The FGS Blog

In the current arguments pro and con, most who opine seem to look at the marriage issue from within the box where those wanting to regulate it placed it hundreds of years ago. It would be more logical to review the concept of marriage and understand that, when individuals feel obligated to remain in a union, the union is not free. When we are not free, we are unable to make the right decisions about anything in life. Freedom is essential to our human existence.

For this observer, California’s Proposition 8 and all other “defense of marriage acts” across the country are equally as intrusive as having the church and the government identifying those with the privilege to enter into indented servitude. Let’s face it: Marriage is an enslaving institution into which most people enter blindly assuming a piece of paper will ensure their eternal bliss together. Quite the contrary, it is eternally doomed to fail as soon as one of the parties realizes it forces them to remain together after the love, the lust, the attraction, the peace, and the romance vanished into thin air, which according to current statistics, takes place over 60% of the time.

There is a much better solution. If the church and the government in their collusion would think outside the box, they would instead regulate divorce with the same zeal they are using today to dictate who is able to enter into a marriage contract. The threat of not being able to divorce–or live apart after the desire to break up shows its ugly face–would be a better way to raise the level of analysis and presence of mind required by those considering the august decision of entering into an endless marriage–even if it did not make a faithful husband out of Henry VIII; but his Majesty enjoyed the right to write his own laws and form his own church, joyful actions that the rest of us do not possess. 

Let’s face it. Today’s no-fault divorce makes breakup and separation a viable alternative to a concentrated effort on identifying whether a union is the right choice in the first place. It eliminates the serious analysis required of every individual before deciding to marry. This observer’s hunch is that very few, if any, would execute a contract that forces everyone to remain in the hellish existence of a bad union for the rest of their life.

If all intrusive institutions currently fighting over the regulatory turf were determined to end the desire to foolishly enter into a marriage without much thought, if they truly were concerned over the health of families and children in a divorce, if the values of the family were truly the concern here, they would instead collude to make divorce equally as difficult as they want to make marriage an impossibility for some. Any individuals willing to remain together for the rest of their life–happy or unhappy–should be able to do so;  just like everyone willing to work as a slave should be able to do so uninhibited. 

The pursuit of happiness was written into our Declaration of Independence. No one should be turned back from making a choice for themselves. Free people make choices that they have to live with for the rest of their life. Make marriage one of these transcendental choices.

The argument is embellished by all the talk about tax breaks and privileges, which as currently applied, tend to carve out a lower class made up of individuals who are single, with less equality before the law; but this too is easily corrected and could become empty chatter. There is an egalitarian solution at hand. Let the government’s taxing arm tax everyone equally across the country, regardless of whether they sleep with someone else with a signed piece of paper filled with empty promises or not. Under this well-thought out system, everyone would be free to marry but no one can live apart or get divorced after they enter into the holy state once the license is duly executed.  

Clearly, the concept of a flat tax would do away with thousands of pages in the IRS Code and in a single swoop with all the corruption from lobbies and vested interests vying for a tax break. Unlike marriage, a gradual flat tax that provides smaller brackets for lower incomes and rises to 15% for higher incomes is good for the government and great for the individual. Eliminate all deductions and simply levy a gradually increasing tax scale that starts at 0% below the poverty line and increases slowly as incomes rise, to a maximum of 15% for the highest income earners.

Both measures are fair. They are just. They are very desirable.  

They would also resolve the problem of corruption in government. The open objections would come from CPAs and tax attorneys. The underhanded opposition would come from politicians. No loopholes eliminate the need for advice. The elimination of ambiguity and tax-favored measures would eliminate political contributions from lobbyists which until today, they dole out to ensure political favors. Everyone would be equal under the tax codes and all income would be taxed according to a fixed scale.

These measures would cut everyone’s desire to join in marriage carelessly any idiot that walks their way. They would efficiently fix the world of politics and the levity in which most individuals enter married life. It would be a fix all.

Why couldn’t someone else see these fixes so clearly before?  

As with all posts, comments are encouraged. Thanks for reading my blog.

As if the cost of pursuing happiness in the Magic City were not already excessively high, we now have to watch where we drive. It used to be that roads were built with taxes paid by the people. There weren’t any additional taxes levied for using them. The maintenance of the roads was also paid with tax revenues from the general treasury. A built road would ensure our ability to cross it without paying anything extra. Things have changed for the worse in Dade County.  

Together with the increased cost for parking tickets, moving violations, court costs, other rising municipal services, stratospheric insurance premiums, and burdensome real estate taxes, now we have toll roads where we used to drive unfettered, as the cost of living here continues to rise in geometrical proportions. While in the past there were a couple of ten-cent tolls that turned to a quarter, later to fifty-cents, to become seventy-five cents, only to be changed a short while later to a buck, and ultimately, a buck twenty-five due when crossing very few expressways, the demand for payment only took place after ten or twenty miles of usage. Mind you, they were levied with the promise of eliminating them “after the roads were paid for,” which clearly never happened. Now, during the worst economic downturn in history since the Great Depression, we have to pay new tolls to further undermine the purchasing power of any citizen commuting to work every day. They are placed every couple of miles on SR 878 and SR 874.  Anyone coming from SR 874 will pay a toll before leaving and three between 874 and US 1.

At what point did we all miss the opportunity to knock these plans down? Were there opportunities or neighborhood meetings to discuss them? Who determined that it was fine to charge $5 every day to people who must use those roads or decay in log-jammed traffic congestion? These tolls amount to an additional $1,200 annually of automobile expenses only to commute to work. The weekend costs are not added up in this projection.  

The roads are all and all were built with our taxes. We already paid for them with our hard-earned dollars. These government clowns now allege that the tolls are for the maintenance of the roads and for improvements on their service. Is the county trying to chase everyone out of here?

At a time when everyone is short of cash and attempting to make ends meet, the county commissioners in all their stupidity impose an additional heavy burden on every family that must commute to work using these roads. This new tax is an attack on our way of life and it is preposterous. We must rise in opposition to it and cram thousands of citizens in, out, and around the next County Commission meeting to make sure that the commissioners hear us, fear for their cushy jobs with tens if not hundreds of staff members, and feel the heat arising from their despotic ordinances that only serve to unite us all with the solid determination to throw them all out of office at the next election.

This assault on our freedom to move without additional taxes must not be dismissed. It must not be swept under the table as we acquiesce and remain victims of these abuses of power. We must not stand for it and we must unite in boycotting the roads until the tolls are removed.

As with all posts, your contribution is more than welcome. It is encouraged and appreciated. Thanks for reading my blog.

Recently, there was a furor over Merryl Streep’s movie where she played the role of Julia Childs. It caused a rush to go out and buy the famous chef’s book that was out of print. It also brought to the forefront the desire to create family meals that taste good while helping everyone to remain healthy.

Alas, gone are the excessive amounts of dairy products used to ensure savory creams to pour over plain, everyday nourishment. In, today, is everything healthy, all the stuff that balances correctly our diet striving to keep down the blood pressure, steer us away from diabetes type II, and holds our cholesterol inside the healthy range. The refined carbohydrates, the processed rice, and all forms of potato are definitely out of favor, while the whole grains, the brown rice, the yam, the seeds and the leafy vegetables all, moved up to become very much in vogue.

Happily, Leo, my friend of many years, who is also my very trusted doctor, issued me a stern warning in January. He alerted me to the dismal results of my latest blood profile tests. He explained that I was under an imminent threat of becoming a pre-diabetic type II. It sounded awful.

Leo underscored how the data show the eventual onset of diabetes if not by the latest test results alone, simply by the continued increase of my weight along the last few years. He explained the relation between high cholesterol, high blood pressure, and high blood sugar in cardiovascular disease. He pointed to the data he collected on my health over the years and explained, without any ambiguity in his message, that my lifestyle and my eating habits were forecasting a premature death or worse, a stroke and paralysis. Clearly, my daughter Alina’s words resonated in my brain as Leo’s words hit me. “We choose how we want to die,” was Ali’s mantra when she watched me slowly become more sedentary and largely careless of my diet.

Lucky for me, there was still time remaining to redress the ills of a lifetime of bad eating. The wine consumption and the rich desserts surreptitiously laced with sweet tasting corn syrup had finally come home to roost. “It was up to me,” Leo said seriously, “to reverse these awful lab results,” and he gave me ninety days to prove my determination to do so before he prescribed pills to counteract so many years of physical neglect.

He emphasized that all I had to do was walk at least 20 minutes every night. That sounded easy enough and walking became my latest fad. Now I watch other neighbors with whom I stopped to chat along the way following the same prescription to get their weight under control too.

After ninety days in a rather comfortable schedule of walking every day for one hour, it was time to return for another round of blood profiles and off I went, very eager to see the product of my effort over the last three months. The new results proved that my daily strolls and a very slight correction in my diet were effective. They showed signs of a slight reversal on the trend. From a figure of 115 on the diabetic screens in January, the April number was 95.  There was definite improvement that Leo downplayed understandably, as he called it a good beginning, but he wanted more weight loss and more exercise for my return visit in six months.

Walking slightly more than two and a half miles every day proved successful in reducing an initial 10 pounds from my ultimate goal of 30 to regain the weight that Leo called healthy. Frankly, walking in good weather was a cinch. January through March is dry, pleasant and refreshing in Miami.

Walking as the days grew longer and hotter from April through August has become exhaustive and too easy to leave for later or tomorrow. The heat causes in me relentless procrastination. It’s easier than sweating and suffering under the hot Miami sun, scorched and thirsty along the length of my suburban trail.

For these current weather conditions, I had to find alternatives. I had to expand my diet by reducing my caloric intake without sacrificing nutrition or the energy my body requires to complete the walks as often as the weather permits. And this finding is my sensible bridge with the film Julie and Julia. I have returned to my days of single fatherhood when my children were small. Now, I find myself back in the kitchen, cooking up healthy meals that are tasteful, which for me, was an oxymoron.

The lowering of our daily caloric intake may sound easy for most, but very difficult to accomplish when all day, everyone around us eats. They eat in the office. They eat on television. They eat in magazines. They eat on the billboards while we drive and next to our car at the stop lights. Everyone eats all the time, despite everything we read or hear about the evils of obesity.

We need to reflect on the dangers of excessive eating. We need to stop rationalizing that after a certain age, eating becomes the way to sublimate other impulses from our youth. We need to end the relationship that we made along the way that relates delicious treats with comfort and coziness, an overall feeling of reward and nurturing. We need to cut our dependence on food by realizing that, of all the food groups, carbohydrates are the most dangerous, for they turn inside our body into sugar and excess sugar is the most prevalent cause of diabetes II. Undoubtedly, carbs pave everyone’s road to perdition.

At this time, six months into the regimen, I am happy to report 16 pounds off and 14 to go to meet my initial weight goal. Cook books that promote a healthy lifestyle are very much on my reading list lately. Salads and green vegetables are always present on my table. Virgin coconut oil, omega 3 oil, and fresh fruits low on sugar are slowly becoming an integral part of the new me into which my new body promises to evolve.

The primal diet, the flat belly diet, and the other sensible eating habits that nurture a healthy body are part of what I currently review throughout the week. The Internet makes it very easy to find recipes for turning tasteful the healthy foods that until recently I never consumed. Eating small portions of healthy food fills me up and stops the cravings for junk food that swallowed me before.

Granted, dark chocolate still plays a significant role in my daily routine. But it’s a small part and it’s not milk chocolate. Just that slight change toward the more healthy option has helped me cope with the cravings for other food, rich in sugar and unhealthy fat that constituted my former palate.

I find that having 6 oz of low fat (1%) dark chocolate milk before taking my walks provides me with energy and minimizes my anxiety over the hour-long walk ahead in the heat. Upon my return, I have another 6 oz. of the same milk. It washes off my thirst and restores me to my normal level of energy. Is it ideal for weight loss? Probably not, but those are the findings that reward me enough to carry on with the process. Would a dietician frown upon this? Undoubtedly. But it works for me, for now.

Hopefully you have gained some knowledge into a process that you should be considering for yourself. Eating healthily is a life-long process that goes hand in hand with daily exercise. Daily exercise prevents Alzheimer’s disease, according to Amen’s book, Change Your Life, Change Your Brain, and that’s convincing enough for me.

The entire presidential campaign of 2008 questioned and rejected our incursion into Iraq and the sustained presence of our troops in the Middle East. Barack would return them all home within sixteen months. Too bad nobody cares about the lies candidates spew during the campaign and no one holds them accountable as a result. No one cares about the troops abroad now because the winning party’s support is a majority made up of the sheeple who find it acceptable to be lied to. Just like during Bush/Cheney, we the people are expected to support all troops, at home or abroad, as it is our patriotic duty to do without question or objection; support of the military industrial compound is, once again, our obligation.  And truthfully, support for the men and women in the armed forces is no effort, for the troops are following orders they get paid to follow, and they live and die convinced of doing so to defend our country.

The troops defend our interests abroad, which are the interest of the multi-national corporations that bribe the politicians to do their bidding; but the troops do not see it that way. In their heart and in their mind, they are defending this country and risking their life to do it, which is a valiant and laudable sacrifice. They are getting killed and they are constantly under fire, far away from their loved ones in a quest for a better world, which is how they perceive their effort.

The sad reality is that the troops do the dirty work for the corporations who pay for the elections of the public officials who lie to enrich themselves and become powerful because as a society we value money and power, not how the money was earned or the power was achieved. It’s not the troops’ fault they are snookered into doing what they must do lest they be shot for treason after they sign up to see the world. In shying away from demanding the fulfillment of campaign promises, the American people are either complicit or ignorant. Either they know what is going on and they condone it for personal convenience or they are completely ignorant and do not reason or think.

They do not see themselves manipulated by the political parties that polarizes them in opposing camps, sway their opinion one way or another, and blind them into accepting only two contrasting black or white frames of thought, without perceiving the different shades of grey in between. I choose to think that they are ignorant and unable to think because the public schools fail them and do not teach them to be critical thinkers above anything else. It would be an unbearable world to assume they are all conveniently complicit.

The people only react to the political parties’ propaganda that stirs in them excessive fear and inordinate greed, the all too common denominators used by Hermann Göring in World War II. Sadly, despite having foretold during the last election that Barack’s promise would not be carried out and proven right by history, in the next election, Ron Paul will, once again, be laughed at, ridiculed, and ignored by the parties and despite having thousands upon thousands of supporters, Dr. Paul will be deemed too old, too stale, and too radical because the other parties will spend over a billion dollars to Dr. Paul’s ten to twenty million at best. He will be outspent regardless of how well he manages his advertising budget and once again, he will be a silenced voice because he runs out of money. Money talks and everything else is silent.

The vested interest of all federal employees and the military is far too large now for these same people to vote themselves out of a job. They all benefit from an ever increasing federal budget and an out of control federal government whose only ambitions are to expand further and to grab more power. The concept of reducing the federal government and its power goes hand in hand with the elimination of millions of federal jobs. Not a single federal employee or members of their family who benefit from the federal government–the largest employer in the land today, will vote for Ron Paul because if Ron Paul were to gain power and his views were generalized and adopted, the overwhelming majority of those jobs would be lost.

The USA today is already a socialist government with a centralized power structure. We are no longer the country of the Declaration of Independence or of the drafters of the Constitution. We are a western world version of China’s power structure, as repugnant as it may be for libertarians and Ron Paul supporters.

Currently, there is a national debate over health care that places personal freedom and personal responsibility in opposition to each other. The talking heads, the politicians, and the public through their representative groups’ leaders seem intent on presenting the argument as a choice between one and the other. This apparent conflict is truly not accurate.

An odd-lot made up of libertarians, tea partyists, republicans, democrats, independents, socialists, and populists objects vociferously to the recently enacted and highly controversial federal mandate that orders everyone in the US to purchase health insurance coverage by the year 2016 or face an additional tax for failing to meet the requirement of the law. This otherwise heterogeneous group of individuals use the Constitution as their weapon, trying to disarm the obligation society faces while meeting its just desire to place a safety net under every individual living in this country in the twenty-first century. As dissimilar as this group may be when each of its parts is isolated, its rallying cry, its loud objection unites them under a common denominator that labels the signed legislation unconstitutional.   

The objectors logically point to the Constitution because the revered document is the only leveler across all political divides. It is the generally respected document lending support to all who raise their voice for freedom and equality. Notwithstanding this, the years have proven the Constitution to be also a very flexible document that has lent itself across the centuries to many interpretations; even its unambiguous passages that would seem most explicit in their scope and meaning have undergone different interpretations along the span of so many years.

Unquestionably, the Constitution is today a very old document. It dates back to the time when advances in technology, in medical findings, and diagnostic testing were restricted to the application of leeches and bleedings to alleviate illness. The thinkers who drafted the document were exemplary individuals living in the eighteenth century, where life, as judged by today’s standards, was more regimented and orderly, unfolding slowly in a more homogeneous society. 

The framers of the Constitution were unable to predict that two centuries later the rise of conspicuous consumption would make it acceptable to live beyond one’s means. The Framers failed to grasp how the passing of the centuries engendered a new order of individuals more interested in pursuing hedonistic experiences than in assuming responsibility and acting appropriately. They never conceived of a Me Generation two centuries later.   

Without exception, the Framers were men of means. None was poor or indigent. They were progressive thinkers and well read men who remained abreast of the issues that threatened their newly established free experience:  insatiably powerful, despotic, repressive governments and intolerant religious institutions. The Framers took great care in protecting us against these excesses centuries later, despite our present day inclination to squander them. They were able thinkers whose primary concerns were the restriction of the power of a centralized government, the clear enumeration of inalienable rights attributed to individuals from birth, and the eradication of religious intolerance by separating religion altogether from government.

Far removed were the Framers from conceiving that more than two hundred years later municipalities would be facing the provision of health care to individuals who prefer to consume beyond their means instead of putting aside personal resources earmarked for potentially more difficult times.  Alien to them was the concept that poor, destitute, indigent individuals would overwhelm local, health delivery systems nearly three centuries later. Foreign to their intellectual abilities was the notion of complex illnesses that required intensive, chronic or routine care that could endanger the solvency of the municipalities onto which the cost of the delivery of these expensive medical procedures would be imposed.

Emphatically, the Constitution, as individuals are concerned, addresses the rights of citizens and the restrictions imposed on the powers of the federal government. The document does not address individual responsibilities nor does it address in any manner an inherent obligation individual citizens may have toward the society in which they live. Some would use this absence of explicit text to read into this void an inherent lack of obligations altogether. Others, take the opposite view. But in summary, it would seem that wielding the Constitution to determine the appropriateness of the law in question is a bit of a stretch.  Let’s face it, using the document today to base an objection to the assumption of personal responsibility over issues that arise in our present day society may seem self-servient and opportunistic.

The exercise of freedom is not libertine. Any individual’s freedom has limits. Others have rights too. Restraint is part of our liberties.  In essence, the exercise of our liberties is limited only by the rights and liberties of others. Furthermore, the respect for the rights of others is essential to the true spirit of liberty. We become libertines when we force others to defray the cost of goods or services we receive.

The exercise of liberty encompasses a tacit adherence to a code of ethics. Some would label it a moral code. As such, it is our moral obligation to foster liberty in others by enabling others to be and remain free. By imposing on others the cost for services we receive, we usurp their rights. We restrict others’ liberty by taking from them funds to pay for services that would otherwise be our personal responsibility. In simple terms, we are not being good citizens when we neglect to take care of our own needs.

It is our moral obligation as free citizens to ensure the proper and timely reimbursement of any and all expenses incurred by others while providing us with any service or care we require, especially, health care today when the cost of delivering such care is great. Certainly, those who object to the new law fail to recognize that it intends to correct a wrong that has plagued our municipalities for many years. The citizens who oppose the law on grounds of its constitutionality fail to recognize that the cost of health care, if not defrayed by private resources–savings or insurance–becomes an imposition on the rest of the communities across the nation. Their misguided objection to the exigency of payment from private resources creates two classes of citizens: the superior class and the inferior class. Clearly, any acceptance of this inequality of classes eradicates our liberty. Their classist stance conveys the message that one citizen is superior to another, for the superior citizen expects the inferior citizen to pay for the care and services the superior citizen receives with impunity.

When we go about our life without setting aside funds for potential times of need, we are assuming that others have the obligation to take care of us when our need arises. When we go years without assuming control of our later needs and obligations, we are relying on others to provide for us. When we fail to meet our financial obligations, we rely on others to pick up the slack. These are all evidence of infringements on the rights of others. We demonstrate a selfish attitude expecting others to take care of our needs. This reluctance to accept responsibility is not conducive to liberty and does not allow others to remain free. It places an unfair burden on our fellow citizens.

On these multiple current issues, the Framers were silent. They left it up to us to act according to the needs of our times with legislation that survives the legislative process and the separation of powers. The law on health care seeks to redress a collective wrong that has plagued our society equally as long as the advances in science and technology have been stressing the budget of communities across our land. 

All arguments are welcome. As always, comments and different points of view are explicitly encouraged.

In repetition of something explained in one of my original blogs, insurance is not more than the substitution of a definite loss–the premium–in exchange for removing the potential for a larger financial loss if a covered peril occurs. It’s the payment of an insurance premium to eliminate a possibly larger loss if an insured peril occurs that would cause a devastating loss to the insured at a later date, during the time the policy remains in force.  The fuction word in any insurance contract is “potential,” for the insurance contract is only meant to cover against the eventuality of a potential loss if a covered peril occurs. It is not meant to address losses that are “certain” to take place.

The current Health Care law mandates the coverage of pre-existing conditions; in other words, it mandates coverage for losses that are certain to occur. This action on the part of the government de facto legislates insolvency on an insurance carrier.  Actuarially, either companies charge a premium large enough to cover a pre-existing condition to ensure adequate “reserves” to defray the losses or the insuance company forced to pay for them without adequate reserves will eventually fail. In this aspect, the government has overstepped its reach and its actions are questionable as to motivation and intent.

The purchase of life and health insurance coverages ahead of contracting or developing health conditions that would render us uninsurable is the responsible action we undertake when we purchase insurance while healthy. We clearly begin to incur a modical loss every time we pay a premium without incurring a loss, technically without having to, only to ensure coverage later, at the time an illness or death strikes while covered by insurance. It’s this principle of diverting funds early toward future obligations that works against the concept of “adverse selection.”  

Adverse selection occurs when an insurance company underwrites a peril that is inevitably going to occur. In other words, adverse selection takes place when a sick person seeks insurance coverage only after knowing an illness is present or death is imminent. With this current, legally imposed practice, the insurance carrier is unable to reserve or set aside funds with sufficient time to overcome the cost of the claim the company will have to pay on behalf of its insureds.

Some would construe that the new law is meant to drive insurance companies out of business in order to create the appropriate environment for the enactment of the “public option.” The public option places the government as the single payer of health claims and essentially eliminates competition. The elimination of private sector competition would either create a new bureaucratic entity altogether or it would expand considerably the existing government structure that currently dispenses Medicare benefits. Not only conspiracy theorists would have grounds to suspect cronyism and payment for political campaigns with government jobs by the continued and relentless expansion of the federal government as the true motivation behind this portion of the legislation.

It would be edifying to hear your arguments negating or concurring with these comments.

Last night, President Obama spoke to Congress and the nation on his first State of the Union address. The talking heads tore him up–from both sides of the aisle–the liberals because he is not socialist enough and the conservatives because he is too far left of center. It’s a shame. His speech was exalting and positive. His thread was coherent and convincing. He took the high road with humor and well deserved reproach.

Yet, he remains captive and unable to move forward on anything he proposed when he promised change on the campaign trail. He is not able to grasp the malaise of Washington. His administration has not reduced spending one bit and continues to expand the national debt at an alarming rate.  He is Bush plus one at this point.

It’s the country that loses in the end. It’s the lower class and the middle class and even the bureaucratic class that fail to capitalize on the quagmire that grips the political elements whom our ignorant public elects every other year. It’s not about the rich.

The rich don’t need help. They fare well in good times and bad ones. They simply sit back and wait. This too shall pass.

As a speaker, our country never had it so good as we have now with president Obama. He gets A plus and bats them out of the park every time.  It’s the substance that is lacking.

Frankly, last night he showed a little more backbone than on prior opportunities. He seemed to take on the whole Congress, his political partisans and those with whom he fought until a few minutes before his television appearance. Our president simply fails to see the writing on the wall. It’s a clear message: Congressional members enjoy not resolving the issues. They happily remain in the very same endless re-election campaign he described, grasping for contributions at every turn, and seeking to perpetuate themselves in office forever more, without doing anything beyond talk and talk and talk and talk. 

Sadly, it’s the way of Washington. It’s not the way of Main Street. It’s not the way to create new employment opportunities. It’s definitely not the way to resolve the healthcare issue. It will never put an end to waste and pork in government.

Mr. Obama is philosophically opposed to capitalism. It’s not his fault. He is the product of liberals at home, liberals in school, and liberal advisers.

The rest of the country, however, should feel differently. We know better. We can fall back on history for clarity of vision. To move forward, foster freedom of opportunity, foment business growth. Lower taxes, don’t raise them. Reduce obstacles to free enterprise and provide incentives for the rich to put their money to work. Tax capital accumulation that is idle and not put to work to improve the economy.  

We should stand up and reclaim our government. We should stop re-electing every incumbent without questioning whether his/her role in Washington was to resolve issues, as evidenced by the legislation he/she sponsored and passed the prior term or whether he/she was one more clog that obstructed the right of the people to work uninhibited by a government that over-reaches and meddles at every turn. Big government simply causes disruptions that negate citizens their right to pursue happiness.

Mr. President, show some leadership. Tell Congress how to do it. Show how to draft the legislation you propose. Get some of those highly paid bureaucrats in the administration to draft your version of what it takes to move forward. Congress will follow. They are too busy running for the hills to object. You are the president with a majority in Congress, for Pete’s sake. Find some common ground and move forward.  

On the practical side of the argument, though, we need to stop looking to the government to resolve our issues. We need to find market solutions for our problems. We need to work together and find a capitalist solution for our healthcare, unemployment, and education issues.

We need to alert everyone to our awakening. American business, at the summit of our industrial hegemony across the globe, was about honesty, integrity, ethics, and ingenuity. We need to regain our voice and the only way to achieve it is by doing in the marketplace what Massachusetts did with the Kennedy dynasty a few of weeks ago.  We need to dump the stock of companies that allow their CEO’s to receive outrageous bonuses and endless expense accounts because the money comes out of our pocket.  

We need to instill in every CEO that the profits of the company are first due to the corporation’s owners: you, me, and the rest of the holders of common stock. We need to hamper every CEO’s ability to fill a company’s board of directors with yes men who will allow him/her to pillage and plunder the treasury of the company he/she is entrusted to run. We need to find ethical people to run our public corporations.

To cure our current economic problems as free market capitalists, we need to accept the payment of fewer taxes on the condition that we invest in business ventures that create job opportunities. We need to eliminate the restrictions on the purchase of health insurance coverage across state lines. We need to eliminate an insurance company’s ability to refuse coverage to anyone after a policy is issued. We need to make health insurance coverage mandatory for everyone. We need to legislate a single premium for every covered person based on the actuarial experience of 300 million insured citizens from cradle to grave without exception.

To eliminate waste, we need to define when a claim made after a medical occurrence becomes frivolous. We should define as frivolous any claim that attempts to profit from a medical occurrence that was purely accidental. We need to understand that doctors are human, not deities. Doctors are not able to save everyone. Sometimes, people die despite all their best intentions and medical training. And we need to learn to deal with death at all ages. We need to know that individuals die when their time comes. We need to eliminate frivolous law suits. Accidents happen. All the while, doctors need to understand that they are expected to act according to their Hippocratic Oath. 

As a nation, we need to grasp that government is a necessary evil. We need it for many things, none to meddle in our life. It is a serious waste of resources the majority of time. Government’s only goals are to perpetuate itself, expand itself, and grab more power away from the people.

We need to change the way we elect politicians. We need to hold them accountable at every election. Let’s throw them out if they are not effectively reaching consensus to progressively get us out of national bankruptcy. Let’s put an end to the downward draft that spiraled out of control nine years ago and holds us down today.

We want the change we were promised, not more of the same. We want common ground solutions. We want government by consensus. We want a balanced budget at all levels. It’s the only effective way to move forward.

It’s been a few months since my last blog for a myriad of reasons, none good enough to break a promise of continued writing, but I am ready to mend my ways. Curiously, moving to work after so many weeks away from this blog is like starting fresh. Everything on the site is new to me, as if I had never done this before. It makes one wonder about the intricacies of the human brain–and the calendar.

Today my blog will deal particularly with Haiti. After the earthquake a week ago, the world suddenly became aware of the poverty that incarcerates our neighbors to the south. The popular saying is that the Lord works in mysterious ways. In this case, news broadcasting non-stop from the desolate country has made it possible for everyone across the globe to become aware of the nature of the country’s plight and this realization propels some to come to the rescue of these humble people.

Every television journalist addressing the latest misery to sweep this marginal country is quick to mention the statistics that make Haiti one of the world’s poorest territories, certainly the poorest in the Americas. As television viewers, the cameras expose us to the havoc caused by the earthquake: the loss of life, of property, and of precious economic opportunities in a country that lives, since its independence 200 years ago, immersed in poverty. We come to the conclusion that the Haitian people are amazing survivors.

From the video footage we learn of the tradition and history of sustained corruption that plunders the national treasury and wastes resources sorely needed to foment among the people of Haiti a better tomorrow. And we also hear clearly the people’s gratitude for the handouts they receive after so many days without nourishment or water. We see them meekly thankful for as little as it may seem to us watching from a distance, surrounded by comfort and excess in comparison to what others have in other parts of the world. Subconsciously, we indulge in questions about divine justice, karma, and fate as we digest the visuals.

The daunting images confront us with the dismaying reality that exists a short few hundred miles away. We watch and admire selfless individuals working through charitable organizations that provide humanitarian help to these very unfortunate people. From one side of my family, a little cousin who works with the City of Miami Emergency Rescue is seen on television with several of his colleagues as they drag an elderly lady out of the rubble seven days into the nightmare. The survival of individuals whose time has not yet come is astonishing. From another side of the family, another little cousin, an orthopedic surgeon flown from Pittsburgh in a private donor’s aircraft filled with physicians and medical supplies writes of the ordeals she faced while on the ground without adequate equipment to tend to the gangrene, amputations, and other infections out in the open. And all these raw images also serve to shake us violently inside. They cause us to feel uneasy about our abundance and our ambivalence until now to do something to try to balance some of the inequities that separate us. 

Suddenly, we dismiss the high incidence of AIDS, the hepatitis, the dysentery, the dengue fever, and the tuberculosis that habitually plague these indigent people and, regardless of the risks involved, extending our hand too becomes imperative; raising our voice is now our duty. And we come full circle to the starting point: those of us with ears are now able to hear; with eyes, able to see. Clearly, we hear and we see that which until now was neither audible nor visible to us.  Yes, we clearly feel the mystery of the ways of the Lord.

In closing, I urge you to contribute to make this world more tolerable for those who have so much less than we do. The best known organization that makes life a little easier at everyone’s most serious hour of need is the American Red Cross: www.americanredcross.org. There is also the United Nations World Food Programme at: www.wfp.org. It takes only 25 cents per day for this organization to feed a child somewhere in need. Please donate as often as you can. So many need our help!

After listening to the president last night and reviewing once more the text of the speech this morning, my mind is clear. Some of the comments offered and published by other readers of the NYT tend to be too partisan and did not give credit to the president where credit is due. I was staunchly opposed to any additional government intervention in the private life of citizens and to any expansion of the size of the federal government as well as to any intervention on my ability to live to as advanced an age as I am due–no pulling of my plug.

However, after listening with an open mind, the president’s proposal is very much to the point. It resolves all the issues that anyone concerned with government intervention would consider invasive. It foments a responsible citizenry that directly addresses their personal needs away from the hand of the government, eliminating the unnecessary tax burden on those who create jobs and produce goods that promote everyone else’s wealth, not just their own.

If everyone is required to purchase health insurance, neither the federal government nor the state governments nor the municipalities will have to bear the burden or irresponsibility on the part of the citizens. True, it is the hand of government forcing us all to be responsible, but it is now a necessity, to alleviate the burden of the few having to pay for the many irresponsible ones who prefer to travel, purchase goods with borrowed money that they are unable to pay back, and burden our municipal hospitals with the obligation to cater to their irresponsible behavior.

Kudos to Mr. Obama. He brought me around. Now we have to ensure that his words have meaning and that the group of crooks that run the Congress do exactly as they were told: LEGISLATE. Word the law correctly. Force insurance companies to fulfill their promise to their premium paying customers. Eliminate the denial of payment over pre-existing conditions. Fine the executives of the companies and throw them in jail if they fail to meet their contractual obligations. Force every citizen to carry insurance. Form exchanges across state lines to pool all the risks together and provide reasonable premiums for adequate coverage. Ensure competitiveness in the service and provision of healthcare across the country. Provide relief to the few who need it due to TEMPORARY hardship. Implement tort reform measures to ensure patient rights and reduce frivolous law suits. All these premises will reduce the spiraling cost of healthcare without quashing invention and capitalist incentives.

That’s the perfect bill and no one is taxed to pay for anyone else’s irresponsible behavior. It places the responsibility for our care on our own shoulders, not other people’s. It does not grow the government programs. It ensures compliance.

What’s not to like?