For most military, DADT repeal is less "WTF?", more YAWN

So both the left and right newsies are all a-Twitter (it would be a better pun if I actually had a Twitter account, I suppose) about Tues, 20 Sep as the end of Don't Ask, Don't Tell.  There are a few Congressfolk putting in last-ditch efforts to stop or delay it, while in other places (including here in Colorado) there are coming-out parties planned, with attendance by local and state reps and possibly even higher-level folks showing up.  It's a BIG DEAL.

And that's true - it is a big deal in some ways, but it seems both sides have way overblown ideas of what's going to happen in the military come Wednesday.  The right seems to think  troops will be prancing around in pink g-strings and wearing rainbow flags instead of the U.S. one.  The left seems to think.... well, actually, they seem to think the same thing - that gay troops will embrace their new-found freedom and should exercise their right to flaunt and yell "yoo-hoo sweetie, here I am!" to their Colonels and Generals.  The only difference between the two sides seems to be that the right thinks gay rape attacks will be epidemic in the barracks showers, and the left thinks the rest of the military - clearly made up entirely of radical right-wing homophobes - is going to try to lynch all the gay members.

I don't think much of anything is going to change, frankly.  Yes, there will be some people distinctly unhappy with it, as I saw in the DADT training, and a small few may separate, but most of us, gay and straight, really only care about if the person you're working with is competent, and if you can trust them to have your back (no pun intended there; I simply couldn't come up with a better phrase that didn't have gay innuendo).  I've served... well, heck, everyone who's in or has ever been in the military has served with homosexuals, eaten lunch with them, and yes, showered at the gym with them already.  And frankly, while some folks undoubtedly have managed to camouflage their closet doors well, I know quite a number of gays in the military.  I've never asked and they've never told specifically, so we could both avoid that little legal trap, but I've known, and they've known I've known, and guess what? - they know I don't give a shit.

If you're good at your job, do it, and I can trust you, and you feel the same way, it doesn't matter.  And while, as I mentioned above, there will undoubtedly be some straight military who are obviously opposed to the coming-out and will push the regs to the limit making that clear, I'm sure there will be a few gay folks coming out who do the same thing, and to them as well I say "get over yourself."  You're gay.  Great.  I DO think it's a great societal step that you don't have to hide it any more, but if you're going to flaunt it, I mentally put you in the same camp as those so vocally opposing you:  you're more caught up in yourself than doing the mission, so refocus or get out.

Black, white, male, female, gay, straight, short, tall, left-handed, right-handed... when it comes down to it, everyone's pretty much the same; people are just too caught up in themselves and in trying to impose their own morals, values and beliefs on everyone else to notice that your [insert adjective describing someone different from you] neighbor watches the same tv shows, follows the same sports teams, and shops at the same places you do.  I don't care what color you are, what plumbing you have down below or what gender you're attracted to.  Just do your job, I'll do mine, we'll have each others' back and hopefully get through this huge mess (and the term applies to both being deployed downrange or working in the bureaucratic SNAFU that is an HQ) alive. 

Tiring of Retirement Rants

There's been much discussion throughout the military over the past few weeks on the proposed reworking of retirement benefits to help balance the budget.  Unfortunately, like everything else in the nation that's been notionally targeted for budget cuts, we all seem to have Not In My Backyard (NIMBy) syndrome.  Yes yes, of course cuts are needed, but don't take them from me!  Bullshit.  I, for one, am willing to accept cuts as long as I'm not the ONLY one getting cut.  I think everyone needs to give up something, especially since if everyone was willing to give up a little, I think (without benefit of being an economist, but I'd love to hear from one on the below ideas) we could heartily attack the budget crisis with harming anyone.  And yes, I believe it is a crisis.  I believe the national debt is a key national security issue, but it's not being addressed as one.

So on the all the talk about cutting or reducing or reworking military retirements:  quite frankly I'm not worried.  Sure, there's talk of reducing retirements to 40% or even less for those currently on active duty, but I don't think it will fly.  It's not politically viable; any member of Congress who votes to affect the retirement of someone who's already been serving for 12, 15 or 18 years knows they'll immediately lose most of their military support in the next election.  If a sitting member of Congress with a military base in their district voted this course of action, anyone stepping in to the next round of elections would just have to say they'd work to restore the retirements and they'd suck up all the military votes in that district.  So changes to retirement for folks newly joining the military?  Sure, definitely possible, even likely.  Changes to those serving a lesser amount time... say, less than 10 years in service?  Possible, since they have a good deal of time to plan and play catch-up.  But changing the retirement benefits of someone who's within a few years of retirement?  Don't think it's gonna happen.

However, I acknowledge that financially, we're in quite a pickle, and one that continues to float toward the bottom of the pickle barrel (is there a bottom?  Insolvency perhaps?).  What to do?  I favor the peanut butter spread mentioned in the first chapter.  There are now, I think, less than one million active duty military members, and most of those won't be doing the full 20 years to retirement.  This leaves a relatively (relatively in the tens of thousands arena, as a rough estimate [it's Saturday morning; no, I haven't researched anything yet!]) of people whose retirement benefits Congress is considering pillaging 5, 10 or 20 percent from.  Yet, there are, per the American Military Retirees Association website (okay, I did SOME research), around two million military retirees in the U.S.  My proposal is cut ALL personal military retirement benefit accounts - past, present and future - by two percent.  There are some people who would have trouble dealing with a two percent cut in their benefits, but I feel that number would be extremely small.  For most, it would be nearly unnoticeable.  And, in the small, unscientific and very informal discussions I've brought up around the office with the active duty and retired members there, they were all willing to make that sacrifice toward a solvent nation.

But wait, there's more!  If the President and Congress say that everyone must do their part, why limit it to the military?  The National Active and Retired Federal Employees Association represents "some five million federal workers, retirees, spouses and their survivors."  The Washington Post's Federal Eye column (http://voices.washingtonpost.com/federal-eye/2010/09/how_many_federal_workers_are_t.html) lists 2.65 million federal workers out there, leaving over two million federal retirees to contribute their two percent.  And before anyone starts bitching, yes, I absolutely believe that Congress needs to give up their two percent, along with some of the more ridiculous retirement perks too.  Numbers-wise, Congress is a drop in the bucket, but (1) those drops add up and (2) I'm a big believer in leadership by example.  I also think that my spreading the two-percent across as large a population as possible, it would prevent a slippery-slope possibility that could come from targeting, say, just the military.

I would LOVE for an economist, statistician, accountant or some econ graduate student to do an analysis of my proposal to see if it's actually valid.  Yes, I fully expect the military and federal retiree associations (and Congress) will have a hissy fit over this content (NIMBy again), but somehow I think many of their members would see differently.  After all, these people gave their careers sacrificing for their country, and they're being asked to do it again, but on a much, much smaller level for 99% of them.  I'm willing to part with a fraction of my retirement to contribute my part; are you?

Bitching about Campaigning

In my best Seinfeld-style voice, "all this campaigning and spending of money on campaigning and being too busy campaigning to do your actual job.... what's up with that?"

Okay, as distasteful as I find Presidential campaigning, I can understand it... to a point.  And if it's your first time running for a position, yeah, I get that too... you have to be able to tell people your views and you don't have a track record to stand on.  But if you're the incumbent for most other local elected offices, from Mayor to State Rep to Congressional Rep or Senator, if you're doing your job right, you shouldn't have to campaign at all.

With the prevalence of technology today, if you have even a halfway-decent public affairs (PA) person, your constituents should be fully aware of exactly what you've been doing and why.  Your PA rep should have you doing Tweets a couple of times a week, updating a Facebook page and your official site, and at least once or twice a month getting a story on something you're working on in the news.  If you really are doing your job and not just dicking around, the public should know exactly what you've been up for the past term, and therefore whether or not you're a slacker and if they should bother to vote for you.  Not to mention with everyone having a certain level of Google-Fu and total access to your entire history, what can you really tell them that they can't get on their own, unless you're just trying to blow smoke up their asses?

For that matter, why would a sitting President even bother campaigning for re-election?  The President's in the news EVERY DAY.  The entire world knows exactly what the President's been up to, their successes and failures.  So why do a bus tour touting your wares?  They're already out there for the world to see.

So, to the entire current crop of incumbent elected politicians:  a decent skilled PA rep is a lot less costly to the public than all these b.s. campaign trips.  Stop talking about what you could do for us in your next term and get your asses to work NOW.  And if you do, and you're good at it (or even if you're not that good at it but show a decent amount of integrity, honesty and vision in the position), you'll probably get my vote.

And today's post is... ranting all over the place, I guess

So with the raising of the debt ceiling, Congress is all out in the streets proclaiming how the President has ruined the US's credit rating and destroyed the economy.  Sad when our own government need to take Gov't 101. I'm not a fan of many of President Obama's policies either, but the President doesn't have the authority to spend money (with some very small exceptions). Per the Constitution, the authority to tax & spend lies with Congress, & every member of Congress, no matter what party, no matter now or in the past, has worked diligently to get us into this massive cluster f*ck.

And honestly, the responsibility for this mess lies with TWO sources: the governmet and the American people. This is our own fault... we demanded the government produce all these goods and services, whether it was military spending, pork barrel projects (notice how when it's in your neighborhood it's a good thing? Everywhere else it's pork?) or social programs, and the government - including members of both parties - spends and gives us exactly what we asked for.

To be honest,  my main beef with Congress lies not in what they've done, but in their failure to take responsibility. I've screwed up in life - lots. But since I've been a mature adult (I'll argue with friends about the "mature" label later ;-) ), when I screw up I admit it, take responsibility, apologize, make efforts to fix it, & move on. Gov't lack of responsibility is what drives MY total lack of respect for them. If they'd take responsibility, I'd be willing to move past it.

Plus, I think the people in power are so full of themselves and so enamored of hearing their own voices, I swear they're blinded to the wishes and reactions of the American people.  This nice little article in The Atlantic (http://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2011/08/independents-hate-both-parties-as-never-before/243162/) echoes what's being seen more and more around the country:  that both major parties are hemorrhaging members - mostly younger people who aren't willing to sit around and let someone else speak for them - who are re-registering as independents.  I like the way one reader commented about the major parties in an online comment:  "It's like trying to decide between two bowls of crap that you're forced to eat and basing your decision on whether you'd prefer having corn or peanuts in it."

The Next Book on my To-Read List

So I saw today’s column by George Will of the WP about a new book that I definitely want to read:  “The Declaration of Independents: How Libertarian Politics Can Fix What’s Wrong With America” by Nick Gillespie and Matt Welch.  Will’s summary alone is a (much-better-worded) statement of something I’ve thought about since taking a course about analysis and different types of bias a couple of years ago:  existence bias.  Existence bias, as described by Will (about the book of course) is the American peoples’ and systems’ assumption that if something exists, it will continue to exist.  In the military I’ve already referred to this as the “no we can’t change it; we do it that way because it’s the way we’ve always done it” bias, and no matter how you tag it, like most biases, it’s caused and reinforced by mental laziness.

The review also points out how the younger generation today has essentially grown up in a libertarian-type culture, where choice exists for everything:  don’t like what’s on tv?  thousands of channels, plus streaming movies.  Music? Pandora, XM, Sirius.  3,500 books at any time on your Kindle, and access to every newspaper in the world.  But government?  The great ossified behemoth that never changes.  In fact, when it fails, it grows larger and even more powerful.  And apparently the book argues that this situation won’t be able to stand for much longer.  I wonder if Gillespie and Welch have considered getting their data together with Malcolm Gladwell (of The Tipping Point fame) to see if they can figure out the how and when?

Even though I haven’t read the book yet, I can already see having some issues with it, the biggest being the definition of Libertarianism.  Libertarians span a very wide gauntlet ranging from pseudo-conservatives, across the span of small government covering only infrastructure and basic services, to full-out anarchists.  Almost anyone who’s not far rght or left could be considered one.  Nonetheless, I’m willing to give the book the benefit of the doubt until I’ve gotten through it, and we’ll see what falls out.  I’m looking forward to it.

Will’s review here:  http://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/declaration-of-independents/2011/07/29/gIQAJrUAiI_story.html

Monopoly Claims the State Wants to Replace Them with… a Monopoly?

So basing off this story here:  http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2011/07/16/union-opposes-pennsylvanias-plan-to-privatize-liquor-stores-citing-5000-job/?test=latestnews…

Pennsylvania is one of the few states left where you can only buy wine and liquor at a state-owned and operated store.  Notice I’m not saying “state-licensed;” the state government actually directly runs all wine and liquor sales in the state, and has for decades.  I know; I grew up there.  Now a state representative wants to privatize sales, auctioning off liquor licenses and enabling free-market economics.  The union that covers the ~3,500 employees that work in the state stores is crying foul, claiming that the plan will actually lose money for the state and cost 5,000 jobs (the suspicion starts here, since there are only 3,500 liquor store employees).  There are 620 state liquor stores and the plan calls for auctioning off 1250 liquor sales licenses (and likely, more to follow in later years, as in most states allow and have many more than that).

What really caught my attention though, was that even though the state rep’s plan for auction licensing calls specifically for 750 “large retailer” licenses (read:  Sam’s Club, Costco, etc) and 500 “small retailer (mom-and-pop-type) licenses, the union still claims that jobs will be lost, since somehow ALL the licenses will still go to Sam’s and Costco, who will use existing employees instead of hiring the now-unemployed state store employees, in effect turning all liquor sales in PA over to a small economically-controlling faction.

This is another case of the union making a huge fuss to try to sustain itself.  There was a time when most industries in this country DID need unions.  Some industries STILL DO need unions, but for the most part, IMHO, many of them are parasitic dinosaurs, living of the dues of their members without giving back a value greater than those dues in return.  The United Food and Commercial Workers Local 1776 is no exception.  Short-term, yes, those 500 small-retailer licenses will be bought, open stores, and each may hire as little as two or three workers, so some of those liquor store employees will be out of a job and stay out of a job.  However, having lived in many states with open liquor stores, demand will grow, and more licenses will be issued, and more small outlets will open, and more folks will be employed, and more business taxes flow into the economy.

The area I grew up in, in Central PA, is probably less than or around 100,000 people.  There are currently five PA Liquor Control Board stores and one “kiosk” to service that population.  Quite frankly, if privatized I can easily see a demand for more than a dozen small liquor outlets in that area, which will likely bring as many, if not more, jobs than they state stores currently employ.  I suspect, with only 620 stores across the state, including such huge cities as Philadelphia and Pittsburgh, that if privatized, the growth of liquor retailers per capita – and accompanying jobs – will be similar.

Here in Colorado, there’s probably a liquor store every half mile or so, and while we only use it a couple of times a month, the convenience of having one just down the street when friends are coming over or we’re heading out to a bbq and we need a bottle of wine is great!  Plus, those retailers are our neighbors and friends.  The closest one to us is a small mom-and-pop store that raises funds to support our local dog park.  State-owned stores in PA don’t – and probably by law can’t – create those kinds of ties.

So the union needs to, frankly, shut the hell up and realize that it’s a relic from another century, and Pennsylvania needs to pass this law to help bring it into the current century.

Arrogance, selfishness and “patriotism” make us our own worst enemy

An excellent article at the Wall Street Journal on Sweden’s economy and how it’s bouncing back:  http://www.washingtonpost.com/business/economy/five-economic-lessons-from-sweden-the-rock-star-of-the-recovery/2011/06/21/AGyuJ3iH_story.html

Economic issues truly make me the most disappointed in our government, as lawmakers truly show their selfishness with an inability to put the good of the nation ahead of their own polls in their own districts.  I do realize of course, that they represent their constituents, but I don’t believe that the intent of representative government was to represent your district AT THE EXPENSE OF your fellow citizens.  Congress needs to realize that a huge deficit and unstable budget are the biggest threats to our nation, and be willing to enact some short-term pain in favor of long-term stability.

Whenever another nation does it right (no matter what the topic), we have all these idiots on the news screaming “we’re America!  We LEAD, we don’t follow what other countries do!”  Well guess what, suck it up cupcake, because while we still do a lot of great things, we’re not the best at everything anymore, and it’s time we realized that being a stubborn, arrogant, “patriotic” ass isn’t going to get you anywhere except in the opinion polls of a public that’s in denial.  We should be looking not only to Sweden for it’s fiscal practices (and yes, I know that we can’t, or perhaps even shouldn’t adopt all, or even many of them, but have an open mind people!), but other countries that are doing well in other areas, and find out what we can take from them.