Below is a response from Congressman Gonzalez in his e-news letter he sends to his constituents.  I've come to believe that it's time to begin calling these "facts" what they are.  Bald-faced lies.

One thing the Democrats are trying to claim is that this bill is still in flux, i.e. that changes are still underway. While it is true that HR 3200 hasn't been reported out of committee and the Senate version is held up in the Finance committee, it is certain that what Congress will be voting on will closely resemble HR 3200 in nearly all respects.  You can wager good money that any changes the Democrats permit will be cosmetic at the very best.  Trying to argue that the bill is still plastic is simply a subterfuge to deflect arguments about the substance of the bill.
I'm not expert and I don't have the advantage of people to work the research for me, but my responses are in italics.

“Myths vs. Facts”
QUESTION: Many people have concerns that we can’t afford to reform our healthcare system at this time.
He can't even get the myth straight.  Most people's concerns are that the Obama administration has already spent multi-trillions of dollars on other initiatives and now they want to take control of a huge chunk of our economy and spend another nine trillion dollars. "Concern" isn't the word.  "Bankruptcy" is more like it.

RESPONSE:
The reality is that we can’t afford not to. Texas has the highest rates of uninsured adults and children in the U.S. I represent 1 in 4 people who are uninsured in my district.
Today, 18% of our GDP is consumed by healthcare costs. Health Insurance premiums have doubled over the last 9 years, three times faster than wages.
Sadly, due to cost small businesses are forced to choose between coverage and layoffs.

It may be the case that small businesses are sometimes forced to choose between coverage or layoffs.  This is nothing new.  I've never worked for a "small" business that offered health care coverage.  Most don't.  And haven't for decades.  Until one is employed by the larger companies, health care isn't one of the benefits.  Furthermore, according to D. Mark Wilson reporting on the Heritage Foundation's web site, the employer mandates in both versions of the bill will require virtually all small businesses to either carry an insurance benefit approved by the government, or pay a punitive tax.  These requirements will cost small business up to $49 billion per year and put 5.2 million low-wage employees at risk for their jobs.  Not because we did nothing, but because Congressman Gonzalez's bill will do the wrong thiing.

QUESTION: Some fear that this health reform plan is going to create a socialized healthcare system.
RESPONSE:
This proposal builds on the public/private system we already have. No healthcare providers will be employed by the government.

This is simply nonsense on the face of it.  The government already employs thousands, if not millions of health care providers.  Discounting military doctors and other  health care providers (to whom we are all deeply grateful that they place service to their country above the wages they could earn in civilian life) every doctor who accepts a Medicare or Medicaid check is de facto employed by the government.  With a public option, ever more will become employees of the government.  When you take their money, you follow their rules.  When you take their money, you are their employee.  The President has said several times that his goal is a single-payer system.  Democrats, to their credit, or damnation, depending on your point of view, never give up.  If they want a single-payer system, they will work toward it single mindedly.  Too bad Congressman Gonzalez doesn't have his own mind. 

QUESTION: Will this bill raise taxes for all Americans?

RESPONSE:
No one earning less than $280,000 a year individually or $350,000 as a couple will pay more taxes.
Only 1.2% of earners will be affected, and even those will contribute less than 1% of their annual income. Only 600 families in the 20th Congressional District would be impacted by this.

More nonsense. According to Nina Owcharenko reporting at Heritage.com, the employee mandate in both bills would require all Americans to purchase government approved health insurance, regardless of their personal choices regarding their needs.  If the government is requiring me to write a check, that is a tax.  So, those fifty million or so Americans the Democrats are so concerned about will acquire a new tax to go with their bright, shiny new health insurance.  Back to D. Mark Wilson, the mandates in these bills will affect between 95 to 105 million workers and an additional half to 1.4 million employers (who are also American citizens).  Split the difference and call it 100 million Americans, making it 33%, one third of all Americans.  Any lower figure is simply a lie.

QUESTION: There are lots of concerns that healthcare reform will mean fewer choices for Americans?
RESPONSE:
The House proposal will actually increase choice among an array of high-quality private and public health insurance options.
Most importantly, if you like what you have, you can keep it.
While, reform will create access to more Americans by providing a greater choices in doctors and plans by taking away the insurance industry’s ability to deny coverage and care.

Has it dawned on these people yet that "if you like...keep it" isn't being believed? I don't need to see what the Heritage Foundation thinks.  It's simple logic.  Private insurance companies cannot possibly compete in any way with a public option insurance plan, no matter what words they use to describe it, and will quickly disappear.  How can you compete with a business that can under-cut your prices at will, indefinitely, and, better yet, controls the rules under which you will operate?  Oh, yeah,  did I mention that the public option mandates roughly fifty million customers for the public option who will have no reasonable choice—take someone's coverage or be fined.  By the way, Uncle Sam's Health Care plan is much cheaper...


QUESTION: Seniors are concerned that Medicare benefits will be decreased and out-of-pocket costs will be increased as a result of health care reform. How will Health Care Reform impact Medicare?
RESPONSE:
NOTHING in this bill calls for a reduction in Medicare benefits for seniors or an increase in their out-of-pocket costs.  In fact, quite the opposite is true.
Health care reform will lowers costs for seniors by lowering prescription drug costs for people in the Medicare Part D coverage gap.
Medicare beneficiaries will not have to pay co-pays for preventative care and seniors will also have more doctors to choose from because the bill includes provisions that will expand the work force so that it will be easier to get appointments with your doctors.

While it may be true that NOTHING in this bill calls for reductions in Medicare benefits... Wait, I thought this bill is in flux, with nothing decided for certain? ...the Democrats are pushing for huge, $500 to 200 billion cuts in upcoming Medicare increases. They will do this by reducing payments made to doctors and hospitals, the villain of the moment. What this means is that more and more people become eligible for Medicare benefits, less and less money will be paid out for those benefits. You can't have it both ways, Congressman Gonzalez. You can't add one third of the population to what amounts to Medicare and pay for all of it without raising taxes or reducing benefits.  I suspect we will end up with both. HR 3200 and its Senate comrade will have to be followed up with legislation to fund the public option.

QUESTION: Our community continues to health that a Health Benefits Advisory Committee will determine which treatments & services are covered, which will ration care. Is this true?
RESPONSE:
Nothing in the role of the Health Benefits Advisory Committee infringes on the ability of an individual and the individual’s doctor to make medical decisions. IT DOESN’T HAVE BINDING/MANDATING AUTHORITY
This is not a “government” committee.  It will be made up of providers, consumer representatives, employers, labor, health insurance issuers, and independent experts who will recommend the minimum benefits that insurance plans should cover.

Once again, logic rears its ugly head.  If this Health Benefits Advisory Committee has no binding authority, why have it?  Our experience with government is that if an advisory council recommends it, it may as well have been graven on a granite tablet brought down from a mountain.  When you get down to page 33, sec 4 and 5, we find that this committee will recommend cost sharing levels, which means, in essence, they will determine what will be covered and to what amount.  The "Secretary" will be the sole authority to determine the adoption of the recommendations.  Page 36, section 3 makes it possible for the Secretary to adopt any standards he likes if he can't adopt the ones offered by the HBAC.  So, for all practical purposes, this committee, or the Secretary, neither of whom were elected, most of whom have been appointed by President Barack Obama, will determine who will get treated for what, by price or definition.  

QUESTION:  Will the House healthcare proposal ban private health insurance for individuals?
RESPONSE:
H.R. 3200 does NOT ban individual health insurance. It will expand options for people who currently have health insurance on the individual market and Existing policies to be grandfathered in, so people will not lose coverage.
Insurance companies will be required to accept people even if they have previously existing conditions and to provide a minimum level benefits.

John David Lewis, a professor at Duke University published an analysis of HR 3200, including the provisions that explicitly state that nothing in the bill shall be construed to eliminate  private insurance...and then sets about slanting the playing field in such a way that private insurance companies cannot hope to compete with the public option and will, in due time, be forced out of business.  It is the equivalent of declaring that any fast food company can continue in operation, but McDonalds will have their menu prices subsidized by the government so they can charge .35 for a Big Mac and still make a profit.  Sorry, Jack.

QUESTION: Some say that a public plan option will destroy the private insurance industry, what do you say to that?
RESPONSE:
This proposal will build upon the public/private system that already exists by increasing competition among insurers with the introduction of a public insurance plan. This benefits consumers by providing them with lower rates.

See the above.  This is the same question.  Either Congressman Gonzalez hasn't read the bill, he's too stupid to reason out the consequences, or he's lying.  You pick.

QUESTION: Will all people be forced into the public plan?
RESPONSE:
I voted in favor of an amendment which explicitly states that “Nothing in this division shall be construed as requiring anyone to enroll in the public health insurance option. Enrollment in such option is voluntary.”
The proposal merely adds a public plan to the choices of individual insurance plans from which people can choose.
If you purchase a plan through the Health Insurance Exchange, you can choose from all of those plans, public or private. 

Page 102, section 205, translated, says that if you do nothing, you are automatically enrolled.  You cannot decline the honor.  The evil villain employer is responsible for enrolling those employees still working after the massive layoffs this bill will cause. When all that is left is the public option, you'll have no choice, since everyone is required to have health insurance. Oh, on the same page, anyone who becomes eligible for Medicare will be automatically enrolled.  No choice.

QUESTION: Will this reform hurt small businesses by saddled them with fees, forcing them out of business because of health care costs?
RESPONSE:
This proposal aims to help small businesses provide this coverage to their employees.
We have included a tax credit for small businesses to help them provide health insurance for their workers.
We also exempt some small businesses from the employer requirement to provide coverage to employees, recognizing that even with a tax credit, providing healthcare for employees would be burdensome for some small employers.

Many small businesses, single owner operations with few employees, or part-time employees, do not currently offer health care insurance.  We've grown to accept this.  In point of fact, the person most often employed by these businesses is a part-time teenager who is already covered by their parent's insurance. In any case, this is how it's done.  If you want insurance, apply for a job at the local big corporation, or in the professional world.  Under HR 3200, every employer, right down to the guy who runs that independent paint store in the nearby shopping center, employing two or three college students and eking out an existence, must either carry insurance coverage that is acceptable to the government, or pay an 8% payroll tax.  From nothing to 8% can't be imagined to be a help to small business.

QUESTION: Rumors have it that Veterans will lose their health coverage with passage of health care reform?
RESPONSE:
Veterans’ health care will NOT be impacted by H.R. 3200. Section 202 (d)2(E) and (F) of the bill states that members of the armed forces and dependents (including TRICARE) and those who receive VA care will be considered as having acceptable minimum coverage.  This means that veterans’ coverage will not be affected by this legislation.
In no way would we pass a healthcare reform bill that will negatively impact the care that veterans receive.  The Democratically-led Congress has demonstrated its support for veterans by providing the largest increase in funding for veterans healthcare in the VA’s 77-year history.  This is more of an increase in less than three years, than the GOP-controlled Congress provided in 12 years.

Couldn't resist that dig at President Bush, could you?  Briefly, President Bush remade the American military into the world's first unbeatable force on the battlefield.  President Barack Obama is in the process of dismantling that. But, that is the past. Our problem is the bleak future.
Since our military are already on what amounts to Medicare, i.e. government controlled health care and the majority of military or retired military people I know go to private doctors anyway because waiting times and the level of care is so poor, I fail to see how this is an improvement for our veterans. Furthermore, if  you read para F as he includes it above, veterans are only permitted to stay on VA benefits if the commissioner decides they are good enough.  In other words, there's no guarantee here.

QUESTION:  When it come to federal funding for health care reform, will it be used to pay for abortions?
RESPONSE:
NO, I voted in favour of an amendment that explicitly prohibits public funds from being used for abortions.

Apart from an inability to spell "favor," what he isn't mentioning is that no matter how he voted, all those amendments failed.  The bill doesn't expressly exclude abortion and since the government's "Secretary" will determine what is covered, abortions will likely be paid for by your taxes.  I note that on page 769 and onward there is a great deal of attention given to who will be eligible for family planning.  In the past, a major complaint of pro-life adherents has been that government family planning is a one-joke act—abortion.

QUESTION: As you know, there has been a lot talked about regarding death panels and the role that government will have in our “end-of-life” care, is there death panel or anything related to “end-of-life” care?
RESPONSE:
There is NO such thing as death panels in any of these bills proposed.
The bill does NOT include any mandate that people take part in this sort of counseling.
YOU choose whether or not YOU wish to develop an advance directive.  Doing so will allow you to make choices regarding your “end-of-life” care before you get to a point where you are unable to do so and others are forced to make these choices for you.

Page 424, Sec 1233 Advance Planning Consultation reads to me as adding the definition of Advance Planning and other end of life stuff to the Social Security Act.  Reading on, it appears to set standards for that end of life care, including a requirement that a committee of "stakeholders" be consulted.  That committee does not include the patient or the family. The next section makes physicians responsible for reporting on the quality of that end of life care.  Mandatory? It's hard to tell.  But I do have to  wonder at the need to include it here.

QUESTION: Will the federal government provide healthcare coverage to undocumented immigrants?
RESPONSE:
Section 246 of H.R. 3200 explicitly states that no federal affordability credits will be made to “individuals who are not lawfully present in the United States.”
This continues current law which prohibits undocumented immigrants from receiving coverage through federal health programs such as Medicare and Medicaid.

Sorry, Charley.  Page 50, sec 152 says it pretty clearly. The provisions of the act shall be provided without regard to personal characteristics that don't appertain to providing health care. The part Congressman Gonzalez cites above refers only to health insurance credits as covered under the proposed "exchange" system. So, if they go with something else instead, sec 152 appears to apply first.

QUESTION: Will H.R. 3200 end the Medicare Advantage program?
RESPONSE:
The bill actually increases payments to Medicare Advantage plans that provide high quality care to their customers and to plans that demonstrate improvement in healthcare outcomes for enrollees.
It also equalizes payments between Medicare Advantage plans and those for traditional Medicare.

With private insurance strangled, this becomes a moot point.  No such insurers will remain.

Since Congressman Gonzalez didn't bother to bring it up, despite having been asked about it, let me address rationing, following my own reasoning here and aside from the provisions of the bill that permit it.

Roughly one million doctors service three hundred million Americans. One doctor handles three hundred people.  Add the fifty million new potential patients that President Barack Obama wants and you add about a seventeen percent increase in covered persons. To maintain the same ratio, we'll need about 167,000 new doctors. Where is the funding for that increase? Interestingly, the increase in doctors is also about 16%. Non-doctor health care professionals run about 25 million, about 8% of the population. To maintain the levels, we need to add 2,000,000 new health care professionals. That's a staggering number to produce virtually over-night. It takes eight to twelve years to cook a new doctor and four to six years to produce a new health care professional. Where's the funding for that in the stimulus package?
At an absolute minimum, we are six years from having enough health care professionals and ten years before we can add enough new doctors just to reach current ratios. We won't stop making babies, so those ratios will get even larger. Furthermore, the distribution of patients to doctors isn't even.  GPs carry a heavier patient load than plastic surgeons.  So, with the increase in covered people, it seems reasonable to conclude that the greatest weight of the increased work load will fall on our general practitioners, a medical specialty that is losing numbers in droves.

All that and built in limits on what a doctor can make since the public option will control costs by controlling payments to doctors. What other incentive will be used to attract new students? Long, long waits to see a doctor are inevitable. This amounts to rationing.
Even if all medications remain available at current levels, you have to see a doctor to get the prescription. Rationing again.

I want to apologize for failing too attend your town hall meeting held here in San Antonio during August. Notice was a little short, but your office kept their promise and called me to let me know when the meeting would be held.  I thank you for that.  Sadly, two things kept me away.  In thinking about it over the last few days, the more tragic it becomes.  At some level, both you and I are at fault.

I'm handicapped, and approaching retirement.  I have difficulty standing for long times and I have a condition called idiopathic neuropathy that, at random times, causes the skin of my lower legs and feet to feel like they've been badly burned.  Trust me, when my feet light up like that, I have nothing else on my mind and I'm afraid I can be most unpleasant to be around during these episodes.  That evening, on the way home from work, the combination of the traffic reports in the area of the meeting and my screaming feet argued strongly in favor of staying home.  The sad thing is that my health issues are precisely why it was so important to me to appear at your meeting and express my opposition to a health plan catastrophe that would rather leave me in agony than allow the free market the incentive to find a cure.  I am terrified of a United States that not only rations health care to its elderly, but prohibits me from seeking care from any source but the one that is refusing to treat me.  Imagine what that would be like, Congressman, to know that whatever dreams you had of a peaceful retirement lived out on funds I worked hard to accumulate, independent and satisfied for a life well-lived are doomed by a government that's lost track of the words in the Constitution.  Fear, pain, suffering without end.  No hope.

I work at a local school district.  I teach math.  I'm told I'm pretty good.  There are at least a few adults out there who've told me they owe their success to me.  I like to think I've contributed, in some small way, to the general well-being of my country.  Like most school districts, the teachers go to about a week of what we call "in service" training prior to the return of the students.  It gives us time to un-pack and prepare our rooms and we get some refreshers on technique and some cheer leading to heighten moral.  Oddly, during our in service training, one of our administrators took time, went out of his way to make sure that we understood that, as teachers, we are held to a higher standard.  Facebook pages and other sorts of personal presences on the Internet should probably be reconsidered lest they prove embarrassing, or be deemed "inappropriate."  Frankly, given my political efforts, my web site and my blog, I felt remarkably intimidated.  Without saying so directly, my manager made it perfectly clear that having my face appear on the evening news would be "A Bad Idea."  No one has tried to restrict my rights.  But I was reminded that sometimes exercising those rights can have consequences.  Nothing serious.  I wouldn't be arrested, or beaten.  But I could lose my job.  Aside from my wife, the most important thing in the world to me is my job.  I love teaching.  I want to do that job until I'm dead or simply can't do it any longer.  So, I chose not to go to your town hall meeting.  I took the coward's way out and chose to protect my job and what's left of my retirement. 

But, I have to wonder how it is that any American, let alone me, is in fear of their livelihood because of their lawful exercise of rights guaranteed by the Constitution. Could it be a result of Joe The Plumber being pilloried for having the temerity to ask then-candidate Obama an awkward question? Or perhaps because the media and Democratic Party's efforts to destroy Mrs. Palin's life and reputation because she has a folksy demeanor and an accent? Or maybe because my President wants his subj... fellow citizens to email his administration when they find something "fishy?" Maybe it's because that same President wants to address every single school age child in school about...something.

So, Congressman Gonzalez, I didn't come to the meeting.  Odds were, I would not have had the opportunity to speak.  Not that anything untoward would have taken place, or been arranged—I'm not making an accusation.  But I didn't come because I'm afraid of dying a helpless ward of the State.  A beggar to a nation I helped educate, whose taxes I paid, whose laws I obeyed. 

You'll vote in favor of the things I fear most.  Perhaps that is the greatest tragedy.  Your words of caring and concern actually promise hell on earth and a loss of freedom all the world will mourn.

Tonight, I thought I'd try reasoning with him...


As Americans, we have generally been careful not to give our LEOs power in a way that makes it possible to easily abuse that power.  For example, we limit random stops for sobriety checks because they unjustly accuse, by implication, the innocent of a crime.  We want our police to be able to catch drunk drivers, but at the same time we don't want to offer an unscrupulous officer too tempting an opportunity to abuse that power.
Sen. Rockefeller is introducing a bill that would give the President the right to essentially shut down the Internet in an emergency.  On the surface of it, that seems like a reasonable idea.  However, the justification is that our power grid and other infrastructure is vulnerable to disruption by malevolent persons hacking into the system via the Internet and wreaking havoc.
The problem is that the bill leaves the definition of "emergency" vaguely defined and in the hands of a single man.  This is the  "paragon of virtue" argument—the ill-advised assumption that the persons who can make that decision is utterly trustworthy—and will stay that way.  I think you know that I don't trust President Barack Obama, but that's beside the point.  I wouldn't want President Reagan to have that power.  As I understand the bill, it makes it possible for a power-mad individual to cut off the Internet simply as a means of silencing dissent, a violation the the First Amendment we must not permit.
Explain to me why it doesn't make sense to hire a trusted security firm to actively work to harden these vulnerable systems?  Such a bill would be simple, targeted, with a narrow focus and no further "powers" granted to a single individual.
I am opposed to Sen.  Rockefeller's initiative and I wish you to be as well. 

Oh, by the way, Congress.org is reporting that So far, 74 percent of Congress.org users who have written their Members have opposed health care reform. This suggests that a Congressman who supports ObamaCare is not acting according to the wishes of her constituents.

I should have put something up before this, but other things have taken precedence, mostly the efforts to get the Conservative American Network up and running, along with trying to have a life too.

I can't run for Congress as I thought I might be able to.  I've talked to people whose opinion I trust and each tells me that I must start out with three million dollars.  Well, I don't have three million dollars and I'm not likely to get it.  I'm just a school teacher.

Without previous elected experience, and that all important $3 million, the local Republican Party won't support any candidacy.  I have no doubt they can find someone better qualified.  There's something else.  If I were to leave my job as a school teacher to run for Congress, and lose, I'd be 57 years old with no job.  The recession has destroyed our savings.  I'm not yet vested with Texas' Teacher Retirement System and won't be for six more years, so I can't take retirement.

I simply can't risk it.

But I CAN do this.  I can't sit about doing nothing.

Congressman Gonzalez

I happened to be browsing your list of earmarks on your web site, and I'm afraid I have some issues with some of the items you've requested.  I'm reflecting upon the role the Founders had in mind for Congressmen when they were designing this government of ours.  While their design had your role as being sensitive to the needs of your local constituents, I  don't believe they envisioned you forcing the entire nation to pay for projects that will benefit only the citizens of your district.  That seems a bit self-serving.

In a matter of a few moments I'd found eight items that benefit only the people from our district and total roughly $26 million.  Worse yet, they all look like projects that would be better funded and controlled by the local government or the state, certainly not the Federal government.  

Why do you want to encumber generations of Americans who will never benefit one whit from these programs?  I urge you to apply the same test to the remainder of your earmarks and ask that they be pulled from the budget.  I'm reminded of a famous Texas politician who was quoted as saying, "a billion here, a billion there, pretty soon you're talking serious money."

Congressman, if you and the rest of your colleagues pull these items of pure self-interest, we will have a federal budget that is reasonable and affordable.  I do not want to awaken one morning to find I live in a wholly owned subsidiary of the People's Republic of China.

These are the items I find objectionable.  They will be posted on my web site, my blog on townhall.com and at congress.org.

Bexar County Mental Health Initiative Program  1.5 million
Center for Innovation in Prevention and Treatment of Airway Diseases (CIPTAD) 1.3 million
City of San Antonio Police Department 1.9 million
Community Learning Centers .6 million
Community Service Center 5 million
Dropout Prevention Programs  .4 million
Eastside Eyecare Clinic .9 million
Fredericksburg Road Bus Rapid Transit Corridor, San Antonio VIA Metropolitan Transit 10 million

home.rr.com/wecan
davidbollinger.blogtownhall.com/
David Bollinger

I present the following as an example of an exchange possible after many, many letters to this person, my Congressman.  It takes effort, and time, but our letter can have an impact and sometimes do reach the eyes  of our elected Representatives.

Dear Congressman Gonzalez,

I don't know where else to suggest this.  Why not implement a convoy system in the Somali area like the one used during WWII to defend against the Wolf Packs?  Let the freighters gather up in groups, surround them
with destroyers and let the pirates be damned!

It seems to me that I recall  several nations contributing warships to the area.  Maybe just a matter of organizing the idea?

God bless, David Bollinger

Sincerely,
David Bollinger


Dear Mr. Bollinger:
Slate magazine's Fred Kaplan actually offers a few good reasons why a convoy system is not an appropriate response, and I commend his article to your attention.  http://www.slate.com/id/2216163/

Sincerely,

Charles A. Gonzalez
Member of Congress

Dear Congressman Gonzalez,

I wanted to produce a reasoned response, so I've read and re-read Mr. Kaplan's article and spent a fair amount of time refining this answer to be certain I make my point accurately.

History is a hobby of mine and I cannot disagree with his analysis of the political situation with regard to Somalia and the world's nations political will (or lack there of) for imposing a government on Somalia.  Even if possible, I suspect we have ample evidence of the strife and human misery the well-intended re-drawing of national lines has caused.  Any such solution would be temporary.

I also cannot disagree with his call for a new Congress of Vienna to deal with the issue.  Obviously this is the function for which the United Nations was conceived and I don't see that body stepping up to this particular plate any time soon.  The UN's taste for adventurism seems thoroughly slaked.

I must also admit that I'm not familiar with Mr. Kaplan's work or experience.  So, I want to state my argument clearly without insulting the gentleman. 

I agree that allowing, if not encouraging, the crews of the freighters to arm themselves is a desirable thing.  After all, I support the Second Amendment and believe that all men have a right to the most effective defense available to them.

Here we reach my point of disagreement with Mr. Kaplan.  The crews of those freighters are not hired to engage in combat.  They should not be expected to learn those skills as a prerequisite for their jobs.  Such training, effective training that would ensure victory, not just firearms familiarization, is expensive and time consuming.  Ask our SpecFor operators.  The same argument extends to the employment of "marshals" as a solution, not to mention introducing tremendous legal complications and a whole new class of mercenary.

This is where Mr. Kaplan appears to exhibit a sad bit of much too common naiveté.  The mere possession of an M-16 does not make one nearly as dangerous as you might think.

Congressman Gonzalez, I will bet good money that you would not agree that the solution to neighborhood crime is to arm the citizens with automatic weapons.  Yet, you've told me that you concur with Mr. Kaplan, at least in principle, for exactly the same plan.

If we accept Mr. Kaplan's adjudication of these people as mere criminals, as I do, then in fact, our general solution to excessive neighborhood crime is to swarm the area with additional law enforcement assets.  The exact parallel to that in the piracy problem is the convoy technique.  Remember, the  objective is to facilitate the movement of freight and provide for the safety of the crews, not punish the pirates.  Ask the nations of the world to contribute sufficient naval assets to permit reasonable convoy passages.  As the convoy proceeds, any pirate sufficiently ill-advised as to attack the convoy is overwhelmed and destroyed by massively superior firepower delivered by men and women trained in its use and already authorized under current maritime and international law.  In due time, the pirates cease their efforts.  This implies that the convoys must continue for a sufficient length of time that a more permanent solution presents itself.

This is the real advantage of the idea.  It provides security without straining international relationships.  It is already legal, by treaty and by tradition.  It strangles the piracy, thus eliminating the "economy" of Somalia that contributes to its on-going lack of cohesive government.  The only reasonable solution for the country of Somalia is for someone to consolidate power and, most importantly, for something to present itself as a viable mechanism of economy.  Perhaps the nation may be able to exploit its oil reserves and find stability that way, or its sugar or bananas.  In any event, the "easy" flow of money from piracy will be choked off.  Sometimes, Congressman, solutions to problems reveal themselves after a good stirring.

This response, Congressman, and your letter, will be posted to my blog at townhall.com, "Back to the Source."

Best regards, David Bollinger

One of the first people to comment about this blog asked me to summarize my political outlook. The more I typed on my response, the more apparent it became that the answer belonged here.

Understand--this is a two year process. I'm in the first few days of the effort. I'm alone on this--even my wife is running hot and cold on the idea. If President Barack Obama can claim a Mulligan for his first 100 days, I can do the same! So, frankly, my plan was to establish a body of work, so to speak, here, before even approaching my local RNC.

However, my new friend has a point. After all, I'm seeking to unseat Congressman Charles Gonzales.

I am a high school teacher. I teach math, computer science, and life. About sixteen years ago, I was a systems programmer with a regional, state-associated school support center. Before that, a programmer/manager at a company providing data processing services to United Health Care. And before that, a programmer-trainee through programmer/analyst at three banks, one in El Paso and two in San Antonio. As a programmer, my greatest claim to fame came when I wrote the bank end of PULSE and, for a while, if you used a PULSE card in Texas, my software tickled your transaction. A few years later, I stumbled across an error in Unisys' COBOL compiler and got myself mentioned in the company newsletter.

As a teacher, my proudest moment came when a young man I didn't recognize approached me one evening when I happened to be at work late. He was there taking the evening adult education courses my district offered. He asked me if I recognized him. He gave his name and recognition dawned. Ten years before, in my second or third year of teaching, we lost one. This scrawny gang-kid stopped coming to school and we couldn't find him. I figured him for dead or in jail. No. He kicked around a while, but then he joined the United States Marine Corp. He'd done two tours in Iraq and was now working to get ready to go to college. He told me I was responsible, since I was the only teacher he'd had who never gave up on him, who rode his...uh...backside the whole time he was in my class and never just moved him over to the side where he could sleep in peace.

I cried the whole drive home. I've never been more humbled. Our actions spread across humanity in ripples and you never know how far those ripples will go or who they will touch.

Somewhen in all that mess, I met and married my wife of, she reminds me, thirty-two years. She, by the way, is a retired special education teacher who touched many more young lives than I did, or ever will.

My education is primarily in the sciences--physics, biology, math and an eventual degree in computer science from UTSA. But I had one heck of a history teacher in junior high, way back in Ohio, and the sad part is I haven't a clue what his name was.

Just that he was a coach and he could hit any given six-inch circle in his classroom with a chalkboard eraser, on-demand, starting with his back turned. If you'd been acting up, the tell-tale were the chalk marks on your clothes. His real passion was American Government. In thinking back, I wonder if he ever ran for office?

As a teacher, I've developed a kinda-of phobia for labels. In that biz, we try to avoid that sort of thing as much as possible and that's one of relatively few “modern” principles of education with which I agree. Children will tend to conform to the labels others attach to them and, I suspect, so will adults. Once you choose a label, say, Conservative, you almost feel obligated to defend it and become ever-more...it.

Inevitably, my kids ask me sometime during the year and after the obligatory “I have no opinion, but...” I joke with them that I'm just to the right of Genghis Khan and the last politically correct thing I did was defend Nixon in the sixth grade library just prior to Watergate. I like to think that I'm Right, as in correct, and then try to keep an open mind.

I am handicapped, and have been since just after high school. I have something called ankylosing spondylitis, a version of spinal arthritis that has, over the years affected my heart, lungs and attitude. One of my kids told me I'm starting to resemble Yoda. I haven't yet decided if I'm insulted or not. I've had two heart attacks and a five-way bypass. The progression of the ank spon, as we lucky few call it, has resulted in greatly reduced lung function. Since all the NSAIDs and related medications worsen the heart problems, I take codeine to manage the pain. Oh, and I'm diabetic. But I have it under really tight control and I'm losing weight so I can be a skinny cripple.

Good Heavens! I just realized I'm too sick to be a Congressman!

Or too tough. My Dad used to say, “You have to die of something.” It might as well be from running for Congress.

The alert reader will notice that I mentioned attitude above. I have to say that without these problems to overcome, I'd have become a very intelligent waste of humanity. Here's where I get shy, oddly enough. People who don't deal with chronic pain do not, and can never, understand those of us who do. That's not meant to sound superior. I wouldn't wish all this on...Bill Clinton, but I do believe that I've had to learn far more than the usual ration of compassion and patience, with others and with myself.

I have hobbies too, that I get to enjoy now and then, above and beyond writing lesson plans and scheming up new ways to torment teenagers. I read--everything I can get my hands on, but mostly science fiction. I write too, also science fiction. I've written a novel (but not sold) and sold a couple of short stories. I build custom M1911A1 .45 semi-automatic pistols. I shoot, both NRA Action and IPSC. Actually, I haven't done much shooting for quite a long time. I'd like to get back to it sometime. I used to be pretty good. I like to write software for things I want done on the computer and for work. I sometimes make models of Archimedean solids. (The Platonic ones are so boring!)

Having met me now, on to the issues of the day.

Health care/Social Security/Medi-stuff?

This will take a little background. I was working for El Paso National Bank back when HMOs suddenly became all the rage. We had Blue Cross/Blue Shield and liked it, but the bank wanted to go with this new HMO (Cue Twilight Zone music) managed by United Health Care. Our medical insurance costs were fairly reasonable, at least I don't recall cringing when I signed up for it. It was simple; BCBS paid eighty percent, period. But, the theory then was the “well-ness care” would save great gobs of money by catching illnesses before they became expensive. So, our insurance rates went up about twenty percent while my co-pays dropped to something like five bucks.

Why, the higher rates were no problem! Going to the doctor was now practically free! What's a matta wit' you, son?

Pretty soon I was cringing every time I had to sign up for insurance at a new job. The concept of the co-pay and the HMO slash PPO slash other-variations-on-the-theme removed health care from the free-market field of play. Since going to the doctor was “practically free” the consumer stopped asking how much anything cost. It didn't matter. The insurance would pay for it. Now the provider (Funny how we used to go to doctors, isn't it?) was free to charge whatever the insurance company was willing to pay and for a while, they were willing to pay a great deal more than they had been. Well, much of that money was ultimately coming from the federal government. And those folks have deep pockets! And aren't paying much attention, either.

The low co-pays? I'm a teacher. I get ten days of sick leave every year. I'm not burning a day of sick leave to go to the doctor if I'm not sick. Most Americans have similar sick leave policies. Americans stayed away from the doctors in droves. The wellness stuff? Worked good, didn't it?

Do I want federally-backed universal health care? Hell no! I want to make it a death penalty offense, well, not really, maybe just outlaw health insurance entirely. In very short order the prices being charged by the providers will drop to something the providee can afford. Maybe we'll be back to going to the doctor, too.

OK. That isn't going to fly. But it makes my point, however. Until we can restore the free-market influence to the industry, we (or someone) will be saddled with paying for the inflated prices and rampant fraud. Having the federal government run it only means the prices charged will rise higher and the services offered will become ever more scarce as a pressured government starts looking for places to save money. The “industry” has already demonstrated that the first place they look for saving money is in dissuading the sick person from getting quality service, or denying service at all. People with two adjacent brain cells need only look at the great nations of Canada and Britain to admire the results of socialized medicine.

Abortion?

It doesn't matter how you answer this question--you're going to upset someone. So...I don't care who I upset. I'll discuss it with anyone who wants to present reasoned, non-hostile arguments for their side.

Apart from the medical safety, i.e. the competence of the doctors, nurses and hospitals involved, the issue is not within the jurisdiction of any government, let alone the federal government. The process is available, its risks are comparable to any other medical procedure and the decision to have it done is between the mother, the father (if available) and God. No government has the right to dictate the results of that decision. If it is murder, God will deal with it. It's been my experience that the woman who makes that choice often pays for it many times over in her own conscience.

We want the government to be less intrusive, not more. In a very real sense, attempting to enforce laws regarding abortion leads to unacceptable intrusions into our lives by people with guns.

How do I feel about abortion? None of your damned business.

Immigration and the borders?

I have this thing about promises. There's this whopping big statue in New York harbor. Somewhere on its base is a plaque that says something along the lines of “Send me the people you don't want, and I'll give them the opportunity to prosper here, with us, as Americans.” We should try to keep that promise. You want in? Show up at the border, sign your name, come on in and have at it. Pay taxes, vote, participate, be an American. We have rules to cover all this.

This whole thing about the border isn't about Hispanics, or any other ethnic group. It is really about a mushroom cloud over some American city, drugs in my children's veins or lunatics shooting up my school's next pep rally. Mexico is tottering on the edge of political collapse, shoved there by the drug lords who find a lucrative market in the U.S. We must seal the borders in self-defense. The world is a dangerous place and if you don't think there are people who want to kill Americans, I have some prime real estate for you in Manhattan.

What to do about the non-citizens already here? Seal the border. They will be absorbed, just like they would have been if they'd knocked on the door properly in the first place. The family they have on the other side of the border are welcome to knock on that same door, there will be no wailing grandmammas. It'll all work out and we won't have to avoid a twenty-mile circle of radioactive wreckage for the next five thousand years.

Will trade be strangled if we seal the borders? C'mon. How much trade is sneaking across the border in the Sonoran Desert in the dead of night?

A few words about liberals while I'm on this topic. We allowed them to recast this argument as a racism issue. Our new Attorney General calls us cowards after he courageously neglected to pay his taxes. Well, he was right. We are cowards. You want to make a conservative shut up? Start screaming racism at him, loud, long, and in the presence of the media. The conservative will slink away in terrified silence every time. Depending upon the topic of discussion, homophobe works fairly well too. For a liberal, volume is as valid an argument as logic.

The liberals like to win their arguments by redefining common words to distort their meaning or divert the argument away from their being required to respond with reasoned discourse. We spent more time discussing “is” than we did Clinton's cheating on his wife, and us.

I remember when gay meant happy and carefree, when faggot meant a bundle of sticks for the fireplace and “men” could be used to imply the human race in general without angering all the women present because they knew it meant them too. Words mean things, to quote Rush Limbaugh and it isn't intellectually valid to simply redefine them for the purposes of the moment. For example, calling earmarks “investments” doesn't make them not pork dollars used by one politician to purchase the vote of another, at your expense, or to mortgage our children's future. If it does, I have the solution to our budget problems. Redefine “dirt” to mean “gold” and we're all set.

But, I digress...when I represent you, I will use the words I need and if you don't like them, don't deserve them.

Gay relationships and gay marriage?

I have a Bible that both damns same-sex behavior and preaches tolerance and understanding. Science tells me that it is anti-survival behavior, but then again, it's not like the last of us will fall to the neighborhood saber tooth any moment now. The fact of the matter is that this is one genie we'll never get back into the bottle and how I feel about it doesn't matter.

But I can imagine what it would be like to be legally barred from visiting my beloved wife in the hospital, for any reason, let alone some policy that unless I'm a blood-relative or differently plumbed I'm not allowed. A number of years ago my wife was in an accident and the hospital staff kept me from seeing her for a very long time after she was admitted. I finally threatened to put the nurse in a gurney next to hers if he didn't let me in and he relented.

I think it ought to be possible to reach a compromise that permits people who, rightly or wrongly, love each other, to establish familial relationships that would permit inheritance and similar legal rights (and obligations) to those man-woman marriages enjoy. Just don't call it “married.” I don't think we're quite ready for that.

Education?

The founders based much of this great experiment on the presence of an educated electorate. A representative republic requires active participation--or you get where we are now. For those of you who don't remember this, or were never told this in school, the basic plan is this: We select people who believe in things more or less congruent to those things we hold dear. We then delegate to them the responsibility of standing in Congress and voting their conscience, which we desire to be more or less in agreement with ours--conscience, that is. There is even a part of the Federalist Papers when Jefferson discusses voting the will of the people, even when that conflicted with his will.

Off and on for the better part of thirty years, we have abrogated that over-sight responsibility. Too many Americans couldn't be bothered to vote, let alone learn about the issues of the time. Now and then, one party or the other has been able to arouse their electorate to go to the polls and we saw major changes in the course of government. The the citizens then went back to political-sleep, returning to their day-to-day worries, raising children and earning a living and cheering for their team.

Before you get too wired up, there's nothing at all wrong with worrying about making a living, raising children and cheering for the Cowboys. That's the “life, (something), and pursuit of happiness” clause. As time goes on, dealing with those things has become more and more complicated and more and more demanding of our time. Lord knows, I shudder to imagine being a teenager today!

The problem is we can't ignore the “liberty” part of that phrase above. No one will do it for us. Or, rather, someone
WILL do it for us, if we let them. We aren't enjoying the result.

Call your local high school and find out how many semesters they teach Government. When I was in high school, we did two years, a combination of American History and Government. I read and had to memorize big hunks of those mythical establishing documents, the Declaration and the Constitution.

The high school where I work now? One semester. Eighteen weeks. 18 times 5 days, not counting days lost to testing, pep rallies, rodeo and stock shows, homecoming and prom. During this last election cycle, you would not have known there was a presidential election underway if you simply went by asking the kids. I have seniors, young people on the threshold of being voting adults who have no understanding of what it means to be free, what it takes to remain free and who think “capitalism” is spelled with four letters. Worse yet, “conservative” is semantically equivalent to “Darth Vader.” I suppose I should be grateful that Vader is a fairly popular villain.

I'm not demanding the conservatism or liberalism be taught. I do demand that they learn about the design of our body politic and have the knowledge to decide for themselves. You know...freedom.

It's not just the “Care and feeding of a democracy” that's been ignored. Too many of my kids can't balance a checkbook, decide upon a budget, or write a coherent sentence containing correctly spelled words. But they are hellacious test-takers! Give them a problem with five possible answers, a calculator and a dictionary and they are positively in their element!

The public education system has lost focus. I am constantly reminding my students that life's problems do not come with five possible answers, one of which is guaranteed to be correct. We came to the standardized testing because of parental concerns that we weren't doing our jobs. So we quit doing our jobs in favor of becoming really, really good at proving we were doing our jobs.

What can we do to fix it? Well, hell, I've probably already gotten myself fired for what I've written so far, I might as well go for the gusto. One: remove the Federal government from the equation. Things like FERPA and 92-180 have complicated education beyond imagination. We're so twisted in knots trying to comply with one-size-fits-none rules that it'd be easier to crawl through razor-wire. Two: give the principals the right to hire, fire, and promote their people based upon job performance, just like the rest of the country. (There went all my teacher-votes!) Three: fund education out of a percentage of sales taxes and a fixed rate per enrolled student. Make that rate generous and if the district can't live inside that budget...well, they'll learn.

Now, let me see if I can get those teacher votes back! FERPA involves parent/student privacy rights and 92-180 “guarantees” an appropriate education for special students. Sounds good, right? FERPA means I can't announce grades and names that could be connected. Heaven help me if I mention a student's name in an email! Like most things the feds get involved in, this has been twisted completely out of its intentions.

92-180 requires a district to provide the same level of education to their special populations as they do everyone else. Did you ever get really over-bearing about getting your kid to brush their teeth? Remember that look on their face? They would have done it anyway, with a little nudge, but when you pushed, you got resistance. What the schools would happily have done to the best of their ability all on their own, they resent doing by force of law. It's all in the attitude, folks. Special children are expensive to educate. Those teachers are highly trained (not to mention saints!) and hard to find, expensive to hire. The extra facilities are difficult to justify, especially for a small district that might be dealing with a tiny percentage of their over-all population.

Even in a state like Texas with no teacher's union, it's difficult to fire a teacher who hasn't been caught committing a felony...in the lobby of the courthouse. Given the soap-opera-like politics on a typical campus, that's a good thing, in general, but it means the really bad ones can't be given an opportunity to go find their real calling in life. Here again, the federal solution, implemented from thousands of miles removed, is not to trust the administrators on hand, but to try to impose “objective” standards of teacher performance based upon student scores on...you guessed it...standardized tests. There's no effort to teach those children to take that test. No! Of course not! But a teacher is expected to hang their career on the incredibly remote chance that all their students will work diligently to learn the material, despite chaotic or non-existent home life, raging hormones exploited by the constant exhortations of the media and a teenage society that values a cool cell phone over a good grade. We're to assume they will appear rested and motivated on the appointed day, be healthy and headache-free while they work their little hearts out to max a test that is just that...a test with no relationship to their lives apart from the school that wants them to do well.

Oh, yeah! I'm all for that! (Lest you not notice, I'm being sarcastic.)

Out there in the world, an administrator is being paid to know if their people are doing a good job. The knowledge is based on more than a rigid checklist of specific, quantifiable results. Everything in our lives, and on the job, is influenced by events utterly beyond our control. Are you going to fire a salesman because his best customer got arrested for being a serial murderer? Ooops. Sorry I didn't catch that, boss. The knowledge of people, how they work, what is in their hearts and minds; these are the skills we pay administrators to have. Let them do the job. People (and students, too!) can't be measured and quantified and recorded on scantrons for latter examination by a dispassionate and largely removed, mechanical entity.

Let teachers work with the possibility of a real, earned merit raise and not just another year under their belt. Let us worry about getting caught showing one too many movies, too.

Texas has this monstrosity called ADA, by which funding is largely determined. I hope other states didn't fall for this nitwittery. Only a legislator could have conceived of this. The acronym is Average Daily Attendance. The school gets paid for the presence of bodies radiating in the infrared. Do I have to explain where the school's attention is focused? I didn't think so.

The amount of money wasted in a school district is, well, appalling, and I don't use that word lightly. We've been hiring bureaucrats that would do well in Washington. D.C., I mean. They don't know how to, haven't been made to, live within a tight, focused budget.

The continued survival of our society and our government depends upon the continued existence of an educated electorate. Maybe I don't have the right answers. But what we're doing isn't working and we'd best be about fixing it.

Energy, technology, ecology, war, and taxes:

These things are so intertwined that I can't discuss them separately and make a coherent argument. The function of government, at any level, is to provide for the common defense, protect the weak when they have no other recourse, and do the things no individual could afford to do and will benefit the population in general.

Fight wars. (Police the streets.)
Prohibit the elimination of opportunity.
Build roads, bridges, power grids...and so on.

That should be enough to keep them out of trouble for a day or two, you'd think. The whole triad rests on taxes, possibly the one thing the Founders didn't fully visualize during the design process. Who'd have expected this to last two hundred plus years and grow to be three hundred million people in fifty states? It is a matter of scale.

But they did get one basic principle absolutely correct. Tax things you DON'T want people to do. Don't tax things you DO want people to do. No matter what Vice-President Biden says, taxing people because they have the money to afford it is NOT the American, or patriotic, thing to do. You first, Joe. By the guidelines above, taxing success is insane. Paying unproductive people is lunacy. Ignoring those principles is national suicide. The world is watching us with delight or horror (depending on their point of view) as we do that very thing.

President Barack Obama knows the right words; Americans are the brightest, most innovative and productive people in the history of the race. Left to ourselves, we will provide the country, and by corollary the world, with a level of prosperity undreamed of by the Founders. At some level, we've already proven that. Japan might make the TV sets, but we invented them. Why, heck! Al Gore invented the Internet, all by his lonesome! (Sorry...I couldn't resist it.)

President Barack Obama might know the words, but he doesn't believe them. Nor does any other liberal. Liberals are only validated when they are needed. To be needed, we must be helpless.

America is being held hostage to countries with oil whom we can't trust to continue providing it at any price. I watched two episodes of “Modern Marvels” and learned of at least six major research projects taking place right here that will, when fully developed, solve that problem. Everything from photovoltaics (solar cells) that can be printed on a suitable plastic substrate at a price an order of magnitude cheaper than silicon, water turbines that can be installed in the Gulf Stream or Hudson River, DNA-shaped wind turbines that work anywhere on fractions of the wind velocity needed by the huge prop-jobs, to pond-scum that make oil all by themselves if we'd just give them sunlight and carbon dioxide. I hear we have an excess of carbon dioxide available. There's much more...even designs for fission power plants that cannot be made to meltdown no matter how badly you screwup.

It is rare to find science minds and business minds in the same skull. I'm fairly bright, but I have zero desire to be in business. The people who have been doing this research have been busy learning how instead of accumulating money. That takes a different kind of genius. So, the people who know how don't have the money to. We have a crisis because the people who DO have the money can't be assured of keeping the profits to be made from success.

Oil companies who know where the “local” oil can be found won't spend the money to retrieve that oil because a lunatic Congress might retract permission to do it next week, after the oil company has spent hard-earned dollars to do the preparation work. Oh, and that same body of crazies will require three years and millions of dollars worth of environmental hand-wringing before they can begin.

One last thing. Most of you work FOR someone. There is certainly only honor in that. But...does your employer make more than $250,000 a year? That's where your paycheck comes from, isn't it? If your employer has less money, does it not follow that soon, you will have less money?

Solutions are available to all these problems. At least science has solutions to the basic problems. The political problem is solvable as well. Let these people keep the money they make. At least, let them keep far more of than we do now. Lower the tax rates, for companies doing what you want done and for people in general. For energy research, eliminate the capital gains tax for a given period after their project goes into the market, then ramp the rate back to higher, but still more reasonable rates. Do the same for existing electric companies that are willing to rebuild old and construct new power lines in the areas they serve. With lower capital gains taxes, investors will be willing to return to the stock market and that source of capital will flow once again.

We can unleash a torrent of inventiveness and eager money-making activity that will revitalize our economy, employ the huge majority of Americans in meaningful jobs they can expect to retire from in due time. They won't be doing government spawned construction jobs that will come to an end altogether too soon and leave them again dependent on the largess of the federal government. YOU will be getting paid, instead of worrying about when the President will decide that what you earn qualifies as rich. Instead of spending money directly to “help” people, the federal government will be bringing in cash they won't know what to do with. (Yeah. Right.) Think of it as a BIG business with three hundred million employees that has drastically reduced its overhead. From then out, it's all profit. For everybody.

World War IV?

I believe we have framed the “war on terror” incorrectly. The situation we find ourselves in is unique to modern history and more akin to the internecine wars of ancient times that pit tribe against tribe, only on a vastly larger scale. Let no one doubt, we are at war with an implacable enemy that will not stop until we are destroyed, or they are. Our enemy is patient. They are willing to wait years, if not decades, between strikes. They. Will. Not. Stop.

Since the seventeen hundreds, there has always been a nation-state to focus our aggression upon. It became tradition. As a nation, we declare war upon another nation and the dance is on. We even have a UN to help mediate disputes between these nation-states.

After 9/11, there was no clear target. No nation to attack in retribution for our pain. Iraq seemed a likely place to start, since we'd been led to believe that Saddam Hussein was financing and training the people who'd made the attack. I suspect that the reasoning went something along the lines of “Saddam Hussein was a threat and while he most likely wasn't the prime mover behind the attack, at least he'd be a good start.” Iran, Iraq, Syria, Jordan, even the UAE are all nations that are themselves willing to attack America if given the chance, or contain factions that would, we had to start somewhere.

The problem is that we're fighting fog. There is nothing and no one to take a swing at that would connect. UBL is eluding capture and even when we do catch him, he is the textbook example of a snake-head that, if removed, would almost instantly be replaced. The only available entity at which to strike is the nations that support and encourage terrorism as a means of asymmetrical warfare. If the countries involved could be persuaded to leave us alone, or even made into allies, the terrorism should abate. That seems the most reasonable course to follow. Via force or diplomacy, it doesn't matter, we must obtain more than surface-level peace with these countries and their citizens.

Far, far, far easier said than done. No foreign power has even successfully occupied Afghanistan. Calling their terrain difficult is the understatement of the century. Their citizens have a, rightfully, proud history of standing up to foreign invaders and winning. Even winning the support of one area of the country will not ensure the support of any other part.

I have some suggestions, but like the leading suggestion for reducing health care costs, my ideas simply have no chance of being accepted by a modern civilization with scruples. Still, there must be a solution, or combination of solutions that will bring peace. I'm not a military man. I have no training in strategy and tactics. But we have good men and women in our military who do know these things and we must be prepared to consider creative solutions. We used to march men into battle in neat, straight lines, too. We learned.

I do know this. Tired of a war we had no idea how to fight, we declared peace, withdrew our forces while telling the world that South Vietnam could now fend for itself, then stood by while North Vietnam conquered the nation we'd spent thousands of America's best to preserve. Little wonder the world isn't very trusting of that promise. Yet here we stand, about to pull the same nasty trick.

Whatever it takes, however much it costs, this is a war we cannot afford to walk away from. It will just follow us. When we are worried about IEDs on our streets, when humans with nothing else to lose are blowing themselves up in our malls, when we don't dare hold a high school pep rally for fear of the attacks they draw, we will wish we'd won this war over there.

This is it, folks, World War IV. Ignoring it, denying it, trivializing it is suicidal.

Second Amendment?

It's not just the right to keep and bear arms. The bill of rights is a whole that we must keep wholly. Together, they ensure real equality and real control of and freedom from a federal government gone mad. We toss these rights about rather casually and find reason why a given article doesn't apply “this time” or for “this situation,” but fail to remember that any exception for convenience weakens them all. Without the freedom of the press, we are the mercy of whatever the government wants to tell us. Without the right to be an armed citizenry, our last resort against government is gone. And so on for the rest. The Bill of Rights is one body of law that we must defend jealously, for together they define what it is to be free in America.

One thing I find fascinating about the Bill of Rights is that while it applies only to the federal government, they have become a part of the American psyche, a set of principles that we expect all authority to respect, from the city council, through the county commissioners right up to the states, even to our corporate entities. We believe that all government should honor these promises and are often outraged when, say, a school, seems to be depriving a student of one of the rights contained within the Bill. This internalizing of the Bill of Rights is a wonderful thing. We function in our day-to-day activities expecting everyone, even other citizens, to operate under those rules.

Not a bad idea.

Now. Do you think I can do a better job than Congressman Charles Gonzales?