Where Are the Parents?

I have been disassociatively been seeing some of the coverage of the trials of youngsters recently, and have been disconcerted with why these kids are where they are.  The Newtown, Connecticut shooter, Adam Lanza, has been found to have been highly interested and engaged in the study of mass murders, furthering the notion that this wasn’t just someone gone cuckoo for a day – he wanted to emulate, and surpass the body counts of previous killings.  A bit closer to my neck of the woods, two teens in Steubenville, Ohio were just found guilty of raping a 16 year old girl last summer – and they took pictures and video of the entire evening as it took place, with onlookers doing nothing to stop it.  And yesterday, TJ Lane, the teenager who recently pleaded guilty to the shooting of schoolmates in Chardon, Ohio, came to his sentencing hearing wearing a t-shirt with the word “KILLER” written on the front.  And when allowed to speak after parents of the victims were given the opportunity to address him and the court (during which he smirked the entire time), he extended to them his middle finger and said, “F—k all of you.”

I say I’ve been watching disassociatively because I’ve been trying to avoid seeing this stuff.  The events themselves bother me, and the non-stop 24 hour round-the-clock coverage of such events and their aftermath disgusts me.  People just can’t get enough of it, and I find this growing preponderance very disturbing.  But I do watch the news every now and then, so the winding down of the court cases has been bumping the coverage back up.   And the one thing that keeps running through my head is this:  where the hell are the parents in these ordeals?

How did these kids get the idea that these actions are okay?  One actively studies mass murders, and no parent is there to question why?  Two others decide that, not only is rape okay, but it’s perfectly acceptable to photograph and video record it – AND then post it online?  How did they acquire this attitude?  Where are the parents?  And where are Lane’s parents?  Their kid kills students, and then taunts their families in court?  At what point did they stop giving a damn about their kid?

I was the oldest child in our house, so my parents knew very little about what to do with me when I turned obnoxious – ahem – became a teenager.  Everything I did was a lesson for them in learning how to prevent my brothers from doing the same thing.  And when they reached a point of not knowing what to do with me anymore, they admitted me to a facility for kids with family problems.  I hated them for it, but in hind sight, I know they were worried and thought experts could succeed where they felt they had failed.  They were wrong – well, not entirely.  There wasn’t anything “wrong” with me – I was just an asshole who was way too smart for his own good.  So putting me in this place at least kept me out of trouble for the most part.  I was only there for a few months (the psychologist in charge of my case was fed up with me), but less than a year later, I was out of the house for good. 

My point here is this:  my parents may not have known how to handle me, but they never stopped trying.  And most of the things I did, my brothers weren’t allowed to get away with as they grew up.  Each kid brings his/her own set of problems, naturally, so some things will always be new to Mom and Dad.  But the point is to keep trying.  The lessons don’t go away just because the kid isolates him/herself.  And it seems like that’s what has happened to parents of the younger generations.  Kids are smarter and more independent earlier in life, and at some point the parents leave them to their own devices.  DON’T.  The law may have gotten in the way of disciplining children (to our disservice), but never stop teaching them right from wrong.  At my worst, there were just things I would never do – I knew better.  And when I stopped being an angry asshole (after I moved out of the house and only had myself to answer to), I decided to not fight with anyone ever again – wasn’t worth it.  I resolved to never get angry about things that just don’t matter in the grand scheme of life – it’s just not worth it.  All my parents’ lessons stuck, even if I stopped caring about them for a while.  And I’ve only gotten angry a handful of times in the last 25 years.  I don’t think people truly understand how freeing it is to CHOOSE to let things roll off your shoulders, not get mad about stuff that happens (especially when anger doesn’t solve anything – the problem still exists and has to be dealt with, but now you’ve taken yourself to a bad place you have to recover from, which drags out the process), even if anger would be justified.  You simply take each problem and try to solve it.  Blow off steam if you have to – just not at your kids.    Isolating yourself from your children is not the answer.  It’s about preserving your own peace.  And your kids will grow to replicate THAT behavior as well.

White Collar Crime is Not Really Crime

It amazes me constantly, the judgment that our government, and other westernized governments, apply to countries that aid and abet corruption.  We demonize them, we publicly eviscerate them for their behavior, we have applied sanctions on the occasional country that has been an accomplice to crime.

It amazes me, because our government, and many like us, are the most hypocritical on the planet when it comes to policing our own house.  Just last week, HSBC Bank was found to have laundered money for terrorists, banks with connections to terrorists (Saudi Arabia's Al Rajhi Bank), and drug cartels.  So prolific and long standing were the laundering habits, that the Mexican cartels had long ago created specially designed boxes, whose dimensions were EXACTLY the measurement needed to pass the boxes through the teller windows without having to open them, allowing the cartel to pass hundreds of thousands of dollars a day quickly, and without inspection.  The heads of HSBC are now known to have been complicit in these corrupt functions, sometimes facilitating the functions themselves.

If I had laundered so much as $100 for a friend, I would have the book thrown at me in our justice system.  But HSBC criminals - and let's say it way out loud, leaving no doubt - THEY ARE CRIMINALS, in every sense of the word, are being slapped with a $1.9 billion fine, and no prosecution, in any capacity.  They have been deemed "too important" to be disrupted in their management of the bank with criminal prosecution.  I did not just make that up - the word "disrupted" was particularly galling to me.  They claimed that criminal prosecution would have dire repercussions on the stability of the bank:

"Had the US authorities decided to press criminal charges, HSBC would almost certainly have lost its banking license in the US, the future of the institution would have been under threat and the entire banking system would have been destabilized."

Uh... what?  Better put the hip-boots on, it's getting deep up in here.  No one ever prosecutes the BANK when someone launders money, because it's not the bank that launders it.  It's the people.  Let's be clear about that.  PEOPLE launder money.  Banks are simply the mechanism.  A bank has no way of knowing when money is illegal, it's simply an institution.  We've never prosecuted a bank for laundering, we go after the guy who did the laundering.  So when we say we are not prosecuting the bank, what we really mean is we're not prosecuting the people.  No bank would destabilize because of a prosecution of criminals within the bank.  Banks change CEOs, CFOs, CIOs, and upper management people all the time, without the banks crashing.  That's all that would happen here.  Prosecute the people involved, they lose their job, new people are brought in to replace them.  Really not that complicated.  But not for us - we make decisions in legalese that make it sound like we put a great deal of thought into this, when the simple reality is that these bankers are rich and connected.  And our government doesn't put it's friends in prison, no matter what they do.  We already know this to be true, with the obvious looking of the other way with the Wall Street bank brokers and managers who willfully broke the law in deceiving their own customers about the stability of funds they sold, while secretly executing credit default swaps, hedging their bets against the failure of those same funds.  What did we do?  Nothing.  Spewed a lot of rhetoric, but ultimately, we bailed them all out with billions of dollars - that they kept and invested on their own, bolstering nice profits - and the subsequent bonuses that come with them -  but not repaying any losses to the customers they swindled.  Just the cost of doing business...

Our government has become one of the largest accomplices to white collar criminal conduct, yet no one holds anyone accountable for it.  This is largely due to the fact that many of the people connected with these institutions transition into high level government positions.  It's no coincidence that Goldman Sachs got away with a paltry fine for some of it's fraud - their former CEO, Henry Paulson, was Bush's Treasury Secretary.  If you prosecute anyone, Paulson would have to be at the top of the list, since he was running things when all this began and, for what it's worth, Paulson's Goldman Sachs stock was valued at over $600 million when he became the Secretary.  There's no way a Treasury Secretary is being prosecuted, if for no other reason than it indicts the federal government for their hiring of criminals for top tier positions - that will NEVER happen.

HSBC is just the latest in a long string of corruption that our government pats on the back and allows to operate unscathed.  The $1.9 billion fine is about one month's revenue.  The bank barely blinked at it, nor did their stock price.  Just the cost of doing business.  And so it continues...

Lessons from Sandy Hook

So unless you've been living under a rock, you have heard about the Sandy Hook school massacre.  I was no where near a television or radio when it happened, so I didn't hear about it until mid-late afternoon that day.  Of course, once I found out, I couldn't get away from it.  Even now, I struggle with a multitude of feelings.  First, I shook my head in disappointment, thinking "What the hell is wrong with people...?"  Later, I was passing by the television in the living room where my wife was just finding out about it, watching in shock.  The anchor was pontificating about what would cause someone to do such a thing.  I thought, "Well of course he took to mass murder!  He was unhappy, so everyone must share in his misery.  That's how it is!  No one has the guts to just deal with their own shit, they have to drag innocent people into it..."  Obviously, I was getting angry and cynical.  I made sure to NOT watch any coverage of the event, no longer having the stomach for it.  The next morning, I went online, and saw a headline on one of my news sights, saying that almost all the children had been shot multiple times, leaving some of them almost unrecognizable.  Right then, for the first time in my life, I knew what a truly broken heart felt like.  Killing them wasn't enough, he had to mutilate them with bullets - as if he was getting off on it.  I almost cried as I read the article: Victoria Soto, the teacher who was killed shielding the children from the bullets with her body as she funneled them into a closet.  And that's how they found her - dead on top of the children she was protecting;  Dawn Hochsprung, the principal who went after the gunman, and gave her life in the attempt to overtake him;  Twenty children, who knew nothing about life except enjoying it - the ultimate perk of youth.

Then I was flipping through channels and passed by the group of news networks.  I stopped on FOX News for a moment, to see Mike Huckabee offering commentary, in the vein that the shooting happened because we've taken God out of the schools.  And I just wanted to throw something through the TV.  Whether you believe in Jesus Christ or not, YES - believing in something bigger than yourself, that instills a respect for the world you live in, would make the world a better place.  But to blame the removal of school prayer and the refusal to teach religion as science as reasons for... what, God's punishment, in the form of a massacre?  That's wholly irresponsible, and it underlines a major contributor to these types of coverage:  the sensationalism of tragedy.

These networks are beyond the pale.  Something horrible happens, and within an hour, they have gripping headlines, a tragedy moniker, a theme song, and the anchors look as if they're masturbating while covering it, just enraptured at the sound of their own voice.  They have psychologists lined up for "official" opinions, reporters on the scene eagerly asking every person they can get there greedy little paws on how they are feeling right now, as if they are expecting different answers five people in.  They have photographers snapping photos of everyone, just itching for that one shot that wins them a Pulitzer - cause if you can't capitalize on a tragedy, why are you in the job, yes?  And if there's one thing people in that situation want more than anything, it's having the entire planet seeing a gut-wrenching photo of them in the most vulnerable and heart-broken state they've ever been in their entire life on the cover of TIME, Life, or NewsWeek for eternity.  There is truly nothing more heartless in this country than the media, and they are proud of it, wearing the label like a badge of honor.

The argument has been made that the media is one of the ones to blame for tragedies like this, because they encourage the downtrodden and depressed to one-up the guy who did it two weeks ago - you too can be famous!  There's some merit to that, although it's a bit broad for my taste.  And for the ever-popular claim that a gunman had a mental illness, this argument assumes a great deal of clarity being capable of the mentally ill.

I think there's more merit to the argument that gaming and social media do a great deal more to contribute to someone's thinking than the media.  Games, especially the exceptionally violent and graphic ones, desensitize kids to violence and bloody, gruesome images.  Do they make people violent? No, not if they are of sound mind.  But if they are mentally unbalanced?  Yes, I can see a contribution to the state of mind occurring.  And people spend so much time on social media now, they barely interact with other actual people.  Gamers are more likely to feel connected to their avatar than real people these days.  And if you're already an introvert, or "socially awkward," as they like to call it, you already lack the connection to people that would have you feeling something for them, so imagine how detached social media and gaming can increase that widening gap between them and reality.  Many people call this a cop-out argument, but it's actually much stronger than you think - especially if we're so ready and willing to blame the media for the same thing.

Gun control.  Let's face it, we need it.  It won't stop events like this, where the guns were legally owned by his mother.  But we have to get tested and licensed for a variety of things - in some cases, like driver's licenses, you have to do it every so many years - something as dangerous as guns should definitely be on the list.  The goal of regulation is to make it more difficult for criminals to have access to black market weapons, but it should also be to make sure that weapon ownership is legal and safe.  Everyone wanting to purchase a gun, should have to disclose the number of children and mentally challenged in their home, so they can be advised of the strongest measures to take in securing the weapon and ammunition in the home.  In cases like this (although, sadly, the mother was a victim here), the owner should not be allowed to own a firearm anymore if a child, or mentally unbalanced person, gains access to it and hurts themselves or someone else - clearly responsibility is not being exercised.  And doing nothing, or worse, brushing it off because it's too political of an issue, is simply not acceptable anymore.

There are many factors that contributed to this tragedy, and we will hear about some of them in the weeks to come.  But we, as a nation, need to take mental health and gun/ammunition regulation more seriously.  And the media seriously needs to stop glorifying every tragedy that occurs.  A mass murder isn't your giddy answer to Sweeps week.

Benghazi Matters

I have been a bit disappointed in both parties lately, in regards to the embassy attacks in Benghazi, Libya.  The Republicans are looking for every bogeyman in every nook and cranny, in a desperate attempt to paint Barack Obama as a traitorous heathen.  Democrats have made every attempt to blow over the attack, and the resulting post mortem that was destined to follow, dismissing any questions of mishandling or impropriety as a partisan witch hunt.   

Now, whether you care about the attack or not - don't be surprised that people wouldn't, the decade-long wars in Iraq and Afghanistan have made Benghazi "just one of many" attacks that have cost Americans their lives, in many people's eyes - there is a serious problem with the attack and the response to it.  For starters, security measures had been dialed back at the embassy, despite smaller attacks in previous weeks, including a mortar round blowing a hole in one of the outer walls.  Requests for increased security measures were denied, including one by Lt. Colonel Andrew Wood to maintain a special security team in Libya.  There was enough danger in the area that other countries, including Britain, closed their embassies, deeming them unsafe - a claim highlighted by the Red Cross finally pulling out for the same reason.  So why were we even still there?  The embassy attack lasted almost seven hours.  Many people don't realize that.  They think it was just a hit-and-run, and people were killed.  Not so.  And in the process of a seven-hour attack, the Americans pleaded for help several times, with no help given.  This included soldiers in nearby camps begging to be allowed to go in and assist them, to be told to "Stand down" by their commanders.  Even worse, the Navy Seal who was killed thought he WAS getting help, in the form of an air assault.  So he went out to the perimeter of the building to point a laser at mortar rounds that the air support could hit.  Doing this exposed him - using the laser gave up his position.  When the help never came, he was doomed.  "Dying in vain" doesn't even do it justice.

After the attack, Washington D.C. was in an uproar.  Over the next couple of weeks, the Obama administration spent a great deal of time blaming the attack on a anti-Islam video, called "Innocence of Muslims," produced and directed by a former porn director in California, which did indeed spur some protests in Cairo, Egypt at the same time as the Benghazi attack.  Many people will mostly remember Obama, during the presidential debates, say he called it a terrorist attack the very next day, in a speech given in the Rose Garden.  In the transcript, he clearly uses the phrase "acts of terror," and two sentences later, says "... our commitment to see that justice is done for this terrible act."  Many have argued that it was a general reference to acts of terror, not specified to Benghazi.  It's a very loose, but not entirely wrong argument, although the second phrase does hint at the first.  But Obama insists he knew it was a terrorist attack from the beginning, and his Rose Garden comments reflected that fact.  So I'm willing to give Obama the benefit of the doubt, but if he's telling the truth, insisting on that has painted him into an awfully ugly corner, for a number of problems exist:

• If the president knew it was terrorism, why would he send White House Press Secretary Jay Carney out the next day to blame the attack on a video protest that got out of hand?  Carney is the President's and White House's face and voice to the nation on a daily basis.  And nothing comes out of Carney's mouth that hasn't already been vetted by the WH Director of Communications, especially on such a sensitive subject.  So are we really to believe Carney did this on his own?
• Why was U.N. Ambassador Susan Rice chosen to go on talk shows and give interviews over the next couple of weeks to discuss Benghazi when, according to herself, the CIA, the FBI and the White House, she knew nothing about it?  They all say she was simply using intelligence info given to her, that she had no knowledge of her own about it.  And since her intelligence info was compiled by the State Department, and they say they never concluded that the attack was the result of a demonstration about the video, then how did she have that info in her talking points?
• Furthermore, why were the words "al Qaeda" and "terrorist" removed from the talking points before she gave her first interview?  They've given several different answers to this, none of which has a consensus.  Hell, they can't even come to a consensus on WHO actually edited them out...
• And if we accept Obama's claim that he knew all along it was terrorism, how does he reconcile giving a speech to the UN and a visit on tv's The View, where he himself blamed the video?  Was he lying about what he knew, to avoid looking incompetent?  Or was he telling the truth, and decided to just run with the cover up story anyway, hoping to get through the election before having to answer for any of it?  This is the issue I actually care the least about, the other issues are far more important.  But this is one part that will haunt him for a while, if the witch hunters have any say...

Obviously, everyone involved in this is full of it, and that includes the president.  He had an election to win, and the Benghazi attack could not have come at a worse time, especially when his campaign was declaring al Qaeda "decimated," despite well known growth of the terrorist organization in Syria and Yemen, and knowledge that al Qaeda had been making inroads in Libya after Moammar Gadhafi's expulsion and death.  Clearly, this all was an attempt to defer dealing with another al Qaeda terrorist attack until after the election.  Susan Rice was chosen because she's as far away from Obama's White House as possible, while still being an "official" of the administration.  And handing intelligence to a person with no knowledge of anything offers a plausible deniability buffer.  This is serious enough to have derailed Obama's re-election, if Mitt Romney hadn't bungled it all up with that ridiculous "Gotcha!" attempt at catching Obama in a lie during the 2nd debate.  Romney's people were so ignorant, they didn't even realize that believing Obama's story makes what happened even worse - instead they wanted to trip him up, and ended up looking like fools in the process - and worse, made Obama look sympathetic.  They couldn't have gift wrapped it any better.  And Obama, to his credit, said nothing - he just encouraged Romney to continue, allowing Mitt to hang himself.  Never let it be said that Obama isn't very slick and bright.

Where this leaves us is with Susan Rice, who Obama wants to replace Hillary Clinton as Secretary of State.  As America's top diplomat, she would have to exhibit a measure of independence and political savvy, that this incident shines a sour image of.  And it has many people, some Democrats included, doubting her ability to to the job - especially if she's willing to walk in blind and just push the White House agenda - something she's made abundantly clear she's willing to do.  For us citizens, we may never get closure on this event, because Democrats in Congress have been stalling the process as much as possible, to get to the end of the session.  By the time the next session starts, they're hoping we'll have let it wade out of our minds, in favor of other things.  Let's hope that's not the case.  Regardless what anyone believes, this situation has become twisted enough that we at least are owed closure on it, so everyone can move on.  I'm tired of watching the president tap dance.  He has a job to do, and we need him to do it well, which means this needs to be finished - sooner rather than later.

No Ground to Stand On

Many years back, I lived in Tampa, Florida, one of the few white guys in a predominantly black neighborhood, not far from the USF campus.  I started playing pickup basketball games in that neighborhood's local park, the only white guy that played there regularly.  I never minded this - I'm a Miami boy.  Thanks to public schools and sports, I had been friends with most of the black kids I knew.  I made friends pretty quickly at this park in Tampa, aided by the fact that I'm a pretty good basketball player.  I acquired the nickname "Bird" - the white boy who doesn't miss, as my friends teased.  Being THE white guy, meant a lot of "white boy" and "cracker" jokes.  I didn't mind much because, despite the teasing, they included me in everything.  And it did become a running joke to rag on the team that gets beat by the slow white boy.  So my first six months in Tampa were thoroughly enjoyable, if uneventful.

One day, we were playing a full court game, where my team was about to lose, down a couple of points.  One of my teammates had his pass intercepted by this guy - not a particularly good player, but he was 6'-6", good for rebounding - who turned and ran down the court.  As we would lose if he made a basket, I tore down the court after him as fast as I could run.  As he went up in the air for a layup, I jumped and smacked the ball as hard as I could, smashing his hand against the backboard in the process.  I fell to the ground as I landed, laughing - let's just say I was impressed with myself for jumping so high - at the fact that I even caught up to him, let alone made such a great play.  I don't think he appreciated my laughing, because when I got up off the ground, he punched me square in the chest - hard.  So hard, I went right back down.  He looks down at me and says, "You fouled me, motherf---er!"  I jumped up and shoved him.  "Just call the foul then!  Quit acting like a b--ch, just cause your hand got hurt!"  I didn't foul him, but I wasn't about to argue about it either.  Everybody starts laughing, presumably at my willingness to go toe to toe with a guy that had 6 inches and at least 50 pounds on me.  Hindsight being 20/20, it wasn't exactly the brightest of ideas.  

My buddy Jermaine runs over laughing, playfully head locks me, calls time out, and we all go to the bench for a minute.  I grab a Gatorade, pull a wet towel from the cooler to wrap around my neck and try to relax.  As my head is resting in my hands, I feel something hard pushed against the left side of my head.  "Say something funny now, motherf---er..."  I look up and turn my head, to see this guy pointing a gun at me.. Everyone around me froze.  I gasped for a breath and, God save me, I started laughing.  I could not stop.  The guy looked pissed, saying "You think you're funny, b--ch?"  And that made me laugh even harder.  "No dude, you're funny.  You're going to shoot me head and go to prison for the rest of your life - cause you got fouled.  That's the dumbest sh-t I ever heard of!"  Behind the laughter, I felt like I was about to have a heart attack, but I think the logic started to sink in with him.  The guy started to lower the gun, upon which 3 or 4 others jumped him and got the gun away from him.  One of the guys in the bleachers said he called the cops, so pretty much everyone cleared out of the courts and went home.  To this day, I still don't know who took the gun home.  The police showed up, the few remaining stragglers gave them the guy's name, I told them what happened, and the rest of us then filed out of the park for the night.  I later found out that the guy had a criminal record for armed robbery and had been in prison all of a few months earlier.  And he knew where I lived, right near the entrance to the park.  And this was just the first of two times in my life I've had a gun pointed at me...

That summer, I went back to Miami.  I had decided to buy a handgun to keep at my apartment in Tampa.  My best friend Josh went with me to look around, and I left the shop with a Makarov .380, a hyper-accurate Russian gun made primarily for the KGB.  We would go to an outdoor range on Tamiami Trail so I could learn to shoot.  And I was really good at it, really accurate to about fifty yards.  I took a class to get my concealed weapons permit.  It was here that I learned some odd rules about guns.  The one that jumped out at me the most was the rights of criminals in your home:

• You have to announce that you are armed, to allow the intruder a moment to leave your house peacefully and quickly.
• If you decide to shoot, you must announce that you are in fear for your life.
• If the intruder tries to run, you MUST shoot him from the front.
• If he has his back to you, you can not legally shoot him.
• If he is exiting a window or door, he is no longer legally a threat, you can not shoot him.
• If he is in your yard, and not advancing in your direction, you can not legally shoot him.
• If at any point you determine he is not armed, you can not legally shoot him unless you can demonstrate imminent threat.

To say these rules dismayed me a bit would be an understatement.  How can someone invading your home be afforded such protections?  If you violate any of these rules, YOU could go to jail.  I never thought I could be more flabbergasted  at a nonsensical set of rules, that seemed to be against the ones being threatened and protecting the criminals, to an extent.  And then I read the Stand Your Ground law.  It seems that, only in America, would we go from one extreme to the other, ignoring moderation entirely.

I've never been a fan of the NRA.  Don't get me wrong, I support people's rights.  But the NRA has taken their argument to extremes over the years, and has absolutely no credibility.  There's no argument you can make that will convince me that a hunter requires an arsenal of various weaponry to shoot a duck.  Or a deer.  Or a moose.  Or a quail.  And making that argument in vain, with a straight look on your face, makes me no longer want to hear anything you have to say.

So we went from not being able to engage a criminal in your home unless certain parameters are met, to being able to shoot anyone, anywhere, at any time, for any reason - so long as the official "reason" is that you were in fear for  your life.  How could we allow such a blanket rule to ever become law?  How could politicians that proposed the law really make a sound argument that would convince enough people to pass such a law?  Obviously, the NRA was behind it, but how did anyone wanting to be taken seriously allow it to even reach committee, let alone the floor for debate?  Once again I point to US.  We allow these idiot politicians, with absolutely no scruples or values, to take over our legislatures.  As bad as it is in Washington D.C., it is often worse in the state legislatures.  These are our states, and we need to wrest back control of the people who politic in it.  This recent case about Michael Dunn shooting a black teenager in an SUV is just the latest example of a law that has run amok.  Everyone needs to start leaning on their representatives to overturn this ridiculous law.  It needs to be loud, so that political hopefuls in the future will include it in their campaign platforms.  We need enough people in place to overturn such laws.  And for Heaven's sake, we have GOT to get lobbyists out of our capital buildings, and their money out of campaign coffers.  Because this will not be the last killing like this, and it will take a James Brady - type incident for any eyes to be opened otherwise.

No Eating from This Buffett...

Back in February, I wrote a piece called Congressional Lifers Are Killing Us, where I laid out what I thought the biggest challenge for this country was: ridding ourselves of the lifelong members of Congress who have corrupted our legislative and economic systems, with no term limits to help us.

I've recently seen a thread running around Facebook, highlighting an idea proposed by the Oracle of Omaha himself, Warren Buffett.  He discussed the then-pending debt ceiling increase in an interview with CNBC's Becky Quick on July 7, 2012, in which he said, "I could end the deficit in 5 minutes.  You just pass a law that says that anytime there is a deficit of more than 3% of GDP, all sitting members of Congress are ineligible for re-election."  

I am not a fan of Warren Buffett.  He's hypocritical and inflated with a self-importance that defies comprehension (and this is coming from a guy who, some might say, is bathed in intellectual arrogance).  Buffett is the guy who said his secretary paid more in taxes than he did.  He revised the statement to correctly reflect that her tax RATE was higher than his.  He does earn a $100,000 annual salary, and $300,000-$400,000 in a securities based compensation package, that he does pay the top rate on as CEO of Berkshire Hathaway.  If you take that alone, his claim is false.  But his $46 million total income is mostly investment related, aka Capital Gains, of which the current rate is 15% - which dropped his overall adjusted rate to 17.7%.  His secretary's $60,000-$70,000 salary netted her a 30% WAGE rate.  Because of this disparity that dismayed him so, Buffett came out in support of raising the income tax rate of the wealthiest Americans, saying he should be paying so much more than the government demands.  And Obama, giddy as a schoolgirl, proposed "The Buffett Rule" as  the lynchpin to eliminating the Bush tax cuts, bringing the top rate back up to 39.6%, and an additional 3% on the über-wealthy.  And the crowd goes wild!.....

Well, not so much.  To begin with, Buffett skips over the part that he - and all Americans - can pay as much as they want to the Treasury Department - there is no limit.  And I'm a big believer in putting your money where your mouth is.  Set the example you wish of other people.  But nay, Buffett has no interest in that.  He'll only pay more if the government makes him.  Like most people, big on words, not so much on actions.  And the other thing that's generally glossed over is the fact that, even if Obama managed to raise the wage rate to 80%, he STILL wouldn't get much more out of Buffett.  Remember, Buffett's income is mostly investment based.  So aside from the tiny sliver of income that is his Berkshire Hathaway compensation package, Buffett would pay not much more now at the higher rate than he does at the current one.. And that goes for all the billionaires in this country.  As long as they pay mostly CapGains, they'll pay just as much wage tax after the increase as they do now - which is next to nothing.

And this is how you know Obama is full of it when he talks about making the wealthy pay their fair share.  If he really meant that, he would jack up the CapGains rate, not the wage rate, since that's where all the money of the wealthy resides.  He's mentioned doing that, but only mentioned bumping the rate up to 20%.  Not exactly a barn-burner.  This may or may not have something to do with the fact that Obama's millions from his two books are invested in a blind trust (as all presidents' investments are when they take office - essentially, a fund manager takes over the Obamas' investments until they leave the White House, the term "blind" meaning that they don't know where the money is invested, and so can't try to influence markets in a way that they knowingly benefit from).  This is also how you know that, for all his rhetoric about sticking it to the rich, Obama knows where his bread is buttered.  It makes great lip service, but if he raised the CapGains rate too much, the wealthy will simply move more of their money overseas and invest more heavily in foreign markets, rather than our own.  Obama's not dumb enough to play that gamble.  So what we end up with is the grandest of empty gestures, with little real impact on anyone except the small business owners, who are, naturally, the loudest voices of opposition.  That's why Buffett can shout his support to the heavens - he gets to sound prophetic and benevolent, the masses ignorantly cheering his name, because he knows it will have little actual impact on him.

And this is why his quote in that CNBC interview rings hollow.  He makes a good sound bite, but Warren Buffett contributed over $100,000 to campaigns and PACs for this election cycle, just one of many big money donors to the people whose jobs he's threatening.  For what it's worth, his idea has merit.  I wrote an op-ed a couple of years ago, pushing an idea to tie legislators' incumbencies to performance incentives, the deficit, debt, unemployment rate, and GDP growth being key barometers.  If parameters were not met, they wouldn't be allowed to run for re-election for a minimum of two terms.  I proposed it as an end-around to the term-limits we all know Congress would never, ever vote for.  They would never vote for my idea either, but if enough states were in favor of some form of it (15 states currently have term limits), they could push for an amendment by constitutional convention, bypassing Congress altogether. 

I admire Buffett's business acumen - he's an investment genius, and all due credit to his many decades at the top of the food chain.  But when it comes to politics, I take him in the same vein I take Donald Trump: amusing caricatures, but not people I take seriously, once you put a little thought into what they say.

Why Would I Be a Republican?

I posted a Facebook status about Tea Party Republican darling Allen West yesterday.  A good friend of mine mused that I didn't strike him as a Republican much anymore, based on many of my recent position pieces.  I wrote him a reply, after which I re-read my response to him, and it seemed like a good blog post, as several of my friends had observed something similar in me.  And Lord knows the GOP hasn't given many people reason to support them in the last couple of decades.  So why would I still be a Republican?

For starters, the Republican party isn't what it used to be. I believe in generally small government. Big government has dipped its wick in too many unnecessary wells (usually as a means of appeasing those selling their vote), and charged us for their misadventures - or stole outright from other wells (Social Security, for example), putting our financial security at risk.  The party differences have historically been mostly fiscal. In recent decades, social issues have taken the forefront, when they really don't belong there, and that has largely been at the behest of the religious right. I have never agreed with this, because too much of the country isn't of the same religion, and our constitution forbids catering to one religion or establishing one on a national scale. Yet here we are.

Despite my belief in smaller government, I do believe in helping those in need, even though the scope and breadth of our system has gotten completely out of hand. We could very easily support those in need and not fiscally squeeze the life out of our economy. It may hurt people's access for a year, but we could fix it. I am in favor if fixing the system so people aren't abandoned, but our fiscal health is protected.

As social issues go, I hate the hypocrisy of my party. Republicans preach about freedom - everything they fight so ruthlessly against is in defense of liberty and freedom... unless you are a woman, in which case your freedom is how we dictate to you how it will be. You WILL submit yourself to your rapist and birth his child. You WILL NOT use contraception, lest you are a whore who enjoys sex.  Sex is for your husband's pleasure and reproduction purposes only.  You are a receptacle and an incubator.  Live with it.  GOP pols will swear to their dying breath that's not what they mean, but let's face it - unlike Democrat politicians, who wave one hand in your face while stabbing you in the back with the other, Republicans just punch you in the mouth with their attitudes.  No hiding, no misdirection, just straight up misogyny, and they really don't care whether you like or agree with it.  Gays should be sequestered to an island where we don't have to look at them, because they are gross. Unless it's two gorgeous women in our favorite lesbian porn - and so long as they don't want to get married. Cause how will they have children? Unless God blesses their happy home with a rapist - as God sometimes wills...  

The gay argument is particularly hilarious, considering the most ardent supporters of the anti-gay movement seem to have a habit of turning out to be gay.  Love the Catholics, but just once I'd like to hear a GIRL say a priest molested her...

I guess my point is that the Republican party is barely Republican anymore. They are greedy hypocritical bastards who want big government when it's THEIRS.  I believe government's role is supposed to be for the fiscal and military security of the nation, while the states and localities can manage the rest.  Welfare, Social Security and Medicare are not anti-Republican programs.  Their operations and management are, and they need to be fixed. But they should be part of the fiscal purview of the federal government, because their financial needs are too big for state to state management. The party has become a bastion of absolutes, with compromise and pragmatism being blasphemous. These days I would probably be chastised as a RINO (Republican In Name Only), but I'm waiting for my party to re-acquire the asylum from the inmates... otherwise I'll end up an independent. I voted Green party this year because Jill Stein is my kind of pragmatist, even if she's a little more liberal than I would like.  I've never believed that absolutes were a good way to run a country, so my party affiliation is peripheral at best, maintained solely for the ability to vote in the primaries.  I am probably more center-right than true right, and I vote based on who I think exhibits the best combination of ideas, methodology, and judgment.  I wasn't sure if Barack Obama was that person in 2008, but in 2012 I was more sure that he was not.  But I sure as heck know Mitt Romney wasn't, and he was never going to get my vote.

Things are going to change for the GOP in the next four years, because they have no choice.  They are so close to permanent insignificance that they can't afford the same old outdated thinking.  Whether I remain a member of the party will be dictated largely by what I see in the next two years.  In the meantime, I will be dedicating some time to trying to eliminate the electoral college that has completely corrupted out political system and pushing for the emergence of a third and, possibly, fourth party, and eliminating soft money that has rendered smaller parties in this corrupt system insignificant.  It is pure corruption, sanctioned by the Supreme Court, and it will ruin this country if we are not careful.