My Hero: Milton Friedman

I spent some time today watching my hero, Milton Friedman.  I needed the reinforcement of principle.

This one video is a good review for today’s situations, taped in 1999.   Milton about Clinton, Social Security, etc.

I suggest you Google "Milton Friedman" and then just start watching as many of the short videos you find.  There are many topics, all still relevant today.

Best Quote:  “What do you mean Give Back?”  when talking about reducing taxes.

Too bad Milton misses it on the prediction for government size in 2009.

Economics 101:  A series of videos:  Economics 101 Videos

On The Fed:  The Federal Reserve causes the Great Depression:  The Great Depression and the Fed

On Social Security:  Social Security Myth

Have fun.

I also like the Hoover Institution at Stanford University a lot.  They prepared this video.

Psuedo-Social Justice Has Harmed the People It Intended to Help

Draft:

http://eaglerising.com/8439/psuedo-social-justice-harmed-people-intended-help/

What is Marriage? And Why Should the State Care?

This is the second best explanation I have ever heard for why marriage is between one man and one woman.  I can no longer find the first, unfortunately, although the arguments are similar.

See Ryan T. Anderson speaking at Standford University:  What is Marriage?

Here is the Q&A portion:  Q&A session

Marco Rubio: Makling Seqnse on Education, Immigration, Taxes, Jobs, etc.

Just go here:

marco-rubio-delivers-game-changing-speech/

Common Core: Education Salvation or Commie Core?

Common Core: Education Salvation or Commie Core?

Many States in the U.S. are implementing a new teaching methodology and set of standards called Common Core. I have been observing the pros and cons and arguments on both sides. Given my usual distrust of big government solutions, my predilection is to identify with the anti-CC side. But people I respect (like Mike Huckabee) are supportive of it.

In California, CC has being implemented swiftly and without feedback from the voters. CA stands to get a lot of money from the Feds and no doubt that is a driver. I spoke to Mr. Garagarza last week, the principle of the new Sierra Foothills Charter School in Mariposa, who said he liked CC. Of course our conversation was very limited.

Today I came across this video from Utah. It contains the best description of reasons and philosophy of why one should appose CC that I have seen to date. I would love to hear Nancy's take on this, if she has time to watch it. Also Alice, if you are watching. http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=TYj-HDDrL4w#t=3533

Also see this video by a high school grad of excellence: http://dailycaller.com/2014/01/06/watch-another-high-school-student-take-down-common-core-like-a-boss/

Here is a video that discusses the CC standards: http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=EXf91AGW2QA#t=114

For me the greatest danger presented here is loss of local control. The statement that elected school boards no longer represent citizens as concerns education is terrifying.

Now, why should I care? I don't have kids in school. Only my taxes are at risk. Not so fast: I hope to have grandkids one day and they will be affected. I have friends whose kids are being affected. I have a love for this country and I fear for the future of the Constitutional process when oligarchies (private companies and organizations as well as political leadership cabals) can take over education, on the belief that they are the holders of the keys to the perfect utopia.

Now, you might say, "Jay, you're being a scare monger."  Maybe, maybe not.  I have recently begun to apply this test to things:  "What if only 50% of what they are saying is true or applicable?"  Wouldn't you still have to say there is something to be concerned about here? 

One last thing:  CC includes a cradle to career student data collection scheme, with little security and broad distribution to data users.  They accomplished this by changing the definitions of privacy law to become broad based and squishy.  Watch the last video at minute 50. 

A last video by a Professor of Education Daniel Coupland at Hillsdale College: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pDSvvyjsXSk 

Conversation or Confrontation?

I have noticed that much of the difficulty in having a productive conversation these days, especially on politics, is that people talk AT each other instead of WITH each other.  They strive to make their pet points and to "win" the argument, instead of finding the common ground on which they do agree, or the basic facts that are not in dispute, and then moving forward towards a solution or conclusion.

Several friends discussed this lately and I have paraphrased some of what they said, because it is well spoken to explain the problem and a solution:

• Friend 1:  Regardless of the persons I meet, I always learn from diversity if I am paying attention.  You want to withdraw from political wrangling? That's an understandable position; it can be stimulating and fun, but it can wear on one, too. I too withdraw at times, to rest my mind, and clear my head.
• Friend 2:  In church, I have met a fellow whose political convictions are not mine. But the sense of brotherly love that we feel for each other from the beginning seems to mean that we can actually discuss the positions as ideas without the bashing emotional baggage. Curiously, his wife is more conservative.  But basically we enjoy each other's company at a level deeper than the politics.  I don't agree with his politics but it doesn't keep me from having spontaneous love. I enjoy the company of several persons who are horrified that my wife and I are Republicans and have attended Tea Party Rallies and campaigned with them - and support Tea Party gambits to save the country, according to the Tea Party vision of the Good for the country. For the most part, I think if I have an opportunity to just hang with people in some kind of normal non-thinking socialization paradigm, the common family reality of humanity trumps the political divisions. It just so happens that we don't have that situation. There is a degree of difficulty in our relationship that might be remedied by physical propinquity, but we don't have that. Physical propinquity is not a universal balm because for the most part it seems that my sister and I are better off not being in each other presence. Maybe before one of us dies, that can change but for now it seems to be the practical truth. In  my readings in philosophy, I have dimly learned that the Greeks considered philosophy to be the effort to move from opinions to KNOWLEDGE. There are seemingly endless questions that emerge from a definition like that -- especially if we apply it to contemporary American Political Problems. Socrates' claim was that he knew that he DID NOT KNOW.  His primary engagement was with folks who believe that they DID KNOW.  Does REAL KNOWLEDGE exist? This is just one of those seemingly unlimited questions that arise in the philosophic approach to things.
• Me:  Well said.
• Friend 2:  We had an luncheon event at which this gentleman was present. We adjourned to Peet's for robust discussion. One thing I think we agreed on - commit to intellectual integrity at the cost of losing arguments and being humiliated.   But if our foundation is friendship and quest for truth, there is little cost to admitting -- hmm -- I was wrong about that. Or -- being able to confess honestly -- My feeling is that your opinion has some defect, but at the present time I cannot articulate what it is. With time, study and thought I might be able to rebut your opinion or come to an acceptance of its truth. When we are engaged in a hostile dynamic, you cannot admit weakness and fault because it will be used to destroy you, unfortunately.
• Me:  More well said. Can I copy it?

Obama not a Lawyer?

Something I had never heard before and will never hear from teh MSM:  Both Barack and Michelle Obama no longer hold valid Illinois law licenses.  Barack voluntarily surrendered his in 2008, while Michelle surrendered hers in 1993.  I just obtained this from the Illinois ARDC web site:

----------------
ARDC Lawyer Search Results from the ARDC database last updated as of September 27, 2013 at 1:11:39 PM: for the following terms: Last Name: obama, status: All, Country: all

Name	Date Admitted	City	State	Authorized to Practice?
Barack Hussein Obama	December 17, 1991	N/A	N/A	No
Michelle Obama Former name(s): Michelle Robinson	May 12, 1989	N/A	N/A	No

----------------

The following was sent to me to make me aware of this.  While it sounds like one of the usual atttempts at slander, it appears to hold a lot of truth.  The parts about thte licences is most important, because the Left loves to trumpet that our President is a Constitutional lawyer.  Apparently not so much any more.  The examples from 7. are all nice corroborations but not really proof of anything but that he should stick to his teleprompter.

The info on Michelle is disturbing.  I hope she learned some lessons..

----------------------

Bombshell: The Real Reason Barack Obama And Michele Lost Their Law License.

Thursday, June 21, 2012 4:25

BY David Herold

I am reposting for those who have missed it.

FORMER LAWYERS?

I knew they had both lost their law license, but I didn't know why until I read this.

This is 100% legit. I check it out at https://www.iardc.org/ Stands for Illinois Attorney Registration And Disciplinary Committee. It's the official arm of lawyer discipline in Illinois ; and they are very strict. (Talk about irony.) Even I, at the advanced age of almost 65, maintain (at the cost of approximately $600/year) my law license that I worked so hard and long to earn.

Big surprise.

Former Constitutional Law Lecturer and U.S. President Makes Up Constitutional Quotes During State Of The Union (SOTU) Address.

Consider this:

1. President Barack Obama, former editor of the Harvard Law Review, is no longer a "lawyer". He surrendered his license back in 2008 in order to escape charges he lied on his bar application. A "Voluntary Surrender" is not something where you decide "Gee, a license is not really something I need anymore, is it?" and forget to renew your license. No, a "Voluntary Surrender" is something you do when you've been accused of something, and you 'voluntarily surrender" your license five seconds before the state suspends you.

2 Michelle Obama "voluntarily surrendered" her law license in 1993, after a Federal Judge gave her the choice between surrendering her license or standing trial for Insurance fraud!

3. Facts.Source: http://jdlong.wordpress.com/2009/05/15/pres-barack-obama-editor-of-the-Harvard-law-review-has-no-law-license/

4. A senior lecturer is one thing, a fully ranked law professor is another. Barack Obama was NOT a Constitutional Law Professor at the University of Chicago .

5. The University of Chicago released a statement in March 2008 saying Sen. Barack Obama (D-Ill.) "served as a professor" in the law school-but that is a title Obama, who taught courses there part-time, never held, a spokesman for the school confirmed in 2008.

6. "He did not hold the title of Professor of Law," said Marsha Ferziger Nagorsky, an Assistant Dean for Communications and Lecturer in Law at the University of Chicago School of Law.

Source: http://blogs.suntimes.com/sweet/2008/03/sweet_obama_did_hold_the_title.html ;

7. The former Constitutional Senior Lecturer (Obama) cited the U.S. Constitution the other night during his State of the Union Address. Unfortunately, the quote he cited was from the Declaration of Independence … not the Constitution.

8. The B-Cast posted the video: http://www.breitbart.tv/did-obama-confuse-the-constitution-with-the-declaration-of-independence/

9. Free Republic : In the State of the Union Address, President Obama said: "We find unity in our incredible diversity, drawing on the promise enshrined in our Constitution: the notion that we are all created equal.

10. Um, wrong citing, wrong founding document there Champ, I mean Mr. President. By the way, the promises are not a notion, our founders named them unalienable rights. The document is our Declaration of Independence and it reads:

We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.

11. And this is the same guy who lectured the Supreme Court moments later in the same speech?

When you are a phony it's hard to keep facts straight.

Keep this moving — educate others

-------------------------

Slippery Slope 3 - Rewriting Middle East History

Will the Anti-Semites ever quit?  Probably not.

This is why the Israelis fight on.  This is why young Americans don't have a clue about the world.

See here:  Did-a-college-professor-ghassan-zakaria-deliberately-refashion-a-middle-east-map/

Slippery Slope 2 - Rewriting History on 2nd Amendment

History is changing before our eyes.  And in many cases it is for the cause of progressivism and secularism and against religion and classical social morals.

Here is an example of how to cheat children out of their heritage, as sent to me by a friend:

--------

The propaganda press really hopes to secure itself from harm ..... However, he who gives up a little freedom for a little security soon has neither.

http://godfatherpolitics.com/12555/ap-history-textbook-rewrites-second-amendment/

"An AP (advanced placement) history textbook has rewritten the Second Amendment. 

"Here’s the Constitution’s wording: “A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed.” 

"Here’s the AP history textbook’s reworking of the text:  “Second Amendment: The people have a right to keep and bear arms in a state militia” 

"The revision interprets the Second Amendment in a way that concludes that the only way it’s constitutional to “keep and bear arms” is for a person to be part of a “state militia.” 

United States History: Preparing for the Advanced Placement Examination gets it backwards as the following article points out: “The 2nd Amendment says that a militia is necessary to protect a free State, so in order to be able to have a militia, the citizens have a natural right to keep and bear arms and the government cannot infringe on that right."
----------

Note also, looking at the picture of the textbook page on the link above, you can see that the 1st Amendment has been paraphrased also, to the detriment of its original meaning. 

Added Sept 18:  More revisionist history involving this book:  Publisher-of-ap-history-book-containing-questionable-second-amendment-summary-has-direct-ties-to-common-core-and-theres-more

Added Sept 18:  The sad state of teaching revisionist history continues:  sc-school-teacher-tells-students-constitutional-cops-confiscate-guns