The endorsement game

Let me make this clear: Nothing could make me report to a polling place at this stage in U.S. history. The differences between candidates are defined only by the priorities by which they intend to wield the forces of tyranny. Every vote is an endorsement of the state's authority to control individual lives and choices.

But as a practical matter a mainstream newspaper is not going to say that, unless you're in Las Vegas and Vin Suprynowicz is your editorial page chief. So we had to pick between the white-haired dictator wannabe and the black-haired dictator wannabe. It's an interesting intellectual exercise.

I drafted the following to guide my contributions to the discussions; I knew it would be fruitless to submit it as an actual draft endorsement. I did manage to sneak a hint of these thoughts into our final product, although you have to study long and hard to find them. Enjoy. Now I have to go wash my hands; I try and try and try but I can't seem to get them clean ...
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Newspapers across the country have begun endorsing Barack Obama for president, many using poetic words about a time of great challenge, a dramatic speaker, a change of direction. We have no poetry to offer, but we present our conclusion that Obama is the better choice for America at what could be a turning point in this nation's history.

Obama is the better choice for no greater reason than the last eight years. George W. Bush campaigned eight years ago as something better than the previous eight years, a time when America's military had been used as a vast police force, invading Somalia and Kosovo, bombing Iraq and Sudan and Afghanistan. Like his father before him, Bush promised a kinder, gentler approach, a more modest foreign policy — "I don't believe in nation building," he stated flatly during one debate with Vice President Al Gore.

Sept. 11, 2001, changed everything. For a time it created a more united country, ready to chase Osama bin Laden and his followers to the ends of the earth to bring justice to those who killed innocent men, women and children on American soil. But the venture went terribly wrong.

The man who campaigned on a limited-government platform created a massive new federal department, the Department of Homeland Security, with authority to probe into Americans' private lives in the name of fighting terrorism. And that was the tip of a horrifying spending iceberg. The balanced budget forged by a Democratic president and Republican Congress was converted into a bloated deficit of unprecedented proportions. The national debt spiraled out of control — and when reckless policies led the nation to the brink of economic collapse this year, Bush's solution was more government, more borrowing and spending, a national debt of more than $11 trillion.

The nation that once stood as a beacon of freedom and human rights was infested with legalistic wordsmiths who justified nothing less than torture as a means of advancing our cause. The nation that eschewed the concept of a first strike when the Cold War was at its height now embraced the idea of pre-emptive war, invading a nation that "someday may" attack our shores even though it posed no imminent threat.

These are not the principles that the party of Lincoln, Taft, Eisenhower and Reagan stood for. The Republican Party has lost its way and needs to rethink its purpose and its values. That necessary soul-searching will be impossible if the party's standard bearer is allowed to enter the White House.

Barack Obama's political philosophy is far to the left of mainstream America, but no less a conservative authority than the Chicago Tribune has said that it knows this man and expects he will govern as a centrist. That's good enough for us. Washington, D.C., needs to be swept clean of the principles that have guided the administrations of the past 16 years.

When they have you pegged, don't believe it

I am fairly confident attention deficit disorder is not a disorder at all. Multitasking is considered an asset in grownups, so why should children be forced to concentrate on something long after something else has attracted their notice?

Over at the Endervidualism site Bob Wallace has offered "Round pegs in square holes," an essay that suggests (among other things) that the state school system in vogue for decades does not lend itself to the care and nourishment of the most imaginative children among us - the ones who grow up to be Thomas Edison or Adam Smith or Frank Lloyd Wright. How often do you hear brilliant, talented people talk about how they were almost left behind in their school days because their imaginations had left the class far behind and they were bored?

In school, imaginative kids are accused - and I repeat, “accused,” as if they’re guilty of something, and not even with a trial - of daydreaming and not paying attention. That is exactly right. They’re off building worlds in their heads. Pretty nifty ones, too, I can tell you.

The regimented school system does a good job of training regiments - good soldiers who don't question authority - but it has its hands full with normal, inquisitive kids. These are the kids who end up drugged and discouraged from using their natural talents.

Wallace asks, "I often wonder how many people have been lost because of the school system?" It's a poignant and worthy question. Maybe not as many as we might fear: The power of the imagination is unlimited, and those who have a good one often manage to find a way out of the darkness. Good readin'.

UPDATE: Funny we should mention that - Vin Suprynowicz has written a couple of related analyses of the school system last week and this week.