Friday, July 30, 2010

The Presidency Goes Tabloid

Some people complain about the President taking vacation when America faces so many unsolved issues. But if a President is spending 14 hours a day, seven days a week, tending to the fate of America, then I think periodic retreats are essential to remaining effective. If, on the other hand, he’s using the office as his personal fantasy-land to impose personal ideology, wield enormous power, increase his own celebrity status, exploit the perks of the position, and gain individual capital that can be converted to financial wealth after leaving office, well, then extravagant Air Force One vacations are just another abuse. You can be the judge of how any individual President is using his office.

But why should any President of the United States spend his time making an appearance on a gossipy daytime talk show like The View?

Is it to communicate important information to the public? At any time of his choosing, when important information needs to be communicated directly, the President of the United States can make a broadcast address to the entire world that will be carried on all major news outlets. No other person in the world has access to such communication power. Presidents have used this mode of communication for as long as we’ve had instantaneous media. The President also delivers a weekly address to comment on current issues. In addition, he has a full-time press secretary who makes daily briefings to the press corps to share any relevant information.

Is it because there’s nothing more important on his plate at the moment? Let’s see… The economy is in the tank. Our national debt is rising millions of dollars every hour. Soldiers are dying in Afghanistan trying to stabilize a nation where most of the population would like to see America destroyed. Our borders are wide open to human and drug traffickers crossing by the thousands, and completely accessible to terrorist infiltration. Iran and North Korea are posing such a nuclear threat that sales of personal bomb shelters are skyrocketing. Our national transportation infrastructure is crumbling. Hmmm, maybe spending a half-day making an appearance chatting with the girls on The View is not the highest and best use of his time.

Unless, of course, the purpose of the visit is self-promotion and propaganda. Polls show the President losing favor among one of his strong political bases – women. So, get on The View, turn on the charm, and tell the audience how everything is going in the right direction. Yes, forget about all the real issues. Let’s make sure we prop up those sagging poll numbers.

If citizens of the United States tolerate this from their President, then they are to blame for the sad state of current affairs.

Saturday, July 24, 2010

Life in the Fast Lane

When you write a blog you sometimes wonder if anyone is reading your masterpieces of intellectual discourse. The urge to throw in something off-the-wall is tempting. I wonder if anyone will notice?

So… Who’s to blame for the unfortunate lock-up of America’s starlet, Lindsay Lohan? Restrained in that tiny little cell, surrounded by felons and criminals, the distraught woman is “doing the best she can” according to her lawyer, Shawn Chapman Holley. OMG! She may need to spend 13 or 14 days in that horrible place where she needs to pay $1.33 for her own bag of pork cracklins.

This is a travesty of the American justice system. How could a celebrity of Ms. Lohan’s stature be forced to spend two weeks in the slammer for something so innocent as, like, you-know, driving under the influence, violating her parole conditions, and failing to show up promptly for her court appearance? If the Supreme Court wasn’t weighted in favor of old conservative guys, maybe they would agree to hear an appeal. And what about the President? Couldn’t he issue a pardon? Presidents always do that at the end of their terms, why not now?

At least she’s arranged a 7-figure contract for a television interview upon her release, and will share all the dreadful stories of her incarceration. At least that’s some consolation. (It will help pay for those port cracklins.) And I’m sure a book deal and movie rights will follow. We’re all to blame when someone as precious as Lindsay is treated like a common criminal. Search your hearts. Then send your non-tax-deductible gift to the Lohan Foundation for Celebrity Lifestyles.

Friday, July 16, 2010

Guess who's coming to dinner?

Recently, Americans have divided themselves into two camps again. I guess a two-party political system does that to people. We either shout-out to support our Democrat-supplied viewpoint, or counter-argue with our Republican-supplied viewpoint. Either way, very little creative, independent thinking takes place. This time, the camps are about whether Arizona’s immigration law is: (a) a courageous response to the federal government’s failure to secure the border, or (b) a renegade, racist attempt to profile minorities that usurps federal powers. So, one camp promotes boycotting Arizona – don’t hold your conventions there, don’t buy products made in Arizona, don’t allow the Major League Baseball all-star game to be held there. At the same time, the other camp is contributing hundreds of thousands of dollars to Arizona’s legal defense fund. This seems to be a lot of unnecessary energy spent on the issue, since our court system will ultimately decide the outcome anyway. But I guess it’s like rooting for your favorite soccer team in the World Cup – emotions greatly overweight common sense. Fans of sporting events also spend a lot of energy thumping their chests about which team is best. But, ultimately, the outcome of the game will determine who wins and who loses. So I’m just going to enjoy the spectacle.

What does concern me about the illegal immigration debate, is that it’s so heavily focused on racial issues and illegal workers. Yes, these are important issues for America to resolve. But they’re also distracting us from a much bigger concern. America today faces one of the most insidious enemies encountered in our brief 250-year history. And that enemy, of course, is al-Qaeda. For the past nine years we’ve been waging a “war on terror” largely focused on the middle-east and south-central Asia. Currently we are committing enormous resources (both fiscal, and American blood) to eliminating al-Qaeda from Afghanistan. And if we manage to clear Afghanistan, (outcome uncertain) our politicians in control at that time will declare “mission accomplished.” However, al-Qaeda will simply have shifted their major center of operations somewhere else. After all, there are a lot of lawless territories in this world.

Which brings me back to our immigration policy with Mexico. What good does intense screening of passengers at airports do in preventing terrorist entry to the U.S.? They can simply walk across the border by the hundreds from Mexico. Do we think al-Qaeda leadership is so stupid they haven’t already figured this out? Do we think that the drug and human trafficking cartels of northern Mexico aren’t perfect allies for the strategic interests of al-Qaeda? We are exposing ourselves to perhaps the greatest threat to national security in American history, and we don’t seem to care. But I will guarantee this much: when the next major terrorist attack happens in America, (and it will), everyone will once again be playing the blame game. The mayhem, loss of life, collapse of our financial markets, and all the other side effects, will need to be pinned on some scapegoat who failed to prevent it. But the primary cause will be our collective lack of attention to an uncontrolled border. When will we learn that we create our own destiny by the wisdom or foolishness of our own decisions?

Thursday, July 8, 2010

Al Greene sings the campaign blues

Complaining about politicians is a national pastime. We blame them for everything. Then we sit back and respond to surveys whining that the country is headed in the “wrong direction.” But who puts these people in charge? Who gives them the authority to make and enforce laws? Who tells them what direction to go? We do. And we do a pretty lousy job of it. Election time rolls around and we see a few campaign ads on TV, or we catch a few clips of a candidate speech, or we see a picture of the candidate and we decide, “Oh, he/she seems like a nice person. Nice smile. Honest face.” And off we go to the polls. More research and deliberation goes into hiring a waitress at the local truck stop than we put into selecting people for the highest political offices in the nation.

When we “hire” someone as president of the United States we are placing the fate of the nation in the hands of this person. Yet, qualifications take a back seat to “likeability” when election results are tallied. So coming out of the Presidential primaries in the last election we were left with two candidates, neither of which had any serious executive experience. You can argue all day long about whether Obama or McCain was the better choice. But neither of them was objectively qualified for the job, neither had experience running a large organization of any sort; however, both were “likeable guys.” We just don’t take our responsibility as voters seriously.

A few weeks ago South Carolina voters hopefully embarrassed themselves when they elected Alvin Greene as their Democratic candidate for U.S. Senate. If you don’t know who Alvin Greene is, then you really need to brush up on what’s happening to our democratic process. But you’re not alone because apparently the 59% of voters who elected him didn’t know who he was either. Alvin Greene is a down-on-his-luck indigent. Unemployed, involuntarily discharged from both the Air Force and Army, facing felony charges for showing pornography to a female college student, barely coherent, Alvin Greene filed campaign papers but didn’t run any kind of campaign. And yet, voters elected him as their Democratic candidate for one of the highest political offices in the nation.

Some are alleging that this must have been some kind of Republican conspiracy because they’re certainly having a field day with this bizarre outcome. But I think there are more frightening explanations. In the midst of the last Presidential primary I was teaching college business courses to juniors and seniors. One day I asked the students in each class to list on paper as many Presidential candidates as they could name. Then I collected the papers. 78% of students knew Hillary Clinton was a candidate. Only 55% of students listed Barack Obama as a candidate. 29% identified Rudy Giuliani, 20% identified John Edwards, 12% identified John McCain, and 12% identified Mitt Romney. Other candidates (Biden, Huckabee, et al) had less than 10% recognition among the students. How could upper-level college students not know who the Presidential candidates were? The answer: Apathy. So, in like fashion, I think many South Carolina voters saw a picture of Greene a day or two before the election (he does look sharp in a suit) and liked him. I think some preferred a black candidate (his opponent was white). Some may have selected his name because it was the first one on the ballot. Some may even have thought that this was the Reverend Al Greene, famous R&B recording artist. But clearly, 59% of the voters didn’t know who the heck they were voting for.

This fall we in the U.S. will elect all our Congressmen, one-third of our Senators, many Governors, and thousands of local officials. Please take the time to learn about your candidates and choose based on their qualifications – not on their smile.

Thursday, July 1, 2010

Otis McDonald Gets His Gun

This week in a landmark decision on the American Constitution’s Bill of Rights the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that the Second Amendment (the right to bear arms) applies to individuals nation-wide, and not just in federal jurisdictions. The case was brought on behalf of a Chicago resident who wanted to own and keep a handgun in his home for personal protection.

For nearly three decades the City of Chicago outlawed the private ownership of handguns. The rationale for this ban was to minimize violent crime committed with handguns. But as with so many other social policies this control was driven by the search for a simple, black-and-white solution to a complex, systemic problem. Gun control advocates often blame gun ownership for violent crime, but the real problem is crime, not guns.

If we want to solve violent crime we need to alleviate the interrelated underlying causes. Unemployment, poverty, and social ostracism all create incentives to take by force what cannot otherwise be obtained. Weak and ineffective enforcement, including low likelihood of arrest, low conviction rates, and trivial sentencing removes key disincentives. Destructive gang or reference group value systems encourage criminal behaviors. Low quality education inhibits the vision of one’s potential constructive opportunities. And lack of positive intervention systems to assist with mental health and emotional guidance limit the ability for preventive measures. But all of that is rather overwhelming to understand. Trying to fix it all is even more daunting. Wouldn’t it just be easier to ban guns?

Washington D.C. banned handguns in 1977. By the 1990s the murder rate had tripled. In the years since handguns were banned, most murders were committed with handguns.

Chicago imposed the registration of all handguns in 1968. However, murders with handguns continued to rise. To tighten control the city implemented a handgun ban in 1982. Over the next decade handgun-related murders doubled.

With the promise of curbing violence, England confiscated all privately owned pump and semi-automatic shotguns in 1988. By 1998 they had also confiscated all handguns. By 2001 England had the highest violent crime rate among the top 17 industrialized nations.* And in 2002, London's Sunday Times reported that: "Britain's murder rate has risen to its highest level since records began 100 years ago, undermining claims by ministers that they have got violent crime under control."**

Sometimes the search for “Who’s to Blame?” can lead us to inanimate culprits. In the case of violent crime, those who want a simple answer choose to believe that guns are to blame. Until we aim at the right target, we will continue to miss the mark.

* John van Kesteren, Pat Mayhew and Paul Nieuwbeerta, "Criminal Victimization in Seventeen Industrialized Countries: Key findings from the 2000 International Crime Victims Survey," the Hague, Ministry of Justice, WODC, Onderzoek en beleid, nr. 187, 2000.

** A. Travis, "England and Wales Top Crime League," the Guardian, Feb. 23, 2001.