Swickard: Reasoning with an unreasonable government

© 2013 Michael Swickard, Ph.D. Be reasonable. That is a common desire in our society. We wish to be surrounded by reasonable people and to have a reasonable government to protect us from unreasonable people. The problem is when the government itself becomes that which we cannot stand: when the government becomes unreasonable. Then we citizens have a problem.
From the moment of our founding, this country has been haunted by the specter of totalitarian rule. The Constitution was carefully crafted to protect American Citizens from the urges of power-hungry leaders. Over the decades, little by little, power-hungry leaders have dismantled those protections. Most of these actions came with the promise of some reward for citizens foregoing their protections from governments taking their freedoms.
It started when the government started doing things for people who wanted things they did not have. There is an impulse to get something from the government to which we do not own. Part of this involves protecting us from the human emotion of want.
I am not telling stories out of school when I say it is a basic human quality to want more that we have. Not every person has the same appetite for wants so not everyone is ready to trade freedom for wants. Governments induce some to trade that which they want for something they are willing to give up: freedoms.
Most of the time the trade of our freedoms to satisfy some of our wants is above-board so that anyone who wishes to know can know the trade that has been made. The government steps in to give us our wants if we give the government their want of power. The accumulation of power requires us to surrender our freedoms.
We know where people want to start in having the government do things. The quest is to know when they, whoever they are, have gone too far. Said differently, you know where you want to start, where do you intend to end?
When has the government gone too far is a common question. In this 21st century the government is almost all things to all people and a complete force of its own. At times there does not seem to be any limits of the power contained in our servants in the government.
This is even more so of concern this last week with the spotlight on our government, without asking permission, monitoring each and every American without reason. That, my friend, is unreasonable. There was not a debate, not a dialog, just a group of our servants who decided to spy on each and every American.
Let us reason together: what we Americans are told is that the government must be all-powerful to protect us. They cannot protect us unless we turn over our Constitutional Rights. Well, that logic is wrong. Who will protect us from an over-zealous government bent on having infinite power over the American Citizens?
In today’s world there is no presumption of citizen privacy, not in conversation, writing or even a privacy from being watched by the unblinking eye of government minders regardless of if we are in our backyards or our beds. There is no presumed privacy. Again, for our own protection is what we are being told by the all-powerful government.
With the collection of DNA the last human secrets are not ours. Our problem, our real problem is that the loss of our ownership of ourselves was taken one small item at a time. First this “reasonable” loss of our personal freedom then another “reasonable” loss of another freedom. What is left to take from us? We Americans can be held without warrant and we can be slaughtered by our government without judicial review.
And the loss of our freedoms is still not enough for our government. The end-game is most certainly a total dictatorship. The loss of freedom is never all at once, it is always incremental. It is always “reasonable” until it becomes unreasonable.
Having an all-powerful government watching the communications of every citizen without any presumption of doing something wrong is the road to ruin for our society. Do we have any servants left or are we the servants to the government? Time will tell.

Dr. Michael Swickard hosts the syndicated radio talk show News New Mexico on six to nine a.m. Monday - Friday on a number of New Mexico radio stations and through streaming. Email: michael@swickard.com

Working at getting and keeping jobs

© 2013 Michael Swickard, Ph.D.  These are tough times on some American citizens. Jobs are harder to get for many Americans than they were a few years ago. The economy has turned somewhat sour. Yet, there are other Americans who find this the best of times. They are making money and building a business. Go figure. They have gone against the tide of everyone else and done well despite the market.
     In the midst of all the economic bad news some Americans are starting businesses that are thriving. They are taking a chance and working very hard. For some Americans they are hitting the jackpot. Yes, others may be slipping down the porcelain convenience. It is capitalism where those who satisfy the customers best usually do the best in business.
     That needs to be the American motto: you can still do well in America. And you can. There are important factors which include being business smart, working hard and having some luck. Does luck play a part? Yes, especially if you equate luck with smarts and hard work. There is a correlation but as my stats professor drummed into our minds, correlation does not infer causation.
     Advice is like lice, better to keep to oneself. But I must offer this advice to those who are unemployed and have been for an extended time. It seems to me I have spoken with a number of Americans in the last couple of years who seem to not know the game. What is the game? To get and keep a job there must be a fair trade between employer and employee. If either in this transaction are abused then something bad will happen to both.
     What makes and made capitalism so powerful is that it runs on satisfied customers. If either party in the transaction is not satisfied, it is not capitalism; rather, it is something else. In some forms of government the elite live wonderful lives and get to do what they want but the masses live lives of desperation. In theory, everyone in America can change jobs or move somewhere else. But many people are their own jailers.
I have worked jobs I did not like and was quite happy to leave. But I had those jobs rather than be unemployed. Yet I know several people who have been long-term unemployed who are very talented but would rather do without a job if it is not what they want. Relatives and friends enable this thinking.
     My earliest lesson involved a paper route in Colorado Springs where I made the observation as a twelve-year-old that putting the paper on the porch within easy reach of the front door made the customer much happier than if I threw it into a bush. Maybe someone said something to me or I could have thought of it. Regardless, I discovered that upon going to collect for the Gazette Telegraph I received several tips.
      It started a lifetime of me thinking of making customers satisfied. At times I have been better at it than at other times but I have always been aware that if my customer and I both profit from a transaction then good things will happen for me. Likewise, any attempt to not satisfy the customer usually leads to disaster.
And this is why government is problematic in a free society. In government, say the IRS, the mantra is do what we say or bad things will happen to you. There is not equal satisfaction. In the marketplace if I do not like the last transaction I may take my business somewhere else. But with government we are captive. In fact, some government leaders refer to us citizens as “giving units.”
      We need to whisper quietly to the millions of people who are long-term unemployed that it is time for a second plan. Maybe you will get back to that field someday but sitting out of the job market, even if the government makes it relatively easy to do is disastrous.
     Everyone repeats that it is easier to get a job if you have a job. It is. If there is a four year gap, it is hard for me to take a chance on that potential worker.




Dr. Michael Swickard hosts the syndicated radio talk show News New Mexico on six to nine a.m. Monday - Friday on a number of New Mexico radio stations and through streaming. Email: michael@swickard.com

The age’s most uncertain hour

© 2013 Michael Swickard, Ph.D. “We come on a ship they call the Mayflower, we come on a ship that sailed the moon. We come in the age’s most uncertain hour and sing an American tune.” Paul Simon
     In these most uncertain hours some Americans wonder how our nation got to this point politically and as a society. They wonder with concern where America is headed. The question is: are things in our country going to get better or worse? The problem is even agreeing on what is better or worse.
One definition of better or worse involves the freedom of citizens to make their own decisions. This measures the intrusive reach of government into our lives. Some citizens give up their personal freedoms in trade for being in the care of our government. Others are afraid that at some point the government will have no more use for them. The Government might literally kill those citizens who do not allow the government to get stronger. It has happened in other societies.
     So there is a divide in our country of citizens very worried and other citizens, in fact, most citizens who seem to be paying no attention at all to the desperate clouds on our horizon. They pray to the God Media and do not believe anything the propaganda Media does not endorse.
     It is a most uncertain hour for America. I personally have been through decades of uncertain hours but these hours seem very dangerous. When I was a child our whole world was minutes away from everyone perishing in a nuclear cloud of debris. We practiced nuclear attack drills in schools: under our desks.
These concerns are not as pernicious a threat as complete annihilation. But if I had died decades ago, I would have died a free person. Is it better to die young and free than live long and enslaved? Optimism seems out of place in a society that controls neither its borders nor its currency.
     Perhaps what makes this the most uncertain hour is there are no leaders of either party who grasp the dangers to our country. They are still jousting with each other for their own political power and do not face these potential disasters unless they can use the potential disasters as a political stick to strike their opponents.
     More people live in slavery by totalitarian societies than live in free societies. Throughout time the natural scheme of the world are societies with no freedom. America is an exception. The incursions of socialist policies into our country represent a danger to our freedom.
      But make no mistake; the most serious problem is ourselves. We citizens have traded much of our personal freedoms for political and temporary financial gain. Many citizens try to profit from the notion that a vote for the government will profit them. They enable an all-powerful government.
Sadly we find that when the government takes from one citizen to give to another no one gains except the power of the government. We cut the strings to our foundations and have embraced our jailers. How can we act surprised with what happens to us?
      The things that make America great are under attack. Our Oil and Gas Industry are assaulted every day as is our Agriculture Industry, other than the useless Ethanol political Industry. Our military has the utter scorn of most of our leaders and yet dies to protect those who scorn them. The medical profession and our public education in America are being ravaged by the socialist policies that favor big government over people.
      If our country had wings to fly most of the people would be plucking at the feathers so that the country crashes to the ground, helpless as all of the other countries under totalitarian rule. Children are no longer under the control of their parents; government has asserted control of all children. Government owns every property in the country and will rent them to the citizens for a yearly fee. All property is the government’s property.
     And we look surprised when we are not treated well by the minions of this all-powerful government. We come at the age’s most uncertain hour and no longer sing an American tune.

Dr. Michael Swickard hosts the syndicated radio talk show News New Mexico on six to nine a.m. Monday - Friday on a number of New Mexico radio stations and through streaming. Email: michael@swickard.com

A Meteorologist Replies to Senator Sheldon Whitehouse of Rhode Island on the Moore, OK. Tornado, of 20 May 3013.

Commentary by Bob Endlich, News New Mexico - On 20 May 2013 a devastating tornado struck Moore, Oklahoma with the loss of 24 lives, including 10 children, injuring hundreds of victims, and with damage estimates over $1.5 Billon. Within hours Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse was on the floor of the US Senate with a placard, “Time to Wake Up,” in a theme stating the cause of the wildfires in Texas, and tornadoes, was directly tied to man-caused CO2-fueld Global Warming. Sen. Sheldon’s speech included the phrase “the damage that your polluters and Deniers are doing…”
     He would include me on the list of “Deniers,” but I would like to include in this note some Science, where Senator Whitehouse desperately needs education.
     First, CO2 is not a pollutant, it is absolutely essential for life as we know it, because it is plants which turn CO2 into the food upon which we and all animal life on this planet depend for our sustenance. The level of CO2 in the atmosphere today, some 400 parts/million, is precariously low when compared over geologic time. During the previous glacial, the Wisconsin, 22,000 years ago, deciduous tree life collapsed in Georgia, and pine trees collapsed from CO2 starvation during the latter part of the Wisconsin as evidenced at the La Brea Tar Pits in California.
     Second, the 2011 fires in Texas and the accompanying drought were caused by the large multi-year climate fluctuations over North America, El Nino-La Nina, also called ENSO, El Nino - Southern Oscillation, not CO2. Sen. Whitehouse should see the map at
http://www.cpc.ncep.noaa.gov/products/analysis_monitoring/ensocycle/nawinter.shtml
     from NOAA’s Climate Prediction Center, which shows the dry conditions from Arizona to Florida during La Nina conditions.
     Austin TX, near the epicenter of the 2011 Texas fires, has large natural variability in rainfall and drought. In 1954, rainfall was only 11.42 inches, but Austin’s 2011 rainfall was 19.68 inches, almost double the historic drought year of 1954
      Third, tornadoes; we have to use terms foreign to Sen. Whitehouse, baroclinic instability, and thermodynamic instability. Baroclinic instability is the process which forms winter storms in the middle latitudes where the USA is located; we sometimes call them extratropical cyclones, meaning they are distinctly different from tropical cyclones and hurricanes. Temperature difference between equator and pole drives baroclinic instability which in turns drives the storms which transport heat from tropical source regions poleward. The stronger the equator-pole temperature difference, the stronger the storm.
     If the earth is undergoing “Global Warming” then the equator-pole temperature difference is smaller, making baroclinic instability and winter storms weaker.
      US geography allows the collision of warm, moist air from the Gulf of Mexico with cold air from Canada, a clash which is especially strong in the spring, and which is amplified by adding dry air aloft from source regions in Mexico and New Mexico to enter the mix.
     Here thermodynamic instability enters the discussion. As the baroclinic instability creates a storm system moving east from the Rocky Mountains, warm moist air can be lifted ahead of the storm. If the moist air has dry air from Mexico aloft, and this air mass is lifted, Thermodynamic instability is greatly increased because the moist air at the bottom of the column cools at what we call the moist adiabatic lapse rate and the dry air aloft cools at the dry adiabatic lapse rate and this situation causes extremely strong and violent tornadoes to form ahead of the developing low pressure area.
      When there is an especially cold winter, baroclinic instability will be greater and when the winter is not cold at all, storminess will be correspondingly less; the last three years are instructive. The winter of 2011 was especially cold; a new all time low temperature was set for Oklahoma, -31F on 10 Feb 2011, and it was only a few months later that the devastating tornadoes tore through Tuscaloosa AL and Joplin, MO. Contrast that with 2012 when there was a warm spring and summer heat wave in the US and the number of tornadoes and strong tornadoes was very low.
     This winter of 2013 seemed as if it will never end, there has been widespread frost, freeze and snow until very late in the season and a snow resort in New York reported 34 inches of snow over Memorial Day weekend, a few days after the 2013 Moore, OK Tornado. Senator Whitehouse, listen up! It is cooling which causes tornadoes.

Give until it stops hurting

© 2013 Michael Swickard, Ph.D.  A friend in college was in a discussion group when someone said, “You must give until it hurts.” My friend corrected it to: “You must give until it stops hurting.” My, that is much better.
With the tornado damage to Americans this week there is a divide in the discussions between: “Oh, just let the government take care of people in need because that is why we pay taxes,” and, “Here, my friend, I will help you.”
Government, as it gets bigger, wants to be the entity that helps because it gives government a solid mission but we Americans were born to help each other. At least my generation was born that way. I am not saying there is not a place in a disaster for government. Goodness, there are always the needs of the many at the moment of disaster, but I am thinking of all the people in New Orleans and with Hurricane Sandy that sat and sat and sat waiting on the government.
When Hurricane Katrina hit a friend of mine watched for a couple of hours on television and then, because he has a restaurant background, got a big truck and lots of supplies along with a generator. He and a couple friends headed down to New Orleans and parked in a closed Wal-Mart parking lot. For a week my friend served coffee and pancakes to the great relief of the people in the area.
After a while the government got going but at the time of the disaster there was a schism between the Republican President and the Democrat Governor and Mayor of New Orleans. They initially told the president that they did not want help so when they changed their minds it was several days into the crisis.
But in the middle of all that politics my friend made coffee, gave out bottles of water and served up pancakes to the grateful citizens. Then, with the big truck empty, he and his friends came home. On the way home they prayed that others would help because that is what we do, we give until it stops hurting.
They say character is what people do when no one is watching. I often see little acts of kindness that are done not for attention nor praise, but done as a matter of being a member of a community. The publicity hounds make lots of noise and proclaim their acts while the real angels smile inwardly and go about their lives giving.
That is the danger of big government. It causes some citizens to step back and not help. The truth is that helping is for the giver, not the given. We give until it stops hurting. And often the government rides in shooing the angels away so they can posture for the media and show that government is the only ones who help in an emergency. Not so, and unfortunately some of our younger generation fall for these lies.
As a person who has driven New Mexico for the last four decades I have come upon many accidents. It is always different and the same. The first thing is to secure the accident so cars coming up to the accident do not plow into it and injure more people. If first on the scene and therefore in charge until someone takes over I send people up the road to flag down cars. I say, “Go down the road as far as you think you should and then double that distance because some of those cars are coming very fast.”
Before cell phones I would have to try to help those injured get to a safe place, stop their bleeding and reassure them that better days are coming. Sometimes I had to put out a fire. Even today I carry a fire extinguisher. I do not do it for them, I do it for me. No one has ever offered to reimburse me for using my fire extinguisher nor would I take reimbursement. I give until it stops hurting.
Americans are best when they themselves are the angels. Do not let big government shoo you away from your role as an angel. Give until it stops hurting.

Dr. Michael Swickard hosts the syndicated radio talk show News New Mexico on six to nine a.m. Monday - Friday on a number of New Mexico radio stations and through streaming. Email: michael@swickard.com