President Bush yesterday announced that the presidential directive that has impeded oil exploration and development offshore and in ANWR is no more. He has taken action that clears the way for Congress to do the same. I am very grateful, and I know that many readers are equally grateful.

In response to this move, Nancy Pelosi has predictably stated that it means nothing. She complains that it will not do anything to lower gas prices today. What she failed to announce in her great wisdom is anything that actually will lower gas prices today. Why did she not declare the real solution that will reduce the price of gasoline in an instant? Because nothing any of us can do will have that effect.

President Bush’s announcement appeared to have a temporary, but noticeable, effect on the futures price of crude oil, which dropped about $8 at the time of his announcement. That fact suggests that if Congress acts to remove the remaining barriers to domestic exploration and production, crude oil futures prices might drop a bit more. Think what those prices might do if more domestic oil actually hits the market.

Nancy Pelosi, Harry Reid, Barack Obama and a lot of other socialists preach continually that increased domestic production is a long way off, and they preach loudly that this action will not reduce gasoline prices right away. When asked what will have a better impact, they inevitably say that the solution is the development of alternative energy sources. When they make these pronouncements, they imply the “development of alternative energy sources” equals “lower gasoline prices at the pump.” This is real poppycock, or maybe even a more aromatic substance than that.

Research in alternative energy sources is likely ten years from achieving any of the goals for which it is hyped. Even T. Boone Pickens who has all the money anybody could want says that his program of research and development of alternative energy sources will take about ten years. Moreover, there is no guarantee that all the research and development anybody, including T. Boone, has in mind will produce anything that even remotely provides the efficiency of energy production from petroleum. Maybe it will, and maybe it won’t. We can hope, but nobody can promise. Hmm. It will also take about ten years to bring domestic production from new fields online. When domestic crude enters the pipelines, we will have a source of energy that actually works. It is efficient. It is reliable. We don’t have to devise new technology along with the new sources. Therefore, if we start all the options at the same time, it is highly probable that ten years from now, the USA could be energy independent using petroleum. In addition, a great deal more will be known about alternative sources, which will put us far along the road to energy independence when the petroleum reserves are depleted.

We must push Congress to remove the remaining barriers to oil exploration and production offshore, in ANWR, in the shale reserves – everywhere. The USA must not be held hostage to environmental paranoia. Oil production today is vastly different from oil production during the West Texas Black Gold rush days. A new well is not permitted to “gush” these days. And a productive well has a footprint that doesn’t bother either caribou or dolphins. There is no reason the choke American productivity and limit the freedom of American life over the false notion that producing oil is bad for the world.

Congress has some really strange ideas. Or maybe they have changed since yesterday. Last I knew, they were all traveling back and forth in airplanes between Washington, DC and their home states. They are all driving cars, or riding in cars driven by others. They have heat and light and air conditioning in their homes. To my knowledge, none of them is riding a bike to work and using window ventilation coupled with funeral parlor fans for personal cooling during the DC summers. Members of Congress happily use all the oil products they think they need. It is time for them to get real and get out of the way of domestic oil production.

Our Congress looks more and more like a socialist government. In the world of socialism, the “people” are all treated alike. They all get food, healthcare and gasoline at the expense of the government, if they get it at all. Each one of the “people” gets in line for his “fair share” of whatever there is – bread, medicine, gasoline. However, outside the class of all “people” is the class of “government leaders.” That class is special. It gets in line for nothing and has all the possessions and privileges that are simply not available to the “people” because there isn’t enough to go around. It is time for us to tell the class of “government leaders” (read that “Members of Congress) to back away from the trough.

Members of Congress need and use the energy output of petroleum products. The rest of the country wants the same privilege. Tell your congressman to remove the barriers to domestic oil exploration and production now.

The community of Fremont, Nebraska, is considering a city ordinance which will make illegal immigrants unwelcome within its city limits. In response to this action, the Nebraska Mexican-American Commision said it was disappointed with “racial and anti-immigrant remarks” and urged denunciation of “racism and intolerance.”

I, for one, am tired of hearing the words racism and intolerance hauled out every time some group advocates philosophies and actions which defy reason. Here is a community that is willing to do what our federal government is seemingly unwilling to do – defend itself from a foreign invasion. The Constitution supposedly lists national defense as one legitimate role of the federal government, but that government is not doing its job against invaders on foot who are willing to do gardening at substandard wages.

What does this nation really stand for? Aren’t we supposed to be the shining light for freedom and opportunity? We welcome immigrants all the time, but when we take them in, we want to know who they are and why they are here. Among other things, we don’t want them to be abused by people who take advantage of their undocumented status to pay them undocumented wages which would be illegal and immoral if paid to a person with legal status.

There are other reasons to put a stop to illegal immigration. In the USA we have laws which rightly prohibit hospitals from denying treatment to people who need it. It would be completely inhumane to do otherwise. However, a community inundated by illegal immigrants may also discover that its hospital has been inundated by illegal immigrants who are not able to pay for the care they receive. They don’t have insurance, and they don’t have money. The money they earn is inadequate for the family at the outset, and a lot of that money goes back to Mexico, so when they get sick or have babies or have other health issues, their only recourse is to force a hospital to provide free healthcare.

Who pays for this free healthcare? We, the legitimate citizens and legal immigrants, pay the bill. We pay it in higher healthcare premiums for our own insurance, because the hospital charges must be adjusted upward to compensate for the patients who cannot pay. We pay it if we have no insurance and must pay our bills ourselves. We pay it in higher taxes because Medicaid is charged more due to the costs incurred for non-paying patients. I could go on, but I will move to a new subject.

Illegal immigration also overwhelms school systems. Public schools in this country were a statement by the early citizens that education is very important in a free society. They had the idea that knowledge of reading and writing, along with a broad education in the arts, history, science and math would be important skills for free enterprise and wise voting. Historically we have all agreed with that concept, and as free people voting within a representative government, we tax ourselves to pay for schools for the children of citizens and legal immigrants. Advocates of illegal immigration think we are pretty cheap when we don’t want to tax ourselves even more in order to provide education for the children of illegal immigrants.

This whole problem overflows into all corners of our economy and our culture. The very idea that our citizens might need to learn Spanish in order to communicate effectively with illegal immigrants, who don’t even belong here, is preposterous. Let all the immigrants learn to speak English, and let the illegals go back to some place that speaks the language they want to hear.

I consider myself to be tolerant and sympathetic to many human problems. I have sympathy for people who want to come to the US but can’t get in legally. They aren’t getting what they want. But I don’t believe everybody can or should get what he wants. There are very good reasons to manage immigration. There are good reasons to control the pace and the volume of immigration. Who knows? Maybe if we dig deep enough, we will find that illegal immigrants are part of the reason we have economic issues in our country today. How much of our local, state and national budget crises can be traced to illegal immigration overwhelming all sorts of public services?

I completely support legal immigration. I completely reject the idea of tolerating illegal immigration. I believe that most thoughtful citizens agree with me. It isn't racism. I don't make any distinction related to race, which is, by the way, a fake kind of classification. It is intolerance, but it is very wise intolerance, the same kind of intolerance I show to a snake who has slithered into my house. How do we get this stopped? Fremont, Nebraska, is on the right track.

Barack Hussein Obama is the candidate of hope and change. It appears that we do not need to hope for change in the future. We already have change. Obama is delivering exactly what he promises. What a candidate!

Just look at all the change he has delivered already.

When we first heard a word from the New Messiah, Barack Hussein Obama, he went on record with a commitment to end the war in Iraq. He led us to believe that if he were elected, before he even sat down in the Oval Office, he would get the troops out. No discussion. No alternatives. No kidding.

Now we hear a different story. Something about assessing the situation and adjusting the withdrawal to the realities. What a man! He can change his mind and change his words, and he tells us that this is not a change of message. A real wizard of change is Barack Hussein Obama.

On the subject of NAFTA, we have been hearing Obama lambast the whole idea for months, threatening to confront our trading partners with a demand for new terms if he were elected. When he needed to confront and defeat Hillary Clinton, who, understandably, supported NAFTA, he was aggressive and critical of the whole idea, saying, "I think we should use the hammer of a potential opt-out as leverage to ensure that we actually get labor and environmental standards that are enforced."

But now, Obama, the candidate who promises change we can believe in, has changed his position and declared, “I’ve always been a proponent of free trade.” The candidate of change has demonstrated his skill. We can undoubtedly hope now to see even more change as the pace of the campaign escalates.

We should not have been so surprised. Obama has actually been showing us how to change since the beginning of his campaign. We all remember that when he was still trying to help us know how to spell his name (including directions that his middle name, Hussein, is not to be mentioned), and when he was worried that we would all think he was an Islamic fascist, he made a big point of telling us about the Rev. Jeremiah Wright, his mentor. The Rev. Wright had supposedly led him to a Christian conversion, officiated at his wedding, baptized his children and counseled him in personal growth. The Rev. Wright was important in his life, and we all waited eagerly to learn more about Obama’s formative years under the tutelage of the Rev. Wright.

However, the candidate who promises change we can believe in made a believer of us for sure. When we found out that the Rev. Wright teaches his church to curse America and hate anybody who isn’t black, we saw Candidate Obama change in a flash. We saw him change the Rev. Wright from a beloved mentor to a casual acquaintance to Jeremiah Who? In the twinkling of an eye the reverend went from a national icon to a has-been. This is change we can all believe in.

Of course, we should have been prepared. Isn’t Barack Hussein Obama the candidate who told us about being reared by his grandmother only to change her value as a human being to zero by calling her a “typical white person?” Barack Obama is the candidate of change, all right.

We need to pay more attention to Obama’s changes. It would appear that absolutely nothing is too important to change. His admiration for his grandmother, his respect for his pastor, his deeply-held concern that free trade harms American workers, and now his commitment to bring the troops home from Iraq – all these ideas were subject to change.

It makes a confused voter wonder. If Barack Hussein Obama were actually elected president, unthinkable though it is, what other wonderful changes could we hope for?

Obama is using hundreds of fine words to say nothing again. The latest nothing purports to affirm a commitment to government funding for faith-based initiatives. Before conservatives and evangelicals swallow Obama’s latest poison disguised as pablum, they need to read the fine print. They must pay attention to all those words, skillfully crafted to hide the truth that any money handed out by an Obama administration comes with some strings that look more like manacles. There is nothing faith-based about government money, and if Obama’s government hands it out, it will come with the provision that the “faith” part be expunged in practice. The faith-based initiative that takes money from a socialist will soon find that expressing the faith on which the initiative is based will be the first big prohibition.

Obama uses a pretty word as bait to lure his prey within reach. Obama calls his plan a partnership. Listeners would be well advised to remember what a partnership is like. The one with the most money usually calls all the shots, because of the risk of losing all that money. Remember the saying, “He who pays the piper calls the tune.” If an Obama socialist administration hands out money to anyone, the administration will decide what faith that money underwrites. Socialism pays lip service to humanitarian goals that sound like Christian service, but Christians who want to perform humanitarian service the Christian way need to think twice before they take money from a socialist who wants to perform humanitarian service the socialist way.

Hear Obama’s own words:

“First, if you get a federal grant, you can’t use that grant money to proselytize to the people you help and you can’t discriminate against them – or the people you hire – on the basis of their religion. Second, federal dollars that go directly to churches, temples and mosques can only be used on secular programs.”[1]

There are several red flags here for people who serve the community as an outgrowth of their Christian obedience to God. (Because I am a Christian, I can’t pretend to speak for the impact on other faiths, but I suspect there is a lot of similarity.)

·        When Christians help other people, they always let the people know that the act of love is an outgrowth of the love of Christ within themselves. When I read what Obama says, I ask myself if he would expect to forbid that simple testimony.

·        When Christians set up programs to help others, they routinely expect the people who work for the program to live by the same principles as themselves. When I read what Obama says, I ask myself if he would even allow those principles to be considered as bona fide occupational qualifications.

·        When Christians do anything as an expression of their faith, they speak about their faith, they give thanks to God, and they point program participants to the same faith that blesses the program leaders. The word proselytize, embedded innocently in Obama’s statement, warns the reader that any attempt to say something such as, “I know that Jesus loves you, just as He loves me,” would likely be classified as an infraction of the contract between the payer, Obama’s socialist administration, and the payee, a faith-based initiative, initiated as an act of loving obedience to the Lord Jesus.

·        Finally, Obama says that his administration would fund only “secular” programs. That is a nail in the coffin for faith-based initiatives. When a church sets up a shelter for women who are abused, it does not do it as a secular program. It takes this action as an act of love and care for people that is consistent with a living faith in Christ. It isn’t about simply putting a roof over their head and food in their mouths with no regard for the whole person. Faith-based initiatives operate on the principle that we are servants of each other, modeling our behavior on Christ who came to be servant of all.

Obama may profess to be a Christian, but his Christianity is in a box. Most Christians do not consider their faith to be in their “religion” box, separated completely from the rest of their life, which is in a “secular” box. For the Christians I  know, our faith is not part of us; it is us. Christianity is not just some abstract belief in God. Christianity is a way of life, and everything in our lives happens in the context of our faith. We cannot help people without sharing our faith. If we try to do that, then we are lying about ourselves.

Obama clearly believes that Christian faith, or Jewish faith, or Islamic faith, or any other, can be set aside for humanitarian reasons. Most believers in any faith say that their faith informs their lives. They can’t take it off like a jacket and hang it up at the door of a humanitarian program.

It has always been risky for anybody to take money from anybody else. That aphorism about paying the piper really does apply in most instances. It would be a lot easier for faith-based initiatives to keep their distance from money handed out by a socialist than for them to keep their distance from the “faith” part of their initiative, if their faith actually means anything. Conservatives and evangelicals need to remember one truth about Obama: Obama is a socialist, and socialists put their faith in government. A socialist will only give money to a faith-based initiative in order to prevent that initiative from acting with any faith. Beware.

There are two candidates for president of the United States, and one of them will be inaugurated in January, 2009. The primaries for this election lasted longer than any I can remember, and now the election season will also be the longest I can remember. Both candidates have been clearly chosen even though the party conventions are still two months away. In November, voters will select either John McCain or Barack Obama to be the next president of the United States. I will vote for John McCain.

One reason I support McCain is his position on the war in Iraq. John McCain is committed to victory in the war on terrorism, and one part of that victory is the emergence of Iraq as a republic where free people engage in free enterprise and elect their own political leaders. Military victory against the enemy government was only the first step toward the real victory. After five years of struggle, the free nation of Iraq is still maturing. Iraq does not want to be anybody’s pawn, but if left alone, it would be overwhelmed by terrorist partisans who will use its religion, its treasure and its freedom to destroy everything the citizens have worked and prayed for. McCain has pledged his continuing support until the real victory is won and the people of Iraq enjoy the freedom to pursue life, liberty and happiness just as we do.

I am proud that he takes this stand. The war against terrorism is more difficult than most wars, because there are no boundaries to define combat zones or even combatants. This war is being fought intensely in Iraq and Afghanistan, but it is also being fought around the world at all times. Every time we get on an airplane we are reminded of it. Before the war on terror, I could jump out of my car twenty minutes before takeoff, hustle through the check-in and run down the concourse, through the gate and onto the plane at the last minute before the door closed. If the gate agent knew me, she might not even look at my boarding pass. Those days are over, because everybody who gets on an airplane needs to prove that he or she is not a terrorist. That is just one of the many ways the war on terror touches us even though we are far from any “combat zone.”

John McCain has said that he is committed to fight this war with victory as his goal. He has said what President Bush has also said; namely, that this kind of war could last many, many years. Fighting terrorism is a lot like fighting termites and cockroaches. No matter how many you exterminate, there always seem to be more. The threat is never over. If McCain means what he says, he will stand firm against terrorism and stand firm for the protection of our nation, even if it means that the war is still not over by the time he leaves office.

Obama, on the other hand, is already preparing to cut and run. It seems not to bother him that withdrawing American troops would leave the fledgling democracy of Iraq out in the cold. Obama is so ignorant that he actually believes he can talk with terrorists and persuade them to be nice. Nobody that ignorant should ever be president of the USA.

The day I watched the World Trade Center collapse into a pile of rubble, I was terrified. I had never seen such a thing. My parents had never seen such a thing. The idea that anybody in the world felt entitled to push his political objectives by means of the wanton murder of thousands of innocent people who could not be considered anyone’s enemies was alien to anything I could even imagine. Everybody I encountered that day was as terrified and horrified as I was. On that day, we all knew that somebody wanted us gone, and we felt determined not to let it happen. President Bush stood strong in that time of crisis and promised that we would do what it took to find and destroy the enemy who had done this. He never promised anybody that it would be easy, and he never promised anybody it would be quick. In those days, even Democrats wanted to find and destroy the enemy.

President Bush has never lost his commitment to the war on terror. John McCain is firm in his commitment as well. Terrorists hate George Bush, and if John McCain is elected, they will hate him as well. The terrorists love Obama, and they love the Democrat agenda of withdrawal from Iraq. If we had no other way to know which candidate to pick, that message alone should do it. It does not make sense to elect as president the candidate most beloved by our sworn enemies.

Check what John McCain is saying about the war. Check what Obama is saying. Then double-check which candidate Osama bin Laden wants. Which candidate would Hamas pick? That research should bring you to the conclusion that John McCain is the better choice for president. We have only two choices. The perfect candidate isn’t running, whoever that may be. I will be voting for John McCain.

When James Dobson criticized Barack Obama’s hermeneutics and theological analysis, Obama was quick to respond with a political barrage. Obama has the notion that Christians will like him if he talks about the Bible. Yet he knows that he cannot really adopt any particular interpretation, because that would immediately alienate those who follow some other. Therefore, he has attempted say nothing in a lot of words. Dobson has called his hand, by pointing out that his words don’t have any real meaning. Like the glib politician he is, Obama accuses Dobson of perverting the truth.

If anyone is perverting truth, it is Obama. I am not a follower of James Dobson, but I agree with his statements that Obama distorts the Bible and offers up an equally distorted interpretation of the Constitution. Obama has a reputation for promoting change and hope in his exalted speeches, but when you dig deep into his words, you find nothing. Empty words. His biblical interpretation and his Constitutional interpretation are empty words. They may come across as distortions, but if you read closely, they simply a cover-up for Obama’s unwillingness to tell us what he really thinks.

One of my dearest friends is a Democrat. She grew up Democrat, and in her adult life, she has always voted Democrat. She is a true believer in the liberal interpretation of the Constitution. However, even she observes that Obama is an empty suit. His speeches are full of words put together in a meaningless combination. Since her Ph.D. is in literature, I think I can rely on her ability to interpret words. Before she talked with me about Obama, I already thought his speeches were full of fluff, but I would have been willing to hear from her that I had missed something. Without any help from me, she volunteered that she will not vote for Obama, even though he is the Democrat candidate, because she has no idea what he stands for. She plans to vote for McCain. She said to me that she could not vote for Obama because, “I don’t know what kind of change he wants me to hope for.”

One of the problems with listening to Obama talk about religion, the Bible, or any other topic is that, if he is challenged, he changes his words. No matter what words he says today, if anybody really fights his words, he simply changes them. He told us that Jeremiah Wright was his spiritual mentor, but when people learned the kind of mentor Reverend Wright was, then Obama told us he never meant to imply that he actually learned anything from Reverend Wright. In other words, we were dumb to think that the word “mentor” meant “mentor.”

Likewise, when Obama talks about abortion, he cleverly calls it a “divisive” issue. Obama is nothing if not inclusive, so anything divisive is anathema. In his “landmark” speech about religion in 2006, he admonished religious leaders not to be “divisive.” The body of the speech implies that standing firm on any principle is the same thing as being “divisive.” Therefore, when I read his comments about abortion on his website, I interpret him to mean that any principle rejecting abortion as immoral is “divisive.” Apparently, condoning and maybe even encouraging the murder of babies still in the womb wisely avoids “divisive” speech. Furthermore, he classifies real human embryos wanted for stem cell research as “excess,” thereby excluding them from the human race rather than divisively advocating for their right to live. This language certainly avoids the stain of being “divisive.” It also avoids standing for any real principle.

James Dobson accused Obama of distorting the Bible to fit his own worldview. Obama is not alone in doing that. Lots of people quote or misquote the Bible for their own purposes. However, most of them are not running for president of the United States; their interpretations do not have the potential to affect our lives in any major way. If Obama were elected president, his interpretation, or misinterpretation, of the Bible would be important. He wants us to believe that his faith informs his acts. What little we can see of his faith makes me fear his acts. Among other things, I expect we would hear that his socialist agenda is an outgrowth of his interpretation of the Bible. Socialism is a dangerous political disease that hides behind the mask of kindness to others. A slick talker like Obama will surely try to make us believe that the gospel according to Karl Marx is simply a deep interpretation of the Golden Rule.

When election day comes, I will join my Democrat friend in voting for McCain. The continued strength and security of the United States is too important to take a chance on Obama. I don’t want any of the changes he hints at, even though it is extremely hard to guess what they might really be. I hope that many voters will see through his facade. I will vote for McCain. I hope you will join me.

Election rhetoric is full of proposals for programs of all kinds. Candidates promise us that they will enact laws that solve problems and change people’s lives. History teaches us that it doesn’t work that way.

Programs do not transform people. The best they can do is to expose people to a different way of living. The people may or may not internalize what they see. The history of programs to address social need is that we spend more and more money without reducing the incidence of crime, hunger, disease or ignorance. A program works by enrolling participants, giving them services or training or money, and then graduating them when they are ineligible or the program is defunded. At the end, there are a lot of people who have been through the program. None of them is transformed by it.

For over 70 years this country has been creating and testing programs to address poverty, hunger, crime, education, healthcare, etc. If throwing money at problems would solve them, our problems would have been solved ten times over. Instead, it appears that each program has a few moments of glory and not much else to show for its existence. In the river of human grief the programs should address, there is hardly a ripple to show for all the government money that has been spent.

Socialism is a political idea that sounds a lot like the social and moral dimensions of Christian teaching: from each according to his ability, to each according to his need. Unfortunately, when this idea that sounds so kind is cloaked in bureaucracy and when the definitions of need and ability become political footballs, the society that results is more oppressive than the worst thing we have ever seen in a world of free people engaging in free enterprise to make profits. Social themes become the tools of terrible oppression when they do not grow out of transformed lives.

Barack Obama is the messiah of socialism. He preaches that government will take care of the citizens. All they need to do is give to government everything they have, and the government will give them back what it thinks they need. Government gets to decide what they need, too, and those who decide need more than anyone else. That is the gospel of socialism.

We must defeat Barack Obama. This country can’t afford Barack Obama. I will vote for John McCain, because I do not want to live in the Union of Socialized Americans.

I take umbrage, extreme umbrage, at a statement by Barack Obama which included the phrase, “typical white person.” He was referring specifically to his white grandmother, but I took it as a slur against all white people, including me. He can apologize all he wants, and he can reword his statement as many times as he likes. The fact is that Barack Obama discriminates against white people. Barack Obama is a complete racist.

I don’t plan to sue him for hate speech. I won’t mount a petition drive for reparations due his vile racist speech. But I am warned. I will not stand still and let a bigoted racist candidate win without a fight.

Some people are explaining and accommodating the Obama statement so we will all understand it as a simple account of something that happened to his grandmother. Politicians who are running to the Obama campaign in droves want us to see this phrase as mere triviality.

If “typical white person” is a triviality, why is “gollywog runway model” a racial slur?

If you are still reading, thank you. My point is that it is easy to make anything into a racial slur if that is your agenda. We need to remove the whole notion of racism from our political process. How?

There is one way and one way only to end the power of racism in this election and in our life as a nation. Forgiveness. A person who has been harmed by something that is ended can end its harmful power by means of forgiveness. Racism as a political and social agenda no longer exists in the USA. It only lives in the reactions of people to words and deeds that have no hurtful power.

The people who were oppressed by slavery in this country and the people who inflicted slavery on them are all dead. The people who were oppressed by post-emancipation segregation and the people who oppressed them are mostly dead. The laws which created and enforced segregation have been removed. The people who stir up the most outrage over racism today are people whose very lives are a positive testimony to the end of racism in the USA. Whoopie Goldberg. Michelle Obama. Barack Obama. Charlie Rangel. Jesse Jackson. Every person in public life who makes a career out of stirring up sensitivity over racism is a person who would not be in public life if racism were still what they claim it is.

If I follow the example of these people, I will truly make a campaign out of Obama’s racial slur against white people. It doesn’t matter that he can’t hurt me by saying that. It doesn’t matter if he never says any such thing again. If I act like the Michelle Obamas of the world, I will stop being proud of this country and I will demand apologies and reparations and revenge for my personal outrage at the disrespect for white people expressed in Barack Obama’s slur.

Let’s get racism out of the election. Let’s quit making up tales about an issue that is not an issue. Racism is over. Forgive. Ignore. Move on.

I hope a lot of people scratch their heads over the title of this blog. I hope that some will even challenge my grammar. If so, it will help to make my point. We have an expensive education system in this country, we claim to make it available to every possible student, but it is obvious that our citizens are not universally well-educated. Why is that a problem?

If we have any doubts that whatever we are doing in the realm of education is not producing educated people, we have only to read newspapers or view television news. Today’s news includes an interview with a woman who believes that a lot of people lied to her, and that is why her house is currently inundated by the Mississippi River. NOAA or the USGS lied when they mapped out a “100-year” floodplain. FEMA lied to her when they told her that the levees built to hold back the Mississippi in flood would not fail. Her bank lied to her when it said that she did not need flood insurance. Every conclusion she drew from the information available to her points to one fact: this woman is not well-educated.

A good education is critical to a society of free people. Free people do not expect government to take care of them the way a nursemaid cares for a two-year-old. They expect to evaluate their own risks, using their minds educated in the skills of analysis and critical thinking. They expect to make their own decisions to accept risk or protect against it. They are able to read statistics and understand that statistics are not prophecies. They read history and understand that engineers plan as well as they can with the information they have, but bridges still fall down and levees still break. They make decisions in their own best interests, not based on wishful thinking.

This woman made numerous mistakes that she would not have made if she had a good education.

First, when she heard or read the words “100-year floodplain” she interpreted it as a rule, not an analysis. She clearly believed that a 100-year flood would occur only once in 100 years. She did not know that the statistical analysis that produced a map with a “100-year” floodplain marked on it had actually produced only an average of the inundations of many floods. The analysis suggested that, based on whatever information was provided, this floodplain would be inundated about 10 times in any 1000 years. If all the information was 100% correct, and if the algorithm used to produce the statistics was 100% correct, and if all weather and water and terrain remained unchanged for 1000 years, then it could be assumed that the 100-year floodplain would be inundated about 10 times during that 1000 years. Maybe only 9 times. Maybe 11 or 12 times. Possibly, all the 100-year inundations would occur over 10 years in a row. And of course, this calculation does not account for all the floods in the “500-year” range or the "90-year" range or other possible ranges. This woman jumped to the conclusion that if a 100-year flood has occurred, we know it will be 100 years before there is another like it. Whether she failed to pay attention in school, or whether the school failed to teach her about statistics, the consequence is that she has a deficient education.

Second, this woman believed whoever told her that the levees beside the Mississippi would hold back the floods. Anyone who has read any history of flooding along any river knows that nobody can actually promise that a levee will not fail. The history of attempts to manage the Mississippi by building levees is full of evidence that levees fail. A principle of a good education is not to jump to conclusions or believe things people say without evidence. A person who lives in the floodplain of any river must know the history of flooding and be prepared to deal with very real risk. Whoever built the levee had good intentions and no doubt used the best engineering available. However, any person who would believe the statement that the levee would not fail could only have such faith if that person were ignorant. Whether the woman failed to listen when her teachers taught her about researching the truth of public utterances or whether the teachers never taught this material, the consequence is that she has a deficient education.

Third, this woman chose not to buy flood insurance simply because her bank did not require it. I can’t guess why the bank did not require it, but the bank’s decision not to require it did not exempt this woman from assessing her own risks and making the decision herself. In a free country, free people make these decisions and take the consequences. In a free country where flood insurance is available, her decision not to buy it cannot be blamed on the bank. She is free to choose to be insured or not, but it isn’t the fault of anyone but herself after she makes her choice. Whether this woman failed to listen when her school taught the responsibilities of free citizens in a free country, or whether her teacher never tried to teach this truth, the consequence is that she has a deficient education.

The Founders who wrote the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution of the United States knew that the electorate in a free country required good education. People cannot and do not make good choices for themselves as private individuals or for the country as voters unless they are well-educated. The news of the woman who accuses everyone but herself of failing to protect her in this flood is iconic for its depiction of the consequences of a deficient education. In the current presidential election campaigns, we are hearing some vague references to the need for good education and a few suggestions that more money will help. I believe that we need to think more deeply about the meaning of our freedom and the personal and civic responsibilities associated with freedom. If we citizens of this country do not have the courage and the education to assess our own risks and make decisions about risks we will either accept or mitigate, then we will inevitably turn to government to take care of us and we will lose all our freedoms.

Socialism is a caretaker government. At least, that is the disguise under which it operates. In fact, socialism takes very good care of government minions and very little care of the citizens. Under the mask of equality for all, socialism robs citizens of the earnings from their productivity and dribbles back to them only enough for survival to produce more. All the wealth of a socialist country lies in the hands of government. The citizens are robbed and oppressed. The USSR, where people stood in line for toilet paper and soap, showed us exactly what socialism does for the citizens. This is the kind of government Obama proposes to give us.

If we don’t do anything else during this election, we must use the best skills acquired in our own education to protect the prosperity of this nation which is due to the freedom of citizens to engage in commerce and keep their earnings. We must not elect a socialist to the office of president. John McCain is suspect with regard to his commitment to personal freedom and free enterprise, but Barack Obama is completely and unabashedly socialist. I will vote for John McCain and count on our citizens to educate him on the necessity of protecting our freedoms.

One wonders how such a thing could happen in a free country. Supposedly in the USA, if a product is legal, we are free to use it. When the product is tobacco, that freedom is daily being compressed. How did this happen?

The root of the problem is healthcare. Back in the days when people managed and paid for their own healthcare, the use of tobacco was every individual’s own choice. The government paid subsidies to tobacco farmers under certain circumstances, just the same as it did for corn and cotton. Some people smoked; some didn’t. Some smokers got sick and died; some didn’t. A few very elderly people attributed their longevity to a daily cigar. If a smoker, or anybody else, became ill, treatment was provided by means of interaction between a doctor and a patient. That was it.

Today, things are quite different. Today, hardly anyone pays for his own healthcare, and most people think that nobody should pay for his own healthcare. Healthcare has become a political issue. Furthermore, computers, computers everywhere pump out more statistics than anyone can absorb, and the data is interpreted in scientific papers as well as op-eds and personal blogs. Long ago when I was first exposed to the mathematical maze of statistics, I concluded that if someone wants to make people think they have discovered truth, all he needs to do is feed them numbers. People are so impressed by numbers, and most people cannot do the math or the logic to confirm the accuracy of either the data or the interpretation.

Today, we are bombarded with numbers. One set of numbers tells us how many people smoke cigarettes. Another set tells us how many people die of lung cancer. Yet another set purports to tell us that there is a high correlation between smoking and dying of lung cancer. That is how it started. We are all exposed to statistics like this every day, and we are so accustomed to the mathematical stew that we don’t even question it. We don’t ask how the data was collected. We don’t ask how data was selected for analysis. We don’t ask why a particular analytical algorithm was chosen. Moreover, we don’t ask if the graph displayed as a result means anything at all. We assume that the graph is a true picture of something, and we believe what the reporters tell us it means.

For many years, as computers grew larger and more powerful, and as databases of statistics became more readily available and as we moved into the world of receiving what passes for news on a twenty-four-hour schedule, we have been fed statistics and analysis on two subjects: healthcare and tobacco. The statistics have told us that healthcare costs are spiraling out of control, and they have told us that large numbers of smokers become expensive patients during treatment for lung cancer and other conditions. The statistics that correlate smoking with lung cancer, and the statistics that correlate lung cancer with healthcare costs have met on the field of political discourse.

It all happened after the signing of the first Medicare bill in 1965. Prior to that time, wise heads in Congress rejected numerous attempts to involve the government in the provision of healthcare. The Constitution provides no hint that providing healthcare is a defined role for the federal government. Until 1965, the Constitutional standard prevailed, and healthcare was a matter to be managed by patients and their doctors. The passage of the Medicare Act of 1965 changed all that.

Without weighing the reader down with a history of Medicare, I will sum up its impact briefly. After Medicare came into existence, it immediately became clear that the government had no idea how to administer health insurance. When people realized that it was an inefficient mess, members of Congress put their heads together and made the situation worse, by crafting legislation which inserted the federal government into the administration of hospitals and clinics. The insurance industry watched what was happening and began to model its delivery and administration on what wasn’t working at all well for Medicare, because the insurance industry actually knew how to milk the healthcare cow. Today, Medicare is a complete scandal, and so is private insurance. Between Medicare and the insurance industry, healthcare costs have climbed to unbelievable numbers.

Enter the smoker. And the statistics that purport to correlate smoking and lung cancer. And the statistics for healthcare costs associated with lung cancer. And political discourse which says that a) healthcare is a fundamental human right, just like “life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness,” and b) if healthcare is a human right, then the government should provide it, and c) if the government provides it, then the government should be able to require people to be healthy. I have greatly oversimplified the progression of thought, but it is actually the case today that US citizens believe that the government has a right to prevent citizens from making unhealthy life choices, the government has a right to legislate the healthy choices people must make, and all this happens because people actually believe that they have a right to scorn people whose health costs society a lot of money.

The USA is becoming more and more socialist every day. It is truly bizarre that citizens who believe costs of anything are too high for them to pay believe that the government should provide that thing for them at no charge. Where do they think the government will get the money to provide the free service? Government is not like a business. Government does not produce a product or service which it can sell at a profit. The only way government can acquire money to give me something is to take money away from me in the form of taxes.

The socialist agenda is leading us toward a socialist state, and it is accomplishing this objective without changing the Constitution. A thinking person will ask how that can happen, and the answer is that people simply don’t question the idea of a caretaker government any more. When FDR introduced the New Deal during the Great Depression, most families had been hurt so badly that they welcomed anything that seemed like help. It sounded good – a chicken in every pot. FDR increased the size of the Supreme Court and then packed the court with socialist judges, and ever thereafter we contend with an interpretation of the Constitution which fundamentally changes it. Today, a very loose construction of the Constitution allows the government to intrude in our lives to a degree that John Adams and George Washington would have completely rejected. Today, a loose construction of the Constitution mandates social programs which a reasonable level of taxation cannot possibly pay for. Today, a loose construction of the Constitution has been translated into a social notion that it is okay for an employer to demonize an employee’s spouse for smoking.

This situation will only get worse if Obama is elected president. How ironic that he is a smoker! Maybe John McCain should run an ad that calculates the cost to taxpayers if a smoker is elected president and then gets lung cancer. I plan to vote for John McCain in the hope that his affiliation with the Republican party will eventually translate into an aversion to socialism. For now, he looks less like a socialist than Obama, and we can hope that if conservatives unite to elect McCain, they will be able to influence him to more conservative political choices.

John McCain has announced his support for offshore drilling to tap petroleum sources which have been known for years. In 1981 the federal government prohibited states from allowing petroleum extraction offshore due to environmental concerns. In light of today’s technology which can reassure us that the environment is safe, even with oil wells in the sea, this moratorium looks silly. In light of the need for the US to be free of dependence on foreign sources of oil, this moratorium looks completely ridiculous.

Predictably, Obama has made fun of the whole idea. He continues to chant the mantra that development of additional resources only enriches evil oil companies. Obama would like to see all free enterprise ended, so any enterprise, be it oil or sliced bread, is anathema to him. He has no idea that additional oil in the marketplace would benefit all Americans for three big reasons: 1) developing the offshore oil resources available to the US would reduce our need to buy oil from other countries, always recognized as a good thing; 2) additional oil in the marketplace will work within the economic law of supply and demand to reduce the price of crude oil and ultimately the price of a gallon of gasoline, a beneficial outcome for every US citizen; and 3) any new profit for oil companies will enrich the retirement funds of millions of US citizens who are stockholders in oil companies, a very beneficial outcome. Obama also doesn’t care if this action would work with the law of supply and demand, or if stockholders would make money to support themselves in retirement. Obama is a socialist, so he has no regard for free enterprise or the freedom of citizens.

Support for offshore drilling is only halfway to a fully sane energy policy. McCain still needs to support drilling in ANWR as well. And while he is at it, he needs to support exploration and development in the Arctic, because if we don’t take action in that area soon, we will find ourselves forever shut out of mineral rights there. Many other countries, such as Russia, have already started looking for any minerals which might be found in that remote, frozen seafloor. It is completely short-sighted and stupid for the US to miss out on the benefits of exploration there.

And, oh, by the way. If we don’t drill offshore, that does not mean that there will not be offshore drilling. In collaboration with Cuba, the Chinese are preparing to drill off Florida’s coast right now. If the US wants the petroleum in the reserves under the sea off our coasts, the US needs to drill and recover it. It will not be allowed to sit there until we are good and ready. While we are dithering about the possibility of some environmental disaster if US companies drill, countries who could not care less about an environmental disaster off the coast of the US are going to drill and extract that oil. We can either get busy and get in on the action, or we can let other people do it, which means that we will need to buy that oil from other countries instead of buying it from our own domestic companies. Does this make sense? No. Absolutely not. It is a complete boondoggle.

Enabling US companies to drill for oil off the coast of the US is only half of the right solution to our oil problems. But hurray for half way. I am happy to see even a hint of progress in the right direction. I intend to let John McCain know how happy I am to see him take this position, and I hope you will do the same.

We citizens need to speak up, speak out, and shout in the ears of everybody in the federal government: Drill here. Drill now. Achieve energy independence for the USA.

Drill Here! Drill Now!

Back in the era of the Great Depression, our newly-elected liberal Democrat President, Franklin D. Roosevelt, proposed and persuaded Congress to pass the Social Security act. He thought that old people should have something to live on in retirement. All the speeches people heard at the time made them believe that if this act passed in Congress, each worker in the US would have his own retirement account where his withholding tax plus his employer’s match would be saved to fund his very own retirement. What a boondoggling lie that turned out to be.

In fact, the payroll tax is plopped regularly into the budget money of the US to prop up activities that might otherwise not get done. The payroll tax is simply one of many sources of money which the Congress slurps up to fund whatever it darn well feels like.

Only in recent years, with the predicted failure of the Social Security promise, have we taxpayers fully realized what a lie it was that Roosevelt told. When I first learned about Social Security in high school history, I truly and actually carried away the image of a little savings account somewhere with my name on it. Oh, I had never even held a job at age 15 when this image hit my consciousness, but I looked forward to it. I wasn’t alone. Lots of people my age thought we had something to look forward to. We were faithfully paying that payroll tax. Our employers were faithfully paying their part. Congress wouldn’t lie to us, would it? Ha. Of course it would.

During George Bush’s first term, he proposed that we start fixing this problem. Bush proposed that a small percentage of the withholding tax be invested in a private account that actually did have the worker’s name on it. President Bush suggested that a small amount of money invested in a well-managed mutual fund would grow over a worker’s lifetime to an amount that would belong to the worker, be a real benefit during his retirement, and be an asset that could be passed on to his heirs. What a great idea! Instead of 7.3% of every paycheck going to Washington to be used who knew how, some of that money would go into an account with the worker’s name on it, and that money would belong to the worker until the day he died. Liberal politicians opposed this idea with the argument that it was simply a ploy to enrich Wall Street investment counselors.

Today, if you log on the Obama website and go to http://www.barackobama.com/issues/family/#strengthen-retirement you can see Obama’s proposal to help people prepare for retirement. You will see that he proposes that every employee have a retirement account that he funds by depositing something every payday. Obama includes a provision that allows the employee to opt out, but whether the employee opts in or out, one thing is sure: his entire 7.3% payroll withholding tax still goes to the government for whatever purpose the government chooses. The employee pays just as much as if the promise of Social Security were real. All Obama is doing is creating yet another government requirement. The employee is still out 7.3% of his gross pay. Obama only offers more pressure to save money over and above that 7.3% that supposedly goes to Social Security. In other words, the government currently steals from employees and employers at the rate of 7.3% for each paycheck, but that has resulted in no money for people to live on in retirement. So now we will compel people by law to save for retirement, and we will set up a bureaucracy that will monitor and supervise this requirement and it will produce a neat form the employee can sign if he chooses not to participate.

Obama is clearly a liberal politician. If we had some doubts before, we have no doubts now. He has come up with yet another way to reduce the amount of money a worker takes home after working hard all week.

Please do not think that I oppose the idea of a worker saving for retirement. I believe it is a wise move for anyone. I just don’t think the government has any authorization in the Constitution to require people to do it. The Constitution envisioned a voting population who were all adults who took responsibility for themselves. If they wanted to save for retirement, they could do so. Even in the benighted days of yore, before Social Security, the employee who wished to accept the discipline of saving for retirement could do so. Even without the government requirement, any employee today who wants to save for retirement can do so. It is a free choice anybody can make.

Liberal politicians seem to believe that nobody will accept the self-discipline of saving for retirement unless the government requires it. In fact, liberal politicians don’t believe the voting public has the sense to make any decisions without government instruction. We can’t decide to take care of our medical needs. We don’t know what to eat or how much to weigh without the government to tell us. In addition, we can’t and won’t plan for retirement unless the government pushes us to put some money into a real retirement account even though the government has been taking 7.3% of every paycheck for as long as any of us has been working ostensibly for our retirement.

I applaud retirement planning, but I don’t applaud a government requirement on that subject. If the government begins to tell us we should save and we must sign a paper to say we don’t want to, then the next step is to tell us we don’t have the option not to. Then we must save a certain amount. Then we must save more. Then we must pay a fee to some government inspector whose job is to make sure that we save what we are supposed to save. When the camel of government sticks its nose under the tent, it does not stop until it is sitting in our laps eating bonbons that we have been required to provide.

I will not be voting for Obama in the fall. I will vote for John McCain. I am not sold on John McCain’s commitment to personal freedom for all, but I intend to make sure he knows that is what I expect. I hope a lot of other people will give him the same message. We cannot afford a socialist in the White House. We must not elect Obama.

We don't have the best choice, but we do have a choice. I will vote for John McCain.

As oil prices spike beyond anyone’s wildest imagination a year ago, there is an outcry for increased production. The president of the United States asked Saudi Arabia to pump more, but he was rebuffed. The current G8 countries are asking the oil producers to pump more. Increased demand needs to be met by increased supply, or the prices will continue to rise.

The impact of skyrocketing crude oil prices is hitting American consumers at the gas pump. A year ago, nobody envisioned that today gasoline would cost $4 per gallon. And rising. Our Congress has suggested that we sue OPEC, a proposition that would be laughable except for the fact that it so dramatically points out the ignorance of our elected representatives. Congress has also slapped the oil companies around, accusing them of price gouging and demanding that they come up with alternatives to oil by tomorrow morning. This exercise is also ridiculous and another example of ignorance.

What will help? What could possibly help reduce the price of gasoline for US consumers? One part of a good solution would guarantee an increase in supply for at least sixty years, and the increase in supply would reduce prices, unless Congress in the meantime institutes price controls. That solution is to drill in the proven reserves that the United States possesses. Drill in ANWR. Drill offshore of Florida. Start work to recover shale oil. Do all these things right here right now.

The other part of the solution is to build more refineries and increase the capacity of existing ones. The oil companies have been trying to do that for a long time, but the process for approval of a request to build a refinery is usually derailed by some environmental concern. I completely believe that humans must live in harmony with nature. However, I do not believe that humans must always give way to snails and fish. There is a middle ground, and we must use our common sense.

Will this solution permanently solve our petroleum problems? Absolutely not. Even though we can confidently predict good supply for many years, the supply is finite. We will still need to develop alternative energy solutions for automobiles, homes and businesses. Furthermore, drilling in US reserves starting today, won’t put gas in anybody’s car for several years. It takes years to build new gasoline refineries, too. Politicians who choose to reject both of these options say that it will take ten years to see the results, even if we move immediately. I say, that it will take ten years to see the results, which means we must move immediately. No matter how long we delay drilling and the construction of refineries, it will still take years between decision and result.

Our nation has a wealth of oil easily in reach, and another treasure of oil which new technology can extract. Advancements in both oil well technology and refinery technology make it possible to do both kinds of activities with minimal environmental impact to wildlife and human beings. If the Kennedy Space Center can be a wildlife refuge, I don’t know any reason that a productive oil field or a new refinery shouldn’t also exist in harmony with living things.

The USA has been the most free and the most prosperous nation in the history of the world. Today, our freedom to develop our own resources is highly restricted, and the consequence is that our prosperity is at risk. We can be free of dependence on foreign oil by drilling in our own reserves. We can reduce high gasoline prices by increasing the availability of domestic crude oil and by building new refineries to increase gasoline production. If we fail to take care of ourselves, we can be sure that no country in OPEC is going to care what happens to us. Our freedom and our prosperity are ours to lose. That is what will happen if we fail to address this threat.

Drill here. Drill now.

Preserve and protect the freedom and prosperity of the USA.

 DRILL HERE!   DRILL NOW!

It might be a good time to look at the First Amendment to the Constitution again. What does it say? Why is it there? What ever made us think we needed this amendment anyway?

The First Amendment reads as follows: “Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.”

When the Constitution was written in 1787, the delegates to the convention believed that the concept of the document included the right of citizens to engage in debate over issues. Such debate had enabled and empowered the Revolution and it continued to be important to citizens of all the states in the new country. However, as the proposed Constitution circulated among the states for ratification, many states expressed deep apprehension over the absence of specific protection for speech. There was such a ground swell of concern over this issue and several others that ratification of the Constitution was only achieved by virtue of an agreement that the first Congress would quickly provide protection for speech as part of a group of amendments popularly referred to as the Bill of Rights. Wise leaders rightly discerned that rights not specifically protected might well disappear in the muddle of history. The First Amendment provided that Congress could not pass any law abridging freedom of speech.

Currently, one of the most visible expressions of our right to free speech is talk radio. Around the country, AM radio stations offer many opportunities for people to talk about all sorts of things. The writers of the Constitution would be proud if they could see this phenomenon in action. Benjamin Franklin fervently advocated for mail service in this nation in order to achieve precisely what talk radio does so well. Franklin wanted the citizens to be able to talk with each other about their concerns and to communicate with the various officials and representatives they had elected to their government. He would have been ecstatic if he even imagined that one day private citizens would have the opportunity to speak to huge audiences using the power of talk radio.

I hear that there are people in Congress who don’t like talk radio. They think that people might have too much freedom of speech unless someone “reins in” talk radio. We must not let Congress institute restrictions on our freedom of speech by making rules for talk radio. As it exists today, talk radio owes nothing to anybody. No political force runs it, no political force limits it. We, the people, talk about everything, and sometimes we even talk about Congress. We need that freedom, and it is our Constitutional right. We, the people, must tell Congress to forget writing any laws that restrict our right to free speech. Benjamin Franklin, Patrick Henry, James Madison, and George Washington are watching. We must stand strong and tell Congress our message: Don’t even think of trying to restrict our freedom of speech.

I recently learned two fifty-dollar words for some common-sense ideas. I came across them in an article about ethics.

The first word is teleological. In ethical situations, a teleological thinker will ask, what is the expected outcome of this choice? This person judges whether a decision is right or wrong entirely on the basis of the fallout. To do that requires that the person believe he knows what the fallout will be, which is a different problem. Teleological thinkers usually feel pretty certain that “if A” they can predict “then B.” This is a very common way of approaching ethical choices in political discourse.

The second word is deontological. Given an ethical choice, a deontological thinker will not worry about the outcome, because that person believes that morality is a choice among absolutes. Deontological thinkers believe that murder is wrong. Absolutely, unequivocally wrong. They may dispute the definition of the word murder in order to get around problems with situations such as self-defense and protection of innocent bystanders, but for true deontologists, if the question is the morality of murder, then the answer is that murder is wrong. Political discussions are pretty scornful of the idea of absolutes, especially moral absolutes.

One hot topic in politics that touches many people’s lives is abortion. Teleologists approach the question of abortion by asking whether the outcome of an abortion is good. They will ask if it is right to compel a woman to give birth to a baby when the woman does not want the baby. They wonder if a baby should even be born into a family that cannot or will not take care of it. The moral questions associated with conception do not enter into the discussion, because teleologists only concern themselves with the outcome. They won’t judge the wisdom of a person who carelessly or ignorantly or willfully becomes pregnant without a commitment to protect and care for the baby. A teleologist simply says that the decision to abort or not abort the pregnancy should be based entirely on the morality of the outcome. The proponents of “a woman’s right to choose” believe that a woman has a right to evaluate the impact of a birth and make her choice to continue or end the pregnancy on that basis. The position that there is a natural right to choose abortion is based on a teleological approach to the ethical choices associated with abortion.

There is an opposing viewpoint that asserts that from the moment of conception, a baby has the right to life. This point of view asserts that the absolute right to life trumps any evaluation of the outcome of a birth. A deontological thinker disregards the impact of a birth in a family that does not want the child. From the deontological point of view, a woman who is pregnant does not have a right to ask if she wants the baby; the baby’s life absolutely trumps any consideration of the impact of a baby in her life. In fact, because life has absolute priority, the life of the mother may not even be considered. As with teleological thinkers, some deontological thinkers define their terms in order to consider unique situations, but a strictly deontological viewpoint considers that life is an absolute value that transcends the worth of any other consideration.

Looking at the question of abortion this way may help us to imagine how these two distinct approaches to ethical questions will make it difficult for any candidate to assume that he knows the “right” solution to any of our national problems. Most political solutions to problems are quite obviously teleological. They deal with outcomes. Nothing is absolute. Both sides of an issue may be accommodated to some degree, but in a political solution, nobody gets to be completely whole. It is teleology that allows us to make any progress at all in political solutions.

The reason for that is that while there are many people who think of ethical problems as if there were an absolute right answer, there are usually many different perceptions of the absolute right answer. Using the subject of abortion as a sample of this problem, we can all recall more than one point of view on the side of “right to life” and more than one on the side of “a woman’s right to choose.” Some who believe in preserving “life” at all costs recognize that two lives are at risk in some pregnancies; they acknowledge that it is not always possible to save both the mother and the baby, and in their accommodations of this truth, they temporarily allow themselves to think teleologically. In such a case, even the most fervent absolutists will concede that someone must decide whether the outcome is better if the mother survives or if the baby survives. As for those who advocate freedom of choice, most of them recognize that repeated abortion is detrimental to a woman’s health and will advocate for the woman to make a choice about the desired outcome long before conception takes place. They won’t say that it is absolutely wrong for a woman to refuse to plan, but the whole push for sex education in schools grows out of their recognition that there really is a better outcome when conception is prevented than when it is aborted. In the public forum on the topic of abortion, it would be tough to strictly classify the people in the various camps as teleological or deontological, but understanding those terms helps to understand the way adherents participate in the discussion.

To recap, in a discussion of a national problem which must be resolved by government leaders, people picture solutions largely based on their own perception either that there is an absolute right thing to do or that the right thing to do depends on how we get to the right outcome. This is the reason that everyone can agree that a person sick with leukemia “needs” medical treatment, but there is a huge question and disagreement about whether that person has a “right” to medical treatment. Is healthcare a fundamental human right? Any individual will see the answer to that question within a personal frame of reference that decides right and wrong as either a teleological problem or a deontological problem.

There are other pressing questions in the public forum.

On the subject of petroleum:

Why is the price of gasoline rising so fast? Has something evil happened that produced this result or is it the natural consequence of market processes? Should government take some action to prevent gasoline prices from rising so high? Should oil companies be allowed to drill in ANWR? Would drilling in ANWR have a bad outcome for wildlife there? Should the outcomes for wildlife trump the outcomes for people? Is there any absolute right and wrong in the petroleum market?

On the war in Iraq:

Was the US right to invade Iraq? Does it any longer matter whether the US was right to invade Iraq? Was there an absolute moral imperative to invade Iraq? Does the outcome that eliminated Saddam Hussein as a threat to world peace have greater value than the perceptions of some Iraqis that we invaded and occupied their country for no reason? How is Iraq related to worldwide terrorism? Does it matter if Iraq harbored and supported terrorism? Is there a number of military casualties that is one too many? If so, have we passed that number? Does the number of casualties have any bearing on the moral rectitude of our campaign in Iraq? Is our campaign right for Iraq? For the US? For the world?

On the subject of the economy:

Is it true that the US is on the verge of a recession? Already in a recession? Headed for a disastrous depression? What is a recession? A depression? Should the government rescue homeowners who can’t pay their mortgages? Should the government rescue lenders who made loans to people who can’t pay? Is it good for the citizens if the government takes action to stimulate and manage the economy? Is the outcome good? Is there a morally absolute right thing for the government to do here?

All this conversation about the issues is completely disconnected from the Constitutional considerations. When we consider the Constitution as we consider the moral issues, the discussion becomes even more complex.

I have said all of this in order to say one more thing. People need to have sorted out their own thoughts on these subjects before they begin to evaluate the candidates. People need to know how they themselves approach moral, ethical and Constitutional questions before they try to evaluate the candidates. If a voter has no position on an issue, then the candidates run the conversation. That should not happen. When a candidate speaks, voters should already have a foundation on which to determine if the candidate is proposing solutions that are acceptable within moral, ethical and Constitutional boundaries. The voter must think before asking what the candidate thinks.

I have done this homework, and I will be voting for John McCain. I have concluded that even though I don’t agree with him on all the absolutes, his personal history and public life give me some hope that I will agree with his leadership more often than not. There is no other candidate who meets that standard. I consider that Obama has demonstrated profound emptiness of moral standards. He has repeatedly dropped positions and dumped associations as they became unpopular, not as he made reasoned moral choices. He advocates a completely socialist agenda for his actions if he is elected, an agenda in direct conflict with the concept of government written into our Constitution. I reject Obama completely. I will vote for John McCain. I recommend that you do the same.