The Greatest Stunt On Earth

They’re not coming. I’m very disappointed.

In case you hadn’t heard, Governor Doyle issued a subpoena a few weeks ago, ordering big oil executives to come here this week and answer questions about their disgusting habit of making lots of money.

What a great idea, I thought. The Governor wants to solicit questions from ordinary Wisconsinites? Let’s do him one better. Let’s convene our own panel, and subpoena them ourselves. My neighborhood homeowner’s association has a board. Or, it will, after I form a homeowner’s association.

No subpoena authority, you say? It hardly matters. Doyle’s no more serious than I am.

Well, okay, a homeowner’s association – that’s ridiculous. Maybe my city ward. Or, maybe, the whole City of Baraboo.

Now that would be a media circus. Ha. Get it? Circus. The Ringling Brothers grew up here.

These are the jokes, people. The Governor is making them. So can I.

Anyway, it’s not to be. The oil executives declined to appear at Doyle’s hearing – they’ll send representatives, instead. The main reason, according to the news: if they comply with Doyle, they’ll have to appear in every other state where politicians like to grandstand.

Meaning they’ll have to appear in 49 other states, and possibly a few territories.

Governor Doyle wanted an explanation of the oil companies’ profits. I’m sure he – and plenty of legislative Democrats – could use that lesson in economics. In Democrat logic, it’s possible to make too much money.

Gov. Jim Doyle said Tuesday that he plans to use the state's consumer protection law to subpoena oil company executives to answer questions about oil company profits after recent hurricanes.

"We will issue subpoenas to the executives of the big oil companies and demand that they appear in Wisconsin to explain how they can justify making enormous profits in the wake of a national tragedy," Doyle said.

Here’s my favorite part:

Doyle's office has received more than 400 complaints from Wisconsin residents about high gasoline and energy prices since August, (spokesman Dan) Leistikow said.

Notice that Doyle didn’t take those 400 complaints to mean he should call hearings on Wisconsin’s highest-in-the-nation gas taxes. No, he right away leapt to the conclusion that somebody was making money, and the government wasn’t getting a big enough cut.

On the other hand, maybe we should take heart. I mean, beer prices are pretty high these days, too. All I need 399 other volunteers to lodge complaints with the Governor’s office, and we’re on our way.

Doyle’s idea is only marginally more serious than mine. Even the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel called it a political stunt. And so it is.

This was Doyle’s attempt at riding the anti-corporation wave that a few of his Democrat allies are trying to start. Wal-Mart, you know, is slowly but surely extending its reach into every corner of American life. They’re making enormous profits and driving Mom and Pop out of business, and they’re doing it on the taxpayers’ backs.

Of course, anyone who’s been in one of the seemingly thousands of dollar stores popping up all over the place knows: Wal-Mart’s prices can be beat. And what will you bet – those dollar store employees don’t get health benefits?

Are any dollar store employees on Medicare? BadgerCare? Why aren’t the Democrats on top of this?

Seems like I’ve spent a lot of time lately defending Wal-Mart, and now, apparently, I’m defending big oil companies. I don’t mean to. I don’t like paying high gas prices, either.

Of course, I’d like being without gasoline even less.

And I’m not entirely opposed to government nosing around when gas prices peak. Oil prices are partly controlled by futures markets – speculation on the future price of a barrel of oil. When something like Hurricane Katrina happens, investors think the price is going to rise...and it does, partly because they’re willing to pay more, expecting even higher profits.

Government interest – a hearing, perhaps – can help put the skids on the speculation.

None of this, however, absolves Doyle and his subpoenas. They weren’t just a stunt – they were also a wild attempt to distract us from the growing docket of pay-for-play allegations against his administration. A flailing attempt to gain some positive traction in the media, and with the voters. A desperate leap for the fighting-for-the-little-guy bandwagon.

A failed one, it turns out.

But what the heck. If he loses in ’06, well, he’s acting like a clown. Put a red nose on him, and send him to Baraboo.

The Thanksgiving Day Column

Note: since I'm traveling all weekend, I'm reposting this slightly edited version of the column I posted last Thanksgiving. I did write a Thanksgiving post this year: click here to read it.

The Thanksgiving Day column. What’s there to say, that a thousand other writers haven’t already said?

What a cliche.

Oh, sure, I could list out all the things I’m thankful for. My wife, who I really don’t deserve (though she doesn’t seem to know that). Our four kids, the rest of our family and friends. Our house, big and old with lots of history, as well as lots of space.

The job, my boss, my coworkers. For the opportunities my work provides, the camaraderie, all the funny little things that happen when you like what you do and the people you work with.

I like it here in Wisconsin – took me some years tooling around in the Army to realize that. I’m thankful for the weather: mostly for the fall colors, but even for the snow, and even in February.

I might have been born in Liberia, or Sudan, or Afghanistan. I wasn’t: I was born in a country where the poor people own color TVs and their kids are overweight. Where we’re free to hand out pamphlets on the street corner, accusing our government of evil and suppression.

There it is: your standard Thanksgiving Day column. Across the country, people who write for a living are writing some variation on the words I just wrote. And we’ll all do it again next year.

That’s what makes it so tough to write a Thanksgiving Day column – it’s all been said already. What is there new to say? Nothing. Cliché, man. It’s all cliché. Trite. Boring. Everybody says the same thing, year in, year out.

And why has it been said so many times? Possibly, because it’s true. That is, after all, how a cliché becomes a cliché – it’s repeated over and over, because it’s true.

There’s a fact of life there. One I took a long time to learn. Life, daily life, the in and out of the regular grind, isn’t exciting. It’s routine. Normal. Cliché.

I used to think that made life boring. Staying home Friday nights, the minutiae of daily routine, washing the dishes, checking homework. Day in, day out. That may be your life. It isn’t mine. My life is supposed to be exciting.

This is the real effect of popular culture, I think. In the movies, life isn’t boring. We always win the big game, and even if we don’t, we’re reconciled with our estranged fathers afterwards, anyway. Love is easy: you meet, argue a few times, and bang, it happens. Add a car chase, roll credits, fade out.

The arguments are always over by the end of the movie. The loose ends are tied up. Bad guys are dead or in jail. Kids behaved. Evil defeated. The boy and girl who are supposed to end up together do end up together, and we just know it’s going to last forever, no questions asked.

It’s all so neat and clean. So perfect, and it only takes between two and three hours.

It happens in the movies, so we think it should happen in real life, too. Not only should things finish up neatly, loose ends tied up tight, it should also be spectacularly exciting along the way.

At some point, not sure when, I learned life isn’t like that. Things don’t tie up neatly. When one problem is solved, another takes its place. And sometimes the next one doesn’t wait for the first one to finish up.

There’s no sliding along with a lousy job, and still hanging out with your friends at the coffee house all the time. No bouncing from girlfriend to girlfriend with no regrets. No undying romantic relationship that stays fresh and exciting day in, day out.

Life is paying the bills, mopping the floor, nursing the headache and wishing the kids would stop fighting just for five minutes.

At some point, I learned how to take a step back, to get a broader perspective on things. What I saw was this: it’s those little annoyances, the problems, the struggles, the anxiety, that make it all worthwhile in the end. It’s not exciting, it’s routine. But, as my younger self would never understand, I love it.

It’s not that I’ve given up. I haven’t just “settled.” I have learned there’s great satisfaction in walking in my front door at night, and sitting down to dinner. Who would have thought?

That I have learned this is, I think, is what I’m most thankful for.

Before the First Thanksgiving

Who were the Pilgrims?

That’s easy. The Pilgrims were people who wore bonnets, or big black hats with buckles on them, and carried muskets with bell-bottomed barrels. They were the first European Americans. The Indians taught them to use little fish as fertilizer.

Okay, so it’s not quite that simple.

The “Pilgrims,” as we call them, weren’t really pilgrims at all. Not in the strictest sense of the word – someone who travels far to visit a religious site.

On the other hand, that’s exactly what they were. People seeking the freedom to live, worship, raise their families as they chose. And they undertook a long and dangerous journey to find that.

The Pilgrims were part of the group known as Puritans – Christians who broke with the Church of England following the Reformation.

I’ll back up a little. The Reformation – the breaking of the Church of England from Rome – happened in 1532. King Henry VIII wanted to divorce his wife, but the Pope wouldn’t let him.

Outside the palace, the move was widely supported: many Christians felt that Catholic worship and hierarchy was incompatible with the Bible. To some, simply breaking away was enough. To others, it wasn’t: they wanted to cleanse more Roman influence from England’s church. This disagreement, among others, later led to the English Civil War.

The Pilgrims were among the latter group. Unfortunately for them, they were also largely out of favor with the Crown. To avoid imprisonment for their beliefs and persecution by their neighbors, some of them left England, emigrating to Holland, where religious tolerance was higher.

That didn’t last. There were few opportunities for them in Holland. They worried that their children would grow up Dutch, rather than English. And English pressure on the Dutch to suppress religious dissent was growing.

It was time to move again. This time, to the New World.

They didn’t all go – fewer than half of them left Holland to begin the two-month journey. This is the moment I find most interesting. The decision: stay, or go.

Stay, and face intolerance of your religious views. Live with the knowledge that open practice of your beliefs means suppression, possibly imprisonment, possibly worse.

But live with the knowledge that you won’t run out of food. Warm clothes. The basic necessities. If you can never be completely secure, at least you’ll be surrounded by familiarity.

Or go, into the unknown. Live as you believe God wants, without interference from other men. Raise your family as you believe right. Freedom. But…cut yourself off from known civilization. There’s no help to be had, should you slip. No 911 to call.

Maybe you’ll see a ship from home next year. Maybe you won’t. No way of knowing, really.

I wonder, how rampant and wild were rumors about the New World? How much did the Pilgrims really know? Did they know about Roanoke, the first English colony, which disappeared without a trace thirty years earlier? The near-failure of Jamestown, and the warfare with native tribes there?

How many of the Pilgrims thought, or at least suspected, that in the New World be Dragons?

Those who left repression, but relative safety, for danger but freedom in the New World became the forbears of our Founding Fathers. Their quest for freedom over security became a guiding principle in our way of life.

At least, it used to be. Whether it is anymore, I’m not sure.

The Mayflower landed in what became Massachusetts in November of 1620 – 385 years and two days ago today. Massachusetts is beautiful this time of year…unless you’re arriving with dwindling food, no shelter, and very little time to acquire them. About half the Pilgrims died of starvation and/or disease that winter.

A year later, things were different. They’d had a full growing season. They hunted, they fished, they harvested. They signed a peace treaty with the Wampanoag, the local native tribe.

By September, or perhaps as late as November, they decided it was time for a celebration – a celebration of their bounty, their success, their blessings. So they – about 50 of them, and about 90 Wampanoag – spent three days feasting, playing, entertaining each other, and giving thanks.

That was the first Thanksgiving. It wasn’t official, of course. Couldn’t be. Football hadn’t been invented yet.

But this Thanksgiving, while I enjoy the games and snooze off the turkey, I’ll remember to say a quick prayer of thanks for those Pilgrims, and their brave decision.

And I’ll try to be worthy of it.

Why Wal-Mart?

What is it about Wal-Mart?

Yes, it’s a great big company. Yes, it makes lots of money. Yes, it sometimes drives competitors out of business.

And? We have lots of big companies. We have lots of companies that make lots of money. And we have lots of companies, which for one reason or another, sometimes go out of business.

But…Wal-Mart. Wal-Mart is uniquely hated. It’s drawn special attention. Special revulsion, from the political left wing. Out of all America’s evil, selfish, profit-taking capitalist ventures, they are the worst.

Or so we’re led to believe.

There’s even a movie. A documentary, purporting to shine the light of day on all of Wal Mart’s corruption. It’s being shown all around the country, in small theaters and homes.

In excellent form, the Journal Sentinel’s Jim Stingl writes: “The bad news, if you can believe everything in a propaganda film like this, is that Wal-Mart pays crummy wages and benefits; treats its employees poorly, especially the women and minorities; kills small businesses everywhere it opens; commands government subsidies even though it's filthy rich; causes pollution; sells mostly goods made overseas; and doesn't care about people being mugged in its parking lots.”

We’ve got a Wal-Mart in my home town. And not just a Wal-Mart, but a Wal-Mart Superstore. It’s a miracle we’ve survived this long.

Oh, we’ve also got a K-Mart, a Menard’s, a Slumberland, a Gander Mountain, and, not too far away, a Home Depot.

Not only that, we’ve got a thriving downtown, full of small, independently owned shops and cafés. Empty storefronts don’t stay empty for long.

Wal-Mart was blamed for a couple of closings here in Baraboo, back when they moved in. A small hardware store closed. It had already been competing with two larger hardware stores at the time. Then a grocery store on the east side of town (Wal-Mart, Pick and Save, and Aldi’s are all on the west side). It’s reopened, now, under new management.

Maybe there are other businesses I’m not aware of, which closed because of Wal-Mart. Other communities may have had different experiences than mine.

If so, that is a shame. It’s always a shame when a hardworking business doesn’t make it, whatever the reason. And, usually, competition with a stronger business will have played a part, whether it’s Wal-Mart or some other competitor.

For example, we’ve got a McDonald’s in town. Two Pizza Hut locations. A Culver’s Restaurant. Wok King, Domino’s, Taco Bell.

Have any small, locally owned restaurants closed, because of them?

We’ve got a Book World chain store downtown. Hasn’t stopped the Village Booksmith, a used-book store, from thriving. Or so it seems.

I know, Wal-Mart pays a pittance, and they don’t offer health benefits for most of their employees. That means some Wal-Mart employees are enrolled in Medicaid, BadgerCare, or some other taxpayer-funded health care.

And none of Menards’ employees are? McDonalds’? The guy behind the counter at the little gas station four blocks from here?

Well, yes, maybe they are. But Wal-Mart is rich. Twenty-seven thousand employees in Wisconsin alone. They can afford to pay for health insurance, but choose not to out of selfishness and greed. Their employees? Brainwashed, I suppose. Or stupid. Too dumb to know they’re being exploited.

Or so the Rebellion would have us believe.

Others before me have pointed out: we decry oil companies for charging too much, but Wal-Mart for charging too little. We don’t seem to understand: if Wal-Mart’s prices are lower, it means more disposable income for us. If one store offers a variety of products normally available only at multiple stores, it means less time spent shopping.

Stingl again: “Maybe America would be better off without Wal-Mart. It would be great if stores like this paid $20 an hour, had fabulous benefits and sold only American goods. I'm sure we'd all be willing to pay more for their merchandise, right?”

The 1.2 million Wal-Mart employees nationwide may not be universally happy with their jobs, but they’re happier than they’d be, were they unemployed. The hundred million people a week who shop at Wal-Mart might wax nostalgic for Mom and Pop stores, but they still shop at Wal-Mart.

And Wal-Mart might work hard to keep overhead – thus prices – low, and profits high. But that only makes them…ordinary. Every business, no matter the size, tries to do the same thing.

Which begs the question: why has Wal-Mart been singled out?

Rational Opposition? Nope.

Are rational arguments too much to ask for?

Over any controversial issue, there will be emotion. Anger. Angst. Some people – and sometimes trusted institutions, too – will use any argument, sound or not, to make their case.

For example, the Racine Journal Times, in their recent editorial about the Personal Protection Act (PPA) – a bill that will authorize concealed weapons in our state.

The Times says legislators aren’t listening to the people the bill will affect.

…the Republican legislators who control the Senate and Assembly don't seem to be listening. Not to us, and not to companies like Modine Manufacturing Co., which lost three employees at its Jefferson, Mo. manufacturing plant two years ago when another employee opened fire on them, wounded five others and then killed himself.

…

Last week, Modine was pushing for an amendment that would allow companies to ban guns on its property, including parking lots, and to be able to keep guns out of its place of business by simply posting a notice at the entrance.

As written, the concealed-carry law would require each business - and that would include shopping malls, hospitals and churches - not only to post a "No Guns" sign, but also to orally notify each person coming into the building.

The Modine amendment, asking for a simple sign in the entrance, was voted down on a 6-6 Assembly committee vote last week.

From the company’s standpoint, this may be perfectly rational. Having to verbally inform each person of their no guns policy – that could be an honest inconvenience. A real expense.

But that’s not why the Times used Modine as an example, is it? No. It’s not the inconvenience. Not any potential downside for businesses. It’s the shooting. That’s why.

An employee entered the building and opened fire, killing three others and then himself. At the risk of sounding flippant: did he know in advance that this is illegal? Immoral? Frowned upon, generally, by society?

Probably, yes. The existence of laws and social mores didn’t stop him. Knowing he was ending his own life, whether or not he died, didn’t stop him.

A sign, indicating that guns aren’t allowed on the company’s property. That would have stopped him?

Maybe the company can put the “no guns” sign right next to the signs forbidding stealing company property, sleeping on the job, and making profits that government bureaucrats and elected officials would consider “obscene.”

To recap: concealed weapons are currently illegal in any public place in Wisconsin, the only possible exception (according to the Supreme Court) being a business owner inside his or her own business.

What the Times fears is: allowing law-abiding citizens to carry a concealed weapon after they’ve been through extensive training in firearms safety and passed a Justice Department background check will bring us more tragic occurrences like that at Modine, or like the May shooting in a Brookfield hotel that left 8 dead.

Whether they’re right or wrong doesn’t matter. Not for the sake of this argument. What matters is: if they are right, how do we prevent it?

Will a sign prevent it?

Well, let’s see. Existing laws, social mores, the rest of the shooter’s own life: these don’t seem to be enough.

But a sign. Now, if only they’d had a sign.

Granted, a greeter isn’t likely to be any more effective – even one with a uniform and a badge. Once a shooter gets to that point, there may be nothing we can do.

Except, possibly, increase the chances somebody ELSE in the area is armed.

Still…would the shooter have been taken aback by a verbal notice? Would he have thought the greeter knew what he was up to? Wondered if he’d been caught before he began? Realized that what he was doing was insane?

It’s a slim chance. Less than slim. But it’s a greater chance than a sign. It makes for a stronger safety margin.

Yet the Times – no friend to the right to bear arms – calls it a flaw. They “urge Gov. Jim Doyle to veto” the bill, unless it’s fixed.

And then they'll support it, right?

No. That's not their purpose. This isn't an attempt to perfect the bill - it's a cynical effort to back-door kill it. To turn public opinion against it.

That's as rational as we can expect them to be.

A Veteran's Day Chickenhawk

I’m a chickenhawk.

Okay, I don’t really mean that, but to others – anti-war leftists, mostly – I meet the criteria.

And I don’t entirely disagree.

I supported the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq. Supported dismantling the Taliban, hunting and hounding Al Qaeda, ending Saddam Hussein’s regime. And I still support them, whether or not the United Nations lied about WMD.

I agree that we want to bring the troops home as fast as we can, but wonder if “as fast as we can” will be anytime in the next five years. If it’s not, I’m okay with that, too.

But I’m not in uniform. I’m not on my way to Iraq or Afghanistan. I won’t be the one making the personal sacrifices my preferred policy requires.

I spent nearly eight and a half years in the Army Reserves and National Guard. Never really went anywhere, never really did anything. Never deployed. Never got called to active duty. The closest I came was during Desert Shield – I was a trainee then, at Fort Jackson, S.C. We were sent to Charleston to help unload vehicles from trains, and drive them to the dock, where they were loaded onto ships headed for the Gulf.

We bought packs of gum and put them in the vehicles’ glove boxes. Sometimes, due to the general chaos in which all the U.S. military lives, we missed chow.

These are my war stories. All of them.

I’ve been a civilian since 1998. I’ve never been to war. The extreme likelihood is I never will. I’m certainly not overturning any stones, looking for the opportunity. But I still support the war, and want our troops to stay over there as long as it takes.

That’s what makes me a chickenhawk.

The chickenhawk argument has already been rebutted, ad nauseum. It’s a lazy effort to minimize, marginalize, discredit people like me. To make our opinions less valuable. It’s an attack on the messenger: smear your opponent until nobody will listen to him anymore.

But it’s not that simple. For me, the chickenhawk argument has a certain… substance.

Allow me to wax egghead for a moment. As King Harry put it the morning of St. Crispin’s Day, in Shakespeare’s Henry V:

And gentlemen in England now a-bed
Shall think themselves accursed they were not here,
And hold their manhoods cheap whiles any speaks
That fought with us upon Saint Crispin's day.

That’s what I’m feeling. I’m one of those guys in England, still in bed while others fight. I’m holding my manhood cheap. Cheaper, anyway. It just doesn’t sit right to be on the sidelines. Not when others are leaving jobs and families behind. Not when they’re putting themselves in sometimes-mortal danger.

The war isn’t the only thing that makes me feel this way. Whenever the fire siren goes off here in my hometown, I know that our firefighters – volunteers, mostly – are dropping whatever they were doing and hauling to the firehouse. Whenever I hear a police siren. Whenever I hear that our church is looking for more Sunday School teachers.

I feel like I ought to be helping. Doing something. Doing more.

But you can’t do everything. In the end, I’ll do what I can, hope it’s enough, and learn to live with my own self-dissatisfaction. As we all will, serving or not.

And I’ll continue to be grateful for those who are doing what I am not. Teaching Sunday School, keeping us safe, responding to our emergencies.

And especially today, Veteran’s Day, I’ll be grateful for those who are serving our country. Leaving their homes, and jobs, and families behind. Enduring mental, physical, emotional hardships. Helping to ensure the security and strength that have for over 200 years allowed us, back home, to live and grow in safety and comfort.

If I can’t do anything else, I can say thank you.

Thank you.

Health Care: the Democrats' Broken Record

Am I starting to feel like a broken record? Yes. Yes I am.

But as long as legislative Democrats keep pushing a bigger, stronger, more intrusive government on us, I’ll keep right on skipping.

Won’t work…click…won’t work…click…won’t work…click.

That’s me. It’s a public service, really.

The latest: Senator Dave Hansen (D-Green Bay) and Representative Terese Berceau (D-Madison) want to require large companies (read: Wal-Mart) to pay for 80% of their employees’ health insurance, or pay the state “an assessment based on the cost of underinsuring their employees.”

It’s a new twist on an old theme – if the employees of big companies are using taxpayer-funded health care (Medicaid, BadgerCare, etc.), it’s because the big companies are greedy, and mean, and the government should force them to pay.

It’s also the third bad Democrat idea on the subject in less than a month. Three weeks ago, it was Senator Judy Robson’s non-proposal to require “universal” health care for 98% of Wisconsin citizens. Then, it was Senator Mark Miller’s proposal to create at least two new levels of government bureaucracy, which will result in better, cheaper, faster health care for everyone.

Because that’s always what results from more government bureaucracy. Right?

And now, the Hansen/Berceau “No Business Growth in Wisconsin Act.”

In their announcement, the two Democrats state: “Clearly, any employer with more than 10,000 employees is capable of offering its workers affordable and comprehensive health insurance. This bill creates an economic disincentive for these large employers to shirk their responsibility of providing adequate health insurance benefits to their employees.”

They’re right about one thing: this is an economic disincentive.

Imagine that you own a large company. You’ve got 9,950 employees, and you’re looking to expand.

Under the Hansen/Berceau plan, your company’s marginal costs – the cost of doing business – will take a huge jump once you pass 10,000 employees. And if you’re competing against a company with only 9,900 employees, you’re suddenly faced with a competitive disadvantage.

Maybe you’ll re-think creating those new jobs.

All your competitors have over 10,000 employees? Liberal logic says you can just use your massive profits to provide your employees’ health insurance, then, instead of buying another pimped-out jumbo jet for board junkets to the Bahamas.

Or, more likely, you’ll protect their profits – thus your stock prices, thus your viability as a healthy corporation – by raising prices to make up the difference.

Oops – I spilled the beans on that dirty little secret. The one about businesses existing to make profits. And about how, if they don’t make profits, they don’t stay in business.

Higher costs – whether it’s gas prices, union benefits, taxes, or government-imposed regulations – are simply passed on to us, the consumers, in the form of higher prices. Our disposable income is reduced. We can’t spend money on as many different things. Other companies are hurt.

Those are the possible outcomes. Lost jobs, or lost money. Or a combination of the two.

Neither is desirable. Either takes money out of the economy. Both mean growing influence of government over private individuals and their property.

And that’s a vile little fact, which Senator Hansen and his like-thinking peers don’t care to face: these businesses are private property. As much as it may gall Wisconsin’s Democrats, private individuals can still make some decisions – fewer, these days, but some – about their own property. They can decide to expand somewhere else – somewhere they won’t face the bureaucratic regulations Hansen and Berceau would place on them. They can decide to move. They can decide to do business elsewhere.

I understand, the rising cost of health care is a problem for many people. A real problem. A scary problem. Perhaps it’s only natural for a politician to try and tap that fear to score political points.

But the solution isn’t to make doing business in Wisconsin harder and more expensive. It isn’t to put greater strain on our economy, to work against a healthy economic environment, which creates the kind of jobs that carry health insurance in the first place.

A government big enough to give you everything you want is a government big enough to take everything you have. To Democrats in the Legislature, that’s just dandy. Just the way things should be.

Or so it seems.

This Isn't What We Are

I had a couple of questions last week. Is this what we really are? What we’re really becoming?

The “what” being a nation of people who want everything, just at someone else’s expense.

I concluded:

…we’ll scream and cry and stamp our feet when somebody has more money than us. We’ll excoriate them for not paying more of our expenses for us, or for somebody else.

That’s how it looks to me. That’s what we’re becoming. Is that really what we want?

I think I was being overly pessimistic. After all, my conclusion implies a certain finality, doesn’t it? The notion that our seemingly-growing dependence is a done deal. That we’ve abandoned all pretense of individuality, in favor of government-provided food and warmth.

It is, I admit, partly true. A significant part of our society thinks that’s desirable, and they’re led by political elites who harbor great distrust of their fellow citizens.

Just to cite a few examples:

- Colorado’s state government wanted more tax money to spend. Thanks to the Taxpayer Bill of Rights (TABOR), their Constitution requires that they first get the voters’ permission to spend more – so they asked, and the voters said yes, 52% to 48%.

The only possible conclusion, according to liberal politicians, unions, and spending interests here in Wisconsin, is that Wisconsin voters shouldn’t have the same power over our government that Colorado’s votes have over theirs. We shouldn’t have TABOR.

- A federal appeals court told parents in Palmdale, CA, to butt out of a school’s sex education program:

On Wednesday the court dismissed a lawsuit brought by California parents who were outraged over a sex survey given to public school students in the first, third and fifth grades.

But…a three-judge panel of the 9th Circuit dismissed the case, saying, "There is no fundamental right of parents to be the exclusive provider of information regarding sexual matters to their children."

- Wisconsin law already requires a responsible adult’s consent (with some exceptions), before a minor can have an abortion. On Tuesday, Wisconsin’s Assembly clarified and strengthened that law – closed real and potential loopholes, to give parents (legal guardians, etc.) real authority in the matter.

Pro-abortion legislators and Planned Parenthood dubbed it the “Teen Endangerment Act.”

- And on Wednesday, a legislative committee held a hearing on the Personal Protection Act – a bill to allow law-abiding citizens, trained in firearms safety, to carry concealed weapons.

Opponents, as they always do, screamed bloody murder. Predicted more crime, murder, and mayhem.

In a statement issued in Milwaukee, (Milwaukee Mayor Tom) Barrett said Wednesday that the measure would put “more guns and violence in our community.” He said, “Give us more positive solutions to the violence in our streets, not more guns in the wrong hands."

“The wrong hands,” in this case, are trained, law-abiding citizens.

In each of these cases, we have the same basic conflict: individual rights and responsibilities, versus dependence on state power.

For one side, the goal is to let us – individual men and women – take personal responsibility for our selves, our families, our decisions. The individual’s primacy over the government – which was, if my history is correct, the very idea behind our way of governance in the first place.

The other side champions the power of the bureaucrat, the politician, the government. The collective of society over the individual. Government bureaucrats decide how much taxpayer money to spend. Public schools – not parents – are responsible for raising children. Parents should have as little input as possible into the decisions their children make. Individuals can’t be trusted with firearms, even if they have neither history nor inclination toward crime.

Oh, sure, the other side has its reasons. Criminals carry concealed weapons in order to commit crimes. Therefore, non-criminals can’t carry concealed weapons.

Some parents don’t teach their kids about sex, so the schools will do it for all of us.

A few fathers are abusive toward their daughters, so none of us can have any authority over our daughters and a hideous medical procedure.

That’s the logic, to which I can only say: what the hell? Since when do I lose rights because others do the wrong thing?

It’s tempting to be pessimistic. To simply shake one’s head in disgust and despair that so many of us have given in to the mirage of socialism, collectivism, statism.

That’s not what we are – not what we’ve ever been. I’ll choose optimism, that we never will be.

Good. Evil. Popcorn.

Warning: the following post contains spoilers for the movies Serenity and Star Wars: Revenge of the Sith. If you haven't seen them yet, you must live underneath a small damp rock. Read at your own risk.

Today is a great day, if you’re a nerd. Heck, this whole couple of months has been a blessing to nerd-dom.

Today, Star Wars: Revenge of the Sith comes out on DVD. And it’s got six hours of extra features.

Homer Simpson, dreaming about donuts. That’s me.

And in just a few short weeks, the fourth Harry Potter movie opens. Not quite as intensively great for the nerdishly inclined, but up there.

And, just a few weeks ago, the opening of Serenity – the movie version of Buffy-creator Josh Whedon’s short-lived TV show, Firefly. Nirvana for the serious sci fi fan.

It’s a real shame that Serenity didn’t do well at the box office. Never mind the merchandising and spinoff potential (lots of it, too): you don’t have to be a science fiction fan to think Serenity was a great movie. It’s among the best movies I’ve ever seen.

Why? It all boils down to the battle between good and evil. In Harry Potter, that line is pretty clear: you’re either with Voldemort or you’re against him. Either good or evil.

It’s largely the same in Star Wars. Unlike Harry Potter, Anakin wrestled with the question for a while: what’s good, and what’s evil? He made his choice based on personal desire, and it cost him. Once he did, there was no longer any question. He was Evil. On the side of Evil. To be opposed, entirely, by Good.

In Serenity, the lines got a little harder to discern. Oh, you knew who the good guys were, but only because they were the main characters. You didn’t always like the things they did. And neither did they.

We generally know it – don’t we? – when we’re doing wrong. We know we shouldn’t have that fourth donut, or call in sick when we’re not. We know we shouldn’t look up horoscopes at work. Shouldn’t flirt with the cutie in the next office.

This applies to the bigger stuff, too: alcoholics and drug users. Adulterers. Gamblers. Embezzlers.

We know it’s wrong, but we do it anyway. That’s human nature. The duality of man. We do things we know are wrong. Things we know are bad for us. Even though we’ll be kicking ourselves for it later.

Or, even when we won’t. Sometimes we do what we believe is wrong, in the hope that by doing so, we’re serving some greater purpose.

If a movie character shot an unarmed man – two of them, even though one was trying to surrender – would you figure him for a good guy? What if he robbed a local payroll? Threatened to abandon his friends if they didn’t do what he wanted? Purposely caused an enormous battle in which thousands lost their lives?

Burned the flesh from the bodies of dead innocents and tied their skeletons to the front of his ship?

One of the characters in Serenity did those things. And he was a good guy. Captain Mal Reynolds – the hero. Because he had a higher goal in mind – a goal he reached, because he was willing to do things that would, out of context, be called cowardly. Grotesque. Evil.

But it didn’t come easy for him, and not because he was squeamish. In doing what he thought was right, Mal had to act counter to his usual motives – protecting his ship and crew, making a little money.

Right up until the end, he wasn’t sure what the right decision was.

The basic plot: Mal was trying to expose something the interplanetary government had done – an experiment that had caused the deaths of 30 million (or so) people. The government, against which Mal had fought, in an eventually losing war.

The government considered their goals worthwhile. Worth risking 30 million people, and worth a massive cover-up when it all went wrong. Told from another viewpoint – that of a scientist, maybe – Mal’s actions could be seen as evil, because they impaired the greater good, while the government’s might be seen, well, more like Mal’s. Horrifying, but necessary in order to reach that greater good.

That kind of discomfort – trying to choose among various paths, none of which seem, well, right – is normal for the character Mal Reynolds. He’s doing his best, but isn’t quite sure he’s doing right. But that doesn’t stop him. He goes on, aware he’s doing wrong, aware he’s doing some good. Willing to be satisfied with doing his best under difficult circumstances.

That’s the strength behind Serenity and its predecessor, Firefly . Human duality. We aren’t always comfortable with ourselves, or with the choices we make, even (maybe especially) when we can’t see any other path.

Movies and TV shows tend to show us a sanitized version of things – there’s right and wrong, good and bad. Pick a side. Harry Potter is like that. Star Wars is like that.

Real life isn’t. Sometimes, the only thing harder than doing the right thing is knowing what that right thing is in the first place.

That’s high drama. And Serenity’s writers captured it.