The Wonder!

They made the trip because the government said so.

There were no vacancies, and she was about to give birth.

They could find only a stable.

There the Child was born.

News spread with angels singing.

Sheep herders welcomed the Baby.

Three stargazers from the east looked for the Baby.

These wise men gave the Child expensive gifts.

A royal threat forced the family to flee the country.

Back home, the Boy grew and learned carpentry.

He traveled the land telling of His Father and of His real home that He wished to share with everyone.

At his last Passover meal He began the sharing of His very self.

His life ended in torture so that all who had ever lived or who would live could find happiness forever.

A couple thousand years have gone by.

This history remains central to human life.

God is with us.

No wonder the celebration of His birth.

The Wonder!

May peace embrace the earth

 this Christmas and beyond.

The New Year brings another chance.

MAKING TIME TO DO THE IMPOSSIBLE

Very strange is the contemporary treatment of the tea party.

Democrats – and much of the news media -- treat it as a villain of deepest depravity; many Republicans see it as an obstructionist power.

But in reality, is not the tea party a popular movement having little organization that seeks to encourage politicians to operate the government in accord with the Constitution? Supporters, who are not active in the movement, seem to view the tea party as such. The perceived goal is not pernicious but rather patriotic.

Critics of the tea party from all sides focus on congressional Representative and Senators who were elected to do something about unrestrained public spending and the debt that precipitates for trying to deliver on their campaign promises. In recent political maneuvering they hung tough in an effort to make progress on their goals. They were excoriated for ignoring the solidified voting of a Senate bloc and a spin-driven President, and for not joining the Republican establishment’s recognizing that reality.

Under the system, the constituents who in the 2012 elected voices in both houses heard their concerns raised in the Congress. What is wrong with that?

George Will in a recent column uses an article by Jonathan Rauch in National Affairs quarterly on James Madison’s design of the U.S. government. Wills argues that President Obama wants to change Madison’s plan by wielding legislative branch rubber stamps to his fiats, while the tea party defies the Founder’s design though intransigence.

A fair reading of tea party goals is this: enough government by the consent of the governed to permit people to live in freedom at a public cost  they can afford.

There’s nothing unreasonable about that.

But finding such balance in the country’s current condition involves a philosophical clash of politicians loath to confront legislated federal aid obligations that grow in cost without legislative restraint. Those obligations are called entitlements.

That term in itself explains the problem. A congressional search for reduced tax burdens caused by guaranteed claims absent rancor becomes neigh on impossible.

As the Seabees said in WW II, the difficult we do immediately, the impossible takes a little longer.

How much time do we have?

DO THE JOB!

So, realistically, is there a way to reopen the government and raise the debt ceiling that constitutes compromise and no capitulation on the part of the Republican federal lawmakers?

Conservatives and liberal Republicans both seek an answer. So far, no proposal has moved President Obama and his Democrats, who seem an immovable phalanx in opposition. Except for a few demonstrating veterans trying to open war memorials and some tourists ignoring or removing blockading cones and portable barriers at national parks, the U.S. citizenry seems nearly bored.

When the computers behind food stamp electronic cards failed for a few hours to record limits, some savvy users denuded shelves in several Wal-Mart stores; but those opportunists were moved by greed not political anxiety.

Democrats, it seems, can hardly wait ‘til the $17 billion debt limit is breached with ensuing chaos haunting 2014 voters – such as food stamp users – so that Republicans join Whigs as historic curiosities.

And, of course, the problem of funding government for the fiscal year that began Oct. 1 also requires resolution.

Had elected members of our federal governmental done their jobs, none of this would have happened. Government would be up and running and domestic and foreign investors in U.S. securities would be paying for it. Done their jobs? Well, they have not done that for a long time – even when government kept running – because that debt kept growing and growing. Jobs well done would not have permitted that, except in time of war and crisis.

Even though Oct. 17 may not mark Armageddon, it could be the starting line of a race into a dark national future.

From past history, one can assume that some temporary solution will be had in a rather short time after the deadline. Chances are, that won’t be a final solution, and it shall not be good for the country, its economy, its future.

Being optimistic, Election Day 2014 will arrive. That will be the time something should done.

But before then, the what of done has to be articulated and sold to the electorate. That’s a nationwide campaign.

Campaign? A campaign to turnover – completely – the Congress. All new members. Democrats where there are now Republicans in the House; Republicans where there are Democrats. Plus, one-third of the senators turned out by their opponents.

A Democratic House dominated by new members of both parties would be smart enough to know they were now in office to do the bidding of an aroused and demanding citizenry wanting actual representative government. Similarly, the Senate – having a third of its members awaiting perhaps a similar fate in 2016 and another third in 2020 – would consider a change in work habits mandatory.

Realistically, the election results needn’t turn over 100 percent of the House to get members doing their jobs; even losses by 25 percent of incumbents would be significant; the higher the percentage, the higher the chances of bringing sanity to Washington.

And what about President Obama under such circumstances?

The country would learn his true character.

JUST FOR THE FUN OF IT

Sally Jenkins of the Washington Post wants to pay college football players because it is their right.

They work for the schools that give them scholarships and, in turn, those schools make millions on their backs.

The NCAA should face reality, she says, and recognize how it takes advantage of players in order to enrich itself. Players deserve a piece of the action, if only a small piece akin to pocket money.

It would be okay if wealthy alumni fund the paychecks, with sums based on the value of the players’ positions; quarterbacks would receive the bigger stipends.

That pretty fairly wraps up Ms. Jenkins argument. Let’s stipulate that college football has pretty well got out of hand. Football, however, pays for other intercollegiate sports at many schools. And, yes, football coaches and athletic directors usually make much more than do presidents and chancellors and, at state schools, more than the governor.

Something should be done, but what?

Long before most of us were born or, at least, were aware of sports, talented writers on newspapers began to romanticize the skills of college boys displayed on Saturday afternoons. Think Grantland Rice and the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse. (Actually, the 1924 game was held at the Polo Grounds used by the New York Giants baseball team, and Rice’s lede was turned into a promotional photo back in South Bend by a student publicist, George Strickler.) College football attracted fans without college connections before pro football became the obsession it is. In the 1930s and 1940s, even into the fifties, local radio stations programmed college football scores, punctuated with recorded fight songs. Alumni loyalty was augmented by local fans paying reasonable ticket prices to fill stadiums built to hold the followers of the growing attraction that was college football. It was a time when most young people did not consider attending college.

[As a grade school pupil in the late 1930s, I could afford to buy a ticket – something under $1 – to an Ohio State game in the Buckeyes’ horseshoe, an unlocked place we would explore from top to bottom when there were no games, including an area under the stands that contained rooms for athletes. Another grade school recollection is our parochial football team’s star running back in 1940. Two things stood out about Manny Phelps: he was the only kid that drove to school in his own car, and the only one needing to shave daily. I learned the word “ringer.”]

Fandom grew something like that. Now the old stadiums have been expanded or new built; ticket prices have soared beyond the reach of most people. College football is big business.

So, Ms. Jenkins has a point. Time has passed when some kid from West Siwash High, who came to campus by Greyhound carrying his pasteboard suitcase, can walk-on at State U and become an all-American QB. He is recruited from a Texas, Georgia, or Ohio secondary school where he wears fitted uniforms not unlike the pros and has clippings and YouTube posts that bring him to the attention of university scouts. He and his parents and coaches are all but bribed until he signs a letter of intent, almost as sacred as a contract.

Turning back the clock to “winning one for the Gipper” is out of the question.

Some accommodation that most people would agree to be fair needs to be found or Ms. Jenkins would have us believe. But, some little compensation for players would soon grow. Pay schedules would become recruiting tools. Bonus payments would be permitted for sterling play. Athletes in other sports would demand equity. Women athletes would cite Title IX and obtain pay equivalent to men. And those poor high school players could not wait for their compensation and, somehow, would start getting it.

Soon victory would be sought, not for the glory of old Puce and Umber, but for the Sean “Crusher” Jefferson III and his warriors.

Maybe the solution is recognition of what’s happening. Big­-time college football cannot be returned to play between matriculating students preparing for professions who just happen to enjoy athletic competition.Big athletic plants must be paid for by TV networks and fans in sky suites. So, how to supply the games using dissatisfied, underpaid players who supposedly attend classes to earn worthwhile degrees? Make classes optional, pay living wages, lease the stadiums to promoters, and convert football programs to bona fide minor leagues.

For boards of trustees burdened by conscience, let them divorce football teams from the college’s name and devote lease income to laboratories and faculty upgrading.

A few universities might wish to abandon football altogether as the University of Chicago did while remaining part of the Big 10 for academic endeavors.

Those opting to sponsor unabashed pro football programs would not have to pay obeisance to scholarship and agree to a play-off system that would determine the actual top team in the country. Fans would like that.

As for us purists: how about real students going out for the team to represent their school against the downstate rival – just for the fun of it?

TREAD NOT ON CONSCIENCE

Regulations from the Department of Health and Human Services that require religious organizations having employees to buy them health insurance that provides birth control and abortion drugs are labeled unconstitutional by Christians, Jews and others fighting them in court. But there is a more basic reason to fight, and perhaps, a more basic reason for the fight to be won.

Conscience.

“[N]o man has the right to require another to be less than a man, to demote him to the status of non-moral agent, like a beast, or a cog in a machine,” writes Anthony Esolen in a Crisis magazine piece commenting on a book by Robert P. George. “No man may steal my humanity, by demanding treason against that stern monitor, my conscience. But this is exactly what is happening before our eyes, in what used to be a free country. We are demanding obeisance to and participation in things that until eleven o’clock last night almost everyone (and all Christians and observant Jews) believed to be evil, and believed it with strong reasons prescinding from the nature of man and from revelation.”

Esolen, a professor of renaissance literature and western civilization at Providence College, did not mention the HHS or any other controversy in his review of Conscience and Its Enemies: Confronting the Dogmas of Liberal Secularism by George, professor of jurisprudence at Princeton. Nonetheless, current legal and moral questions concerning the HHS mandates clearly fit his observation.

His article is illustrated with a frame from the 1966 motion picture, “A Man for All Seasons” and begins with a scene from C.S. Lewis’s The Hidden Strength that tells of an atheist sociology professor being instructed to step on a crucifix. A voice tells him not to do it despite his non-belief, and he refuses. Conscience also guides Thomas More in the history-based play and movie.

Thomas More is a saint of the Catholic Church because he chose beheading over sanctioning Henry VIII’s usurpation of ecclesiastic powers and his illicit marriage. More defied government out of conscience.

Conscience is at the heart of the several legal challenges to HHS mandates. The First Amendment provides constitutional grounds with its right to free exercise of religion. Exercising equates with the dictates of conscience. The courts will have to deal with conscience; take judicial notice of a power inherent in the human psyche.

Esolen writes, “. . . as George notes, conscience is not a ‘permissions department.’ It commands and proscribes; and that’s why we spend so much effort trying to circumvent it, muddle it, or stifle it altogether.” Another literary citation from Esolen: Mark Twain’s Huck Finn protects runaway slave Jim because of something deep inside rather than follow the law and turn Jim in.

Some people might believe that something is permissible although it is evil. They see themselves as being good because of the benefits their evil confers on mankind, he says. “So it is that snuffing out the lives of unborn children, in the minds of some, is more than permissible; it is a great and glorious good . . . Conscience can be unformed or deformed; conscience does not determine what is good or evil, but must hearken to the truth of the matter, even if the person cannot articulate just why he must do what he would prefer to leave undone, or why he must not do what he would dearly like to do.”

And, further Esolen writes: “To forbid someone to do what his conscience commands him to do, or, worse still, to compel him to do what his conscience instructs him he must not do, is thus to work violence upon him at the core of his being.”

He concludes: “The ‘enemies of conscience,’ as Professor George calls them, simultaneously and incoherently deny the existence of moral truths that bind the conscience --- other people’s consciences, while they reserve for themselves a moral right to bind and loose those other people, mechanically, pragmatically, to bring about some vague ideal society. In such a world, everyone is a god or an ant, but not a man.”

So there it is: an argument, difficult to contest, why the government that exists with the consent of the governed, shall not determine the consciences of its individual citizens.

Our unelected regulators, interpreting law and converting it to binding rules, may believe they truly are working for the good of the country. But they may not overturn what their interior voices command or proscribe --- to act or not to act, to do or not to do. Thus, they may be following their consciences, but for a cause that religious groups believe is evil. That would be a deformed conscience on the part of some regulators, while other regulators might find their work in crafting rules to enforce laws inimical to their consciences.

Esolen’s essay, while not dealing with those contingencies directly, does give examples that might be applied (without equating the actors). When dealing with “wicked” actions, the writer says, “Many an SS officer’s conscience was comfortably silent on the issue of slaughtering Jews.” And when dealing with a “heavier burden of justification” to override a person’s conscience, “not by compelling him, but by taking the reins ourselves by doing what he will not do; that’s the case when we give blood transfusions to infants in imminent danger of death, over the wishes of parents, who object.” [Italics appear in original.]

This is basic stuff. The courts must be careful where they tread; our regulators have not been. Conscience and what that entails is at the core of this HHS controversy. Conscience must not be ignored.

SO WHAT DID YOU PAY FOR GAS BACK IN 1970?

Cleaning out shoebox after shoebox of canceled checks going back to 1970 brought two surprises to a suburban Virginia woman and her spouse: how cheap – inexpensive compared with now – prices were; and how many local businesses had disappeared in the meantime.

Seeing the dollar amounts inked in below the payees showed how things have changed over more than forty years. Meeting day to day expenses was not easy then, but in retrospect the value of the dollar – the international standard then and still hanging on now – seems better in that past than in the present.

Could that be?

Now and then a visit to the Internet’s inflation calculator brings the feeling that the calculations are not quite right. Take gasoline. Back in the 70s – the very early 1970s – one dollar could buy about five gallons. The Bureau of Labor Statistics website says 20 cents in 1971 would buy what $1.15 buys in 2013. A buck 15 will not buy a half gallon in Fairfax County, Virginia. Maybe in the next county south.

Those old checks showed that a family with five kids back in the early 70s would have a grocery bill of about $15 on a typical visit to Grand Union (which no longer exists, at least there.) Now it’s $75 to $100 or more several times a week to feed fewer people.

Back in Wisconsin in the 50s and 60s prices were pretty much the same. There was some inflation, but it seemed to matter less than in a later period. A family that really can’t afford a new car, not even to mention a house, now could swing both in those benighted times before iPhones and apps for horoscopes or whatever.

Without a crash course in economics, someone who ponders it a bit might think that the prices of things and un-things (services) are out of whack in relation to other things and other un-things. Back when smaller incomes could buy more of what was needed and desired than can current equal incomes adjusted for inflation. At least it feels that way.

Could that possibly be? How can it be when kids spend $100 a month or more to stand around looking down as they work their thumbs across the virtual keys on their smart phones?

Yet, there could be some truth in those inchoate thoughts bouncing around in one’s memory bank.

Flipping through umpteen channels on the flat screen TV (couldn’t do that back in the Midwest of old) found a guy answering questions before a forum at the Cato Institute. It was Lewis Lehrman, investment banker-Lincoln scholar-historian. He was espousing a return to the gold standard, something many an economist and academic laugh out loud at.

Even a somewhat attentive consumer of longer tooth knows that prices began to get out of whack about the time the U.S. of A. dropped the gold standard. Gold was $35 an ounce in 1971 when Nixon stopped the possibility of going to the bank and converting your dollars into gold. Gold got up to something like $1,700 or $1,800 an ounce before dropping down to whatever it is now ($201.70 the inflation calculator would have it).

Back to Lehrman. Without quoting him exactly, he made two points that really hit home and brought back thoughts of those shredded canceled checks. First, he said that between the 1770s until early in the 20^th century, just before WWI, the average Joes could buy and pay nearly the same amount for necessities. The fluctuation was there, but the ups and downs were shallow. Also during that period, money was pegged to gold and silver. Actually, we know, often it was gold and silver coins.

Such a period of affordable pricing for ordinary people could be worked out again, Lehrman asserts. He notes the power was given Congress by Article 1, section 8 of the Constitution. It is power to “coin Money, regulate the Value thereof, and of foreign Coin, and fix the Standard of Weights and Measures.” Fixing the value of the U.S. dollar is not the job of the Federal Reserve Board, he says.

So, anyway, it’s something to think about. Might even preserve the middle class.

NEWSPAPERS MAKE NEWS

Selling the Washington Post confirms the foreshadowing of the demise of daily newspapers as we have known them. Only the day before the owner of the Boston Red Socks bought the Boston Globe.

Jeffrey Bezos, the billionaire who is the sole owner under the new set up, said that the Post may no longer be printed 20 years down the road. As someone who made his billions from the Internet, he should know.

Only waiting will show what he has in mind for the paper, which he will oversee from the “left coast.”

Internet growth reduced newspaper readership. When readership decreased, the advertising cash cow started showing its ribs. News holes shrank, lessening the value of the product, exacerbating the decline. Washington, one would think, might slip the noose because politicians live on news. The sale of the Post seems to put the lie to that notion.

One thing seems true: decreased profitability of newspapering has been detrimental to the fundamental job of a free press in a democratic republic. Our First Amendment recognized the right of a free press to keep tabs on government authorized by the people. Money is needed to pay reporters to have time to pursue leads about misfeasance and malfeasance by governmental officials. Fewer ads mean fewer acts of due diligence on the part of the press.

Charges that partisanship deters the press from protecting the governed are easy to make. But Pulitzers are won more readily chasing evildoers rather than saints.

A healthy press depends upon healthy profits. Only free enterprise can provide a free press; a government press cannot by definition.

A billionaire paying for truthful reporting could be a blessing. And perhaps that’s what Bezos will try. He already is spending money on a clock within a mountain that is supposed to be accurate for 10,000 years. But maybe that is easier to achieve than a vigorous press.

DO YOU HAVE AN EXTRA MILLION WHO CAN SPARE UNCLE SAM?

Watching coming attractions in Washington? The next biggie will be the congressional fight over the national debt.

Since May 17, 2013, the Daily Treasury Statement of the debt has not moved from $16,695,396,000.000, which is a mere $25 million below the legal limit, according to a link on the Drudge Report to CNSNews.

Meanwhile, go to the Web and look at U.S. Debt Clock.org and the clock is still running. The total as this is written is $16.8 trillion. Treasury Secretary Lew said on television recently that the limit had already been passed.

No secret exists that the national debt represents an amount nearly beyond comprehension by folks having even a good-sized middle class income of less than $100,000. But that same Debt Clock, where the numbers grow more with each tick of the clock and go up and up while watching the computer screen, shows even more.

When last viewed for this piece, the clock showed that the national debt approaching $17 trillion amounted to $55,367 for each citizen or $148,025 for each taxpayer. Call up the site now, and those numbers will have grown.

More disturbing are figures at the bottom of the Debt Clock computer page.

Total national assets composed of $8.25 trillion in small business assets, $18 trillion in corporation assets and $74.3 trillion in household assets add up to $100.6 trillion. Statistically, that’s $318,276 per citizen --- not actually, but a figure that helps one get a handle on the size of what the country is worth.

But, those total assets fall short of the federal government’s liabilities: $16.5 trillion for social security, $21.8 trillion for prescription drugs, and $86.7 trillion that total $125 trillion. For each taxpayer, the liability amounts to $1,096,398.

So, the government’s long term liabilities add up to $24.4 trillion more than private assets – the value of what all businesses and individuals own.

From the above figures, only a mathematician could estimate how much the average citizen would have to find to pay his or her share of the long-term debt. But obviously, since only about half of the population pays federal income taxes, even if every person within the boundaries of the United States could be taxed, there just is not enough money to pay for the spending Congress and presidents over recent years have authorized. Sure, taxes come in shapes other than those on incomes, but people and business are not worth enough to pay the enormous amount owed.

One does not have to be a political junkie to know that whatever our politicians come up with in the coming months to boost the country’s debt limit they will fail when it comes to simple arithmetic. The bill or resolution that eventually be signed by the president will be only stopgap.

U.S. debt is so tremendous that words can hardly be coined to describe it. Paying it off becomes even more complex.

Annual budgets need to pay off the debt  gradually. Two problems: The government has not had a budget for several years; when budgets or continuing resolutions are passed, they call for deficits.

Deficits increase the national debt.

Thus, deficits must be turned into actual surpluses before the debt can begin to be cut.

The odds of our politically oriented officials solving the country’s financial conundrum are longer – much longer – than winning Power Ball. But, that lottery is actually won from time to time.  

LIBERALS CONTRADICT HISTORY

Liberal or Progressive disdain for the Founding Fathers of the United States as witnessed by reduced respect for the Constitution would appear to be contradictory.

Our Constitution is a living document and must change with the times, urge the Progressives.

Our Constitution is the fundamental outline for the world’s first and longest lasting democratic-republic that should be interpreted as a guide and changed with trepidation, Conservatives counsel.

But the government of the United States of America grounded on the Constitution after the failure of the Articles of Confederation grew out of the Founding Founders reliance on European writers’ ideas associated with the Enlightenment or the Age of Reason. Historians of various persuasions apparently agree on that to a great extent.

Some of those writer-philosophers were, in no particular order, Thomas Hobbes, Rousseau, John Locke, Montesquieu. Hobbes said government should be patterned on the needs of the governed. Rousseau held the people should influence government. Locke agreed with both of those views. Montesquieu believed governmental powers should be exercised separately.

At the time of the founding of the United States, following revolution, the world was governed by kings, emperors and tyrants. To make government authorized by the governed with the consent of the governed was – and remains – bold, brave, intrepid, forward.

Today’s Conservatives, you might say, wish to retain that then fresh approach to running society by relying on the good sense of the people.

Modern Liberals, on the other hand, believe that the educated elite – the enlightened ones – alone are capable of discerning what is best for the people.

Are not those two encapsulations of philosophies of government opposite of what occurred historically?

PIP,PIP!

So it’s a boy!

Born hours before this is written, the heir to the throne of the British Empire – third in line – was identified as a male upon his birth.

How old fashioned.

How appropriate in these days when early identification of a fetus as boy or girl can be the reason for abortion.

The Brits may be as secular as society can now be, with attendance at Church of England services pretty small, smaller than the dwindling Catholic congregations. But with sonic tests that reveal the sex of a child within the womb it is common in the United States to learn of the sex of an unborn child and even name it; that, or – horribly – deciding to take its life because it does not move the parents’ happiness meter.

Of course, British laws covering succession had been changed to allow either prince or princess to ascend to the throne. So regardless of the royal baby’s sex, it would be welcomed as the successor to the queen, or the current Prince of Wales in any case.

Yet, it seems, William and Kate were willing, as were parents of old, to await the birth to learn whether the child would be the Royal Prince or the Royal Princess.

Pip, pip for them.

WOULD MR. OBAMA REALLY WANT LOWER EMPLOYMENT?

Let’s be fair: The president and Democrats in Congress before the 2010 elections did not intend for the Affordable Care Act to reduce jobs and workers’ incomes.

Appears, however, such  reductions are true.

Aggregate figures may not yet be available, but evidence mounts that small businesses are reducing hours or refraining from new hires to avoid paying for health insurance for employees or fines for not buying coverage.

A columnist online wrote about a restaurant worker who was cut to 30 hours, losing $400 a month, leaving him with $27 to live on after expenses. Others arguing the case against Obamacare offer similar evidence.

So how many people might possibly be affected by this part of the legislation being put off for a year?

A little rudimentary research shows that in 2008 some 6 million firms had payrolls. (But there were 21.7 million with no payrolls, meaning those self-employed or people operating unincorporated businesses.) Those figures come from the U.S. Census Bureau.

The bureau does not keep statistics for businesses with fewer than 50 employees.  For employers of 1-4, 5-9 and 10-19 the total was 21.6 million paid employees. For 20-99 the figure was 20.9 million. Therefore, the 1-49 total might conservatively be estimated at 21.6 plus something less than half of the 20.9. A good guess is about 30 million employees in firms paying up to 50 employees.

Say 10 million bosses decided to cut hours to 30 a week and our example for lost wages is reasonable on average, the economy would lose some $4 billion a month. Total: $48 billion a year.

That’s pretty rough as estimates go, yet reasonable.

Unreasonable would be an assumption that the administration and Congress wished the economy to take a hit from mandating that uninsured Americans be covered for health expenses through insurance. What is reasonable is some thought given to fixing the problem.

Interestingly, the Teamsters have asked Democratic leaders to do something about Obamacare, claiming the law will create an incentive to keep work weeks below 30 hours when the middle class is founded on the 40-hour work week. Also, the union wants relief for non­-profit health plans established under Teamster contracts with employers.

THAT WHICH CANNOT BE MEASURED CAN BE WORTHWHILE

THAT WHICH CANNOT BE MEASURED CAN BE WORTHWHILE

American culture is all about stuff.

Call us materialistic and you’d be right.

Most people living in the U.S. of A. spend a lot of time, not to mention money, on things, on fun, on goodies. Life is about stuff that can be measured, whether in length, weight, volume, temperature, or time. If those things are marked with a swoosh or some other fashionable trademark, so much the better. Some young guys have been known to be slaughtered for their Air Jordans. Lovely young matrons measure their success by the Vuitton bags they sling over their shoulders. Guys and dolls must wear the latest jeans, even if that means buying ones with worn knees.

Agree or disagree, many would have other examples.

Unfortunately, whether the latest cellphone, pad or appliance with ear-plugs or vintage wine or car is the object to be coveted, it may not be made in America by Americans. But that is another lament.

There is a flip-side to culture, any culture. That is about reality that cannot be measured. A question of what cannot be measured when posed to a search engine brought some interesting yet somehow materialistic answers: love, laughing with friends, walking the dog, helping others. Good, yes, but not ethereal, not spiritual, except for love. And love can be several things, thus different words in other languages normally unused in English.

These non-material things are essential. Politicians rarely deal with them. Just ordinary folks appreciate them. Naming them in bunches isn’t done very often, save perhaps by religious people. Leaving religion aside – for the time being – among those valued by most people might be these, in no particular order or worthiness.

Courage, wisdom, courtesy, humor, mathematics,philosophy, insight, generosity, patriotism, agility, health.

Such a list could go on and on. So might the listing of their opposites, also non-material: Desirable versus undesirable. Good versus bad. Virtue versus evil.

Instances of meaningful opposing ideas -- tangible-intangible, concrete-abstract, material-spiritual – are numberless. We run across them every day. Some have major consequences. A recent example.

A Supreme Court justice recently made an abstract judgment that could change the American culture in ways that now can only be guessed. He decided, along with four others concurring, that the Congress of the United States in 1996 displayed animus and bigotry in confirming by law an institution accepted in time beyond memory, namely marriage between one man and one woman.

Tolerance is another immeasurable. It works both ways. It means respect for other’s beliefs. Respect and belief, two more abstractions. So it must be difficult to tolerate something that is bad or has no long-lasting benefits for society, although the doer can be tolerated. But, something that is good ordinarily is not the subject of tolerance. Animus and bigotry are abstracts that more often than not are aimed at things that are unacceptable to society. But, obviously, in the Supreme Court’s opinion even something for eons considered good can be wiped from federal law because its supporters can considered something worse than intolerant.

Things that cannot be measured are important. Most important. Fundamentally important.

Morality is one of those fundamentals of human relations.

So many “pleasures” (another intangible) of this life can be moral and, when misused, immoral. Correct, use and misuse involve the immeasurable. Morality springs from religion, which also is in its essence spiritual and which cannot be measured. God and morality go together.

God cannot be measured, but he made all that can and cannot be measured. He is wise. He is wisdom.

PIPELINES FROM CANADA NOT NEW

With the Obama administration’s opposition to the Keystone XL pipeline, one might think that the project is something new under the sun. Another might believe oil and natural gas pipelines are novel. Someone else might claim these buried lines are dangerous and injurious to the environment.

Just as with railroads, highways, airways, waterways, pipelines over the years have experienced accidents. Yet, statistics supplied by their regulatory agency, the U.S. Department of Transportation, show pipelines are safest.

But, the reason for this espousal of Keystone and pipelines in general stems from an accidental discovery. A Time magazine piece about the pipeline industry dated November 20, 1964, showed in a centerfold map the major lines then crisscrossing the United States, plus entries from Canada. Labeled, “Invisible Network, A Million Miles of Pipeline,” the spread also included a box that noted 710,000 miles of natural gas pipelines, a 148,000 mile-system for crude oil and another 57,000 miles for delivery of various products.

Time’s article celebrated the system and its growth.

Department of Transportation statistics for 2011, the latest that could be found readily, showed about the same for oil, 149,571 miles, but double for gas at 1,557,606 miles.

“Pipelines Are Safest for Transportation of Oil and Gas,” was the title of an exhaustive article published by the Manhattan Institute for Policy Research in June 2012. The publication was filled with statistical tables from the Department of Transportation. [Available at manhattan-institute.org/html/17.htm]

For some 75 years pipelines have carried crude from Canada to the United States.

Time, which backed the map with two full-page color photos of pipeline laying in its then familiar small-type, three-column, small-column black and white photos, wrote of the economic value of the lines. It spoke of the competition between railroads and the pipeline companies. It reported that some rail companies were laying pipelines along their right of ways. It told of 1,600,000 tons of improved pipe being bought from steel companies in 1964.

Oh yes, Lyndon B. Johnson was president.

‘AND AS MY OPPONENT WAS BABBLING . . .’

An ad for a brokerage in The Wall Street Journal featured this message: “Never mistake information for insight.”

Another way of putting that would be: Don’t confuse knowledge and wisdom.

Candidates for public office, regardless of party, make that mistake in almost every speech and campaign pitch, not to mention causing confusion.

Gullible voters, alas, are prone to fall for the scam.

One of the most successful practitioners was – is – William Jefferson Clinton, the man from Hope. His blarney was golden. [Has anyone noticed that nearly all of our recent presidents seem to have Irish ancestors? Someone on the Emerald Isle has a hereditary bent for tracing family trees back to nearly St. Paddy.] His encyclopedic mind could lay out strings of facts and factoids about acknowledged problems that would intrigue listeners, especially those writing for the news media. That ability made him the successful politician he was. Mrs. C is fated to use the same technique in her coming campaign to gain the same office Bill held for two terms. Remember, when he ran the first time, a campaign theme – though not official – was get two for one. She was purported to be the smartest woman on earth. She did parlay that reputation to garner a senate seat in a state in which she had not previously resided and as secretary of state.

John McCain was typical in his use of the same methods. In fact, the proper nouns in the preceding sentence could be left blank and then filled in with nearly any political name and be accurate.

Political party doesn’t matter.

Speeches laden with problem upon problem are so common that few are analyzed for content, especially in the popular press. Rather, campaigns are covered as races with progress reported in polling results and in changes therein.

Politicians and their handlers shun offering specific solutions, although opponents repeatedly point out that lack, because the “devil is in the details.” One can be attacked for propounding detailed solutions. Details can be nitpicked to good effect; no need to counter with one’s own details. The same danger lurks.

Border sealing is a good example in the debate on immigration legislation, which was campaign fodder for quite a few candidates. It is quite easy to agree the U.S.-Mexico border is long and porous. But sealing it, or whether it is tight enough, can be argued only with some fairly specific proposals. All of which can be retorted in myriad ways. Without getting into details, Mitt Romney suggested a partial solution to illegal immigration through self-deportation by aliens who might find pathways to citizenship too onerous. That got the candidate into heaps of trouble.

Serious politicians, whether in or running for office, should have enough integrity to offer their honest and detailed proposals for handling the problems and troubles that beset the jurisdiction they seek to help run, whether that is the country or merely a township. Such a course, admittedly, is much easier for the town selectman. But, voters should insist that opponents are as equally precise in their criticism. Voters are entitled to more than such attacks as in that old comedic line about the southern pol excoriating his opponent as “a known, practicing heterosexual.”

Modern politics being what they are, any move toward enlightened campaigning or helpful congressional debate may be but idealistic hoping. Speaking of idealism, our Founders were idealistic in their formulations for workable self-government. Despite today’s shortcomings, their genius survives.

A NATION DIVIDED AGAINST ITSELF CANNOT STAND

Unlike ancient Gaul, America is divided into more than three parts. There are many parts, all competing for special recognition. No need to name them for that would, under our present culture, lead to demands for apology, resignation, denunciation.

We are no longer a cohesive society. The inscription on the base of the Statue of Liberty that asks that this nation be given the refuge longing to be free had it right. America – our portion of the hemisphere – was intended to be something different from its colonial days: a place to exercise individual beliefs without governmental interference. True, many missteps were taken from the time of the Pilgrims through slavery and Prohibition and just plain ornery politicians. But the ideal of people of all stripes being able to compromise and live in harmony was an ideal that was – at least – pursued.

But divisions go beyond civics.

Cultural divides may be deeper and longer lasting.

Divisions occur in literature, technological conveniences, societal intimacies, and most important, age and gender. Every segment and sub-segment is represented somewhere, somehow. Whether it be a neighborhood, a club, a national organization, a lobby, a Website, a post office box, an attitude, those segments are in some way recognizable.

Nonetheless, because of this segmentation, the gulf between portions of our divided society grows and grows. Adhesion, unity, togetherness, nationhood is becoming more and more difficult to reclaim, as it seemed once to exist.

Our oldest people can remember the ‘20s, although probably not that well. Someone born in 1920 is now in his or her 94^th year. Centenarians probably number more than at any time since Biblical, but still they are not that numerous. Real life experience is remembered for the most part only from the ‘30s. The boom years of the “Roaring Twenties” were about their Prohibition and booze-running excesses that divided people into wets and drys, the God-fearing and flappers, law-breakers and peace loving. The Depression brought widespread unemployment, with numerous hoboes roaming the country looking for work. It was a land of vast contrasts --- men with jobs and those on breadlines, baseball and sit-down strikes, movies and dance marathons, skating rinks and dust bowls.

Youngsters knew at least something about those things from morning and evening newspapers, radio, magazines, Movietone news. Those were the same sources for their elders. Not everyone had access to those sources, but enough did, even if not directly. Anyone that could not afford the ten cents a week needed for home delivery of a paper, could stand outside the local newspaper building and read chalked boards with the latest headlines. Word got around, even to the underemployed and unemployed.

Regardless of age or financial status, everyone read, listened to or saw the same media (a word not used in this sense then) outlets. Cities of several hundred thousand usually had at least two or three AM and PM papers and sometimes shoppers, distributed free. Weekly magazines like the Saturday Evening Post were eagerly awaited for their variety of articles, commentary, news photos and fiction. Movies were seen either in the big and fancy downtown theaters with uniformed ushers or in the neighborhood movie house with free china one night a week to draw in customers. AM radio stations – three in most big towns, one each for CBS, NBC and the Red or Blue Network – programmed similarly: music from “hillbilly” to popular band and orchestra to classical to opera, drama from serious stories to comedy to “soap operas,” sports coverage from the ball park or college stadium to re-created reports based on Western Union blurbs for each inning or quarter, plus disc jockey shows. And, of course, there were libraries. Network programs were mostly produced live, including music, and unseen announcers wore tuxedos at night so as to be properly dressed.

Father, mother, children gathered around the radio and listened carefully through static to Sunday night comedy, drama, or to championship boxing matches, Fireside Chats. Radio and movies were big. [People went to movies when they wished, not timing their arrival to starting times. A common phrase, when getting up to leave, was, “This is where I came in.”]

So was all of this good? Not necessarily. These news and entertainment providers, however artful, did tend to unify their audiences. Readers and listeners enjoyed the same things, yet were discriminating enough to disagree on the content. The adhesion these various forms of news and entertainment brought was valuable to society. Some families might be broken, sure that happened, but the idea of families was not disparaged. Home brew might be passed around in a growler at family gatherings, but drunks were not created that way. Bootlegging might bring some hooch into a neighborhood celebration; crime was not glorified. People dressed in their good clothes, not only to go to church but to downtown shopping and to movies. Dating was the norm among young people, usually arranged ahead of time with boys calling on girls and waiting with her parents before she arrived in the living room. Of course there were some cases of pre-marital births, but such occurrences were considered shameful, not broadcast as acceptable behavior.

Class distinctions existed but without the overtness of English life. Formal clothing, such as striped trousers and morning coats and Ascots with top hats were seen on occasion; ladies wore gloves. Working men who did not do hard labor wore suits and ties to the job; leisure clothes were merely old clothing. Children did not wear scaled down adult clothing. For boys, moving up to long pants from knickers was cause for celebration. Higher education tended to stratify society, but not entirely. Recognition of generations was practiced, with young people being taught and expected to be respectful “to their elders.” Polite behavior was encouraged and practiced fairly uniformly. Bad language was pretty much confined to men and boys in their own gatherings and avoided in mixed company, and at home.

Were things better then and to be copied now? An obvious question; still no real direct answer possible.

Real social evils existed then, especially in race relations. There were unspeakable injustices such as lynching. Segregation went beyond mere choice (as sometimes happens now, unfortunately). It was lawful.

World War II and post-war conditions and the GI Bill probably lumped together probably hastened change in societal behavior. Those young people who grew up before and during the war were the actors in the change.

Society is courser now than then. No doubt about that. But it cannot all be blamed on the younger, post-wars generations. Not all can be blamed on technology and its adoption and adaption by entrepreneurs selling it to younger people eager to try it and be creative with it.

No, the norms of behavior and societal restraints have evolved into something much different than those in the ‘20s and ‘30s and ‘40s, and even early ‘50s. A turn occurred slowly from principles and mores that had existed for a great number of generations. Those guiding norms originated in Europe and found their way here, being adapted to a more democratic society, but nevertheless persisting, even through the rough and tumble of movement from the east to the wildness of the west.

In recent decades, American society’s segmentation has worked to the detriment of those unifying norms of behavior. Could it be that entrepreneurs, acting in a perfectly acceptable manner, trying to maximize profits have Balkanized the populace by taking advantage of differing tastes of its age levels? This concentration on demographics has divided Americans into targeted markets for goods and services that deepen separation. Look at kids sitting next to each other, texting and not conversing but communicating with thumbs tapping out speed-spell words, acronyms, and misspelled words. Social and communication skills are waning¸ bringing more individualism, endangering true friendships and dulling job qualifications.

Only persuasion can change our situation. But who is to persuade whom about what?

Politicians in Washington can’t even agree to disagree. Complete demonization becomes both tactic and goal in partisan encounters for victories. Political scientists collect data but define few principles. Philosophers (modern ones, anyway) wring hands but few bells. Theologians hail but fail to sell brotherly love based on divine worship.

Too many people overemphasize their individual rights, denying or ignoring those of a cohesive society. Selfish acts too often trump co-operative acts. How then to persuade the selfish to share and consider helpful ideas. It is something like the story portraying hell as full of food and starving inmates; they sit at tables laden with tasty viands, but each has a spoon with a broom-length handle. Selfishness prevents cooperation that could bring full bellies for all.

Some commentators see a profound difference between individualism and individuality. The former is freedom without responsibility; the latter freedom while seeking social good. Libertine versus liberty-loving.

Some leader – better leaders – needs to emerge who can show that common principles exist that unite Americans while still permitting division on the best ways to retrieve then maintain those sound convictions. Those principles, some at least, are questioned. Politically correct speech is infiltrating our society, especially in universities. By its very nature, PC attacks freedom of speech, one of the tenets labeled a right in the First Amendment. The attack goes beyond individual speech and hits political discourse – exactly why that right was recognized by the amendment’s authors -- when tax bureaucrats can discriminate handing out exemptions to groups organized around ideas. The right to practice religion is endangered when other bureaucrats can require action contrary to conscience. The right to criticize government is narrowed when some news organizations are intimidated by government’s lawyers. When those fundamental rights are threatened and other news organizations ignore their duty to ferret out the offenders.

Leaders must be among us who can point the country toward common beliefs and doctrines that could foster unity of purpose, recognition that the Constitution is a plan and not a roadblock.

Or, maybe our American society is now so fragmented that any semblance of cohesion is improbable. Seers of the past warned that democracy contained seeds of its own destruction. Can that be proved wrong? Our grandchildren may the generation to find out.

A house divided cannot stand.

Lincoln made that point famous in his 1858 speech accepting his party’s nomination for the U.S. Senate. He was speaking about a country “half slave and half free.”

Jesus said it first when he was accused of driving out demons by the power of Beelzebul. “Every kingdom divided against itself will be laid waste, and no town or house divided against itself will stand.”

WAS IT THAT LONG AGO?

George Wallace as governor tried 50 years ago June 11 to block the doors of the University of Alabama to two black students. Because of National Guard troops, they were admitted to classes. That night, President John Kennedy hailed what had happened, and the drive for civil rights for African Americans was well underway.

Less than a year later, I was sent by the Milwaukee Journal to write about Wallace and his candidacy for president.

Editors of the newspaper in Huntsville, where I started my trek to Montgomery, warned that I should be aware that state police know I was in the state and driving a rental car. That seemed a little far-fetched, but later on . . .

Not all my memories are sharp, and I don’t have my stories written then at hand now. But some are quite clear, one being my interview with former governor “Big Jim” Folsom. (In his Christmas message of 1949, Gov. Folsom said, “As long as the Negroes are held down by deprivation and lack of opportunity, the other poor people will be held down also alongside them.”) Big Jim, whose son also became Alabama governor, wouldn’t permit me to take notes of our interview. But when I got to the car afterward, I immediately began writing what I could recall. One quote was actually verbatim: “George (Wallace) won’t go to funerals, ‘cause he can’t be the corpse.” His drawl was filled with sardonic disapproval of his fellow Democrat. My editor cut that quote.

There were a few other stops to pick up background. One was an evening at the Hartselle home of novelist and freelance journalist William Bradford Huie, who covered the civil rights in the south.

Upon arriving in the capitol in Montgomery, I found the governor’s office locked. A state trooper opened the door, and greeted me by name. That triggered the warning given in Huntsville. I don’t remember having made an appointment.

Ushered into the governor’s spacious office, I was directed to a long bench along a paneled wall. From there I watched Wallace as he signed what seemed to be state contracts handed him by an attractive aide.

“Do we know this guy?” Wallace asked repeatedly before signing. Graft? Who knows? There was no way of getting a source.

Leaving Montgomery I drove to the capitol, stopping at the curb long enough to try to catch a glance of the Confederate battle flag, said to fly below the Stars and Stripes. But, to my everlasting regret, I couldn’t see it and I was late for my flight to Atlanta.

Starting my series as I sat in a fortuitous but un-bought first-class seat, I wanted to write about that banner high above the statehouse. Instead, the piece began something like: George Wallace, wrapping himself in the Confederate flag, has begun a quest for the White House.

Much to my chagrin, Wallace kept bringing up my name in speeches as he campaigned in Wisconsin’s presidential primary that spring. He thought I had treated him fairly in my three-part series.

AN ORANGE KANGEROO FROM DENMARK

Call him Andy. He and some other senior golfers were sitting around the clubhouse after their weekly embarrassment on the golf course. Somehow the blather developed to a point where Andy asked how good someone was at math.

Now Andy is a persuasive sort of guy. A political operative in Washington, he runs a small consulting­-lobbying firm. His background is legislator from a tough-politics New England state, hired hand and volunteer in presidential campaigns in flyover states, and a sometime sub-cabinet appointee. He knows his way around the corridors of the federal government. He is no shrinking violet.

One or two guys bite on the math query. Turns out it is more about arithmetic, but that’s a pol for you. It all goes something like this:

Take a number. Don’t tell me. Divide that by two. Add the first number. Got it? Multiply by two. Divide by four. Now multiply by ten. Okay? You now have fifty. Right?

Only one guy by now had played along. But fifty was the number in his head. His reaction was astonishment.

Andy, of course, was gloating.

“Magic?” he asks, seemingly wanting that reaction, and ready to pounce on it. “There is no magic.” Or words to that effect, for there was no stenographer there, and no cell phones recording.

“Good trick,” allowed the astonished one. “Great trick. How ‘ja do it?”

No answer, of course, but rather another trick. It started the same way, with a series of taking a number and performing a series of arithmetical calculations. Then, a switcheroo.

Now convert that number to the corresponding letter in the alphabet; one for A, and so on. Okay? Now take that letter and think of a country in Europe that begins with that letter. Now take the last letter and make that the first letter of an animal.

There was another question with the answer supplying the animal with a color.

Got it?

“Yeah.”

Orange kangaroo from Denmark.

“Damn! How ‘ja do that? That’s absolutely great. Can’t believe it. Come on, how do you do that?”

An octogenarian flabbergasted by a fast-talking politician is not a pretty sight to behold. Except to the pol.

But how did he do it? For someone gullible enough to fall for such nonsense, the answer would have to be intriguing. For someone who likes crossword puzzles, Sudoku, word games and mind-benders, the answer may not come immediately yet it would be completely understandable.

Answers must derive from some math formula that always comes up with the same number. The trickster asking the trickee to multiply by 10 will always add up to fifty, five being the constant answer. Using the multiplier will disguise the trick if the victim asks for another go-round. Or, the trickster can use the added feature of asking the trickee to convert to letters. After that, mental suggestion takes over.

Ah, eureka moment!

Consult the internet and its encyclopedic sources. Sure ‘nough, there are tricks called alphametric, cryptarithm and similar names. High school algebra, says one source, can provide formulas to account for such tricks as befell the clubhouse victims. Those tricks do depend upon the same number as an answer, every time.

Our Web searcher gave up before finding proof of the suggestive nature of the trick he fell for. One does have to admit that “orange kangaroo from Denmark” is one hellava punch line.

MAYBE PARITY RATHER THAN PARTY

Co-equal branches of the United States of America government are no longer equal.  Parity is gone.  Symmetry is out of balance.  Even-handedness is out of whack.  There is a lack of equivalence.  The level’s bubble is off-center.

Looking at the Constitution, the three branches of our government are established in this order: legislative, executive, judicial --- Articles I, II and III.  That lineup makes sense.

Our government is supposed to be established by those who are ultimately affected in every way: the folks, to use the contemporary usage for “we the people.” It was not actually a gathering of all the people, but it all started with an assembly of people elected by the residents of the 13 original colonies.  They wrote the Declaration of Independence and they somehow managed to finance a revolution.  When they discovered by failure that the Articles of Confederation lacked the recipe for running a new nation, they came together in convention and wrote the Constitution of the United States.  The colonies-turned-states ratified that document, and the new country had a fresh start. 

That truncated history shows the pre-eminence of elected bodies – representatives of citizens, albeit all males – in molding a system of governance new to humankind.  Sure, there were some intelligent, educated, wise men behind the resulting document, but that piece of writing was worked by persons selected by various ballots to do the job.  And after ratification, elected people stuck on ten mighty additions that spelled out the rights of the people.  Those additions are labeled “amendments” and not more “articles.”

So, we got the Congress under Article I, the body representing citizens and states (remember, originally senators were elected by the state legislators) that decided proposed the laws of the land.

And we got the presidency for signing the proposals into law, law which the president was to carry out.  He was the see that the government formed by the citizen­-authorized convention functioned.  “President” was a relatively new term at the time, and making the chief executive of the United States of America both head of government and of state undoubtedly was a first. 

Finally, the judicial power was needed to decide what the laws meant.  The Constitution established “one supreme Court” and “such inferior Courts as the Congress may from time to time ordain and establish.”

Over time, this original governmental structure has evolved.  Does the progression of the establishment of co-equal branches still obtain?   If not, should it?

Most important and notable in the changes have been the end of slavery and the full citizenship for women.  Also, senators are now popularly elected.  All those changes took many decades, too many.  Some disagreement still exists openly over the change in the Senate. 

Without getting too specific as to causes, most people will agree that the branches are no longer equal.  The center of gravity has shifted toward the presidency.  The president is the leader, or perceived as such.  Sure, the speaker of the House of Representatives for some time now is second in the line of succession, after the vice president (the secretary of state had been until late in the country’s second century) and the chief justice administers the presidential oath of office, but attention focuses on the president.  Are there anthems equivalent to “Hail to the Chief” for the speaker and the chief justice?   If so, no one can whistle them.

Besides the ceremonials that now surround the presidency (something eschewed by George Washington), such powers as executive orders, signing statements, interim appointments, war powers, and pressing or refusing indictments through the Justice Department are only a sample of ways the executive can control events. 

When the president is of the same political party that controls the senate then he and it can sometimes gain influence – if not control – over the high court through the appointment process.  That has happened.  (Once and attempt to “pack the court” by expanding its membership was averted by the Congress.)

Political parties are unmentioned in the Constitution.  They did develop soon after the new government was formed.  Over the centuries, the vitriol from the parties has ebbed and flowed.   Benefits of party exist; disadvantages as well.  Two parties – pretty much our system – may work better than many, such as in many parliamentary systems wherein organizing can become quite difficult.  With two, organization quickly falls into place.  With only two, moderate and marginal and mid members of the parties can affect outcomes; leadership becomes paramount; results may mirror parliamentary disarray.  [For the most part, legislative and executive are combined in a parliament while the judiciary exists separately and the head of state can be a figurehead.] Gathering votes is difficult in either system.

Inherent in our system is compromise.  As it exists, two parties can only decide issues through compromise, which probably is desirable in a mixed society such as ours. From time to time, one party controls both the presidency and the Congress; that can be problematical.  Perhaps a non­-partisan government would work out real solutions to national problems through avoiding angering zealots.  The chances of that happening would be greater had not the current situation developed.  Switching successfully to a non-party system would be difficult. 

No doubt parties will continue to be, even though they might not flourish. Most candidates are reluctant to advertise their party affiliations.  Independents cannot be ignored.  At times some problems by their very nature beg bi-partisan approaches; then debate becomes more substantive, even in a milieu of intense partisan disagreement (illegal immigration may be one such issue).

Ideally, government would confine itself to facing real problems, not those with some sexiness.  Solutions would be proposed after some competent research.  Opposition, also, would be based on competent research.  Previous attempts to eliminate the problem at hand would be examined.  Kudos would be collected by those politicians that did real work in approaching if not achieving a successful answer --- a workable law.

Oh, the alarm sounds.  The real world intervenes.

HOW MUCH GOVERNMENT IS TOO MUCH?

Can government in this country ever be simplified to essentials?

Probably not.

Should we who care for the beauty and presumed workability of the Constitution even try?

We must.

Government is necessary. That cannot be doubted or denied.

Too much defeats government’s purpose.

Too little government brings political disorder, violence. Too much can bring anarchy, which is defined as absence of government or political disorder.

Problem: how much is the correct amount or force of government?

One of Thomas Jefferson’s quotations about government is this: “A wise and frugal Government, which shall restrain men from injuring one another, which shall leave them otherwise free to regulate their own pursuits of industry and improvement, and shall not take from the mouth of labor the bread it has earned. This is the sum of good government, and this is necessary to close the circlue [sic] of our felicities.”

Enough government maintains order; discourages yet deals with disorder, which includes crime as well as unfairness; permits the pursuit of livelihood plus savings; protects individual freedom and liberty that do not impinge the commonweal, ensures private property. Such a description comes close to enough is enough, but can be debated. Admittedly, achieving the correct imposition of governmental control is Solomonic. One citizen’s wisdom is another’s folly.

Also, it seems logical that the various levels of government should have their place and their legitimate jurisdictions --- from sewerage and fire districts in some states, to town, village, city, county, state and national governments. That brings to mind the adage about government closest to the people. Henry David Thoreau said, “That government is best which governs least, because its people discipline themselves.”  But then there is the recent example of a small city in California that paid its officials salaries usually restricted of business magnates. And, there are some indications that Washington has taken over functions better fitted to lower governmental units that failed in those responsibilities.

In today’s United States, conservatives believe too much government weighs down its citizens; liberals believe only government that addresses all public and private concerns can suffice. Conservatives see a surfeit of government has already been imposed and few if any new laws are required; liberals are convinced halcyon days of governing are yet to be realized. In fairness, neither conservative nor liberal wants dictatorship, yet any agreement on outside limits of governmental control of citizens’ lives seems beyond reach.

Regardless of one’s perspective, no serious measure has been taken of government by elected officials at any level of governance. That may be going too far, but over the years, how many examples can be cited? Some states have had study committees or commissions, some even have rewritten state constitutions, but most states have constitutions that are as bulky as a statute book¸ and which require frequent amendment. From time to time, even the federal government has studied taxes, or health, or budgeting. But most studies get nowhere after publication. Some jurisdictions have offices that prepare bills making routine changes in existing laws, so routine that little notice is paid.

Complaints are heard from time to time about 70,000-plus pages in the federal tax code, hundreds of programs that duplicate governmental functions, rule-making that multiplies the bulk of legislative measures that gained passage without being read by the elected lawmakers. Page after page could be written here reminding readers of examples they have heard about: irrigation waters cut off to farmers, oil leases not issued, endangered insects given priority over human beings, completed factories stopped from opening, additives mandated that actually negate their purpose. Endless examples could, and are, argued over every day somewhere. Yet hardly anything is ever resolved. Nearly every day a legislator proposes a hearing or a law because of a news item and the opportunity to make political hay; and someone – entrepreneur or politician or academic or victim or newsmaker – stands to win or lose should that proposal become final.

How might meaningful reform come about? Leadership is the one-word answer. Yet leaders are few. Real leaders are just about always found to have feet of clay. Or their virtues are turned into liabilities. A presidential candidate would find it hard to center his or her campaign on governmental reform. Other urgent topics would necessarily impose themselves.

Reformation issue by issue may be the only answer. Take something such as cigarettes. For maybe a century everybody knew that cigarettes were bad fer ‘ya. “Coffin nails.” Who hadn’t heard that phrase? Out came the surgeon general’s report on the dangers of smoking in the ‘60s, and the assault began to have some impact. Now, a half century later, cigarette smoking in the United States is down, but not out. Cigarette makers are dependent upon smokers in other lands and other cultures for their profits. But cigarettes and other tobacco products, although regulated, are still legal and public treasuries are still dependent upon tobacco tax revenues. The point is that a common sense issue has been dealt with more by public self-discipline than by governmental action. Warnings on cigarette packs remain controversial and advertising limitations haven’t stopped a significant minority from stepping out into the cold weather for a drag or two.

And maybe some governmental regulations do help. One of those may affect automobile and truck tires. Older drivers remember when they replaced tires often, perhaps every 10,000 miles, because of wear. Manufacturers have made strides, and better cars require better materials between wheels and road, but surely the safety regulations must have something to do with tires now lasting 50,000 miles and longer.

Those kinds of material matters are easier to perceive than philosophical concerns, such as fair trials, public union representation, immigration law and its enforcement (another beginning of a list that could entail thousands of words). The essentials of government encompass concrete and abstract ideas and ideals. Most people, regardless of their political leanings, should agree that our governmental foundation in the United States of America is sound although needing some mortar at the joints. The superstructure, however, is appearing more and more to be jerrybuilt.

A correct amount of government will require some demolition, some reconstruction, and, of course, a blueprint.

No real hope in renewing the structure can be had until enough citizens – voters – start to take responsibility for the work ahead. No good to worry about a time-line for completion. There should be worry, nevertheless, about making the start.

DOG BITES MAN

Don’t attempt to pet strange dogs. Even when they have already been petted by your spouse.

I still have a scab on my right arm after nearly three weeks. And the wound was caused by only one big tooth that did not – repeat, not – penetrate the sleeve of my trench coat, or the arm of a sweater or a long-sleeved shirt.

We were in a pet store that welcomes dogs on leashes .Before the bite, my wife had stroked the dog and later learned its name. Its owner, a nice young matron, was with a child. The dog was big, more than 80 pounds, nearly waist tall.

I reached down to her and patted her head. Wrong. More about that later.

Shelby’s upper right fang hit in a nano second.

The pain was sharp and immediate.

A burning sensation lasted for minutes.

A gunshot must feel something like it.

Shelby’s owner was humiliated. Her apologies unceasing. She and her dog were excused. There had been no apparent harm. My wife and I went on shopping.

Perhaps five minutes later the woman, without dog, tracked us down in the store, again inquired about any damage, again offered sincere regrets. She did explain the rescued dog had been abused, probably by a man. She was assured no harm had been done. The wound was discovered only after reaching home. By then the pain had subsided, but discomfort continued. My clothing was checked again; no indication of a dog bite could be detected.

Flesh on the inside of my right forearm had been pushed in by the fang, leaving a nearly round wound about the size of a lead pencil’s shaft. Although the flesh was slightly indented, It was barely bloody. Below the wound was a bruise, about the size of a half-dollar. Antiseptic on a stick-on bandage was the treatment.

A couple of days later my wife showed up with a newspaper clipping from her files. It instructed that strange dogs should never be petted on the head. Such a gesture was clearly an unfriendly approach to a pooch. Rather, when wishing to be nice to a strange canine, an upturned palm should be presented below muzzle level. That gesture is accepted, generally, by dogs as friendly.

I can wait to apply the lesson.