Government Gets Weaker as it Gains More Power

After a couple days of layman's analysis and digestion of others' assessments, I am standing by my initial reaction to the Supreme Court ruling on the Affordable Care Act. The ruling in effect says that while the Government cannot "make" you purchase insurance, it can penalize you for your failure to make that purchase, in the form of a tax. Legally, the Government cannot mandate your choices, but apparently it can levy a punitive tax on the choice you make. And it is all constitutional, so says the Court.

In many ways, this is nothing new. Gasoline has taxes that are paid by those who choose to drive. Alcohol has taxes paid by those who choose to drink. Smokers are taxed based on their choice to purchase tobacco. There are taxes everywhere, based on the consumption choices we make. Only now, we can be taxed by choosing not to consume.

Theoretically, we can now be taxed based on our non-participation in just about anything.

I can't remember where I read the following thought, so forgive me for not properly citing the reference, but in essence someone wrote that modern jurisprudence (the last 100 years or so) has perverted the original intent of the Constitution, which was designed to ensure the protection of our natural rights - those universal and unalienable rights that we have by virtue of our existence and sentience - against the potential tyranny of governments. In other words, the Constitution was established to ensure our liberty as citizens from overly oppressive forms of government. In the modern era, however, the Constitution is being interpreted to allow creative social engineering that involves the expansion of "rights" to include the wants, desires, and needs of special interests within our society for the common good (entitlements). The problem is that these views are in conflict with one another. There is no protection of an individual's right to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness when the Government actively and/or punitively intrudes on the individual's choices.

More and more, I'm coming to the conclusion that the more power the Government gains (power over its citizens), the weaker it actually becomes. Weaker in the sense that the system of governance we've celebrated for over 223 years no longer holds dear to the principles upon which it was founded. And for this republic, that's dangerous, because it means the American Experiment is coming to an end. The intellectual, philosophical and moral foundations that gave birth to America are fading into antiquity. That makes us weaker, even though on the surface the government appears stronger.

I cannot help but to think Roberts and this court took a sledgehammer to what will turn out to be a load-bearing wall. Decline is not inevitable. But what happens next, as it always does, depends on the choices we make.

Just be ready for the inevitable tax if you choose poorly.

Apparently, No Limiting Principle

Obviously it is early, and analysis of today's Supreme Court ruling on the Affordable Care Act (Obamacare) has just begun. But my first blush reaction is simply this:

The Court has ruled that Government can impose upon its citizens anything it wants - there is, apparently, no such thing as a limiting principle.

By limiting principle, I simply mean that line that limits what an elected government can do, the limits of its power. In the issue at hand, as long as a thing purports to be for the "common good" or "general welfare", then Congress has the power to create laws that force people into choices they would otherwise not make, eliminating at least in part their freedom to choose. Should any discriminatory group (think special interest groups) decide that a certain entitlement is a "right", then with enough votes in Congress and a willing President and a bureaucratic army of regulatory enforcers - what they say goes. Individuals will not have the right to "opt out" of these so-called mandates. Every individual must now, by law, be insured, and if not, must pay a penalty - a tax. It will be the insurance industry, in cooperation with the Government, that imposes that tax. By establishing this precedent, there truly is nothing to stop any other Government-subsidized industry from wanting to push for their own brand of universal entitlements to promote the "general welfare." All it will take is willing participants in the halls of power.

You know what other forms of government purport to uphold and impose solutions for the common good? Socialist forms of government do that. By act of Congress, signature of the President, and judgment of the Supreme Court, the social compact of our nation has gone from one that upholds as primary the ideal of liberty to one that seeks to engineer a better society "for the common good."

If this is our future, so be it. Elections have consequences, as they say. But whatever you do, don't try to pawn this off as a victory for liberty and representative democracy.

Because it is not.

Update: Knee jerk reactions are often just that, and I admit the above probably should be characterized as such. Reading more on the ruling seems to imply that the Commerce Clause (under which the mandate was first argued), cannot be used to prop up the law. Therefore, the only way to allow the mandate to stand is to specifically characterize it as a tax that must be implemented like any other tax. Congress has the power to tax. Of course, citizens have the right to express their opinions on such taxes through the ballot box. I still don't like the ruling, but it will be interesting to watch this play out over time.

Thinking of Colorado

Like so many, I've been watching the events in Colorado with an unsettling mixture of grief and horror. The fires that are ravaging that state, in particular the Waldo Canyon fire invading the confines of Colorado Springs, are catastrophic and uncomfortably captivating. I tried many times today to focus on my day job, yet found myself looking around for any and all updates I could find.

My folks used to live in the Springs, and I still have family in the state. My extended family has members that have been forced to evacuate, and at least one involved in fighting the fire.

At one point today, I was stricken with the realization that may explain in part why watching homes succumb to the inferno affects me so deeply. I know, in part, exactly what these folks are going through. Yet where the loss of my home came quickly and suddenly, there one moment and smashed beyond recognition the next, these folks are watching this disaster play out in slow motion in front of them, and on TV, each of them wondering when, or if, their homes will be standing upon their return. Surely, many are hoping against hope, praying as fervently as they know how for rain and wind to cooperate and end this unspeakable nightmare. I'm not sure which is a worse way to lose a home. But a loss is a loss, and the shock will last for some time.

Helpless as I am, I pray. Prayer is all I have right now, and encouragement that things can be replaced, a lesson I continue to absorb into my own reality and circumstances. The loss of a home is a terrible thing, but more terrible would be the loss of family, the loss of faith. Retain these latter two, we can all survive and even rejoice.

I wish you all, especially those in danger's path, peace and safety and grace. May the Lord be with you.

An Enjoyable Read: So Brave, Young and Handsome

Several years ago, my wife bought me a book to read based on a review she had read in one of her magazines. That book was a debut novel by Leif Enger, entitled Peace Like a River. Peace was a thoroughly enjoyable tale about a young asthmatic boy and an unfortunate family adventure across the upper Great Plains in the early 1960's. I'm not sure if it was an unsurprising affinity I held with the main character, or if it was simply the pure and inspired imagery of the prose, but I distinctly recall thinking that this was a book I could read again and again. I waited eagerly for the next work that I was certain would come.

Years passed, and yet there was nothing forthcoming from Mr. Enger. After a while, I stopped looking for new releases. That is, until a couple of weeks ago, when I went looking for a book to read during our brief vacation in Hilton Head. It was then I discovered that Mr. Enger did indeed have a second novel that went to print back in 2008 entitled So Brave, Young and Handsome. Yet again, I found myself quickly drawn into the author's simple storytelling, guiding the reader on an adventure as slow as a meandering stream and as fast as runaway rapids. Set in the early 20th century, So Brave is an outlaw tale, part old style Western, part Les Miserables and part Unforgiven, and once again I found an affinity with the protagonist, an accidental author who found success his first time out but great difficulty in reproducing that success. Indeed, it is hard not to wonder if there is a little bit of an autobiographical thread being offered. Nonetheless, as I did with Peace, I simply allowed the wonderful wordcraft to pour over me. One example is below, where Monte Becket is helping his mysterious neighbor build a boat:

While the water heated he handed me a block plane and showed me how to remove, by long angled strokes, curls of wood from the bow's rough stem. Paying no heed to my apprehension he set me working downward on the left edge, himself working upward on the right; stroke by stroke the bow grew more fluid and proportionate while curls slid down like ringlets and dropped in aromatic heaps. I could have shouted, could have wept, but Glendon was all business and wanted that stem just so. There was no talking for many minutes. When we finished my forearms were covered with shavings and I felt the weariness of a better man.

Simply delightful. Especially that last sentence. Just as gripping, to me at least, were the inner conflicts tormenting the heart of Monte Becket. Having once written a grand tale that he could only imagine but not possibly know, Becket would find that without this knowing he would never again be able to pen words with anything resembling passion until such time as life's experiences would offer him the fortune of a reawakened inspiration. These doubts and fears of fading into nothingness play out through the entire novel, and in its wake Enger leaves nuggets of wisdom that sometimes will catch the reader unaware.

One of the more delightful twists is the inclusion of a real life character into the story, Charles Siringo, an author himself and an agent with the Pinkerton Detective Agency. Wikipedia has a fascinating summary of Siringo's activities with Pinkerton, to include his involvement with Butch Cassidy's gang.

While my opinion matters little, I cannot but heartily recommend both of Enger's works. There are books I read that I know I'll never pick up again. Yet these two are both ones I hope I get a chance to re-read, simply for the pure, boyish fun of it.

Homeland Security Threat Level: Extinct

This one is just too amusing to pass up. Opening headline this morning: New York judge rules that Homeland Security can seize dinosaur skeleton from art storage company.

NEW YORK — One of the more unusual arrest warrants in U.S. history was issued today when a federal judge authorized the Department of Homeland Security to seize a dinosaur from an art storage company. There’s no need for handcuffs though. It’s been dead for 70 million years.

Uh, what? (And which is 70 million years old, the dinosaur or the art company?)

Created in the aftermath of 9/11, the Department of Homeland Security was established in part to bring several federal bureaucracies together under one umbrella, with focus on intelligence and law enforcement agencies. We all know about the color-coded threat level system. A little research on their website tells us that they are keenly focused on counterterrorism, border security, disaster-related activities, immigration and cybersecurity. I'm not sure how the apprehending of long-dead dinosaurs fits within their mission. We need a little more on this story:

U.S. District Judge Kevin Castel signed the warrant after finding there was “probable cause to believe” that the nearly complete Tyrannosaurus bataar skeleton is subject to forfeiture under U.S. laws. The U.S. filed a lawsuit against the skeletal property a day earlier, seeking to seize it for an eventual return to Mongolia.

…

The lawsuit said the Tyrannosaurus bataar skeleton was brought in March 2010 from Great Britain to Gainesville, Fla., with erroneous claims that it had originated in Great Britain and was worth only $15,000. It sold at auction on May 20 for more than $1 million, though the sale was contingent upon the outcome of court proceedings.

…

Tyrannosaurus bataars were first discovered in 1946 during a joint Soviet-Mongolian expedition to the Gobi Desert in the Mongolian Omnogovi Province. Since 1924, Mongolia has enacted laws declaring fossils to be the property of the government of Mongolia and criminalizing their export from the country.

Ok, so that makes a little more sense. The dinosaur shouldn't even be here, and it apparently made its way here under false pretenses. So maybe this falls under the Fraud & Counterfeit component of the Counterterrorism division. Or maybe the International Activities or Law Enforcement components of that same division. As with so many things about DHS, this one isn't exactly clear to me. Don't misunderstand - the Government is doing the right thing, if a relic such as this was indeed taken illegally from Mongolia. But it probably doesn't help DHS from a PR standpoint.

I guess it doesn’t matter. Until such time as some group of scientists decide to go all Jurassic Park on the world, we as a nation are safe from dinosaurs. Good to know. But I love this little paragraph in a related Associated Press article (emphasis mine):

Department of Homeland Security spokesman Luis Martinez says the skeleton will be moved to a government warehouse. He says the government cannot disclose the name or address of the storage site because other priceless antiquities are there.

Cool. Secret government warehouses filled with "other priceless antiquities." Indiana Jones lives!

A Short Getaway

Sometimes, you just need to get away. After 3+ months of fretting about tornado recovery and rebuilding concerns, I took the family away for a long weekend to Hilton Head Island. Admittedly, two 9-hour travel days gave it a rushed feel, but the two days in between were nice. We had good weather, good company, and overall a good time.

I know I've said this before, but there is something about the water that soothes me. Granted, I prefer a lakeside experience rather than the ocean surf variety, but it still brings a momentary peace that few other venues can do for me. Maybe someday I'll have the fortune to spend my retirement in a house on the lake, private dock, a skiff for fishing and maybe a canoe. I almost ache for that day.

I don't typically make a habit of putting pictures of my family online, but for this post, I'll make an exception. The photo below was taken outside Hudson's while we were waiting for a table. For whatever reason, there is something in this captured moment that goes beyond the surface, beyond the obvious. I don't have words for it, and perhaps that's the point. It tugs at me nonetheless.

I know the real world awaits - indeed it is banging on my door even now. But part of me remains, or longs to be, where the boy below appears to be now. If only captured moments could be as timeless as they appear to be in our pictures.

Wrestling with Writer's Block

Clearly, I've fallen out of the writing habit of late. Well, that's not entirely accurate. My workload at the office lately has involved a large number of writing assignments, so the majority of my resources have been diverted to those efforts. So now that I finally have time to sit down again and write for this blog … I'm drawing a blank.

So just for fun, I decided to see what the almighty Google had to offer.

This site suggests the hard-nosed, man-up approach to breaking writer's block: 1) Force yourself, 2) Write no matter what, 3) Embrace bad ideas (in the hopes it will trigger good, or at least better ideas, 4) Write about uncomfortable things, and 5) Publish something every day. On the whole, the hard-nosed approach is what I often take when I get stuck like this, but I'd prefer to latch on to a personal project of sorts that I'm passionate about. (Yes, I know that sentence ended poorly).

This site offers 15 tips to overcome the lack of ideas, which the author purports is always at the core of writer's block. His tips are basically suggestions for resources, such as: 1) looking at files on the computer, 2) browser bookmarks, 3) newspapers and magazines, 4) books and television, 5) old emails, 6) YouTube, 7) podcasts, and 8) good old-fashioned brainstorming. All of these are things I've tried, with some occasional success. But of course, the underlying challenge here is still finding something that not only interests me, but stands a reasonable chance of being of interest to others.

However, it was something that the author of this article said that I found rather illuminating:

For me, writer’s block often occurs when I’m uninspired or worn out from writing too much. Writing is an art like any other. You need inspiration to proceed, but too much work will wear you down and that inspiration will drain.

That is often precisely my problem. I produce a large amount of documentation for work on a regular basis, and sometimes it is indeed cognitively exhausting. Sitting down to work on personal writing projects, there just isn't anything left in the tank. And without a spark of inspiration to start the engine again, I just close the laptop and go off to do something else.

But I also know that if I allow myself to fall out of the habit of writing for personal fulfillment, it will be that much harder to get it going again. The hard-nosed way is really the only way for me, until a new project or essay idea comes along. The product of the hard-nosed way are posts like this.

See what I did there?

Until next time.

Ray Bradbury, RIP

Ray Bradbury, a renowned author of science fiction and fantasy, died last night at the age of 91. I haven't read Bradbury in many many years, but remember well reading several of his short stories, as well as Dandelion Wine and Something Wicked This Way Comes. Strangely enough, I have yet to set aside time to read his more notable works, Farenheit 451 and The Martian Chronicles. With regard to the latter of these two books, we actually have a leatherbound, authentically signed copy that we rescued from the storm rubble in March.

Looking through his bibliography, one cannot help but notice that even as he advanced in years, Bradbury kept writing. His last novel was 6 years ago, but he had published plays, short story collections even up to the past couple years. That's pretty remarkable. Rest in peace, Mr. Bradbury.

Little Black Spot on the Sun Today

Well, okay, it was yesterday. I missed the Venus transit across the sun, but if you search online, you'll find a number of fantastic photos and images of the event. And since we won't be around 100 or so years from now to see it again, we'll just have to enjoy the pictures. By far, the best one I've seen yet is the one below, taken by Eric Snitil of WSFA News in Montgomery. The photo itself was taken in my old Prattville stomping grounds. Click to enlarge.



(h/t: Eric Snitil)