On IQ, Race, and Jason Richwine.

A young man,  Jason Richwine, just starting out his career, has been forced to resign because of a doctoral dissertation he wrote at Harvard. One presumes, based on experience, that the dissertation was read by an entire committee of tenured academics and approved by them, but now, we discover, from opinionated know nothings on the left, that the the dissertation, which I suspect none of them has actually looked at or read, is evidence of serious Nazi like racism.

And while these sanctimonious airheads strut their stuff in the comments section of various tabloid websites preening themselves with their imagined virtue,  they care nothing about ruining someone's career without so much as allowing him to respond.  Just more canon fodder in the war between right and left over who gets to spend the tax revenues in this country.  This scene, like so many before them, is nauseating.  It is not anything new, this phenomenon.  We saw it in the French Revolution, now celebrated in the movie musical, Les Miserable, where supposedly high ideals lead to mass slaughter based on nothing more than rumours, innuendo and a desire to grab other people's property.

I don't know Jason Richwine and I have not read his dissertation, nor do I intend to.  What I know is that the thing that he is being crucified for, besides having the temerity to challenge the unproven assumptions of corporate capitalists looking for cheap labor and leftwing ideologues looking for votes, is analyzing indisputable statistics.  Yes indeed, people from different ethnic and racial backgrounds do test differently on tests of mental performance.  That is an established fact and has been for at least 50 years.  The only intelligent discourse I have ever encountered about this fact is that written by Thomas Sowell in several different books, most recently, Ïntellectuals and Race

You can actually read a good part of his discussion online by clicking on the image of the book.  I will sum it up for you in a few words-- Sowell surveys the results of a huge variety of mental performance tests sdministered around the world in the last 100 years and concludes that intelligence, whatever that may be and he doesn't know for sure, is  the result of culture and environment as much as of heredity.  He concludes that such tests do predict future academic success with a fairly high degree of accuracy.  Since that is the way in which they are usually used, they are valuable but the studies do not tell us what to do in a policy sense.  There are a number of statistics which pose a serious challenge to any idea that intelligence is linked to race.  Like the hypothesis that all cats have brown eyes is disproven by findig one cat with blue eyes, the hypothesis that race and IQ are linked can be disproven by very few studies showing no such link.  Two that he cites are of black children adopted by white families (average IQ 109) and comparing the IQ's of German children who were the offspring of American soldiers during the occupation and raised by German single mothers-- no discernible difference in IQ.

The problem with this sort of discussion is that, of course, neither side in this mud slinging debate is usually interested in truth.  The leftwing is interested in tarring conservatives with the racist epithet although they can point to no evidence from the dissertation itself showing that.  One commenter who likened Richwine to the eugencists of the early 20th century (who, by the way included Margaret Sanger the founder of planned parenthood and a whole raft of left-wingers) because Richwine advocated an immigration policy skewed toward admitting people who are smart.  My non racist interpretation of that is that he would like to see more immigrants like my daughter in law from India  who has two master's degrees in scientific fields and less of dime store clerks.  My unscientific sample of graduate foreign students in the sciences is that a very large proportion of them are Asian.  So it sounds to me like he wants more of those people admitted and fewer people with less education admitted.  I am not saying he is a right but I fail to see the anti- dark skin color connection.

But what leaves a really sick feeling in the pit of my stomach is the way in which too many of my fellow citizens like to get on a bandwagon and banish people without a hearing, without a trial in order to make themselves feel better.  Too often the result is like what happened to the McMartin pre-school defendants.  The lives of innocent people are devastated because unscrupulous headline seekers rise in self righteous indignation and demand "justice" based on little or no evidence.  And when, after all the wreckage is cleared, it turns out that the condemned were not guilty, they seldom even receive an apology.

A Thought Experiment on Preventing Violence

In their arguments to support measures limiting the capacity of magazines used in guns, gun grabbers have engaged in "thought experiments" where they imagine what might have happened if the capacity of Adam Lanza's guns had been 8 bullets instead of 30.  It might, they argued, have saved lives as he had to stop and reload.  So here is another thought experiment.   Let us suppose that (horror of horrors) the principal of the Sandy Hook elementary school had been trained in the use of firearms and had a gun in a gunsafe on the wall of her office.  (But no, that could never happen because she is a woman who is incapable of firing a gun!) But, just for the sake of argument, let us suppose that, though a woman, the principal, ever zealous for the protection of the students in her care, had spent the time and money to learn how to fire a gun and how to store it properly.

Her gunsafe (with that many children around she should keep the gun in locked place that  could not be accessed by others-- and a gunsafe is really just an ordinary safe such as you might use to protect valuables except smaller) might have been equipped with both a touchpad and a fingerprint opening device to assure that she wouldn't have to fumble with a key when she needed a gun.  (I have, parenthetically, become quite enamored of such devices.  I use the fingerprint scanner to sign in at my gym and I have a touch pad lock on my front door).  Her gun is in the safe, loaded and ready to use but protected from those who might want to use it improperly by the aforementioned locks.

She sees Adam Lanza breaking the glass in the front door on the video.  (Several accounts say the school had a live video on the front door and that Lanza broke the glass to get in).  She sees what might be a gun.  She takes her gun out of the safe and walks calmly down the hall to meet him.  She points her gun at Adam and says "put down the guns Adam or I will have to shoot you.".  What happens next depends on Adam.  Either he puts down the guns and he waits as she calls the police to take him into custody or he doesn't put down the gun but raises it to shoot her.  She shoots first.  Total one dead, Adam Lanza.

The number of women buying guns is on the rise, according to a number of studies.  People used to refer to guns as "equalizers" for a reason.  A small woman with a gun is more than equal to a big man without one and she is at least equal to a man with a gun. The image of women, especially teachers, with guns is upsetting to a lot of people. Particularly at the elementary school level, we think of teachers as mother figures.  And mother figures with guns can be frightening.  Of course, back in the old frontier days, I suspect most women in the west knew how to shoot a rifle at least.  Danger could come to you and yours from wild animals as well as wild people.  I don't have a gun.  It is a huge responsibility that I don't want to deal with right now. But if I were in a situation where protection was needed, I would acquire one and learn how to shoot it and store it safely.  The idea that educators might want to arm themselves in the event of an Adam Lanza is neither crazy nor outrageous.  It is realistic.  I am confident that properly trained teachers, whether male or female, are quite capable of doing what is necessary to protect their students and if that includes shooting an attacker, so be it.  No normal person wants to kill anyone, but sometimes our choices are pretty limited.

The science is that states that have concealed carry permit laws have lower rates of violent crime than states that have strict gun control that makes getting a concealed carry permit difficult or impossible.  

Here, of course, is the big problem with my thought experiment.  It is pretty much illegal for anyone other than a sworn peace officer to carry a gun on school grounds.  That is a federal law which has been imposed on the states as well.  The law would have to be changed to allow the principal to have the gun on school grounds.  Some states are getting around this problem by swearing in the teachers who are willing to carry a gun as peace officers.

CHEAP GRACE= THE NARCISSISM OF THE LIBERAL ELITE

Dietrich Bonhoeffer wrote about a concept he called "cheap grace".  It is seeking the grace of God without sacrifice.  Bonhoeffer was no piker in that regard.  He, a German who could see the Nazis for the monsters that they were, had left Germany and was safely in New York when he decided to return because he felt God called him to be in Germany working to bring God's love to Germans.  The Nazis arrested him and hung him shortly before Germany was occupied by the allies.  The cost of discipleship for him was his life.  I am not one to claim I am willing to give my life for Christ.  I am a feckless fearful sinner sort of an old lady who hopes devoutly that she will never be asked to do so. But the concept of cheap grace applies elsewhere as well.

One thing that really gets my dander up, makes me really angry in a Jesus confronting the moneylenders way, is people who CLAIM to be doing something for others when all they are doing is preening their self righteousness in front of others.  There is a lot of that going on right now and most of it, so far as I can see, is on the left.  It is because the display of their self righteous peacock feathers is their real purpose and not actually helping one single living soul that most leftists will not engage in any rational discussion about any of their programs.  Their idea of rational discussion is "you are a racist sexist homophobe who is ridiculously stupid".  Please.  That's just name calling not rational argument.  If they are so smart, why are they incapable of articulating reasons to support their policies that go beyond, "I want it that way, it makes me feel good.".

So, very often we are treated to shows in which large groups of preening peacocks get together and parade around showing their self righteous feathers to the rest of us.  "Look at how virtuous I am" their behavior screams.    The latest show to provoke my ire is a so called pilgrimage to the border fence that separates California from Mexico.  This is an activity sponsored by the Episcopal Diocese of Los Angeles.  That I am a member of that Diocese may explain why I am especially provoked.  

So what is the purpose of this show, other than to demonstrate what wonderful caring people the pilgrims are?  Supposedly to achieve "just" immigration laws.  There is, I believe purposefully, no specification of what about our immigration laws which are enormously more liberal than Mexico's as an example, that is unjust.

Beef Number One:  If immigration is the subject, then this "pilgrimage" is enormously racist.  Yes racist. About 30 percent of the people in this country illegally are NOT OF MEXICAN origin. Or from any country south of the border.  Many are here from Canada, China, India and other countries.  Those illegal immigrants tend to be people who come here on a tourist visa and overstay their visas. They are just as illegal, and, while not a majority are a substantial minority.  Illegal is illegal whether you are here from Canada or from Mexico.

Beef Number two:  What, exactly, is accomplished by this pilgrimage?  What, of any substance actually helps anyone?  Thousands of churches and other groups from the United States take food and money to poor people in Mexico every year.  Those people may not be accomplishing much, but they are accomplishing more than is achieved by Bishop Jardine and her group.

Beef # 3:  By focusing on immigration policies these preening peacocks who constantly campaign against the idea that the United States is possibly full of people who actually have good intentions and do good things, they avoid asking the rather obvious question as to why there are so many really truly poor people in Mexico.  These preening peacocks are often people who want to impose here in the United States, the very same policies and governmental practices which contribute to the ongoing poverty in other countries.  Socialist theories always sound just and fair to people who have not experienced the economy in practice.  But they create poverty and squalor.  They rob people of hope.  This kind of peacock parade action takes the focus away from the discussion that needs to be had-- how societies can be changed so that there is less poverty and want around the world, not just in the United States and other first world countries.  The preening peacocks don't like that discussion because it focusses on the reality that Capitalism and business create wealth.

Hernando de Soto, in his book, the Mystery of Capital, lays bare what needs to change.  But these paraders don't want that kind of change.  They advocate a kind of return to the feudal system where supposedly benevolent betters are in charge and distribute the community wealth to whom they see fit.  Those who have studied history know how that turns out.  There is a wealthy elite and most people are poor, enslaved and impoverished.  It was the rise of middle class bourgeoisie business people that brought most people to a comfortable level of living.

THE REAL PAUL KRUGMAN AND THE NOOK MONOPOLY

Okay all you double entendre fans, the word Nook in the title refers to the e-reader device of that name.  Most of my friends can guess that I am not a big fan of Paul Krugman the Nobel prize winning leftwing idealogue who masquerades as an economist.  I use the word "masquerade" because one of the first economists I worked with in a discrimination case told me "liberal economist" is an oxymoron.  No REAL economist, he told me, is a liberal.  His argument was that everything we know about economics tells us that a free market with fee competition produces the optimum world for the consumer who is you and I.  We are the consumers and we benefit the most from a free market system. The real arguments against socialism, he told me, were all to be found in the history of socialist economies vs. Free enterprise economies.

Having said all of that.  And it is a lot.  Paul Krugman, who also masquerades as a liberal, has found the academic sweet spot where his text books sell for outrageous prices (if you think $156.81 for a paperback is outrageous)   to students who are forced to buy them.  You can rent it for less.  That means they mail it to you and charge you for the shipping and you mail it back to them and pay for the shipping.  All in all, if you take care of the book and don't write in it or let it get dirty you can save about a hundred bucks.  But, having downloaded books from iBooks and Kindle you think, hey, I will download that book to my mini iPad and save the shipping and be able to add annotations and underlines.  Foolish you.  If you could do that easily, no one would buy the paper book.  Or at least, a lot fewer people would do that.  I'm one of the ones who wouldn't.  I love e-books.  I have about 30 of them on my iPad.  And that is one of the reasons I love them.  I can easily carry a hundred books in my purse.  Yay!!!! (As a senior citizen with presbyopia, I love them for the adjustable viewing features as well)  But I digress.

I am not planning to read Paul Krugman any time soon, but alas, a student in my life is one of the unfortunates who is required to read this piece of trash for a course.  So it has to be read.  We set about trying to download it et cetera when we discovered that Barnes and Noble is engaging in a very old and long term unsuccessful marketing strategy.  They have a monopoly on the book.  That is to say, they are the only on line seller from whom you can buy it.  They have a whole text book department full of books on which they have a monopoly of that sort.  They know you have to have it as do the publishers so they can charge 10 times what other willing buyers pay for this author's books.

Now for the e-book aspect.  Having downloaded literally dozens of books from Amazon and iBooks, I figured I knew how to do this.  I had not run in to the Nook e text book yet.  So I will let you know the scam.  Barnes and Noble tells you, on their Nook textbooks page, that you can read your textbook anywhere (this is not a new feature of books, of course.  Except for the biggest and the heaviest, you could always read them everywhere.).  Despite that claim, it turns out that you can only download text books to your computer, not an ipad, kindle or nook.  So actually, you can only read them somewhere that you can take a computer.  If you have a laptop, that's cool.  If you have opted for an iPad, Kindle or Nook, you are out of luck.  The reason given for this is that textbooks, in B & N's opinion, don't really look good on small screens.  Hmmmm.   Apple seems to have gotten past this so-called problem as has Amazon.  If, like a lot of people, you have a desktop computer and a tablet device the only place you can read your textbook is on your desk top  computer screen.  And we all know how comfortable that is.

So if you want to read your textbook "anywhere" you have to invest in a new laptop.  Or you can just invest in the old portable approach, which is to buy the paperback for $153.00.  It may be heavy and you will never want to read it again after the class is over, but at least  you won't have to worry about spilling your coffee on it and you won't have two trips to the post office.

If you could buy the e-book version from Kindle or iBooks, you would.  Better still, you would rent it from them if  could.  Another student I know rented a textbook for the semester in an e-book version at a considerable savings.  When the rental period runs out, the text book deletes itself from her tablet.  The essence of a cool marketing arrangement.  Made possible by Amazon, not Barnes and Noble.

This whole marketing arrangement and the monopolistic power of Barnes and Noble are brought to you by the upper level elites of the Academic Econosphere who have somehow persuaded all of us to give them the power over our lives that they have.  How can I say that?  Professors, or at least the academic establishment, has the power to designate the books that will be textbooks.  In my Education for Ministry class ( I am a co-mentor) The University of the South has just decided to move to textbooks (from a self published course).  The books they plan to use which are very scholarly and written by widely acclaimed academics, are sold as regular books (not textbooks) through Amazon.  While we thought the prices a bit steep at first, they are positively cheap next to the books sold through Barnes and Noble's text book service.

Does Paul Krugman have a choice as to where to sell his textbook?  Yes.  HE does.  He sells other books that are sold through Amazon for $14.95 or less. But those are books that people can choose not to buy.  (I, for example choose not to buy).  But when he has a captive market of students who want the stamp of approval from some institution of higher learning, he gouges them.  Or he signs up with a publisher who gouges them.  This is reprehensible behavior from anyone but even more so from Paul Krugman because he writes such supposedly caring drivel in the New York Times everyday about the harsh and uncaring Republican party.  But when the opportunity to gouge poor students comes along, why, he takes it.  Of course, he is not the only person making millions off of students.  But so what?  Put your money where your mouth is, Mr. Krugman.  Make your textbooks available on Amazon for a reasonable price if you really mean what you say about social justice.  I am not holding my breath.  More proof that liberal and hypocrite tend to go together.  Especially when you are talking about wealthy liberals.

Getting Ready for Wildflower Season

While God lets us know of His love in many different ways, I think that wildflowers are among the most spectacular ways.  They are sheer, ebullient, joy praising God in their beautiful faces bouncing on the breezes. If you just sit in a field of flowers you can absorb the happiness they proclaim.  It is good to be alive.  Most springs, but not all, the dry deserts around Southern California burst into joyous bloom.

Golden poppies cover the hillsides in March and April in a totally unrestrained fluorescent orange the color of traffic tape. Desert Gold cover the hills around Death Valley.  You can see them from miles away.  I hope we will see them again this year.  I urge you, take some time out to see the world that God made.  It is extraordinary.  It is beautiful.  It won't wait around for you.  You must drop what you are doing and enjoy the beauty when it appears if you are to enjoy it at all.  It comes on its own schedule and not on yours.  But it is worth it.  Truly it is.  Here is a website that will tell your where the flowers are in bloom: www.desertusa.com

Time to Go Visit the Snow

If you live in Southern California, you visit snow.  Snow does not visit you.  If you are not a native of Southern California, as I am, you can be forgiven for not being aware that it snows in Southern California, indeed, in Los Angeles County, inter alia, every single year.  Indeed, if you are a recent immigrant to Los Angeles, you can be forgiven for having only recently discovered that Los Angeles is ringed by mountains.

Because of the mountains  -- the San Gabriels and the Tehachapis to the North, the San Bernardino's to the east and the coastal ranges, and the constant breezes blowing inland off the ocean,  there is something called an inversion layer that is like a lid on a pot that keeps all the grey-brown gunky stuff in the air from dissipating upward.  And that smoggy gunky stuff keeps you from seeing the mountains until you are right on them.  If you live in Pasadena or Burbank or one of those towns along the 210 "foothill" freeway, you can see the mountains, but most of the time you can't see them because of the grey brown air.

And then December and January weather arrives with, we hope, rain and wind, and wash all that yucky stuff out of the air and, voila! not just mountains, mountains with white stuff on them.  The white stuff is snow.

When I was a youth, it was obligatory to have at least one trip to the snow.  This involved finding all of your warm stuff, including mittens or at least gloves, rubber boots or your warmest footwear and your warmest coat, and then everyone in the car, drive an hour or so up into the mountains, find an appropriate place to park, get out of the car and play in the snow.  Sometimes we had sleds and tobaggons or we would make our own out of something else.  Depending on where your parents chose to park, it could be a little intimidating because the San Gabriel mountains can be very steep.  The combination of snow and steep and a sled can lead to some very fast rides.  Then we would pile some snow on the top of the car to show everybody we had been up to the snow, and drive home, grateful to be inside and warm again.

And it is still a tradition today for millions of families in Southern California.  So we are blessed here in the Los Angeles area with plenty of places to play in the snow.  Here is a list of suggestions for those who are new to the L. A. snow scene.

For skiing: (No I am not making this up)

Mount Baldy  Their motto is real snow, real close.  Mount Baldy is in the San Bernardino mountains and has chairlifts and skiing.  It has a small lodge where you can drink hot cocoa.  You can rent ski equipment and take lessons there as well.  Unlike most places that you ski, you have to take a lift to get up the place where you rent your skis at Mount Baldy.  That is because between the parking lot and the ski hut, the mountain is very steep. You can buy a lift ticket just to go up top and look around.  Or you can buy a lift ticket to ski.  Below the area where the chair lift is there are plenty of places to park and play in the snow.

Mount Waterman  I am pleased to discover that Mount Waterman is open again depending on the snow.  Check the website.  Again a very small local place to ski and freeze your buns off.  I have skied there a few times.  Since I'm not a very good skier, I take the lift up top where the easier skiing is .  The mountain down to the road is VERY black diamond steep.  You can also go up top and go to the lodge have some cocoa and enjoy the forest.

And of course:  Mountain High  which is actually a full blown resort. They have night skiing for those who want to drive up after work and break a leg.  I've skied there and my 2¢ worth is, too many hot doggers.  If you are a hot dogger, have at it.

Of course, we can't leave out Big Bear because it is in Southern California and it is very Big.  It is also a long twisty icy drive up Running Springs Road which will take you a couple of hours to get there.  And it will be crowded.


Snow play

Now if you just want to play, the best place to go is up Highway 2 into the Angeles Forest.  If it has recently snowed you will probably be required to put chains on your drive tires-- the ones that actually propel the car forward or backward. This is to make sure your tires have traction on icy roads.  It's a safety thing.   There will usually be a CHP  enforcement team which will turn you back if you don't have them.  So drop by Pep boys or your other favorite auto store and buy them before you go.  You wait until you get up where there is a lot of snow and it is very cold and then you pull over to the side of the road and lay on the ground in the freezing wet cold and wrap those things around your tires with your frozen fingers turning numb.  Oh.  Well, that's what I do.  Or, if you have 4 wheel drive, you flip a switch and you probably won't be required to have chains.

If you go far enough on Highway 2 you will come to Newcomb's Ranch, which is a biker hangout.  Don't let that intimidate you.  They are all very nice people.  Remember, Jay Leno is a biker.  Anyway,  after you play in the snow until you are all wet and really, really cold, you can go to Newcomb's Ranch restaurant and  get lunch and play pool  and drink cocoa and get warm.  If you are not the one driving you can also indulge in adult beverages.  They have a well stocked bar.  Well, I'm really not a judge of such things, but they seem to have a reasonable array of booze.

And let me say just one thing about the aforementioned icy roads.  In addition to being twisty and windy the roads are narrow and in most places if your car leaves the road at a high speed, it is a very long way down-- like 500 or 1000 feet.  So all things considered, better to take it slow and not lose control.

If it has snowed recently, you may want to check to make sure the roads are open.  Caltrans, in its wisdom, closes the roads in Angeles Forest when they think they are too dangerous.  Check here for the status:  http://www.dot.ca.gov/cgi-bin/roads.cgi.  Don't worry about Highway 2 being closed from Islip saddle to Wrightwood.  They close that every winter.  Newcomb's Ranch and Mount Waterman are both before the closing point.

HSA's--One Important Way to Address Healthcare Cost Inflation

Health Savings Accounts are a recently developed tax incentive for saving to pay for your own healthcare.  They are different from Health Reimbursement Accounts that require you to spend all the money each year.  You can rollover the money in the account if you don't spend it.  The website I have linked above is a company that offers health savings accounts.  If your employer offers high deductible medical insurance, you may be qualified to enroll.  The website describes the whole process.  They are simple and easy to use.

The more important question is why this is a good approach.  As you can see, an individual can contribute up to $3200 and a family more than double that each year.  The idea is that you start this plan when you are young and have few medical costs and you keep it until you are old and have lots of medical costs.  In the meantime, you have invested it and your investment income has made it grow to a tidy amount.    You don't pay taxes on the money when you invest it and you don't pay taxes when you use it for medical expenses.

The plan offers a debit card and checks to pay for medical expenses directly.  No claims to file.  No third party decision makers deciding if you "need" the medical care recommended by your physician.

But how, you may ask, does this type of plan address the issue of medical costs?  I will let John Mackey make the first argument.  Mackey makes the legitimate argument that, for the most part, people don't even ask what a medical procedure costs.  They don't shop for the lowest price or the best value.  And the reason, he suggests, is that, when you have conventional medical insuranee, you are not paying for it.  If you are paying for it, even with tax advantaged funds, you will ask.  And you will make choices based, not on some insurance company guidelines, but on the basis of what is important to you.  Only you know if that very high priced latest drug for pain control is worth it to you.

In my case, my physician prescribed a drug that cost more than $200 for pain relief. At the time I didn't have drug coverage in my Medicare plan.  To say the least, I asked a few questions and did a little research and concluded that a) my pain wasn't that bad and b) there were much lower cost alternatives that would provide as much pain relief as this very expensive drug.   No other person really knows how much pain you are in.  No one else should be making that decision, really.  But under regular insurance plans, some faceless nameless insurance company employee looks at a guideline and decides if you need that expensive drug.  With an HSA, you make that decision.  In my case I decided I would rather forego the expensive drug.

HSA's also, simply put, reduce costs.  They are better for individuals, who have much more freedom of choice than with a regular insurance plan where a third party makes the decisions, and they are better for medical care providers, who get paid right away.

Many medical offices employ a full time employee just to process medical claims.  Insurance companies and third party administrators enter into contracts with Medicare to process the claims.  It costs billions of dollars each year just to process all the claims.  Health Savings Accounts would reduce that cost substantially since only very large medical costs would be part of the claims process. If you have an HSA, you pay the equivalent of cash for your office visits and your medications.  It is only when you have very large expenses that you file a claim.  Experience, on a broad scale, shows that HSA's save both employees and employers a lot of money.  The State of Indiana offered HSA's as an option for employees in 2004.  By 2009, 90 percent of Indiana State employees had opted for them.  AS the report shows, those enrolled in HSA's  were more likely to use generics rather than name brand pharmaceuticals, used urgent care centers rather than emergency rooms for non ER problems and used preventative services more often.  The moral of that story is that if you, the consumer, are the person who benefits from using a more cost effective alternative in medical care, you will use it.  If the insurance company is paying for it, no matter what choice you make, why should you save the insurance company money.

So, if HSA's are so great why are there so few advocates for them?  Please note what I said above.  Insurance Companies and Third Party Administrators make billions of dollars from processing claims.  Many of them will go out of business or see a substantial reduction in revenue if HSA's are widely adopted.  They have lobbies.  There are only a few HSA administrators and only a few employers who care enough about their employees to advocate on their behalf.

You might think that Unions would be advocating for something that benefits employees.  You would be wrong.  The reason?  Many unions sponsor health care plans and receive a percentage of the premiums.  Like the AARP, which sponsors Medicare plans and makes billions in the process, they are far from an impartial advocate for the insurance that they sell.

The first step is for people to at least know what HSA's are and to ask their employers to establish an HSA.

The second step is to improve the legislation on HSA's.  The Obamacare legislation took it a step backward by eliminating coverage for non-prescription drugs.  For those of us who are cost conscious this is an abomination. It leads to people choosing expensive prescription drugs when an over the counter drug would do just fine.  It's a stupid policy.  Example:  if you ever have a twisted ankle, a wrenched knee or other musculo skelatal injury that is not major but very painful, the chances are that your physician will prescribe 600 or 800 milligram ibuprofen.  The last time I was offered a prescription like that I asked this question:  Is there any  difference between taking 3 or 4 200 milligram tablets of the type that I can buy at Costco, $14 for 1000 tablets and the 600 milligram tablet that requires a prescription?  Answer: No.  Except that 3 over the counter tablets are cheaper than one 600 milligram tablet.  Many of the drugs that are now sold over the counter were once prescription drugs and are very effective for the purposes for which they are sold.  Why should consumers pay the difference for a prescription?

How Changing One Government Dietary Recommendation Could Greatly Reduce Healthcare Costs.

Those who know me know I am a little bit of a low-carb fanatic.  Off and on anyway.  I like cupcakes as much as the next person, but, periodically, I go on a low carb diet and, most of the time, I limit the amount of carbs that I eat.  I treat french fries, cupcakes and pasta the same-- they are all occasional treats not dietary staples for me.  I eat a low carb bread (Sara Lee's Delite ful brand that has about 5 carbs per slice) and have bacon and eggs for breakfast, not cereal.

The evidence is accumulating that for a person like me, who most likely has an inherited predisposition toward diabetes (both parents, older sister and cousin are diabetic), a low carb diet is the best way to prevent the onset of diabetes. I worry about diabetes enough that I bought my own glucose testing kit just so I wouldn't have to go to the doctor all the time to find out what my blood glucose is.  They are not necessarily expensive-- Walmart sells its cheapest one for less than twenty dollars.  So far so good for me.  My last Ha1c test was 4.5 which is, to quote my physician, stellar.  Harvard Researchers recommend lowering the glycemic index of your diet to help prevent or postpone diabetes.  Clinicians say, simply, your choice is medicine or lay off the carbs.  If you reduce your blood sugar levels you can prevent the onset of type 2 diabetes. Type 2 diabetes is also called adult onset diabetes.  It is a different disease from type 1 diabetes.  In type 1 diabetes your body doesn't make enough insulin to handle the carbs that you eat.  In type 2 diabetes your body manufactures plenty of insulin, but your cells, over time, develop a resistance to the insulin and don't use it properly.  The second type of diabetes can be prevented by keeping both your blood sugars and your insulin low.  When your body is functioning properly, it generates large amounts of insulin whenever you eat refined carbs and sweets.  That insulin can, over time, do damage to your organs just as the sugar in your blood can cause damage to your organs.  That accounts for the horrible diabetes related problems: kidney disease, heart disease, blindness and peripheral neuropathy which eventually cuts off circulation to your extremities.

After decades of recommending low fat diets to diabetics based on very questionable science, researchers have begun to perform clinical studies of the effect of diets on blood sugar for people who are pre diabetic or diabetic and not being treated with medication.  The results are stunning.  Even short term low carb diets reduce blood sugar very significantly.  Weight loss is also much greater, even while consuming the same number of calories, for people with metabolic syndrome who follow low carb vs. low fat diets.

Clinical trials where subjects are matched and one group follows one diet and one follows a comparison diet are the gold standard in scientific research for diets.   This study, published in the American Diabetes Association Journal shows that over a fairly short period the blood glucose for subjects following a diet with 20 percent carbohydrate (about 100 grams per day if you are eating a 2000 calorie diet, more if you are eating more), was dramatically lower than the blood glucose of those who followed a low fat diet.  119 vs, 198,  For those of us who follow these things, neither of those readings are terrific but 119 is a lot better than 198.  It is close to normal.

If clinical trials comparing like subjects are the gold standard, this study, performed with people in the clinic so that actual consumption of food could be closely monitored, is the platinum standard. It was performed in hospital so that energy expenditure and food consumption could be closely monitored.
It shows that women whose carbohydrate consumption was controlled, but who were allowed to eat as much protein and fat as they wanted, spontaneously ate less.  This is a claim made for low carb diets by both Atkins, and other proponents like Drs, Mary and Dan Eades who offer the Protein Power diet.  Put simply, the study concluded that people who have metabolic syndrome will be less hungry if they eat fewer carbohydrates, will eat less and will lose more weight simply because they are less hungry.

This study, sponsored by Jenny Craig, shows that low carb diets are more effective in achieving weight loss as well as helpful in reducing  insulin resistance (a precursor of diabetes).  I should note for the conspiracy theorists that Jenny Craig sells pre-packaged foods to help attain weight loss.  They have no investment in either low fat or low carb.  Their investment is in selling a combined counseling and weight loss program that actually works.  Doubtless, their research was designed to find out which approach was more likely to be effective so that they could incorporate it in their products.

There are many more studies than I have listed.  The three I have listed are more recent and closer to the gold standard of clinical trials than other studies so I cited them.  To be more specific, they came up on the first page of a google search and were from reputable sources.

If you look on the labels of many packaged foods that you buy, you will discover that the USDA (your government) recommends that 60 percent of your diet should consist of carbohydrates.  These studies show that such a diet, for people predisposed to diabetes or with diabetes, is not good for them.  Their blood sugar and all their other diabetes related measurements are better on a diet which is 20 percent carbohydrates.  Rather than consuming 300 grams of carbs a day, as recommended by USDA, if you are pre-diabetic, or have insulin resistance (which is probably the case if you are overweight) you should be limiting your carbs to 100 grams and making up the rest with proteins and fats.

And what would be the consequence if a significant percentage of the diabetes prone population would change their dietary habits in this fashion?  According to this congressional study, about 32% of Medicare expenditures are related to treatment of diabetes and the consequences of diabetes.  While the figure is a smaller percentage for the overall population it is still very high, about 10 percent of health care dollars for treatment of diabetes and another significant percentage for treatment of diabetes related illnesses.  Getting people to just change their diets could reduce medicare expenditures by  10 or 20 percent.

Can the government change people's behavior?  Yes, if the science supports it.  Tobacco use has dropped dramatically since the government and medical leaders began talking about the harm that smoking does to health.  More and more the science supports the recommendation that people who have diabetes or who are prone to diabetes should limit their carbs.  100 grams of carbs a day is, by the way, not all that low.  Protein Power recommends a maximum of 50 grams a day and Atkins starts you off with 20 grams a day.  100 grams a day would allow you to have 2 glasses of milk (26 grams) a small orange and an apple ( about 40  grams) and a couple of slices of bread or a small baked potato.  The rest of your diet would be fish, meat, eggs, leafy green vegetables, lower carb fruit (strawberries are very low in carbs) and nuts.  (Peanut butter without sugar added is pretty low in carbs).

People who call themselves nutritionists sometimes are adamantly opposed to low carb diets.  The new school lunch guidelines, supposedly designed to reduce obesity and the early onset of type 2 diabetes, advocate a diet that the research I cited above, is likely to CAUSE obesity and high blood sugars.  This is what happens when the self designated experts capture an agency.   Some of these zealots are people who advocate vegetarian eating almost like a religion, in the face of the substantial evident cited above and in other journals. For them, it is not so much that they are pro-carbs as it is that that is what you eat if you eschew animal based food. You can follow a low carb diet if you are a vegan.  It's just very difficult and consists of a lot of tofu and tempi.    Some may simply be in the pay of industrial giants like Kellogg, Archer Daniel Midlands, and General Mills.  The natural result of the widespread adoption of low carb diets by the diabetes prone would be a reduced consumption of grains and starchy vegetables.  Since I doubt that the potato farmers have a huge lobby, I am going to finger Archer Daniel Midlands and the cereal producers as the lobbyists who support the present dietary guidelines.   I don't have a lot of data to back it up, I admit.

If you are among the diabetes prone, you don't have to wait for the government to act.  Following a limited  carb diet will make you feel better fairly quickly and will reduce the chance that you will develop diabetes.  I want to point out for those of you who eat a high carb diet and have normal weight and blood sugars, that I am not advocating a low carb diet for everyone.  The evidence is strong that different people process carbohydrates differently and that diabetes is a genetically linked disease related to the processing of carbohydrates.  It just appears that a lot of us have that condition and should be aware of it and respond appropriately.

The Benificent Left and Social Security

The people who are so worried about not making anyone feel bad (unless the people who feel bad are white, old or male) have lately taken to talking about Social Security recipients as if they were welfare recipients.  They also talk about all federal spending as "handouts".  "Handout" is, of course a demeaning term that implies that the recipient of said handout is getting something for nothing, is a social parasite.

Strangely, people who are conservative, and opposed to excessive government spending, hardly ever talk about social security recipients that way.  Some people might argue that the reason conservatives don't talk about social security recipients with such mean contempt is that conservatives get more of their votes.  But that is not always the case.

I think the reason is that people who are conservative, like me, respect work.  People who are receiving social security, by definition worked.  Certainly you can argue that many will receive far more than they would have received from a private investment program.  But the truth is that most of those people are the people who have been collecting social security for a while.  Those of us who just started receiving social security, particularly formerly high income earners, can expect to receive less in benefits than we would have received from a private annuity for the same expenditure.  For those who don't remember the history of Social Security, the cause of this change is that Social Security tax rates were dramatically increased by that conservative warrior, Ronald Reagan, in order to keep the system solvent.  So those of us who are the Younger Oldsters, paid a lot more in Social Security and Medicare taxes than older Oldsters.

The derisive sneers coming from the left in my direction because I rail against big government while receiving Medicare benefits and Social Security are, to me, just further proof that the left really cares nothing about people and everything about power.  If they can be so derisive and contemptuous of people who were forced to participate in a government retirement and medical insurance program (that would be all of us)  then, they really care nothing about people.

By talking about us as if we were welfare recipients the left proves how little good faith there is in any supposedly charitable programs they sponsor.  I, after all, worked and paid FICA taxes and Medicare taxes for  about 50 years and about 45 years respectively.  I wasn't given the option of a private retirement program instead.  I was allowed to have a private retirement program in addition, and I do have it. Yet to the left, we are just like all of the other recipients of federal charity. There is no difference between us and a person who receives welfare benefits.  All of us should shut up and be grateful for what we are given by the benificent government.

 Strangely, I don't hear about my private pension being, somehow, a handout from the insurance company that pays it to me.  That money, I am assured is my right and my entitlement.

  It's true the money I paid in taxes was used to pay for benefits for my parents and grandparents.  In a private annuity, companies invest the money they receive in companies and real estate and government bonds.  They pay the annuities from the money they receive from investments.  Not so from Social Security.  Social Security pays current benefits from current revenues and invests the rest in loans to the federal government, which government uses said funds for current expenditures.

The difference in attitude between government funded retirement benefits and privately funded benefits tells me everything about the left and the big government group.  They expect and require that private companies keep the promises they make.  It's the law.  We have a law called ERISA that imposes standards on private companies requiring that they not reduce benefits already worked for and promised.

Not so for government.  I am assured by those on the left that the promises made by politicians in the 60's, the 70's, the 80's (when Social Security tax rates were doubled) and the 90's are neither morally nor legally binding on the people who run the government today.  I should be grateful to big government that it has kept its promise to me by paying the Social Security I was promised.  It is, the implication is clear, more than I deserve because I have the effrontery to call it a Ponzi scheme.

You might think that the people who are the late entrants to the scheme (meaning the young people of today) would be greatly concerned about it.  It is the late entrants who don't get paid.  Yet they all voted for big government.

Be that as it may, the reality of why so many seniors voted for Republicans is not that we are all crotchety racists who don't want a black man for president.  We understand that if the government  continues  to borrow so much money from foreign sources and treasury bond investors that the interest payments alone will exceed the money available to repay the loans, there won't be any money to pay the money we were promised.  Many of us hope to live for a decade or more  into the future.  Obamacare transfers money from Medicare to Medicaid, meaning when we need medical care we will get a phony sympathetic hand holding and death counseling while someone young will get actual medical care.  That's what we are afraid of.  We are afraid that the money is going to run out before we die.  It's pretty simple.  And we are afraid for our grandchildren.  That would be young people.  We may not care about anyone else's grandchildren, but we want ours to have a good life.  Many of us try to be a little bit thrifty so we can leave them money when we die.  But it looks like all the money is being spent on crazy investments in companies that pretend to be devoted to new sources of energy but appear, in practice, to be merely shells used as conduits for large amounts of government money to go into the pockets of rich friends of whoever is in power.

I am not going to make a plea for kinder rhetoric.  That would be a waste of electrons.  Increasingly, people on the left look like people whose ability to feel good about themselves is dependent on looking down with contempt on others. This week it is old people.  Next week, it will be the military.   It is a poisonous attitude that can never lead to real harmony because it always needs a scapegoat.  It is a deliberately divisive attitude that separates the smart, with it in crowd from the stupid, dependent others.

A Day to Give Thanks for All the Riches in Our Lives

I count my riches in people more than things, not because I lack things but because people are what life is about.  So I am thankful for my family, my children, especially my grandchildren who give me a real and physical connection with the future.  Having friends in my life who care about me over the years and over the miles is another great benefit.  It is people who make my life feel so full and satisfying.  I thank our Creator for bringing all of these beautiful people into my life.

Twinkies and the Law

 A lot of blather is going around the internet about what caused Hostess to fail.  But there are a few things being said that betray a serious lack of knowledge of bankruptcy law.  Don't feel bad.  Most lawyers know next to nothing about bankruptcy law and most laypeople who haven't filed know even less.

So here's the deal.  When a corporation files for bankruptcy it can file under either Chapter 11 for a reorganization or under Chapter 7 for a liquidation of assets.  Chapter 11 filings are chosen by those businesses whose leaders think they can rescue the company if the company can get some breathing space with its creditors and be relieved of onerous contracts that limit its future operations. An example of the kind of contract that might be voided is a supply contract where the price of the supplies was above market price, or a labor union contract. Debts already incurred would go into a separate pile for consideration.  They might be eventually paid off at less than a 100cents on the dollar.
 A lot of airlines have filed chapter 11 and come out of it still flying.  When a company is in chapter 11, virtually every financial aspect of how the company operates is subject to review and approval of the bankruptcy court, including executive salaries.  Hostess was already in chapter 11.  It's threat to the unions was NOT that it would file for bankruptcy, it was already in chapter 11 reorganization bankruptcy.  It's threat was to convert its chapter 11 bankruptcy to a chapter 7, liquidation, meaning it would go out of business.  Also, by virtue of the fact that it was in bankruptcy, executive salaries would have been submitted to the bankruptcy court and approved by it.  Those who claim that the managers were simply trying to loot the company would have more credibility if they had made those claims to a bankruptcy judge who would have had full power to stop any such looting.  In fact, that is one of a bankruptcy judge's jobs-- to prevent looting of corporate assets.  Any corporate assets distributed to individuals in the 90 days before the bankruptcy filing can be recovered almost automatically, and any distributed in the year prior to filing can be recovered if there is evidence that there was not fair compensation paid.  The claim that this company was being looted WHILE in bankruptcy looks mighty suspicious only because it is precisely the job of the bankruptcy judge to keep that from happening.

Another issue is the ability of the unions to look at the books.  Since the company was in bankruptcy already, a perusal of the reorganization plan would have given a lot of information to the unions.  But even more important the National Labor Relations Board, which regulates collective bargaining with private companies requires that companies which plead poverty in collective bargaining negotiations open their books to the unions affected.  So, assuming the unions have some knowledge of the NLRA, the books were opened to them.  The teamsters accepted some pretty deep cuts to keep the company in business, the Bakers did not.  The bakers had a second chance when the judge postponed ruling on the motion to convert the bankruptcy to chapter 7 in order to have the parties go back to mediation.  The bakers again rejected any offer made to them.  The only rational conclusion is that they preferred unemployment to wage cuts.  Since Hostess had already filed in bankruptcy court to shut down the company, they had to know that Hostess was not bluffing.

They can say whatever they want but it is clear that they chose unemployment benefits over working.  They must have known after the court put off its decision on the conversion, that Hostess was serious about shutting down.  And they must have known that the court would approve the shut down if they did not take the contract that was offered to them.  They were given an opportunity to show the court that the company could still be viable if they were given what the union wanted in a contract.  Apparently the court didn't buy it.

While I am sorry that another American icon has bitten the dust, I can't say that I will miss them, really. I have never been a frequent purchaser of hostess products.  Like Polaroid and other iconic brands, they didn't keep up with the market and they have bitten the dust.  That is as it should be.

A Message to Chris Christie

I'm really posting this because I want a record of my prediction.  Dear Chris, you just sold out your party and the guy who gave you a bully platform at the Republican convention,  i. e. Mitt Romney.   And please don't give me all your Barbra Streisand about its what a governor should do.  Bloomberg didn't do it and he actually endorsed Obama.   Some people think you are just politically tone deaf.  I don't think you are.  I think you didn't get to be governor of New Jersey being politically tone deaf.  I think you did it for your political advantage.  You are running for re-election next year.  Or scheduled to.  I hope you made a deal to get a presidential appointment.  Not because I think you would do a good job but because it is a shame to see someone sell out his birthright and not even get a mess of pottage in return.

Here's my prediction if you are planning to run for re-election.  The pundits say that Cory Booker is going to run against you.  My prediction is that there will be a few stray Republicans who endorse Cory Booker because he seems intent on positioning himself as a pro-business moderate.  And I will put up ten dollars that says that our newly re-elected president will come to New Jersey and campaign against you.  And he will use all of the identity themes he used in this election.  And, here's a clue, you are not the right identity.  You are Republican and white.  If you thought, even for one minute, you were buying yourself some protection by helping to tip the election to Obama, well, you are wrong.  You betrayed the people who depended on you.  Don't expect a lot from the Republican bench.  As for the Tea Party, truly, don't expect anything.   I really think we are not that stupid.  Heck, I think Cory Booker had more kind words for Mitt Romney than you did.

The Left Needs to Own Their Crazies

Here is an example of how the typical true left thinks:  Posted on Daily Kos   I said in a prior post that the left needs someone to demonize and that would be people who dare to call themselves Republican.  Don't just read the post.  Read the comments.  Threats of violence against conservatives  by the kooks at Daily Kos are a daily phenomenon.  But people who call themselves liberal consistently blame Republicans and the Tea Party for this kind  of hate filled screed.  Please don't ask me not to defend myself.  Yes, I know about Jesus and about Gandhi.

But here is the other side.  We need to fight back, not physically, but ideologically.  This is the part of the core constituency of the new Democrat party.  These are the people who carry signs and show up for demonstrations and walk precincts for nothing.  They literally hate anyone who dares to call himself a Republican.  They do that because they need someone to blame for their miserable hate filled lives.

The people who write this kind of thing rarely get elected to office.  But they are used to get people elected to office.

So here is the problem for Christian conservatives.  Yes we must be charitable to people, meaning in this context, still caring for and seeing even really crazy people as human and objects of God's love even if they don't believe in God.  But we also need to call out the people who benefit by the crazy and hateful energy these people transmit into the body politic.  Much of the divisiveness in our culture is a result of a deliberately cultivated envy and concomitant hatred.  It is a vague and ugly anger that attaches itself first to one and then another object.  It is the energy of mob rule and the antithesis of reason.  Like the family members at an intervention, we need, with love, to tell people when they are wrong.  We need to hold up a mirror to the hatred from the left.  And we need to force them to talk about it.  Because, until we do that, we cannot resolve our differences until we at least come to an agreement as to what they are.

So, think of our conversation with an unwilling, name calling left as an intervention with a family member.  We do have to keep talking and we do have to keep being polite, but we don't have to pull our punches or try to gild the lily.  We need to be honest with them and continue to politely disagree.

The Racism of the Leftist Elites

The racism of the leftist elites was on display again this election cycle.  The party of southern segregation, aka the Democrat party, raised literally tens of millions of dollars to defeat two black Republican congressional candidates:  Mia Love and Allen West.   The money and energy  spent is  ten or twenty times as much as was spent on other races not involving black Republicans. Democrats have targeted these two people for one reason, they are  Black and Republican. It is part of a long history of attempting to destroy Black Republicans. And the reason is simple-- keep black people on the Democrat plantation where the Democrats have done nothing for them in fifty years.

This is an ongoing unspoken policy for the left.    It was in full view when the left attacked Clarence Thomas during the nomination process for Supreme Court.  And the left continues to attack Thomas intermittently to make sure his reputation never comes back.  The left demonizes any outspoken person who they deem to be a person who should belong to them.

This isn't an accident.  The left puts its coalitions together, not based on issues, but on identity politics.  "You need to vote for us because we will protect you from the evil other guys" is their primary message.  It is the reason for the phrase "people of color".  That phrase was invented by the left to unite people of widely disparate cultures, histories and ethnic identies.  It is made necessary by the numbers.  It helps the left reach the electoral numbers it needs.  So its message is "your color is the most important characteristic you have."  They persuade black, Hispanic and other ethnic minorities that they cannot have a fair chance to succeed in this country because of the color of their skin.  And it works even when the most powerful person in the world who was elected with millions of white votes, is black.   The left preaches a deep and primitive tribalism with a contemporary gloss.  So  when someone from a tribe they think they own, like black people, defects they have to punish and destroy that person. Because they have to hold the tribe they have created together.  Any defection, no matter how small,  is a threat to their coalition of the envious and dispossessed with the rich left that exploits them.  When Mia Love appeared at the Republican convention, a metaphorical  target was painted on her back by the left.  Allen West was already targeted.

And who is the rich left?  Jon Corzine, George Soros, and all of Hollywood come to mind.  And, surprisingly, there are a lot bankers in there like the former head of Countrywide. Angelo Mozillo and  former Treasury secretary, Hank Paulsen.  They position themselves as the benevolent godfathers who protect the poor and disenfranchised.  But in reality, they exploit the poor and middle class by using the government to restrict  the opportunity of anyone, including women, minorities and gays, from competing with them.  And they use the government to carry out their exploitative schemes which involve creating programs that supposedly benefit the poor but curiously always involve the purchase of stuff from the rich.  An example is the free cell phone program.  And while they tell you they want to tax the rich, the people they really tax are the middle class.  That free cell phone program?  Have you ever noticed an item on your phone bill called Universal Access fee?  That's used to buy free cell phones for poor people.  Are you rich? Yet you're being taxed.

The racism of the liberal elites is not a deep visceral thing.  It is a practical, political thing.  People who are divided by race, sex, age and background, people who are made to feel that their ladyparts or skin color or sexual orientation are much more important than the fiscal and social issues, are much easier to manage.  The rallies are all about we're the good guys and they're the bad guys and our good guy leaders are going to protect us from those awful bad guys.   The discussion on the left is  rarely about what allows an economy to prosper, or supports our freedom because those are losing issues for the left.  History condemns them on that score.  The leftist ideology tells them they should not even try to win on the issues because all of us proletarians are too stupid to know what's good for us.  So Bread and Circuses for the stupid class who turns most of the fruit of their labors over to their betters in humble gratitude.  That's the leftist game plan.

Conservatives must understand this psychology and fight back.  Many people who are immigrants like Mia Love, have conservative values as she does.  But the election results tell us that most of those people voted for Obama.  The reason is that they don't trust the Republican establishment.  Sarah Palin understood the need to reach out to women and minorities in the most important way, by supporting young, articulate and attractive candidates who are women and ethnic minorities.  That support says, "you are one of us".  "We trust you". "We want you in our party, not just as voters, but as leaders."   And here's something really important that Republicans need to understand, we don't need to win a majority of the "minority" vote.  We just need to win more of it.  Michael Medved recently pointed out that if Romney had won the same percentage of the Black and Hispanic vote that George W. Bush did, he would have won the election.

There are plenty,  perhaps a majority of "minority" voters who are pro-life, who favor hard work, thrift and taking care of your own.  There are many gay conservatives as well.  They need to be included in Republican leadership.  The Tea Party has welcomed all of these candidates and supported many of them.  It's time for the Republican leadership to do the same.

When Bad Elections Happen to Good People

For those of us who believe that Obama is a disastrously bad President, yesterday was very discouraging.  But many of us are also people of faith.  God is in charge.  I keep that in mind.  God has a plan to which we are not privy.

Perhaps something will change and he will not be the president he was the last four years.  But this is a reminder not to put your hopes in people but in God.

We have learned a lot as a result of this campaign.  It has been a more than a year long national discussion which has often been way less than civilized.  It has been a campaign, frankly, that tore away masks and let us see the people beneath.

To echo Kevin Dujan, the people of the U. S. have become much more comfortable with left wing ideology and victims of it than we had thought.  I cannot say the culture is at an all time low, because any impartial review of history demonstrates that we have been at cultural lows before that were pretty bad.  But one thing we have learned, really, is that there is very little good will towards those of us on the right from those on the left.  And I say that with sadness.  To them, compromise is that they let us live and give us the opportunity to see the light and become leftists.  That is just the fact.
Nevertheless if we want to make change we have to convert leftists into conservatives.  And that requires that we try to find common ground.  Many of us, like me, used to be supporters of the left and we are not any more.  So we need to reach out.

We know we will face disdain and contempt for simply being conservative.  We will be relentlessly demonized.  We need to know that the reason for that is that the left always needs people to paint as villains and we are the targets selected.  The reason the left needs targets is that their programs never really work.  So they need to blame someone for their failure.  Right now its us.  In Nazi Germany, and Russia, it was the Jews.   It is no accident that leftist ideologies result in tyrannical regimes.  The left believes that if only it can be in charge and apply its superior intelligence to the problems before us, the problems will all be solved.  But they never are.  So someone must be blamed and the blame is never on the policies.

In looking at what we face in the next four years we must remember that the world has seen much worse days and pray for God's protection against our own foolishness.  

Early Christians and Jews, and many contemporary Christians and Jews have not let the persecution directed against them stop them from speaking up and we must remember that and do the same.

The Making of a Republican Part 5:Liberals and Caring

There is a saying in conservative circles that a conservative is a liberal who has been mugged.  I guess you can add my experience in support of that statement.  In 1975 I was an attorney in sole practice representing Local 47 of the Musician's Union that still has a building at Waring and Vine Street in Hollywood (aka Los Angeles).  I was also married and the mother of two small children.

One afternoon I was doing some research the old fashioned way with books on the issue of corporate derivative shareholder suits.  It's pretty boring even though important.  So I decided to go out for a walk to clear my head and buy my favorite beverage, a diet Coke.  There was a Safeway (now a Pavilion's) just a block a way on Melrose and Vine so I headed down Vine Street, thinking about my case and research when I walked into an armed robbery in progress.  Three young black men almost ran me over.  I looked up and looked straight at them.  They had dropped something on the ground, stooped to pick it up and then took off.  I turned around and watched them run around the corner.  Then I saw someone come out from in front of the store and point in the direction which they had run.  I suddenly realized what had happened.  Don't ask me why because I can't really answer that question.  I just had a gut outrage that people would be holding up a grocery store in Hollywood in the middle of the day.  Somehow, if it had been late at night I wouldn't have been so angry.  So I, an out of shape mother, took off after them.

When I reached the corner of Waring and Vine, I poked my head around the corner and, looking into the sunny western sky, saw three men outlined in a car.  Then I saw an arm come out from the driver's side of the car and, it seemed to me, slowly come around and point at me.  I have to interject at this point that my perception of time greatly slowed down.  It was as if everything was happening in slow motion though I am sure it was much faster than it seemed.  I realized that the object in the arm's hand was a gun.  I then realized it was pointed at me.  My focus then changed to protecting myself.  I backed away from the corner and dropped to the ground, an action that probably saved my life.

For some reason I adopted a kind of fetal position while lying on my back with my knees pulled up.  I heard gunshots and realized they had pulled to the corner and were trying to kill me.  I was hit with a bullet in my leg.  It felt like someone had taken a baseball bat and hit me as hard as he could on the bottom of my feet.  It's one of the reasons I can never watch that awful movie in which Kathy Bates does something similar to Jack Nicholson.  It is just too painful.

They kept shooting after I was hit.  So the thought occurred to me that they were trying to kill me.  If they thought they were successful, they might stop shooting and leave.  I then thought, but I don't know what it looks like to die.  But neither do they.  So if I do what someone who dies on television does, they will think they have killed me and leave.  So I suddenly let go of my fetal position and went limp in imitation of people who die on television.  They left.

It later turned out that people were in the President of Local 47's office when the shooting started and saw the whole thing from the second floor.  Multiple people called the police.

I could go on at great length about the investigation and the trial. And all of those things contributed to my current views of our criminal justice system. But I'll save that for a later post.  The phenomenon that most contributed to my conversion to conservatism was the reaction of my self described liberal "friends" to my plight.  More than one told me that I needed to understand the shooter's position in all of this.  He, after all, just wanted to avoid going to prison, so it makes perfect sense that he would shoot me.  He was, they told me, a victim of oppression himself.  I shouldn't, they told me, take it personally.  I finally developed a retort to that statement.  It is difficult, I responded to them, to take a bullet in the leg any other way.  They seemed totally oblivious and unsympathetic to the fact that, but for poor aim, I would have been killed.  The more important principal to them seemed to be that poor black criminals are oppressed and people who are killed by them are just, sort of, so much collateral damage.

Now just to make this perfectly clear, because in this insane age it is so often necessary, I really don't care what the race of someone who shoots me is.  They should all, of any race, go to jail for so long as they retain the muscle strength to pick up a gun.  It happens that the person who shot me is black.  If the person who shot me were white I would be no less outraged. It is, after all, difficult to take a bullet in the leg any way but personally.  It's my leg and my life.

I have, thank God, recovered pretty much completely.  Still have scar tissue where the bullet went through my leg.  Two little scars, one on each side of my thigh-- the entry and exit wounds-- and of course scar tissue in between.  But I never recovered from the fact that my so-called friends had more sympathy for someone they had never met who tried to kill me than they had for me.  This and other experiences made me aware that the so-called sympathy of the left for the poor and downtrodden is really just a pose.

It confirmed some prior experiences.  At the time I attended a Methodist church near the University of Southern California.  Some of the other parishioners wanted to have a "Christmas" project of writing letters to the President in support of various welfare programs.  It was sponsored by an organization called "Bread for the World".  I suggested that, in addition to writing these letters, we could make up Christmas baskets for one or more welfare recipients.  I came up with this idea because I was a welfare worker for 6 years.  I had been part of taking requests from recipients for such baskets and knew that for many recipients, the basket was a substantial portion of their Christmas.  They were all grateful for receiving them.  I was told by the self described liberals at my church that giving Christmas baskets to welfare recipients was demeaning.  I pointed out to them that the baskets would go only to those people who had requested them, not to anyone who would be embarrassed by it. They refused.  I told them that as a former social worker I knew many recipients who would be very grateful for such a basket because they would not otherwise be able to give their children a good Christmas.  They refused, absolutely, to do anything more than write a letter to the President.

There were other experiences that lead me to the reluctant conclusion that the word "generous" was no longer a synonym for "liberal".  These so-called liberals  who had more sympathy for the shooter than me, who were not willing to dig into their own pockets to make a poor family's Christmas better, were merely leftists who congratulated themselves on their political correctness but were never willing to take money out of their own pockets for poor people.  Their ideas were more important to them than any person was.  They congratulated themselves on how caring they were while simultaneously caring very little for any actual person.  I have some friends who still call themselves liberal, and most of them really are.  My differences with them are that they think the Democratic party and its policies are meant to help people.  I see it very differently.  The Democratic party has been taken over by the Left.  It isn't Harry Truman's or Hubert Humphries' Democratic party any more.

All of these memories came back to me recently looking at what happened in Bengazi.  How could you get these calls for help and do nothing?  How could you order would be rescuers to stand down?  How could you cold bloodedly sit in the White House situation room and not care about the people on the ground who were being ambushed and killed when there were resources nearby to help them?  It chills me to the bone the same way I was chilled when my so called liberal friends justified an anonymous would be killer.  They really are so inhuman and unfeeling that the ideas that they push are more important to them than people.  Leftists like to say you have to break an egg to make an omelet.  We, people, human beings, are just so many broken eggs to them.  We are not real. And they don't care about us.  They care about their ideas.  And if people have to die to make their ideas real, well, so be it. Collateral damage.  Broken eggs.  That is how they justify the millions killed in the name of promoting the Communist dream.  It's okay.  You have to break an egg to make an omelet.

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.