I'll try to be brief. Your early days in Congress, you responded to constituent taunts about seven years of 'repeal and replace' rhetoric by pointing us to some sketchy talking points published by the Speaker's office. You now embrace the Freedom Caucus approach to health care, and have spoken publicly on their behalf. I'd like to impress on you a third way, the same way I expressed to Tom Perriello during the crafting and enactment of the ACA. Let me first state that I don't believe that the ACA has any insufficiencies that can't be attributed to GOP sabotage.
I've stated on Twitter to you and Rep Brat of Virginia's 7th district my objections to the anti-federalist erosion of the regulatory authority of the several states; the diversion of financial capital from investment to predation; and the frank refusal to legitimize and make provision for medical necessity as a public obligation of hospitality to others. All appear to be features of the Freedom Caucus approach. One that keeps coming up, for decades now, is the erosion of the sovereign capacity of the People as exercised by juries.
Prior to the ACA, medical emergencies large and small could be presented to certain hospital emergency rooms (and still can) with an assurance of appropriate treatment. This assurance is subsidized by providers, insurers, and governments, and ultimately by individuals in cost of services, premiums, and taxes.
I think we can agree that this last resort safety net of the emergency room is the least efficient place to effectuate a public guarantee of care. Despite crowd reaction to hypotheticals addressed in the 2012 Republican debates, turning people away is not an option. If you believe it is an option, just come out and say it. I assure you, the people of the Fifth district will take umbrage. The alternative is a system of care that promotes wellness, promotes relationships with providers, has multi-tiered service capacities appropriate to needs, and stops giving thousand dollar care to fifty dollar concerns.
What does all this, preserves the sovereignty of states and citizens, promotes responsible use of personal savings, and incentivizes cost containment and innovation? Look to Nelson County for some answers. I'm certain other localities in our Fifth district, in Virginia, and nationwide have similar exemplary public health providers. Embrace that service model. As far as where subsidies come from -- fellow patients, fellow policy holders, or fellow residents, such is a matter of political values and interests. We all want others to pay disproportionately. I don't much care how that allocation is made. I'll do my share. I do care when the result of those deliberations constrains juries, state and local governments, financial stability and justice, individuals in need of medical attention short of crisis, and competing models of care. I believe the Freedom Caucus formula threatens these and more fundamental American values.
I did try to be brief. Sorry. I'll close briefly by stating that subscription-style wellness services appear to me to be a service model by which state and local governments in partnership with the medical community can provide means-adjusted subsidized care and walk-in urgent care. Medical catastrophe remains a concern. Whose, I don't know, but wellness emphasis should lessen the instance of catastrophe and facilitate more efficient response. Think wellness. Legislate wellness. I've shared my views. I'm sure you will continue to share yours and hope several large venue town halls will be one means of sharing. The only personal response I'd request is your prepared constituent response to ACA related queries, by email or snail mail, as suits your operation.
Wednesday, March 15, 2017
Wednesday, March 1, 2017
Open letter to Rep Tom Garrett, re: Defense Budget
I look forward to bringing you a milkshake at your Charlottesville town hall meeting. I'm writing today about what I think is a shared concern about the debt burden our generation has placed upon generations to follow. Personally, I'm no opponent of debt incurred to obtain productive assets. I assail recurring and deepening debt incurred to live beyond ones means. Vague hopes of better days to come (unrealistic economic growth projections) defer today's assessment of what can be done without.
The Clinton presidency and Contract-With-America Congress brought an investment ethic to government functions. Money spent now on education and infrastructure, for instance, was expected to produce an ROI in reasonable (not fantastic) projections of consequent prosperity. Here, I decry the Tea Party/Freedom Caucus/Norquist ethic that Government has no right to reap what is sown. Sowing to the wind is as likely to squander itself in military boondoggle as in public sanitation, perhaps the archetypical function of good government. Trump seems to decry the denial of harvest of spoils (keep Iraq's oil) from the West Asian strife sown in the wake of the 9/11 attacks. All in all, it's been a bitter harvest there. Why? Posterity will ponder all that, as they imagine what more enlightened investments might have produced. Alternatively, posterity might imagine what worse might have come their way had our West Asian adventures not happened, while continuing to pay the bill.
In contrast to Norquist, whose pledge I hope you did not sign, Laffer (high priest of Voodoo economics) believed in the legitimacy, indeed the centrality, of government seeking to maximize (and wisely employ) revenue. I'm of the opinion that most revenue sources are to the left side of the Laffer Curve, though some economic activity and consequent revenue might respond favorably to tax reduction. In contrast I fear that Norquist and perhaps you either regard tax reductions to either universally enhance revenues or to be an intrinsic good that government be starved of revenue, despite diminished well being of the body politic. Nihilists, anarchists, objectivists, or whatever you call them believe the worthy will rise above the American carnage in an insolvent government's wake. That kind of ethic counts Escobar and Aidid among the worthy, not so much John Galt and Howard Roark of fairy tale fiction.
If Virgil Goode and Robert Hurt recall any of my emails to them, I thing of these long prefaces as a common feature. I eventually get to the point. The very point I expressed in a recent Tweet. Consider the effects of your budgetary decisions upon the well being of our grandchildren's grandchildren. Consider outlays as either a frivolity that does not justify the debt we pass on, as an investment in a more safe and prosperous future, as an obligation incurred by past sacrifice, or as a recurring activity of current net benefit to the body politic.
I'm not writing with specific instructions, except that defense expenditures appear to be of more political than productive value, with dubious, even negative expectations of beneficial outcomes. I believe that the Constitution calls not for quadrennial defense review, but explicitly for biennial review, and that such a review, with explicit consideration of the recurring value of such things as readiness and deterrence against credible threats and of the investment value of innovations and expeditions, is necessary for a proper defense authorization and associated budget. I believe that a properly considered military budget would be a considerable reduction from historic level, but don't expect that you would agree. I do expect that you agree to the need for proper consideration as a basis, and not the demagoguery of an impulsive Executive. Insist on the Constitutionally mandated biennial defense review prior to any authorization of programs or allocation of funds. I expect a response from you sharing upon what basis you are guided in considering outlays for National and Homeland Security.
The Clinton presidency and Contract-With-America Congress brought an investment ethic to government functions. Money spent now on education and infrastructure, for instance, was expected to produce an ROI in reasonable (not fantastic) projections of consequent prosperity. Here, I decry the Tea Party/Freedom Caucus/Norquist ethic that Government has no right to reap what is sown. Sowing to the wind is as likely to squander itself in military boondoggle as in public sanitation, perhaps the archetypical function of good government. Trump seems to decry the denial of harvest of spoils (keep Iraq's oil) from the West Asian strife sown in the wake of the 9/11 attacks. All in all, it's been a bitter harvest there. Why? Posterity will ponder all that, as they imagine what more enlightened investments might have produced. Alternatively, posterity might imagine what worse might have come their way had our West Asian adventures not happened, while continuing to pay the bill.
In contrast to Norquist, whose pledge I hope you did not sign, Laffer (high priest of Voodoo economics) believed in the legitimacy, indeed the centrality, of government seeking to maximize (and wisely employ) revenue. I'm of the opinion that most revenue sources are to the left side of the Laffer Curve, though some economic activity and consequent revenue might respond favorably to tax reduction. In contrast I fear that Norquist and perhaps you either regard tax reductions to either universally enhance revenues or to be an intrinsic good that government be starved of revenue, despite diminished well being of the body politic. Nihilists, anarchists, objectivists, or whatever you call them believe the worthy will rise above the American carnage in an insolvent government's wake. That kind of ethic counts Escobar and Aidid among the worthy, not so much John Galt and Howard Roark of fairy tale fiction.
If Virgil Goode and Robert Hurt recall any of my emails to them, I thing of these long prefaces as a common feature. I eventually get to the point. The very point I expressed in a recent Tweet. Consider the effects of your budgetary decisions upon the well being of our grandchildren's grandchildren. Consider outlays as either a frivolity that does not justify the debt we pass on, as an investment in a more safe and prosperous future, as an obligation incurred by past sacrifice, or as a recurring activity of current net benefit to the body politic.
I'm not writing with specific instructions, except that defense expenditures appear to be of more political than productive value, with dubious, even negative expectations of beneficial outcomes. I believe that the Constitution calls not for quadrennial defense review, but explicitly for biennial review, and that such a review, with explicit consideration of the recurring value of such things as readiness and deterrence against credible threats and of the investment value of innovations and expeditions, is necessary for a proper defense authorization and associated budget. I believe that a properly considered military budget would be a considerable reduction from historic level, but don't expect that you would agree. I do expect that you agree to the need for proper consideration as a basis, and not the demagoguery of an impulsive Executive. Insist on the Constitutionally mandated biennial defense review prior to any authorization of programs or allocation of funds. I expect a response from you sharing upon what basis you are guided in considering outlays for National and Homeland Security.
Thursday, February 16, 2017
Open Letter to Rep Tom Garrett, re 2020 Census
Tom, I mostly know you from your Twitter wars in which I'm an occasional participant and avid spectator. I hope that occasions will arise in which you will address and engage with a room full of district residents. I don't feel the urgency that some do, and wish such occasions be constructive, not confrontational.
That said, this is my first occasion to reach out to you by the House email. The enforcement of immigration law is my issue. You might recall early in your Twitter career making a quip about sanctuary cities, to which I responded with a request to Charlottesville Mayor Mike Signer to consider making it a sanctuary city. My position on such places is that their absence gives sanctuary to law enforcement from Due Process and other proper restraints. Sanctuary cities affirm our Constitution, while it is circumvented outside of them.
The activities of ICE agents has been newsworthy this past few weeks. Some say the pace of apprehensions has been consistent with recent trends. Others say the manner and target of apprehensions is categorically more hostile and arbitrary than before. You would know better than I the truth of the matter. I hope you are receptive to the truth of things despite what I regard as an extreme partisan lens.
I am moved to write by an article in Salon (we have such different preferences in news sources) by Matthew Rosza, dated this morning, Feb 16, 2017. The article suggests that ICE is specifically targeting places of refuge such as shelters from domestic abuse and cold temperatures. I shudder to think how sexual traffickers are cheering this development.
My own perspective comes from brief experience as a Census enumerator in the years leading up to the 2000 Census. I was often called to assure residents from whom, at the time, my one concern was collecting address information, that information was entirely confidential and unavailable to law enforcement, tax authorities or other possible sources of jeopardy.
The nature of my request is simple. The 2020 Census must maintain firewalls against any government object other than obtaining accurate aggregate information with which allocation of Congressman and other government resources are guided. The confidentiality of individual Census information must be inviolate. I expect from you an email or postal response specific to the 2020 Census.
BTW, when my car needed a jump start during my Census work, the one who stopped was a migrant apple picker. I did not ask his right to be here. I expect his employer followed applicable laws. But that incident, about 18 years ago, has ever since colored my appreciation of the Parable of the Good Samaritan. He was my neighbor.
That said, this is my first occasion to reach out to you by the House email. The enforcement of immigration law is my issue. You might recall early in your Twitter career making a quip about sanctuary cities, to which I responded with a request to Charlottesville Mayor Mike Signer to consider making it a sanctuary city. My position on such places is that their absence gives sanctuary to law enforcement from Due Process and other proper restraints. Sanctuary cities affirm our Constitution, while it is circumvented outside of them.
The activities of ICE agents has been newsworthy this past few weeks. Some say the pace of apprehensions has been consistent with recent trends. Others say the manner and target of apprehensions is categorically more hostile and arbitrary than before. You would know better than I the truth of the matter. I hope you are receptive to the truth of things despite what I regard as an extreme partisan lens.
I am moved to write by an article in Salon (we have such different preferences in news sources) by Matthew Rosza, dated this morning, Feb 16, 2017. The article suggests that ICE is specifically targeting places of refuge such as shelters from domestic abuse and cold temperatures. I shudder to think how sexual traffickers are cheering this development.
My own perspective comes from brief experience as a Census enumerator in the years leading up to the 2000 Census. I was often called to assure residents from whom, at the time, my one concern was collecting address information, that information was entirely confidential and unavailable to law enforcement, tax authorities or other possible sources of jeopardy.
The nature of my request is simple. The 2020 Census must maintain firewalls against any government object other than obtaining accurate aggregate information with which allocation of Congressman and other government resources are guided. The confidentiality of individual Census information must be inviolate. I expect from you an email or postal response specific to the 2020 Census.
BTW, when my car needed a jump start during my Census work, the one who stopped was a migrant apple picker. I did not ask his right to be here. I expect his employer followed applicable laws. But that incident, about 18 years ago, has ever since colored my appreciation of the Parable of the Good Samaritan. He was my neighbor.
Wednesday, June 22, 2016
As I watch the sit-in
A vote is coming. A vote is coming because a person struggling with lustful feelings he found repugnant got caught up in the culture wars. He sought a champion. He sought to be a champion. On Sept 12, 2001, a decision was made, to call the perpetrators of that criminal act champions of a cause. Holy warriors, not the debased thugs they were. And so, this tormented man saw the Junior League thugs of Daesh as champions, and adopted their tactics. And he was abetted in his quest to be a champion by a gun culture that affects potency as capacity for carnage. That's not specifically American culture. Most kleptocratic, autocratic and failed states (and criminal gangs) have a group of predators packing heat as a cultural ideal of empowered manhood. The integrity of this armed caste produced a convoluted etiquette among men that cannot abide acknowledged sexual lust or behavior. Gun culture killed the Orlando 49. The designation of the 9/11 bombers and their exploiters as warriors, not criminals, killed the Orlando 49. The self-loathing of a man whose cultural heritage could not abide or direct or relieve his homosexual impulses killed the Orlando 49.
And so a vote is coming. A vote to create a caste of people who are trusted with guns, and a caste disarmed. A vote to identify people by edict as disqualified for full citizenship. A vote to say yes to disarming for life (disenfranchising as well) the young man with a rock of cocaine base, while preserving full citizenship for the young man with a vial of cocaine powder. A vote too say yes to disarming the young man who calls Allah God with enough fervor to cause others discomfort, but to preserve the right of the young man who does not know God by name, but keeps evoking Him against the dreaded stranger.
Keeping guns out of the hands of people who ought not have guns is not the vote that should be taken, whether is involves universal background check, no-fly/no-buy, or good-guys with guns being the remedy against bad-guys with guns. All such designations create, whether by edict or some pretense of due process, a cohort who regard themselves as our protectors, but, like George Zimmerman, become our tormentors. No such cohort should exist among free men except under discipline. So says the Second Amendment. The vote ought be -- how to make access to that discipline consistent with the Fourteenth Amendment. How to have a national uniform discipline of armed citizens which resembles Dumas' Musketeers and not Duvalier's Macoute. How to encourage this body to be an enterprise of civic hospitality, not xenophobic hostility.
Last fall, I lobbied my Congressman for the second time on behalf of America Walks. My partner on visits to five Congresspersons (VA 3, 5, 7, 8, 10) and both Senators was a sports medicine physician. The easy access of hostile people to firearms came up in our travels. We both agreed that hostility was the issue more than firearms. And how to address hostility? Get outside. Get active. Get engaged in the world as it is, and not insist (and let ourselves be gratified by those who let us pretend, for a fee) that the would ought and could be just the way I like it. Infrastructure for unstructured spontaneous play and activity is the best investment Congress can make toward greater civility, satiety, and safety in the lives of the people.
And so a vote is coming. A vote to create a caste of people who are trusted with guns, and a caste disarmed. A vote to identify people by edict as disqualified for full citizenship. A vote to say yes to disarming for life (disenfranchising as well) the young man with a rock of cocaine base, while preserving full citizenship for the young man with a vial of cocaine powder. A vote too say yes to disarming the young man who calls Allah God with enough fervor to cause others discomfort, but to preserve the right of the young man who does not know God by name, but keeps evoking Him against the dreaded stranger.
Keeping guns out of the hands of people who ought not have guns is not the vote that should be taken, whether is involves universal background check, no-fly/no-buy, or good-guys with guns being the remedy against bad-guys with guns. All such designations create, whether by edict or some pretense of due process, a cohort who regard themselves as our protectors, but, like George Zimmerman, become our tormentors. No such cohort should exist among free men except under discipline. So says the Second Amendment. The vote ought be -- how to make access to that discipline consistent with the Fourteenth Amendment. How to have a national uniform discipline of armed citizens which resembles Dumas' Musketeers and not Duvalier's Macoute. How to encourage this body to be an enterprise of civic hospitality, not xenophobic hostility.
Last fall, I lobbied my Congressman for the second time on behalf of America Walks. My partner on visits to five Congresspersons (VA 3, 5, 7, 8, 10) and both Senators was a sports medicine physician. The easy access of hostile people to firearms came up in our travels. We both agreed that hostility was the issue more than firearms. And how to address hostility? Get outside. Get active. Get engaged in the world as it is, and not insist (and let ourselves be gratified by those who let us pretend, for a fee) that the would ought and could be just the way I like it. Infrastructure for unstructured spontaneous play and activity is the best investment Congress can make toward greater civility, satiety, and safety in the lives of the people.
Wednesday, October 7, 2015
House Speaker
My email to Bobby Hurt (Rep VA 5th Congressional District)
I've a few litmus tests for politicians. They need to avow a belief in an ancient universe and natural selection. They need to be receptive to the notion that human activity influences climate, and have serious proposals on international cooperation to avert climactic disaster. They need to loathe predatory consumer finance.
I expect you fail all three of my "must have" criteria in a politician. But I can be persuaded otherwise. I wonder if any Republican congressman could meet all three criteria. If such exist, I hope he could be drafted as Speaker. I expect a sufficient number of Democrats could embrace such a person to provide votes to counter any opposition from the Crazy Caucus, and elect what is, essentially a national, not a party leader. I hope you will chose such a leader.
I've a few litmus tests for politicians. They need to avow a belief in an ancient universe and natural selection. They need to be receptive to the notion that human activity influences climate, and have serious proposals on international cooperation to avert climactic disaster. They need to loathe predatory consumer finance.
I expect you fail all three of my "must have" criteria in a politician. But I can be persuaded otherwise. I wonder if any Republican congressman could meet all three criteria. If such exist, I hope he could be drafted as Speaker. I expect a sufficient number of Democrats could embrace such a person to provide votes to counter any opposition from the Crazy Caucus, and elect what is, essentially a national, not a party leader. I hope you will chose such a leader.
Tuesday, December 30, 2014
Bobby Hurt again
I notice gas prices lately have not given you an opportunity to demagogue. Though perhaps you're tempted to gloat, as lives have been jeopardized and communities ruined for tertiary recovery of fossil energy. I remember the days, in Nixon's administration, and Ford's, when I worked as a summer intern for what was then ERDA, I believe, predecessor to the DoE, abstracting proposals for such technologies. I'm delighted to see them brought to fruition. I'm not so delighted at the methane cloud above New Mexico and contaminated well water in other communities. Perhaps even aquifer depletion is occurring. (I forgot about earthquakes when writing Bobby Hurt). All these externalities by which we are subsidizing the current cheap price of gas. These externalities must be internalized into the price of crude and methane and gasoline, by regulated compensation and strict tort liability for the extractors. Let's pay at the pump for their increased direct and underwriting expenses.
I've said as much in the past. Why I write now is because I got an email from the Union of Concerned Scientists about the issue of proprietary formulations of fracking chemicals as an impediment to community and plaintiff action. I call on you to set low thresholds for presumptive evidence of harm, sufficient to subpoena and force disclosure of chemicals used, and as I've said in the past, to create a rebutable presumption that such chemicals in groundwater both originate from the fracking operation and contribute to illness if such contribution is evident in laboratory animals. Underwriting costs will likely soar in a just legal and regulatory system for tertiary extraction. SO BE IT!! PAY AT THE PUMP!!!
I've said as much in the past. Why I write now is because I got an email from the Union of Concerned Scientists about the issue of proprietary formulations of fracking chemicals as an impediment to community and plaintiff action. I call on you to set low thresholds for presumptive evidence of harm, sufficient to subpoena and force disclosure of chemicals used, and as I've said in the past, to create a rebutable presumption that such chemicals in groundwater both originate from the fracking operation and contribute to illness if such contribution is evident in laboratory animals. Underwriting costs will likely soar in a just legal and regulatory system for tertiary extraction. SO BE IT!! PAY AT THE PUMP!!!
Friday, August 15, 2014
Bobby Hurt Wrote Back!!!
And I reciprocated .......
I was quite fond of Virgil's "Goode News." Virgil had some peculiar views. He was proud of them. They marked him as a maverick, not a marionette. Your newsletters have consistently pointed to the latter. I think I've expressed myself on that point repeatedly. I won't belabor.
A couple weeks ago, I wrote on the subject of your evident glee in thwarting the private property rights of St. James College, and your gratuitous parroting of unfounded and pejorative characterization by the looney fringe of the motivations and actions of our President. Also, you were proud of legislation that guts humane and wholesome laws, rather than fully fund their enforcement, and encourage Lawrenceville's participation in upholding the Rule of Law.
None of the recent response to my email addresses my concerns, but neither does it reinforce my concerns. You speak as a Congressman -- saying essentially nothing, but in a way that reflects a consideration of broad concerns which indeed have thwarted even the heroic efforts of Bush 43 to bring about a consensus. We are a similar age. If my father has his way, I'd have been Hampton-Sidney class of 1976. Instead, I went to Carnegie Mellon, and remember a fondness of Woody Guthrie, especially his Hobo's Lullaby and Los Gatos. That was 1948. It ain't going away. They ain't going away. I remember at Carnegie being a fan of Milton Freedman. Funny how Chile suffered under his advisorship. Funny how Alan Greenspan regrets the failure of objectivist ideology as a governing principle. Funny how those same principles failed Bremer's consulship in Iraq. YOU AND PAUL RYAN ARE IN THRALL TO A PROVEN FAILURE. -- but I digress. Dr. Freedman spoke of voting with your feet. What is more violent? The intrusion of our borders, or what is necessary to deflect that intrusion? Are people coming here to be given stuff? I think not. They want to be safe. They want to pursue aspirations. They want to be Americans!
I digress again. I was doing Census work in 1999 in the orchard country around Covesville during harvest season. When I had car trouble -- who came to my aid? Not the priest. Not the Levite. THE SAMARITAN! I'm proud to have such neighbors. I wish the law would adapt to the facts on the ground rather than promote violence to alter those facts. In fact, I demand it. Milton Friedman, Ayn Rand, and Pope Francis all demand it. And that is a much better governing principle than the "Triumph of the Will" philosophy prevalent in the Bush Administration. Perhaps Milton Friedman, Alan Greenspan and Ayn Rand aren't so bad after all -- it's the Leni Riefenstahl aberration of the wingnut Right that screwed up Chile's and Iraq's economy, and are working hard (out of Wichita) to undermine our own.
In closing -- I wasn't particularly pleased by your response to my email, but was at least pleased to not be so aggressively and egregiously displeased as is routine from you weekly newsletter.
I was quite fond of Virgil's "Goode News." Virgil had some peculiar views. He was proud of them. They marked him as a maverick, not a marionette. Your newsletters have consistently pointed to the latter. I think I've expressed myself on that point repeatedly. I won't belabor.
A couple weeks ago, I wrote on the subject of your evident glee in thwarting the private property rights of St. James College, and your gratuitous parroting of unfounded and pejorative characterization by the looney fringe of the motivations and actions of our President. Also, you were proud of legislation that guts humane and wholesome laws, rather than fully fund their enforcement, and encourage Lawrenceville's participation in upholding the Rule of Law.
None of the recent response to my email addresses my concerns, but neither does it reinforce my concerns. You speak as a Congressman -- saying essentially nothing, but in a way that reflects a consideration of broad concerns which indeed have thwarted even the heroic efforts of Bush 43 to bring about a consensus. We are a similar age. If my father has his way, I'd have been Hampton-Sidney class of 1976. Instead, I went to Carnegie Mellon, and remember a fondness of Woody Guthrie, especially his Hobo's Lullaby and Los Gatos. That was 1948. It ain't going away. They ain't going away. I remember at Carnegie being a fan of Milton Freedman. Funny how Chile suffered under his advisorship. Funny how Alan Greenspan regrets the failure of objectivist ideology as a governing principle. Funny how those same principles failed Bremer's consulship in Iraq. YOU AND PAUL RYAN ARE IN THRALL TO A PROVEN FAILURE. -- but I digress. Dr. Freedman spoke of voting with your feet. What is more violent? The intrusion of our borders, or what is necessary to deflect that intrusion? Are people coming here to be given stuff? I think not. They want to be safe. They want to pursue aspirations. They want to be Americans!
I digress again. I was doing Census work in 1999 in the orchard country around Covesville during harvest season. When I had car trouble -- who came to my aid? Not the priest. Not the Levite. THE SAMARITAN! I'm proud to have such neighbors. I wish the law would adapt to the facts on the ground rather than promote violence to alter those facts. In fact, I demand it. Milton Friedman, Ayn Rand, and Pope Francis all demand it. And that is a much better governing principle than the "Triumph of the Will" philosophy prevalent in the Bush Administration. Perhaps Milton Friedman, Alan Greenspan and Ayn Rand aren't so bad after all -- it's the Leni Riefenstahl aberration of the wingnut Right that screwed up Chile's and Iraq's economy, and are working hard (out of Wichita) to undermine our own.
In closing -- I wasn't particularly pleased by your response to my email, but was at least pleased to not be so aggressively and egregiously displeased as is routine from you weekly newsletter.
Tuesday, August 12, 2014
Bobby Hurt is pissing me off yet again.
Rep Robert Hurt of Virginia's 5th Congressional District (our Represntative from Wichita) sends out a weekly email, touting the Kleptocrat party talking points. Last week, he was calling our President bad names. I sent a quick note there, especially in light of his pride in the interference in the private property rights of a local entity. Didn't blog it. This week it's a repeat of the "House Republicans have paved the way for the rape of our communities and wage-enslavement of our neighbors, BUT THE SENATE WON'T YIELD" trope that shows up every few weeks, on slow news weeks (or embarrassing rich news weeks).
I just cutting and pasting what I wrote. Maybe a few links thrown in for context...........
I've written in the past advocating private and public infrastructure investment. It would be nice to see a US Govt balance sheet where debt was balanced against income-generating assets. Then your 17 Trillion figure would be, hopefully, a net positive, and not a bankrupt government.
But my concern is the recent report that greenhouse gas emissions from Alberta oil sands are projected to exceed by a factor of three prior projections. And yet, with our cooperation or without -- say a British Columbia route to China or a Saskatchewan route to Europe -- extraction, refining, and combustion will proceed. Those gases are there, like it or not. (OR pretend it doesn't matter or not).
TAX CARBON!!! Build the pipeline, and tax carbon. Tax Western Virginia coal carbon. Tax the release of methane by fracking operations. Tax cow flatulence. Don't indemnify groundwater contamination and other externalities of extraction and transport. In fact, write laws which make it a rebuttable presumption that contamination originates from extractive use or transportation spill of the contaminating substances, with specific, preferably treble penalties. PAY AT THE PUMP!!!
Stop the subsidizing of harmful externalities. Create systems of compensation and remediation. Then, we will end up paying more money for our BTUs, entirely voluntary, when we pay at the pump. The system you are perpetuating with your very un-Republican objection to cap and trade, is one of violent coercion where I am enslaved by the consumer of cheap energy, who pollutes my air, my water, my vistas, my sacred natural spaces, even the very weather, to keep fuel cheap, at his neighbor's expense. I should think Ayn Rand would abhor the kind of coercive violence you have been advocating. And certainly Pope Francis has expressed his explicit abhorrence.
TAX CARBON!!! perhaps Cap and Trade. PAY AT THE PUMP!!! These are not socialist values. THESE ARE CHRISTIAN AND AMERICAN VALUES. INVEST IN INFRASTRUCTURE -- the Whig and Republican parties were born on that value. In times of cheap capital -- Where are the investments in low-unit-cost, large-capital energy production and conservation projects? Private projects? You, in your committee assignments, have and have squandered opportunities to alter that. Where is the information, transportation, electrical distribution, waste disposal, water impound, and other investment, both public and private? Why is Congress wanting to see America squander the Whig/Republican ethic that fed our prosperity? Why is Congress facilitating the erosion of the physical and moral fabric of America to subsidize the Plutocrats and Kleptocrats, who impoverish communities when they come waltzing in with their unregistered private equity advisors.
I just cutting and pasting what I wrote. Maybe a few links thrown in for context...........
I've written in the past advocating private and public infrastructure investment. It would be nice to see a US Govt balance sheet where debt was balanced against income-generating assets. Then your 17 Trillion figure would be, hopefully, a net positive, and not a bankrupt government.
But my concern is the recent report that greenhouse gas emissions from Alberta oil sands are projected to exceed by a factor of three prior projections. And yet, with our cooperation or without -- say a British Columbia route to China or a Saskatchewan route to Europe -- extraction, refining, and combustion will proceed. Those gases are there, like it or not. (OR pretend it doesn't matter or not).
TAX CARBON!!! Build the pipeline, and tax carbon. Tax Western Virginia coal carbon. Tax the release of methane by fracking operations. Tax cow flatulence. Don't indemnify groundwater contamination and other externalities of extraction and transport. In fact, write laws which make it a rebuttable presumption that contamination originates from extractive use or transportation spill of the contaminating substances, with specific, preferably treble penalties. PAY AT THE PUMP!!!
Stop the subsidizing of harmful externalities. Create systems of compensation and remediation. Then, we will end up paying more money for our BTUs, entirely voluntary, when we pay at the pump. The system you are perpetuating with your very un-Republican objection to cap and trade, is one of violent coercion where I am enslaved by the consumer of cheap energy, who pollutes my air, my water, my vistas, my sacred natural spaces, even the very weather, to keep fuel cheap, at his neighbor's expense. I should think Ayn Rand would abhor the kind of coercive violence you have been advocating. And certainly Pope Francis has expressed his explicit abhorrence.
TAX CARBON!!! perhaps Cap and Trade. PAY AT THE PUMP!!! These are not socialist values. THESE ARE CHRISTIAN AND AMERICAN VALUES. INVEST IN INFRASTRUCTURE -- the Whig and Republican parties were born on that value. In times of cheap capital -- Where are the investments in low-unit-cost, large-capital energy production and conservation projects? Private projects? You, in your committee assignments, have and have squandered opportunities to alter that. Where is the information, transportation, electrical distribution, waste disposal, water impound, and other investment, both public and private? Why is Congress wanting to see America squander the Whig/Republican ethic that fed our prosperity? Why is Congress facilitating the erosion of the physical and moral fabric of America to subsidize the Plutocrats and Kleptocrats, who impoverish communities when they come waltzing in with their unregistered private equity advisors.
Monday, July 14, 2014
Boehner
The IRS where? Cincinnati, you say? Boehner cronies in a false flag operation, I think. And the destruction of data only makes that seem more likely. But I believe truth will out.
It was like the cold war days. Russia hates China hates USA. The object is for A to harm B, while implication C. Then B and C are at war -- and A prevails. False flag, that's what I think.
Now this lawsuit. WTF!!! I would think that exemption from regulation, temporal or absolute, are part of the unmitigated power of the president to pardon. Perhaps unitary executive doctrine requires a specific exemption from the President -- an explicit executive order. Given the Republican preference for a strong (unitary) executive, then perhaps they are pursuing an action which they win by losing, solidifying the doctrine of absolute pardon power beyond criminal clemency. Boehner must be a genius. An evil genius, alas. Braniac from Superman, colored orange not green. There must be a word for a lawsuit that one wins by losing. Unconstitutional certainly.
It was like the cold war days. Russia hates China hates USA. The object is for A to harm B, while implication C. Then B and C are at war -- and A prevails. False flag, that's what I think.
Now this lawsuit. WTF!!! I would think that exemption from regulation, temporal or absolute, are part of the unmitigated power of the president to pardon. Perhaps unitary executive doctrine requires a specific exemption from the President -- an explicit executive order. Given the Republican preference for a strong (unitary) executive, then perhaps they are pursuing an action which they win by losing, solidifying the doctrine of absolute pardon power beyond criminal clemency. Boehner must be a genius. An evil genius, alas. Braniac from Superman, colored orange not green. There must be a word for a lawsuit that one wins by losing. Unconstitutional certainly.
Monday, February 10, 2014
Desperation and dependency
Bull Moose on the Loose
| It's up to us, not Priest nor King, To cede authority To folks with grand ambitious dreams To mold society By force or guile or subtle style Each seeks to gain the right To pick the traits that earn success What's fair and wrong and right 'Who is my neighbor?' Christ was asked, 'Who I ought love as self?' 'Who is his neighbor?' we might ask, 'What counts to him as wealth?' Counting wealth in dollars and cents Eye on the bottom line Neighbor is but cost or purchase Employed or coaxed to buy. Counting wealth in favors owed And power to coerce Neighbor is but us or them The minion or the cursed Counting wealth in a vista breadth Of beauty, peace, delight My neighbor thrills and entertains And keeps me safe from plight. Coercion and exploitation Want losers, all but few. And fight each against the other 'Who's with me?' Red or Blue? I choose neither of these swine To cast my precious pearl Kept in my pocket, I am rich Enough to make this world Yield more and more through stewardship Of what my vistas hold And dream of Teddy, LaFollette And Pinchot's days of old. By Robert Corey |
Letter to Bob Hurt, re: USPS financial services.
Predatory lending is among my greatest concerns for what's wrong about America. And I'm not at all sure how to fix things. I don't think financial services through the USPS will be a remedy without dangers... specifically the danger of systemic collapse should this "too essential to fail" institution have collection issues.
I developed a certain affection for Tom Bliley, when the Clinton impeachment circus destroyed my faith in Congress and I became something of an active correspondent. I had hoped that my Delegate, Paul Harris could replace him. I hoped he might have replaced Virgil when the district lines were drawn that way after the 2000 Census. Anyhow, I voted for Martin, not Cantor. Both had their issues, but I trust a man of faith more than an acolyte of Objectivism. You seem to be something of both, but I hope sometime to appeal to the former. Often, I see something in the Sunday texts that might serve to persuade you to follow Jesus, not Ayn. Anyhow -- back to predatory lending.
Cantor was only my Rep for his first term. I didn't write much, and his correspondence responses paled to Bliley's exemplary staff work (as do yours, though meritorious, relative to Virgil's -- I never cared for Perriello's). I recall writing against his signature education tax credit, for the designation of the Falls of the James as an historical treasure, for Bliley's signature Liberty Dollar, and for developing means for reputable financial companies to better secure debt to displace collateralized usury (pawn, title, and paycheck loans, also rent-to-own). I think perhaps Cantor read "securitized" instead of "secured" and "mortgage" rather than collateral, and tongue-in-cheek blame my emails to Cantor for America's economic collapse. (As I tongue-in-cheek imagine Lewinsky as a correspondence clerk reading my letter to the President mentioning his boring neckties (Rush, at the time, was selling neckties), then selecting her initial gift to Handsome).
The point being -- the clients of predatory lenders don't deserve too much consideration. Consumer lending in general is symptomatic of the cancer in our culture that creates desperation (which RHINOS love) and dependency (which Democrats love). A consumer culture is a sick culture -- an exploitative culture. It is the culture you, Rep Hurt, pander to every time the price of gas rises at the pumps. It is the culture those offensive internet campaign ads, funded with public money, appealed to. Our aspirations, not our appetites, ought direct our energies. That is authentic Republican culture -- nothing RINO about it, though too often dismissed as such.
But, our God accommodates the hardness of our hearts. He's a God of harm reduction. (I welcome the opportunity to expand on that theme, but I've diverged enough already). So we work to (treat the symptoms) thwart the exploitation and income inequality and compensatory socialism of a culture of consumer debt (including the National debt for recurring expenses), while seeking to identify, understand, and cure the illness. USPS financial services will likely be a more socially healthy response to consumer lending than Paycheck lending -- but bears the same risks. The risks, and means to lessen them (and not systematize them, as happened with mortgage lending) must be addressed. The public treasury and national economy cannot be held hostage to the insatiable hungers of a sick society.
What I hope to see more of is aspirational lending -- enterprise lending. What you, Rep Hurt, are championing (or seem to be) in your appeal for unfettered and unmonitored private equity funding. I see where micro-lending by faith organizations is something I'd like to explore. People with dreams need someone other than Gordon Gecko and the Shark Tank to support those dreams. And, despite your fine rhetoric, they need their Gordon Geckos to be licensed, registered and regulated.
I developed a certain affection for Tom Bliley, when the Clinton impeachment circus destroyed my faith in Congress and I became something of an active correspondent. I had hoped that my Delegate, Paul Harris could replace him. I hoped he might have replaced Virgil when the district lines were drawn that way after the 2000 Census. Anyhow, I voted for Martin, not Cantor. Both had their issues, but I trust a man of faith more than an acolyte of Objectivism. You seem to be something of both, but I hope sometime to appeal to the former. Often, I see something in the Sunday texts that might serve to persuade you to follow Jesus, not Ayn. Anyhow -- back to predatory lending.
Cantor was only my Rep for his first term. I didn't write much, and his correspondence responses paled to Bliley's exemplary staff work (as do yours, though meritorious, relative to Virgil's -- I never cared for Perriello's). I recall writing against his signature education tax credit, for the designation of the Falls of the James as an historical treasure, for Bliley's signature Liberty Dollar, and for developing means for reputable financial companies to better secure debt to displace collateralized usury (pawn, title, and paycheck loans, also rent-to-own). I think perhaps Cantor read "securitized" instead of "secured" and "mortgage" rather than collateral, and tongue-in-cheek blame my emails to Cantor for America's economic collapse. (As I tongue-in-cheek imagine Lewinsky as a correspondence clerk reading my letter to the President mentioning his boring neckties (Rush, at the time, was selling neckties), then selecting her initial gift to Handsome).
The point being -- the clients of predatory lenders don't deserve too much consideration. Consumer lending in general is symptomatic of the cancer in our culture that creates desperation (which RHINOS love) and dependency (which Democrats love). A consumer culture is a sick culture -- an exploitative culture. It is the culture you, Rep Hurt, pander to every time the price of gas rises at the pumps. It is the culture those offensive internet campaign ads, funded with public money, appealed to. Our aspirations, not our appetites, ought direct our energies. That is authentic Republican culture -- nothing RINO about it, though too often dismissed as such.
But, our God accommodates the hardness of our hearts. He's a God of harm reduction. (I welcome the opportunity to expand on that theme, but I've diverged enough already). So we work to (treat the symptoms) thwart the exploitation and income inequality and compensatory socialism of a culture of consumer debt (including the National debt for recurring expenses), while seeking to identify, understand, and cure the illness. USPS financial services will likely be a more socially healthy response to consumer lending than Paycheck lending -- but bears the same risks. The risks, and means to lessen them (and not systematize them, as happened with mortgage lending) must be addressed. The public treasury and national economy cannot be held hostage to the insatiable hungers of a sick society.
What I hope to see more of is aspirational lending -- enterprise lending. What you, Rep Hurt, are championing (or seem to be) in your appeal for unfettered and unmonitored private equity funding. I see where micro-lending by faith organizations is something I'd like to explore. People with dreams need someone other than Gordon Gecko and the Shark Tank to support those dreams. And, despite your fine rhetoric, they need their Gordon Geckos to be licensed, registered and regulated.
Wednesday, November 27, 2013
Bob Hurt uses targeted web ads for political advertising paid by public funds.
My letter today to my Representative....
Nothing to cause much distress in your latest Round-up. I hope the bill you reference does not indemnify frackers from damage to landowners. How does a community deal with negative externalities from extractive industries, even if the extraction is simply catching the wind or the sun? Emissions into the water and air are more concrete than microclimate and viewscape issues. But I fear the forces that evade regulatory and judicial remedies and compensations for these externalities -- not to mention indemnity limits for catastrophes related to extractive activities. I fear the forces advocating that the rest of us live with the consequences of our energy addiction, through the diminishment of our lives. We need to PAY AT THE PUMP -- not in slow death by repeated small cuts of negative externalities.
But that's not why I write. I write because I saw an ad on my Embarq webmail. Bob Hurt -- protecting your Medicare. I clicked the link expecting a campaign site -- but was directed instead to your congressional site. THAT KIND OF AD WITH CONGRESSIONAL MONEY IS UNACCEPTABLE. Please show me either how it is legitimate use of public funds, or that it was indeed paid for by campaign funds, despite linking to your congressional site.
I'm annoyed as well that I get these ads directed at me according to where I browse the internet. I get hotel ads because I've checked travel sites. I get political ads (AND THAT IS WHAT YOURS WAS!!) because I write my Representative. I even started browsing Victorias Secret to get a better class of ads. I don't care what NSA knows about me. BUT GOOGLE KNOWS TOO DAMN MUCH! Perhaps you can find a legislative remedy to all that. NO! You wouldn't. You are one of those who subscribe -- WITH PUBLIC FUNDS -- to those targeted web ads. FOR SHAME.
Nothing to cause much distress in your latest Round-up. I hope the bill you reference does not indemnify frackers from damage to landowners. How does a community deal with negative externalities from extractive industries, even if the extraction is simply catching the wind or the sun? Emissions into the water and air are more concrete than microclimate and viewscape issues. But I fear the forces that evade regulatory and judicial remedies and compensations for these externalities -- not to mention indemnity limits for catastrophes related to extractive activities. I fear the forces advocating that the rest of us live with the consequences of our energy addiction, through the diminishment of our lives. We need to PAY AT THE PUMP -- not in slow death by repeated small cuts of negative externalities.
But that's not why I write. I write because I saw an ad on my Embarq webmail. Bob Hurt -- protecting your Medicare. I clicked the link expecting a campaign site -- but was directed instead to your congressional site. THAT KIND OF AD WITH CONGRESSIONAL MONEY IS UNACCEPTABLE. Please show me either how it is legitimate use of public funds, or that it was indeed paid for by campaign funds, despite linking to your congressional site.
I'm annoyed as well that I get these ads directed at me according to where I browse the internet. I get hotel ads because I've checked travel sites. I get political ads (AND THAT IS WHAT YOURS WAS!!) because I write my Representative. I even started browsing Victorias Secret to get a better class of ads. I don't care what NSA knows about me. BUT GOOGLE KNOWS TOO DAMN MUCH! Perhaps you can find a legislative remedy to all that. NO! You wouldn't. You are one of those who subscribe -- WITH PUBLIC FUNDS -- to those targeted web ads. FOR SHAME.
Tuesday, November 19, 2013
Back to Shanksville
Some time ago, I posted on this blog something I wrote in 2005, four sore and sorry years after our national response to 9/11 destroyed far more than the terrorists did or ever could.
It's come to mind as we commemorate the 150th anniversary of the Gettysburg Address. That cartoon I link to raises a question concerning, of all things, our Pledge of Allegiance. While "Under God" is the phrase of greatest contention -- a phrase introduced into the Pledge as a rebuke of godless communism, but which began almost immediately a culture war, for the most part won by Madeline Murray O'Hair. She won because there is no such thing in Jesus' teaching as a Christian nation. The kingdom of heaven does not have boundaries. Some who call themselves Christian, and most particularly the Dominionists, regard the government of ancient Israel, according to the precepts of the God we have come to know through Christianity, as a model for our own time. But that government didn't survive the era of Judges into the Davidic monarchy, much less into Jesus's time, much less our own. But the silliness of "Under God" is just an aside. Increasing coming under question is "Indivisible." Some would remove that word from our Pledge. Ought they? Ought others resist? Ought I? I've not entirely thought it through.
But I've been trying to replace the phrase "Under God" when reciting the Pledge with "Of Laws Not Men." In the context of that phrase, the heads of our nation are not men or women, but charter documents. Many nations have a Head of State (The Queen), and a Head of Government (Prime Minister). The head of State need not be hereditary. Many nations elect or appoint one. We might imagine those two in the USA combined in the office of the President. But he's a man, just a man.
The Government originates from the State. It serves the State. Our Constitution is the LAW that constitutes our head of government. The Declaration is the LAW that constitutes our head of State. Our Declaration is immutable and inviolable except in its entirety. Its repudiation results in a new state, Repudiation of the Constitution is potentially gradual and remediative, as by amendment. Or by upheaval. As far as I know, the CSA of 1861-5 never repudiated the Declaration. It remained their State charter. A government in exile, perhaps.
When we pledge allegiance, do we pledge to both the State and the government? I'm brought to say at this point the we've had 44 Presidents, but one government. I'm not sure of the truth of that assertion. And it seems less and less true as purported champions of the Constitution seem anything but. Anyhow, I pledge allegiance to a FLAG, that I've honored in an essay I'm not sure I can find -- it was posted on GeoCities of all places. But I characterized it as a sovereign of stars, the people of the 50 states, on a field of stripes, born in the charters devised by the original 13. The Flag, not the President, is the institution in which the State and Government are joined. It is my Flag, your Flag, and the Flag also of the aspirational non-citizen. It is not the Flag of any class, party, movement, heritage group, or office. And when it's made into a mattress tag by force of law (some anti-desecration amendment, perhaps) it ceases to be a Flag. Which was the point of my GeoCities essay.
Back to the question of 'Indivisible.' Anyone who desires to remove that from the Pledge, I'm obliged to name a "Succesh" spoken with the same venom as by a Soldier being fired upon by a Confederate rifle pillaged from a United States arsenal.
It's come to mind as we commemorate the 150th anniversary of the Gettysburg Address. That cartoon I link to raises a question concerning, of all things, our Pledge of Allegiance. While "Under God" is the phrase of greatest contention -- a phrase introduced into the Pledge as a rebuke of godless communism, but which began almost immediately a culture war, for the most part won by Madeline Murray O'Hair. She won because there is no such thing in Jesus' teaching as a Christian nation. The kingdom of heaven does not have boundaries. Some who call themselves Christian, and most particularly the Dominionists, regard the government of ancient Israel, according to the precepts of the God we have come to know through Christianity, as a model for our own time. But that government didn't survive the era of Judges into the Davidic monarchy, much less into Jesus's time, much less our own. But the silliness of "Under God" is just an aside. Increasing coming under question is "Indivisible." Some would remove that word from our Pledge. Ought they? Ought others resist? Ought I? I've not entirely thought it through.
But I've been trying to replace the phrase "Under God" when reciting the Pledge with "Of Laws Not Men." In the context of that phrase, the heads of our nation are not men or women, but charter documents. Many nations have a Head of State (The Queen), and a Head of Government (Prime Minister). The head of State need not be hereditary. Many nations elect or appoint one. We might imagine those two in the USA combined in the office of the President. But he's a man, just a man.
The Government originates from the State. It serves the State. Our Constitution is the LAW that constitutes our head of government. The Declaration is the LAW that constitutes our head of State. Our Declaration is immutable and inviolable except in its entirety. Its repudiation results in a new state, Repudiation of the Constitution is potentially gradual and remediative, as by amendment. Or by upheaval. As far as I know, the CSA of 1861-5 never repudiated the Declaration. It remained their State charter. A government in exile, perhaps.
When we pledge allegiance, do we pledge to both the State and the government? I'm brought to say at this point the we've had 44 Presidents, but one government. I'm not sure of the truth of that assertion. And it seems less and less true as purported champions of the Constitution seem anything but. Anyhow, I pledge allegiance to a FLAG, that I've honored in an essay I'm not sure I can find -- it was posted on GeoCities of all places. But I characterized it as a sovereign of stars, the people of the 50 states, on a field of stripes, born in the charters devised by the original 13. The Flag, not the President, is the institution in which the State and Government are joined. It is my Flag, your Flag, and the Flag also of the aspirational non-citizen. It is not the Flag of any class, party, movement, heritage group, or office. And when it's made into a mattress tag by force of law (some anti-desecration amendment, perhaps) it ceases to be a Flag. Which was the point of my GeoCities essay.
Back to the question of 'Indivisible.' Anyone who desires to remove that from the Pledge, I'm obliged to name a "Succesh" spoken with the same venom as by a Soldier being fired upon by a Confederate rifle pillaged from a United States arsenal.
Tuesday, August 27, 2013
Bob Hurt's alternatives to Obamacare undermine federalism, the sovereignty of the people, and the decentralization of control of Other People's Money.
Another weekly missive from my Kool-Aid chugging Wichita-acolyte Representative to congress, and my reply.
The bottom line seems to be, employers can't be compelled to foot the bill for a health insurance system that subsidizes care to those lacking means to pay full price. They're opting out. So who will opt in?
You echoed three proposals that I've heard since childhood. Tort reform. Medical Savings, and -- this one is new to me -- only hearing this one since Obama took office, cross state lines. I made known my objections to medical aavings accounts in my last email, as an aside to my objections toward your proposal to allow more speculative uses of college savings. Medical savings, high deductibles, and subscription access to primary care are things I support, but the supports of medical savings who are pulling your strings are just seeking funding for their shell games. I object to the proposal because I doubt the motives of those making the proposal.
As for tort reform -- I hold the Seventh Amendment sacred... the exercise of sovereignty by the people. I hold juries more sacred than the vote. Hostility toward jury verdicts is as much a reason I left the Republican party as was hostility to voter expression in the 2000 Florida recount. THE PEOPLE ARE SOVEREIGN. That means juries. Reform voir dire -- tie lawyer's hands -- but let jurors reign free.
And this state line thing -- it smacks of anti-federalism. Why do RHINO's, those rampaging Know-Nothings that call me RINO -- they've called you RINO too, I hear. Take pride when they do. Why do RHINO's wants to weaken State's sovereignty over commerce within their bounds? I think I told you before -- 'across state lines' sounds suspiciously like 'lowest common denominator' and worse, like a path toward, not away from, oligopoly and frankly oligarchy. That's what happened when banks crossed state lines. I expect the same result if the people pulling your strings get their way.
The bottom line seems to be, employers can't be compelled to foot the bill for a health insurance system that subsidizes care to those lacking means to pay full price. They're opting out. So who will opt in?
You echoed three proposals that I've heard since childhood. Tort reform. Medical Savings, and -- this one is new to me -- only hearing this one since Obama took office, cross state lines. I made known my objections to medical aavings accounts in my last email, as an aside to my objections toward your proposal to allow more speculative uses of college savings. Medical savings, high deductibles, and subscription access to primary care are things I support, but the supports of medical savings who are pulling your strings are just seeking funding for their shell games. I object to the proposal because I doubt the motives of those making the proposal.
As for tort reform -- I hold the Seventh Amendment sacred... the exercise of sovereignty by the people. I hold juries more sacred than the vote. Hostility toward jury verdicts is as much a reason I left the Republican party as was hostility to voter expression in the 2000 Florida recount. THE PEOPLE ARE SOVEREIGN. That means juries. Reform voir dire -- tie lawyer's hands -- but let jurors reign free.
And this state line thing -- it smacks of anti-federalism. Why do RHINO's, those rampaging Know-Nothings that call me RINO -- they've called you RINO too, I hear. Take pride when they do. Why do RHINO's wants to weaken State's sovereignty over commerce within their bounds? I think I told you before -- 'across state lines' sounds suspiciously like 'lowest common denominator' and worse, like a path toward, not away from, oligopoly and frankly oligarchy. That's what happened when banks crossed state lines. I expect the same result if the people pulling your strings get their way.
Tuesday, August 20, 2013
Bob Hurt wants college age kids to find their savings have vanished
When W proposed privatizing social security, my email to Virgil read -- Don't put the govt in position where is must and cannot refuse to bail out financial losses.
When I wrote you pondering what would motivate me to mount a protest at your office in Charlottesville, I imagined carrying a banner saying --- Don't fund the Wall Street Casino with my retirement.
I might as well say the same thing about medical savings accounts. And I certain wish to say that about accounts where parents can make early provisions for college tuition. These parents ought be assured of rules that don't expose their investment to speculative losses. The guarantor of these savings ought not be hamstrung in setting actuarial policies that guard its exposure (a principal, the violation of which is among my concerns about Obamacare.)
Wall Street wants to play with Other People's Money with rules that resemble "Heads, I win, Tails, you lose". And you are complicit in their theft. Support consumer protection is college and medical and retirement savings, and investments in general. STOP TRYING TO UNDERMINE THEM.
When I wrote you pondering what would motivate me to mount a protest at your office in Charlottesville, I imagined carrying a banner saying --- Don't fund the Wall Street Casino with my retirement.
I might as well say the same thing about medical savings accounts. And I certain wish to say that about accounts where parents can make early provisions for college tuition. These parents ought be assured of rules that don't expose their investment to speculative losses. The guarantor of these savings ought not be hamstrung in setting actuarial policies that guard its exposure (a principal, the violation of which is among my concerns about Obamacare.)
Wall Street wants to play with Other People's Money with rules that resemble "Heads, I win, Tails, you lose". And you are complicit in their theft. Support consumer protection is college and medical and retirement savings, and investments in general. STOP TRYING TO UNDERMINE THEM.
Monday, February 18, 2013
Four Freedoms
I'm a little encouraged that Rep Cantor is trying to be a Republican instead of a RHINO. I use the RHINO term ironically -- to describe rampaging marauders with existential cravings to stamp out fires -- whatever brings warmth and light into the world. The folks who call real Republicans RINOs. I was pondering how to get the party back on a course where I might seek to rejoin it. And I saw an article about the 10 most influential State of the Union addresses (I can't locate the article). One of those listed was FDR's Four Freedom's speech of 1941. Despite the flaws of the concept, it's worthwhile to adopt Four Freedoms as a proper end of social organization and government, and argue that voluntary actions in a market economy are the most reliable means to bring them about. Republicans have been doing so since the days of Lincoln, but have lately forgotten how.
Are Four Freedoms big R Republican values? Are they RHINO values? Freedom of Speech? RHINOs are muzzlers. From a letter last year to Rep Hurt.
Freedom of Religion? Please! I hate that schools have become the arena for this. Teachers lack rights of free expression. Sometimes even students and voluntary associations among students, faculty, and administration. I think Republicans and RHINOs are pretty much aligned against any who would have us restrained from vocalizing our conception of the Divine. Or especially of those who would chose what's permitted ("The divine nature is impersonal, inertial, and immutable" of most science vs "The divine nature is intimate, volitional, and responsive" of most theism). Where RHINOs overstep is their readiness to compel and proscribe behavior of others. I cringe every time the oath-giver prompts "So help you God". I have no problem with an oath-taker stating an unprompted "So help me God." -- the prompt, itself, violates freedom, though I suppose the omission of that gratuitous phrase (could it even be blasphemous?) would be political poison, with or without the prompt.
Freedom from Want? Here is the rub. We have no divine right -- no certain inalienable right -- against deprivation. But there's another part of the preamble to our Declaration which goes beyond securing our rights, and affirms the role of government in "effect[ing] their Safety and Happiness." Here is where we get Freedom from Want and Freedom from Fear. We get it because we are sovereign, as individuals. Office holders may have some assurance of Safety and Happiness. Capital investors too. Intellectual Property creators and owners. The hired help at the top of corporations with their golden parachutes. They have that as derivative freedoms. As means to an end. The end being the Sovereign's Safety and Happiness -- that of individuals. I'm not going to try to contrast real Republicans, RHINOs, and other approaches here. Only say that Freedom from Want and Freedom from Fear are core founding values of America, not some FDR intrusion. Pretty much came to me in writing this. I own all four freedoms now, instead of my initial approach of submitting to a populist expectation with better means than the Democrat approach of throwing other people's money at it. That populist expectation is both a legitimate purpose of government, perhaps THE legitimate purpose, and a legitimate reason for dismantling an ineffective government, should it fail to secure these ends.... should it fail even to honor them.
Are Four Freedoms big R Republican values? Are they RHINO values? Freedom of Speech? RHINOs are muzzlers. From a letter last year to Rep Hurt.
Juries are America's Sovereign (We, the People) exercising its (OUR!) power directly. If juries are unhappy -- don't muzzle them (These RHINO's that have taken over my Party, and dare call me RINO, love their muzzles: voter suppression, jury suppression, suppression of standing of litigants).One might add the suppression of science. Also RHINOs seem to desire freedom from annoyance. Our founders saw the incompatibility between speech rights and the right to comfort -- and knew that comfort is something gladly sacrificed for the ferment of ideas, opinions, demonstrations, and expressions. I think the leading edges of the RHINO encroachment of the Republican party came with attempts to criminalize legitimate protest which might deface or damage a flag, but do not share my disgust with commercial exploitation of the flag. I wrote an essay on that at the time, but alas, it was stored on GeoCities, now defunct. I might stumble across a copy somewhere. The main thing is that freedom of speech is not something the speaker owns, but that a culture owns. Anybody can yell FIRE in a crowded theater. He's free to do so, by divine right of lungs and vocal cords. What shall the culture suppress, and with what tools? What the culture is most inclined to suppress, words which threaten its leading figures and presumptions, are subject to spontaneous private suppression -- "Them's Fightin' Words, Pilgrim." It's only our commitment to free expression and refusal to regard verbal provocation as mitigation for violent response that keeps us free.
Freedom of Religion? Please! I hate that schools have become the arena for this. Teachers lack rights of free expression. Sometimes even students and voluntary associations among students, faculty, and administration. I think Republicans and RHINOs are pretty much aligned against any who would have us restrained from vocalizing our conception of the Divine. Or especially of those who would chose what's permitted ("The divine nature is impersonal, inertial, and immutable" of most science vs "The divine nature is intimate, volitional, and responsive" of most theism). Where RHINOs overstep is their readiness to compel and proscribe behavior of others. I cringe every time the oath-giver prompts "So help you God". I have no problem with an oath-taker stating an unprompted "So help me God." -- the prompt, itself, violates freedom, though I suppose the omission of that gratuitous phrase (could it even be blasphemous?) would be political poison, with or without the prompt.
Freedom from Want? Here is the rub. We have no divine right -- no certain inalienable right -- against deprivation. But there's another part of the preamble to our Declaration which goes beyond securing our rights, and affirms the role of government in "effect[ing] their Safety and Happiness." Here is where we get Freedom from Want and Freedom from Fear. We get it because we are sovereign, as individuals. Office holders may have some assurance of Safety and Happiness. Capital investors too. Intellectual Property creators and owners. The hired help at the top of corporations with their golden parachutes. They have that as derivative freedoms. As means to an end. The end being the Sovereign's Safety and Happiness -- that of individuals. I'm not going to try to contrast real Republicans, RHINOs, and other approaches here. Only say that Freedom from Want and Freedom from Fear are core founding values of America, not some FDR intrusion. Pretty much came to me in writing this. I own all four freedoms now, instead of my initial approach of submitting to a populist expectation with better means than the Democrat approach of throwing other people's money at it. That populist expectation is both a legitimate purpose of government, perhaps THE legitimate purpose, and a legitimate reason for dismantling an ineffective government, should it fail to secure these ends.... should it fail even to honor them.
Saturday, February 16, 2013
Commando weapons.
I just finished reading Grapes of Wrath. Among the thoughts provoked was another affirmation of the necessity of a well-regulated militia. There's a conflict between what armed men will organize to accomplish and what powerful men will arm minions to accomplish. I think of Bacon's Rebellion, where Gov. Berkeley laments his inability to raise an army to suppress rebellion, lacking the funds. I think of the army Tom Cruise's character was hired to train in The Last Samurai. I think of Pinkertons and other hired goons which have been assembled to suppress organized labor. The age old question of whether one is served by participating in the communistic system of corporations and big capital with their central planning and bureaucratic means of stratification, or with voluntary associations in the free-enterprise system of guilds and small private capital (I like to think of garages and green grocers).
The problem is that scabs and goons-for-hire are likely to be "rugged individualists" in their own mind, prey to monetized (mercenary) transactions, as opposed to filial associations of the folks fighting the encroachment of avarice-based structure of society. It's the folks who accumulate arsenals who are least likely to commit them to constructive use (do weapons have constructive use?) Anyhow -- non-governmental (or proto-governmental like Revolutionary Committees of Safety) militia is a worthy form for organizing the liberals and progressives among us whose ends are gracious, if not altruistic. Though a militia with a central body on the order of an Occupy Movement General Assembly sounds like a circular firing squad.
The point being that Sons of Liberty type right-wing groups and Committee of Safety type centrist groups and SDS/Black Panther type left-wing groups all have reason to bear arms, and American ideals are served by the presence of such armed groups, but the Second Amendment supposes infantry, not commandos. Weapons whose purpose is individual carnage are not part of what I cherish as a right of free-association. Automatic and large magazine weapons are not infantry weapons -- they are commando weapons. They are mass murder weapons. They are terror weapons. They are weapons for which I will support restrictions. I do not support restricting persons. Be it felons or psychotics or even sociopaths. Especially psychotics. Perhaps when the rights of psychotics to assemble in armed non-governmental well-regulated militias are established, other rights will be less vulnerable. I will not be disarmed by being called Schizo. I've been called that all my life, though have been repeatedly assured by doctors I'm not clinically such. Or legally such. But I still feel comradeship with those who share this label, and especially those for whom that label has deprived of society's respect and a citizen's privileges and immunities.
The problem is that scabs and goons-for-hire are likely to be "rugged individualists" in their own mind, prey to monetized (mercenary) transactions, as opposed to filial associations of the folks fighting the encroachment of avarice-based structure of society. It's the folks who accumulate arsenals who are least likely to commit them to constructive use (do weapons have constructive use?) Anyhow -- non-governmental (or proto-governmental like Revolutionary Committees of Safety) militia is a worthy form for organizing the liberals and progressives among us whose ends are gracious, if not altruistic. Though a militia with a central body on the order of an Occupy Movement General Assembly sounds like a circular firing squad.
The point being that Sons of Liberty type right-wing groups and Committee of Safety type centrist groups and SDS/Black Panther type left-wing groups all have reason to bear arms, and American ideals are served by the presence of such armed groups, but the Second Amendment supposes infantry, not commandos. Weapons whose purpose is individual carnage are not part of what I cherish as a right of free-association. Automatic and large magazine weapons are not infantry weapons -- they are commando weapons. They are mass murder weapons. They are terror weapons. They are weapons for which I will support restrictions. I do not support restricting persons. Be it felons or psychotics or even sociopaths. Especially psychotics. Perhaps when the rights of psychotics to assemble in armed non-governmental well-regulated militias are established, other rights will be less vulnerable. I will not be disarmed by being called Schizo. I've been called that all my life, though have been repeatedly assured by doctors I'm not clinically such. Or legally such. But I still feel comradeship with those who share this label, and especially those for whom that label has deprived of society's respect and a citizen's privileges and immunities.
Wednesday, January 23, 2013
Counterpoint to illucid rants.
There was once a time when I feared, some say with Pope John Paul II, that George XLIII was the anti-Christ, poised to usher in the end of days. Reading my stream of consciousness rants in these recent Open Letters, and knowing my correspondence with Silly Wobbert over his two years in office has been pretty much in the same vein, I thought I'd share something here a little more polished from back in 2005. It could be more lucid, I'm sure. But someone other than I need have taken it there. Nobody stepped up to the plate.
Shanksville Address (Flight 93)
Shanksville Address (Flight 93)
Four sorely sullen years ago, Their fatwa brought forth Upon this continent A new outrage. Conceived in jeolousy And dedicated to the proposition That empire is inherent evil. Now we are engaged in a crass imperial war, Testing whether some nation Or some other nation Harboring such conception or dedication Can dare try to stop us. We remember today The provocation of that war. We have come to justify Our disproportional response to it, As a final resting place To liberties only hated by ourselves. And yet that day, heros among us Stepped up to call. Many died. We dedicate this day to those heroes And to the fallen innocent. It it altogether fitting and proper That we should do this. But in a larger sense, We cannot dedicate We cannot consecrate We cannot hallow this day. The brave men, living and dead, Who struggled with fists and flames To stem loss and destruction Have consecrated it, Far above our cynical ploys To add their honor to our own Or to detract eyes from our dishonor. The world will little note, Nor long remember, Their small and noble deeds, But can never forget the ignoble attack, And our ignoble response, Which dishonors these And all who have died Through twenty score years To bring freedom from imperial lust. It is for us, the living, Rather to be dedicated here To the forgotten ideals That inspired their valor. It is rather for us To be here rededicated To the faith that freedom and justice Conquers the force of arms And not by such force, Being dedicated to our brother And devoted to our neighbor. From our honored dead, We take increased devotion To that cause for which They have given The last full measure of devotion. That we this day highly resolve That those who died four years ago And in these last four hundred, Shall not have died in vain. That this nation shall abandon Imperial agression and the Ersatz entitlements of exceptionalism And dedicate ourselves once more To the truly exceptional. A new birth of freedom! That this government Of the People By the People For the People Shall not perish from the Earth. By Robert Corey |
Tuesday, January 22, 2013
Another open letter to Rep Hurt
I know that you and Leader Cantor have zero sincerity when it comes to debt reduction, despite your frequent protests. Defense reductions and revenue enhancement are essential for any sincere proposal. I'd like to see you move in a Constitutional direction.
First -- Stop these subsidies and favored treatment of big banking, fossil energy, and big defense. TAX CARBON! Don't fund the wall street casino with my retirement.
Second -- Don't push growth-killing measures that place burdens upon individuals that have been traditionally (or more importantly, recent measures upon which our prosperity depends) a shared social concern. Potholes that I must fill, don't get filled. That's not because I'm lazy. All my neighbors are equally disincentivized. Cantor's bogus budgets have been based upon the proposition that rich people wanting to be richer people are the engine of the economy. What I think is the engine of the economy is a spirit of enterprise which is not deprived of rewards which ought justly come. Be that public service (police, fire, teachers, groundskeeping, trash collection, etc) which is robbed of it's stature when collective bargaining and craft/profession based association (yes, even compulsory) is thwarted. Be that innovators who discover that, when bohemoths make spurious intellectual property claims, the government charged by the Constitution to foster innovation, becomes allied with the forces poised to kill it. One could go on and on identifying growth-killing measures in Cantor's bogus budgets. Measure that leave us ill prepared to sustain a future consistent with our aspirations. Consistent even with our present conditions. And, appealing to Reagan's Lasker Curve, which affirms to right of government to maximize revenue, and points to how, I am certain, the CBO is certain, and everybody whose paycheck doesn't originate in Wichita is certain --- we are not past the cusp of the Lasker Curve. It's not Voodoo economics which drives Cantor. It's ubermensch objectivism -- it's letting the engine of economy run full bore, uncoupled from the drive mechanism. It's a John Galt fairy tale of perpetual motion. It's not a principle upon which prosperity will be achieved or sustained. TAX CARBON. Failure to tax carbon is the biggest obstacle to sustained prosperity. I know -- Brazil, India, China -- what good for us, if not for them? SILLY WOBBERT, that's what taxes are all about. I scoff at appeals for Warren Buffet to hand over what he believes is just compensation to a government which enabled him to prosper so much as he has. He alone.... I SCOFF.
Anyhow -- number 3 -- get back to Constitutional civilian oversight and participation in the military. BIENNIAL review of defense needs. Militia being the backbone of military preparedness -- for training and domestic/boundary mobilization, but only regular National military units available for foreign adventures, those units peopled by recruiting among members of a well-regulated militia. NOT WHOLE UNITS. NOT COMPULSORY FOREIGN SERVICE as a penalty for good citizenship. And recognize that equipping and protecting soldiers is the object of defense procurement, not the distribution of Congressional pork. And recognize that hostility is often the most expensive and least effective option to achieve global interests. And hostility is often, perhaps always, inimical to national values. TAX CARBON -- that will address more thoroughly than military mobilization the forces poised to violently challenge the status quo.
Of course Health Care is something that needs to be addressed, constructively. Constitutionally. A state-administered program to supply services that are agreed to be fundamental to our neighborly concern. Things we cannot NOT do. The discussion of where to draw that line has not been forthcoming. The emergency-room as first-option has been a crippling approach to primary indigent health care. I wish Gov. Vaginal Probe and the Cooch were doing their job. And Viginia's legislature. Instead they're intent up new Gerrymander, ala Texas 2002. It's unfortunate that remedies have had to become national. But having become so, DON'T FUND THE WALL STREET CASINO WITH MY HEALTH. TAX CARBON. Let us walk more, find value in natural places which serve as carbon sequestrators. Let our industrial agriculture subsidies no longer feed unnhealthy habits.
Mostly -- TAX CARBON is the best way to assure America's prosperity. Cantor's bogus budget is the best way to further the encroach of anti-American kleptocracy.
Friday, January 11, 2013
Open letter to Rep Robert Hurt (VA 5th)
The Gunpowder Incident of April 20, 1775
Of all the revered figures who lived and died in the 5th district, I've only ever seen you pay tribute to Patrick Henry. Should I ever visit Red Hill, I hope to find the opportunity to see Booker T Washington's nearby birthplace. [note... searching 'Booker' on Rep. Hurt's website, I found a trip album with one picture of a BTW visit, along with 4 of a nearby UPS store] I don't know if Booker T wanted to arm his people, but Marcus Garvey and Sutton Griggs likely did. Malcolm X most certainly did. And I bet there are people ready to repeat Oklahoma City and other atrocities in the name of keeping their guns, while keeping them out of the hands of Booker T and Malcom X's people. And out of my hands, too. I'm seeing these people crawl out from under their rocks and imagine you being wholly sympathetic to their fears of black helicopters and fluorescent light bulbs.
But while unsympathetic to their tirades, I am sympathetic to their arsenals. Hunting is not the purpose the the second Amendment. I don't really think private arsenals for protection in the Zombie Apocalypse or whatever these people are afraid of is the purpose of the second Amendment either. When the NRA talks about good guys with guns, my thoughts immediately turn to George Zimmerman, a self appointed good-guy with a gun. My biggest fear is not of bad guys, but of such good guys. All those 'good guys' ranting on Fox News and EIB radio about being robbed of Christmas and whatever else by the advance of society to places unfamiliar to them.
Anyhow, despite their evident insanity, and profligate hostility, I don't advocate you are anybody else vote to restrict their ability to -- a line I love from "Fog of War" [ I misspoke. The movie I have in mind was Path to War] -- "jump the White House fence and lynch their President." I'd have done exactly that should George W Bush have made unilateral WMD attack on Iran or anywhere else -- and I announced that intent and wished others would. American hegemony is accountable to no external force, and restraint can only come from a citizenry whose outrage of actions taken in our name provoke "Second Amendment Remedies". And tolerance of private arsenals by the McVeighs of the world, who I fear 100 times more than the Aziz's of the world, is part of that restraint.
But, what is lost in discussion centered upon sportmen's rights is "A well regulated militia." What made America work, when anti-royalist and anti-colonial and other revolutions descended into turmoil? It was Committees of Safety, in my mind. It was organization of communities under ad-hoc purposeful service organizations. It was Patrick Henry in Williamsburg and the Minutemen of Concord. Would that we could nurture similar genius within and outside our borders today. We crush that genius, it seems, and nurture wackiness. Yours has certainly been nurtured.
Anyhow -- bottom line --- Article I Section 8 of the Constitution authorizes Congress...
To provide for calling forth the Militia to execute the Laws of the Union, suppress Insurrections and repel Invasions;
To provide for organizing, arming, and disciplining, the Militia, and for governing such Part of them as may be employed in the Service of the United States, reserving to the States respectively, the Appointment of the Officers, and the Authority of training the Militia according to the discipline prescribed by Congress
I'm aghast that nobody has challenged Congress or the President on exceeding this authority by sending National Guard units on foreign adventures. I'm aghast that the very name "National Guard" robs States of autonomy over their military arms. I'm aghast that regulation of militia is not appropriately practiced at either a state or federal level, whereby private arsenals might be, as the Constitution not only provides, but demands, confiscated, with due process and reparations, to public purposes.
That's the Constitution. You pay it lip service when it serves your ends. but in a matter of well-regulated Militia, you're with the McVeighs of the world. Enemy of the State. A bad guy with a gun, like Zimmerman.
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