Debates Count-- But How, for What, and for Whom?

     When an electorate is not sufficiently informed about the issues and the candidates positions and ideas related to those issues, presidential elections can be won based on the quality of performances during debates (on how well the speaker spoke and how convincing and presidential the speaker looked) rather than the quality of the candidate's ideas and veracity of his/her assertions.

     Because I had concluded how useless and maybe even counter-productive debates might be, I considered not listening to this year's Obama-Romney debates.  The media were communicating that positions and ideas expressed by candidates during the debates could nullify things already said either prior to or during the campaigns.   It was as if voters are being told to treat the pre-campaign dialogues as only training for the championship match, where the championship is unrelated to anything that transpired prior to the big match.  Past lies, inconsistencies and condescending remarks about fellow Americans no longer matter.  Everything needed to select a winner rests on what happens during the debates, making an etch-a-sketch strategy possibly a winning strategy when enough voters who are undecided because they are uninformed use the debates are their primary source of information. 

     Expressions such as convictions, passion, determination and sincerity can be inferred from a candidate's jesters or manners of speech, but they cannot be properly evaluated in the absence of the candidate's history because they can be learned performances.  Even such things as shaking one's head when the opponent says something that is persuasive but not true or conflicts with previous positions can arouse suspicion in the minds of less informed viewers about the opponent's veracity.  And because no fact-checker is present during the debates,   skeptical viewers might have reasons to seek out fact-checks in the future.     

     Unfortunately, many viewers will have already voted or will not seek any harder to become informed about the candidates after the debates than they did before the debates.  Debates especially don't equip voters to make wise decisions in choosing the candidate more likely to respond properly to that "3:00 call in the morning" and which one is more likely to keep promises.

      A better debate formate might be one which allows candidates to question each other on a list of predetermined issues.  All questions that need to be asked, especially the toughest ones, are more likely asked by the opposition.  Partisan interviewers, one or two from each party might be even better.   Chris Matthews and   Rachel Maddow  vs  Rush Limbaugh and Sean Hannity would be a perfect contest.

     Despite everything that I thought was wrong about these debates, I decided to listen to the first one.  And at first, I thought Romney had won.  Romney threw a lot of punches.   But most of them missed.  Known lies and flip-flops are misses--unless the opponent gives good reasons for changing positions.  So I changed my mind: The debate was a draw.    The fact that Romney lied and flip-flopped so skillfully, allowed him to get points that he did not deserve.  But he gains points not only with style but by twice pointing out instances of wasteful investments by the President on failed clean-energy projects.  The result was consensus opinion that, despite lost points for lying and inconsistencies, Romney was the winner.  

     Obama got points for consistency and truthfulness, but he lost points for failing to challenge Romney's lies and flip-flops.   He also lost points for failing to criticize Romney about the reasons that caused Romney's falling polling numbers prior to the debates: Bain Capital, the "47%", refusing to submit more than two tax returns, lying about certain components of his health plan.  Romney was even allowed to pass himself off as the champion of the middle class, teachers and the poor.  But  when Obama lost points for failing to take advantage of the many opportunities to challenge Romney, those challengeable events also count against Romney.  So, in conclusion, Obama wins the overall debate--by a point.   Integrity counts, and flip-flops and lies are low blows.

      Responses by potential voters in several groups of undecided voters suggest that many people who are responding to the various polls after the debates are as uninformed about the positions and opinions of the candidates prior to the debate as are many of those in the focus groups.  The media have convinced voters that what candidates say during debates should tell more about who a candidate is than the candidate's history.  Even Obama supporters were caught up in Romney's performance, giving it more weight than Obama's honesty. 

     What and who a man is and what he believes are reflected in how he behaves and what he says when he is in the company of like-minded people, not in the impressions he rehearses in order to change public perceptions and expectations.  If a candidate changes his/her mind about his beliefs or positions on issues several times during a campaign or during his political career and is loose with the truth, how can voters believe anything he claims to believes and promises to do?  A Romney election would strongly suggest that America, by placing it faith in liars and flip-floppers, is becoming an increasingly dysfunctional government, with a decreasing ability to solve problems, provide creditable world leadership both toward effecting a world economic recovery and continuing to hinder terrorists ability to terrorize.

     Truthful or not, flip-flopper or not, undeserving or not, Mitt Romney may have convinced enough independents and borderline Republicans and Democrats that he has moved toward the ideological middle, enough to elect him president, regardless of how well the President and Vice President Biden perform in the next debates.  Romney's base won't mind; all they want is for Obama to be defeated.  

     This last debate, of course, was only round one of a four-round contest.  But the etch-a-sketch strategy, which we Democrats thought to be folly, is now being implemented, and it's no longer a laughing matter.  

      

Reforming Education Top to Bottom

     If a group of smart people, each with degrees in health, English, history, philosophy, or music were given hundred barrels of unrefined oil and given the challenge of making that oil usable to make a 2012 BMW run properly, many, if not most, of them would have a problem not only doing it, but within their existing training and experiences even finding a way to do it.   Many teachers are given such a responsibilities of taking 20-30 unrefined children and to drawing or otherwise separating out the ingredients that can make a society work.  But many, if not most, have had little training in making crude, unrefined children ready for service.  And the conclusion is too often drawn that doctors, nurses, engineers, scientists, teachers, lawyers, business entrepreneurs and other refined products that are essential for a viable society are not there.

     Southeast Texas knows how to refine oil.   But at one time it had no oil, less on know how to refine it.  Then it had oil but didn't know what to do with it.  But when it finally was discovered what could be done with petroleum and what were the best ways to do it, everybody with oil either refined it that way or found somebody who could, and eventually oil all over the world came to be refined essentially the same way.  And because successful ways of extracting the products of petroleum was copied in different locations all over the world, we drive cars, fly planes, and run trains and trucks, and reap other benefits of that shared means of refinement.  No excuse is made for the fact that some oil is harder to refine than others, that some of it comes from undesirable places (coming from the "wrong" kinds of homes so to speak.)  They learned to make adjustments, so that both sweet and sour crude can be successfully refined, though not in exactly the same ways.

     This analogy could easily have been building bridges like the Golden Gate, sky scrapers like the Empire State Building, finding cure for dread diseases, or transplanting organs.  People learn to do what needs to be done by refusing to accept what other say cannot be done.  They say it can't be done, yet.   Children are told that they can solving the problems, yet, that they can't properly interpret passages, yet.  The message to their brains is never that it can't be done.  The message to your brain always should be "I can't do it yet."  Maybe after a few more minutes or hours or days of thinking about it, I'll get its.  And even if I don't solve this problem, my minds will be in better condition to solve the next one, simply because of the time spent exercising it by trying to solve the previous ones.

     Teaching is a problem-solving activity.  Some teachers, because of self-motivation to be successful or because of concern for the children they teach, learn on their own how to solve this problem of refining the curiosity, the skills-potentials, and the attitudes of the children they teach.  Other teachers learn how to do it by going to colleges and universities that teach them to do it.  Still other teachers learn it from fellow teachers, while other learn to do it from their instructional leaders within their schools or school districts who either teach or model for them how to do it.

     There are children who will learn well despite the teacher's method of teaching or attitudes toward the children they teach.  All some children need is the opportunity to learn and a reasonable effort by teachers to cause it to happen.  But just as there are established methods that can refine different types of petroleum and strategies for build bridges across different expanses of land or water, there are ways that can span the gaps in learning abilities and learning styles and make all children successful.  Maximum success for certain students may require small variations which may be different in dealing with different children.   Different strategies may be needed to motivate some children.  Some children may need boosts in confidence by first being exposed to learning opportunities that guarantee early success.  When time and effort result in success, that success breeds a desire for success and the confidence that time and effort will be rewarded.  It works for student and teacher.

     But every oil refinery can tell you or show you one paper or in picture from beginning to end how it produces its products, from the design, construction and operation of a cracking unit to quality control of the products the processes  generates.  

     Every construction company or engineer can show you its plan for building a bridge.  They can describe for you everything that will be done from preparing the ground to laying the foundations to laying the final slab.  Everyone who has the time and is interested enough can see on a daily basis the rise of a skyscraper, from the laying of pilings to the floor levels ascending skyward until the final brick is laid.  No one who is interested has to wonder if the bridge or sky scrapper is being built.

     Just as oil can be refined, bridges and buildings can be built by using the strategies and designs that have been successful used by others, and just as there are plans and evidence of progress, why can education in our schools do the same?  Or perhaps a better question is:  Why don't they or why won' t they do any better?

     For one thing, few schools or school districts to my have plans for educating children that can be shown and explained to patrons.  I'm talking about processes that are written on paper and demonstrated on video tape, showing how children are taught and evaluated, how instructional and testing procedures are evaluated and what changes have been made to fix recent deficiencies in what children are taught and how well they are learning.  

     Any board of education that cannot show patrons a detailed plan, developed by it and its superintendent, which describes how children are taught within the district and the roles, effectiveness and modes of evaluation of the board, the superintendent, assistant superintendents, supervisors, principals and teachers in the educational process isn't interested in the children if they are not continuously asking to see the plan and expecting credible evidence about how well the plan is working.

     Tax payers who care about the district's children also will want answers.

Debates Count: But How, for What and for Whom?

     When an electorate is not sufficiently informed about the issues and the candidates positions and ideas related to those issues, presidential elections can be won based on the quality of performances during debates (on how well the speaker spoke and how convincing and presidential the speaker looked) rather than the quality of the candidate's ideas and veracity of his/her assertions.

     Because I had concluded how useless and maybe even counter-productive debates might be, I considered not listening to this year's Obama-Romney debates.  The media were communicating that positions and ideas expressed by candidates during the debates could nullify things already said either prior to or during the campaigns.   It was as if voters are being told to treat the pre-campaign dialogues as only training for the championship match, where the championship is unrelated to anything that transpired prior to the big match.  Past lies, inconsistencies and condescending remarks about fellow Americans no longer matter.  Everything needed to select a winner rests on what happens during the debates, making an etch-a-sketch strategy possibly a winning strategy when enough voters who are undecided because they are uninformed use the debates are their primary source of information. 

     Expressions such as convictions, passion, determination and sincerity can be inferred from a candidate's jesters or manners of speech, but they cannot be properly evaluated in the absence of the candidate's history because they can be learned performances.  Even such things as shaking one's head when the opponent says something that is persuasive but not true or conflicts with previous positions can arouse suspicion in the minds less informed viewers about the opponent's veracity.  And because no fact-checker is present during the debates,   skeptical viewers might have reasons to seek out fact-checks in the future.     

     Unfortunately, many viewers will have already voted or will not seek any harder to become informed about the candidates any after the debates than they did before the debates.  Debates especially don't equip voters to make wise decisions in choosing the candidate more likely to respond properly to that "3:00 call in the morning" and which one is more likely to keep promises.

      A better debate formate might be one which allows candidates to question each other on a list of predetermined issues.  All questions that need to be asked, especially the toughest ones, are more likely asked by the opposition.  Partisan interviewers, one or two from each party might be even better.   Chris Matthews and   Rachel Maddow  vs  Rush Limbaugh and Sean Hannity would be a perfect contest.

     Despite everything that I thought was wrong about these debates, I decided to listen to the first one.  And at first, I thought Romney had won.  Romney threw a lot of punches.   But most of them missed.  Known lies and flip-flops are misses--unless the opponent gives good reasons for changing positions.  So I changed my mind: The debate was a draw.    The fact that Romney lied and flip-flopped so skillfully, allowed his to get points that he did not deserve.  But he gains points not only with style but by twice pointing out instances of wasteful investments by the President on failed clean-energy projects.  The result was consensus opinion was that, despite lost points for lying and inconsistencies, Romney was the winner.  

     Obama, though, got points for consistency and truthfulness, he lost points for failing to challenge Romney's lies and flip-flops.   He also lost points for failing to criticize Romney about the reasons that caused Romney's falling polling numbers prior to the debates: Bain Capital, the "47%", refusing to submit more than two tax returns, lying about certain components of his health plan.  Romney was even allowed to pass himself off as the champion of the middle class, teachers and the poor.  But  when Obama lost points for failing to challenge Romney when he should have been challenged, it counts against Romney too.  So, in conclusion, Obama wins the overall debate--by a point.   Integrity counts--or should.

      Responses by voters in several focus groups of undecided voters that followed the debates and group interviews prior to the debate, suggest that many people who are responding to polls after the debates are as uninformed about the positions and opinions of the candidates prior to the debate as are many of those in the focus groups.  They are not aware of lies, contradictions and distortions.  The media have convinced voters that what candidates say during debates should tell more about who a candidate is than the candidate's history.  Too much weight is given to a good performance.  Even Obama supporters were caught up in Romney's performance, giving it more weight than than Obama's honesty. 

     What a man is and what he believes are reflected in how he behaves and what he says when he is in the company of like-minded people, not in the impressions he rehearses in order to change public perceptions and expectations.  If a candidate changes his/her mind about his beliefs or positions on issues several times during a campaign or during his political career and is loose with the truth, how can voters believe that he will not change his mind about the last things he says he believes and promises to do?  A Romney election would strongly suggest that America, by placing it faith in liars and flip-floppers, is becoming an increasingly dysfunctional government, with a decreasing ability to solve problems, provide creditable world leadership both toward effecting a world economic recovery and continue hindering terrorists ability to terrorize.

     Truthful or not, flip-flopper or not, undeserving or not, Mitt Romney may have convinced enough independents and borderline Republicans and Democrats that he has moved toward the ideological middle, enough to elect him president, regardless of how well the President and Vice President Biden perform in the next debates.  Romney's base won't mind; all they want is for Obama to be defeated.  

     This last debate was only round one of a four-round contest.  But the etch-a-sketch strategy, which we Democrats thought to be folly, is now being implemented, and it's no longer a laughing matter.  

      

     

Ronald

Email:  rcspoon@earthlink.net

Blog: ronaldcspooner.blogspot.com

U.S. Needs Honest, Agreeable GOP

    I haven't submitted a column for the past few weeks, not because I have not been listing, reading, thinking and writing, but because there have been so many things to write about that I found myself either starting to write another opinion before finishing the one I was on, or trying to incorporate disparate content in a single column.  At my age, ideas vanish rather quickly, so I have to write them down quickly.  Writing them down, however, triggers supporting ideas, and, soon, I'm writing another column.  All of these topics will remain timely until after the November elections, and likely will be fully developed before then.  

     There are people who believe that whatever they believe is right must be pursued even if traditional values suggest and most people believe both the ends and the means of pursuit are wrong.   Only recently has such deeds and dealings been welcomed into the America's value system.  Now, people don't seen to mind their politicians lying.  Some are happy because they benefit from the lies.  Others are happy just to have been on the winning side even if winning means they lose.  This expanded abandonment of traditional values of all kinds explains why Americans are growing increasingly tolerant of unkindly--and even immoral--actions toward more vulnerable Americans.

     Over the past several years television game shows such as Survivors and Big Brothers have reinforced the practices of lying, deceiving, conniving and double-crossing by rewarding them if they can be a used in a winning combination. it's supposedly all in fun but it softens society's moral resistance.  As in the real world, the winners are usually not only the best at deceit; they also have other attributes that enables them to effectively use lies .

     Prior to the Republican convention, the question had been asked among media talk-show hosts and guests:  What can Mitt Romney--and those who will speak in his behalf--say so the American people will really know who Mitt Romney is?  As if his past and present actions have not already revealed a lot toward answering that question.  If, during his youth, Romney actually threw a homosexual young man to the ground and cut his hair--which Romney apparently has not denied--that's who he is.  With a smile on his face, a disrespectful and insensitive Mitt Romney told the proud African American audience at the NAACP convention that the first thing he will do as president is get rid of Obamacare.  Tha't who Mitt Romney is.  When he falsely (evenly solemnly) claimed that he wanted Obama to be successful, that's who Mitt Romney is.  The man who has been distorting the words and effectiveness of the actions of the President every chance he gets, that's who Mitt Romney is.  The man who is constantly changing who he himself is reflects who Mitt Romney is.  Trying to remake Mitt Romney look good is like saying the only thing President Obama needs at the Democratic convention is for some people close to him say that the economy is doing much better than it appears, and that 92.7% of Americans who want to work and need to work have jobs.

     Marco Rubio said that America's greatest virtue is its faith in God.  He also quoted "from whom much is given much is expected."  It means that, from those who have had the good fortune to inherit wealth or acquire it on their own, there is the responsibility not to spread the wealth but to pay more taxes to help those who have not been so fortunate or so blessed.  Some people give more money to churches, charities, and government so that money can be used to pay the nation's bills and give necessary help to those in need.  The government services the same kinds of needs as churches and charities--just on a larger scale. 

      Government must help people who either don't  belong to a church, may not attend church, or don't belong to those churches whose members have enough wealth to assist members in need.  Government serves those who very often are not served by the charities to which wealthy people contribute.  It is hard to understand why wealthy people are able to make a distinguish between giving the money to government so it can both pay its bills and help those in need and similarly giving money to churches and charities so they can do the same things.  Inefficiencies exist in all organizations (churches, unions, charities, etc.) where contributions often flows through the hands of dishonest handlers, to unknown destinations for unintended purposes, which are determined by unknown and unethical decision-makers.  Neither of these has ever been a reason, however, to stop contributing when it is obvious that the organizations are putting much more money to good use than may subject to abuse by a few individuals.

     There is a Republican party out there that is not represented by those who are leading the party at this time.  There are Evangelicals within the Republican party who don't believe that politicians should be telling lies to those who they believe don't know any better and those they believe know better but don't care.  These Republican feel that if they must choose between liars and those who support abortions, they will choose liars as the lesser evil.  

     Democrats would seem to believe the contrary, that abortions are a lesser evil than lying.  That's because Democrats have failed to communicate the difference between women HAVING THE RIGHT to have abortions under certain conditions and their believing abortions ARE MORALLY RIGHT.  Similarily, saying that people have the right to marry someone of the same sex is not the same as saying that it is believed to be the right thing to do.  The Constitution and the Supreme Court Justices interpretation of the Constitution give people CERTAIN RIGHTS that they have regardless of how other people may feel about it.  

        America and Republicans need to resurrect the honest, big tent, creative and compromising GOP.  But they need Democratic victories this year to do it.   Republicans know that they didn't just let Obama fail; they hindered success.  A vote for Democrats this year would not be a vote for abortions and gay marriages.   It is a vote for bipartisanship.   Like most Republicans, most Democrats don't engage in nor do they necessarily condone every activity permitted by the Constitution.  In November, only God and the voters will be in the voting booths.  And if Sen. Rubio is right about our faith in God being America's greatest virtue, then, lying, misdeeds and evil intentions don't have a chance.

     

60 Years of Marriage and Still Not Tired

     Recently, my wonderful and still beautiful wife and I celebrated the 60th anniversary of a marriage which blessed us with five children, nine grandchildren, two step grandchildren, five great grandchildren and eight step-great grandchildren.  As they had done for our 50th anniversary, family members planned to make the celebration of this anniversary a special event, and special it was.  All members of the Annie L. and Ronald C. Spooner family took the time to be there. I had long hoped for a marriage made in Heaven.  But the girl who would make that possible stayed disturbingly absent for far too long.   

     Thoughts about her frequented my mind, even as I longed for the day of our meeting, thoughts of a beautiful young lady, walking alone a sidewalk of some large city.  I had had no luck back home, and was having no better luck during my first year at Wiley College.   Imaginations were all I had.  But he second quarter of my second year revealed a ray of hope. The gates of Heaven seemed on the verge of opening to release another angel.  

     A second-quarter dance was being held in the college gym for incoming freshmen.  I decided to attend and, from high up on one end of the bleachers, view to see if the girl of my dreams indeed had arrived. ( By now, it didn't even matter if she was from Texas.) There was one young lady with long hair that caught my eye, mainly because she danced so often.  All of the young men wanted to dance with her.  I hadn't noticed whether it was because of a shortage of young ladies--as she suggest to me later might have been the reason.  The only thing that mattered was that she looked like an angel to me.  

     I left the dance thinking this could be the one, but I didn't give her any further thought.  After all, I wasn't exactly in desperate need of a girlfriend.  I was a waiter in the cafeteria, and never even looked for her there.  I never even chanced to see her--at least, not to recognize her.

     But plans had been made for the special bus to carry Wiley students from Beaumont and Port Arthur home for the Christmas holidays.  And while waiting for that bus, we encountered each other--sort of.  She was standing alone when I arrived at the meeting site.  I spoke.  She said, "Hello."  But as I turned around to put my suitcase out of the way, she turned her back to me.  She wore a gray suit that fit her every curve.  When they started making Coca Cola bottles, she had been the mold.  She was good-looking even up close and in the dark.  She must have known I was looking and thought to herself if I weren't, I should have been.

     As I started to introduce myself, though, a couple of her friends arrived, leaving me only with hopes that there would be a vacant seat next to her on the bus--or that she would take one next to me.  But that was not to be.  And the only memories I had during the holidays was being obsessed by one song she danced to during that freshmen dance: "Any time, any place, any where."  

     When I returned from the holidays she no longer was going unnoticed.  I noticed, for example, that she was always the first one peering through the glass-paned door of the cafeteria at meal time.  My friends, who were also waiters, knew about my feelings.  One of them let only her in early.  She wondered why, but she soon found out:  Although we still had never met, I had my friends call her and pretend to be me.  (Okay, so I was in bad shape.)

     But one day, while in the chemistry laboratory with my friends, we needed  information from the library.  I volunteered to get it.  While leaving the building and proceeding toward to library, I noticed two young ladies approaching from an intersecting sidewalk.  One of them was this girl.  I was petrified.  If they had been closer, I perhaps would have spoken, and continued to the library.  If they had been farther away, I would have pretended not to have seen them.  But they were at this in-between distance.  I couldn't wave and continue to the library, because I didn't know them.  And I would have looked even more stupid if I said nothing after all the talk she had heard and telephone calls that she thought had been from me.  Not knowing what to do, I stopped and waited for them.  Her roommate walked on ahead.  And when this young lady reached me, I said, "Well, I guess you've been hearing a lot about me."  She said, "A little."  Without asking permission, I walked with her to her physical education class.  We shared a few bits of information about each other--nothing romantic.  

     But there was a basketball game that Friday night, and I asked if I could take her to the game.  She consented.  I had found out that both us were Baptists so I invited her to attend Sunday's service with me at a Baptist church with whichI had become affiliated  Again, she agreed.  We were learning enough about each other to feel comfortable and interested.  For me, I had found the girl of my dreams.  I was ready for marriage even then.  She was not a big-city girl of my imagination but had been reared on a farm, deep, deep in the back woods of Southeast Texas.  But none of that mattered.   What mattered was that she didn't smoke.  She didn't drink.  And she went to church. And I was in love.  (No, I did not say she did not use profanity if someone gave her reason to use it, and no, I did not say who that someone was.)

     During the following summer, we exchanged letters.  On Sundays, I would sit on the porch, hoping something had happened at the post office that would cause the mailman to deliver me a letter.  I was in love.  And while she did not love me quite so much, she loved the fact that I loved her so much.

     I not only believed that God had given me what I needed, but hoped He also was giving her what she needed.   And when you believe that God has given you something, you need to be careful how you treat it.  We have had sixty years of devoted, faithful and carefully-treated marriage.   Love, religion and commitment have made it easier.  And we still aren't tired of each other.  

     Recently, another wife, celebrating a 60th anniversary with her husband, was asked how she was able to find somebody willing to stay with her for sixty years.  She said in so many words that she looked got someone who was willing to put up with her.  That's what all married people hope they have found, including your spouse.

Ronald

Email:  rcspoon@earthlink.net

Blog:   ronaldcspooner.blogspot.com  

Questions Related to the American Dream

     There are several questions that must be asked and answered before the American people can make in informed decision about the future of this country.

The guests on the various talk shows have opinions based on the economy they want to see in place and the people they want to benefit from that economy.

     When Mitt Romney and Romney supporters are asked questions such as:  What do you think should be done to create jobs?  The typical answer is something like, the American people need to elect a president who knows how to create jobs.  This is true.  But having created jobs incidental to making money is not the same as stimulating the economy to create enough jobs to put tens of billions people back to work with good-paying jobs.

      Speaker John Boehner is trying to convince voters who don't like Romney--or the kind of president he might become--to vote for him anyway just to get rid of Barack Obama.  I guess that means vote against Obama for whatever reason voters have not to like him--even if they belief the President was dealt a bad hand by President G. W. Bush and Republicans in Congress have limited his ability to play even that bad hand.  

     Talk show hosts need to ask questions that will give voters a chance to understand specifics of what the guests are talking about.  They should demand that guests answer questions or not come on the show.  Unfortunately, many will choose not to come.  

     One problem we have in our political and economic discourses is using terms such as socialism, communism and capitalism that have negative connotations.  What the words mean is often defined by the failed ways an economic system has been implemented in certain countries.  If we use that method of determining the merits of economic systems, democracy would be a bad word based on how it is beginning to be practiced in the United States.  Rather than labeling political and economic systems, we should be talking about what the system intends to do for the people.  That's more important than what the system is called.

     Karl Marx said that a society should expect from every person according to ability (that includes those near the lower end of the economic range) and provide to every person according to need.  Those words might easily have been spoken by Jesus.  Is it a concept whose practice is not limited to economic systems that are labeled communists?  Until recently, America taxed according to people's ability to pay and share the  wealth of the wealthy with less fortunate Americans according to needs.  Of course, there are those who say some of those in need are just lazy.   That is often true.  But should we punish all people who are in need and want jobs because some of them are just lazy?  (Come on churches, I need some help.)  What should be done with those who are lazy.  Now, let's not blame those who are in need because of the failure of schools.   Shouldn't there be some kind of second chances for them?

      I would like to hear or read political candidates' visions of America.  What do they want to see happening to, by and for the American people--all of us?  Can these things happen automatically? What must happen within the society to make sure these things happen?  Should people in the American democracy work as a team?  How can we do that?  What will be the evidence that the society is functioning as envisioned?  What would be evidence that an economic system is functioning properly?            

     Should a society provide jobs for every person who wants a job?  Businesses say they are not hiring because of uncertainty that people will buy their products.  But how can uncertainty be reduced if people don't have certainty about jobs that enable them to buy things?  I still don't understand why the work that does exist cannot be shared with the unemployed during recessions.  Why can't it be phased in over a time?  For every 15 workers that share one-half hour each day, a company could hire another worker for 7 1/2 hours per day.  Even promises to do it would get out more voters, and strengthen unions' ability to increase membership and negotiate fairer compensations for their labor. 

     A vision is needed of what an ideal America looks like in terms of what all Americans are doing; things such as being gainfully employed, being effectively educated, participating in the government and community affairs; what they have such as homes, stable families, secure retirements and health care; how they relate to each other in the workplace, within the home, within government, within and among organizations and institutions; and how they will seek, perpetuate and optimize the best of what is believed it should mean to be an American.    

     There does not seem to be anything conservative or liberal about these aspects of a vision of America.  I don't believe either liberals or conservatives want people to be poor and homeless.  Neither believes that only certain children should receive a quality education.  Neither believes that children should have parent who are too young or too poorly prepared to guide, protect, motivate and be good role models for them.  And neither believes that every American can be born a genius or have the talents, desires and opportunities to become wealthy.

     Conservative and liberal should practice their ideologies in determining how they will choose to love their individuals lives, who will be their friends, what organizations they will join, what religious faith they will follow, what political party they will support, where they will live, the kind of entertainment they enjoy, the kind of language they will use and other things they will choose to do.  But they should not seek to force their beliefs, behaviors and other choices on others.  What may be right and compatible with traditions and dispositions of one person or group may not fit well with other people.  

     Wanting to get more than one's fair share of a nation's wealth is neither liberal or conservative.  Both liberals and conservatives would like to be rich.  And there are poor people among both conservatives and liberals.  Our problem is getting from our present state in America to a mutually desired state.  And it requires the same kinds of thinking, attitudes and commitments that will be necessary to keep us there.  More questions and comments are needed that relate to these conclusions.

Jump Starting a Stalled Economy

     The hugh debt accumulation, which began under George W. Bush, continues to accumulate during the Obama presidency.  Bush started two unfunded wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, and cut taxes under the notion that the surplus revenues accumulating as a result of Clinton policies were the people's money, not the government's.  The costs of those unfunded wars and tax cuts still contribute to contribute  to the deficit, but Obama did not cause them.  Obama could not stop the wars and end the tax cuts at the beginning of his term and start over. But the debt  growth did start over.   Obama's responsibility for the debt is the present debt minus that which continue because of Bush policies which were still costing American money.

     The downgrade of our nation debt rating was not caused because by the size of the national debt but because of Republicans' unwillingness to work with Democrats to structure a meaningful debt-reduction strategy that involved both spending cuts and tax increases.  That is what worked between Democrats and Republicans during the 1990s.  Democrats paid a price, though, during the next election because taxes were raised with only Democrats' support, while spending was pursued safely for Republicans, after the election.  

     Polls continue to show that the American people want that kind of compromising again.  But many members of Congress remember those consequence for Democrats.  Next time, it has to be a balanced package of both spending cuts and increased revenues, something that places both parties at risk.  Democrats are ready.  But progress is held up by elements within each party which insist that all deficit reduction come as a result of either spending cuts or raising taxes.  Neither of those will happen.

     However, the main thing holding up progress in debt- reduction is the false contention by Republicans that raising taxes on the wealthy will reduce the number of job created.  "The relationship between income tax (reduction) and addiction is like being on heroine, once you start the more you need."  That's a quote I came across while trying to gain some historical perspective on the relationship between tax increases and job creation.  Because economics is not mathematics, economists vary widely on the potential outcomes of various economy options.  But the conclusions are clear:  Raising taxes increases the number of jobs.

     The question is constantly and justifiably being asked by Democrats:  If low taxes on the wealthy and large corporation produce jobs, where are the jobs from the Bush tax cuts and their extensions?  Republicans won't answer.  But if lower taxes on the wealthy and large corporations produce jobs, zero taxes should reduce unemployment rate to near zero.  

     Let's pursue that idea that cutting taxes creates jobs, and extent that idea to the nth degree. That should produce an infinite number of jobs, which would be a win-win for everybody.  Enough jobs would be produced for every American who wants to work.  There would be more jobs than workers.  So businesses would have to become smaller and fewer.   But governments also would be small.  

     Government workers, police officers, fire fighters, teachers, mayors, governors, the president, member of legislatures, all would be either elected or selected volunteers who earn their income from other jobs.  Children would be home-schooled or taught after work or on weekends by qualified volunteer teachers.  The military would consist of volunteers who have other full-time jobs and train on weekends.  And Mitt Romney would help the working poor and middle class invest their tax savings so they, too, can move up the financial ladder.

     But seriously, there must be some points between 100% and zero tax rates that are fair levels for everyone.  But where are they?  Who should determine them?   And should there be ways to know and test whether they are the right points, even when there are needs to adjust them? There are certain things  within an economic system that are only possible when people don't perceive those with whom they sometimes disagree as being the enemy, but rather as people who, while pursuing the same goals, sometime have different ideas--not with evil intent--about how to reach them.  The best ideas are best determined when everybody knows who benefits most when particular options are pursued, and how everybody else will eventually benefit.  

     The character of the people eventually become the character of the country.  The integrity of government cannot exceed that of the people who elect it.  And the people can have no better character than are the teachings and practices of their religious faiths.      

     Let's look at our economy.  Businesses create and sell goods or services.  They hire people, who use some of their earnings to buy these goods and services and save the rest for retirement by investing in the businesses.  That cycle keeps the economic wheels turning.  But in an economic slow-down, when the engine either stalls or stops, which one of these must start the wheels turning?  The unemployed or underemployed cannot do it--they don't have the money with which to buy goods and services.   What certainty, then, is business waiting for?  They are the ones with the money.  In tough economic times, they are the batteries and starters of the U.S. economy.  

     But, if businesses are "uncertain," who else has either the money or access to the money (a power supply and set of cables, so to speak) that can be used to hire workers, promote spending, encourage employment and get the wheel turning?  The answer is a government that is big enough and respected enough to do it.  

 And who has the most to lose if the America's economic engine does not start or continues to stall?  The country does.  

     Just as individuals may have what they consider the right and good reasons to kill themselves,  Irrational members of Congress feel that they have both the right and good reason to assist in an American suicide--just so Obama becomes a one-term president.

     The polls continue to say that Americans want the parties to cooperate so the nation can survive.  But Irrational Republicans continue to say, "No."   And presidential polls suggest that Americans, in resignation, may be saying, "Okay, kill us."