Nails on a chalkboard...

I was just listening to a rehash of Governor Palin’s keynote address at the Nashville Tea Party Convention and was struck absolutely dumb by one of her applause lines… that the United States needs “a commander-in-chief, not a professor of law.” I’ve got a degree in political science and have watched candidates and elected officials since well before I could vote for any of them… and I have no idea what phrase actually means. I’m not sure anyone does. But to my horror the audience went wildly anyway.

As an aside, the sitting president, by definition, is the Commander-in-Chief of the armed forces of the United States (see Article 2, Section 2 of the Constitution for reference purposes). In Article 2, Section 3, the Constitution also provides that the president will “take care that the laws be faithfully executed.” For those of us who aren’t professors of law, that means that the president is the chief law enforcement officer of the United States, among his other duties as assigned.

My point is simply this… Maybe knowing something about the law isn’t a bad thing if you want to be in charge of carrying them out. Having an education, whether it’s from Harvard, Frostburg, or Berkeley shouldn’t be something you’re ashamed of or try to hide by dumbing down your vocabulary. What I basically heard a former governor say on television was that you shouldn’t be allowed to hold office if you’re too smart because you can’t understand the “common” man and woman. I don’t know about you, but personally, I’m not comfortable with Joe Sixpack or Jane Hamburgerhelper setting foreign policy.

I think the thing that I find most troublesome about politics is the tendency of the masses to blame whoever happens to be in office for everything that happens. The reality is that the world we have today was built on a million small decisions by elected (and unelected) leaders who were Republicans and Democrats, Federalists, Whigs, Jeffersonian-Republicans, and others who had no party. The world is too complex to be effectively distilled into a 5 second sound bite. It’s nuanced and complicated… and it’s going to take more than “common sense” to correct the issues we face nationally and abroad.

If you want to disagree on issues, that’s a great and good thing. If you want to see change in government policy, that’s fine too. But don’t insult my intelligence by saying that because someone bothered to get an education they’re not qualified to lead. Pick a real argument, present it logically and appeal to my reason… Then maybe I can get behind it… until you do, it’s all just nails on a chalkboard.

A fading Constellation...

When his fleet reached Mexico in 1519, Cortes disembarked and promptly burned the ships under his command to the waterline, thus cementing his position in the New World and ensuring that his men had the proper motivation – no available avenue for retreat. That’s a profound statement of confidence… if you don’t get yourself killed in the process. Of course if you fail, you do it brazenly and become just another crackpot who sailed “off the edge of the world” so to speak.

I worry that the Administration’s de-funding of the Constellation Program today effectively burns our collective ships; perhaps before we’ve managed to unload the supplies we’ll need for the next step in exploration. Rather than a great enterprise of exploration (say, something like taking over a continent or putting American astronauts back on the moon), our modern Captain-General is casting his men to the wind and expecting each to find their own way. Shutting down Constellation ensures that the critical mass of intuitional knowledge left at NASA will dissipate across dozens of companies and that none of them will have the capability to replicate what Constellation could have been.

I’ve been a champion of the free market my entire adult life and there’s no doubt that the private sector can “do” space flight. NASA is well stocked now with contractors working for United Space Alliance in the twilight of the shuttle program, but government has always been the driver of space exploration, with its massive contracts and goals of shooting the moon. Outsourcing exploration is abdicating the role that governments have filled since men sailed wooden ships to the undiscovered coast of the New World on behalf of the Old World’s royal houses. Such exploration was subsidized by governments until there was a viable economic reason for the private sector to take over – reasons like Virginia tobacco, South American gold, and Caribbean sugar.

I don’t see how we’re there yet. Apollo gave us the first glimpse of how computing power would change the world. Three generations of rockets and the shuttle have given us communications satellites that tie the world together and telescopes that can see nearly to the moment of creation. Until the private sector has a profit motive in space exploration other than government largess, I worry that today could be the real end of the age of exploration.

[Posted with iBlogger from my iPhone]

Watching the world wake up...

Tell most people younger than me that there were once two Germanys and two Berlins and they'll look at you like you've suddenly sprouted a third arm in the center of your chest. They don't remember a world where a great city was divided by concrete barricades and when all of Europe was divided by an iron curtain; or when two superpowers stood toe-to-toe and tried to spend one another into oblivion through proxy wars and an arms race. And then we watched that world that we had all grown up with dissolve before our eyes on cable television.

If a man is extraordinarily lucky, he gets to live through that kind of change once in his lifetime. In twenty years there's been nothing to compare those days against. A hundred years from now when the first relatively objective histories of the last half of the 20th century are being written, they will tell the story of leaders like Walesa, Thatcher, Reagan, John Paul II and Gorbachev. They'll tell stories of round the clock airlifts to ensure the freedom of a city cut off from the rest of the world. They'll tell stories of every day heroics by those who sought freedom on both sides of the wall. And finally they'll tell stories about the day that wall was torn down.

Twenty years ago today, all the world watched and wondered as the unthinkable happened, as history suddenly shifted on its axis, as the rising tide of freedom washed over the concrete battlements of an empire in retreat. I can’t imagine when I’d rather be than right here, right now.

Another reason why they think we’re all crazy…

OK, the duly elected and sworn President of the United States wants to give a short speech to students about the value of education and hard work; controversial topics, to be sure. I’m not sure I’m feeling the outrage, though. Whether you love him, hate him, or are totally indifferent towards him, the guy is the president. I don’t see the impending harm of allowing students to watch and listen to the leader of the free world talking about issues that will impact them. Has the fabric of our civic discourse become so brittle that even hearing a view that differs from our own risks destroying our individual political beliefs? Are we so incapable of building a rational argument to support our point of view that the highest form of argument we’re capable of is throwing a five-year old’s tantrum and whining, “I’m not listening?”

For those who are keeping their kids at home that day, think about the message you are sending to your children. You’re saying that your own views are so weakly held that they won’t stand up to scrutiny or discussion. You’re saying that it’s better to tune out altogether than to engage in the discussion at all. If you truly believe that a 30-minute speech by a politician will undo the 16 or 17 years of influence you have had on your kids, then honestly, I feel bad for you. Living with that kind of insecurity must be tough. If you want to do right by your kids, encourage them to join the fray, to discuss, to develop and refine their own opinions, to ask the hard questions and seek the difficult truths. If you’re afraid of doing that, then lord, I don’t even want to know you.

Get Un-American...

I promised myself that I was going to keep my peace on the healthcare debate; that I wouldn’t wade in and simply watch as the accusations and counteraccusations played out… and I’ve managed to keep it shut for a week, which may be a personal best record for me. The fact is that I’m not even sure if I need to be weighing in on this. Anyone who has checked in with any regularity knows where I’m going to fall on the subject. The issue that I’m most impassioned by isn’t the proposed healthcare plan at all, but rather that those who feel passionately about it and who speak out are labeled “un-American” by a Speaker of the House of Representatives.

There are crackpots everywhere. They control the far left of the Democratic party and the far right of the Republican party. They are everything from socialists to religio-fascists. But they have no less right to be heard than those of the silent majority who have remained relatively docile and have avoided staking out a position on either end of the political spectrum. The fact is, I think most of the country finds itself somewhere in the middle and tends to get embarrassed when the extremists on either side get too loud or gain to much press attention. Lord knows, I’m a proud conservative (at least on fiscal issues), but I cringe every time James Dobson or Dr. Laura show up with a microphone in front of their face. It infuriates me that they are the popular image of the American conservative, but I digress.

I like that the House website has nearly buckled under the strain of traffic that this debate has driven to it. I like that members of Congress on both sides of the aisle are taking their elected representatives to tasks on both side of the aisle. I like that the administration has been struggling mightily to regain control of the message and make its points. It’s all together right and proper that all sides make their points and that this storm blow long and hard across the land. It’s the very lifeblood of America and gives me the vaguest sense of hope that the country has not become too passive to take on the hard issues.

So yes, friends, we owe it to ourselves to do what is hard. Read the bills that are before Congress and tell your elected representative what you think, not what the talking heads on CNN of Fox tell you. Do your homework and get informed. And if that means I'm un-American, I guess I'll be ok with that.

My name is Jeffrey D. Tharp and I approved this message.