MOMENT OF CLARITY: They Lie

MOMENT OF CLARITY: They Lie

Christmas Clarity

To all of my Moment of Clarity readers, I wish you a sincere Merry Christmas. 

Whether you are liberal or conservative, socialist or libertarian, Democrat or Republican, Christian or non-Christian, Tea Party or Occupy, activist or apathetic, I have nothing but love in my heart and good will to offer in this week’s MOC post, the last as I head out to spend Christmas with my family. 

This is not the time to focus on our differences; rather to celebrate our common humanity and contemplate our shared redemption made possible by the birth of our Savior that we celebrate each December 25.  Like the song says, let there be peace on earth, and let it begin with me… 

…and then let it end at 12:01 AM on December 26th, so I can get back to sass-typing and butt-rippin’ before the deluge of stupidity that will be visited upon us by our politicos over the next week makes my head explode.  Truce for one week; that’s the best I can do. 

Oh, lighten up; it’s just a blog.  Merry Christmas everybody! 

Dr. Tim

Thank You, Veterans

Tomorrow is Veterans’ Day, and I would like to take this opportunity on behalf of all of my Moment Of Clarity readers to thank our nation’s veterans and their families for your service.  

Those of us who have not worn the uniform will never fully comprehend the range of emotions that you veterans will feel tomorrow on the day that the whole nation pauses to honor you.  We can only pray that your pride will match our gratitude.  

You are our sons and daughters, mothers and fathers, family members, school mates, friends and neighbors, employers and employees.  You may sit next to us in church or attend a different church, you may belong to our clubs or belong to clubs we would not choose to be associated with, you may share our political party affiliation or a wear a different button, you may stand with us at Tea Party rallies or attend OWS protests instead, you may cheer for the Packers or perhaps the Bears.  We will even forgive you for that – but only tomorrow.  

Most of you chose to give up your liberty to serve your country; you volunteered to join the military.  You sacrificed years of your lives, time with your loved ones, your own safety, and in many cases your health, so that we could live free.  You answered the call; you did not leave it to someone else to defend the freedoms that we all hold dear.  No one hates war as much as a war-fighter, yet many of you volunteered to return to combat on multiple tours. 

I have no idea how many Americans will read this post, or how many of you are veterans.  But I know that every single one of the former wants to say this to every single one of the latter:   

Thank you.  Thank you for your service.

We remember with respect the soldiers, sailors, marines, and airmen who were denied by death the opportunity to return to civilian life, as well as those who returned broken, either in body, mind or spirit.  The honor of military service does not end with discharge and neither do our obligations to veterans and their families. 

And what too many veterans need now from us is a job.  I urge my fellow employers to seek out veterans, as well as current members of Guards and Reserves, for openings we have in our companies.  It is not charity; these are men and women of character and commitment with a demonstrated ability to work and lead in teams to achieve goals.  You want these folks on your side. 

They have given it all up for us, and now it is our turn to repay the favor.  On this Veterans Day, I would like every Chief Executive to walk down to his/her HR department and ask them what they have done this past year to hire veterans.  And if they give you that 2nd Lieutenant salute, then go all CEO on them – you will feel good about it, trust me.  And you will upgrade the talent in your organization.

“Thank you” is nice, and we should all say that to every veteran we meet tomorrow; but what many would rather hear is “you’re hired.”  Let’s see if we can do both.  Happy Veterans Day to all my veteran friends – you are too many to list, but you know who you are, and you know how we all feel about you.  God Bless You.    

“Moment Of Clarity” is a weekly commentary by Libertarian writer and speaker Tim Nerenz, Ph.D.  Visit Tim’s website http://www.timnerenz.com to find your moment.      

Lay By Your Dish

We went past the straw breaking the camel’s back some time ago; we are now spearing its humps while it writhes on the ground in pain.

Of course I am referring to the Obama administration’s decision this week to tax Christmas trees.  This, apparently, is what he meant by going around Congress to get things done for the American people.  Because taxing Christmas was what we were all clamoring for him to get done.  Riiiight.

And I still can’t figure out which is dumber – taxing Christmas or trying to balance the budget 15 cents at a time.  What kind of fool adds a three-nickel tax?  All that does is make the guy in the tree booth take his glove off to count 85 cents change that I will drop in the snow.  Besides, at 15 cents a pop, you would have to clear-cut Canada just to pay for the Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac bonuses we paid last week.

The timing of this new tax is impeccable; millions of still-unemployed Americans must be thrilled to know there will be even less money for their children’s toys this Christmas so that the Agriculture Department won’t have to postpone their bonuses, raises, and staff additions.  I’m sure we will all start with government when we list the things we are grateful for this Thanksgiving. 

It’s all part of the President’s own 9-9-9-15 plan: 9 percent unemployment, 9 trillion in new debt, 9 wars all at once, and a 15 cent tax on joy just to show Boehner who gets tops.

This decision to tax a religious symbol raises the obvious economic policy and Constitutional law question: what the front door is wrong with these people?  No seriously…where do they get off putting the government bite on our Christmas?  If Christmas is so bad it has to be taxed, then why are they all going to take the day off to celebrate it?  

Here is what I want from government this Christmas: plow the snow, arrest a criminal, and go lay by your dish.  Just leave us alone; read the Constitution and see if you can find anything in there that authorizes you to do even half the stupid things you do to us.  And then read the Bill of Rights again – pretend it applies to you.   

The unsolvable problem with too-big government is that there aren’t enough smart people to run it, and taxing Christmas trees just proves the point.

You can’t fix people who think it is a brilliant idea to tax Christmas trees.  You can’t protect us from these cretins by holding their budget increases to half the rate of inflation over the next decade; you have to abolish the Department that employs them.  If the GOP candidates ever decide to start talking about real issues again, why don’t they all list the departments and agencies they would abolish if we give them the job?  If they can’t come up with one, let them pay our Christmas tree tax out of their own pocket and then ask them again.

Abolishing most of the federal government would be a mercy killing.  Whatever bunch of nut-balls sat in a conference room and decided to serve the American people by taxing our Christmas needs to be set free from the shackles of government service, along with the whole bureaucracy that approved it.  Remember, this is the best idea they came up with that day; it could have been a lot worse if tree-tax genius would have been off on a sick day looking at condominium foreclosures with her friend from HUD.    

And of all the things to punish; Christmas brings out the very best in people.  Charities, professional organizations, businesses, unions, the military, churches, schools – we cheerfully give billions to help those less fortunate than us.  We buy toys for kids, and necessities for families, and feed the hungry and shelter the homeless and reconcile family differences, our churches are packed.

There is no law that compels us to give.  There is no regulation that mandates generosity.  We do not need to apply for a permit and attend a class.  There is no fee, or license required.  There is not a Democrat Christmas and a Republican Christmas.  No one is forced to celebrate Christmas, and no one is punished if they choose not to.  The smiles at Christmas are what the safety net looks like when government is not involved; that is what every day would look like if we made government go lay by its dish.

But government won’t go lay by its dish.  It won’t leave us alone for a minute.  God forbid we would just do things for each other by ourselves and feel good about it.  It must have driven them crazy to know that we would spend an hour with our families picking out a tree and not obsessing about their politics; they had to find one more way to inject their craving for drama into our private time.

And for what?  We could bring a lot more revenue into the federal government if Buffet and Gates just paid those higher tax rates they said they ought to be paying. Well go ahead, boys.  Hear that bell ringing in front of the K-mart?  Pretend it is the Agriculture Department, stuff a billion into the IRS kettle and get them off our backs. 

They taxed Christmas trees.  You can’t even say that without getting angry, whether you are Republican, Democrat, Libertarian, Independent, or just a person with a shred of decency left in you. It doesn’t even matter that the President put this loopy idea on hold when we hurled our collective outrage right back in his face.  They tried.  That is the salient point. 

“Moment Of Clarity” is a weekly commentary by Libertarian writer and speaker Tim Nerenz, Ph.D.  Visit Tim’s website http://www.timnerenz.com to find your moment.       

Ambassadors

The sun has not yet risen here in Acapulco, but in a few hours hundreds of U.S. Ambassadors will try to secure trade agreements with thousands of Mexico’s most skilled negotiators.

No, it is not another round of NAFTA; I am here for the 29th International Mining Convention, an industry trade show which is held every other year.  And our U.S. ambassadors are not pin-striped suits from the State Department; we are the businessmen and businesswomen who travel the world every day selling American goods and services, creating jobs and prosperity back home and improving living standards in the developing world.

Every day all over the world, deals valued into the hundreds of millions get done without the participation of government.  I didn’t bring anyone from the Commerce Department with me to Mexico, and the Mexican mining executives who we will meet with at the convention do not have their government officials tagging along, either.  Those guys are having a nice Waldorf salad together in Mexico City, telling each other how important out two nations are to each other for the kazillionth time.  

Here in Acapulco, we will be discussing the projects that miners are developing; the equipment they will need; the mix of technical features, price, and service that adds the most value to their operations.  NAFTA won’t come up; frankly, none of us have read it.  The deals will be done on the basis of best value and company reputation, not government policy.  We don’t talk about trade; we trade.  The whole world is competing for the same orders; it is a buyers’ market.

Over dinner, we will discuss culture, sports, world affairs, economics, and politics – both ours and theirs.   We will talk about family and faith, values and beliefs, our philosophies about managing a company, leading a community, developing the next generation of business leaders.  They will laugh at my Spanish, but the attempt will be appreciated.

We will find we have more things in common than things that separate us.  And I will be reminded that Mexican people love America and Americans for the products we make, for what we stand for, for the things we have accomplished, for our commitment to liberty.  It is only the actions of our government and our central bank that anger them.  It is the same all over the world. 

Ron Paul is ridiculed by the press for proposing a defensive military posture, as if military bases and embassies are the only means of interaction between Americans and people of other nations.  Big-government spokesmodels like Meet The Press’ David Gregory express genuine bewilderment at the idea that less government would mean more engagement.  To the business person, Paul’s suggestion is self-evident.  Government does not facilitate commerce; it impedes it.  

When American businesspeople trade abroad, we are the face of the nation; I have been in many places where I am the only American they will ever meet in person.  The world has an insatiable appetite for all things American; we are a topic of endless fascination and our founding principles are genuinely admired wherever they are understood.  Most of us are happy to help them understand, and we take our responsibilities to represent our nation seriously.

Businesspeople, students, missionaries, public health workers, tourists, educators, engineers, researchers, airline crews, technicians, interpreters, and athletes – American interests are advanced every single day by interesting Americans.  Here in Acapulco, the only American government presence is the guns we sold to the narcos in Operation Fast and Furious, but that is a rant for another day. 

Many misperceptions of Americans and American ideals are spread by our enemies to foment hatred.  And by enemies I also mean American leftists and unionists whose only export is anti-capitalist rhetoric which paints all economic development as exploitation and assigns all under-developed peoples to perpetual victimhood.

The most effective antidote for this poison is for standard-issue Americans to interact with the people of other countries; this is the real importance of free trade.  The miners of Mexico don’t buy into the exploitation myth.  Sure they are poor compared to the owners of the mines which employ them; there is no disputing that.  But they are rich beyond their wildest imaginations compared to how they lived before the capitalists came in to develop the mines – Americans, Canadians, Chileans, Australians, South Africans.

You can’t buy a bag of beans with the gold that is in the ground.  Perhaps if our eco-terrorists had to live on $2 a day for a while, they would show a little more appreciation for the people who dig it up and make it unnecessary for them to do so.

Libertarians are often called isolationist because we would reduce the American government’s footprint around the world – closing military bases, reducing embassy and consulate staff, and eliminating foreign aid programs that enrich corrupt foreign leaders with money we must borrow from the Chinese.

Reducing our government’s footprint does not mean reducing America’s engagement with the world.  On the contrary, our commitment to free trade, tax and regulatory relief, and trans-border mobility would unleash tens of thousands more of our best ambassadors into the every nook and cranny of the world, spreading the message of liberty, democracy, and capitalism.  Of course, some will do lots of other less noble things, too, but go to either Party’s convention and tell me that businesspeople have the exclusive franchise on debauchery.

A maintenance superintendent at a mine in Zacetecas State will never meet the U.S. Government’s ambassador to Mexico, but he will meet with an American ambassador in an hour or so – me.  It will be my pleasure to represent my country and hopefully bag some orders to keep our American factories humming.    

“Moment Of Clarity” is a weekly commentary by Libertarian writer and speaker Tim Nerenz, Ph.D.  Visit Tim’s website http://www.timnerenz.com to find your moment.     

Block Buster

The moment I saw it, I knew Mark Block should not havesmoked in that ad. 

When you engage in cloud-seeding, you can’t complain aboutthe deluge that follows.  Not only did Blocksmoke on camera – worse than a snuff film these days – but the ad was not runon paid media.  The latter, of course, isthe real crime that has brought about the flash-mob hit on Herman Cain. 

In the world of political punditry, Herman Cain is doingeverything wrong and it is working.  Heis the most dangerous man in America.  If this guy can win the nomination withoutspending hundreds of millions of establishment money and employing thousands ofpoliticos, then the jig is up, and the whole electioneering industry isdoomed.  They can’t have that, so theyhave to take him down – now.    

One week into the corporate media beat down and we still don’teven know what he is accused of: apparently someone told someone else about arumor he heard from another guy about something that Herman might or might nothave done or said or gestured that someone might or might not havemisunderstood or might or might not have taken offense to at some time in thelast century.  There’s your blockbuster,pun intended.

Unless you are clairvoyant, the 90 articles Politico has alreadydevoted to this mirage add nothing to the description I just provided.  All we know for sure is that Gloria Alred hasnot yet magically appeared like David Copperfield behind a battery ofmicrophones in Atlanta; if there was really anything to this, she would have pulled a hamstring running for the cameras.       

People who wouldn’t be caught dead parking the Mercedes amongthe F-150’s and walking their facelift into a Waffle House might reach for thepepper spray if someone calls them “honey”, but most of us human beings actuallylike it.  South of the NASCAR line, it isjust a word they attach to sentences without thinking – like “eh” for Canadiansor “recall” for Wisconsin Democrats.

But this isn’t about sexual harassment and everyone knows it;this is about money.  And money does notcare about truth, or justice, or fairness, or morality.  Who is behind the hatchet job on Cain –Perry? Paul? Romney? Rove? Obama?  Soros? DNC?  RNC?  trial lawyers?  unions?  The answer is…yes.  Chargesof skirt chasing aren’t going to work on Ron Paul, so who knows what they will comeup with if he puts 10 points on the pack.

The electioneering industry used to be the ultimate cyclicalsector – every two years a minor bump, every four years a boom, and scratchingfor survival in between.  So the smartguys who run corporate media and the major party apparatus figured out how tomake that cycle continuous and billions have been pouring into the politicalsector ever since.  Call it the electionbubble. There is a ready stockpile of fundraisers and candidate marketersavailable, and they pick their candidates like waterfront hookers choosesteamships – whoever is in port and has cash. 

The action has been non-stop since 2007.  That nomination process started a yearearlier than normal – most of us were sick of it already before the firstprimary vote was cast in Iowa. The inauguration trash was not evenpicked up when they swung right into the selling of Stimulus, then almost ayear of health care and the rise of the Tea Party, which bled right into thehistoric 2010 mid-term House flip.

In Wisconsin the hits justkept right on coming: a winter of protests over budget reforms, then judicialelections, recounts, senate recalls, and now the Walker recall petition drive which will takeus right into the 2012 primary season.  Itis as likely to end as Cher’s goodbye tour.

A lot of people profit handsomely from elections – campaignstaff, consultants, PR firms, law firms, security, private investigators,travel agencies, advertising agencies, pollsters, media outlets, pundits, eventorganizers, hotels, food service, paid “volunteers”, fundraisers, moneymanagers, bloggers, social media managers, the guys who paint the busses, filmcrews, the list goes on and on. 

So whoever had the idea to turn governing from a non-profitpublic service gig into one continuous for-profit election cycle must be themost popular guy or gal in the business – full employment and big fat checksfor campaign ramrods and their menagerie of hangers-on.  Palin figured out which side of the bread wasbuttered with c-notes.  Life isgood.    

And then along comes this guy Cain.  No prior office.  No staff. No money.  No plan recognizable tothose who sell them off the shelf.  Hetalks without a teleprompter; speaks without a script.  He answers different questions with differentanswers, he wears a hat. His man Block smokes. And people love him.  Ruh-roh.

We libertarians oppose any initiation of force orfraud.  Either Herman Cain sexuallyharassed someone (force) or he has been falsely accused (fraud).  Americans are fed up with hypocriticalmoralists running for office and telling us how to live our lives; and we arealso fed up with the politics of personal destruction.  So there is no middle ground here, someone isgoing to win and someone is going to lose.  

The keepers of the conventional wisdom did not see 2010coming; and still don’t get it.  Thisisn’t politics as usual; we don’t keep score of cheap debating points andgotcha moments.  We want someone who canlead us out of our malaise.   Someone is lying and someone is telling thetruth; whoever is telling the truth has just won the White House this week.        

We have devolved into a society where taking offense is anoccupation, where feeling uncomfortable entitles us to compensatorydamages.  You want to see what realsexual harassment looks like?  Go toSturgis.  You want to see how real womenput an ape in his place without a lawyer? Go to Sturgis.  You want to turnthis whole country into Eggshell Nation because a few delicate flowers didn’tget enough attention from their daddy? Go to hell.   

If a guy makes a rude suggestion in a restaurant, the womanshould slap his face.  That’s how wehandled it before we handed the country over to the lawyers, parasites, andbedwetters.  Her honor is vindicated andthe cad’s low character is exposed to the public and it takes a second forjustice to be served. 

$45,000 and a sealed agreement accomplish neither, and predationleaves a cloud over an innocent man for life. This is not progress.

“MomentOf Clarity” is a weekly commentary by Libertarian writer and speaker Tim Nerenz, Ph.D.  Visit Tim’s website www.timnerenz.com to find your moment.       

Who Owns You?

 [Tim has another book in the works – here is an excerpt from the draft] 

 

 

…We have known the answer to the problems that face our nation for over 200 years; the maintenance manual for happiness and prosperity is so thin I carry one in my jacket pocket most of the time – it is the Constitution.

Libertarians believe that the enumerated powers delegated to government in Article I, Section 8 represent the proper role of government.  We believe the Bill of Rights properly delineates the State from the People and sets the correct boundaries for the limits of State power against its citizens.  Liberty is good foreign policy; Liberty is good domestic policy; Liberty is good economic policy.

The less your government takes from you, the more of yourself you own.  Self-ownership is the path to economic recovery, a path that requires the obstacle of government to be removed, not improved.

And self-ownership is also the path to pride and self-respect.  No one wants to grow up to be a ward of the state.  No one aspires to be dependent upon someone else for sustenance.  Dependency must be learned; the spirit must be broken before subservience can be achieved.  Is that really our dream for 21st century America – a nation of broken spirits dependent on government for sustenance?  I think not.  I pray not.

Perhaps you do not believe in this principle of self-ownership; perhaps you are skeptical of an idea that runs counter to the preaching of the socialist progressives over the past century.  Perhaps this is not what you have been taught in your government-union school.  What, then, is your alternative?

If you do not fully own yourself, than who owns you?  Society?  And who is that but your neighbors?  Why do they own you?  In the economy of two, the rest of society is me.  What is the basis of my claim on you, and why is mine superior to your own?   Which will be the more peaceful coexistence between you and me – voluntary exchange, or surrender by force?

The operational theory of the progressive welfare state is that my need represents a superior claim against your property.  The socialists’ purpose for government is to re-allocate wealth that a handful of people determine to be surplus.  They claim authority over everyone’s property to achieve their notion of justice – a notion that forced upon both the self-owner and the recipient of the taken property.  Your obligation as a citizen is to surrender yourself to them for the good of society – good as they define it.

This is also the operational theory of piracy.

The underlying moral premise of the socialist – my need trumps your right of self-possession – is no different than that of the pirate, the looter, the rapist, the con-man, the gold-digger, the extortionist, or the thief.  The socialist wraps the taking in high-minded words of compassion; so does the pimp.  The socialist excuses his brutality on the basis of superior moral intentions; so does every fallen evangelist. 

Who owns you?  That is the first question to be answered.  It is the only tough one; the rest are easy.  

Who is selfish – the person who asserts his right to self-ownership or the person who demands the taking of that which he has not earned?

Who is compassionate – the person who gives his own money quietly to the charity of his choosing, or the person who loudly redistributes the money of others? 

Who is just – the person who respects the rights of others equally or the person who forces his beliefs onto others and takes it upon himself to allocate rights and privileges? 

Who is moral – the person who takes instruction from God, or the person who imposes his personal beliefs on others through the force of legislation?

Personal liberty and economic liberty are two sides of the same coin.  It is impossible to keep heads when you throw tails away.  All the money in the world is useless if you are not free to spend it as you see fit; and freedom to choose how to spend is useless if your earnings have been confiscated…

Class Warfare

While the civil war between taxpayers and taxeaters rages on across the nation, the battle here in Wisconsin has devolved from class warfare to a war on class.           

Even the Democrat State Senators who went AWOL (the opening salvo in the war on class) have had it with the juvenile antics of their fellow unionists and entitlement cranks.  It’s pretty bad when you annoy folks who think running away is the grown-up thing to do.  

Last week a couple of moonbats bike-locked their heads to the railing in the Senate chamber and tried to shout down the pledge of allegiance.  The week before, a group dressed as Zombies inserted themselves into a ceremony honoring Special Olympians.  Classy.

The head of the state’s firefighters’ union held a press conference after the state Supreme Court upheld the legality of the Budget Repair Bill to drop an F-bomb or two and warn us taxpayers to get our “knuckles ready” for a fight.  That same day, a State Senator’s office was stink-bombed.  Very classy.

Wisconsin’s Democrat Secretary of State is delaying the publishing of the budget bill to allow local unions to sign contract extensions before it goes into effect, forcing more job cuts than necessary and pinning the cuts on Governor Walker.  And gay activists, apparently worried that they were not being obnoxious enough in the Segway era, have now taken to throwing glitter on those who disagree with them.  So classy.

A tent city called “Walkerville” has popped up on the Capitol square, and a journalist filming the activities there was accosted by a guy in a pink dress.  And what would a week of protests in Madison be without another round of death threats and profanities emailed to legislators who voted for a balanced budget.  How classy.

This one’s nice: a teacher made her children draw pictures of Governor Walker as the devil.  And over the weekend, veterans returning from the war had their homecoming marred by Walker protestors who could not stop the pity party for even one hour out of respect for those who have given up months and even years of their lives to protect our freedoms.  How very classy.

Disrupting blood drives, elementary school classrooms, Special Olympic ceremonies, veterans’ homecomings, and legislative proceedings is not what democracy looks like; it is what pathetic losers look like.  Your mommies must be so proud.

Look, Democrats, I know how much it hurts to lose elections – I’m a Libertarian, remember?  But get over it, like we do. You are losing votes in the next one with each air horn blast and profanity-laced drool.  And you are making the whole state look bad by disrupting events that have nothing to do with you and your pay.

Besides, I can’t imagine that you have persuaded a single person to come around to your way of thinking by your obnoxious and offensive behavior.  Maybe Governor Walker is the jerk you say he is, but not if we are grading on a curve – you guys got the whole d-bag honor roll sowed up.

When the Republicans cratered on Constitutional Carry, did you see us gunners out spray-painting the entrance at Bed, Bath, and Beyond?  No, you did not.  Because we are responsible adults, that’s why.  All it takes is to listen to that little voice in the back of your head that says, “don’t be a ‘hole”.  

By all means, protest and rally to your hearts content – it’s still a free country, despite your best efforts to turn it into a socialist adult day care.  Fill up Camp Randall, blow your horns, and beat your drums until your fingers bleed.

But let the people who live and work around the Square have some peace, for God’s sake.  You have been disturbing it for months now, and they have done nothing to deserve you.  And leave our returning veterans and their families alone; you do not deserve them. 

And speaking of the working class, I hope you tentwads don’t have the misguided notion that all your no-class antics are helping working people. Any business thinking of moving to Wisconsin or expanding here gets a daily reminder on YouTube of the lunacy that lurks just one election away from running the state again. 

And if you don’t think that businesspeople take things like that into account when deciding where to invest and create jobs, then you are too dumb to be carrying something as dangerous as a bike lock.

In fact, I think the legislature should pass a law that requires a permit and training to carry a bike lock, since more people locked their own heads to railings last week than shot themselves accidently with open carry.  Guns are much safer.

Give it up, already.  Walker won, Prosser won, the recount is over, the courts ruled, the budget passed, and the recalls aren’t going to mean squat.  It’s over. 

Rest up for Right To Work, because that’s the big enchilada – it will determine the economic trajectory of this state for the next 50 years.  And when the time comes, let’s fight that fight with some class.  Our kids are watching.    

“Moment Of Clarity” is a weekly commentary by Libertarian writer and speaker Tim Nerenz, Ph.D.  Visit Tim’s website http://www.timnerenz.com to find your moment.

Goodbye, Joanne

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Joanne Kloppenburg announced she would not challenge theresults of the recount of her defeat in the April election for a seat on theWisconsin Supreme Court in the courts.  Hereis the significance her decision: none. 

The recount was an insignificant event, and she is aninsignificant person – an empty vessel with a shiny surface that reflected theunionists’ hatred for Governor Scott Walker back to them.  That was the glow; there never was anythingmore to it.   

The Kloppenburg saga captures perfectly the essence of whatso many of us find most objectionable about the state of affairs of ourpolitics these days: insignificant people we don’t care about get in our faceand stay there 24/7.  Should we begrateful to Ms. Kloppenburg that the beatings have stopped?  Sure. Thanks. Bye.

Most of us are not political crack-heads, jonesing for ourdaily fix of victimhood, partisan spin, overhype, and payback.  We prefer to focus on our families, homes,businesses, jobs, neighborhoods, churches, clubs, hobbies, schools, sportsteams, meals, clothes, entertainment, charities, and friends.     

Here is how this is supposed to work; candidates campaignfor a job and then we vote on who gets it. Voting is the end of the job interview; you got the job or youdidn’t.  Go fix a bridge if you won, andgo lay by your dish if you lost.  Eitherway, just leave us alone until the next time we have to decide who willrepresent us.   

We are sick of the relentless drama.  It started in 2007 with the contest between Hillaryand Barack, then their fight over Florida and Michigan delegations, which ranus right into the Presidential campaign, which flipped immediately to GMbailouts and trillion dollar stimulus, which bled right into a whole year ofhealth care, which fired up the Tea Parties until the 2010 elections were uponus, which ran right into the lame duck session and tax showdown and…

[We interrupt thisrant to thank the Green BayPackers for their fantastic playoff run and Super Bowl victory, which gave us aone month reprieve from the self-absorbed crack-head pols and the coverage oftheir machinations by the pom-pom press.]

…then on to Walker’s Budget Repair Bill and six weeks ofinsanity and paralysis at the Capitol and then the Supreme Court election in April,which should have been a yawner but instead we endured Scylla and Charybdisbombarding us day and night, and then the mistaken count, and then the realcount, and then the canvass, and then the recount, and then the wait for thedecision on the court case, and then it will be the recalls and then it will betime to crank it all back up again for 2012.  The partisan bickering is not amusing anymore;it is exhausting.

The libertarians’ best argument for much less government ismade every day by the incompetence and insincerity of the big-governmentadvocates in both parties who fiddle and futz and waste money they do not haveon things that do not matter.  Like, forexample, a recount that never had a prayer.    

I don’t hate anyone, including Joanne Kloppenburg.  What I hate is that Ms. Kloppenburg, andpeople like her, force me to stay engaged in the political process day afterday when I have 100 more productive things I would rather be doing. 

I hate it that I have to defend my rights from the very peopleI pay to protect them. And I hate it that I have to explain my rights tosomeone who came within a whisper of sitting on the Court that is my last lineof defense in this state.  

I hate it that young people discover truths about liberty inmy column that they were not taught in school. I hate it that journalists areso biased and ignorant that I have to read eight papers to get a fair idea ofwhat is going on in this world.  I hateit that people who don’t work claim to speak for those of us who do.

I hate it that Joanne Kloppenburg made her problem ourproblem and indulged her appetite for a vendetta at our expense.  I hate it that she was the best the DemocratParty could come up with to sit on the Supreme Court.  And I hate it that the Republican’s bestcandidate could only beat her by a few thousand votes.

Goodbye, Ms. Kloppenburg. Thank you for exiting the stage.  Pleasestay gone.

         

“MomentOf Clarity” is a weekly commentary by Libertarian writer and speaker Tim Nerenz, Ph.D.  Visit Tim’s website www.timnerenz.com to find your moment andwatch for the upcoming release of his new book, “Capitalista!”    

Toxic

Five people were killed in Tucson Satuday; can you namethem?  John Roll, Gabe Zimmerman, DorwinStoddard, Dorothy Murray, Phyllis Sheck, Christine Greene.  May God comfort their families, and may therest of us have the human decency to leave our politics out of their grief.

The oldest was 79, the youngest only 9 – one pastor, onejudge, one Congressional staffer, two in their twilight years and one whoselife was just dawning.  I suspect thatthe five life stories are fascinating, and the sixth would surely have been.  14 others were wounded, but we know thecondition of only one – Congresswoman Giffords, on whose behalf the nation’sprayers were offered and apparently answered.  48 hours after the senseless shooting in Arizona, we know verylittle about these 19 other victims, and only sketchy information about the manwho struck them down.   

But we know exactly what tens of thousands of politicos andbloggers think of the tea party, Sarah Palin, talk radio, communism, atheists,right and left wing rhetoric, guns, free speech,  Republicans, Democrats, conservatives,libertarians, conspiracy theorists, the need for new prohibitions galore, andthe precise motivation of a mentally disturbed person they have never met.

Their need to seize center-stage and co-opt a horrificpersonal tragedy to advance their own careers and ideologies is what is toxicin this country, not the phrases or symbols by which ideas are conveyed to the 310million Americans who did not shootanyone on Saturday.  It took less than anhour for the mindless chattering class to chatter mindlessly.

The narcissism and callousness it takes to climb on top of 20  shattered bodies to reach the microphone first is sickening – that is the toxicity that afflicts ournation, not the choice of phrases or symbols used to communicate with 310million Americans who did not killanyone on Saturday.  

A senseless act, by definition, can not be understood inrational cause-and-effect terms.  Onlyone person knows what deviant impulse led him to slaughter numbers of people,and the rest of us are recklessly projecting our own fears into his head.  We may never know how that brain was moldedover 22 years to become capable of such inhumanity; it most certainly did notget that way from one map on one web page, or anything that any of the victimsmay of may not have done to provoke the violence that was visited upon them. 19of 20 were not public figures.  

A shameless act, by definition, is one in which a lack ofshame is displayed.  Stepping on thegrief of 20 families and the sympathies of a nation to draw the spotlight backonto partisan sparring is as shameless as I can imagine.  It does nothing to bring comfort to thefamilies; it only deepens the stress they must certainly be coping with, and injectsthe very toxicity it purports to decry.

These are days to respect the privacy and loss of thefamilies, and to withhold opinions until they can be informed by facts andevidence.  My condolences to the victimsand their families, including the family of the man accused of the crime – theymust be devastated, too.  May God comfortthem all in their time of greatest need.

        

“MomentOf Clarity” is a weekly commentary by Libertarian writer and speaker TimNerenz, Ph.D.  Visit Tim’s website www.timnerenz.comto find your moment and order his new book, “Tooth Fairy Government.”