Thoughtful Electorate

A Middle Road for Health Care Reform

2009-05-02T13:43:00.000-07:00

Medicare is on track to be broke by 2016. To skirt this progress, the President wants to institute vast reforms with front loaded costs in the billions or trillions (depending who you talk to), and to commit the government even deeper to entitlements to conjure universal health care. Republicans offer nothing but an ideological call for a free market health care system… We’re in trouble. But former HHS Secretary Mike Leavitt offers a middle road that makes a lot of sense.

Leavitt recently spoke on the Salt Lake based radio show, Radio West, about our health care system. Following are quotations from his interview.

To begin with, Leavitt sees our country heading toward economic disaster that will affect generations if the health care system isn’t dealt with effectively and soon. But he doesn’t believe either party is offering a viable solution.

If fact, he said republicans proposing a free market solution don’t understand the complexities of the situation.

I think my own party has been deficient in it’s capacity to talk about this issue. We have defaulted to an ideology as a response as opposed to a plan. And I believe my party has an obligation to step up and speak in a far more specific way than they have.

The democrats have a plan, but not a good one. Leavitt rejects the idea that a government run system is the answer because it relies on two wide spread myths. First: That the bureaucracy can effectively reform and manage the health care system. Second: That ramped up spending constitutes reform.

The WHO reports that in 2005 the U.S. spent 15.2 percent of it’s GDP on health care. The closest “developed” nation to that was Switzerland with 11.4 percent. The WHO ranked the U.S. 24th in life expectancy in 1999. According to NPR’s 2005 comparison of health care coverage, 18 percent of Americans under 65 are uninsured. In the other six developed nations listed, nearly all were covered. Clearly money doesn’t fix everything.

Obama’s plan would pour money into developments like computerizing medical records. In the long run, this might save money. But remember, 2016 is when Medicare goes bust. Other systems around the world teach us we can do things to create a much more efficient and cost effective system without these upfront costs. There are a plethora of blaring inefficiencies in our system that, if we fixed, would save money right off the bat. For example, ending Medicare coverage for tests that aren’t proven to give any benefit whatsoever. (See first comment by Maggie Mahar following the article)

In Leavitt’s view, government has a strong role in health care reform -- not managing it, but creating a framework for an organized market system. He poses the question whether health care reform should use food or national defense as a model.

We’ve made a decision that we’re not willing to let people go hungry. But does government make all the decisions about food? No… They set up guidelines to make certain it’s safe. We even have a system that if people can’t afford it we’ll subsidize. It’s called food stamps. And if you can’t go to the store and get your own, we’ll take Meals on Wheels to you. …

On the other hand there’s defense. You wouldn’t want to have more than one. That would be a bad thing. But the government should decide how it’s deployed, should decide how much we need, should decide where it goes.

As you might guess, Leavitt said he sees health care as being more like food -- a system overseen by the government to meet the needs of our citizens, but not planned by it. The government’s role here would be to regulate the insurance market to see that it is affordable, ensure people are made aware of the costs of health care as well as the quality of services, and to iron out inequities including subsidizing people who can’t pay for needed health care services.

Leavitt sees a slow moving congress and an inefficient bureaucracy as incapable, by themselves, of instituting the kind of reforms we need in health care.

Influence from powerful lobbyists is one reason for this. True reform would require shaking up the status quo and rebuilding a fair and organized system. As long as the decision is in legislators’ hands lobbyists will hold undue influence.

One person’s waste is another man’s living. And it’s very difficult to begin, in a congressional atmosphere, creating a conundrum and then resolving it in a zero sum game. They just can’t do it. So why are market forces important here? Because market forces, when they’re organized, are dispassionate enough to find their way to the highest quality at the lowest cost. Legislative bodies can’t do that.

Leavitt said some aspects to health care reform need innovative solutions. So he doesn’t believe the national government is best suited for the role as chief reformer. He would rather see the states take the lead.

We could solve the problem of access to health insurance within four years. … If the national government would say, ‘there is a compelling national interest for everyone in this country to have access to an affordable insurance policy.’ And if congress were then to fix the tax laws, do something about fixing the way hospitals are financed and then say to the states, ‘your job is to figure out how to provide a market place that’s organized and we’ll help you pay for parts of the subsidies.’ The states would figure this out. I know they would, because I’ve worked with as many as 30 of them who’ve been trying, but they’ve been blocked by policies at the national level.

The Federal government doesn’t need to micromanage health care reform or borrow another trillion dollars from our grandkids. Of course there will be upfront costs associated with getting people health care who haven’t been to a doctor in years. That would be a huge problem for a government funded program like Medicare, but it's an investment opportunity in a well organized market.

An organized market will quickly guide health care to a more sustainable path by cutting out waste. The government will need to do a better job regulating to smooth out inequality and catch those who would cut corners and compromise safety, but this is the government’s role in most sectors of the economy. This kind of reform will fix our health care system, not just shift who pays for it.

Congressional Dems Showing Shell Shock over Iraq

2009-02-28T10:26:00.000-08:00

Friday, President Obama announced a timetable to withdraw troops from Iraq. Republicans, including John McCain, applauded the action. Democrats were bummed. Even as they get the deadline for which they've been chanting for six years, they can't control the knee-jerk reaction to oppose anything but a Vietnam style airlift out of Iraq.

The President acknowledged this deadline of August 31, 2010 is two months longer than the 16 months he promised during his campaign. Apparently, those two months are quite offensive to Congressional democrats. I think Obama did a pretty decent job of juggling his firm 16-month deadline and his promise to withdraw with advice of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. Thank goodness the situation in Iraq has improved sufficiently to allow that balance, or at least close enough.

Harry Reid and Nancy Pelosi also protested Obama's suggestion that he might leave as many as 50,000 troops until the end of 2011. From the moment Hussein's regime was overthrown, democrats adopted the popular stance to oppose anything but an imminent timetable for our last soldier to leave Iraq.

I guess It's fair. Bush was pretty slippery about giving clear expectations for how long it would take to rebuild a nation almost from scratch. So the dems felt justified it playing a political game of "Are we there yet?" that they can't stop even now.

We educated Americans should have taken our cues from history to anticipate how long it would take to stabilize Iraq. We still have troops in Japan and Germany – now it's because there's a strategic advantage for doing so, but there was never any illusion before this war that rebuilding a nation should be a quick and easy job, as we have painfully relearned. History going back to the British empire also tells us we would have achieved our current peaceful state in Iraq much faster if we had maintained surge levels of troops from the beginning.

I assume and pray that the number of troops Obama leaves to advise and provide security will have something to do with the needs in Iraq, the lessons of history, and the advice of the Joint Chiefs. Maybe Nancy Pelosi should look into it. I hope things work out well enough for President Obama to keep that promise to have all troops out in 2011. We'll see.

The Only Thing to Fear: Money Vanishing into Thin Air?

2009-01-30T17:48:00.000-08:00

Wednesday, Diane Rehm cited a statistic that the world has lost 40% of it's wealth in this financial crisis. What does that mean? In physics, the law of conservation of energy states that energy cannot be created or destroyed. Isn't there a law of conservation of wealth? I don't buy the idea that the world's wealth just spontaneously combusted. The world's confidence in the markets is all that has disappeared?

Miscalculations in finances and physics can cause great unpleasantness. These are the roots of our current financial problems. But wealth doesn't just disappear. During the housing bubble, a lot of people paid too much for houses. But that means someone else received too much. So where is the money now? Vaporized? No, it's under people's mattresses and sealed in bank vaults. The money is still here; it just isn't moving. If movement of money is what defines wealth, then we just wake up tomorrow and start loaning, rehiring and spending. There's that 40 percent back. No body burned the money supply. Our means of production are still intact. We still remember how to build houses, don't we? The wealth didn't disintegrate. Our confidence in the markets did.

So we've decided the U.S. economy is too big to fail. I can accept that. The powers that be have determined the best way to prevent that is to take the housing bubble, the credit crunch, the tanking auto industry and every other disaster we are experiencing and send them through the pipes to become one big National Debt Bubble (to expire when we all lose confidence in the phrase “full faith and credit of the United States”).

But we live to pay another day I guess.

What troubles me most is that this solution doesn't do anything about the confidence factor, and without that I don't see our great grandkids getting their money's worth. I don't believe there is a magical amount of money that will save the economy. A few months ago, I thought $100 billion was a lot of money. If Doctor Evil demanded that amount now we would all die laughing. We're well into the trillions with all these bailouts. If Secretary Paulson had asked Congress for $200 billion with conditions that financial institutions must use the money proactively or get flushed, and the architects of the bailout had convinced me it would be enough to stop the downward trends, I would have gone out and bought a house. So would you at these prices. Given, some Wall Street execs. would have had to weather a year of smaller bonuses, but they would have pulled through I'm sure.

President Obama's stimulus package is the same story. Americans would do a lot more with $819 billion in a confident mindset than they would in a “depression” mindset.

Bankers, employers and consumers only part with their money with expectations that more will come. If our leaders and media stop using claims of the world's wealth evaporating as hooks, I believe we could be well on our way to recovery by the end of the year. We need more than a comprehensive list of what the money will be used for. We need to know our leaders are confident what they are doing is going to work. Then it has a much better chance of actually working.

Here's my theory about what ended the Great Depression. It wasn't the New Deal or WWII. Roosevelt actually got those poor saps to believe the only thing to fear is fear itself. Then they ended the Depression.

Midnight Bush-Bashing

2009-01-17T18:03:00.001-08:00

Bush's presidency is done, but some Democratic leaders aren't finished bashing him yet. Politico reports that this week House Majority Leader Steny H. Hoyer distributed a video showing how Bush failed America. House Judiciary Chairman John Conyers Jr. released a 486-page list of grievances about the Bush administration. I'm no fan of GWB, but this makes Kenneth Starr look like Ryan Seacrest.

These last minute jabs seem even lower than the usual Washington partisan fighting. There aren't many conservatives still waving GWB's banner. The guy is no longer a threat. So why attack him now?

If there is justice to be done to the Bush administration leadership, I'm all for that. But I find it hard to believe after all the administration has been accused of off the cuff in the last eight years, the democrats are just now getting their case together.

I felt many times that GWB overstepped his bounds as president, but the congressional leadership never seemed to be able to do anything about that while he was in office. It seems Democratic leaders are finally getting heroic now that he has no power. Conyers wants President-elect Obama to launch an investigation of whether the Bush administration broke any laws. Somehow I don't see President Obama making that a priority.

Kenneth Starr is remembered today by many democrats as a politically motivated vigilante for his investigations of Bill Clinton during his presidency. But Starr didn't follow Clinton after his eight years were up. There wasn't any point.

Nothing of what the democrats are now bringing forward appears to contain pointed evidence of any crime, just more of the same politicking and negative campaigning.

In my opinion, the democrats saw how well the anti-Bush rhetoric worked in 2008, so they want to try to stretch it to 2012.

Thank You Vets

2008-11-14T16:46:00.000-08:00

The true cost of war is what vets bring back with them. The money and diplomatic capital are comparatively light. We will all have to bear them, but not in a way that fundamentally changes how we experience life. But the burden vets carry changes them for the rest of their lives.

War should be all of our burden. But we as a society have been ineffective at helping our soldiers when they come home. I say I support the troops, but I can't honestly say I have adequately tried to share their burden. This realization came to me recently while watching a PBS documentary called Reserved to Fight. It follows several vets from one of the first companies to fight and return from Iraq.

If any of you vets have had similar experiences, or different ones, I would like to hear about them.

Whether someone agrees with the Iraq War doesn't matter. We all have opinions, but that doesn't mean we live with the reality of war. Vets do every day.

They've spent months or years in life or death struggle. They've had to reconcile killing other human beings. The reasons the war was started don't tell us why they fight. They've fought regardless of their political views because the most important things to them are the people they love at home and the friends fighting next to them. For most of them, I believe their motivation is to make the world a better place.

Then they come back to the land they fought for. There might be a parade at their homecoming, and after that it's back to living a “normal” life. But normal seems pointless. No one wants to talk about the war except on a political level. The America these soldiers have idealized now seems petty compared to what they used to worry about. Many of them long for battle because at least there they felt like they belonged.

PTSD afflicts many of our vets and they may not even know it. They might see corpses when they close their eyes, so they can't sleep. They tend to be nervous in large groups of people, so they withdraw. They often have trouble maintaining relationships. And they don't know how to talk about what they are going through. Many self medicate with drugs and alcohol. Many marriages fail. Many end up on the street or in jail.

I believe our soldiers, overwhelmingly, are honorable men and women who have sacrificed more than I can imagine, believing it was for something worth dying for. Many of those who didn't die will never completely leave that hell behind. I haven't yet figured out how to help ease the burden you carry. So, for now I will just say thank you.

The Merit and Future Scope of Nuclear Energy

2008-11-11T17:33:00.000-08:00

With the melodramatic history of nuclear energy in America, it's no wonder people look at it with skepticism. But while industry management was lacking, the technology has not disappointed. New concepts now in development will not only help us through the current energy/environmental crisis, they will answer long held concerns about nuclear energy.

Nuclear power is a highly efficient and dense source of energy with no green house emissions and an abundant supply of fuel. But the industry has been plagued by poor management and a communication strategy of tech-babble. There are some valid concerns about safety associated with nuclear energy, but many of the most popular ones are not justified.

Many people are concerned about the radiation risks of living near a nuclear reactor. Thankfully, these risks are overstated. The amount of radiation you get from walking past an X-ray room in a hospital would not be acceptable for workers at a nuclear plant.

What if someone crashes a plane into the reactor? That would be terrible, but not because of radiation leaks. All nuclear plants in America have been retrofitted with redundant safety systems, including ones that make them passively safe. This means even if everybody at the plant is asleep when something terrible happens, natural forces will cause the reaction to shut down.

What about the Three Mile Island accident in 1979? In the worse nuclear reactor “disaster” in our nation's history, the physical plant failure released no radiation thanks to redundant safety systems, but the communication failure was catastrophic. Authorities did little to explain to the public what had happened. And the resulting safety measures put in place in all reactors were largely ignored. This incident was the beginning of the end of open discussion about nuclear energy.

Periodic stupid decisions by plant operators about how to deal with low-level waste have also damaged the credibility of the entire nuclear industry.

The concerns about high-level waste in Yucca Mountain are valid. We can't say what is going to happen in a thousand years. And with current technology, all we can do is sit on it. But that's not to say we don't have a plan.

The Generation IV International Forum (GIF) comprises scientists from 10 nations cooperating on development of advanced nuclear reactors. These concept reactors were designed with several goals in mind including proliferation resistance, improved safety, elimination of high-level waste, and sustainability.

Several of the Gen IV concepts are called fast reactors. These reactors will eliminate the production of high-level waste by using it as fuel. Fast reactors, such as the Sodium-cooled Fast Reactor (SFR), will be able to consume spent fuel from other reactors, and conceivably the waste now stored in Yucca Mountain. The resulting low-level waste will completely decay in much more manageable time frames.

Another Gen IV concept reactor is called the Very High Temperature Reactor (VHTR). The high temperatures in this reactor will allow it to excel at applications other sources of energy would be ineffective at, such as high volume production of hydrogen to be used in vehicles and home heating, and manufacturing steel and aluminum.

These concepts include built-in redundant active and passive safety systems. The life cycle of nuclear fuel will ensure that weapons grade material will never be isolated to minimize proliferation of nuclear weapons.

Gen IV reactors could be ready for commercial use as early as 2030, depending on funding of research. Intermediate designs can be implemented before that. Fortunately, these concepts have received vigorous international support so far.

Nuclear energy will be most effective as part of a broad portfolio of energy sources. Wind and solar energy have the potential to be very affordable and portable solutions. Nuclear can meet needs other sources would be poorly suited to, such as efficiently producing hydrogen, metallurgy, and efficient production of electricity on large scales.

Conservative Debaters are Missing the Boat on Climate Change

2008-11-08T21:27:00.000-08:00

Climate change has become one of the most important issues of this decade. The Democrats have moved to deal with the problem while many Republicans have argued about whether we did it or not. To my fellow conservatives I would say this question misses the point. And while we've been debating, the Democrats have owned the issue.

Is global warming real? How much is human caused? For those of us who haven't been keeping a journal of the changes in the polar ice caps, “I don't know” is the correct answer. We can either trust the preponderance of the scientific community or we can become experts on climate change. If you feel you need to argue about the science go to realclimate.org and read what the scientists are finding in all its technical glory.

Still, I find arguing about the reality of climate change ridiculous because it doesn't matter for most purposes. There are plenty of reasons to change our energy structure: National security, pollution, economic volatility. I don't need Al Gore to tell me why I should care about the environment.

It's not realistic to change our entire energy infrastructure in a few years, but we've been unbearably shortsighted.

Detroit auto executives pumped money into huge gas guzzling SUVs even as fuel costs were sky rocketing and debate was raging about how to reduce carbon emissions. Now these SUVs are sitting on dealers' lots because no one will buy them, and these auto makers are in Washington looking for another bail-out.

John McCain, who has been one of the most forward thinkers on climate change, made his energy campaign slogan “drill baby, drill.” Domestic oil may solve some problems, but it sounds archaic as a battle cry. Why didn't he make nuclear energy the centerpiece of his energy policy? That is one area we are miles ahead of the Democrats on but we are afraid to talk about it. I don't understand why. Nuclear energy is an essential part of our energy portfolio for the future.

Clean energy technology is an area America should be leading in, but right now we are just trying to keep up. That's costing us dollars and respect all over the world.

It's irresponsible to ignore the possibility of hidden costs from our energy policy just to say “hell no!” to liberals. In 20 years if we find out humans don't have anything to do with global warming then were our efforts to change our energy policies wasted? Of course not. We've left a cleaner world and a more sustainable economy for our children. But in 20 years I don't want to see Al Gore looked back on as the savior of the environment because conservatives ignored the signs there might be a problem.

Prop 8 Passes ... Now What?

2008-11-06T13:26:00.000-08:00

I'm glad the ban on gay marriage in California passed, but that doesn't end the debate. I don't believe this safe status will last long. Nor do I believe it is right to permanently close the door on gay marriage. We just need to make sure it's ripple effects don't steamroll religious liberties or the rights of parents to educate their children.

What we should be doing now is finding solutions to the dangers we saw in legalizing gay marriage. We should be coming up with legislation to ensure that ministers won't be forced to marry gay couples, that religious adoption agencies won't be compelled to send children home with gay families. We should be crafting alternatives to public school sex education curriculum which not only educates teens about sex, but trains them to do it. Most importantly, we need to become better educated about these issues so we can strengthen our positions on them.

There are models around the country for sex ed approaches that put these decisions into parents' hands instead of the public schools'. One in Massachusetts, called the Our Whole Lives (OWL) program, was created by two churches.

On the OWL website it states, "Our Whole Lives provides not only facts about anatomy and human development, but helps participants to clarify their values, build interpersonal skills, and understand the spiritual, emotional, and social aspects of sexuality. "

This isn't a perfect program from what I see, but there are some good ideas to be taken from it.

Even from religious perspectives that don't condone gay lifestyles, I don't think we can justify denying homosexuals the right to marry (or whatever you want to call it) indefinitely. We just need to make sure there are protections in place for the principles of a healthy society if and when gay marriage is legalized.

President Elect Obama

2008-11-06T13:22:00.000-08:00

Until three days ago I was debating why McCain would be a better president. That argument is moot now. We have a new president. Congratulations to President Elect Obama.

I agree with those who want Obama to earn their respect, but I hope we don’t just sit back waiting for that to happen. Getting America back to better times isn’t just the president’s job. We should all want Obama to succeed in keeping his promise to be everyone's president. So we should all be working to see that happen, including bringing strong conservative perspectives to the table.

Obama's “Change” Will be a Leftward Swing, Not a Fundamental Shift

2008-10-27T16:59:00.000-07:00

A large part of our sitting legislators and our current president are in office because they made promises of reform, change, taking back Washington, etc.

“We need fundamental change in this country, and that's what I'd like to bring.” When Barack Obama said these words during the final presidential debate, he was talking about the “failed policies ... we've seen over the last eight years.”

There is a lot to say about Bush's failures. But I don't hear a fundamental shift in the way business is done in Washington from Obama, just a cyclical pendulum swing back to the left.

Obama is making the most of the dissatisfaction Americans feel toward Bush. But the need for change in our government goes much deeper than a switch to the other party can fix. When most of our latest batch of reformers won their seats, they got stuck in the same quagmiric system the previous agents of change found. This is not an eight-year-old problem.

But Obama wants us to think he's different. Has he shown that in the time he's been in the Senate? In what ways has he taken on corrupt Washington politics? I can't think of one. If you can, please let me know.

If Barack Obama is elected, he will have little incentive to make good on his promise of “fundamental change”. If he starts implementing liberal policies, people will be excited for a while because he's not Bush. If troops start coming home, people won't care much what is happening in Iraq. Approval ratings won't wait for that fundamental change, and soon it will be just another forgotten campaign slogan.

Now add that to a one-party government. On NPR October 27, Jonathan Rauch, senior writer for National Journal, explained why this leads to non-representative government and alienation of the other half of the country. The president is pressured to play to the middle of his own party, not the middle of the country.

Contrastingly, McCain knows instituting fundamental change is the only way forward he has open to him. He won't have the benefit of being able to do everything the opposite of how Bush did it. He'll have to act competently to impress us. There is no reason to doubt that he would continue reaching across the aisle just as he has in Congress. Since McCain doesn't owe his nomination to any right wing segments of the Republican party he has no reason to push a right wing agenda, he'll be everyone's president. In fact, Jonathan Rauch (see link above) argued that if Democrats want real progress on climate change and health care, they are better off with McCain.

But, if you want to be the "change" candidate, someone else has to be the status quo. One of Obama's favorite campaign lines is that electing McCain would be a third Bush term. This kind of attack works because, as it has so often been said, this is a Democrat's year. But the claim doesn't hold water. McCain has denounced the Bush Administration's failed policies in much more risky settings than Obama has. McCain blasted President Bush's handling of the Iraq war, for example, in the Republican primary debates.

More importantly, what most people dislike about Bush is not his conservatism, but his bully politics and ineffective leadership. There is no reason I know of to expect McCain to follow that example.

McCain has a whole career that shows he isn't another Bush. Although our government is now more polarized than it has been in since reconstruction (see Poole link below), McCain has consistently led collaborative bipartisan efforts to craft good and significant legislation such as election financing reform and climate change bills. Is it incidental that one of his strongest supporters was the Democratic vice presidential candidate eight years ago?

If you want a fun yet objective view of how the candidates are prone to vote (in a simplified linear format), Keith Poole et al. have statistically rated Obama, McCain, Hillary Clinton and George W Bush on a liberal-conservative continuum based on their voting records. Obama and Clinton are nearly equally liberal on the left wing of democrats. McCain is rated as a moderate republican. Bush is comfortably right wing. They call McCain's voting along the continuum “erratic.” I take that to reflect the fact that McCain worries less than most about whether a good bill falls on the liberal or conservative side before he votes for it.

Barack Obama has promise as a leader, he just isn't erratic. I would like him to show us, as a senator, what he means when he uses the word “change” before we elect him president. Right now, what this country needs is a new collaborative approach to government, not a liberal preponderance of power in the same old system.

The Connection Between Legalizing Gay Marriage and Homosexual Curriculum in Public Schools

2008-10-24T23:10:00.000-07:00

[This article was originally posted as a comment to the previous article on watchblog.com]

I believe gay marriage is linked to teaching explicit sexual material in public schools as well as promoting homosexual relationships as normal for students as young as kindergarten without consent of parents.

In Massachusetts, gay marriage was legalized in 2004. Almost immediately, this became a premise for teaching about gay sex. Deb Allen, an 8th grade sex ed teacher in Brookline, Mass., gave an interview to NPR in September, 2004. Here is part of the transcript.

DEB ALLEN: In my mind, I know that, `OK, this is legal now.’ If somebody wants to challenge me, I’ll say, `Give me a break. It’s legal now.’
TOVIA SMITH: And, Allen says, teaching about homosexuality is also more important now. She says the debate around gay marriage is prompting kids to ask a lot more questions, like what is gay sex, which Allen answers thoroughly and explicitly with a chart.
DEB ALLEN: And on the side, I’m going to draw some different activities, like kissing and hugging, and different kinds of intercourse. Alright?
TOVIA SMITH: Allen asks her students to fill in the chart with yeses and nos.
DEB ALLEN: Alright. So can a woman and a woman kiss and hug? Yes. Can a woman and a woman have vaginal intercourse, and they will all say no. And I’ll say, `Hold it. Of course, they can. They can use a sex toy. They could use’—and we talk—and we discuss that. So the answer there is yes.

I’ve already discussed the David Parker case. There was another one as well. In 2006, Joey Wirthlin’s teacher read a book called King and King to her second grade class. The book is about a prince who rejects several princesses and ends up marrying another prince. The last page is a picture of the princes kissing with a heart covering their faces. The parents in both of these cases sued the schools to make it mandatory for teachers to notify parents when these subjects were taught and allow the students to opt out. They lost their case and appealed it. Here is an excerpt from the appellate court’s opinion.

“Joey has a more significant claim, both because he was required to sit through a classroom reading of King and King and because that book affirmatively endorses homosexuality and gay marriage. It is a fair inference that the reading of King and King was precisely intended to influence the listening children toward tolerance of gay marriage. ”

Still the appeal failed. One reason they gave was because gay marriage was legal in Massachusetts.

“Given that Massachusetts has recognized gay marriage under its state constitution, it is entirely rational for its schools to educate their students regarding that recognition.”

These were second graders. The case was not to stop all discussion about homosexual topics, it was to ensure parents knew when they were being addressed and had the right to opt their kids out.

That’s one for one in states where gay marriage has been legalized for longer than five months. Teachers and courts use the legalizing of gay marriage to justify teaching it in schools. These sentiments don’t have to be the majority. Each teacher gets to decide how they will present gay topics to their students where gay marriage is legal.

Gay Marriage Laws Sacrifice Principles for Tolerance

2008-10-21T21:06:00.000-07:00

Restricting rights is a bad precedent. But laws around the country legalizing gay marriage aren't about winning freedoms, they're about making divergent lifestyles seem normal. That means reeducation, starting in our public schools.

Most Americans accept the idea of giving lifetime gay couples access to benefits similar to those of married couples. What scares many is that this new found tolerance will go wild in sex education curriculum for teens.

For the small proportion of students who identify themselves as gay, learning how to perform anal sex may be validating, but for the rest of the students it will simply promote gender blindness in the name of tolerance. We don't need a blanket policy for all sex education. There are some things all students need to know. There are others that should be handled privately.

Gender blindness is a kind of institutionalized self deception. This is always disturbing. But the most disturbing self deception is the kind meant to remove the social and self conscious shame of casual sex. And the result won't be a healthy respect for human rights, but an anything goes mentality. No one wants to be seen as the intolerant one. For teens, peer pressure can outweigh self respect, wishes of their parents, or their own beliefs about propriety and wisdom. Can anyone who has gone to high school deny this?

This is not a call for abstinence only education, but neither should we be coaching kids to go out and have sex, gay or heterosexual. They don't need this kind of pressure from their teachers too. Training people to have sex should never have become the job of the public school system.

What the public schools can and should do is teach kids how to live in a diverse society. This goes hand in hand with fortifying self respect. Sex is a separate discussion. But in Massachusetts, where gay marriage is already legal, homosexual relationships have begun being taught to kindergartners as “normal” without the consultation of parents. Religious organizations have been targeted as well.

“But sexuality is a natural thing and teens shouldn't feel ashamed to explore it,” some may say. Ford forbid! Kids, by definition, don't need to feel comfortable talking about sex. They should blush at the subject. And teens are kids. Sexual maturity doesn't prepare someone to deal with issues of pregnancy, STDs, or the complex emotions of sexual relationships. Neither do demonstrations of putting condoms on bananas. A little shame is a good thing.

What did people do to deal with these issues before we became so enlightened? Well, these are only widespread problems for a promiscuous society. Self discipline is a lost value to many of us. It's what this country was built on. The decay of self discipline is nothing less than reverse evolution.

How can anyone who values a loving relationship, gay or straight, support legislation that would lead to policies that encourage young people to hump anything with a pulse? People who are fighting for that condition ought to be honest and differentiate themselves from those who really believe “you can't help how you were born”. Do we want a safe place for people to live with their loved ones, or do we want to be surrounded by people who use sex as a way to scratch an itch so we don't have to deal with our own shame?

Shame and self discipline are two things that keep our society from destroying itself. If these attributes have to be abolished to make room for gay marriage or anything else, then it's not worth it.

Why I'm voting for John McCain

2008-10-09T14:18:00.000-07:00

I consider myself a thoughtful person. I would never vote a straight ticket even if I supported every democrat or every republican on the ballot. For those of you thoughtful people who still haven't decided who to vote for, I would like to give you several reasons I'm voting for John McCain.

His arguments are pragmatic, not ideological. John McCain doesn't owe his nomination to the far right, the religious right, or any other segment. He doesn't have any campaign money (which is why he's on public financing) so he won't owe his election to big money. This means if he is elected president, he will be everyone's president. McCain won the Republican primary because his ideas make sense. They aren't partisan and they aren't sugar-coated. He bashed President Bush in the Republican debates, he told Michigan auto workers their industrial jobs might never come back. His ideas are convincing because they have the ring of reality.
John McCain has demonstrated commitment to work across the aisle. The best evidence of this is that one of his biggest supporters was the Democratic vice presidential candidate eight years ago. McCain has a record of working with anyone to get smart and collaborative legislation passed. Barak Obama has said bipartisanship is an important value to him. I have no reason to doubt his commitment, I just want to see it in action. A large part of our sitting legislators and our current president are there because they made promises of reform, change, taking back Washington, etc. I would like to see exactly what Obama means when he says it, and he can show us as a U.S. Senator first.
McCain's views on the issues show good judgment and forethought. Even if you are against the war in Iraq, you can appreciate John McCain's understanding of the issues involved. He voted to invade with most other Senators. But he criticized its execution all along. McCain knows the cost of torture and the value of diplomacy. He understands war too well to let a rash secretary of defense go buck wild. Imagine the war without Abu Ghraib and Guantanamo. McCain understands the gravity of the economic situation and the problems facing families. He was being frank when he told those auto workers they might not get their jobs back, but he didn't leave them without hope. I think McCain is right on with immigration reform. He knows deporting 12 million people, most of whom are working, is not rational.

Barak Obama has great promise as a leader. And it is very heartening what it says about America that he was able to win his nomination. I appreciate that he hasn't made this election about race. I would say to him: Show us your vision of how you would change Washington as a Senator and come back in four or eight years. Right now I believe John McCain is the right person to be president.

Second Debate Results

2008-10-07T21:07:00.000-07:00

Not surprisingly, MSNBC polls overwhelmingly give Barak Obama the victory. Equally unsurprisingly, Fox News polls give John McCain the overwhelming victory.

I think it will take some time to find out what scientific polls tell us.

As expected, this debate was a slug fest. And both candidates stayed focused on the issues of economy, health care, and foreign affairs.

It was McCain's burden to turn around the Obama-ward trend in the polls, though. And he understood he had to do some fancy talking about the economy.

Generally, he did well on the economy. McCain made it a point to talk about helping struggling families. He went so far as to suggest a $300 billion government intervention to renegotiate mortgages at current market prices. This sounds pretty radical, and a debate was a risky place to announce it. The coming weeks will show if the gamble worked.

To Barak Obama's credit, he didn't hold back either. He really shined during the discussion about health care. Although, if he wanted to make significant ground on McCain it would have been in foreign affairs. And McCain showed he is still the king in that arena. His knowledge of history and his grasp of the diplomacy/military balance were impressive.

Who got more . . . happy points from blocs of voters agreeing with their favorite analysts isn't near as important as what objective polls tell us in the coming weeks. Then we'll find out if McCain's talk about the economy was enough to bring the issue back on the table and close the gap with Obama.

Obama, McCain: Round 2

2008-10-07T15:44:00.000-07:00

With less than a month to go before the presidential election, neither Barak Obama nor John McCain can afford to leave anything unsaid in tonight's debate.

In the first debate there were no heavy punches. I think they were testing each other's stamina. This time they both have to go for the big hits, but not wildly. It's not all or nothing yet.

The election is close enough that the polls are really starting to matter. And most of them show Barak Obama ahead and building distance. This seems to be tied to the floundering economy.

McCain can still make a lot of headway on this subject. Obama doesn't own the economy as an issue the way McCain owns foreign affairs. Obama has just played it better thus far.

John McCain is in a precarious position, though. He needs to be smooth tonight - no old man moments. He also needs to fight the urge to pick on Obama's character. That will make him look like he's grasping at straws; a last ditch effort to tarnish a pretty clean record.

What McCain does need to do is speak intelligently and confidently about what's happening with the economy, even get technical. He needs to communicate empathy for Americans who are suffering because of lost jobs and higher food and fuel prices. McCain needs to get back to the straight talk about the economy, even if it cuts.

Barak Obama needs to avoid sounding dismissive, the bain of most academic types. His primary challenge will be to create intimate space between himself and the audience members. The town hall meeting format is where McCain has shined.

The biggest mistake either candidate could make is to leave anything unsaid. After tonight it will be nie impossible for McCain to convince us he can lead us out of this economic slump if he doesn't make a good case for it here.

The Draw Goes to Palin

2008-10-03T17:12:00.000-07:00

The Vice Presidential candidate debate Thursday was exciting as expected. Both Joe Biden and Sarah Palin were on their game. But there is no such thing as a tie in presidential politics, and since Palin had the most to lose in this debate I'm giving the trophy to her.

First off, I will say I appreciated the cordiality. Although I don't believe it was purely good manners. I think Biden's people told him, "DON'T ATTACK PALIN! You'll look like a monster picking on a woman." I think Palin's people said, "If you want to Attack Biden go ahead, but he'll rip you apart." It was a case of mutually assured destruction.

Of course, Biden and Palin had different goals going into the debate. Biden's was to outrun Palin. He needed to show everyone how much more presidential he was than she.

Palin's goals were to 1) not get run over, and 2) go on the offensive.

Biden flaunted his broad bank of knowledge to create distance, and it was impressive. He had excellent stats and anecdotes to make his points and a quick, intelligent sounding response to every question. But he didn't stick to the key messages of his campaign. He did talk about the failures of the Bush administration and linked McCain to Bush, but his vision for the future in an Obama administration seemed to get lost in those stats, anecdotes and intelligent sounding answers.

Palin showed she doesn't have the broad knowledge Biden does, but that didn't hurt her much. Palin stuck to what she knew, and to the messages she's been giving all along: We're mavericks, we're reformers, we are not Bush, I have executive experience, I'm a home grown, middle-class girl. She also succeeded in going on the offensive by putting a wedge between Obama and Biden - citing various points of disagreement.

There was only one thing that made me cringe about Palin's performance. She kept using the mispronunciation, "nucular," a gaffe made famous by George W. Bush.

Overall, the debate ended up pretty even. Biden didn't make the contrast he needed to, while Palin not only didn't get run over, she put Biden on the defensive several times.

Palin needed to show everyone that she could hold her own with the toughest of Washington politicians, and she did that.

Blame and Bailouts: Who Drove Our Economy into the Wall?

2008-10-01T15:55:00.000-07:00

According to just about every poll around, the vast majority of Americans are against a taxpayer bailout plan for banks on the verge of collapse. “Why should we rescue people who made poor decisions and got themselves into trouble?” we ask. “We shouldn't be bailing them out, we should be punishing them for being greedy and stupid.”

Unfortunately, it's impossible to completely separate ourselves from those greedy bankers. When we talk about a financial bailout it's not just a bunch of bank executives. The banking system is our infrastructure for all our transactions. It effects our mortgages, our ability to get loans, our investments, even our personal bank accounts. What if those accounts just stopped working? That's what I think the “bailout” is all about. I don't think we would be so merciless if it were the nation's grocery stores that were all at risk of going bankrupt.

Still, there must be someone we can pin the blame on, right? So who is “someone”? Who was it that got so greedy that he or she caused a problem worthy of discussions of a $700 billion bailout? I'm no economist, but I don't think that question has a good answer.

I'm convinced that Wall Street traders and bankers are more like a flock of birds than an organized institution. They all seem to move together in a planned, orderly fashion. Then one bird catches a draft or swoops for a bug and they all change direction as if someone blew a whistle. It's a fascinating sight from the ground. But this time we all flew into a pane glass window.

That's right, the scary truth is that we are all part of that same flock. Who among us wasn't capable of writing a blog two years ago saying, “Wait a minute, are we sure this is the direction we want to be going? Should getting a loan be as easy as a Las Vegas divorce?” But who would have listened? We all had such implicit faith in the flock of birds acting in the best interest of the whole.

“But isn't it the government's job to keep things on the right track?” you ask. Have you ever tried to herd a flock of birds? Anyway, government involvement is probably as much to blame as anything. Think about Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae.

So when we call for someone's resignation and jail time for getting us in this mess, who decides who gets the blame? We don't know, we're just normal honest people, but surely someone in Washington or New York knows enough about what is going on to find the culprit, right?

I hope the decision whether to approve the bailout package goes deeper than letting a short-sighted executive fry. It may be that we don't need a $700 billion bailout – that the market will heal itself. The stock market threw a tantrum when the House didn't pass the first version of the financial bailout but we survived. I just hope the lawmakers will use courage in making decisions on this complex issue and do the right thing for the country.

Whatever happens in Washington, when we're all acting like we have a brain the size of a pea, we eventually have to admit that maybe there isn't one person at the front who saw that pane glass window coming.