Making Believe; Or, What if You Suddenly Became President?

That interesting thought occurred to me this weekend as I sat on my back patio watching my English Setter make the rounds in the yard. What if an ordinary person suddenly became Presdident of the United States? What would ordinary folks want to do policy wise if they had the power?

So I thought I would ask on this blog: what policies would you pursue if you had the power? So, post yours here in the comments if you wish. I will share this on FB, so one can post in the comments there as well. Please be serious; if there is a demand for a similar, unserious, exercise, I will do a blog on that later.

In that spirit, I will post my first thoughts on policies to pursue below:

1. The first thing I would do is propose to Congress a Constitutional Amendment requiring that the Federal budget be balanced except in times of national emergency declared by the President, and approved by two thirds of the House and Senate. Such an amendment would need to include:

a. A time limit to bring the budget into balance upon passage of no more than 5 years;
b. A requirement that the budget and accounting therefore be according to generally accepted accounting priciples required of taxpaying businesses;
c. A requiremnt that entitlement programs such as Social Security and Medicare be budgeted separately from the general budget, and require that they be maintained in a solvent situation according to actuarial standards required of the private sector;
d. Some reasonable method of enforcement.....I would deprive any Congressman or Senator who voted for an unbalanced budget of their right to hold Federal office, and cancel their retirements and benefits (LOL).

Getting this through the absolutely corrupt Congress would be a problem, I recognize.

2. I would propose legislation, including a Constitutional Amendment if necessary, to require full disclosure on a publicly available website within 3 days of all political contributions from whatever source and in any amount. Such legislation should also include:
a. A requirement that any organization that substantially engages in efforts to influence elections or legislation be included. That would include the large organizations that are tax exempt and free from any reporting now.
b. The legislation should also require prompt disclosure by elected officials and staff of contacts by lobbyists or campaign donors or their agents made with intent to affect legislation or actions by the executive.
c. Presence of lobbyists when legislation is being marked up, or rulings of the executive are being written, should be prohibited. Let the dang folks we elected write it all up. Keep the big money out of it.

Repeat comment about corruption in Congress (which also extends to the executive branch as well. Please note that aside from prohibiting lobbyists from writing their own bills or rulings as they do now, this only requires disclosure of there the money comes from.

3. I would order, or request legislation to require that before any Federal rule or regulation is adopted, that a thorough cost/benefit study be done, and that nothing can be adopted unless the benefits outweigh the costs.

4. Abolish, or drastically reorganze the following federal departments and agencies:
a. The Department of Homeland Security. This has become an abomination. The few useful functions that it serves can be put under other departments;
b. The Department of Energy. This organization hinders energy development, and has never been useful for much of anything. What it does that needs to be done can be done with a much smaller agency;
c. The Department of Education. This department has done irreparable harm to education. Matters of education, including the financing thereof should be left to the states and local governments. Most of them are hooked on the federal money, so that should be made to the states in block grants without strings, and phased out over 7 to 10 years.
d. The Federal Reserve should be abolished. It is a privately owned organization that was given total power over our money in 1913. It has used that power solely for the benefit of its owners. Functions of the Federal Reserve, including the Federal Open Market Committee should be moved to the Treasury, with strict prohibitions against the "revolving door" we see now between the big banks, the Federal Reserve and the Treasury. It is time to bring control over our money back to the people and to their elected government.

Repeat comment about corruption. It is endless.

5. It has to go somewhere: bring the boys and girls (ground troops) home from overseas. Now. We should only have ground troops out of the country where they are required by treaty obligations, or are necessary to protect our diplomatic missions or existing air and naval bases. We need a strong Navy to protect our maritime interests and a strong Air Force to protect the homeland. We also need a good and mobile Army just in case, but they should not be deployed constantly like they have been.

6. The Drug War. This has to be discussed. I have been in the law business for 49 years. Have been a judge and before that a prosecutor. The one conclusion that I have come to is that what we are doing about drugs does not work. I have come to believe that it is counter productive is some ways. I would propose that a thorough study be done of very aspect of the drug situation, from enforcement to treatment. A thorough cost/benefit analysis has to be done. Drugs are a scourge upon our society, but so is the "war." Our policies on drugs, like before with alcohol, have created massive criminal organizations that are beyond our control. We have to reconsider what we are doing. If I had an answer, I would post it, but I do not. As a partial solution we might consider with marijuana what we finally, and sensibly, did with alcohol....legalize it, regulate its sale, tax the hell out of it, and prohibit driving and similar activities while using it. This is a terribly difficult area to deal with but we must find some answers somehow. We will need a lot of luck.

OK. I am going to stop. Criticism and comments are welcome. Feel free to disagree....I may end up disagreeing with myself. Just no personal attacks. That will not be tolerated.

Ahmadinejad, free speech, and campus culture

In September, most of the right of center blogs were in high dudgeon about the invitation to Iranian President Ahmadinejad to appear at Columbia University. It was a big temptation to weigh in on the issue, but it seemed to be well covered from every perspective. From the right side, perhaps the best coverage came from Scott at Powerline, with his 12 part "Columbia's Disgrace" series. They can be found by scrolling through here.

Of course, it was disgraceful that an institution like Columbia would invite the monstrous head of a monstrous regime to speak in the US, but it was also an affirmation of the freedom that we have in America.

Columbia President Bollinger summed up Columbia's position:

"....I would also like to invoke a major theme in the development of freedom of speech as a central value in our society. It should never be thought that merely to listen toideas we deplore in any way implies our endorsement of those ideas, or the weakness of our resolve to resist those ideas, or our naiveté about the very real dangers inherent in such ideas. It is a critical premise of freedom of speech that we do not honor the dishonorable when we open the public forum to their voices. To hold otherwise would make vigorous debate impossible.

"That such a forum could not take place on a university campus in Iran today sharpens the point of what we do here. To commit oneself to a life—and a civil society—prepared to examine critically all ideas arises from a deep faith in the myriad benefits of a long-term process of meeting bad beliefs with better beliefs and hateful words with wiser words. That faith in freedom has always been and remains today our nation's most potent weapon against repressive regimes everywhere in the world. This is America at its best." (via Powerline)

That sounds good, at least until one questions whether a friend of the United States would be accorded such an invitation and be able to appear and speak without interruption. But I digress.

Scott Johnson at Powerline countered with this:

"...Columbia and President Bollinger are a disgrace. They welcome to their campus a man who is a ringleader in the seizure of American hostages, a terrorist, the president of a terrorist regime, and the representative of a regime responsible at present for the deaths of American soldiers on the field of battle. Columbia's prattle about free speech may be a tale told by an idiot, but it signifies something. And President Bollinger is a fool who is not excused from the dishonor he brings to his institution and his fellow citizens by the fact that he doesn't know what he is doing."

So the issue was joined, Ahmadinejad appeared, Bollinger scolded him, and the only result was a propaganda event for Ahmadinejad with the play on it back in Iran. Little harm, no foul?

Peggy Noonan had something good to say about it all:

"....Is it necessary to say when one speaks of Mahmoud Ahmadinejad that you disapprove of him, disagree with him, believe him a wicked fellow and are not amused that he means to have missiles aimed at us and our friends? If it is, I am happy to say it. Who, really, isn't?
But this has been our history: to let all speak and to fear no one. That's a good history to continue. The Council on Foreign Relations was right to invite him to speak last year--that is the council's job, to hear, listen and parse--and Columbia University was well within its rights to let him speak this year. Though, in what is now apparently Columbia tradition, the stage was once again stormed, but this time verbally, and by a university president whose aggression seemed sharpened by fear.

"There were two revealing moments in Ahmadinejad's appearance. The first is that in his litany of complaint against the United States he seemed not to remember the taking and abuse of American diplomatic hostages in 1979. An odd thing to forget since he is said to have been part of that operation. The second was the moment when he seemed to assert that his nation does not have homosexuals. This won derisive laughter, and might have been a learning moment for him; dictators don't face derisive from crowds back home.

"It was like the moment in 1960 when Khrushchev's motorcade stalled on Third Avenue and a commuter walked by and gave him the finger. Actually I don't know there was such a moment, but knowing Americans I'm sure there was. Talking and listening to the wicked is the way we always operated in the long freak show that was 20th-century world leadership. And I'm sure before...."

A quite reasonable approach, I would say. So what we have are varying positions on the invitation and appearance, all of which are right from the perspective of it's author. And how about the subject matter of the issue? Well, he had a perspective, too, from the Islamic Republic News Agency:

".....Referring to his speech at Columbia University, President Ahmadinejad said, "The Zionists wanted to turn the event into a trial of the Isalmic[sic] Republic of Iran, but with help from the Almighty God, the plot turned into a scene in which nations could express their hatred with the rulers in the White House."

"The behavior of the government and media in the US shows that there is dictatorship in that country and people are not allowed to know the facts," said the president.

"The Iranian nation are not afraid of listening to others and believe that the whole world accepts the strong logic of the revolution and the Islamic regime," the president concluded. "

So much for the appearance being an enlightening moment for any involved. About the only thing the appearance accomplished was to give Columbia an opportunity to bask in the light of "academic freedom" and free speech; Ahmadinejad to poke a finger in Uncle Sam's eye; and all the writers and bloggers to opine about their perspectives. Dare one say that there might have been a lot of smoke, but little fire? Sounds about right.

Where does all of this leave us? I think back at the college campus(s). Clearly, Columbia, like most universities in the United States, is not friendly to centrist or right of center thinking. There is no true freedom of speech on most campuses. Instead, we have only leftist and anti-American speech. All other is not "politically correct", and therefore not permitted. We have seen that across the board: when those kinds of speakers appear on campus, they are shouted down, and not accorded the atmosphere that Ahmadinejad enjoyed. Free debate only occurs among leftists. Surely, nobody would expect, say, Donald Rumsfeld, to be accorded the same courtesies at Columbia that the monster, Ahmadinejad, was accorded. Or, for that matter, William F. Buckley, or Lawrence Summers, or our own President to name a few others.

Michael Barone has an excellent article on the campus culture that permits this sort of conduct entitled "Ivory Tower Decay." Of the Columbia/Ahmadinejad encounter, he says of the campus culture:

".....This regnant campus culture helps to explain why Columbia University, which bars ROTC from campus on the ground that the military bars open homosexuals from service, welcomed Iran's president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, whose government publicly executes homosexuals...."

After mentioning the absurd invitation of Hofstra Law School to Lynn Stewart, convicted and sentenced to prison for aiding terrorists, so she could participate, as a lecturer, in a conference on legal ethics(!), Barone concludes:

"....What it doesn't explain is why the rest of society is willing to support such institutions by paying huge tuitions, providing tax exemptions and making generous gifts. Suppression of campus speech has been admirably documented by the Foundation for Individual Rights in Education. The promotion of bogus scholarship and idea-free propagandizing has been admirably documented by the American Council of Trustees and Alumni. It's too bad the rest of America is not paying more attention."

Barone raises the real question at the heart of this tempest. Why do we continue to support the one sided and exclusive leftist viewpoints to be the only ones heard on our college campuses?

Perhaps it is time to take a look at how leadership on the campuses could be improved so they would once again be places of free and unimpeded discourse. Public universities should be accountable to the public. Maybe the governing boards should be for more than show and money raising, and start taking strong positions on such things as free speech and real academic freedom.

Don't hold your breath until it happens.