Moral Education

Whitewashing Reality by Bill Bennett describes how language has been used to make a terrorist event with clear motives and intentions appear to be just an inexplicable act of violence.

We have a Muslim terrorist, who called for jihad, who shouted “Alahu Akbar” as he was killing unarmed soldiers in a health center, who had cards made up that said “Solider of Allah,” who spoke of pouring boiling oil down the throats of infidels, who has regular correspondence with a radical imam who preached to 9/11 terrorists . . . and, and, and, and . . . we call it not terrorism but a “killing spree” as if that is what it was and not a terrorist trying to kill as many Americans as possible for political motives.

There is a rot that spreads outside of Washington into the larger culture. It begins with a confusion of terms, and by not calling things by their proper names, it begins with a disassembling of the moral categories. We don’t hear about terrorism or radical Islam so we are surprised to find it in our midst, and when we do, we don’t even recognize it. We have Army generals who elevate diversity over life, we have a president who speaks not of radical Islam or terrorism — though life is what we are fighting for and radical Islam and terrorism is what we are fighting against. And so we are reminded again of the notion that the chief purpose of education is to know when a man is talking rot. Because, if unchecked, the rot will settle, it will metastasize. Soon we no longer know anymore what we are fighting against . . . or more importantly, what we are to fight for. (Emphasis added.)

Moral ignorance leads to moral confusion and moral apathy. This opens the door for opportunists to advance their own agenda, whether well-intentioned "useful idiots" or violent enemies. Thus the importance of moral education of our own children, And to whatever extent possible, with sincere humility, those of us with moral convictions need to help others around us reject moral relativism.

Suppose the U.S. Government was a Household

Suppose the U.S. Government was a normal American household. What would it's income, expenditures and liabilities look like? Using the handy U.S. Debt Clock, we can see the following for Household USA:

2009 Income (ytd): $16,597

• Adjusting for the rest of the year, this comes out to about $19,900.
  

2009 Expenditures (ytd): $29,226

• Adjusting for the rest of the year, this comes out to about $35,071.
• About $3,624 of the $35,071 is interest to finance debt.
• The household is running a debt of $15,000 this year (or 75% over budget).
  

Current debt due to borrowing: $110, 329

• This is about 5.5 years income at $19,900 per year.

Future obligations for medical care and retirement (unfunded): $976,390

• This is about 49 years income at $19,900 per year.
• Note that this 49 year figure would exclude expenditures for anything else during those years.
  

Clearly the debt and future obligations will never be repaid out of income. And eventually lenders will view the household as too large a risk and refuse to lend it any more money. This means that the household will eventually be left with the following options:

1. Sell or forfeit assets to cover the difference (fire sale or foreclosure).
2. Repudiate the debt (bankruptcy).
3. Print money (theft).

Note that normal households cannot print money. It's considered counterfeiting. But governments can by merely turning up the printing presses. However it's still equivalent to counterfeiting and is actually a form of theft. It leads to inflation and a corresponding devaluation of the currency. In other words, personal savings will be devalued to whatever extent the government resorts to this. If the government prints enough money to double the money supply, everyone's savings accounts will effectively lose 50% in value. So printing money to cover government debt ends up being the same as stealing it out of personal bank accounts.

And this doesn't just hurt fat-cats with big bank accounts. Paychecks don't go up. Social Security checks don't go up. Retirement pensions don't go up. OK, they go up some, but not enough to cover the difference. And yet prices for things like food, clothing, fuel and housing all do go up. So it's also theft of value from everyone's paycheck.

Just ask the Germans:


All figures have been normalized by dividing total U.S. figures by the number of U.S. Taxpayers (approximately 108,600,000).

Year to date figures were converted to approximate annual figures by multiplying YTD figures by 1.2.

What's the Fuss?

The U.S. House of Representatives passes the health care bill. What's the problem? We're the richest and most powerful economy in the world. Certainly we can afford to help everyone get the medical care they need. Right?

Actually not. Take a look at The U.S. Debt Clock. This handy little page includes convenient boxes listing the U.S. National Debt (currently approaching $12 trillion) and the number of U.S. Taxpayers (currently about 108 million). But the real kicker is the total U.S. Unfunded Liabilities. This is the amount of future obligations for Social Security and Medicare which the U.S. government has taken responsibility for, but does not have the ANY money set aside to cover (hence the term "unfunded").

Folks, the current U.S. Unfunded Liabilities is a whopping $106 trillion. Yes, that's "trillion" with a 'T'. That future obligation represents a knee-buckling $1,000,000 per taxpayer. This is madness. The current total national assets is only $74 trillion. So we are already obligated 50% above our current assets.

And it's in this sort of economic situation that our Representatives in Washington have voted to saddle U.S. taxpayers to even more trillions in obligations. We are promising benefits which cannot be delivered while simultaneously burdening future generations with expenditures they cannot afford.

Understanding the Obama Administration

Have you ever watched recent events and wondered "What in the world were they thinking?" Well, the following articles are very helpful for explaining the larger context for the Obama administration's actions.


Wishful Thinking

First, Charles Krauthammer writes "Debacle in Moscow". From China, to the Middle East, to Poland and the Czech Republic, to Russia, Barack Obama's foreign policy strategy is either masterfully subtle, or else he's simply giving away the store.

Altering the famous Churchill quote on Russia ("It is a riddle, wrapped in a mystery, inside an enigma") Krauthammer concludes:

It is amateurishness, wrapped in naivete, inside credulity.

Renunciation of Primacy

Next, we have Charles Krauthammer again with "Decline is a Choice". Among other things, he explains that the President's health care takeover is actually a two-fer:

1. Socialized medicine is the perfect vehicle for accomplishing massive income redistribution.
2. The consequent massive federal budget deficits will force large cutbacks in defense spending, thus preventing the United States from projecting its military power overseas.

But if the United States abandons its role as benign hegemon, which nation (or nations) will seize the opportunity to become a malignant hegemon? Naturally, the most aggressive nations will fill the vacuum.


Inexperience

Next is Byron York (Obama can't be community organizer for the world) who interprets Obama's foreign policy blunders through the lens of his prior experience as a community organizer. York notes that "as an organizer, Obama started a lot of projects, gave a lot of inspirational talks, but accomplished very little." His preferred approach to problems was "to make powerful people feel guilty, or embarrassed, or annoyed enough to give them things."

But the problem is that Obama's prior experience is with

... people who shared his goals. They wanted to believe in him and in their shared enterprise.

Does Mahmoud Ahmedinejad fit into that category? The Taliban? Kim Jong-il?

Now that Obama is the president of the United States, he is the power figure, not the supplicant or the protester. Certainly a president still needs to convince foreign leaders to give him what he wants, but when it comes to dealing with the rest of the world, Obama isn't the underdog. His years on the South Side are little help.

A Couple of Funny Videos

The first one (via PowerLine) is the SNL skit lampooning President Obama as having accomplished nothing after 10 months in office. Scott Johnson rightly points out that it must be OK to mock him now.

The second one is about the 2009 Nobel Peace Prize. It's brought to you by Jackie and Dunlap.