Is John Lehman a Wife Beater?

State Rep. John Lehman, a candidate for the 21st District State Senate seat, denies recent allegations that he beats his wife. "I am happily married" Lehman announced at a packed news conference yesterday. "At no time in my 14 years of marriage have I ever acted in an aggressive manner towards my wife."

Yet extensive research from marriage experts indicates that most wife beaters deny the allegations. "Nobody ever admits to wife beating" chuckled family lawyer Bill Ulater. "Denial and wife beating go hand in hand. John Lehman's denials do not vindicate him, not in the least" Ulater continued.

A search of county arrest warrants and convictions indicate that John Lehman has not been arrested or convicted of wife beating.

"Most incidents of domestic violence are not reported to the police" according to UW Parkside Family Studies Professor Axtwo Grind. "It would not be the least bit unusual for Mrs. Lehman to cower in silence, fearing even more violence if she were to report his crimes. I mean his alleged crimes. At this point we can't be certain that John Lehman has beaten his wife. But we do know that wife beating is America's hidden crisis."

The Racine County District Attorney has indicated a willingness to prosecute any and all wife beaters.

The preceeding faux news story is not meant to damage John Lehman's political ambitions. It is meant to highlight the Journal Times political ambitions. On Wednesday, August 30th, the Journal Times ran a story entitled "Did Mac's bumpers break the law?" Yet the story offers no evidence, none whatsoever, that Bill McReynolds has broken the law. Of course it is true that Bill McReynolds might have broken the law, just as it is true that John Lehman might be a wife beater. But without any evidence to support the theory that McReynolds has broken the law, it is irresponsible, at best, to use the headline suggesting possible lawbreaking. At worst, the use of irresponsible and suggestive headlines is a not-so-subtle attempt by the Journal Times to harm Bill McReynolds while helping his opponent John Lehman. This kind of activity should be limitted to the opinion section of the newspaper.

Bumpergate

Dear Bill McReynolds;

I have been reading the paper lately regarding the controversy over your involvement with the sale of bumpers to the Sheriffs office. However, there have been very few facts accompanying the reporting. As a general rule, I would prefer that my elected officials refrain from doing business with the government entity that they preside over. That said, I believe that it is also certainly possible that your business involvement with the Sheriffs office may have been beneficial to the office as well as taxpayers. At this point, I lack the information needed to fairly judge this election year controversy. Would you please answer the following questions?

1) Explain the reasons why Force Engineering was formed.
2) What did Force Engineering produce, or did it buy and resell?
3) What was your role with Force Engineering?
4) There appears to be some confusion as to whether your involvement with Force Engineering was properly disclosed to all involved with the purchasing decisions. Can you clarify this issue?
5) Explain the rules pertaining to purchasing, particularly where a conflict of interest could arise.
6) Did the Sheriffs Department, to the best of your knowledge, follow the rules?
7) Rules aside, can you understand that many people, hopefully most people, are uncomfortable with business dealings between elected officials and government entities?
8) You may be our next state senator. How will this episode affect your decisions in the future, if at all?
9) Please include any additional information that you feel is necessary to fully resolve this issue.

Thank you Mr. McReynolds. I will include this letter, and your response, on my blog, freeracine.blogspot.com.

Sincerely,

Denis Navratil

business decency

My remote garage door opener wasn't working, so I called Advanced Garage Door Service, as their number was posted inside my garage. I left a message explaining my problem. Later I received a call from Troy from AGDS. After Troy gathered the info that he needed, he offered to give me a garage door opener that he thought might work. Perhaps he had no use for the obsolete opener that he gave me, as they are over 25 years old and they are no longer made. Perhaps so, but Troy could have just as easily recommended a service call, and I would certainly have accepted his recommendation. So Troy bypassed an opportunity to make money, instead offering something free to a complete stranger. Is Troy a decent idiot?

No. While it certainly seems as if Troy is a nice guy, I suspect that he is also a smart businessman. A smart business person understands that if they meet the needs of their customers, they will earn a good reputation, and in the long run, they will be rewarded with customer loyalty. Yes, there can be short term losses, and some people may take advantage of your decency, but in the long run, treating your customers well is the key to success in business.

I offer this story for two reasons. First, I wanted to reward Troy. If you need your garage door serviced, it sure seems as though Troy will treat you fairly. But more importantly, this minor, nearly insignificant interaction between Troy and myself can help dispel an all too common misperception about business and what it takes to succeed in business. Many people seemingly believe that success in business is only possible if you sacrifice your decency. I don't believe that that is true. Certainly some skilled shysters can become rich. But a far better strategy is to develop a level of trust with your customers. Treat them well and they will reward you. A business person need not make a choice between decency and success. Thanks again Troy!

Understanding Edu-speak

I went to the school board meeting tonight to listen to the annual report. I arrived a bit late, so I might have missed some substance, but I doubt it. As I listened to the various administrators speak, I realized that they all were well versed in a language that I will call edu-speak. I am now prepared to take over for Dr. Hicks, when his lack of success becomes apparent to the community. The following is my proposal to enable Racine Unified to "move forward."

Objective data suggests that Dr. Hicks "New Chalkboard Plan" has not systematically addressed the needs of the community. We need, instead, my CPR Plan, which stands for Child Performance Reviews. CPR is needed to improve service delivery to the stakeholders as we move forward. With CPR, we will implement objective, measurable, child focused learning objectives. Systematic internal progress monitoring will drive the decisions needed to facilitate improved acedemic achievement, increased accountability, and improved student engagement. CPR baseline data, coupled with structured metrics and transparent benchmarks will enable internal stakeholders to drive improvements. Mastery of systems implementation among executive management and ongoing feedback from primary service providers will result in improved resource allocation, instructional efficiences as well as measureable external customer satisfaction improvements. I mean no disrespect to our former CEO, but I think it is time for CPR.

Now if my education proposal is not clear to you, be assured that as I move forward, my communication effectiveness with community stakeholders will be objectively measured through the focused use of industry standard interface evaluation techniques. The data suggests that external stakeholders will appreciate the implementation of a transparent, coherent, easily mastered communication delivery approach. So I may as well start now.

Most education experts are full of shit.

Get Whitey Tax

The Milwaukee Journal reported that "The University of Wisconsin-La Crosse would charge students $1,320 over three years on top of annual tuition increases to expand and diversify its student body under a pilot program approved Thursday by the UW System Board of Regents."

"A major focus of the program is bringing in more low-income and minority students, of which UW-La Crosse has few. The university would hire new staff to help recruit and retain 500 such students. It would use $3.8 million to fund scholarships and other forms of financial aid."

"We are targeting two particular groups," Lostetter (UW-La Crosse vice chancellor for administration and finance) said. "Students from the bottom two income quintiles and students of color."

If this new fee/student tax is approved by Governor Doyle and the Legislature, I hope it will be challenged in court. The basic problem, as I see it, is that the program will discriminate against white students, not once, but twice. First, by favoring "students of color" over students of non-color or wrong color, the university is using irrelevant and discriminatory criteria to select students, rather than having a merit based system. Then, to add insult to injury, they will require all students, including those with pale skin, to pay towards a program that discriminates on the basis of skin color. Students of all colors who oppose racial discrimination should protest this tax. It is offensive enough that racism against white students is celebrated by our morally bankrupt Board of Regents, but now they have the gall to require students to pay more for an expanded program of racism. At the very least, they should have a conscience clause which would allow students to avoid paying into a reprehensible, discriminatory program. Or is it OK to discriminate against white people?

Linkages or Referendum Prep?

What is a linkage? I didn't know either, but linkages are coming to the Racine area between Labor Day and Thanksgiving. I first heard about linkages at yesterdays RUSD school board meeting at the DeKoven Center. When I asked what they were, Russ carlsen handed me 12 pages of bold face print entitled "Linkage Strategy Outline." So far as I can tell, linkages are an effort by the school board to link with various groups within our community. The main topic of conversation is "Creating the future: RUSD in 2015." The conversations will take place with focus groups comprised of individuals from defined groups, such as blacks, business leaders, teachers, etc... and with unspecified key communicators, and at community forums. The following are the questions for discussion:

1. The year is 2015. During the past 9 years, RUSD has transformed itself, and has been recognized by the US Department of Education as one of the 10 most exemplary public school districts in the US. New neighbors have asked you to describe RUSD to help them decide whether to enroll their children here. How would you describe the district in terms of:
A. Students' acedemic preperation
B. Its operational efficiencies
C. The state of the district's facilities

2. In order to fully prepare our students to live and perform well in the world they will inherit in 2015, what will they need beyond academic preperation?

3. What would be required to make this vision of the future reality?

4. What are the barriers we must overcome in order to succeed?

It is fairly obvious how this will play out. The carefully chosen attendees, all firm believers in public education, will present their wish list. The graduates will have excellent test scores in all the important subjects. The district will operate smoothly and efficiently. The facilities will be top notch. In addition to solid reading and math skills, students will need political grooming to become citizens of the world. Obviously, we will need first rate teachers paid top dollar. We will need money, lots of money, for great teachers and first rate facilities. And in order to get this money, we will have to elect Democrats, lots of Democrats. As such, the barriers to this vision of success are those people who do not believe in our vision. Those people include many Republicans, advocates of school vouchers, and assorted greedy people who don't want to be taxed out of their homes.

For The Children?

I had a few spare hours today, so I attended a Racine School Board meeting. This meeting was held in a very small room at the Dekoven Center, at 1 pm today. The participants were Superintendent Hicks and the school board, minus Brian Dey. The meeting was led by Linda Dawson and Randy Quinn from The Aspen Group, a consultant firm hired to help implement school board policies.

There was a very interesting discussion about the wording used to set goals regarding student achievement. Presently, the goals are for children to achieve at or above grade level. This goal was found to be insufficient, as it does not adequately address the issues facing children for whom grade level achievement is impossible or for the brightest children who should be performing well beyond grade level. Instead, they agreed on the following goal:

Students will achieve acedemic results commensurate with yearly personalized learning goals.

The initial change in wording that was rejected included the phrase "individual learning goals." It was thought that this might sound too much like the IEP (individual education plan) used for special education children. Thus Armin Clobes suggested "call it a new name, not an IEP" and consultant Linda Dawson suggested exchanging the word "individual" with "personalized." Yet there was no discussion or suggestion that "personalized learning goals" differed from an IEP. Only the words are different.

School Board member Don Nielsen indicated that the Department of Public Instruction "wants to move in this direction," meaning a direction wherin students are measured according to their individual results relative to their "personalized learning goals", rather than measuring the aggregate scores of children in their school or district. There was a bit of emphasis on the unfairness of measuring schoolwide test results because of the constant turnover of students, coupled with the high truancy rates. Russ Carlsen suggested pulling out the test results of the chronically truant students.

So what does all this technical education jargon mean? I can't be sure, but I smell a rat. If the school district wishes to shift focus from their abysmal aggregate test results to an undefined method of measuring the results of 21,000 individuals, this could be a great public relations move by RUSD. I could easily envision a scenario where poor results are masked by glowing "improvement", as 95% of students exceeded their "personalized learning goals."

The dreaded No Child Left Behind Act was mentioned once, and I suspect that this emphasis on individual results might be intended to circumvent the intent of that law, which allows students to change schools if their school is achieving poor test results. You can avoid that problem by redefining success. Johnny can't read, but not to worry. He has met all of his "personalized learning goals."

In a nutshell, here is what I suspect is happening. RUSD is worried about the poor test results of their students, as they should be. Rather than address this problem directly, and attempt to improve the education and subsequent test scores, they are instead seeking to redefine success, which will be measured by a meaningless new standard. And yes, it is for the children.

Buddhist Baby Killers

I have no doubt that Zen Buddhist teacher Tony Somlia is sincere in his yearning for peace. Somlia wrote an article in the Journal Times today entitled "For true peace to appear, worry about all babies."

Somlia writes, "No one owns the truth. To proclaim there is only one path to peace is arrogant and divisive." And, "People continue to make unfortunate choices under the erroneous impression that they are right. The skills needed to enact peace are buried under the arrogance of being strong-headed. We fail to listen to each other because of the attachment of anger in our heads. Sharing resources scares us to death because we selfishly cling to a quality of life that is an illusion. Never wondering about our culpability in the creation of massive killing machines, we sleep well at night foolishly believing that our God supports this insanity. As a result, many babies die."

Now, at the risk of being called an arrogant, angry, strong-headed, selfish, foolish, baby killer, I wonder how Somlia would address the problem with Islamic extremists who would like to slit the throats of non-Muslims.

Somlia does not address the Islamic extremist problem, but he does offer one path to peace. "We do believe that there is suffering in this world, that there is cause to this suffering. Our contemplative practice looks deeply to find the medicine for the human sickness that creates war and kills indiscriminately. Our goal is to realize the role we play in this madness and then act on the peace found naturally in our hearts and minds. Our Zen Center's current effort is the creation of a peace garden, which has been five years in the making, on the grounds of the DeKoven Center."

So there it is. Let us all grow peace gardens. This will surely stop the terrorists in their tracks.

Somlia is a dangerous man. No, you don't have to cross the street to avoid him. I am sure he is quite pleasant. But his philosophy is dangerous. He thinks that there is no evil that can't be overcome by peaceful means like planting gardens. Ignoring evil, or engaging in fanciful, child-like notions that planting gardens can melt the hearts of terrorists, are dangerous ideas because they suppose the real evils that we face will go away. They will not. Only we will be less prepared to fight the evil that needs fighting. If Somlia's philosophy prevails, we will all forcibly become Muslims, or we will have our throats slashed. Needless to say, many more babies will die.

Free Wilbur

I don't know Wilber Jones, but I am rooting for him. Wilber Jones owns a bar on High Street in Racine and he is in danger of losing his liquor license. It is unclear what, if any, laws have been broken by Wilbur Jones. But that doesn't seem to matter. Wilbur may lose his license, and his livlihood, because of the behavior of his patrons.

Is this fair? Not in my book. I own a retail store. Should my store be closed by the city if criminals enter my store and steal my merchandise? Should my store be closed by the city if my customers commit a crime after leaving my store? No and no, of course. But if you own a liquor license, you may well lose your license because of crimes committed by other people, even if you have broken no laws.

Even more problematic in the grand scheme of things is our increasing tendency to hold the wrong people accountable for crimes. It is the perpetrator of crimes that should be punished, and nobody else.

Lesson for Prairie Students

The following is a mini commentary by the Racine Journal Times.

"Thumbs down to The Prairie School for charging for the use of your tennis courts. Yes, you paid for the new courts. Yes, you're a private school and have every right to charge for their use. But your new summer tennis club does little to cast off the elitism associated with your school. Drop the fee and give something back to the community; it'd be a good lesson for your students."

I agree with the Journal Times on one point. There is a lesson here for students. Here it is. There are many people who have contempt for the private sector. Many of them become journalists. They may be deeply caring people, to be sure. They love equality. Thus, they do not like to see wealth, as it is a visual reminder of inequality. If things were equal, this wealth would be redistributed fairly. This is the essential problem that the Journal Times has with The Prairie School and their decision with regards to the tennis courts. They claim that Prairie should give back to the community. But what has the community given to Prairie? Prairie is tax exempt like any other non profit organization and they receive bussing service for their students. Otherwise they get nothing from the community, unlike Racine Unified, which gets roughly $12,000 per student from the community. In fact, Prairie School and their parents ARE giving to the community. For every student educated at Prairie, the taxpayers save roughly $12,000, because those students are not incurring that cost at Racine Unified. Does the Journal Times berate Unified when they charge admission for a basketball game? Of course not. There is an obvious double standard being openly displayed by the Journal Times. But get used to it kids. If you should succeed in life, you will no doubt find people that will envy your accomplishments. They will want to drag you down to their level of misery. Don't let them get you down.

Shocking Business News!!!!!

On July 23rd, the Journal Times ran a story regarding the Prairie School's decision to charge customers for the use of their tennis courts. Ordinarily I would not find this to be newsworthy, but apparently the JT thinks this is news. So I thought I would relay the follow news item to the Journal Times.

To whom it may concern at the Journal Times;

Aften a not-so-agonizing internal debate, the owners of Dimple's LLC in downtown Racine have decided to continue their present practice of charging customers money in exchange for merchandise. "The exchange of money for merchandise is a key component of our overall business strategy," noted company spokesperson Denis Navratil. "Besides, exhaustive research has revealed that charging money in exchange for goods and services is standard practice in a wide range of enterprises" Navratil continued. "For example, Wall Mart continues to charge for their products. So does my doctor. Even the public sector is getting in the game. I have to pay the government a sizeable chunk of cash for a small sticker that I adhere to the bumber of my car. Whats next! It would seem as if we are in the midst of a "charging for goods and services" epidemic." But some things in life remain free. Dimple's LLC has decided to allow any non-smoking, shoe and shirt wearing individuals a FREE opportunity to wander through our store. This offer is limited to the regularly scheduled hours posted on our door.

Feel free to print this news item in the paper.

Free Market Faith?

Reader Wade asked about my faith in the free market. His post can be read in the comment section of my last entry entitled "Racist Demands".

My first thought on the viability of free markets is that it has nothing whatsoever to do with faith. I advocate for free markets because of what I have learned through study and experience. There is so much evidence available that demonstrates over and over again that free markets perform better than government controlled markets.

But free markets appear to be on somewhat shakier ground when it comes to providing for demographics that are small in size, such as handicapped people, or people with size 24 shoes? Would Walgreens have handicapped parking if it were not mandated by government? Perhaps not. I own a retail store and I sometimes carry shoes, but I will not carry size 24 shoes. Should the government mandate that I carry size 24 shoes? Am I discriminating against people with extremely large feet? You bet I am.

I suspect that if handicapped parking spaces were not a mandated , many if not most stores would not have them. But I also suspect that this would present an opportunity for entrepreneurs in a free market. Some businesses could profit by specializing in meeting the needs of the handicapped.

Now government can only mandate that which is possible. Would it make any difference if the government of Bangledesh mandated handicapped parking spaces, gently sloped entrances, etc...? No, because there is not the money available to meet even more basic needs like food and shelter, forget about cars and parking spaces. Only in wealthy countries can the government succeed in providing parking spaces for the handicapped. And let us remember that the money taken by our government is available because free individuals create far more wealth than does government enterprise. In countries with less economic freedom, there is less money for the government to take. Thus it is our not-completely-free-market which is, in a roundabout way, providing the handicapped parking spaces at Walgreens.

Of course free markets are not perfect, but then perfection is not an option. The question is whether economic freedom produces greater results than other forms of economic organization. The evidence suggests that it does.

One final thought. There could be some very ugly results if a completely free market were the norm. Perhaps the handicapped would be neglected and the elderly would be left to die of starvation amidst our plenty. A free market is great at creating wealth, but not so good at redistributing it to the needy. But must the government perform this function? When the government takes over this job, we are then absolved of our responsibility to others. Perhaps it would be best if the government did not perform these functions. We would have to come face to face with the problems in our community. It would be the responsibility of individuals or groups to address these needs. This is the way it used to be. Have you ever wondered why there are so many old Catholic hospitals?

Racist Demands

Serial race-baiter Alfonso Gardner was in the news again, with the following request, "Why don't McReynolds and Lehman debate in the minority community and tell them what they will do for the minority community if elected to the state senate? What I want them to do is to quit this attack and get down to what are y'all going to do for the minority community? Have debates. Lay your agenda out."

Gardner has laid out his agenda. The only thing that matters to him, apparently, is minorities. The rest of the community doesn't matter.

Suppose white racists made the same demands. "What are you going to do for the white folks. Forget the minorities. We, the white folks, can deliver the votes. What are you going to do for us?" Now this fictitious quote is quite ugly, is it not? But is it substantially different than Gardner's demands?

I would suggest to both McReynolds and Lehman to ignore Mr. Gardner. Your job is to help the community as a whole, not to Balkanize it.

Proportionality For Non-Jews

"While we believe the kidnapping of Israeli soldiers is deplorable and should be responded to in a just manner, we find it unconscionable Fiengold would condone lawlessness on the part of Israel. Israel's intentional deadly attacks on civilian population centers and civilian infrastructure in Gaza and Lebenon constitute illegal collective punishment of innocent men, women, and children in these areas. Israel's "serious" response to the kidnappings violates the principle of proportionality that must be observed when acting on military targets."

These are the words of Pete and Sonali Knotek and their entire letter can be found in todays letters from readers in the Racine Journal Times. I have some concerns with their argument.

First of all, Israel's military is not responding only to the kidnappings. Hezzbolah has been lobbing hundreds of missiles into civilian areas of Israel, which has resulted in the deaths of innocent Israeli men, women, and children. The authors neglected to mention this important fact.

So what is Israel to do? They are being attacked by terrorists. Innocents are going to die. The unfortunate choice facing Israel is whether those innocents will be primarily Israeli's or Lebonese. Of course it is Hezbollah, not Israel, that has created the danger for the innocents in Israel as well as the innocents in Lebanon.

Now, with regard to Israel's "intentional attacks on civilian population centers", the authors neglect to mention that the attackers, Hezbollah, are located, quite intentionally, in civilian areas. The only way to fight Hezbollah is to fight them where they are, which is in civilian areas. The responsibility for the unfortunate civilian deaths is Hezbollah's and only Hezbollah's, because they are using innocent civilians as shields. If the terrorists were fighting from non-residential areas, would Israel still be attacking civilian areas? I don't think so.

Well how about the attacks on infrastructure, such as the airport? Clearly some, if not most infrastructure has military uses also. The airport could be used to resupply Hezbollah if Israel did not destroy it. But who should bear the responsibility for this damage? Hezbollah and only Hezbollah because they initiated the aggression.

But is Israel's response proportional? The proportional response to someone who is trying to kill you is, if you value your own life, to kill them first. Israel's response is proportional.

I have a question for the authors. Is your concern for innocent Jews proportionate to your concern for innocent Lebonese? After reading the letter, I did not sense any such proportionality.

Solving Crime

The Racine City Council just took a bite out of crime, or so they think, by limiting the number of payday loan stores. Studies have shown that crime increases in locations with numerous payday loan stores. Some on the council apparently believe that fewer payday loan stores will mean less crime. I do not dispute that there is a correlation between crime and the number of payday loan stores. The question is whether there is correlation and causation.

In my ill fated run for County Executive, I recall a similar kind of thinking. At least one of my opponents cited statistics that indicate a lower crime rate in areas with higher rates of home ownership. I have no doubt that there is a correlation between home ownership rates and crime rates. But the would be County Exec concluded that public policies that gave taxpayer money to people so that they could buy homes would reduce the crime rate. Or, to put it differently, the would be County Exec concluded that there was causation as well as correlation. If not owning a home causes crime, then the solution is to give people homes.

Which brings me to my modest crime reducing proposal. I live in Wind Point, and I am willing to bet that there is a higher percentage of Mercedes here than in the high crime areas of Racine. I am also quite certain that there are fewer murders in Wind Point than in Racine's high crime areas. There is an obvious correlation between the number of Mercedes and the absence of murderous behavior. Therefore, if we really want to reduce the number of murders in Racine, we need to increase the number of Mercedes in Racine. I suggest that we purchase a hundred or so used Mercedes and park them strategically throughout the high crime areas of the city. Peace and tranquility will soon follow.

Lefty Logic

If you get a chance, read Father Bruce Clanton's op-ed in the JT entitled "The challenge of planting trees with our lives." The commentary reveals the truth. Only the truth revealed is other than what was intended by the author.

Clanton wraps his leftist vision of a borderless state, abortion, pacificism, socialism, gay marriage and anti-Americanism around God and faith.

"We call some immigrants illegal because they cross our borders without proper papers" writes Clanton. Well, yes, it is the papers which would make the border crossing legal. Absent the papers, the border crossing is illegal.

"But when we cross the borders of Iraq, we call our soldiers heroes. Not illegals." Please understand what Clanton is trying to accomplish here. The clearly illegal activity of paperless border crossers is being justified because our troops have "crossed the borders of Iraq". By this standard of logic, virtually any illegal activity could be justified. Some of our troops have been accused of rape and murder. Clantons muddled logic would suggest that rape and murder could also be justified because some of our troops (may) have done so. Now I don't think Clanton favors rape and murder, I am simply demonstrating the absurdity of his thinking. Furthermore, since it is obvious that Clanton opposes our Iraqi border crossing, why not be consistent and also oppose the border crossing into the US by illegals, er, paperless immigrants.

"We expect young people to abandon their arms on our streets, but we demand pride when they take them up on foriegn streets", Clanton continues. Is there no difference between the activities of street criminals and the work of United States soldiers? Apparently not, in Clantons mind. I wonder if he "supports the troops" but not the war.

"We work so hard to protect life unborn. But as soon as too many lives come of age, we abandon them. We do not have the same passion for their health care, nutrition, their education or the environment in which they live." Here is what Clanton is saying. If you oppose abortion, you must also embrace his socialist vision of government control of the economy, including health care education and environment protection, otherwise, you are a hypocrite. I for one, disagree. One can believe that abortion is murder AND that less government and more freedom will result in better health and better education. One can care about the pre-born and post-born without embracing socialism.

Thank you Father Clanton for the clear look at the muddled thinking of the extreme left.

More Unified Nonsense

I would like to add my name to the list of people who are outraged at the attempt to muzzle elected school board members. Board President Sue Kutz has scheduled a closed meeting to consider whether one of its members has violated school board policy. In a Journal Times article, Kutz declined to name the alleged offender or the offending behavior, though many suspect that school board member Brian Dey has been targetted for his outspoken comments related to RUSD.

It is voters who should scrutinize the behavior of their elected officials. It is voters that should discipline the elected officials that fail to represent them properly. I respect Brian Dey for his outspokenness on school issues. I can not respect any official efforts to silence him or any other elected official. If Brian Dey or any other school board member has violated school board policy, then Sue Kutz should openly state the alleged infraction, and allow a public response by the offending board member. The effort to handle this matter in secrecy suggests to me that it is board policy, rather than Brian Dey, that would wilt under public scrutiny.

Thinking Out Loud

I have recently attended a few social gatherings. Inevitably I am asked about any political ambitions that I might have. The truth is that I would love to serve our community. But I am realistic. I am well aware that my willingness to challenge status quo special interests has rendered me all but unelectable. And that is OK. I do what I do because I believe it is important to consider and debate the issues that affect our community. I don't seek popularity and I won't be intimidated into silence by the thug element of the status quo. That said, I do hope that some of the ideas that I support will find expression in the actions taken, or not taken, by our local elected officials.

Which leads me to a question that I have been pondering. Is winning an elected office the only or best way to influence public policy? I hope not. Politicians vote on ideas. The ideas which garner the most support from people will almost always result in support from politicians. It is not neccessary that the idea be a good idea, only a popular idea. Most politicians are merely the tools through which popular ideas are expresses in public policy. My conclusion is that the best way to influence public policy (in a positive manner) is to help good ideas to become popular ideas. Thus the battle to popularize ideas is at least as important, if not more important than the battle to win elected office, because the politicians will merely adjust their votes according to what their constituents find to be popular.

As such, the critical task is to identify good ideas and share them with the widest possible audience. This is easier said than done. The internet is helpful. A newspaper would be better.

My Apologies

It seems that I have a few readers who are missing me. I appreciate the sentiment and I apologize for my absence. As it is, I have been busy at work and with other considerations, and my mind has not been on the Racine scene to much. But it is very nice to know that there are some people who value my point of view.

I will share a revealing exchange that I had with one of my off-the-deep-end-Bush-is-the-devil liberal friends of mine. We were attending the parade on the fourth and he was making his usual anti-American comments as he prepared to verbally assault the Republican politicians that walked by. I wondered aloud whether the 4th of July was really the day to express hatred for the United States. His response was that he was not proud to be an American. I asked him which country he could proudly be from. He dodged the question and I pressed him to answer. Finally he told me. He is a citizen of the world and is only proud of the United Nations. In other words, every nation is bad, unless we combine them all together and have one world government. Yikes!

The Left Loves Monopolies

If you asked most liberals what they thought of monopolies, they would say that they are opposed to them. Many would be quick to assume that oil companies are gouging their customers, and this could not be accomplished without collusion (or monopolistic behavior) among the leading oil companies. Liberals are very much against monopolies, right? I am not so sure.

The recent decision by our left leaning Racine city council suggests otherwise. They sold three cars AND a four year taxi service monopoly just the other day for only $1,500. I support the privatization of the taxi service, but the monopoly guarantee is a bad idea. In a city with high unemployment, they should realize that a government enforced monopoly will prevent job growth, insofar as anyone wishing to start a taxi service will be prevented from doing so. Is there some unknown danger to allowing the market to decide whether Racine can support one, two, or ten taxi companies? Why does the winning bidder deserve protection from competition? He already has a huge advantage over any potential competitor as he has three cars at $500 each plus the experience gained from running a taxi service in Milwaukee.

My conclusion is that liberals are only opposed to the monopolies that they do not control. That is why they are all for government monopolies in health care, education, and now taxi services, so long as they control them.