Teacher Says "Write an Essay on the Glories of Progessivism"

Sometimes when I am making copies, I find lessons and projects from other teacher's on the copy machine. One such essay that I recently found for a US History class was called "Progressive Reforms," and asked students to write a several page essay detailing all the progressive reforms of US Presidents Roosevelt, Taft, and Wilson. Students were encouraged to write what the reform was and how it helped society. Suggested reforms for students to learn about and glorify were Roosevelt's trustbusting or founding of the Department of Commerce and Labor or Pure Food and Drug Act, Taft's conservation efforts or the Mann Elkins Act, or Wilson's 'reforms' of the banks and 'reforms' of tariffs.

This lesson is a good example of the kind of prevalent liberal bias that exists in education today. Although these are all proper subjects to learn about and important to US history and there is nothing wrong with learning about these subjects in isolation, this essay does demonstrate liberal bias because of the context that these subjects are studied and the absence of other things being studied.

The context that Progressivism is taught in schools is that society needed to be reformed because things were really bad in America under the conservative administrations of Republican McKinley and Democrat Cleveland, who favored businesses and limited government and traditional values to the determinant of our nation. Progressives on the other hand were the good guys in the story of American history, using the power of government to override the objections of states, localities, and minorities so that they could jam through regulations of business and society to give increased power to groups that they favored. Admittedly some good was done by these changes- national parks are nice- but at the very least some of the reforms that are taught to students as unqualified and unconditional successes are not.

Arguments could made that the glorification of the Progressive era is distorting the reality of the situation- students learn that Roosevelt broke up Standard Oil because it was an evil monopoly run by a bad millionaire, but that is not the real story at all. Students read and memorize The Jungle by Upton Sinclair and are told that this is an example of why we need a federal Food and Drug administration, but they never learn any criticisms of this book or the arguments that it advances or the legacy that it led to. Students learn about 'reforming banks', but what is meant by 'reform' is actually a big government-big business partnership called the Federal Reserve System of Banks, which many (especially the Ron Paul types) think is very bad. And these are just a couple examples.

The point is that students are being asked in this essay to talk about all that was good about the Progressive movement after reading a textbook about how good the Progressive movement was, and later on these students will become voters who might perhaps believe what they read and wrote about. Again, that's not to say that students should not learn about the good aspects of the Progressive movement, but it is to say that it demonstrates liberal bias in education that is deep and thorough when students learn about events and issues from one slant or agenda only and do not spend equal time learning about other issues from other slants or agendas (for example, students spend considerable time on the Progressive Era, but little time on the successful economic time period of the 1920's or the foreign policy successes of Taft or the return to normal economic growth that was achieved under Eisenhower).

The effect of this kind of education in every school in our entire country speaks to the size of the bias and slant that education needs to overcome if it is to no longer be liberally biased.

Daley Statements Demonstrate He and the President are Either Idiots or Liars

According to the AP, President Barack Obama's new chief of staff William Daley respond to the proposal from congressional Republicans to cut $55 billion from the federal budget by going on CBS' 'Face the Nation' and asking the "Where's the beef?" He then elaborated that he is very curious to see exactly where those cuts will come from, implying that Republicans are playing the same sort of game that Obama plays often where he makes vague statements with no details to back them up. Both President of the United States Barack Obama (Democrat) and him apparently can't find the details for these cuts and so think that this is some sort of trick.

This is really sad, because I opened up internet explorer, went to google, searched 'details of gop plan', and the very first site that was listed was "A Roadmap for America's Future: The Budget Committee Republicans," which links to the GOP's detailed plans to cut $55 billion from the federal budget. That I was able to find the details to the plan so easily and yet the President of the United States and his chief of staff were not able to speaks to one of two things- one, they're all incompetent idiots who lack basic computer and research skills because they are all stuck in the pre-internet past, or two, they are disingenuous liars who are knowingly trying to scam and fool the American people because they know they are not decent or honest or truthful people so they can't find any refuge there.

Daley is thus either an incompetent idiot or a disingenuous liar- either way, the fact that he was chosen to be the main advisor to our President speaks to the kind of people that our President has chosen to surround himself with.

In case Obama or Daley ever do figure out how to use the internet and read by blog, I'll help them out by putting the apparently hard to find information on where 'the beef' is below:

• LEGISLATIVE BRANCH...............................$1,283,000,000. (23%)
• Notes: The Government Printing Office is abolished.
• JUDICIAL BRANCH......................................$2,434,000,000. (32%)
• AGRICULTURE............................................$42,542,000,000. (30%)
• The Agriculture Research Service, National Institute of Food and Agriculture, Resources Conservation Service, and Foreign Agricultural Service are abolished. The Forest Service gets a $1.2 billion haircut.
• COMMERCE...................................................$5,322,000,000. (54%)
• National Oceanic And Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) is cut by $857,000,000.
• DEFENSE.......................................................$47,500,000,000. (6.5%)
• EDUCATION..................................................$78,000,000,000 (83%)
• Only the Pell grant program survives.
• ENERGY............................................................$44,200,000,000 (100%)
• The Defense Department takes over all of Energy's remaining functions (nuclear waste, for example) and about $18 billion of its budget.
• HEALTH AND HUMAN SERVICES..............$26,510,000,000. (26%)
• Notes: FDA is cut by $230,000,000; Indian Health Service is cut by $650 million; CDC is cut by $1.17 billion; NIH by $5.8 billion.
• HOMELAND SECURITY.................................$23,765,000,000. (43%)
• Notes: Coast Guard is shifted to Defense. TSA's funds are cut by $900 million.
• HOUSING AND URBAN DEVELOPMENT....$53,100,000,000. (100%)
• Notes: Completely eliminated. Veterans' housing programs are transferred to the VA
• INTERIOR........................................................$10,934,000,000. (78%)
• Bureau of Reclamation and Bureau of Indian Affairs are abolished.
• JUSTICE.............................................................$9,057,000,000. (28%)
• Note: Office of Justice Programs is abolished.
• LABOR....................................................$2,803,000,000. (2%)
• OSHA, MSHA, and the The Employment and Training Administration are spared all cuts (no cuts to unemployment benefits)
• STATE...................................................................$20,321,000,000. (71%)
• Note: Massive foreign aid cuts. All international commissions and organizations are defunded.
• TRANSPORTATION............................................$42,810,000,000. (49%)
• Notes: Amtrak is completely de-funded.
• VETERANS’ AFFAIRS..........................................No cuts
• CORPS OF ENGINEERS......................................$1,854,000,000. (27%)
• EPA..............................................................$3,238,000,000. (29%)
• GENERAL SERVICES ADMINISTRATION.....$1,936,000,000. (85%)
• INTERNATIONAL ASSISTANCE PROGRAMS...$24,300,000,000 (100%)
• NASA.........................................................................$4,500,000,000 (25%)
• NATIONAL SCIENCE FOUNDATION...............$4,723,000,000. (62%)
• OFFICE OF PERSONNEL MANAGEMENT.......$9,070,000,000.
• SOCIAL SECURITY ADMINISTRATION.........No cuts
• FCC...........................................................$2,150,000,000. (22%)
• ABOLISH...............................................................$2,050,000,000. (100%)
• (1) Affordable Housing Program.
• (2) Commission on Fine Arts.
• (3) Consumer Product Safety Commission.
• (4) Corporation for Public Broadcasting.
• (5) National Endowment for the Arts.
• (6) National Endowment for the Humanities.
• (7) State Justice Institute.
• MISC
• Collect delinquent taxes from Federal Employees........$3,000,000,000.
• Freeze Federal Government employee pay...................$2,000,000,000.
• Reduce Federal Government travel..............................$7,500,000,000.
• Repeal Davis-Bacon..................................................... $6,000,000,000.
• Prohibit union project labor agreements......................$2,000,000,000.
• TARP repeal.................................................................$4,481,000,000.
• Sell Federal Buildings..................................................$19,000,000,000.
• Reduce Federal vehicle budget..........................................$600,000,000.

UPDATE: Comment from theblogprof's story on this subject, which I echo:

Note the one cut close to the end: "Collect delinquent taxes from Federal Employees." $3 BILLION??? Good grief. How are they still federal employees at all?

Funny Rick Synder Story about Bureaucrats

Yesterday I got a chance to sit down and talk for a bit with Michigan Governor Rick Synder and he told me a pretty funny story. I'm going to try my best to rely it to you...

So Synder moves into his new office in Lansing and goes to sit down at his desk, and he strikes up a conversation with the IT guys who are in his office installing his computer. He notices that his computer screen is a square computer screen, so he asks one of the IT guys about it- "How come I have a square computer screen?" From his time as CEO of Gateway Computers, Synder knew that square computer screens are more expensive and usually smaller than most modern rectangle shaped wide-screen computer screens.

"Because that's what They said that We should put in," the tech guys answered and kept on installing his new computer.

Synder said that he looked puzzled and then asked "Who are 'They'?"

"They are the ones that order that things get done," the guy guys said and kept installing the expensive and small square computer screen.

Synder looked more puzzled and then asked "Who are 'They'?"

"They order things, and we do them, and they say the specifications are that everyone gets a square computer screen," the tech guys said and continued working, "They are in charge of how things are done."

Synder said that he looked even more puzzled and once again asked "Who are They? Aren't I the Governor of the State of Michigan? Aren't I the one in charge of how things get done?"

Apparently this amused the tech guys, and they sort of chuckled and continued working. Synder never did figure out who 'They' are,and now it is a running gag in his office to figure out exactly who 'they' are, but he did say that he now knows a little bit more about just exactly what is wrong with Michigan's government- and what is likely wrong with national government- and it is the fact that bureaucracy is running our state. It is unelected paper-pushers with narrow job descriptions who service no customers and receive no job performance feedback and have great job security who are really running things, with vague chains of command and no accountability. 'They' are the problem- they do things that don't need to be done at great cost because 'they' have always done it that way and are always going to do it that way. 'They' run every department of our government, 'they' make up the majority of those who work in government, and 'they' play a big role in determining who are elected officials are. 'They' are the problem.

Synder learned a valuable lesson from this experience- if he is going to get anything done in Michigan, if he is going to put in place real change, he is going to need to figure out who 'they' are, and get them to be responsive to taxpayers and elected officials and not be a power unto themselves. I wish him good luck with that.

Obama Smiles and Nods at Anti-America Song at Recent State Dinner?

Over the last few posts I've been critical of Obama, not because of who he is, but because of the incompetence of his administration. Here is just one more small example of this incompetence, from the Journal of the American Enterprise Institute:

How to evaluate the results of last week’s China-U.S. summit in Washington? Improbably, the key for the entire event may lie in what is usually the least memorable portion of these carefully choreographed occasions: the cultural program at the concluding state banquet.

During the dinner’s musical interlude and following a duet with American jazz musician Herbie Hancock, Chinese pianist Lang Lang treated the assembled dignitaries to a solo of what he described as “a Chinese song: ‘My Motherland.’” (You can watch this on YouTube.)

The Chinese delegation was clearly delighted: Chinese President and Communist Party chief Hu Jintao, stone-faced for many of his other photo ops in Washington, beamed with pleasure upon hearing the melody and embraced Lang Lang at the song’s conclusion (see it on YouTube too). President Obama, for his part, amiably praised Lang Lang for his performance and described the event as "an extraordinary evening."

But what, exactly, is this “gorgeous” and “beautiful” (Hu’s words) tune that so entranced China’s visiting leadership?

“My Motherland” is not a “Chinese song” in any ordinary meaning of the term. Instead, it is a Mao-era propaganda classic: the theme from "Triangle Hill" (Shangganling), a film in which heroic Chinese forces fight, kill, and eventually beat Americans in pitched battle during the Korean War.

“My Motherland” epitomizes the “Resist America, Aid [North] Korea” campaign that Beijing embraced during and after the Korean War. It celebrates Sino-American enmity.

“My Motherland” is still famous in China; indeed, it is well-known to practically every Chinese adult to this very day. Unfortunately, this political anthem and its significance were evidently unknown to the many members of the administration’s China team—the secretary and deputy secretary of State, the assistant secretary of State for East Asia and the Pacific, and the National Security Council’s top two Asia experts—who were on hand at the state dinner and heard this serenade. Clueless about the nature of the insult, they did not know to warn the president that he would embarrass himself and his country by not only sitting through the song, but by congratulating Lang Lang for it afterward.

Although Americans are often tone-deaf to cadences of symbolism in international relations, the Chinese are not. And for Chinese audiences, the symbolism of performing “My Motherland” to a host of uncomprehending barbarians in the White House itself hardly required explanation. This was a triumph of sorts for a newly assertive, and more nakedly anti-American, strain in Chinese foreign policy. The episode has reportedly already gone viral over the Chinese Internet, where the buzz on this crude and deliberate snub is overwhelmingly and enthusiastically positive. Hu can thus return home confident his visit to America will widely be regarded as a success domestically— for reasons his American counterparts do not yet seem to comprehend...

...If American policy makers are to avoid unpleasant surprises in their dealings with China in the years ahead, they must pay far more attention to official Chinese pronouncements, commentary, and doctrine. All too often, American security specialists—and even China watchers—are inclined to disregard official Chinese speechifying as so much boring palaver. The problem is that in a controlled society, official words matter. Sometimes, even songs do.

Although I don't blame Obama for not knowing that the song he was so approving of was an anti-US song, I do blame Obama for surrounding himself with people who didn't know it and weren't able to let him know that he was being insulted. America is being played as a fool too much by this administration, and it might be because we have a fool in the White House.

A Conservative Teacher's Take on the State of the Union Address

The following are my impressions from Democrat Barack Obama's 2011 State of the Union (SOTU) address. As a social studies teacher, perhaps I will have some comment or analysis that you might think is interesting...

• Before the President even speaks, I was flipping around the various channels listening to their comments, and what I heard over and over is that this speech will continue Obama's attempt to portray himself as a moderate, or that this would speech would help make it look like he was moving more to the center, or that this speech would help him to court independents... he's been in office for 2 years and is still in campaign mode trying to fake people out and disguise who he really is. I can't believe that voters might fall for it- he is who he has always been, a committed leftist liberal Democrat who believes in government control over our lives, less individual freedom and liberty to you, and abortion on demand to correct for the mistakes of humanity.
• His first several minutes were pretty good- hopeful, uplifting, and commenting on how great America was and how we were a tough, innovative country. Then he started lecturing me about how he knows better than me about how to innovate and about how I'm so weak so I need a bunch of help- that was less good.
• About 15 minutes in, and most of this has been some pretty general language about why education is important and why it is important to be smart. I guess this was all to set up that RTTT was a good law (which I disagree with, see earlier post). That's a pretty weak lead-off.
• Around 20 minutes in, I guess in the spirit of 'bipartianship', he re-proposes amnesty to illegal immigrants and pushing for the DREAM Act, which just was shot down by both parties in Congress.
• About 25 minutes in, Obama time-travels back to his childhood in Indonesia, when a nation's prosperity was based on the amount of railroads and roads that the nation had. He suggested that this will be done by having the government coerce private investment and then form a Big Government-Big Business-Big Labor partnership to force us to travel on railroads. I'm not a big fan of fascist proposals from the 1930's myself.
• About 30 minutes in, he begins to lecture Republicans on cutting deficits that he says started "a little over a decade ago" (the election of Bush in 2000?) and lectures the GOP on reforming massive entitlement programs that he has vastly expanded and enlarged and added to over the past 2 years. Is this some sort of Cloven-Piven strategy- wreck everything beyond repair and then talk a good game about unwrecking things? Will voters buy this sort of garbage?
• About 40 minutes in, Obama brags about a series of successful foreign policy initiatives that were begun under Republican President George Bush and that Obama bitterly opposed and fought against. He then talks about his foreign policy ideas that haven't quite worked out yet (but that is not to say that they won't eventually).
• About 45 minutes in, Obama gave a good statement of support for Tunisia. Perhaps he read my blog post criticizing him of being too weak on this issue? Although I wouldn't read too much into this statement- he said something last week of a similar nature and then turned around and called another Middle East dictator and said he really didn't mean it, so we'll see.
• He had a lot of good lines and well-written stuff in there- I really liked the criticism he had for central governments and the defense for our democratic process- that was nice and really jumped out as new and different. I think someone other than him wrote the beginning and end of his speech, but the middle was all his usual liberal hope-and-change nonsense.
• I really liked the fact that there was not a lot of applause and few delays. He delivered a good summary of what he saw as the 'state of our union', which is still strong, with a few problems he needs addressed. Overall, I generally liked it.
• Listening to the commentary, a couple things I heard- 1) Obama still picked enemies- oil companies, Wall Street, the rich, etc; 2) Obama really didn't feel like focusing on foreign policy, showing that he is still mainly a 'Legislator-in-Chief'; 3) Obama spoke about a lot of new 'investments', but there is no money for that; 4) Obama seemed to be going 'small-ball'- talking about 'big things' but really proposing only small little tweaks and nothing big, and this likely indicates that he is just going to play defensive from now until the election, simply sitting in the weeds and criticizing any solutions to the problems that he created, rejecting proposals to deal with any of the long-term issues in favor of winning short term political points. Just imagine if this guy gets a second-term and how unrestrained he will be.
• Republican response thoughts: Ryan delivered one of the best 'reponses' that I have seen. He approached it from the perspective of a calm parent who was non-partisan, and dissected and destroyed Obama's policy responses over the past two years the the challenges that he confronted, from discussing Obama's failed stimulus plan, failed Obamacare, and failed regulations. He was a sound and reasonable voice in response to the empty hope-and-change of Obama. He quoted the wisdom of the Founding Fathers and translated it to the times of today- so sweet! He delivered a fantastic speech that spoke to what makes our nation great- our freedom and liberty and capitalism and businesses and property protection and limited government and free enterprise- that compares favorably to Obama's speech which was about all the things that government can do (poorly). Congressman Paul Ryan for President!
• Comments from the media about Ryan's response were that he didn't deliver any specifics (neither did Obama), that he didn't show leadership (neither did Obama), and that he wasn't serious enough (neither was Obama).

UPDATE: Comments from Sean Hannity's panel- "I feel like I was taking crazy pills while watching that," "he wants to cut spending and proposed more spending on investments and freezing spending on other items- that isn't 'cutting spending'," "let's look at the facts," and "he's doing his best" (this is a key phrase- his best isn't good enough to be President).

UPDATE II: Saw former Speaker-of-the-House Congresswomen Democrat Nancy Pelosi give her thoughts, and she just said that Obama has created more jobs in our nation in his two years than George W. Bush did his entire eight years as President. She just said that. Really. I think she believes it too. If this is true, give me Bush's unjob creation and unemployment of 4% instead of Obama's job creation and unemployment of 10%- at least under Bush jobs weren't created but we all had them, rather than Obama who creates jobs that no one has (it makes no sense Pelosi- I just ingested crazy pills listening to her).

Pelosi followed this with some Kennedy quote about how it isn't about GOP and Democrat and how it is about rising above differences, but those darn GOPers need to be crushed first and only Democratic policies should be passed (crazy pills).

How to Watch Obama's SOTU and Not Go Insane: Live in Bizarro World

Today's State of the Union address will be another trip down bizzaro lane, led by President Hope-and-Change, and I know from past experience that I'll spend most of the SOTU yelling at the TV, and so might most of you. If you don't want to do that and you want to make it fun and understand it, I suggest you adopt the following tactic, which I call "Live in Bizarro World."

To apply this tactic, take all of Obama's longer 'two-part' sentences and divide them in half, and then pick the half that is true and discard the half that is not true. For example, when he talks about making America safer by sitting down and talking unconditionally to hostile regimes, disregard the 'making America safer' part and just pay attention to the 'sitting down' part. Or if he says that we'll have better energy security by not drilling for oil, just skip past the set-up and go straight to the 'not drilling part'.

You have to remember, in Obama's world, up is down and down is up, and because in Bizarro World everything is backwards, it is important for you to understand his meaning by ignoring the half of his speech that is unreality and instead picking up the the reality. He does not mean that we will lower our deficit by cutting spending and making more investments in our future- he means that we'll spend more money. If Obama says that we need to improve the spirit of bipartisanship by having Republicans cross over and support him on various schemes, he is simply demanding that Republicans roll over and go with him. His words do not mean what they mean- they are simply pleasing sounds strung together in a row in ways that other people might believe in, but they do contain in them parts of the reality of Obama's world and a glimpse of the bizarro world that he is from originally (his birth certificate may say Earth, but I still want to see the long form version to verify it doesn't say Bizarro World).

So, in summary, take half of everything that he says as truth, and the other half as wrong- usually it is the set-up or conclusion that is wrong and the action part that is the reality, but this isn't a hard and fast rule. Once you know that half of everything he says is wrong, since knowing is half the battle, you'll be a quarter of the way towards being completely sane while watching this SOTU.

UPDATE: Tactic Two, for those who emailed me about it, is a secret tactic called "Pulling a Rabbit Out of a Hat". I can't go in depth with this tactic, but basically the idea behind it is to not think to hard about how a rabbit can come out of an empty hat. I mean, the hat is empty and I'll show you that it's empty, but yet, if I put my hand in it, I can pull out a cute little rabbit. It's magic. Just go with it.

This tactic should keep you sane when Obama talks about cutting the debt and deficit by increasing spending. Oh, I know his logic- that by raising spending, more jobs will be created, causing more taxes to be paid, causing the deficit to shrink- but I reject that logic on the basis of all known data. But since using known data and logic will just make me pissed off during this thing, I think it's better for us all to simply look at the little birdy in the margins of this screen- right now, take a look at the left edge of this screen- do you see the little birdy... now 'poof', the deficit has gone down! Applaud.

Paul at Powerlineblog had this to say about the whole 'spending equals jobs' myth:

It is blindingly obvious that spending does not equal stimulus, and increasing federal spending will not create jobs. There are two possibilities here. One is that Obama is one of the last people in America who have not figured this out. The other is that Obama knows his proposals are dumb, from an economic standpoint, but doesn't care. The one thing that more government spending will accomplish is to slide more money to Barack Obama's cronies and to various constituencies of the Democratic Party. Maybe that is all Obama ever wanted.

Obama's Lack of Support of Tunisia's Revolution More Evidence of Incompetence?

There is something very important happening in Tunisia. On January 14, a spontaneous popular uprising ousted President Zine el-Abidine Ben Ali from power and ended his decades of autocratic rule. For the first time, many in this nation have the freedom to speak and the freedom to demand justice for those who have been unjustly killed by Ali's regime. Although the ending to this story is uncertain- exactly how far does this revolution go and what kind of retribution will fall on Ali's party- the story is very much one that is hopeful and to be celebrated by those people who love and support freedom, liberty, and protection of property.

But it isn't being celebrated by many in America. President Barack Obama (Democrat) issued a weak statement praising “the courage and dignity of the Tunisian people”, and then turned around and made a phone call in support of Egypt's autocratic dictator Hosni Mubarak. Secretary of State Hilary Clinton (Democrat) commented that the US was not “taking sides” in Tunisia, reinforcing that it is the policy of the (Democratic) administration not to support good in its battle with evil around the world.

It shouldn't come as a surprise though that Obama's (Democratic) administration is not being supportive or even very happy about the overthrow of an autocratic Middle-East dictator. Ali was 'our guy' a neo-liberal who ran a semi-modern nation and seemed to support us in our wars against extremism in the Middle-East, a description that also fits Mubarak and Egypt. Still, although he was 'our guy', his overthrow might lead to a 'better guy', and so the administration should have been able to react quickly and move decisively to support and praise the freedom movement in Tunisia.

But yet, Obama's (Democratic) administration isn't moving fast and quick and reacting to modern-day events in ways that would support the flowering of democracy and freedom and bring more life, liberty, and protection of property to more people of the world. Why?

Obama is stuck in the past- the past of his Harvard college years, the past of his term papers, the past of his Jerimiah Wright church, the past of his own rhetoric- and this uprising in Tunes, much like the uprising last year in Iran, wasn't expected or even smelled by his advisers and they lack the skill and intelligence and competence to change their policies on the fly. So they sit there, letting world events swirl around them, reacting to uprisings in ways that betray their lack of abilities and vision, and for that reason, voters should severely punish Obama and Democrats in Congress who supported him and his stuck-in-the-past policies.

The Middle-East has been opened to a revolution of freedom and liberty by the successful policies of Republicans and Bush, and Obama's administration has had these successes unfold and fall into his lap, where he has done nothing noteworthy to earn the Peace Prize that was awarded to him before his administration took its first steps. We demand more and better from our Presidents and his advisers- not lukewarm statements and bored non-interest, but real action and real policy and real support.

One wonders why Obama and his Democrats in Congress have been so reluctant to speak out against corrupt regimes that build their power by demonizing their enemies, speaking harshly against them, personally attacking them, criminalizing their political activities, transferring citizens wealth to favored constituents, confiscating the wealth of unfavored individuals, having no oversight to its actions, and in other ways acting as a corrupt and autocratic tyrannical regime that attacks the life, liberty, and property rights of its citizens. Perhaps Obama doesn't express his support for revolutions in Tunisia though because he and his cronies identify more with the autocrats and dictators who run them.

UPDATE: So it is now several days later, and Egypt and Yeman have both also broke out in revolutions, demanding an end to autocractic government and more democracy. Obama's response? No clue. As usual, Obama is reacting to events on the international stage rather than driving events, and doing so in a slow manner, demonstrating once again that he is imcompetent- he and his advisors don't know what they are talking about, don't know how to react to situations, don't do their homework, and don't understand what is going on- and that explains why we hear nothing about how the greatest nation in the world reacts to these revolutions around the world.

The Incompetence of Obama: Picking a New Secretary of Defense

Being President of the United States means being competent in international relations and being a good commander in chief. We have Congress to take care of our domestic issues- to pass laws, to push for legislation, to come up with rules and regulations on how we are governed- but Congress has few powers and abilities to act on the international stage, and so our Founders gave those powers to the President. One of the President's most important roles in our system is Commander-in-Chief of our military, and to assist him in this he appoints a very powerful advisor known as the Secretary of Defense.

The Secretary of Defense position has historically been considered one of the most powerful advisor positions in our government, and has been held by such illustrious people as George Marshall, Robert McNamara, Donald Rumsfeld, Dick Cheney, and when the position was called Secretary of War, was held by Henry Knox, James Monroe, John C. Calhoun, Lewis Cass, Jefferson Davis, Edwin Stanton, William Taft, and Henry Stimson. These are the names of future Presidents and the winners of major wars- this position has historically been a position that major talent is appointed to.

The election of President Barack Obama (Democrat) in 2008 changed all of this. First, Obama kept on Robert Gates as Secretary of Defense, and for all the good qualities of Mr. Gates, he is and always was simply a placeholder until someone better could be appointed. When Rumsfeld left, Bush needed to replace him, and felt that he needed a moderate and uncontroversial nominee in order to get confirmed by a hostile Democratic Congress that believed in the certainty of our losing the War on Terror (one of the many things in which Democrats have thought was truth and been proven wrong).

Following is an analysis of the candidates who are being considered to replace Gates as Secretary of Defense provided by RealClearPolitics. When you read this, try to pick up on the screaming incompetence that the Obama administration exhibits during this process:

Last August, rumors said Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, former Nebraska Senator Chuck Hagel, Defense Undersecretary for Policy Michelle Flournoy, former Deputy Defense Secretary John Hamre and Rhode Island Sen. Jack Reed were among the possible nominees. To that list, sources add Virginia Sen. Jim Webb and Defense Undersecretary for Acquisition Ashton Carter.

Hillary Clinton would have nothing to gain, and much to lose, in taking the Pentagon job. At State, she has more freedom to claim headlines and grow her credentials than she would fighting the Pentagon budget battles. She won't do it. (my comment: best option won't take job because recognizes how sucky Obama is as President and is already scheming to replace him)

Chuck Hagel has been campaigning for the job for as long as most can remember. But Hagel is too much of a headline-seeker. Obama would have to worry as much about him in that job as, well, as he has to worry about what Joe Biden will say next about Afghanistan.(my comment: option two is a moron and can't be part of cabinet because Obama already has to many moron's in his cabinet)

Michelle Flournoy is a more likely choice, a notch ahead of John Hamre. Flournoy served as president of the leftish Center for a New American Security before taking her current post and after she served in various mid-level Pentagon policy posts. And because we've never had a female Defense Secretary, she'd be another Obama "first."(my comment: option 3 is being considered for an important position like this merely to make a political point and use external characteristics of people to score political points, and also headed a group that's projections have been wrong about pretty much everything)

Hamre, a defense intellectual, has for ten years been the president of the Center for Strategic and International Study, a nonpartisan think tank. Hamre is well respected on the Hill and could be the bureaucratic type Obama would want to lead the Pentagon for the next two years (my comment: option 4 doesn't sound too bad- this means Obama will only nominate him if his other unqualified and bad choices are rejected)

Jack Reed, a former Army Ranger, Harvard lawyer and liberal Democrat, would be a credible choice for Pentagon boss. But Reed's term doesn't expire until 2014 and there is no reason for him to end his senate term early. Reed's political ambitions would likely prevent him accepting the nomination (my comment: option 5 isn't real option- he won't leave his position)

Jim Webb, a decorated Vietnam Marine veteran, may have a tough race in 2012. Virginia went for Obama in 2008 but since elected a conservative governor and threw out a few liberal Democrats in 2010. But Webb is an odd guy, short-tempered and notoriously hard to deal with. Webb would be a bad fit in the Obama cabinet which is dominated by lawyers and academics (my comment: option 6 isn't a real option either)

Not the least likely - but certainly the least-known -- is Ashton Carter. Carter is a Ph.D. physicist who has taught at Harvard's Kennedy School of Government and served in several lower defense posts, is the sort of intellectual Obama is attracted to. His current job, as acquisition chief, makes him knowledgeable of budget issues and his policy experience in assorted national security areas makes him a credible candidate (my comment: this sort of logic is the sort of logic that characterizes Obama's incompetent administration- low level intellectual whose degree is in an unrelated field will follow in the footsteps of the greats- that's the new normal of Obama for you)

So will it be Flournoy, Hamre or Carter? Or a surprise nominee from Obama's inner circle? Whomever it is will have the hardest job in Washington for the next two years.

Whomever it is, with Obama picking the person, we can be sure that it will be a poor pick who will demonstrate little competence and leadership in this important position, and America will be less safe because Obama is in office still making decisions like this.

In Order for the National Government to Save Education, It Has to Let it Go

If the national government wants to save education in America, I have become increasingly convinced that it needs to let it go, and for that matter, if the states want to save education in America, they have to let it go to. The education of children needs to be shoved as hard as it can be shoved to the lowest local level of our governmental system so that parents, local community leaders, and stakeholders in the educational system can regain the power and control over the education of their children's lives. What made our nation great was decentralization, local control, and personal responsibility, and by moving more and more control to the state and national levels we have lessened the very things that made us great.

America is not China, nor is it Finland, nor is it Germany, nor is it Singapore- those nations, although perhaps doing well lately, didn't conquer a continent, win two major world wars, and in recent years become the world's sole superpower. So we should not look to them for solutions on how to build and design and run an educational system for our nation- we should instead take those things that made America great and helped it to become what it is and modernize them and improve them and build on them, and that means not adopting statist models built on communistic principles designed to suck massive amounts of wealth from the system and funnel it through large bureaucracies to favored politically connected groups within societies. That's not our model to follow- our model is to return power over education back to the local level, which will then experiment with public policy solutions and funding models in order to achieve a democratic solution to providing high quality education at minimum cost to society with little loss of efficiency.

Rules regarding what is taught in each district need to be returned back to the district. Funding for each district needs to be returned to the district. Rules regarding discipline need to be returned back to the district. Control over hiring and regulations over hiring and rules regarding hiring need to be returned to the district. School districts at the local level must once again be where the education of children is designed, set up, and practiced, and this power and money and decisions should no longer to sent off to far-away places where faceless bureaucrats who don't know your kids make decisions that are very important to your children and their futures.

Democrats and Republicans alike make the mistake of trying to fix education by moving more and more power to the national or state levels, killing any innovation that local districts may experiment with to build better educational systems in favor of trying to adopt one-size-fits-all models that not everyone wants and so no one adopts. Creativity, growth, and great ideas come from people who actually work in education and manage education professionals and whose children go through the education system, and yet in our nation, more and more of decisions, funding, and power is flowing rapidly away from those people to unelected bureaucrats, childless professors, and scheming politicians. Republicans and Democrats alike need to reject this siren song of government power fixing everything, and take a deep breath and a leap of trust and once more empower the people of our great nation to do what needs to be done to fix and improve education by returning powers and funds that once were at the local level- once when America was great- back to the local level.

Education Revolution Tour Reflection- A Comparison of a Liberal and Conservative Lesson on Thomas Jefferson

Tonight I was at an interesting event called "The Education Revolution Tour: Restoring America's Pride‏".  Brought to Michigan by Americans For Prosperity-Michigan, this event was a town hall that included Fox News commentators Dick Morris, Mike Gallagher, Levon Yuille and was moderated by Nolan Finley, Detroit News editorial page Editor. Over 700 people were in attendance and stayed for over two hours to talk and answer questions from the audience on a range of educational issues centered around the main concept of improving education in America. As a loyal union guy, I was there to keep an eye on things and make sure it didn't dissolve into simple union bashing, and as a conservative, I was there to gather new ideas on how to improve education, and as a blogger, I took notes so that I could pass on to my dear readers what sorts of stuff goes on at events like this, and over the next couple days I'll be relating and sharing some of what I heard and learned at this event.

One of the first points that I'd like to discuss relating to this event came from the discussion by Dr. Levon Yuille. Dr. Yuille said that one of the biggest problems that needs to be addressed in public education today was the use of classrooms by liberals as platforms to launch their agenda through their teaching, lectures, textbooks, tests, or curriculum. In a recent radio interview that I did, a liberal teacher attempted to take me to task for not spending more and more of my class time judging historical figures and making sure that my students know why a lot of the heroes of our past are in fact not heroes at all. This liberal teacher wanted to make sure that every student knew that Jefferson owned slaves, that Washington told lies, that Columbus killed the Indians, that the Pilgrims were hostile towards the Indians, and that all of the historical heroes of our past were not all they were cracked up to be. His goal was to bring 'truth' to the learning about the past. I argued that this is not the role of education, to teach 'truth', especially a liberal version of the truth, but that instead teachers should spend their time making sure students knew the details and importance of the lives and actions of Jefferson, Washington, Columbus, or the Pilgrims- that with such a limited time to reach students that it was wrong to use classrooms as a way to indoctrinate students with a liberal ideology. The liberal teacher argued with me, claiming that it was vital that we use our classrooms to teach the 'truth' (as the liberal saw it).

Dr. Yuille is right- classrooms should not be used to advance liberal interests and push on students liberal ideologies, because doing so is using valuable class time that could be better spent teaching kids important information that may be useful. Liberals view education as a means to transmit their ideology to the next generation- as a platform for creating more soldiers in their continual class warfare and war on human liberty and freedom. Conservatives view education as a means to transmit knowledge and information to the students so that they can make critical decisions on their own and freely choose sides in the battle to extend protections in life, liberty, and property, and as such spend much less of their time indoctrinating students than liberals do.

That being said, conservatives do spend some of their time indoctrinating students like liberal teachers do, and do so in a way that Dr. Yuille would likely support. Most conservative teachers have a strong sense of right and wrong, of morality and immorality, and through their teaching they communicate these values to the students, whether intentionally or not. Conservative teachers lack ambiguity and vagueness that characterize the mush of liberal teacher's logic and moral system- they do not recognize moral relativism that many liberal teachers use when issuing grades or punishments, or running lectures or debates.

Let's go back once again to the example of Thomas Jefferson and point to real life differences between how a liberal and conservative teacher might teach students about this key person from history. A liberal would teach students about Jefferson and what he did during his life, but would also point out that he was a hypocrite who did not free his own slaves, had a child through a slave, and really truly did not believe in constitutional government because he unconstitutionally purchased the Louisiana Purchase. Students might walk away from a lesson by a liberal teacher on Thomas Jefferson with a more true and honest look at him, but would have a decreased appreciation for what he wrote and what he did during his life, and certainly would be less likely to look on him as a hero to emulate and model their lives on. Instead they would search in vain for another hero, but the liberal teacher would run down most historical figures, so the student would turn to a celebrity or sports hero to model their life on, and that wouldn't likely be that great.

A conservative teacher, recognizing the limited amount of time available to teach about Thomas Jefferson, would make the tough decisions and decide that rather than advancing any sort of agenda about TJ, it would be better for students- they would have happier, more knowledgeable, more fulfilling lives- if they didn't learn about the slaves or the unconstitutional stuff and instead focused their limited amount of time and energy in the classroom learning about how revolutionary the Declaration of Independence was, how inspiring it was then and now, and how radical it was then and today to advocate for life, liberty, and property. They would learn to appreciate what TJ did and how important it was that he did it, and would walk away from this lesson with a possible inspirational hero to follow and model, providing they avoiding all liberal attempts to drag TJ through the mud and kill the young student's hero. The net affect of this teaching would be a much greater positive on society than that of the liberal teacher's lesson plan on Thomas Jefferson.

This one example hopefully illustrates some of the thinking and decision making that characterizes what really goes on in public schools, and how if schools are to improve and be a better positive for our society, schools probably need more conservative teachers in them teaching in a conservative way. Sometimes Dr. Yuille is correct- a simple attitude change and a return the the values that made our nation great might perhaps be a change for the better in our education system.

Conservative Policies Create a Better World- The Census Data Proves It?

States are laboratories of democracy. That phrase is not just a pretty sounding phrase- it actually has meaning, because states around our nation employ all sorts of different policies and we as a society can see the results of those policies by looking at the results in different states. For example, some states adopt policies that you might call more conservative- lower taxes, less regulation of businesses (whether the regulation is for safety, consumers, or the environment), stronger private property rights, a push for self-employment, an emphasis on family values, more freedoms in the workplace, etc. Other states adopt policies that you could call more liberal- higher taxes (to provide more revenue to the state), more regulation of businesses (for safety, consumer protection, environment, etc), more powers for the state to confiscate or control private property, more generous welfare policies, emphasis on the freedom to choose abortions and drugs, union protections, etc. Through the beauties of federalism, different states can adopt different policies.

And over time, we can measure the results of those policies. You can measure them many ways- domestic GDP growth, happiness, health, crime, etc- all of which have demonstrated that states that are run by conservative Republicans tend to do better than liberal Democrats. But one measure that should also be considered is population changes. You see, if people don't like where they live, if they can't find a job where they live, if they are unhappy where they live, if they don't see a future for their families where they live- then they move. And the evidence points towards people moving from liberal states to conservative states.

The Next Right analyzes the data and pulls out a couple of interesting trends:

• Avg tax top marginal income rate in states gaining a Congressional seat: 2.8%.
• Avg tax top marginal income rate  in states losing a Congressional seat: 6.05%
• Michigan's prevailing wage union economy has wreaked more devastation than Hurricane Katrina did to Louisiana. Michigan was alone among the states to lose population, losing 0.6% of it. Louisiana (which had to deal with the destruction and relocation of major portions of its biggest city in this decade) gained 1.4%.
• The Midwest is also hurting, but good policy saves the day. The Midwest fared only slightly better than the Northeast at 3.9% vs. 3.2% growth, but here one begins to see the difference policy makes. The damage here was done by both Democrats and weak sister Republicans. Michigan, which stubbornly refused to change under eight years of Jennifer Granholm, has the nation's worst economy and population growth. (Let us hope, for the sake of the survival of that state, that Governor Rick Snyder and his Republican majorities in the House and Senate can deliver a Right-to-Work law.) Ohio has the second worst, under the consecutive administrations of the corrupt, tax-raising Bob Taft (a Republican) and Ted Strickland (a Democrat). Like Snyder, John Kasich has the opportunity to emerge as a hero of the recovery. But aside from tiny South Dakota, the state in the region with the best population growth at 7.8% -- 4 points higher than neighboring Iowa and 2 points higher than neighboring Wisconsin, was Minnesota, where Tim Pawlenty held the line on taxes and spending for two solid terms. (Disclaimer: I help with Gov. Pawlenty's Freedom First PAC.) Likewise, there is no real reason that industrial Indiana should have performed any better than neighboring Illinois or Ohio other than its distinctively Republican orientation and the budget-cutting leadership of Gov. Mitch Daniels. Illinois, the state whose political leadership this decade consisted of Rod Blagojevich and Barack Obama, turned in a mediocre growth rate of 3.3%, lower than all of its neighbors.
• The Rise of Texas and the Decline of California. The blaring headline from the 2010 Census is, of course, Texas picking up 4 Congressional seats, landing at 38 total electoral votes. The last time a non-California state had this many was New York in the 1980s. At the same time, California leveled out at 55 electoral votes, the first time since the 1920 census that they haven't gained seats. Joel Kotkin has an excellent read on the California-Texas dynamic, stoked by Rick Perry who boasts of "hunting" for jobs every time he visits the Golden State. Texas's 20.6% growth off an already strong base shows its continued promise. California's 10% growth was the weakest in the West save for Montana (9.7%), showing again that even with its favorable geographic positioning, government for the public employee unions, by the public employee unions bleeds jobs and natives. Both states are bouyed by high immigration, much of it illegal (with Texas seemingly avoiding the social friction that characterizes the trend in California and Arizona).
• New York Nearly Fades to 4th Place. If there's a cautionary tale California should heed, it's New York. 2010 was the year California topped out its power and influence on the national stage, and may face an actual decline in Congressional representation in years to come. New York has been in population free fall for some time now. Once the Empire State in both name and fact, Florida is now within 500,000 residents of overtaking it. New York's decline from 1st to 4th seems inevitable.

Liberals I am sure are going to do their usual sputtering and spinning, and I am sure that they will say how this data is the result of a lot of conspiracy theories or something, but the truth of the matter is that when people are allowed to live free, they are allowed to make free choices absent of government regulations (whether they be for safety, 'consumer protection', or environmental protection), when their private property and earnings are protected, and when their family values are embraced and supported, they go about creating a better world to live in than what liberal policies in liberal states are creating. The ball doesn't lie.

Hold Obama Accountable for High Gas Prices

Whereas someone like me always cares about keeping the price of gas low so that our economy can boom and so that poor people can get to work, many only care about high gas prices when a Republican is in charge. Through the beauty of custom search tools on google, you can now time-travel back and see how journalists and bloggers and politicians in the past reacted to certain events and then compare their reactions to events of the present day. You can expose them then as hypocrites and opportunists, who only care about a subject when it suits their interests, and who seize on bad information merely to move their political agenda. Let's compare the reaction of the liberal elites in the media to the high gasoline prices in 2008 (when Republican Bush was in charge) to the high gasoline prices in 2011 (when Democrat Obama is in charge.

In 2008, there were stories like this in the news- "Speaker Pelosi blasts President Bush over gas prices," "As gas prices and oil profits soar, Bush promotes giveaways to corporations," "President Bush Focused On Gas Prices, Has No Idea How Much Gas Will Cost," "Bush Driving Up Gas Prices For His Oil Industry Buddies," "Public Faults Bush for Lack of Action on Energy," or "Obama hits McCain on economy, gas prices." Here we see stories of Democrats and liberals blaming Republicans and conservatives for the high gas prices, we see the usual liberal conspiracy theories trotted out to try to explain why reality doesn't fit, and we read about how the public actually focused on real issues way back then and was worried about the affect that high gas prices would have.

Today? Nothing. Nothing is written about in the MSM or talked about on the news blaming Obama for the high gas prices. Few people seem to be aware that rising gasoline prices likely will lead to economic growth being choked off and a double-dip recession. There seems to be little concern or mention of high gasoline prices with my friends and family, almost as if after several years of Democratic rule, the new norm of high unemployment and high gas prices is acceptable.

Via powerlineblog:

In any other administration, Obama's energy policies would be dominating the political debate. It is only because the administration has pursued so many disastrous policies--government medicine, bailouts, faux stimulus, unheard-of deficits--that energy has taken a back seat. It will not be long, however, before rising energy costs are again in the forefront of economic anxiety and political debate. Reuters reported "Oil rose on Wednesday after production shutdowns, falling U.S. inventories and growing demand sent Brent crude toward $100 a barrel for the first time since 2008."

Unless gas prices come down again to reasonable levels ($2), unemployment comes down to reasonable levels (6%), and economic growth returns (3+ GDP growth), it is pretty clear that we should reject the "New Normal" of Obama and his Democratic policies.

Should I Be Fired for Being a Conservative Teacher?

Often I hear from fellow teachers that I should be fired since I have conservative beliefs. I get emails from these liberals and they talk about me on their blog, making claims that since I am a conservative, I should not be allowed to be around children, I am clearly intolerant of others, and that everyone should be welcome to be a teacher in this country as long as they are all liberals.

These liberals are afraid that my conservative ideology might find its way into my teaching and that my beliefs in a limited and defined role for the government (since it likely represents the greatest threat to my life, liberty, and property) might get into my lessons, or that my belief in putting as much decision-making at the local level might be heard by students, or that my wacko ideas about having judges who make decisions based on a color-blind law that equally applies to everyone could slip out, or that I might get a student thinking that the best way to achieve peace is through a strong military, or even that my strong family values could corrupt the poor innocent children and turn them away from their liberal path of free love, free drugs, and unhappiness.

So these fellow teachers of mine post in my comments, email me, or comment on their little frustrated blogs about how- in a shining example of how tolerant they really are as liberals- I shouldn't be allowed to be a teacher. In their minds, there is only one way to teach history, one way to teach government, one way to teach literature, one way to teach music, one way to teach a foreign language, and that way is to fill it with as much liberalism and liberal indoctrination as possible and then force it down students resisting brains. If a conservative teacher doesn't do this, then they need to be fired, these liberal teachers claim, even if the conservative teacher simply gives forum to both sides and gives students choices on what to believe and plays devils advocate with liberal views and statements to challenge students to think critically about what they are saying and writing and doesn't in fact push any conservative views.

You see, the liberal teachers know in their hearts that you are a conservative teacher, and that your simple presence in the classroom represents a grave threat to them, because if you teach kids critical thinking and present both sides of the issues, it will break the spell of indoctrination that the frustrated and angry liberal teacher is trying to weave. They know that if you give a conservative and liberal argument equal time, the students will be smart enough to pick the conservative ideas and arguments as the correct ones. If you display all of the faults of both Republicans and Democrats, if you have students read works from both conservative and liberal writers, if you hold up in an equal light the policies and results of both Republican and Democratic Presidents, you give students multiple possible explanations for the cause of the Great Depression and have them choose which is the most persuasive, you have your students watch foreign language films on both conservative and liberal themes, you sing songs both rap and patriotic, etc, then students will laugh at the liberal views and accept the conservative views, since the conservative views are right.

So, in response to all of your liberals emailing and commenting and blogging about me, I want to state for the record that when you suggest or call that I be fired for being a conservative teacher, all your are demonstrating is your intolerance and your desire to push your ideology over teaching students and teaching critical thinking. When you question if I should be in the classroom, you are questioning whether teachers representing the ideology of most of the students should be allowed in the classroom, and that's a dumb question to ask. Your calls that I be fired demonstrate more than anything that you are unfit to be an educator in this great nation and that you should be fired- not for being a liberal, but for being a judgemental, angry, vindictive, unaccepting, intolerant, close-minded individual whose values might be passed on to their students.

Democrats Skipped More Votes than Republicans in Michigan Government 2010- the Ball Doesn't Lie

2010 has come and gone, and thanks to a great website like Michigan Votes, citizens of Michigan can now look at and analyze data on their legislators. One interesting statistic that I'm going to look at today is the number of votes that Michigan Congressmen missed the past year. Now, it is understandable to me to miss a few votes- sometimes your kids birthday is on the same day as a vote or sometimes their is a family emergency or sometimes there is an important debate during the campaign season, so I'm not one of those people who demand 100% voting rates out of their legislators.

But on the other hand, missing 20 or more votes out of 600 is kind of a high margin and one has to begin to ask questions. Perhaps there are explanations for these (I haven't researched every Congressman and interviewed them to find on their side of the story), but for most of them, the reason why they have missed so many votes in Michigan Congress over the past year is that they are not good Congressmen. They are doing a poor job of serving their constituents and doing a poor job of representing them in Michigan Congress and probably should be re-elected. So with that, let's take a look at the top ten Michigan Representatives and Michigan Senators who missed the most votes last year (2010). The following shows their name, their party, and the number of missed votes they had out of 672.

First let's look at the Michigan State Senators. The Top 10 'MIA' Senators for 2010 were:
Sen. Hansen Clarke, Democrat, 156 missed votes
Sen. Valde Garcia, Republican, 94 missed votes
Sen. Bruce Patterson, Republican, 87
Sen. Alan Sanborn, (R), 77
Sen. Samuel B. Thomas, III (D) 70
Sen. Martha G. Scott (D) 53
Sen. Wayne Kuipers (R) 44
Sen. Michael Switalski (D) 39
Sen. Liz Brater (D) 38
Sen. Glenn Anderson (D) 37
In 2010, there were 22 Republicans and 16 Democrats, so all things being equal, there should be more GOP members in the top 10 (GOP made up 58% of Senate, should have 5.7 of top 10) . But instead, looking at the top 10 here what jumps out to me is that 6 of them were Democrats and 4 of them were Republicans. That means that Democrats outpeformed the average by a considerable bit.

Is this some sort of larger trend- that in Michigan politics, it is the Democrats who miss more votes than the Republicans, who care less about representing in a basic way their constituents, who take a paycheck and yet don't even bother showing up to vote? Let's test that theory by looking at the top ten most votes missed results of the Michigan House of Representatives. Out of 633 votes:
Rep. Bettie Scott (D) 249
Rep. Kate Ebli (D) 194
Rep. LaMar Lemmons, Jr. (D) 159
Rep. Judy Nerat (D) 140
Rep. Doug Bennett (D) 131
Rep. John Espinoza (D) 131
Rep. Fred Miller (D) 129
Rep. George Cushingberry (D) 125
Rep. Jon Switalski (D) 119
Rep. Shanelle Jackson (D) 103
In the Michigan House of Representatives in 2010 there were 65 Democrats and 42 Republicans. All things being equal, you should expect there to be 6 Democrats and 4 GOPers in the top 10 (60% of 10). But what did we discover? All 10 of the top 10 are Democrats! In fact 19 out of the top 25 missed voters in the Michigan House were Democrats- that is a considerable higher proportion than expected!

I'm not scientist, but I did notice something- Democrats missing voted in the Michigan Senate at a higher proportion than it should be- and came up with a theory- that Democrats serving in the Michigan House have some characteristics that cause them to not showing up to vote (they're lazy, they don't care about their constituents, they have a sense of entitlement, they are too busy meeting with special interests, they have a disrespect for democracy, whatever)- and then I tested that theory using more data- the voting rates in the House of Representatives- and found that my theory was considerably justified.

To me, that proves a law- that Democrats are more likely to skip voting for whatever reason, whereas you can take it to the bank that Republicans will show up and cast ballots as they were elected and are paid to do. I'm sure though that liberals and Democrats will comment below though doing what they usually do best- coming up with excuses.

Honoring Congresswoman Gabrielle Giffords Support of Democracy

Over the last several days conservative bloggers and journalists reacted swiftly and decisively in condemning, subduing, and fighting liberal bloggers and journalists were spreading a false narrative about the shootings in Arizona, and now that that is done (excepting the few liberal bloggers and media members who are just determined to use dead people as props in their little political games), our nation can move on to mourning the fallen and celebrating the lives of those who were killed. In that spirit, I'm going to celebrate with this post Congresswoman's Gabrielle Giffords commitment to democracy.

By all accounts, Congresswoman Gabrielle Giffords was a strong supporter of democracy in our nation and believed that it was important for members of the House of Representatives to regularly meet with constituents and hold many town hall meetings. Sadly, it was her strong belief in being accessible that may have played a factor in her being shot, but to be honest, we all run the risk every day that some sicko is going to randomly walk in and start shooting. Although it is reasonable to have a discussion on increasing protection for high-profile people like Congressmen and Congresswomen, we have to be careful that they continue to be accessible and close to the people of our great nation, or else the 'peope's house' will be insulated from the public and that'll be a bad thing for our nation. Congresswoman Giffords said so, and I agree with her strongly on that.

One great feature of our nation is that our elected leaders are so accessible to most voters- many members of Congress (mine excepted) hold town halls, 'meet your Congresswoman' days, bring in local business leaders for roundtable discussions, and work on other ways to find out what sort of laws, regulations, and policies that their district favors. Members of the House know that the only way they can legitimacy get elected (providing they don't run an expensive smear campaign funded by out of state interest groups like my Congressman Gary Peters did) is by the support and guidance and authority of the people they represent. Giffords did this, regularly meeting with people in her district, holding town halls and other events, and it is for this reason that she was able to win several terms of office in a swing district that was targeted by both the right and left.

Congresswoman Gabrielle Giffords is a great example of a Representative who does the hard work necessary in their district to talk to voters and connect with them, and although I disagree with many of her votes in Congress, I pray for her and wish her a speedy recovery so that she can continue her fine work in Congress and she can once more engage in the spirited debate on the nature of government in America that makes our democracy so vibrant and great.

The Slate's Jacob Weisberg's Arguments are Shredded: Why Liberals Like Him Shouldn't be Allowed to Write about the Giffords Shooting

Over the last several days, I have been battling with liberals on the internet who want to score political points with the awful tragedy in Arizona. I have been trolling on many different sites, commenting and battling comments on my comments, trying to communicate that it is wrong to try to politicize this awful tragedy- that it was not a conservative who committed it, that it wasn't Sarah Palin, that it wasn't tea party people, etc. Today, I finally felt that the conversation was changing and that those who had made those arguments had lost credibility and respect such that they would cease and desist with using the killings of innocent people to engage in character assassinations of people they don't agree with politically, and then I read the following article in Slate from Jacob Weisberg that was published today.

In The Tea Party and the Tucson Tragedy: How anti-government, pro-gun, xenophobic populism made the Giffords shooting more likely Weisberg writes:

There's something offensive, as well as pointless, about the politically charged inquiry into what might have been swirling inside the head of Jared Loughner. We hear that the accused shooter read The Communist Manifesto and liked flag-burning videos—good news for the right. Wait—he was a devotee of Ayn Rand and favored the gold standard, so he was a right-winger after all. Some assassinations embody an ideology, however twisted. Based on what we know so far, the Tucson killings look like more like politically tinged schizophrenia.

Let's start with this paragraph. Weisberg first establishes that Loughner has a lot of typical liberal views, such as his belief in wealth redistribution and  supporting free speech over honoring the American flag, to which I could add that the sicko also bought other views associated with liberals like the 9/11 Truther argument and opposition to drug control, and we should probably add to that list that in high school he was characterized as being very much liberal, and apparently enthusiastically supported Democrat Obama in the 2008 election.

But then Weisberg submits as evidence that the sicko was 'right wing' that he read Ayn Rand and favored the gold standard. Is that indeed evidence of 'right-wing' views- the wringings of a libertarian who disliked the traditional social structure and supported abortion? And apparently the nutjob shooter's preference for a gold standard wasn't because he wanted a more stable and solid fiscal system, but was because he thought that elites in the government (likely right-wing elites) really controlled the monetary supply in our nation and he wanted to fight against that. The evidence is not very strong at all that the nutjob was a conservative- the evidence that he is a liberal is considerably stronger. But for now I'm going to be nice and just go with what he registered as and call him an 'Independent'. Let's continue with the article that Slate published...

It is appropriate, however, to consider what was swirling outside Loughner's head. To call his crime an attempted assassination is to acknowledge that it appears to have had a political and not merely a personal context. That context wasn't Islamic radicalism, Puerto Rican independence, or anarcho-syndicalism. It was the anti-government, pro-gun, xenophobic populism that flourishes in the dry and angry climate of Arizona. Extremist shouters didn't program Loughner, in some mechanistic way, to shoot Gabrielle Giffords. But the Tea Party movement did make it appreciably more likely that a disturbed person like Loughner would react, would be able to react, and would not be prevented from reacting, in the crazy way he did.

Here is where the utter derangement of liberal bloggers like Weisberg is demonstrated. Weisberg says that since what was going on inside Loughner's head wasn't important (which I disagree with), we should instead blame what was going on inside of his head. To do so though would be beyond foolish though, because by all accounts, Loughberg was increasingly withdrawing from the world around him (the world that Weisberg characterizes as increasingly conservative) and was focusing more on his dreaming and sleeping and philosophizing and smoking pot. As he became increasingly isolated and along and unconnected to the world around him, the world around him returned to conservative values- based on that information, you could definitively assert that it was not the increasingly conservative views of Arizona that affected him, but rather his past liberal views and the liberal environment of 2006-2009 that shaped and formed him and then left him to float away and disconnect from a world that went conservative in 2010. Let's continue with the article though, since this liberal blogger just gets more and more wrong with each statement that he writes...

At the core of the far right's culpability is its ongoing attack on the legitimacy of U.S. government—a venomous campaign not so different from the backdrop to the Oklahoma City bombing in 1995. Then it was focused on "government bureaucrats" and the ATF. This time it has been more about Obama's birth certificate and health care reform. In either case, it expresses the dangerous idea that the federal government lacks valid authority. It is this, rather than violent rhetoric per se, that is the most dangerous aspect of right-wing extremism.

Often the two issues are blurred together, because if government is illegitimate, rebellion is an appropriate response (hence the Colonial costumes). Conservative entertainers like Glenn Beck and Sarah Palin like to titillate their audiences with hints of justified violence, including frequent reminders that they are armed and dangerous. Palin went so far as to put a target on someone who subsequently got shot. Whether or not the man who fired the gun was inspired by Palin isn't the point. The point is that you shouldn't paint targets on people, even in metaphor, or jest.

Did you all follow the logic for this liberal? Oklahoma bombing to birth certificate to climate of violence to assassination of Congresswomen? Really? That's what he is committing to? I would contend that he is simply grabbing unrelated examples that he cherry-picks from history to prove his point, rather than evidence pointing him towards a conclusion.

On a related note, I play a game with my US history students where I ask them to time-travel back to 1776 and pick which side of the US Revolution they would be on- the Colonists or the British. Myself, seeing how much I love liberty and freedom, I'd side with the Colonists. Weisberg and other liberals though would likely side with the British- look at how he constructed his argument above- he thinks that rebelling against government is an illegitimate response to misuse of government power and that the Colonists were examples of this. He's a Loyalist! I'd suggest tar and feathering the guy if it wasn't now frowned on to joke about violence.

The next parts of his editorial are simply reasons why the government should take our guns from us- we'll skip over that for now and simply go to his conclusion-

Again, none of this says that Tea Party caused the Tucson tragedy, only that its politics increased the odds of something like it happening. It was in criticizing writers on his own side for their naivete about communism that George Orwell wrote, "So much of left-wing thought is a kind of playing with fire by people who don't even know that fire is hot." Today it is the right that amuses itself with violent chat and proclaims an injured innocence when its flammable words blow up.

Again, in his editorial that was published by Slate he didn't write any even slightly convincing arguments that connects the Tucson tragedy with anything related to conservative politics, the tea party, the right-wing, or anything related to those. Orwell's quote is a great one to bring up here, because much of what left-wing Weisburg wrote was simply baseless accusations that sounded good (ie, fire) being thrown around by someone who don't even have a clue what they are writing about.

Detroit News Columnist Doesn't Celebrate Life?

This blog is about my attempts to increase protection of private property from tyrannical and unjust takings by government, my attempts to increase protection of liberty and freedom and its practices from the tyrannical and unjust actions by government, and my attempts to protect life and celebrate the joys of being alive.

You see, I love people. Even though there are bad people out there and people that do bad things, I still believe deep in my heart that people are a blessing from God, made in his image and thus in a small way a glory to him, and that every person that is born is someone that should be treasured and loved as one of God's creations. As a teacher, I fully believe in the spirit of 'no child left behind' because I believe that every student should receive a great education no matter what their background. In high school I was part of the Free Tibet movement because I thought that the actions of the Chinese government against the culture and people of Tibet were wrong. Believing that the best way to prevent destructive wars and mass-murder dictators is through a strong military, I've been a big supporter of the military. I've weighed in from time to time on abortion. And I've celebrated the practices of living by putting up pictures of beautiful women and writing about fun movies or great books. Life is something that me, and many conservatives like me, value and support and love.

On the other hand, there are those people out there who don't celebrate and love life. They are supportive of the ending of unborn lives. They supported the Soviet Union and China in their economic and social policies, even though many millions of people died because of those policies. They are against using military force to remove evil mass-murder killing dictators in Iraq and Afghanistan. And these people feel that adding more people to the United States is not a good thing.

Froma Harop may indeed be such a person who does not love life, liberty, and property. She could be characterized by many as a 'liberal' based on the sort of editorials that she writes in the Detroit News- editorials like "Dems need better pitch to tax the rich" and "Obama, Democrats saved the nation" and "(Health) Insurance requirement is fair" are clearly liberal. Liberals don't love life, liberty, and property- they love government and control and power. Froma Harop, who supports the national government taking property rights away from individuals through unjust tax policies or insurance mandates, who does not like liberty based on support she has for czars and regulations over our lives, not surprisingly also is not a big fan of people. In her editorial today called Fewer people good for us all, she writes:

...For Americans concerned with a loss of open space and thickening congestion, a 10 percent growth rate should seem darn high....

...I don't know many Americans, or noncitizen immigrants for that matter, who think that 100 million more people would make the United States a better place. If the U.S. population is slowing, let's celebrate — and hope it slows some more....

I would imagine that Harop, like Obama, believes that children are a mistake, and that the world be a lot better place if there were fewer people in it. Perhaps we spew too much carbon monoxide out of our mouths and are ruining the environment so we should all be killed; perhaps it is because we all are prosperous and doing things and that bothers Harop because she wants us all poor and controlled; perhaps it is because by adding all of these people, these treasures from God, we have demonstrated that our nation indeed is a great place because of its conservative traditions; but for whatever reason, rather than celebrate life and the expansion of it in America, liberals like Harop reveal their disdain for life, liberty, and property.

No wonder liberals don't like the reading of the Constitution and the Declaration of Independence, documents which celebrate and enshrine the ideas that the role of government is to protect life, liberty, and property, and not to redistribute income, provide healthcare, tell me what I can and can not eat, protect the 'right to abort a child', or do all the other things that liberals would have the government do. They don't like reading these documents because unlike me and fellow conservatives like me, perhaps they don't love life as much as they sometimes pretend they do, as demonstrated by columns like the one by Froma Harop in today's Detroit News.

WTF! "Mother" and "Father" to be Replaced by "Parent 1" and "Parent 2" on Government Forms

Via memeorandum I came across this story by Fox News:

The words “mother” and “father” will be removed from U.S. passport applications and replaced with gender neutral terminology, the State Department says.

“The words in the old form were ‘mother’ and ‘father,’” said Brenda Sprague, deputy assistant Secretary of State for Passport Services. "They are now ‘parent one’ and ‘parent two.’"

A statement on the State Department website noted: “These improvements are being made to provide a gender neutral description of a child’s parents and in recognition of different types of families.” The statement didn't note if it was for child applications only.

People who voted for Obama and the Democrats did indeed vote for a change in America- they voted for a brave new world where it is 'old' to have a mother and father, and where it is an 'improvement' to instead have 'parent 1' and 'parent 2'. The attack on the traditional family continues, and rather than a family structure built as God intended with a mother and a father parenting children who honor them we are having the government (provided for by taxpayers like you) push for a family structure where parent 1 and parent 2 have children who call them impersonal names like parent 1 and parent 2.

If this change was made so that those people who have two mothers or two fathers could feel more comfortable when filling out this form, then I recognize that and understand that. But the State Department says that this isn't the reason for the change:

Sprague said the decision to remove the traditional parenting names was not an act of political correctness.

“We find that with changes in medical science and reproductive technology that we are confronting situations now that we would not have anticipated 10 or 15 years ago,” she said.

It's a brave new world indeed. I guess now me and my wife are going to have to have that dreaded and uncomfortable discussion that we've been avoiding all these years- which one of us is Parent 1 and which one is Parent 2?

Obama is the Wizard of Uhs

Last night I was watching the Wizard of Oz on TV. One of my favorite scenes involves the Wizard, because I've always felt that it is so amusing that he is not in fact a wizard, and to disguise this fact he sends the gang on several fools errands to hide his inability to help out the situation, or that he makes people wear green tinted glasses to make it seem as if he has created a different reality, or he uses smoke and mirrors and loud booming voices to hide his powerless nature.. The books go further into these tricks and are very enjoyable- if you haven't bought and read the books before I highly recommend you do so.

So I was especially thrilled this morning when I read this editorial by Victor Davis Hanson called Our “Pay No Attention to that Man Behind the Curtain” Moment. In it VDH points out that President Obama is in fact not a magical wizard able to catch rainbows, through his election we have not entered into any sort of postracial society, and when we elected Obama the globe did not stop warming. Nope- instead, as time has gone on, the wool that pulled over our eyes by a compliant media has fallen off, and we have discovered simply a scared, outmatched, not-yet-ready politician who falls back on tired, old, worn ideas and policies that have failed to produce results in the past and are failing to produce results now. VDH writes:

The result has been a sort of political implosion, the proverbial “pay no attention to that man behind the curtain” moment when the omnipotent wizard’s face projected on the screen becomes exposed as a rather frightened Frank Morgan, busy with levers and gears—or, in our morality play, a deer-in-the-headlights Barack Obama relieved to sub out his White House press room to a designated president Bill Clinton at last back on his home turf.

In a number of ways, we can see how the Obama administration has been reduced to a sort of virtual administration. The messianic spell of 2008 ended with the largest midterm rebuke since 1938. Whereas in 2009 it was considered racist for a conservative to question the president’s wisdom at a Tea Party rally, by 2010 Democratic congressional representatives were vying with each other to find creative ways of using the F-word to belittle the president. Since his inauguration, the president has lost a point in the polls about every three weeks of his presidency, without much deviation.

There is little presidential stature left. When Barack Obama addresses the Sen. minority leader as “Mike” McConnell or claims the U.S. motto is e pluribus unum rather than “In God We Trust,” this is by now a non-news story—not after “57 states” or “corpse-men” or Austrian-speaking Austrians. Proclaiming that at some point individuals have made enough money raises no eyebrows either—not after “spread the wealth,” “redistributive change,” and claiming that the purpose of capital gains tax hikes was not to increase federal revenue but to ensure “fairness.” If the president were to go on another riff about “fat cat bankers,” limb-lopping surgeons, or Vegas junkets, eyes would roll—in the manner that today’s students start text messaging when their aging 60s hold-over professors keep ranting about Halliburton. Martha’s Vineyard and Costa del Sol helped see to that.

One of the concepts that I emphasize in my class is that the President by himself is surprisingly unpowerful in our system- what makes the President powerful in our system of government is that his office is such that it allows his natural grace, dignity, and energy to shine through, and if the President is a man full of grace, dignity, and energy, the office of President is powerful indeed. But if the President is not these things, the office doesn't grant him these powers, and instead the President becomes a worn and tired old man, struggling to uphold the dignity and weight of the office, unable to rise to the challenge of this great office and honor. You could see this in Jimmy Carter, or Herber Hoover, or James Buchanan, or Martin Van Buren. VDH continues...

...An Obama speech echoing boilerplate themes such as “there are no red states, there are no blue states” today simply could not be given—the laughing in the audience would be far too much...

...For a while, “working across the aisle” delivered in mellifluous tones assured millions that their soon-to-be president had not compiled the most partisan voting record in the U.S. Senate (to the left of the nation’s only self-avowed socialist senator). Now? We yawn when Obama goes off on Republicans as “enemies” who cannot sit in the front seat of the car. Chicago-style target the enemy has gone from shocking to de rigueur to banal for this president.

This charade needs to end. We have another two years to go, and it remains to be seen who will replace Obama and exactly how it all will go down, but Obama has been revealed to be a fake and phony, and it is going to be sad when the Democrats trot him out again next election and try a combination of fooling the idiots out there and dirty tricks. But the charade is over, that much is clear.

Increase the Number of Representatives in the House? An Argument in Favor.

When our Founding Fathers designed the two house of Congress, the branch that was supposed to be closest to the people and the most powerful in our system, they designed one house to be filled with elite men and women of reason who looked long-term and focused on issues of national importance- the Senate. And the other house that our Founding Fathers designed was to be filled with the common men and women of passion who looked to short-term interests of their constituents and fought to make sure that their district's views were represented at the national level- the House of Representatives. These common men who filled the House were your neighbor, your local shopkeeper, the guy or girl down the street- people who you knew and people who knew you. They were not Senators, who argued about major issues of the day, which is indeed an important thing to argue about, but they were Representatives, who argued about the smaller issues of the day, which also are important things to argue about, because if you don't look after the smaller and personal interests of a district, the larger national stuff just isn't going to be solved either. It was a bicameral system that embraced the best of everything, and like most of the great systems that our Founding Fathers designed and built, over the years we've messed it up and perhaps ruined it.

In my post 1930's Are Root of All That is Wrong I wrote that "At one time, I thought the 1930's were at the root of all that is wrong about America, and compiled a list of all of the laws and taxes and liberal decisions passed during that time." That post contained a list of all of those bad laws that came out of that time of fascism and communism and war and depression and collapsing social values. But one law that I left off that list was the Reapportionment Act of 1929, which established a permanent method for apportioning a now constant 435 seats in the U.S. House of Representatives according to each census, essentially capping the number of Representatives at 435.

So ever since 1911 (which was when the number 435 was first reached), rather than the House expanding in numbers to represent the interests of an expanding population, the number of Representatives remains at 435. Each year as the population of our nation grows, your Representative represents you a little bit less.

One way of thinking like it is this- in 1911, the population was 92 million and there were 435 Representatives, so a citizen had 1/211494th claim on a Representative- not a large claim to be sure, but at least the Representative was someone you might know, someone down the street from you, someone who had a business that you might have visited, someone who married your second cousin's sister or something. This person cared about your interests, cared about your district, and represented your concerns in Congress- they voted for issues that you wanted them to believe in because they were out of your neighborhood or area and so shared your interests, views, background, and values.

Today, our nation has a population of 308 million, and yet we still only have 435 Representatives in the United States House. Now, each citizen has a 1/708045th claim on a Representative- a claim so small that your Representative today is likely to not be someone that you know, not be someone that your aunt or sister or cousin knows, not be someone whose business you have frequented, and not be someone who represents you. Now, the districts are so large for Representatives that many different neighborhoods and areas are in them, areas that have differing views, interests, backgrounds, and values, and Representatives pander and play games to different groups within the district to get elected, rather than represent the views and interests within a more homogeneous area. This leads to many not be represented at all in our political system, their views and values and beliefs being drowned out by others, and to them having less stake in our political system, meaning that our elected officials have less just power to rule over us and less legitimacy in speaking for us. The system breaks down and tyranny increases.

Jeff Jacoby writing in the Boston Globe recently put it this way:

For most of American history, the size of the House was adjusted upward every 10 years. The initial 65-member House prescribed in the Constitution was expanded to 105 members after the 1790 Census, to 142 members after the 1800 Census, and so on through the 19th century. Following the 13th census, in 1910, Congress enlarged the House to 435 members — and there it has remained, even as the number of Americans has more than tripled, from 92 million to 308 million. Ever since, the apportionment process has been able to allot new House seats to the fastest-growing states only by taking them away from states growing more slowly. One result is that many states have more voters, but fewer US representatives.

The larger districts grow, the less representative lawmakers become. Since 1910, the average number of constituents per House member has climbed from 210,000 to more than 710,000. Over the same span, members of Congress have grown more remote, more undefeatable, more beholden to special interests, and less capable of reflecting the diversity of their districts’ values and views. Smaller, more numerous districts, would be far more democratic, more accessible to new blood and new ideas, and more difficult to gerrymander.

Congress worked better when the size of the House was elastic. The Framers reckoned congressional districts should contain about 30,000 constituents; districts comprising nearly three-quarters of a million would have struck them as ludicrous.

A 435-member House was fine for 1910. It’s time we traded up to something bigger.

This idea also occurred to Matthew Cossolotto, writing in the Hill back in 2001. Then he wrote:

Through some legislative sleight-of-hand following the 1920 census, the House decided, contrary to established practice, not to increase its size. The House did by statute what should arguably require a constitutional amendment — capping its membership at 435.

As a result, after every decennial census we go through an agonizing process of zero-sum reapportionment. Based on the latest census data, we determine which states will lose and which states will gain seats in the artificially capped 435-member House.

But it doesn’t have to be this way. Instead of a zero-sum game pitting state against state, reapportionment could be a much fairer, win-win process if the House would only lift its self-imposed, cartel-like ceiling on the supply of representation in America. Call it “supply-side” representation...

...The House prides itself on being “the People’s House.” But the reality is a far cry from that ideal. The country has effectively outgrown our old 435-member House. It’s like a starter home for a young couple. Once the kids arrive, it’s time to get a bigger house. In the past 90 years the American family has added lots and lots of kids. So it’s time to enlarge the House to give our growing and diverse population greater access to the representation they deserve — the level of representation envisioned in the Constitution.

If the House of Representatives refuses to raise its OPEC-style, self-imposed and self-serving ceiling of 435 members, the representation-starved American people should raise the roof!

Congress needs to grow again and once more represent the people our nation- write your Congressman or Congresswomen today and ask that they reconsider the failed old policies of the recent past and return the successful new policies of our Founding Fathers. Ask that they consider increasing again the size of the House of Representatives.

UPDATE: Just saw an editorial in the New York Times called Build a Bigger House. Here are some of the best parts from it:

The result is that Americans today are numerically the worst-represented group of citizens in the country’s history. The average House member speaks for about 700,000 Americans. In contrast, in 1913 he represented roughly 200,000, a ratio that today would mean a House with 1,500 members — or 5,000 if we match the ratio the founders awarded themselves.

This disparity increases the influence of lobbyists and special interests: the more constituents one has, the easier it is for money to outshine individual voices. And it means that representatives have a harder time connecting with the people back in their districts.

What’s needed, then, is a significant increase in the size of the House by expanding the number, and shrinking the size, of districts. Doing so would make campaigns cheaper, the political value of donations lower and the importance of local mobilizing much greater.

Smaller districts would also end the two-party deadlock. Orange County, Calif., might elect a Libertarian, while Cambridge, Mass., might pick a candidate from the Green Party.

Moreover, with additional House members we’d likely see more citizen-legislators and fewer lifers. In places like New York or Chicago, we would cross at least one Congressional district just walking a few blocks to the grocery store. Our representatives would be our neighbors, people who better understood the lives and concerns of average Americans.

More districts would likewise mean more precision in distributing them equitably, especially in low-population states. Today the lone Wyoming representative covers about 500,000 people, while her lone counterpart in Delaware reports to 900,000.

The increase would also mean more elected officials working on the country’s business, reducing the reliance on unaccountable staffers. Most of the House’s work is through committees, overseeing and checking government agencies. With more people in Congress, House committee members could see to this critical business themselves — and therefore be more influential, since a phone call from an actual member is a lot more effective than a request from the committee staff.

True, more members means more agendas, legislation and debates. But Internet technology already provides effective low-cost management solutions, from Google Documents to streaming interactive video to online voting.