Legislative Transparency and Accountability?

If you're in favor of legislative transparency and accountability, don't look for it in the so-called "American Taxpayer Relief Act of 2012" passed yesterday by the Senate to avert the "fiscal cliff."

What's in the 157 page Senate budget bill? Contrary to media over-simplifications, it's not just about individual income taxes. Those are just in Title II.  There's a lot here that changes very little.

Title I - General Extensions 
Title II - Individual Tax Extenders
Title III - Business Tax Extenders
Title IV - Energy Tax Extenders
Title V - Unemployment
Title VI - Medicare and Other Health Extensions 
Title VII - Extension of Agricultural Programs
Title IX - Miscellaneous Provisions
Title X - Budget Provisions

A few observations...

• There is no Title VIII. Odd. Why?  Is that where the spending cuts were supposed to be?
• Title IX, section 901, "Strategic Delivery Systems" has the following provision: National Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2013, is amended—
  (1) by striking ‘‘that’’ before ‘‘the Russian Federation’’ and inserting ‘‘whether’’; and
  (2) by inserting ‘‘strategic’’ before ‘‘arms control obligations’’.
  What does this mean?  Why is it part of this bill?
• Title IX, Section 902 denies Congress a cost of living pay raise in 2013. Good. 
• Title X is the "kick the can down the road" section, extending spending authorizations in large, vague buckets, (Section 1001), a seemingly random modification of one rule about Roth IRA accounts (Section 1002) and most significantly, absolving Congress of accountability for the balanced budget effect of the bill (Section 1011):
  (a) PAYGO SCORECARD.—The budgetary effects of this Act shall not be entered on either PAYGO scorecard maintained pursuant to section 4(d) of the Statutory Pay-As-You-Go Act of 2010.
  (b) SENATE PAYGO SCORECARD.—The budgetary effects of this Act shall not be entered on any PAYGO scorecard maintained for purposes of section 201 of S. Con. Res. 21 (110th Congress).

A Personal Reaction

It's time for both parties, the White House, and both houses of Congress to stop campaigning and start governing. Is this the best they can do, beyond the last minute, with two years to work on it? We, the people, deserve a better work product from our government leaders. They are simply not doing their job.

Read It For Yourself

You can find the full PDF of the bill here.

What Gun Control?

I really don't want to wade into the gun control debate.  I just have a few observations that I'd like to share.

• There is no gun control. There are a lot of guns out there. Many of them are in the wrong hands. Whether you believe gun control should exist, or should not exist, the fact is, it doesn't exist in any effective form.
• According to the Brady Campaign to Prevent Gun Violence, Connecticut, where yesterday's horrific tragic took place, and its neighboring states of Massachusetts and New York are all among the more restrictive states with regard to gun ownership. (Brady, 2012)
• According to some studies, violent crime varies INVERSELY with legal gun sales. Virginia Commonwealth University Professor Thomas Baker has crunched the numbers in the state of Virginia, and has determined that gun sales in the state have climbed 73% since 2006, while the number of violent crimes involving guns has declined by more than 27%. (NRA, 2012)
• A loophole in the federal law requiring criminal background checks allows sales at gun shows to go forward without a check. This accounts for 40% of all U.S. private gun sales. That's just a poor work product from the legislature. (CSGV, 2012)
• Fortunately, there are "not enough" mass shooting incidents to draw reliable statistical correlations with anything. (I know. PLEASE don't take the first words of that sentence out of context.) Common sense might say otherwise, but the numbers aren't there to draw sound quantitatively-based conclusions about violent media exposure and other potential influences. 
• Mass shooting incidents, especially in the otherwise comfortable affluent suburbs get in-depth media attention, but they are statistically insignificant compared to the scourge of gun violence on our city streets. The daily killings in our cities receive relatively little attention in most outlets.  A notable exception is the Huffington Post's Chicago Gun Violence stream. (Huffington, 2012a).  
• On a single night in Chicago (Monday, 12/3/12), there were 11 shootings overnight. November shootings in Chicago were up 49 percent over 2011. Through 11 months, shootings were up 11 percent and homicides were up 21 percent. (Huffington, 2012b)
• Guns are designed to kill.  Don't create specious arguments against gun control by comparing gun violence deaths with traffic fatalities, for example. Cars do not have a lethal primary purpose.
• "Guns don't kill people. People kill people." may be a time-worn cliché but it has some basis in fact. We cannot blame inanimate objects for the evil actions of broken people and the soul-sickness to which we are all susceptible.

References

Brady (2012). Brady 2011 state scorecards. Brady Campaign to Prevent Gun Violence.
Retrieved from http://www.bradycampaign.org/stategunlaws/

CSGV (2012). Gun show loophole. Coalition to Stop Gun Violence.
Retrieved from  http://www.csgv.org/issues-and-campaigns/gun-show-loophole

NRA (2012). Wayne's commentary (11/27/12), more guns, less crime in Virginia. The National Rifle Association of America.
Retrieved from  http://home.nra.org/#/nraorg

Huffington (2012a) Chicago gun violence. The Huffington Post.
Retrieved from http://www.huffingtonpost.com/news/chicago-gun-violence

Huffington (2012b). Shot waiting for bus: Chicago bystanders among 11 shot overnight after violent weekend. The Huffington Post.
Retrieved from http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/12/04/shot-waiting-for-bus-chic_n_2237596.html

Happy Thanksdoing!

Attitude In Action

Attitude drives behavior. Behavior creates and reinforces attitude. Does your behavior demonstrate your gratitude? Beyond mere words, what do you do to show yourself grateful? As you profess an attitude of gratitude, today is a good day to think about how you put it into action.

Be Specific

Is it possible to be "generally thankful"? Perhaps. Attitude is important, and a propensity to be thankful is an attractive and healthful personality trait, but being constructively thankful involves being giving thanks to someone for something specific. Fifty-three Plymouth colonists, along with 90 Native Americans, did not celebrate that "First Thanksgiving" in 1621 because it seemed like a good party theme.They were thankful for the harvest, for their new lives in the new world, and for life itself. In the United States, Thanksgiving Day has been officially observed since 1863. While the nation was plunging into some of its darkest days during the Civil War, President Abraham Lincoln proclaimed a national day of "Thanksgiving and Praise to our beneficent Father who dwelleth in the Heavens". Today is a good day to express your gratitude to somebody specific, in heaven or on Earth, for something specific.

Just Say "You're Welcome"

When somebody says "thank you", do you say "no problem" or "it was nothing"? Don't. That devalues whatever you did to earn the "thank you." It says, "well, if it had been the least bit hard or inconvenient for me, I would not have done it for you". It says, "your gratitude is unimportant, because what I did for you was unimportant to me." Don't do that. When somebody says "thank you", assume that they mean it. Let it mean something to you. If you were happy to help, say so, or just say "you're welcome."

Thanksgiving is Thanksdoing

As you are able, show yourself grateful through more than words, do something for another that they cannot possibly repay. Create situations for others to be thankful. Just do it. Happy Thanksdoing!

Random Stuff From The BookShelf

Inspired by the recent postings on Facebook in honor of International Book Week, I followed a slightly different procedure. Starting at a random spot on my bookshelves, I found the first three sentences from the second paragraph on page 52 and recorded it below.  Then I skipped three books on the shelf and found three more sentences in the same way.  If they relate in any way to the previous book, you'll see them here. Otherwise, I skipped that book and moved along until I found something that connected, until I had gathered the fifteen sentences, below.  I find the result surprisingly interesting. It doesn't prove much of anything, but I had fun revisiting some old friends on the bookshelves.

Choices between lies and truthful statements, therefore, exhibit the difficulties often thought to beset utilitarianism as a method for coping with moral conflict. But the problems mentioned so far might in principle be counteracted within utilitarianism. They need not invalidate the general effort to weigh factors in a moral problem. (1)  

Emotional appeals can also work as a way of supporting actual claims made in an argument. Quite often the emotion is laid atop logical propositions to make them stronger or more memorable. The technique is tricky, however. (2)  

Often, though, it is the most basic things that distract your audience. In 1954, humanist psychologist Abraham Maslow defined five basic human needs that we all try to satisfy in priority order. These five needs are: physiological. safety, belonging, self-esteem, and self-actualization. (3)  

It is instructive to remind ourselves that professional persuaders, who realize that the public at large does not always behave rationally, try themselves to arrive rationally at the persuasive techniques they apply on the "non-rational" citizen. The advertiser who sells soap or cars carefully and objectively analyzes the public "taste", its whims and fancies, its buying habits, and carefully tailors his advertising to appeal to those "whims and fancies." (4) 

Give people reasons to listen. We listen to ideas that seem tied to our lives. We want to know why we should pay attention to someone else's words. (5)

References:
(1) Lying, Sissela Bok
(2) Everything's An Argument, Andrea A. Lunsford, John J. Ruskiewicz, Keith Walters
(3) Kruschev's Shoe, Roy Underhill
(4) Ethics of Speech Communication, Thomas R. Nielsen
(5) Public Speeking for Personal Success, Michael S. Hanna, Dick L. Stine, James W. Gibson

I Promise

May we please have less name calling and a little more open discussion?

• If I think you are wrong, I will not call you names. I will not say that you are an idiot, or insane, or evil.
• Your logic is probably sound. We start from different core values and first principles. We may have different loyalties. We base our conclusions on a different set of facts. 
• I take none of these things as permission to attack you personally or to question your intentions. I won’t. I promise. I ask only for the same.

I hate it that I even felt a need to write this but if you spend any time at all on social media, especially Facebook, you've no doubt seen the steady stream, from both the left and the right, of goofy pictures, statements used out of context, rants with little substance, angry and hateful comments thrown at entire groups of good people because of a different idea about something, and so on, and on, and on. So far, the social media communication revolution has done very little to improve public discourse. It has simply made us more efficient muckrakers, complainers, and name callers.  Shame on us!

That's my opinion. If you have a different one, you're wrong. You're not stupid, or insane, or evil. You're just wrong. Let's discuss it.

k only for the same.

Just Some Facts

Just some facts from the "Who Are These Guys? Department"

Some article somewhere caught my eye tonight where it referred to Sarah Palin as the half-term Governor of Alaska. I just thought I'd check the facts and learn more about the actual candidates. I freely admit that I put only a modest effort into gathering similar facts about them. I satisfied my curiosity and collected the facts here. Draw your own conclusions. I offer none, just some facts.

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Before becoming President, Barack Obama served three two-year terms as a member of the Illinois Senate and 56% of one six-year term as U.S. Senator from Illinois. Before holding elective office, he was a civil rights attorney and law professor.

Joe Biden was a city council member before becoming a U.S. Senator from Delaware. He served six terms, 36 years, in the Senate.

Mitt Romney served as President and CEO of the Salt Lake Organizing Committee for the 2002 Winter Olympics, from 1999 to 2002, before election as Governor of Massachusetts. He served one four-year term. and chose not to seek reelection.

Paul Ryan was a marketing consultant for a family business for one year before becoming a U.S. Representative from Wisconsin. He is in his sixth two-year term in the House.

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Footnote (because everybody has an opinion about Sarah):

Sarah Palin served four years as a city council member of Wasila, Alaska, six years as mayor, and 42% of a one four-year term as Governor of Alaska, resigning about 8 months after failing to be elected Vice President.

Self-Confidence, A Napoleon Hill Remix

#2 in a series on Think and Grow Rich (1937) by Napoleon Hill

The great strength of Hill's book is a methodical approach to marshaling our inner resources to achieve our goals and lead lives of significance. One of the building blocks in that approach  is his "Self-Confidence Formula" (p. 45 in the Tribeca Books Edition). Throughout the work, these building blocks depend on the (debatable) premise that  new attitudes inevitably lead to new behavior.

Here I offer a new version of the Self-Confidence Formula, condensed for better verbal economy and adapted to reflect my values and worldview. I have preserved the essential concepts of Hill's five steps, especially the two-part construct of awareness, followed by action (I understand... I will...).  If I depart significantly from the original, it is in step five, where I move from Hill's secular ethics toward a remix based on Christian orthodoxy, following the writing of Paul the Apostle.

Hill's self-confidence formula remixed:

1. I know that I have the ability to achieve my goals.I will apply that ability with persistent, continuous action.
2. I realize that my actions will follow my attitudes.
    I will invest time, daily, refining a clear mental picture of the person I am becoming.
3. I recognize the power of confidence and positive thinking.
    I will invest time, daily, reflecting on my successes, past, present, and future.
4. I see the importance of specific, detailed goals.
    I will put my goals in writing so that I can plan with confidence.
5. I understand that my goals are unimportant if they are not pleasing in God’s eyes.  I will do all things excellently with compassion, kindness, gentleness, humility, patience, and most of all love, giving thanks at all times and in all circumstances.

An even shorter remix

1. I am able.
   I will apply myself.
2. I will develop a clear mental picture of the future.
   I will act accordingly.
3. Action follows attitude.
   I will cultivate a positive outlook.
4. Success requires planning.
   I will plan to succeed.
5. In all things, I will consider the ultimate questions, the ultimate Person and the needs of others.

Start, Continue and End With Step Five

If you try to adopt any self-talk, self-help, or personal development program, you will probably fail in the long run unless you start by examining your core values and aligning your resolutions with them.  For this reason, I say start with Step Five, continue with Step Five, and end with Step Five.

Hill's Original Step Five 

I fully realize that no wealth or position can long endure, unless built upon truth and justice, therefore, I will engage in no transaction which does not benefit all whom it affects. I will succeed by attracting to myself the forces I wish to use, and the cooperation of other people. I will induce others to serve me, because of my willingness to serve others. I will eliminate hatred, envy, jealousy, selfishness, and cynicism, by developing love for all humanity, because I know that a negative attitude toward others can never bring me success. I will cause others to believe in my, because I will believe in them, and in myself.

That's pretty good stuff but too wordy for my taste. It could easily be three separate steps, one related to justice, one related to the "law of attraction", and another having to do with self-efficacy.  

Hill's Step Five is good but not quite in laser sharp alignment with my core values and worldview. Reworking this for my own purposes inevitably leads me to the scriptures. There is not a lot that is seriously wrong with Hill's version, it just doesn't go to the specific, deep foundations that I require. My thoughts on this point are informed by Paul's Letter to the Colossians 3:12-14 & 17 (NIV).

¹² Therefore, as God’s chosen people, holy and dearly loved, clothe yourselves with compassion, kindness, humility,gentleness and patience. ¹³ Bear with each other and forgive one another if any of you has a grievance against someone. Forgive as the Lord forgave you. ¹⁴ And over all these virtues put on love, which binds them all together in perfect unity. 

¹⁷ And whatever you do,whether in word or deed, do it all in the name of the Lord Jesus, giving thanks to God the Father through him.

I will therefore start, continue and end, in all things considering the ultimate questions, the ultimate Person and the needs of others. I will fail from time to time. When I do, I will forgive myself, because He has already forgiven me. I will pick myself up, dust myself off, and carry on.

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References

Hill, N. (1937) Think and grow rich. Tribeca Books / Soho Books

(NIV) THE HOLY BIBLE, NEW INTERNATIONAL VERSION®, NIV® Copyright © 1973, 1978, 1984, 2011 by Biblica, Inc.™ Used by permission. All rights reserved worldwide.