String theory

Physics has a theory called string theory to explain the nature of time and space which can be read about on wikipedia here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/String_theory.

Now, I don't possess the scientific chops to argue the physicists string theory, I have my own theory which unfortunately carries the same name. Mine is a behavioral, or psychological string theory which can be summarized by the phrase, "Oh, look! String." What I mean by that is that we, as Americans, can be easily distracted.

In the midst of the worst economy since the Great Depression, what are we focused on? I'll give you a hint, it's not the economy. The President wants o impose Islamic law. Some guy wants to build a Mosque near Ground Zero. Sarah Palin is defending a talk radio host using the n-word. Does any of this really matter? This is string and we are cats. As a dog person, that is not easy for me to say.

Bloody nose

We now return to our regularly scheduled blog already in progress. Previously, I compared threats to our rights to being punched in the nose. To be honest, I think our collective nose is redder than Bozo the Clown's.

Here's why:

• The government believes (and we let them) that they can listen to our phone calls without a warrant.
• The Chief Executive has sole authority to declare someone an enemy combatant.
• Old energy plants have upgraded capacity without improving emissions in violation of the EPA's New Source Review requirements
• Mountain Top Removal mining waste is dumped into our rivers and streams.
• Financial reform regulation exempts used car loans from oversight.
• There is still nearly 4 million barrels of oil in the Gulf of Mexico
• Oil companies are not paying market value for their drilling royalties.
• Wall Street is using government loans to buy govenment bonds and pocketing the profits.
• Egg companies are selling salmonella contaminated eggs
• Phone companies are using our cell phone signals to tell police where we are.

This is just to name a few. If the flow from our noses were rain, Noah would be building a boat.

Scaria tactics

As defenders of the Constitution protest religious freedom for Muslims across this nation, one of the claims being made is that Muslims want to bring Sharia Law to this country. Ooohh, Scary! My mother keeps a Kosher home.You may be wondering what that's got to do with the price of Tea in China. Well, nothing and yet, everything.

Everything because when the protestors mention Sharia, they want you to think of the people who were stoned to death in Iran for comitting adultery. Nothing, on the other hand, because stoning also happens to be part of Biblical Law, and as a Christian Nation (which we're not) we uphold that, too. Or not. I claim that American Muslims adhere to Sharia Law in much the same way that Christians adhere to Biblical Law, and Jews adhere to Talmudic Law.

People of faith use that faith to guide them through life. As Americans, though, we recognize the difference between the laws of man and the Laws of G-d. As citizens, we recognize the importance of dispensing civil justice through the courts which give primacy to the Constitution over the Bible, the Old Testament, or the Quran. The social contract that is the great experiment of America means we agree to let government ensure justice here on earth and whatever G-d exists out there handlesthe spiritual justice.

The Food and Drug Administration does not regulate whethera restaurant can be called Halal or Kosher. We allow the religious institutions make those determinations. Likewise, our police do not now, and never will, enforce Sharia Law. Fel free to turn off the night light.

Mideast Piece: The Return of King David

I first visited Israel in 1983. At the time, the West Bank was very much a part of Israel. In contrast, during my last visit in 1998, we passed a checkpoint very similar to a border when we entered the West Bank to visit Rachel's Tomb. I mention this because my own thinking has gone through a similar change. I used to believe that Israel should have just annexed territories seized in war. Now, I think the two state solution is a foregone conclusion.

Now back to the history. I don't know how exactly the British decided to divide territories under its control. I imagine most people would say, "poorly." As far as we're concerned here, the land east of the Jordan River became Jordan. For the land to the west of the river, they came up with a partition plan, with a nation called Palestine and a Jewish State.

The Jews decided not to call their state Judea- been there done that. The United Nations, established after World War II, approved of this plan. Now, being Jewish, I heard the story thusly, "The other Arab Nations in the region told the Palestinians to leave because they were going to attack." Palestinians say they were kicked out by the Israelis. After 45 years of life experience, there is no doubt in my mind that both stories have some truth to them.

Regardless of whether they left voluntarily or were forced out, the simple fact remains that Palestinians have been homeless since 1948. They are living in refugee camps in almost every nation in the middle east. This is a tragedy, and nobody mentions that these nations do not accept the Palestinians as being eligible for citizenship- 62 years and they keep them in refuee camps. Also unmentioned is that many of these nations had Jewish communities that they simply kicked out.

The Palestinians often talk about their 62 years of oppression, but what they do not mention is that for the first 19 years, the Israelis were not the oppressors. From 1948 until 1967, the West Bank was not considered occupied, it was Jordan. Likewise Gaza was part of Egypt. With the exception of the Palestinians, the Arab world had no problem with Palestine being occupied as long as it was occupied by other Arabs.

In Hebrew school, I learned that G-d promised Abraham that his children would become a "nation great and mighty." He had two sons, Ishmael and Isaac. Hence, two nations. In Islam, the Patriarch is called Ibrahim. He is the same person. The time has come for the children of brothers to come together and end this dispute.

Mideast Piece: The Two States

When last we left our intrepid blogger, we were discussing the history of the Israel/Palestine problem. Let's start with a little more history. The word Palestine came from the Roman Empire. Judea was a Roman Province with a Rome supported King and Roman garrison's. In the middle of the first century A.D. (C.E. in Jewish parlance), there was an uprising against the empire. By the year 70, any remnants of this uprising had effectively been squelched and the Second Temple in Jerusalem had been destroyed. Begin search for the lost Ark here.

The Romans were so angry about the uprising that they decided to rename the land after one of the Judean people's long vanquished enemies, the Philistines. The Jews who had not engaged directly in battle and succumbed to defeat scattered to the winds in a second Diaspora. Towards the end of the 19th century, eastern European Jews decided to return to what they considered their ancestral homeland and establish a Jewish state there.

Over the next several decades many Jews emigrated to what was then called "Palestine-TransJordan." During this time, a World War broke out. The English reached out to the Arab Community because the Ottoman Empire had sided with the other guys. You may have heard of the chief English Emissary, T. E. Lawrence (of Arabia). After the war and the subsequent establishment of the League of Nations, lesser nations (by European standards) were divied up and the League was tasked to modernize and democratize these countries.

This is how the distinct nations of Iraq, Kuwait, and Saudi Arabia came about, and why Saddam thought he had a right to re-unify them. Palestine-TransJordan was another of these British protectorates. In the 1930's a "white paper" circulated in which Great Britain committed to creating a Jewish state in this protectorate. The Holocaust enabled the British to use their "control" of the territories to create the Jewish state.

This has been a pretty big pill to swallow- I'll continue later. . .

Mideast Piece: The Fellowship of Jews

I know you're heartbroken- expecting to hear more about nose punching. However, yesterday it was announced that the Israelis and Palestinians are going to resume direct negotiations next month and my Heebness (Jewish Identity) took over. In the interests of disclosure, yes I am Jewish and I support Israel. That support is not unconditional.

A little history first. The nation of Israel is an idea more than it is a geographical location. In Hebrew, Am Yisrael, is a description of the Jewish People- descendants of Jacob, who was given the name Israel after wrestling and Angel to a draw. Um, er if you believe such things. The word Jews, from the hebrew yehudim, dates to the Babylonian conquest where in exile we were "Judeans."

Flash forward to modern day Israel. It is a line drawn on a map by the British. So was Iraq, Indai/Pakistan and Northern Ireland. Let's face it, we should not let the English anywhere near a map with writing tools. But the past is the past. We need to decide what the future holds.

The simple truth is that most serious negotiators know what the endgame looks like: A Palestinian state approximating the 1967 borders, a shared capital of Jerusalem, Palestinians compensated for no right of return. This is the what. I'll get into the why shortly.

Punch Drunk

There is an old story of a man on trial for assault. He had been punching people in the nose. His defense was that he had an unalienable right to pursue happiness and punching people in the nose made him happy. In sentencing the man, the Judge told him that his right to pursue happiness ended at the tip of the next person's nose. I'm not inclined to believe this story ever actually happened, but as an allegory it is very useful.

I don't know if I've posted it here before but I often write that the primary purpose of our government, and indeed the argument in the Declaration of Independence, is to protect the unalienable rights of its citizens. Apparently, I have an unalienable right to not get punched in the nose. I'm sure Thomas Jefferson felt it would have sounded clunky along with "Life, Liberty, and the Pursuit of Happiness". That's probably why he wrote the phrase that precedes it, to wit, "that among these are."

I often look at the Preamble to The Constitution as a general set of instructions on how best to secure these rights, to use the construction of the Declaration. Take my nose, please. How does The Constitution help the government protect my right to not get hit in the nose?

• Step 1: Establish justice. Should someone actually punch me in the nose I can seek redress in court. No need to resort to 2nd Amendment remedies (apologies to Sharron Angle)
• Step 2: Ensure domestic tranquility. Ironically, this should come first. If the police are keeping the peace my nose won't get punched.
• Step 3: Provide for the common defense. This means that they should protect us all from a foreign power that would overthrow our government and allow us to get punched in the nose.
• Step 4: Promote the General Welfare. When people are doing better in general they are less likely to want to punch my nose.
• Step 5: Secure the blessings of Liberty. Repeat steps 1 thru 4.
• Step 6: To ourselves and our Posterity. Now and forever.

Now, let's consider anything that might infringe upon my rights as a punch in the nose. Our Constitution not only charges the government with protecting my nose from being punched, it prohibits the government from doing the punching. Who else, aside from our neighbor in the first paragraph, might try to punch us in the nose? Corporations.

When government, through regulation, seeks to protect our noses (and mom spent a lot on mine), that is not tyranny. That is simply government doing its job. We need to separate the concept of pro-citizen from anti-business. More to come. . .

Beware of dog

The anti-immigrant crowd, who will swear up and down that they are not anti-immigrant, "what part of illegal do you not understand?" has been foaming at the mouth lately that the reason Arizona had to pas SB1070 is that this President hasn't been doing enough to stem the tide of illegal immigration. Nothing could be further from the truth. As the New York Times has documented on August 18th, this administration is deporting "illegals" at a far greater pace than any time during the previous administration.

Now, the right has gotten its dander up about "anchor babies" and "terror babies". You could hear the anguish in Representative Louie Gohmert's voice on Anderson Cooper. Despite the lack of evidence he was truly afraid of the consequences of terror babies. The border is effectively sealed. It is not perfect. There is no Ziploc technology for a nation's border. Right now, however, if anything immigrants are going the other way- crossing back into Mexico. There aren't the jobs here.

Somebody alert the Republicans! the most effective tool we have to combat illegal immigration is called "Recession." During normal economic times we created a bastion of freedom, with the possible exception of the land near Ground Zero, that people want to experience. From the days the settlers landed in Jamestown and the Pilgrims hit Plymouth Rock, those who've made it here have been trying to keep it to themselves.

They have put up all the signs- Keep out! No Trespassing! Beware of Dog! Everybody that has made it here has an obligation to ask themselves this question about these newcomers, these so-called "illegals": How would I feel if I had just arrived and they wanted to get rid of me? Don't dismiss it. Spend some quality time with that thought, because it has been true of all of us.

Do as I say not as I say

I want to start out today by stating for the record that when I use the word "Republicans," I am referring specifically to the Washington variety. This includes both elected officials and the pundits we see on television. I do not wish to besmirch any individual citizen. When party labels and liberal versus consertive are removed from a conversation, and Americans are asked simply if they believe government should do this or that, consensus levels are around 60-70% on the concept.

Let's stipulate that neither the Republican party nor the Democratic party is mentioned in The Constitution. In fact, the current Democratic party was originally known as the Democratic Republicans. The Republican party came into existence in the 1850's. Neither party today resembles their founding principles.

Thomas Jefferson, a small government Democratic-Republican expanded government auhority in making the purchase of the Louisiana Territory from the French. Republicans proudly call themselves the "Party of Lincoln and (Teddy) Roosevelt, and yet they talk about states rights, seceding from the Union, and rail against the environment and campaign finance reform.

To be fair, things change over time, so it is not unreasonable for people to change as well. However, today's Republicans are inconsistent on an almost daily basis. During the confirmation hearings for Supreme Court Justice Elana Kagan, they asked what role international law might play in any case before the court- intimating that as Americans we don't cater to international thought. At the same time, justifying the privatization of Social Security and demonizing the Islamic cultural center in lower Manhattan, they cite Chile, and the lack of churches in Saudi Arabia.

Rebpublicans talk about the importance of "States Rights" except when a state decides to enact a policy that doesn't jibe with their culturally conservative narrative. Roe V Wade was a federal violation of states rights to restrict abortion, but Oregon doesn't have the right to pass a law voted on by statewide referendum allowing for assisted suicide for the terminally ill. California does not have the right to pass, also by statewide vote, a law allowing for cancer patients to use marijuana to enhance their appetites to counter the effects of chemotherapy.

Republicans rail against the huge deficit, and they insist that spending to aid the poor must be paid for but cutting taxes on the wealthy which also increases the debt need not be offset. The First Amendment guarantees us all the right to believe what we want to believe. Republicans want to believe what they don't believe. That's called hypocrisy.

Sticks and Stones

There has been a lot of buzz in the blogosphere about Press Secretary Robert Gibbs having a meltdown, ranting against the "professional left." The story is about political silliness. Hey, Bob, if you're not happy with the criticism, I've got one word for you, tough. It comes with the job. During the campaign, many Clinton supporters were critical of then Senator Obama as being too centrist. Now the left that backed him has realized the truth of that criticism. The President is governing as a moderate. The left is unhappy, the right calls him a Marxist/Socialist and your complaint is about the left? Really?

Robert, man up! The left's displeasure is the best thing that could happen to you. Bernie Sanders tells a story about how he apologized to President Clinton for his Health Care plan. The President told him that he'd been very helpful. Senator Sanders responded that that was precisely the problem. Because he liked the bill, Republicans could paint it as Socialist. You also need to pay more attention to your boss. He is the one who continues to challenge the left to force his hand. Don't whine that they take him at his word.

There's an old adage that says if you want a friend in Washington, buy a dog. The President did. Maybe that's what you need to do.

A short post

If the problem with the Ground Zero Mosque, which is neither a mosque nor at Ground Zero, is merely its proximity and not evidence of anti-Muslim bigotry, then why are similar structures being protested in Murfreesboro, Tennessee, Sheboygan, Wisconsin, and Petaluma, California?

Let me know when you've got an answer.

Nothing's changed

Watching the cable news shows in the wake of Judge Walker's overturning of Proposition 8 in California, the thing that occurs to me is the right talking about this activist judge establishing a new right to same sex marriage. Judge Walker did no such thing. Much like the California Supreme Court and the Massachusetts Supreme Court before it, all judge Walker did was determine that denying the right to marriage to people of the same sex was unconstitutional. This does not "establish" a new right.

Ted Olson was on Fox being grilled by Chris Wallace about this being an activist decision. Ted Olson was the attorney who argued for then-Governor Bush in Bush V Gore that led to the Bush 43 presidency. He served as Solicitor General under President Bush. His partisan bona fides are firmly established. Wallace constantly tried to get him to admit the decision was activism.

Mr. Olson agreed that there is no new civil right to same sex marriage. However, the court has continually ruled that marriage is a fundamental right. Some would deny people that right based on the gender of the people seeking to avail themselves of the fundamental right to marry. If marriage is a fundamental right, as the Supreme Court has consistently ruled it is over more than 100 years, than every citizen is entitled to that right. Judge Walker did not establish a new right, he merely affirmed that one applied to all people.

Look for the Union Label

There was an ad where they would sing a song with this title. I only remember a parody version of it. The idea was to convey the notion that products made by unionized companies were better. That was a good message, and unions did their members a service by spreading it.

Union membership has been in decline for several decades, and I would argue that the decline in the middle class has coincided with it. There seems to be a lot of antipathy towards unions by average Americans at the same time that union members are average Americans. In the recent government bailout of GM and Chrysler, unions were forced to restucture contracts as a condition of receiving the funding. At the same time, Wall Street firms received 100 cents on the dollar on their derivative defaults, and not one executive was forced to reduce his contractually obligated bonus.

I'd lay odds that the Tea Party contingent would be angry about union members getting a 3% increase in their pensions if it cost CEO's 3% of their bonuses. Why are unions demonized so much? The very concept of a union is an American value. The workers getting together and telling the owner of a company that they demand rights is exactly what we did to King George III.

We have no problems when a CEO saves his company $11 million by cutting several thousand jobs and getting a bonus of $12 million. General Motors adds $4,000* to the cost of each car for the health insurance of the employees which makes it hard to compete with BMW because the government pays for their health insurance. We complain about the union rather than demanding our government level the playing field with Germany. Does this make any sense?

One of President Obama's campaign issues was the Employee Free Choice Act (EFCA), also known as card check. I'll address why it hasn't passed in a later post, but one reason is the unpopularity of unions. As much as the right has demonized unions, union leadership must share in the liability.

I think many unions have forgotten their mission, or have misinterpreted it. Let me cite a few of examples of what I mean. The Major League Baseball Players Association (MLBPA) fought for years to prevent drug testing for steroids in baseball. The United Federation of Teachers (UFT) makes it nearly impossible to fire teachers. Actors Equity Association (AEA) has prevented thousands of members from working.

The MLBPA protected the members who were cheating (using steroids) at the expense of the members who were not. If the New York City school system were able to rid itself of incompetent and sometimes criminal teachers in a timely manner, there would be more money to pay the good teachers. There are a lot more non-union acting jobs out there than union, yet AEA spends more resources policing members who work at non-union jobs than they do on policies that would encourage the non-union theaters to hire their members.

Union membership should convey a level of professionalism. Unions should defend that idea. Rather than universally protecting members, they should be protecting the notion of professionalism that membership carries. This way, they can say the reason you want to hire union members is that you get better results. These days, the union seems more interested in collecting the dues and having the numbers of membership.

You serve memberships interests better by rooting out the bad apples, than by defending them.

An End to Illegal Immigration

Many people who are against illegal immigration point out that their problem is NOT with the immigrants it's with the ones who come here "illegally". The phrase, "what part of 'illegal' do you not understand?" tends to be uttered a lot. The problem is that we do not have enough resources to allow for the amount of immigration our economy needs. Instead of thinking about how these people came here, take a moment to think about why they came and where they came from.

Pandagon has a wonderful post about the term "illegals" on their site. It allows us to not think about these people as people- they're "illegals". When I think about the people who are not here legally today, I think of my family. My grandparents on my father's side escaped pogroms in Lithuania. When my grandmother ran through forests and stowed away on a boat, she wasn't thinking if her papers were in order for arrival in New York.

Back then, we had Ellis Island, and people would be sent there to be processed. We need Ellis Islands along the border. The way to end illegal immigration is to create more ways for immigrants to enter legally. There is no way to prove this, but I believe that if you let more people in legally, there will not be more immigration, but there will be less illegal immigration. Don Pardo says, "Come on down! You're the next contestant on Welcome to America!" Set up welcome centers, do background checks and then give these people ID's.

We've had a Beware of Dog sign up since Jamestown in 1607. We have established a beacon of freedom. We put up a statue with a torch to light the way that says you are welcome here. It is long past time to live up to the message on that ladies pedestal.

You are cordially invited

I wonder how many wedding invitations went out this afternoon in California from same-sex couples. Judge Walker has just struck down Proposition 8 which had amended the state constitution to ban same-sex marriage after the State Supreme Court had ruled that nothing in the constitution prevented it, effectively legalizing it. Already, the right is is signaling their displeasure saying that this is a slap in the face to the millions who voted in favor of Prop 8. In this case they are correct.

That being said, supporters of prop 8 deserved to have their faces slapped. When a majority of the people agree with the right's ideas, they are more than happy to live in a democracy. When they are in the minority, they remind us all that we are a republic. Technically speaking, we are still a republic in that the President and Vice-President are not directly elected officials. Today, all other elected officials hold office as a result of a democratic election. We are not, however, simply a republic. There is a condition. That is called the Constitution of the United States.

The primary purpose of government, as I've written before is to secure the unalienable rights of all its citizens. In California, a majority sought to impose their will to deny the unalienable right to get married to a minority. The Constitution does not allow this. Indeed, if 99% of the country wanted to denounce same-sex marriage as a purely legal matter, they should not be allowed to do so. The idea that unalienable rights are endowed by a Creator and not a government proscribes the government from taking them away. Unalienable means that these rights cannot be made alien to (apart from) you.

Former House Speaker Newt Gingrich recently held a press conference where he called for a law to prevent a presumably liberal judge from considering Shariah (Islamic) law in making decisions. This is a purely political position. The law already exists. It is called The Constitution.

Debunking the Ground Zero Mosque

There is a lot of anger out there because a group of Muslims is planning to build a Mosque at Ground Zero. There are a couple of problems with that sentence: There is no Mosque and it is not at Ground Zero. The Cordoba House is a Muslim Cultural center based on the model of the 92nd Street Y. Yes, it will have a prayer room. It will not have minarets.

Even if it were to be a Mosque I would support it. Many on the right, who oppose this building, talk about being for liberty and The Constitution. Yet they are seeking to deny Muslims the liberty to practice their faith which is Constitutionally guaranteed. Individual citizens have every right to express their opinion that this location should not house a building whose religion they perceive as an enemy of America. That is, however, and Un-American viewpoint.

There is perhaps no more fundamental American Value than the freedom of religion. The right talks about us being a Christian nation. They are either lying or misinformed. For evidence, I point you to the Treaty with Tripoli, dated 1797, signed by President Jon Adams. From Wikipedia:

• Art. 11. As the Government of the United States of America is not, in any sense, founded on the Christian religion,—as it has in itself no character of enmity against the laws, religion, or tranquility, of Mussulmen,—and as the said States never entered into any war or act of hostility against any Mahometan nation, it is declared by the parties that no pretext arising from religious opinions shall ever produce an interruption of the harmony existing between the two countries

Jon Adams, in addition to being the second President of this nation was both a Founding Father, and a devout Christian. As such, I think he can reasonably be considered an authority on the subject.

Muslims may have perpetrated the September 11th terrorist attacks, but that doesn't make Islam an enemy religion. Terrorism wins when it gets us to change our behavior. Accepting this cultural center is not only the right thing to do Constitutionally, it is also the best way to thumb our noses at the terrorists.

Returning to Immigration

So the Judge in Arizona has ruled to enjoin Arizona from implementing many provisions of SB1070 the so-called illegal immigration law. Many on the right have now decried the decision and impugned the judge's impartiality. Before the decision was handed down, many elected officials on both sides of the aisle were praising her fairness and competence. Activism, like beauty, apparently lies in the eye of the beholder.

On the right, the chief argument against illegal immigration is one of security. The talk is of the crime that accompanies it. The problem is that the facts simply do not bear this out. According to the FBI, crime is down in Arizona, and it is down across the board. The interesting fact is that crime is up in Maricopa County. Maricopa is home to Sheriff Joe Arpaio. Sheriff Joe is perhaps the most zealous hunter of illegals in the nation.

What does that say about illegal immigration and crime? Think about it for a minute. Crime is down throughout a state, but up in the county that most aggressively pursues illegal immigrants. I'd say the sheriff is obsessing so much about a perceived problem that he cannot see the real problems under his jurisdiction.

We are all hurting, and we want to pin blame for our pain on someone. Immigrants make an easy target. So do others that we perceive to be not like us. That's how the Nazi's came to power. During the Great Depression, they directed anger about the economy at foreigners and minorities. Believe me, you are not suffering because Jose is scrubbing toilets for $3.50 an hour of the books. Oh, and by the way, Jose thinks scrubbing toilets for that money is heaven in comparison to what he escaped. More to come.