Cops in Schools

My 16 yo daughter goes to Redmond High.

Redmond, WA is a really, really nice place. High income. Low crime. Good people (including more than 30% of the population who are Asian, including my wife and youngest daughter).

Yet, Redmond High has a real Redmond Police Officer stationed at the school full time.

Yes, he's mostly there because of drugs, but he's a real cop, with a gun, and his job is to show up at the school every day.

It's been estimated that we could put a real police officer in every school in the country for a lousy $8 billion a year. It's a small, tiny fraction of the money that the government wastes each year.

So, why aren't we doing this???

Lesson Learned: Facts + Perspective = Truth

Huge snow storm in the Midwest.

In Seattle, snow = driving to one of the passes to have some fun on the ski slops.

To me growing up in Michigan, snow = my dad hollering at me because I'm not shoveling fast enough to clear to sidewalk and driveway...

It's funny how one's perspective can be so different even on something so simple as snow.

Michigan's Right To Work Law

The vote to make Michigan a Right To Work state is just the start.

When Indiana became a Right to Work state, it wasn't a huge deal because Indiana has always been an outlier in the industrial mid-west.

But Michigan is the home to unionism.   This vote is another sign that the 20th century is finally fading into history.  It's now a pretty good bet that Right to Work is poised to spread across across the country.

The end result will be that the unions which are smart enough to figure out how to provide real value to their members will prosper, while those that are merely collection agencies for the Democrat Party will die. 

That's a good thing all around.

Washington -- the most libertarian state in the country

Washington is the most Libertarian state in the county -- no to taxes, no to government spending, yes to freedom.

Over the last 20 years...

1.)  We were the second state to outlaw "Affirmative Action".
2.)  We were one of the first states to pass "Hard Time for Armed Crime".
3.)  We were one of the first states to pass "Three Strikes and you are out".
4.)  We have passed numerous measures to limit spending and taxes (way too many initiatives to articulate here)
5.)  We were one of the first states to legalized medical marijuana.
6.)  We have rejected every single attempt by government to create an income tax.

This year we passed all four of the citizen's referendums that were on the ballot.  Two were "liberal" and two were "conservative".  I voted for all four:

- Limit the ability of government to tax and spend (we've passed this 2 or 3 times  in the past, but the rotten politicians just won't stop). So we did it again.

-- Create charter schools.  Nothing is more important than out kids education.

-- Legalize gay marriage -- the government has no business declaring who can and cannot be married.

-- Legalize recreational  marijuana -- legitimate businesses will now run the marijuana trade in Washington, rather than violent gangs.  Plus, we get to set up another 10th amendment fight with the federal government --- which is a huge bonus.

I have my problems with Washington voters who hate taxes, government spending, and affirmative action, but still somehow love to vote for Democratic politicians.  There is absolutely some kind of disconnect there.  I just don't get it.

Overall, if we just look at the result of our citizen's initiatives over the last 20 years, Washington is absolutely the most libertarian state in the county.  No one is even close.

Yet another point on how the "public" (government monopoly) schools fail our kids

There are 3 million jobs going begging in American today, even though 20 million people are unemployed or under-employed. Unfortunately, Americans don't have the skills to fill these jobs.

This is entirely the fault of the government.

The public (government monopoly) school system has failed our kids in two different ways:

First, it doesn't provide the math and science background needed for the best and brightest to enter science, math, engineering, or computer science programs in college.

Second, it completely fails everyone else by allowing people to slack off for three or four years in high school, taking worthless classes when they should be learning a vocational skill that could provide them a living.

The government is spending tons of money promoting kids to run up huge debts pursuing college degrees in worthless majors, when we should be pointing these kids to vocations in manufacturing technology, auto mechanics, carpentry, and other well paying trades.

Anyone who calls themselves a "conservative" or "libertarian" needs to understand that our rotten education system is the root of our problems as society.

The Complexities of Compromise

I have a very complicated relationship with religion.

My family didn't go to church when I was a kid.

When I was in 3rd grade, a neighbor family took me to their Baptist Church to "save me".

When I reached 7th grade, my mom decided I needed to go to Lutheran Catechism. I went for three years and was both baptized and "confirmed".

When I was in the Air Force, stationed in North Carolina, I regularly went to a Pentecostal church. They were a great group of people. Unfortunately, the local Baptist Church hated them -- claiming that they were "of the devil".

When I graduated from college, I married a Greek woman and was chrismated into the Orthodox Church. We raised two daughters in the Eastern Orthodox Church.

I was married 17 years.

5 years after my nasty divorce, I married a Catholic woman. We've raised one daughter in the Catholic Church. We have another baby on the way and he/she will be raised in the Catholic Church as well. My wonderful wife is a Catechist -- she teaches Sunday school every week.

We also have friends in a non-denominational protestant church. All three of our girls go with my wife to regularly attend those services as well. They love it.

I've probably had more diverse Christian experiences than almost anyone.

Here is what I've learned... Baptists, Lutherans, Pentecostals, Eastern Orthodox, non-denominational Protestants, and Catholics -- they are all Christians because they believe that Jesus is the son of God who died to pay for our sins. If we believe in him, we will have eternal life.

Yes, we can argue minor philosophical points. And it's fun to do that!

After studying a lot, in my view the Eastern Orthodox are probably closet to the beliefs of the early Christian church.

Nevertheless, all of the people who follow Christ are true Christians, regardless of their specific denomination.

So why are people so angry with each other over this???

By the way, my favorite quote and a big part of how I live my every day life is Buddhist...

The master in the art of living makes little distinction between his work and his play, his labor and his leisure, his mind and his body, his information and his recreation, his love and his religion. He hardly knows which is which. He simply pursues his vision of excellence at whatever he does, leaving others to decide whether he is working or playing. To him he's always doing both.

How Government Programs HURT the Poor

You are a factory worker  in New Jersey who was laid off.  Or maybe you are an immigrant from the Dominican Republic.

You have a car. You get it inspected.  You get your Chauffeur's License.

Can you open a business in New York City?

NO.

New York City places severe restrictions on who can own a taxi company,

Today, it cost about $1 million to enter the taxi business in New York,

Who can afford this?

How does this help the poor?:

Government restrictions like this are why the poor and middle class are no longer upwardly mobile.