Lower Gas Prices are a Good Thing

I was shocked when I read the “Higher Gas Prices Are Needed” column in the July edition of Virginia Business.

Affordable energy is not the result of any subsidy, nor is it a subsidy in and of itself. “Cheap” energy is the result of a free-market, capitalist system that, absent government intervention, always results in the most efficient allocation of scarce resources.

In fact, the situation is quite the opposite of the premise stated in the column. Cheap energy is not the result of subsidies, nor is it a subsidy. When government purposefully and willfully obstructs carbon-based energy development and production, that government is in fact providing a subsidy for so-called green energy projects. The Biden Administration is very transparent about this and has a stated policy goal of weaning the USA off of the oil and gas industry. The Administration arbitrarily stopped all federal oil and gas leasing on shore and off shore, it stopped issuing permits for safe and efficient oil and gas pipelines, it stopped the Congressionally authorized development of the substantial and proven ANWR oil and gas reserves, and it unleashed the punitive powers of the EPA on all things carbon.

The United States has more coal than any other nation in the world, enough to supply nearly 50% of our current demand for electricity for hundreds of years at costs that make green energy look like highway robbery. Thanks to improved burner technology, but for CO2, coal can be burned completely emission free. The USA also has more proven oil and gas reserves than any other nation, and we produce it safer and cleaner than any other nation in the world. Moreover, the USA has enough proven oil and gas reserves to meet all of its current needs at affordable prices. Do accidents happen? Yes. Should we do more to stop them? Yes.

Is green energy cleaner? No. When you consider the environmental impacts of mining of lithium for batteries, the inability to recycle those same batteries, the coke and iron mining for steel windmill towers and solar panel racks, the barrel of oil in every windmill gear box, the birds and bats killed by wind farms, the wildlife habitat lost to millions of acres of scorched-earth solar farms, the landfills filled with unrecyclable windmill blades, the rare earth minerals used to make solar panels mined by children in third-world countries that have no environmental protections… I could go on.

Is reducing carbon and addressing the so-called “manmade, catastrophic climate change” a worthwhile endeavor? Not when you consider the failures of the climate modeling “science” to accurately predict temperature variations. Not when you put the effects of CO2 and other greenhouse gases (and, yes, water vapor is the most abundant and significant greenhouse gas) in the context of solar cycles, historic natural climate variations, and the significant impacts on climate that result from naturally occurring changes in ocean currents caused by cyclical events such as El Nino, La Nina, and the Pacific Decadal Cycle.

If you want to address environmental issues and have a strong Virginia economy (I hope you do), then you should support policies that provide “cheap” energy. Affordable energy is the essential element of a strong economy and reduced poverty, and it takes a robust economy to fund the kind of research and development that will result in the next truly clean form of energy.

If you want a weak economy, a depressed Virginia business climate, increased poverty, more food shortages, more supply-chain issues, more inflation, and yes, even more pollution, then by all means keep pushing the dream of clean energy. But, if you truly believe in Virginia Business, then I suggest editorials and content that supports free enterprise, capitalism, and clean, abundant and affordable energy from every possible source. If you can’t do that, then consider changing the name of the magazine to “Virginia Woke.”

The Healthcare Credibility Problem

Editor's Note: This column was published in the American Thinker on September 4

I am a strong supporter of doctors and the healthcare industry in general. I grew up with a step father who was a general practicing physician and a surgeon. He was a family doctor in the truest sense of the word. He made house calls, delivered more than 5,000 babies, bartered for fees, and often just waived the charges. He had a God-given genius for diagnosis, and he spoke to his patients in plain English, sometimes very colorful language. But my mother was always quick to remind him, “After all, you are just ‘practicing’ medicine!”

People have a tendency to venerate doctors, and when they heroically save your life, this hero worship can be justified. Our long-time family doctor is another diagnostician extraordinaire, who also happens to be one of my best friends and hunting buddy. When he sewed up my son’s forehead on our dining room table, he too was vaulted into that hero category.

But something has happened to the medical profession and the healthcare industry—at 15% of the US economy, it has become an industry complete with industry titans—and as the pandemic accelerated, healthcare’s credibility problem only worsened.

Beginning in the 1990s, many doctors stopped practicing medicine on their own as the medical profession model changed from entrepreneurial to corporate medicine. As doctors and their offices began to be overwhelmed with insurance claim processing, Medicare and Medicaid compliance, malpractice suits, and medical liability insurance issues, doctors saw the hospital-affiliated-clinic model as the way to skip the bureaucratic headaches and allow the professional to focus on practicing medicine. However, corporate medicine brought corporate practices: cutting back time with patients to increase cash flow, more Medicare/Medicaid compliant procedures rather than patient-centric medicine, and outsourced billing and collection systems.

Around the same time, pharmaceutical companies began marketing drugs directly to the consumers. Like the “Mother’s Little Helper” of the sixties, new medicines were being developed at a staggering pace. Television ads portray every drug as the new panacea for whatever ails you. In fact, consumers become so mesmerized by the truth-in-beauty scenes of a perfect life that they almost never hear the legally required disclosure of contraindications that should scare anybody who listens. “May cause an uncontrollable urge to gamble” one drug ad warned! I remember watching a football game with my 12-year-old son around 2002. One ad for a giddyup (ED) drug kept showing a guy throwing a football at a moving tire swing. As I watched the imagery, I was not paying attention and wondered out loud, “I wonder what this drug does?” My son’s reply was priceless: “I think it makes you throw the ball better.” About ten years ago, a pharmacist told me that the average customer was on 5 to 6 different prescription medicines, and several of those were to counteract the bad side effects of the other drugs. The proliferation of pharmaceuticals has even created a spin-off industry for lawyers: 1-800 BAD DRUG!

Queue up the American Medical Association-supported Obamacare. Not only did I not get to keep my insurance, my doctor refused to see me because I had the Bronze Level health insurance plan from the federal marketplace. Doctors, who had for decades been trying to make ends meet with increasingly lower limits on what Medicare and Medicaid would pay for visits and procedures, were now being forced to accept less from the new federally underwritten health plans being forced upon millions of Americans.

As though all these trends were not bad enough, the SARS Coronavirus-2 Covid-19 pandemic has undermined doctors’ credibility. Doctors can be found everywhere arguing about the merits of wearing a mask, social distancing, excessive handwashing, quarantine time, the efficacy of various treatments promoted by some and castigated by others, and the efficacy and risks of vaccines. Many doctors bemoan the fact that Covid is keeping people from their regular checkups and screenings. My dermatologist diagnosed seven melanoma skin cancers during the first month of the shutdown in 2020, while the number of patients she saw was about one half of her normal workload. She lamented that perhaps an equal number of melanomas went undetected during the same timeframe. People were suffering heart-attack symptoms but would not go see their doctors. Colonoscopies, mammograms, and many other cancer screenings went by the boards. While medical professionals, policymakers, and especially the media whipped up Covid fears, cases of depression and suicides increased dramatically, and now, schools are finding multiple psychological problems among returning school children.

Hospitals stopped scheduling elective procedures to make room for the onslaught of Covid patients, even though elective procedures have long been the cash cow of every hospital business model. Since this threatened their financial stability, the federal government came to the rescue with cash payments for each confirmed Covid patient treated. This created a perverse economic incentive to make every patient a Covid patient, regardless of their condition. There are thousands of anecdotal reports of doctors wanting to report deaths as Covid related no matter the actual cause of death.

Most medical professionals recognize that Covid will never be eliminated. We hope to control it and learn to live with it. The world has an aspiration of reaching what is known as “herd immunity,” where the percentage of population that has been vaccinated or has developed natural immunity (antibodies) is high enough that the disease no longer presents a threat to humanity as a whole. The concept gives people a goal and a hope, but instead we have arguments and changing estimates among the medical and scientific communities, about what percentage constitutes herd immunity.

We have now entered the stage where medical professionals and policymakers are proposing vaccine mandates, vaccine passports, and a return to school closures and economic shutdowns as the delta variant of Covid moves through the population with renewed vigor. But amid all this vaccination focus, somehow natural immunity is no longer a consideration. This is most distressing since National Institute of Health research suggests that natural immunity is more robust than vaccine-induced immunity. Studies have shown that survivors of the Spanish Flu epidemic of 1918 were immune up to 90 years later. Similar studies show that survivors of the first SARS Coronavirus epidemic in 2003 are still immune. Because of significant skepticism about the credibility of the healthcare system, it is well known that there are possibly tens of millions of unreported Covid cases, and those people likely have natural immunity.

As Miss Marple says, “Good advice is often given, but seldom taken.” My advice to healthcare providers is to stop speaking in absolutes, recognize that there has always been healthy disagreement among medical professionals, and most of all, recognize that when people decline their well-intended advice, it is because the healthcare community has a serious credibility problem. Most of all, healthcare professionals need to remember that, after all, they are only “practicing” medicine.

Where is the Outrage?

The headlines tell the story, and it’s not a pretty one. Climate realists, like me, are losing the climate change debate. Not because we are wrong. Factually, we win every time! But, we are losing the hearts and minds of the people because we have failed to tap into their emotions.

The climate alarmists don’t care about the facts. They beat us down with children, like Greta Thunberg, and lecture us about self-interest and our cowardice in the face of a “mass extinction event.” They play to our natural emotions and worst fears by linking climate change to those uncontrollable things we are most afraid to face—hurricanes (lions), wildfires (tigers), and tornadoes (and bears, oh my!).

Despite these facts:

• Climate change models have failed to accurately predict the future global average temperature change.
• There is no ideal average temperature for a world where on any given day the temperature could be -50 degrees F in one place and 120 F above zero somewhere else. (Remember, if you live by averages, you would be comfortable standing with one foot on a block of ice and the other in a fire.)
• Global average temperatures have fluctuated much more and have changed much faster in the geologic past and well before humans started burning carbon-based fuels in significant quantities.
• Weather patterns are much more attributable to cyclical changes in ocean currents than to climate change.
• The use of oil, gas, and coal creates a significantly higher quality of life for billions of people, reduces poverty, provides abundant food supplies, and means cleaner air and water.
• There is overwhelming evidence that climate change is neither caused primarily by humans nor an existential threat to mankind or any other species.

Despite all this and more, we are gradually losing the battle for the minds of the people when it comes to the climate change debate. And we are not just losing the debate at the political level. We are losing in the board rooms, and not just the woke corporations like Amazon, Nike, Apple, or Google, but in the corporate board rooms of the utility companies, the oil & gas industry, and the manufacturers.

Why?

We tend to make our case using wonky science that even scientists don’t fully understand. People can’t get their heads around our rational explanations, but they darn sure understand fear of events that may affect them directly and personally.

We tend to argue about the adverse macro-economic effects of climate change policy—the loss of millions of jobs, green energy costing trillions of dollars, and the failed goals of wealth redistribution. These effects are real and catastrophic.

However, have you ever wondered why the voters do not support Social Security or Medicare reforms, despite the overwhelming macro-economic evidence that both systems will likely be bankrupt within the next decade? The answer is fairly simple. People make decisions based on micro-economics, not macro-economics. People will choose to protect their personal benefits over the solvency of the system—every time.

Consider these examples of the micro-economic impacts of climate-change policies. Here in Virginia, Dominion Energy is closing coal-fired power plants in favor of solar and wind farms, and this move toward renewable energy sources will lead to a $1,000 per person per year increase in electric bills by 2030.

Ask anybody if they are willing to pay a thousand dollars a year when it is not likely to change the average global temperature at all? This question brings the issue home, and the answer will much more often be a resounding “No!” Ask the same person if they think climate change is a threat and whether we should do something about it, and you will get many more affirmative responses.

The Transportation & Climate Initiative, a regional collaboration of 12 Northeast and Mid-Atlantic states plus DC, is proposing a 20-25% reduction of carbon dioxide emissions for the region. Their policy of choice is a “carbon [dioxide] tax.” Recently, Virginia enacted a carbon dioxide tax on utility generation, and the General Assembly will be considering one on transportation fuels that may include a 28 cent per gallon gasoline tax and a 26 cent per gallon diesel tax. Based on current mileage rates and miles driven per capita, these tax increases could cost each driver more than $1,000 per year! Once again, I can fairly easily predict the response from most people to the question of whether they are willing to pay another $1,000 per year for no material effect on the climate.

People expect their lights and their computer to work when they flip the power switch. Talk about the potential for rolling brown-outs, or planned black-outs, so that someone else can charge their electric vehicle at the charging station built with tax dollars (ever seen a government-built gas station?), and I think you will get a predictable negative response.

I am certain that we can come up with many more examples, but my point is this: let’s take the case against climate change down to the personal, micro-economic level. Remember the charge against George H. W. Bush: “It’s the economy stupid!” It wasn’t that Bush didn’t understand that there was a recession; it was that he failed to recognize how that recession affected people at the personal level.

To put it another way, everything in life is political, except politics, that’s personal. When you explain how a policy threatens someone’s pocket book, you’ll get their attention.

Just Build Them Please 

Note: This Guest Column was published in the Farmville Herald in December 2018, and it was written in response to a number of opposition letters to the editor about three different projects being considered in the local area and region.

I have been casually observing the permitting processes for several area projects—the Atlantic Coast Pipeline, the Green Ridge landfill in Cumberland, and the student housing on the Martin property. Now, I feel compelled to speak out at the risk of offending certain constituencies. Can we just get on and build these projects?!

Before you dismiss me as some minion of industry, consider my background. I was the founding treasurer of an environmental group in Wyoming that was formed to stop an oil well on the national forest near Yellowstone. When that effort failed, I watched the group succumb to cause fever in their zealous efforts to save the earth. After that I made the transformation from environmentalist to conservationist which means I consider mankind to be part of the landscape and responsible for good stewardship (wise use) of resources.

One of the constants of life is change. Everybody wants progress, but it is the change they don’t like. Several counties in the area have for decades had an anti-growth attitude. Now, those same counties find themselves unable to provide even the most basic of public services without raising tax rates on the citizens who already struggle to get by. When a large project comes along that will create jobs and add significant value to the local tax base, a small cadre of opponents rise up and adamantly oppose the project. We have transcended from the Not-In-My-Back-Yard (NIMBY) attitude to BANANA (Build Absolutely Nothing Anywhere Near Anything).

The Atlantic Coast Pipeline and the Buckingham compressor station has been rigorously analyzed and is likely the most thoroughly vetted pipeline in American history. Ironically, the Buckingham citizens fighting the new pipeline have been living near an existing pipeline that has operated for decades without any significant impacts. According to the US Energy Information Administration, there are 210 different major pipeline systems that comprise about 1.5 million miles of pipe in the USA. There are another 1.5 million miles of consumer gas distribution lines in America. Serious pipeline accidents (those accidents that result in fatality or injury requiring hospitalization) have ranged from 70 per year in 1998 to 24 in 2017. Nothing in life can be accident free, but overall natural gas pipelines are extremely safe. Regarding the opponent’s claims about the health effects of emissions from the compressor station, perhaps some research about the emissions from wood stoves used extensively in the area, including formaldehyde and other aldehydes, would be enlightening.

The Green Ridge landfill in Cumberland will be a state-of-the-art facility that will handle garbage from around the region, but will also serve the needs of Cumberland residents. About half of the 1,144 acre site will be buffer between the working part of the landfill and its neighbors. In a recent 50 Years Ago Today section of the Farmville Herald, I read about the 200 informal dumps alongside roads in Prince Edward. The county supervisors’ solution back then was to build five unlined, open-trench dump sites. I believe worrying about garbage being processed and disposed of in a modern, highly regulated facility is misplaced fear. And, as for the truck traffic, I heard the same fears expressed about the Luck Stone facility on US 460 west of Farmville. I drive that road almost daily. I have yet to even be slowed down by trucks entering or leaving the site, and to my knowledge, there has not been a single accident associated with that truck traffic.

Lastly, I believe the Martins should be allowed to build student housing on the corner of Oak and High Streets. I can’t think of a more suitable location for student housing than right across the street from Longwood. For most Americans, their homes are their most significant asset and source of retirement. I believe it is wrong to deny the Martins their opportunity to divest of a costly old home and finance their golden years. Imagine you’re playing Monopoly. You’re fortunate enough to acquire Boardwalk and Park Place. You hold on to it, build up some cash, and when you go to put a hotel on your properties, suddenly the rules are changed, and you are denied. Regarding the historic district designation, all old homes are not historically significant.

We can grow our economy, keep our community character, preserve our history, and protect our environment. This is not a zero sum game. The demand for affordable energy is increasing, especially if we are going to provide jobs for our citizens. The volume of garbage produced every day is growing, and we need places to properly dispose of it in the most environmentally sound way. And, we need housing to accommodate our growing university and student body, and right across the street from Longwood is the most logical place for that to happen. So, in the broader interest of the region and its people, can we please just build these projects?

Musings of a Climate-Change Skeptic 

Note: This column was published in the Farmville Herald in August 2018, in response to a letter to the editor. Four different Longwood University professors responded to my assertions in two subsequent Guest Columns to which I wrote a rebuttal.

I must respond to a recent LTE regarding climate change. By way of background, I graduated from UC San Diego’s Revelle College with a degree in biology and economics, so I have a science background. Moreover, I have over 30 years of conservation and environmental policy experience at the federal and state levels in the legislative and executive branches.

One of the first things you learn as a policymaker is that science informs policy; it does not establish policy. The reasons are simple. First, science is usually narrowly focused on a specific issue or challenge while policy has broad-based implications and impacts on a much wider spectrum of disciplines including science, economics, sociology, and governance. Second, science is wildly inconsistent, and all too often, scientists have become political advocates with pre-determined outcomes driving their scientific processes.

In a time when we hear daily about “scientific” studies—mostly statistical correlations with no determination of cause and effect—that suggest conclusions such as “90% of women who eat chocolate during pregnancy have happier children,” we should be skeptical. My point is that “science” is a term that is thrown around flippantly in an attempt to discredit anyone who has the temerity to disagree. More importantly, scientists by nature are skeptical, and the notion that there is consensus about any scientific theory is ludicrous. Science is never “done.”

Regarding climate change, or more accurately anthropogenic catastrophic global warming, here are some things to consider.

• Yes, CO2 is a greenhouse gas that causes warming and mankind is putting a lot of CO2 into the atmosphere. 

• CO2 makes up 6% of the greenhouse gases in our atmosphere and H2O (water vapors) makes up 90%. 

• There is no “ideal” average global temperature and an increase of 2-3 Fahrenheit over 100 years is not significant in a world where on any given day some place is -40 F and another is 120 F. 

• Cold is much more dangerous to all life forms and kills more people each year than heat. 

• CO2 levels in the atmosphere have been as much as 10-20 times higher during nearly every other geologic period of the earth. The atmospheric CO2 levels in 1850 were near record lows. 

• CO2 is plant food—essential to all vegetative growth—and higher CO2 levels have resulted in more plant growth and crop production around the globe. 

• Global temperature has been rising since the end of the Little Ice Age (around 1850), but have not reached the temperatures seen during the Medieval Warming Period—when Vikings were growing grapes in Greenland—or those of the Roman Warming Period. 

• Sea levels have been rising for centuries, but the rate of sea level rise has declined in recent decades. 

• The frequency and severity of droughts, hurricanes, tornadoes, and flooding are not increasing, but the 24/7 media cycle makes every event “newsworthy.” 

• There is no evidence that the acidity of the oceans is increasing, but the acidity of oceans does vary widely around the world. 

• Suggesting that developing countries go without carbon-based energy in the form of electricity condemns the world’s poor to starvation, food poisoning, diseases, and poverty. It is the modern-day equivalent of “Let them eat cake.” 

• Without abundant and affordable electricity that can only be provided by fossil fuels, billions of people around the world will continue to cook and heat by burning wood and dung, and as a result, millions of people will continue to die each year from the indoor pollution caused by wood and dung smoke. 

• According to the “climate change experts,” spending (redistributing) a trillion dollars a year on climate change policies will only reduce the increase in global temperature over 100 years by a fraction of a degree. 

There are bigger and more important issues facing humanity, and there are ways to address them that will achieve the desired outcomes. Worrying about climate change and whatever, if any, role humans may have in it is tantamount to encountering a grizzly bear and wondering when you last had your teeth cleaned by the dentist.

A Message to ALL Republicans

This message is to ALL Republicans—establishment, fiscal conservatives, RINO, social conservatives, moderates, ultra-conservative, Trumpers, and never Trumpers.

On November 7^th, 2017, Virginia’s political complexion changed from purple to blue. On November 8^th, all the Monday-morning quarterbacks were out in force with full-throated criticism of Ed Gillespie. I am not going to counter the critics except to say that Virginia ran a rock-hard conservative for Governor in 2013, and we came up short in that election too.

To all the arm-chair quarterbacks out there, instead of picking on the quarterback—and forgive me while I torture the football metaphor—we should be trying to figure out why the Republican Team can’t win games (elections). Politics, like football, is a team sport. And, politics, like football, is a full-contact sport. To put check marks in the win column, we all must subordinate our personal agendas to the team game plan. If we all play for individual records, we may make it to the Hall of Fame, but we will never get to the Super Bowl.

If you want to wins games (elections), here are some football basics to live your political life by:

#1: If your favorite quarterback (candidate) doesn’t get the starting job (nomination), suck it up and start playing for the starter. As the old saying goes, “You gotta dance with the girl who brung ya.”

#2: If the starting quarterback doesn’t throw well, but can run the ball, then adjust your play to maximize your QB’s effectiveness.

#3: No quarterback can win games if the linemen don’t block, the running backs fumble, or the receivers don’t run their routes as planned.

#4: No quarterback can win games if the defense can’t stop the other team from scoring or controlling the ball.

#5: You will never win any games if you don’t show up at the field on game day to play (vote).

#6: Sometimes the other team’s players are bigger (population), stronger (money), and faster (cleaver). You will have losses on the field and in life. Winners pick themselves up, don’t pout or cry, and get back to the hard work of learning from their mistakes and becoming better.

If Republicans want to win, then let’s start to act like were on the same team, improve our skills, work out, come to practices, show up on game day, act like we want to win, play our hearts out, and win one for the Gipper.

On Defeat

On Defeat

I have seen and heard a lot of comments about Cam Newton’s post-Super Bowl Press Conference. Most people have characterized his press conference as “disappointing,” “inappropriate,” “rude,” or “revealing.”
Please allow me to offer an alternative view.

There is an old saying, “Don’t judge a person until you have walked a mile in their shoes.” Precious view of us have ever even worn cleats in a real football game, let alone in the NFL, and even fewer have ever run a “mile” in the Super Bowl. I am not sure there is any greater high or low in sports than winning or losing the Super Bowl, with the possible exception of competing in the Olympics. Time and time again, it has been the team that is the most emotionally prepared for the Super Bowl that wins. Teams that have been there before are often assumed to have an advantage. Butterflies in the first quarter have dictated the outcome more often than not. Can anybody forget the snap whizzing by Peyton Manning’s head for the opening play two years ago? If there is anything worse than having a terrible season in the NFL, it is going to the Super Bowl and losing. I have been excited to see my San Diego Chargers get to the playoffs for several seasons, but, in the back of my mind, I knew they did not have what it takes to win the big one. Secretly, I was often relieved when they did not make it. The one time the Chargers made it to the big dance, they got beat badly—so badly I have erased the experience from my head.

So, what’s my point? Cam Newton’s disappointment—however much it was in itself disappointing—is certainly understandable. Especially, after his team went 17-1 in the regular season, dominated the playoffs, and he earns the MVP award. It had to be a crushing defeat.

When Fritz was wrestling, I took a great interest in the sport. A sport his great grandfather excelled in, but I had aggressively avoided when I saw a friend get a nasty case of cauliflower ear. I read a story about wrestling from an Iowa wrestling coach, and, yes, Iowa is the wrestling capital of America. He talked about the grueling conditioning required, the challenges of making weight, and then having to compete while dehydrated and with little or no energy reserves. He talked about the fact that teams could always comfort each other in loss, or one could attribute a loss to another teammate’s failure, but in wrestling (and other single player sports) losing was a failure each competitor owns singularly. Moreover, when you lose a wrestling match, it is one of the most humiliating forms of defeat that the sporting world has to offer. Think about it. In the natural world, how do predators display dominance over their prey and even their own family group? They roll their opponent over on to their backs, hold them down until the opponent submits—they pin their opponent. You lose a wrestling match by either getting pinned, or rolled over onto your back so many times the opponent out scores you. As Fritz used to say when he lost, “I got owned.”

Well, Cam Newton got owned in Super Bowl 50. No two ways about it. He got sacked 6 times, had the ball wrenched from his hands leading to a touchdown, he got hit and thrown to the ground many more times than I could count. It was like no other game he played this year, and it was humiliating. It would be for anyone. And for the record, he is certainly not the first Super Bowl competitor to look and act defeated after a humbling experience like that.

The Bible says, “To whom much is given, much is expected.” (Luke 12:48) Cam Newton certainly could have shown more grace in defeat. But, honestly, how many of us ever do that? To his credit, he acknowledged that Denver out played them, played better than them, that the Panthers missed opportunities, had their chances, and turned the ball over too many times. Then he left abruptly to lick his wounds.

I learned, while I could easily share in Fritz’s wrestling victories with him, he needed time and to be alone to process his losses—he needed to lick his wounds. If I left him alone, he would quickly rebound; if I pressed the issue, his defeat would get the better of him. Fritz and I both learned from those experiences.

Politics has much in common with sports when it comes to handling losses. I have been a political operative for 30 years. I have managed ballot initiatives, helped elect State Reps, State Senators, three U.S. Congressmen, a U.S. Senator, and even a U.S. President, but I have never put my name on the ballot. As an operative, I could rationalize a defeat by pointing to the candidate’s shortcomings or errors they committed. When you put your name on the ballot, you have only the mirror to gaze at when you lose. And, ironically, it seems that Monday-Morning Quarterbacks are more prevalent in politics than football.

It can be said that adversity is a great teacher. It can make you stronger, or it can crush you. It builds character, or reveals it. It can produce humility, or it can be the fall that goes before a haughty spirit (it is destruction that goes before pride) (Pro. 16:18). Wisdom is a gift from God, but unfortunately, most of us have to get knocked down a notch or two before our pride gives way to humility before God, and we actually ask for the wisdom that God gives liberally (James 1:5). Cam Newton got knocked down more notches last night that many of us have likely experienced in a lifetime. His ultimate response to adversity will be played out over the coming months and next season. His mother raised him to know God, and God has certainly blessed him with tremendous gifts. I believe and hope he will react more appropriately to adversity. In the meantime, I can allow some forbearance for his response last night because I have some empathy for what he experienced.

FYI: Here is a video of Fritz's Senior Year Wrestling Highlights, and, yes, they are all wins because that's what highlights are!
Fritz Senior Year Wrestling Highlights 07-07

What the Village Took by L. P. Hoffman

L. P. Hoffman wrote this in 2006, not long after the Columbine, CO, shooting. I believe this message is even more appropriate in light of the recent events in Newtown, CT.  Read about L. P. Hoffman. Buy L. P. Hoffman books.
--The Editor

What the Village Took by L. P. Hoffman
(c) 2006

Silence shrouded the building. It was a surreal and deep silence, hollow and unnerving. Soon, very soon along these sterile corridors, the stillness would be swallowed by the noisy clamor of the day, yet this was to be no ordinary day.

In the shadows, two men stood as tall and motionless as statues. At their feet, shafts of dawning light spilled through open classroom doors to glimmer upon the random tile patterns there.

The men waited. They both appeared powerful, yet agile. Their faces reflected deep and profound sadness.

The taller, older man turned to the younger. “It won’t be long now.” His words conveyed the seriousness of the occasion.

The younger nodded. “May I…?” he spoke with trepidation. “Would it be presumptuous of me to ask?”

His companion smiled faintly, gently then reached out to reassure his friend. “I will show you. Then you will understand.”

Before them, a scroll appeared and came alive with a moving view of a classroom. “All lifestyles are good,” the teacher explained. “Exploring human sexuality is only natural. She spoke of base instinct as if they were pure and clean and mankind as if he were no different than an ape. The teacher mocked God’s laws by calling them outdated and by doing so, cast restraints aside.

The young man turned to the elder. “There is a way that seems right to a man but the end of it is death.” He turned his gaze back to the scroll as it changed to a computer lab. At a desk in the corner, a bored teacher thumbed through a magazine while a cluster of boys feasted their eyes and hearts upon internet pornography. At another computer a few feet away, a loner quickly jotted down a recipe for bombs then clicked off, while two female classmates typed the words “witchcraft” into the search engine and then printed the initiation rites along with incantations.

“Perversion,” the older man whispered as the scene changed again to the High School Auditorium where students gathered to hear an address.

The speaker rose. “We have called an assembled today to talk about abuse. We hope to arm you with the knowledge that will equip you to recognize and stand against abuse wherever you may find it. We hope these tools will not only empower you but also give you the courage to come forward and seek help.

He spoke of the tyranny of control that parents have inflicted on their young. He cited the examples of real and frightening cases then quickly explained that even a parent’s attempt to restrain a teenager by the arm could be considered abuse. “If it feels like abuse, it probably is.”

Nestled among the crowd, a pimply sophomore boy crossed his arms smugly. His thoughts turned to the fight he’d had with his mother that morning. Anger festered and churned beneath his surface. He was fed up with the nagging. “Do your homework. Clean your room!” Their curfew and their rules…. It was more than he could take. The teenager smiled at the possibilities.

The speaker went on to talk about sexual harassment and an excited ripple rolled through the hearts of the scorned and spiteful.

The seeds of rebellion had been planted. A weapon had been forged and placed naively into young and turbulent hands.

“You could be a victim and not even realize it,” the speaker cooed. “If you come to us, we will listen. We will help.”

The older man turned to his companion. “This delusion has spread like a virus. Many innocents have suffered because of false accusations.” For a split second, they could both feel the pain of the wounded—those torn and devastated by a system gone awry. Lives and reputations have been ruined. Parents have been stripped of rights. Children have been snared in a web of endless bureaucracy.

The younger man looked away for a brief moment. It was all too much for his righteous eyes to take in. The air was thick with decay—the stench of bondage and its fruit.

“Will you see more?” the elder asked.

The younger one nodded and turned once more to face the scroll.

In another classroom, a woman spoke of nature and her wonders. “We are all divine,” she explained. “Because divinity is in all creation and we are a part of her. The earth is our mother, a living-breathing organism. She is worthy of all honor.”

A puff of exasperation escaped the younger man lips. “It’s idolatry!”

“Yes. They are teaching the young to serve the creature, rather than the creator.”

The scroll’s scene changed to the principal’s office. “Zero Tolerance,” he said with pride. “We have a Zero Tolerance policy on drugs and violence.”

“The principal has never walked through this place with eyes to see,” the older man explained. “For if he had, he would have seen that tolerance was the very thing being taught in these classrooms. They teach that truth is not absolute and that one person’s reality may be different from another’s. Behind the guise of ‘freedom of education,’ anarchy has replaced order and chaos is exalted. The spirit of lawlessness is already at work in the world.” With that, the scroll rolled up and disappeared.

Overhead, a long florescent bulb flickered on with a hum and then another as synthetic light filled the corridor. “We don’t have long to wait now,” the older man cautioned.

A teacher was the first to arrive. She was a plain looking woman with medium brown hair pulled back with a ribbon. Her clothes were outdated and simple.

“Mrs. Jacobs, we will call her Sarah,” the older man said with a nod in her direction. “She is one of the reasons we have come. This one is a quiet but powerful witness. Sarah is not very popular around here,” he said. “The students make sport of her behind her back and the administration watches her closely. They are worried she may share her beliefs.” He smiled. “But her life has been a witness and there is no rule against that. She has endured suffering and her love has not grown cold. Sarah Jacobs prays for each one by name.”

Soon, other teachers began to trickle in along with early students. In a short time, the hallways echoed with the sounds of slamming lockers and newsy murmurs, though no one seemed to notice the two men who stood among them.

Quietly, the visitors watched as waves of morning activity ebbed and flowed. Then, suddenly, the air grew thick with a mist of darkness. Evil had arrived. At the end of the long hall, a teenage boy stood as if looking for someone. His hair was shaggy, but not to long. A loose strand fell across his sweaty brow. Below, his eyes darted nervously, to and fro. Slowly, deliberately, the young man slid his heavy backpack from his shoulder and unzipped it. His hand sunk deep into its depths and it surfaced again with a gun.

The younger man let out a gasp. “Can we stop this?”

“Mankind has been given free will.” The older man shook his head solemnly. “We cannot interfere.”

As the boy held the shining weapon in his hand, a strange demented smile spread across his thin lips. “Soon they will all know,” he muttered, “just what I think of them. They will all be sorry.”

“And he is right. They will say it wasn’t his fault,” the elder explained. “They will say the boy was the product of his environment, that he had a rough life. His mother worked long hours. His father left when he was young. They will pity the boy, saying he was depressed and knew rejection. They will say that he was a victim too.”

“While all this may be true, don’t they know that this young man, like all the rest, will one day stand accountable before God?” the younger one asked.

A shriek sliced through the morning bustle and banter. “He’s got a gun!” Pandemonium exploded like a cannonball down the corridor and frightened teens scrambled for safety.

This seemed to please the teenage boy. He leveled his pistol and walked forward with icy determination. The first bullet slammed into the wall inches from a young man’s head. He fired again, grazing the arm of a fleeing athlete. Youth scrambled for refuge as fear and panic ricocheted throughout the school.

The gun-totting boy stopped cold. His hollow eyes locked onto a beautiful teenage girl as she cowered behind the shelter of her locker. Jennifer was one of the popular ones who’d never given him the time of day. He raised the weapon and an eternity seemed to pass as his finger slowly squeezed the trigger. Then, just before the explosion, a schoolmate suddenly dove to take the bullet. He fell in a crumpled heap as the terrified girl bolted away to safety.

“This is Benjamin, the other reason we have been called here today.” The elder angel knelt beside the boy as he lay dying. “Benjamin, you have been a shining light in this place for you were not ashamed of the gospel.” He touched the boy with gentle hands and whispered words to blanket him in peace. “Greater love knows no man, than he who lays his life down for another.”

The predator felt charged with power and control as he marched through the school looking for prey. “He would soon be famous,” he told himself. Through narrow radar eyes, he searched for movement, his senses honed by the scent of fear. Then, his march stopped short.

Mrs. Jacobs had stepped into his path. She stood like a sentinel against the boy’s advance “Go no further,” she said. “Kyle, put the gun down.” Inside, Sarah was terrified but she didn’t let it show.

The teenager’s mouth twisted in contempt. “Who’s going to make me?” Slowly, Mrs. Jacobs approached—her hand extended. “Let me have the gun.” The teacher’s firm words conveyed authority and power. Her seasoned eyes betrayed no hint of intimidation.

A tear welled briefly in the boy’s gaze, then as suddenly as it surfaced, it shrank back into darkness. He leveled the gun and fired once more before turning the weapon upon himself.

Deafening silence filled the corridor. All was still but all was not well.

Moments passed in silent waiting and then the angels rose with their precious cargo in their arms.

“This day, two shining lights have been extinguished from this school, but there would be others to rise up in their place.” As the elder spoke, a joyous chorus rang in the heavens. For two of God’s beloved were coming home—victorious and whole.

What the Village Took by L. P. Hoffman, (c) 2006

Thank You for the Opportunity

In September 2007, I started an internet blog called Talk It Up America, and at that time I said, “I have created this blog—www.TalkItUpAmerica.com—to post news consistent with Philippians 4:8.

For those of you who do not have a Bible handy, Philippians 4:8 says in the New King James Version, “Finally, brethren, whatever things are true, whatever things are noble, whatever things are just, whatever things are pure, whatever things are lovely, whatever things are of good report, if there is any virtue and if there is anything praiseworthy—meditate on these things.”

In September 2008, the Farmville Herald began publishing my column every other week.

I have enjoyed writing these columns because I believe in the full discourse that must precede any thoughtful decision about the significant issues and challenges that face America today. Naturally, I wanted to present a conservative point of view. But, more than anything else, I strove to ensure that my readers understood that these are complex problems we are up against. Though many people want a simple solution, those are elusive at best and often just wrong. I tried to not just be a critic of others. I always attempted to not make any issue a personal one. I believe that we have an obligation to fully vet and debate policies, but not to carry out character assassinations. And, while I often presented the opposing view of a particular policy, I always would also strive to present an alternative approach to resolving the issue. I firmly believe that you are either part of the solution or you are part of the problem.

I clearly have a strong political point of view and I am not ashamed for having presented a conservative viewpoint of today’s issues. I, for one, do not believe “politics” should be a pejorative term. In fact, I have come to learn that everything in life is political, except politics, that is personal. I consider running for and holding public office to be the highest secular calling an individual may pursue. I hold those in political offices in high regard even when I disagree with their politics or policies. If we lose sight of the value of free and civil political discourse and respect for the elected office, we risk losing our democratic form of government.

Many of you know that I have also been politically active in the Prince Edward County Republican Party, among other local volunteer activities, and I headed up the Prince Edward County campaign to elect Robert Hurt as the Representative for Virginia’s 5th Congressional District.

Because of my political and public service experience, I was recently appointed by Representative Hurt be his Farmville Field Office Director. I am honored to be going to work for Robert Hurt. His thoughtful and considerate approach to the issues, his desire to serve all of the people of the 5th District, and his core beliefs in liberty, individual rights, and free-market solutions to problems make working for Congressman Hurt a natural and easy decision for me.

Quite naturally as well, this means that I will no longer be writing a column for the Farmville Herald or TalkItUpAmerica.com. My new job is not to convey my ideas, but rather to listen to the people of the Southside, provide appropriate assistance whenever possible, and to communicate constituent views to Representative Hurt.

I have enjoyed writing these columns and it has been a rewarding experience. Many of you have taken the time to let me know how much you like my writing and agree with my positions on the issues. A few have challenged me on the issues and I have enjoyed those discourses as well. Thank you for reading my column and your support.

I also look forward to representing Robert Hurt and serving all of his constituents. I will be available to visit with anyone about issues pertaining to the federal government, whether it is a personal matter that requires the Congressman’s assistance or you want to communicate your views on a larger policy direction for the federal government.

As I have tried to do throughout my career and in this column for the past two years, I will perform my new duties consistent with Philippians 4:8 and my personal mission statement. “I believe that my gifts come from God and that I am called to use those gifts to serve people by helping them, listening to hear their needs, assimilating and distilling facts that relate to their needs and the issues, and advocating in the public forum to bring forth solutions that benefit the whole by applying the principles of honesty, concern, fair play, respect, discernment, integrity and trust.”

It is with some regret that I stop writing these periodic columns, but it is for good reason that I do so. In the mean time, thank you for the opportunity and I look forward to a different, but equally important, kind of service.

Up like a rocket; down like a parachute

There is something exciting about watching a Space Shuttle launch. The acceleration is incredible, especially when you consider the gross weight of the space craft to be about 4.5 million pounds. Within seconds of launch the shuttle is going 100 mph, 1,000 mph after one minute, and in a little over seven minutes, the craft is pushing 18,000 mph! But, have you noticed when it is landing, the Space Shuttle is going barely more than 200 mph. Going up is fast, but coming down is always slow.

Of course, the physics of putting large bodies into orbit around the earth requires nothing less than spectacular acceleration. The aerodynamics and physics of returning to earth safely demand that the vehicle slowly decelerate over a longer time to avoid burning up or breaking up upon touch down.

Even though economics is not a physical science per se, I have observed over the years that the same physical laws of space travel seem to apply to certain economic trends. Have you ever noticed how quickly interest rates rise during uncertain times only to slowly come back down long after the crisis is over? The stock market can “crash” in a day, but may take years to recover from that single event. In recent years, the price of gasoline has shot up like a rocket on news of a hurricane in the Gulf of Mexico, or political upheaval in the Middle East. However, even though the hurricane may pass by with little or no impact on the supplies, or the interruption of oil deliveries in the Middle East may not be significant, the price of gasoline can take months to come back down to pre-event levels. It is as though the prices ride a rocket up and take a parachute back down.

The explanations for this phenomenon are plentiful and I am sure your email inbox has been inundated with plenty of speculation, castigation, and a few suggested remedies during the recent jump in gasoline prices. I believe some explanations and remedies have more merit than others.

There is one very important thing that makes gasoline at the pump unique among the thousands of products Americans buy on a daily basis. Retail gasoline is the only product that posts its price in one-foot-tall letters that can be read from one-half mile away or more. As a result everyone knows what a gallon of gas costs even though most people could not tell you what they last paid for a gallon of milk or a loaf of bread.

I suppose posting gasoline prices in big numbers keeps the stations competitive. After all, how many of us have driven until our tanks were nearly empty until we found that station that was two cents a gallon cheaper. Yep, we showed them; nearly running out of gas to save ourselves 30 to 40 cents on a single $45 to $60 tank full!

If displaying gasoline prices for all to see encourages competition, it could also be said that it makes collusion easier as well. Under anti-trust laws in the United States, collusion among suppliers or retailers to set prices for their products is expressly forbidden. But, if the gas-station operator doesn’t even have to leave his store to see what the competition is charging across the street, then it is difficult for any prosecutor to make the case that the station owners met in secret to set their prices.

Imagine for a moment you are a gasoline retailer. Your average gross profit on gasoline is about seven cents a gallon. If you put yourself in their position, you would probably understand that it is less likely to be a conspiracy and more often just a case of business survival. When one station sees another raise their price a couple of cents a gallon, they all quickly follow suit. And it is certainly not in any operator’s best interest to be the first to drop the price when supply costs go down. Consider this: if your local gas station operator is making so much money selling gasoline, why do gasoline retailers spend so much time trying to get you into their store to buy things you can get at a hundred other locations? Cheap gasoline is a pricing theory called a “loss leader” that is intended to get you in the store to buy other more profitable products. Many a gasoline retailer has gone bankrupt trying to use gasoline as a loss leader.

At the other end of the supply-line spectrum is the price of a barrel of crude oil. You get the price of crude oil reported in the media every evening along with the daily stock market results. However, what makes the news is not the cost of the oil being delivered to refineries today, but rather it is the price expected to be paid for oil at some point in the future. When events cause speculation to drive the future price of oil up, it inevitably results in journalists prognosticating that the price of gasoline at the pump will be going up soon. With the consumers psychologically prepared for the increase, it is now logical for suppliers and retailers to go ahead and raise the price of a gallon of gas.

The last and perhaps the most significant factor that affects the price of gasoline here in the United States is that we are grossly under capacity for refining oil into gasoline and other products. Many small refineries have shut down over the years as their processing capacity made it uneconomical to bring them up to current environmental standards. At the same time, stringent environmental standards and the not-in-my-back-yard (NIMBY) syndrome has resulted is fewer new refineries coming online. Meanwhile, gasoline consumption has increased, and during the summer, many states and even some municipalities require specially blended fuels to reduce emissions. As refineries annually transition from making heating oil to ramping up to meet summer gasoline demand, they must stop production to retool their facilities. This leads to constrained supplies and the annual price increase that usually peaks around Memorial Day. The rest of the summer pricing remains relatively high because of increased driving and a constant cycle of shutting down refineries to adjust for the unique summer blends required by different cities and states. Add to that one or two hurricanes that may temporarily shut down gulf coast oil production and refineries and we can see a drop in supply with a corresponding increase in the price at the pump.

The reality is the supply and demand for energy, especially gasoline, is very volatile. There are many reasons why the price of gasoline at the pump may change—some are better explained than others. Nonetheless, the cost of gasoline does fluctuate often and can rise quickly. If you are frustrated about recent increases, and many of us are, don’t punish your neighbor who happens to be in the gasoline business. Don’t bother trying to boycott the big oil companies; they make just as much money selling cheaper products as they do selling expensive stuff. If you want to bring about real and positive change that will help the price situation at the pump, call your Representative and Senators. Tell them we need streamlined permitting for new refineries. We need more of every kind of energy. We should stop the ban on deepwater drilling and we should open more offshore areas to exploration. We should not let the EPA regulate green-house gases and implement a de facto energy tax. And, we need more oil, coal, natural gas, oil shale, tar sands, etc., developed in Alaska and the Mainland USA. Tell them we need to drill here, drill now, and pay less!

Most Common Side Effects

In the last decade, there has been an exponential increase in the amount of advertising for prescription pharmaceutical medicines and a corresponding increase in prescription drug consumption. This is partly the result of a significant change in the way drug companies are marketing their products. Back in the day, pharmaceutical companies sent drug reps out to visit doctors and hospitals. They generally came bearing gifts—radios, clocks, sometimes even television sets. But, more importantly, they provided technical information about what their drug could do for the patients and what side affects might occur. They answered questions and gave medical professionals all the information they needed to make qualified medical decisions about what, if any, drug would best address the illness the patient presented.

The new model for marketing drugs has the pharmaceutical companies skipping right over the medical professionals and going to the consumer directly. Often times, even after seeing an ad several times, the consumer may not know what illness the medicine is intended to treat. But, it sure sounds good. Maybe I better ask my doctor if that drug is right for me.

I remember watching NFL football with my 12 year old son years ago. One of these drug ads kept appearing that depicted a middle-aged man throwing a football through a tire swing. The audio message was intentionally vague, and being naïve, I missed all the phallic symbolism that was meant to convey the message that this was the newest of what a friend of mine called “giddy-up drugs.” Stupid me! I turned to my son and asked him what he thought that drug is supposed to do. His response was priceless, “I think it makes him throw the ball better.”

The point is these messages about sophisticated drugs are dumbed down and intended to make us all think we can’t live without these medicines. We are not sure what they do, but that person sure looks happier. And who doesn’t want more control over their health care decisions? I believe we should all assume more responsibility for our physical and emotional well being, but that does not make us trained and qualified medical diagnosticians.

Of course, to ensure that as an informed consumer we all make the right medical choices, we are told about all the possible side affects of the particular drug we are being sold at the moment. Have you listened closely to some of the contraindications of these wonder-working medicines? Here are a few snippets of the choicest “Most Common Side Effects”:
• “chest pain; confusion; fainting; fast or irregular heartbeat”
• “new or worsening mental or mood problems”
• “sudden, severe dizziness or vomiting; slurred speech; uncontrolled muscle movement; unusual weakness or tiredness”
• “suicidal thoughts or actions”
• “abnormal thinking; behavior changes”
• “hallucinations; memory loss; new or worsening agitation, panic attacks, aggressiveness, impulsiveness, irritability, hostility, exaggerated feeling of well-being”
• “decreased sexual desire or ability” (Don’t worry; there are plenty of other drugs that counteract this symptom)
• “red, swollen, blistered, or peeling skin; ringing in the ears; seizures”
• “sudden decrease or loss of hearing; sudden decrease or loss of vision in one or both eyes”
• and, my all time favorite, “sudden urges to gamble”

The pharmaceutical industry is big business, and to be fair, they have developed some really valuable medicines that treat previously untreatable conditions. Medical care has improved thanks in part due to research and development by drug companies. Research and development is expensive and the testing and application process to get Food and Drug Administration approvals cost a lot of money as well. As a result, some of the newest and best drugs are also very expensive as the industry prices their product to recover their investment before the patent runs out and cheaper generic versions of the drug come on the market.

Prescription drug use in America is up—way up. We cannot discount the impact this has had on the cost of delivering health care services in this country. Over the past ten years, the percentage of Americans who have taken at least one prescription drug in the past month has increased from 44% to 48%. The use of two or more drugs increased from 25% to 31%. The percentage of Americans using five or more drugs per month increased from 6% to 11%. In 2007-2008, 20% of children and 90% of older Americans reported using at least one prescription drug in the past month.

Prime time television ads rates vary widely from $40,000 to $400,000 per ad. Full-page color ads in a popular men’s magazine can cost more than $70,000, and by the time the drug company buys the extra page and a half to print all the disclaimers in fine print, a $175,000 per month per magazine budget is not out of the question. It doesn’t take rocket science to see that drug companies are spending a lot of money to get you to “ask your doctor” about their latest wonder pill.

If you have followed my columns over the last few years, you know that I am a free-enterprise advocate. I favor market solutions over government regulation. Although the government has historically banned alcohol and tobacco ads, I am not suggesting that prescription drug ads be banned. Besides, the government has no nexus that would empower it to ban advertising in the print media or on cable and satellite television.

However, I do wonder about the ethics of marketing prescription drugs directly to the consumer. I do believe it significantly contributes to the escalating use of prescription drugs and the spiraling cost of providing health care. And, perhaps I am old fashioned, but shouldn’t we all leave the decision to prescribe or not prescribe drugs to the medical professionals and not the consumers. There are certainly a number of circumstances that warrant prescription drug use and I am neither anti-medicine nor anti-drug industry. But, I wonder if it is really necessary or in our best interest to take “Mother’s little helper” for every perceived problem we have in life. Maybe we would all be better off if we took charge of our own physical and emotional well being. As consumers we can exert market changing power through our consumption patterns. We can all reconsider our prescription drug use, and through the free market, we can have a positive impact on our physical, emotional, and financial well being and help bring down the cost of health care in America. As Nancy Reagan said about illegal drug use, “Just say ‘No.’”

Whose Ox will get Gored?

President Obama established the National Commission on Fiscal Responsibility and Reform in February 2010. In December 2010, the Commission, co-chaired by former Clinton Chief of Staff Erskine Bowles and former US Senator Alan K. Simpson of Wyoming, released its report. The report included a comprehensive set of recommendations all designed to help the United States address its growing deficit problems and the mounting national debt. But, most controversial of all recommendations, the Commission had the temerity to suggest that, unless they are fixed soon, entitlement programs such as the Social Security System are doomed to financial failure.

In his usual fire-brand style of down home wit and brazen Western honesty, Senator Alan Simpson has never dodged the tough issues and some of his recent comments regarding Americans and Social Security have touched off a firestorm. Without regard for his specific words, give Al credit for taking on the elephant in the room. But, while we’re on the subject, let’s address some of the myths associated with this elephant in the room.

One of the common misconceptions about the Social Security System is that Congress has raided the Social Security Trust Fund and spent the money funding the current budget deficits. This is over-simplified at best and in many respects just not true. However, as is usually the case, the matter of accounting for the Social Security Trust Fund is too complicated to be adequately explained in this column. But, it deserves a better explanation than typical news sound bite, so let me give it a try.

When passed and signed into law in 1935, the Social Security Act established a system for collecting payroll taxes, keeping the money in a trust fund, and providing retirement assistance for the elderly as well as disability insurance for all Americans. The key to understanding the trust fund is that the Social Security Act requires that all Social Security receipts be invested in United States Treasury Bills and that the interest accrue for the benefit of the trust fund. US Treasury Bills are the debt instruments that our government uses to finance government operations and deficits. The challenge here is that in this particular case the United States is both the lender (the Social Security Trust Fund) and the borrower (the US Treasury).

Certainly, in these times of record deficits and a national debt approaching $14 trillion, many people are wondering at what point is the United States Treasury in danger of defaulting on its debt? However, for now, what is important for every American to know is that the Social Security Trust Fund is fully accounted for within the federal budget and the fund is accruing interest for the benefit of present and future recipients.

The notion that Congress has raided the fund comes from a not well understood nuance of the federal budget process. When preparing and reporting federal budgets, both the President and Congress designate certain budgetary items, such as the U.S. Postal Service and the Social Security System, as “off-budget.” This means that the receipts and outlays associated with these programs are not part of the annual budget appropriations process and are accounted for separately. However, when reporting the total budget of the United States, the receipts and outlays for off-budget programs are included in the totals. During the past and even currently, Social Security Trust Fund receipts exceed outlays, thus including the Social Security System in the total budget has the net effect of making the deficit appear smaller. This is what leads some people to suggest that Congress has raided the trust fund, but that statement simply is not true.

Now, let us consider some of the actuarial facts about the Social Security System. Since inception in 1935 until today, receipts have exceeded outlays, and accordingly, the trust fund together with interest has grown. Based on current population numbers, the size of the work force now and in the future, and the expected increased life expectancy of Americans, analysts believe the Social Security Trust Fund will continue to grow until around the year 2025. At that point in time, outlays will begin to exceed receipts, including interest, and the trust fund has been estimated to become insolvent, bankrupt, broke by about 2042, with some more recent estimates as early as 2037.

We can say what we want about how much you and I have paid or will pay into the system. We can make all the platitudes we want about how we are entitled to our Social Security retirement. But, none of that will have any bearing on the fact that, as currently funded and allocated by law, the Social Security System will be broke within our children’s life times. We may not want to see the retirement age raised or our benefits reduced, but where is the equity for our children and grandchildren who will pay into the system for decades and see nothing in return.

We may not like it when the likes of Al Simpson tells us “Where the pigs eat the cabbage” with respect to Social Security, but turning a deaf ear and a blind eye to the inherent and systemic problems with the Social Security Trust Fund will not advance us one wit. When it comes to fixing the Social Security problem, I may not want to have my ox gored, but someone’s ox will certainly get gored sooner or later.

At the risk of exposing myself to ridicule and criticism, I would like to suggest that the sooner Americans get together and help Congress find a way to address the certain and catastrophic failure of the Social Security System the better. And, the least painful it will be for all of us. There have been a number of ideas floated over the years that would make the system solvent into the foreseeable future without gutting current or near-term benefits for recipients. The scared cow will soon be on life support and it will die unless we put our differences aside and make the adjustments necessary to ensure Social Security’s viability for the long term.

The Gun Culture in America

With recent headlines, comes the inevitable deploring of the use of words associated with guns and shooting. While I believe in measured rhetoric and I am not a supporter of vitriolic speeches, I mourn for the loss of America’s culture when I hear the political correctness movement suggest that gun metaphors lead to violence.

American history is so intermeshed with weapons and the right to bears arms that gun terminology has become part of the vernacular. Moreover, the origins of our freedom and the establishment of democracy can be directly linked to an armed citizenry who took up their muskets to secure life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness for themselves and their posterity.

Let us consider the extent to which we use of gun metaphors in today’s modern-American English. To name a few: You’re “jumping the gun.” That’s like “shooting your self in the foot.” That person is a “straight shooter.” I need that like I need a “hole on the head.” He bought it “lock, stock, and barrel.” “Lock and load.” “Rock and fire.” That is “on target.” The goal is “within range.” Keep your “powder dry.” “Set your crosshairs” on that. They are “under the gun.” The final “shot” “beat the gun.” We are “going great guns.” You should “stick to your guns.” Bring in the “big guns.” That is the “smoking gun.” He is a “hired gun.” Why not “take a shot at it?” The idea was “shot down.” They are “shooting off” at the mouth. That person has a “hair trigger” temper. They are a little “slow on the draw.” Sometimes we have to “lower our sights.”

Some people suggest that when the 2nd Amendment refers to “a well armed militia,” it means only the National Guard or other state branch of law enforcement. Others make the case that the Amendment is only about protecting our hunting heritage. I believe the 2nd Amendment is about much more than a well armed militia and protecting opportunities for sport hunting. In fact, if you don’t think the Founding Fathers meant for you and I to have “the right to bears arms” of any kind for any lawful purpose then consider some of their writings.

Thomas Jefferson said, “Laws that forbid the carrying of arms...disarm only those who are neither inclined nor determined to commit crimes...Such laws make things worse for the assaulted and better for the assailants; they serve rather to encourage than to prevent homicides, for an unarmed man may be attacked with greater confidence than an armed man.” Jefferson put the 2nd Amendment in perspective when he said, "Those who hammer their guns into plowshares will plow for those who do not."

Samuel Adams referenced the right of citizens to bear arms when he said, “Among the natural rights of the colonists are these: First, a right to life, secondly to liberty, and thirdly to property, together with the right to defend them in the best manner they can.” He went on to say, "And that the said Constitution be never construed to authorize Congress to infringe the just liberty of the Press, or the rights of Conscience; or to prevent the people of the United States, who are peaceable citizens, from keeping their own arms; …"

Consider George Mason, co-author of the 2nd Amendment, who said, "I ask, Sir, what is the militia? It is the whole people. To disarm the people is the best and most effectual way to enslave them."

George Washington made the importance of gun rights clear. "Firearms stand next in importance to the constitution itself. They are the American people's liberty teeth and keystone under independence…”

Patrick Henry added these two points. "The great object is that every man be armed. Everyone who is able may have a gun."

Alexander Hamilton complimented that when he said, "The best we can hope for concerning the people at large is that they be properly armed."

Beyond the 2nd Amendment issues, the manufacturing of firearms in the United States in the 1800’s was one of the prime drivers of the Industrial Revolution that established America as the most powerful and benevolent nation on earth. And it was guns that won the West and, notwithstanding the scrutiny of how American Indians were treated, the settlement of the West was also crucial to making the United States a world power for good and peace.

We owe the establishment of the world’s first democracy and beacon of freedom to guns for we surely could have never prevailed against the British Empire without a well armed citizenry. We can be thankful that gun manufacturing pioneered the Industrial Revolution and the manufacturing processes used by other industries making the United States the economic hope and benefactor of the world. And, we can be proud that Americans are free to use their gun lexicon in their daily lives as they see fit, at least for now.

As pundits line up to analyze every tragic shooting and suggest their remedy to what they perceive to be the problem, let us take stock in the fact that firearms, gun ownership, shooting sports, and even the use of weapons by law enforcement and our military is as American as apple pie. Moreover, firearms are so intertwined with our culture that even those who don’t own or use a weapon, likely utilize gun metaphors in their everyday life.

The next time someone in the news media suggests, as has been done recently, that gun metaphors should be the new “N-word,” I hope someone out there has the courage to tell them that they are way “off target.”

Let's Not Overreact

At the risk of being a reactionary, can we please stop overreacting to tragic events?

At the time of this writing, the horrific shooting of Congresswoman Gabrielle Giffords and nearly 20 others in Tucson, AZ, is barely 24 hours old. And this columnist is as concerned about these kinds of senseless killings as the next person. Moreover, my sympathy and condolences go out to everyone injured and killed in Tucson.

But, at the same time, it never ceases to amaze me how Americans have a penchant for quickly reacting to these events, leaping to wild and unsubstantiated conclusions, and suggesting knee-jerk remedies. In the case of the Tucson shooting, immediately some people tried to pin the rampage on the Tea Party Movement, or at a minimum, suggested that conservative rhetoric somehow caused the shooter to commit this crime.

For the record, the shooter has no ties with the Tea Party Movement. However, the speed with which some pundits tried to draw that correlation is at least as dangerous as any language used by conservatives and Tea Partiers.

My point is this. Why do Americans have this fixation on finding someone or something to blame for every tragic event? And worse yet, why do we often implement a solution to a perceived problem that is at times worse than the originating event?

Take the Deepwater Horizon explosion and subsequent oil spill. A horrible accident, but rather than accept that, the U.S. Government immediately started seeking someone to blame instead of cleaning up the mess. The Attorney General launched an investigation and promised to prosecute the law breakers, as if poor judgment is the same as willfully breaking the law. Deep water oil and gas exploration was stopped even though the U.S. needs the oil and we have the best safety and environmental record of any nation in the world. Oil has been seeping naturally into oceans for eons at volumes far greater than man-caused spills or leaks. Nonetheless, we overreacted to the Deepwater Horizon spill resulting in the loss of tens of thousands of good-paying jobs, increased cost of energy for all Americans, billions of dollars of decreased revenues to the U.S. Treasury, and equipment and exploration operation taken to riskier places in the world perhaps resulting in greater threats to the environment.

Take the gross overreaction to the marginal science that suggests human-caused carbon dioxide emissions may cause catastrophic global warming. One reaction was to create tax incentives for hybrid cars that rely heavily upon batteries that use lead and sulfuric acid. Did anyone ever stop to think about where lead comes from or what sulfuric acid spilled in a car wreck might do to the environment? And what happens to the old batteries when a hybrid quits running? There are very few places to dispose of old batteries because most facilities have been shut down in an overreaction to a few bad apples who did not handle battery waste properly.

Another equally wrong-headed response to global-warming fear mongering was to encourage more corn be used for ethanol fuel production. Notwithstanding the fact that corn uses more energy than it creates, this policy diverts corn from the food production chain. Less food means higher costs and more poverty. Poverty is the single greatest threat to the global environment. Just take a look at the environmental damage occurring in third-world countries. Progress and prosperity will be the only way we work through whatever environmental problems may exist in this planet we call home.

Next time there is a plane crash watch the new media flock to cover the story and spend days analyzing what went wrong or searching for someone to blame. Americans react to this news coverage. Every time an airplane crashes—despite the fact that air travel is statistically one of the safest modes of travel—Americans respond by flying less and driving more. Yet, your chances of dying in an automobile are about 24 times greater than the likelihood of dying in a plane crash!

It is not just the news media that overreacts to tragic events. There are those ambulance-chasing lawyers who never saw an accident that did not represent an opportunity. The anecdotal stories are endless. You have heard about the law suits and huge awards against service providers and manufacturers over things like hot coffee spilled in a lap or limbs cut off because someone tried to trim the hedge with a lawnmower. Please, must I suffer through yet another safety device that makes my tools harder to use and more expensive just because some idiot pulled a stupid stunt?

Everyone is talking about the new TSA procedures of groping and fondling people in a feckless effort to decrease terrorism on airplanes. I believe that terrorists long ago figured out that using airplanes as weapons is too hard. Now they are more likely looking at train stations, subways, and other places where a lot of people gather and the security is less rigorous. Yet, here we go again, overreacting instead of being forward thinking and proactive.

Americans tend to focus on “What” and “Where” of the tragedy instead of the “Why.” And sometimes the “Why” just defies explanation. Other times, the “Why” does not matter because nobody could have foreseen the event, or nothing could have prevented it. Whether a terrorist, or a crazed killer, uses an airplane, bomb, car, gun, or a pocket knife matters much less than the fact that in a free society we have to accept a certain level of risk. Out West there is a saying, “I’ll live ‘til I die, unless a tree falls on me.”

You can bet your boots that the Tucson shooting will once again invigorate the gun-control zealots. However, the reality is that guns are no more the cause of murders than pencils and pens are the reason for hate mail or books led Hitler to perpetrate the worst hate crime in history.

As Benjamin Franklin said, "Any society that would give up a little liberty to gain a little security will deserve neither and lose both." It seems to me that every time we overreact, another liberty is sacrificed at the alter security. Let us mourn for the victims; care for the survivors; find, prosecute, and punish the perpetrators; but let’s avoid the temptation to overreact and apply more cures that are worse than the problems.

No More Resolutions, Please

On this New Year’s Eve, I am sure many of you are making resolutions for 2011. Some are resolving to exercise more and lose weight—a perennial resolution after the bounty of the Christmas Season. Others are resolving to do things such as pay down debt, save more money, or start retirement planning.

Whatever your resolution is this year, I am sure it is well intended and honorable, but the odds are overwhelming that by the second week of January your resolution will have devolved to disillusion. It happens every year to millions of Americans. In fact, there is a cottage industry dedicated to helping you set your sights lower and providing advice on how to do better at sticking to your resolutions.

My advice is to resolve to make no resolutions. Don’t make promises you can’t or won’t keep. Jesus cautioned us to not swear by any oaths, but rather, “Let your ‘Yes’ be ‘Yes’ and your ‘No,’ ‘No’.” Good advice.

Many people are optimistic for 2011, because they believe the 112th Congress with a new Republican majority in the House and the Senate will resolve to balance the budget, end earmarks, shift the U.S. economic policy back toward free enterprise, and restore integrity to a Federal government. My advice at the national level is the same as my personal advice—don’t expect a whole lot of change. It is not that I don’t think change is necessary; it’s just that change is difficult. If it is hard for us to keep our personal resolutions after two weeks, how can we realistically expect dramatic change in an institution that, despite having a new Republican majority, is about 85% unchanged?

More to the point, our Constitution has built in dampers on radical change through a system of checks and balances. Gridlock is alive and well and the current Democrat in the White House has the same policy agenda even if Congress wants to go in a different direction. And then you have the steady hand on the tiller—a Supreme Court that rarely experiences any significant shift in ideology.

George Washington, at the Constitutional Convention, argued for a stronger Executive Branch and more power for the President, but the rest of the Founding Fathers, still feeling the sting of a dominant King George and the English monarchy, opted to vest more power in the Congress. Their belief was that the Legislative Branch, especially the House of Representatives with two-year terms of office, would be closer to the populace and better represent the will of the people.

Even if they believed the Legislative Branch would better represent the people, the Founding Fathers were not naïve about the trappings of powers and how the potential for greed and corruption was always a potential stumbling stone for our democracy. Not wanting any branch of government to dominate, they built in enough flexibility in the Constitution and some Presidents have exerted greater powers of the Executive Branch.

Historically, we have seen shifts between Congress and the President in the balance of power in the United States. Abraham Lincoln used Executive privilege to enact many of his anti-slavery policies and to prosecute the Civil War. So much so, that after his assassination, Congress reacted by putting a stranglehold on Andrew Johnson’s Presidency. That Congress even went so far as to impeach Johnson for charges that basically amounted to nothing more than daring to disagree with Congress. Fortunately, for the republic, the Senate failed to convict Johnson and we continue to have vigorous and healthy disagreements between Presidents and Congress.

Theodore Roosevelt used the bully pulpit to ram his policies through Congress and sometimes by Executive Order. Woodrow Wilson engaged the United States in World War I largely by Executive Power, a move that cost him dearly when he tried to get Congress to approve his life-long dream of establishing the League of Nations. Franklin D. Roosevelt took a note from his cousin’s playbook to implement some of the most sweeping legislative policies in history. Kennedy, and later Johnson, used the Executive Power as Commander in Chief to engage the U.S. in an undeclared war in Viet Nam. This led Congress to enact the War Powers Act and severely limit the President’s power to wage war.

Currently, we live in a time of unheard of Congressional power. There is virtually no matter that Congress does not deem itself fit to investigate or regulate. While budget deficits grow, Congress has annually failed to enact appropriation bills for the Federal government for nearly four years in a row. Instead they punt by passing Continuing Resolutions. Yet, Congress somehow finds the time to hold hearings on issues such as steroid use in baseball, or to castigate industry leaders for their policies because they don’t run their business the way Congress thinks they should.

In recent years, Congress has developed legislative gimmickry such as earmarks, or continuing resolutions, or pieces of legislation so large that only the dedicated few ever read them before they are passed. The current state of legislating in the United States is such that it is nearly impossible to hold a Member of Congress accountable for their vote and this is by design. Acts of Congress are like ornament-laden Christmas trees; there are so many babbles and bells that you are bound to like some of them. If you listen to campaign rhetoric, it is difficult to tell who is good and who is bad. There is always some vote that can be used to portray a candidate in a certain light, either good and bad.

And, what about Congressional Resolutions? Congress annually passes hundreds of resolutions, most of them non-binding. Many of these resolutions are of less consequence than you resolving to exercise more and lose weight in 2011. Congress recognizes things such 50th wedding anniversaries, community leaders, local heroes, and a variety of people groups—all good stuff and no doubt these people have done something special. But, if Congress cannot find time to pass the appropriations bills, a responsibility prescribed in the Constitution, do they have any business passing resolutions just so they can get their constituent’s name in the Congressional Record?

As for me and my hopes for 2011, I would like Congress to stop adopting meaningless resolutions and get on with the business of governing this nation.