Sin

As everyone who reads the news knows, a man was suspended from a TV show because he said homosexuality is a sin. He is a Christian and that is what his faith teaches. This same faith also teaches that adultery is a sin and lying is a sin and coveting thy neighbor’s goods is a sin and not loving your neighbor as you love yourself is a sin and having false gods is a sin and not honoring your father and mother is a sin. Will people begin to lose their jobs if they say any of the above? His same faith teachers that all men are sinners so if says that will he get fired? This is not a matter of free speech as some have said because that only applies to government just as censorship only applies to government but the people who fired this guy have opened the door to a lot of other problem situations.

more tipping point

Here is another small example of the tipping point. Al Sharpton, a self-proclaimed civil rights leader, a man who always showed up whenever a suspected racial crime occurred, whether justified or not, is now holding meetings in Chicago to try to reduce the black on black murder rates, that have plagued the city. This, in my way of thinking, is a step forward in solving one of the major problems facing blacks in today’s world. While his being there is a positive, I am concerned with some of the early conclusions they have drawn. The main point coming out of these meeting, is that having more jobs will solve the problem and that certainly is the case in some instances but not the real cause surrounding these crimes, which is the breakdown of the family unit. There are black males in these communities who view a job at a fast food place as a dead end, who see a factory job where you can make twice that amount as a dead end. They compare these jobs with selling drugs where you can make ten times that amount. Selling drugs leads either to using drugs or drug wars or both. Sharpton like other black leaders are unwilling to admit that the disintegration of the family is the main cause, even though statistics show this to be the case. Perhaps this is their first step to reaching out to reconnect to the family values that used to be a part of the black community. Throughout their history, where they have been discriminated against, they always survived by relying on family and church. Revitalizing these two powerful cultural units along with today’s more enlightened view of racism could go a long way to solving some of these problems. At that point the use of vouchers to get some of these young people into a more disciplined learning environment could help reduce the education gap. You might call this whole process, hope and change.

tipping point

In a recent correspondence, where I indicated that the country may be reaching a tipping point when it comes to confidence in government and the way people see their government a minor incident has arisen that may in some small way illustrate the point. There is a TV show called, “Duck Dynasty” which I have never seen but it is involved in a controversy regarding political correctness and free speech. One of the stars of this show during a news type interview expressed his personal views on homosexuality and he was removed from his TV show. There has been a back lash and it appears that the free speech side may win the day. This is only the latest in a series of similar events over the past several years where this sort of back lash has won the day. This is just the opposite of what was happening say five or ten year ago. It falls into a larger category of what people refer to as attacks on Christianity. There was a time not that long ago that any criticism of gays was considered intolerant but now the thinking is that a person has the right to express their personal beliefs even if they do not approve of the gay life style. The freedom of speech argument seems to be winning over the political correctness argument and that is a tipping point.

Ryan plan

The Ryan-Murry budget just announced will affect military pensions for retirees between the ages of 40 and 62. There is a lot of controversy swirling around this so I did some calculations. An E-5 (Sergeant) after 20 years of service is earning $3,000 per month. He can retire at 50% of that or $1,500 per month. If he receives a 3% cost of living adjustment each year by the time he is 62 his pension will be $2,872. If the COLA is reduced to 2% he will be earning $2,319 at age 62. This is the proposal in the Ryan-Murry budget agreement. At age 62 this person’s pension will be adjusted to recapture the money lost in the years between 40 and 62. This is the worst case scenario. An average person would be 51 and have only 11 years until age 62. In that case his pension would increase from $1,500 to $2,076 with a 3% COLA and $1,865 with a 2% COLA. Once again at age 62 the pension would be adjusted to recapture the lost money between the ages of 50 and 62. The COLA for this year is 1.5% and will be reduced to 0.5%. This means that the 40 year old who retired after 20 years will have his pension increase from $1,500 to $1,867 by age 62 but with the one percent reduction he would end up with $1,674.

politically correct trap

I have often heard, supposedly wise people say that children are more influenced by what the parent does as opposed to what the parent says and if that is true it can lead to some very controversial conclusions. I offer a couple of examples, the first designed to lead you into a trap and the second to spring the trap. Johnny and his dad are traveling out of state and dad gets a speeding ticket and he just throws it away saying we won’t be back here. Johnny and his dad go to the hockey game together but dad doesn’t buy a ticket for his son, he just pushes him through the turnstile ahead of him. Dad’s TV antenna is getting old so one morning after a wind storm he goes up and pulls it down and turns in a claim to the insurance company. Dad fills out his taxes and declares charitable deductions for items he never gave to charity. Dad had a girlfriend on the side that Johnny knows about but dad tells him to keep quiet. Johnny gets to be a teen and is caught shop lifting and dad moans in shame and says where did I gone wrong? There the trap is set. Jimmy lives alone with his mom. She is on welfare and collects rent subsidies, food stamps, utility subsidies, and various other benefits that all together allow her to stay home and not work. Jimmy gets free lunch at school and they both get free health care through Medicaid. Jimmy gets to his teen years but does not see any reason to get a job but spends his time on the street with his friends waiting until his 16 so he can drop out of school like his mom did when she was 16. His mom never impressed upon him the value of education and she never read any books. There is a subtle but politically incorrect difference between these two situations. Think about it.

Read my lips

The controversy over The Presidents statements about keeping your doctor are reminiscent of Bush 41 who said, “read my lips, no new taxes” and then proceeded to raise taxes. Polls showed that most people agreed that taxes had to be raised but those same polls showed that people no longer trusted Bush and it cost him his re-election. The Gulf war ended in early 1991 and his ratings soared to 86% but during his run for re-election the Republicans who ran against and then in the general election the Democrats constantly showed him in commercials saying no new taxes. His poll numbers dropped to the low 40’s and he lost to Clinton. It didn’t help that Perot as an independent got 19% of the vote but his broken promise did him in. You can bet that in the up-coming elections you will see many ads against Democrats running for office reminding everyone of the pledge of keep you doctor.

Times are a changing

An old Bob Dylan song says times they are a changing and it is apropos for today’s world. This change has its roots in the Viet Nam War where disillusionment in government came to life. Over the next 20 years this feeling of unease was accelerated as the county slowly and painfully watched as the war on drugs and the war on poverty slipped away. On top of that came the realization that the government sponsored public education system was leaving behind our most vulnerable students while smaller areas like the post office and Amtrak floundered in sea of debt. Next came the public sector where employee benefits like pensions and health care were causing cities, counties and states to follow the federal government into the abyss of debt. The concept of spending more than what one earns spread to the private sector and now when we total up our long term obligations to future generations we are approaching the time when we will have to introduce an new word into the average person’s vocabulary and that word is quadrillion. And now we are confronted with the final straw in the governments back and that is Obamacare. The belief that the government could solve problems started with the great victory in WW 11 but as the deficits piled up year after year times started a changing. When Reagan said that the government is not the solution but the problem he stuck a cord deep inside the people and that has come alive over the past thirty years and people are now awake and ready to turn the ship of state around. As people watch the huge apartment complexes known as, “the projects”, or what I like to call the modern day equivalent of the reservation, come tumbling down overwhelmed by crime and addiction they began to have doubts. When year after year we see the inner cities crumble both literally and figuratively as the gap in education grows ever wider we have doubts. When individuals lose their dignity as they are forced to rely more and more on government aid and when words like personal responsibility are considered racist we have doubts. When young boys grow up with no role models and young girls seek the safety of their own apartments by having babies we have doubts. When the government bails out big banks and big corporations while people lose their homes, we have doubts. When elected officials care more about party than country, we have doubts. When so many see their only hope for the good life is winning the lottery we have doubts. But in the midst of all these doubts there is still hope because there is a changing. It is the awakening of the individual spirit that made this country great and it will arise again like the Phoenix. It is the realization that each of us must learn to take responsibility for our lives and reach for the brass ring. In this great land, the home of the free and brave it can be done and it starts with a change in attitude. We must get back the can-do attitude we had when I was growing up. We hear in the news every day that we have just been through the worst economic times since the Great Depression but those people came through and built the greatest generation and it can be done again because times are a changing.