A break from the intellectual

My brother Joel and I doing some Parkour moves.

Right-wingers

In the last century, right-wing types had a simple way of describing patriotic congressional representatives like Ron Paul, who championed limited federal government, believed in natural rights, respected the oath they swore to uphold, and eschewed Wilsonian-style foreign policy: “conservative.”

Read the article by Isabel Lyman here.

Teenagers can work, think, fight and love.

"Teenagers can work, think, fight and love. The law prohibits all of it." - R. Cort Kirkwood

Kirkwood writes an article "Adolescence: A Heresy" arguing that modern society makes our teenagers into adolescents - essentially, big children - instead of making them into responsible adults. Reviewing Roger Epstein's book The Case Against Adolescence: Rediscovering the Adult in Every Teen. Epstein, an expert psychologist, says that our society is preventing children from becoming adults.

We put our children and even young adults into strictly regimented factory schools (including Sunday schools). We keep children away from adults, don't expect adult behavior or responsibility, even prohibit it: teens can't work or drive until 16, can't marry or enter into a contract or smoke until 18, though in past societies such actions were common. All they're allowed or expected to do is go to school, consume food and entertainment, and have no-commitment sex. No wonder they rebel. Teens are capable of far more, as Kirkwood tells us:

At age 14, Andrew Jackson fought in the American War for Independence, was captured by the British. He was also orphaned. David Crockett, hero at the Alamo, struck out on his own at age 12 and returned home four years later a full-grown man. Audie Murphy, who left grade school to support his 11 brothers and sisters, won 33 combat and other service decorations during World War II before he was 20. And David Farragut, chief of the federal navy during the War of Northern Aggression, commanded his first ship at age 12.

Kirkwood is author of Real Men: Ten Courageous Americans to Know and Admire

Honey more effective than cough drugs

ABC news reports that a spoonful of buckwheat honey before bed treats coughs better than over-the-counter medication.

The article notes that honey is inappropriate for children under 1 or 2 years old, but cough and cold medicines are inappropriate for children under 6.

I was out-skinflinted

Skinflint: A miser, one who goes to extremes to save money.

So yesterday, I saw an old man raking leaves at a township hall across from the chapel. He put the leaves into two large plastic bags, and I went to ask him if I could have one of the bags of leaves to help feed my goat in the winter. I don't want my family to have to buy grain or hay, or rake the leaves ourselves.

The man replied that he re-used the bags - this was the third year he had used them. They were heavy plastic, and where they were torn he had repaired them with duct tape. So no leaves for me.

Link for the day:

Alice Brock, owner of "Alice's Restaurant", talks about taking what you have and making something amazing. Which is how she created Cream of Salt and Pepper Soup. Find the recipe and her insight here on NPR's show This I Believe.

Dollar losing more ground

The value of the United States dollar has been declining against metals and foreign currencies for a while now, recently dropping below the Canadian dollar last month. Now it is being rejected by rappers, American expatriates and even Warren Buffet according to the UK Independent. Five years ago, the Dollar was worth about about 0.98E. Now it is worth 0.68E.

Possibly related, the Secret Service (responsible for enforcing currency crimes) and the FBI raided and seized all of the assets of Liberty Dollar, a company which produces silver, gold and copper coins and certificates for use as private currency. The federal government is alleging (pdf warning) that the currency was involved in money laundering and wire fraud.

Fred Thomson (unfairly) pilloried for abortion comments

Fred Thompson may be in trouble with pro-life advocates, reports Robert Novak reported yesterday in the Washington Post.

Apparently Thompson made two missteps. First he mentioned, in a TV interview, that he didn't want to criminalize young girls and the parents of girls who got abortions: "I do not think it is a wise thing to criminalize young girls and perhaps their parents as aiders and abettors... You can't have a [federal] law" that "would take young, young girls . . . and say, basically, we're going to put them in jail."

The article identifies this as a red herring: pro-lifers generally don't want to prosecute abortion recipients. In fact, pro-life groups tend to offer sympathy and support to those who have had abortions. And Thompson should have realized this, but he never endorsed abortion. He merely was trying to distance himself from a body of extreme pro-lifers that apparently is small to non-existent.

Fred Thompson's primary political position is for states' rights, or federalism. Many Republicans and Democrats, liberals and conservatives alike agree in principle with states' rights, until they get a chance to change the entire nation from the top down, as abortion proponents got in Roe v Wade and opponents want in a constitutional amendment banning abortion.

That was Senator Thompson's second costly opinion: initially opposing such an amendment. He wants the abortion debate to take place in the states. On a similar point, he refused to take a position on the Terry Schiavo fiasco in Florida. The opinions led one pro-life agitator to ask: "How, then, can Thompson describe himself as pro-life?"

Because he supports the states banning abortion, that's how. He doesn't have to preach against the evils of abortion every time an interviewer asks about it. That's not the president's job. Nor is it the president's job to oversee a judge's decision on a custody/right-to-life case that is entirely based on Florida state law. If the state doesn't properly protect life, that's its own problem and the federal government doesn't have the authority to change its law or practice. Would Kincaid also criticize Justice Byron White, dissenter to Roe v Wade, when he wrote that Roe interfered with a decision that the people and states should be making themselves?

The constitutional amendment issue has some nuances. Roe v Wade, the Supreme Court decision that declared a Constitutional right to abortion, is incorrect and usurps states' rights. A constitutional amendment is the only way anyone but the Court can change this decision. Perhaps this is why Thompson later came out in favor of such an amendment - or perhaps he was just tired of losing supporters over the issue.

No one is claiming that Fred Thompson actually supports abortion, but if he tries to balance states' rights with ending abortion, we complain that he doesn't take abortion seriously. If he doesn't know the details of a local court case some have studied in depth, we say he's uninformed. Opinions like that make me sick of campaign politics. Instead of looking at the details of how a candidate believes and votes, we expect politicians to shake our hand, sweet-talk us, and not yell "yaaah!". And heaven forbid he once insulted our state's political system.

I'm just glad Thompson has principles, good principles, and doesn't gloss them over when he's courting votes.