Another Mystified Liberal

"Did the architects of 9/11 really think they could tell the whole world what they were going to do…pretend to train the "hijackers" at phony CIA-drug-mob "flight schools," set off explosions in the WTC right in front of dozens of witnesses who would survive to tell the tale, confess on national television to demolishing WTC-7, have the Secret Service leave Bush dallying in a known location for an hour during an alleged surprise attack, prevent the Air Force from intercepting the attack planes, and then give three equally absurd, utterly contradictory stories explaining that "failure"?

…Life may be a comedy for those who think, and a tragedy for those who feel, but the audacity and sloppiness of the authors of the 9/11 extravaganza goes way beyond tragicomedy, into a whole new warped realm of the theater of the absurd."

- UW Professor Kevin Barrett, writing for the Muslim-Jewish-Christian Alliance for 9/11 Truth.

So the University of Wisconsin has a professor who believes – and has no qualms about telling his classes – that the US government destroyed the World Trade Center in a plot to start a war between Christians and Muslims.

I’m embarrassed. I hope the UW is, too.

If a math professor taught his students that two plus two equaled five, that professor would be fired. Barrett should also be fired, and for the same reason.

But…I wasn’t in New York, or Washington, on 9/11. I only saw it on TV, like the rest of the world. I haven’t done the research, haven’t studied Barrett’s “theory,” haven’t weighed the evidence.

I think my time is more valuable than that, but that’s beside the point.

I’ll put words into Barrett’s mouth now (they’re bound to be more intelligent than the ones he’s putting there himself): if I haven’t read his arguments, how can I be so sure?

That’s a good question. Let’s apply it elsewhere. The Holocaust. How can we be so sure that happened? There are plenty of intelligent, educated people who deny it ever did.

Same goes for the moon landing. Big conspiracy, that. Slavery in America? A lie, “designed to sow hatred” among the races.

The English colony at Roanoake mysteriously disappeared in 1590 – obviously a government cover-up, probably to protect the King’s financial interests. The Boston Massacre was a hoax, trumped up by the Sons of Liberty to sow anger toward the British. Abraham Lincoln preferred wearing his baseball caps backwards. He never wore a stovepipe.

I’m full of it? How do you know? Were you there?

Some things we know, simply because we know. Because they happened. How frustrating, that so many people can’t acknowledge what they see right in front of their noses.

This is by no means limited to Barrett’s lunacy. It’s common. Most common, if you ask me, on our political Left. Examples:

Bush Lied! A local Bush-hating letter-writer wrote to the local paper yesterday, to make that tired old claim again. There were no WMD in Iraq, you fool! New evidence be damned!

I’ve made this point before, and I’ll make it again: the UN itself claims to have found and destroyed massive amounts of chemical and biological weapon agents in Iraq, and that equally massive amounts were never accounted for.

Knowing this, how can one believe that Bush Lied? What’s the logical path to that conclusion? The UN and dozens, if not hundreds, of UN employees must also have lied.

A bumper sticker says: “Your honor student will pay for Bush’s tax cuts.” President Bush has cut taxes three times since 2000. This, according to the sticker, exploded the deficit and thus the national debt.

But there are two ways for a deficit to grow: too little revenue, or too much spending. Guess why we have a deficit today?

I’ll give you a hint: tax revenues have skyrocketed since Bush’s tax cuts. They did the same after Reagan’s. If anything my honor students will have more opportunities, because of Bush’s tax cuts.

That’s if we don’t screw them up between now and then.

An unborn child is a living being. Terrorists who bomb civilian markets and buses are murderers. Successful businesses should be encouraged. People are better off when they depend on themselves, rather than on the government.

Saddam Hussein was a maniacal and sadistic supporter of terrorists. Lower taxes mean stronger economies. Radical islamofascists destroyed the WTC.

Liberals aren’t stupid. Not all of them, anyway. How can things – such very obvious things – mystify them so?

Oh, Canada!

What’s the point of being the richest, most powerful, most influential nation in the world if Canada’s going to have a better view of Niagara Falls?

They do, you know. The best viewing angles are on the Canadian side. Of course, one can ask how many viewing angles one really needs to appreciate a waterfall. There are more than enough, if you ask me, from either side.

But still, it rankles.

The family and I just returned from our annual family camping trip – this year, a couple of days in Niagara, and then most of a week in Algonquin Provincial Park, Ontario, Canada.

For the record, I liked Canada. It was a lot like the U.S., viewed through an oddly-shaped glass. A slightly divergent alternate universe. The poor man’s international experience.

Even so, the cultures clashed. The Internet told us it’s cold in Canada – something I’d already assumed, it being located to the north. But high temps in the 20s? That’s just nuts. Hello! It’s June!

Once we got there, we found out it wasn’t really 25 degrees – not in real degrees, anyway. They use a different system to measure temperature. Celsius. When they say 25, they mean 77.

Wish they’d just say so. It’s already a challenge to stuff six people’s worth of gear into our van. We could’ve left the winter clothes at home.

And it turns out, Canadians measure other things differently, too. As the nice officer explained to me, “that’s kilometers per hour, eh. Not miles.” A kilometer, it turns out, is smaller than a mile. So 90 kilometers per hour (which is what the sign said) is right around 55 miles per hour. It was the same with gas – they sell it by the “liter.” A dollar five per liter means $3.99 per gallon. Cripes.

At least the money was pretty straightforward. And I’ll say this: the schools up there are outstanding. Everyone we met spoke perfect English, or nearly so. Even the people who spoke with an accent (more Irish than Yooper, it seemed to me), we could understand perfectly.

This, in a foreign country. We can’t even get our own citizens to speak good English sometimes.

But enough making fun of Canadians.

We got rained on twice. The power (and thus the water) to our campground was out for two days (no showers!). And we left enough Burri blood behind with the mosquitoes to put a serious kink in the Canadian ecosystem.

As you may be able to tell, I’m no outdoorsman. I go camping for two reasons: my family loves it, and we could never afford hotel rooms for a whole week. I go grudgingly, with two daily demands: showers, and coffee.

I’m adding a third demand after this year: an air mattress. Sleeping on the ground is for animals and dire necessity. Not vacation.

And yet, there’s simply no substitute for camping. Getting away from things, yes. Very important. It’s not enough to just take a week off from work. You have to go somewhere. Away. One can’t spend a vacation at home, surrounded by all the usuals. The phone. The TV. The computer. Email. Internet. Newspapers. All the little distractions and responsibilities of daily life.

Even hotels aren’t proof against these things. The smallest motels offer free Internet these days.

It’s amazing, how much of my life is tied to all that. Politics, news, the blogosphere. Equally amazing, if not more so, is how little I miss them when I’m straddling the seat of a picnic bench in the woods, wiping melted marshmallow off our four-year-old’s cheeks. Neck. Chest. Feet.

The kids played Red Rover and Mother May I and “Bump ‘til you Drop.” We didn’t tell them to go play, or to play together, or to make up new games. They just did it.

We all played cards. Chess. Went swimming. Hiking. Threw twigs into the campfire. Looked for wildlife. What we didn’t do: we didn’t miss the TV, or the phone, or the computer. I didn’t wonder who might have emailed me. I didn’t wish I could spend a few minutes clicking through the blogs.

Oh, I know, Over time, I’d have missed the issues and politics and blogging and all the general maneuverings of people who circle each other at daggerpoint on a daily basis. I’d have missed being part of it because, as I said after last year’s vacation, it is important.

But as the past week proved, it’s not everything. Not even close.

What it was...what it is...what it will be

Editor's note: Lance Burri has been abducted by his wife and children, who are holding him in an unknown location and demanding a "vacation" in return for his release. Until such time as Lance has made good on their demands, we will continue to publish from the Best of Lance Burri Collection.

The following column first ran on March 10, 2006.

It’s amazing how far we’ve come.

A true statement, if an incomplete one.

It’s always annoyed me a little bit, that phrase. The same goes for “time goes so fast.”

Sure it does, when you’re looking at it from the finished end. From here and now. Oh, the kids grow up so fast. Sure, now that they’re grown. But back when they were yelling and crying and spilling juice on your jacket and you couldn’t find a babysitter so you could have just one evening of adults – back then, you couldn’t wait for them to grow up and move out.

Or maybe that’s just me.

Whenever I hear “how far we’ve come,” it puts me in mind of another phrase – one I like a lot better. “How much farther will we go?”

We didn’t know, really, a decade ago, that it was possible to come as far as we have in just ten years. So where will we be ten years from now?

I’m put in mind of this because my family went to the EAA Museum in Oshkosh last week. I particularly enjoyed the World War II displays: an enormous map of the world, detailing deployments and movements of air forces; a B-25 we were allowed to crawl around in; and, oddly, a full-size model of two doughboys repairing a WWII-era jeep in what appeared to be a forest.

What that had to do with aviation, I’ve no idea. But the image stuck with me. I didn’t realize why until I hit our van’s brakes in the parking lot, on our way out.

Power brakes. I’ve never driven a car without them. Power steering, either. Or even air conditioning. That jeep had none of those. They didn’t exist yet.

The B-25? It was, surely, thicker and stronger than a soda can, but once inside it, it didn’t seem so. They flew how high? And how far? In this?

The wall map, representing thousands of ships, planes, people, spread over thousands upon thousands of square miles. I know they communicated with each other somehow, someway. But without satellites, without cellular technology, without fiber-optic cable.

Today, we have a really astounding amount of information available to us – literally at our fingertips. For example: I wore my Snoopy tie to work yesterday. Snoopy, with the flight helmet and goggles, flying his doghouse to meet the Red Baron over occupied France.

Remember the song? A friend and I tried to remember the lyrics, but couldn’t. Not quite.

Twenty years ago, even ten years ago, we’d have been on our way to the library (where we had no real guarantee of finding our answer), or out of luck. Today, we have a new verb: “google.” Five seconds later, the lyrics were right in front of me.

Five years ago, I didn’t own a cell phone. Ten years ago, almost nobody did. Car trouble? Wait for help. Not any more.

Modern technology gives us opportunities we didn’t have ten, fifteen, twenty years ago. Opportunities to learn, observe, meet people we never would have met without it.

We’ve come a long way, haven’t we?

I wonder, though. Back in 1945, did people wonder at the new things that hadn’t existed only a few years before?

Maybe not. Still, they must have considered themselves to be better off than people who lived fifty years before them.

Honestly, can you imagine living then? Without modern technologies? And as uncomfortable as that sounds, can you imagine living further in the past? Say, three hundred years ago?

Oh, sure – adventure, the new frontier, etc. Five hundred years ago: knights in armor and all that. Right. They didn’t know any better than to dump the chamber pot right outside the front door.

Nice place to visit, but I wouldn’t want to live there. Or…maybe not even visit.

As far as we’ve come, it only makes me wonder more: how far will we go? Space elevators, nanotechnology – maybe, in another 15 years, we’ll be implanting the technology right into our brains. A PDA you can’t ever lose!

I’m ready!

In a hundred years, even fifty years – will people say about living today what I just said about living in the 1940s?

As it’s unlikely that anyone reading this (much less writing it) will live out this century, that’s just another way of asking: we’ve come so far, and have no idea how far we can go…

…what am I going to miss?

And the Democrats Cheered!

Editor's note: Lance Burri has been abducted by his wife and children, who are holding him in an unknown location and demanding a "vacation" in return for his release. Until such time as Lance has made good on their demands, we will continue to publish from the Best of Lance Burri Collection.

The following column first ran on February 3, 2006.

What were they cheering for?

What, exactly, was so wonderful?

It was one of two moments in President Bush’s State of the Union Address that really stood out. In the first, Bush admonished liberals and Democrats:

“…there is a difference between responsible criticism that aims for success, and defeatism that refuses to acknowledge anything but failure. Hindsight alone is not wisdom. And second-guessing is not a strategy.”

Great line. Wish I’d written it.

President Bush was talking about foreign policy, but he could easily have been talking about domestic policy. He could have been setting the audience up for the next stand-out moment – the moment when he said this:

“Congress did not act last year on my proposal to save Social Security…”

At which, the Democrat side of the room gave a cheer.

Oh, but it wasn’t just a cheer. They leaped to their feet. Couldn’t stand up fast enough. Roared out their approval – approval for having done nothing, for having scuttled every attempt to reform this multi-trillion dollar program that is going bankrupt as surely as Cindy Sheehan is disgracing the memory of her son.

And the Democrats call huzzah! Stick it to the younger generations! Yay us!

Question: while Rome was burning, did Nero only fiddle? Or did he cheer and applaud now and then, too, like he was watching fireworks on the Fourth of July? Did he ooh and aah and clap his hands as the flames rose and burned and engulfed his city?

Kinda like the Democrats, cheering the defeat of Social Security reform?

And what, precisely, were they cheering?

Granted, the President mentioned “his proposal.” Democrats will bite on that: they weren’t cheering against reform per se – it was just Chimpy’s moronic attempt to throw the whole program at Enron’s feet. A bone for his corporate masters. That’s why they cheered – because Bush failed to snatch the very food from the mouths of elderly blue-haired grandmothers in order to pad the pockets of his Wall Street friends.

Right? Sure.

Some pundits have opined that Bush was “angry and embarrassed” by the applause, or that whoever put that line in the speech is wishing he (she) hadn’t.

I’m not so sure: I wonder if the speechwriters had considered that maybe, just maybe, the Dems would applaud that line, allowing Bush to go on to say:

“…yet the rising cost of entitlements is a problem that is not going away – and with every year we fail to act, the situation gets worse.”

They didn’t cheer at that one. I’m at a loss to explain why.

Because what the hell were they cheering for the first time?

We’ve been over these numbers before:

• Social Security currently owes over $12 trillion more than it’s ever expected to have;

• The program will be in real deficit in only 12 years;

• We have barely over 3 workers supporting each retiree today, and the Boomer generation is about to retire;

• Every year we put reform off costs us $600 million.

Not to mention, today’s workers can expect less than a 2% return on the money they “contribute” to Social Security. And that’s before any benefit cuts and/or tax increases.

Which we’ll need, of course, to keep the program going.

Had a worker spent his lifetime investing in the Dow Jones, and retired that day in recession-laden 2001 when the Dow Jones bottomed out, he would still have realized interest earnings of 7%, compounded annually.

Seven percent is better than two percent. Always has been. Always will be.

That’s the situation, and it’s not getting better. Every moment we wait, reform gets harder to achieve. The problem gets worse.

Solutions are few: raise taxes, cut benefits, invest. Or some combination thereof.

Or start euthanizing the Boomer generation. But…surely they weren’t cheering for that.

No: the Dems were simply cheering the defeat of their nemesis. Their white whale. Their bogeyman – the one that makes those scratching noises under the floorboards late at night.

They were cheering because they “won.” They won, not because their ideas prevailed, but because Bush lost.

Oh, and the fact that the rest of us are losing, too…yes, well, that’s unfortunate. But as long as Bush lost. That’s what’s important.

Seniors and Boomers: your benefits are in jeopardy. My generation, and my children’s: our future is in jeopardy.

Democrats of Congress: hip hip hooray! You won!

The Greatest Stunt on Earth

Editor's note: Lance Burri has been abducted by his wife and children, who are holding him in an unknown location and demanding a "vacation" in return for his release. Until such time as Lance has made good on their demands, we will continue to publish from the Best of Lance Burri Collection.

The following column first ran on November 29, 2005.

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.

A Fair Deal?

A question for conservatives:

If two sides negotiate a contract, do we begrudge one side for getting a better deal?

Answer (I assume): no. A deal’s a deal. If one side makes out better, good for them. As long as everything was on the up and up.

Another question: if that’s the case, why do we want to renege on our contracts with public employees?

Enter Jay Bullock, a.k.a. Folkbum, a Milwaukee public school teacher and one of Wisconsin’s better-known liberal bloggers. Just the other day, he wrote this:

“…Republicans like (Patrick) McIlheran--and, to pick just one more example, Brian Fraley – have no compunction at suggesting that public employees surrender their deferred compensation.”

For the record, Fraley didn’t suggest that. Neither did McIlheran. Not in those posts. Their point was simply that, in the past, our governments have agreed to generous pay and benefits packages, and today those packages are biting us in our collective fiscal butts.

Bullock saw what he wanted to see, as we all, sometimes, tend to do. Case in point, blogger Dad29, who responded to Bullock’s post:

Ol' Jay uses the usual argument--that teachers take Lamborghini bennies to compensate for their low, low salaries.

But how "low" ARE the salaries?

Bullock says (in the comments) “I never claimed that teachers aren't paid enough.”

That’s true: he never wrote those words. He sure implied them, by comparing Wisconsin teacher salaries (not total compensation!) to salaries in other states (we’re below average, and “falling further behind”). He never comes right out and says: we want more money.

But what’s a little implication between friends? Bullock later says of Dad29:

Therefore (he implies) I should just shut my trap when conservatives demand we--or other public employees--give up the benefits we have legally bargained for.

He wants us to shut up and quit complaining about legally bargained benefits. I’m sure he’ll be just as steadfast about living with fewer benefits, if that’s the result of a future legal and fair bargaining process.

Still, we can’t fault public employees for wanting (and getting) a good deal. I have no beef with anyone getting the best deal possible. That’s capitalism. That’s the American way.

Which isn’t to say I don’t have a beef. I have at least two on this subject.

We pay government employees well. Very well. Last year, total compensation for Wisconsin teachers averaged over $67,000. The average salary was over $45,000. If two average teachers marry, they almost crack the top ten percent of income earners in the US.

These are good salaries. Secure salaries. But to hear the educational bureaucracy, the union in particular, you’d think teachers were living in poverty. Clearly, they are not.

So, what do I want? Thanks? No, although I (a state employee myself) do frequently thank people (semi-jokingly) for my health insurance.

But how about acknowledgment? Could a union official just once say something like: "of course we'd like to make more, but these packages are pretty good," or "we've got fantastic benefits, no doubt about that, but we think we deserve more pay."

Please?

Bullock correctly points out that teacher compensation is the result of a contract, fairly negotiated and agreed to. But that brings me to my second beef: a vaguely uneasy feeling that, while the unions were working for the best deal they could get, our elected boards weren’t.

Over four years ago, Milwaukee County discovered that their elected board had handed incredibly generous and taxpayer-funded retirement benefits to their employees.

It wasn’t just the sheer amounts (although that was stunning enough). It was that county employees had researched, developed, and advised the County Board to pass a plan that lavishly benefited those same employees, and the Board went merrily along.

That didn’t pass the smell test.

Milwaukee is an extreme case, but not the only case. Elected boards have a tendency to go native. To listen more to their employees than to their constituents. To act more freely with taxpayer money than they would with their own.

That’s why I sound off about public employees’ lucrative pay and benefits. I want our elected officials to start doing what the unions are doing: get the best deal possible. I’m not sure they’re doing that now.

Zarqawi

Does anyone else feel like a Munchkin today?

Ding! Dong! The witch is dead! Which old witch? The wicked witch!

Abu Musab Al-Zarqawi; chief lieutenant to Osama Bin Laden. Leader of Al Qaeda in Iraq. “The other butcher of Baghdad.” A house fell on him. He’s dead.

See, I’m comparing him to a female character in a film beloved by Western culture. That’s called rubbing salt into the multiple shrapnel wounds. How very flippant of me.

We don’t honestly know how bad Zarqawi’s death is for the bad guys. We do know that it’s good for the good guys. For our morale, if nothing else.

But…how happy should I be? I confess, all the gleefulness over his death is leaving me a little uneasy. I’m just not comfortable with the oft-expressed hope that he suffered, and that he’s now roasting eternally while standing on his head in a room full of feces.

Call me a bleeding heart, I guess. A bleeding-heart conservative.

I am glad the guy is gone. Obviously, this is a big moment in the war. Could be, anyway, depending on how much it disrupts Al Qaeda and the insurgency. Zarqawi will be replaced, sure. But by whom? How long will it take?

How many people have the experience to run a nation- or region-wide insurgency, with all the necessary secrecy, authority, logistics? How many are there who can plan, organize, delegate, discipline, and still inspire loyalty in the troops, both old and new?

Exceptional management skills don’t come along every day. Management skills and top-notch charisma even less frequently. The right leader can make all the difference in victory. Losing that leader can make all the difference in defeat.

That’s one reason to be happy. The other: Zarqawi was a real-life evil-doer. From what I’ve read, he was responsible for Al Qaeda’s civilian-targeting strategy in Iraq. If anyone deserved to die, it was him.

So. The last thing I want is to sound like this guy:

All the commentaries I heard today - whether left or mainstream - seemed pleased at the murder of al-Zarqawi. I have to wonder how far we have come when we cheer the murder of someone - even al-Zarqawi if he was the heinous individual he was portrayed as.

Zarqawi’s death wasn’t “murder.” At worst, it was well-deserved payback. In my book, it was the strategic removal of a lynchpin (I hope) in the enemy’s machine.

It was necessary, just as the war is necessary. And it was unpleasant. Just like the war.

Zarqawi was, as little as he acted the part, a human being with a soul – a soul we’re all assuming has been lost, and lost a long time ago. The odds that Zarqawi would have repented, had he lived another 30 years, seem slim.

I’m not talking about converting to Christianity. We can just stick to loving God, and loving our neighbors as ourselves. Even the ones who live two countries away. Or to the Golden Rule. Every major religion includes a version of that, or so I’ve read.

I know people don’t want to hear anything vaguely sympathetic about Zarqawi right now. I sure don’t want to say it. Even as I write it, I’m squirming in my chair.

Zarqawi was evil. If I feel sorrow at his unredeemed passing, I have to feel twice as much for each of his victims – the people whose lives he ended, either directly or indirectly. Those he killed, and those he corrupted.

Plus, there are certain people – Zarqawi and Osama, Jeffery Dahmer, Adolf Hitler – I would gratefully kill myself, had I the chance to do so. Simply because I know that the world will have a better chance without them, than we do with them.

I’d do it, and then I’d get me to a church. Beg forgiveness, both for myself and for them.

And yet. Killing Zarqawi was an act of necessity. It was pragmatic. Realistic. Sensible, given the circumstances. We should view it in the same way we view spanking the kids. Not something we want to do. Something that hurts us to do, even while we know it will hurt more, long term, not to.

What They Won't Mention

Schools are in bad shape, and getting worse.

Well, sometimes. Other times, our schools are doing terrific work, students are achieving high marks, Wisconsin is leading the nation in public education.

Just last week, we found out that all but one of Wisconsin’s school districts met the goals set by the No Child Left Behind Act, and that 98.6% of Wisconsin teachers are highly qualified!

Given that, one tends to wonder: what’s with the pessimism?

WEAC – the state teacher’s union – surveyed Wisconsin’s school district administrators (they do it every year), and the results weren’t good. In all, 89% of school administrators think our school funding system – the revenue caps – must be changed “for the long term health of public education in Wisconsin.”

Not only that, 78% said revenue caps have had a negative or very negative effect on the “overall quality of education.”

For example, in 2004-05:

62% of districts offered fewer courses.
57% reduced the number of academic courses.
61% reduced programs for gifted and talented students.
66% laid off school support staff.
65% increased student fees.
53% reduced extracurricular programs.
53% reduced programs for at-risk students.

Message: revenue caps are bad.

There are only two basic parts to the state’s revenue cap system: spending limits, and referendums to let school districts get around those limits. All they have to do is get the voters’ permission.

The education bureaucracy wants to change that system. Interestingly, they don’t tell us what, exactly, they want to change. They won’t come right out and tell us “we want more money.”

I wonder why.

Something else I find interesting. These are excerpts from the press release:

State-imposed education caps are devastating the curriculum in our state’s great schools and worsening over time, according to a survey released today by the Wisconsin Education Association Council and the Wisconsin Association of School District Administrators.

… 48% of the school districts increased class sizes in 1998-99 because of the caps while 70% did in the 2004-05 school year. Thirty-six percent of districts laid off teachers in 1998-99 while 70% did in 2004-05.

…

Sixty percent of the districts with declining enrollment predicted they would have to cut vocational and technical education programs and art programs in the next three years if the education caps law is not changed, and more than 50% said they would cut programs in foreign language and music. Even among districts with increasing or stable enrollment, approximately half as many superintendents predicted making cuts in those areas.

Read the whole thing, if you want. Now: a quiz. What does this press release not mention, regarding the revenue caps?

Did you say referendums? That’s right! One half of the revenue cap system – ignored entirely!

Let’s mention them now with a question: of all those school districts that made all those cuts last year: did they, or did they not, ask their voters for more money?

That’s an either/or question. Yes or no. They asked, or they didn’t.

If not, why not? And how can you complain about funding if you’re not pursuing every available course of action?

If they did ask, then they either got the money or they didn’t. Either way, the voters spoke.

So what, exactly, is the complaint?

Okay, so it might not be that simple. Maybe a district didn’t have a referendum because they didn’t think it would pass. Maybe they did have a referendum, but for less money than they needed. Maybe the board is packed with fiscal conservatives who won’t approve a referendum.

One can dream, anyway.

Education bureaucrats don’t like the referendum option. It’s too cumbersome, too expensive, too hard. Too risky. Better to pack the board with freespending yes-men and let the money flow.

If not for that darn law. If not for those irritating voters.

It all comes down to this: the education bureaucracy – WEAC, DPI, school boards, etc. – don’t want to have to ask us for more. They want more freedom to tax, and more freedom to spend, without direct voter input.

Oh, I know, many/most/all of them have good intentions. Educating children. A worthy endeavor.

But government exists to serve the voters. It’s what they want that counts. The voters outrank the government bureaucracy. That’s how we do things here.

The education bureaucracy doesn’t talk about referendums if they can help it, because it undermines their goal: more money, without obstacle. That’s what they want. That’s all they want.

They just don’t want to say it.

Giving Unto Ceasar

I’m going to Heaven. It’s a done deal. Do you live in Wisconsin? Then you’re coming with me. Don’t even worry about it.

How do I know? Because Wisconsin’s taxes are really high. We’re seventh, nationally, in state and local tax burden.

Feels good. Doesn’t it? Makes you wonder why anybody would move to, say, Utah (22nd in taxes), where eternal bliss is a lot less likely, Mormon Church or no.

And Coloradans are just screwed. Not only are they a pathetic 38th in taxes (at least they’re not Alaska!), they wrote “formula-driven restraints” into their Constitution.

Bad news, according to the Wisconsin Alliance of Cities:

…TABOR is contrary to Judeo-Christian morality in any guise that includes formula-driven restraints on the ability of government to do what is right.

TABOR. The Taxpayer Bill of Rights. “Formula-driven” limits on government growth, usually tied to inflation and population. The idea is simple: government can grow at a certain rate, unless the voters give their permission to grow faster.

If you think more citizen control over government taxes and spending is a good idea, you’re not just wrong: you’re committing a sin.

Oh, and that thing I said before? About all us Wisconsinites going to heaven? Forget it. We already have “formula-driven restraints” on government. Both in statute, and in the Constitution.

We’re at odds with Judeo-Christian morality.

What do government fiscal restraints have to do with the followers of Moses and Jesus, you ask?

The Alliance quotes heavily from this April op-ed, written by three Wisconsin religious leaders:

The title of the amendment asserts we need to be protected from a large impersonal government. But no amendment can protect us from the moral claims of our neighbors.

No Taxpayer Protection Amendment can protect us from the moral claims of our children to a quality education.

No amendment can protect us from the moral claims of our parents and other elderly neighbors to income security, care and services…

No amendment can protect us from the moral claims of the ill for health care…

…in the final analysis, no amendment or slogan can protect us from the judgment of history.

At the risk of confusing the liberals who are nodding vigorously and shouting “yeah!” right now: doesn’t equating government taxes with Judeo-Christian morality kinda conflict with that whole “separation of church and state” thing? Where are Annie Gaylord and the ACLU when you need them?

Allow me to ask a few questions:

Are we morally required to build swimming pools? Golf courses? Bike paths?

Are we morally required to pay government employees more, on average, than the average citizen makes? To supply top-notch pension and health benefits?

Are we morally required to pave every road, or would God be okay with dirt or gravel sometimes?

Are we morally required to subsidize museums and theaters?

Are we morally required to air-condition government buildings?

Our government does all those things with money somebody earned. Money they were legally obligated – coerced, through the power of government – to give.

Morally required? If not, can we reduce our taxes without risking God’s wrath? Can we keep the money instead?

Or…since my taxes will be higher this year, can I give that much less to my church? Can I skip contributing to the food bank? Can I just keep the money, for myself?

Do you believe the war in Iraq is illegitimate, imperial, based on lies? Tough noogies. The government wants it, so you’re going to help pay for it.

The Bible says you should give 10%. We’re giving three times that already (and more), and charities be damned.

I’m no master theologian. I won’t argue that I know what God wants.

But, boy, when it’s time to make my case at the Pearly Gates, I mean to have something better to say than “my state had a really generous welfare program!”

The taxes-as-Christian-charity argument is a cop-out. It says we don’t have to be individually charitable, because we gave at the office. It says limiting government – what government can take, and what government can spend – is un-Christian.

Baloney.

Government is wasteful, because that’s how enormous bureaucracies are. Government is also powerful.

You want more power to give to those in need? Fine. But government can’t give unless it first takes. Takes from you, from me, from all of us.

Christian charity is done of our own free will. Taxes are not. They’re two different things, no matter where the money ends up. And I’m ready for a change.