Save a Flag, Burn the Bill of Rights

Here’s a chicken and egg type question. Does teasing cause kids to run home and get mom to fight their battles for them, or does running home to get mom cause them to get teased? It’s a dynamic I imagine we are all familiar with. We all probably ran home at one time or another, but for most of us, our moms or dads simply told us that if we ignored the abuse it would stop. Be strong, be resilient, and no one will mess with you. And they were right.

I thought of that as I looked upon all the American flags flying during the Fourth of July holiday. Strong and resilient. Able to withstand the slings and arrows some might throw its way. A symbol of a country that knows it’s not perfect, but tries its best everyday. And that flag flies proudly everywhere you look. We don’t need to be prodded or encouraged to fly it—we do so because we love and respect the flag and all it represents.

Yet, once again, we are running home to get mom to fight our battles. A proposed constitutional amendment banning flag desecration has passed the U.S. House of Representatives and will soon go before the Senate. It is a misguided notion that will neither protect the flag, nor make our nation any stronger. All it will do is raise the stakes for those who would burn the flag, making it a more enticing target. And in the process, we will desecrate the single most important thing that the flag represents—our Bill of Rights.

For all its beauty and glory, it is not the flag, but the freedoms guaranteed in the first ten amendments to our Constitution for which millions have fought and thousands have died. In the two hundred-sixteen years since they were adopted, we have never tinkered with those amendments. They are as close to sacred as any secular document can be. They are worth fighting and dying for. Yet we are ready to chip away at those very freedoms in order to give ourselves a false sense of security.

There are those who argue that burning the flag is not speech. In a strict sense, they are correct. But why would anyone deliberately desecrate the flag except to express displeasure with the United States. When it comes to discerning what is or isn’t speech, especially when it involves dissent, we should always choose to err on the side of liberty.

We need to keep in mind that dissent was precisely the type of speech our founding fathers sought to protect when they wrote our constitution. As distasteful and moronic as burning a flag might be, it is certainly an act more worthy of protection under the free speech clause than pornography or offensive art-- both of which have found refuge there.

And what will we gain from a ban on desecration? Unlike other crimes, from speeding to murder, where fear of getting caught acts as a deterrent, flag-burners want to get caught. Notoriety is what they seek. If we turn our heads and ignore them, the act serves no purpose and therefore loses all allure for those who might consider it. But make it a crime and suddenly they can attract attention. Is it that far-fetched to envision some group organizing a mass flag-burning, leading to mass arrests? It is a publicity seeker’s dream-come-true.

There was a time when the Cadillac emblem represented the very best of American ingenuity. But when they put the crest on a revamped Chevy Cavalier, the emblem lost its luster. It wasn’t the emblem, but what stood behind it that gave it weight. The same is true of our flag. We love it because it represents what makes our country great. Yet if we decide that we are too weak to accept criticism, too insecure to ignore the actions of a few ignoramuses, it too, will become an empty symbol—one which will not be worthy of the love we now give it.

It is not the insult, but one’s response to it that is the true measure of one’s character. The most respected individuals are those who can shrug off the words and actions of others whose opinions are meaningless. That they do nothing is a sign of strength, not weakness. Let us all demonstrate our nation’s strength by letting our flag fly high in all its unprotected glory.

What We'll Do For a Green Lawn

While we sit and sympathize with the residents of Lexington Manor, who have seen their neighborhood turned into an EPA Superfund site due to lead and arsenic contamination from a former firing range, we may be unwittingly creating the same mess in our own backyards.

Last week, in a fit of landscape envy, I decided something needed to be done to get my lawn to look as deep green as those of my neighbors. People in the know suggested an iron supplement would do the trick, so I went to my local garden center and bought a product called Ironite. According to the label it is a natural source of iron, zinc, calcium and other micronutrients. Perfect. Too bad the label didn’t list everything that was inside the bag.

A Google search on the product turned up reports that Ironite is also a natural source of arsenic, lead, cadmium and a host of other hazardous heavy metals. And not just trace amounts. Minnesota Department of Agriculture tests showed arsenic levels of 3,000 to 6,000 parts per million, or about 1,000 times higher than those found in other lawn care products. Lead levels were about 3,400 parts per million. Now I am no scientist, but by my rough calculations I figure that my four bags of Ironite contain about a half pound of arsenic and almost as much lead. So how did all this stuff get in there?

It turns out that the ‘natural’ source for Ironite is derived from the tailings of a former silver mine in Arizona. Under any other circumstance the source for Ironite would be considered a hazardous waste, but a loophole in the federal law not only exempts mining wastes, but makes it difficult for states to regulate the sale of products made from them. Ironically, it is recommended that any unused Ironite should be handled as a hazardous waste when disposing.

To be fair, the manufacturer of the product claims that the hazardous components in Ironite are trapped in minerals that make them safe for general lawn care. So safe in fact, that their web site compares the product label to one on a box of breakfast cereal. I am not sure which breakfast cereal that could be, but in my mind I have a picture of the Incredible Hulk downing a nice bowl of heavy metals.

Perhaps the product is safe, but it seems disingenuous to claim it is natural and compare it to cereal. At the very least, the label should carry a complete list of the compounds found in the product. That way the consumer could make an educated decision whether or not to use it. But that may be exactly what the manufacturer fears most.

What really scares me, though, is that despite what I have learned about Ironite, I still tried to rationalize using it on my lawn because of my deep-seated desire for green grass. If I am willing to rationalize away the risks in pursuit of green grass, is it that far-fetched to imagine the manufacturer rationalizing away the risks in pursuit of another type of green.

Commissioner Mike Kilburn Got His, Now Stay Out.

Warren County Commisioner Mike Kilburn's proposal to charge impact fees up to $10,000 for new homes and apartments represents selfishness of the utmost degree.  He wants to penalize others who seek nothing more than what he and his forebearers sought when they chose to live outside the city.  It is today's equivalent of building a walled city to keep the undesirables out.

It is a fact that our population continues to grow across the country.  Unless we wish to stack people up in ever denser urban areas, new development is inevitable.  Some see new development as unwanted and an invasion of their own personal domain, but none of us has any more right to affordable open spaces than anyone else.  

Impact fees may help protect individual communities from unwanted growth, but at the cost of limiting housing opportunities for all but the wealthiest families.  The result will be a community even more divided along financial lines - and that cannot be good for any of us.  It is time to break with the "I've got mine, to hell with you" attitude and realize that we are all in this together.  It is that realization that makes for a true community.

The Beauty of Baseball

Why I love baseball...

A child can appreciate the roar of the crowd and a mouthful of cotton candy. A casual fan enjoys seeing their 'favorite' player come to bat and hopefully a victory by the home team. The fanatic can pore over statistics and argue ad infinitum about the value of OPS versus BA versus OBP.

Baseball is ideal in its dimensions and rules. How else to explain that a runner and the ball both reach first base within but a second or two of each other on virtually any cleanly fielded ground ball. Or that a pitched ball has time to curve before reaching home plate, but not so much to make it consistently un-hittable or un-catchable. Or that a team may lose 11-2 one day, then turn around and beat the same opponent 10-3 the next (or 1-0).

Beauty can be found in the infield fly rule.

My father can love baseball for its history, I can love it for its intracacies, my wife can love it for its outdoor summer setting and my four year-old can enjoy it for ice cream and the chance to yell 'Griffey Junior!', (even if he's not playing).

What a game. Play Ball!

Interpreting the Law Undermines the Rule of Law

 In a tyrannical or totalitarian state, the law is whatever the person or persons in charge of enforcing the law decide it is. This leaves the people at the mercy of the leader, with no clear understanding of what is legal and no recourse against despotic acts. 

The strength of our system of government is that it is based upon the of rule of law. Consistency in enforcement and interpretation, along with avenues for redress of grievances provide safeguards against the whims of the ruling class. Deviation from following the law as written erodes the security that comes from the law. If the rights as outlined in the Constitution are defined by interpretation of the law, then those rights are only as secure as the interpretation itself. In other words, no right is protected - only 'suggested'. A change in interpretation leads to changes in what is protected and what is prohibited. 

Many seek to find guarantees of specific rights in the constitution, then fear that a different interpretation will take away that right. If the right is dependent upon an interpretation, then it is no right at all - it is a whim. If you desire a right, specify and codify it by amending the Constitution. Seeking to 'interpret' rights into the Constitution weakens the rights that are specifically guaranteed therein by leaving all to the whim of those who sit on the Supreme Court. 

[Addendum September 5, 2025:  My opinions have evolved greatly since I first wrote this, largely because I have studied the original Constitutional Convention and learned that there were strong arguments against including a Bill of Rights for fear that delineating specific rights would result in some arguing precisely as I did above - that rights not specifically defined are nonexistent. It is why I have written often about the risk that seeking pro-life justices to serve on the Supreme Court puts more than the right to abortion at risk, since doing so practically requires finding justices who have a narrow, rather than a broad, view of the rights guaranteed by our Constitution. As one who believes in individual liberty, I now find that view anathema to a free society.]

Neither Candidate Has an Ideal Plan for Social Security

Neither candidate has a perfect plan for Social Security.  Al Gore's ignores the problem and does nothing to solve the fact that current Social Security taxes will not cover the baby boomers when they retire.  His plan to pay down the debt, then pay for Social Security from the interest savings is a back-door maneuver to use funds from general revenues (in other words, money that comes from sources other than Social Security taxes) to pay for benefits.

George W. Bush’s plan to use part of the surplus we now enjoy from Social Security taxes would allow us to use the time between now and 2015, when Social Security starts running a deficit, to get a better return on the money paid into the system than is now the case.  In the long-run, this is probably the better of the two plans, though the period between 2025 and 2045 (when many of the boomers will be gone) could be dicey.

There is a third option, with some trade-offs that might, just might, make it possible to get something done.  Here it is:

1) Take Social Security “off budget”.  In other words, do not include Social Security surpluses or deficits in the total federal budget calculation.  This would clarify the actual budget picture and prevent politicians on both sides of the aisle from hiding the true picture of our financial situation from the American people.

2) Go through with Mr. Bush’s tax cut plan, but only in exchange for elimination of the income cap that will stop Social Security taxes at $80,000 in 2001.  Effectively, the wealthy would get a much smaller net tax cut, while company matching would help make up the difference in revenue.

3) Allow people the option to invest 2% of their Social Security taxes in approved investments.  While many shudder at the thought of government regulation, perhaps there could be some type of minimum certification for mutual funds or other risk-spreading investments that would make them eligible for Social Security investing.  The goal would be to set a standard (i.e. average return, volatility rating, fund size, etc.), then let fund managers strive to hit the standard, if they so choose.  This would minimize some risk, while still keeping the government out of direct approval of specific stocks or funds.

4) Cap the 2% private investment to the first $80,000 of income.  This would happen today under Mr. Bush’s proposal anyway, but with the elimination of the $80,000  cap everything paid on incomes over $80,000 would go into the Social Security trust fund.  This would extend the solvency of the fund for basic benefits.  A little actuarial work can determine the correct investment caps.

The primary goal of this plan is to assure that Social Security can stand on its own.  If it is unable to do that, we face a world of hurt under any scenario.  Yes, guaranteed benefits may need to be reduced and means-testing may be necessary, but if we can develop a generation of investors with significant personal nest eggs, those realities will not be as painful.

The argument has been made that the stock market is too volatile, too risky.  Yet since the inception of Social Security the Dow Jones Industrial average has generated a 7.3% average annual return.  The S&P 500 has done even better, sporting better than an 11% return annually.  For a worker making $40,000 a year, his investment in a fund tracking the Dow would be worth $250,000 after 45 years of earnings.  A dual income couple making $80,000 would have built a nest egg of nearly $500,000.  Portfolios of this size provide a great deal of security for seniors.

It must also be remembered, that if the stock market were to stagnate for years, it would be a reflection on the economy as a whole.  Traditional Social Security funding would not be able to support the system under such circumstances either.

At some point, we will have to move from a pay as you go system.  Given our current surpluses, now appears to the our best opportunity to do that.  Mr. Gore’s plan is really no plan at all.  His so-called “lockbox” is an illusion (the Atlanta Journal-Constitution, which endorsed him, calls it fraud.)  Mr. Bush’s plan, which is bold and worth pursuing, can be made to work with some actuarial work.  But the time to act is now.

Hate Crimes

It's interesting, if I'm walking in the park with my wife and someone makes an unwanted advance at my wife and I deck him, I get charged with assault. If he makes an advance on me and I deck him, I get charged with a hate crime. Same offense, same outcome, different charge. 

Therein lies the problem with hate crimes legislation. It forces us to get 'inside the head' of the perpetrator, which is a very dangerous place to tread. 

We have to ask what the objective of a suggested hate crimes bill is. Is it to increase the punishment for a hate crime? Or is it to make us feel better that we are doing something' to stop something despicable? The way I see it, the type of small-minded idiot who would commit a hate crime isn't going to be dissuaded by a law that makes it illegal. If the simple fact that it is illegal were a deterrent, the laws against murder and assault would have prevented the crime in the first place. 

I understand that we want to demonstrate our concern by passing a law, but at what cost. As I said, hate crime laws require us to get 'inside the head' of the criminal. I'm not sure that a bigot's head is worth getting into. Why create martyrs for the other idiots to rally around. 

We need to enforce the laws we have equally, no matter who the victim or the criminal. I will not argue that frequently the laws are not enforced equally, particularly with regard to minorities. Rather than enacting new laws, however, lets ensure that everyone gets equal protection under the laws we now have. In the long run it will go much further in promoting trust and more importantly, justice for all. 

Letter to the NY Times: Bill Clinton

As stated in your lead editorial today (12/20/98) regarding the issues now in front of the U.S. Senate,  ...they and the country face the problem of dealing with a battered President whose calculated strategy of lying over the airways and under oath has prolonged this crisis...".Therein lies the real dilemma.  We have to ask, are we better off with a senate trial and conviction, a meaningful censure that diminishes the President, or a resignation.  Those are our options and none are pretty.

It is unfortunate, but Mr. Clinton has permanently lost credibility with a large portion of the American public, including many who would like to see him continue as President.  We can hope that no serious crisis arises during the next two years to test his ability to lead, but that may be dangerous wishful thinking.  Is it really in our best interest to see Mr. Clinton finish out his term, or are we simply blinded by our desire to deny his opponents the satisfaction of his removal?  They are separate questions and we must decide the former without regard to the latter, difficult as that may be.

The Global Implications of Bill Clinton's Character

Bill Clinton’s presidency is being rocked by scandal that should come as no surprise to anyone who has followed his history of twisting the truth and denial of wrong-doing (can anyone name one instance in which he was forthright in admitting any failing on his part?).  While it may appear that the substance of this scandal (an alleged illicit affair with a White House intern and subsequent attempts at cover-up) is trivial, the underlying moral vacuum that gave rise to such a situation has vast policy and national security implications.

The nation and the world currently face a major geopolitical threat in Saddam Hussein and his apparent stockpile of weapons of mass destruction.  Facing down this threat will require a leader with the moral authority to act from a position of strength, a position that our president cannot claim at this moment, and probably never could.

Some (though surprisingly few) will argue that this crisis is the result of George Bush’s decision not to pursue Saddam at the end of the gulf war, thereby letting him off the hook.  Upon closer evaluation, however, one can see that the decision to end the war when we did was our only realistic option.

We must remember that the coalition that fought the gulf war was a fragile one at best.  It required skillful diplomacy to gain support not only from our closest allies (Great Britain, Germany, France, Canada, etc.) but also from traditional opponents of U.S. policy including Syria, Iran and the Soviet Union (let us not forget that the Soviet Union was still in existence at that time).  Incredibly, we also secured Israel’s neutrality despite their historic hatred and distrust of Iraq.  Gaining this commitment required an incredible amount of trust in our word – both in assuring Israel that we would defend them and that we would not over-reach on our objectives, which would have caused untold outcry in the Arab world.

This coalition was built upon a series of commitments made by the United States, and enacted through the United Nations, that the ultimate objective of any military action taken in the gulf would be solely to force Iraq out of Kuwait.  While it is entirely likely that we could have easily driven into Baghdad, successfully removing Saddam was more problematic, and even then was more likely to create havoc than avoid it.

Consider the implications had we gone beyond the original intent of the war.  Simply going into Iraq would have violated the UN resolutions and called into question our credibility.  Given the widespread animosity toward the U.S. in that part of the world (particularly the view that we are an imperialist nation intent on domination), there can be little doubt that the support from the region’s nations would have evaporated quickly.  At that point all bets are off and we are no longer the leader of a moral and universally accepted action, but instead a reckless and untrusted intruder in the region.

Even if the coalition did miraculously hold together, removing Saddam was not a simple matter of finding and eliminating him.  There is no way that we could just go in, get him and get out without leaving a power vacuum in one of the most volatile (and economically desirable) nations on earth.  We would have found ourselves in the unenviable position of either 1)  trying to install a new regime whose legitimacy would have been under immediate suspicion, or 2)  finding ourselves in the role of occupying conqueror in one of the most hostile places on earth. 

Neither of these outcomes are either desirable or workable.  Consider our effort at installing democracy in Haiti.  This is a nation so weak that our first attempt at landing Marines there was met with a rag-tag group of inhabitants wielding sticks and machetes.  Yet it was just last month, nearly three years after being virtually welcomed in, that we were finally able to withdraw the last of our troops.  Compare that to what we would have encountered had we tried to impose a new government in Iraq.  The quagmire could have made Vietnam look like a mere blip by comparison.

Of more concern than trying to rule an unruly nation, however, would be the damage done to our credibility among all nations.  Why would anyone ever trust our word again in any conflict in which we sought to take the leading role.  It is a position we simply could not afford to find ourselves in.

As a result, we stood by our word and decided to use the coalition to force Saddam into compliance with terms of surrender through use of embargoes and inspections.  For eighteen months the coalition held firm and progress was made.  However, there was a change in leadership in the U.S. and the coalition has steadily broken down.  Today, not only are Syria and Iran no longer reliable supporters of inspection efforts, but neither are such expected allies as Kuwait, Saudi Arabia or even France.  Part of this is due to economic pressures arising from desire for Iraqi oil, but mostly it is due to the lack of leadership from the United States.

Unlike politics in the U.S., where we are easily swayed by style and sound bites, in the world of diplomacy only two things matter – the strength of your convictions and the trustworthiness of your word.  Unfortunately we have a president who possesses neither.  While it was popular during the 1992 election to dismiss Bill Clinton’s prevarications as insignificant, demanding instead that we  “stick to the issues”, his character did matter and today we are paying the price – not for a silly sexual dalliance in the White House, but for a lack of power and prestige arising entirely from the character flaws we so cavalierly disregarded six years ago.

Open Minded?

On more than one occasion I have heard a person of liberal persuasion consider themselves open minded due simply to the fact that they are liberal.  Their argument is flawed however, in that they believe the substance of their opinions, in and of themselves, demonstrate open mindedness, when in reality it is how one arrives at those opinions that is the determinant of whether one is open minded.

The ironic part of all this is that liberal opinions generally arise from emotional rather than intellectual considerations and therefore have little to do at all with “mindedness” of any sort.  This fact also helps to explain why liberal concepts are easier to sell in sound bites and general mass media.

Emotional appeals demand only a passive response; intellectual appeals demand an active response.  Emotional appeals make you feel good, happy, sad, angry or any other of a host of “emotions”, requiring no effort or action on the part of the individual.  The response is natural and immediate.  On the other hand, intellectual appeals require effort on the part of the person the appeal is directed toward.  They require one to think, consider, evaluate and extrapolate data, ideas and concepts to come to a reasonable conclusion.  This demands an active response, which is more than many people are willing to do.

Henry Ford once said, “Thinking is the hardest work there is, which is probably why so few people engage in it.”  Hence, the majority of people are unwilling to invest the time or effort needed to consider intellectual appeals and are instead content to react emotionally.  The emotions that conservative principles are most successful at generating are ones of anger – at welfare recipients, beneficiaries of affirmative action policies, over-reaching unions, bloated government etc.   If one does not like being angry – and most people don’t – they are likely to be repulsed by such appeals.  Yet if one makes the effort to consider the appeal intellectually – that welfare recipients will be better off and happier if they look to themselves rather than government for improvement in their lives; that we can never be a truly color-blind nation until we stop classifying and dividing ourselves by race, gender and ethnicity; that unions who strive to preserve jobs made unnecessary by technological improvements are holding wages down for everyone; that a government that cannot end the subsidy of mohair farmers (a remnant of our need for mohair during World War I) should not be allowed to decide which new technologies should be supported today – then they may come to very different conclusions about conservative appeals.

Democracy requires an active and knowledgeable electorate.  Unfortunately, we are negligent in our responsibility to learn and think.

It is wonderful to be open-hearted.  It is vital that we be open-minded as well.  We just must be willing to make the effort.