Ex-Post Facto

Last year in Connecticut, a bill sponsored by Governor Dannel Malloy (D) repealing the state’s death penalty passed both houses of the general assembly and was signed into law.  Though I personally believe in the death penalty, one thing about the terms of the law is that there would be a grandfather clause affecting the eleven men currently on death row—they could still be put to death depending on how their appeals are handled.

About a year later, one of the elite eleven, as it were, is going to the U.S. Supreme Court claiming that this implementation is unconstitutional and that the appeal process should be stopped and their sentences commuted to life sentences. 

Does anyone study the Constitution anymore?  When I was in third grade, I was taught the ex-post facto clause of the Constitution.  For example, if they pass a law on Tuesday making it illegal to ride a bicycle on Elm Street on Sundays, and you rode a bicycle on Elm Street last Sunday, you cannot be arrested or charged with a crime or misdemeanor because it was not yet law of the land when you did it.  The death penalty was the law of the land when the afore mentioned elite eleven were convicted and sentenced; there is no reason to stop their executions.  They still have to go through the same appeal process back when it was the law of the land and which was virtually unlimited appeals.  Had they not repealed the death penalty and limited the appeal process to say, seven year maximum, the elite eleven would still have unlimited appeals.

Unfortunately, the ex-post facto clause sometimes works against us.  Michael Skakel, a Greenwich, Connecticut resident and cousin of the Kennedys, murdered his girlfriend with a golf club in 1975.  The laws allowing minors to be tried as adults went into effect in 1977 so he could get off on that technicality.  He may have waived that right as he waived his right to a speedy trial (he was tried in 1991).  But if he did get off by virtue of ex-post facto, it would have been an exceptional situation based on the fact that nothing is perfect on Earth, and that we have to wait until we are in thy Kingdom to see perfect justice.  The benefits of ex-post facto outweigh the negatives. 

There is definitely no reason to not execute any member of that elite eleven if there is no reason not to after the respective appeal processes have reached practical equilibrium.  Let’s not throw more kerosene on an already intense fire.

Why does MLB Insist on Taking the Path of Least Resistance?

I took the time to read and follow someone else’s blog (Beyond the Score Card) where I read an article about the inevitability of the National League adopting the designated hitter (DH).  With the new alignment (Houston Astros switching from NL Central to AL West) fostering two fifteen-club leagues, there is guaranteed to be one interleague game played whenever MLB is playing a full schedule.  Logic would dictate the need for both leagues to play by the same rules.  Since 1973, the American League has fostered a DH while the National League continues to have the pitchers hit.  Prior to 1973, pitchers hit in both leagues.  Before 1997, there was no interleague play—all teams played 162 games in their own league on the road to the World Series.

You may have figured out by now there are two methods of standardization.  One way is for the NL to adopt the DH and the other way is to have the AL abolish it.  The former is the path of least resistance because the Players Association strongly supports the DH, at least in the AL, because, as a union, they are obligated to protect jobs, and many AL teams sign aging veterans who can no longer run fast on the bases or hustle in the field, but can still hit home runs, thus prolonging their careers.  The latter method will require bargaining with the Players Asso. and the younger generation of fans has no appreciation for strategy and wants more offense.  And Commissioner Selig or his successor will pull the trigger and make the change if the powers that be in the sports television business request it.  Once the NL gets the DH, there is no turning back—that is the way baseball will be played until the coming of Christ or any messiah you believe in, because there will be no one left alive that remembers baseball before the DH.  But there is a window of opportunity open right now and therefore, I want to present my case for traditional baseball with pitchers in the batting order and no DH.

• There are a lot more NL games played in less than three hours time than in the AL.  This is because, with the possible exception of bringing the closer in, in the top of the ninth inning, pitching changes are made on the mound and the incoming pitcher tosses eight warm-ups in a time out.  In the NL, many pitchers are lifted for a pinch hitter to get that extra run in and the new pitcher comes in when the inning changes sides and warms up while the infielders and outfielders are throwing the ball around for 2 minutes and 10 seconds.
• Our national pastime is two events in one: it is a sport for athletes with talent in the respective areas, and it is a thinking man’s game of strategy.  Both of those things together distinguish it from all other sports and games Americans play and watch for entertainment and give it the dubious honor of being America’s national pastime.  In the NL, a manager may have to make a critical decision: you may be down by just one run and with the exception of that one run, your pitcher is pitching a good game.  You can let him bat and make the best of it or pinch hit and increase your chances of scoring that tying or go-ahead run, requiring a pitching change next inning regardless of your pitcher’s performance.  AL buffs claim in the DH game, the managers are off the hook making such a decision and can never be second guessed.  What the heck is a big league manager being paid to do?
• The DH means more offense and more runs scored.  That is what the younger fan is looking for.  I can tell you from experience, to really appreciate baseball for what it is, you have to armchair manage a game and have fun with strategy.  Make decisions like double switch, double steal, hit and run, sacrifice bunt and suicide squeeze.  I guess I am a relic from before computer games when one of my favorite activities when I was not doing something active outdoors was to play Strat-O-Matic or Sports Illustrated All Time All Star Baseball and manage a team of cardboard cards with their records and playing abilities standardized to yield results according the roll of the dice.  I was pretty good, albeit managing cardboard cards that play predictably according to the roll of the dice does not in any qualify me to manage a team of humans who are not always perfect.  I still believe you cannot call yourself a real fan until you armchair manage a game and the same opportunities do not exist in a DH game.
• NL pitchers do no throw at batter’s head anywhere near as often as AL pitchers do.  Makes sense because if you are pitching, you will think twice about throwing at a head if the other team can potentially retaliate when it is your turn to bat.  In the AL where you don’t bat, you get away with it scott-free.  The best example is Pedro Martinez: look how many heads he hunted when he was with the Red Sox compared to when he pitched for the Mets.
• Pitchers, especially fastball pitchers do not burn themselves out in the NL the way they do in the AL.  With a DH you face nine bonafide hitters and get no breaks from throwing your 90 MPH plus.  In the NL you can throw a fastball in the eighties when you are pitching to the opposing pitcher sparing the arm.  The Founding Fathers of baseball had a reason why they did not propose a DH at the turn of the twentieth century.
• I see absolutely no connection between television ratings and the DH.  Every year the announce the ratings for the World Series circa November 1 and they are always either a record low or not anywhere where MLB would like to see them.  Explain to me why World Series ratings were better back in the days when the DH didn’t exist and the games were played at one o’clock in the afternoon.

The AL owners have already intimated they would consider sacrificing the DH if in return they could have an expansion of the roster so they can carry twelve pitchers to accommodate the way the game is played today.  Currently, MLB rosters are 25 players wide except in September.  To expand to 27 is the equivalent of 2.4 expansion teams which would further dilute the talent pool but if they would compromise on 26, it wouldn’t be so bad because the twenty-sixth man would most-likely be the twelfth pitcher.  Let’s do right by the game of baseball while we still have a chance; abolish the DH, and play baseball the way God intended it to be played!

P.S. The Great Babe Ruth began his career as a pitcher for the Boston Red Sox in 1914.  If they had the DH in 1914, Babe Ruth never would have picked up a bat!

Play Ball!

The 2013 baseball season has begun.  The Mets are 1-0 albeit it is unlikely they will have a winning season this year.  But there is nothing like an April afternoon with the sun shining and new green grass on the field and those urban flowers known as baseball box scores are once again in bloom.  There is one big difference that made this opening day very different than in the past.

This is the first MLB season with an odd number of teams (15) in each league.  That means instead of pockets of the season allocated for interleague play, there is one interleague game going on all season long along with seven league games.  It does not damper the enthusiasm of opening day and the start of another pennant race, but it does diminish the meaning of MLB being a circuit of two distinct leagues, the National League and the American League.

For many years, the NFL (National Football League) and NBA (National Basketball Association) have been operated as single-league circuits with two conferences. The conferences are used for post-season affixation and the balance of the schedule (who plays who the most) are determined by conference alignment.  What made baseball what is was through the entirety of the twentieth century has been the tradition of two distinct leagues, and until 1997 did not even play each other in regular season games, and the diversity of the two leagues.  Although I never liked the designated hitter, there were a lot of other distinctions that identified the two leagues.  The National League was the first league to require an ear flap on the batting helmets while the American League was the first league to require wearing the hard had when running the bases.  The National League was the first league to provide inside-the-chest protectors to home plate umpires, resulting in a higher strike zone in the American League while their umpires continued to look over that big shield to make the call.  New York once had three teams with two out of three in the NL (New York Giants and Brooklyn Dodgers) resulting in a rivalry that was once even bigger than Yankees-Red Sox.  The irony is the designated hitter is the only thing left that distinguishes the leagues.

The NL and AL are still leagues in title, but there are no more league offices or presidents; only the Office of the Commissioner remains.  The same umpires work games in both leagues equally and each team with play twenty-two interleague games; the DH or absence thereof determined by the home park.  You can call them leagues just like the former Soviet Union called themselves the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics and the individual Soviet states were not republics; they were not even sovereign in their own rights—they were under the control of the Kremlin based in Moscow, Russia.  The National and American leagues of Major League Baseball are leagues in title, but are now conferences in practice.

They wanted both leagues to have three five-team divisions for scheduling and post season probability equity.  From 1998 – 2012, the National League Central with six clubs and the American League West with four were exceptions to the rule.  In theory, it is harder to win a division six teams wide than five teams wide and easier in one that is only four teams wide.  I thought the second wild card was supposed to be the equalizer.

Well, as far as watching the game on the field is concerned, it is still baseball, the greatest game ever invented.  There are still strikeouts and home runs, runs, hits, and errors, sluggers and pitchers, swinging away and suicide squeeze bunts.  I was born in 1962, the same year the Mets became one of the first National League expansion teams, healing the wounds during the departure of the Giants and Dodgers after the 1957 season.  So Take Me Out to the Ball Game—One, Two, Three Strikes—You’re Out!  Let’s get down to business and play ball! 

The American Resurrection

On this Easter Sunday (3-31-2013) I got to watch Bob Schieffer on Face the Nation one more time before my busy season.  I will be working from 10 am to 5 pm on Sundays until at least the 4^th of July for the peak of the patio furniture selling season.  He did the first half hour on religion in America and the last half hour on books written about Calvin Coolidge, Eisenhower and Nixon, Franklin Roosevelt and Lindbergh, and Winston Churchill.  I found something interesting in both halves that say a lot.

After a short interview with Cardinal Timothy Dolan, Schieffer did a round table with a woman high priest in Boston, an Islamic leader known as an Imam from an American mosque, a rabbi, and a bishop.  The discussion was very civil and they discussed mostly the similarities and the desires for Americans to have God in their life in one form or another.  The focal point of Easter weekend for Christians and Christian scholars is the verification of the resurrection which would reveal to the world the relevance of the Christian faith.  I am not an expert on the many different religions in the world but I am wise enough to make one statement that is apparent to me as common ground for every religion in the world and that is: anyone looking for proof is not a true believer.  Accepting the unbelievable on total faith is the absolute requirement.  Unless you have the good fortune to either witness or perform a miracle in your lifetime, miracles of the past can only be historically accounted for by people accepting on total faith.  The vindication of this statement comes from the fact that even if scientific proof, possibly contradicting scripture were to surface, it can only serve to vindicate the physical world.  A true believer believes the physical world is not the end point, but the passing through point, and that one continues for eternity in one of two places.  As secular as America has become and continues to aspire to become, it is still the country that will play the most integral role in the relevancy of religion and the need for God to be part of our lives as well as the life span of the struggling nation.  This is because America states right in its constitution that freedom of religion is a fundamental, inalienable right of all its citizens.  The absolution of this freedom is the thing that puts America in the position of the being God’s ultimate distribution network though all religious channels because submission is not submission unless it is voluntary.  In a country like Iran, where Islam is an absolute mandate, not even the parishioner himself (or herself) can never verify whether or not her or she is a true believer.  Therefore in America, although over 20% may chose to not to affiliate with any religion or may not be committed to belief in God, all Americans who choose to believe are by default true believers because they carry with them the ultimate self-test 24/7.

The other half hour struck a chord with me on the one thing that may be the underlying cause as to why Washington D.C., and for that matter, the American people cannot accomplish its one and only no-brainer and that is to balance its budget—leadership.  Calvin Coolidge, Franklin Roosevelt, Dwight Eisenhower, and Winston Churchill; you could not find four people in history more different than this cast of characters if you tried.  But they were all good leaders in their own way.  Calvin Coolidge always had America under budget.  Like Five Star General Dwight D. Eisenhower who realized he could not shoot the Democrat congress the way he could shoot the enemy in combat, Silent Cal also knew to get out of the way and let Americans self-govern.  Winston Churchill has impeccable insight on matters of the world such as the rise of Adolph Hitler into power and that the appeasement policies of his predecessor Neville Chamberlain would never work.  Though I believe F.D.R.s New Deal is doing us financial harm nowadays, we may still be in that great depression with a complete lack of leadership.  One big problem in Washington, D.C. today is the lack of leadership.  Politics notwithstanding, Barrack Obama is a nice guy and if it were a simple battle between liberal vs. conservative, Mr. Obama would not receive opposition from his own Democrat party.  But even they question whether he is the guy that can lead them to their liberal objectives.  Unfortunately for us Republican conservatives, Mitt Romney would not have been much better.  Ronald Reagan was the last great leader in America.  He had a minority in congress six out of eight years he served the nation’s highest office and did alright.  I am confident Rick Santorum would be a very similar leader to Ronald Reagan.  The point is we need a real leader in the executive branch.  Not a dictator, absolutely not!  But someone who leads by example and play the hand dealt, regardless if those cards represent his own party or the other.  I admit John Boehner behaves badly and wants to fight a war of words rather than debate and compromise, but bottom line, John Boehner is not the president—he is doing exactly what his constituents want him to do or he doesn’t get re-elected.  Alas, Barrack Obama (and Mitt Romney for that matter) is no Vince Lombardi and nothing gets done.

On this Easter Sunday, we must pray for the resurrection of America as the great nation our Founding Fathers intended.  To do this, we require leadership.  A Calvin Coolidge, a Franklin Roosevelt, a Dwight Eisenhower, a Winston Churchill, a Ronald Reagan.

The Calculating Lemma for America’s Recovery

In case you missed it, welcome to sequestration.  So far most of us don’t feel any different than before sequestration became reality.  But sequestration is Romper Room compared to the potential government shutdown scheduled for 03-27-2013 about a week away unless Congress and the President agree on the debt ceiling.

First of all, as I mentioned before when I blogged on baseline budgeting, those draconian spending cuts resulting from sequestration do not reduce spending.  In fact, spending will be still be increased, the deficit will continue to grow; just the rate of growth will be reduced.  If you are $16 Trillion in debt, you cannot afford to buy a stick of gum.  The fact that sequestration does not reduce the deficit is a pretty good indicator that our federal government is involved in way to many things.  There is no easy solution for a compassionate, intelligent conservative.  But something has to go.

Second, if the government shutdown happens, it will be because the two parties will not be able to agree on whether or not to raise the debt ceiling (i.e. the rate of tolerable growth) and by how much.  Aren’t we trying to use Molotov Cocktails as fire extinguishers?  America has accrued insurmountable debt and now, not only does Washington not want to pay it off, but wants to raise the ceiling so we can spend more without consequence?  Try to get Citibank to raise your credit limit when your Visa is maxed out and you cannot afford minimum balance.  Yet, that is exactly what our government gets away with.  The catch-22 is if we don’t raise the debt ceiling, America is most-likely headed for Greek-style bankruptcy.  Now the question is can this be avoided?

This brings me back to the corollary to that Schoenhaus Theorem.  We must look at 1789 and calculate minimum government and determine if the cost to maintain a minimum government continues to accrue insurmountable debt.  If it does, America is beyond repair.  If not, there is still a window to fix America and return it to its lofty status as the greatest country in the world.  I am working on a calculating lemma to the corollary to the Schoenhaus Theorem which would include a dollar on the old-time gold standard.

I fully understand we cannot operate under 1789 rules in the twenty-first century.  But this is the model politicians and elected officials need to make their decisions.  We make a hypothetical model for what I refer to as minimum government.  Using current rates of inflation, but with a gold certificate dollar rather than a federal reserve note, we determine hopefully the amount of budget surplus America would have under minimum government.  Now instead of reducing government in real time by making uneasy spending cuts, we work the problem backwards and determine what we can add to this minimum government and still have a surplus, break even, and accrue debt, but not insurmountable debt.  We decide what is really important that cannot be privatized or can be privatized but not feasible to privatize at this point in time.  Once we have a model we can live with, our elected officials make only the spending cuts that reduce government to the model we built.  With fewer entitlements, the new goal will be to create as many opportunities as possible for the American people to live their American dream.  When the people have enough disposable income to afford to pay more taxes, it will be possible to increase taxes to offset the manageable debt accrued, but we will never take it all—we will guarantee all Americans have enough left to live their American Dreams, or the ability to make up the difference in a very short period of time.

I believe the 60:40 hybrid currency where our dollar is 60% federal reserve notes and 40% gold certificates must be incorporated in the new model—once we balance the budget, we begin a never-ending journey to make sure it stays balanced, or goes no deeper in the red than what is considered manageable and is rectified very quickly.

Let us drink from the fountain of wisdom inherited to us from our Founding Fathers, build this minimum government, and rebuild the model to determine how to cut spending down to this model.  America is the greatest nation God allowed to inhabit Earth.  Now let us glorify God by using our gifts of intelligence and compassion with the offering of this glorious gedanken.

National Pastime Gone International

With so little change on the political front since sequestration went through, and since I believe the last of the snow will melt by the weekend when the patio furniture company I work for is having their season opening sale, I would like to talk about baseball.

I finally figured out how this WBC (World Baseball Classic) actually works; but if there is any validity to Murphy’s Laws, three years from now the format will change.  In the first round, the teams are divided into four pools each with four teams. A team of a particular country plays each team in their pool once for a total of three games.  Just like a regular season, each team plays three games even if they are 0-2 and mathematically eliminated.  After everyone has played their three game season; as it were, the teams that finish first place in each pool advance and six other teams are picked according to winning percentage, with complicated NFL-type tie-breakers that involve statistics, not playoff games, and two pools of four teams are created, each with at least two pool champions.  The teams are ranked and in the first round, 1 vs. 4 and 2 vs. 3.  Unlike the infamous brackets that are followed by college basketball buffs religiously, the round is double elimination like in our little league days.  This means the four teams are re-ranked based on who wins and who loses and déjà vu all over again.  Teams are not eliminated until they lose two games.  After the double elimination, the two teams that win their pools plus two wild cards determined by WBC percentage and tie-breakers implemented if necessary play final four style (single elimination).  Since the world-wide teams are pasted together and not determined by who wins a world series or some form of championship in their home country, since they do not play 162 game season to decide who will represent a respective country, I guess it is as good a format as any.  I just wish they could have gone with something easier to explain.

The intended purpose of the WBC is to promote the game of baseball across the globe.  While Japan, Latin American countries, and South American countries have been playing baseball for a long time, even Europe, which has been the soccer continent for ages, has a lot of representatives in this tourney.  I suppose they have as much right to play baseball as anyone else in the world.  It just seems as baseball is losing its identity as the American National Pastime.  In the twenty-first century, MLB has almost double (30) the number of teams it had in the first half of the twentieth century (16).  This results in what is called talent pool dilution which means players that back in the day would have been career minor leaguers at best play in the big leagues because thirty 25-man rosters have to be filled with somebody.  MLB’s answer is to incorporate talent pools of other nations of the world.  Many of these nations foster ballplayers that play baseball in America’s Major Leagues; others have little to no history.  MLB is attempting to seek out talent pools in countries that are traditionally either not baseball countries or do not have a reputation of sharing their talent players with us.  For many years, the United States and Japan, the second largest baseball nations both had leagues with reserve clauses that indentured players to one team unless traded or sold for cash, to one team.  Both countries agreed not to tamper which each other reserve clauses.  This is why Sadaharu Oh, the Babe Ruth of Japan who hit more home runs than Ruth, Aaron, or Bonds played his entire career in Japan even though George Steinbrenner was very interested in importing him to The Bronx when America’s reserve clause was broken.

I would like to see the re-Americanization of American baseball in America.  They can continue to play the WBC, but it is should be separate from MLB and other baseball leagues in America.  One bridge that has to be crossed eventually is a reduction in the number MLB teams, followed by a restructuring draft for a more concentrated talent pool.  Unfortunately, just about every team including the most financially troubled franchises got new ballparks during the post Camden Yards ballpark boom.  Major League ballparks are like buying a new car—they cost billions of dollars and MLB will face a major law suit by a city whose team is contracted leaving them with a multi-billion dollar white elephant.  The newest ballpark has to become at least twenty years old before contraction can be considered.  But it is a bridge that will inevitably have to be crossed.

1962 expansion did not have the talent dilution effect that more recent expansion did for two reasons; in fact it may have enhanced it.  The first was Jackie Robinson broke the color line in 1947 and the consolidation of the Negro Leagues throughout the 1950s gave the best of the African American talent pool jobs in the Majors.  The Hispanic talent pool would also follow suit.  In addition, the first of the baby-boomers born in 1946 where 2-3 years away from their early twenties increasing the talent pool mathematically; if one percent of the population has the born-ability to play professional baseball, the result of the baby-boom was one percent of a larger number.  In contrast, the final waive of expansion in 1998 saw the last of the baby-boom ballplayers retiring and in addition to two extra teams requiring 25-man rosters, Generation X (and subsequently Gen Y) are significantly smaller than the baby-boom generation resulting in one percent of a smaller number with the born-ability to play professional baseball.

It is the talent pool dilution factor that inspired MLB to explore talent pools outside the United States.  For the next twenty years or so, this is as good as it gets.  But in the meantime, there are a few things MLB can do to make baseball in America special again.  I have a few ideas.

One of the first things I would do is pull the plug on the season opening with two major league teams playing each other in some foreign country.  I understand they are not doing that this year.  The two Texas teams (Astros-Rangers) will play Sunday night, March 31^st and everyone else the next day.  In the future, MLB is looking into restoring the tradition of always opening in Cincinnati, home of the first professional baseball team in 1869, the Red Stockings.  But I what I would really like to see, if not on opening day, is to bring the game to small town America.  The firm HOK, who is responsible for all those new ballparks from Camden Yards to Citi Field is pretty much done building ballparks.  But what they can do is build fields in small towns, say one a year with an asymmetric outfield indicative of those classic ballparks built before World War II that met their doom with the wrecking ball in the sixties and seventies.  HOK could build a V-Shaped grandstand that could be carried on a wide load flatbed truck and placed around the field from third to first base.  High school football bleachers could be brought in for cheap seats beyond the baselines.  Bucket trucks could house temporary lighting and every year, one MLB game is shifted to his rural small-town venue; perhaps on a Sunday night televised on ESPN.  This will give folks in these rural towns a chance to experience major league baseball.  After the game, the V-shaped grandstand is carted away to be used in another small town next year and the town has use of a world class baseball field for amateur baseball from that day forward.

2008 saw the last Hall of Fame game; the Monday after the Sunday of Hall of Fame inductions in Cooperstown, New York which was an exhibition game between on National League and one American League team.  I would like see regular season major league game played at Doubleday Field.

I would like to see baseball uniforms where the players show socks old school style, not these hip hop pant legs down to the shoes.  Players wore stirrups because they wanted to wear socks indicative of the team color (e.g. Boston Red Sox) and in the late nineteenth and early twentieth century, the colored dyes used in the fabrics were toxic if ingested by the pores when athletes perspired from playing hard.  So they wore a white sanitary sock and a stirrup in the team color over it.  Going back to stirrups may not be practical, but let the colored sock show so they look like traditional old-school ballplayers.  Put names on the backs of road uniforms only—keep the home uniforms as traditional as possible.

Once and for all, get rid of the designated hitter.  We have finally seen the last of artificial turf; just two remnants in Toronto and Tampa.  Now it is time to play baseball the way God intended baseball to be played where all nine players on the field including the pitcher must take their turn at bat.  National League baseball, which is still played that way, has a lot more strategy and much shorter games as not all pitching changes are made on the mound; the manager may have a reliever warming up in the bullpen while the team is still batting and pinch hit for the pitcher to drive in an extra run before the reliever comes in to start the next inning.

I may have some other good ideas later on.  I have no problem with a peaceful coexistence with the re-Americanization of American baseball and the WBC, I just want to see more focus on baseball as our national pastime.  The game is rooted here and the American baseball fans deserve it.

What Happened to Compromise and Why Compromise doesn’t even Work?

Well, tomorrow (Monday, 3-4-2013) will be America’s first business day and stock market day under sequestration.  A sickly stomach malady will strike the man or woman appointed to ring the 9:30 bell at the NYSE tomorrow morning and water cooler talk at work in many places will be centered around Will I have a job tomorrow?  In my home state of Connecticut, Tweed New Haven Airport will most-likely shut down since only one commercial carrier (US Airways) now flys out there and the shortfall of air traffic controllers resulting in the actions of the boys on the hill 3-1-2013 11:59:59 PM.  Where is America going from here?

I heard economist Ben Stein do some commentary on a Sunday morning program where is blamed both parties for unwillingness to compromise.  Stein pointed out that American Democracy is not about belligerent support for your side and how to defeat those who oppose, but about compromise.  He quoted Lincoln with America is God’s last best hope for Earth.  For the most part, I agree with Mr. Stein.  Not necessarily the epitome of compromise, but government of the people, by the people, for the people.  Therefore, the representatives we elect are supposed vote according to the will of the people most of the time, and vote against the people if and only if it can be proven beyond a reasonable doubt that a majority of the people support what will turn out to be a fatal mistake.  The sequestration happened.  Most Americans were sure the sequestration was a political ploy to get both sides of the aisle on board for a better solution and yet, they just left town and allowed sequestration to happen.

As a Republican loyalist, I know to expect many to ask me the question,  If your Republican Party is truly America’s savior, than why can’t Republicans compromise?  Why are Republicans just as guilty as the president for obstructing Democracy?  I don’t have a good answer for that, but I can tell you why the Republicans got it right.  Ronald Reagan was a great conservative and a great engine of compromise and pundits say he is spinning in his grave.  The difference between the Reagan era and today is The Great Ronald Reagan had the good fortune to be a bell weather president.  When he took the oath of office on 1-20-1981, he told us It’s morning in America.  The policies he got through Congress in his first term in office got sent the American economy into its largest boom of prosperity since before the Great Depression.  Compromise was the buzz word in both houses of congress and in the oval office.  That is not the case today; America is forced to live under economic martial law because it is $16 Trillion in debt and headed towards the point of no return.  Even the best of American Democracy, when Washington, D.C. was a [gentlemen’s] club and the art of compromise was the way things got done cannot sustain itself without proper funding.  If the New York Mets are to put a contending ball club on the field, they first have to rebuild financially.  They cannot sign key free agents if they cannot afford them.  And if they reach appoint where they cannot pay 25 minimum salaries and stay in the black, the owners have to sell the team.  Ideally, you search for the ultimate compromise between taxes and spending cuts.  But as I have said plenty, with 7% plus unemployment and outsourcing employment, you cannot raise taxes on the middle class because they just don’t have a spare penny.  You can raise taxes on the rich up to a point, but you have to allow them to stay rich or they will lose the wherewithal to hire and will be forced to lay off employees.  The Republican way of over 90% on spending cuts has its flaws and it would be kinder and gentler to wean America off entitlements gradually; but it has become a Hobson’s Choice.  The alternative is to go the way of Greece and declare national bankruptcy; if that is allowed to happen, not only America, but the world may never recover.

The corollary to the Schoenhaus Theorem states that if the calculated minimum government can accrue insurmountable debt, America is at the point of no return.  Though nobody including myself will be happy with the end results of sequestration, right now sequestration is the prettiest house on the ugliest block and will be that way until somebody in Washington builds a nicer house.  Doing nothing and that debt clock would continue to race; the sequestration will slow from a gallop to a canter albeit it is still moving forward.  We can consider new and increased taxes only when we can get unemployment under 4% and middle class wages to a workable level with the rate of inflation.  And if you want the rich to pay still more taxes, you have to allow them to make still more profits.  And why didn’t anyone in Congress propose the hybridization of our currency putting some of it back on the gold standard?  With gold trading at almost $2,000 an ounce, this should be a no-brainer.

The one thing that should not have been allowed to happen is the draconian cuts to the military.  A military defense is the one service the Federal Government has been constitutionally obligated to provide since its inception in 1789, so military defense cannot be removed from the calculation of minimum government to apply the Schoenhaus Corollary.  And no matter how we fare economically, we cannot afford to allow another 9-11 to happen.  The best we can hope for right now is to obey God’s principles and achieve his blessing in our recovery.  Remember, With God all things are possible.