Chautauqua

In his book, The Life of Reason, George Santayana wrote, “Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to fulfill it.” Eight years after September 11, 2001, the matter is not whether we remember our past — but what we do with the memory.

The terrorist attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon marked the end of our innocence — or at least our insular naïveté — at least for a little while. We became citizens of the world’s vulnerability for the first time in nearly 60 years. We found grief and hope in the stories of loss and survival, happenstance and heroism, frailty and courage. We were served notice to take care of our own, while we can — at home, in the workplace, and in the world. We were taught the brutal actuality of a terrorist attack that claimed thousands of lives, destroyed billions of dollars in property, and wreaked havoc with our systems of transportation and communication, expectation and faith. Though it’s popular for us to think and be told otherwise, we continue to face a realization equally brutal, disarmingly real, and politically contentious: The continuing conflicts in Iraq, Pakistan, and Afghanistan notwithstanding — with nuclear threats from North Korea and Iran looming — such an attack could happen again. It can happen here. It did happen here.

Should this be cause for morbid apprehension or constant alarm? Clearly not. We won’t permit it. Even if the threat of another 9/11 warranted such edgy anticipation, we will not abide long-term interruption of our traditional distractions. We will not relinquish our gullibility for political promises. We will not be kept from the comfort of our daily routines, from the trivialities of our partisan quibbling, from our preoccupations with celebrity, notoriety, and the pursuit of things material and superficial. We’re Americans. We’ve earned the right to indulge ourselves in any way we see fit, thank you very much. Because we’re pragmatists, we’ll keep an eye on CNN, the newspaper headlines, and our RSS feeds. Because we’re idealists, we won’t do so at the expense of American Idol, Real Housewives, Survivor, and Dancing With The Stars.

In remembering the past, two seemingly unrelated but beautifully American questions obtain. The first was asked on Monday, September 10, 2001. At a benefit performance by the jazz pianist Marcus Roberts, a questioner asked, “What is jazz?” Marcus answered readily and succinctly, “Jazz is the history of a people expressing itself through adversity. It’s about living on the edge and maintaining sure footing.”

The second question has been asked repeatedly since the day that followed. America was attacked by religious fundamentalist terrorists (of course, we can’t call them that anymore). In the aftermath of that attack — especially in light of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan the controversies they perpetuates — we continue to ask, “What do we do now?” The second answer is the same as the first, as ready and succinct: We express ourselves through adversity. We live on the edge and maintain our footing.

We do this by recognizing the luxury to which we’ve become accustomed in the United States:

• Recognizing that our right to be opinionated sarcastic, cynical, petty, superficial, materialistic, and unreflective — and to manifest all other evidence of our philosophical ennui — is an absolute luxury.
• Recognizing that our right to fritter our attention on form over substance, on the peccadilloes and proselytizing of entertainers, on the purchasing patterns of consumers, on the past weekend’s box-office receipts, and on all other evidence of our societal boredom is an absolute luxury.
• Recognizing that our right to create the demand that begets the supply of infomercials for Bowflexes, Butt Blasters, Thigh Rockers, Ab Rollers, and all other evidence of our capacity for self-absorption is an absolute luxury.
• Recognizing that our right to agonize over the isms that appear to divide us is an absolute luxury.
• Recognizing that the right to have a country free and open enough to make the attack of 9/11 possible is an absolute luxury.

Eight years after that attack — in between the latest political side-swipes and stock-market reports, as politicians dither and dodge over Gitmo, the CIA, and interrogation tactics — we maintain our footing through faith in the resolve that never leaves Americans. As we exercise our luxurious indulgences, we remain watchful over those with whom we work and share life every day.

Mindful of the past, we combine our idealistic conviction — as Americans, we believe we will prevail — with our pragmatic understanding that even idealism needs a Plan B. With neither morbid apprehension nor undue alarm, we maintain our footing through the shared though unstated conviction that — should the need arise again, as it did on 9/11 — we will do what otherwise opinionated, sarcastic, cynical, petty, superficial, gullible, materialistic, unreflective, bored, self-absorbed, divided, and free Americans do:

• We will come together in strength and determination to protect those rights and that freedom.
• We will instantly abandon our self-absorption to extend every healing hand to every hand harmed in any way by this consequence of our determination to live freely.
• We will instantly forget our boredom, reflecting only on those who need whatever help we can give, literally — be it blood, sweat, cash, comfort, or hope.
• We will instantly swap materialism for materials, sending equipment, food, clothing, and whatever else is needed on the front lines of the most immediate battle in this newly declared war.
• We will drop our luxurious pettiness to stand united and prepare ourselves for the sacrifices we will be asked to make in protecting our rights and our freedom.
• We will turn on our televisions and see citizens of every stripe, age, persuasion, and profession calling themselves Americans.
• We will save the energy it takes to be sarcastic and cynical because we know it will be needed later. While the illusions of peace might incline us to squander that energy on ourselves, we dare not cheat our fellow Americans should they need it.

L.P. Hartley said famously, “The past is a foreign country; they do things differently there.” September 11, 2001, proved the future will be equally foreign. They do things differently, quite unpredictably, and sometimes brutally there. They did something equally unpredictable and brutal here. Though politicians bid us to forget, we will remember. But we will remember in our own way.

Go ahead and call us opinionated, sarcastic, cynical, petty, superficial, gullible, materialistic, unreflective, bored, self-absorbed, divided. We are. We’ve earned every one of the absolute rights we have to be so — and to work out our problems in our own way and time. We’re free. As a free people, we express ourselves through adversity, just as we expressed ourselves through the adversity visited on us from the skies on Tuesday, September 11, 2001. And we will maintain our footing. We will. We do. We’re Americans.

If you doubt, test us.

As we were wrapping up the Chautauqua Summer Arts Weekend, the participants in the Chautauqua Workshop for Political Poetry seemed to be working feverishly to complete a group project. Since we’re so proud of our members’ work, we present here the fruits of the Political Poetry group’s labors, a piece they’ve chosen to call, “Rhetorical Robbery”.  Please join me in extending thanks and congratulations to this industrious group for giving us this rhapsodic rune to ruin.

And so, without further ado:

Rhetorical Robbery

If Cash for Clunkers weren’t so foolish,
We’d be driving Ramblers.
Since rationed healthcare is so ghoulish,
Sick folks would be gamblers.

From auto parts to body parts,
Barack has all the answers.
Until it comes to wheels and hearts,
To brakes and common cancers.

“We’ll give you cars and cure your ills.
And this I guarantee:
We’ll run GM, prescribe your pills,
And do it all for free.”

Obamanomics draws the loop
But don’t a circle call it.
It panders to each int’rest group
While stealing from each wallet.

The loop that’s drawn will only close
When we’re all queued for service.
We’ll all hold hands, while lackeys doze,
And we become more nervous.

So, keep your car and keep your doc,
To lose them is a crime.
And wake up now. It’s not too late.
But we don’t have much time.

The Chautauqua Center for Musical Activism recently concluded a project, inspired by the contemporary political climate. We undertook to revise “America the Beautiful”, amending the lyrics  initially composed by Katharine Lee Bates, while retaining the original score by Samuel A. Ward. We imagine this new composition will be performed unless and until it is deemed free speech, fishy, or otherwise in opposition to the present administration’s totalitarian agendas of any stripe. Then it will disappear like an anti-Stalinist dissident.

All together now:

Obamica the Beautiful

O beautiful for specious lies,
Audacious hope in vain,
For purple prose and promises
Deceitful and insane!

Obmica! Obamica!
God shed His grace on we
Who now endure your fatal cure
From sea to shining sea!

O beautiful for union fraud
Whose rife corruptions spread
From auto plants to public schools
To bleed incentive dead.

Obamica! Obamica!
You revel in self-awe.
In your new role you now extol
A mockery of law.

O beautiful for healthcare schemes
That tax the nation blind,
That leave us sick and doctorless,
But leave your pockets lined.

Obamica! Obamica!
You have us by the cubes.
But don’t expect us to accede
While we go down the tubes.

O beautiful for patriot dreams,
For cherishing what’s ours,
For challenging your senseless schemes,
Foreshortening your powers.

Obamica! Obamica!
Be careful where you delve,
Or you’ll be outside looking in
By year two-thousand-twelve.

An old adage says, “Those who can’t do, teach.” The Chautauqua Center for Entrepreneurial Initiative espouses a corollary dictum: those who can’t make a living doing something constructive gripe about those who are making a living doing something constructive. Some jamoke named Glenn Greenwald is the latest in a rash of whiny nincompoops and public nuisances to whom that dictum applies. One could hardly catalog Goofy Glenn’s myriad delusions — nor would any constructive person spend the time — but here’s a beauty: he’s the author of a book called, How Would a Patriot Act? which is billed as a “critique” of the Bush administration’s use of executive power. What in the world would Gutless Glenn know about patriotism?

Pop Quiz #1: For fifty percent of your grade, do you imagine this clown will write a critique of the Obama administration, even though the topic is rife enough to require multiple volumes to cover the abuses of executive power in just the first six months of Obama the Omnipotent’s reign?

• Hint #1: Groveling Glenn’s a lawyer, too, just his like his buddy, Barack the Blameless.
• Hint #2: Not on your life.

The latest bug up Galled Glenn’s balmy bum is the fact that General Electric, which owns MSNBC, wants to muzzle Keith “The Crank” Olbermann. Who wouldn’t? The Crank hasn’t had a coherent articulation since he left ESPN. It seems MSNBC wants Olbermann to tone down his demented diatribes against Bill O’Reilly. Love O’Reilly or hate him, The O’Reilly Factor is the most-watched program in all of cable news. Why? Because O’Reilly makes sense to more people than does the lunatic Olbermann. Why wouldn’t GE want to keep the feathers of millions of prospective customers unruffled? But that logic escapes Gloomy Glenn. His beef is that he sees The Crank’s ranting and NBC’s corporate interests as being “unrelated”. Here’s a slice of his peculiar naivete:

[Olbermann's muzzling] was motivated by the belief that such criticism was hurting the unrelated corporate interests of GE [then Glenn abandons logical connections to write] … A G.E. shareholders’ meeting, for instance, was overrun by critics of MSNBC (and one of Mr. O’Reilly’s producers) last April [if the meeting was overrun by GE shareholders, how did MSNBC get unrelated to GE's corporate interests?] … So here we have yet another example — perhaps the most glaring yet — of the corporations that own our largest media outlets controlling and censoring the content of their news organizations based on the unrelated interests of the parent corporation.

Whew! I guess I feel better about the fact that Groping Glenn is clutching at straws to write incongruous gibberish for Salon, rather than trying to interpret the law for a corporation, the profit motives and employment potential of which he’d never understand. And I know I feel better for every poor schmoe he’s not representing in court. But come on. The dude’s 42 years old, and he’s this clueless?

Pop Quiz #2: For the remaining fifty percent of your grade, of which of the following concepts is Green Glenn utterly unaware:

1. Corporate policy
2. Organizational codes of conduct
3. Employees having to abide by 1 and 2
4. Any cerebral phenomena other than his feelings
5. All of the above.

Okay. So, I took it easy on you. You’re welcome.

One last question, which isn’t part of any exam but should have been part of Guarded Glenn’s education: How does a guy like this manage to remain so sheltered? I was introduced to the ways of the world and the reality of obeying rules at the age of three:

My family was going to the shore for a vacation. My father told me to stand on the sidewalk, which rose a foot or so above the curb, while he put my younger brother in the car. That was the rule. He always put my brother in first, then he lifted me in. Not this time. As soon as he turned his back, I took a step toward the embankment. I lost my balance, fell forward like a tree, went forehead first onto the edge of the door sill, and my noggin was as broken as the rule. We detoured to the emergency room on the way to the shore; and I received my first stitches, my first lesson in trial and error, and my first painful taste of breaking the rules. But that error didn’t keep me from trying again. And the breaking of rules neither eliminated them nor made me unfailingly heed them; although, the pain of that first break did teach me to respect them and to know them before I broke them.

Creating requires rule-breaking now and then. If you’re not creating, you’re waiting. If you’re not making, you’re taking. I have no idea what people like Gun-shy Glenn are waiting for. I have no idea why he doesn’t realize the buck Jeff Immelt is making for GE trumps the buck The Crank is taking from Jeff Imelt. But he doesn’t.

So, like all of the whiny waiters and takers we study here at the Chautauqua Center, he exercises his last resort: he blames it on the buck.

I’ve noticed an alarming narrowing in the gap between realism and alarmism. Or is that a realistic narrowing? It’s hard to tell. Given our increasing psychological perversity – and our increasingly indiscriminate senses of entitlement – we’re all but destroying our capacity for semantic nuance. For example, as a matter of engaging in discussion, you used to be able to tell people the truth, even if they didn’t like it. If you tell people a truth they don’t like today, they’ll say you’re being sarcastic. If you tell people a truth they really don’t like, they’ll say you’re being mean. If you tell people a truth that has to do with taking responsibility for themselves – or engaging in something constructive – they’ll say you’re being (forgive my language) conservative. You’re better off lying through your teeth, especially if you’re promising them something for nothing. (See Obama, Barack.)

Along with abdicating responsibility for any kind of semantic maturity, we’ve developed a corollary knack for overlooking empirical evidence and ignoring our senses. We used to think that if it looks, walks, swims, flies, and quacks like a duck, it’s a duck. Likewise, if we saw something that had all the hallmarks of a disaster in the making, we’d brace for the ensuing disaster – or work to prevent it. But we don’t think that way anymore. We’re too enamored of our entitlements to be preoccupied by discernment. That’s how and why, in an effort to institute his own power-mongering agenda, Barack the Betrayer is attempting to railroad through as much specious legislation as possible. And to get that specious legislation enacted before we wake up, he’s resorting to strong-arm tactics in government extortion. What? You mean that handsome guy who makes all those pretty speeches? Yes. Him. An excerpted example:

After Sen. Jon Kyl, R-Ariz., declared the Obama administration’s stimulus spending plan ineffective and urged a halt to further stimulus spending, the White House dispatched four Cabinet secretaries – Transportation’s Ray LaHood, Agriculture’s Tom Vilsack, Housing and Urban Development’s Shaun Donovan, Interior’s Ken Salazar – to write letters to Republican Arizona Gov. Jan Brewer enumerating every dime of federal monies that would no longer flow to her state if Sen. Kyl had his way. As LaHood snarkily put it to Gov. Brewer, “If you prefer to forfeit the money we are making available to your state, as Senator Kyl suggests, please let me know.” What did the White House expect the governor to do next? Make Sen. Kyl an offer he couldn’t refuse? Or, as Mark Steyn, detecting the whiff of extortion in the air, asked: “Why not just break his (Kyl’s) legs in the Senate parking lot?”

To put what follows in context, please find a copy of Stephen Fox’s book, Blood and Power: Organized Crime in Twentieth Century America, referenced here. Since it’s out of print, you’ll have to do some Internet digging – or some serious rummaging through used-book stores. While you’re looking, here are the kinds of naivete-shattering realities you’ll find teed up in the book. There are no accidents or coincidences. Politicians like Barack the Bandit are supported by unions. Politicians and unions are corrupted by organized crime. That’s why:

• Labor unions typically and historically foster violence. The Center for Union Facts compiles evidence about the political and criminal activities of the labor movement in the United States.
• The National Institute for Labor Relations Research has maintained a catalog of union violence since 1975.
• The Heritage Foundation conducted exhaustive research on the effect of unions on business, industry, and the economy.

Well, that’s all a bunch of exaggerated hooey, right? Wrong. It’s a duck. We need to call it one.

Speaking of fowl, while Barack the Banty was crowing about saving General Motors, he was handing the fox the keys to the chicken coop. As a result, GM will now be managing to UAW demands, not to market demands and certainly not to consumer demands. Because Barack the Brazen knows the effectiveness of strong-arm tactics (see Politics, Chicago), we’re now enjoying thuggish coercion on healthcare. We’re celebrating criminal misrepresentation of the stimulus. We’re a few short steps from bringing home the kind of organized violence that’s doing a world of good for this U.S. plant in France. And we’re so determined not to say this thing that looks, walks, swims, flies, and quacks like a duck is a duck that our prospective perils have to be pointed out to us by our friends north of the border.

If you don’t think you’re about to lose something valuable — and if you don’t think that loss will be all but irretrievable — ask yourself this: does the bully tell you what he’s going to do as he’s approaching — and before he swipes your ice cream cone? Here’s a hint: HELL NO!

Big Brother Barack’s keeping it real. But that’s not the same as keeping it realistic. And it’s definitely alarming.

We ignore it at our own peril.

So, what do you do if you fancy yourself He-Man, and the universe just isn’t paying attention? Well, you could bluff and bluster. Fortunately for Barack the Beguiling, those are the two talents that got him where he is today. (Shame on us.) It may, however, also be his undoing. On the domestic front, it has to be a sign of trouble for Barack the Bulldozer that even freshman legislators, particularly from his own party, aren’t buying his mumbo jumbo. Representative Jared Polis, freshman Democrat from Colorado, said this: “The way we are paying for health reform would put a lot of strain on small business, which is particularly dangerous during a recession.”

Mr. Polis understands the arbitary and unjust duress that “health reform” would place on entrepreneurs and job creators, even though it’s unlikely he has enough knowledge of or interest in our own history to know it was the federal government that mandated businesses to pay for health insurance in the first place. Before that, health insurance was an employee benefit. Remember benefits? Those were the things employers gave us of their own volition – in order to attract and retain the good employees that would help make employers’ companies competitive within their own industries – before the government told us that benefits were rights. First, we believed it. Then, we took it a step further and decided we were entitled to those rights. With sound, responsible thinking like his, Mr. Polis is going to make a lot of friends among logicians. But he’s going to have a short shelf-life in the Pelosi Party.

On the foreign front, it’s Barack the Bloviator’s own ignorance of history that will get him (us) in the soup. Whatever. As long as it sounds good, that’s all that matters.

But in anointing Barack the Brilliant to lead us, we seemed to have overlooked the fact that He-Man’s story lines gave us little about his education. You have to think he must have had a few classes in swordplay. I’m thinking he must have worked in a little bodybuilding, too. But when and where did he study ecomonics, insurance, corporate management, world affairs, and the other inconsequential aspects of his job as Master of the Universe? College? Not likely. Law school? I think not. Shilling for unions? Nah, not even in the Senate. So, where do we get the presumption that he knows what he’s doing, let alone that he’s capable of creating a plan to go with his grandiose, rhetorical visions?

He’s never been a governor or the head of a government agency, so he couldn’t be expected to think through the implications of his promissory blitherings and their consequences. Otherwise, he’d think more along the lines of this piece, from Michael O. Leavitt, published in Investors Business Daily. Why in the world would Barack the Bandit need to think about investment? He’s going to crib our wealth. He doesn’t need to create his own. And if Barack the Bankrupter had ever worked a real job, let alone created one, he might think more along the lines of entrepreneur J.C. Watts. After taking the public’s money for seven years as a U.S. Senator, Mr. Watts decided he’d rather create business than tax it. Wow, that puts a whole new spin on his being a member of a minority, doesn’t it?

The only thing Barack the Brash has in common with He-Man is that they both derive their powers from sources other than themselves. Skeletor is craftier, of a more cunning intellect, and probably better educated than He-Man. (But as Barack the Boastful would be quick to point out, Skeletor loses points for handsome.) And Skeletor always gets the upper hand because he always has a plan. He-Man never has a plan. He’s a liberal. The only way he ever triumphs over his arch nemesis is by holding his sword aloft, putting on his ultra-masculine voice, and loudly intoning, “By the power of Grayskull!” thereby drawing his might from the mystical energy of his mythical refuge. Then, after the obligatory, apocalyptic, thunder and lightning, he’s transformed from the unnervingly effeminate Prince Adam into the mighty He-Man.

Likewise, when Barack the Blundering finds his derriere in a dangle, he raises his finger, adopts his most authoritative tone, and tells us what’s good for us, whether we know it or not – thereby deriving his power from those who work for a living. Well, in case you hadn’t noticed, that pedantic finger Barack the Bothersome is always wagging in our faces isn’t exactly He-Man’s sword. And I daresay, despite all of Barack the Boundless’s pretenses to the contrary, it wields nowhere near the power. Maybe it would humble him a bit to remember that’s the very same digit with which he picks the Presidential Proboscis.

Beyond that, Barack the Bereft doesn’t have the kind of back-up He-Man does. Harry Reid ain’t no Man-at-Arms by a long shot. And Nancy Pelosi certainly ain’t no She-Ra, even though she, too, wields the Power of the Finger and insists that members of the House call her the Princess of Power.

When the smoke blows away and the mirrors are shattered, we’ll know Barack was no He-Man. But for right now, it doesn’t matter. And it doesn’t matter if he doesn’t have a sword. He and his Masters of the Universe are giving all of us the finger.

What follows is actual correspondence between yours truly and his duly elected representative. Not a word has been altered. Names have been deleted to lessen the strain on credulity:

Dear Senator X,

Please oppose the Employee Free Choice Act.  It will not be free.  It will cost an unaffordable measure or our liberty.  It will not constitute choice.  It will institutionalize coercion and corruption.

The secret ballot is a tenet of American democracy and privacy.  This legislation usurps that tenet, eliminating a secret ballot overseen by the NLRB and placing undue and unwarranted power in the hands of union organizers.  It’s hard to imagine legislation deliberately leaving employees and employers vulnerable to those who respect the interests of neither.  If the role of the federal government is to support that kind of usurpation, I have an entire life as a U.S. citizen to re-examine.

Federally supervised, private-ballot elections ensure a union has the support of a majority of employees.  In contrast, the Fourth Circuit Court of Appeals ruled: “It would be difficult to imagine a more unreliable method of ascertaining the real wishes of employees than a card check.”  The Second Circuit ruled: “It is beyond dispute that the secret ballot election is a more accurate reflection of the employees’ true desires than a check of authorization cards collected at the behest of a union organizer.”  The Sixth Circuit ruled: “An election is the preferred method of determining the choice by employees of a collective bargaining representative.”

Why in the world would Congress fix something that ain’t broke?

As my elected representative, please oppose the Employee Free Choice Act and support the Secret Ballot Protection Act.

Thank you for doing right things.

My pal’s reply:

Thank you for contacting me regarding union rights for workers. I appreciate hearing your views on this important matter.

I understand and respect your concerns about this issue. In my view, when workers are able to play a role in negotiating their wages and working conditions, the result is fewer work-related injuries, better employee morale, and greater efficiency.  I believe that labor unions have long been instrumental in strengthening the American middle class and improving the lives of millions of working families by ensuring basic workplace protections, decent and livable wages, and secure pension and retirement benefits.

While your reservations are understandable, I am a cosponsor of Senate bill 560, the Employee Free Choice Act, because in my view it will better enable employees to exercise their right to form or join a union. Rather than letting employers decide the process by which a union is certified, the Employee Free Choice Act would shift that determination to the employees, who can choose either majority sign-up or a secret ballot election.

I am also supportive of the Employee Free Choice Act’s provisions that would deter employers from wrongfully terminating employees who favor unionization. While the great majority of employers act responsibly and treat their workers well, there are still many well-documented cases of worker abuse … that are of great concern to me. I believe that the reforms of S. 560 represent reasonable policy that would promote a safer, fairer workplace for employees, regardless of their sentiments towards forming or joining a union.

Thank you again for contacting me. If you would like to stay in touch with me on this and other issues of importance, please visit my website … and subscribe to receive my regular e-mail issue alerts. Please do not hesitate to contact me again if I can be of assistance to you in any way.

Since that made it clear my initial correspondence had been neither read nor understood, I replied:

Dear Senator X,

Thank you for taking the time to reply to my correspondence.

Out of respect for the time constraints imposed by your schedule, I apologize for not having made the point of my earlier correspondence more clear.  I have no concerns about the specific right of workers to choose a union through a “card check” process.  Rather, I have grave concerns about the specific right of workers NOT to choose a union and, by extension, their right not to be coerced, manipulated, or victimized thereby.

I’m only concerned because labor unions already have the power to annul employees’ freedom of choice.  FDR and your forebears in Congress ensured infringement on workers’ ability to work for — and to make their own agreements with — willing employers in 1935 with the passage of the Wagner Act.  That’s why Arthur Goldberg, a former attorney for the United Steelworkers Union, JFK’s secretary of labor, and former Supreme Court justice wrote in 1956, “Technically speaking, any labor union is a monopoly in the limited sense that it eliminates competition between workingmen for the available jobs in a particular plant or industry.”  It’s also why unionization in the private sector dropped from 17 million in 1970 to 8.8 million in 2002 — and is lower now.  Like bobby socks and hula hoops, the time for labor unions — except as channels for corruption from government and organized crime — has passed.  If you can find a copy of Stephen Fox’s book, Blood and Power: Organized Crime in Twentieth-Century America, you’ll understand two things: why S.560 is a disastrously bad idea and why Fox’s book is out of print.  (Hint: Neither government nor organized crime wants you to read it.)

I know I’m getting sentimental in my advancing age.  But I really miss the secret ballot, especially for those who harbor illusions of democracy and free choice.  Those illusions get harder and harder to sustain.  Then again, I’m a guy who’s nowhere near ready to admit — despite overwhelming evidence to the contrary — that we’ve entered the golden age of political promise, adulation from the gullible, and retribution for the empirically astute.

I’m all for doing things right.  But I ask you again to reward my vote by doing right things.  Please oppose the Employee Free Choice Act of 2009.

Thank you.

So much for elective representation. Is Don Quixote in the house?

You really have to wonder if gullibility can be epidemic. You have to wonder if our desperation to abdicate personal responsibility and to be “taken care of” is so profound that we’ll abide anything, even the complicity of the media on which we ostensibly rely to keep us informed (unless we’ve abdicated even our responsibility to be informed). You have to wonder if we’re so willing to be placated that we’ll accept the packaging of political agendas as moral pronouncements without question or logic. And you have to wonder why The Los Angeles Times, USA Today, The Wall Street Journal, and The New York Times chose not to quote “moral imperative” in their headlines, to say nothing of why they buried the story.

Let’s take a critical look at some terminology, shall we? Taking care of ourselves is a responsibility. Taking care of each other might be a moral imperative – but only if there’s a cultural consensus to do so. That’s what morality is: a cultural agreement to do this, but not that. Helping our neighbor is a good thing.  Rolling a grenade under his door is not. We’re pretty much in agreement on cut-and-dried things like that. But not everything is quite so clear, especially when viewed through the clouded lenses of political promises, entitlements, and rights. Providing health care as a government mandate might be a cultural imperative – not a moral one – if it doesn’t precipitate the economic ruin of the culture. (”The operation was a success, but the patient died.”) But insurance is positively not a moral imperative. It’s a voluntary financial transaction based on The Law of Large Numbers: the small contributions of the many protect against the large losses of the few. And health insurance most certainly should not be a commercial imperative imposed by the federal government.

Do we honestly believe that if Ted Kennedy had ever worked a private-sector second in his life – or if he ever founded a business – he’d be prescribing this? How many would-be entrepreneurs – private-sector job creators – are likely to go for this deal?

Yeah, you can start a business. But you have to insure your employees medically, even if they have pre-existing conditions. Wait. There’s more. You can’t refuse to hire people because of those conditions because that’s discrimination. To make things even more interesting, we’re going to tax the business to Kingdom Come just because we can. This is not knee-capping, we promise; but if you make more than we think you should (Barney Frank’s working on that), we’re going to take that, too. Finally, if there’s any of it left after we get through creating government programs and government jobs – no, not private-sector jobs and certainly not wealth – we’re going to spread it around. Okay?

Right. Sign me up.

By the same logic – or the utter lack thereof – do we think that if Barney Frank had ever worked a private-sector second in his life, he would have avoided these questions, let alone consented to the provisions he’s trying to defend, or stormed out of the interview in a self-righteous snit? A government agency overseeing the executive compensation of commercial enterprises? If those enterprises took TARP money, that’s one thing (setting aside the reprehensibility of TARP). But purporting to act in the interest of shareholders in private-sector businesses when you’ve never worked in one? Is that anything other than a shameless power grab? Have we really gotten to the point at which it’s more important to count our perceived slights (”Why should she make that much money when I don’t?”) than it is to strive for our own opportunities? Have we actually concluded it’s better to depend on the government to define our opportunities and give them to us? Has any government, anywhere, been able to do that? Why do we believe it’s different this time? How did we lose our pride in earning our own keep?

A long time ago, in a land far, far way, we used to go to war over things like taxation without representation. We used to take umbrage when what belonged to us was taken. We used to think self-reliance was a good thing. We used to think boot-strapping, risk and reward, and equal opportunity were things to which we should aspire. Now we’ve succumbed to career politicians, paid to create more power for themselves, telling us what’s good for us when they’ve never actually done what we do, attempting to legislate equality (not equal opportunity), and wanting to take more of our money for the privilege of sustaining their pomposity and their ostensible intellectual superiorty. On the final frontier, they understand clearly why that’s a bad idea.

There are differences between rose-colored glasses, self-induced blindness, and the unwitting acceptance of opacity. In turning a blithe eye to the media’s political predilections for the first, let’s not contract the second. And let’s be careful we don’t have the third imposed on us, however unwittingly.