In the Brave New World, This Is No Fluke.

In this Brave New World, I feel like John the Savage.  Just don’t usually get it, and when I do, I can’t accept it because in my opinion relative morality rejects any belief in morality at all.  In such an environment, the blue dress becomes almost a badge of tolerance and honor for Bill Clinton, certainly not one of shame.  Without any standards of morality, how can one violate them?

For example, why do progressive policies and issues encourage sexual freedom (Read that to mean in some cases sexual permissiveness.) in every way possible?  I surely will soon regret that last statement because when I think they’ve outdone themselves, they frequently surprise me with a new iteration of their monomania.

Since I am older than dirt, I have witnessed the slippery slide to—ta da: Sandra Fluke.  Heroine extraordinaire.  How in heck did that happen?  Imagine this: USA, 1962.  Female college student speaks before a televised Committee for Progressive Social Engineering.  She not only parades her sex life before the world but bemoans the sorry state of that same mean old world that won’t pay the tab for her birth control.  Now, dear reader, I have long passed my child-bearing years, but during those years, it never dawned on me to demand, yes, DEMAND, as my right that someone else should take on the financial responsibility for my reproductive choices.   I paid for birth control myself.  Am I a victim or what?

But let’s back up.  We got here through a long series of baby steps.

First was the sexual revolution that arrived with the advent of birth control pills and Woodstock.   I blessed birth control pills decades ago as a means by which I could manage family planning—still do.  Not the issue.

Thereafter, progressives made love, not war, and put sex squarely in the center ring of their circus.  Just consider how sex figures in to so much of the philosophy that they hold dear:

Abortion rights argued as a woman’s control of her own body

Birth control provided free

Condoms handed out to public school students as young as 10

Sex education beginning in primary school

Government dollars contributing to Planned Parenthood

Calls to cover “gender reassignment” surgery by health insurance

Move to cover abortions on taxpayer dollars

Partial-birth abortions

A tiny, just the camel’s nose under the tent, argument from Australian academics for post-birth abortions

The summary offers one promise: Sex without consequences—oxymoronic.

Now I’m no prude, but I just don’t need to know anyone else’s sexual proclivities.  Just shut the bedroom door behind two consenting adults.  What happens thereafter is their choice to make.  Exercise your right to privacy—please. 

To test the left’s commitment to sexual freedom, consider the recent challenge to the Catholic Church’s doctrine presented in the employer contraception mandates in the health care bill.  Seems to me that what this is really about is dueling freedoms: one is religious freedom from government intrusion; the other the right to free birth control.  Which one is Constitutional?  Guess which one wins the duel, judging by progressive talking points?  Anyone surprised?  That was some neat trick to turn freebies into an argument for women’s rights.  Shameless obfuscation and misdirection. 

It amuses me to think that there is more to this introduction of private concerns to the public stage, a policy practiced by Mustapha Mond’s Brave New World:  Feed man’s appetites, mandate acceptance of them, and eventually demand not tolerance, but approval, even praise.  It becomes “hip,” a mark of the forward thinker and solid citizen.  We are wooed and won by indulgence, our sensitivity to private concerns inured by constant public haranguing.  Satisfaction of appetites becomes virtue.  Thus do individual ideas of morality enter the vortex of public discourse to be swallowed up, spun, subsumed, and eventually spat out as collective virtue.  Everybody approves of everybody else.   

Tolerant progressives must, therefore, allow no dissenting voices on this issue.  Is that really the crux of the latest kerfuffle and Media Matters’s reaction– to remove Rush Limbaugh from the air?  His scatological references to Fluke were offensive, but certainly no worse that I have heard from the other side. 

And so Sandra Fluke will become a poster child for the movement to redefine “rights”.  The Constitution guarantees us the freedom to pursue our own happiness as stated in the Declaration; it seeks to secure an environment that fosters individual initiative.  The Fluke controversy clearly makes the point that government should not only secure rights but provide the means of exercising them.

This progressive idea turns the Constitution on its head.  It is the soma that draws converts to the politics of entitlements and self-indulgence– promised to one and all by a patronizing progressive patriarchy.  “Oh, Brave New World, that has such people in it.”

I am a crotchety old woman.  I demand tolerance; approval is an individual option.

A Lesson for Wisconsin Teachers

Once a teacher, always a teachers.  Yes, I taught.  For 37 years I taught, and then I retired.  I was proud to be a teacher, even when test scores declined, violence became endemic to schools, and learning became secondary to schools’ social engineering.

When I took my first teaching job, I earned $2,800 a year.  I taught in another state during the next school year with a $400 increase in salary.  Oh, the riches!  Yes, salaries were poor, but benefits were worse.  Something, as the saying goes, had to give.

It did. 

Enter strengthened local, state, and national teachers’ unions.  They began to morph from “professional organizations” into full-fledged collective bargaining entities, and I saw their effect in my paycheck.  The benefits quickly followed.  The total package actually made a career in education attractive to those who must support a family.

 Enter more men into the profession–not just principals, mind you, but actual classroom teachers.  No longer was teaching only a second income.    Later,  the perks had all kinds of critters crawling out from under rocks.  Follow the money trail. 

The upshot is that during my last year a large poster appeared on the wall above the school’s copy machine demanding that the system begin paying 90% of the cost of medical and retirement plans.  Wouldn’t anyone just love that?

The problem with success is that it seldom knows when to stop.  When does it recognize that it has reached fairness and begun to grasp with greed?

The Wisconsin madness answers that question far too clearly to ignore.  Enough is never enough.

The means through which Wisconsin unions answer the question is almost too ugly for me to watch.  For shame.  When the teachers repeat that chant, they should be directing it at themselves.

They would never tolerate their own behavior in their students: the strident, shrill screeching, the demand for a narcissistic focus on self. 

Their means also leave behind mountains of garbage that would shame any ecology teacher.  Their trail leaves behind millions of dollars in damage to the Wisconsin capital.   They seem to be examples of the worst in spoiled children. 

So much for teachers as examples for young people: so much for dignity; so much for teaching responsibility.  So you took instrutional days off and got a fake doctor’s note?  Really? 

Here’s the lesson in a few simple steps:  1) Get a teaching job. (2) Join a union and pay your dues.  3) Contribute those dues to candidates who 4) vote to raise your salaries and improve your benefits so that you can pay more in dues that contribute more to politicians who vote again to . . . 5) Complain loud and long about how put-upon you are, how underpaid and unappreciated, in order to bolster your union’s claims.  Poor me.  Me.  Me.  Me.

This is no more than a spoils system and professional villainy.

I am ashamed that the teaching profession has devolved to such a sorry state, that it will prostitue itself  and sacrifice its values for the success of  politicians who serve as pimps.

I am ashamed of the intimidation that has become our preferred method to win a debate. 

I am ashamed of the destruction of property and threats on the lives of opponents.

I am ashamed of the inability of educators to recognize that they must sacrifice when the taxpayers who foot their exhorbitant bill are sacrificing. 

I am ashamed that teachers demand more than they serve.

I am ashamed that teachers seem more determined to protect the incompetent among their number than to discipline their profession.

I am ashamed that the profession of education seems to have no shame, and I am glad that I am out of it.

There was a time when I was proud to call myself “teacher.”  Now they call themselves “educators.”  They need to get over themselves and be teachers again.  Words do, indeed, matter.

Fox News Viewer: Cynical or Realistic?

The mainstream media’s reaction to any mention of Fox News stymies me.  Add to that criticisms from the left-wing blogosphere, the present administration, and any self-respecting Democrat, and you have a full-blown phenomenon.  Any left-winger hates Fox News.

New York Times Executive Editor Bill Keller recently weighed in on the subject: 

“I think if you’re a regular viewer of Fox News, you’re among the most cynical people on planet Earth. . . I cannot think of a more cynical slogan than ‘Fair and Balanced’.”

Why is that?  The slogan sounds. . . well. . . fair to me.

I included the following snippet in a recent blog.  When a friend on Facebook posted the question, “What’s the scariest thing on Earth?” another friend answered, “Fox News.”

I had to think long and hard about that and about things that frighten me, of which there is a long list.  Brown recluse spiders frighten me, as do snakes and heights.  I also fear the looming national debt, violence along our southern border, politicians who want to remold our country, which is basically fine, thank you very much, into their own vision, failing public education, activist judges, and extremists everywhere who consider their highest calling the slaughter of Americans or anyone different from themselves, for that matter.

But Fox News? Not so much.  Doesn’t even make the list, but Bill Keller’s statement about Fox News makes the bottom quarter.

Then I thought long and hard about why leftists despise Fox News with such spittle-slinging passion.  “Fox lies,” they screech, almost incoherent in their stuttering indignation.  Alas, to little or no apparent effect.   Since that oft-repeated iteration has apparently failed to shrink Fox News’ viewership, it appears that Mr. Keller is prepared to lead the newest charge.  Expand the attack on Fox News to include Fox viewers.  Question their motives or their intelligence.

Won’t work.  Conservative viewers are so accustomed to having their intellegence questioned that we react with merely a yawn. 

Cynical?  That’s a new one.  Mr. Keller deserves commendation for his originality. 

“Fox lies?”  I’ve heard it/seen it scores of times.  None of those accusations ever include a specific example of said lies.   However, an inveterate Fox viewer, I can make my own decisions about which news outlets to read, view, and trust.  Since I am a news junkie, I can do my own fact-checking.

Moreover, I believe that Fox News presents more diverse voices than MSNBC, CNN, ABC, CBS, or NBC.  I hear conservative, independent, and progressive opinions on Fox every day of the week.   Those who think otherwise apparently do not watch Fox, choosing instead to repeat the talking points of their liberal brethren.  Predictable as the sunrise.

Why do I watch Fox News?  First, Fox covers stories that other outlets won’t touch.  For example, if I boycotted Fox, I may never have heard the name “Van Jones.”    Basically, Fox tends to reject the rules of political correctness, preferring instead to air all the news without a political filter.

Yes, Fox News does indeed have shows that focus on news and those that focus on commentary.  I have no problem with that; I know the difference.  I am also, by the way, well aware that Jon Stewart’s The Daily Show both criticizes and satirizes newsworthy people and events;  it is an entertainment medium.  An obvious distinction.  I do not, however, attack Stewart nor Comedy Central for slanting the news. 

But I defy anyone to watch Bret Baier’s “Special Report” and seriously contend that the show slants the news.  On most days the more conservative voice of Dr. Charles Krauthammer balances the more liberal Juan Williams.  Interviewees may include Charlie Rangel, Chuck Schumer, Paul Ryan, Anthony Weiner, or Jim DeMint.  Every Fox show gives air time to both liberal and conservative voices.  What’s the problem?  If a conservative lies on Fox, there will surely follow, as the night the day, a liberal to call him or her on that lie.

And why the unrelenting attack on Fox?  I believe that the reasons are clear.  First, Fox News allows all sides to state their views while the mainstream media tend to speak with one voice.  In addition, no longer can news outlets present only an unscrutinized view of their own slant on stories of the day.  They just don’t seem to tolerate a distillation of ideas. 

Competition, however, may indeed be the operative word.  The LA Times, NY Times, WaPo, et.al., must compete with the new kid, and they’re losing.  They don’t like it.  Can’t blame them, but it seems to me that in this market, the side that chooses to attack the other instead of reporting the facts loses credibility.  No news in that. 

If I had to choose between Fox News and the New York Times as my only source of news, I’d choose Fox News every time and never mourn the Gray Lady down.  But for the present, I don’t have to choose, and the world is better for it.

“On Wisconsin”. . . When Public Education Becomes a Public Drain

Scatology of the Left

I’m a teacher, a 40-year retired veteran. 

I’ve known great teachers, good ones, adequate ones, and abysmally bad ones.  Oddly, all of those teachers receive equal pay and equal benefits.  Even stranger than that, we fight tenaciously to maintain the status quo.  We’ve even bargained away the ability to get rid of those bad ones unless they are felons or guilty of egregious ethical violations.

Thank our unions for that.

During  those forty years, I knew without a great deal of soul-searching that if we as educators didn’t discipline our profession, we would lose the respect and confidence of the average American.  We’ve already lost both, perhaps partly because as our schools fail, we expect to be paid as if they are  successes   Then we also expect our unions to protect us from  the consequences of our failures.    

Yes, we teachers deserve fair pay and benefits, and we should also return value for the public’s dollar.   But does anyone really believe that those benefits should be more generous than the packages offered in the private sector?  Purely out of a sense of fair play, I have to say “no.”

The fact is that I’ve known teachers in my school system who have retired from the classroom with almost one hundred percent of their yearly salary.  While that system has long since changed, it’s still shameful.  Who in the private sector could ever expect such largesse?  I consider it nothing but a raid on the public coffer.

So I heartily wish the Wisconsin teachers would get back to the classroom.  The party appears to be drawing to an ugly close.  Accept the fact that we as teachers have in some ways been treated as a protected class.  Our students’ parents don’t have our job protection nor generous benefits.  They don’t have ten paid sick days in as many months.   Add to that professional leave days, then personal leave.  How many days can we legally leave the classroom with the blessing of our union?

The time is long overdue for a lesson in reality.  During times of economic hardship, we cannot act like prima donnas, perennially above the fray.  We are part of a larger community.  If we refuse to compromise in order to help save that community, we will surely lose more than those benefits that we seem to consider sacred.

Teachers have a right to demand fairness.  They should not be martyrs, ignoring the needs of their own families for the good of the community.  But neither should they demand that the community bankrupt itself  attempting to satisfy an evermore demaning union.

Am I opposed to collective bargaining by teachers’ unions?  Of course not.  When I entered the profession, I had no planning period, no duty-free lunch, and no restrictions on class size except those imposed by physical classroom size and critical mass.  Working conditions were abominable, but I didn’t know it then.  Things have improved.

Thank our unions for that.

I support teachers’ unions, but not in their modern iteration.  Somewhere along their road to self-actualization, they became less a voice for teachers than  political action committee.  I don’t like that.

Where do we draw the line?  I suggest first the test of reason and fairness for all concerned:  the teachers as well as the communities who bear the cost of educating their children.

A simple solution would be to redirect payments of teachers’ dues that go to the national and state unions to teachers’ pension or medical plans.   Why should national and state organizations receive a piece of the action?   What are those guys doing for me?  What are their political action committees saying on my behalf?

A better one would be to jerk unions back in line.  In recent decades they have dealt less with their membership than with politics.  High time for a divorce.  If unions were barred from political contributions through PACs, who could then accuse politicians, who often benefit from union donations, of a conflict of interest?  Laws should prohibit unions from functioning as  de facto arms of any political party. 

As a teacher, I paid dues to my local, state, and national unions, although they encouraged us to refer to them not as a unions but as professional organizations.  (Semantics only.)  Why did I do that?  Simple.  I wanted membership in my local union, who had an attorney on retainer.  They stood behind me in case of a lawsuit in this oh-so-litigious society.  They also helped to solve problems on the local level, problems that needed addressing.    

But the state and national associations?  I had no choice.  If I paid dues to the local, I had  to join the state and national as well.  What a sweetheart deal!  Oh, yes, I called and argued long and hard, but to no avail.  The three organizations fed each other, supported each other, and contributed my dues according to their political views.  I’m still seething.

The biggest sweetheart deal of all?  The cozying up of unions and politics.   I have nothing but dusgust for the chicanery, the political hackery, even the political prostitution of a union that  would sell out its members by using their dues for political preference.   Talk about unholy alliances!

 A visit to the White House is just not worth that much sweat.  

Thirty years ago sages predicted that the greed of auto-workers’ unions would kill the automobile industry in America.  Can you say “GM?”  

Take heed, NEA.

Can you say “privatize?’  “Charter schools?” 

You might just price yourself right out of the market.

Beware the Leader Who. . .

Il Duce

I’m old.  Having almost achieved the Biblical promise of three score and ten, I’ve witnessed history’s unfolding and this old world’s unraveling.  Despots came and went.  I’ve seen polititics proliferate and statesmanship stagnate.

A common thread emerges as I observe world leaders come and go.  Having taken the ship of state’s helm, they contract a terminal case of hubris.   They seem to become smitten by the trappings of power and cannot resist the urge to claim squatter’s rights on the residence of  the dear leader du jour.  Whether a palace or a presidential mansion, national residences quickly take on the character of an ivory tower.  An interesting, if horrifying transformation, but too often a predictable one.

Give these guys the seat of power, and they settle in to shape it to their own butts.  If they watch a performance of the Bard’s Julius Caesar, they come away with one quotation and preen at the description.  “Why, man, he doth bestride the narrow world Like a Colossus.”   They don’t get the irony. 

They learn “the wave” and “the nod” to cameras that lovingly follow their every move.  They are the sovereign acknowleging their subjects.   Another monster is born.

Certain behaviors of world leaders set off alarm bells with me, so I’ve determined never to trust a leader who. . .

• Wears a military uniform and combat boots.  Eventually those boots will tread on his own people.  Epaulets are de rigueur for the well-dressed dictator. 
• Uses the first person pronoun like a function word.
• Celebrates national holidays by throwing a parade featuring heat-seeking missiles.
• Has a goose-stepping military.
• Rewrites history on a regular basis — his own.
• Sports a chest full of medals — awarded to self.
• Chooses style over substance.
• Assumes that his every decision receives a nod from God.  Not elected but anointed.
• Sets up and choreographs photo ops to further his agenda or polish his image.
• Fires a semi-automatic skyward during birthday celebrations.
• Is incapable of laughing at himself.  Self-deprecating humor signifies a healthy ego.
• Apologizes for or criticizes his own country or people on foreign soil, a sure sign that he doesn’t consider himself one of the misbegotten masses.
• Hints at a suspension of term limits.  When the dreaded phrase “for life” emerges, whoa Nellie.
• Rejects historical facts publicly.  “Listen to Me,” he implies.  “I know better.  Pay attention.”
• Demands an epic movie backdrop for speechifying.  This Colossus drawfs any other venue.
• Blames others or makes excuses for every failure or misstep.  Like it or not, the buck really does stop at the top.
• Betrays political or national allies when expediency must trump friendship to save his own skin or preserve his carefully crafted image or world view.
• Does not recognize the exceptionalism nor respect the national pride of his own country.
• Is short.  As a child, pet names for him may have included “shrimp” or “‘lil bit.”  If he gains absolute power, he  may compensate by standing on a platform of cruelty and surrounding himself with toadying midgets.
• Names his son his successor.  Primogeniture promises power as a personal possession and his country his playground–in perpituity.  (Pardon the alliteration.)
• Declares class warfare.  (Let’s you and him fight.)  He’s a divider, not a uniter.  “Country first” appears nowhere in his vernacular.
• Has more than one wife.  He doesn’t mind sending anyone to Purdah.  Legislatures become his harem.  May be too accustomed to domestic tyranny.
• Takes credit for others’ accomplishments.
• Cannot claim the respect of his own family.
• Puts personal agendas before national interests.
• Seeks pleasure in times of crisis.  (Careful, your id is showing.)
• Throws lavish parties and surrounds himself with the adoring international glitterati.  He, thus, sees himself as bigger than his own country.  His stage expands.
• Eats high on the hog and leaves the trough for the greedy masses.
• Prefers fealty from his people rather than freedom for them.
• Seeks revenge for perceived personal slights or criticism, and thus weilds the sword instead of the scepter.  Abuse of power thereafter becomes his hallmark.
• Should take as his personal symbol the narcissus.
• Cannot state a simple opinion in six words or fewer.  His declarations get lost in copious declarative sentences.  Oh, the verbiage.
• Is thin-skinned.
• Considers hypocrisy a virtue.
• Leaves office wealthier than he entered it.
• Dithers while Rome burns.
• Swaggers.
• Lectures and hectors his countrymen for putting self-interest above his version of the national good.
• Lapses far too often into the royal “we.”  The rest of us are not amused.
• Travels with an entourage the size of a small third-world country.
• Dresses like a common man before retiring to a mansion.
• Applies his rules unevenly.  What’s good for me is not for thee.
• Perceives the media–any media–as enemies.
• Publicly threatens to behead, bomb to smithereens , or wipe from the face of the Earth perceived enemies.
• Wants to destroy that which he cannot conquer.  “Is Paris burning?”
• Nationalizes private assets or public air waves.
• “Struts and frets his hour upon the stage” and seems incapable of imagining a world without him as its center.
• Slaps on every flat surface huge portraits of himself, looking ethereally heavenward as if envisioning the distant future.

Okay, so I got carried away, but the subject makes me a bit crazed. 

Minions around leaders of men might help to mitigate such exuberances and excesses as those I’ve mentioned by taking a few measures:  Use the word “mortality” frequently in conversation with dear leader.  Discuss the end of his life in the sun as a dignified passing on of the baton and a legacy to a worthy successor.  Speak philosphically about old age as “time’s winged chariot hurrying near.”  Read him the sonnet “Ozymandias.”  Speak fondly of plans for the retirement years.  Use the word “perspective” at least once a day.  Next, take said portrait and run it through one of those aging computer programs.  The eyes that seem to glitter with wisdom will dull.  The skin will wrinkle and shrivel.  The man himself will shrink and bend with age.  Voila!  The indomitable becomes the inevitable.  He regains his mortality.  Slap copies of that sucker on every flat surface.  Maybe then he can view himself realistically.

But I doubt it.

Ashes to ashes.  Dust to dust.  We all share the same ultimate fate, princes and paupers.  Not a new observation by far, but also the only reliable truth.

Disclaimer: I do not intend to claim that female leaders are immune to the illnesses mentioned; rather, I use the common gender pronoun rather than the masculine.

Thomas and Kagan: Not Guilty by Association

History.  Facts.  Aren’t they pesky little things?  We all must live with them, especially if we’re conservative.  ( Examples:  We all remember that Dan Quayle couldn’t spell “potatoes,” but does anyone remember that Chuck Shumer thinks that the three branches of government are the Senate, the House, and the presidency?)Memory can become an enemy if we bury history in order to win points in a current debate.

Let’s scan cultural history for a key example of the hoi polloi striking down a universally accepted taboo,  an unwritten social law once encoded in our psyches.   I’m old enough to remember when our collective conscience created a new rule, a good one, in my opinion.  No longer should children live in shame because of out-of-wedlock birth.    Couldn’t agree more.  In good conscience how can we hold one person morally, legally, or ethically responsible for the actions of others?  

 With that enlightened view, we began to reject guilt by association entirely.  Hence, our thinking began to take on the spirit of democracy, to catch up with the high-minded ideals of the Founding Fathers.

Because of this spirit of fairness, Jimmy Carter suffered no collateral political damage because of his brother Billy and his Billy Beer.   Likewise, Bill Clinton shared no guilt for his alcoholic half brother Roger’s cocaine conviction and incarceration, although as president, Clinton pardoned his half brother.  As a result, all charges and convictions were expunged from the record.

Should we declare Diane Feinstein guilty because her husband Richard Blum puportedly profited from government dollars?  No, even if true, Feinstein is not her husband but makes her own choices.  Was Barney Frank ethically liable because his live-in lover was said to be turning tricks in Frank’s own home?

Not guilty on all counts.  So said the jury of voters and the media.

Fast forward.  Recently seated on the Supreme Court, Elena Kagan, once a member of the Obama Justice Department, sat in on at least one discussion about the possiblity of litigation resulting from Obama’s health care law.  Clarence Thomas’s wife works with the Heritage Foundation, which opposes that law.  Should either justice on SCOTUS recuse himself or herself when the states’  challenge lands before the court for a decision?

Depends.  Remember the Clinton rule?  If it doesn’t interfere with one’s ability to do one’s job, and all that.  Only the Shadow knows.  Justice Thomas would say he is not affected by voices outside legal purview.  Kagan, “Me, neither.”  Case closed.  Let the games begin.

To me the Thomas challenge is merely another case of Billy beer (no pun intended), not an issue but a little weiner of a political war, a pre-emptive strike, in the event that a Kagan challenge gains traction.  It’s a na-na-na-na-na moment on the left.  

More important, it is a further attack on a man beseiged by attacks since the moment that he stepped upon the national stage, further evidence of the same Alinsky tactic directed against Bush, Palin, and Bachmann:  “Pick the target, freeze it, personalize it, and polarize it.”

When progressives judge conservative judges, they impose guilt  if guilt falls within six degrees of separation.  Judges on the left, however, enjoy the law of ethical laissez faire.

Lest we revert to past wrongs, let’s reject again the idea of guilt by association.  It’s that goose and gander thing.  Clarence Thomas has never worked for the Heritage Foundation; Elena Kagan did not help to write the health care bill.  Their job now is to use the Constitution as Obamacare’s ultimate crucible. 

Those black robes confer a certain somber dignity that must never become tainted by politics.  They represent the Law, behind which we all stand for protection.  That law must be bigger than the men and women who wear the robes.  

Justices must, therefore, ignore all personal associations, past and present,  and do their sworn duty, to review and apply the law according to Constitutional strictures.  Not their job to act as another arm of the Legislative Branch of government but to provide the wise judicial oversight that the Constitution demands.  I fervently hope that Jefferson, Madison, Adams, et.al.,  would bless their decision when the dust settles.

Surely the idea of an unbiased judiciary has a firm hold on our collective psyche.  The world presents examples of too many horrors for us to risk an alternative.

Tribute to Ronald Reagan

The Ronald Reagan Library: Courtesy of the National Archives

Superbowl XLV!  As football fanatics across the land prepare for the sports-world’s premier event, many of us choose instead to celebrate another event on this day, the one-hundredth birthday of Ronald Wilson Reagan, centenarian and American centurion.

With the anniversary emerge all the petty little digs, now more muted, that clamored during his tenure as the world’s most powerful man.  Christopher Hitchens opined that perhaps the world would be better off had Reagan never held office.  Another pundit makes the point that Reagan’s “simplemindedness” proved to be an asset.   Perhaps the unkindest cut of all?  His own son Ron Reagan, Jr., in order to sell books, suggested that his father suffered from Alzheimer’s while in the Oval Office .  The current president even appears to try to co-opt the Reagan brand to polish his own image.

Pardon me while I gush bromides and banalities on the subject, but I do it with good reason in my opinion.

He made us believe again in the “shining city upon a hill.”  Not for him to travel to foreign soil and serve as apologist-in-chief for the rubes back home.  Not for him as our spokesman to plead “guilty” to every collective sin of which the world accuses us.

No, he did not dither, vacillate, pander, or equivocate.  Rather, he walked out of the Rekjevic Summit because he considered Mikhail Gorbechev’s demands unreasonable.  When he addressed a German audience, he played to a world audience and in so doing, embraced his own countrymen and spoke for them,  demanding that the Brandenburg Gate be opened.  Then  he uttered the most famous imperative of our time:  “Mr. Gorbechev, tear down this wall.”

He wrapped himself in the American flag and in American pride, and by his example allowed us to reclaim ownership of them.

Detractors couldn’t reduce him, although they tried.  Instead, it seemed that every barb and invective served only to increase his popularity at home.  Simply put, we adored him.  He may very well prove to be the last American president to receive such adulation.

His humor made us laugh.  His resolve gave rise to a swell of national pride and the first promise of security since the Iron Curtain declared war on freedom.  He was unrepentant in his love of country and unapologetic in his faith in God.  Such steadfastness earned him and us by reflection renewed respect in the world. 

Happy birthday, Mr. President.

Famous Reagan Quotes

“Government does not solve problems; it subsidizes them.”

“Here’s my strategy on the Cold War: We win, they lose.”

 ”The trouble with our liberal friends is not that they’re ignorant; it’s just that they know so much that isn’t so.” 

 ”Government is like a baby: An alimentary canal with a big appetite at one end and no sense of responsibility at the other.”

 ”The nearest thing to eternal life we will ever see on this earth is a government program.”

 ”I’ve laid down the law, though, to everyone from now on about anything that happens: no matter what time it is, wake me, even if it’s in the middle of a Cabinet meeting.”

 ”It has been said that politics is the second oldest profession. I have learned that it bears a striking resemblance to the first.”

 ”Government’s view of the economy could be summed up in a few short phrases: If it moves, tax it. If it keeps moving, regulate it. And if it stops moving, subsidize it.”

 ”Politics is not a bad profession. If you succeed, there are many rewards; if you disgrace yourself, you can always write a book.”

 ”No arsenal, or no weapon in the arsenals of the world, is as formidable as the will and moral courage of free men and women.”

 ”If we ever forget that we’re one nation under God, then we will be a nation gone under.”

 ”Republicans believe every day is the 4th of July, Democrats believe every day is April 15th.”

 ”Evil is powerless if the good are unafraid”

 ”We cannot play innocents abroad in a world that is not innocent”

 ”Peace is not the absense of conflict; it is the ability to manage conflict by peaceful means”

 ”Of the four wars of my lifetime, none came about because the U.S. was too strong”

 ”If the Soviet Union ever let another political party come into existence, they would still be a one-party state… because everbody would join the other party”

 ”How do you tell a communist? He reads Lenin and Marx. And how do you tell an anti-communist? Someone who understands Lenin and Marx.”

 ”Freedom is never more than one generation away from extinction; it’s not something we pass along in our bloodstream. It must be fought-for, protected, and passed-along for them to do the same”

 ”Entrepeneurs and small businesses are responsible for almost all the economic growth in the United States”

 ”If you can’t make them see the light, let them feel the heat”

 ”They say the world has become too complex for simple answers… they are wrong”

 ”The most terrifying words in the English language are: I’m from the government, and I’m here to help”

 ”Recession is when your neighbor loses his job; a depression is when you lose yours”

 ”Before I refuse to take your questions, I have an opening statement…”