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 © 2011 Robert Corey (All rights reserved)

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.