We have to do better.

So things have been a bit crazy for me as of late. I have been looking for more permanent employment and now have multiple offers to choose from. A wonderful opportunity has been offered to my husband which will have a major impact on our lives. Last night I was robbed at gunpoint. Yes things have been crazy.

I am pretty certain that anyone reading this is now focusing your interest on the robbery so that's what I will discuss in this post.

I was on my way to one of my favorite bars in town. It is a divey gay bar, nothing like the flashy, techno music filled gay bars you see on TV that are populated with buff, shirtless, men. It isn't in the best part of town, but I have never felt unsafe there, heck I don't live in the best part of town and I feel safe in my own neighborhood so there is no reason I would feel unsafe at this bar. So I pull into the parking lot while talking to my husband on my cell phone. I see that my normal parking space directly in front of the building is occupied and so I take a parking spot under a street light next to the road. I am sitting in my car finishing up my conversation when I hear loud voices screaming for me to open the door and fists pounding on my driver side window. Having people approach you asking for money or a cigarette is not uncommon at this bar so I wasn't too worried and I certainly wasn't going to open the door. Then I saw the gun.

Standing outside my car were two kids, literally they were maybe 15 years old, they were so young that I took a quick second glance at the gun to make sure it didn't have an orange tip on the barrel indicating it was a toy. Sadly it was the real thing and so I decided the best thing I could do was follow their instructions and hope for the best. They screamed for me to give them my money. I took out my wallet which one of them quickly grabbed and emptied of the small amount of cash in it before tossing it to the ground. I was then told to empty my pockets which I did while saying that I only had a cigarette lighter, apparently this was something else they were in need of since they took that as well. The next thing I heard was "I need that too" as my cell phone, still connected to my husband's phone, was ripped out of my hand. Then as quickly as it started it was over with the two kids running off into the distance.

I grabbed my wallet, thankfully they had only grabbed my cash and not my credit cards or driver's license, walked into the bar and asked the bar tender to call the police. Within minutes the bar's parking lot took on the appearance of a police station during a shift change as it was filled with patrol cars, unmarked cars driven by detectives, and even two cars from the K-9 unit. They took down a considerable amount of information, walked the dogs around the area, took finger prints from my car, spoke with the bar tender and then left. As I tried to calm down I called my husband back to let him know I was OK and to try and calm him down as well. I then went into the bar where my friends consoled me, bought me drinks, and offered me money.

I am really lucky. I lost some cash and a cell phone (although I really miss that phone after spending a day with my old cell phone) but I was alive and reminded that a lot of people care very much for me and that God is looking out for me. Yes, I am very lucky. I wish I could say the same for the two young men who robbed me.

I do hope that the police are able to catch my assailants, if they get away with this it will simply reinforce their behavior. But I can't help thinking about what led them to this point. I would say that neither of my attackers were over the age of 15 and while they ultimately bear the responsibility for their actions we can't understand how they got to the point of thinking that armed robbery is acceptable or unavoidable without understanding that our society, our economy, our education system, our family structures, our churches, and all of the rest of us have failed these kids. If they are at this point this early in their lives what does the future hold for them? If they are caught what is the chance that they will find rehabilitation? What are the chances that will simply learn to be more effective criminals? Some may say that is simply luck that I was born into a white, middle class, suburban environment and bad luck caused my robbers to be born into completely different circumstances. Luck is one way of describing it, I believe recognizing it as injustice is more accurate.

If you look around the world you will see that the places with the highest poverty levels and the areas with the highest levels of income inequality are the areas with the highest crime rates. We have made the conscious decision that in America we are OK with economic injustices as long as we don't feel we are personally effected by them or as long as we can hold onto our fantasies of over coming them. This means that we have decided that we are also OK with people suffering because of no fault of their own. We are OK with people being trapped in addiction and not having the resources to extract themselves from their chemical prisons. We are OK with people dying from easily treated illnesses because they can't afford the care that they need. Because we are OK with all of these thing we must realize that we are also OK with the property and violent crimes they spawn. We can, to a great extent, solve our nation's crime problem, but we don't want to. The police, no matter how hard they work, can really only respond to crimes once they are committed, they are almost completely unable to prevent crimes. We, as a society, can prevent crimes but apparently we don't want to. We are satisfied to just complain about crime without doing anything about it and to see the lives of people like the two kids who robbed me ruined. We are the land of the incarcerated and the home of the afraid. We have to do better.

Free market insanity

I have been in a discussion today with someone who believes the biggest problem with America's health care system is too much government regulation. This person claims that before the government got heavily involved in the health care market health care was much more affordable. I have to say that he is correct. In the 1800's health care, along with pretty much everything else, was cheaper. The question is was it any good?

In the 1800's the health care industry wasn't run by scientists or doctors or even accountants. No, in the 1800's our more free market health care system was run by traveling snake oil salesmen who would pour whatever they could find into a bottle, put a label on it making all sorts of claims for what it could do, and then sell it without any concern about who it might hurt. Many people became addicted to cocaine and morphine which were sold freely as cure-alls. People were lucky if they lived past their 40's. Completely unsubstantiated and ineffective treatments gained great popularity, why? Because the market was free enough to allow all of this to happen.

I will freely admit that it is possible to over regulate markets, but over regulation is a lesser evil than under regulation. Sparse or non-existent regulations allowed markets to give us things like the 1929 stock market crash, credit default swap bubbles, housing bubbles, monopolies, baby cribs that allow children to become injured. A free market gave us Justin Beiber and Milli Vanilli.

Markets don't operate in our best interests. Removing regulations will not solve all of our problems. A free market doesn't lift us up, it reduces us all to the lowest common denominator because that is where the greatest profits are found. Regulations spur innovation faster than the market can. If the government tells you that you can't do something that has made you a lot of money you will find a way to change what you are doing much faster than you would if you were only motivated by market forces.

Market forces can provide us with great things, they can also be very destructive. If we ignore the bad and only see the good we will be destroyed by the negative impacts of relying strictly on the free market. We should be striving for balance when it comes to business regulation, instead it seems our nation has shifted to striving for insanity.

Mitt Romney, the first speech of his new campaign

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Tonight Mitt Romney made his first speech of the general election campaign after winning the Republican primary contests in New York, Delaware,Pennsylvania, Rhode Island, and Connecticut. Yes, there are still a few states left that haven't held their primaries but Romney has, without a doubt, arrived at the point where it is safe to call him the Republican presidential nominee. So how was the speech?

Romney's speech was as interesting for what it didn't touch on as what it did. Through out the primary issues of importance to social conservatives dominated even though the economy is what most Americans say is the primary issue in this election. Rick Santorum made certain that social issues stayed at the forefront and it is no surprise that Romney, who is not seen as a strong social conservative, would choose to avoid these issues since they don't work in his favor with independent voters. It was surprising to see how little mention was made of the health care plan signed into law by President Obama that was based on the health care plan that was signed into law by Romney while he was governor of Massachusetts. This is a big issue with conservatives but a hard issue for Romney since he has to demonize his own health care plan to attack Obama's plan. My guess is that Romney is hoping that the US Supreme Court will eliminate this issue some time over the Summer. One of the most interesting things that the speech didn't touch on, as pointed out in the video clip by Rachel Maddow, is the ground in any of the states that voted. Romney chose to make his speech in New Hampshire, the same state in which he declared his candidacy in this election. It was a big signal, along with all of the "A better America begins today" signs, that this is the point in which the reset button has been pushed, the point in which the Etch-A-Sketch is shaken vigorously, and a brand new campaign begins.

I give Romney credit, it was a good speech. I believe the fact checkers will have a fun time with some of the things he said. "Those who promise to spread the wealth around only ever succeed in spreading poverty." a statement like this makes you realize that Romney is unaware that President Johnson's "War on Poverty" brought the percentage of the US population living under poverty to the lowest point it had ever been since we started keeping records about poverty levels and to a much lower level than it is today. But who cares about facts? This was a very Reaganesque speech that will have great appeal to many conservative voters as it talked about things like fairness in a way that makes sense to conservatives but that is lost on liberals. He also pushed an idea that I mentioned in a blog post a few weeks ago, that the Democrats are the party of survival, while the Republicans are the party of success. This doesn't mean success for everyone but unimaginable success for some. It appeals to the lottery ticket mentality of voting. Your chances of success might not be great if you vote for a Republican, but those slim chances are attached to something much more appealing than what the Democrats are offering. This concept, I believe, is a good one for winning independent voters and has served Republican candidates very well in the past. In our current economic situation I think it is a sensible tact for Romney to take.

So can the Obama team get out the message that Democrats have plans to allow a greater number of Americans to find success instead of the very few that the Republican plan will help? Can they turn Romney into a liberal who looks to have very few differences with Obama which would surely cost Romney conservative votes. Even Santorum once advised voters to choose Obama over Romney since at least we know what we will be dealing with if Obama is reelected. If the economy continues to improve and even picks up a bit more steam will any of this matter? If the economy takes a turn for the worse can Obama convince voters that Romney is thrilled that they are suffering more? Will Obama's charisma help him find victory over the Republican John Kerry? Will either candidate make a guest appearance on Glee? The next few months could turn out to be very interesting.