Bill Cosby's Message of Empowerment

I am guessing that most everyone is familiar with the serenity prayer - grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change, the courage to change the things I can, and the wisdom to know the difference.

Bill Cosby seemed to be invoking that prayer at an event celebrating the 50th anniversary of the Brown v. Board of Education decision. In his remarks, he criticized the poor English used by so many in the black community and refused to view African-American criminals as victims.

Referring to incarcerated black males, he stated, "These are not political criminals. These are people going around stealing Coca-Cola. People getting shot in the back of the head over a piece of pound cake and then we run out and we are outraged, [saying] 'The cops shouldn't have shot him.' What the hell was he doing with the pound cake in his hand?"

While many conservatives jumped on these remarks as a finger-pointing "I told you so" opportunity to say that racism is not the problem, others saw them as an unnecessarily negative attack on the black community. Such responses miss the deeper context of his comments.

Rather than being a negative slam, his remarks were all about empowerment. The power to make personal choices that can have a marked impact on one’s own life. One can choose to make good decisions and one can choose to make bad decisions. While he focused on the negative choices that he feels are made too frequently, the underlying truth is that there is a choice.

So often, self-destructive behavior is the result of hopelessness. One gets laid off and has trouble finding a job. Frustration sets in and is taken out on those around us. Families break up, relationships are lost. Sorrows are drowned in alcohol and drugs. Self worth plummets. A vicious cycle sets in where our negative outlook only serves to reinforce and justify our self-destructive behavior.

It can happen to anyone, be they black, white, green or blue. Add the deleterious effects of racism, and that hopelessness can become overwhelming.

But there is hope. Sure, life is hard and often unfair. And while we may not have control over the external events in our lives, we have complete control in how we react to them. We can choose to get up in the morning. We can choose to believe in ourselves, no matter what anyone else says. We can choose to do the right thing. External factors can encourage us to do the wrong thing, but they cannot force us to do so. We as individuals have complete power over our conduct.

Making the right choices gives us the peace of mind that comes from knowing that no matter what life has thrown our way, we have made the most of our opportunities. To paraphrase, we have been granted the wisdom to accept the things we cannot change, the power to change those we can and the serenity that comes from knowing the difference.

That is what I get from Bill Cosby’s remarks. Make the right choices, do what you can do as an individual to better yourself and disregard those things that are beyond your control. Do not accept obstacles as excuses to fail but as challenges to rise above. Therein lies the wisdom.

What If Our Team Lost the War, Dad

The question came from my five year-old son sitting in the backseat of the car.

"Dad, what would happen if our team lost at war?"

After I did my double-take – our team, what, lost, war, uh, well, hmmm – I realized it was not a question I had really thought about.

Now, I understand that he was probably looking for some reassurance that we would be okay. That life would continue to be filled with school, baseball, fishing, bike-riding and all the other things that constitute life to a five year-old kid. But, darn if it wasn’t a good question. What would happen if we lost the war? And for that matter, what would happen if we won?

I first tried to tell him we don’t have to worry about losing because we have the best army.

"But dad, sometimes the best baseball team loses."

You’re not going to make this easy on me, are you son.

So I gave him the simple answer. "Well, if we win, the country we are fighting will be run by people who like us. And if we lose, it will be run by people who don’t."

But it’s not that simple, because defining victory isn’t that simple. We’ll have won when Iraq becomes a free and open democracy. When a thriving economy provides jobs for today and hope for the future. When investment in educational opportunities enlightens the citizenry and brings their society into the twenty-first century.

We’ll have won when people in neighboring countries witness the transformation in Iraq and demand reform in their own nations, leading to peaceful overthrow of tyrannical regimes and the establishment of democracy throughout the region. We’ll have won when a voice at the ballot box eliminates the need to make oneself heard through suicide bombings and terrorist attacks.

That’s when we will have won.

Anything short of that will be defeat. After all, this is a war on terror. If we do not eliminate tyranny, hatred and despair throughout the entire region, then the Middle East will remain a festering pool of warring factions, religious zealots and desperate fanatics bent on gaining the upper-hand at home and causing pain and destruction abroad.

So it begs the question, if those are our goals, if that is what constitutes victory, are we going about it the right way? Is victory even possible? There are no easy answers. In fact, there only seem to be more questions.

Have we simply taken the lid off centuries of hatred between Sunnis, Shiites and Kurds in Iraq? Will that hatred manifest itself as a bloody civil war? What if anarchy in Iraq spills over to its neighbors and we see turmoil topple autocratic, but relatively stable regimes in Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, Syria and elsewhere? What if radical Islamic fundamentalists bent on destroying western society gain control of the bulk of the region’s oil fields?

If any or all of those things happen, are we prepared to stick it out in the Middle East? Are we willing to put even more American lives at risk? Is putting more lives at risk the answer? How many lives?

So many questions, no easy answers. But they are questions we need to ask and answer. Otherwise, we’ll learn the answer to my son’s question. What if our team loses? It’s not one I wish to learn.

Don't Fall For Sound Bite Economics

My grandmother once told me the reason she was a Democrat was because FDR ended the Great Depression. I pointed out that it wasn’t FDR, but World War II that brought an end to the Great Depression. Since we had Adolph Hitler to thank for that, by her reasoning she should have become a Nazi. She laughed and said, "Oh, you sound just like your daddy."

Such exchanges between grandmother and grandson might be rare, but unfortunately, strongly held positions based upon such faulty assumptions are not. Too often, people latch onto an idea and hold it as gospel without even allowing for the possibility that the entire premise for their argument might be wrong.

Take the recent uproar over the job market. If you were to believe the news or the political ads, you would assume that our manufacturing sector is in the toilet, all the jobs are being shipped to China and as a result the economy is worse off than it ever was under Bill Clinton.

Well, guess what. You would be wrong, wrong and wrong.

Here are the facts. According to a report from the National Center for Policy Analysis, the U.S. output of real goods as a percent of GDP is higher today than in any decade since the 1930’s. As for jobs being shipped to China, would you believe that China has fewer manufacturing jobs today than it did just a few years ago? That’s according to BusinessWeek Magazine. And here’s the real kicker – the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics reports that the average unemployment rate during George Bush’s first three years in office was lower than it was during the same period under Bill Clinton (5.5% versus 6.0%).

So why all this talk about job losses? Well, part of the reason is a change in the way jobs are classified. In the past most companies handled all aspects of their business, from accounting to janitorial services. Regardless of the job description, if the company was a manufacturer, all its’ jobs were considered manufacturing jobs.

Today, many companies contract out tasks like payroll, accounting, programming and maintenance. Those employees now work for service providers and are classified as such. The jobs haven’t disappeared, they’ve just been reclassified.

Another reason for concern comes from dramatic improvements in productivity. In the short term, this causes dislocations among workers, but it eventually leads to an improved standard of living for everyone. If you don’t believe that, look back to Henry Ford’s revolutionary five dollar day. It almost single-handedly created the American middle class. But it came two years after Ford had devised the moving assembly line, which reduced the number of workers needed to assemble a car by eighty-six percent. The five dollar day would have been impossible without that improvement in productivity.

But the biggest reason that we believe the job market is in the tank comes from partisan politicians who hope that if they repeat a claim often enough, it will become ingrained as truth among voters. The danger in creating phony problems is that it opens the door to phony prescriptions that have nothing to do with solving the problem, but everything to do with fulfilling personal political agendas.

We can accept what others want us to believe, or we can choose to learn the facts for ourselves. Democracy demands that we do the latter.

You Can't See Bias Through Biased Eyes

I once watched an episode of ER where a small child had been shot while playing with his mother’s gun. At the end of the episode, the child’s mother tells the doctor that she doesn’t know how to thank him for saving her son. He replies, "Get rid of the gun."

My thoughts exactly. An obvious bit of commonsense for anyone with young children. But the next day, a talk radio caller complained about the anti-gun message being pushed on ER the night before. And it suddenly hit me as to why some people see media bias so clearly where others see none.

One person’s truth is another person’s slant. To someone like me, who has no agenda whatsoever where guns are concerned, the doctor’s prescription was as innocuous as suggesting a couple of aspirin. But to someone who holds their second amendment rights dear, the advice was another example of media bias against guns.

I saw another example recently on Fox’s The O.C.. Set in California’s ritzy, Republican enclave of Orange County, everyone is rich, conniving and self-absorbed. Except for the Cohen’s, who are rich, thoughtful and benevolent. And the show’s writers have seen to it that we know that they are Democrats.

Now to those on the left, that may not appear to be bias. They have one common stereotype of the wealthy – that unless they are liberal, they must have made their fortune by lying, cheating and stealing at the expense of the little guy. To them, portraying the wealthy that way isn’t bias, it’s reality. Unfortunately, those images have been reinforced so endlessly in the movies and on TV, that they have become the conventional wisdom among much of the general public.

That is a shame, because in my experience I have yet to meet a wealthy scoundrel. Almost without exception, every successful person I know has gotten there through honest, hard work – with equal emphasis on honest and hard. Nothing more and nothing less. But you’d never know it from the movies.

Still, bias isn’t always the result of the writer or producer’s unknowing world view. Oftentimes, especially in the news media, the reasons are a bit more calculated.

TV news is especially suspect. While they claim impartiality, like everyone else they live and die with ratings. Therefore, anytime they can tell a story from an underdog’s point of view, they will.

Take the reporting on the silicone breast implant issue a few years ago. No major study was able to definitively link implants to any of the diseases women were suffering. And the media knew it.
Yet, rather than reporting the facts as they were, they chose to play up the suffering women, who were a far more compelling story. They would have them tell their tearful stories, interspersed with shots of the huge corporate complex and middle-aged executives denying responsibility. An incredibly damaging juxtaposition. No matter that Dow Corning was unjustifiably forced into bankruptcy, costing people jobs and investors billions. The women made for good TV.

So when someone says there is no bias in the media, they are wrong. It exists in both news and entertainment. If we can’t see it, it’s because we are viewing it from our own biased perspective. Just as you can’t see the color red through rose-colored glasses, you can’t see bias through biased eyes.

What's a Billion Dollars to You?

What’s a billion dollars? Well, for most of us it’s a whole bunch of money. For others, like congressmen and senators, it’s a scrap that they treat like the loose change rattling around in my sofa. They talk about a billion for this program, ten billion for that, as if they are doling out quarters to the kids for the gumball machine.

Well, here’s another way to think of a billion dollars – it’s the equivalent of about $3.50 for every man, woman and child in the United States. Or fourteen dollars for a family of four (you can do the math – a billion divided by 280 million people). All of a sudden, a billion here, ten billion there means $14 here, $140 there for good old mom and dad. Pretty soon, you’re talking about real money. Our money.

So that means that the typical family of four will pay $5,586 this year to support our military. The House version of the proposed highway spending bill will cost about $875 annually. And we’ll pay $805 for the U.S. Department of Education.

Now that last one’s a real kicker when put into perspective. With a combined population of 78,000, West Chester and Liberty townships will send about $16 million to Washington to fund the Department of Education, but will only get back a little more than $1 million for Lakota Schools. We could have foregone the entire levy mess had we simply kept that money at home. But heaven forbid anyone suggest cutting out the Department of Education.

But if you really want a shock, look at healthcare. This year we’ll spend almost $1.7 trillion – that’s trillion with a ‘t’ – as a nation on everything from aspirin to Zoloft. That works out to a little more than $6,000 per person each year. And you wonder why health insurance costs are going up?

We’ve got a drug for everything. High cholesterol? There’s Lipitor. Heartburn? How about some Nexium? Heck, we’ll spend nearly a billion and a half dollars, or about five dollars per person, just on Viagra this year. Combined, these three drugs will cost the average American about forty dollars, or $160 per family, this year alone. And not one of them existed ten years ago.

Now I can already hear some of you saying, "But I don’t take Viagra." It doesn’t matter. We all pay one way or another through higher insurance premiums.

And the same holds true for government expenditures. We may like to think that corporations and the wealthy pay a heftier portion of taxes than we do, but trust me, we all pay. When corporate taxes or gasoline taxes or user fees go up, those costs are passed on to us in the form of higher prices, lower wages or lost jobs.

When the wealthy get taxed we lose out on their investment in the economy, which leaves us all poorer, despite what some would have us believe.

So what can we do? Well, healthcare deserves more space than I can give it here. But when it comes to government spending we must educate ourselves about how our money is being used and how much it costs us personally. And then never let Washington forget that it is our money they are spending, a billion dollars at a time.

Consider The Social Security Opportunity

Federal Reserve Board Chairman Alan Greenspan started a firestorm last week when he warned that we face financial and economic calamity lest we cut future benefits for Social Security and Medicare. Immediately, politicians – especially from the left – began referring to the suggestion as outrageous, or worse.

Therein lies the reason that anyone under the age of forty-five who expects to see any type of Social Security payment is nuts. For there are three things certain regarding Social Security – we need to take drastic action to save it, we need to start taking that action now, and the politicians in charge will do neither.

But before we crucify Greenspan and anyone else who seems remotely intrigued by his suggestion, let’s look at the situation for the challenge and opportunity it is.

First, we know that the baby boomers – the oldest of whom are nearing sixty – will soon become a huge liability on the Social Security books. We also know that there are countless deficit demagogues who decry the fact that we are financing our lifestyle today by mortgaging our children’s future.

But that is precisely how Social Security was designed. It’s a pay-as-you go system that promises that if we pay for today’s retirees, then our children will pay for us when our time comes. The only problem is that the boomers will be passing through the system like a rodent passes through a snake – one big mass, with little following behind.

In other words, there will be more people collecting and fewer people paying. So the only solutions are to cut benefits, raise taxes or both. Those on the receiving end don’t want benefits cut because they feel entitled to them since they paid into the system their entire lives. But taxing the next generation isn’t fair either. It’s not their fault that their grandparents chose to have lots of kids, and their parents chose not to.

But this is where the opportunity comes in. With a little leadership, sacrifice and compromise we might not only save Social Security, but positively transform our society for generations to come.

Suppose we apply the concept of privatized Social Security accounts as a supplement to, rather than as a replacement for, our current system. Maintain current benefits and taxes, but require every worker to put a fixed amount, say three percent of their pay, into an untouchable personal retirement account.

Then when the person begins receiving Social Security, their SS benefit is reduced by an amount determined by the annual return on their personal investment account, say by fifty cents for every dollar the private account earns in a given year. Since the size and earnings of these accounts would be larger the longer people are paying into them, the amount of savings to the system will grow the further into the program we get.

Think of all the benefits – we start to pay for our own retirement now rather than leaving it up to our children, we reduce the burden on the system as we retire, we maintain a basic floor of benefits at the current level and we create an entire society that has an ownership stake in our nation’s economy.

Yes, we’ll have more taken out of our paychecks, but it will remain our money. And if we leave less of a burden for our children, won’t that be the best benefit of all?

Defense of Marriage Act Does No Such Thing

[Note: A 2021 op-ed piece looks back at the country's attitude towards gay marriage at the time this was written.]

Remember when the federal government added a luxury tax on yachts in an effort to make the wealthy pay for their success? Instead of soaking the rich, blue-collar workers felt the sting of public policy as yacht sales fell and layoffs exploded. That is known as the law of unintended consequences – a law that government seems to have an innate ability to put in motion.

Now we are likely to see it in action again as we rush to protect the institution of marriage through the Defense of Marriage Act. This law, which provides no incentive to get or stay married, is somehow supposed to strengthen marriage. Ironically, it is likely to have the opposite effect as corporations work around the ban on same-sex marriages by offering domestic partner benefits, which have become quite common as companies work to recruit and retain homosexual employees. Under such programs, the live-in partner receives the same health insurance, pension and other benefits traditionally offered only to spouses. Many of Ohio’s largest employers already have such programs in place.

However, in an effort to avoid discrimination, many of these programs include both homosexual and heterosexual couples since employers do not want to be in the business of asking about sexual orientation. Thus, a man and a woman no longer need to commit to marriage in order to receive the benefits previously available only to legally-recognized spouses.

Suddenly, shacking up brings all the benefits of marriage without its legal pitfalls. Couples can live together, sleep together and share in the company retirement plan without worrying about divorce, alimony or the spouse’s credit card debts. Under such no-lose circumstances, why not simply live together for benefit purposes, even if you’re not sure you really want to commit for a lifetime. If it falls apart in a year or two, no harm done.

That is a recipe for disaster. Eventually, marriage risks becoming a quaint custom like formal business attire – sure it looks good, but a little too restricting. And just like our wardrobes, our relationships become a casual matter of convenience.

None of this would be an issue if homosexuals were allowed to formalize their relationships with the same legal commitments as heterosexuals. We would reduce both gay and straight partnerships of convenience, which is certainly in society’s long-term interest. But in our headlong rush to sweep homosexuality under the rug, we are willing to undermine the very thing we seek to protect.

Of course, permitting same-sex marriages will not strengthen our current institution of marriage. But outlawing it risks weakening it. As much as some may decry it, we live in changing times. Homosexuality is becoming much more ingrained in our culture. We can choose to invite gays to share in the customs and institutions that have served our society well for hundreds of years. Or we can shut them out and allow an alternate culture to develop where commitment is but a fleeting concept. That is a culture war we should avoid at all cost.

Do We Have the Right to Take a Life?

Well, Lewis Williams is dead. He was executed recently for the 1983 murder of an elderly Cleveland woman. I guess I should feel better now. But for some reason, I don’t. Instead I feel sorrow.

It’s not because he didn’t deserve to be punished for his crime. It’s not because it took more than twenty years for the sentence to be carried out. And it’s not because he went into the death chamber kicking and screaming.

In fact, my sorrow isn’t for Lewis Williams. It is for us as a society. It concerns me that we not only feel the need to knowingly and deliberately take the life of another human being, but that we also feel we have the right to do so.

Now don’t get me wrong. These are not the thoughts of some sentimental bleeding-heart who is blind to the evil inherent in some people. I have watched trials of child killers and various other heinous criminals and found myself quietly hoping they receive the death penalty. That raw emotional desire for vengeance is a part of human nature.

But that and all the other valid arguments in support of capital punishment – deterrence, punishment, economics, closure – don’t make it right. And here’s why.

We must view human life as sacred, not because religion tells us to, but because a civilized society demands it. I do not believe that anyone has the right to determine – certainly not in a premeditated way – that another human being deserves to die. Capital punishment does precisely that.

We need not respect the individual, but we must respect the life of the individual. To do otherwise lessens the value that society places on all human life. That we would spare someone, no matter how vile they may be, is the greatest testament to the value we place on life.

I have heard the argument that we are better than “them” (the criminals), but capital punishment is not what makes us better. If anything, it lowers us a little closer to the criminal’s level. It makes a judgment that certain lives are less precious than others. As hard as it may be for us to accept, I do not believe that is our judgment to make. That decision should be left to God, and God alone.

It is based upon this belief that the argument for capital punishment on economic grounds - the “why should we pay to keep them alive” argument - is so troubling. It is precisely because we value life and are willing to bear that cost that makes us “better”. If we begin with the assumption that respect for life is paramount, then all the other arguments regarding punishment and deterrence become moot. But that is a big if. We may talk the talk, but it is another thing entirely to walk the walk.

I’m not sure I could do it. If anything were to happen to someone dear to me, I’d probably be leading the charge for vengeance. But I would hope that society would be there to restrain, rather than inflame, the animal instinct.

In the end, it is not cost, nor vengeance, nor deterrence that should guide us on this. It is respect for human life and the understanding that when it comes to ending it, we, as imperfect human beings, are not the ones to make that judgment.

Campaign Finance Reform and Free Speech

Originally appeared in the Cincinnati Enquirer, December, 2003

If they ever exhume the body of Thomas Jefferson and find him laying face down, there is a good chance that he assumed that posture on December 10, 2003. That is the date that the U.S. Supreme Court drove a stake through the heart of the First Amendment by upholding a key provision of the McCain-Feingold campaign finance law that bans special interest groups from running issue ads just before an election. Old Mr. Jefferson surely rolled over in his grave.

In one fell swoop, the court sharply curtailed the meaning of free speech, as well as the right to peaceably assemble and to petition government for a redress of grievances. For what is a special interest group if not an assembly of citizens with a common cause, brought together to petition our leaders. These are basic rights that are central to a free society.

Some may argue that the attack ads that have become so commonplace are not what our founding fathers had in mind when they drafted the Bill of Rights, but in today’s electronic age, TV and radio have replaced the town square as the primary meeting place where ideas and issues are discussed. The Court’s ruling that the Constitution does not guarantee us a place in this marketplace of opinion marks a dark day for liberty.

In a society as large and dispersed as ours, the individual voice is lost among the barrage of messages coming from all directions. But just as a chant at a crowded sporting event gives a unified voice to the masses, so does a special interest group give a voice to us as individuals. Whatever our pet cause, be it pro-life, pro-choice, the environment or social security, we multiply our impact when we come together as one. That is just as the founding fathers intended when they granted us the right to peaceably assemble and voice our opinions freely.

We have no one to blame but ourselves as we watch our liberty stripped away from us. Those that are rejoicing that special interests have had their comeuppance need to realize that the political parties and the politicians themselves still have access to vast sums of cash that they can use to fill the airwaves. That they can speak, but we are forbidden to do so, smacks of an almost Orwellian system. We risk becoming a society with a ruling class free to say whatever they want the people to hear, while we the people are excluded from the debate.

What can be done? Well, in the good old days, like-minded freedom-loving people could have united to air ads that point out the politicians who are working to dismantle our freedoms. But today, we will just have to hope our leaders have our best interests at heart. I wouldn’t count on it.

But Ain't That America

I always get a kick out of watching the opening ceremonies at the Olympics. Without knowing which nation you are watching, you can almost always guess what part of the globe they are from by their athletes' similarities in appearance. Not the United States. We are recognizable not by our similarities, but by our diversity. That subtle reminder of the success of our nation's founding creed that all men are created equal never fails to bring a lump in the throat and tears to the eyes.

Well that feeling pales in comparison to the emotions I felt when I had the privilege of attending my neighbor’s American citizenship swearing-in ceremony. If you ever need a booster-shot of national pride, I strongly suggest you attend one of these ceremonies. It is a microcosm of all that is right with America.

There were sixty-seven people, from thirty-four nations, speaking in unison as they swore allegiance to the United States. While each spoke with their own native accent, together they blended into one voice that was uniquely American. It was a voice made up of people from Canada and Mexico, China and the Ukraine, New Zealand and Cameroon. That is the true voice – and the clarion call – that is America.

For centuries, wave upon wave of immigrants have come to America seeking a better life for themselves and their families. Each new group, be they the Catholics of Ireland, the Jews of Eastern Europe or the Chinese of Asia have faced resistance and resentment. Yet each has forged ahead to build not only a better life, but a better America.

While some may decry the fact that today’s immigrants are not as European or as Christian as those in days gone by, they are just as American as their predecessors. Their energy, traditions and experiences only add spice to the American stew. And unlike those of us who are American by birth, these people are American by choice. There is a lot to be said for that.

Watch an old World War II movie sometime. Invariably, each outfit seemed to have an Italian, a Jew, an Irishman and a Pole. This was a pretty accurate reflection of our fighting forces at the time. Then consider that each of these kids was probably the son of someone not born in America. Those immigrants came here looking for a better life, then were willing to sacrifice their most precious gifts – their children – in defense of their adopted home. What more could we ask of our newest citizens?

That tradition continues. Among the new citizens at the ceremony that day were two people in uniform for the U.S. military. Here were two people already prepared to defend the liberty they had yet to fully experience.

And that brings us to the final reason people long to come to the United States. We take our freedom for granted, but for many immigrants it is a foreign concept in the truest sense. As the presiding judge pointed out, while some may have been forcibly precluded from participating in the public discourse in their former lands, here they are not only permitted, but expected to take an active role in shaping their government. I bet they will.

The ceremony closed with the judge leading everyone in the singing of God Bless America. It was only fitting. After all, this most American of songs was written by a Jewish Russian immigrant. Only in America.