Stop or I''ll Shoot

I took the afternoon off, and happened to catch two things on TV that got my mind churning.  The first item was an add for ADT (the home security service), in which a young woman relates the experience of a home break in, and was, afterwards, not able to feel secure in her own home until she had an ADT security system installed.
 
The second item I saw was the speech by Wayne LaPierre  the spokesperson for the National Rifle Association, concerning the recent school shooting in Conn.  In this speech, he made no concessions about gun control, instead, he blamed the media, video games, the president, and our mental health system.  he called for a national database of mentally ill people, and for armed guards in every school in the country.

Now, here is the connection between the NRA speech and the ADT advertisement.  Both of these organizations pretend to promote security, one with the use of guns and guards, and the other with the use of sophisticated surveillance equipment, but in fact both organizations intentionally promote insecurity in order to achieve their own agenda.

In the case of ADT, if they can convince Americans that they are no longer safe in their own homes, they can  sell more security systems.  The NRA, using the same logic can sell more guns.  What's that you say, the NRA does not sell guns?  No, not directly, but dig deep and you will find that the NRA is deep in the pockets of the arms industry.  There is no direct connection between the NRA and the arms manufacturers, but you can bet that they pull the NRA's strings.  This, by the way, is analogous to the AARP and the insurance industry except that AARP is actually owned by an insurance company.

Who knows, perhaps an armed guard might at some point successfully  intervene in a school shooting,  perhaps arming all the teachers, principals, and janitors might be even more effective.  Maybe ADT can get into the act as well, with security cameras and locks.  But at what cost?  Do we want to run our schools and homes like prisons.  If we fall for these measures, the overall pain of our insecurity will be a million times greater than out gain.

A disclaimer here, I am a gun owner, I have owned guns since I was a child, I like to shoot guns, I like to hunt, although I don't hunt any longer, and I believe it is my absolute right to own a gun or guns.  I also play  violent video games like Halo and Gears of war, and go to violent movies.  I think both industries are over  the top with their violence and dialogue.  It may be that these things sometimes have an adverse affect on an already fragile state of mind.  Maybe reruns of "Rambo" should be banned so that all those assault weapon mega clip  carrying Walter Mittys out there will quit thinking of themselves as heroic patriotic defenders of America.  Perhaps they should take out their frustrations on some video game aliens.  Then maybe we could pass some sensible gun laws.



                          

Servant Economy

One of my favorite quotes, from Voltaire, is that " the comfort of the rich requires an abundant supply of the poor".  I'm afraid this is the future of American workers in this country.  Maybe a few people will remember President H W Bush making the statement that America is evolving into a service economy.  Approximately 20 years later I think I can safely say that instead of evolving in to a service economy, we are devolving into a servant economy.

Remember when we thought advances in technology would make life easier for everyone.  How robots would perform arduous and repetitious tasks so efficiently that goods would become abundant and cheap for us all.  How we would work less hours, and yet have a better life style.  So, what happened?  The technology is here, America produces more manufactured goods than ever before in our history, yet American manufacturing jobs have decreased from around 36% of all jobs in America to only about 16% today.  At the same time, the American middle class has been on a steady decline since at least the early eighties, except for a brief expansion during President Clinton's tenure.  ( I'm not praising Clinton here, he was just the beneficiary of happy circumstance)

Here's what I think happened, and here's where I think we are going.  Simply put, the wealthy kept the profits made from our increased productivity, and passed none of it along to the rest of us.  On the contrary, because we've seen a surplus of American labor caused by increased productivity, and an influx of cheap foreign labor and goods,  corporate  America has viewed the American worker as just one more commodity to be purchased at the lowest possible price.  At the same time, the American labor union movement has been vilified as socialist, communist, or worse, even though that same labor movement brought to Americans almost every advance in worker rights that still exist today.  This is true no matter that you belong to a labor union or not.  I'm talking about the forty hour week, overtime pay, vacation pay, sick leave, child labor laws, equal pay for women, the minimum wage, employer provided health care, all of these things can trace their origins back to the American labor movement, certainly not to the largess of the employers.  I don't hesitate to add that each and every one of these worker rights are under assault by corporate America, and largely the republican party.

And where are we going?  Unless unchecked, the American worker will find himself,  increasing desperate for work, and increasingly the only work available will be servant work for the wealthy.  Our pay, benefits, and our jobs will be at the mercy of the royalty we serve.  We will have voted ourselves right into a nation of royals and serfs.

If even a small minority of republicans would simply forget the side issues that the party panders to, abortion, gay rights, gun laws, religion, repeal of "Obama care", welfare, and race, and a larger number of apathetic democrats would get out and vote for their best interests, that is, an America that is not dominated by the wealthiest 1%,  we could truly take this country back.

With friends like this.............

I received some Face book fan mail today.  Someone, apparently a younger person, sent to me an anonymous letter in the mail taking issue with something I posted on Facebook.  I looked back at my wall postings and could not find exactly what this person was referring to, so I think it must have been a comment I made about someone else's posting.  I'm reprinting the letter below, and would appreciate any comments about the letter.  So, here it is.

"Mr. Eudy.  I saw a note you put on facebook last week and I thought it was strange.  Do you really think all republicans are rich?  We are not.  And all of us are zealots? We aren't that either.  I said something to my parents about it (you worked for them a couple of years ago.)  They said its just because you are probably not a christian and you don't think like we do.  So I decided to tell you how we think so you might understand.  We believe in God and the Bible.  In the Bible there are commandments that we try to follow.  One is that we have no other god before us.  Sometimes it seems that ppls (peoples I guess) political parties become their religion.  Even if it goes against God's ways.  Another is not to covet someone else's possesions.  It seems democrats are always mad because someone else has more than they have.  And they want the government to take it away and give it to them.  They say they don't pay their fair share.  How is that when 1/2 the ppl don't pay anything?  Another commandant is not to kill.  Abortion is killing a baby.  They say it's a women's body and she can do anything she wants.  Christians believe everything belongs to God, even our bodies.  The bible say's they are God's temple.  The Bible says homosexuals are an abomination.  Democrats say it's OK and want to promote it.  Democrats want God out of our schools and government.  I've read a lot about the founding fathers.  Prayer was included in almost all of their meetings.  They even said all of our rights come from God.  Why do democrats now want God out of our lives?  They say that republicans are mean spirited.  It looks to me like the mean ones are the democrats saying bad stuff about the republicans all the time.  And they get mad and burn stores and knock out windows.  We don't want to starve ppl.  We give food to the food banks and volunteer at the Salvation Army.  It's usually Christian groups that do this.  I haven't seen any atheist groups down there or ppl that don't go to church.  Christians tithe (give ten percent for the poor, missionaries, etc.) because they want to.  Not because they have to.  They showed not long ago that the vice president only gave a couple of hundred dollars to charity for one year.  Looks like he's the mean one to me.  Christians try to obey the laws.  How come the president wants to let illegal mexicans stay in the country.  He should make sure the laws are obeyed.  Christians don't usually do drugs, at least all the ones we know.  But the people that are in the democratic party sure use drugs.  Like president Clinton.  He admitted using drugs.  And he lied in court.  The democrats said that was OK because he was just lieing about cheating on his wife.  That sounds crazy to a Christian!  Anyway, dad says you can't change ppls politics.  They are usually what their parents taught them to be and don't really think things through.  But I think if you went to church and became a Christian, you might change the way you think and understand why you don't have to be rich to be a republican.  I don't want to sound mean because we try not to be mean.  I hope you start going to church."

Wow!  How do I respond to that.  If anyone know where I posted the lead in about rich republicans and zealots, please let me know.   I would like to know the context around the remark  It admittedly sounds somewhat intemperate.  I certainly don't believe all republicans are rich, nor are all or even most of them zealots.

A couple of comments.

It seems that this person believes that republicans pretty much have a lock on Christianity, and democrats are all godless sinners.  I expect that most of my friends would take issue with this regardless of their political affiliation.

No, we are not mad because someone else has more than us, we are mad because many people in the richest country in the world do not have enough to get by on, and we believe it is the government's role to alleviate that problem.  It, by the way, is a basic Christian belief that it is the government's role to do so, read the 13th chapter of Romans, or read Psalm 72, or just read the New Testament and read the words of Jesus about the rich and the poor.

One thing I agree with the writer on is what he said about his father's views on politics.  People often believe what their parents tell them and don't really think things through.  Case in point.


  

The Nature of Sin

I was having dinner with some friends a few weeks ago, when, as usual, the conversation veered away from polite, onto the verboten topics of religion and politics. I'm like a victim of Turret's syndrome, I just can't stop myself from blurting out things that get people riled up.

The issue that got the ball rolling was the question of whether homosexuality is a choice, or is caused by genetics or some other reason. My statement that I believed that in males, choice is seldom a factor, but that in women, choice is often a part of the equation, immediately got the women at the table stirred up. I've written about this before, and if you are interested in my reasoning, look up my blog from December 2009 "The New Reality".  By the way, I  recently read about a study of Identical twins, both male and female which corroborated my reasoning.

The conversation followed several vectors. From the cause of homosexuality, we went on to weather or not the marriage of gay couples should be recognized, and if so, should they be allowed to be married in the church. We were in uneasy agreement about the first part, but I was definitely in the minority on the second. We all pretty much agreed that gay couples should be afforded the same legal rights as straight couples, but I argued that they should be allowed to be married in the church as well. The chief argument against gay marriage in the church, was that it would sanction a sin as stated in the Bible. Here the conversation took a surprising third turn.

My agnostic views are pretty well known, so I guess the question one of my friends asked should not have surprised me. He asked me how I can even recognise sin if I am not convinced in the existence of God. I cast about for an answer, muttering something about my moral compass not needing religion to show me the way, but like most spontaneous conversation, there was not time for deliberation. I've had time to think about it, so here we go.

When I think about the Biblical concept of sin, there are two main sources, the first being the Ten Commandments, and secondly, the many specific sins delineated all through the Bible, especially in the old Testament.

I think that they can all be broken down into two categories, the first, being questions of fairness, and the second , sins of social convention.

In the ten commandments, the last six fall under the first category, and the first four under the second. It is certainly unfair to lie, steal, murder, commit adultery, dishonor your parents, and generally covet your neighbor's property. The first four are about the social conventions that strenghten the bonds of monotheism in the Jewish and Christian faiths. You can see that the commandments of fairness have withstood the test of time, while the first four have been somewhat subject to the pressures of modern times, especially the commandment to honor the sabbath.

Beyond the Ten Commandants, most of the other sins of the Bible fall under the category of sins of social conventions. Some are still pertinent, while others are archaic and are widely ignored. All are subject to revision as societies knowledge and beliefs change.  These conventional sins cover a lot of ground, including masturbation, homosexuality, dietary requirements, dress, etc.  In many cases, it seems that the rules were instituted for control of the masses by the church, especially the control of women.

I find it interesting that the Cardinal sins:  Lust, gluttony, greed, sloth, wrath, envy , and pride, seem to be largely ignored by most, or even embraced as virtues by my objectivist friends.  These sins are essentially sins of selfishness.

Personally, I find that the Golden Rule (a version of which can be found in almost all religions); "Do unto others as you would have them do unto you",  encompasses  everything I need to know about sin.  I may occasionally get lost, but this moral compass keeps me headed in the general direction.

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Obama at War

I've about had it with President Obama. I voted for the guy because I thought he was smart enough for the job, and was pragmatic enough to be able to get things done. The one thing I didn't expect was that he would continuously roll over to the Republicans like a cowed dog.

In my mind, there are two possible explanations for his behavior. First, he may be too much like my wife, a good person who has trouble seeing the bad in people around her. The Republicans, the oil companies, the health care industry, and the bankers all screw over him (and us), and he thinks to himself; "I need to try to reach out to them, and convince them of the error of their ways. They are really good people that merely have a different opinion of things."

The other explanation for his character flaw is that he's like a woman in an abusive relationship. She gets slapped around, she feels he has nowhere else to go, it doesn't hurt as bad the next day, and she believes that her spouse's conciliatory gestures are sincere. So, instead of standing up for herself, she hangs around for the next bitch slapping.

At least, former president Clinton, in spite of his own character flaws, recognized that he was locked in mortal combat with the Republican party. Clinton, certainly not a radical left winger, was viewed as an impediment to the Republican agenda of complete and irreversible political domination of the United States. Down, but not out, he understood the power of his office and used it to good effect.

It's time for Obama to lash out. No more vapid speeches about compromise and finding common agenda. His opponents led by Mcconnell and Boehner are out to destroy him and the American middle class along with him. He has at his disposal, the power to speak out each and every day about the enemy. Yes, the enemy. We are engaged in class warfare, and the middle class is not even aware of it. The Republicans are not protecting us from creeping socialism, they are leading us down the road to serfdom.

Most of my friends consider themselves republicans, and I know they have been and will be offended by my ranting. They have been duped. I don't have a single friend in the top one percent of income earners. Yet all of my republican friends believe their party is looking out for them. They believe that as long as their modest fortunes are allowed to stagnate, but not grow, their interests are protected. They do not understand that the ultimate goal in the national monopoly game is the control of all wealth and power by an aristocratic minority. This minority already owns board walk and park place, and they are playing with loaded dice. The children and grandchildren of my friends will be the ultimate losers.

President Obama is about to compromise on the expiration of the Bush tax cuts. The Republicans are holding the Congress hostage until he gives in. I say, let the cuts expire, I'll pay my additional share, the country needs the money. But, let the American middle class know that their taxes went up because of the Republican desire to help the super rich.

Enough hand wringing about death taxes and capital gains taxes. No dead person has ever been taxed. Only the inheritors of wealth way in excess of that of my friends are taxed. If I were to win three hundred million dollars in the power ball lottery, my earnings would be taxed as income. Why should the winners of the birthright lottery be exempt from paying taxes on their winnings. If I go out and pound nails day in and day out, I will be taxed on my earnings. Why should people who merely sit back and watch their money grow not be taxed on their earnings.

Thanksgiving 2010

I'm thankful that it only comes once a year. I've said this over and over again, to the point that my friends at the coffee shop groan when I bring it up. I'm not crazy about turkey and the six or eight types of mush that goes along with the thanksgiving meal.

This year, my son and his wife could not be home for thanksgiving, and all of my close friends were engaged with their families, so, faced with the prospect of just my wife, mother, and my self consuming this huge meal, I turned to the company of strangers. Not really strangers, but neighbors that Kathy and I did not know very well, but they seemed like nice people. We invited Doug and Kay, who have lived a few blocks up the street for about twenty five years, and Wade and Dawn, who have lived in Concord only a few years, and also live just up the street. Kay's brother, Bob, who lives in Georgia was coming to town, so we also invited him. These two couples did not know each other. I had a great time, and I hope everyone else did. Let me tell you about it.

Everyone came to the house about an hour and a half before dinner, and we had a few drinks and chatted about this and that. I guess we were all a bit stiff, and on our best behavior, but polite and friendly. We sat down to dinner and continued our conversation. You can imagine most of the conversation, a brief synopsis of our life histories. Where we were from, our children, what kind of work we did. Bob was an ex Air Force pilot, and he talked about his experiences in Vietnam, and Doug, Wade, and I talked about why we were not in the service. I'm pretty gregarious, so I like this kind of stuff, just getting to know a little about each other. I had promised myself that I would not talk about politics or religion, and I did pretty well until the coffee and deserts were finished. (I can imagine a collective groan from any of my friends that happen to read this.) Some how, (perhaps I brought it up) the subject of military spending came up, specifically, the cost of the new Joint Task Force Fighters soon to be built. As you can guess, a subject near and dear to Bob, the ex fighter pilot. Things tensed up a bit. We quickly jumped from the cost of the planes, to the need for the size of our military, to justification for the war in Iraq, to intervention in the Iranian nuclear program, and ultimately to the projection of American military might all over the world. Big wars always start small. Bob seems to be a reasonable man, and I generally am as well, so the whole discussion was pretty low key, although we were in most cases on opposite sides of the issues.

The problem though, is this. Even in a reasonable conversation, most of the dialogue consists of zingers and incomplete thoughts. It's impossible to have perfectly reasoned and erudite responses to each other's remarks. It's not like an episode of "West Wing". This is why I've found that I like to write this stuff down, even if no one ever reads it. Here's what I think about America's Military.

I'm not a naive left wing fool, I think that we need a strong military to protect our country, and our interests. I don't think that our military needs to be five or ten times stronger than any potential foe. I think that we are a danger to ourselves and to the rest of the world because of the force we can bring to bear.

Just as we destroyed the Soviet Union by out spending them in the arms race, we are financially destroying our selves with the ever increasing cost of our military. I looked this up; actually, direct defense costs in real dollars have been fairly constant since the mid sixties, but increasingly we are borrowing money to pay for that defense spending, and now, the debt burden is almost as much as the actual defense cost. In addition to the cost of simply maintaining our military, we have the astronomical costs of the the wars we have gotten ourselves into. Like I said, all wars start small. Advisers in Vietnam to half a million troops and fifty thousand American solders dead. Topple Saddam Hussein and more than eight years of occupation, plus a trillion dollars spent.

The biggest problem with our huge military is the potential to use it. Yes, Iran probably has a nuclear program, North Korea certainly does. Both countries exhibit bizarre behavior, but are not crazy to the point of inviting annihilation by provoking a nuclear attack by us if they were to explode a nuclear war head over us or one of our allies. We can deal with both countries the same way we dealt with Russia and China during the cold war. We assure mutual destruction if attacked, and we wait them out. Things change, leaders are ousted, our enemies become our friends. We have dealt with North Korea for sixty five years, and an adversarial Iran for thirty. So far, our leaders have not had the stomach to deal with either one of them militarily. The danger is that our military power might embolden our future leaders to leap over the precipice.

Of course, there is the real danger of a country like North Korea providing nuclear weapons to a third party in an attempt to damage us by proxy, but we already live with that danger in Russia and Pakistan. I can't see how a massive military option can protect us from that kind of danger.

I could go on with this, but it's almost time to go to the coffee shop, so I'll stop now.

The Perfect Pet

Well, it's four thirty in the morning, and I've been lying in bed awake for the last hour and a half with random semi dream state sparks of wisdom going off in my head.

Many years ago when the notion of no good deed going unpunished was not yet firmly implanted in my brain, one of my cousins and his brother in law asked me if I could give them a hand on the coming Tuesday night, and thinking they needed me to help move a refrigerator or something, I agreed to help. They picked me up, and I became highly suspicious when I realized that they both had on coats and ties. I was afraid that they were going for some kind of religious intervention, but even worse, it turned out to be an Amway meeting.

So, I go to this meeting, and during the rah-rah section where they are trying to convince everyone of the fabulous wealth they are about to obtain, they posed the question: "What would you buy if you had all the money you wanted. One by one, they let everyone in the room answer the question. Considering the unlimited nature of the question, most of the answers were fairly pedestrian, some wanted a new house, or to take a trip. One stringy haired hippy type kid said that he would love to have a new Trans-Am with a big eagle across the hood. You have to admire some one with such lofty goals. I don't remember what I said, but I was not very enthusiastic about the process, so maybe I just wished for cab fare. Anyway, this little event sometimes comes to mind when I'm lying in bed reviewing life's injustices, and this morning my stream of conscience led me to consider what I would buy if I indeed had a boat load of money.

Let's say that tomorrow, I won the Power Ball lottery (my only chance of an early and decent retirement), and the winnings were, I don't know, say 300 million. Enough to put me into the top one percent. I think I would go out and buy a new pet.

I've had a series of dogs during my life, poodles, and schnauzers and mongrels, some smart, and some dumb and stubborn. They've all been good companions, but if I were rich, I would go for a working breed, I would buy myself a congressman.

I would not want a Senator, the purebred strains suffer from too much inbreeding, and they tend to be stupid and high maintenance. Plus, they are much more expensive, and they will often turn on the hand that feeds them.
A member of the House of Representatives is a much better choice. These working class curs, while they may not have the looks or the deep throat ed bark of a pure breed, make the best pets. They are low maintenance, and easily trained. You simply give them a semiannual feeding of Purina Congressional Chow, and they roll over and display their unconditional love. To properly train them, you use positive reinforcement. You give them a treat when they show good behavior, or obediently follow your commands. A small cash incentive, or a sweet deal on a mortgage, or a trip, and they are eager to please. Negative reinforcement also works for the big infractions. A threat to withhold their semiannual feeding bring them fawning to you feet with their tail down and their head held low.

You want to pick one with a bit of a retriever mix, and schnauzer for tenacity, but be careful, too much lab makes them fat and lazy. I think it would be wise to pick a male, the females are much too sensitive when you speak sharply to them.

Congressional pets are great crowd pleasers. They have good social skills, and seldom pee on the carpet. Let them mingle at a party, and don't worry, they can be petted with no danger of a bite. Be careful with alcohol, they tend to get yippy with too much to drink, and have a tendency to hump. Also don't allow you guests to feed them from the table, the congressman may try to follow you guest home.

The best thing about a congressional pet is not his love or his cuteness, its what, as a working breed, they can do for you. If you are wealthy enough to be able to afford one, they can repay your investment many times over. If I, having won my 300 million, purchased a congressman, I would expect him to guard my money by somehow exempting me from paying taxes on it. If he could not do that, I might as well have a dog.