My World View - Amended

This has been a memorable few weeks. It has been filled with events of deep significance for us, beginning with the Christmas holidays when we spent a lot of time together with our family.

We had a special treat the first Saturday in January. Patsy had always longed for a sleigh ride with all the kids here at the Ranch, so I connected with Kim Richins out of Coalville, and he brought a matched team of black Percherons and hitched them to his twenty-passenger sleigh for two hours of fun. It was so great! Andrew and Jessica were taking some holiday time off from the rigors of medical school, and their visit was the catalyst for getting everyone here.

Next up was three weeks of business-related travel for Packsize that took us out to the Eastern Caribbean for the annual sales meeting aboard the Carnival Freedom cruise ship. Our ports of call included San Juan in Puerto Rico, Antigua, St. Thomas, Nassau in the Bahamas, then on to Germany for a week of training with the sales team in the the European Business Unit at Herford. What a cultural feast this past month has been!

The day after our return last week, Jake and Heidi were blessed with yet another miracle baby, Vivienne, who was born three months early, weighing in at 2 lb. 6 oz. at a length of 13 inches! Mother and baby are doing well. You can read all about her and their journey through the vicissitudes of infertility and anencephaly by clicking the link to their blog.

When you travel, if you are like me, you spend a few hours in various ports of call and you come away with distinct impressions that last a lifetime. This last month for me was particularly meaningful because I got to return to ground I had not seen for 46 years!

My parents came to England in 1969 to pick me up from my mission. They had not seen Europe, and thought it would be a memorable time to make that trip, even though it was winter in early February. Our itinerary included England, Holland, Poland, Germany, Switzerland, France, Spain and Portugal. High on their list of things to do was to visit historical sights, including museums, cathedrals, and even a night at the ballet in Paris for me and Mom. Dad wasn't interested in ballet.

My purpose in recalling that memory has everything to do with my week in Germany last week. I had a chance to return to Berlin.

When I was there in 1969, Berlin was a divided city, and Germany had been partitioned after World War II. It was divided among the Allies who defeated Hitler to assure that Germany never repeated that debacle. The Berlin Wall was the iconic symbol representing the worst features of the Cold War raging between America and the USSR. We had just come from Amsterdam and Poland where we reviewed the history of the rise and the fall of the Third Reich, and it was a chilling and sobering chapter. We rode trains from Amsterdam to Poland, where the highlights included visits to Anne Frank's home and Auschwitz. We then went to Dusseldorf and Berlin on trains.

Checkpoint Charlie, Berlin

My youthful mind was filled with those images and, frankly, Germany scared me. As the miles on the crowded trains flew by with my parents I wondered if we would somehow get trapped behind enemy lines and never return to America. Remember, it's 1969, and nothing's really going on in Europe except the Cold War and there's a war in far-off Vietnam nobody cares anything about. I knew as I prepared to return home I would have to go into the Army, but I wasn't nearly as concerned about that as I was about getting out of Germany that day.

The memories of that visit to Berlin in 1969 persisted into my adult life. We went through the Berlin Wall into East Germany on a two-hour visit permit. The warning posted at the checkpoint, "YOU ARE NOW LEAVING THE AMERICAN SECTOR," did nothing but chill me to the bone. On the other side of the Wall, it was so disheartening to observe firsthand the effects of Communism on the buildings, the people and the cold winter scenes we witnessed. People in the streets were huddled around barrels burning whatever they could find to stay warm and scrounging for food. Our guide drove slowly and ignored the pleas for help. "If you help one, you have to help them all," he informed us. Everything was old and dilapidated. There had been little progress under Communist rule since the War had ended. The oppression, the fear and the menacing overhang of soldiers everywhere was foreboding to me. The concrete tenement buildings for the workers were drab and uninviting. Today some of those tenements have been reclaimed and updated as upscale and pricey condominiums, but you get off the main thoroughfares and our tour guide talked about "open ownership" to properties that no one has claimed and they remain as dilapidated as they were in 1969 when I was there last. I couldn't wait to get back out of there. Freedom had never been so precious to me.

Brandenburg Gate today

Fast forward to last week. We picked up a tour bus on a Saturday morning. It was almost the same time of year, once again only two weeks different than my experience in 1969. It was still winter, and Berlin that Saturday morning was very cold with light snow in the air. But this time the difference was there were no soldiers, only their ghosts and my distant memories. We breezed through the streets of the old East Berlin with ease on the tour bus. Because we took that portion of the tour first, our guide let us stop and spend time wherever we chose to do, and we enjoyed that leisurely approach very much.

There are still stretches of the old Berlin Wall left. The tour guide spoke frequently of the "GDR" days and the days since under reunification that began when the Wall finally figuratively disintegrated overnight in 1989. In evidence everywhere is the slow but steady progress that has occurred since my first visit in 1969. However, my colleague in Packsize, Jan Spiekermann, who is a German citizen, informed me last week there is still a deduction from every one of his paychecks for the rebuilding effort that will be ongoing for many years to come.

The train travel has advanced dramatically. We were speeding along in ICE trains at about 125 mph during this visit, a stark contrast to the crowded and slower trains I remembered from my youth.

Victory Column, Berlin

A total of two days in a lifetime spent in Berlin does not an expert make. Let me make that declaration here and now. But the differences in what I observed then and now cannot be denied. These are the reasons I have lamented with amazement so frequently on these pages that America would intentionally embrace socialism and a socialist POTUS in recent years when they could have had Mitt Romney. Didn't we all learn the lesson that Communism was a dismal failure? Did we need any other reminder that socialism, as practiced in Berlin and the GDR in post-World War II years produced nothing but depression and dismal economic failure? Can't we all agree that politicians espousing such economic policies should be ignored and shunned at the ballot box? God help us all that when Barack Obama's term comes to a merciful end in November, 2016, that we never sign up for a repeat of THAT ever again in America.

If you believe there is merit in socialism in the least of its shades and hues to any degree, I'd suggest you study history, then make a visit to Berlin sometime. I think you'll come away from that exercise convinced that socialism offers nothing to those who love freedom. The promise of a better life to the masses by taking from the rich is a lie. It was then, it still is today.

Kaiser Wilhelm Memorial Church

Today in Berlin there are reminders everywhere of the horrors of war. I thought it was no more clearly illustrated than a visit to the Kaiser Wilhelm Memorial Church. Its bombed-out skeletal remains stand next to the modern rebuilt sanctuary as a reminder that war destroys. Those modern memorials also remind Germans that, after all, Hitler was an Austrian in Germany only long enough to claim citizenship that enabled him to stay there legally. He has been totally disavowed by modern-day Berliners. Our past as nations and individuals can define and advise our future in very significant ways to find a more productive and prosperous way forward if we choose it.

Holocaust museums and memorials are abundant there. Germany continues to prosper under the democracy in place there as the anchor to the European Union. These facts alone should be ample evidence, sufficient to tamp down any thoughts of returning to socialism in any way. But government solutions tend to pop up everywhere despite the lessons of history. That reality dismays me, though I can do little but comment about it. I believe, however, the power of ideas related to freedom ultimately appeal to our Father in Heaven's children wherever they live on this earth.

Holocaust Memorial, Berlin

Sadly, however, mankind seems almost incapable of remembering and taking a different course. Conflicts around the globe today persist. We don't call them wars these days, and the current administration in Washington seems reluctant to admit we are in a war with a radical strain of Islam. Make no mistake, however, there are still people out there who would kill Americans if they could. The enemies of freedom will persist because Satan inspires some to think they can conquer and subdue the human spirit by compelling them into bondage that takes many forms. We may not think we are at war with them, but they have no other desire than to topple America and the freedoms she stands for around the world. The ancient and ever-present war between good and evil will always be with us.

It was my children in 1989, who informed me upon returning from school one November day that "some wall in Europe came down today." I said, "You mean the Berlin Wall?" "Yeah, that's it," was their answer. I was stunned. Overnight a miracle had happened, and just that fast the end of the Cold War came without a single shot being fired. The total collapse of the Soviet empire had come to an unbelievable, swift and merciful end.

Ronald Reagan, 1987

Ronald Reagan, Margaret Thatcher, and Pope John Paul II had been right to confront the evil of their day. Reagan's bold demand at the Brandenburg Gate to Gorbachev to "tear down this wall," had been miraculously fulfilled. It was shocking. Berliners on both sides of the wall took to the streets in celebration. Freedom at last!

So based upon their tortured past with major wars in nearly every century of their history, let's take a lesson from the Germans - recovering from the effects of wars takes many more years than we can imagine, and the drain on productivity and progress is almost impossible to calculate.

Ahhh, Ronald Reagan, timely and timeless

Ronald Reagan

"I don't have to think of an answer as to what I think their intentions are; they have repeated it….they hold their determination that their goal must be the promotion of world revolution and a one-world Socialist or Communist state, whichever word you want to use.

"Now, …they….have openly and publicly declared that the only morality they recognize is what will further their cause, meaning they reserve unto themselves the right to commit any crime, to lie, to cheat, in order to attain that, and that is moral, not immoral, and we operate on a different set of standards. I think when you do business with them…..you keep that in mind."

-- President Ronald Reagan on dealing with the Communist Soviet Union, January 29, 1981

I have only one comment to add: The more things change the more they remain the same. . .

Political Quote of the Day

From the pen of Bill O'Reilly, writing today at Townhall:

In 2012, America is not bedeviled by inflation, but we are stuck in the economic mud. Under Obama, government spending has reached record levels, and in three years, Obama has added about 130,000 federal workers to the payroll: more than the number Reagan added in five fewer years. It is breathtaking.

And now Obama wants to jack up tax rates on the affluent all over the place. Income, capital gains and dividends all will be taxed at a significantly higher rate if Congress goes along with the president. Again, this is the exact opposite of what Reagan did.

What Obama hopes to accomplish is hard to ascertain. The feds will derive about $85 billion in extra revenue a year if the president's proposed tax hike is passed. But listen to this: The feds spend $85 billion every eight and a half days, according to the Treasury Department. Talk about putting your finger in a leaking dike.

* * *

I really have come to believe President Barack Obama must think the American people are stupid. Since they make the case even better than I ever could, consider this piece of writing from Brietbart on the broken pledges of the POTUS, not the candidate Obama, but when he was president.

CBS News is quoted in the article:


The National Debt has now increased more during President Obama's three years and two months in office than it did during 8 years of the George W. Bush presidency.
The Debt rose $4.899 trillion during the two terms of the Bush presidency. It has now gone up $4.939 trillion since President Obama took office.
The latest posting from the Bureau of Public Debt at the Treasury Department shows the National Debt now stands at $15.566 trillion. It was $10.626 trillion on President Bush's last day in office, which coincided with President Obama's first day.
The National Debt also now exceeds 100% of the nation's Gross Domestic Product, the total value of goods and services.
Mr. Obama has been quick to blame his predecessor for the soaring Debt, saying Mr. Bush paid for two wars and a Medicare prescription drug program with borrowed funds.
The federal budget sent to Congress last month by Mr. Obama, projects the National Debt would continue to rise as far as the eye can see. The budget shows the Debt hitting $16.3 trillion in 2012, $17.5 trillion in 2013 and $25.9 trillion in 2022.


This POTUS could not be more toxic than he is.

Greatest President of the Twentieth Century?

If you were to assume Newt Gingrich's choice as the best president of the twentieth century was Ronald Reagan, maybe even his favorite president of all-time, you would make a logical conclusion based upon all the mentions he's been giving in this campaign cycle to curry favor with Reagan conservatives.

But, you would be wrong. Newt Gingrich's very favorite president "maybe of all time" was (wait for it, drum roll please). . .



So I guess everybody gets to play the flip flop game these days with impunity.

Political Quote of the Day

From Mortimer Zuckerman, a lifelong Democrat and avid supporter of Barack Obama, as quoted by James Freeman in today's Wall Street Journal:

"Reagan surprised me. He got the point of every argument. . . . He was very decisive. And everybody loved working for him. They followed his lead because they really respected his decisiveness and his instincts.

"I was not a Republican and I was not an admirer of his before I knew him. And you know, Harry Truman had a wonderful definition for the presidency. He said the president has to be someone who can persuade the American people to do what they don't want to do and to like it. And that's what you have to do. Somebody like Reagan had that authority. He was liked so much and he had a kind of moral authority. That's what this president has lost.

"Democracy does not work without the right leadership and you can't play politics. The country has got to come to the conclusion at some point that what you're doing is not just because of an ideology or politics but for the interests of the country."

One Man's Patriot, Another's Radical

Talk about polarization! I call her a patriot, others would dismiss her as a conservative radical. You choose for yourself after you listen to her.

Congresswoman Michele Bachmann (R-MN) is outraged by the secretive spending appropriation in the Obamacare legislation that was passed last year. She's calling on the unholy alliance of Obama, Reid and Pelosi to apologize to the American people for the deception.

In case anyone is keeping score and actually cares about the Constitution, appropriation bills must originate in the House -- the People's House -- where duly elected representatives of the people of the United States of America get to decide what is spent, how much, and on what.

When Obamacare was passed through both houses of Congress along party lines with the Democrats in the majority in both houses, however, Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) famously said, "We have to pass this legislation first to know what's in it," and that is exactly what happened.

It was cobbled together hastily in the dead of night in both houses of Congress without anyone (or very few, Pelosi herself apparently) knowing what was in it.

Ronald Reagan, fifty years ago, presaged what would happen. Said he:

"Back in 1927, an American socialist, Norman Thomas, six times candidate for president on the Socialist Party ticket, said the American people would never vote for socialism. But he said under the name of liberalism the American people will adopt every fragment of the socialist program. ...

"One of the traditional methods of imposing statism or socialism on a people has been by way of medicine. It's very easy to disguise a medical program as a humanitarian project. Most people are a little reluctant to oppose anything that suggests medical care for people who possibly can’t afford it.

"Now, the American people, if you put it to them about socialized medicine and gave them a chance to choose, would unhesitatingly vote against it. We had an example of this. Under the Truman administration, it was proposed that we have a compulsory health insurance program for all people in the United States, and, of course, the American people unhesitatingly rejected this." (Radio address on socialized medicine, 1961).

You can bet when the House passes this next continuing resolution for the next two weeks of enough funding to keep the government running temporarily, Bachmann is not going to go quietly into the night without a fight over $105 Billion being stripped out -- "clawed back" as she puts it.




On a related topic: There are Big Issues facing America right now. Tax revenues in the states are simply not available to fund public union pension and healthcare plans. The tried and true principles of tax and spend are outdated. As a nation and in the several states, we are spending more than we are bringing in. That is nuts, and it will change either voluntarily or because gravity is still the predominant law of the universe. What goes up (spending) must always come back to earth. It's not a question of if this is going to happen, only a matter of when, how much and how hard will the landing be?

Yes, the states have made promises to public unions, and yes they are in default on those agreements. Yes, the unions have won concession after concession through their collective bargaining muscle from the politicians who come and go. What is going on in New Jersey and Wisconsin, not to mention Ohio, Indiana and other states like Illinois, is nothing more than the profligate spending habits finally coming back to bite, and bite hard. It's time for the unions to step back, take a moment to reflect on the gains they have made in the past, recognize these are desperate times and begin to back away and be responsible under present conditions.

Since 2008 and the collapse of the sub-prime mortgage market and the onset of the "Great Recession" as it is now being called, there is not a segment of the economy that has not suffered. Historically, unions represented both public and private sector workers. They were able to negotiate and protect their workers from egregious practices of some powerful businesses that had abused their privileges and exploited labor. They succeeded so well, in fact, that companies like General Motors were decimated and went bankrupt. Of course, to blame their gross mismanagement solely upon union contracts is simplistic, but the benefits granted to unions were so magnanimous they have now damaged the entire U.S. economy. It's simple math, really: Not enough tax revenue to cover expenses among the several states. Millions of jobs formerly held by Americans are now outsourced to China and India. Why? Labor unions, doing their darnedest for their workers pushed the cost of labor too high. If you're management and you're beholden to shareholders, you have no choice but to seek lower costs anywhere you can find them to boost profits.

In this sense capitalism is brutal. It is not a cradle to grave entitlement plan like we see in smaller European countries where "we take care of our own." In Sweden, for example, 10 million Swedes love their socialism and it seems to work on some level. Pit that solution against over 300 million Americans, and the blankets on the entitlement bed just aren't big enough to cover everyone.

Class warfare has always part of the political debate in this country. This is nothing new. The haves against the have nots is always an interesting discussion to follow, but it is pointless now. We're in crisis, a political crisis of gridlock and a funding crisis begging immediate attention.

America must pay its bills. China holds well over $1 Trillion in U.S. debt. We are well over $14 Trillion in total debt, and the President who once adamantly opposed raising the debt ceiling as a freshman senator, is now warning that unless he gets what he's asking for in a higher debt ceiling America will default on its obligations to its creditors. After all his bluster over the issue, Obama then proffered a laughable budget calling for another Trillion to be spent in this fiscal year's budget with minuscule spending cuts. This after ignoring the recommendations of his own blue-ribbon bi-partisan debt and spending commission appointed by him to study what to do about the spending problem.

That is insanity and utter irresponsibility in light of the current conditions. Then Obama condescendingly lectures to Wisconsin to uphold its obligations to the public workers' union. To which Wisconsin's governor shot back, "Better get your own house in order, Mr. President, before you start giving me advice."

I have been quick to criticize spending in the Bush administration, but the magnitude and the audacity of what Obama has done pales into insignificance by contrast.

People say China might just call our bluff and unload all their U.S. paper. Reality, however, suggests they'd have to find another place to park it -- not as easy as it looks. However, America really has no choice now. We are at another crossroad and we must choose which road to go down. Straight ahead is no longer possible because it is unsustainable. We've got to come up with a short-term and a long-term spending reduction plan that puts Congress in "a straight jacket" as Senator Mike Lee (R-UT) and others are advocating. That includes a Balanced Budget Amendment that allows for exceeding well-defined limits with a super (2/3) majority from both houses of Congress in the event of national emergency. It also means public unions must and will be compelled to back down on their demands to keep the states solvent.

I am continually amazed at the liberal agenda. Despite fiscal reality, they continue to scream, "Tax the rich!" to bring down debt. Taxation crushes economic expansion. Corporations and rich folks are like water running downhill to seek lower tax rates wherever they can be found. Exporting jobs and production facilities to business friendly states like Utah, or overseas, is the only way decision makers can respond when taxes continue to rise. The flight from California and Illinois is emblematic, not to mention what happened to the once proud Motor City, Detroit.

Debt and spending reductions in the states and in the federal government is JOB ONE. America is watching. If Congress can't get its act together in the next two years, the unrest and unwillingness of the voters to continue doing business as usual with its elected representatives will bring further changes in 2012.

And you can take THAT to the bank.

A Calf's Tail

"So I said to Barack, I knew Abe Lincoln, and you ain't no Abe Lincoln!"

On this Presidents Day weekend, language used by politicians is worthy of comment.

We used to observe Lincoln's birthday on February 12th and then Washington's on the 22nd. Wouldn't you know it was the commercialization of their birthdays that prompted a change? Led by automobile dealers in the late 1980s, their need for a long weekend in which to hold a sale is what eventually produced "Presidents Day." It splits the goalposts between Lincoln's and Washington's birthdays and gives us three days and a shopping weekend mid-winter. Now it's not just those two we cite, but every president.

President Bill Clinton

I'm always fascinated with what presidents say and have said. Perhaps the most famous use of language and how it could be parsed was Bill Clinton's lamentable, "I did not have sexual relations with that woman." Or when questioned under oath, his "That depends on what your definition of 'is' is." I'm almost certain Bill Clinton said some things that are far more astute than those two statements, but they will forever be attached to him as the most memorable.

Jimmy Carter had a memorable quote along those lines long before Bill Clinton acted upon his thoughts and temptations, however. Carter once gave an interview for Playboy Magazine, in which he famously said, "I've looked on many women with lust. I've committed adultery in my heart many times. God knows I will do this and forgives me."

President Jimmy Carter

No matter what their political enemies may say, most U.S. Presidents have an abiding love for this country, its heritage and its values. Carter underscores that idea with this statement: "The experience of democracy is like the experience of life itself -- always changing, infinite in its variety, sometimes turbulent and all the more valuable for having been tested by adversity."

Three years into his failed presidency he was on national television giving what later came to be known as his "Crisis in Confidence" or "malaise" speech in which he said, "I promised you a President who is not isolated from the people, who feels your pain, and who shares your dreams and who draws his strength and his wisdom from you."

Then along came Ronald Reagan who asked voters a simple question, "Are you better off today than you were four years ago?" They went for Reagan in a landslide election a year later in 1980.

Lincoln Memorial, Washington D.C.

There's a story attributed to Abraham Lincoln, when he was faced with some thorny issues. He would ask his opponent who thought a question could be settled with a twist of language or a slight abuse of power, "How many legs would a dog have, if we called the dog’s tail, a leg?" Confident of simple math, Lincoln's opponent would respond, "Five,” to which Lincoln would respond, "No, calling a dog’s tail a leg, doesn’t make it a leg.”

The genesis of that story is interesting. Because it has been so widely quoted, most have assumed the use of the dog in the metaphor is accurate, but I found a source this morning that is the most credible I've seen in print. This source contends beginning on page 241, continuing into page 242, that the animal was actually a calf and not a dog.

Here's the source for the quote: Reminiscences of Abraham Lincoln by distinguished men of his time / collected and edited by Allen Thorndike Rice (1853-1889). New York: Harper & Brothers Publishers, 1909. The University of Michigan has the entire text on-line, in the Collected Works of Abraham Lincoln, an on-line source whose whole text is searchable.

President George Washington

George Washington, hailed as the Father of our Country by his peers, and fully aware that every move he made was being logged into the history books for future generations, observed, "I walk on untrodden ground. There is scarcely any part of my conduct which may not hereafter be drawn into precedent."

Knowing there would have been no agreement on the Constitution without leaving the question of slavery untouched and having to pragmatically kick the question down the road for another generation of Americans to deal with, Washington lamented:  "I can only say that there is not a man living who wishes more sincerely than I do to see a plan adopted for the abolition of slavery."

President Ronald W. Reagan

Ronald Reagan, recently confirmed once again by American citizens (as he has been for the last twelve years in eight different polls) as the "greatest president in U.S. history," left many memorable quotes in the history books. This is one of my favorites: "Above all, we must realize that no arsenal, or no weapon in the arsenals of the world, is so formidable as the will and moral courage of free men and women. It is a weapon our adversaries in today's world do not have."

Reagan recognized, as few ever have, where the horsepower behind America's economic engine comes from: "Entrepreneurs and their small enterprises are responsible for almost all the economic growth in the United States."

Ronald Reagan was always warning about the fragility of our heritage as free people: "Freedom is never more than one generation away from extinction. We didn't pass it to our children in the bloodstream. It must be fought for, protected, and handed on for them to do the same."

Reagan was the people's president. He had an uncanny ability to tap into their psyche and he routinely used his sense of humor to poke fun at the politicians we love to hate. This is only one of his many gems:  "It has been said that politics is the second oldest profession. I have learned that it bears a striking resemblance to the first."

President John Adams

Readers of this page will understand my affection for John Adams, who said, "Abuse of words has been the great instrument of sophistry and chicanery, of party, faction, and division of society."

In his defense argument of the soldiers involved in the Boston Massacre in 1770, where his clients were acquitted, Adams famously observed, "Facts are stubborn things; and whatever may be our wishes, our inclinations, or the dictates of our passions, they cannot alter the state of facts and evidence."

To all the bloggers in our enlightened age, Adams would say, "Let us tenderly and kindly cherish, therefore, the means of knowledge. Let us dare to read, think, speak, and write."

Like most of the founders, John Adams had a reverence and a complete awareness of what they were creating in the American experiment. Lest we forget in our day, he reminds us, "I always consider the settlement of America with reverence and wonder, as the opening of a grand scene and design in providence, for the illumination of the ignorant and the emancipation of the slavish part of mankind all over the earth."

President George W. Bush

In more recent years as the politicians have sparred, criticized and lampooned (get ready, it's coming again soon in the run up to the 2012 election), it was refreshing to hear George W. Bush stand down: "I just didn't want to get out there anymore; I didn't want to get back into what I call 'the swamp.' And the other reason why is I don't think it's good for the presidency for a former president to be opining about his successor. President Obama's got plenty of critics - and I'm just not gonna be one."

President John F. Kennedy was inspirational in so many ways. As a young man I loved reading his Profiles in Courage compilation. He reminds us, "A nation which has forgotten the quality of courage which in the past has been brought to public life is not as likely to insist upon or regard that quality in its chosen leaders today - and in fact we have forgotten."

President John F. Kennedy

It was Kennedy who offered the unforgettable line in his first inaugural, "And so, my fellow Americans, ask not what your country can do for you; ask what you can do for your country."

Kennedy is credited with "breaking through" the unspoken barrier of religious affiliation as a litmus test for presidential candidates when he asserted, "I am not the Catholic candidate for President. I am the Democratic Party's candidate for President, who happens also to be a Catholic."

No matter what your political affiliation or persuasion might be, you can rest assured of one thing: Presidents of the United States of America generally do what they believe in their hearts is the best course for America. Recently, Bill O'Reilly, the number one rated cable talker in America these days, interviewed both former President George W. Bush and current President Barack Obama. He came away with the surprising conclusion that each man sincerely believed he was right, even though their policies could not be more diametrically opposed.

O'Reilly observed:

"But what happens when a person's conviction is wrong? There is no question that Saddam Hussein could have been destroyed by other means. Surely the world is a better place without him, but would most Americans support the Iraq invasion if we could do it all over? I don't think so. In hindsight, the Iraq situation should have been handled by the Air Force and Navy. Saddam's regime could have been strangled without so much American blood.

President Barack Obama

"Things are a bit murkier on the economic front. Since the Obama administration has been in power, the feds have spent an astounding seven trillion dollars. This has left the United States vulnerable in the world marketplace because we need to borrow so much money from nations like China. The massive $14 trillion debt has now become as big a threat as the economic meltdown of three years ago. No matter how you frame the issue, federal spending must be cut back, and Mr. Obama has to know this. But, like Mr. Bush, the president does not regret his controversial policies."

So let's remember the calf's tail when it comes to measuring "truthiness" from politicians on this Presidents Day honoring not just Lincoln and Washington. Just because Bush or Obama calls a calf's tail a leg, doesn't make it a leg after all.

Sometimes the statements politicians write onto the parchment of time must age a bit to be fully understood and appreciated. We celebrated the 100th birthday of Ronald Reagan recently. During his presidency he was anything but beloved. People were scared to death about this "cowboy" who had his finger on the trigger of nuclear weapons and didn't seem shy about pulling it as he took on the "Evil Empire." But the one thing he had going for him was his authenticity. He connected with people, even Mikhail Gorbachev eventually. We had to have a bit of perspective as Americans before we embraced Reagan and fully credited him with the end of the Cold War.

Only time and experience will tell the whole "tale" with accuracy.

In the meantime, let us give a wide berth to political "truth" in the here and now and wait upon history to make its judgments someday.

My Top Quote from 1974

Every year, Fred Shapiro puts out his "Top Ten Quotes of the Year."  This year, he created a new list, and gives his reason for his top pick:

Fred Shapiro, Yale University

"People resented the fact that [Hayward] was wanting to get back to his yacht races and other aspects of his normal life when those little problems were dwarfed by the magnitude of what people on the Gulf Coast were dealing with," Shapiro said.

Here's the whole top 10 list (courtesy of the AP):

1. (TIE) "I'm not a witch." Christine O'Donnell, television advertisement, Oct. 4.

1. (TIE) "I'd like my life back." Tony Hayward, comment to reporters, May 30.

3. "If you touch my junk, I'm gonna have you arrested." airline passenger John Tyner, speaking to Transportation Security Administration worker at San Diego International Airport, Nov. 13.

4. "Don't retreat. Instead - reload!" Sarah Palin, Tweet, March 23.

5. "Chi! Chi! Chi! Le! Le! Le! Los mineros de Chile!" Chant at Chilean mine rescue, Oct. 13.

6. "I hope that's not where we're going, but you know, if this Congress keeps going the way it is, people are really looking toward those Second Amendment remedies [it's about guns]. They're saying: My goodness, what can we do to turn this country around?" Sharron Angle, radio interview in January.

7. "We have to pass the [health care] bill so you can find out what is in it." Nancy Pelosi, speech to National Association of Counties, March 9.  [Jimmy Carter must LOVE this woman!]

8. "I'm going to take my talents to South Beach." LeBron James, television broadcast, July 8.

9. "You're telling me that the separation of church and state is found in the First Amendment?" Christine O'Donnell, Delaware senatorial debate, Oct. 19.  (The Associated Press reported the quote: "So you're telling me that the separation of church and state, the phrase 'separation of church and state,' is in the First Amendment?")

10. "They should never have put me with that woman. ... She was just a sort of bigoted woman who said she used to be Labour." Gordon Brown, commenting about a voter he met while campaigning during the British general election, April 28.


Piggybacking on Shapiro, local Deseret News columnist Lee Benson added his own list of Top Ten Quotes with a Utah flavor.

* * *

It seems the standards of public discourse have slipped substantially if all that is required to make Shapiro's Top Ten List of Quotes these days is to say something so totally dumb and stupid it makes people laugh out loud.  Case in point:  Tied at Number One, Christine O'Donnell said a lot of stupid things in her unsuccessful Senate bid this year, including "I'm not a witch," after admitting she had once "dabbled" in witchcraft earlier in her life.

LeBron James, pretending anyone out there really cared all that much, declared he was taking his talents to South Beach.  It has to be right up there on the top ten list of ego indulgence ever foisted on America.

It started me thinking, what's my favorite quote as I thought back on the 2010 topsy-turvy year in politics?  There are so many who have given up hope in politics and politicians in general.  The country is mired in debt that is escalating now at a quicker pace than revenue (taxes) coming into the Treasury.  It's a dismal time for some, reminiscent of the "malaise" Jimmy Carter once described in a pivotal speech that eventually toppled his miserable presidency. 

It now seems there are many who have been transported back to that time in their minds, if not their stated opinion, of where we are in America.

President Ronald Reagan

Then along came Ronald Reagan, who would have none of it.  At the end of 1974, then Governor Reagan of California gave one of his most famous speeches, known as his "City upon a Hill" speech.  Reagan, of course, went on to beat Carter in the 1980 presidential election and touched off a period of economic recovery, national optimism, and sustained prosperity.   I've already quoted Reagan when he gave his famous farewell address in which again he used the image of the "city on the hill."  So it appears Reagan had a "bookend vision" for America when he commenced his bid to be President as early as 1974, spanning the years he served as President until January, 1989. 


Strange, how Carter was advocating back then for a government-run health care solution, and Reagan was opposed.  "There you go again," he said as Carter rattled off his government program wish list.  It would take 30 years, but finally the "progressives" in government imposed their will on health care and now it is the law of the land at a time when America can least afford another trillion dollar entitlement program.

I make no pretensions about government being able to solve all our social problems, even as laudable and desirable as it may seem to provide health care for everyone.  In fact, I would assert with Ronald Reagan that a bloated government with a voracious appetite for tax dollars has become the problem, exactly as Reagan predicted it would.

So as we come mercifully to the end of the 111th Congress, the end of 2010, the year marking the re-awakening of the American citizenry now aroused over the tyrannical treatment it has been subjected to, it is well to hearken back to another time, another year, when the infusion of optimism was as needed then as it is today.

So my favorite quote of 2010 isn't from 2010 after all.  It comes from 1974, but it is worth repeating and setting the tone for the 112th Congress to be sworn in next week, and for all of us to reconsider as we embark on 2011.  Note unapologetic references to God in Reagan's speech, and compare and contrast with quotes from 2010 that were considered noteworthy, not a single reference to God among them:

You can call it mysticism if you want to, but I have always believed that there was some divine plan that placed this great continent between two oceans to be sought out by those who were possessed of an abiding love of freedom and a special kind of courage.

This was true of those who pioneered the great wilderness in the beginning of this country, as it is also true of those later immigrants who were willing to leave the land of their birth and come to a land where even the language was unknown to them. Call it chauvinistic, but our heritage does not set us apart. Some years ago a writer, who happened to be an avid student of history, told me a story about that day in the little hall in Philadelphia where honorable men, hard-pressed by a King who was flouting the very law they were willing to obey, debated whether they should take the fateful step of declaring their independence from that king. I was told by this man that the story could be found in the writings of Jefferson. I confess, I never researched or made an effort to verify it. Perhaps it is only legend. But story, or legend, he described the atmosphere, the strain, the debate, and that as men for the first time faced the consequences of such an irretrievable act, the walls resounded with the dread word of treason and its price — the gallows and the headman’s axe. As the day wore on the issue hung in the balance, and then, according to the story, a man rose in the small gallery. He was not a young man and was obviously calling on all the energy he could muster. Citing the grievances that had brought them to this moment he said, "Sign that parchment. They may turn every tree into a gallows, every home into a grave and yet the words of that parchment can never die. For the mechanic in his workshop, they will be words of hope, to the slave in the mines — freedom." And he added, "If my hands were freezing in death, I would sign that parchment with my last ounce of strength. Sign, sign if the next moment the noose is around your neck, sign even if the hall is ringing with the sound of headman’s axe, for that parchment will be the textbook of freedom, the bible of the rights of man forever." And then it is said he fell back exhausted. But 56 delegates, swept by his eloquence, signed the Declaration of Independence, a document destined to be as immortal as any work of man can be. And according to the story, when they turned to thank him for his timely oratory, he could not be found nor were there any who knew who he was or how he had come in or gone out through the locked and guarded doors.

Well, as I say, whether story or legend, the signing of the document that day in Independence Hall was miracle enough. Fifty-six men, a little band so unique — we have never seen their like since — pledged their lives, their fortunes and their sacred honor. Sixteen gave their lives, most gave their fortunes and all of them preserved their sacred honor. What manner of men were they? Certainly they were not an unwashed, revolutionary rebel, nor were then adventurers in a heroic mood. Twenty-four were lawyers and jurists, 11 were merchants and tradesmen, nine were farmers. They were men who would achieve security but valued freedom more.

And what price did they pay? John Hart was driven from the side of his desperately ill wife. After more than a year of living almost as an animal in the forest and in caves, he returned to find his wife had died and his children had vanished. He never saw them again, his property was destroyed and he died of a broken heart — but with no regret, only pride in the part he had played that day in Independence Hall. Carter Braxton of Virginia lost all his ships — they were sold to pay his debts. He died in rags. So it was with Ellery, Clymer, Hall, Walton, Gwinnett, Rutledge, Morris, Livingston, and Middleton. Nelson, learning that Cornwallis was using his home for a headquarters, personally begged Washington to fire on him and destroy his home — he died bankrupt. It has never been reported that any of these men ever expressed bitterness or renounced their action as not worth the price. Fifty-six rank-and-file, ordinary citizens had founded a nation that grew from sea to shining sea, five million farms, quiet villages, cities that never sleep — all done without an area re-development plan, urban renewal or a rural legal assistance program. . .

Standing on the tiny deck of the Arabella in 1630 off the Massachusetts coast, John Winthrop said, "We will be as a city upon a hill. The eyes of all people are upon us, so that if we deal falsely with our God in this work we have undertaken and so cause Him to withdraw His present help from us, we shall be made a story and a byword throughout the world." Well, we have not dealt falsely with our God, even if He is temporarily suspended from the classroom. . .

We cannot escape our destiny, nor should we try to do so. The leadership of the free world was thrust upon us two centuries ago in that little hall of Philadelphia. In the days following World War II, when the economic strength and power of America was all that stood between the world and the return to the dark ages, Pope Pius XII said, "The American people have a great genius for splendid and unselfish actions. Into the hands of America God has placed the destinies of an afflicted mankind."

We are indeed, and we are today, the last best hope of man on earth.

Top Four Reasons Liberalism is Failing

I hate to be the messenger of bad news -- I'm always looking for the bright side.  However, there are hard data now emerging to suggest the liberal agenda advanced by President Barack Obama for the past eighteen months is failing miserably.  It isn't just your imagination.  I have been stunned -- more honestly AMAZED -- that we have been revisiting socialist ideas as the way to heal America's economy.  I thought we had grown up in our thinking.

But I digress.  Here are the top four reasons I'm seeing:

1.  The housing market is still in dire straits despite all the bailouts and the stimulus legislation that's been thrown at it.  Instead of the government trying to solve this problem, letting foreclosures proceed and the market finding its own bottom, the administration has actually slowed the readjustment in pricing by artificially trying to prop it up.  The first-time home buyer tax credit expired in July.  The result from this artificial "prop" to housing pricing was predictable, reaffirming we haven't found the bottom yet.  This week, the National Association of Realtors reported July sales of existing homes fell by 27 percent from June of this year and by 25.5 percent compared to July 2009.  The annual sales rate of 3.83 million homes, they stated, was the lowest since NAR began keeping track of sales in 1999.  Further, the Commerce Department reported July sales of new homes fell 12.4 percent from June and by 32.4 percent compared to July 2009.  The annual rate of 276,000 new units sold is the lowest since 1963, when government records were first kept.  The source of the plunge is no secret: July's numbers reflect the first month when existing home sales received no boost from the home buyer tax credit.

2.  New automobile sales are drying up after the ill-fated "Cash for Clunkers" program ended.  Again, it was an artificial "fix" that didn't fix anything.  New automobile sales tanked when the program ended.  General Motors' sales dropped 36 percent in September 2009 compared with August.  Ford collapsed by 37 percent, and Chrysler sales dropped by a similar percentage, 33 percent.  So who's benefiting in the car market?  It's not the manufacturers of new vehicles.  Used car sales have rocketed up this year, and your local mechanic is doing a land office business.  Because everyone's credit has been dinged, people are hanging on to their used cars and getting them repaired or buying a lower-priced used car.  It can be traced to the government's intrusion into the marketplace.  When does the government finally wake up to the reality that you can't provide a "free lunch" to everyone?  When you provide this grab bag of goodies with borrowed money from the Chinese, you don't create new wealth in the U.S.  All that happens is the government moves money around from one "pocket" to another, but nothing of value is being created.  It's Economics 101.  Unfettered markets would find the right places to put the money without a government-mandated program.

3.  Stimulus spending isn't stimulating much at all. Government spending does not stimulate economic growth. All it does is move resources away from one sector of the economy to another. Pick any "central government" in the world -- their track record for correctly and efficiently allocating resources is abysmal.  The USSR, with a GNP 1/6 the size of the U.S. economy in the 80s was outspending us in military spending 3:1.  We all know how Ronald Reagan exploited that disparity and convinced Mikail Gorbachev their priorities were going to bankrupt them.  All Reagan had to do to end the cold war was to convince them we were not the least bit interested in their destruction.  Remember "MAD?"  It was the acronym for Mutually Assured Destruction, and it was flawed.  When government attempts to allocate resources, jobs are lost, not created, in the shuffle and the transfer of the resources.  Why liberals can't see this simple fact is hard to fathom.  I was astounded back in February 2009, when I heard President Obama, say:  "This is not something that we're just doing to grow government. We're doing this because this is what the best minds tell us needs to be done." That statement is either naive or intentionally misleading.  Evidence from past history suggests exactly the opposite.  The "best minds" in today's administration must be dead wrong in their assumptions.  Forty-five years ago, when he was still Governor of California, Ronald Reagan asserted: "Anytime you and I question the schemes of the do-gooders, we're denounced as being against their humanitarian goals. They say we're always 'against' things — we're never 'for' anything. Well, the trouble with our liberal friends is not that they're ignorant; it's just that they know so much that isn't so."  I told you he was the "common sense purveyor," remember?  You could lift that line right out of today's headlines -- "The Republicans are the party of 'No.'"  Things haven't changed much.

4.  The Home Affordable Modification Progam has been a dismal failure.  I was invited to participate in the program last year -- one year ago this month -- by making three months of reduced mortgage payments during a "trial period."  So I made the first three trial payments, then the fourth, fifth, sixth, seventh, and eighth without so much as a word about what was happening to my loan.  Finally, four months ago I was told I was approved for my modification, and to be sure to look for my new modified mortgage papers in the mail "within a matter of days."  You guessed it -- nothing yet, and we're now in the second year of waiting patiently for President Obama's rescue package.  Some stimulus.  At a meeting last week with leading economic bloggers, attended by Obama's economic advisor, Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner, the program designed to help homeowners avoid foreclosure was discussed.  Not surprisingly, the "best minds" in government judged "HAMP to be a qualified success because it helped banks muddle through what might have been a fatal shock."  Really?  Because it "helped banks" it's a success?  Really?  And what about the little people?  How's that been working out so far for all of you? 

Shocked at the admission that HAMP was meant to bail out banks and not help owners, Media Matters fellow Duncan Black wrote: "When Liberalism Doesn't Work It Discredits Liberalism." 

Liberalism is not working. Socialism is a failed experiment.  Charles Krauthammer weighed in on this topic in the Washington Post.  As usual, he nailed it on the head with even more ammunition than I've used here.  The sooner we leave it in our rearview mirror, the sooner the American economy can get back on track unaided by its government's "best minds." 

We'll find out in the coming months just how discredited it is in the eyes of the American people.  The best gauge you can watch is what happens in the mid-term elections on November 2nd.  And, yes, I AM wishing time away until then. . .

Ronald Reagan said. . .

"The best minds are not in government.  If they were, businesses would hire them away."

(I told you he was the common sense purveyor, right?)

Farewell from Reagan

Ronald Reagan bade farewell from the Oval Office on January 11, 1989.  It was the 34th time he had addressed the nation.

I'm not one for looking back with wistful wishes of "the good old days."  I'm always leaning into the wind looking ahead, but what Reagan had to say on that occasion for the most part was also a prophetic warning to be heeded, rather than a misty-eyed recounting of his past eight years of glory as President.

He was ever the "common sense" purveyor.  Everything he said was sensible and easily understood.  In part on that night he said:

"Common sense told us that when you put a big tax on something, the people will produce less of it. So, we cut the people's tax rates, and the people produced more than ever before. The economy bloomed like a plant that had been cut back and could now grow quicker and stronger. Our economic program brought about the longest peacetime expansion in our history: real family income up, the poverty rate down, entrepreneurship booming, and an explosion in research and new technology. We're exporting more than ever because American industry became more competitive. And at the same time, we summoned the national will to knock down protectionist walls abroad instead of erecting them at home.

"Common sense also told us that to preserve the peace, we'd have to become strong again after years of weakness and confusion. So, we rebuilt our defenses, and this New Year we toasted the new peacefulness around the globe. Not only have the superpowers actually begun to reduce their stockpiles of nuclear weapons -- and hope for even more progress is bright -- but the regional conflicts that rack the globe are also beginning to cease. The Persian Gulf is no longer a war zone. The Soviets are leaving Afghanistan. The Vietnamese are preparing to pull out of Cambodia, and an American-mediated accord will soon send 50,000 Cuban troops home from Angola.

"The lesson of all this was, of course, that because we're a great nation, our challenges seem complex. It will always be this way. But as long as we remember our first principles and believe in ourselves, the future will always be ours. And something else we learned: Once you begin a great movement, there's no telling where it'll end. We meant to change a nation, and instead, we changed a world. . . "

I pause to reflect that common sense in recent years in Washington D. C. has been anything but common.  Reagan continued:

"Nothing is less free than pure communism -- and yet we have, the past few years, forged a satisfying new closeness with the Soviet Union. I've been asked if this isn't a gamble, and my answer is no because we're basing our actions not on words but deeds. The detente of this 1970's was based not on actions but promises. They'd promise to treat their own people and the people of the world better. But the gulag was still the gulag, and the state was still expansionist, and they still waged proxy wars in Africa, Asia, and Latin America. Well, this time, so far, it's different. President Gorbachev has brought about some internal democratic reforms and begun the withdrawal from Afghanistan. He has also freed prisoners whose names I've given him every time we've met. . ."

"Finally, there is a great tradition of warnings in Presidential farewells, and I've got one that's been on my mind for some time. But oddly enough it starts with one of the things I'm proudest of in the past 8 years: the resurgence of national pride that I called, 'The New Patriotism.' This national feeling is good, but it won't count for much, and it won't last unless it's grounded in thoughtfulness and knowledge.

"An informed patriotism is what we want. And are we doing a good enough job teaching our children what America is and what she represents in the long history of the world? Those of us who are over 35 or so years of age grew up in a different America. We were taught, very directly, what it means to be an American. And we absorbed, almost in the air, a love of country and an appreciation of its institutions. If you didn't get these things from your family you got them from the neighborhood, from the father down the street who fought in Korea or the family who lost someone at Anzio. Or you could get a sense of patriotism from school. And if all else failed you could get a sense of patriotism from the popular culture. The movies celebrated democratic values and implicitly reinforced the idea that America was special. TV was like that, too, through the mid-sixties.

"But now, we're about to enter the nineties, and some things have changed. Younger parents aren't sure that an unambivalent appreciation of America is the right thing to teach modern children. And as for those who create the popular culture, well-grounded patriotism is no longer the style. Our spirit is back, but we haven't reinstitutionalized it. We've got to do a better job of getting across that America is freedom -- freedom of speech, freedom of religion, freedom of enterprise. And freedom is special and rare. It's fragile; it needs production [protection].

"So, we've got to teach history based not on what's in fashion but what's important -- why the Pilgrims came here, who Jimmy Doolittle was, and what those 30 seconds over Tokyo meant. You know, 4 years ago on the 40th anniversary of D-day, I read a letter from a young woman writing to her late father, who had fought on Omaha Beach. Her name was Lisa Zanatta Henn, and she said, 'we will always remember, we will never forget what the boys of Normandy did.'  Well, let's help her keep her word. If we forget what we did, we won't know who we are. I'm warning of an eradication of that -- of the American memory that could result, ultimately, in an erosion of the American spirit. Let's start with some basics: more attention to American history and a greater emphasis on civic ritual.

"And let me offer lesson number one about America: All great change in America begins at the dinner table. So, tomorrow night in the kitchen I hope the talking begins. And children, if your parents haven't been teaching you what it means to be an American, let 'em know and nail 'em on it. That would be a very American thing to do.

"And that's about all I have to say tonight, except for one thing. The past few days when I've been at that window upstairs, I've thought a bit of the 'shining city upon a hill.' The phrase comes from John Winthrop, who wrote it to describe the America he imagined. What he imagined was important because he was an early Pilgrim, an early freedom man. He journeyed here on what today we'd call a little wooden boat; and like the other Pilgrims, he was looking for a home that would be free. I've spoken of the shining city all my political life, but I don't know if I ever quite communicated what I saw when I said it. But in my mind it was a tall, proud city built on rocks stronger than oceans, windswept, God-blessed, and teeming with people of all kinds living in harmony and peace; a city with free ports that hummed with commerce and creativity. And if there had to be city walls, the walls had doors and the doors were open to anyone with the will and the heart to get here. That's how I saw it, and see it still.

"And how stands the city on this winter night? More prosperous, more secure, and happier than it was 8 years ago. But more than that: After 200 years, two centuries, she still stands strong and true on the granite ridge, and her glow has held steady no matter what storm. And she's still a beacon, still a magnet for all who must have freedom, for all the pilgrims from all the lost places who are hurtling through the darkness, toward home."

What are the mistakes we have made since Reagan's departure?  They are many and varied, but the one that screams more loudly than any other is the deficit spending and the debt we have amassed as a nation in the last few short months.  Obama has managed to spend more money in eighteen months than FDR did in twelve years of the New Deal.  He spent borrowed Chinese money future unborn generations of Americans will be burdened to repay unless our productivity as a nation overtakes our spending. 

An old wisened businessman once taught me, "Borrowing money is like wetting the bed; it keeps you warm for awhile but eventually you have to get up and change the sheets."

It is impossbile to spend the money of generations yet unborn to salvage an entitlement-drenched society.  The automatic commitments to the big three entitlements, Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid will soon outpace our revenues as a nation. 

That was never the vision of the founders, nor those who inherited the Oval Office and the Houses of Congress in subsequent generations. 

We have not been pulled back from the brink, as the current occupant of the White House would have us believe.  From a debt perspective we are over the falls in a barrel falling at the speed of gravity.  As long as debt and deficit spending continue unabated and human dignity is sacrificed on the altar of a bloated federal government daily eroding the American dream Ronald Reagan restored in the 80s, we are at risk. 

It's time to retrench, bite the bullet and do what we must do to restore her greatness once again.

The first step is to stop spending money we don't have.  When a Democrat says "investment" it has nothing to do with investment in the traditional meaning of that word.

Instead, it means TAXATION.  Beware their misuse and abuse of the English language.