Friday, November 30, 2012
Wednesday, November 28, 2012
Religion and the State
The United States is a Christian nation. This is not to say that Americans have any official church with powers of taxation or coercion fixed by law as some nations do or have in the past. No one wants that and any claim that anyone does is a red herring designed to obscure the real issue. It simply means that America was founded by Christians for Christian purposes and principles. Americans are always free peacefully to practice any religion or no religion, as the First Amendment makes clear, but the right of the people as a whole to honor God through speeches, monuments, plaques on and within public buildings, and the voluntary practice of prayer in public schools or at public events is inherent in the "free exercise" of religion, understood from the beginning to apply to the people individually and collectively. When George Washington declared the first Thanksgiving on October 3, 1789 he stated: "Whereas it is the duty of all nations to acknowledge the Providence of Almighty God . . . we may . . . unite in most humbly offering our prayers and supplications to the great Lord and Ruler of Nations". The anti-Christian bigots notwithstanding, that is the core of America's purpose in the world.
Tuesday, November 27, 2012
A Foriegn Policy for America
The United States should have a foreign policy based on two principles; (1) to attempt to effect, wherever feasible, peace and stability in the world and (2) the defense of the vital interests of America, meaning the integrity of our territory, including our embassies and the safety or our diplomats and their staffs, uninhibited freedom of the seas and the right to seek access to the commerce of the world. Beyond that we should mind our own business and tell the rest of the world to stay out of ours. The meddlesome propensity to spread democracy everywhere should be abandoned. The internal arrangements of other countries are none of our business and ours none of theirs.
To make such a foreign policy work we need full energy independence, including coal, oil and nuclear energy, and an invulnerable military so awesome that any foreign leader would have to be insane even to think of using force against us. With that and a sound economy --- not the mess we have now --- America would be the beacon of hope and inspiration among the nations of the world that we once were.
The Facts About Social Security
Social Security has traditionally been a prime target of those on the far right, and now the left, and the subject of more misunderstanding and factual mistatement than almost anything else under public revue. As a conservative I find this very embarrassing but I have to plead guilty, having repeated a lot of the nonsense at one time or another myself. This essay is offered in order to try to clear away the cobwebs and misunderstandings created by Social Security's detractors by showing (A) That Social Security is not a "Ponzi scheme" as its detractors claim, (B) That it is not "broke" (C) That if you are in the system there is an account with your name on it, contrary to the claim of the detractors and (D) That the shortfall in Social Security's ability to satisfy its purposes, predicted to occur in about the year 2035, is not so serious that it cannot be corrected fairly easily and satisfactorily with clearly available and sensible measures. I am not, however, interested in being a propagandist or cheer leader for Social Security. It has its problems. They can and should be solved and, with some repair work, the system with its basic structure can and should be maintained. Here are some common errors and my response to them.
(1) "Contrary to what you are told, there is no Social Security account with your name on it". That is not true. There is an account with your name on it, identical in kind to accounts maintained by private insurance companies for people who purchase commercial annuities. The difference between Social Security and a "managing agency", which a ponzi scheme purports to be but is not, is that Social Security does not hold, or claim to hold, a lump sum for the client which he originally contributed to his account, plus interest accruing over time, and which he can demand and receive any time, or on specified withdrawal dates during the year. This is what a "managing agency" is. Social Security is a "pension program". There is no "lump sum" belonging to you because you never contributed a "lump sum" in the first place. A sum of money cannot accrue interest if there simply is no sum of money to accrue. WHEN CONSIDERING SOCIAL SECURITY, "RETURN ON INVESTMENT" IS ENTIRELY IRRELEVANT TO THE INDIVIDUAL ANNUITANT BECAUSE THERE SIMPLY IS NO MANAGED "INVESTMENT" OF PRINCIPAL. Or here is another way of thinking about the matter. Suppose that Joe Shmo buys a five dollar lottery ticket and wins a million dollars while at the same time Doris Doe also buys a five dollar ticket but wins nothing. Does Doris have a right to complain that Joe won an amount which was enormously in excess of what he paid in while she lost her whole payment? No. Each one paid five dollars and each received what he and she paid for, a chance to win a large sum of money --- not the same dollars used to buy the tickets, or those same dollars enchanced through wise investments and prudent savings. Each purchaser wanted a windfall, but Joe Shmo won and Doris Doe lost. I may pay into Social Security all my life and die too early to receive any benefit while someone else receives benefits for many years. That's the system. Those are the breaks of the game, and that's the way all insurance works.
(2) "When you die your heirs will get nothing from Social Security". True, but irrelevant. Social Security was never represented as a way of building a transferable estate. If you want that, you will have to do it on your own or persuade the government to convert Social Security to something else. It is a pension annuity program and like all pension programs its benefits expire with your death or the death of you and your spouse. If you buy a commercial annuity from an insurance company your annuity will also expire with your death unless you take a reduced monthly amount with a joint-and-survivor feature.
(3) "Social Security is a Ponzi Scheme". That is simply untrue all the way through. The name "Ponzi" came from the name Charles Ponzi, a Boston swindler who operated a pyramid whereby a small number of investors were paid from the contributions of a larger number of more recently enrolled investors. The scheme required an ever-increasing pool of "investors" whose contributions were used to pay earlier "investors". Jeff Jacoby, a conservative columnist, in citing a writer named Mitchell Zukov, wrote in a September 6, 2011 column; "Ponzi's scheme was a deliberate swindle that lured its victims with bald lies and get-rich-quick promises, . . . . whereas Social Security fully discloses its operations and makes no promise of huge returns. Ponzi schemes are intended to defraud; Social Security was designed to be a social safety net for the old". IN SEVENTY-FIVE YEARS, IT HAS NEVER MISSED A PAYMENT. Social Security is not only not a "Ponzi Scheme", it is not in any way a fraudulent enterprise, as every aspect of it is out in the open. Fraudulent schemes and embezzlement do not result in $2.5 trillion surpluses, which is the surplus now managed by the Social Security Administration, estimated to rise to $3.7 trillion by 2022 after a near-term PLANNED fall due to the influx of Boomers. In any case, while some adjustments will have to be made to preserve Social Security even on the assumption that the Treasury pays its debt to Social Security (see paragraph(4) below), I am quite sure that Bernie Madoff's clients wish that his scheme had performed as well and reliably for them as Social Security has.
There are two necessary caveats, however. First, If Congress never intended to pay its debt to Social Security's beneficiaries, incurred by means of bonds as discussed at paragraph (4) below, but instead intended and intends to devise some scheme for defaulting on that debt and blaming Social Security itself for running out of money it will be the greatest case of grand larceny in the nation's history, a monstrous crime with no historical precedent in this country. IF THAT IS THE INTENT IT MUST BE STOPPED. Second, There are a lot of prophets of gloom and doom running around who tell us that the Euro is about to collapse, and with it every economy in Europe, and following that the currency and economy of the United States, and for all I know that may be true. I'm not an economist. To conclude that they are all nuts, however, before you have even heard their arguments is unreasonable because there are some smart people in that group and their arguments do not sound irrational, at least not to me. If they are right then everything will collapse at once and why worry about Social Security? You may as well try to sell refrigerators to the Eskimos, go hang out with Glenn Beck or bang your head against a wall because who cares?
(4) "But the system is out of money". No, it isn't unless, as discussed at paragraph (3) above, Congress defaults on its bonded debt. If someone has a $2.5 trillion surplus, which Social Security does have, he is not "out of money". Then where is the money? It is invested in non-negotiable government bonds and those bonds are real paper bonds contained in physical boxes in Martinsburg, West Virginia. They are not just electronic blips in a computer. "But the government might default". Yes, and the Chinese could say the same thing about their U.S. bonds. "But the bonds held by Social Security are non-negotiable". Yes, because Social Security isn't allowed to make private investments by law and because the government does not want a secondary bond market competing with its own. Anyway, we have always been told that the safest investment is U.S. bonds. In other words the federal government borrowed the money which America's working people, and their employers, contributed and now the far left and the far right do not want the Treasury to pay it back, or so it seems. In fact, as discussed, the government would actually be stealing this money. We should always return to the point that Social Security is sound in and of itself and that the critical problem is the debt to Social Security by the Treasury. In other words, the problem is external, not internal.
This is really as much about truth and accuracy as it is about Social Security. No one is relieved of the moral and ethical responsibility to be honest with others even when it may not support his or her own ideology. When anyone, conservative, liberal or otherwise, ignores or deliberately obscures the truth because to do so would be idealogically inconvenient it undermines his credibility on everything --- on Social Security and everything else.
(5) "Contributions are mandatory". That is true. Any large developed country like the United States faces the problem of retirement and how to avoid retired people being indigent. Perhaps no answer to that is completely satisfactory. Given the temperament of the American people the prospect of millions of people with no means of sustenance is unrealistic. So what can be done? People can be urged to save on their own but many will not, and if they do not they will be a burden on their children or society in general. They can have their own private fund to be managed but not touched, an approach favored by President George W. Bush, but what if the market goes into a drastic decline and the savings evaporate? Social Security is a trade-off. You pay the tax and acquire a guarenteed annuity which is not dependent on the vicissitudes of the market. There are many approaches to this, but it is hard to deny that the problem of safety in retirement is not just an individual problem. It is a social problem.
(6) "Social Security contributes to the deficit". No, Social Security has never contributed a dime to the deficit. Quite the opposite, the Treasury has been borrowing from Social Security to finance its general operations, as a result of which Social Security has $2.5 trillion worth of bonds. The false claim that the general taxpayers will have to begin financing Social Security is intended to hide the fact that Social Security has been financing the government, not the other way around, and that includes hundreds of billions of dollars of wasted money.
(7) "The bill for today's pensions will be paid by the next generation." The truth is that today's benefits will be paid for by everyone who pays into the system and later receives benefits. That includes people now deceased who did pay but either received no benfit or relatively little benefit because they didn't live long enough. Where did today's $2.5 trillion surpulus come from? It certainly did not come entirely from the next generation of working people. Some of it did, just as some people in the next generation --- those who live a long time --- will benefit from the payments of those in this and the previous generation who died or will die early. The point is that everyone in the system pays and receives benefits if they meet the contribution and longevity requirements. Is everyone benefitted or burdened equally? Of course not. Social Security was never designed for that. Someone buys a million dollar life insurance policy and dies the next day. He (his estate) recieves a million dollars after paying one premium, perhaps only a few hundred dollars. Someone else has lived to age one hundred after having paid much more than he or his estate will receive in benefits. That's what insurance is. That's life.
We could have individually managed accounts. We could do a lot of things. But non-risk annuities paid for with a payroll tax is the choice that was made and it has worked well.
(8) "Social Security is in crisis and must be abandoned, at least as to those under fifty or some such age".
No, it is not in crisis. It is true that demographic patterns have changed with longer life spans and otherwise and that the system is expected to run into problems in about 2035 even if the treasury pays its debts, as it must. Here are some possible approaches for the future, without implying that they are all desirable or necessarily fair. They are possible. (A) Raise the ceiling on income subject to the FICA tax. (B) Raise the tax rate. (C) Raise the retirement age from 67 to 70. (D) Change the formula for the annual cost-of-living adjustment. More than 75% of the shortfall would vanish if Congrress reduced annual cost-of-living increases by 1 percentage point every year. (E) According to the News-Press of Fort Myers, Florida the entire $5.3 trillion shortfall over the next 75 years could be eliminated if payroll taxes were increased 1.1 percentage points for workers and employers. (G) Allow the non-negotiable bonds to be converted to negotiable bonds as that becomes necessary to meet current obligations. Bear in mind that no one argues that the entire treasury debt must be paid immediately. There will continue to be a FICA tax which will continue to fund the system. The bonded surplus exists to provide against shortages of cash as benefits become due.
Whatever else is done, Congress should be prohibited from using Social Security as a slush fund, and because experience shows that Congress can never be trusted to be ethical or responsible this result should be obtained by Constitutional Amendment.
(9) "We should abandon Social Security except for paying promised benefits to senrior citizens who paid into it and have relied on it". The last part is certainly true. Promises should be kept. But we should not abandon Social Security at all. The danger is that neither the right nor the left have any interest in maintaining it as to younger working people. It can be maintained, permanently. Its a question only of will. But conservatives have never liked it because they think of it as welfare. It is no such thing and never was, but curing so massive a misconception is almost beyond difficult because those on the right simply have no personal stake in it. Those on the left cannot claim credit for it so they aren't trying to protect it either. They would rather invent new schemes for wasting money, and buying votes with higher taxes, and blaming the decline of Social Security on the right.
Now Congress and the Administration have gotten into the habit of extending what was to be a "temporary" cut in the Social Security tax. That is simply another way of stealing from annuitant-beneficiaries. With cuts in the tax, the current $2.5 Trillion surplus will be depleted sooner than it would otherwise. The Democrats propose making up the deficiency caused thereby by taxing 'millionaires and billionaires'; in other words, soaking the rich. This is just more demogoguery by politicians who swim in the waters of demogoguery.
(1) "Contrary to what you are told, there is no Social Security account with your name on it". That is not true. There is an account with your name on it, identical in kind to accounts maintained by private insurance companies for people who purchase commercial annuities. The difference between Social Security and a "managing agency", which a ponzi scheme purports to be but is not, is that Social Security does not hold, or claim to hold, a lump sum for the client which he originally contributed to his account, plus interest accruing over time, and which he can demand and receive any time, or on specified withdrawal dates during the year. This is what a "managing agency" is. Social Security is a "pension program". There is no "lump sum" belonging to you because you never contributed a "lump sum" in the first place. A sum of money cannot accrue interest if there simply is no sum of money to accrue. WHEN CONSIDERING SOCIAL SECURITY, "RETURN ON INVESTMENT" IS ENTIRELY IRRELEVANT TO THE INDIVIDUAL ANNUITANT BECAUSE THERE SIMPLY IS NO MANAGED "INVESTMENT" OF PRINCIPAL. Or here is another way of thinking about the matter. Suppose that Joe Shmo buys a five dollar lottery ticket and wins a million dollars while at the same time Doris Doe also buys a five dollar ticket but wins nothing. Does Doris have a right to complain that Joe won an amount which was enormously in excess of what he paid in while she lost her whole payment? No. Each one paid five dollars and each received what he and she paid for, a chance to win a large sum of money --- not the same dollars used to buy the tickets, or those same dollars enchanced through wise investments and prudent savings. Each purchaser wanted a windfall, but Joe Shmo won and Doris Doe lost. I may pay into Social Security all my life and die too early to receive any benefit while someone else receives benefits for many years. That's the system. Those are the breaks of the game, and that's the way all insurance works.
(2) "When you die your heirs will get nothing from Social Security". True, but irrelevant. Social Security was never represented as a way of building a transferable estate. If you want that, you will have to do it on your own or persuade the government to convert Social Security to something else. It is a pension annuity program and like all pension programs its benefits expire with your death or the death of you and your spouse. If you buy a commercial annuity from an insurance company your annuity will also expire with your death unless you take a reduced monthly amount with a joint-and-survivor feature.
(3) "Social Security is a Ponzi Scheme". That is simply untrue all the way through. The name "Ponzi" came from the name Charles Ponzi, a Boston swindler who operated a pyramid whereby a small number of investors were paid from the contributions of a larger number of more recently enrolled investors. The scheme required an ever-increasing pool of "investors" whose contributions were used to pay earlier "investors". Jeff Jacoby, a conservative columnist, in citing a writer named Mitchell Zukov, wrote in a September 6, 2011 column; "Ponzi's scheme was a deliberate swindle that lured its victims with bald lies and get-rich-quick promises, . . . . whereas Social Security fully discloses its operations and makes no promise of huge returns. Ponzi schemes are intended to defraud; Social Security was designed to be a social safety net for the old". IN SEVENTY-FIVE YEARS, IT HAS NEVER MISSED A PAYMENT. Social Security is not only not a "Ponzi Scheme", it is not in any way a fraudulent enterprise, as every aspect of it is out in the open. Fraudulent schemes and embezzlement do not result in $2.5 trillion surpluses, which is the surplus now managed by the Social Security Administration, estimated to rise to $3.7 trillion by 2022 after a near-term PLANNED fall due to the influx of Boomers. In any case, while some adjustments will have to be made to preserve Social Security even on the assumption that the Treasury pays its debt to Social Security (see paragraph(4) below), I am quite sure that Bernie Madoff's clients wish that his scheme had performed as well and reliably for them as Social Security has.
There are two necessary caveats, however. First, If Congress never intended to pay its debt to Social Security's beneficiaries, incurred by means of bonds as discussed at paragraph (4) below, but instead intended and intends to devise some scheme for defaulting on that debt and blaming Social Security itself for running out of money it will be the greatest case of grand larceny in the nation's history, a monstrous crime with no historical precedent in this country. IF THAT IS THE INTENT IT MUST BE STOPPED. Second, There are a lot of prophets of gloom and doom running around who tell us that the Euro is about to collapse, and with it every economy in Europe, and following that the currency and economy of the United States, and for all I know that may be true. I'm not an economist. To conclude that they are all nuts, however, before you have even heard their arguments is unreasonable because there are some smart people in that group and their arguments do not sound irrational, at least not to me. If they are right then everything will collapse at once and why worry about Social Security? You may as well try to sell refrigerators to the Eskimos, go hang out with Glenn Beck or bang your head against a wall because who cares?
(4) "But the system is out of money". No, it isn't unless, as discussed at paragraph (3) above, Congress defaults on its bonded debt. If someone has a $2.5 trillion surplus, which Social Security does have, he is not "out of money". Then where is the money? It is invested in non-negotiable government bonds and those bonds are real paper bonds contained in physical boxes in Martinsburg, West Virginia. They are not just electronic blips in a computer. "But the government might default". Yes, and the Chinese could say the same thing about their U.S. bonds. "But the bonds held by Social Security are non-negotiable". Yes, because Social Security isn't allowed to make private investments by law and because the government does not want a secondary bond market competing with its own. Anyway, we have always been told that the safest investment is U.S. bonds. In other words the federal government borrowed the money which America's working people, and their employers, contributed and now the far left and the far right do not want the Treasury to pay it back, or so it seems. In fact, as discussed, the government would actually be stealing this money. We should always return to the point that Social Security is sound in and of itself and that the critical problem is the debt to Social Security by the Treasury. In other words, the problem is external, not internal.
This is really as much about truth and accuracy as it is about Social Security. No one is relieved of the moral and ethical responsibility to be honest with others even when it may not support his or her own ideology. When anyone, conservative, liberal or otherwise, ignores or deliberately obscures the truth because to do so would be idealogically inconvenient it undermines his credibility on everything --- on Social Security and everything else.
(5) "Contributions are mandatory". That is true. Any large developed country like the United States faces the problem of retirement and how to avoid retired people being indigent. Perhaps no answer to that is completely satisfactory. Given the temperament of the American people the prospect of millions of people with no means of sustenance is unrealistic. So what can be done? People can be urged to save on their own but many will not, and if they do not they will be a burden on their children or society in general. They can have their own private fund to be managed but not touched, an approach favored by President George W. Bush, but what if the market goes into a drastic decline and the savings evaporate? Social Security is a trade-off. You pay the tax and acquire a guarenteed annuity which is not dependent on the vicissitudes of the market. There are many approaches to this, but it is hard to deny that the problem of safety in retirement is not just an individual problem. It is a social problem.
(6) "Social Security contributes to the deficit". No, Social Security has never contributed a dime to the deficit. Quite the opposite, the Treasury has been borrowing from Social Security to finance its general operations, as a result of which Social Security has $2.5 trillion worth of bonds. The false claim that the general taxpayers will have to begin financing Social Security is intended to hide the fact that Social Security has been financing the government, not the other way around, and that includes hundreds of billions of dollars of wasted money.
(7) "The bill for today's pensions will be paid by the next generation." The truth is that today's benefits will be paid for by everyone who pays into the system and later receives benefits. That includes people now deceased who did pay but either received no benfit or relatively little benefit because they didn't live long enough. Where did today's $2.5 trillion surpulus come from? It certainly did not come entirely from the next generation of working people. Some of it did, just as some people in the next generation --- those who live a long time --- will benefit from the payments of those in this and the previous generation who died or will die early. The point is that everyone in the system pays and receives benefits if they meet the contribution and longevity requirements. Is everyone benefitted or burdened equally? Of course not. Social Security was never designed for that. Someone buys a million dollar life insurance policy and dies the next day. He (his estate) recieves a million dollars after paying one premium, perhaps only a few hundred dollars. Someone else has lived to age one hundred after having paid much more than he or his estate will receive in benefits. That's what insurance is. That's life.
We could have individually managed accounts. We could do a lot of things. But non-risk annuities paid for with a payroll tax is the choice that was made and it has worked well.
(8) "Social Security is in crisis and must be abandoned, at least as to those under fifty or some such age".
No, it is not in crisis. It is true that demographic patterns have changed with longer life spans and otherwise and that the system is expected to run into problems in about 2035 even if the treasury pays its debts, as it must. Here are some possible approaches for the future, without implying that they are all desirable or necessarily fair. They are possible. (A) Raise the ceiling on income subject to the FICA tax. (B) Raise the tax rate. (C) Raise the retirement age from 67 to 70. (D) Change the formula for the annual cost-of-living adjustment. More than 75% of the shortfall would vanish if Congrress reduced annual cost-of-living increases by 1 percentage point every year. (E) According to the News-Press of Fort Myers, Florida the entire $5.3 trillion shortfall over the next 75 years could be eliminated if payroll taxes were increased 1.1 percentage points for workers and employers. (G) Allow the non-negotiable bonds to be converted to negotiable bonds as that becomes necessary to meet current obligations. Bear in mind that no one argues that the entire treasury debt must be paid immediately. There will continue to be a FICA tax which will continue to fund the system. The bonded surplus exists to provide against shortages of cash as benefits become due.
Whatever else is done, Congress should be prohibited from using Social Security as a slush fund, and because experience shows that Congress can never be trusted to be ethical or responsible this result should be obtained by Constitutional Amendment.
(9) "We should abandon Social Security except for paying promised benefits to senrior citizens who paid into it and have relied on it". The last part is certainly true. Promises should be kept. But we should not abandon Social Security at all. The danger is that neither the right nor the left have any interest in maintaining it as to younger working people. It can be maintained, permanently. Its a question only of will. But conservatives have never liked it because they think of it as welfare. It is no such thing and never was, but curing so massive a misconception is almost beyond difficult because those on the right simply have no personal stake in it. Those on the left cannot claim credit for it so they aren't trying to protect it either. They would rather invent new schemes for wasting money, and buying votes with higher taxes, and blaming the decline of Social Security on the right.
Now Congress and the Administration have gotten into the habit of extending what was to be a "temporary" cut in the Social Security tax. That is simply another way of stealing from annuitant-beneficiaries. With cuts in the tax, the current $2.5 Trillion surplus will be depleted sooner than it would otherwise. The Democrats propose making up the deficiency caused thereby by taxing 'millionaires and billionaires'; in other words, soaking the rich. This is just more demogoguery by politicians who swim in the waters of demogoguery.
Saturday, November 24, 2012
A Day at the Beach --- Haikou, Hainan Province, China
There follows a hodge podge of items placed here as they occurred to me, Freddie Plato, some of them suggested by my brother Richard or my sister Kwanlee. The idea of a blog was my father's, John Napier Plato, Jr. There's not much rhyme or reason here, just a scattershot depiction of random ideas and pictures. The writing so far is mine except for an essay titled Infidelity by brother Richard. I have recently found out that Richard's girlfriend Brenda Lee Craig made him write it as his punishment for getting too chummy with another girl. He's lucky she didn't beat the crap out of him. She could do it. She's my martial arts trainer --- but she loves him too much to beat him up, though she did scare him and he won't stray again. She has a temper. Besides, she's good for Richard. They are in love and we are happy with that. With Brenda in the picture I don't have to be responsible for Richard's discipline. Don't let my name, Freddie, fool you. I'm Richard and Kwanlee's sister, not their brother. I try to be a good sister and I think I succeed most of the time.
Richard, Kwanlee, and I, are siblings, the children of a Chinese business man we never really knew except that Richard knew him slightly because he died when Richard was about eight years old. I was two and Kwanlee had just been born. There are some pictures in here of our ancestral home town, Haikou, Hainan Province, China, a lovely tropical city at the southmost point of China. It is a remarkable town and you will be surprised if you visit there with how almost American it seems in some ways. Richard and Kwanlee were born in Hong Kong and I in San Francisco, so I am the only one who can be president of the United States because I am a "natural-born" citizen.
Most of the pictures were taken on the beach during a visit to Haikou last year, the only one where such a large group of family and friends, including Brenda and Dorrie, have ever met together at one time. Cassie Blankenship is an old friend of mine and her parents were friends of my Chinese father in Hong Kong. Cassie was also at our beach party. You may wonder where the boys were in all this. Aside from my brother Richard there weren't any, though I wish there had been. Richard was very happy with that arrangement and I am between boys and in no hurry.
We three kids were adopted by the most wonderful people alive, Mr. and Mrs. John Napier Plato, Jr. originally of St. Louis, Missouri. I snapped Dad's picture in his driveway. Mom just hasn't wanted her picture published because she's such a private person, but I may get hold of a candid photo of her --- I have one in mind --- and I may be able to persuade her to let me publish it. Richard lets me photograph his feet but not his face. I don't know why. He's really a handsome example of Chinese manhood. Richard is a little weird, as you will find out but he's a great guy and we love him dearly. We just want him to get a real job. I was sure that Richard would want to hide his alcohol problem and the fact that he has been under the care of a psychiatrist Dorrie Lane, who as I said was in China with us. But he wants it known because the rumours are worse than the reality. I think that Richard and Brenda will be married but only when he has clearly knocked off the booze. He's getting there. Dorrie is a laugh a minute, really a very funny gal. My reason for mentioning that Dorrie's sister Lana is adopted is that everyone notices that they are not exactly of the same ethnicity, so why not explain that Lana, who is African-American, is adopted? Mindy Plato was born in Hawaii and had lived on our island in the south Pacific which the family owns until about six months ago when she moved in with us at our home in Florida. Mindy is half Chinese and half Polynesian. While her legal name is not Plato (not yet, at least) it's the name she wants to go by, and we are all honored by that. Mom and Dad are working on adopting her and we all hope they succeed. The Napiers are in every way our parents, our Mom and Dad, and we couldn't be happier with that. We think of Mindy that way and soon we hope that will all be legal. She's legal to us regardless. Also, I should add, we are one hundred percent American. Mindy has the status of resident alien but is working on citizenship.
Richard, Kwanlee, and I, are siblings, the children of a Chinese business man we never really knew except that Richard knew him slightly because he died when Richard was about eight years old. I was two and Kwanlee had just been born. There are some pictures in here of our ancestral home town, Haikou, Hainan Province, China, a lovely tropical city at the southmost point of China. It is a remarkable town and you will be surprised if you visit there with how almost American it seems in some ways. Richard and Kwanlee were born in Hong Kong and I in San Francisco, so I am the only one who can be president of the United States because I am a "natural-born" citizen.
Most of the pictures were taken on the beach during a visit to Haikou last year, the only one where such a large group of family and friends, including Brenda and Dorrie, have ever met together at one time. Cassie Blankenship is an old friend of mine and her parents were friends of my Chinese father in Hong Kong. Cassie was also at our beach party. You may wonder where the boys were in all this. Aside from my brother Richard there weren't any, though I wish there had been. Richard was very happy with that arrangement and I am between boys and in no hurry.
We three kids were adopted by the most wonderful people alive, Mr. and Mrs. John Napier Plato, Jr. originally of St. Louis, Missouri. I snapped Dad's picture in his driveway. Mom just hasn't wanted her picture published because she's such a private person, but I may get hold of a candid photo of her --- I have one in mind --- and I may be able to persuade her to let me publish it. Richard lets me photograph his feet but not his face. I don't know why. He's really a handsome example of Chinese manhood. Richard is a little weird, as you will find out but he's a great guy and we love him dearly. We just want him to get a real job. I was sure that Richard would want to hide his alcohol problem and the fact that he has been under the care of a psychiatrist Dorrie Lane, who as I said was in China with us. But he wants it known because the rumours are worse than the reality. I think that Richard and Brenda will be married but only when he has clearly knocked off the booze. He's getting there. Dorrie is a laugh a minute, really a very funny gal. My reason for mentioning that Dorrie's sister Lana is adopted is that everyone notices that they are not exactly of the same ethnicity, so why not explain that Lana, who is African-American, is adopted? Mindy Plato was born in Hawaii and had lived on our island in the south Pacific which the family owns until about six months ago when she moved in with us at our home in Florida. Mindy is half Chinese and half Polynesian. While her legal name is not Plato (not yet, at least) it's the name she wants to go by, and we are all honored by that. Mom and Dad are working on adopting her and we all hope they succeed. The Napiers are in every way our parents, our Mom and Dad, and we couldn't be happier with that. We think of Mindy that way and soon we hope that will all be legal. She's legal to us regardless. Also, I should add, we are one hundred percent American. Mindy has the status of resident alien but is working on citizenship.
Friday, November 23, 2012
Maggie, Freddie's Mom
Just below is a picture of Maggie, Freddie's Mom (the kids and everyone else call her just that, Mom). For a long time Mom didn't want her picture in this blog but Freddie finally prevailed. There is a possible source of confusion here. Mom is married to Freddie's Dad, John Napier Plato, Jr., (Jack) but neither she nor Jack is biologically related to Freddie, Richard and Kwanlee. Mom is Chinese by birth, of course. She was born in Haikou, Hainan Province, China, the ancestral home town of the kids, and met Jack through a friend of the family there. The kids are devoted to Jack and Maggie, and they are the only parents Freddie or Kwanlee have known. That is almost true for Richard, the oldest, but he does remember his birth parents because he was eight years old when they were killed in a small plane crash in Australia. Richard was in the plane but miraculously escaped serious injury. Jack and Maggie are softies and have actually made Freddie sort of the de facto head of the family. Freddie is very strong-willed and incredibly intelligent while Jack and Maggie are laid back. Even though Richard is six years older than Freddie, when she gives him an order, and means it, he salutes. The kids are devoted to each other and to Jack and Maggie and they have a wonderful family life.
Dorrie Lane
Family Friend
(and Richard's Psychiatrist)
A Foreign Policy for America
The United States should have a foreign policy based on two principles; (1) to attempt to effect, wherever feasible, peace and stability in the world and (2) the defense of the vital interests of America, meaning the integrity of our territory, including our embassies and the safety or our diplomats and their staffs, uninhibited freedom of the seas and the right to seek access to the commerce of the world. Beyond that we should mind our own business and tell the rest of the world to stay out of ours. The meddlesome propensity to spread democracy everywhere should be abandoned. The internal arrangements of other countries are none of our business and ours none of theirs.
To make such a foreign policy work we need full energy independence, including coal, oil and nuclear energy, and an invulnerable military so awesome that any foreign leader would have to be insane even to think of using force against us. With that and a sound economy --- not the mess we have now --- America would be the beacon of hope and inspiration among the nations of the world that we once were.
One Reason Why Romney Lost
Republicans really put forth what they believed was their maximum effort in good faith but the party is so hopelessly divided, despite every effort to appear unified, that it has become difficult if not nearly impossible to conclude that it would not be best for it to split up. There is precedent for that. In the 1840s and '50s The Whig Party was in a similar position to that of the GOP now. On matters of internal growth and Western expansion, which had fueled the party for a long time, there was general agreement, but the issue of slavery had come to dominate everything. The party leader was Henry Clay of Kentucky, known as the 'great compromiser'. He was a skillful politician and experienced negotiator, but at the end of the day he could not hold the party together. Abraham Lincoln had been a loyal Whig but could not compromise with pro-slavery interests or with those who were neutral on letting the states decide the issues. So they had nowhere to go and Lincoln, together with others, formed the Republican Party.
This year, 2012, Conservatives really did not want Romney as their candidate. As a conservative I myself didn't want him. I wanted Newt Gingrich or Rick Santorum or even Rick Perry from Texas. But not Romney. He is a good man with a lot of ability but he could never have his heart the effort to campaign as a conservative. The high point was the first debate. The campaign went down hill from there as Romney then tried to stake out a centrist position; 'hands across the aisle' and all that. Conservatives gagged, but they had gone along once the race for the nomination had been decided in favor of Romney. The determination to defeat Obama trumped everything else. What happened at the end was that Hurricane Sandy diverted the nation's attention from the race for about five days. When Romney returned he just couldn't put up the front any more. The fire was gone and he decided to let the clock run out, hoping that he would would win by lying low, avoiding controversy and watching the clock tick the hours away.
Even then he might have pulled it off, but then it all fell in when the Republican keynote speaker, Governor Chris Christie of Jersey embraced Obama and seemed to endorse his candidacy. He did not, but you had to listen very closely to what he said to conclude that. Then the voters, tired of the race, tired of wind and floods, tired of trying to tough it out with a sick economy, decided that maybe Obama wasn't the indecisive non-leader that they had been told and nearly believed. It only required a slight shift of votes, just a few more Republicans staying home and a few more fence sitters voting for Obama, and it all fell in --- not by much, but enough.
Questions and Answers
Three Metaphysical Questions Without Answers (maybe)
There are three questions which have vexed me for at least 10 years, almost half my life. I am Freddie Plato and my twenty-fifth birthday is March 9, 2013. (No presents, please, but thanks anyway). First, I wonder why I am me and you are you and Joe Shmo is Joe Shmo. Consider: Billions of people have been born, and most have died. At conception you have two cells merging into one and later dividing to become a person, a bunch of stuff called DNA, chemicals, all that. And all this adds up to what I call 'me'. But how did this consciousness which I call 'myself' connect with --- reside in --- my brain rather than in one of the other billions of brains in other bodies, now and all the way back in time and all over the world? All the other billions of bodies and brains belong to others. How and who decided that this particular brain and body would house this particular mind, soul and consciousness that I call "myself".
Second, Am I the same 'me' that I was yesterday, five years ago, 10 years ago? How do I know? If we assume continuity of personality, as I do, isn't that a straw in the wind indicating that there is some Great Mind behind all this? Otherwise we could be a robot remembering the past, not a person who was actually in the past.
Third: The brain is physical --- a bunch of cells arranged in a complex way. You can dissect it all you want without finding any person --- any 'me' --- there. (Wait until I'm dead, please). Yet we know that the physical world and the mind are intimately related. A blow on the head, alcohol, anesthetics , Alzheimers, arteriosclerosis --- all these alter thought and personality, and at death the mind or soul goes out. (It may survive death, as Christians like myself and some others maintain but that is another matter). How do we explain something which is obviously immaterial and yet altered, even radically, by material, physical events and things? William James, the philosopher, agreed with atheists that thought is a function of the brain, but he went beyond that to maintain that, yes, thought is a function of the brain but it is more than that. It is a transmitting function, like a radio or TV transmitter and receiver. In other words, his difference with atheists was that he did not believe that thought is only a function ot the brain. It is the 'only' or 'merely' idea which separates a religious philosophy from and atheistic, materialist one. That is how william James believed that he was able to combine functional physical brain with a limited life and an immaterial soul which is capable of surviving death.
And while I have pondered these three questions for at least ten years, I really don't have any very good answers --- or at least any better answers than the ideas of William James. I am a Christian, but there we get into the subject of faith and that's not what this is about. It is a much more imporant matter, but it is another matter. Why think about these things? Because God gave us minds inside of brains and it is good to use His gifts.
Jesus and the Woman at Jacob's Well
Jesus' encounter with the Samaritan woman, recorded at John 4, is interesting for a number of reasons and is one among several instances in which He shows His disapproval of racial, religious and gender discrimination. The Samaritan woman is the first person to whom Jesus expressly reveals who He is. He comes close to revealing his status as the Son of God to Nicodemus in John 3, but he refers to Himself in the third person. He does not expressly say to Nicodemus, as He does to the Samaritan woman, "I am he, the one who is speaking with you." This is also the longest conversation that Jesus is recorded to have had with any individual in the New Testament. Jesus and his disciples did not have to go through Samaria, Jews normally bypassed that region because the Samaritans had their own religious outlook and did not practice Judeaeism. In other words He intended to go there. He was not just passing through. And we encounter Him talking to a woman, for one thing, and a Samaritan, for another. A Jewish man would never drink water proffered to him by a Samaritan because they were considered by the Jews of that time to be unclean. The woman was at the well at noon time. Most people gathered water in the morning or evening, when it is not as hot. This woman went at noon in order to avoid people, perhaps from shame. The fact that she had had five husbands and was living with a man who was not her husband, indicates a shameful personal history. So Jesus is revealing His divine sonship to a woman, a foreigner, a half-Jew, a sinner, and to her people who are outside the pale of Judaism. It shows the breadth and scope of His kindness and tolerance as distinguished from the narrowness and intolerance of the times.
There are a number of instances in which the same principle is shown --- the story of the Good Samaritan, His willingness to go to the home of a Roman Centurion to heal the man's servant, His encounter with the gentile woman, a Scyrophonecian gentile, whose daughter was desperately ill and whom Jesus healed --- these among others. And all of this when tolerance was not generally the order of the day.
There are a number of instances in which the same principle is shown --- the story of the Good Samaritan, His willingness to go to the home of a Roman Centurion to heal the man's servant, His encounter with the gentile woman, a Scyrophonecian gentile, whose daughter was desperately ill and whom Jesus healed --- these among others. And all of this when tolerance was not generally the order of the day.
Thursday, November 22, 2012
Tuesday, November 20, 2012
Thursday, November 8, 2012
Wednesday, November 7, 2012
Tuesday, November 6, 2012
Sunday, November 4, 2012
"You Didn't Build it"
President Obama seemed to say that entrepreneurs do not deserve any special credit, or payment, for starting and building businesses because they could not have done so without the ingenuity and work of a multitude of discoverers, inventors, suppliers of goods and services and builders of roads.
He's right, of course, and that applies all the way back in time. People no longer living had to invent the wheel, the printing press, the steam engine, the telephone, the gasoline engine and on and on in order for folks like Benjamin Franklin, Alexander Graham Bell, Henry Ford, Bill Gates et al., to endow the world with their inventions and discoveries. Therefore, what, they do not deserve to receive exceptional compensation?
If you either work for someone else or for yourself you expect to be paid not for the sum total of human enterprise going back to the wheel but for the incremental value of your contribution to that total.
If you happen to be Thomas Edison, Bill Gates, Steve Jobs, Oprah Winfrey or Walt Disney the value of your incremental addition is substantial and will be compensated so long as, and to the degree that, there is a marketplace demand for what you have to offer.
This has nothing to do with whether you are a jolly good fellow, a scoundrel, or Saint Bernadette, which can be addressed by society in other ways. Therefore, the reasoning of Barack Obama is defective, misleading and in the longer run, dangerous.
Saturday, November 3, 2012
Thursday, November 1, 2012
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