Warren Buffett Deficit Plan

I saw a meme going around the internet, with an idea purported to come from Warren Buffett. It says that the way to end or limit federal deficits is when the deficit exceeds 3% of GDP, no member of Congress is eligible for reelection.

Sounds clever, but is deficit reduction the only thing important for Congress to do? Are there not other priorities which may outweigh deficit reduction? What if the US is threatened and has to go to war? In every major war for 150 years or more, the federal government ran higher deficits than this cap, in order to meet the expenditures required by the war. Do we say that we can’t afford the war – even if we are attacked? Admittedly that would have kept us out of Iraq, which arguably might have been a good thing.

What happens when you hit an economic recession, like we had at the end of the Bush administration? You force Congress to be counter-cyclical and slash budgets at the time when the country needs deficits to turn the economy around. We have a consumer based economy. When people lose their jobs, they lose their ability to spend. If enough people lose their jobs, there is not enough demand to put people back to work quickly. As it was, in the last recession the small stimulus only barely changed the direction of the economy, and it took far longer to get things moving again than it should have. This proposal would force the austerity that has kept much of Europe still in an economic slowdown.

Congress has no guts and also only wants to keep their jobs. If they lose their jobs any time the deficit exceeds a certain percentage, they will not exceed that percentage. The problem is that sometimes the country needs higher deficit spending, which it can pay back as things turn around. The idea seems clever, but in truth is profoundly stupid. It can be bad for the economy and bad for the country.

There is no doubt that at times Congress has run up the deficit recklessly and needlessly. To me, the Bush tax cuts are one example. Put that on top of the Afghanistan and Iraq war expenditures, and we build a huge hulking deficit. Throw in an unfunded Medicare Part D, and it becomes outrageous. The issue will not be solved by this sort of simplistic solution however.

Jerusalem Synagogue Attack

I found myself arguing with an orthodox rabbi and some of his friends over the recent terrorist attack of worshippers in a Jerusalem synagogue. The rabbi in his comments said “May G-d avenge the blood of our brothers and sisters.”  I replied “Instead of speaking of vengeance, we need to pray for a path to lead us out of the cycle of violence which has entangled the Jewish and Palestinian peoples.”

I was accused of condoning and/or excusing the violence of the synagogue attack. I don’t condone or excuse any form of violence, especially attacks against innocent civilians. I recognize that the Palestinians have legitimate grievances against Israel, though that does not in any sense justify terrorism. The current Israeli government continues to extend the settlements, which in itself convinces many Palestinians that Israel is not serious about peace. They continue home demolitions even though the security officials in Israel have found those do nothing to deter terrorism. Extremist Palestinians continue terrorism attacks which convince Israelis that the Palestinians are not serious about peace.

It is a particularly nasty and vicious cycle. The standard response from many Jews, and from the rabbi in question is that building in settlements is quite different from the taking of a human life. I would certainly agree, but when you look at statistics from B’tselem, an Israeli NGO which has a peace advocacy, you find that Israel kills 4 to 6 times as many Palestinians as the number of Jews killed in terrorism attacks. There are various rationales for the deaths of the Palestinians, but the people are dead nonetheless.

Again, I neither condone nor excuse the terrorist attacks on Israeli civilians, but where 5 people, including a Druse (Muslim) police officer were killed in that attack, Baruch Goldstein killed 29 people and wounded 125 when he opened fire in a Hebron mosque on people at a prayer service. Some of my Jewish critics spoke of Palestinians celebrating the terrorist attacks, which some may have, but some Israelis have made a hero out of Baruch Goldstein.

I am not trying to weigh deaths or to keep score, and am reminded of the saying attributed to Gandhi: “An eye for an eye leaves the whole world blind.” Demonizing the other side makes it easier to justify any cruelties perpetrated on them. That goes for any side in any conflict, including both the Jews and Palestinians. When we do so, it perpetuates the kind of cycle of conflict and violence that we see in the Middle East. We can only begin to find peace when we find a way to end that cycle of violence.

Some of my fellow Jews, who contributed comments to that discussion seem at best to consider me naïve. One of them said that explicitly. I wish I saw another good solution, and indeed none of them had anything resembling a solution. Some Jews call for driving the Palestinians out of the West Bank, which fuels the fears and fury of the Palestinians. Those Palestinians who call for driving the Jews out of Israel fuel the paranoia of the Israelis and other Jews. So long as the rhetoric is heated on both sides, few people can see clearly. The biggest problem is that the rhetoric can seem to justify reprisals. The few sane people seem to be drowned out by the screaming mobs on both sides.

In quantum physics, it seems that what you look for is what you find. When you look to see if light is a particle, it is a particle. When you look to see if it is a wave, it is a wave. The real world is often much the same way. When one looks for hatred, one finds hatred. When one looks for love, one can find love. We need to shift our vision so that what we seek is what we truly want to find, while still not allowing ourselves to be caught up in wishful thinking.

In the final analysis, the question is what we shall live for. I choose to live in pursuit of peace, justice, and non-violence. So long as people demonize their foes, and try to wreak vengeance upon them, we will never end the cycle of violence. Not everyone I deal with will treat me as humanely as I try to treat them. But just as Gandhi pursued non-violence in the face of violent actions by the British in India, I also will push for those things which I feel make peace more likely, not less likely. If that makes me naive, then I will wear that badge with honor.

Tax Fairness & the Economy

Taxes consist of more than just federal income taxes. There are also payroll taxes, sales taxes, property taxes, and the like. The latter fall far more heavily on middle and lower income people than on the truly wealthy. There is an income cap on most payroll taxes, so no tax is paid on income above the cap. Sales taxes are based on consumption, and middle and lower income people consume most, if not all, of their income. When your income is lower, you have to spend it in order to survive. Property taxes again fall more heavily on middle and lower incomes. Property taxes are levied on real property, while the truly wealthy hold more of their assets in intangibles.

Even lower income people who may not own property effectively pay property taxes. When you rent, you are paying rental fees that cover the principle, interest, property taxes, and insurance or the owner, along with maintenance fees and a profit. I owned rental property, I know. Beyond that, income tax rates are highest on standard income, and far lower on capital gains and dividends, which are a far larger part of the income of the truly wealthy. Then there's the 'carried interest' loophole, which allows wealthy hedge fund managers to be taxed at capital gains rates even when they have no money at risk, and even when their salaries are in the billions of dollars. Several studies of the fully loaded tax burden have found that the top income bracket has a tax rate below several of the lower brackets.

As to job creation, corporate profits are at an all time high. That has NOT led to increased job creation. Decreasing taxes on the corporations and wealthy individuals also will not lead to job creation. Those companies and individuals are already rolling in money. Jobs will be created by companies only when there is sufficient demand for the products of that company. There cannot be increased demand until or unless income increases for middle and lower income workers. An increase in the minimum wage would put more money in the hands of poorer workers, who would in turn spend it, increasing overall demand in the economy. In multiple instances states or localities have increased the minimum wage, and have NOT suffered the job losses predicted by right wingers, but instead have often had higher economic growth than areas which did not increase wages.

Religious Intolerance?

I saw yet another meme which tried to show all religion as intolerant. My reply to such is that not all religions are dogmatic and inflexible. Extreme fundamentalists may be, but that does not incorporate the whole even of the Christian community, much less the entire religious community. Perhaps instead of trying to crap on religion, you should find commonality to include religious people in your struggles, though quite often many are already involved. If your dogma is wholly anti-religious, then you are no better than the extreme religious fundamentalists.

Sarah Silverman Wage Video

I got in a lengthy and not very productive discussion with several women over the recent comedy video by Sarah Silverman. The video is meant to highlight the wage gap between men and women in American society. Sarah says that in order to get paid as much as a man would that she is going to have sex reassignment surgery to become a man. I’ve seen the video, thought she made a good point, and thought it was funny.

I pointed out that a number of transgender activists are unhappy with the video. They feel it belittles the difficulties faced by transgenders in our society. By saying that she would change genders for a pay increase, she essentially negates the anguish most transgenders deal with over their gender identity, and whether to alter it. That was clearly not Silverman’s intent. Her intent was to use an edgy but humorous approach to talk about the inequities in wages between men and women.

There were several people who weighed in, most of whom largely dismissed the objections of the transgender activists. There is a contingent of radical ‘feminists’ who totally deny the femaleness of MTF transgenders. They want events and facilities which exclude transgenders. They say that MTF transgenders have benefitted from the patriarchal nature of society and cannot understand what ‘real women’ have experienced. Perhaps a quiet sharing of experiences between the cisgender and transgender women would help, though that becomes difficult when these radical feminists feel the need to completely exclude transgender women from even being considered women.

One person spoke of being in a locker room setting and seeing a pre-op transwoman there. She was disturbed when the person disrobed and she saw a penis in the women’s locker room. I understand her concern. Women have been and continue to be the victims of sexual harassment and violence, nearly always perpetrated by men. In that instance, I’d think some other sort of accommodation should have been made. It is one thing to share a restroom, where the individuals are going into stalls which they may lock. An open locker room with naked people is a bit different. At the same time, the transwoman should not be compelled to go to the men’s locker room. She would certainly have been subject to sexual harassment there, at the very least. I’d hope that post-surgical MTF transgenders would not be considered an issue by all but a tiny minority of cisgender women.

Some had the typical anti-transgender excuses of being afraid of sexual assault if MTF transgenders are allowed in women’s restrooms and such. Someone brought up one case of a male sexual predator who claimed to be transgender in order to prey on women. There might be a very few such cases, but I suspect they are unusual. Male sexual predators are not going to want to dress and appear female, with perhaps rare exceptions, even in order to prey on women. Being a sexual predator is less about the sex itself than about a feeling of power and control, which one assumes they lose some measure of by dressing in traditional women’s attire.  Beyond which, the vast majority of transgender people suffer a level of sexual harassment that exceeds even what the average woman is subject to.

The overall point of Silverman’s video was that women continue to be paid less than men for the same work, in most instances. Some male activists try to claim that is only because of the types of work that women more typically do, or that it is because they take maternity leaves and such. There was a study of individual occupations that showed even within a specific occupation, for most of them, women were paid less. Out of more than one hundred occupations, there were six where women were paid very slightly more. For those few, the difference was 5% or less, as I recall, while in some of the others, women were paid as little at 60% of what the men made, for the exact same work. I applaud Silverman’s effort to use pointed comedy to bring the discussion back into the light. It is a real problem, much as some might want to dismiss it.

Some of the radical feminists said the issue was only about women – ‘real’ women – not transgenders, and to even mention transgenders was misogynistic. The fact is that transgenders, whether MTF or FTM are more likely to be unemployed than cisgender men or women. They are more likely to be harassed and discriminated against, and are far more likely to attempt or commit suicide. The MTF transgender women are likely to be paid more comparable to cisgender women. The FTM transgender men are only likely to be paid comparably to men so long as no one knows they are transgender. As an aside, a recent article said that the highest paid female CEO in the country was a MTF transgender. I suspect her overall pay level was set before she transitioned, though it was not so stated. Men who transition to female do not see their pay cut, (assuming they don’t lose their job altogether) but do tend to see their raises decrease, which tends to move them closer to female pay levels as time passes. The problems are real and need to be seriously addressed.

What was bothersome was that some of the women had a genuine animosity towards even mentioning that transgender people suffer discrimination, or that they might be offended at such a glib use of transgender surgery in Silverman’s comic skit. To these women it was all about the indignities that ‘real’ women suffer, and they dismissed any indignities or insults suffered by transgender individuals.

Rape, Date Rape, Date Rape Drugs, and Nail Polish to Detect the Drugs

I posted an item to my Facebook page talking about a new type of nail polish that women can wear, which will change colors if exposed to ‘date rape’ drugs. The woman would need obviously to be wearing that type of polish, and would need to stir her drink with her finger. If her nail polish turned black, she would know the drink had been spiked with a drug.

A close female friend of mine took serious issue with this. She felt it ignored many aspects of rape. First, it ignored that most rapes are perpetrated by someone the victim knows – a relative or friend. Second, most don’t happen because someone slipped GHB or Rohypnol into a drink, but are because the victim was coerced in some way or was too drunk to resist. Third, both men and women are victims of rape, and men don’t wear nail polish.

All of what she said was true, but it also misses the point. While this is a tool that can only help prevent a small percentage of rapes, that doesn’t mean that we should ignore or denigrate it. If any woman avoids rape by using this nail polish, then it has been a benefit. This item will not end the scourge of rape in human society. It may help may some small reduction in the incidence of rape in western society, when things like ‘date rape’ drugs are available.

To look at a parallel, body armor will not protect its wearer against armor piercing ammunition, or against bullets to the head, nor to bullets to the limbs which could strike a major blood vessel. Does that mean that people who know they could be the victims of gunfire should not wear body armor? As with any form of protection, it is limited in what it can protect and the circumstances under which it can protect.

We should nonetheless protect ourselves as best we can, understanding the limitations of that protection. It is only one tool in the arsenal of a battle against a dehumanizing act, but we should make use of all the tools we have.

We need education and socialization that tells men that forcing themselves sexually upon another person, female or male, is vile. Yes, a few rapes are perpetrated by women, but that is statistically a very small percentage. Rape is predominantly a male act, and it is primarily men who must be so educated. The way many societies see sex and sexuality turns primarily women into objects, and creates a conflict that induces some men to try to exert ‘power’ through rape – either for self aggrandizement or because they feel themselves deserving in some way, and denied unfairly.

Rape is a complex problem that is rooted in sexual and gender stereotypes and roles in our society. We must change the nature of that, which is more than can be solved by a clever type of nail polish. Still if the nail polish can save a few victims, then we should have and use that as well.

Mars as big as the Moon in the sky?

I saw something about Mars shortly being at its closest to the Earth in some thousands of years, which in itself may be true. Like the nonsense from a few years back, it went on to say that Mars would appear to be like a second Moon in the sky.

All I can say is that shows a singular lack of understanding of math, and geometry in particular, not to mention astronomy. Lets look at the numbers, and pardon me for rounding. It should not distort the results appreciably.

The Moon has a diameter of 2159 miles, while Mars has a diameter of 4212 miles. Just looking at that, Mars has twice the diameter of the Moon. But the distance is an even more important factor. The Moon is roughly 238,000 miles from Earth, while Mars at its closest is 33,900,000 miles from Earth.

What we see is how wide it APPEARS to be, which is a factor of both diameter and distance. That can be expressed in degrees of an angle. The Moon will have an apparent size of 0.525 degrees, while Mars will have an apparent size of 0.0071 degrees. That means the apparent diameter of the Moon will be about 74 times the diameter of Mars.

When you then look at the whole size, in terms of area, size the area of a circle is pi times the radius squared. The radius of the Moon would be 74 times the radius of Mars, so a full Moon would be some 17,000 times bigger in apparent area than Mars at its closest approach.

I trust that if my calculations are askew, that my mathematician friends will correct me. None of this will stop the fools who want to believe that Mars will appear as big as the Moon in the sky.

Integrity Has No Need of Rules

Had a friend (former friend) post a quote from Camus, “Integrity has no need of rules”. When I challenged that, he got snotty. I read some Camus, many years ago. I might even still have “The Myth of Sisyphus” in my library – I’m not sure. The book was about the absurdity of this world, yet this quote from his book was the height of absurdity. To Camus ‘everything is permitted, which simply shows that Camus was an ass.

Integrity in this world does not exist as an absolute. There are no real absolutes in this world. Everything is relative, and much of it is in a sense absurd. It is absurd in part because people live as though absolutes did exist. They live as though good was wholly good and evil was wholly evil, like there was a true black and a true white and the world was absolutely divided between the two.

Yet in truth, the whole world is gray. There is no unalloyed good. Power corrupts, money corrupts. These corruptions, along with the various lusts that all creatures are prone to, mean that society must set rules, limits, and boundaries in order to maintain some poor semblance of civilization. All too often what passes for civilization is indeed only a poor semblance.

People have individual rights that ought not be breached – regardless of whether some fool feels that the absurdity of life gives him the right to live without rules. A person who chooses to live without rules, can only truly do so outside society.

We can look around the world and see the results of ‘living without rules’ in many of the lawless regions. Murder, rape, theft, etc. are rampant, because too many people in those areas feel that the only rules that apply are those that suit themselves. We end up with the strong forcing their will upon the weak until or unless the weak can come together and as a group force the strong to stop.

Camus’ cry is that of someone who wishes for the freedom to force their will on others. It is the cry of the so called ‘libertarian’ who seems to want nothing so much as to be freed from societal constraints, so they can cheat, exploit, and use others at will. Their hope, of course, is that they do not get cheated, exploited, or used in turn.

They want a ‘dog eat dog’ world, where the strongest (read themselves) can rise to the heights which they feel they deserve, but which they feel they can’t reach because of governmental or societal rules and limits. In truth, they want the protections of society, but not the constraints. They, of course, are always free to move to a more lawless area and try to exercise their freedoms there – for so long as they manage to live. That is not what they want.

There will always need to be a balance between the rights of individuals to freedom and the rights of society as a whole. That balance is not easily maintained and will constantly be in flux. At times society (and through society, government) will impose unreasonable limitations. As our understanding changes, that which is reasonable will also change. As a general rule, one person’s liberty ends when it impairs the liberty or rights of another.

John Stuart Mill, in his essay “On Liberty” said there were three basic liberties: “1) The freedom of thought and emotion. 2) The freedom to pursue tastes (provided they do no harm to others), even if they are deemed "immoral". 3) The freedom to unite so long as the involved members are of age, the involved members are not forced, and no harm is done to others.”

Mill generally felt that a person should be left as free to pursue his own interests so long as that does not harm the interests of others. That is a crucial difference between the liberty of Mill and the philosophy of Camus and the libertarians. Camus allows no limitations even when the interests of others are being harmed. That is where Camus is wrong, and where the libertarians are wrong.

Do we have more rules and regulations than are necessary to protect the interests of others? Yes, we do. Laws against drug use, laws against prostitution, laws against any number of ‘victimless’ crimes are genuine infringements against the liberty that Mill speaks of. Yet in many other instances, some in our society seem to wish to roll back or ignore those rules which protect the interests of others.

Environmental laws and rules are society and government trying to protect the interests of others against those who would despoil the air, water, or land. Consumer protection laws are trying to protect the interests of common consumers against businesses which would cheat or exploit them for their own gain. Balance becomes the key. We must protect the weak from exploitation, while not unduly limiting the freedoms of others.

Depression

The death of Robin Williams made me think about depression.

I have dealt with depression in my life. I won’t try to say that my depression was comparable to his. I am in my head, I’ve never been in his head. Even now I deal with depression regularly, though it is nowhere near as severe as it once was.

In my late 20s, I went through a very stressful period. I don’t want to get into the gory details, but will say I left a secure job for another job, which fell apart on me, taking all my savings and leaving me in debt. I found a new job, but less secure and not enough to easily cover my bills. I fell in love with someone who ultimately decided she cared for me, but didn’t love me, at least not that way.

I questioned myself very hard, and found I hated myself. I tried alcohol, mostly beer, but it didn’t really help, and I’m not inclined towards alcoholism. I tried pot, and it seemed to help for a while. The high would take the edge off the depression. I never smoked a lot – maybe the equivalent of a joint a day, when I came home from work.

After a while, I found that when I came off the high, the depression came back worse than before. I never before and never since felt the profound sense of self hatred, and self loathing that I did as I came off some of my highs. I remember lying on my bed, writhing in emotional agony, feeling a self hatred that I can’t even describe.

Any aspect of my being, I hated. I’ve always been fairly bright, if nerdy, and not at all athletic. I even questioned my own intelligence. Most people, when dealing with someone not too bright, will treat them kindly. I wondered if I was an intellectual imbecile who was merely being humored by the people around him. There was nothing about myself that I found of value. I even thought about how I might commit suicide – taking a car at very high speed and running flat into a concrete light pole or overpass support, with no one else around to be hurt.

I stopped smoking pot. I decided that the aftermath was so very much worse than the high was good, that it wasn’t worth it. I decided that I really was moderately bright – standardized test scores are not merely trying to be kind, and are quite impersonal. I decided that I needed to look at my life and see what I could change that would improve my self-image.

I was slightly over-weight – not grossly, but some, and very out of shape. I hated my body and my body image. I started doing situps and pushups every day in the evening before I ate dinner. I would not allow myself to eat dinner until I had done them. I started with very few, and for the first few weeks, even those were often uncomfortable. For the record, I still do situps every night before I eat dinner, and it is many years later. I have only missed a very few nights from illness or injury in that time.

Eventually I got into racquetball and later running to improve my shape further. I reached the point, before injuring my foot, of being able to run over 9 miles without stopping. I had to quit for several years to let my foot heal and am now back to running 2 miles.

I looked at what I feared. I was somewhat scared of water, and forced myself to do some swimming in a pool at least, and usually when no one was around. I was afraid of speaking before groups, and took up acting. I was afraid of certain types of insects, and forced myself to touch them, at least a few times. I was afraid of rejection, so I asked girls out even when I doubted if they’d accept. I made myself face my fears, at least a few times in most instances, and often in some cases.

If I could not like myself the way I was, I forced myself to change those things I didn’t like. That cut away some of the underbrush that fueled the fire of my depressions. As I said, I still feel depressed. I also know that whatever I do not like about myself or my life is in my power to at least try to change.

What I did, worked for me, given the issues I faced and given where I started from. Then again, I can’t compare my depression to that of anyone else, and know that what worked for me may not worked for others.

Changes to Voting Laws

Several recent commentors seemed to think that some people wanted voting made too easy, as though it was only of value if you have to work for it. What many of us object to is a rolling back of voter rights in the state of Florida.

For  instance, the League of Women Voters is a non-partisan organization, which has been doing voter registration for some 70 years, but changes to the Florida voting laws are forcing them to stop doing so. Why did the law on voter registration change? Because many of the people who have been registered in voter drives over the past few years have been younger, poorer people who are more likely to vote Democratic, and the Republican power structure in Tallahassee wants to curtail that to try to hold onto power longer.

Similarly, Democratic candidates seemed to fare better during early voting, so that has been shortened. Other provisions of the new law have made it impossible for a voter to change address or name at the polling station, as they have been able to do in the past. Again, the people who have needed to do so have been younger and poorer, and the Republican government wants to limit their ability to vote.

The new law, on the whole has been an attempt at voter suppression among voting groups who the government in Tallahassee feels is less likely to support its candidates. The reason given for all this is preventing voter fraud, which is largely a non-existent problem. The ACLU said there were only about 35 cases of suspected voter fraud in the last election in Florida, and only in about 10% of those was there enough evidence to prosecute. So out of roughly 5,344,000 votes for the US Senate in the 2010 election, perhaps four votes were tainted. So how many thousands of people will be unable to vote in order to stop perhaps four fraudulent votes?

Anti-Zionist?

I have no issues with Zionism, though I oppose expansion of the West Bank settlements for two reasons. First, the settlers often do not acquire legal title to the land they settle on, and often simply appropriate land which is privately held by Palestinians. Second, the expansion of the settlements convinces the Palestinians that Israel is not serious about peace, and makes them less trusting and less willing to work to an equitable solution. Similarly, I opposed the home demolitions (which have largely stopped) because they did not seem to inhibit terrorist activities, but just radicalized people who were not involved in terrorism. I opposed targeted assassinations, first because they killed innocent bystanders, and second because there was no legal recourse for the 'accused', and both are contrary to Jewish law. I have taken issue with Jews trying to reclaim land east of the green line which had been owned by Jews prior to 1948, while refusing to grant the Palestinians rights to land west of the green line. We are supposed to have one set of laws applying to everyone - not laws which grant more rights to Jews than to non-Jews.

I oppose terrorist activities by the Palestinians, and have openly disagreed with people and said that if the Palestinians had been led by a Gandhi and pursued non-violence, they would likely already have their own nation. One time, I actually got one person to agree that just because the rockets from Gaza did not kill many people did not make them okay, and he even reluctantly conceded that Israel might have some justification for retaliating for rocket attacks.

Israel & Palestine

I am saddened by the state of affairs in Israel and Palestine. I think the majority of people on both sides would prefer peace, but there are also people on both sides who are opposed to any sort of equitable peace agreement. There are people on both sides who do things which further enflame the situation.

We can argue at great length over who is more to blame. Each side has done its wrongs. Each side tries to blame the other side for all of the ills. Neither side has clean hands. Each side at one time or another has done something to sabotage peace. As I see it, only G-d can truly weigh the actions of both sides and find who has committed the greater wrongs. Regardless, to spend time trying to blame the ‘other side’ for all the wrongs, does nothing to bring us closer to a genuine peace.

In the interests of full disclosure, I am Jewish. I have visited Israel, and want Israel to remain as a homeland for Jews. I also want a fully independent Palestinian state living in peace with Israel. I want to see an end to Israeli occupation of the West Bank. I want to see an end to rocket fire from the Palestinian territories into Israel. I want to see an end to the expansion of Jewish settlements in the West Bank. I want to see an end to suicide bombings and terror attacks on Israelis.

For a genuine peace, there must be a number of things. The core of it is in the Arab Peace Initiative of 2002, though there will be negotiation over the exact implementations of some of the items. The core was as follows:

Israel to affirm:

I-                    Full Israeli withdrawal from all the territories occupied since 1967, including the Syrian Golan Heights, to the June 4, 1967 lines as well as the remaining occupied Lebanese territories in the south of Lebanon.

II-                  Achievement of a just solution to the Palestinian refugee problem to be agreed upon in accordance with U.N. General Assembly Resolution 194.

III-                The acceptance of the establishment of a sovereign independent Palestinian state on the Palestinian territories occupied since June 4, 1967 in the West Bank and Gaza Strip, with East Jerusalem as its capital.

Arab countries affirm:

I-                    Consider the Arab-Israeli conflict ended, and enter into a peace agreement with Israel, and provide security for all the states of the region.

II-                  Establish normal relations with Israel in the context of this comprehensive peace.

There will need to be negotiations over the exact borders between Israel and Palestine. The pre-1967 borders will be the basis for negotiations, and the Palestinian state should have no less territory than that of the pre-1967 borders, but there will need to be territorial swaps, equal in quantity and quality. There will need to be continuous borders, with no isolated enclaves within the West Bank. Israeli troops must leave all areas to be included in Palestine. Palestine will need to be demilitarized, with its territorial integrity guaranteed by Israel, Jordan, Egypt, among others.

The solution to the Palestinian refugee problem will include a nominal amount of resettlement within Israel, but primarily compensation for the refugees along with resettlement within Palestine or other Arab countries. Israel will not accept a mass influx of Palestinians to Israel, and I suspect the greater number of Palestinian refugees don’t want to live under a predominantly Jewish government.

The Clinton plan offered five practical options for the resolution of the refugee issue: (1) Return to the Palestinian State; (2) Return to territory formerly part of Israel that would be transferred to Palestine within the framework of land swaps; (3) Rehabilitation of refugees in host countries; (4) Resettlement in third countries (Canada, Australia); (5) Admission to Israel, subject to the sovereign and exclusive decision of the State of Israel.

East Jerusalem is mostly Arab, except for some Jewish settlements. Most of eastern Jerusalem needs to be part of Palestine. The Old City has shrines sacred to Judaism, Islam, and Christianity, and members of each religion need access to their holy sites. The Old City as a whole must have some sort of joint sovereignty shared by Israel and Palestine, probably with an impartial arbiter to help resolve any issues.

Israel needs to be secure within its borders. That means no rockets, no terror attacks, and no threats of invasion. Palestine also needs to be secure within its borders, which means neither Israel, nor any other country may violate the borders with impunity. Both sides must agree that any peace settlement resolves all territorial and other issues between Israel and Palestine, and both sides must agree to abandon any territorial claims against the other.

Equal Outcomes?

I have no problem with folks who 'contribute' more, making more money for that contribution. We do not all contribute equally, and we need not all share equally. What I have a problem with is the idea that if corporate America chooses to pay minimal wages and not provide health insurance as a part of someone's job that the person 'deserves' to go without food, shelter, clothing, transportation, or health care.

My feeling is that anyone working a 40 hour week should have a place to live, enough to eat, clothing, transportation, and health care if they get sick. That need not be extravagant - if you want lobster or steak, earn more money, otherwise you might live on macaroni and cheese or hamburger helper. If the worker's employer does not pay enough to cover those things, then we need to tax the corporations and well-off people to make sure that is covered.

I also feel that everyone who wants to work should be provided with a job. If there are not enough private sector jobs available, then the government should step in as an employer of last resort. The right wing says that everyone should work - fine, then make jobs available.

I'm sure there are folks who think I'm some sort of commie socialist weirdo, but that's okay. I think those folks are insensitive selfish jerks.

Israeli-Palestinian Peace Rant

I am sickened by stories like the recent one of evictions of Palestinians from homes they have had since the 1940s. I am Jewish and want to see Israel living in peace with its neighbors, yet I see Israeli governments which seemed determined to make that impossible. I see Israeli and Jewish right-wingers who seem determined to dehumanize and demonize Palestinians and who attempt to de-legitimize any Palestinian claims to any part of the "Palestinian Mandate". The Jewish extremists attempt to justify their extremism by pointing to Palestinian extremism, and pretending that represents all Palestinian belief. I also see Palestinian, Muslim, and left-wing people who use every right-wing Jewish statement and action as evidence to support anti-Israel dogma.

For those who ask 'why Jews can't build on Israeli land', I would say that the West Bank and Gaza are not sovereign Israeli land. Those lands have not ever been recognized as part of Israel, either by international bodies or even by prior Israeli governments (except for a claim on East Jerusalem made by Israel). For those biblical determinalists, who say that 'G-d gave the land of Israel to the Jews', I would say that a verse from the Bible or Torah does not constitute legal title. It did not constitute legal title over 3000 years ago when Abraham, after being told the land was for him and his descendants, paid for the cave at Machpelah, or for Jacob, who was told the land was his, and who paid for the land he settled on.

For those who say 'there is no Palestinian people and they have no right to be there', I'd say many of them are the descendants of people who have lived in that area since biblical times. Some are the descendants of the original Christians, some of whom were Jewish and some not. Others are probably the descendants of non-religious Jews who found it easier to convert to Islam after the Arab conquest. Still others are likely the descendants of the other non-Jewish people who lived in that area. There were a number of other peoples who the Bible / Tanakh says lived among the children of Israel, and some of their descendants are likely among the Palestinians as well. Have there been other migrations as well? Certainly, but that is true throughout the world, and we cannot roll things back to where they were 2000 or 3000 years ago.

For those Palestinians & sympathizers who claim that the Jews have no claim on the holy land, I'd say that Jews have lived in that land continuously for literally thousands of years. Many other Jews lived in Arab lands and were forced to leave after the establishment of Israel and settled in Israel. Those Jews are not ‘European colonists’. Some Ashkenazi Jews intermarried with Europeans, but that does not invalidate their claim to a share of the holy land. DNA testing shows predominantly Semitic ancestry for the vast majority of European Jews.

Most of the Jews who arrived before 1948 settled on land which was purchased from its legal owners. There was no ‘theft’ involved in that, contrary to what some claim. During the war which established Israel as an independent country, some Palestinians were coerced to leave their homes in what is now Israel, while other left voluntarily, expecting to return at the end of hostilities. The Jews who lived behind the green line were also forced to abandon their homes.

I am distressed by those Jews who claim that pre-1948 Jewish title to lands beyond the green line should be recognized, while pre-1948 Palestinian title to lands in Israel should not. The same standard should apply to both. If 'abandoned' Palestinian property in Israel is not subject to recovery by descendants of its owners, then 'abandoned' Jewish property beyond the green line is not subject to recovery either. If Jews are allowed to reclaim land beyond the green line, then Palestinians must be allowed to reclaim property in Israel. One set of rules for all, regardless of religion or ancestry.

Only if the majority of people on both sides can reject the 'it's all mine' mentality can we ever begin to find peace in that land. While I often despair, I still pray for a sense of reason to develop and begin to guide enough people to allow them to achieve some level of peace for both Israel and Palestine.

Economic Policy

Let’s get down and dirty and talk about what the economic policy should be for the United States. If you’ve come expecting a simple, pat answer, you won’t find it. Our economic problems are complex and interrelated and cannot be solved by simple answers. If you want a simple answer, go to an ideologue – you’ll get simple answers - they won’t make any sense, and they won’t work in the real world, but you’ll get simple answers.

What about welfare and work? The ideologue will say, “Make people get off welfare and have them work for a living”. Simple answer, but the problem is that is a goal, and neither a means nor a program to help reach that goal. Clearly our goal should be to get people off welfare and have them working for a living, but simply mandating that and ending welfare benefits for people does not help those people successfully work for a living. If that does not work, then what does work? What should work is a combination of education, job creation, and making certain that people earn a living wage when they work. That may be a simple sentence, but it is in fact a complex solution, and each of the above has its issues.

Let’s look at job creation first – this should be almost a slam-dunk. The United States has many roads, bridges, and such that are woefully inadequate. Just as Dwight Eisenhower in the 1950s created the interstate highway system, it is time for the government to make a commitment to fix up and improve our current highway system. What would this do? First off, it would take the laid off factory workers, and put them to work. This is important to help the U.S. get out of the current economic slowdown, and offset the losses of blue collar jobs to outsourcing.

This employment creates secondary employment, because the newly employed or re-employed blue collar workers spend the money they make. You can see this in both directions – close down the major employer in a small town, and you will see lots of other smaller businesses either close down or reduce staff. When you put these people to work again, the smaller businesses open up or add staff to provide goods or services to those who are now employed.

A lot of conservatives and neo-conservatives will ask why their taxes should have to go to pay for this employment program. Well, because it needs to be done, and because private enterprise can’t do it. Also, this kind of program would start to reduce transportation costs for all manner of goods. Why does that matter? Global outsourcing worked as well as it did because it was cheap to transport goods internationally. And it was cheap to transport goods internationally because the price of oil was low. With oil prices climbing and showing no signs of getting really cheap again anytime soon, if ever, some manufacturers are looking to move some manufacturing closer again. Improving the transportation system further reduces the costs of manufacturing closer to home. It helps this country, and puts money in the pockets of Americans, and not just Chinese manufacturers or Saudi oil sheiks.

Confederate Flag and Historical Revisionism

I have recently read with some sorrow the stories about the current controversy regarding the placement of a large Confederate flag in Hillsborough County. I have to believe that the people pushing this flag are at best insensitive and naive.

The Confederate flag is clearly a symbol for those states which attempted to secede from the Union over the issue of slavery. For those who would attempt to contest the cause of the secession, I refer them to South Carolina’s declaration when it became the first state to secede. That document repeatedly cites slavery and the actions of the northern states to limit or end slavery as the reason for its secession. The secession declaration of Texas does likewise, as does the Georgia declaration. The Mississippi declaration starts:

"In the momentous step which our State has taken of dissolving its connection with the government of which we so long formed a part, it is but just that we should declare the prominent reasons which have induced our course. Our position is thoroughly identified with the institution of slavery... There was no choice left us but submission to the mandates of abolition, or a dissolution of the Union, whose principles had been subverted to work out our ruin."

Further, Alexander Hamilton Stevens, Vice President of the Confederate States, gave the "Cornerstone Speech", to that group which met to adopt a new constitution for the Confederacy. In it, he said "(African slavery) was the immediate cause of the late rupture and present revolution." "Our new government is founded upon exactly the opposite idea; its foundations are laid, its corner- stone rests, upon the great truth that the negro is not equal to the white man; that slavery — subordination to the superior race — is his natural and normal condition."

The 'Sons of the Confederacy' have been attempting to engage in historical revisionism, and they would have us believe that the Civil War was not about slavery. One spokesperson for the group denied that the Confederate flag was a “symbol of hate”. To be correct, the flag is the symbol of a society built on the hateful institution of slavery, of the war fought to maintain that hateful institution, and of the well-documented hateful and brutal treatment of the black American slaves by that society.

Most of us, and particularly African-Americans, rightly see that flag as a symbol of the institution of slavery, just as most of us rightly see the swastika as a symbol of the holocaust and the Nazi attempt to exterminate the Jewish people. To celebrate the Confederate flag as a glorification of southern society without acknowledging the foundation of that society on the suffering and death of millions of slaves of African descent is both dishonest and disingenuous.

Clinton and the Community Reinvestment Act

I received an e-mail from a friend, which claimed that the cause of the mortgage and financial market meltdowns was Bill Clinton, using the Community Reinvestment Act to push lenders into making more unsafe mortgages back in 1999. I replied as follows:

Clinton may have done things in 1999 that contributed to the problem, but we had eight years of George W. Bush as president, most of those years with Republicans also in control of Congress. Why was nothing done in the interim to address the issue? Instead, we had a hands-off approach to regulation, which rather than fixing the problem, allowed it to mushroom. People warned for several years that predatory lending practices and expansion of non-traditional mortgages (like variable rate, balloon, and interest-only) were setting us up for problems.

Flat incomes (except for people at the very top), slow job growth, and variable rate mortgages all set the stage. When unemployment increased, and the interest rates increased on those variable rate mortgages, and the mortgage holders were unable to re-finance with affordable fixed rate mortgages, that started the landslide. You cannot blame all that on Bill Clinton pressuring lenders to offer more mortgages to low income borrowers.

If you have a house you got from me eight years ago, and it is now breaking down, don't lay all the blame on what I did before I sold it to you. You've had ample time and opportunity to correct those problems.

Maybe my memory is faulty, but I seem to recall that when there was an increase in foreclosures, that the Democrats in Congress proposed a moratorium on foreclosures along with measures that would have forced lenders to renegotiate mortgages on more favorable terms, keeping interest rates down, etc.. What was happening was that as interest rates got kicked up on variable rate mortgages, many borrowers who had been fine at the lower rates, could no longer make their payments.

If the lenders had been forced to keep the foreclosures and rates down, that might have kept the mortgage derivative market from melting down. The administration and congressional Republicans fought the measure, and it was obvious that even with a Democratic majority in Congress, that could not be passed. The Republicans said 'the market knows best and is self regulating, and can deal with the problem'. So instead we had 'voluntary' mortgage renegotiations, which meant nothing materially changed. I'll contend that the Democratic proposal would have kept today’s problem from being as bad as it became.

Anti-Israel?

I have said that I did not think that Binyamin Netanyahu was serious about pursuing an equitable peace, and there have been some people who were unhappy with that remark. Someone even said that because I criticized Netanyahu, that I was anti-Israel, which is a baseless accusation.

I read a quote from the book ‘Justice: What’s the Right Thing To Do’ by Michael J. Sandel. “You can't really take pride in your country and its past if you're unwilling to acknowledge any responsibility for... discharging the moral burdens that come with it.”

What are the ‘moral burdens that come with it’, and how do you discharge them? I am reminded of the quote by Senator Carl Schurtz in 1872 in a speech in the US Senate, “My country right or wrong; when right, to keep her right; when wrong, to put her right.”

Discharging your moral burdens means not just loving your country, right or wrong, but also speaking out and acting, when you believe it may be on the wrong track. I love Israel, but I also have expectations of Israel. I expect Israel and its government to act better than its neighbors. I hold them to a higher standard, and I expect them to treat everyone in accordance with the highest principles of Jewish law.

At the least, I expect them to behave as Hillel said, “What is hateful to yourself, do not do to another.” And if I think they have fallen short, I can and will speak out.

Cliven Bundy

Cliven Bundy has become the latest cause célèbre for the anti-government and libertarian right. According to him and them, the case is one of government overreach, and government trying to take rights and property from private individuals. Bundy has been backed by Fox News and various armed militia members, though some of his supporters have begun to have second thoughts after his recent racist comments.

What are the facts of the case? Cliven Bundy is a cattle rancher in Nevada, where he grazes his cattle, at least part of the year on land managed by the Federal Bureau of Land Management (BLM). Many other ranchers through the western United States do much the same, and the BLM charges grazing fees for allowing cattle to graze on federal land. Bundy has refused for some twenty years to pay the grazing fees. Most (but not all) other ranchers pay the grazing fees, and those ranchers according to local reports have little sympathy for or support of Cliven Bundy. 

Bundy claims that his family has owned its ranch since 1877, well before the establishment of BLM, and has been using the land for grazing during that time. He says their ancestral rights should preclude the federal government controlling the land or charging him for its use. Reporters from KLAS-TV in Las Vegas Nevada, checked the property records, and found that Cliven Bundy’s parents purchased his 160 acre ranch in 1948 from Raoul and Ruth Levitt. When they did, they also purchased the water rights for the 160 acre ranch. They did not purchase the water rights to the federal land, nor did they purchase the federal land itself. The BLM was formed in 1946, some two years before the Bundy family purchased its ranch. Court records show the Bundy family did not begin grazing cattle on the land until 1954.

In 1864, before Bundy even claims any ancestral rights, Congress passed and Nevada voters approved what is known as “The Ordinance”. In part it reads: “That the people inhabiting said territory do agree and declare, that they forever disclaim all right and title to the unappropriated public lands lying within said territory, and that the same shall be and remain at the sole and entire disposition of the United States;” That gives the United States federal government effective title to the lands where Bundy has been grazing his cattle. The US Congress also passed the Taylor Grazing Act of 1934, which authorized grazing districts on federal land. The Las Vegas area grazing district which includes the area where Bundy’s cattle have been grazing, was established in 1936 on the basis of the grazing act. It appears to me that the federal government has ownership and other rights which predate and preclude any rights which the Bundy family may hold.

Why do we even have a law related to grazing on public lands? Actually it came about at the request of western ranchers. During the homesteading era, public lands were often overgrazed, causing deterioration in the ability of the land to support cattle and grazing. It is a very old problem, when you have a free resource, many people will find it in their interest to use as much of the free resource as they can, regardless of the effects on others. The people using the resource get the benefits, the others get the costs and consequences. In this instance, the ranchers wanted the land managed fairly to benefit the largest number of people. This meant creating and controlling grazing districts and charging for the use thereof. If the US federal government owns the land, which it seems they do, then it has the right to control its use, based on acts of Congress.

Are the grazing fees being charged by the BLM outrageous? As of 2014, the BLM charges $1.35 per animal per month, which compares to private and state fees in various parts of the western US of $20 to $150 per animal per month according to a 2005 GAO study. The GAO also found that the cost of administering the federal grazing program was $144 million compared with receipts of $21 million from the grazing fees – nearly seven times more to administer the program than it brings in. Who pays the difference? American taxpayers do. Even if Cliven Bundy were paying his grazing fees, American taxpayers would still be subsidizing his cattle ranching. 

The fact is that Cliven Bundy has not paid his grazing fees for some twenty years. During that twenty years, the BLM has taken Bundy to court several times, during which Bundy has been able to defend his ‘rights’ against what he says is government overreach. Bundy has lost repeatedly. After repeated court losses and repeated refusals of Bundy to pay grazing fees, several months ago BLM told Bundy that he needed to move his cattle off federal land or they would be seized. Bundy ignored that warning, setting up the showdown that we saw recently.

Does the federal government overreach at times? Certainly it does. That is why we have a court system and the ability of people to defend themselves against government overreach in court. Again, Bundy’s case has been adjudicated in court on several instances, and he has lost. How is that tyranny?

Ayn Rand

I happened to look at a friend’s page, and saw that they were a fan of Ayn Rand. That was a bit of a disappointment, as I used to think the person was at least moderately intelligent.  The person is comparatively young, so perhaps I should chalk it up to ignorance, but it is disturbing nonetheless. Obviously I am not a fan of Ayn Rand, though it seems a number of folks on the far right and the libertarian wing are fans. 

I confess to having read some of her work. Long ago, a friend recommended ‘Fountainhead’, and I bought and read it a couple of times. Howard Roark, as she depicts him, is very talented and iconoclastic, and not willing to arbitrary conventions, when he sees clearly that they are wrong and arbitrary. I can see the appeal in a character like Howard Roark, particularly to those who feel they know so much more than the people who seem to be calling the shots.

Even in ‘Fountainhead’, there are some disturbing elements. Everything is drawn very much black and white, and the villains generally have little redeeming value. Ellsworth Toohey is shown as a particularly vile character, and one who promotes ‘collectivism’. Peter Keating is only semi-talented, but advances through unethical means. Roark suffers because of his brilliance and his unwillingness to bow towards convention. On the surface, it is easy to like the heroes and hate the villains. Even when Roark rapes Dominique Francon, she ends up falling in love with him.

Much of it boils down to one of Rand’s central contentions, which is that all value in society comes from a handful of creative geniuses, who cannot be limited by the same rules which restrain ordinary people. Common people just ride along on the value created by the extraordinary people, and any effort to give them a share in the value created is stealing from the true creative geniuses, to help the undeserving. It becomes easy to understand why Ayn Rand has become a guiding light to the libertarians and far right. It is the source of the right wing dichotomy between ‘makers’ and ‘takers’.  Would that things were indeed so simple. 

To understand Ayn Rand, you have to understand where she was coming from. Rand was born into a bourgeois family in St Petersburg Russia before the Bolshevik revolution which overthrew the Czar. Her family lost its business and most of its possessions, though Rand was allowed to attend college.  Much of her philosophy is a reaction, or over-reaction to early communist propaganda which praised the proletariat (read: ordinary workers) while condemning the bourgeoisie (read: entrepreneurial class). Collectivism, under communism, was seen as a way to properly share the product of the economy as a whole. So to Rand, collectivism and elevation of common workers, was an evil to be avoided.

In point of fact, a Marxist-Leninist society does not work effectively. Though communism has a level of appeal to some even today, the economies based on communism have failed over the long run. When Marx proposed that all value comes from labor, he was wrong – innovation and entrepreneurship both play important and crucial roles in economic value. At the same time, to contend, as Rand seems to, that all value comes from innovation and entrepreneurship, is also wrong. The most brilliant ideas ever created are of no value without the ordinary work of many people to help them become reality. 

I am reminded of the quote from Sir Isaac Newton, who was clearly a mathematical genius, whose work advanced mathematics and physics by no small degree. He said, “If I have seen further than others, it is by standing upon the shoulders of giants.” Newton recognize that while he did indeed see so much more than others, that it was the work of many others who came before him and taught him, which made his work possible.  In fact society as a whole is like that. Einstein made great advances in mathematics and physics, but again, it was previous advances and his teachers who made his insights possible, and it was a society willing to accept and reward those insights which made them valuable.

In addition, the economic rewards that come from innovation require a civil society with certain legal rights. Patent rights, copyrights, contract law and enforcement, along with a police force, a civil service, and a justice system which are relatively free from corruption. It also requires a school system and transportation infrastructure, to facilitate the realization of that idea. It also requires ordinary workers who provide the raw materials, transport the raw materials, build parts for the product, assemble the product, transport the product to the ultimate consumers, and sell the product to the consumers, along with those who handle the financial transactions that make all of the above possible. 

We have to accept that the innovator and entrepreneur clearly deserve to receive rewards from their efforts. All of the other workers whose efforts contributed to the entire process also deserve to receive a part of the rewards of those efforts. That is where Ayn Rand falls short, just as communism fell short. Rand recognizes nothing more than the efforts of the innovator and entrepreneur, while communism refused to recognize those same efforts. In both instances, they see only half the picture.

Ayn Rand and her followers would say the government has no right to take ‘their’ money, in the form of taxes, to support all manner of things which they may not approve of. Taxes at various levels support a number of things which make their ability to make and keep money possible. Those taxes pay for a school system which trains most of the workers at various levels of the production system. The taxes pay for roads, bridges, highways, police, fire protection, military, courts, and the support services necessary for all these things. 

No, not every individual will approve of everything that government does, nor will they all make equal use of each government function. We vote and elect representatives who are expected to represent our interests in the process. The assumption is that the people who have financially benefitted the most from the system, should also bear the greater part of the cost of maintaining that system. To try to institute a pay-as-you-go system for all such things would be far more financially onerous than the current system of taxation, and in many instances is impossible to precisely calculate. Taxing based on one’s ability to pay has generally been felt to be fairest to the greatest number of people.

Ayn Rand and her followers would also say that the government should have no right to impose certain rules on them. Minimum wage laws, civil rights laws, pollution control restrictions are among the things that they have opposed. They feel their ‘rights’ are being violated by imposition of these rules, and that the ‘system’ will rectify any inequities. 

There are several problems with their idea. The first problem rises from an idea in economics called externalities. In externalities, the costs and benefits of an action may not be borne by the same person. One person may receive the benefits, while others pay the costs. Pollution is one example. We can look at the recent toxic spill in West Virginia as an example. Without pollution laws to even the balance, the company would have benefitted by not having to pay to clean up the waste from their operations. The people whose water was undrinkable for weeks paid the cost of that pollution. That is one example only, but indicative of the principle of externalities. 

We have pollution laws to compel companies to pay the cost of cleaning their waste, rather than spoiling the water, air, or land used by the community as a whole. Not cleaning up after themselves is cheaper in the short run, and more profitable for the companies. The fact is that most consumers will not check on the pollution record of a company before deciding which products to buy. If a product is cheaper to make, it can be priced cheaper, and the system will not remedy the pollution of the environment unless society, through government forces the company to play by these rules.

Minimum wage laws are another thing which is problematic. Rand’s followers would say that if a company is not paying well enough, it will not find enough workers. The problem being that this only works when there is full employment and a number of potential employers for any given worker. When unemployment rises, or there are few potential employers or jobs, employees may (and often have been) force to accept whatever the companies have chosen to pay.  

Henry Ford, and some other businessmen, realized that unless their workers made enough money to buy their products, the potential market for those products would be limited. That requires a long term focus, along with enough economic power to materially affect wage rates in the community. When the workers, as a whole, have more money, the economy, as a whole, is stronger for all participants. You can get a ‘first mover’ penalty for being the first employer to make the sort of move Henry Ford did. If your business is not large enough to hire enough workers to affect general wage rates, you push your own costs up, without necessarily creating the increased economic demand that would benefit your business. Minimum wage laws put more money in workers’ hands, which does drive increased demand, benefitting all companies and workers.

Work rules, like those imposed by OSHA, are also opposed by Rand and company. In far too many cases, the workers lack the economic power to force employers to make the workplace safer. We can look at things like the Triangle Shirtwaist fire for evidence. There were many small garment manufacturers, none of whom wanted to expend the money necessary to make their workplace safer. The workers did not have many alternative source of employment, apart from those with unsafe conditions. The unsafe conditions resulted in one of the deadliest industrial accidents in US history, with 146 workers dying because they could not escape the fire. The government had to step in and impose safety restrictions on employers, to prevent any sort of recurrence. 

There is a saying that ‘your freedom to swing your fist ends where my nose begins’. Far too many of the followers of Ayn Rand focus solely on the ‘freedoms’ which they feel have been taken away, without ever looking at the consequences of improper use of those freedoms. We have government to protect all of the members of society. Protecting other members of society may require some ‘freedoms’ to be curtailed. Your freedom to drink and drive is curtailed because intoxicated drivers are more likely to cause auto accidents. Your freedom to shoot off a firearm at random is curtailed by the fact that innocent others may be hurt by that. Your freedom to pollute the environment is curtailed because others may be poisoned by that pollution.

With the philosophy of Ayn Rand, the individual is preeminent, and their rights and freedoms should be not be curtailed. In order to protect all the members of society, it is necessary to curtail some freedoms. This is something that Ayn Rand and her ilk are never willing to acknowledge, and that is one of the  essential flaws in her philosophy.

Take a Liberal to Work Day?

I let someone get to me, which I try not to do. They posted some snide little blurb about how it was ‘take a liberal to work’ day. It said you should not expect them before lunch, because liberals aren’t used to getting up very early. It also talked about how they did not understand the meaning of a hard day’s work.

I got a bit pissed – maybe even more than a bit. Unfortunately it is typical bullshit from some knee-jerk right wingers. Look, I know some thoughtful conservatives. I read some conservatives who have real ideas, and I respect them, though I may often disagree with them. 

Still there is a faction of the right that eschews ideas and civil discourse and instead chooses to throw out personal insults, usually unwarranted.  Call it the Rush & Glenn faction, along with all the dittoheads who listen to them and go ‘yeah, that’s right’ to whatever garbage they spew. And it is usually garbage they are spewing. Try ‘birther’ or ‘closet Muslim’ nonsense, for starters, along with shit about how Obama has issued more executive orders than all previous presidents put together, which non-partisan researchers quickly disproved. They are the sort who call Obama the ‘liar in chief’, and make nasty personal comments about the first lady and Hillary Clinton. Along with that they make nasty comments about liberals in general.

After more than a bit of that, including some of the above from the person who made the ‘take a liberal to work’ post, I got pissed. He was greatly offended. After all he ‘never makes rude replies’ to my liberal postings. Let’s get something straight, I don’t try to paint all conservatives with a broad and nasty brush. At times, I repost nasty comments about certain right wing policies, though I usually try to limit that. I don’t even usually repost insults about conservative figures. When I write my own opinions, which regularly I do, I try to be fair and thoughtful, albeit liberal.

So why should I be so thin skinned? I worked part time during much of college. I got my BA in December of one year, and by the end of the first week of January, was working full time, albeit at a job which didn’t use half my ability. In my early 20s, I had to be to work no later than 7 am, because I had to do some things which, if they weren’t done, made other people sit with nothing to do. In 6 months in that assignment, I was late once, when my vehicle didn’t run, and it took me a little extra time to get an alternate ride. I was still there no more than 15 minutes late even at that.

I worked full time for over forty years, before I was laid off, last year. During that time, I went back to school and got my Masters degree, while working full time, and going to school evenings. I’ve been looking for work since I was laid off, even though I have decent savings and could start to draw social security even now, though not at full rate. Maybe it is a character flaw, but I take personal offense at being called lazy. I’m sure ‘he didn’t mean me personally’, but it sure as shit sounded that way.

I have listened to too much crap about ‘makers versus takers’, too much garbage about how if people are poor, it is only because they are lazy or ‘make bad personal choices’. I’ve read far too many lies told by right wingers about liberal policies or figures. I’ve seen too many personal insults by right wingers against liberal figures or groups. Once in a while, I just can’t take it anymore. So, maybe I overreacted. Maybe I was personally insulting in a way that was not called for. I acknowledge that. I won’t hold my breath waiting for any of my right wing ‘buddies’ to acknowledge where they have crossed the line.

Mortgage Crisis

I found myself arguing, with someone, as I so often do. Their contention was that they borrowed responsibly and they don’t think they should have to pay for someone else’s mortgage. A lot of their argument boils down to: “I was responsible. I should not have to pay taxes to bail out ‘those’ people who were irresponsible and stupid.” As it happens, the ‘those’ people they are referring to are generally poor and black. The speaker feels that ‘their’ taxes will be subsidizing ‘those’ who did not earn or deserve what they are getting.

When I see something like that, I understand that the person does not really understand what really happened with the mortgage and housing crisis. There were a number of causes for the crash, and some part of that does indeed rest on stupid and irresponsible borrowers, but not all of it does. To say that the only reason people ran into trouble with their mortgages was because they were stupid or irresponsible, is a rewriting of history, at the very least.

There was predatory lending by the mortgage companies. There was irresponsible lending by the mortgage companies. There was fraudulent lending by the mortgage companies. All of that has been proven. The banking company of J.P. Morgan Chase paid $13 billion to settle claims of improper activity in mortgages, while Bank of America is paying almost $10 billion for improper mortgage activity, and they are only two examples, albeit the largest to date. 

What did those companies do? First, they issued mortgages without making certain the borrowers had sufficient income to pay. Second, they pushed borrowers into variable rate mortgages, even when they qualified for fixed rate mortgages. Third, they encouraged the borrowers to borrow more than the property was worth, then getting appraisals to ‘validate’ the property value.

At the time, property values were climbing steadily. So the mortgage issuers figured they would either dump the shaky mortgages on someone else, or when they foreclosed the property would be worth more than the mortgage anyhow. What did the mortgage issuer have to lose? The borrower, that is a different story, but they were not concerned about the borrowers as long as they made their profits. Then they insured those mortgages, to make it even harder to lose money on them – look at AIG, etc. 

What about the complicity of the borrowers? Didn’t they know they were getting in over their heads? Well, in many cases, they were not getting in over their heads, as the mortgage began. The variable rate mortgages, started with a lower interest rate, and they could quite often make their payments with no problems. The problems came down the road, after a few years, when the initial rates were jacked up by the mortgage holders. At that point, folks began to have trouble continuing to make their payments – even though they had often been just fine previously.

But weren’t those borrowers complicit for taking on variable rate mortgages with the possibility of interest rate increases? Often they were suckered into those mortgages, for the simple reason that those mortgages are more profitable for the lender. Shouldn’t they have known or been more savvy? Perhaps we are blaming the victim. Do we hold people responsible when they are taken in by con artists? Should we tell the victims of Bernie Madoff that they should have known those returns were not reasonable? These people were dealing with major banking and lending organizations when they took out those mortgages. Should the borrowers be held responsible because they were being suckered?

But that is the setup. That is how we got into the problem. That is not the solution, and it is the solution that some people seem to object to. So, what is our solution, and what was being proposed? The protestors seem to think that what was proposed was to take ‘their’ tax money either to make mortgage payments for those folks, or to pay part of the mortgage balance for them. To my knowledge, that was never the proposal – it was certainly not anything I endorsed. 

What then should have happened? I say ‘should have’ because it should have happened six years ago before all the damage was done.  First, we have to remember that the government spent hundreds of billions of dollars to buy ‘troubled’ mortgages. Your tax dollars were already being spent – to bail out the crooked bankers who contributed to the problem in the first place. When the government bought those mortgages, instead of simply allowing defaults and foreclosures to proceed, they should have intervened. The intervention should have consisted in rewriting many of the shaky mortgages. Issue fixed rate mortgages at more reasonable rates. There should have been write off of penalties and back interest, not necessarily of principle.

I know some folks are saying that we are bailing out irresponsible people. What though do our bankruptcy laws do? They allow people to walk away from most indebtedness. And the fact is that we had already bailed out the irresponsible bankers. Further, I suspect the loss from doing what I recommend is less than the loss on the defaulted mortgages. Think about it – first, you keep a lot more people paying on those mortgages, instead of defaulting. Second, you reduce the number of foreclosed properties. 

So how does reducing foreclosures benefit taxpayers? We ended up with something of a snowball effect. As more properties were foreclosed, more properties were put on the market, which pushed down the sales prices and values of those properties. As the values dropped, some folks who might have been able to hang on until they could sell, instead could not sell for enough to cover the mortgages, if they could find buyers at all. It pushed down the value of everybody’s homes. 

Where we had an upward spiral in home prices before that, then we had a sharp downward spiral in home prices. By renegotiating the mortgages, we reduce the downward pressure on home prices, benefitting everyone. When home prices collapsed, new home construction collapsed with it. Why build new when so many bargain properties were on the market? As home construction collapsed, it pushed unemployment up, putting more people in financial trouble who would not otherwise have been in trouble. 

As more people became unemployed, more homes and mortgages went into default. The downward pressure from the ‘bad’ mortgages created even more bad mortgages. By turning some of those bad mortgages into good mortgages, we cut the losses on the bad mortgages, and reduce unemployment, which means even fewer additional bad mortgages. Folks didn’t want to bail out ‘those’ people, but caused more people to become ‘those’ people who need not ever have been. Further, we ended up with everyone’s home values dropping more than they need to have dropped, and ended up with more foreclosures and unemployed people than we otherwise would have had.

It is economics. We did not pay to bail out ‘those’ people. Instead we paid because we did not bail them out, and paid a lot more than bailing them out would have cost.

Why I Am a Jew

"Faith must trample under foot all reason, sense, and understanding." — Martin Luther

I was raised as a Christian. In fact, I was raised as a Lutheran. I don't ever recall hearing the quote above at that time, but I seemed to sense that feeling as an undercurrent to much of the Christianity that I saw, both in my church and outside it.

Being a thinker and a rationalist, I found myself repelled by the dictates of faith. I seemed to perceive that following Christianity meant throwing aside reason and rationality. Acceptance of Christianity meant accepting: that Jesus was G_d; that Jesus was born through the miracle of virgin birth; that Jesus performed miracles through his life; that he rose from the dead; and that he was the ONLY route to G_d. These were the elements of faith.

I had little quarrel with the ethical and moral teachings of the man. I had little problem with belief in a single unknowable G_d. What pushed me away were the other things. The final break was over Jesus being the only path to G_d and salvation. I remember arguing with someone from the Campus Crusade for Christ about it. He insisted that however moral or righteous a person had been, if that person did not accept Jesus, that person would not be 'saved'. A far less moral person who did accept Jesus was fine, but not the righteous one who did not.

Christianity is a religion of faith and not of deeds. Your deeds do not essentially matter - if you sincerely accept Jesus and repent your sins you are saved almost regardless of what you have done, while if you do not accept Jesus you are damned, regardless of what good you may have done.

At that point, I felt I could no longer in good conscience consider myself a Christian.  I spent many years studying a variety of religions, including Buddhism, Taoism, Zen, Sufism, and Hinduism-lite (Alan Watt's "The Book").

For a time I considered myself a Buddhist. I found myself in an emotionally painful situation from which I felt unable to extricate myself. I asked why I was suffering so. In the middle of my mental torment, I recalled the Buddhist teaching that desire was the source of all pain. That sort of set me back, and I wondered how desire could be the source of the pain I was undergoing. I realized that my own vanity had caused me to make choices that led me to where I was at that moment, and that had I chosen otherwise, I would not have undergone that pain.

What I found in studying Theraveda Buddhism, was that the Buddha said that there was no G_d, and that there was no soul (Atman). While there was much good in Buddhist moral and ethical teachings, that was a leap that I was not willing to make. Taoism gave a sense of the mystery and the unknowable, along with some good moral and ethical guidelines, but was also ultimately unsatisfying.

I was wandering around in a bookstore one day, and picked up a book, "Understanding Judaism" by Rabbi Benjamin Blech. Something in the book 'clicked', and what clicked was that in Judaism, it DID matter how you lived your life, and it did NOT matter whether you were Jewish. You were not expected to accept the irrational simply based on faith. The stories of the Tanach (the Old Testament, to Christians) contain some part history and some part parable - stories that may not have been literally true, but which taught an underlying truth.

One need not believe that the world was literally created as Bereshit (Genesis) says, as that story was not meant to provide a scientific explanation of the creation, but rather was meant to show the underlying truth that G_d is the source of the universe and the world as we may see it, and by whatever mechanism G_d may have used. Those articles which drove me from Christianity, were not a part of Judaism, but I was left with the G_d of Abraham, and many of the teachings that I grew up with.

Accepting Judaism meant giving up some things which were forbidden to Jews - pork, shellfish, etc. After thinking and studying, including six months study with each of two rabbis, I chose Judaism. Each religion asked me to give up something. What Christianity, Buddhism, and the others asked me to give up, I could not - reason, rationality, or belief in G_d. What Judaism asked me to give up, I could, and did gladly.

Liberal Agenda

I can tell you what this liberal's agenda is:

There will be no discrimination and all people will be given fair and equal treatment and opportunity regardless of race, gender, religion, sexuality, etc. 

Everyone who wants to work will be able to get a job that will pay enough to live on. 

Those who cannot work will have food, clothing, and housing provided. 

Poor and minority people will no longer be singled out for harsher criminal sentences. 

Repeal of laws banning the possession and use of most drugs. 

Free people previously incarcerated for non-violent and drug offenses. 

Restore the civil rights of felons automatically after they have served their time. 

Free education through college, though college education may require community service to offset. 

Higher taxes on the wealthy & corporations, along with the end of most corporate subsidies. 

The end of tax breaks for exporting jobs from this country. 

Banning of automatic and semi-automatic weapons, including assault weapons, along with banning high capacity magazines for weapons. 

Universal health care.

Same Sex Marriage

The Supreme Court will, before too long be hearing a number of cases where courts have thrown out state bans on same sex marriage. It is hard to tell for certain exactly how they will rule, but we can make some guesses. They threw out the California law against same sex marriage because the state chose not to defend the law, and it ended up being defended by a private group. The Supreme Court ruled that group had no standing to defend the law. Several of the states whose same sex marriage bans were overturned are also not having those bans defended by the states. Those laws are gone. 

The Supreme Court may dismiss the rulings overturning the laws without prejudice, for those states defending the laws, at least where the states would otherwise be compelled to issue marriage licenses to same sex couples. 

A second related issue is whether states could refuse to recognize same sex marriages performed in other states. There I suspect the Supreme Court may say that refusing to recognize marriages that were valid in those other states would violate equal protection, and may throw out those laws. No, the states that choose not to would not have to issue licenses to same sex couples, but neither could they refuse to recognize same sex marriages performed elsewhere.

Effectively that would spell the end of state bans on same sex marriage, without overturning all the laws directly. I am hardly a Supreme Court maven, but I doubt they would effectively reverse part of their prior ruling by letting everything stand as is. Neither do I think they will immediately sweep it all away. Public opinion is moving sharply towards allowing same sex marriage, at least across the country as a whole. The former confederate states will hang onto their same sex marriage bans a little longer, along with some more right wing Rocky Mountain states. The confederacy will be the last to fall, but fall it eventually will.

States have considerable latitude in setting rules for issuing marriage licenses, but that is not absolute. The Supreme Court overturned state laws against interracial marriage, and have the power to eventually do the same for same sex marriage. I just don’t think they will take that big a step at this juncture. Neither will the Supreme Court nor the states force churches to perform same sex marriages, where they feel it violates their religious values. As to non-religious organizations, who knows. 

I suspect it is in the interest of same sex couples NOT to patronize those establishments which are hostile to same sex marriage. Seriously, would you want your wedding cake baked, or your reception food catered by someone who was hostile towards your marriage? I would not trust the vendor to provide ‘unadulterated’ food. Those folks will become well known very quickly among their potential clients. In truth, if I were to remarry (and I am straight), I would not patronize an establishment that was hostile to same sex marriage. If they found I supported same sex marriage, they might treat me poorly as well. Beyond which, I try to make my money support my values, so I am less likely to want to patronize people with that viewpoint.

911 Conspiracy

I found myself exchanging messages about conspiracy theories with a gentleman, using the term very loosely, considering his propensity for calling me names and making accusations against me. Apparently, I am ‘close minded’ and ‘not willing to question anything’, among other things because I consider 911 conspiracy theories to be utter nonsense.

Let’s take a good hard look at conspiracy theories in general and 911 specifically.

Start with the fact that Kennedy could not keep secret his affairs with a number of women, or that he had the CIA and the Mafia both try to assassinate Fidel Castro. Johnson could not keep secret the fact that the Gulf of Tonkin incident was bogus, nor My Lai or similar massacres of Vietnamese by US soldiers, nor the Pentagon Papers. Nixon could not cover up Watergate, nor the various tapes of conversations in the White House. Reagan could not hide Iran-Contra, nor the sale of chemical weapons to Saddam Hussein. Clinton could not hide his Oval Office sexual escapades. Bush could not hide the falsified evidence of WMDs in Iraq, nor could he hide Abu Ghraib. The US could not stop Wikileaks from publishing embarrassing Iraq and Afghanistan docs, nor stop Snowden from releasing tons of material on NSA spying.

Why could these things not be hidden or covered up? Because there are people with a conscience who feel compelled to disclose what they feel is illegal or immoral activity.

Yet we are supposed to believe that in spite of the scope of action around 911, that no one has stepped forward with solid evidence of wrong-doing? All we have is rumor-mongers and people who say ‘but there are unanswered questions’. So why don’t we look at some of what they propound?

First, supposedly the World Trade Center buildings were brought down by controlled demolition, not by the airplane crashes. This brings up some questions. First, how could the amount of explosives need to bring down those buildings be brought in and placed in the buildings without some of the thousands of workers in those buildings being aware of it? You aren’t going to bring those buildings down with something small and easily hidden. A suitcase explosive would not bring down any of the WTC buildings. The 911 conspiracy proponents claim controlled demolition, but can’t explain nor provide evidence of that quantity of explosives being brought in.

Second, watch the video footage of the collapse of either of the two major WTC buildings, and watch it in slow motion – even a frame at a time. You can see the collapse starting in the section of each building where the airplane hit. If it was controlled demolition, how is it that the collapse begins where the airplane hit? The collapse should begin where the explosives are, which is where the damage causing the collapse is. So we are forced to believe either that explosives in another part of the building triggered the collapse of the buildings at the point where the airplanes hit, or that the explosives were in the part of the buildings where the airplanes hit. If the latter, then we are forced to believe that somehow the airplanes hit the buildings exactly or almost exactly where the explosives were placed. The 911 conspiracy folks provide no hard evidence of why the buildings collapsed where they did.

Regarding the Pentagon attack, many 911 conspiracy buffs say that it was not an airplane but a missile that hit the building. This is despite evidence of airplane debris in and around the Pentagon, including Flight 77’s black boxes. It is also despite eyewitnesses on a nearby major highway who saw an airliner fly into the building. The 911 conspiracy people have no reasonable explanation for either of these.

The question arises about the people on board the airplanes that the 911 conspiracy proponents say were NOT involved in 911. Some of them say those people were murdered or relocated. Mind you, there is zero hard evidence of these murders or relocations. If they indeed relocated that many people, you would think that some of them would have contacted loved ones, and there would be hard evidence that the person was still alive. If the people were murdered, we are forced to believe that none of the people involved in the murders had enough of a conscience to speak out, and that the remains of those victims were hidden so carefully that no trace has been disclosed or found. How many people and how much time would it take to murder and dispose of that many people? Again, there is zero hard evidence of this, only claims.

So what do we have? In the 911 ‘Truth’ movement, we have a group of people who claim to only be interested in the ‘truth’ and who claim to be examining the evidence in a scientific manner. Yet they predetermine their conclusions, then only look for evidence which seems to corroborate those conclusions, and ignore any conflicting evidence, while leaving many unanswered questions regarding their own theories.

Am I interested in reading more true believer 911 conspiracy accounts? No, but that does not mean I am not interested in the truth. It means I have looked at enough of the evidence to come to the conclusion that the 911 conspiracy movement is trying to sell a lot of crap in the name of truth.

You are free to believe whatever you wish – even if it is total nonsense. I have no more interest or time for 911 or other conspiracy theories until someone has serious solid evidence, not more fears or speculation. And I have no interest in discussing conspiracy theories any further.