Restored Faith

Sometimes in this fast paced world it is easy to become a bit cynical about the nature of business. Too often it seems as if you are a pawn in a big game you are destined to lose. A recent experience helped to restore my faith in the system.

One of my hobbies is wire wrapping. I make pretty things - rings, bracelets, necklaces, earrings, etc. - by wrapping wire. If you want to take a quick look at the possibilities look at the cover of something like "Wire and Bead Celtic Jewelry" or "Bead & Wire Art Jewelry"

Anyway, to make a long story a bit shorter, if you are going to really get into wire wrapping you will end up needing a jig. That's a board covered with little holes and pegs of various size that you use as a pattern for wrapping the wire into different shapes. To broaden my horizons in wire wrapping I bought a BeadSmith Deluxe Thing-A-Ma-Jig. This is a marvelous tool for bending and twisting wire into different shapes, particularly when for the success of your project each piece needs to be as much like the others as possible.

The Thing-A-Ma-Jig rests on the workbench on short metal legs with a plastic foot at the bottom of each. My Thing-A-Ma-Jig was missing one of the little plastic feet. Seeing little prospect for getting one from people I got the jig from, I sent an e-mail to BeadSmith to see if they would send me one. I even offered to pay for it.

Therein lies the restoration of my faith. They actually took a strong interest and sent me an entire new Deluxe Thing-A-Ma-Jig. Wow! Just when you think that nobody really gives a darn and you are all alone in an unforgiving world, something like this comes along.

Don't get me wrong. I'm not saying that everyone is like BeadSmith. It's just that when someone takes a personal interest and goes out of their way to help, it does tend to restore faith. Thank you BeadSmith and all the other companies that go the extra mile on customer service.

Reduce My Social Security Benefits - Please

It may seem a bit strange, but I wrote to my Congressman recently telling him to reduce my Social Security benefits. There's a catch to it, of course. I wanted the benefits reduced by the same percent that the federal budget was reduced. I would gladly get by on 10 percent less in Social Security benefits, if the federal government's budget was reduced by 10 percent.

This isn't really out of character for me. Back in the 1960's, I went to college after I got out of the Navy. I lived at home and worked part-time as a security guard. Legislation was being considered by Congress called the Vietnam Era GI Bill. It would have put about $100 a month in my pocket as an education benefit. I wrote to my Congressman, Charles Gubser, telling him that as much as I would appreciate the money he should vote against it if it would help balance the federal budget. Gubser wrote back saying that if voting against it would balance the budget he would consider it, but that the cost of the bill wasn't enough to make much of a dent in the budget deficit.

I wonder whether there is a lesson in this. How many little things add up to something big? How motivated are people who benefit from one of those little things to raise the roof if it might be eliminated compared to how interested those who don't benefit from it are in eliminating it.

I hear radio advertisements from a committee opposed to cutting Social Security. I almost have to laugh at the line about how Social Security didn't cause the problem. For decades Social Security taxes have produced a surplus and Congress promptly spent that surplus while giving Social Security an I.O.U. That, by any definition is deficit spending. The money was spent on all those neat things that now need to be cut, but Congress doesn't have the will power and/or the guts to make the cuts. Too many highly motivated small special interest groups are clamoring (and paying lobbyists) to protect them.

Perhaps that's what's new and different about the Tea Party movement and why it poses such a threat to the establishment. The Tea Party is demanding spending cuts without regard to whether the cuts hurt.

The bottom line is that we can't go on this way much longer. Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid and interest on the national debt are becoming such a huge proportion of the budget that they must be reduced to avoid financial Armageddon.

It would be better to make reasonable, well thought out reductions now than to wait until it is too late and draconian cuts must be made in a panic.

No "Right" to Collective Bargaining

The protesters in Wisconsin and Ohio are crying alligator tears about the loss of collective bargaining rights. Let's be clear on this. There is no right to collective bargaining. All the laws that have required collective bargaining between employers, be they public or private, with certified labor unions as the exclusive representative of employees in a bargaining unit have extended privileges, not rights, to labor unions, often at the expense of the rights of individual employees.

There are several federal court decision in cases where government employee unions have claimed the right to collective bargaining and in every instance the courts have ruled that there is no right to collective bargaining.

In the private sector the federal government gave unions monopoly bargaining powers through the National Labor Relations Act, which doesn't cover public employees. Many states have enacted similar laws covering public employment.

On several occasions public sector unions have gone to court demanding the right to collective bargaining and in every case the courts have said that there is no such right, it is a legislated privilege.

This is a topic of great interest to me. I am the author of "The Case Against Public Sector Unionism and Collective Bargaining" and a coauthor of "Vallejo Con Dios: Why Public Sector Unionism is a Bad Deal for Taxpayers and Representative Government."

I commend them to your attention.

I Was Wrong

I was wrong. In my Fearless Forecast of October 30 I predicted that the polls were underestimating the enthusiasm of the Tea Party movement. The November 2 elections included some truly historic wins for the Tea Party movement, but the public opinion polling overestimated rather than underestimated the enthusiasm.

The best and most telling example of this was Sharon Angle's loss to Harry Reid in Nevada. The polls right up until election day had Angle ahead by several points, but when all the votes were counted Reid won by 50.6 to 44.2. The same sort of thing happened in Pennsylvania where the last polls showed Pat Toomey ahead by five points and he only won by two.

Just like they say about real estate where the three most important things are location, location, location, in politics the three most important things are turnout, turnout, turnout.

I fear that I got so caught up in my enthusiasm for the Tea Party movement that I let it cloud my judgment. I suspect that the idea that my favorite candidates would do even better than the polls predicted was a bad case of wishful thinking.

This isn't the first time I've been wrong. I recall once back in 1957..., but then that's another story.

Elections 2010 - A Fearless Forecast

Here it is just three days before the 2010 general elections and I feel as if I have some sort of insight into the results. If I wait until after the election to write about this, it might seem like 20-20 hindsight, so I'll put it out there now.

I believe that there are going to be some big surprises in the November 2, elections. I say that because I don't believe that the polling companies are capable of dealing with the intensity of mood. When I studied this years ago we referred to it as "salience." The idea at the time was that some people would agree or disagree on an issue or candidate, but the strength of their conviction was what really mattered.

It is my sense of things that the uprising Tea Party rebellion has a great deal more intensity than is being measured in the polls so that if a Tea Party candidate is behind by five, or even slightly more than five, percent in the polls going into election day they have an excellent chance of winning. By the same token, Tea Party candidates that are running even will win by about five percent and those that are in the lead will win by even greater numbers.

I plan to look carefully at this after election day and will report the success or failure of this analysis.

A Tougher Row to Hoe

I have always thought that it was important to contribute to campaigns of candidates for public office I support. I'm not wealthy. My contributions are relatively small.

I believe that conservatives should make a special effort to support minority candidates who strongly uphold conservative values. For a variety of reasons, these candidates have a tougher row to hoe.

I have listed below the names and web pages of candidates in this category I have supported this year. I do this not to boast but to urge you to join me in providing this sort of support.

Ryan Frazier (Ryan is a Tea Party member.)
Congress from Colorado's 7th District
http://www.frazierforcolorado.com/

Michel Faulkner
Congress New York's 15th District (This is the seat presently held by Charles Rangel.)
http://www.faulknerforcongress.com/

Charles Lollar
Congress Maryland's 5th District
http://www.lollarforcongress.com/index.php/home

Eric Cary (Eric has been a speaker at several of our Tea Party meetings.)
Maryland State Senate
http://www.ericcary.com

On August 23 I am adding two more entries suggested by friends

Allen West
Congress Florida's 22nd District
http://allenwestforcongress.com/

Stephen Broden
Congress Texas' 30th District
http://www.brodenforcongress.com/

If you are aware of other black conservative candidates please let me know about them. Also, please consider adding their names and web sites to this list and passing it on to others you think might be interested.

Added August 30.

At the Restoring Honor rally on the Capital Mall on Saturday, I saw an African-American participant wearing a t-shirt with a Gadsden flag and Broadus for Congress printed on it. I did a little research and found that Robert Broadus is another candidate that belongs on this list.

Robert Broadus
Congress Maryland's 4th District
http://www.justiceandliberty.us/home.html

America's Ruling Class

The August/September 2010 edition of The American Spectator magazine contains a very important article by Angelo M. Codevilla titled "America's Ruling Class -- and the Perils of Revolution."

This article should be must reading for everyone who cares about America.