“Ayn” … as in “pine”

The place was the campus of the University of Nebraska and the year was 1959. It was, for those of us lucky enough to be young and universitized, a yeasty and evocative era. It was a time of long-haired girls with head-bands who had renounced make-up, foundation garments and traditional morals. More than a few males sported berets, wore sunglasses at night and fancied themselves undiscovered lyric poets. We had just begun to synthesize a new lexicon that included terms like “beat” and “cool”, and cheap red wine mixed with lemon slices and sugared water was our favored potable (we called it ’sangria’ but it bore about the same relationship to real sangria as Ripple does to Château Mouton Rothschild).

Those were magic times; Kerouac had finally found a buyer for his 120 foot long “Scroll” (marketed by the publishing philistines as “On The Road”, a title which Jack neither originated nor sanctioned).  Joan Baez was just starting to perform live in dingy cellar clubs around Boston, singing about dead geese and moonshine whiskey, and up in Hyannisport Camelot’s star was all aglimmer. Prophets and mountebanks – it was often impossible to tell the difference – soap-boxed from campus street corners, and we took it all in. Many of our generation had already foresworn the political orthodoxy of the day and turned instead to the thought of non-conventional, sometimes revolutionary, commentators by which to set our internal compasses. Of these, none was more appealing or exciting (to us) than the work of a skinny Russian immigrant named Alisa Zinovyevna Rosenbaum, who sprinkled her finely wrought philosophical expostulations under the nom de plume Ayn Rand.

What was not to like? Rand was hip, insouciant, resolutely anti-religion … she didn’t just recommend selfishness, she justified, glorified, exalted it. She lived in a delightfully sinful, if bizarre, group menage that included her own husband and Nathaniel Branden (among others), and she wrote these terrific anti-authority books – I mean, this broad was out there. We sluiced her up like little unshaven beatnik bottom feeders; we quoted (and misquoted) her, thrilling all the while to her over-the-top bohemian lifestyle. She was the source of our intellectual Nile; she helped us to define our nether world as something unacceptable to, and apart from, that establishment which we so disdained. Hell, I was nearly out of college before I discovered that her storied reference to “from each according to his ability – to each according to his need” was a quote from the Communist Manifesto. So smitten was I that I figured she had authored that infamous maxim herself – all to demonstrate the evil inherent in collectivist societies of course.

It was virtually impossible to walk anywhere on campus that fall without seeing, chalk-scrawled on the sidewalk or on a wall in letters a foot high, “Who is John Galt“? We – the literati, the intellectually anointed, don’t you see – all knew who John was, and we would nod knowingly, sometimes even mentally genuflect, when we happened upon these sanctified epigrams. For those who either missed or ignored the late fifites and early sixties, know that John G was the heroic protagonist of Rand’s opus, Atlas Shrugged. It was a novel-cum-treatise that, more than any of her other works, gave expression to her philosophy of Objectivism.

At the risk of spoiling it for potential readers, here is an ultra-abbreviated plot outline: Galt is a genius inventor/scientist who leads a strike (in fact, while she was writing it, Rand’s working title for the book was ‘The Strike‘ – she was later talked out of it) of all of the inventor/creator/producer types in the country; they all just quit working, and the nation goes to hell in a handbasket in short order. That’s the gist – everything else (and there is plenty of else) is just commentary.

At one point in the story, Galt gives a radio speech to the entire country to explain who he is, and why he is doing what he is doing. Now you gotta understand – this is some speech … it runs to about 90 pages in the book, and is the closest thing there is to an encapsulation of Rand’s philosophy (if 90 pages can be convincingly thought of as an “encapsulation”). I know people who can still quote lengthy passages from that speech, though much of the cachet, the resonance, the sheer ballsiness of it rings hollow for most of us some fifty years later.

Smeared liberally with tincture of time, Rand’s ideas ultimately leave us unsatisfied … to say the least. She got a couple of things right (she despised communism, and also formulated a reasonably coherent set of concepts concerning enlightened self-interest), but in most of it she was sadly wide of the mark. Her virulent disdain for any form of altruism, her militant secularism, and her apparent lack of understanding of even basic economic and market theory render many of her ideas little more than cartoons today. However, for those willing to search, there can still be found an occasional nourishing kernel in the chaff pile that is her legacy. In this spirit, here are a couple of paragraphs from Galt’s speech in which Rand castigates those who see virtue in pathological appeasement and compromise, which I still find edifying … and perhaps today more than ever ….

“The man who refuses to judge, who neither agrees nor disagrees, who declares that there are no absolutes and believes that he escapes responsibility, is the man responsible for all the blood that is now spilled in the world. Reality is an absolute, existence is an absolute, a speck of dust is an absolute and so is a human life. Whether you live or die is an absolute. Whether you have a piece of bread or not, is an absolute. Whether you eat your bread or see it vanish into a looter’s stomach, is an absolute.

There are two sides to every issue: one side is right and the other is wrong, but the middle is always evil. The man who is wrong still retains some respect for truth, if only by accepting the responsibility of choice. But the man in the middle is the knave who blanks out the truth in order to pretend that no choice or values exist, who is willing to sit out the course of any battle, willing to cash in on the blood of the innocent or to crawl on his belly to the guilty, who dispenses justice by condemning both the robber and the robbed to jail, who solves conflicts by ordering the thinker and the fool to meet each other halfway. In any compromise between food and poison, it is only death that can win. In any compromise between good and evil, it is only evil that can profit. In that transfusion of blood which drains the good to feed the evil, the compromiser is the transmitting rubber tube.”

You go, John.

Be well.

There’s a reason for the season …

Wishing everyone much joy this Christmas and throughout the year.

Uncle & Mrs. Wiggily

The Squandering of Sarah Palin?

The emergence of Sarah Palin on the national stage has given rise to several new, or at least long nascent, political, cultural and societal operants. Suddenly the hoi-polloi is talking about such things as honesty, faith and family values. The voting masses, soured on the serial hucksters that perennially populate our ballots, are queuing up at grass roots rallies and spontaneous “Tea Parties,” eager to make their long-ignored voices heard. And they are drawn to Sarah in ways they don’t yet fully understand.

Palinism, in its pure forms, incorporates integrity, sincerity, humility, loyalty, proficiency and resoluteness, none of which are qualities notably extant in present-day politics, and, in fact, represent character attributes that tend to induce irremediable gollywobbles in most professional politicians. The inestimable Ms. Palin is almost singlehandedly reconstituting the whole notion of effective leadership, and she is doing so with a joyful effortlessness. She is fresh without seeming breezy, articulate without garrulousness, cordial without being patronizing.

She is appealing to millions of ordinary folks, while simultaneously scaring the pants off the establishment politicos, both Left and Right. And they should be frightened – because all she is doing is hawking a book – she isn’t running for anything (at least for now), yet she continues to attract supporters in staggering numbers. Palin is becoming – perhaps has already become – a transcendent, almost mythic, figure to everyday Americans; to Joe and Melanie Mainstreet, she is a modern-day avatar.

To call Sarah Palin a phenomenon is to woefully “misunderestimate” (thanks, Dubya) her; she is an authentic force of nature at this point, and the vitality of her public presence will only strengthen with time. But I worry over the burgeoning efforts on the part of the organized Republican Party and its agents to co-opt her popularity and appeal. So-called “conservative” columns and blogs are awash in stratagems and schemes whereby Palin can be manipulated to effect the rejuvenation of a dysfunctional national Republican Party. It would be a travesty should she be treated in this manner, and commonsense Americans everywhere should stand against such cynical exploitation.

Richard Viguerie has written recently about the effectiveness of “leaderless” organizations, and his observations are timely and cogent. A citizen’s allegiance should properly be directed toward ennobling concepts like liberty and self-determination, never to individuals or, worse, political parties. It is such misplacement of loyalties that has led us to the deplorable state in which we now find ourselves. And I believe it is within the context of such a leaderless, ideal-oriented enterprise that the robust yet benign regnancy of Sarah Palin can most effectively contribute to the nation’s political salvation.

While I would not be averse to supporting her candidacy for high office, I would prefer to see her viewed in larger context, as a beacon, a lodestar, an embodiment of faith-based accomplishment and perspective that offers real hope for our future, all grounded in an abiding reverence for time-proven traditional values. The point here is that when the energies of people of good intention coalesce around honorable and beneficent goals, abetted by profoundly inspirational individuals, incredible results are possible.

To be clear, I am not advocating the establishment of a third party – with or without Ms. Palin in its vanguard. In fact I earnestly urge the abandonment of organized political parties as a species, in favor of a few (or several) rational iterations of Viguerie’s “leaderless” movement. A blog commenter recently put it precisely, writing, in part “… a political party is not where our loyalty should be invested, it is in individual freedom and liberty.” It’s difficult to say it better than that.

Millions of Americans today feel lost, even betrayed, by the ruling political class; like the armies of Charles VII in the 15th century, is it possible that we have found our Joan of Arc? And if so, will we sacrifice her to the faded banner of a decaying reprobate ideology, or will we allow her to rally, to inspire, to excite and exhilarate, and eventually restore that full measure of liberty’s blessings described by our nation’s founding document? We must allow her to shine … we must allow Sarah to do what she does best – be Sarah.

We don’t need leaders so much as we need heroes (and heroines) – let’s not waste this one.

Be well.

An Old Man’s Winter Night

I have long been a fan of the Frost boys – both Jack and Robert – and today they come to me again in a wonderful melding of weather and word. Jack spent the night transforming the trees, bushes and fences into a breathtaking crystalline lattice, all of which brings to mind one of my favorite works from Robert. Enjoy.

An Old Man’s Winter Night

All out of doors looked darkly in at him
Through the thin frost, almost in separate stars,
That gathers on the pane in empty rooms.
What kept his eyes from giving back the gaze
Was the lamp tilted near them in his hand.
What kept him from remembering what it was
That brought him to that creaking room was age.
He stood with barrels round him — at a loss.
And having scared the cellar under him
In clomping there, he scared it once again
In clomping off; — and scared the outer night,
Which has its sounds, familiar, like the roar
Of trees and crack of branches, common things,
But nothing so like beating on a box.
A light he was to no one but himself
Where now he sat, concerned with he knew what,
A quiet light, and then not even that.
He consigned to the moon, such as she was,
So late-arising, to the broken moon
As better than the sun in any case
For such a charge, his snow upon the roof,
His icicles along the wall to keep;
And slept. The log that shifted with a jolt
Once in the stove, disturbed him and he shifted,
And eased his heavy breathing, but still slept.
One aged man — one man — can’t keep a house,
A farm, a countryside, or if he can,
It’s thus he does it of a winter night.

Robert Frost

Be well.

It’s the parties, stupid

I chanced Tuesday evening to hear part of Greta Van Susteren’s interview of House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer (Greta’s show is about the only cable news I can stomach anymore). Anyway, during the interview, she wondered repeatedly why Democrats and Republicans found it so difficult to even attempt to make common cause regarding the various issues currently before Congress. Hoyer’s unvarying response to Greta’s queries was instructive; he answered each – without exception – with a vituperative attack on Republicans, couched solely in partisan terms, never even pretending to approach the substantive aspects of the issues on which she was trying to elicit comment. Before all you political paladins out there unbuckle your swashes and run screaming toward my ramparts, let me hasten to state that I have no particular brief, pro or con, regarding Mr. Hoyer. I suspect, at bottom, he evinces no more (and certainly no less) partisan venom than most of the 535 sucklers at the Congressional teat.

And therein lies my point. Steny, like virtually all Washington players and plotters (Dem or Pubbie), is not able in any essential way to address a question or comment in any but a blindly partisan fashion, often completely untethered from reality. Our politics, our mode of governance, has been reduced to a sophomoric food fight … except the consequences are considerably more ominous than just splattered Jello and mashed potatoes on the walls. We’re talking national survival here, gang … and its not looking good for our side.

Whence arises this corrosive division, this gaping, bleeding wound in the American body politic? I maintain, as I have for some time now, that the source, the sustaining wellspring of this unending and futile political scrum can be traced directly to the scarifying influence of organized political parties. Political parties serve no vital interests save their own narrow, often sententious, goals, and ultimately not only offer nothing to the country or its citizens, but in fact detract substantially from the public weal.

Way back in 1796, in what is generally considered one of our republic’s most influential founding documents (Washington’s Farewell Address), our first president counseled sternly against the detrimental effects of party politics thusly:

Let me now take a more comprehensive view, and warn you in the most solemn manner against the baneful effects of the Spirit of Party, generally.

This Spirit, unfortunately, is inseparable from our nature, having its root in the strongest passions of the human mind. It exists under different shapes in all Governments, more or less stifled, controlled, or repressed; but, in those of the popular form, it is seen in its greatest rankness, and is truly their worst enemy.

The alternate domination of one faction over another, sharpened by the spirit of revenge, natural to party dissension, which in different ages and countries has perpetrated the most horrid enormities, is itself a frightful despotism. But this leads at length to a more formal and permanent despotism. The disorders and miseries, which result, gradually incline the minds of men to seek security and repose in the absolute power of an Individual; and sooner or later the chief of some prevailing faction, more able or more fortunate than his competitors, turns this disposition to the purposes of his own elevation, on the ruins of Public Liberty.

Without looking forward to an extremity of this kind, (which nevertheless ought not to be entirely out of sight), the common and continual mischiefs of the spirit of Party are sufficient to make it the interest and duty of a wise people to discourage and restrain it.

It serves always to distract the Public Councils, and enfeeble the Public administration. It agitates the community with ill-founded jealousies and false alarms, kindles the animosity of one part against another, foments occasionally riot and insurrection. It opens the door to foreign influence and corruption, which find a facilitated access to the Government itself through the channels of party passions. Thus the policy and the will of one country, are subjected to the policy and will of another.

There is an opinion, that parties in free countries are useful checks upon the Administration of the Government, and serve to keep alive the spirit of Liberty. This within certain limits is probably true – and in Governments of a Monarchical cast, Patriotism may look with indulgence, if not with favor, upon the spirit of party. But in those of the popular character, in Governments purely elective, it is a spirit not to be encouraged. From their natural tendency, it is certain there will always be enough of that spirit for every salutary purpose, and there being constant danger of excess, the effort ought to be, by force of public opinion, to mitigate and assuage it. A fire not to be quenched; it demands a uniform vigilance to prevent its bursting into a flame, lest, instead of warming, it should consume.

Old George was not alone in his distaste for organized partisanship; his Secretary of State, one Thomas Jefferson, (who, it must be noted, was pretty much on the opposite side of the ideological/political spectrum from Washington) had this acerbic view of parties:

“I never submitted the whole system of my opinions to the creed of any party of men whatever, in religion, in philosophy, in politics, or in anything else, where I was capable of thinking for myself. Such an addiction is the last degradation of a free and moral agent. If I could not go to heaven but with a party, I would not go there at all.” –Thomas Jefferson to Francis Hopkinson, 1789.

Other early Republicans (we would call them Democrats today) were of like opinion. James Madison, though accepting of the notion that a degree of dissension was probably unavoidable in a representative and constitutionally organized republic, nevertheless cautioned in Federalist #10 that:

The latent causes of faction are thus sown in the nature of man; and we see them everywhere brought into different degrees of activity, according to the different circumstances of civil society. A zeal for different opinions concerning religion, concerning government, and many other points, as well of speculation as of practice; an attachment to different leaders ambitiously contending for pre-eminence and power; or to persons of other descriptions whose fortunes have been interesting to the human passions, have, in turn, divided mankind into parties, inflamed them with mutual animosity, and rendered them much more disposed to vex and oppress each other than to co-operate for their common good. So strong is this propensity of mankind to fall into mutual animosities, that where no substantial occasion presents itself, the most frivolous and fanciful distinctions have been sufficient to kindle their unfriendly passions and excite their most violent conflicts.

These are some of the people who founded this country … and their ideas have held up for nearly 250 years. They knew a thing or two about the stealthy tyranny of unbridled (and unprincipled) factionalism. Maybe we should begin to pay a bit more attention to their thoughts about political parties – before it’s too late.

Be well.

War, Politicians and the Constitution

I have a confession. I skipped President Barack Obama’s “AfPak Strategy” speech last night. It’s not that I don’t appreciate a well-delivered homily from time to time (I do), nor was my inattention attributable to a lack of reverence for the POTUS (though I will admit to a lingering reservation or two concerning his fitness for what, before him, was the most powerful office in the world). It was just that I had other plans, obligations really, for Tuesday eve. The grout in our guest bathroom was just a disgrace, the dog was waaaaay overdue for waxing, and I had this ingrown toenail that had been festering for days ….

I did, however, manage to squeeze a few minutes out of this morning’s schedule (between turning over the compost pile and changing the sugar-water in the hummingbird feeder) to peruse a couple of news accounts of the speech. As near as I can tell, it had little salutary effect on anyone except Chris Matthews who, though he decried the venue, the tone and the content of the Obamaspiel, still enjoys a good leg tingle now and then. Oh, Senator McCain seemed genuinely unhappy also, but it was difficult to tell if it was the speech that upset him, or a flare-up of hemorrhoids. Rahm Emanuel probably liked it a lot, but he was asleep in his coffin this morning and couldn’t be reached for comment.

The general thrust of the speech was that some 30,000 (or so) military personnel will be sent to Afghanistan and associated environs sometime between now and the next millenium, to both kill bad guys and to teach Afghanis how to kill bad guys too. Obama was at pains to emphasize that we would prevail, no matter the odds, no matter the costs, no matter the sacrifice … as long as it didn’t take more than a few months. If this thing runs on until it begins to rub up against the next election cycle, well then … all bets are off, and he will have to go back to gestating yet another strategy, presumably one that will this time assign blame for the mess to George W. Bush … or maybe Bibi Netanyahu … or even those pesky right-wing Quakers.

Me? I’d bring ‘em home … all of them … this afternoon. Don’t misunderstand … I enthusiastically support a strong national defense; I believe wholeheartedly in that ethos that axiomatically values peace through strength. But I am also unequivocally committed to the notion that a constitutional basis must underlie everything we do as a nation, as a people, and as a society – and the war(s) to which we are currently dedicating so much of our national resources, both human and material, are being prosecuted on blatantly unconstitutional grounds. War, in itself, is a political contrivance, and, taken in vacuo, can be neither constitutional or otherwise; like Bill Clinton, it just is. But the manner of proceeding to war, i.e., the basis on which it is undertaken, is, in this nation, directly and unavoidably subject to constitutional scrutiny, and our involvement in this war (like several in the past) clearly does not pass constitutional muster.

Article I, Section 8, Clause 11 unambiguously assigns both authority and responsibility for declaring war to the Congress – and, in the current Afghan conflict (as well as several others, as already stated), it has never done so. There are those, of course, who claim that the War Powers Resolution of 1973 provides both the enabling and controlling authority for “undeclared” wars, but conveniently ignore the fact that every president since its inception has (correctly) considered the WPR73 unconstitutional, and has paid, at best, lip service to it. It hangs on our body politic like a withered appendage because our federal judiciary doesn’t have the stones to tackle the issue, not to mention that no politician in his/her right mind will go anywhere near it. The fact that this pernicious piece of congressional mischief still exists as a viable legal operant is a national disgrace.

You wanna whup up on the Taliban/Al Qaeda goons? Good on ya … me too. But do it like the Fathers prescribed – declare war and then go get ‘em. Otherwise, quit schlepping around, pretending that we’re just poor misunderstood white knights trying to bring a little harmony to Camelot. If you can’t (or won’t) do that then bring our people home!

Be well.

Olbermann, Limbaugh and Maddow – oh my!

The screen-saver on my creaky old Gateway is a bust of Ludwig von Mises underlain with the Latin phrase “Tu ne cede malis“. The phrase is a quote from Book VI of Virgil’s Aeneid, and was adopted as a personal motto by Mises early in his career; it translates roughly to “Do not give in to evil”, and, at least for me, it resonates.

Evil abounds, of course, and whether one views it as a real and palpable entity (as Scott Peck does in his People of the Lie), or as a mere negativity, an “absence of good”, as perceived by other modern moralists, it seems clear that however it is characterized, it is part and parcel of human existence. The challenge would appear to be how we, as human beings (and subject to human frailties) respond to manifestations of evil in our world and in our lives.

I have come to believe that some of the most evil people on the planet are those who spend their time and their energies trying to tell the rest of us what/how/when/why to think. I’m talking about the talking heads, the talk-jocks, the pundits, the shriekers, etc., etc. These folks seem utterly bereft of any ennobling motive; their sole incentive is their own personal profit and/or aggrandizement, and no subject, no matter how personal or non-germane, is off-limits to them. They have raised character assassination and guilt by insinuation to an art form, and seem constitutionally unable to distinguish between settled fact and ideological phantasmagory. I have in the past often characterized them as unconscionable political whores, and I have yet to find reason to amend that appellation.

Let’s name a few names. Getting the low-hanging fruit out of the way – there’s Limbaugh … loud, loutish, and laughably coronated as the “leader” of the Republican party (which, if true, only makes me happier that I am a proud “nonpartisan”). Rush spends three hours each day making points that the average high school debater could cover in ten minutes.

Then there is Keith Olbermann, MSNBC’s own misanthrope-in-residence and iconic hater of all things “non-progressive”. This guy is perpetually so angry, so filled with vitriol, that he yells at himself if no one else is around. Mr. Olbermann possesses no discernible qualifications for his exalted position as Master Assassin; he is unburdened by any sort of objective fact set that might bear on his manifold ideological apprehensions; he is, in a phrase, serenely unballasted by relevant experience or expertise. But, like Limbaugh, he is loud …

MSNBC also features Rachel Maddow, for whom the smirk may have been invented. Ms. Maddow holds court each week day evening, snug (and smug) in her shimmering, nearly transcendent hermaphroditism, offering up such pearls as “Humans are ambitious and rational and proud.” At least in your case, Rachel, two out of three isn’t bad.

And perhaps the most reprehensible of the lot, at least to this observer, is Fox’s newest polemic protege, Glenn Beck. He always looks to me like what the Michelin Man would look like if we stripped off all that white rubbery stuff. Brush-cut and pudgy, Beck likes to think of himself as “the most dangerous man in America”, but in reality he is only the most clamorously irrelevant. He inveighs incessantly against a government that is (his words) “out of control”, and measures it against cherry-picked quotes and facts from a bizarre lexicon to which apparently only he has access. He appears to view himself as a cultural and political iconoclast, but in point of fact he embraces a hide-bound sociopolitical entelechy that belies his professed free thinking. He likes to write things from and about the founding fathers on his innumerable blackboards, but his scrawlings are usually only marginally pertinent to whatever point he is trying to sneak up on.

Beck also “creates” movements, lots of them – and not just the lower tract kind. Projects and initiatives fall from this man like the dirt that falls from Charlie Brown’s buddy, Pig-Pen. There is the “912 Project”, “Founders Keepers”, “Re-Found America”, “Be a Watch-Dog”, etc., etc., ad infinitum, ad nauseum. And of course, his latest shell game (introduced a week or two ago at an upscale retirement community in Florida – never think that the Beckster doesn’t know his audience) called, simply, “The Plan”, which he promises will afford everyone an opportunity to learn how, why, and when to oust all these rascally politicos who are making our lives so … ummm … incommodious. The fact that he will stand to rake in another couple gazillion bucks while escorting all of us to the gates of Valhalla, is, ahem, of no consequence.

There are others, so many others, that contaminate our lives and our politics … Ann Coulter (lotsa leg, not much else), Al Franken (shoulda stayed with SNL, Al), Laura Ingraham (brings new meaning to the word “shrill”), Michael Moore (fat, hypocritical, opportunistic pig – what else is there to say?), Bill O’Reilly (neither bold nor fresh – his “me, me, me” schtick is just old and stale), James Carville (surely the role model for Beelzebub) … each of you can extend the list – sadly, there is no dearth of poorly-informed, and evil-intentioned bloviators.

Let me say it again – these people are evil; they embody evil, they promulgate it, they live off it, and, perhaps worst of all, they institutionalize it – they make it seem normal, hence acceptable. It is neither. Tu ne cede malis.

Be well.

It’s official … Hell has frozen over

Epiphanies, like most gifts from the Almighty, come in a variety of shapes, sizes and textures. Sometimes they will begin with one shape, then morph into and through other topologies, eventually, if we’re very lucky, to coalesce into a recognizable “Aha!” moment. Genuine revelation (small “r” if you please – blog-fog is hardly the venue for apocalyptic biblicism) is at once both salubrious and profoundly disturbing; suddenly we find ourselves confronted with the impossible task of embracing two (or more) utterly unharmonious notions. Synapses crackle and pop; neuronal circuit breakers chatter; attitudes set for decades shimmer away into smoke; Gibraltar-like sureties fade like the snow in the rain.  Fact is, it’s probably as close as most of us are ever going to get to a real sockdolagizing spiritual experience.

So …why all this talk of afflation?

Welllll … I just had one a them drop on me ….

My youngest young’un, of whom I have written much in the past and of whom I am greatly and justly proud, is home from college for the Thanksgiving holiday, and recently we chanced to trade views on health care reform, as well as a couple of other matters political. This is ground that we both have learned to approach warily since, though we have real affection for each other, our general political orientations tend to be diametrically opposed – she of a distinctly liberal bent, while I tend to occupy the rocky redoubts of a hoary paleo-conservatism.

Cutting to the chase, the discussion became heated and, because I can, I suppose, I began to bully her. I will not here fully document the extent of my villainy, but my behavior was as ungenerous as it was inexcusable. Unable to counter her several excellent points with fact and reason, I substituted volume, thereby practicing exactly the kind of ersatz “debate” that I have taught her all her life to eschew. Falling steadily behind, I bellowed something about engaging in sound-byte-talking-point argumentation and imperiously cut off the discussion. Oh yeah … I can be a real peach …. Her eyes filled with tears of frustration and disappointment at my boorishness, and she withdrew.

Later, I apologized, and hugged her tightly … but I didn’t sleep well. In fact, I hardly slept at all. Why had I gotten so angry? I would remove my own spleen with a rusty shoe-horn before I would purposely hurt her, and yet ….

The answer is of course rooted in my own vanity – the kid was right, and I was wrong. The particular point in contention just before I erupted dealt with whether the US was the only (as she maintained) industrialized country that did not offer universal health care/coverage to its citizens; my position was that there were others. In fact, there are no others … none … period. I should have known it at once because she said it – she neither fabricates nor equivocates. But because my tender ego was at stake, I spent considerable time and effort researching the matter and found, as I’ve already stated, that I was wrong. Doesn’t matter how strongly I or anyone else feels about it or how we slice, dice and parse the details, the US is the only one that doesn’t make such provision for it’s people. I will not fill up this space with the several dozen references that I accessed, but trust me … they are out there for those with the willingness and courage to go looking.

And here’s a significant corollary to our American “uniqueness” – we spend far more (up to twice as much per citizen) on health care for results that, compared to the rest of the world, can only be viewed as mediocre. We tend to lag in many (though not all) measures of effectiveness – certain mortality rates and morbidity rates, doctors per population unit, wellness programs, etc. Don’t take my word for it … do the work … look it up. It’s there, and it is disturbing. Fact is, we just ain’t the best, no matter how much we’d like to think we are.

And while we’re about it, here are a couple of other conclusions I have lately formulated regarding “health care reform”;

1) The whole “health care reform will cut Medicare by (fill in the number) billion dollars” is a canard. We are the only culture in history to exalt generational theft. I have long been bothered by the concerted “Geezer Grab” going on, whereby tens of millions of us whose primary purpose should be to shepherd our progeny to a better life than the one we knew are instead dedicated to transferring their wealth to us. This is not just shameless, it borders on criminal. They owe us little, if anything, and the organized, codified efforts epitomized by organizations like AARP are scandalous. Medicare and related larcenies should not just be cut, they should be summarily abandoned – and that includes Social Security. Such monies should be dedicated to ensuring the future – not the past.

2) Another point … catastrophic medical debt of a magnitude to cause bankruptcy is exploding. My best efforts at research put the total number of medical expense related bankruptcies in this country at between 20 and 50%, depending on which sources you choose to believe. Whether toward the upper or lower extremes of this range, either rate is too high. To the exact degree we are unable to provide our citizens even basic protections against catastrophic loss do we fail as a humane society. I will not here attempt to decide whether basic economic protections are “rights”, but what should be eminently clear is that the “pursuit of happiness” danged sure is a right (at least as codified in our most sacred foundational documents) – and the right to pursue happiness most surely embodies basic economic protections. Will universal health care as currently envisioned in pending legislation provide such protections from calamitous medical debt? I don’t know, but it’s pretty clear what we’ve done so far has failed miserably. How much worse could a new program be?

Yeah, UHC will likely drive taxes up … so what’s new? Does anyone actually think taxes are going down anytime soon … whether under Democrats, Republicans, or Venusians? Not bleedin’ likely, Nigel. Why not toss some of that – a lot of that – toward health care?

I’ve been doing a lot of thinking; I’ve thought about the 47 million – or 32 million – or 15 million – or 7 million – or however the hell many Americans are out there without access to docs and medicines and hospitals, and I wonder why we have let this happen. I’ve been thinking about those folks who are neither rich nor poor, but whose lives, because of blind fate, have been materially altered (and not for the better) by arbitrary disease and infirmity. They are forced to expend most of their life energies, efforts and earnings simply to continue to live. Surely as a society, as a caring community, we can do better. And yet, so far, we have failed abjectly to do better – maybe its time to let some new ideas in … maybe its time … maybe ….

Don’t anyone get too concerned about the state of my corroded old retrocon soul; I’m not apt to vote for Mr. Obama anytime soon, and it’s unlikely that I’ll develop a taste for Brie on rye crisp or that I’ll join the Pelosi Fan Club … but my internal gyroscope is indicating strongly that it may be time for a new paradigm – one that replaces manipulation with compassion, self-interest with community, expediency with morality, animus with tolerance, and indifference with love

Be well.

The Lady or the Tiger?

A couple of pre-apocalyptic musings …

To paraphrase one of the more notable and recent socio-politico-cultural commentators, that Scion of Scurrility and Head Boll Weevil of the Hate-America-Now crowd, the Reverend Jeremiah Wright … “G — D — Ben Nelson!”

Even though the Benator over the years has repeatedly displayed a stunning flair for fouling his own nest, and then miraculously roistering his way out of the mess, it appears, with his announcement that he will vote to allow debate on Harry the Dinge’s scatological excuse for a health care bill, that he may have jumped the elective shark. I have lived, loved and labored in the midlands my entire threescore and ten, and I cannot recall a degree of plebian seethe and frustration such as that now being focused on Bennie the Jet since his public announcement that he will vote to allow debate on the bill. Nebraskans are livid, manifesting a level of anger and disappointment likely to significantly change the political landscape of the heartland, and virtually certain to rock Earl Benjamin’s world.

Update:

In direct contravention of Nelson’s contention that  he has “consistently rejected efforts to obstruct” (his excuse for his upcoming ‘Aye’ vote), here are just a few of the instances (which he seems to have conveniently forgotten) that indicate he is not always all that reluctant to “obstruct”(courtesy of American Solutions):

July 9, 2003, The Patients First Act
April 7, 2004, The Pregnancy and Trauma Care Access Protection Act
May 8, 2006, The Medical Care Access Protection Act

Earlier this week, commonsense conservatism had four beckoning, if wobbly, beacons of hope. Mary Landrieu of Louisiana, Blanche Lincoln of Arkansas, Ben Nelson of Nebraska, and (Gawd help us) Joe Lieberman of Connecticut, erstwhile back half of the ill-fated “Sore-Loserman” 2000 ticket. Democrats all, but each had expressed at least middling concerns about various aspects of the Senate bill, and, it was calculated in the early going, might (possibly?) vote against Reid’s abomination. Wellllll … file that under “F” … for “Fat Chance”.

Fast forward a day or two – Landrieu has been purchased for 100 million pieces of silver (she rated two whole pages in the bill when one word would have sufficed – it rhymes with “more”). We all know what you are now, Mary … we were just a little confused about the price. Charles Krauthammer has deftly characterized Mary’s blatant political mercantilism as the New Lousiana Purchase.

Ben Nelson, after getting the call to Principal Harry’s office, folded up like the cheap suit we all know underlies that bumpkin manner and shaggy coif. And by the way, Benster – Mary gets a hundred mil for some leaky dikes in NOLA, and you don’t even get us a crummy second I-80 exit for the Arch? (Hat tip to pal Todd). Can we just pause for a moment to re-examine the concept of selling your soul for a mess of pottage …?

Lincoln has told Horrible Harry (though not the rest of us) how she will vote and he is staying with the Saturday night vote deadline – hmm … do you suppose Blanche’s answer may have encouraged him?

Which leaves us with Grinning Joe, doin’ what he came to Washington to do … be somebody. He has already openly stated, “If the public option is in there, as a matter of conscience, I will not allow this bill to come to a final vote …” However, he previously has said he won’t oppose opening Senate debate on the bill despite the public option provision. Wonder which Joe will show up Saturday night?

How many of us ever thought that the future of the greatest republic ever to grace this hunk of rock would be left dangling, twisting, awaiting the tortured ministrations of a disaffected expatriate with a rabbinical bent agonizing over a golden opportunity to pull the trapdoor on the minions who tried to run him out of his party a couple years ago? Joey, we hardly knew ye ….

For those of a historio-literary inclination, click up and peruse the fable after which this post is titled … then try to guess which choice Lieberman will make. It’s a bit like a slow motion train wreck … if the potential consequences weren’t so horrific, it would be fascinating to watch.

My own guess? They’ll all cave in the end. See, Mel, liberalism is defined by moral surrender and the arrogance of victimhood. Characterized by a visceral need to appease instead of confront, it is a unvarying indicator of human weakness and therefore eternal. The vote is taken and Harry and Nancy do a high kick-off down the Capitol steps (complete with canes and top-hats) while up at 1600 Pennsy, The One beams down from the Truman Balcony like a sinking, blood-colored sun.

Be well.

Ta – DAAAA ..!

OK … the rabbit is upright again, fat and sassy, if somewhat humbled by the recent intrusion of virally-induced reality/mortality. It’s still true kids … none of us are bullet-proof and we all need to be reminded of that from time to time – especially opinionated old barkers like yours truly. My thanks to all the folks who contributed to my speedy recovery. I am planning a post in the near future to discuss, up close and personal, what really goes on in health care down here on the ground. About which more later ….

For now, I am trying to get caught up on the events that have gotten away from me in the last few days … Sweet Sarah is rocking the land, The One continues his peripatetic globetrotting, presumably in search of the ultimate “Mea Culpa” venue, Dirty Harry is preparing (as we speak) to offer his secret health care libretto to Nasty Nancy’s previously paraded score, and, mirabile dictu, the Huskers appear to be closing in on a Big 12 North title.

So much to blog …. I better get started.

Be well.