10 December 2013 –

The Human & Animal New Kingdom Society.  THANKS! 

A friend recently forwarded an e-mail in which the following four questions were asked and answered.  The purpose was to show how disparate thinking can be useful. 

Question #1:  How do you put a giraffe into a refrigerator?

Answer 1. Open the refrigerator, put the giraffe inside and close the door. Theoretically, the question tests whether you tend to do simple things in an overly complicated way. 

Question #2: How do you put an elephant into a refrigerator?

Answer #2: Open the refrigerator, take out the giraffe, put in the elephant, and close the door. This tests your ability to reflect on the consequences of previous actions. 

Question #3:  The Lion King is hosting an Animal Conference.  All the animals except one attend.  Which animal?

Answer #3: The elephant, silly; you just put him in the refrigerator.  This tests your memory.  

Question #4: There is a river you must cross, but there are crocodiles in it, and you don’t have a boat. How do you manage to get across the river?

Answer #4: You jump in and swim across.  Weren’t you listening?  All the animals, including the crocodiles, are at the conference.  This tests your ability to learn quickly from your mistakes. 

To answer as the author intended, you must abandon reality and allow simplistic conditions to guide your thinking.  I missed all four questions.  Then, I set sanity aside and other, more rational answers quickly came to me. 

    

Answer #1.  Only the government would be dumb enough to study how to put a giraffe in a refrigerator. So, you should bid for the contract.  First, project building a super-large refrigerator powered by solar energy with wind power as a back-up and leasing one middle-aged, male giraffe from a federally-funded zoo.  Then, you use stimulus money left over from 2009 to hire a small, minority-owned, freight company to move the giraffe to the newly-built refrigerator.  A National Parks Service official supervises the move, and three volunteers from the ASPCA video the event.    Once you get the giraffe in the refrigerator, a contracted wildlife expert oversees its care through a specially-designed door.  Total one-year contract cost: $17,500,000.   

Answer #2.  As all federal programs are wont to do, this refrigerator concept grows.  Three giraffes die due to ineffective temperature control, resulting in $25,000,000 in cost overruns in the first year, but you iron out the glitches, do a little research, and declare that the program now is ready to include elephants.  You bid for the new contract, citing your expertise with giraffes.  You also note that the higher elephant leasing costs, the costs for a larger refrigerator, the new health-care insurance package which the freight company’s employees’ union recently negotiated with management (exempted from adherence to Obamacare), and the hiring of an elephant expert to assist the Parks Service official, will raise the cost to $48,750,000.  After you win the elephant contract, the wildlife expert says she can oversee the care of both the giraffe and the elephant, but she needs three assistants.  An additional $400,000 brings the elephant contract cost to $49,150,000 and $42,500,000 for the second year of the giraffe contract. 

Answer #3. The American Bald Eagle does not attend the Animal Conference.  The giant wind turbine blades in surrounding alternate energy wind-farms make it too dangerous for him to fly in and land at the conference site.  The elephant and the giraffe are virtual attendees through 40’ interactive screens.  The purchase and set-up costs—by union labor, of course—add only $2,300,000 to the conference cost of $147,900,000.  Fortunately, all costs are covered by the federally-funded, USAID-dispensed program, The Human & Animal New Kingdom Society, THANKS.

    

Answer #4. Although Congress won’t declare war on animals, you proclaim that river crocodiles are an existential threat to the nation’s security, thereby rallying support from your fellow travelers who want to cross the river.  However, you manage the conflict so badly that crocodiles eat five hundred of your troops, and you waste ten years and one hundred billion dollars trying to build a coalition of responsible and friendly alligators, caimans, and great lizards to help the crocodiles assimilate into an international family of friendly animals.  Finally, you negotiate a treaty with the crocodiles that allows you to cross the river on their backs and allows them unimpeded movement across your borders. 

Final government cost of The Human & Animal New Kingdom Society programs: $1,284,350,000, more or less, and ten years of war.  But now, we project many more meaningful years to come.  THANKS!

6 December 2013 –   

Three Envelopes: Political Strategy at its Finest

When I was a squadron commander, I heard a story about dealing with the dangers of command.  It bears repeating as we assess this administration’s activities since 2009.   

At a change of command, the incoming and outgoing commanders usually have a little time together before the ceremony.  One time, an arrogant, incoming base commander asked the worn-out, outgoing base commander if he had any useful advice before the ceremony.  The outgoing commander studied the new guy carefully and sighed.  He then told the new colonel that in the bottom left hand- drawer of his desk were three envelopes, marked one, two, and three.  In case the new commander, even with his vast skills and inspired vision, could not handle a crisis, he could open envelope number one and consider the advice written therein.  The new commander seemed unimpressed, and the ceremony went as planned. 

Things went well for the new commander. But, one day, something came up that completely flummoxed him.  This brilliant colonel was in a panic.  Then he remembered the envelopes.  He flung the desk drawer open and ripped open the first envelope.  Inside were three words: “Blame your predecessor.”  Immediately, the commander announced that the crisis was due to the old commander’s mistakes and that things would get better soon.  That seemed to placate the troops and the higher- ups in command. Crisis Averted. 

Later, another crisis arose that threatened to bring everything on base to a halt.  The commander was beside himself until he remembered the remaining envelopes.  He tore open the second envelope and read the word: “Reorganize.”  Yes!  The commander announced that the problem stemmed from faulty organization and that sweeping changes would be made to better facilitate the mission.  Again, the troops and the command above him seemed satisfied. Phew!

Then, one day, another crisis befell the base.  The commander hated to do it, but he was tired and had no fresh ideas; he opened the third envelope and read the last piece of advice:  “Prepare three envelopes.”   

Our President, hailed by his supporters as the brilliant man who would lead the United States into a new era, didn’t need to open envelopes to lay blame or change things.  He naturally seems to revert to such political and personal tendencies.  In his first five years, he has blamed his predecessor, Congress, Republicans, rich people, big business, international allies, and climate change for failures in his domestic and diplomatic policies.  I contend that his laying of blame has divided the political scene more than anything else in recent years.  After all, why would those he repeatedly attacks care much for the President’s success?  What is more, the checks and balances in our constitutional system expect, indeed impel the opposition—particularly one where not one Republican lawmaker voted for the Affordable Care Act—not to cooperate as the President struggles to implement such an ill-conceived and unpopular law.   

The President’s failures in crises are numerous:  Benghazi; Syria; the politicizing of the IRS; our languishing in and slinking out of Afghanistan; his failure to pass a budget for five years; profligate spending that will double the 2008 deficit by 2015; the embarrassing lies about and the failed technology of Obamacare; on and on ad nauseum.   In each of these debacles, the President has laid blame on someone else.  This is a petty, short-term diversion, not to be used by one who wants to engender the trust of the troops/constituents. 

     

The President also is reorganizing government and society to his liking, saying it is good for the country.  However, what he added to the advice in the envelope is dangerous:  not only reorganize, but enforce and legislate by fiat.  The President has often warned that if Congress won’t help him do something, he will do it by himself.  Certainly a former constitutional law lecturer should know that such governance is neither constitutional nor faithful execution of the laws.  Finally, the President’s tinkering with, delaying, and reorganizing many parts of Obamacare display poor planning and an incredible naivete that the program would just come together because he willed it.  Each fix seems as dangerous to our economic and physical health as the law itself.  This isn’t reorganizing; it’s disorganizing.   

President Obama knows he does not have to prepare three envelopes.  Short of committing blatant high crimes and misdemeanors, he will finish out his term.  But, on 20 January 2017, a smart successor will not ask anything of President Obama--except to clean out his desk.  

20 November 2013  - 

         

A Military Commander Would Be Fired By Now 

The President’s attempts to sell his Affordable Care Act to the public remind me of Robert F. Brunner’s delicious lyrics in “The Merchants’ Song” from the 1978 Disney movie, “The Small One.”   

“Oh, clink, clink, clank, clank, get your money to the bank,

“Telling little stories you can trust. 

“We never ever fail when we go to make a sale,  

“We simply cheat a little if we must!”  

The President told stories we could trust and made the sale.  But, did he cheat a little to get his signature legislation passed and protected from repeal?  Can he be trusted?  Let’s examine those questions in light of leadership principles I relied on in my Air Force career. 

First, when I led Air Force units, I learned that the commander’s standards dictate how the rest of the organization works.  The commander leads her people to success or leads them to failure.  The airmen in the organization expect to be led.  The commander must deliberately adhere to regulations and communicate honestly and openly to all in her organization, something President Obama famously promised he would do.  If some of the people mess up—and people always do—or if the commander personally does something wrong, she should take the blame.  If the bad actions are severe enough, she should expect to be relieved of command. 

Next, to ensure that the organization accomplishes its mission, the commander must entrust his deputy and division heads with power to run their operations according to the clear, open policies he establishes as commander.  He also expects that they will continually inform him about what they are doing, how those actions apply to the organization’s overall goals, and on potential or actual problems with the implementation of the organization’s operational plan.  This style of leadership demands regular, two-way communication between upper and lower levels of the organization.  This process instills in leaders on all lower levels a sense of loyalty to their bosses.  More importantly, it demands loyalty to honest principles and to the organization’s mission.  It is a time-consuming and difficult leadership approach, but it ties an organization together.  

  

Finally, the commander works harder than anyone in her organization.  She wears herself out in the job because she instinctively “goes to the sound of the guns.”  Her orders are executed faithfully because she is as dedicated to the mission as anyone working for her.   She does not expect anything of her subordinates that she wouldn’t do herself.  This creates an unswerving loyalty up and down the chain of command, loyalty based on lawful and honest principles, not on cronyism.  

    

President Obama either told deliberate lies about the effects of the Affordable Care Act or he was woefully uninformed by his White House staff, by the applicable agencies in the Executive Branch of government, and by those who wrote the law.   

    

If President Obama has lied, then he and his organization—his staff and the agency heads in his executive branch—are corrupt and should not be trusted.  He shows that he uses self-serving designs to deceive and to acquire power; he does not serve the public.  His team also shows that it follows his lead.  No one who had daily contact with the development and execution of the Affordable Care Act blew the whistle on the President.  They protected themselves and their corrupt boss.    

If President Obama has been misinformed for the last 3 ½ years, then he is incompetent as a leader and should not be trusted.  If he ignores his staff and agency heads, those within his immediate span of control who brief him on the Affordable Care Act’s problems, then the President shows himself incapable of running any organization, let alone the executive branch of the US government.  If his staff withheld information from him for years and he does not fire them for the deception, then the President shows he is incapable of selecting and inspiring subordinates to serve the American public. 

Why does the President find himself in this no-win leadership crisis?  One of the biggest reasons, I would say, is because he doesn’t work very hard.  His public remarks show only a vague understanding of events, suggesting a lack of preparation; so of course, he doesn’t inspire confidence.  It’s easy to talk about open, honest conduct and communication when trying to get elected, but establishing and maintaining such standards requires hard work.  He shows by all measures that he is simply unwilling to work hard enough to do that. 

Whatever crises in confidence, loyalty and trust that result from the President’s lies, incompetence, or inaction, he deserves.  As does any poor commander. 

14 November 2013 -

Heroes and veterans, old and young

I’ve spent the last two weeks in a Veterans’ Day frame of mind.  Throughout my military career in many countries I have contemplated the significance of the 11^th hour of the 11^th day of the 11^th month of every year. Now, several years out of uniform, a series of events has caused me to reflect deeply on the role of today’s veterans in this great country.  

Two weeks ago, William Howard Fotheringham, the most nearly perfect man I have ever known, died at the age of 93.  His funeral was a small, mostly-family event.  It seems he outlived all his friends. 

“Deacon” Fotheringham was a World War II veteran.  He enlisted in 1942, was commissioned a second lieutenant after graduating flight school, and was shipped off to fly P-38 Lightnings out of New Guinea as a member of the storied 80^th Fighter Squadron.  He was credited with killing one Japanese aircraft on 23 June 1943.  In 1944, after he was shipped back to the US to serve as an instructor pilot, he met Wylene Hunter in Oakland, CA.  He always said it was love at first sight.  They married on 11/22/44, and Howard was a devoted husband throughout their 64 years of married life.  Wylene preceded him in death in April, 2009. 

Lieutenant Fotheringham came home after the war and built this country.  He returned to college and earned a master’s degree and a counseling certificate.  For the next 37 years, he worked for the Salt Lake Board of Education.  He was a quiet, deeply religious man who took care of his family, paid his bills on time, and provided a great example of manhood to young men like me.   In 1977, when I told him I was going into the Air Force, I saw a glint in his eyes that I have since seen only in the eyes of great warriors.  He knew what it meant because he had fought.  He had won.  And then he returned and worked hard and honorably until he died.  He was the best of America.  Howard, Veteran’s Day is for you.  Forever. 

 On Veteran’s Day morning, I drove to visit a friend on his 400 acres south of Three Rivers, Texas.  We drove around his land, talked about how to work an honest day, enjoyed watching deer graze, and moved a bull from one pasture to another.  My friend knows how to work.  When I left the next day, I drove through Victoria, Texas, on the way back to Houston.  For some reason, I stopped at the town’s Memorial Square Park, pulled out my harmonica, and played the songs, “Lorena,” and “Battle Hymn of the Republic,” for the veterans buried there.  No one else, no veterans or their families were in the cemetery on a Tuesday afternoon.  They probably were all at work. 

  

Wednesday, my wife and I attended a lunch honoring veterans hosted by a local women’s political group.  We had delightful conversation and good food on a local country club’s beautiful golf course.  The speaker was a 26-year Army veteran.  I told him afterward that for an Army officer, he used a lot of big words.  He laughed and told me that if he had known an Air Force officer was in the audience, he would have talked a lot more with his hands.  We played our parts well. 

    

About twenty old men were honored.  Heroes. Three were World War II veterans, two were Korean War veterans, and most of the rest were Vietnam War era veterans.  In fact, at sixty years of age, I was the youngest vet there.   It bothered me when I saw that no younger veterans came.  And then I realized that on a Wednesday morning, the young veterans of the last few wars were probably at work.  At that moment, at that Veterans’ celebration, something became very clear.

   

I realized that today’s veterans are following in the steps of their predecessors.  They have returned from war.  They have gone to work.  They are raising their families and paying their bills on time.  They are the very muscle and sinew of this country.  I salute them as I saluted their compatriots from previous generations.  In them, I place hope and expectations for our future.   They have proven worthy and capable of the work that is ahead of them.  They are the examples to another rising generation real Americans.  Veterans’ Day is also theirs.  Forever.  

7 November  2013

Range Gate Stealing: [A metaphor for] changing the message and distorting the truth.

Mark Twain famously said: “There are three kinds of lies: lies, damned lies, and statistics.”  A fourth lie we often don’t recognize is when the truth has gradually been distorted and changed.   We find this latter type of lie in politics, in law, and in every day conversations. 

The air combat technique known as Range Gate Stealing perfectly illustrates this kind of deception:

An aircraft loaded with missiles flies over enemy territory.  It is charged with destroying the enemy’s air defenses so more bombers can come and destroy other enemy targets and return home safely.  This first aircraft is immediately “painted” by enemy ground-based radars, which emit an electronic signal that hits the aircraft and bounces back to the radar dish to determine the aircraft’s location in the sky.  This tracking data then is sent to a missile battery that fires at the aircraft.  From the time the aircraft is detected by the radar to the time a missile is fired may be only ten seconds.  Death comes quickly to the unprepared.  

But the attack aircraft can survive by using electronic countermeasures—ECM—to deceive the ground radar.  ECM slows down the radar’s response and gives the attacker enough time to bomb the radar site and eliminate threats to the follow-on attackers. 

Here’s how it works: every electronic emitter, from radio stations to radars, operates at a specific frequency.  But they are never exact; they actually vacillate within a narrow band on the electromagnetic spectrum.  Remember turning the dial on an old radio to “lock on” a station?   As the dial approaches the assigned frequency—the center of the station’s narrow frequency range—the music becomes clearer.  This wiggle room in the spectrum, however narrow it may be, is what range gate stealing exploits.   

The attacking aircraft detects when the ground radar’s signal hits it, and immediately identifies the radar’s frequency.  The aircraft then sends back a signal from the center of identified frequency range to the ground radar, but one more powerful than the radar’s original signal.  The ground radar then locks onto the more powerful return signal within its frequency range.  The attacker then moves the center of its deceptive signal’s frequency slightly closer to the edge of the ground radar’s original frequency range.  The ground radar will follow the deceptive signal because it’s the strongest one in the acceptable range.  The attacker then moves its strong, deceptive, return signal to the edge of the ground radar’s frequency range, showing the attacking aircraft in a false position in the sky.

Finally, the aircraft moves the deceptive return signal beyond the ground radar’s frequency range and turns it off.  The radar on the ground now “loses lock” on the deceptive signal.  It must reacquire its original signal and find the attacker all over again.  This process gives the attacker time to fire on the radar, kill it, and return safely home. 

This is range gate stealing.  It works in war, it works in our lives.

Consider the prosecutor who range gate steals a domestic situation, completely changing it while questioning a defendant:

Prosecutor:  What were you and your wife doing before the police arrived?

Defendant:  We were arguing.

Prosecutor:  And while you were yelling, your son came home?

Defendant:  Yes.

Prosecutor:  And he saw you screaming at your wife? 

Defendant:  Well...

Prosecutor:  And while you were threatening your wife, the police arrived.  No further questions.

Many of our elected officials also are adept at political range gate stealing.  They declare something clearly and plainly, reiterate it with slightly different words and meanings each succeeding time, and then, in our confusion or complacency, execute something well beyond the scope of what they originally declared they would do.  They lie faster than most people can prepare a response.   

   

To defend ourselves against such perfidy we must focus on the substance of our position, and not allow even seemingly innocuous changes to our original message.  We must not allow our opponents to change the vocabulary, the names, or the rules of our argument.

And if our elected officials try to move us from our core, we cut them off. Period.  If they strengthen their rhetoric by shifting from the original message, we demand that they return to the real issue.  Period.  If they change their promises, falsely declaring that the new information was really the essence of the old information; if they pretend that what they have said is not what they meant; and, if they change the objectives of their own promises, we stop their monologue and hold them accountable for their lies. Period. 

Aircraft that practice range gate stealing win the day.  Politicians who practice range gate stealing must be stopped.   Anything less is deadly.   

31 October 2013 -

The Worthy Politician’s Blueprint:  Verities, Virtues, and Values 

How can we determine which politicians will best serve the people of the United States?  I offer the following suggestions for your consideration as we approach the 2014 national elections:

First, list the fundamental principles of life that you hold to be undeniably true.  These are verities.  Whether religious or secular, they should apply to political issues of the day.  For example, a fundamental principle of truth for me is that the Founders of the United States were unique and inspired men.  They lived in a world of rigid autocracy, political/religious melding, and slavery, which they openly defied when they codified the freedoms we take for granted today. 

Another verity, or principle of truth, is that the products of their rebellion, the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution, are the greatest expressions of political freedom and governance in the history of the world, breathtaking in their scope.  An accompanying fundamental principle of truth is that the United States of America is exceptional.  Its physical location in the world, its resources, its people, the idea that opportunity is based on individual freedom and not on genealogy — all were unique in the late 1700s and inspire us today. 

Finally, the government was formed to be limited in its scope and responsibilities.  Sovereignty rested with the people and the society we formed. 

These principles are among the applicable verities, the fundamentally true principles that should be the basis of political decision-making.    

       

The next step is to act on these principles.  Over time, we form and refine our character traits--our virtues—as we act upon principles we hold to be true.  For example, the virtue of tolerating others’ beliefs comes from maintaining that the rights in our founding documents are as applicable and necessary today as they were 237 years ago.  But how far should we go in tolerating the inflation of freedoms of speech, religion, and assembly in society?  One classic answer: you should be able to do anything you want as long as it doesn’t scare the horses.   What constitutes scaring the horses, i.e., eroding society’s cohesion and wearing away the nation’s sovereignty, is a compelling issue of our day.  I suggest that our elected officials do not need progressive principles to help decide these issues; they can apply the inspired, durable ideals laid out more than two centuries ago.   

Another key virtue is courage.  Courage to defend individual rights against those who would abridge them for their own purposes, and courage to defend the Constitution itself against all enemies, foreign and domestic.  The freedoms of religion, speech, assembly, bearing arms, and the inviolability of home and property, among others, are critical to a free society; it takes courage to defend them.  Elected officials should be courageous enough to risk their political lives to defend our rights, especially when other politicians want to abridge them in order to “help and protect us” in times of so-called crisis.  Pledging life, fortune, and sacred honor in the maintenance of such rights is as necessary today as it ever was. 

  

An accompanying national virtue is thrift, which results from preserving the principle of limited government and respect for other peoples’ property.  Most of what our government spends money on today is not the government’s business.  Nothing corrupts government officials more than perpetually centralizing power and spending other peoples’ money.   Property rights were sacred to our Founders; they are sacred to me.   Our elected officials should spend our money judiciously and only on those programs set forth in the Constitution.  Other social spending should rest on us and on private organizations.

   

Finally, our values are what we are willing to pay for—what we spend time, money, and effort to acquire.  They are the visible results of what we believe and how we act.  If an elected official’s values are to spend money, raise taxes, and go into debt in the name of every cause du jour, then I know his standards are not in line with the virtue of thrift.  I know that his fundamental views of truth bear little resemblance to those of our nation’s Founders.   And there is no reason to believe he is courageous if he does not stand against the continuing hemorrhage of our national capital.

Verities at one’s foundation.  Virtues in one’s character.  Appropriate values for one’s efforts.  When our elected officials show themselves that clearly, you will see the rarest virtue in politics:  trustworthiness.  What is that worth?  “…a merchant man seeking goodly pearls:  Who when he had found one pearl of great price, went and sold all that he had, and bought it.”  (Matthew 13: 45, 46).  Trustworthiness is worth that much.  

17 October 2013 –

It’s All About The Name Of The Game                                                    

Let’s put aside crises of the day and consider an important question:  Should the Washington Redskins owner, Dan Snyder, change the name of his football team to something less offensive?

This is not breaking news.  The same issue was broached with the previous owner, Jack Kent Cooke, in the 1970s and 1980s.  Mr. Cooke’s answer was always “No.”  A month ago, USA TODAY reporters asked Mr. Snyder if he would abandon the name.  His response was equally blunt: “Never…it’s that simple.”  

It’s that simple if we believe that keeping an eighty-year-old name is the team owner’s constitutional right of property.  It’s that simple if we see those pressuring for a name-change as self-serving agitators.  Such simplicity, however, sets unavoidable battle lines, and agitators will most likely control the conflict’s tempo.  I suggest Mr. Snyder sidestep the acrimony and fist-pumping that infest such arguments.  I suggest he reverse his stance and base his actions on the concept of propriety.  Mr. Snyder should announce that it is respectful and decent to find a new name for a football team that actually spent its first season in Boston as the Braves.  Mr. Snyder should announce that it is appropriate and polite to change a name that lost its context when the team moved from Boston to Washington, D.C., in 1937, and no longer employed the part-Native American coach whom the Redskins originally meant to honor.  Mr. Snyder’s ultimately simple response should be that propriety, not political correctness, suggests a name change.  He would keep fans and defang enemies. 

I see two methods for Mr. Snyder to find a new team name.  The first is to invite Native American leaders to a conference in D.C. to discuss new names which should evoke virtues such as courage, steadfastness, and strength.  The leaders who refuse to attend should be ignored.  Those who attend the conference and agitate should be ignored.  Those who present and discuss new names should be praised and incorporated into the team’s public image.  These leaders also should be given box seats at every home game against the Dallas Cowboys for the next thirty years.  The new name, proper and embraced by all, could then continue the Native American theme that has been with the team since its inception.     

The second method is to pick a team name that identifies the team with the region.  The Houston Oilers, Minnesota Vikings, Washington Senators, Pittsburgh Steelers, and Dallas Cowboys are examples of sports teams’ regional ties—ethnic, historic, and economic.  Just as he might do with Native American leaders, Mr. Snyder could consult with regional leaders in selecting a new name.   

Mr. Snyder could even combine regionalism with a Native American name, but that is difficult because the tribes that lived in the D.C. region don’t have the familiar names or historical fame of the tribes of other regions. 

A specifically regional name also may not travel well if the franchise—heaven forbid—moves to another city.  In 1961, the Washington Senators moved to Minneapolis-St. Paul and became the Minnesota Twins.  An expansion club was formed in D.C. and took the name Washington Senators.  But these Senators moved to Dallas in 1971, left their name behind, and became the Texas Rangers.  

On the other hand, the Brooklyn Dodgers moved to Los Angeles before the 1958 season and were still the Dodgers.  Sports writers had invented the name in the early 1890s when Brooklyn fans were referred to as “Trolley Dodgers” because the ball park was hemmed in on two sides by trolley tracks.   Hmm… I wonder how the name would have fared if the team had moved to San Francisco instead.  By the late 1960s, writers could have referred to the S.F. team as “Draft Dodgers.”  The President just announced that immigration reform is his next big political issue.  Will some writer in Los Angeles now refer to its baseball team as the “ICE Dodgers?”  Just wonderin’.     

So, Mr. Snyder has at least two ways to change his team’s name for the better.   If he opts for a regional name, I suggest he focus on capturing the essence of the Washington D.C. culture and economy.  Something that fans will instantly recognize. 

How about the Washington Wafflers? 

What do you think?   If you want to help Mr. Snyder choose a new team name, please send your suggestions to the Atascocita Observer.   

12 October 2013 –

What About Going Broke Don’t We Understand? 

Should we worry hugely about the ongoing government shutdown and the looming deadline for raising the debt ceiling?  I suggest that we should look past the screaming and sniping by politicians, bureaucrats, and media.  They divert our focus to the secondary issues, such as a specific sidelined government program or who was hurt by partisan exploitation.  They want us to avoid thinking about how the government—elected officials and agency bureaucrats—have spent us into a strategic crisis that only heroic means can resolve.   

The single biggest threat to the United States is that we the people, represented by our elected and bureaucratic officials, are spending ourselves into bankruptcy.  Self-absorbed economists natter bankruptcy into incomprehensible silliness; but, a simple presentation of the numbers should scare all sensible Americans. 

The federal government’s debt rose above one trillion dollars in the Reagan administration and has been rising at a geometric rate with each new generation of government.  If a family financial advisor were counseling today’s Uncle Sam, she would assess that he is a pander of expensive things to family members in exchange for docile perpetuation of family addictions.  The advisor then would search for a family member who has enough individual strength and maturity to take over the family finances. 

How bad is our problem?  Our government spends at about 25% more than it collects in taxes and has been doing so for several years.   The US government now owes more in unsecured debt—credit card debt to us every day people—than all 317 million Americans make every year.  Seventeen trillion dollars.  That is 17 with 12 zeroes behind it: $17,000,000,000,000.  The tipping point to national insolvency approaches.    

In the meantime, our elected officials hiss at each other across partisan ramparts.  They bemoan the uselessness and profligacy of Obamacare, the blatantly unconstitutional budgetary processes of the last five years, and who is the meanest in their governance.  However, they collectively are the uncle who blames anything and everybody but himself for his addiction.  The real and present danger to the United States is our national debt and the refusal of our elected officials to put on their big boy pants to stop the madness.      

Progressives ignore the importance of individual property rights and government thrift.  But these principles were important to our Founders.  To paraphrase the essayist John Jay Chapman’s famous quote about slavery, “There was never any moment in our history when slavery [to a large national debt] was not a sleeping serpent. It lay coiled up under the table during the deliberations of the Constitutional Convention [about government budgetary processes]. “  Alas, today, the Executive Branch and Congress have abandoned almost all constitutionally mandated budgetary processes.  The Executive Branch and its gargantuan regulatory agencies increasingly obligate and deny monies by fiat, and Congress allows them to do so.  The President has ignored his constitutional obligation to present a budget to Congress for consideration in the budgetary process, and Congress has allowed him to do so.  The Senate has refused to consider the myriad budget bills passed by the House, enabling the Executive Branch to rule by continuing resolution.  Continuing resolutions and executive fiat are sure-fire formula for wasting of vast amounts of our money. 

Does this self-induced mess really threaten our nation’s security?  I posit that our increasing federal debt is the greatest threat the United States has faced since the Civil War.  US government debt to other nations and to their financial institutions lessens our ability to make independent decisions in both domestic and international arena.  My years of working civil-military issues with allies, friends, and enemies, have taught me that durable sovereignty is the result of the deliberate use of all a nation’s instruments of national power.  Economic, military, internal political, and diplomatic power work together to sustain a nation’s sovereignty in the world.  The most important of these instruments, however, is economic power.  The other three instruments are effective only if they are sustained by a vibrant economy and an unencumbered government.  All national power collapses if a country loses control of its finances.  The Soviet Union’s economic collapse, quickly followed by its military and diplomatic collapse in 1989, should be a sobering example of what can happen to a corrupt “superpower.”  

We are on a similar road to ruin if we don’t revert to wisely established constitutional principles of economic governance:  present yearly budgets, debate them, balance them, enact them, and hold to them.  Anyone on either side of the aisle who is not faithful to that process is part of the problem and not part of the solution.  

3 October 2013 –

The World War II Memorial Belongs to My Uncle Walt

June 2004.  The World War II Memorial on the Mall in Washington, D.C., had just been dedicated—forty years late, but finally open.    We were stationed in D.C., and my cousin, Ron, also lived in the area.   Ron had invited his parents to town to visit the new WWII Memorial, and asked if we would like to accompany them.  Of course!  Escorting Uncle Walt and Aunt Rosemary that day would turn out to be one of the brightest memories of my military career. 

Uncle Walt was the last living brother of four who served in WWII. He was the captain of the first gun turret on the USS Boise, a light cruiser that fought in the Pacific, the Atlantic, and the Mediterranean.  He was decorated for bravery during the Battle of Cape Esperance on 11-12 October 1942, when Japanese shells hit near the first gun turret and killed three of his men.  Until he died just a few years ago, my uncle was proud to introduce himself by saying, “Hi.  I’m Walt Coleman, USS Boise, World War II.” 

Walt was the only one of the four brothers to see a monument built in their honor.

My oldest uncle, LeRoy, for whom I was named, was a sailor on the USS Northhampton.  On 1 December 1942, a Japanese torpedo sent the Northampton to the bottom of Ironbottom Sound in the Battle of Tassafaronga off Guadacanal.  LeRoy and fifty-four of his compatriots were killed, sixty-two years before their memorial was dedicated.  

My father, Burt, was an army sergeant in WWII.  He was drafted into the Army in 1940 as part of the wholesale transition of young men from the Civilian Conservation Corps to military service.  He was wounded in the battle for the Aleutian Islands.  He suffered from shrapnel wounds, and died in 1963, fifty-one years before the dedication of his memorial.

My Uncle Johnie served on the USS Chester and saw combat in the Battle of Coral Sea in May 1942.  He fell ill and stayed in the hospital for ten months before returning to full service stateside.  Uncle Johnie married late in life, had no children, and died while working on a train in Montana, two decades before his memorial was built. 

At home, my grandmother proudly displayed in her front window in Glendive, Montana, the only memorial available to her sons-in-arms:  three blue stars, one gold.  She died in the late 1960s, never to know her sons would have their own monument decades later.

My wife’s father was a colonel in World War II.  He commanded a P-38 reconnaissance group, flying hundreds of missions, ”unarmed and unafraid,” out of New Guinea.  He was deployed overseas for thirty months during the war and retired in 1959.  He died in 1973, 31 years before his memorial was dedicated. 

One of my greatest honors was to wear my father-in law, Colonel Maughan’s, WWII colonel’s rank, a “War Eagle”, on my flight cap as I, in uniform, escorted my Uncle Walt, in a wheelchair, around his memorial.  That day, as he often did, Uncle Walt wore a baseball cap emblazoned with “CL-47 USS BOISE World War II.”    Other men and women also wore baseball caps or pins identifying their right to be at their memorial.  Everyone introduced themselves.  They shook hands firmly, all equals now, commenting how glorious it was to be there that day, remembering together days long past.  A young father asked Uncle Walt to tell his little boys about courage and hardship, and what it was like to be on board ship during a war so many years before.  Walt was pleased and proud to do so.

That was nine years ago.  The WWII veterans who visited the memorial that day stood on their ground.   The veterans who this week visited the Memorial still own that ground.  They bought it by saving civilization.  Their blood, and that of their fallen compatriots, render the ground and the monuments sacred. 

No matter how important we think our contributions to this country are today, you and I are merely visitors to, and should be humble guardians of, this memorial.  Sadly, people with similar birthrights—parents and grandparents who sacrificed so much in WWII—literally barricaded the  monument against visitors for their own careless purposes.   Shame on them for assuming that they had such a right.     

We have little time left to give tribute to the World War II veterans still among us.  Certainly nothing should be more important during this self-induced fiscal crisis than welcoming them to their own memorial and honoring them for changing the course of history, for having “preserved us a nation.”

25 September 2013 –

Our Family Needs to Hash This Out. 

Will y’all please sit down?  Would somebody please park Aunt Crystal’s wheelchair near the front so she can follow the discussion?  Thank you getting’ together in this family council.  We have a lotta issues to discuss.  Since Cousin Victor insists that we no longer start meetings with a prayer, let’s get right into it.  

Our agenda has a bunch of important issues.  1) Constant crime and violence in nearby neighborhoods, committed by ethnic gangs on each other and on innocent neighbors, are threatening our family’s security.  2) The family compound gates are left open all hours of the day and night, with no one watching who enters or leaves.  3) We need to tidy up our family compound since most of us create some garbage and smoke running businesses out of our sheds and garages.  4) Our kids’ marks in school ain’t stacking up against those in other neighborhoods.  5) Is Cousin Waylon getting his meds delivered on time? 

Before chewing on these, I say that our number one issue is the family’s finances.  Ever since we hired Uncle Sam to help us deal with all our issues, we have had good times and bad times.  But, we find ourselves in a new mud hole, and we are digging it deeper every day.  Very soon, if we don’t climb out, we will bury ourselves.  Then, others’ cows will graze on our lawns.  We need to talk about how much of our money Uncle Sam is spending.

Right now, we pay Uncle Sam about $275,000/year to do all this stuff for the family.  This amount has gone up a lot over the years.  OK, we get a lot for the money; but, in the last ten to fifteen years, Uncle Sam has been spending far more than what we pay him every year.  Last year, he spent over $350,000.  In fact, he right now has over $1,700,000 in credit card debt.  That is more than the entire family makes in a year.  He spends at least $40,000/year on the debt interest alone.  Just how long Uncle Sam is gonna be able to sweet talk the bank into handling that debt is debatable.  Family: we gotta rein in Uncle Sam or the bank will demand that we pay that debt with our money and our property.  Our good name is gonna be worthless.  Then, what are we gonna get done? 

I, therefore, put to a vote that we demand that Uncle Sam every year submits a list of stuff he can do for us, how much it’s gonna cost, and makes sure that the cost is the same or less than what we are payin’ him.  That’ll keep the bank off our back as we figure out how to start payin’ on the debt itself.  I vote for it.  Whatty’all think? 

Aunt Mabel?  “Crystal and I don’t think we need a vote.  Uncle Sam is a good man.  He cares for the family, especially those in need.  Everything will work out if we trust him.  Against.”

Cousin Cletis?  “We need to borrow more money right now anyway or Uncle Sam won’t be able to pay today’s bills.  I am sure the bank also is under a lot of pressure to extend more credit.  We don’t need a vote until later, when things get really hairy.  Against.”

 

Cousin Earl?  “I’m sorry, Cousin, I was on my phone talking to my foreman.  I gotta go to work. But, I’m all for it.  ” 

Aunt Agnes?  “I’ll vote for anything that’ll keep my monthly check comin’ in.  I am afraid.  Against.” 

Cousin Waylon?   “He’s your Uncle Sam, but he’s my Daddy, and he got me my job.  I’ll vote to keep things the way they are.  Against.” 

 

Cousin Buford?  "It seems that we are spending a lot of money for things we can do better for ourselves.  For." 

Cousin Sue?  "We’re getting’ some fancy things, but it’s like we don’t need to be a family no more.  For. "

Finally, Cousin Syvie?  "I can take care of myself better than Uncle Sam ever can.  What’s more, he just dumped a bunch of our money in a health spa membership that will cost our young’uns a ton of money for something they don’t need and I can’t even get me an appointment in the next two weeks.  For. For. For."

   

Thank you, family.  Hmm…until we solve this, is the rest of the agenda even worth going through right now?  

12 September 2013 –

Where Is The Islamic Jihadist Threat Coming From?

In April 2001, five months before 9/11, I attended a Middle East Orientation Course before deploying to Turkey as part of Operation NORTHERN WATCH.  Our job there would be to enforce the no-fly zone above the 36^th parallel in Iraq—a vestige of DESERT STORM’s defeating Saddam Hussein’s forces in 1991 and liberating Kuwait.  The course included presentations on the governments, cultures, religions, economies, and histories, of the countries from Morocco to Iran.  In military parlance, we were drinking from the fire hose before being thrown into the fire.   

An Air Force Moslem chaplain was one of the presenters.  A Catholic convert to Islam, he completed religious training under an American program funded by the Saudi Arabian Wahabist sect of Islam.  What bothered me immediately was a bearded civilian of middle-eastern descent who stood at the edge of the stage and monitored the chaplain’s presentation. The chaplain often turned to him for silent approval. 

During the question and answer period, I asked about the extra man on stage.  The chaplain said that he came from a local mosque in Florida and was there to approve his, the chaplain’s, remarks.  I asked why a trained Air Force chaplain, in uniform, talking to other Air Force personnel in an official setting, would need a local civilian to approve what he said.  No other religion’s chaplains had such a requirement.  The chaplain said that his authority to counsel Air Force Moslems and to preach Islam came from his imam and not from the Air Force.  He said that he was always under such control.  The local imam on stage scowled at me throughout the explanation. 

I then suggested to the chaplain the following scenario:  Suppose a Moslem fighter pilot was deploying to Turkey to fly combat missions over Northern Iraq and came to his chaplain for spiritual guidance.  This pilot may indeed be ordered to attack and kill Iraqi soldiers on the ground.  These Iraqi soldiers would most certainly be Moslems.   How would he, the conservative Moslem chaplain, advise this pilot?  A dreadful answer followed.  The chaplain looked at his imam handler and then said that as a Moslem chaplain he would tell the fighter pilot to refuse to attack fellow Moslems on the ground.  I reminded the chaplain that this USAF officer voluntarily bound himself by oath to execute the missions given him.  I also reminded the chaplain that he also had taken that same oath of office.  Therefore, would the chaplain counsel a fellow officer to break that oath?  The chaplain’s second answer: He would counsel Moslems to refuse to kill Moslems, no matter what uniform anyone was wearing. 

I said nothing more.  All the air was sucked out of the room in amazement.  The civilian imam motioned that the session was over, and he and the chaplain left the stage.  We immediately broke for lunch.  When we returned, the commander of the base, an upset two-star general, took the stage and announced that the Air Force had no problems with any Moslems serving and that we should go on with our presentations.  We dutifully obeyed and finished the day with no further confrontations with uniformed traitors.       

I write about this event twelve years later to emphasize a compelling fact: Almost every international “crisis” confronting the United States in the last two decades has been woven throughout by major strains of Islamic Jihadist violence.  The violent attacks of the last decades, funded by petro dollars, are the latest jihadist campaign in a 1300-year war between an increasingly secular Western civilization and Islam.   What we in the West call toleration, jihadists call weakness and willful rebellion against authority.  What we honor as individual liberties, jihadists call infidels’ insubordination to Islam.  Jihadists look at our nation’s grand experiment of freedom, buttressed by obligations to our nation and to others’ liberties, as a weakness to exploit.  Jihadists hate our way of life, and they hate us.    

To blunt our enemy’s latest aggression, we must remind ourselves who killed three thousand Americans twelve years ago, who has killed thousands of American soldiers in Iraq and Afghanistan, who killed bystanders in the Boston marathon, who killed unarmed soldiers in a processing center at Fort Hood, Texas, who killed our ambassador and three others in Benghazi, who is killing thousands of Coptic Christians in Egypt, and who is killing Syrian Christians today, right now.   

We know our enemy.  We know where he comes from.  We know he wants to punish then eradicate the West.  This is war.