In reading Vladimir V. Putin’s opinion piece in the New York Times, I was struck by one undeniable fact: Putin’s grasp of world affairs is no greater than that of his soul mate, George W. Bush. Either that or Vlad, like his boyfriend George[1], thinks the rest of the human race is as stupid as he.

For those who think that Vladimir, ex-KGB agent that he is, has provided a cogent piece of international truisms while putting the United States in its place, consider the following:

1. He accuses the U.S. of excessive militarism with the implication that Russia is a country of peace. Certainly, if one focused on the George W. Bush years, one would see eight years of adventurism and unwarranted warfare, but the other presidents? I never liked Ronald Reagan but even he wasn’t as crazy as George. As for Russia, they were allies with Hitler and the Nazis until Stalin and Hitler had a falling out. Then Stalin came running for help from Great Britain and the United States. Post-WWII, Russia suppressed and occupied half of Europe for approximately 40 years. During that time, Russia invaded places like Hungary and Afghanistan. Why? Because they wanted a government of their choice rather than what the Russians dictated. In the case of Afghanistan, the Russians created a land of chaos and extreme poverty. After the Cold War, Russia supported the genocidal policies of Slobodan Milosevic in what once was Yugoslavia. Russia poisoned the Ukrainian president, Viktor Yushchenko. Wasn’t Putin the leader of Russia then? And we can’t forget that Russia invaded Chechnya…twice. Guess what Putin has in common with the Syrian al-Assad family. President al-Assad levelled the city of Hamas[2]. Putin levelled the city of Grozny, the Chechen capital. Now I don’t think the U.S. is perfect. I definitely don’t agree with a lot of its foreign policy decisions. However, as a rough rule, the actions of the United States have not left the world in worse condition[3]. On the other hand, I can not think of one action of Russia that has not left the world in poorer condition[4]. All of Russia’s actions can be seen as a simple continuation of its old Czarist policies of unending, expansionistic imperialism. It’s the same old, same old and Putin is only another Czar dressed in a latter-day suit.
2. Putin writes as though it is the al-Assad regime that is the victim in the Syrian conflict. When Bashar al-Assad stepped into the shoes of his father, Hafez, it was hoped, given his Western education, that he might liberalize his country. It quickly turned out, however, that al-Assad was pretty much the same style of tyrant that his father had been. The only value of his strong arm tactics has been that he has provided a certain degree of stability in the region. Given the current concerns of Turkey, Jordon, Israel and other allies in the region, I’d venture that Bashar is no longer viewed as a stabilizing force.
3. Putin goes on and on about how the opposition is composed of radical and dangerous Islamists. First, let’s be clear about one thing. Although the roots of the radical, conservative element in Islam can be traced back a few hundred years ago to major defeats suffered by the Turks, the modern version of radicalization can be traced back only a few decades to the Russian invasion of Afghanistan. There are those who like to blame the “creation” of bin Laden on U.S. foreign policy. That’s ridiculous, however. Radical Islamists like Osama bin Laden and organizations like al-Qaeda are the direct result of Russian foreign policy. If it weren’t for Russia’s desire for warm water ports in the Indian Ocean, there’s a good chance that Afghanistan would have had a stable and progressive government. Second, those radical elements of the opposition that Putin refers to arrived late to the party, so to speak. If Russia had been more helpful, supporting the Syrian people rather than a tyrant, perhaps the conflict would have been resolved before things got this bad. The problems we see in Syria can be easily placed at the feet of the Russians. For my part, I hope that Putin’s dreams are forever filled with the faces of all of those dead Syrian children.
4. Putin suggests that Bashar al-Assad’s government, which apparently has buckets and buckets of sarin gas, would never use their chemical weapon as a chemical weapon. Instead, Vlad suggests that it was the opposition trying to frame poor little Bashar. I know the mechanisms by which sarin kills, but I don’t know how much it would take to kill 1400 people. I imagine it would take an awful lot, though. More than could be easily produced in some small clandestine lab set up by the underfunded Syrian opposition. Where would the opposition get all of that sarin then? Iran? Britain? France? The U.S.? Or, perhaps it was Russia. Here’s a reasonable scenario. Putin, unhappy that he has been reduced to the status of a marginalized idiot and tyrant on the world stage, provided poison gas to the radical opposition in Syria, encouraging them to frame al-Assad. This would force Obama to begin taking steps toward a military response and allow Putin to come in with an 11^th hour proposal, thereby saving the day and becoming a major player on the world stage again. Think about it. It’s as good as Vlad’s suggestion.

Even though there may be times when a military response is the only option, I’m all for exhausting all diplomatic and political solutions first. Military action is violent action. Once violence begins, it is difficult to stop. Once violence begins, it is difficult to control. When military action is taken, people die. I don’t care if those who die are military or civilian. I don’t care if those who die hate me. Death is death. The act of people dying is never good. Feeling safer does not mitigate the loss of another. When people die, there is always someone, a mother, a father, a brother or a sister, a spouse, a child, who will cry in pain at the loss of their loved one. To feel justified in creating that pain, I can’t see it. I confess that I can not understand why anyone feels it is right to kill in the name of God or for some political institution or material wealth. We’re all going to die. Why do we need to speed things up? I can guarantee one thing, though. Those who kill in the name of God are not favoured by God. They never have been and they never will be.

I welcome the idea of averting any U.S. military action against Syria by Syria giving up control of its chemical weapons. I hope that it happens. I do wonder, however, why wasn’t this idea broached before? I mean, the timeliness of Putin’s suggestion and the ready acquiescence of al-Assad seems a little too orchestrated. But then again, the actions of tyrants like Putin and al-Assad have to be legitimate once in a while; don’t they? Or…is this some sort of P.R. campaign.

While I recognize that an opinion piece is just that…an opinion…surely the New York Times editorial board has a responsibility for publishing opinions based upon reality and facts. Instead, they published a self-serving, low-brow piece of trite that is filled with cute little sound bites. If nothing else, it solidifies the idea that Vladimir V. Putin and George W. Bush are truly soul mates. Either one of them could have written it.

Pace è Bene

In keeping with their 21^st Century brand, the modern Republican Party is once again pushing to redefine the English language and rewrite American history. For example, various Republican talking heads, such as RNC Chairman Reince Priebus, are accusing President Barack Obama and the Democratic Party of promoting class warfare by discussing the disparity of wealth in the United States as well as the disparity in the tax code in favour of the wealthy.

My memory of class warfare in recent history doesn’t seem to match with that of the Republican storyline. I remember President Lyndon B. Johnson declaring war on poverty. I also recall that Reagan, the chief proponent of the “me first” philosophy, apparently misunderstood Johnson’s declaration to end poverty for all time. It seems that Reagan thought that Johnson had said “end the poor for all time” because Reagan, shortly afterward, acting as governor of California, declared war on the poor. Later, as President of the United States, he continued his assault on the poor and expanded the war to include the middle class.

Reagan’s ascension to the presidency symbolizes the re-emergence of the Old Testament belief that disease and poverty are punishments resulting from God’s displeasure. Those favoured by God are rewarded with health and wealth, while those in disfavour get leprosy, pre-existing conditions and a lifetime of choosing between paying for rent, food or medicine.

For me, then, class warfare began with the Reagan years. During the ensuing decades, his wealthy minions have traveled the planet, spreading the gospel of “wealth first, people second.” Though maybe not to the same degree as in the United States, this philosophy of government “for the wealthy and by the wealthy” has spread to many other countries. Even in Canada, for example, there are those who actually drool at the idea of a closer embracement of the United States’ model of economic disparity. After all, who wants to settle for millions of dollars when there are billions to be horded?

As it turns out, I’m partly wrong. Although he is the most recent honoured leader of class warfare, it wasn’t Reagan who began the war. It seems that the wealthy declared war upon the rest of the human race several thousand years ago.

Approximately 2500 years ago in Athens, the birth of democracy unveiled the intimate relationship between excessive personal wealth and tyranny. Plato explained:

“An imbalance between rich and poor is the oldest and most fatal ailment of all republics.”

Elaborating further on the incompatibility of a benign and responsive government with accumulated wealth, Aristotle, Plato’s prize student, said:

“Democracy is when the indigent, and not the men of property, are the rulers.”

Then there was the Socialist Trinity, Buddha, Jesus Christ and Muhammad, who, over the course of a thousand years, each taught the socialist doctrine that it was the duty of the community to lift up the poor. Jesus Christ, the worst socialist of them all, even went so far to tell the poor that God loved them best. These messages, of course, were lost over the following centuries as the wealthy usurped the Catholic and then the Protestant religions, the great Islamic dream collapsed into petty fiefdoms ruled by greedy tyrants and the Dalai Llama and his elite priesthood created an Eastern theocracy that allowed them to oppress the Tibetan people.

One would have thought that these three avatars of the human race would have had the final say on how we should treat each other and the place of excessive wealth in society. Unfortunately in the West, as the popularity of Christianity increased, the wealthy and powerful saw in the new Church, not a mechanism to create a better world, but instead they saw a way to morally justify their wealth. The Church provided a divine justification for the wealthy elite to suppress the poor and huddling masses. This use of religion to morally justify obscene amounts of wealth would act as a supplement the older strategy of “might makes right.” No longer would the wealthy be restricted to only using the sword to keep the less fortunate in their place. Now they had “God” on their side.

Five hundred years ago, Sir Thomas More laid down an important intellectual foundation about the relationship between a government and the people. The path from his ideas would eventually lead to the American Revolution, itself an act of defiance against an authority established upon wealth. In the second book of Utopia, he wrote that government was:

“a certain conspiracy of rich men procuring their own commodities under the name and title of the commonwealth. They invent and devise all means and crafts, first how to keep safely, without fear of losing, that they have unjustly gathered together, and next how to hire and abuse the work and labour of the poor for as little money as may be. These devices, when the rich men have decreed to be kept and observed for the commonwealth’s sake, that is to say for the wealth also of the poor people, then they be made laws.”

Once again there is the same basic theme expressed by Plato two thousand years earlier. Excessive wealth is incompatible with a benign, representative government that creates conditions whereby all can prosper in keeping with their ability. When the wealthy gain control of the government, according to Sir Thomas More, they manipulate the law to protect what they have taken from others and create laws that allow them to take more. They present these laws as being essential to the welfare of the nation.

By the 17^th and 18^th centuries, tired of settling their differences in religious wars, Europe began to focus more upon the political process. Kings and princes began dividing their ministers between different sides of their palaces. The left wing housed those ministers who believed that government existed to help the people. In the right wing, one could find those ministers who saw government as the instrument by which the wealthy and the powerful could help the poor by taking more wealth and more power for themselves[1].

At the end of the French and Indian War, the wealthiest estates in Great Britain are estimated to have been 30-40 times greater[2] than anything found in the American colonies. This was in a large part because the trade laws and tax laws were all biased against the colonies and in favour of the British elite. As loyal subjects of King George, the colonialists attempted to redress their grievances. Men such as George Washington, Benjamin Franklin, John Adams, Thomas Jefferson, John Hancock and so many more felt that it was unfair that the bulk of the fruit of their labour should end up in the pockets of a wealthy few who had never laboured in their lives. They felt that it was unfair that they should pay the bulk of the taxes that supported the military that safe-guarded the wealth of that same few.

As any student of history knows, the grievances of the Americans were ignored. Nothing was done to alleviate a system that had been designed to strengthen and protect the interests of those at the top. Sir Thomas More could have easily predicted this. After all, the conservative right wing, as the governmental tool of the British wealthy elite, controlled the King and Parliament. They were justified to their fortunes, they claimed, because what was good for them was good for the British Empire. If these arrogant assholes were alive today, they would be strutting around claiming to be the job creators.

The American colonialists naturally saw all of this as tyranny.  George became a tyrant not because he was a king; he was a tyrant because he was the symbol of a government that existed solely for the benefit of a few who lived off of the backs of the many.

Harkening back to the teachings of the Socialist Trinity, Thomas Jefferson adopted as his motto “Rebellion to tyrants is obedience to God.” Agreeing with that principle, the colonialists rose up against the Tyrant King and his wealthy minions.

In the end, the colonialists freed themselves from the thraldom of the British elite.

Though there were some, such as Alexander Hamilton, who wanted to create an elite aristocracy based upon wealth, rather than merit or accomplishments, who would run the government, most Americans didn’t want anything that looked even remotely like “Old Europe.” The Continental Congress was tasked with the job of creating a government that would be resistant to the machinations of a wealthy elite trying to steal control of the government from the people. The writers of the U.S. Constitution knew very well that equality and those inalienable rights of “life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness” were incompatible with excessive wealth. Excessive wealth can only occur in a society where equality and those inalienable rights have been or in the process of being abrogated.

In the Age of Enlightenment, everyone knew this self-evident Truth.

At the same time that the Continental Congress was meeting in Philadelphia, Pennsylvanians were writing their own state constitution. Article V of the Pennsylvania Bill of Rights says:

“That government is, or ought to be, instituted for the common benefit, protection and security of the people, nation or community; and not for the particular emolument or advantage of any single man, family, or sett of men, who are a part only of that community; And that the community hath an indubitable, unalienable and indefeasible right to reform, alter, or abolish government in such manner as shall be by that community judged most conducive to the public weal.”

Pennsylvanians were stating explicitly in their most important document that government did not exist for an elite few. The story is that in an earlier draft of their Bill of Rights, they went even further by stating that it was the government’s duty to prevent the accumulation of vast wealth. In other words, it is the government’s duty to protect the many from the few. This idea was a complete departure from the historical view that the purpose of the government was to help the few oppress the many.

From the beginning, people were concerned about the impact of excessive wealth upon the government of the United States. For example, Thomas Jefferson wrote:

“I hope we shall crush in its birth the aristocracy of our monied corporations which dare already to challenge our government to a trial by strength, and bid defiance to the laws of our country.”

James Madison, the fourth President of the United States, expressed his concerns when he wrote:

“We are free today substantially, but the day will come when our Republic will be an impossibility. … A Republic cannot stand upon bayonets, and when the day comes, when the wealth of the nation will be in the hands of a few, then we must rely upon the wisdom of the best elements in the country to readjust the laws of the nation to the changed conditions.”

The fear that the excessive wealth that the American forefathers had fought against would once again rear its greedy, Hydra-like head did not disappear. In 1832, Andrew Jackson declared:

“Many of our rich men have not been content with equal protection and equal benefits, but have besought us to make them richer by act of Congress.”

A few years later, the visionary, Abraham Lincoln, describing the direction he saw the United States headed towards, said:

“I see in the near future a crisis approaching that unnerves me and causes me to tremble for the safety of my country … corporations have been enthroned and an era of corruption in high places will follow, and the money power of the country will endeavor to prolong its reign by working upon the prejudices of the people until all wealth is aggregated in a few hands and the Republic is destroyed.”

By the end of the 19^th century, the fears expressed by previous generations had become a reality. In response to the governmental corruption resulting from the creation of massive fortunes during the Gilded Age, the national platform of the Populist Party explicitly stated in 1892:

“Corruption dominates the ballot-box, the Legislatures, the Congress and touches even the ermine of the bench. The Fruits of the toil of millions are boldly stolen to build up colossal fortunes for a few, unprecedented in the history of mankind; and the possessors of these, in turn, despise the Republic and endanger liberty.”

At the turn of the century, President Theodore Roosevelt did everything that he could do to protect the government “of the people and by the people” for the people. The wealthy elite began immediately trying to discover, not only ways around the laws, but how to regain control of the government and the laws. The threat to our democracy continued on into the 20^th century, leading Justice Louis Brandeis to warn:

“We can have democracy in this country, or we can have great wealth concentrated in the hands of a few, but we can’t have both.”

Over the course of the last few millennia, the fortunes of the wealthy have shifted many times. But they have never given up on their war on the poor. If the wealthy didn’t view themselves at being at war with those less fortunate, then how else to explain this statement made on May 19 2003 by Ronald Reagan’s intellectual heir, George W. Bush:

“Poor people aren’t necessarily killers. Just because you happen to be not rich doesn’t mean you’re willing to kill.”

Seriously, who, other than someone who despised the poor, would even say such a thing? And the only people who have contempt for those less fortunate are those who have more than their fair share.

Close to 250 years ago, it would have seemed that the wealthy were destined to lose their hegemony over the world. But during the centuries, they have learned a number of ways to assert or re-assert their control of government.

Today, they are poised take control once more. Many Americans have forgotten that the Revolutionary War was fought over the control of wealth and the control of the government. In that war, it was the common man who had the most to gain and the ultra-rich who had the most to lose. Americans seem to have also forgotten the warnings of the Founding Fathers. They have been beguiled and distracted.

How else to explain the Tea Party? The Tea Party is, in the main, a group of average, middle class citizens who were tricked by the Koch brothers to believe that their best interests rested with billionaires who have been stealing us blind rather than with all of the other average Americans. The fact is, the only people who have interests in common with the Koch brothers are the other millionaires and billionaires who think that stealing other people’s money counts as a job.

George W. Bush and his wealthy allies put into place economic policies that have caused considerable damage to the middle class and the poor. The wealthy weren’t hurt by those policies. Yet, despite the fact that the wealthy made out like bandits during the Bush years, nearly half of the population are turning to someone for whom the Bush policies were most generous. What is even more incredible is that this support is given despite the fact that the guy is promising to resurrect the very same policies that destroyed so many people’s lives.

Have the American people truly become soft, as claimed by enemies like al Qaeda and the defunct Soviet Union? Are they are more concerned with their material comfort rather than their liberty?

I don’t think so. I believe that most will be as inspired as I am by these words of Thomas Jefferson:

“God forbid we should ever be twenty years without such a rebellion. The people cannot be all, and always, well informed. The part which is wrong will be discontented, in proportion to the importance of the facts they misconceive. If they remain quiet under such misconceptions, it is lethargy, the forerunner of death to the public liberty. … And what country can preserve its liberties, if its rulers are not warned from time to time, that this people preserve the spirit of resistance? Let them take arms. The remedy is to set them right as to the facts, pardon and pacify them. What signify a few lives lost in a century or two? The tree of liberty must be refreshed from time to time, with the blood of patriots and tyrants. It is its natural manure.”

To paraphrase James Madison, when the wealth is held in a few hands, others will find it necessary to make adjustments so as to preserve what the United States of America represents.

We should always remember the words that Thomas Jefferson wrote to James Madison in 1787:

“I hold it that a little rebellion now and then is a good thing, and as necessary in the political world as storms in the physical. […] It is a medicine necessary for the sound health of government.”

Pace è Bene

George W. Bush announced his candidacy for President of the United States during the summer of 1999. He was qualified, he and the Republican Party claimed, because he was a successful businessman with an MBA. The fact that he appears to have been a less than mediocre student at two prestigious Ivy League schools[1] didn’t deter him or the Republican Party one iota. Instead, he almost seemed to be bragging about his poor scholarship when he met with a group of inner-city children, telling them not to worry about their school performance because he was living proof that even a man of exceptional mediocrity could aspire to the presidency[2].

Of course, those inner-city children lacked a few advantages that George had had. The most significant of these was that George W. Bush was a wealthy man[3]. Bush and the Republican Party put forth the myth that George was a regular, folksy sort of guy who had pulled himself up by his own boot straps and as a result of hard work and brilliant business acumen, he had built a business that had made him fabulously wealthy.

The media helped perpetuate this myth simply by failing to do its job.  Little comment was made about the fact that his investors, wishing to influence regulatory policy, were willing to prop up a failing business because George represented a back door to the White House. Very little was said about the fact that George W. Bush acquired his wealth when his business finally failed. How, an honest mind might ask, can someone make money when their business fails? By simply following the business model that was developed by George W. Bush[4], that’s how. In other words, you use your knowledge about the poor economic health of your company[5] and sell your stock before anyone else knows that you are about to go bankrupt[6].

Touted as the first MBA president, Bush came to the table offering to…what did he have to offer?  Under the Clinton Administration, American prestige had never been higher and the world community as a whole seemed to be cooperating and working towards peaceful solutions. Saddam Hussein was contained; Slobodan Milosevic was imprisoned; the hunt was on for Osama bin Laden; and Iran, uncertain whether Saddam had weapons of mass destruction, was willing to cooperate with the world community. Economically, the Clinton Administration was overseeing a financial boom and expansion shared by all Americans; unemployment was so low that employers were having a difficult time finding good employees and the only people consistently out of work were those people who didn’t want to work; the debt was being paid down; and though the tech bubble was predicted to burst, energy resources were more than sufficient and secure that everyone was confident that the economy could easily weather such a disruption[7].

What was there for George W. Bush to fix? George gave a preview of a Bush presidency during one of the debates with the Democratic contender, Vice-President Al Gore.  When asked about the Clinton policy of paying down the Federal Government debt, George W. Bush gave some strange, convoluted and extremely belaboured answer that simply boiled down to it being his view that such a policy would hurt the U.S. economy if that debt was paid off.

I can understand why George would have made such a claim.  After all, the majority of U.S government debt is held by Americans and the majority of that debt is held by wealthy individuals who don’t work.  Much of the American government debt system is simply a taxpayer funded welfare system for the rich.  If Americans eliminated the debt, many of George W. Bush’s friends and backers would have had to get jobs.

What confuses me is how the media responded…which was not to respond or comment. I make no claim to being an economist, but it strikes me that government debt can only be beneficial in the short term. In the long term, however, a lot of interest is paid and that payment of interest only benefits those who hold that debt.  In the United States, the greatest beneficiaries of continued debt are those wealthy families who have been buying that debt for generations and have, therefore, become dependent upon government largess[8]. For the rest of us, on the other hand, paying down the debt means less interest paid.  This, in turn, means greater cash flow for the Federal Government, which allows two things to happen. First, taxes can be lowered. Second, there will be more money to invest in infrastructure as well as other necessary and socially beneficial programs.

After Chief Justice William H. Rehnquist made George W. Bush president, George began to show the world what kind of businessman he truly was by implementing the business model that he had developed years before in the oil industry. By 2008, his business model had been such a raging success that its impact reverberated throughout the world. Nothing like it had been seen since 1929 when another Republican, Herbert Hoover, occupied the White House.

It is now 2012 and the Republicans are offering Mitt Romney to the American people and the world.  Mitt Romney and his Republican backers claim that it is his business experience that makes him an ideal candidate. After four hard years of the Obama Administration trying to reverse the disastrous consequences of the Bush business model, Mitt Romney promises to bring Bush’s business model back with a vengeance.

I’m not concerned with this though. The American people were foolish enough to vote for that model in 2000 and 2004.  If they are foolish enough to fall for it again in 2012…well, what is there to expect given that the ranking of the United States in mathematics is reported to be 26th in the world[9]. It is this same mathematical aptitude that has been so beneficial to the lottery industry.

What is of concern is this claim that Mitt Romney was a businessman. That is as far from the truth as one can get. He was a financier, an investor, a corporate raider. Take your choice. His goal was entirely to make money.  Nothing else. And, Mitt Romney, given the increase in his personal wealth during those years in the investment industry, was extremely successful at running a private equity firm. There is nothing wrong with any of this.

Financial institutions like banks and private equity firms serve a function.  They have cash to invest[10] and there are businesses that will welcome that investment because it allows them to start up or expand.  However, the investors are only interested in whether a potential investment is profitable.  Profit, for them, means a cash payout.  Profit can result in three possible ways:  1) a start up business becomes successful; 2) an expansion of an existing business proves to be profitable; 3) purchasing a business and selling off some of the parts or breaking it up entirely and selling it off in pieces is profitable. For private equity firms, the actual business concerns and employees of that business are secondary and tertiary concerns, only entering the investors’ line of sight if they have the potential of reducing the bottom line. Other than that, operating the business and employment are issues dealt with by management.

The fact is that people like Mitt Romney would never invest in a typical small business because they are not business people and therefore don’t understand business and its relationship to the health of the nation.  On the other hand, Howard Schultz, CEO of Starbucks, understands business because he is a businessman.  And being a businessman, he understands the importance of small business and this is why he has pushed for a program that will help provide funding to small businesses. After all, it is small business that happens to create the majority of jobs. Private equity firms, on the other hand, do not create jobs.

The real job creators are those who have an idea.  They are the innovators.  Job creators are the people who invest their lives, their money, the sweat of their brow and go into their shop, store, office, garage, factory or whatever it may be on a daily basis and make decisions and work hard. The majority of job creators are from the Middle Class. The majority of those individuals who are job creators and in the top 1% did not begin in the top 1%.  They happened to have a business that filled a particular need at a particular time in history.  They may have become wealthy but that wealth was incidental to their real purpose which was to build their business. This is in contrast to a private equity firm for whom job creation is incidental to the real goal which is to accumulate more wealth.

All businessmen and businesswomen want to see a profit.  But what exactly is “profit”?  If you work for a large corporation, it can mean dividends to your investors and bonuses for the employees or maybe a new plant for operations.  If the business is a sole proprietorship or partnership, a profit can mean some new equipment, some new employees, an employee health package or a much needed vacation, college tuition for the children or a swimming pool.  What profit isn’t is a Rolls Royce or a Maserati. It isn’t a private jet or a third home on Martha’s Vineyard.

There is nothing wrong with wealth.  Personally, I think it would be great to have so much wealth that it was capable of self-propagating…at least it might be great for a day or two.  But if wealth, as measured by the accumulation of money and things, was the sole measure of my worth and accomplishments, I’d hang my head in shame. If I were a good Christian, I’d get down on my knees and beg for God’s forgiveness.

Mitt Romney is no more of a businessman than George W. Bush.  Granted, he is far more accomplished but he has limited business experience. The person working in maintenance at an auto plant has as least as much understanding of business as does Mitt Romney.  Mitt Romney’s accomplishment was to make smart investments as evidenced by his amassed fortune.

As president, what does Romney have to offer?  The government of the United States was not formed more that 200 years ago in order to create conditions that allow the accumulation of vast wealth by a handful of individuals. Instead, it is the purpose of government to create the conditions that allow businesses to form and to grow. It is government’s purpose is to insure that culture and civilization flourish. It is the prime duty of government to protect the weak and disenfranchised from the predations of the strong and powerful.

Business people create businesses, artists create art, musicians create music, teachers create thinking minds and financiers make money. That is the way of the world.

Long before I lived in Missouri, I had adopted a philosophy of “walking quietly.”  The idea was to disturb as little as possible as I traveled through life.  Today, the popular phrase “leaving a small footprint” is fairly synonymous with my thinking.

When recycling arrived, I thoroughly embraced it largely because it fit in with my philosophy.  I would have engaged in composting but, given my talent for creating brown rather than green plants, activities associated with gardening were not under consideration.

In Missouri, largely due to my recycling efforts, I would put out on the curbside one bag of garbage every two or three weeks.[1]  Typically, I produced only one bag of garbage each month. Many of my neighbors, on the other hand, were producing 3-5 bags of garbage on a weekly basis.

Having a laid-back disposition, I didn’t fret about this difference in my neighbors’ and my relative contributions to the landfill.[2]   Consistent with my “walking quietly” approach to life, I figured if they wished to produce garbage rather than recycle, so be it.  For me, recycling was the better choice. Then I discovered something that shook my world to its foundations. It turned out that my neighbors and I paid the exact same fee for garbage pickup each month.  In other words, I was subsidizing my neighbors’ choices.  I began protesting that, rather than one flat fee per month regardless of usage, the cost of garbage should be based upon the amount of garbage produced.  In the course of my protesting this outrageous situation, I discovered something far more dark and odious.

I was told that the reason that my “pay for use” approach wouldn’t work was that it would put a greater burden of the cost for refuse disposal upon larger families. This would be extremely prejudicial against those families.[3]

I have nothing against people who want large families.[4]  If Catholics, Mormons and other religious conservatives feel that excessive and uncontrolled procreation is part of God’s plan, let them at it.  Is it reasonable, however, to expect others to subsidize their choices? Should everyone else pay extra in taxes and a greater share of government expenses so that those who choose to have a large number of children don’t pay the full burden of the cost associated with their choices while reaping the full benefit of the services?

I think that in a society where everyone is affected by the procreation choices of others, it is reasonable to place limitations upon the impact of those choices. People should only be given child credit and assistance for up to three biologically-related children that they either father or mother. I am not saying that anybody is prohibited from having more than three children.  All that I am suggesting is that if people want additional children, they should carry the full cost on their own.[5]

I understand that my suggestion might upset Catholic bishops and other religious conservatives who feel that birth control, be it contraceptive pills or coitus interruptus, is sinful.  I can respect their position.  Such a plan as I suggest would be, they could argue, discriminatory against people holding certain religious views because it would ultimately force them to pay higher taxes and pay more for services.  Those religious conservatives are possibly right.  I, on the other hand, am definitely right when I say that the current system forces everyone, who has three or less children, to pay higher taxes and fees and thereby they are compelled to finance another person’s religious beliefs.  The way I see it, this is a violation of 1^st Amendment protections against intrusion of religion into government.

There is a solution, however, that allows those, who believe that contraception is sinful, to avoid sin and at the same time it doesn’t raise the tax and fee burden on everyone else.  Abstinence.  If Catholics, Mormons and other religious conservatives don’t want to pay the costs associated with having more than three children and they don’t want to use birth control, let them abstain from sex altogether.  According to conservatives, abstinence is all that is needed to prevent pregnancy.

But who cares whether Catholics, Mormons or other religious groups have sex or not?  I don’t.  What I care about is fairness.  Fairness means, in part, that people should pay their fair share.

Currently there is a debate in the United States regarding the so-called Buffett Rule. This is the idea that anyone whose net income is over one million dollars per year should pay a 30 percent tax rate.  Democrats like this plan, saying that this will create fairness by giving the wealthy a tax rate comparable to the typical American middle-class taxpayer.

Republicans, on the other hand, argue that the Buffett Rule is nothing more than a blatant example of class warfare. Republicans want to reduce the tax rate, they claim, so that everyone is paying the 14 percent rate that Mitt Romney does.

The problem with both of these plans is that neither one effectively addresses how to pay for essential government responsibilities.  Furthermore, neither one would appear to pay down the debt that the Bush-Cheney administration accumulated so it could give tax cuts for the wealthy, enter into two wars, and artificially ward off a recession that had been brought on by the antics of major players in the energy industry e.g. Haliburton and Enron.

During Bush Jr.’s presidency, the Wall Street Journal editorial staff, taking the bull by the horns, addressed the Democrat’s class warfare upon the wealthy stratagem by arguing that the poor should start paying taxes on their income.  They felt that by “feeling” the pain of taxes, the poor would gain an understanding and become sympathetic to the pain and suffering of the wealthy.  With this new insight into the tortured lives that the wealthy faced, the poor would rise up and demand the elimination of taxes.  To be honest, I’m not sure that the subjective experience of finance-related pain is the same for a millionaire who, given a 14 percent tax rate, is left with only $860,000 and a poor person who is left with $8,600 after paying $1,400 of their 10k/year income.

Nonetheless, I am sympathetic to the essence of the Wall Street Journal’s argument.  I believe that the financially-related pain associated with the cost of running things should be distributed as a function of the benefit one derives from the outcome of those costs.

Government has two primary purposes: to protect its citizens and to create conditions which benefit everyone and allows each person to excel to their fullest potential.  In this day and age, government facilitates the development, production and transportation of goods by creating and maintaining highway systems, shipping, railways and airports and air travel.  It is the government’s duty to insure training and education so that people can perform the requirements of the jobs that are associated with those areas of business as well as develop the ideas that lead to innovations and new jobs. Only the government has the resources needed to gather together the critical elements needed to conduct basic research[6] which provides the foundation that is necessary for those inventive and creative minds to come up with and develop new ideas. It is necessary for the government to be responsible for the health of its populace in order to maintain a healthy workforce and viable national defense.  It is these things, combined with the inventive ideas and hard work of the people, that creates wealth. Wealth cannot be created out of wealth. Given this singular fact, wealth can never create jobs.  Wealth is the outcome of labor, not the source of labor.[7] Finally, government is responsible for creating and maintaining the military and law enforcement.[8]  Historically, the main purpose for the military and law enforcement is to protect the wealth that has been created by the labor force.

In broad brushstrokes, these areas of government activity represent the total cost of doing business for a modern country like the United States. It only seems reasonable to expect people to pay their share of these expenses and have that share based upon the proportion of benefits they derive from these costs.  If you are the 10% that owns over 70-90% of the wealth, you should pay 70-90% of the cost for creating, maintaining and protecting that wealth.  If you are part of the 80% who share less than 10% of the wealth that is produced, your group’s share of the cost of doing business should be less that 10%.

This approach is the only way to insure a tax system that is fair while at the same time paying for the cost of doing business and paying down the debt.  For those in that 10%, who feel that having to pay approximately 80% of the costs is unfair, there is a solution.  Make sure that the wealth is more equitably distributed.  After all, the more people who share the wealth of a nation, the more people who can shoulder the costs of the wealth.

It’s kind of a trickle-up economic model.

One of the things that I have noticed in this debate about taxation is that the people, who are the most vehemently opposed to an equitable tax system, are those people who haven’t really earned their wealth.  These are the people who have inherited their wealth or spend their time buying low and selling high.   On the other hand, those individuals who have labored for their wealth or have worked hard creating a business are the ones who support a more equitable tax code.  I can only assume that that is because someone who is smart enough to create a multibillion dollar business with thousands of employees is also smart enough to appreciate how important the infrastructure and other individuals were for them to become financially successful.

The recent fluttering by Catholic bishops and various other religious conservatives in the United States has generated a cascade of self-doubt in my mind.  These men claim that a recent requirement made by the Federal Government that employers provide healthcare that meets the needs of all of their employees, male and female, Catholic and non-Catholic, at associated, yet non-religious, institutions such as hospitals and universities is a violation of the First Amendment.

Since then, the airwaves and newspapers have been inundated by the clamoring of theologians, religious leaders, lawyers, politicians and political pundits of questionable punditry.  I’m not going to comment upon the fact that there are, according to various news reports, thirteen states which require the same healthcare requirements.  Nor am I going to comment upon the fact that the Catholic bishops seem to have no problem with that, even though each state is required to adhere to the Constitution of the United States.  Put another way, the states aren’t allowed to violate 1^st Amendment rights anymore than the Federal government or the Catholic Church.

Nor am I going to comment upon the fact that the Canadian healthcare system guarantees contraception to women.  And the Catholic Church doesn’t make a complaint based upon some obscure Papal decree.  Nor am I going to comment upon the fact that the Catholic Church does not have a tax exempt status in Canada and the taxes that are paid by the Catholic Church help to fund healthcare, part of which are for services related to health issues specific to women such as contraception.  I have yet to hear any Catholics up here in Canada cry at the outrage of being forced to support something that so reprehensibly offends their moral sensibilities.

The reason I won’t make any comments is that my confusion has nothing to do with any of this.  My uncertainty comes from the fact that it appears that the education about American history and the influences that shaped the writing of the Constitution that I received appears to be vastly different from the education received by the Catholic bishops or their supporters.  Perhaps these Catholic bishops are not American citizens by birth.  That would explain why there is such a disparity in my understanding and theirs.  Having had to learn the history of the United States as an adult would have meant that their interpretation of American history was most likely processed through the eyes of their Catholic faith and it is their strict faith and adherence to Catholic doctrine and their sworn allegiance to their sovereign, the Pope, that helped them get the gigs as bishops.  Unfortunately, this hypothesis doesn’t appear to be supported by the facts.  A quick look at the birth places of American bishops listed at Wikipedia indicates that almost all of them were born in the U.S.A.

I remember as a child learning about the Pilgrims and their journey to Plymouth Rock.  In fact, every year before Thanksgiving, we would be inundated with images of happy Indians, turkeys and Pilgrims wearing those funny hats with buckles.  They wore the buckles on their hats rather than on their belts because they were Dissenters.  In other words, the Church of England believed that buckles should be worn on belts and the Pilgrims disagreed.

Also known as Separatists, the Dissenters believed it to be their moral duty to dissent from the established church which was the Church of England.  The Church of England, in keeping with the traditions developed by the Catholic Church, had used its power as the established church to have laws passed requiring everyone to attend Anglican services.  Apparently, attendance was required to make sure that the buckles were worn properly by everyone[1].   Failure to attend church could result in horrible penalties such as fines.  The Dissenters, who didn’t like giving their money to another religious organization, fled to Holland.  They knew better than to go to France or Spain, where they would have been burned at the stake by the Catholic Church due to the heretical nature of their beliefs.  The Dissenters, who were the forbearers of the American Puritans, a deeply conservative Christian group who believed that sex was bad and money was good, didn’t approve of the free use of dykes by the Dutch.  Fearful that they would become just as tolerant as the Dutch about forming relationships with dykes, they boarded the Mayflower, crossed the Atlantic Ocean and landed on Plymouth Rock.  The story ended with the Pilgrims killing a few turkeys, the Indians bringing some corn and squash, and the entire group sitting down to a great feast and giving thanks to God for bringing the Pilgrims to this land of underused potential.

We were led to believe that it was due to the Pilgrims’ tragic story of persecution that the 1^st Amendment protecting religious freedom was added to the Constitution.  Never again would Americans allow a tyrant such as King George, the head of the Church of England, or the Pope, the head of the Catholic Church, to dominate the political field and religious life.

When I got older, we learned more of the Pilgrim’s story.  For example, a good portion of the Pilgrims died from starvation and they would have all died if the Native Americans hadn’t taught them how to farm.  You have to kind of wonder about a group of people who would travel almost half-way around the world to a new land without any survival skills.  Also, on their way to becoming full-fledged Puritans, they realized that God had meant all of this land to be for good Christians.  So they began to systematically destroy the native pagan culture and kill off the Native Americans.  Later, as Puritans, they engaged in burning heretics at the stake.  A heretic for the Puritans was any person who didn’t adhere to their particular interpretation of Christian morality.  Kind of like the Catholics.

We also learned that the 1^st Amendment had nothing to do with the Pilgrims.  It turned out that the American Constitution and its Bill of Rights was written during a historical period referred to as the Age of Enlightenment (or Reason).  This period had emerged after nearly two hundred years of wars; wars in which Christians were told by their religious leaders to kill other Christians who had a different group of religious leaders.  Totally disgusted with the murder of tens of thousands in the name of religious faith and morality, a secular society developed, pushing religious zealousness to the fringes.  The Founders of the United States and Framers of the Constitution believed in the reasoning power of the individual to discern the truth.  For many it may be shocking to discover that Ronald Reagan’s idea of the rugged American individualist can be seen to originate with intellectual lives of these 18^th century secularists.

Deists like Thomas Jefferson and Benjamin Franklin as well as many other visionaries, saw the United States as a shining city on the hill, where reasoned discourse took place, instead of violence in the name of religious faith.

To understand the 1^st Amendment, one has to consider the historical philosophy in which it was written.  It was believed that a just and strong society should be tolerant to all religions.  So the religious beliefs of the individual were to be protected, regardless of what those beliefs might be.  But it wasn’t government that those beliefs needed to be protected from.  It was the overreaching power grabs of the different religions and their leaders that people needed to be protected against.

I like the fact that I grew up in a society that is based upon religious tolerance. I like a society that recognizes the Native American Church and respects Jews, Baptists, Anabaptists, Muslims, Mormons, Methodists, Anglicans, Episcopalians, Hindus, Buddhists, Zoroastrians, Wiccans, and even Catholics, Sikhs, Atheists and so many more.  I love the fact that all of these groups can safely express their perceived truths.

But expression of perceived truths is not the same as imposing one’s “truth” upon others.  I am perplexed as to how the Catholic bishops and various religious and political conservatives can take “Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof” to mean that religious groups are exempt from following the law of the land.  Nowhere in the phrasing of the 1^st Amendment do I see anything that even suggests that religions are allowed to impose their beliefs upon the American people.

Furthermore, the Papal decrees, doctrines and bulls that the Catholic bishops are trying to impose upon the American people are the product of a foreign sovereign.  What’s next?  Will Queen Elizabeth, the head of the Church of England, be invited back and given equal power?

The Catholic bishops and the Pope are welcome to determine what they find morally acceptable for themselves and for their Catholic flock.  However, that is the extent of it.  Their religion does not put them above or beyond the pervue of the Constitution of the United States.  And the Constitution protects all Americans from the whims of religious groups such as the Catholic Church.

The Catholic bishops and other religious conservatives need to learn to abide by the Constitutional guarantee of freedom from religious tyranny.