politicalcivility.com Blog

Sutherland has posted a bunch of video clips from its Why California Matters seminar: http://www.youtube.com/user/sutherlandinstitute

Today is the first “home” game for the new Real Sandy soccer team, which got me thinking.  Since this nice little white steel structure was paid for by yours truly the utah taxpayer and those kind enough to visit our states as tourists/biz travelers, is Dave Checketts going to offer special taxpayer ticket packages and special seating for those who helped pay for the stadium?  Maybe he could do preferential seating based on income tax bracket level or on how many business trips to sandy you’ve had (for folks like those at Cadence headquarters there in Sandy)? 

I’d take a couple tickets as a thank you especially if i can sit next to the senate president and speaker of the house.

I heard about this story while coming into work this morning.  How can you tell a 9-yr old he’s too good to play?  Kids have enough to deal with without being given a complex by adults who want their own kids to win (which appears to be the motivation behind not letting him play).  Here’s the quote from Jericho (the 9yr old):

“I feel sad,” he said. “I feel like it’s all my fault nobody could play.”

It’s just a little league game and the fact of the matter is that in a couple of years the other boys will catch up with him.  Are we so concerned about winning that we can’t just enjoy the fact that we’re watching something pretty cool?  Should we have told Tiger Woods he couldn’t play in youth golf tournaments because he was too good?  Jericho’s mom hit the nail on the head with this quote:

“I think it’s discouraging when you’re telling a 9-year-old you’re too good at something,” said his mother, Nicole Scott. “The whole objective in life is to find something you’re good at and stick with it. I’d rather he spend all his time on the baseball field than idolizing someone standing on the street corner.”

This baseball league needs to relax and let the kids play.  If anything the kids playing against a great 9yr-old will, in the end be the better for it…kind of like the baseball team in “The Rookie” where the coach didn’t realize it, but he was throwing 90 mile/hr heat to high schoolers and so by the time they faced ‘real’ high school pitching they hit the cover off the ball.  Why not look at this as a blessing versus finding a way for kids not to face great competition?

Clinton’s presidency may have highlighted this debate better than any in recent history, but it is again relevant in the debate in California.  I am not going to use this post to talk about my thoughts on gay marriage, but rather to highlight a major flaw in one of the arguments used in support of it, namely “What I do in my private life is my business.  It doesn’t affect society or you my nosey neighbor, etc.” 

My experience as an HR manager gave me ample evidence that this line of reasoning or rationalization is nonsense.  I saw hours and hours wasted, unnecessary confrontations, emotional frailty, and on and on that was a direct result of private lives of employees that were in chaos (either from their own ‘private’ actions or a spouse, child, etc.).  You could go to your average school teacher and ask them who is struggling and why and that teacher could show you a large majority of those children who are struggling have issues in the home.

We are the sum of our lifes’ choices (virtuous or otherwise), whether those choices are made in private of public.  And the result of those choices are manifest in private and public, whether we realize it or not. 

Perhaps the best statement countering this poor line of thinking comes from James E. Faust, who (prior to his full-time service as an apostle for the LDS church) was by profession an attorney and probably saw his fair share evidence of private acts impacting for good an ill society in general. 

First, adults need to understand, and our children need to be taught, that private choices are not private: they all have public consequences…It is simply not true that our private conduct is our business.  Our society is the sum total of what millions of individuals do in their private lives.  That sum total of private behavior has worldwide public consequences of enormous magnitude.  There are no completely private choices.

Wise words…

As I have spent the last several months studying Story’s Commentaries on the Constitution i have often pondered the question, why didn’t I hear more about this in middle school and especially high school.  I remember three US history classes in school: 8th grade with Mr. Rosenthal, AP US history with Mr. Williams and finally, AP Gov’t with Mr. Thomas.  Not one of them came close to teaching me about US history or gave me an appreciation for our Republic and constitution like reading Story.  I believe we are failing in large measure to heed Story’s admonition in the closing sentences of his book.

“Let the American youth never forget, that they possess a noble inheritance, bought by the toils, and sufferings and blood of their ancestors; and capable, if wisely improved, and faithfully guarded, of transmitting to their latest posterity all the substantial blessings of life, the peaceful enjoyment of liberty, property, religion, and independence…Republics are created by the virture, public spirit, and intelligence of the citizens.  They fall, when the wise are banished from the public councils, because they dare to be honest and the profligate are rewarded, because they flatter the people, in order to betray them.”

Many of you may have seen the news story in today’s papers (here’s the DesNews version) that North American missionaries will no longer be sent to Russia.  As a former Russian missionary (I served in St. Petersburg), this is sad news, but I can’t say unexpected.  Last year when I was with my wife in Russia, the government was in the process of implementing a ban on any form of open proselytizing.  Putin has a long track record of abusing religious freedom and has used the Orthodox church as a means to strengthen his power by making it harder for other religions in Russia.

I hope those in the media here in America do a better job highlighting these abuses.  In the mean time my thoughts and prayers go out to all those (mormons, baptists, jews, etc.) who now find their practice of faith, other than Orthodoxy, increasingly in the cross hairs of the Russian government.

With tomorrow being Independence Day, a “patriotic” post is in order. 

Today I read two OpEd pieces, one from John McCain and the other written by Barack Obama where each puts to paper his own definition of Patriotism.  I enjoyed reading both and appreciated the sentiments articulated on the whole and I recommend both as good food for thought.  I believe there is tremendous value to be reminded of the bigger picture now and then.  It is just human tendency to get so bogged down in arguing over the details that we sometimes forget we’re working on the same thing, a better America.

There is probably only one issue that I would say misses the mark with the two editorials and it comes from Mr. McCain.

“It [patriotism] is putting the country first, before party or personal ambition, before anything.”

If McCain had stopped before the “before anything” comment I think his editorial would have been perfect.  But I think we enter dangerous territory when country/king/state comes before all else.  There is a great scene in Chariots of Fire where Eric Liddell and a English duke where they debated priority of allegiance: king or God first.  The duke remarked that in his day it was king first–God second, to which his colleague retorted that the war to end all wars [WW1] bitterly proved the duke’s point noting the consequence of misplaced allegiance priority.

I love my country, but not above all else.  I am sorry Mr. McCain, but my allegiance to my God and my family come before my allegiance to my country.  And to me this allows me to be more patriotic not less.

Enjoy the editorials and have a great Independence Day! It’s great to be an American.

New Yorkers have a reputation, NY cab drivers especially, of having a short fuse and for being fairly aggressive.  Well I’ve finally figured it out why.  Yesterday while enjoying my nice commute home, I heard a news clip stating that cigarettes in NYC are now $10 per pack. 

So there you go: either the New Yorker, in whose crosshairs you just found yourself, is so addicted to smoking that their pulling out an Alexander Hamilton for a pack of cigarettes or they’re in the process of trying to quit.  Either way you’d be pretty ticked off too.

Joseph Story’s Commentaries on the Constitution has become one of my favorite books.  It is no easy read.  In fact parts of it read like Isaiah in the Bible.  But like Isaiah, in the midst of all the mud [incomprehensible verse after verse] you find nuggets.

Here is a nugget about what I’d argue is the ‘call of the public servant or elected official.’

“It should never be forgotten, that in a republican government [quick aside here to reemphasize that we DO NOT live in a democracy but in a republic] offices are established, and are to be filled, not to gratify private interests and private attachments; not as a means of corrupt influence, or individual profit; not for cringing favourites, or court sycophants; but for purposes of the highest public good; to give dignity, strength, purity, and energy to the administration of the laws.”

I know we live in an imperfect world, but I believe that Story gives us the golden standard to which we should aspire individually in our personal lives and to which we should hold our public servants accountable.

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Given the following charge, where do our current set of federal officials and current governor stack up.  I’d be interested in your thoughts.

In response to my post on Obama’s PAC pledge, Misty asked a question about what did I mean about “incentives.”  It’s a fair question and one that is best answered by using a recent constituent letter I received from Senator Hatch’s office after I emailed his office asking him to oppose the farm bill. 

In my view, Hatch’s letter perfectly illustrated both the pork spending problem and the incentives issue that drives decision making and $$ flow in DC.  Hatch gave no principled justification as to why this farm bill was the right thing for government to do.  Every rationale he used in his letter pointed to one overriding theme–bring home the bacon or in the case of this farm bill all the benefits, special programs, business perks. 

So how does this answer the incentives question?  Toward the end of his letter, he also mentioned that this bill was supported by “many agricultural groups in our state.”  PACs (or in this case agricultural special interests groups) know that Sen. Hatch needs votes and that he needs money to run a campaign.  PACs offer both to the elected official.  PACs and special interested groups on the other hand need the people with the power of the purse (or the ability to take from one person and redistribute to another which would be illegal if PACs did it on their own) to do their bidding–they need their Sen. Hatch’s who have compromised to the point that all they have left to offer their constituents is BACON versus principled leadership.

So there you have the recipe for the continuation of the DC incentive love fest: [INCENTIVE for the Politician) votes which equal reelection and continued power and [INCENTIVE for the Special Interest] the growth of government programs or contracts or a general redistribution of wealth directly designed to benefit them. Of course all this is paid for by yours truly: you and me the taxpayer.

This lovefest is what Frederic Bastiat eloquently describes as “legal plunder.”  And as it relates to our government today, we see a Bastiat’s Universal Legal Plunder played out over and over again and unfortunately not just by our own Sen. Hatch.

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Bastiat on Legal Plunder:

“See if the law (senators or congressmen/women) takes from some persons what belongs to them, and gives it to other persons to whom it does not belong.  See if the law benefits one citizen at the expense of another by doing what the citizen himself cannot do without committing a crime…

“The person (agricultural interest in the above example) who profits from this law will complain bitterly, defending his acquired rights. He will claim that the state is obligated to protect and encourage his particular industry; that this procedure enriches the state [or its citizens]…

“Do not listen to this sophistry by vested interests.”

It’s almost like listening to the news every day.