe it.  What they have done in the Affordable Care Act is to create a bunch of panels, and particularly one which will have the job of deciding what medical care Medicare will pay for.  We got a preview of the approach these panels will take when Obama talked about his grandmother's hip surgery.  I have no opinion about that hip replacement surgery either way because I don't know all the facts.  What I suspect is that such surgery will not be paid for under the Affordable Care Act.  When they say eliminate "waste, fraud and abuse" they mean eliminate the provision of that medical care that their panel deems unnecessary.

Paul Ryan's plan takes a different approach.  It is derided as a "voucher" plan.  And it is.  What they means to those of us covered by Medicare is that, rather than a panel of faceless bureaucrats making the decision as to what medical care our share of the government Medicare dollars will pay for, we will decide.  The limit on our discretion is that we get the same amount of money to pay for our medical care as is spent now.  We decide how that is spent.

Much of the hysteria you hear coming from what seems like the left in support of the current system is really coming from a bunch of government subsidized fat cats.  Big insurance companies make money off of Medicare by being the processor of Medicare claims.  And it is a big business.  They don't want to see anything change it.  Medical equipment manufacturers and people employed in  providing services that you and I might not choose to pay for if we had to make a choice are not happy about the institution of a system in which patients start asking how much something costs and whether it is really necessary to their health.  Just as an example:  yearly mammograms for women over 40/  Huge cost associated with that, but when you start looking at the numbers and the science it is not at all clear that any lives are saved by doing it every year and no accounting is made of potential damage by the extra exposure to x-rays.

Ryan's plan will allow the individual Medicare participant to decide between plans that offer that benefit versus other benefits.

People being guided by their human nature will approach a free buffet (Medicare) and eat all they can.  When you charge by the piece, they will scale back and eat only what they like or  want or need.  It's that simple.  The question is, as Ryan asks in the linked video,

Keeping the Faith

A conservative following politics these days can have a hard time keeping the faith.  Saint Paul wrote the words at the top of the page in what were also trying times.  Those of us who care deeply about our country and are political activists can get discouraged.  But Paul was giving us an important message.  God is in charge.  Even of politics.  There have been much worse times than these.  In the (looking at the whole panoply of history) comparatively recent time of pre WWII Germany, think how hard it must have been to keep the faith.  The world is nowhere near as badly off now as it was then.  So those of us faithful need to keep praying and keep trusting in God even when it seems impossible to trust.  Dear Lord, give me the ability to let go and let You be in charge.

My Ongoing Experiment with Bento 4

I am a long time Filemaker user.  My first copy of Filemaker was Filemaker.  Yeah.  They don't name an application Filemaker 1.  So I have used it since it was a flat file database.  But its getting expensive.  $299.00.  Compared to a lot of other products, still a bargain, but I am trying to semi-retire.  And you need a separate Filemaker License for each computer that uses it.  So, to keep using it in my practice is $600  because I haven't upgraded in several years.  So I decided Bento at version 4 might have the features I needed.  Some of it I love.  It automatically links to my addressbook and calendar.  And some of it seems really kludgy.  (My new word).  The main problem is printing.  There is very little user control over how it looks.  There are a bunch of "themes" but you can't alter them and you have very little control over font size.

The Real Unemployment Rate

The Obama administration is playing with the numbers.  How is it that the unemployment rate is falling when there are few new jobs?  Simple.  People are leaving the workforce.  They are applying for disability benefits in ever larger numbers.  Am I saying they are not really disabled? No.  and Yes.  Social Security disability is measured, in part, by physical inability to perform one's regular and customary occupation.  In addition the ability to adapt to a new and available occupation is taken into account.  What this means is that if, for example, your regular and customary occupation is warehouseman involving lifting heavy boxes and you have a back condition that precludes heavy lifting for the rest of your life, you meet one prong of the disability definition.  The second prong is are there jobs that you could, based on your education and abilities, reasonably be expected to do.  In a down economy there are few such jobs.  So disability benefits become a realistic option for creating a secure income.  The down economy even affects worker's compensation.  In an expanding economy an employer might be willing to train the warehouseman to become a dispatcher, a desk job not requiring heavy lifting.  That decision would save on the payment of worker's compensation benefits in the long run.  But in a stalled economy, where expansion looks pretty iffy, an employer might just bite the bullet and pay the worker's compensation, thinking, short run its the insurance company's problem.

The reality is that the labor force participation rate is the lowest it has been since 1981.  The labor force participation rate is a measure of the number of people between the ages of 16 and 64 who have a job or who are looking for one.  The labor force participation rate is shrinking every month.  The economy is stalled.  It is, looking at GDP, slightly growing but just barely.