By Dr. James “Jim” Kadlecek Pounding his fist on the podium at the U.S. Senate, former Sen. Everett Dirksen exclaimed, “I’m a man of the strongest possible principle.” He paused for effect before saying, “and my strongest principle is flexibility!” The senator from Illinois was paraphrasing Honest Abe, who made a similar statement at a time when Lincoln had to explain his change of position on an issue. Dirksen’s point was that politics is about compromise. To gain the support (enough votes) to win approval of a bill in Congress, or win an election, a majority is necessary. That means an individual legislator’s or candidate’s opinion must reflect public opinion. Both John McCain and Barack Obama are being criticized by certain media commentators and by political ideologues on the right and left.
Give to the Red Cross instead of political campaigns
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By Dr. James “Jim” Kadlecek ‘Mothers all want their sons to grow up to be president, but they don’t want them to become politicians in the process.” – John F. Kennedy “I wish you wouldn’t run for office. Politics is such a dirty business.” – My late mother, 1974 In the line at the supermarket checkout counter the other day, I noticed the headlines on several tabloids, the gossip rags that scandalize and distort American free-speech rights. “Hillary Gay Love Scandal,” “Obama Marriage Explodes.” I didn’t see one for McCain, but I suspect it will be forthcoming. Our political candidates, like movie and TV stars, are targets for the scandalizers, the paparazzi, the invaders of privacy who seek to profit from the fame of public persons. One wonders why anyone would seek public office these days and subject themselves not only to intense scrutiny, but also to becoming targets for the low-lifes that engage in these sensationalist tactics. Continue Reading
Campaign antics distract from the real issues
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By Dr. James “Jim” Kadlecek “The hardest thing about any political campaign is how to win without proving that you are unworthy of winning.” – Adlai Stevenson It’s not a pretty sight. I refer to the current contest between the two Democrat presidential competitors, Clinton and Obama. The tone of the campaign has gotten increasingly snide and a bit nasty. It has disintegrated into pettiness, with each grasping at straws to find ways to be critical of the other. An example is the recent “bitter” comments by Obama, which Clinton promptly labeled as “elitist and demeaning to people in small-town America.” Actually, Obama was talking about the difficulty of attracting working-class voters in states like Indiana and Pennsylvania. Continue Reading
Keeping education reform in perspective
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“We are shut up in schools and classrooms for 10 or 15 years, and come out at last with a bellyful of words and do not know a thing.” – Ralph Waldo Emerson “Education is a method by which one acquires a higher grade of prejudices.” – Laurence J. Peter By Dr. James “Jim” Kadlecek Our formal education system, many believe, is in need of “reform.” That includes primary, secondary and higher education. Cited as evidence, among other factors, is the dropout rate from schools and colleges. Depending on which of the numerous studies you want to believe, the drop out rate from the nation’s high schools is somewhere between 20 and 50 percent, with urban schools having the biggest problem retaining students. At the college level, statistics indicate that only 54 percent of students have a degree after six years. There is a lot of finger pointing going on. Continue Reading
Hope is a good thing
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By Dr. James “Jim” Kadlecek “Hope is a good thing… maybe the best of things… and no good thing ever dies.” – “Andy” from The Shawshank Redemption At a local restaurant the other day, I asked the young college student waiter if he was following the presidential race. He responded, “You bet. I’m for Obama!” I asked why. He said, “He gives me something to hope for.” My son JJ (age 49, and living in Colorado) recently wrote me, explaining his perspective on the presidential election. I’ve asked him if I could share his views with you, the readers of this blog. Continue Reading
Random thoughts on several issues
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By Dr. James “Jim” Kadlecek I’ve been writing columns about public issues and politics for more than 25 years, and once in a while there are several things on which I want to comment, rather than just one topic. This also happens when I’ve been busy doing other things and the deadline to submit this column creeps up on me. Such is the case today. So, here are a few random thoughts that I hope the reader will find of interest. Oil and politics A couple weeks ago, I wrote about oil and politics, and it got some thoughtful responses, both on Heath’s blog, and in several e-mails sent to me. Continue Reading
Oil and politics – are you mad yet?
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By Dr. James “Jim” Kadlecek “I’m as mad as hell, and I’m not going to take this anymore!” – from the film Network, 1976 As I was filling up my Camry at the gas station the other day, and bitching and moaning about the $48 cost, I noticed the guy next to me with his big pickup, still pumping at over $100. “Doesn’t this piss you off?” I asked. “Just the way it is,” he shrugged, “I gotta drive. The oil companies have us by the b***s.” Well said. Recently, Exxon announced that it had made a $40.6-billion profit in the past year. Continue Reading
The church and the government
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By Dr. James “Jim” Kadlecek “Although he’s regularly asked to do so, God does not take sides in American politics.” – George Mitchell “The government must pursue a course of complete neutrality toward religion.” – John Paul Stevens The other day, one of my students declared that she would not vote for Barack Obama because he is a Muslim. That evening, a friend sent me a copy of a chain e-mail she had received alleging that Obama is a radical Muslim and stating that “Muslims have said they want to destroy the U.S. from within and what better way than… through the president.” Of course, the person who originated this e-mail offered no proof, nor did she cite sources that one could access to verify her statements. A minor amount of research proved the falsity of these statements. Obama did have exposure to the Muslim religion via his father, but his divorced parents and his stepfather were essentially non-religious. However, he now is a baptized member of the United Church of Christ. Continue Reading
What about 2008?
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By Dr. James “Jim” Kadlecek “When the number of factors coming into play in a phenomenological complex is too large, scientific method in most cases fails. One need only think of the weather, in which case the prediction even for a few days ahead is impossible.” – Albert Einstein Notwithstanding the truth of Einstein’s quote, I offer herein a few predictions for 2008. Let me acknowledge to start that my predictions are no more likely to be accurate than those of the generally well-informed readers of this blog, so feel free to add your own comments at the end of this posting. Let’s dispense quickly with national predictions, since we are besieged daily by many media political commentators. For my part, I predict that: • a Democrat will be elected president and the Democrats will again control Congress, despite their dismal performance since the 2006 elections. Continue Reading
A litany of wrongheaded public decisions
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By Dr. James “Jim” Kadlecek “You can’t make a silk purse out of a sow’s ear.” – old-fashioned proverb This saying means you cannot make a good, quality product using poor materials. To make chairs that’ll last, you need good, strong pieces of wood. You can’t make a silk purse out of a sow’s ear. The same logic applies to public policies. If a concept is, at its core, wrongheaded, it doesn’t much matter what politicians try to do to amend it, disguise it, rationalize it or explain it. Continue Reading
County to consider precedent-setting subsidy today
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By Dr. James “Jim” Kadlecek The Doña Ana County Board of Commissioners has on its agenda for today’s meeting a momentous decision. It has to do with a scheme proposed by an El Paso developer who owns most of the prime land in the Santa Teresa area. I first wrote about this situation a couple of weeks ago. If approved, the proposal would dedicate future county and state gross-receipts-tax revenue from this area to pay for the development of a large residential-commercial subdivision and two industrial parks. In essence, the developer would get a subsidy of $113 million to cover development costs, many of which should be part of the normal price of doing business. Continue Reading