It's easier to change yourself than vote for change

Psychologists tell their patients, and any feel-good daytime talk-show host that will listen, that it's easier to change ourselves than to change others. Relationship problems are more often caused by our trying to change others when it's much easier to change ourselves or our reactions to them.

Candidates often claim to be the agents of change, as Obama does, but the real agents of change are the voters.

There's nothing in either candidate's proposals different from any previous year. In fact, both senators John McCain and Barak Obama offer more of the same. More programs, more spending, more giveaways, more favors from the treasury in exchange for votes. All their proposals for increased services will require more taxes or more borrowing, or both.

Nationalized health care isn't something new, it's more welfare. It's an entitlement program designed to make more Americans dependent on government than the millions already unable or demotivated to kick the habit.

Mortgage bailouts are a lottery for both lenders and borrowers who assumed more debt and risk than they could afford.

Persecution of oil companies provides great theater for the electorate, giving congressman and senators top billing and spot lights for hand wringing and arm waving, but is merely a distraction from our government's unwillingness to exploit our nation's own natural resources.

Do voters really want change or do they merely want credit for the emperor's new priorities? Is increased government spending OK when it's money spent on you or only when spent on others? Are increased taxes OK as long as they aren't yours? Are your votes for locally-elected politicians consistent with a desire for change or are they for more of the same?

Our politicians--both Republican and Democrat--are exactly as we want them to be. Detroit's mayor and city council are exactly as Detroit voters want them to be. In short, our politicians give us exactly what we vote for because it's easier to blame politicians, spouses and relatives than it is to blame ourselves.

No single candidate can bring change. No single party can bring change. Change requires more than one vote every four years. It requires votes for change in the spring for schools, votes for change in the summer primaries, and votes for change every November for national, state, county, and local leadership.

Change what you want from your representatives, change what you vote for, vote that way at every election, and your government will change--eventually. It can't all happen in November, and anyone that tells you otherwise is, well, a candidate-as-usual.

Michigan gets more national attention - for the wrong reason

Michigan is getting more national attention--for the wrong reason.

Most Michigan residents are familiar with the recall petition drive against House Speaker Andy Dillon (D). The more savvy among them may even be familiar with how petition gatherers were harassed by police, township supervisors, and (naturally) Dillon and Democratic supporters.

Despite these obstacles petition gatherers collected 15,000+ signatures and filed them with the state--only to have them rejected by Michigan Secretary of State, Terri Lynn Land (R).

When I said national attention in the title I meant the attention of nationally syndicated columnist and radio host Paul Jacob. His recent article, The Rule of Law v. The Rule of Land, points out again how Michigan is again seems to be coming up on the short-end of the stick.

Having recently participated in gathering signatures for Ferndale's No PSD initiative and seeing first-hand how some parties directly affected by bad legislation aren't able to collect petition signatures against those same laws.

In the case of the PSD, the business owners that had to pay the Principal Shopping District tax (PSD) aren't allowed, by Ms. Land's rules, to collect petition signatures against it. Business owners had to rely on residents to do much of the work for them. Despite business owners' not-insignificant investment in our community they can not collect signatures because many aren't registered Ferndale electors.

That's not right. It's glad to know the Supreme Court agrees with me. It's disappointing to discover our secretary of state either disagrees or is ignorant of the issue. I suspect that after the appeal of her ruling she'll become more familiar with Buckley v ACLF.

Legislature votes for ban--except in casinos, tracks, and bingo halls

A couple days ago I read an editorial that pointed out how poor our understanding of civics is because if we understood the sanctity our constitution, democracy, and capitalism holds for private property rights we wouldn't even be having the conversation about smoking bans.

But to save everyone from having to think about representative and limited government, Lou Fleury from Royal Oak's letter to The Oakland Press gives us this simple example.

[Lou and his friend] think the Legislature should also look at another scourge that plays out all over the state — an assault to health and welfare, a problem to workers in certain establishments who are subjected to this without regard for human decency. Yes, we’re talking about karaoke — the right of people to sing off key and give us headaches! My doctor told me I may suffer permanent physical or psychological damage.

I was complaining about this the other day to anyone that would listen. Somebody said, “Shut up will ya. Just don’t go to those places anymore.”

Wow! Don’t go to bars and restaurants that have karaoke. What a concept.

Indeed. How far we must have wandered when individual liberty and responsibility are new concepts.

Ask not what your congressman can do for you

We've come a long way from John F. Kennedy's inauguration speech of January 20, 1961. It is from this great speech that President Kennedy said, "Ask not what your country can do for you -- ask what you can do for your country." On a Townhall-like telephone conference with Congressman Sander Levin a few weeks ago this was the last thing on questioners' minds. All they most wanted to know was what the federal government will do for them.

According to the conference moderator, over 2000 people from the congressman's district were on the phone. It was the congressman's staff's job to screen questions. Maybe Kennedy's words were the last thing on the screeners' minds. The only questions I heard asked were basically:

• How can the government pay for my health insurance?
• How can the government pay for my child's education?
• How can the government lower gas prices?
• How can the government pay for my mortgage?

After answering a few of these, I could have easily taken the congressman's place because his answer to each was basically, "Democratic leaders in the house and senate are working to provide (fill in the blank) but we'd make better progress with a friend in the White House, instead of President Bush."

From the congressman's point-of-view, the only thing stopping Democrats from paying for everything was President Bush. If that's the case, I'm glad President Bush is there, and am not optimistic for either an Obama or Clinton presidency.

The high cost of health insurance, education, and the so-called mortgage crisis are likely the product of government interference in the first place. Many who get the joke chuckle when the hear,

patient: Doctor, it hurts when I do this
doctor: Then stop doing that!

If government interference helped create the problem, why do so many expect more government interference will remedy it? I had a grandmother that used to over-cook meat. She thought the solution to any tough, unchewable roast was to put it back in the oven.

When someone else is paying our tab we tend to be less careful what we put on it. This is the case with corporate expense accounts as much as it with insurance. Healthy people are perfectly capable of fighting off infections without antibiotics, but since they're made less expensive with insurance we're seldom reluctant to have them prescribed for us. This is an unnecessary medical subsidy that inflates the prices of medicines and contributes to the antibiotic-resistant strains of bacteria.

Government subsidies also remove the pressure on colleges to yield to the economics of supply and demand. Administrative and staff salaries, building and maintenance expenses are all increasing faster than inflation, and both state and federal governments are racing to back-fill their budgets so the cost to families might remain affordable. Though universities teach supply & demand, as well as the basics of capitalism and free markets, apparently they prefer a more socialist funding mechanism.

Gas prices? Punish the oil companies. None of us are individually responsible for our nation's dependence on foreign oil. We have a right to live wherever we want, drive whatever we want, heat our homes and pools to whatever temperature we want, and exercise our recreational vehicles however we desire. The preferred mechanism to affording our wants is to have the government pay for it--which is to say taxpayers. And while income taxes are graduated--have "the rich" pay for it. In fact the less we pay in income tax the better the deal it is.

Congressman Levin also promised to rescue homeowners at risk of foreclosure or upside-down on their mortgages. Even before 2005 economists warned home prices couldn't keep going up. Everyone that lived through the Internet Bubble of 2000 or the savings & loan scandal knew the economists were right--but that didn't stop them from buying more home than they could afford or speculating that interest rates wouldn't rise.

So what else did President Kennedy say in that speech? Read it for yourself. You might notice he used words similar to what President Bush used in Israel that so upset Democrats. A good speech, like a good constitution, is as relevant today as it was when first composed. The only difference I see today from 47 years ago is that that speech seems more conservative than progressive, and more likely to come from Bush than either Clinton or Obama.

So I wonder to myself, have Republicans become more like Kennedy or have Democrats become less like him?

Talk cheaper than gas more than ever

This article was originally posted as a comment on a headline appearing in Ferndale Online.

People from Clarkston don't need to come to Ferndale for our downtown--they have their own and it's quite nice, if a little more spread out than ours.

No, Mr. Mayor, the reason Ferndale and other inner-ring neighborhoods will likely see a rise in popularity is because of the cost of gas. As even Ms. Shor of Clarkston said in the Free Press article, "As much as we've enjoyed living in Clarkston, we feel that the exurbs are too far removed from everything. I hate all the driving."

This is pretty much what I predicted in May 2007 in the article Selfish Sympathies:

When gas costs $4, $5, or $6/gallon, people may not be willing to sit in clogged traffic and begin demanding subways, elevated rail, or other public transportation that can be financed with new gas taxes. Buses fall somewhere between personal and mass transit, but are neither personal or mass. Mass transit is progress for Detroit and Michigan.

Cheap gas accelerates urban sprawl. It makes 20, 30, or even 40-mile or more commutes an inconsequential expense. Imagine how real estate costs might change if Detroit and its inner-ring cities like Oak Park, Ferndale, Royal Oak and others suddenly become more desirable properties than Clarkston and Addison because of their close proximity to mass transit, urban infrastructure, office and retail space, and $4-or-higher per gallon gas prices.

One problem in Ferndale is our priorities seem disconnected from our rhetoric. There's a lot of mass-transit-talk from city managers and council persons, but that doesn't stop the spending or construction of pork projects in Woodward's median. Both the Crow's Nest and the Woodward Avenue Tribute Totem Pole actually stand in the way of mass transit as surely as a young Ferndale mother, her two-year old, stroller, and our Welcome to Ferndale wall stood in the way of a car driven by an medically-impaired driver.

Instead of walls, jungle gyms, or monuments we should erect signs announcing "mass transit coming soon," or "this is a site of a proposed mass-transit station" whether it's proposed or not.

If we're going to proceed using the Woodward Avenue median as our memorial park to local government pork spending, then we should drop the environmentally-sensitive/green city/pro-mass-transit talk and start lobbying middle schools to consider Ferndale instead of Washing DC for their Eighth-Grade Trips.

Maybe that's what our city leaders have in-mind for Ferndale's future--tourism.

Why the fuss over a gay Dumbledore?

Why all the fuss over a gay Dumbledore? Many who cheer the popular wizarding school's headmaster's outing express contempt for those that jeer it. The irony that escapes the isn't-it-great-that-Dumbledore-is-gay crowd is that by celebrating the Harry Potter author's comments as brave and audacious they betray the fact they haven't accepted homosexuality as normal. The real benchmark of homosexuality's acceptance into common culture is when remarks such as Rowling's would be otherwise unremarkable.

Another benchmark would be when The Detroit News stops publishing Deb Price or Deb Price stops writing specifically on gay issues. Having a column dedicated to gay topics trivializes homosexual issues to the daily horoscope or crossword puzzle. The nation's, Michigan's, and Detroit's issues are gay issues. Insisting gay issues are separate from America's risks keeping gays separate. If acceptance is the goal of advocacy then advocates might consider fewer isolating tactics.

Common culture doesn't celebrate or overreact to the ordinary. It's hardly noteworthy anymore that Hollywood actors and actresses seem to change lovers and spouses with each new film, hairstyle, or self-congratulatory awards banquet. What is noteworthy anymore is when we discover a pair of celebrities that have been married for 20 years or more. Paul Newman and Joanne Woodward will be married 50 years this year and recently deceased Charlton Heston was married to his wife, Lydia Clark Heston, for 68 years.

Was anyone surprised Harry Potter married Ginnie Weasley or that Britney Spears did whatever outrageous thing she did last week?

Black History Month is another celebration that in 2008--143 years after General Lee's surrender, 53 years after Rosa Parks' bus ride, and 44 years since the Civil Rights Act--should be thought an anachronism. To draw attention to the accomplishments of black Americans as peculiarly distinguished from the accomplishments of all Americans suggests our nation still regards black accomplishment--academic or otherwise--as a novelty. The month-long blacks-are-people-too infomercials, documentaries and school programs are only necessary in a culture that either expects little of blacks, is compensating for its low expectations, or believes annual booster shots of encouragement inoculate black self esteem.

Think of it a four-week long anniversary of when a child first colored inside the lines. After a few years it's embarrassing to both the child and everyone invited to Chuck-e-Cheese's. The child is fine. It's the parents that need therapy.

As Shelby Steele suggested, it may be paternalism that keeps the training wheels on for minorities and not lack of opportunity or achievement.

It's not always a bad thing to celebrate what people ought to do, but repeated celebration risks drawing more attention to ourselves than the people or events we're celebrating. Our celebrations become less about them than being counted among the revelers. Are we truly glad Dumbledore is gay or do we only want to be seen being glad he's gay? Are our criticisms of those protesting the announcement for our benefit or Dumbledore's and Rowling's? Surely neither of them requires our coming to their defense--the former is a fictional character whose romantic attachments played no part in the plot created by the latter.

The ordinary doesn't attract attention to itself--that's what makes it ordinary. Unless we've come to a place where doing the right thing is unexpected we should stop acting surprised when it happens, and stop celebrating ourselves at the expense of others.

Why politicians lie to us: II

Last May I wrote an article called Why politicians lie to us suggesting they lie because we want them to. With all the clamor for government bailouts for mortgages, what politician would dare telling voters their problems were brought on themselves (both lenders and borrowers) or that the best thing for some troubled homeowners is to lose their homes?

In April 22's Detroit News, the Associated Press reported housing prices may slump more than during the Great Depression. The doom and gloom reported there will likely lead many to believe we're bound for a depression of historic proportions.

"An influential economist who long predicted the housing market bubble cautioned Tuesday that the slump in the U.S. housing market could cause prices to fall more than they did in the Great Depression, and bailouts will be needed so millions don't lose their homes."

I really hope that didn't surprise anyone.

How many more homes do you think have been built since the 1930s? How much greater a percentage of the population owns homes today than in the 1930s? How much more urban sprawl exists now than in the 1930s?

What we should be wary of is the last part of the sentence above, "... and bailouts will be needed so millions don't lose their homes."

I'm reminded of a column written by John Stossel about how some homeowners deliberately build homes too-close to the ocean because they know the government will pay to rebuild it. Because the homeowner doesn't bare the cost of the risk, and neither does the insurance company, they cavalierly build homes they couldn't afford without depending on federal bailouts. We feel bad they lose their homes, but if they were forced to bare the cost of their risk they may chose to live elsewhere--or at least with less of your tax dollars.

Maybe there were millions who weren't ready to afford their homes. Maybe there were millions who speculated with their lenders that home prices would continue skyrocketing. Do you remember the savings & loan scandal or when the dot-com bubble burst? They were only 18 and 8 years ago respectively.

Who says we don't learn from our mistakes? The government paid for the first, didn't pay for the second, and politicians and the media have all agreed having the federal government pay for our losses scores more points with voters than not--regardless the cost to the treasury.

Maybe there's an opportunity for Detroit and its inner-ring neighborhoods to help these people find more affordable accommodations. Maybe the mortgage crisis, combined with high gas prices, creates a unique opportunity to re-populate cities by creating demand for apartments, townhouses, and other more affordable homes.

So if politicians aren't blatantly lying to us, at least they spend more time telling us what we want to hear rather than what we need to hear. I believe it's possible to change that, and am always on the look-out for that politician.