Whatever happened to laissez-faire?

It seems as if the hot topic being debated by the men and women who are running for president in 2008 has become the economy, and specifically how as president they would “manage” or “lead” it. It’s not surprising that the topic is up for discussion given the apparent dark clouds on our economic horizon. What is surprising is that few seem willing to question the reasonableness of the idea that any president would have either the authority or the ability to manage our free market economy.

I can think of one incident where the idea was called into question, however. There was a striking moment in the Republican primary debate in California a few weeks back when the four candidates who were still competing for the nomination at the time were asked what qualified them to “lead the economy.” As usual, only Rep. Ron Paul’s answer to the question reflected any respect for the role of government as defined in the Constitution.

He pointed out that the president is “not commander in chief of the economy” and that the president “is not supposed to manage and run the economy.” The startlingly direct response was met with the typical smirks and/or glazed expressions all around, and the conversation quickly returned to stimulus packages and how many jobs each candidate would “create” with his economic policies.

But let’s ignore for the moment the stark fact that a president has no legal standing to meddle in our free market economy. Even if it is illegal, is it at least a good idea? Recent history would indicate that the answer to that question is a definitive “no.”

Let’s look at the current sub-prime mortgage crisis, for example. A little study of the situation reveals that sub-prime mortgages, which are mortgages issued to potential home buyers with credit scores too low to allow them to qualify for traditional mortgages, were first made possible in the 1980s largely thanks to the efforts of your federal government.

Back then the government passed some laws that were designed to make it easier for low income Americans to purchase homes. In order to make the prospect of exposing themselves to higher risk more attractive to lenders, the laws eliminated interest rate ceilings and permitted the use of variable interest rates. That created a market for lenders who were willing to offer mortgages to a whole new class of people, if those people were willing to accept (or uneducated enough to understand) the risks involved with variable interest rates.

In the 1990s the sub prime market soared and, indeed, people who could have never afforded a new home under the traditional mortgage scenario became proud homeowners with the help of sub prime lenders. Initial interest rates were low, and down payments were minimal. Times were good.

Then reality made its inevitable appearance on the scene. Variable interest rates began to climb while home values dropped precipitously. Many of the unfortunate home owners who took advantage of the sub prime offers could not cover their ballooning payments, but they were also unable to sell their homes for what they owed on them. Foreclosure rates began to soar, and they are climbing still.

And the seeds of the whole disaster were planted in the government’s desire to “manage the economy” such that low income Americans could qualify for loans to buy a house. Good intentions, bad results. Now panic has set in, and we have presidential candidates telling us how they are going to “fix” the sub prime disaster, likely with more government regulation and taxpayer-financed bailouts.

Ronald Reagan once said that the scariest words in the English language are “I’m from the government, and I’m here to help.” Unfortunately, not many of us have the good sense to fear those words anymore, especially when they come from the mouth of a slickly packaged presidential candidate.

Is Scientology dangerous?

Tom Cruise. You just say the name and the first word that comes to mind is probably “crazy.” That’s kind of a shame, because the man has done some pretty good work on the silver screen. But it’s hard to feel sorry for him, because his notoriety for being a flake is well-earned.

At the crux of his perceived nuttiness is his fanatical devotion to his religion of choice, Scientology. But is it fair to look down on him for his religious convictions? Is it really such a bad thing to be fired up about your faith? Ordinarily not, but our acceptance of someone’s religious fervor tends to wane when their beliefs seem to take them too far off the deep end, common sense-wise. And some of Scientology’s teaching strike many people as scoring a little too high on the wackiness scale

One good example of that is Scientology’s virulent opposition to psychiatry. Old Tom earned himself some bad press on this topic when he came down hard on Brooke Shields for seeking psychiatric help when she was suffering from post partum depression. While all of that was going on, you might have wondered just why Tom and his brethren are so cheesed at the head shrinker set. It turns out there’s an interesting story behind that, but it’s not a short one.

What I’m about to tell you is highly sensitive information that is usually only revealed to Scientology members after years of training and thousands of dollars worth of contributions to the church. It also comes with a warning that people who attain this knowledge before they are ready may well die from the shock. If that doesn’t scare you, read on.

Scientologists believe that 75 million years ago a creature named Xenu ruled over a Galactic Confederacy that included 26 stars and 76 planets. One of those planets was our very own home world, which back then was known as Teegeeack. At some point Xenu decided that he needed to ease overcrowding within his empire, so he summoned billions of his subjects together under the pretext of an income tax survey and paralyzed them with a mixture of alcohol and glycol.

He then flew his incapacitated captives to Teegeeack and stacked them around some of our more prominent volcanoes. Hydrogen bombs were then lowered into the volcanoes, and detonated.

The souls (called thetans in Scientology-speak) of his now-deceased subjects were released into our atmosphere, but quickly captured by Xenu in special electronic nets. The thetans were then transported to a massive 3-D cinema and shown movies that implanted certain ideas in their subconscious. These images would later form the basis of the world’s major religions, including Christianity.

After that, the thetans were released, and they began congregating in groups of thousands. Later these thetan clusters attached themselves to human bodies on our planet. They still haunt you and me to this day, unless you have progressed to the highest levels of Scientological enlightenment and gained the power to release these “body thetans.”

Now what in the Sam Hill does all of this have to do with psychiatry, you ask? Well, it turns out that when Xenu was rounding people up for the ill-fated trip to our planet - he was aided and abetted by those pseudo scientists we know as psychiatrists. So the enmity between Scientologists and psychiatry is millions of years old. I wouldn’t expect them to bury the hatchet any time soon

Back to the original question – is Scientology dangerous? If you’re like me, after reading the story above you probably have a hard time taking Scientology seriously enough to see it as dangerous. Such a religious system may prosper in the somewhat detached and inane world of Hollywood, but I don’t see it as any sort of threat to either established belief systems or to enlightened religious skepticism.

It’s just another example of how Hollywood is nothing like the real world, and another reason to see that actors should not be role models, for anyone.

There’s got to be a better way to pick presidential candidates

In just a few days I will have the opportunity to vote in the 2008 presidential primary since Georgia is one of the “Super Tuesday” states that will decide a large number of delegates to be awarded in both the Republican and Democratic contests. Lucky us.

I honestly haven’t decided who I’m going to vote for yet, but my decision has been made a lot easier thanks to voters in states like New Hampshire, South Carolina, and Florida. Those eager beavers have already thinned the herd quite a bit for the rest of us.

Because those states have aggressively moved their primaries further and further back on the calendar to maintain their early bird status in the primary season, they had the power to stomp the life out of the campaigns of people like Fred Thompson, Rudy Giuliani, Dennis Kucinich, and John Edwards long before most of the nation got to weigh in on how they felt about those candidates. I suppose I should thank them for making my decision that much easier, but I ‘m not in a gracious mood. And I’ll bet I’m not the only one who feels that way.

Our system of nominating presidential candidates is a travesty, and it only seems to be getting worse as states jockey for position and importance in the nomination process, moving their primaries further and further back and taxing the patience of the electorate. In reality, the votes of citizens in early primary states count for a great deal more than the votes of citizens who vote later in the process, and there is no reasonable way to justify that fact.

Some things should be so self-evident that they scarcely seem to be worth saying out loud, but I’ll go ahead and state the obvious for those who have trouble recognizing the obvious: we need a national primary system. Badly.

Every state should hold its primary on the same day (or series of days), and that day should be closer to the middle of the election year than the beginning. Ideally, the entire campaign season should last no longer than one calendar year. As a bonus, that would leave more time for governors, congressmen, senators, and other public servants who still hold those offices when they decide to run for president more time to devote to their “day jobs” before they effectively abandon them to campaign full time.

The big problem with implementing such a plan is that the federal government currently lacks the jurisdiction to enforce any rules or regulations regarding how political parties nominate presidential candidates. Political parties are private entities, and are free to produce candidates for president by any means they choose. And we can see where that has led us.

If the leaders of those parties had any common sense and/or sense of shame, they would have long ago realized how ridiculous the situation is and done something about it, without prodding from outside sources. That seems unlikely to happen, so if anything is going to change it is going to require action from the federal government.

And, most likely, that will mean an amendment to the constitution. I think it’s time that such an amendment got serious consideration.

I am a federalist at heart, and a strong supporter of state’s rights. But the electing of a president is not a parochial matter. It is the one elected office that is truly federal in nature, and we need a more organized, logical, and fair process for producing candidates in the primary season.

My apologies to the good people of New Hampshire, but it is time for your days as kingmakers to come to an end. I for one have no desire to relive this nightmare in four years.

And then maybe we can do something about the general election and that cursed Electoral College. Ah, but that is another topic, for another day.