It's always something. We need the rain, but when it comes this time of year it has consequences.
Speaking of rain...the Feds announced zero allocation for water deliveries this year. That reminds me of the story about the two French Foreign Legionnaires. They are deep in the desert and their canteens are empty. One looks at the other and says, "What do we do now Pierre?
(Think phonetically- "Pee air." Ba dump bump)
In other news-
The onions are mostly in. They didn't quite finish. That will get done on Monday and we will start stringing sprinkler lines. There is more rain on the way. If we do this right we will not have to run sprinklers at all.
The op-ed below is not quite a 'farm' piece. But, sadly farmers spend a lot of time involved in politics. Something finally struck me last summer. As much as I like politics, politics has its limits.
The Failure of
Politics
By Paul H. Betancourt
Copyright March 2015
The Failure of Politics
from the 60’s.
There was a lot of optimism in
the 60’s. There were also a lot of drugs in the 60’s and there may be a
connection her, but I digress.
I have
lived with the naive idea that my daughter lives in a world with more
opportunity than her grandmothers had. She is a bright and beautiful young
women and rising in her profession.
Recently I was talking with my niece, another bright and beautiful young
woman. She is finishing her degree in engineering at one of our fine state
universities. She was telling me that if one professor can tell you are a woman
while grading papers the highest grade possible for that female student will be
a ‘B’. What? This is a professor at one of our politically correct
universities! How can this happen? The university knows it is happening, but
they can’t fire him because he is tenured. They hire extra teaching assistants
so he can’t mark down the women in his class.
There is so
much wrong in this situation it is hard to know where to begin. First, tenure
was given to protect academic freedom, not allow people to be sexist piggies.
Second, what is the bureaucracies solution to this problem? Hire more staff.
Third, how can this kind of blatant sexism exist in an institution like a state
university with all of its high minded rhetoric about equality. If this
happened in some Midwestern private school politically correct Californians
would mock them for being behind the times. It is happening here and now in the
People’s Republic of California.
Lest we
think this is an isolated incident, I mentioned this story to some young
professional women I know and they started with their own stories of sexism in
the workplace. I thought we had dealt with these issues a generation ago.
Wherever
you stand on the issue of what happened in Ferguson, Missouri last summer, it
is obvious racial tensions are high in our country.
Recently former President Clinton was quoted as saying
racial and gender issues are dividing the nation. You don’t need a PhD in
political science to see that. But, hasn’t government been at the forefront of
dealing with these issues for decades?
The War on Poverty was declared by President Johnson in 60’s
and we now have 47 million people on food stamps. [Excuse me, they are EBT
cards which you can use at fast food joints, but don’t get me started.]
Matters of the Heart
What does work are basic civil liberties and basic civil
rights. What does not work is socializing society. It hasn’t worked here and it
hasn’t worked in Europe.
These issues are issues of morality and faith and they
cannot be addressed by politics. We have tried to take faith out of the
equation but that has not worked either. These are moral issues that will never
be solved by mere politics.
We were
going to end racism, and we did legally. But, we are still as segregated a
country as we ever were. Racial tensions in some areas are still high.
We were
going to make equality an issue and yet forty years after passage of the first
equal pay law we are still arguing about equal pay.
The War on
Poverty has been going on for almost fifty years and we have more people than
ever on food stamps, or excuse me, EBT cards.
What does
work in politics are basic civil liberties and basic civil rights. What has not
worked is social engineering. Not that we haven’t tried. The reason is basic
civil liberties and basic civil rights are definable and enforceable. Prejudice
and equality are matters of the heart and mind. You cannot force a change of
heart.
Emile
Durkheim, the founder of the academic discipline of sociology, famously said,
“If men are moral, no laws are necessary. If men are not moral, then no laws
are sufficient.”
It is an
axiom of public policy that you cannot legislate morality. It is an axiom we
ignore, but there is a lot of truth to this idea. We cannot legislate morality
because morality is an issue of the heart.
We are
trying to take religion out of the public arena. I understand how religion has
been a divisive issue over time. But, that fact is the solutions to our
societal issues will not be found in politics. These are matters of the heart,
these are matters of who we are. In faith we can find the better angels of our
nature.
In faith we
can see our common humanity. Without faith we forget we are children of the same
God. If we can start from the point of our common humanity we can rebuild our
social fabric.
Of course
there are those who say that religion is a source of problems not solutions. I
agree, that is why I use the word ‘faith’, instead of religion. In addition,
take a quick peak back at 20th Century history. There were numerous
attempts in different countries and cultures and they were each complete
disasters in terms of social equality and peace. The Soviet government killed
over 25 million of its own people. The Nazis exterminated those it considered
‘other’. The Chinese communists plowed over the lives of its own people.
If Politics is Not the Answer…
We Have Not Lived Up to Dr. King’s Dream
What Lincoln said to a
nation at the brink of civil war can be said today,
We are not enemies, but friends. We must
not be enemies. Though passion may have strained, it must not break our bonds
of affection. The mystic chords of memory will swell when again touched, as
surely they will be, by the better angels of our nature
Mere politics cannot live up to
Dr. King’s dream. The Founding Fathers set up a framework for basic freedom from
government and opportunity, but we have to work out the details. We cannot
legislate better race relations anymore than we can legislate a good marriage
or a good neighborhood. A generation ago Dr. King shared his dream-
I have a dream that one day this nation will rise up and live out
the true meaning of its creed: "We hold these truths to be self-evident,
that all men are created equal."
I have a dream that one day on the red hills of Georgia, the sons
of former slaves and the sons of former slave owners will be able to sit down
together at the table of brotherhood…
I have a dream that my four little children will one day live in a
nation where they will not be judged by the color of their skin but by the
content of their character.
I have a dream today!
The news of
the past year makes it clear we have not lived up to Dr. King’s Dream. We still
have work to do. Will you join me?
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