David Gideon

It's here. It's available. My revised novel about an everyman who happens to become President has now been released. You can check it out here:

David Gideon

We all know that an everyman could never be President; politics will typically destroy men and women of principle and common sense. But David Gideon is about more than that. It's a story of a good man's life, and the interactions and prodding of his closest friends.

I've been told by several people that it's an easy read which tells a compelling tale. I hope so, because that's what I was going by for: a straightforward story of a principled man committed to doing things right and well. The actual political machinations I purposely kept to a minimum precisely because they would be dull. Campaigns are glossed over in part because no sane individual cares about them. The novel is about the man David Gideon, not the politician David Gideon. That man is only incidental to the story.

David is just a guy committed to his family and friends who otherwise wants to be left alone, but is called to something higher. It's a bit Capraesque, and maybe a bit corny. I like to fancy that it appeals to the soul, that little voice inside us who wants things to be right, to be the way they ought to be. I enjoyed his story and I think you would too.

Spending someone else's money

Yeah, I know I've said that I wouldn't dabble into political issues much here, and I meant it. But I did reserve the right to do it every now and then. Well, today is now. Or then, take your pick.
I am a political conservative. Why? For many reasons, really, yet one does kind of stand out. I think we have to be very careful about taking other people's money and spending it however we like. The essence of government spending is exactly that: taking other people's money and spending it however we like.
I'm not arguing against any and all forms of taxing and spending. We need government, and government does need money in order to work. Still, the idea that something should have public money spent on it simply because I want it spent, because the majority of voters want it spent, that way, is hubris, even arrogance. No matter how good of an idea it might be on certain levels, and especially no matter how good of an idea you may think it is, it doesn't automatically follow that you should force other people to pay for it.
The simple guideline is that government should generally only spend for a substantial public interest. I would look at the 18 basic ways of public spending as outlined in Article 1 of the Constitution as a good guideline. After that, we really shouldn't be too quick to demand, yes, demand, that individuals cough up their cash for what someone else believes right and just. Simply put, that is the tyranny of the majority. That's as bad as the tyranny of a king.

Why I cannot be libertarian

I have said to many folks, particularly my libertarian friends, that I want to be a libertarian so bad I can taste it. And I mean that. So what keeps me from signing on?

A handful of issues, for starters: as a group, they support abortion; they don't care for an aggressive foreign policy; and I simply can't quite come around on drug questions. Further, and this will sound very odd coming from me, they have too much of a distrust of government. Like it or not, there are things which only a government can do. Keeping order, for one, and keeping real and potential enemies at bay with the aggressive measures necessary. Then there's that pesky fact that freedom, which they champion to excess quite frankly, is a means rather than an end. Freedom is how we do things, not why, and while as a conservative I believe that the society which is best is one with the greatest rational amount of freedom, freedom as freedom cannot justify one solitary thing. This leads to I think the root problem with libertarianism as it stands today. It is the belief that the individual is the final arbiter of morality, the one who sets the standard for right and wrong.

No individual can hold this kind of power. On a practical level, it invites anarchy, or worse: a might makes right society. On a philosophic level, it begs one very important question: if I, as an individual, can make up my own mind about people and things, why should I ever listen to you? No progress can be made from such a starting point in ethics, which certainly means nothing can be done in any other area either.

If libertarians were to admit that it is not the individual (or that weak sister, consensus) which dictates what can and cannot be done, that justice and rightness exist outside of those realms having a genuine being of their own, I may reconsider my position. Until then, they are as bad as liberals: they want what they want because they want it. It is a poor substitute for critical thought on critical issues.

Long live orthodoxy

Embracing change is easy. Embracing Orthodoxy is the real challenge.

-a paraphrase of Mr. G. K. Chesterton

We hear it all the time, don't we, fellow conservatives? We hear the importance of embracing change, of being willing to change, of the need to alter our beliefs and desires to the will and whim of the current society. That's all we need to do is embrace the change which the modern society wishes us to do.

If they meant for us to change in the sense of becoming truly better persons, of changing from bad habit to good, of learning to like what we ought and dislike what we ought as well, of becoming more truly and usefully charitable and kind, there would be no problem. But they don't mean that. They mean, 'accept our ways of thinking and acting'. Or, more precisely, accept the change we want imposed on you.

But the trouble with accepting change merely because it's change, merely because it is what modern society may want rather than what may really help both the individual and the world at large, is that it will leave us we know not where. For accepting it is simple. Do nothing, reflect on nothing, question nothing, and change will occur. There's no effort involved.

Yet embracing Orthodoxy, and we capitalize it on purpose, accepting and living by proper traditions, now that's the challenge. That's where we grow and nurture our selves and our souls. That's how we create better people and a better world. By living right according to the just precepts which have been with us since the dawn of time. Change is all right, yes, if done to that purpose.

Otherwise, it will happen anyway. But would you rather do what you can to control change, or merely be stuck in its tight and unwieldy (and worldly) groove, as Mr. Chesterton also suggests? For you will lose control of yourself by merely agreeing to eternally change. Yet tradition works. That's how it became traditional in the first place.

Born This Way means Nothing

Why should anyone think that they have a right to act certain ways, and this includes any kind of action at all, simply because they are 'born that way'? If there is a more asinine defense of what we may do as people, it certainly isn't obvious.

No one, and that means absolutely anyone under absolutely any conditions, has the right to do anything they please based merely on intuition, feeling, or physical or psychological makeup. They may not be able to help what they do if and when a genuinely physical ailment or other explicable impediment is involved, yet even then we do what we can to help them learn to do the right thing, because even their genuine ailments or unfortunate conditions cannot justify their actions. It can only mean, at most, they are not morally culpable for what they do.

But most of us are. As such, we can choose what we should or should not do as we get along in our lives. We make decisions, and it is up to us to be rational about them. Indeed we have a duty to act rationally so far as we can, and we must be willing to face the consequences of what we do as well. But if we are to be rational, we must admit that we have a basic, general control over what we do. Why? Because one of the things which most of us are indeed born with is the capacity for intellectual considerations.

A properly developed intellect must tell us that we simply cannot do things just because we have a desire to do them. This includes doing the things we like to do which are not wrong in themselves. If you are inclined to play baseball, you may play it. But not because you're born with an affinity for sports and games; rather, because it is not wrong to play baseball. Even then, it can be wrong, according to circumstance, to play it. If you're supposed to be at work or doing your chores, then you can't play because more important obligations trump the desire.

If you cannot accept that, well, so be it. But you had also better not hold anything against conservatives supporting conservatism. Because, of course, they're just born that way.

Are Liberals Out to Control Us?

As conservatives, we are often accused of trying to run everyone's lives. We quibble with that presumption. To be sure, there are aspects of conservatism which may well seem to dictate to people; abortion and same sex marriage come to mind. But do conservatives try to run the lives of the others so much as their friends on the left do?

We ask: who is telling you how much soda you can drink? Who is on the march against trans fat? Who is telling you that you must get health care insurance? Who is telling you what days you may cut your grass or gas up your car? Who wants you to take the bus rather than drive your own car? Who asserts that the environment is more important than the person? One answer to these and a great many other questions is this: it ain't conservatives.

Yes, the few issues through which the right does try to dictate terms are big ones. Yet they aren't actually about control. They're about preserving the dignity of the person in very important areas, areas which would help to make a better society. What dignity for the person is there within the nanny state?

The government is not our mother. Conservatives know that. Liberals don't. And that may well be the key difference between those broad groups.

We're Just Born That Way

Why should anyone think that they have a right to act certain ways, and this includes any kind of action at all, simply because they are 'born that way'? If there is a more asinine defense of what we may do as people, it certainly isn't obvious.

No one, and that means absolutely anyone under absolutely any conditions, has the right to do anything they please based merely on intuition, feeling, or physical or psychological makeup. They may not be able to help what they do if and when a genuinely physical ailment or other explicable impediment is involved, yet even then we do what we can to help them learn to do the right thing, because even their genuine ailments or unfortunate conditions cannot justify their actions. It can only mean, at most, they are not morally culpable for what they do.

But most of us are. As such, we can choose what we should or should not do as we get along in our lives. We make decisions, and it is up to us to be rational about them. Indeed we have a duty to act rationally so far as we can, and we must be willing to face the consequences of what we do as well. But if we are to be rational, we must admit that we have a basic, general control over what we do. Why? Because one of the things which most of us are indeed born with is the capacity for intellectual considerations.

A properly developed intellect must tell us that we simply cannot do things just because we have a desire to do them. This includes doing the things we like to do which are not wrong in themselves. If you are inclined to play baseball, you may play it. But not because you're born with an affinity for sports and games; rather, because it is not wrong to play baseball. Even then, it can be wrong, according to circumstance, to play it. If you're supposed to be at work or doing your chores, then you can't play because more important obligations trump the desire.

If you cannot accept that, well, so be it. But you had also better not hold anything against conservatives supporting conservatism. Because, of course, they're just born that way.

The Truth Will Rise

Representative Paul Ryan of Wisconsin, the candidate for Vice President on Mitt Romney's ticket during the 2012 Presidential election in the United States, gave a speech yesterday in which he encouraged the GOP to pick its battles in the coming four years against President Barack Obama. Basically, he said that the Republicans need to oppose the President outright at times, compromise at times, and make the President's proposals (alliteration can be cool) more conservative when they can be so made. It is good advice.

What else can be done save to work with what we've got? And what we've got is four more years of President Barack Obama. He can, if he has the spine, and evidence shows he has more than that, veto what he does not like. And his vetoes will hold. Despite the control the Republican Party has on the House of Representatives, the Democrats hold the Senate. No veto will be, can be, overridden until at least 2015.

What does this say of the obvious majority? The majority which exists, obviously, in the fact that Republicans control most state houses and governorships. The United States is a conservative nation; it was founded on what today would be called conservative principles. We are a conservative nation. What do we do?

We wait. In the meantime, we do what we can, and we wait. We delay what seems inevitable (only seems, remember) and do what we can with what we've got to hold at bay the true evils which infect our country.

Such is not surrender; such is not an admission of defeat. Reality imposes certain restrictions; yet they are nothing more than restrictions of the moment. A 'tactical readjustment of the lines' may be necessary from time to time, from point to point. We are still winning the battle of the spirit.

It is a battle we will win. We will win it because human beings in their hearts see and understand it. It is a battle we will win because everyone, every man, woman, and child, sees it and fights towards it.

We will win it because it is in our nature. We will win it because it is what we believe. We will win it because it is right, and we know it.

We know it. That is our strength and our comfort. We know it.

Keep it Local

One of the most basic axioms a conservative should have in his arsenal is known as the Principle of Subsidiarity. Plainly stated, it says that things should be done on the most local level possible. Why? Because that it the surest way to get necessary things accomplished in the most efficient manner.

The closer we are to a problem the better we ought to be able to understand it. We will see it more clearly, and indeed, particularly with issues and events nearby, we will likely have a greater interest in it. Schools, for example, should by and large be run within the local community because it is the locals who have the greatest interest in the education of their kids. Their kids are the ones who are generally going to hang around and run things when the current generation cannot anymore.

As a rule, the closer to a problem the less money which must be spend alleviating it. This is in part due to localized control, again as issues should be seen more clearly but also as there would be no added layers of bureaucracy which would otherwise have to be paid for by the electorate. Perhaps this is why, try as she might, Washington cannot get a grip on poverty: too much money which is supposed to help the poor in fact keeps bureaucrats at a desk.

There are of course many factors to consider when deciding what job should be done where in a national scheme. A nation as a whole must take up the defense of its people: could Detroit reasonably be expected to ward off an attack by a large foreign power on its own? If we were to leave Detroit to its own devices (a prospect many folks out there may not mind, but let's set aside jokes right now) we would hardly be a nation in the best sense of the word.

As a rule, conservatives would argue that few powers would be nationwide in scope. Military protection, the necessary and proper federal judicial arrangements, coinage, and issues of commerce (to varying degrees) come first to mind. State power would be wider than that of municipalities, perhaps, while communities would see to the bulk of day in and day out tasks: police and fire protection, trash pickup, and to the schools, among other chores.

It goes without saying that the most localized control we can have is to go right down to the individual. The more that an individual can do for himself, to pay for and nurture by himself, the better quality product he will generally have. What was the first part of the famous Milton Friedman quote? When a person is paying for something directly and for himself, he will demand the best price and the best quality. This goes for nearly all the everyday things human beings require: food, clothes, shelter, and education.

We could go on all day discussing particulars, but you get the point. Local control is the best remedy for most ills. It is a point which should be discussed, if you'll excuse the irony, on a wider scale.

Agree to Disagree?

All too often, when we find ourselves in disagreement with our political and philosophical fellows (which seems, indeed, all too often) it is suggested, why can't we all just get along?, and further, why can't we just agree to disagree? Well, because that's just talk, and talk is cheap.

We should, of course, strive to get along with everyone we meet no matter where we find ourselves on the issues. We can get along even when significant differences are involved, so long as the debate is kept civil. But as to agreeing to disagree? That is simply a tool which the left uses in an attempt to shut the right up, because on the issues with which we disagree, quite often the laws and society are already on their side. It is easy to say let's just agree to disagree when you have what you want in place.

So, how about we change the law and make abortion illegal and then agree to disagree? Why not enact a Constitutional amendment defining marriage as between one man and one woman and then agree to disagree? Ahem, my dear conservatives, that's because we really don't want to agree to disagree. We want you to accept our judgment, and check yours at the voting booth curtain or courthouse door.

They look down their noses from such tall pedestals that they will not even consider that maybe, just maybe, what they ask for is selfish and inane. Such is the height of liberal hypocrisy.

Consumerism and Conservatism

Consumerism, the great evil exemplified by the current madness rather ironically known as Black Friday, is something generally associated with conservatism. Yet it is in fact a liberal trait.

To be sure, there's nothing wrong with buying things for others, or even for one's self as such. Clothes, food, even our recreation, are things which must be regularly purchased for various yet obvious reasons. The list is surely much longer, too, but again, we get the point.

It's when we begin to buy things simply to buy them that we start to slip into error, into the evil of pure selfishness. When we have to buy a new TV because the old one is simply old, we have become consumerists. When we buy a Hummer when a van will do, we have become consumerists. When we make any purchase which is plainly conspicuous, we have become consumerists. It displays an excess of pampering, or worse, of egregious self indulgence.

That bigger, better, and newer isn't of itself wrong, true. Making purchases is something which, as with so much else, must be seen in context against the objective standards of right and wrong. There's nothing wrong with buying a tractor trailer rig if you're going into the shipping industry: a Chevy simply won't do the job. But if all you're doing is driving around to attend your daily needs, that Chevy should do just fine.

But to the point: consumerism is a liberal trait because it ultimately puts the state ahead of the individual for no good purpose other than the state. Why else would FDR, that old liberal, want to change Thanksgiving, except to lengthen the buying season? And at that, for the sake of the state in general, and his Presidency and popularity in particular. He wasn't interested in the person, but in himself and his government.

When we become preoccupied with buying things solely for the sake of the purchase, we are putting the nation ahead of the person. And we must include ourselves as persons of course: for we become less real as persons when we turn too far into ourselves. That, too, is a liberal trait, yet we will save comment on that for another time.

Think globally? Think Locally.

One of the most basic axioms a conservative should have in his arsenal is known as the Principle of Subsidiarity. Plainly stated, it says that things should be done on the most local level possible. Why? Because that it the surest way to get necessary things accomplished in the most efficient manner.

The closer we are to a problem the better we ought to be able to understand it. We will see it more clearly, and indeed, particularly with issues and events nearby, we will likely have a greater interest in it. Schools, for example, should by and large be run within the local community because it is the locals who have the greatest interest in the education of their kids. Their kids are the ones who are generally going to hang around and run things when the current generation cannot anymore.

As a rule, the closer to a problem the less money which must be spend alleviating it. This is in part due to localized control, again as issues should be seen more clearly but also as there would be no added layers of bureaucracy which would otherwise have to be paid for by the electorate. Perhaps this is why, try as she might, Washington cannot get a grip on poverty: too much money which is supposed to help the poor in fact keeps bureaucrats at their desks.

There are of course many factors to consider when deciding what job should be done where in a national scheme. A nation as a whole must take up the defense of its people: could Detroit reasonably be expected to ward off an attack by a large foreign power on its own? If we were to leave Detroit to its own devices (a prospect many folks out there may not mind, but let's set aside jokes right now) we would hardly be a nation in the best sense of the word.

As a rule, conservatives would argue that few powers would be nationwide in scope. Military protection, the necessary and proper federal judicial arrangements, coinage, and issues of commerce (to varying degrees) come first to mind. State power would be wider than that of municipalities, perhaps, while communities would see to the bulk of day in and day out tasks: police and fire protection, trash pickup, and to the schools, among other chores.

We could go on all day discussing particulars, but you get the point. Local control is the best remedy for most ills. It is a point which should be discussed, if you'll excuse the irony, on a wider scale.