Haunted by the Past

What were you doing fifteen years ago?  Did you engage in a legal activity?  Did you do something illegal?  Do you regret what you were doing 15 years ago?  Does anyone care?

Well, if 15 years ago you appeared in a pornographic movie--you might lose your job--not once but twice.  That is the story of Tera Myers, AKA Terika Dye, AKA Rikki Andersin.  Ms. Myers, 15 years ago, when she was 23, was apparently broke and so chose to appear in a porn film.  She was clearly above the age of consent, made a decision, made a pay check, and did nothing illegal.  In fact, she probably did nothing that she hadn't done in her personal life, the difference is that her escapades were captured on film.  So, after a student found out and reported her to the school system, Ms. Myers is now without a job, having resigned.

But this is not the first time that Ms. Myers lost her job after being outed as a former porn actress.  But just I like a blogged about almost five years ago, forcing Myers to resign sends the wrong, and inconsistent message.  If Mrs. Myers had been appearing in porn videos while employed as a teacher--then there is a case for the violation of a morals clause.  But it is just an argument--not necessarily cause for her firing.

How many teachers out there, young and old, have gone out, had a few drinks and driven home.  That activity is illegal (the drinking and driving--not the drinking).  But teachers who are convicted of DUI are not routinely fired.  But a bigger question is how many teacher drank and drove 15 years ago--before they were teachers.  Probably more than a few, but we don't fire teachers for that activity that happened in the past--an activity that was and is illegal.  Where is the line to be drawn?  What is Ms. Myers has appeared topless in a magainze?  What if she had appeared nude in a magazine?  Would it matter if the magazine were say GQ or Details as opposed to Playboy or Hustler?  What about appearing nude in a magazine with a man or another woman?  What is Ms. Myers was briefly topless in a "mainstream" movie?  What if Ms. Myers has appeared in an R rated movie nude but not in a sex scene?  What is she has appeared nude in a sex scene in an R rated movie?  What about soft core porn, where the sex is explicit but actual penetration is not shown?

Not a single one of these activities is illegal.   But where in that list of options does someone cross a line into immoral behavior?  Where is the line?  More importantly who gets to define where that line exists?

Ms. Myers is described by the New York Post (admittedly not the most circumspect of papers) as "buxom" "blond" and so, if she is attractive (and the picture in the New York Post is not the most flattering), she is almost assuredly the subject of her male students adolescent comments and fantasies.  Why should the fact that Ms. Meyers has a past change that?  Just because a few sexual acts were captured on film doesn't mean that her male (and perhaps some female) students can't imagine it for themselves.

Joanne Jacbos wonders if Ms. Myers should lose her job?  My answer is no.  This is nothing more than a morality police double standard.  If you want to fire a teacher for past illegal activity--you might actually have a problem--if it was disclosed.  But no employment questionnaire that I have ever seen asks if you did anything 15 years ago that is "immoral" based on someone else's unstated standard.  What Myers did was not illegal and in my and many other people's book, not immoral.  You may not agree with her choices, but it is not immoral.

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Check out my soccer blog at Nutmegs and Stepovers

A National Funk or a National Snit

Michael Barone takes a look at a recent Pew Global Attitudes Project's latest survey, which despite the surging economy and relative security, most Americans believe that their children will not be better off than themselves. Barone notes that many Americans, despite personal prosperity believe the country is headed in the wrong direction and that some of that belief is partisan. But Barone is not so sure:

That's my reaction as well to the finding that by a two-to-one margin Americans say their children will be worse off than we are. There's a similar response in Canada, Britain and Brazil. The even more negative verdicts in Western Europe and Japan can be explained as a cool assessment of the combination of low birthrates and overgenerous welfare states.

But what basis do Americans have to suppose that, for the first time in history, a younger generation will be worse off than their parents? Perhaps it's just a feeling that things cannot possibly get any better. In any case, we seem to be in a pronounced national funk.

that Democrats feel that way about America is not surprising, nothing this Administration could do would make them happy. They are just, for lack of a better term, miserable under the Bush Administration and not happy with the Congress either.

But I am not like most Americans. I know for a fact, not a belief or a hope, but a fact that my daughter's life will be better than mine. The progress of history in America has been one that, despite a few setbacks here and there, has always been positive. Technology, medicine, the economy, education everything, has gotten better. For the first time in my family, my daughters have two parents who have significant formal education. I have made more money in salary (in inflation adjusted dollars) this year than my parents did together when I was my daughter's age. My daughters have better health care than I did (not that mine was bad). My daughters have a wealth of knowledge at their fingertips through the Internet, access to knowledge I had to go to the library to find, and they have knowledge that didn't exist 20 years ago and will have access to knowledge in 20 years that doesn't exist now.

I have learned over the past several years that being pessimistic about life is easy because we struggle everyday. But there is always cause for hope. I have faced and continue to face tough times everyday, but everything has always worked out for the best. I am happier today than I was a year ago. Despite my personal troubles, I believe this is still the greatest country in history and nothing can surpass it. We will make a better world for our children. I know this in my head, in my heart and in my soul.

Generational Collisions Are NOT New at Workplaces

No matter what the New York Times thinks, clashes between generations at workplaces are not new. Some of the issues are new as are some of the interesing dilemmas:

Managers tell stories of summer associates who come to meetings with midriffs exposed, baring a belly ring; of interns who walk through the halls engaged with iPods; of new hires who explain they need Fridays off because their boyfriends get Fridays off and they have a share in a beach house. Then there is the tale of the summer hire who sent a text message to a senior partner asking “Are bras required as part of the dress code?”

Hat Tip: Ann Althouse, who responds to the last question:

A word of advice: If you're even thinking of asking the question -- that is, if you're not already noticing braless women in your workplace -- don't ask the question -- just figure out how to go braless without it showing. Camisoles with lycra content, jackets, layers -- there are many tricks. Don't forget nippies!

If none of the various tricks work to keep people from noticing that you are braless, you shouldn't go braless even in a workplace where you can tell women are going braless.

Translation, if you are big chested or have a walking gait that tends to produce a great deal of bounce-don't go braless.

Apparently common sense is something missing in the younger generation.

In Defense of Soccer in America

For those few readers who have reguarly been coming to this space, you may have noticed that I am posting a lot more soccer news and material to this blog. As the brief bio points out, this blog is about my passions and I love soccer. I have loved soccer since I started playing at age 9. I still love the "Beatiful Game" and probably always will. My vision of my deathbed is my wife, kids, grandkids and close friends sitting around watching a soccer game.

I also love the United States, with all my heart. In terms of my allegiances, you could easily say, my family, my country, my fiends and my soccer--in that order. But there are times when I wished that I grew up in a nation that followed soccer a great deal more than the United States--say England or Germany. But I was blessed to be an American and cursed to be a soccer fan in America.

I have come to accept that right now, Americans don't follow soccer with the same passion that I do. In fact, thanks to chuckleheads like this guy, most Americans get a viciously skewed view of the game. But Americans can and should love this game, if only they looked at from a different point of view. Instead of looking at the scoreboard and the game's lengthy test of endurance, Americans needs to view the sport in terms of American values. There is so much about American that can be seen in soccer, so many things that while not uniquely American in the game, certainly match with American sensibilities and mores.

From the time I was consciously aware of it, America has always been a land of optimisim. Even in the worst of circumstances, America maintains a positive outlook, predicated on plucky, stick-to-it-iveness that simply is not a part of the national psyche in other countries. America has always believed that if it kept trying, kept thinking, and kept working, then success would come to them. That optimism underscored the phenonenal success of our nation, our government and our way of life. No other nation achieved so much in such a short history.

Detractors bemoan the lack of scoring in soccer, noting that games often end with just one or two goals scored in a game. To these people soccer lacks excitement and thus they are pessimistic about the game. But soccer is a game designed for optimists, for American optimism. It takes a great deal of optimism and "stick-to-it-iveness" to routinely and repeated go on the attack trying to score. It takes faith, another American trait, to believe that this attack will end in a goal, even though statistically, it won't. Teams scheme and work and continually try to score. In that respect, soccer is no different than football or baseball.

America has always prided itself on its inherent inventiveness, the genius of finding a new solution to a problem. We are a nation of Robert Fulton, Eli Whitney, Alexander Graham Bell, Henry Ford, NASA engineers, Bill Gates and Sergey Brin. We are the people that find solutions to problems. We are a nation of thinkers and of do-ers. We are an industrious people, for whom hard work is no stranger and believe that hard work leads to success, regardless of whether that success is modest or grandiose.

In so many ways, soccer is thinking man's game. It is a game of fluidity, of action and reaction. Soccer boasts a constant movement, a constant adjustment of strategy and tactics. Unlike football, where plays are plotted and rehearsed over and over again, soccer is a game the requires adaptation on the fly all the time. Improvisation and ingenuity are rewarded, routine and rigidity punished. The only time you see improvisation on a football field during a game is when a play breaks down. With soccer you see solutions to problems developed in the run of play, not in a huddle every 40 seconds. Soccer should appeal to the thinker in us all.

Despite everything, America is a nation that believes the little guy can still win, where a poor adopted kid from Hope, Arkansass can become President. Soccer is a game where at anytime, on any given game day, anyone can win. A combination of luck, skill and determination can carry the day over big payrolls and big names. Soccer is a game where the George Mason's of the world are far more common than you would believe. While soccer as a game can carry heartache and heartbreak, remember it is still a game of optimism. There will be another time, another match.

Soccer is not a game of bursts of energy or violence in the same way that baseball or football presents. Soccer can't be broken down into numbers and situations the way those games lend themselves to. Soccer has so few set plays, whereas football and for the most part basketball are predicated on set plays. There is no playbook for soccer. Soccer has skills that are rehearsed regularly in training, but unlike baseball, they must be combined every game in new ways and applied in new situations against new teams.

Perhaps this is why soccer fails to garner the type of fan base as others. But outside of the professional ranks of sports in this country, there are more people playing soccer.

More children participate in soccer in the United States than in baseball/softball and football combined. Soccer atrracts more young people to sport than any other game in America. Soccer is is a game that requires teamwork, communication and group problem solving, but it is also a game that still admires the talented individual.

Soccer is the ultimate democratic game of democractic nation, it requires no specialized equipment or specialized fields, it requires no massive outlay of money, only an effort, desire, an open space, a ball and a few peple who want play. Soccer can be played with teams as few as three and as many as 11 at anyone time. It asks nothing of a player but his or her energy and skill. It provides the joy of athleticism, of speed and endurance, of individual achievement and group success. It teaches about life, about failure and success, about learning from mistakes and reveling in success.

Soccer may not be America's game but it is a game that shares American values far more than any other.

The Benefits of Reinstituting the Fairness Doctine

christopher Chantrill notes that the Democratic effort to reinstitute the Fairness Doctrine because talk radio is to "structurally imbalanced to the right" might actually be a good thing for conservatives.

Could we all hit Pause on the outrage remote just a moment? I know it is the most delicious fun to roll tape on our conservative outrage when Democrats propose to think about a proposal to study an investigation to reinstate the FCC Fairness Doctrine. But let us not lose our heads.

snip

We all know the real story of talk radio. Back in 1988 the experts told Rush Limbaugh and his partners that the concept of talk radio would never work, certainly not on AM Radio, and obviously not during the middle of the busy broadcast day. The rest is history.

If only Halpin et al. were right and talk radio were really a mighty predator mauling the herds of liberal antelope peacefully grazing on the vast grasslands of the welfare state. The truth is that talk radio and the conservative blogosphere are sub-cultures. The real culture is the mainstream media, the schools, the universities, the arts community, Hollywood, and popular music, not to mention MySpace, FaceBook, and so on.

It tells us a lot about the narrowness and the meanness of our liberal friends that they cannot endure a thriving sub-culture in the midst of their overwhelming mainstream culture.

Fortunately for them they are lefties. Otherwise we would know what to call their attack on talk radio: Fascism. Paraphrasing the words of Benito Muccioliberale: "Everything for diversity; nothing outside diversity; nothing against diversity."

We conservatives should not get too worked up by the Fairness Doctrine flap. Fact: The genie of talk radio is out of the bottle. Fact: The conservative movement is joined up today in the internet in a way it never was before. Prediction: If the Democrats get into the White House in 2008 and pass restrictions on conservative speech it will unify and energize conservatives into a murderous rage. In America there's nothing like a bit of light-to-moderate oppression to get the juices flowing, and a liberal campaign to restore the Fairness Doctrine could be just what the doctor ordered.

In 2007 we conservatives are in retreat. For armies that is the most difficult kind of operation to bring off. If you can conduct a retreat successfully then you can keep the army together and live to fight another day. Morale is everything. So go ahead, liberals.

Unify us, why don't you.

Reunifiying the conservative movement would be an accomplishment that liberals never thought they could pull off. But bringing back speech and thought control would certainly do it-in a big way.

Bush Presidency Will Be Judged Successful

Despite abysmal poll numbers, William Kristol notes that when all is said and done, the George W. Bush Presidency will be viewed as a successful tenure. How you might ask, well, aside from Iraq and some rather inept handling of some political issues, by every other measure, the country has fared very well with Bush at the helm:

The economy first: After the bursting of the dot-com bubble, followed by the attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, we've had more than five years of steady growth, low unemployment and a stock market recovery. Did this just happen? No. Bush pushed through the tax cuts of 2001 and especially 2003 by arguing that they would produce growth. His opponents predicted dire consequences. But the president was overwhelmingly right. Even the budget deficit, the most universally criticized consequence of the tax cuts, is coming down and is lower than it was when the 2003 supply-side tax cuts were passed.

snip

The year 2003 also featured a close congressional vote on Bush's other major first-term initiative, the Medicare prescription drug benefit. Liberals denounced it as doing nothing for the elderly; conservatives worried that it would bust the budget. Experts of all stripes foresaw great challenges in its implementation. In fact, it has all gone surprisingly smoothly, providing broad and welcome coverage for seniors and coming in under projected costs.

So on the two biggest pieces of domestic legislation the president has gotten passed, he has been vindicated. And with respect to the two second-term proposals that failed -- private Social Security accounts and immigration -- I suspect that something similar to what Bush proposed will end up as law over the next several years.

Kristol does spend some significant time talking about Iraq, but argues that the outlook is not nearly as bleak as the interim status report says or what the September report by Gen. Patreaus will report: But

wait, wait, wait: What about Iraq? It's Iraq, stupid -- you (and 65 percent of your fellow Americans) say -- that makes Bush an unsuccessful president.

But wait, wait, wait: What about Iraq? It's Iraq, stupid -- you (and 65 percent of your fellow Americans) say -- that makes Bush an unsuccessful president.

Not necessarily. First of all, we would have to compare the situation in Iraq now, with all its difficulties and all the administration's mistakes, with what it would be if we hadn't gone in. Saddam Hussein would be alive and in power and, I dare say, victorious, with the United States (and the United Nations) by now having backed off sanctions and the no-fly zone. He might well have restarted his nuclear program, and his connections with al-Qaeda and other terrorist groups would be intact or revived and even strengthened.

Still, that's speculative, and the losses and costs of the war are real. Bush is a war president, and war presidents are judged by whether they win or lose their war. So to be a successful president, Bush has to win in Iraq.

Which I now think we can. Indeed, I think we will. In late 2006, I didn't think we would win, as Bush stuck with the failed Rumsfeld-Abizaid-Casey strategy of "standing down" as the Iraqis were able to "stand up," based on the mistaken theory that if we had a "small footprint" in Iraq, we'd be more successful. With the new counterinsurgency strategy announced on Jan. 10, backed up by the troop "surge," I think the odds are finally better than 50-50 that we will prevail. We are routing al-Qaeda in Iraq, we are beginning to curb the Iranian-backed sectarian Shiite militias and we are increasingly able to protect more of the Iraqi population.

The truth is somewhat muddled. Of course we get the press reports of various car bombings and death. But the reports we see from one source are not backed up by reports from the ground, such as those of Michael Yon. So what is the truth?

The truth is that the United States will be victorious in Iraq, if for not other reason than at some point the average Iraqi will get tired of the violence and start shunning those who advocate killing "the others." To be successful an insurgency needs the support of a small cadre of people and at least the tacit approval of the majority of the population and at some point the killing and feat will cause the majority of the population to reconsider its position. When that happens, and I believe it will happen within the next year, the situation will get a lot better, a lot faster.

The other aspect is the Iraqi govenrment. Nouri al-Maliki is looking less and less viable to the Iraqis and may be on the way out. The reason is that a Democratic president will abandon Iraq to the wolves unless there is real and substantial progress on political changes. Either al-Maliki will have his "come to Muhammed" moment and straighten up or he will be tossed on is ear. Most of the rank and file Iraqis know that the United States is providing a great deal of security while the Iraqis get their camels in a row. But they also know that American patience is finite, even with a Republican administration. If they don't fix things and soon, there will be no incentive to provide the Iraqis with the security they need. A Democratic president will have to withdraw the troops, regardless of teh consequences to Iraq and that is not something the Iraqis can afford.

I have long thought that, despite the press' disdain for Bush and of course the left's hatred of him, when all is said and done, George W. Bush will be considered a great president and nothing seems to be getting in teh way of that assessment. Time has shown his economic policies to be a success. His domestic health care signature program, while expensive, is pretty popular. No Child Left Behind has gotten America talking, really talking about education. Finally, when it comes to the Bush Doctrine--history will show that when terrorism hit the big time on the international front, only one man had the foresight to call it what it was--a threat, and the backbone to fight it, no matter what the cost to him politically.

Robert Heinlein at 100

Over the weekend, one of my favorite authors, Robert A. Heinlein, would have been 100 had he not died in 1988. While I have not read everything Heinlein has written and published, everything I have read contains matieral that exudes both professional class and difficult questions. Brian Doherty at Reason Magazine talks about Heinlein as the soldier, as the hippie, as the libertarian and as the iconoclast.

Doherty talks about two of my favorit Heilein books, Starship Troopers and Stranger in a Strange Land, and how it is hard to imagine that the same mind would create those two books or how the books share a common central theme.

This one-two punch of curious, powerful novels seems to indicate two opposing strains of thought. But to Heinlein, these dueling visions-a world of sinister alien bugs fought off by powerfully disciplined soldiers, and a beatific Man from Mars teaching humanity how to love freely-had the same message, as he once wrote to his fellow S.F. writer Alfred Bester: "That a man, to be truly human, must be unhesitatingly willing at all times to lay down his life for his fellow man. Both [novels] are based on the twin concepts of love and duty-and how they are related to the survival of our race." (empahsis added)

In many ways, I find myself in agreement with much of Heinlein's philosophy. Interestingly enough, I didn't pick up Heinlein until my own stint in the military. I read Starship Troopers at the suggestion of one of the officers in my unit who thought I might like the story. Turns out, while the story is fun and engaging on the surface as a coming of age story, the philosophy underlying the story intrigued me more.

My own thoughts on government, the military and society had been evolving more or less on their own and to a large extent, independently of my parents and friends. I did learn from my family I learned of the value of military service, not because of the intrinsic value of the personal discipline of the military or the team work aspects, but that the military is the bulwark against chaos that made life in America possible. Although my father and his family lived in a time of the draft (a truly anti-Heinlein principle), most volunteered for service--albeit reluctantly in my father's post-college-prank-gone-awry case. But a part of my also rebelled against the self-imposed constraints society placed on life outside of the military. The military has to be disciplined and controlled, but the rest of society, if truly free, has to also be free of governmental rules and of societal norms. In this respect, I had problems with my family and friends. I never understood how a free society can restrict itself so much.

I don't have, although I aspire to, Heinlein's flair for the written word. There are matters upon which Heinlein and I would no doubt disagree (economic matters for one), but there is one thing upon which I know we agree and I am happy that we do. It does not take a special person to realize that there are things more important than one's own self interest, whether it be family, friends, community, country or species. What makes a person special is the ability to place those other things before themselves. Whether it is Johnnie Rico and the Mobile Infantry of Starship Troopers fighting and dying to protect their home or Valentine Michael Smith of Stranger in a Strange Land sacrificing himself to help people understand love, we must accept a truth that love and duty are not two separate concpets, but opposite sides of the same coin.

A Fortress Mentality

Melodee Martin Helms writes about the suburban fortress:

My three boys sprawl on the couch, fingering their Game Boys. I wish I could shoo them outside until dusk. I wish they could tromp to the marsh to search for polliwogs. I wish we didn't have to live in a fortress.

But we don't let our children play in the front yard, because a sex offender lives two doors down. Instead, like other families in this neighborhood, we've built private playgrounds in the back.

From my kitchen window, I see two wooden play structures, three trampolines, and four basketball hoops, including our own. The kids on our street don't play unsupervised on common ground. They have play dates now, arranged by protective parents.

The unsupervised outings of my 1970s childhood are over. When Mom told us, "Be back before dark," we'd check in sooner only if our stomachs insisted.

wonder if homes have grown bigger because our outer world is shrinking. According to the US Census Bureau, households today have fewer people, yet houses have expanded from an average of 1,645 square feet in 1975 to an average of 2,434 square feet in 2005. Families used to occupy smaller indoor spaces, but inhabit larger outdoor spaces. Today, I walk along desolate suburban streets.

That's because children don't play where passersby can see – or snatch – them. They're hidden away in backyards, climbing on pricey, customized play structures, jumping on trampolines, or swimming in pools. They shuffle from soccer to judo to piano lessons. But you don't find them out and about.

I wish I didn't have to barricade my family behind an invisible barbed-wire fence. I wish our kids could explore the world alone. But we just can't take the chance. All we need is a moat, and our fortress will be complete.

It's funny though how Helms talks about a suburban fortress. My wife and I have this battle regularly.

We have kids in our neighborhood who run around unsupervised and aside from the times they have damaged my yard or left their toys and bikes laying around, I generally don't have a problem with it. My wife finds it offensive that these kids parents aren't watching them. Now, admittedly, some of the kids are a little young to be outside without an adult watching, but for kids who are 8, 9 or 12 or so, I find nothing wrong with it.

But we have gotten a little nuts as a society when we can't let kids play outside. We have become too protective, too worried about the least little thing. As a child, I had a very large neighborhood to play in, spanning a circle roughtly a mile in radius. My friends and I reguarly met at the school playgrounds, soccer fields and each other's houses. Knowing that if we were hurt or needed to get to a protected place, any home in the neighborhood would take us in and call our parents. That is not to say we knew everyone, but everyone looked out for each other and each other's kids. All this in a age when we didn't have cell phones and PDAs.

Today, even when we have kids as young as 9 with cell phones to call Mom and Dad to pick them up from soccer or piano or ballet, we rarely let kids out of sight unless it is with an adult with either pay or know to take care of our kids. I don't know all my neighbors in the court we live in, which includes a good mix of people, including two cops and several families. Not only don't we let our kids play outside, we don't even know our neighbors and we certainly wouldn't tell our kids, "if you need help, you can go to any house around here and the adults will help." I am not even sure my wife would counsel my daughters to go the the cops' houses in an emergency, although I suspect she would I am not positive. Those days are gone, because we don't trust other people--our suspicions and fears have become to great to overcome.

Protecting the Family Online--The Allison Stokke Debate

Have you seen or heard of Allison Stokke, if you haven't then you are living under a rock. Admittedly, Allison Stokke is hot (since she is 18, I can say that without being a pedophile) and apparently quite talented at her chosen sport. Do a Google search and you get about 576,000 hits (not including this post) But following a Washington Post article on her explosive notoriety, the Post has followed up with an On Parenting blog debate on the story.

Clearly, the Stokke family's media strategy designed to help rid their daughter of what Allison's mom Cindy called "locker room talk for all of us to read" failed. But if this were your daughter -- or son -- how would you respond? What recourse do parents have to protect their children from what can be a cruel, anonymous Internet world?

The Stokke family has clearly talked to the press and may be trying to spin a story that is probably unspinnable, but the On Parenting blog raises a good point--how do we protect our family in cyberspace.

Obviously, we can do a great deal to protect our families from viewing cyberspace, for example, my oldest daughter--The Peanut, enjoys the Disney websites since she likes Disney so much. She also likes The Wiggles and a few sites about ballet. She is always well supervised when playing on these sites and her time is usually limited to about an hour maybe twice a week at most. That part is easy.

My wife is always worried about me mentioning my family in this space and I generally respect her wishes, never referring to them by name. But the Allison Stokke story does present a problem over the long run. As my daughters age and begin to partake in activities that may generate their own press (the activities not my daughters) such a gymnastics meets or dance recitals, how can I prevent my daughters from being Stokke-ed? After thinking about it for a while, I don't think I can.

From the outset, Allison Stokke did not fan the flames of her "celebrity." She happens to be an athlete whose success in the pole vault has led to fame in itself. The fact that she is stunningly attractive boosted her fame. Had she less beautiful, the interest in her would have stopped with her pole vaulting records, but she isn't less beautiful and her "fame" continued to grow. In an age when beauty and athleticism captivates people, even when you don't win titles (see Anna Kournikova), it may be impossible to stop the Internet salivating and other less publicly acceptable activities over attractive women athletes.

If my daughters turn out to be objectively beautiful, as opposed to just beautiful to their family, will I be able to stop the ogling? No. What I can do, however, is prepare my daughters to handle such situations with grace and dignity. So far, from what I have seen, Allison Stokke has a good head on her shoulders (not just a pretty one) and has handled things pretty well. That is really all that can be done. Sure, her parents are rightfully concerned and they too seem to be doing pretty well dealing with their daughters celebrity.

As for the question of "cashing in," I think the Stokkes have options available to them should they choose. For one thing, Allison Stokke could clearly make money as a model and she would not be the first, nor would she be the last, female athlete to do it. (My post on Amanda Beard and Playboy continues to generate hits on this blog, despite its age). She doesn't need it for college since she is getting an athletic scholarship. If she continues to improve she could easily make the Olympic team and move into professional track and field.

No matter what path she chooses, the Stokke story may have changed the way parents look at the Internet and the media. Protecting our kids from the internet has taken on a new facet, it is not just protecting them from what they see on the Internet, but also about how the Internet view our children.

Reflections on Memorial Day Reading

Generally on Memorial Day, I don't spend a lot of time doing much of anything. I spend time with my family, call my father and great uncle (veterans both), and give thanks to all those who have served and sacrificed so much so that I can live the way I live and shoot my mouth off about anything that crosses my mind. This year was a little different as I composed a fairly lengthy email for my brother who is now in Iraq and sent him a few pictures of my family (who refer to him as Uncle Tickles).

As has happened in years past, I have read a number of items about Memorial Day, largely presented in the press and the range of items is fairly impressive. Many of the items are heart-wrenching (which is the point I suppose) and some tend to be overly political in nature (at least this year). However, as the Iraq war progresses Memorial Day has taken on a different meaning for many Americans.

Some people still view it as a day to spend with family and friends, firing up the grill and swapping stories while the kids play in the pool or run around the yard. Unlike some veterans, who view the day with a religious intensity and view such scenes of carefree living as almost sacriligious, I tend to think that those who died in the service of this country would think of the activities as a fitting tribute to teh way of life they protected. This is not to say that such sun-worshipping activities should not be without moments of reflection, but I think it is what those who died would want.

In reviewing many of the items written about Memorial Day, I came across this one in the Washington Post by photojournalist Andrea Bruce, about a young sargent who was returning from Iraq. Bruce had a connection with Sgt. Andrew Snow, having been embedded with his unit in Iraq, and that connection is somewhat apparent. While the story is not particularly groundbreaking, the story does contain on interesting insight into the Iraq War that I think is very enlightening.

More than 100 people, mostly elderly, waved little American flags outside the country club. The mayor made a surprise appearance and gave a little speech. Andrew accepted the "Welcome homes" and the "God bless yous" and tried to answer "Is it really as bad as they say it is?" But war was not what he wanted to talk about. He wanted to chat with high school friends and tease the kids he used to babysit. He said thank you to each person. Then he sneaked out to the palm trees for a smoke with his best friend from high school.

"It was overwhelming," he told me after the party. "A lot of people trying to talk to me, congratulate me. I didn't really think I deserved congratulations." He said he knew the party was really for them -- the people holding the flags. For many of them, he is their only real connection to the war.(emphasis added)

The welcome home party was not really for him but an attempt to connect with a war that far too many people are disconnected from.

While I don't agree with those who say the war is unwinnable or that we shouldn't be there fighting in the first place, I can respect their opinion. But the fact that too many people don't have a connection to the war means that both our government and the media have done a poor job helping people make the connection. Arguably, the war is the biggest political issue extant right now and for many Americans it is an abstraction, an amorphous thing that is out there, one upon which most Americans have an opinion. However, that opinion is not connected in any way to the reality of the war. Most Americans don't worry themselves sick about a loved on in harm's way. Most Americans claim to support the troops, but don't do anything to show that support short of a little sticker on their car and some politically correct platitudes.

The fact that we have an all-volunteer force has to some extent dehumanized the war effort. During Vietnam, the draft was real and omni-present. It wasn't the fact that it was someone else kid from some far off city or state, it could be your kid or your neighbor's kid or your doctor's kid who could be called to fight in Vietnam. It made the risk of the war real, tangible and personal--even if you were opposed to Vietnam.

Today, an all-volunteer force shields most of America from the true cost of the war. For those who have no personal connection to the fighting, they can simply look upon Iraq as a political abstraction, another issue in the political arena that costs each person very little. It becomes easy for most Americans to look at the servicemen fighting in Iraq and think of them as something else--not someone they know, but an abstration, almost at automaton not to be thought of as a person, but as a tool, a tool of a foriegn policy they don't agree with and therefore incapable of making a personal connection.

But Memorial Day is that one day a year when we should be looking at our fighting men and women in hopes of finding a connection. The stories of Memorial Day, yes, are about the dead, but they are also about finding a connection to those who have gone to serve our country. If Memorial Day serves no other purpose than to make people see a connection to the living, breathing, and yes, sometimes dying, men and women serving our country, then perhaps it has served its purpose.

Auto Dealers Flying American Flag: Patriotism or Commercialism

That is a debate that is swirling in Las Vegas:

Call it a show of patriotic pride. Or call it a crass red-white-and-blue marketing ploy.

Either way, the city of Las Vegas has ordered a Hummer dealership to take down an American flag that flies 100 feet above the business.

Dan Towbin, owner of Towbin Hummer, said he was in disbelief at the City Council's decision this week to require the business to take down the 30-by-60-foot Stars and Stripes that has flown since May 2006 in front of the dealership.

A lot of car dealerships fly the American flag, indeed very large versions of the flag over their dealerships. I think it is fine even though I believe it to be commercialism. I only have a problem when the flag gets tattered or is not lit up at night. Under the rules for flying the flag, it should either lit up at night or lowered us sunset. Often it is not lit at night and still flown. I know it is nitpicky.

Still, I think that flying the flag is a legitimate expression of free speech, even if it is commerical speech. Commercial speech can't be deceptive and flying an American flag is not deceptive advertising. I think the dealer has a legitimate case here.

Now if Las Vegas has a zoning ordiance related to the height of the flagpole, the City may have a right to have the flag pole reduced in size, but not to prohibit the flying of the flag.

Giuliani's Abortion Position Is Actually Conservative

Abortion is one of those issues tailor made for campaigning and demagoguery. It is an issue with profound moral issues and a shocking lack of change in the law. Coupled with a distinct two sided-ness divided by a line over which most people cannot cross, abortion makes great political theater since the chances of any change being made in the law is relatively remote.

As we have watched the GOP debates and the candidates running, each one of them is trying to claim the mantle of the "next Reagan," that they are the real conservative. Unlike the Democratic candidates though, at least we are beginning to see some differentiation among the GOP field. Nowhere is that differentiation more apparent than on the issue of abortion.

The odd thing is that each candidate, save Rudy Giuliani, is claiming that their position is the real conservative position, that being pro-life makes them conservatives, when in fact it does not--it makes them pro-life and that is all. Rudy Giuliani's position is truly based on a conservative principal--that government should strive to stay out of the lives of individuals.

I am a proud Republican and a conservative. One of the bedrock principals of conservatism, at least as I see it explained over and over again, is that individual freedom should be preserved and government invervention in our lives limited to the bare necessity. In general, anything that increases individual freedom is a good thing and anything that increases governmental intrustion in our lives, while not necessarily a bad thing, but should be viewed with a very healthy dose of skepticism.

Giuliani's approach to abortion is based on the principal of individual freedom. That we as a government and a nation should not stand in the way of a woman making a choice for herself is based on the idea of individual freedom and autonomy and that while government can place restricts on the range of choices, we can't eliminate all choices just to satisfy our vision of morality. The rest of the GOP field is guilty of hypocrisy on this issue-just as Ronal Reagan was.

For all I know, Rudy Giuliani is like me. I could never counsel a woman to get an abortion unless it was absolutely necessary to save her life. I find the idea of abortion morally repugnant, particularly when the procedure is used as a means of birth control--which the overwhelming number of abortions are.

I believe that we as a nation should be making it easier for unwanted babies to be adopted (as opposed to everyone adoping babies from overseas). I believe the government can insist on parental consent laws for minors seeking abortions. I believe the government can regulate the means by which a abortion is performed.

Like Rudy though, I don't believe we as Republicans have the right to force our view of morality upon the entire country. That would make us just as hypocritical as Democrats. Let's face it, on the issue of life, a great many Republicans are conflicted. Many Republicans, including the GOP canddiates, would probably support teh death penalty, but object to abortion on the grounds that it is a killing. The Democrats are just as hypocritical, but in the opposite direction.

But I find the larger moral crime to be the imposition of one view of morality upon an entire nation.

Rightly or wrongly, the pro-life stance of most Republicans has been deemed a conservative position. This is an accident of identification rather than a position based upon actual conservative principles. Claiming to be pro-life might make you a Republican, but it does not make you a conservative. On this issue, only Rudy Giuliani can claim his position is conservative.

America's Hoarding Psychosis

Zach Wendling has a fantastic post about Clean Sweep, a Learning Channel show where people with "pack rat-itis" clean out their junk. Toward the end, Wendling writes:

This is reminiscent of some sort of psychological trick, like over-eating. Conventional wisdom tells us our bodies are hardwired to store up calories for when times are lean. Are we also programmed to hoard? I doubt it, or else our cathartic purges wouldn't feel so good. Andrew Postman wrote in Real Simple Magazine two years ago about clearing out his Brooklyn brownstone's basement. He concludes, "When you're accumulating, you can't imagine throwing stuff out; when you're throwing stuff out, you can't imagine how you accumulated."

I admit, my family has this problem, but for different items for different people.

My daughters have a toy problem. Well actually, my wife and I have a toy problem in that we have too many in the house--way, way too many. We need to pare down the toys in the house, build some better storage (I like to build things--it is cheaper than buying, I can customize and carpentry keeps me off the streets). Now, of course, my wife and I have bought the bulk of the girls' toys, but Christmas at my house is an obscene orgy of toys and games for the girls, courtesy of my mother in law, for whom our girls are her only grandchildren. My parents (thankfully) are much more pragmatic--buying clothese for girls who are sprouting like weeds. That is not to say my parents don't buy toys, they do, just not as much.

My problem is two fold--books and music. I love to read and tend to buy books as well as check them out of the library. The problem is, of course, that once bought, my books rarely leave our house. Now, I have bought and built bookshelves, which now overflow with the many tomes I have purchased in some 25+ years of book buying (I bought books with my soccer refereeing money--I was a total geek!!). I have promised my wife that I will go through the roughtly 15 boxes of books we have in storage and donate them to the local library. But that is a promise I made some three years ago when we moved to our current home and well it hasn't happened.

When it comes to music, I am, I suppose, something of a 20th Century Luddite--I like CDs. I rarely download music and much prefer to buy an entire CD. I know that I could download an full CD for about the same price as a physical disk, but there is something about having a disk to touch that makes me happy. My disk collection is not nearly as large as my book collection and much smaller thanks to a theft of a house during college. During my Navy years, I would buy between two and four CD's every pay period. I had accumulated nearly 300 CDs during a four year enlistment and all of them were stolen when I was in college, a heart breaking loss not completely covered by a renter's insurance policy.

My wife's problem is clothes. Now I know that sounds sexist, but she will readily admit that she finds it difficult to part with clothing, even though I argue that our giving away of clothes is the most immediate charitable contribution we give. In the past three years, I have convince her to give away hundreds of articles of clothing and we still don't have room for her apparel. Our closet is stuffed, her dresser is exploding and she has now commandeered a drawer in my dresser. To be frank, this could very well be genetic since her mother at one point occupied ever closet in her not small house--this was after my father in law passed away. But one very large tax bill later, my mother in law discovered the benefit of charitable giving and gone was her oversized wardrobe.

My family is not atypical of our friends. We all have far too much "stuff" for our homes. My wife and I have a storage crises, but we are pretty much average among our friends. We have parted with clothing, I much more easily than my wife, and some household goods. But the above items continue to plague us.

The funny thing is that we know about our problem, even laugh at the victims on Clean Sweep, but tell ourselves we are not nearly as bad. But in reality, we are. It is just that we have deluded ourselves in to believing that because we are better with storage that we are not nearly as possession driven as we really are.

Are we the exception to the rule or the rule itself? Does America suffer this hoarding psychosis? I tend to think yes.

Amanda Beard to Pose in Playboy

That is a quick hit generating headline, but it is true that Olympic Gold Medal winning swimmer Amanda Beard is going to appear, sans her Speedo, in Playboy. Can't wait to see that edition.

It is not that I a particular fetish about Beard, who is stunningly attractive, or swimmers. But I like to look at naked women. I am a man and I can appreciate beauty. Furthermore, Amanda Beard, whose genetics make her beautiful and hard work makes her a world-class swimmer has earned the right to do what she wants. Cashing in on her hard work and beauty is not selling out as some people might suggest.

A fair number of women have appeared in Playboy soley on the way they look and the body they have been granted by God and genetics. Amanda Beard, under other circimstances, might not necessarily make the cut for Playboy, for one thing she is not nearly as curvy as other models. But her fame as an Olympic swimmer makes it possible and why shouldn't she pose with a body that she has honed with hours upon hours in the pool.

Of course, there will come inevitable questions about whether Beard's decision will hurt women's sports. The whole world was shocked when Brandi Chastain ripped off her jersey in celebration of winning the Women's World Cup in 1999. Of course women athletes, including Beard, have appeared in other magazines geared toward men, such as FHM and Stuff and few people complain (Chastain herself once appeared in Gear Magazine wearing nothing but cleats and a well positioned soccer ball). Often these athelets are not wearing much, just enough for the magazine to not be shelved with other "adult" magazines. Likewise, we don't complain when women athletes appear in Esquire or other fashion magazine geared toward men or women. So if Amanda Beard appeared in Esquire, we probably wouldn't be talking about this, but if she agrees to pose in Playboy it is big news.

But why? Why can't a woman be both athletic and sexy at the same time? Why can't a woman be athletic, sexy and smart at the same time? Michael Rosenberg, writing for FOXSports.com notes:

This is why the notion that Beard is "hurting" women's sports falls flat. She has posed previously in FHM, nearly naked. She has appeared in SI's swimsuit issue (and not in her competition Speedo). Beard is not exchanging her athletic fame for the fame of a model — her athletic fame is the fame of a model.

So Amanda Beard will be famous for swimming and being beautiful. How does that hurt the sport of swimming or beautiful women?

Divorce Rates Down

Now that the divorce rate is down, we should be celebrating right? While I think a lower divorce rate is a good thing, I think is is more related to this:

Yet Americans aren't necessarily making better choices about their long-term relationships. Even those who study marriage and work to make it more successful can't decide whether the trend is grounds for celebration or cynicism.

Some experts say relationships are as unstable as ever—and divorces are down primarily because more couples live together without marrying. Other researchers have documented what they call "the divorce divide," contending that divorce rates are indeed falling substantively among college-educated couples but not among less- affluent, less-educated couples.

snip

The number of couples who live together without marrying has increased tenfold since 1960; the marriage rate has dropped by nearly 30 percent in past 25 years; and Americans are waiting about five years longer to marry than they did in 1970.

The decline of divorces is a good thing, but the increase in unmarried cohabitation is not. But when celebrities don't get married, what kind of signal is it providing. Everyone wants to be like their idols, but in this respect, I am not sure that idol worship is such a good idea.

Planned Parenthood--The Right's New Boogeyman

Rudy Giuliani has done it, Ann Romney has done it. Millions of others have done it. My question is why should I, as a Republican voter, care? So waht if Giuliani has given money to Planned Parenthood. It is not as if his stance on abortion is not already known. If the right wing blogosphere and the press want to talk about that, fine. I think it a waste of breath and indicates a pretty slow news day. But it must be a really slow news day when Ann Romney's contribution to Planned Parenthood becomes news.

Former Gov. Mitt Romney's wife, Ann, gave an $150 donation to the abortion-rights group Planned Parenthood in 1994, at a time when Romney considered himself effectively "pro-choice," the Romney campaign confirmed today.

Campaign spokesman Kevin Madden said Ann Romney had no recollection of the circumstances under which she donated the money.

So let us see, a married couple agreed on a subject. Oh! My! God! Call Dr. Phil, these people can't be married to each other.

So Ann Romeny gave money to Planned Parenthood 13 years ago. What's the big deal. If Mitt Romney apparently "Pro-choice" at the time (but not now). Even if Romney was pro-life back then, it still wouldn't be worthy of news. Even if Ann Romeny gave money to Planned Parenthood yesterday, I wouldn't care, it is a symbol of a healthy marriage that they disagree on something. My wife and I disagree on lots of things politically and we agree on other things. It is what makes human.

Apparently contributions to Planned Parenthood are going to be the litmus test for social conservatives to measure the GOP candidates because Planned Parenthood supports abortion. Planned Parenthood also teaches, among other things, safe sexual practices, even abstinence, so why is making a contribution bad? Social conservatives are going to have to learn that viable candidates and more importantly their families, may have different views on a subject, but it makes them no less viable. Get over it.

Kids, TV and the Guilt Culture

The Washington Times is carrying a story reporting on the release of a new study involving kids and TV. The total number of hours that kids as young as three months surprised the researchers, but the team also noted that they didn't know if it was a good or bad thing. Simple research, just counting hours.

About 90 percent of U.S. children under age 2 and as many as 40 percent of infants under three months are regular watchers of television, DVDs and videos, researchers said yesterday.

They said the number of young children watching TV is much greater than expected.

"We don't know from the study whether it is good or bad. What we know is that it is big," said Frederick Zimmerman of the University of Washington, whose research appears in the Archives of Pediatrics & Adolescent Medicine.

A second study suggested excessive TV viewing can lead to attention and learning problems for teenagers.

The American Academy of Pediatrics estimates that children in the United States watch about four hours of television every day. They recommend that children under age 2 not watch any television and that older children watch no more than 2 hours a day of quality programming.

But 29 percent of parents surveyed by Mr. Zimmerman and colleagues think baby-oriented TV and DVD programs offer educational benefits.

"Parents are getting the message loud and clear from marketers of TV and videos that this is good for their kids. That it will help their brain development. ... None of this stuff has ever been proven," Mr. Zimmerman said.

The Academy of Pediatrics estimates that there may be too much TV by their standards. Presumably they want parents and their kids to partake in other "more stimulating" activity that with enhance the creativity, mental and phsycial development of children.

I am all for stimulating creativity, physical and mental play for my children. However, TV offers some great choices. Through TV, my daughters, including the 19 month old, know their numbers and letters, (the oldest in Spanish too), they can indentify and appreciate pieces of classical music, they see dance moves to mimic (my oldest loves Dancing With The Stars) and stories they can relate to their own lives. True, my wife and I encourage and provide the primary learning on things like reading and math skills, provide books that give science knowledge, but TV has provided supplemental material that we cannot provide. TV is not bad.

But what pediatricians and "those who know better" do is make us feel guilty about any level of TV our kids watch. One radio commentator this morning, while discussing this story, said he felt guilty for allowing his year old son to watch an hour of TV a day, even though the boy apparently gets some benefit like my daughters do. The guilt machine is in full force when one hour of TV, often undertaken so parents can speak about adult things, makes an otherwise intelligent person feel as though they are abusing their kid.

The guilt machine is designed to sell books and activities "approved by Pediatricians." It is the guilt machine that makes parents feels as if they are failures if they break the guidelines, when all they are is "guidelines." These recommendations are supposed to help but instead they are used to classify parents as good or bad, proper or not. Why is it not up to the parents to decide what is best for their kids.

My daughters exhibit some valueable skills, including the ability to concentrate not just on a TV show, but on their own play, often for hours at a time. Are the two related? I don't know but I don't really care, but I can tell you this. I don't feel guilty about their TV watching

Amending the War Authorization

By now, most Americans have heard of the plan hatched by Senators Robert Byrd and Hillary Clinton to amendment the 2002 authroization for the use of military force that allowed President Bush to begin fighting in Iraq. Captian Ed, has a good summary of what is happening and some analysis. For Clinton, the move is entirely about her campaign (which is not surprising)

Make that a campaign stunt. Hillary wants to build some anti-war credibility for what has turned into a tough primary fight. She needs to atone for her vote to authorize the use of military force in Iraq, and what better way than to write a bill to revoke that authorization? She can do so safe in the knowledge that it will never pass, and that she will bear no responsibility for the result.

That's been the entire Democratic strategy. Shailagh Murray and Jonathan Weisman make the laughable statement that Democrats are searching for ways to end the war. They have a Constitutional mechanism for doing just that, and it bypasses a veto by simply stopping the funds for the war. However, that would leave Democrats responsible for the catastrophe that would follow an American retreat from Iraq and its devastating impact on the Middle East and our credibility against radical Islamist terrorists. They're not looking for a way out, they're looking to score partisan points, and Hillary has just decided to play the game.

Sure Hillary Clinton needs to atone for her vote for the authorization bill in 2002, unlike her rivals Obama and Edwards, even Bill Richardson was not put in the position of having to decided. However, Clinton's actions are not only the wrong tactic since her new (renewed) oppostion to the war is going to come back and bite her in the general election should she survive the primary battle, but hypocritical as well.

Right now there are three types of politicians on the matter of the war. There are those who voted to give the President the authority to conduct military operations and continue to support that position. There are those who voted against the authorization in the first place and continue to adhere to that position. These two groups are worthy of respect for they are principaled people. I may not agree with their position in opposition to the war, but I can respect their belief and we can agee to disagree.

But the third group, the one that has changed their position. The only question to aks these people is whether, had the course of operations in Iraq been more patently successful, would their position still have changed. The answer for these people is likely not. In fact, I would suspect that many, including Senator Clinton, would be tripping over themselves to claim some credit or at least issue an "I told you so." This is the hypocrisy of the "I was for the war now I am against the war" crowd. Their support is based solely on whether we are winning or losing in their eyes. Since we don't seem to be doing well, then they must be anti-war.

Principled decision making is necessary in elected officials. If a leader makes positions and policy statements based on principles and adheres to those principles, then whether I agree with those policies or posisitions, I can accept that we have a fundamental disagreement. But unprincipled, wishy-washy, "what's the latest poll say" decision making implies a lack of principles and a lack of a spine. That is not someone I want occupying the White House.

Poor Thoughts and Poor Language

Jonah Goldberg has a great piece titled Orwell's Orphans: The Meaning of Meaningless Jargon. The heart of the problem with modern "intellectual thought and writing" is that they are so painfully bad that they reinforce each other.

I say that if George Orwell were alive today, he would beat these people into submission with a London phonebook.

Why drag Orwell into this? Well, because he is the secular saint of clean writing and clear thinking.

Orwell argued that bad thinking and bad language are, in the parlance of today's twelve-step culture, mutual enablers. "A man may take to drink because he feels himself to be a failure, but then fail all the more completely because he drinks," Orwell noted by way of illustration. The English language "becomes ugly and inaccurate because our thoughts are foolish, but the slovenliness of our language makes it easier for us to have foolish thoughts."

This was especially true in the realm of political speech. He noted in his brilliant 1946 essay "Politics and the English Language" that "In our time, political speech and writing are largely the defense of the indefensible." The "transfer of populations" or the "elimination of unreliable elements" were, for example, what people say when they really mean, "I believe in killing my opponents when I can get good results by doing so."

Go read the whole thing.

Fred Thompson on Federalism and Why He is Wrong

Possible presidential candidate Fred Thompson has a nice piece up on Townhall.com about Federalism. In his piece he talks about some of the reasons why we have federalism and how federalism gets abandoned by people on both sides of the aisle when it suits them, in context of a bill to create a federal "Good Samaritan" law.

Everyone in Washington embraces Federalism until it comes to someone's pet project designed to appeal to the voters. Then, oftentimes, even the most ardent Federalist throws in with the "Washington solution" crowd. I fought this for eight years in the Senate. I remember one vote (I believe it was 99 to one) when mine was the only vote cast for Federalism. The bill would have created a federal good Samaritan law.

snip

This is traditionally state law stuff. Is this really something the federal government should involve itself in?

I thought not, but even some of my conservative colleagues (as well as writers) get caught up in the desire to federalize an issue if they could help a "good guy" or stick it to a "bad guy." This may be a desirable goal in the abstract but I don't think our Founding Fathers had this in mind. Adhering to basic principles that have served our country well is much too important. That's why I suggested to Mr. Ponnuru that if conservatives use Federalism as a tool with which to reward our friends and strike our enemies, instead of treating it as a valued principle, we are doing a disservice to our country -- as well as to the cause of conservatism.

Thompson even threw out the "laboratories of democracy" line that the states serve as incubators of ideas. But Thompson is wrong about why the Founders wanted a federal system. Thompson starts accurately but ends up wrong.

Our government, under our Constitution, was established upon the principles of Federalism -- that the federal government would have limited enumerated powers and the rest would be left to the states. It not only prevented tyranny, it just made good sense. States become laboratories for democracy and experiment with different kinds of laws.

The Founders did have an innate fear of tyranny, but the federal system is as much an accident of the times as it is a design of a group of brilliant men.

First, a federal system with a great deal of the governmental powers reserved to the states or the People (Read the Tenth Amendment, which admittedly came later), appeased the state sovereignty crowd present at Philadelphia. The Framers gathered at what is now Independence Hall under a charge to improve the Articles of Confederation, not, as it turned out, to create a new government. As a result, some of the Founders made sure to protect the rights of their states in the new system, particularly the small states, led in part by Roger Sherman of Connecticut. The protection of the individual state interests is at the core of our federal system.

Second, a federal system did provide for a means of checking the tyranny of a national government. We do have a national government, believe it or not, of delegated and ennumerated powers. That the powers have extended beyond what the Framers had envisioned surely cause them to roll over in their graves. But that is a function of a system the Framers did envision, the ability for the government to grow in times of need, but their hope for the government to revert to a limited role in other times clearly has not been the case.

Third, the federal system with more power given to the states is a result of the Framers believe in government being closer to the people. Remember, at the time of the ratification, only the House of Representatives was directly elected by the people. But the state legislatures were elected by the people and they in turn selected Senators and of course the Electoral College actually elects the president. State governments are local and at that time, individual voters were more likely to know their state representative than their federal representative, becuase they were more likely to see their state representative in everyday life, or at least more regularly.

Fourth, the American federal system was designed at a time when interstate travel was not only long in terms of time, but outright dangerous. Before traveling to Congress, representatives regularly updated their will and settled their affairs before leaving. Communications were, by today's standards, painfully slow. A federal government, left unchecked by state power, would be able to act without a chance for the people to respond in the manner we experience today. An act by Congress could be passed and it might be months before all of America knew about it.

While states serve as laboratories of democracy, it is not why the Framers created the federal system, the "research" function is a by-product of the modern age, not an intention of the framers. While it may seem like a quibble with Sen. Thompson, we should be more forthright about federalism. However, like Sen. Thompson, far too many people in Washington abandon federalism when it suits and embrace it when it advances their agenda. Principaled federalism is about as ancient as Ben Franklin and, currently, as dead.