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State of the Union and "American Values"

Posted by Richard Larsen in Idaho on Monday, January 30, 2012 6:24:58 PM

By Richard Larsen

Published – Idaho State Journal, 01/29/12

The president, in his State of the Union address declared, “The problems we're overcoming are not the heritage of one person, party, or even one generation. It's just the tendency of government to grow. And there's always that well-intentioned chorus of voices saying, ‘With a little more power and a little more money, we could do so much for the people.’ For a time we forgot the American dream isn't one of making government bigger; it's keeping faith with the mighty spirit of free people under God.”

If you don’t recall that opening line, it’s understandable, for it wasn’t in the latest State of the Union, and it wasn’t this president. The president was Ronald Reagan, and the year was 1984. Whether one agreed with him or not, there was remarkable consistency in what he said, and his message didn’t vary based on the venue, his audience, or the grandness of the stage. Even more remarkable was his policies and recommendations to congress and the American people were consistent, at least incrementally, with what he said. This is an increasingly rare commodity, especially in politics, as we observed firsthand this week.

In this week’s State of the Union we heard, “What’s at stake are not Democratic values or Republican values, but American values. We have to reclaim them.” I couldn’t agree more! But what does he think those values are? The historical version of those “American values” and Obama’s are not synonymous. For the rest of the speech the only words uttered with greater frequency than “fair” and “fairness” were “I,” “me,” and “my.”

From what Obama said Tuesday night, his notion of our “American values” is not based on freedom, liberty, pursuit of happiness, or any of the ancillary principles or traits that have made America great. His overarching theme was “fairness,” which is simply a euphemism for class envy, based on increased taxation of the most financially successful Americans, to pay for more regulation, agencies, and programs. This concept of “values” is very un-American. They are distinctly antithetical to “life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness” that encompassed the nation’s political value system for two centuries.

This contrast is observed even more starkly with the 1986 State of the Union address when President Reagan put the role of fairness in proper perspective. “Private values must be at the heart of public policies.” He elaborated, “Americans have always valued faith, character, hard work, personal responsibility, self-reliance, discipline, competition, charity, fairness, and achievement. Values originate from what people believe, especially what they believe about God.” Clearly, from Obama’s speech, those are not his idea of “American values.”

Editors at The Washington Post observed this as well, when they said of Obama’s speech, “None of the proposals constitutes a single bold stroke to revive the economy, but the heart of Obama’s message was that America’s wealthiest citizens must do more to cement the economic recovery and pull the country from its dire fiscal condition.”

We should, with every major speech like the State of the Union, assess the consistency in speech and actions. If one tells us one thing but does another, that’s not just duplicity, it’s hypocrisy and prevarication. Here’s a perfect example from Obama’s speech the other night, “But I believe what Republican Abraham Lincoln believed:  That government should do for people only what they cannot do better by themselves, and no more.” He obviously doesn’t really believe that, since government now is expanding and encroaching into our lives more than ever before and he proposed even more government “solutions” in his speech.

In describing the period leading up to Reagan’s 1984 address, Reagan said, “There was a feeling government had grown beyond the consent of the governed. Families felt helpless in the face of mounting inflation and the indignity of taxes that reduced reward for hard work, thrift, and risk-taking. All this was overlaid by an ever-growing web of rules and regulations.” Sound familiar?

Every solution for Obama is another government program or more spending. This is clearly not an American value. But this one is, “I think the best possible social program is a job.” That, too, was Ronald Reagan. He also correctly assessed the relationship between expansion of government and individual liberty, when he declared factually, “As government expands, liberty contracts.”

For those of us who lived through the Reagan years, the contrast between our president from thirty years ago and our current incarnation could not be more stark. They are diametrically opposed in the role of government in our lives, the American values that define us culturally and economically, and in the inherent trust of people, versus a trust of the government.

History and our founding documents provide a documented transcript of what our “American values” are, and that transcript provides a narrative much different from what our current president portrays. 
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Unemployment Headlines Belie the Seriousness of Job Situation

Posted by Richard Larsen in Idaho on Tuesday, January 24, 2012 11:07:58 AM

By Richard Larsen

Published - Idaho State Journal, 01/22/12

It’s too bad that we can’t rely on the headline numbers that our own government gives us. The headline numbers the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) releases each month obfuscate the real unemployment malaise across the country. Yet ironically, it’s in the BLS releases that we find a more complete unemployment picture, we just have to dig deeper for it.

When the BLS reported that the unemployment rate dropped to 8.5% with December’s year-end data, media pounced on the headline figure but almost none delved deeper into the official report. What they report is the demographic composition of the workforce as calculated in Table A-1 of their monthly report. Since 1994, these are the primary data for headline purposes. They also “tweak” the figures for “seasonal adjustment.”

For a more complete picture, however, look at the BLS monthly employment report, table A-15. U-6 on that table indicates as a percentage of the total civilian workforce, the number of unemployed (those included in Table A-1), those who have given up looking for jobs, plus those who are working marginal part-time jobs who need fulltime positions. In the latest report, that percentage is 15.2%. This is a much more accurate indication of the state of the economy relative to unemployment and job creation.

It’s easy to understand why those figures wouldn’t be reported in the headlines. They don’t look good. But to understand how current economic policies have failed so dramatically in job creation, it’s imperative that we look at the full picture.

Based solely on BLS data, for example, we learn the following. Over the past year alone, the civilian workforce population rose by 1,726,000. That means we need to add an average 166,000 jobs per month just to keep up with the demand of those who are entering the job market. Yet over the past year the number of people actually working fell by 67,000.

In November alone, when the headlines across the nation reported that unemployment dropped from 9.1% to 8.6%, job creation was not what caused the decline. The cause of the drop, which should’ve been the real headline, was that 487,000 fellow Americans stopped looking for work.

In the 30 months since the recession ended officially, according to BLS data, nearly one million previously employed workers have dropped out of the labor force. That means that not only are they not working, but they’ve become discouraged and given up finding a job, and aren’t even looking for a job anymore.

Investor’s Business Daily (IBD) reports that this anemic job growth is atypical in post-recession recoveries. Their research indicates that in the past nine recession recoveries the labor force “had climbed an average 3.5 million by this point.”  After the recession in 2002-2003, job growth exploded with over 4 million jobs created, culminating in an official unemployment rate of 4.4% by this point in the recovery.

Instead, we have a net job loss over the past few years. The participation rate, which is the percentage of the number of people either working or looking for work compared to the civilian working-age population, is now 64%, which is down nearly two points from when the recession officially ended in June 2009. The only time that figure was lower, according to BLS, was several decades ago when women began entering the workforce en mass. And total payrolls are still a whopping 6.1 million lower than when they peaked in 2008.

The nonprofit Employment Policy Institute tracks this data closely. They take the number of jobs lost since the recession began and add in the growth of the working age population. The resulting figure they report as a “jobs deficit,” and they calculate we have a current deficit of 10.8 million jobs, even factoring in the 1.4 million jobs added since the recession ended,

The anemic job situation has a pejorative impact even on those who are fortunate enough to still have one. According to Sentier Research, real median annual household income has declined 5.1% since the recession ended 30 months ago. That represents even more of a drop than what happened during the recession itself, which declined 3.2%.

Corporate profits have continued to improve over the past two years, but companies are still reluctant to start hiring again. Most small business owners and corporate officers cite the uncertain regulatory environment, high corporate tax rates, and new regulation implementation costs as obstacles.

If anything, it’s a testament to the resiliency of our private sector that we’ve had any jobs created in this hostile environment that Washington has created. What jobs have been added is in spite of, not because of what the administration has been doing to the private sector.

The only real hope for revitalizing America’s job market lies in policies emanating from Washington that are conducive to job creation, rather than punitive. Let’s hope November elections facilitate that most critical change.
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Enduring Wisdom of Martin Luther King, Jr.

Posted by Richard Larsen in Idaho on Monday, January 16, 2012 11:41:14 AM

By Richard Larsen

Published – Idaho State Journal, 01/15/12

So many things have changed since Martin Luther King, Jr.’s tragic and premature death. The country that was divided mostly along racial lines that he sought to heal and palliate is now divided more by ideology. His cardinal wisdom and teachings endure, can be universally applied, and appertain as much today as then.

King was a highly principled man, driven by self-evident truths and fundamental values. He referred often to those values. “If we are to go forward, we must go back and rediscover those precious values - that all reality hinges on moral foundations and that all reality has spiritual control.” Some of those values were the very principles upon which the nation was founded, that he found lacking in their application to all Americans equally. “When the architects of our republic wrote the magnificent words of the Constitution and the Declaration of Independence, they were signing a promissory note to which every American was to fall heir. This note was a promise that all men, yes black men as well as white men, would be guaranteed the inalienable rights of life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.”

He was an ardent advocate of freedom and individual liberty. While his teachings were framed in a culture of racism and racial discord, they apply universally to all Americans in the quest for individual liberty. As he said, “Freedom is never voluntarily given by the oppressor; it must be demanded by the oppressed.” Certainly those are wise words of encouragement to those of us who object to the usurpation of individual freedom by a government seeking to micromanage its citizens.

He continued, “Change does not roll in on the wheels of inevitability, but comes through continuous struggle. And so we must straighten our backs and work for our freedom.” Individual and universal freedom was fundamental to him, without regard to ethnicity, and he advocated freedom, as opposed to government programs that diminish it.

On another occasion he said, “I say to you that our goal is freedom, and I believe we are going to get there because however much she strays away from it, the goal of America is freedom. Abused and scorned though we may be as a people, our destiny is tied up in the destiny of America.”

He taught, “All labor that uplifts humanity has dignity and importance and should be undertaken with painstaking excellence.” He worked hard, understood how hard work develops character, and likely would not be a proponent of our welfare state, which in effect relinquishes personal responsibility and accountability to the state.

He likely would have consternation for those who engage in identity politics that are so pervasive today, where politicians sell out to special interests for votes, rather than doing what’s best for the nation. For as he said, “An individual has not started living until he can rise above the narrow confines of his individualistic concerns to the broader concerns of all humanity.” And as if to underscore this notion, “Every man must decide whether he will walk in the light of creative altruism or in the darkness of destructive selfishness.”

Edmund Burke, considered the father to conservatism, said, “All that is needed for evil to triumph is for good men to do nothing.” King echoed that sentiment, “History will have to record that the greatest tragedy of this period of social transition was not the strident clamor of the bad people, but the appalling silence of the good people.”

I think Martin Luther King would have concurred with Morgan Freeman, who was interviewed a few years ago in a “60 Minutes” segment with Mike Wallace. Wallace started out, “Black History Month, you find…”, Freeman interjected, “Ridiculous.”

WALLACE: Why? 
FREEMAN: You’re going to relegate my history to a month? 
WALLACE: Come on. 
FREEMAN: What do you do with yours? Which month is White History Month? Come on, tell me. 
WALLACE: I’m Jewish. 
FREEMAN: OK. Which month is Jewish History Month? 
WALLACE: There isn’t one.
FREEMAN: Why not? Do you want one? 
WALLACE: No, no. 
FREEMAN: I don’t either. I don’t want a Black History Month. Black history is American history. 
WALLACE: How are we going to get rid of racism until...? 
FREEMAN: Stop talking about it. I’m going to stop calling you a white man. And I’m going to ask you to stop calling me a black man. I know you as Mike Wallace. You know me as Morgan Freeman. You’re not going to say, ‘I know this white guy named Mike Wallace.’ Hear what I’m saying?”

Freeman, in that brief exchange, echoed MLK’s conviction, that his children would “one day live in a nation where they will not be judged by the color of their skin, but by the content of their character.” For your enduring wisdom, we honor you, Martin Luther King, and your work. May we embody and perpetuate the truths you taught. 
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Our Increasingly Ignored Constitution

Posted by Richard Larsen in Idaho on Wednesday, January 11, 2012 12:02:30 PM

By Richard Larsen

Published – Idaho State Journal, 01/08/12
President Hugo Chavez, over the past several years, has systematically nationalized entire sectors of Venezuela’s economy, created new positions for his cronies to centralize his power, and ignored constitutional limitations. This systematic dismantling of a Latin American constitutional democracy has transformed his democratically elected presidency into a virtual totalitarian dictatorship.

If it is true that that imitation is the sincerest form of flattery, then our president has an abundance of praise for the Latin American dictator. In spite of their occasional verbal spats, it seems increasingly like both rulers must’ve attended the same Capone School of Political Science in Chicago, majoring in totalitarianism, for they both have proven adept at centralizing their power by trampling their respective constitutions.

Speaking of their verbal posturing, the occasional exchanges between apparent ideological kin have themselves proven interesting. Just two weeks ago, President Obama criticized Chavez for his questionable human rights record and support of Iran. Obviously not appreciating the criticism, especially in light of Obama’s emulation, Chavez responded by calling Obama a “clown,” and astutely remarked further, “take care of your own business, focus on governing your country, which you’ve turned into a disaster. Leave us alone.”

The trampling of the respective constitutions is what is most distressing. The most recent example (and there are many over the past three years) here is nothing short of spectacular. Having been rebuffed by the Democrat controlled senate in an attempt to make several appointments, Obama made “recess” appointments of former Ohio Attorney General Richard Cordray to head the Consumer Protection Agency and named three others to the National Labor Relations Board. Recess appointments are frequently used by presidents to seat their desired appointees when they can’t garner the necessary senatorial support for confirmation. Such appointments only last a year.

But the key from a constitutional perspective is that the Senate has to be in recess for such appointments to be made. Recesses of congress occur when both houses agree to adjourn and a session is ended by formal resolution. No such formal resolution was passed by either chamber of congress before the holiday break, which means they are not in recess. Harry Reid, the Senate Majority Leader, has maintained a pro forma session of the Senate which means as far he’s concerned, they’re not in recess either. In fact, at the end of the Bush administration, Reid did the same thing to prevent George W. Bush from making recess appointments.

Mitch McConnell, the Senate Minority Leader, declared that Obama’s disregard of the Constitution in making these appointments, “arrogantly circumvented the American people.” He continued, “Breaking from this precedent lands this appointee in uncertain legal territory, threatens the confirmation process and fundamentally endangers the Congress‘ role in providing a check on the excesses of the executive branch.”

Since the Senate, which must confirm many presidential appointments, is not in recess, a “recess appointment” constitutionally cannot be made. But when we have an ideologically motivated president with an insatiable appetite for power, and with such little regard for the Constitution, apparently nothing is beyond the scope of possibility.

And lest we think that the Constitution has no relevance, every president promises that they will “preserve, protect and defend the Constitution of the United States.” That oath of office, that he declares he will “faithfully execute,” as stated in Article Two, Section One, Clause Eight of the Constitution, clearly indicates that it is relevant. What are we to think of a president with such little regard for the oath he takes and the document upon which our laws are based that he vows fealty to and promises to uphold? How can it be conscionable for someone to promise to uphold the Constitution, and then violate it whenever it conflicts with his agenda?

Perhaps therein lies the answer. One has to take the oath seriously, have respect for the Constitution, and have a conscience in faithfully preserving, protecting and defending it for the oath to mean something. None of which seem to apply to Obama.

Such abject disregard for the constitutional limitations leaves those of us who love this republic to wonder what others he will choose to ignore. If he’s following Chavez’s playbook, it might well be changing his own term of office, buying the next election through promises of populist government largesse to voters, or even going so far as suspending the election if he deems it necessary.

Is it a stretch to compare Obama with Hugo Chavez? Undoubtedly. But their modus operandi possess distinct similarities, including their disregard for their respective constitutions.

Our Constitution was brilliantly crafted to prevent excessive power being centralized in any one of the three branches of government. The checks and balances built into the Constitution are there precisely to prevent any one branch from running roughshod over the others. Indeed, they are there to prevent precisely what Obama did so egregiously this week.  
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Question Everything, Except...

Posted by Richard Larsen in Idaho on Tuesday, January 03, 2012 12:00:58 PM

By Richard Larsen

Published – Idaho State Journal, 01/01/12

The renowned iconoclastic atheist of the left, Christopher Hitchens, before graduating from mortality last week declared, “I have to say that I appear as a skeptic who believes that doubt is the great engine, the great fuel of all inquiry, of all discovery, and innovation.” His Washington Post Obituary said of him, “Mr. Hitchens was a self-styled contrarian who often challenged political and moral orthodoxy.”

Nearly everyone could find something to both love and hate about the man. He was a hero of the left as long as he was launching polemics against Republican presidents from Nixon to George Bush. To the anti-religious left he was a veritable “god” for his scathing diatribe against religion with his Book God Is Not Great: How Religion Poisons Everything.”  He remained a darling to the progressive crowd even after he declared that Bill and Hillary Clinton were “liars,” and only lost some of the liberal adulation after he defended the Iraq War.

Hitchens arguably epitomized what all cognitive and rational human beings should be, whether we agree with his personal conclusions or not. For is not our ability to reason, to self-examine, and to explore rational alternatives what separates us largely from the rest of the animal kingdom?

The intellectual challenge issued from Euripides to the great black author, Ernest Gaines to “question everything” resonates with the rational man. An old Irish saying seems to bring this inquisitive cognitive function back to where we started with Hitchens, “Questioning is the door of knowledge.”

But we see all too clearly in society today that we cannot truly “question everything.” One would think there is nothing more sacrosanct than questioning God, but apparently there is. There are sacred cows, messianic figures, hallowed ideologies, and quasi-religious belief systems that are not to be questioned. And what may be surprising to some, this strict orthodoxy of what is not to be questioned is imposed from the “progressive” left. And they use tools of intimidation, logical fallacies, and bigotry to enforce their version of intellectual orthodoxy, with the full participation and support of the mainstream media.

One of their most effective tools of intimidation they utilize against any heterodox questioning is the use of labels. For those who are non-conforming enough to question manmade global warming, they use pejorative monikers like “deniers” or “flat-earthers.” And for those who have the audacity to question the validity and authenticity of the president’s birth certificate, they employ the dastardly title of “birthers.” The disdain and bigoted loathing ooze menacingly from their lips and keyboards as they invoke their pejorative labels.

But it’s not enough to ascribe such nefarious titles to these heinous “questioners.” They invariably take it one step further by employing one of the most common logical fallacies so loved by those of specious thought; Appeal to Motive. The “deniers” must be anti-science, because they possess the temerity to question the validity of the pseudo-science behind the global warming advocate’s conclusions. And the “birthers,” well, they must to be racist to question anything produced by “The One.”

These methods, universally applied against heterodox “questioners” raise a host of questions. Why is skepticism so politically incorrect these days? Is not skepticism a healthy and logical subset of the critical thinking process? Is skepticism a casualty of an educational system that teaches people what to think rather than how to think? Can people now only question claims or information if they comport with a political correctness litmus test?

What makes James Hansen’s conclusions on global warming so sacrosanct that they are to be no longer scrutinized? Is it because Al Gore declared, “The science is settled?” What makes a digitized image of a birth certificate immune from expert scrutiny? Is it because of a cult-like devotion to the one whose citizenship is in doubt? Is it because one must be a racist since Obama’s the only one for whom the issue has arisen?

Perhaps even more troubling than the consequences of possible man-made global warming or an ineligible president, is the fact that people who would otherwise be considered intelligent and astute, would be so ideologically motivated as to not only fail to question such things themselves, but to intimidate others into not questioning them; that they would be so ideologically motivated and intellectually disingenuous as to be willing to ignore material facts and data which would not hold up in a court of law. That they would be so willing to “believe” that they will ignore substantive evidence that any objectively thinking person would find cause to be skeptical.

If you are a practitioner of these tools of intellectual conformity, you’re part of the problem. If you’re a questioner who seeks the truth in spite of efforts to quell or stifle your inquiries, congratulations! You still have a mind and have the courage to use it.
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