Michelle Malkin’s book, “Culture of Corruption” is truly depressing. I could take only so much at a time. I always read Malkin’s essays, because she states facts for her opinions and gives the sources of those facts. She does the same thing in her book. I believed that the Obamas obtained power through the corrupt Chicago politics, but I hadn’t realized the extent of it – she quotes sources, dates and money. Then she continues to do the same thing with the crowd with whom Obama has surrounded himself in DC including Joe Biden. It is discouraging that these people are running our nation. 

Charles Forelle has an article worth reading in the Wall Street Journal (3 Nov 09). He reports on a survey of 5, 694 citizens of nine former members of the Soviet bloc. The people surveyed reported that they were much happier than they had been under Communism but were not especially happy with democracy and capitalism. Reading it reminded me of an article I read on the slave who accompanied the Rogers/Clark expedition exploring the northwest. On his return, as a reward for his efforts, he was given his freedom and the ownership of a stagecoach line. Some months after assuming his position as owner, he abandoned his ownership and left. He was reported to have said that it was easier to be a slave than a free man. It is the same with the peoples of Eastern Europe. Under Communism, they had the security of a minimum existence. They had minimum food and medical treatment and guaranteed jobs where little was expected of them. Now life is riskier, they must depend on themselves.  Democracy and freedom require effort and thought - as the Eastern Europeans have discovered. 

Recently, Harvard honored the 10 graduates who had received Medals of Honor for their military service in our recent wars. This was an empty gesture. Harvard professors continue to refuse permission for ROTC to operate on campus. Despite this, they receive hundreds of millions of tax dollars from our government. I have difficulty understanding why we should give millions of dollars to any institution that refuses to permit a recognized government agency on campus. I recommend that Congress bar the granting of any federal money to Harvard or any other educational institution which refuses to permit government agencies on campus. I know this will not affect the instruction and research at Harvard. Their professors have complete integrity and will not object to their salaries and benefits being slashed as a result of their following their convictions and barring the ROTC from campus.

The extent to which the media has ignored the Muslim beliefs and terrorist connections of Nidal Malik Hasan while seeking and creating other reasons for his behavior is astounding and displays great creative imagination.  

The articles by persons astounded by the lying and cheating by university faculty in the area of “global warming” amuse me. Are people, theoretically educated people, really so naïve as to think that people are honest just because they are employed by universities? There was a time when university professors were very poorly paid, but they only “worked” twelve or fifteen hours a week as teachers. The rest of the time they led a pleasant life. They could study and conduct research in anything that interested them. Campus swimming pools and tennis courts were free to them. They could attend plays, concerts, football or basketball games or all of them, according to their interests, for free. It was a pleasant life, but not a highly paid one. Then President Johnson was elected. In addition to paying out huge sums of money for people not to work, called welfare reform, he also poured money into colleges and universities. Millions of dollars were poured into universities to conduct “research” provided it was research that the government wanted. Salaries skyrocketed and teaching loads of professors dropped. With almost thirty years experience in universities, in both administration and teaching, and as a producer and reader of research, I can guarantee that I knew professors who cheated like mad in their reports in order to keep the funds coming.  I am certain that if prominent politicians, such as Vice President Gore, wanted global warming, global warming there would be, regardless of factual evidence. Too much money was at stake.

Governor Huckabee had best forget running for President. The man who walked into a restaurant and shot to death four police officers he didn’t know who were sitting at a table, drinking coffee and preparing for their days’ work, had been serving a life sentence for murder and assorted other violent crimes in Arkansas. His sentence was commuted and he was released from prison by Governor Huckabee against the advice and wishes of all. The deaths of those four police officers are a direct result of Huckabee’s decision, one which would appear in ads across the country if he received the Republican nomination. I, for one, would give up and stay home if my choice were between Obama and Huckabee in 2012.

Similarly, everyone has had the experience of dealing with a few salespeople who knew the qualities of what they were selling and took care that their customers received what they needed. Most, however, simply sell what customers believe will satisfy their needs, whether that product will do that or not. And then there are those who can’t seem to be bothered to do their jobs, leaving customers to wait while they pursue other, non-business interests on their cell-phones or in some other self serving activity.

While almost every adult has had the experiences noted above, the majority have elected a President and a Congress which promise to do everything for them: run their banks, manage their industries and care for their health. But “government” doesn’t do anything. People working for the government do things. Governments do not pass or enforce laws. People pass and enforce laws. 

Are people working for the “government” different in kind than those we know as teachers and sales clerks? Not in my experience, which began with my return from combat in Korea when I tried to get a driver’s license in Missouri. The people in the St. LouisCity Hall pointed out that I had to have a receipt for income tax to obtain a driver’s license. When I pointed out that men in combat were not required to file income taxes, they said I would simply have to get one. (This problem was resolved when my father telephoned a union president whom he knew who was also a prominent Democrat.)

I spent eleven years working for the government. Many of the people there were like those at the St. LouisCity Hall. They enforced the rules they wanted to enforce to their own advantage. In fact, in mass, they were lazier and less competent than the workers I have known in civilian jobs. There is good reason for this as we found out when we tried to fire a drug addicted secretary from a position that required secret clearance.  It is almost impossible to fire a federal employee. (It took a year to fire our drug addicted secretary and it helped that she was in jail.)

Of course, I also met many hard working, dedicated men and women in the Federal service. But that doesn’t mean they were perfect. Just as all people make good decisions at times, all people make bad decisions at times.

This is the problem with the federalism or socialism or Communism – whatever you wish to call government control of businesses and lives - the greater the distance between the persons in a position to pass and enforce laws, the less possible it is to correct bad decisions.

Living in Cumberland Furnace, if I don’t like some action taken by the Community Center or Historical Society or Volunteer Fire Department, I can go to one of their meetings and tell them so – and why. If they agree with my reasoning, they will change; if they disagree, I can lump it. Similarly, it is easy to telephone or visit the CountySheriff, the County Tax Assessor, or any of my other local officials. So can all of us. If they don’t satisfy us, or if they make too many wrong decisions, we can vote them out of office. It is more difficult at the State level, but I have found my Senator and Representative and their secretaries helpful when needed. Recently a friend, Dee, angered by the insistence of local veterinaries that dogs receive rabies shots every year when the manufacturer says the shots are good for three years, managed, with considerable effort, to get the State to issue a public policy of three-year vaccinations.

But now consider the federalization of our industries, banks and health care. Does anyone really believe that some worker, regardless of status as clerk or executive, in Washington D. C., is going to be as knowledgeable or as helpful to people in need of help as their next door neighbors in places like Cumberland Furnace or, for that matter, St. Louis or Dallas or Seattle? I don’t.  They don’t even help the children in DC obtain a good education. They simply send their own children to private schools.

I have lived long enough to be aware of and read about other leaders who have decided to “change the world.” Some called themselves Communists and some called themselves Socialists, which has always struck me as different labels on the same can of beans. In both cases, the leaders of a powerful federal government decide what is best for other people.   

The first of these in modern times was Lenin, and he did change his country, he effectively destroyed a fledgling democracy. His word was Communism, an idea in which all the power belonged to the people, but in reality rested in him and a powerful, privileged, leadership. Then he was ousted by Stalin, who used military power to take over Russia and much of Eastern Europe. In the process, he killed hundreds of thousands who opposed him. As his power spread in Europe, the number killed increased to millions, mostly among the working middle-class. But the indolent and the criminal classes did not profit either, he established re-education camps in Siberia, where they learned to work for a living – or starve.  

A second person who set out to change his country and the world was Hitler. His dogmatism was Socialism. (Nazi stood for “National Socialist Party.) Following his election to leadership in the then Democracy of Germany, he used his goon squads to silence dissidents: early victims, who were imprisoned and executed, included the handicapped, Masons, peace loving Christians such as the Jehovah’s Witnesses and more than 800 Protestant ministers. Finally he turned his attention to the Jews. It was all for the good of the nation. He and those about him knew what was good for all. The consequence was catastrophe for Europe.

Mao knew what was best for the people of China. He executed over twenty million Chinese and, over the years, led the nation into poverty. It was only after his death, with the slow introduction of capitalism, which permits people to decide for themselves what is best for them, that prosperity returned for many, but it has been slow. 

Castro promised change. He was young, handsome and an excellent speaker – like Hitler. The people of Cuba needed change, and supported him. It was only after he gained control of the nation that they realized they no longer enjoyed the freedom to determine their own lives. Castro knew what was best. More than a million fled the nation and the others now live in poverty. Not, of course, the leadership. As in all Socialist (Communist) nations, the leaders live privileged lives in prosperity. 

Now Chavez has decided he knows what is best for Venezuela. Young, handsome and an excellent speaker, he won leadership. At first, the country prospered as Chavez reaped the profits of capitalism, now it is sinking into economic despair as industry after industry is taken over and directed by the government, but Chavez and the elite with whom he has surrounded himself still know what is best – and prosper.

Now we have Obama. Like Lenin, Hitler, Castro and Chavez, Obama is young, handsome and a marvelous speaker. He has been quoted as saying he will change the nation and the world. All of the major media supported him, and he won the Presidency. This has made me wonder how he might be expected to change the nation – and the world. This worries me.