Tough Choices

Liberals have been successful in taking ownership of all things having to do with nature, wildlife, climate change and the environment.   The left has seized the moral high ground and it has given them great latitude and has empowered, for instance, the EPA and the Obama Administration to enter into international agreements without legislative input or oversight, and without cost/benefit analysis. By portraying capitalists and uncaring exploiters of the environment and people, they make the case that government alone is benign enough and represents a broad enough interest to control the disposition and allocation of resources.  Last year, Pope Francis jumped into the fray and clearly weighed in on the side of Big Government, harshly criticizing capitalism.  Never mind that the actual environmental record of state controlled economies is very poor—see, for instance, the old Eastern Bloc.  The actual track record of democratic capitalism is far superior to the alternative in efficient use of resources and caring for the environment.

But conservatives have to do a much better job in making its case, and in helping to frame its policy decisions and positions.  I believe that environmental stewardship and the tradeoffs that need to be made will best be handled without massive empowerment of government.  But first, capitalists need to show themselves to be engaged on the issue, and to be pro-active with sane and sensible policies.

This weekend, a terrible incident occurred at the Cincinnati Zoo.   A young child fell into the gorilla exhibit and a western lowland gorilla that was lording over the child was shot by zoo authorities.  The incident sent off a storm of controversy, with, some calling for the prosecution of the mother that was overseeing the child and others finding fault with the zoo and its decision making.  Others advocated a boycotting of zoos.   The incident harkened back to a similar incident at Brookfield Zoo, near Chicago, where a child also fell into the gorilla habitat and was protected by one of the gorillas, and both came out unharmed.  In the Cincinnati incident, zoo personnel were faced with a terrible choice and elected to kill the gorilla.  As someone who works in a field in which there is sometimes limited information and time pressure to make a hard decision, I appreciate the difficulties with which the zoo authorities were faced.   It was a heartbreaking and saddening decision to have to make—to put down this rare and magnificent animal, that for all we know, may have similarly been investigating and protecting this child.  We will never know.

This is a hard, but teachable moment.  There have been several incidents in the past year that have surfaced in the media about human and animal interaction that had terrible outcomes.  In Yosemite, a baby bison was taken and put in an SUV because visitors thought it “looked cold” and had to be euthanized.   In Argentina, a baby dolphin was passed around to beachgoers and died as a result.  And a Minnesota dentist that shot Cecil the lion was driven out of business when the incident became public.  Most notably, SeaWorld has announced that it is phasing out the killer whale shows that have been a main attraction for decades.

Zoos have an important function.   Modern civilization has separated us from nature and the environment.   They are an important connection between human populations and the natural world.  They are vital to research and the continuation of endangered species.   Most humans will not be able to view these wonderful animals in the natural world.  By seeing animals in as natural surroundings as possible, people will be more likely to support conservation and animal protection efforts.  But zoos and entities like SeaWorld are NOT entertainment centers.  They need to migrate away from that business model—one which exploits animals and entertains.  They should refashion themselves more like universities—research institutions that educate, and introduce the young to knowledge and to connect them with animals and the natural world.

Conservatives need to lead on the issue of wildlife and the environment.  We have not been, and need to be.  Otherwise, the default position will be an ever expanding role of Big Government.

What Now?

Now that Donald Trump has sealed up the Republican nomination and Hillary Clinton will be the Democratic nominee, what is a free market Constitutionalist to do?  

I don't know.  I just don't know.  I am suffering with the worst case of political cognitive dissonance of my adult life.

Do you cast your lot with Donald Trump (How I Stopped Worrying and Learned to Love the Trump), or, as conservative/libertarian humorist P.J. O'Rourke just declared, go with Hillary, rationalizing that she is "the second worst thing that could happen to our country."

Do you go with the woman with a rat's nest of conflict of interests, currently under F.B.I. investigation for her atrocious email server scandal, who shamelessly panders to interest groups, and who, while simultaneously claiming to be the vanguard of women's rights, enabled her husband to prey on several women?  Or do you go with bombastic iconoclast, the real estate and reality television guy, who has shown an ability to shake up the status quo at a time the status quo badly needs to be shaken?  And  shaken vigorously.

In my January 16 post, I spun out the reasons I thought Trump could take all the marbles and those turned out to be accurate.   Whatever he is doing appears to be working as he dismantled the entire Republican field one by one.  His ham-fisted crude bluntness, for instance, demolished the young conservative darling, Marco Rubio and he rattled him so badly that Rubio could do little more than repeat scripted talking points.  His "Make America Great Again" theme has great appeal and is in stark contrast to the current administration that has spent more time apologizing for America and talking about a borderless world than the virtues of America.  He is not afraid to take on hard issues ---a broken immigration policy, Islamic terror, political correctness that has gone way beyond common sense.   And, unlike Mitt Romney, he hits back... hard.   He has a number of appealing attributes, and potential (and I mean potential because he has never led in government) leadership capabilities.

We know Hillary all too well.  One of her major deficits is that we have Clinton fatigue.  The Clinton M.O. is well known-- play in the grey area, obfuscate, delay, distract, spin.  These are skills the family has perfected over decades of public life. We know her track record. Whitewater, Travelgate, Hillarycare, Benghazi, Russian reset, Assad the "reformer," and leading from behind in Libya.  Worst of all, she squandered a formidable lead to a community organizer with no executive experience and lost the nomination in 2008.

With all that baggage, it seems like jumping on the Trump Train would not be all that difficult.  Many have--- Rudy Giuliani, Newt Gingrich, the folks at Fox, and even Larry Kudlow is pretty open to him.

I'm with Paul Ryan.   I'm not ready yet.  And I don't know if I will ever be.

There are a host of things about him that trouble me deeply. 

He is NOT an advocate of free market principles.  He is open to a $15 minimum wage.  He is fine with more tax increases (without talking about how we are going to put government on a diet).  His recent suggestion that America's creditors might take a discount is nothing short of ludicrous.  Worst of all is his policy toward China.  I agree that a tougher negotiating stance is appropriate but he seems not to have heard of Smoot Hawley.  He may, in fact, be more progressive than Obama on health care.  Yes, it is true that while Trump is promising jobs, Bernie Sanders is promising "free stuff," but there is no evidence that suggests that a massive trade war will do the trick.

On foreign policy matters, it gets worse.  He really lost me with his assertion that "Bush lied." While "putting America first," rebuilding America's military that Obama gutted and regaining American sovereignty have great appeal after the Obama years, his suggestions that we withdraw from NATO or permit or encourage Japan and South Korea to arm themselves with nuclear weapons is simply nuts.   His proposed policy of completely ceding the Middle East to Russia makes no sense. His man crush on Vladimir Putin is perplexing.   In international affairs, we need to lead, and advocate the American virtues of individual liberty, democracy and free markets.  Trump is correct to say that P.C. is a big impediment to these principles.  He is utterly wrong in advocating American isolationism in these matters.   America needs to lead and the world needs America to lead.

In the final analysis, I cannot vote for Hillary under any condition. Conservatives P.J. O'Rourke and Jonathan Hoenig have cast their lot with her.  I simply cannot.   She is unprincipled and continues to advocate the growth of a welfare state that has no more room to grow (expanding Obamacare subsidies to illegals).

Neither of the candidates are addressing the core issues that need to be addressed: tax reform, entitlement reform, and regulatory reform (the out-of-control regulatory state that continues to suck the oxygen out of the economy), and their relation to economic growth and vitality.   

Finally, there is the Constitution.  Progressives continue to erode the structure and rights guaranteed under the Constitution.  In particular, they continue to chip away at the 1st Amendment (offensive speech, freedom of religion), and the 2nd (Hillary is focused on gun control).   I have been particularly harsh on Obama (the Constitutional law lecturer) for his "pen and phone" approach to governance.   Rather than do the hard work of hammering out a deal and compromise with Congress, he has attempted to exert his will through the executive and the judicial branches on major policy issues.  Whatever the vicissitudes of the electorate, it is vital that the next president respect the structure of the Constitution, and demonstrate and articulate a fidelity to our founding document that Obama did not. Unfortunately, I do not at present see Trump as the leader that will take us back to our core values and our core document.  So far, I see the opposite.  I see someone that is more likely to "game the system" just as Obama has done to achieve his ends.

Perhaps he will evolve now that he has sewn up the nomination, but I have not yet bought a ticket on the Trump Train.

Predators

Sexual misconduct among the political class has become so commonplace that it doesn't even herald the death knell of one's career in public life.  Bill Clinton, Eliot Spitzer, Mark Sanford, Anthony Weiner and a number of other well known public figures have all had their dalliances exposed and have gone on to new lives after suffering some short term humiliation.  We've had call girls, sexting and cigars.  These sordid affairs caused a speed bump in their lives, but many of these transgressors more or less recovered.  

Not this time.  This time it was kids.

Former Speaker of the House Dennis Hastert was sentenced to 15 years in prison for molesting at least 4 boys while a teacher and wrestling coach at Yorkville High School.  He was caught paying hush money to some of the victims.  It is amazing to me that Hastert was able to get friends to write letters asking for leniency (the defense asked for probation).   And the judge rightfully threw the book at him.   Sex abuse of a minor is a horrific crime.  It steals their youth, and often their lives, leaving them scarred forever.

It occurred to me that this kind of deviant and despicable behavior may be more common than I thought among the coaching profession and that we need to be vigilant and alert in protecting our children.  As was the case in the Catholic Church sex abuse scandal (see the film Spotlight), predators often occupy a position of trust and authority.  It follows, then, that athletic coaches and trainers are in the perfect position to prey on kids.

Jerry Sandusky is the poster child for this monstrous behavior, having used his position at Penn State to abuse many, many children under the nose of Penn State, ultimately tarnishing the school and Joe Paterno.  

In the 2005 documentary film, The Heart of the Game, which chronicled a girls high school basketball team in Oregon, one of the athletes was suffering a myriad of behavior problems and ultimately had her basketball career derailed. Only later in the film did we learn that her adult personal coach and trainer was taking advantage of her.

At the high school where I coached in the early 1980's, 3 athletes brought a suit several decades after the alleged instances occurred against one of the coaches for sexual abuse.   One of those athletes, Arny Alberts, wrote a book about these incidents (Burnt Cookies--available on amazon.com) and the lifelong problems it caused ---depression, alcohol abuse, guilt and shame.  

Brooke de Lench of MomsTeam Team Institute for Youth Sports Safety has a good blog post on warning signs for sexual abuse by a coach (http://momsteam.com/health-safety/sexual-abuse/warning-signs-sexual-abuse-by-coach-of-child).  Her post should be read by anyone whose child is participating in organized sports.

It's hard to say how prevalent sexual abuse is among the coaching profession but these incidents suggest that it may be more widespread than is generally thought and parents should be vigilant and pay attention at all times.   Violating the public trust is one matter, violating the coach/young athlete relationship is another.   Hastert caused a great deal of pain among some young athletes and he will and should pay a heavy price. Shame on those that wrote letters on his behalf urging leniency.