A Commencement Redress

Congratulations!  At last you're here...at the culmination of years of
academic effort...after forming lifelong friendships and relationships...
you've earned your degree and the right to be proud of it.

Enjoy it!  The key to your future success is in your hands.  Use it to
open doors that lead to places where you may never have dreamed
of traveling.  Party tonight and celebrate with family and friends.
You've reached one of the key turning points in life.

But keep perspective.  You've just won your first race on the way to
the Olympics.  There are many races and competitions to go, and you
have to make it to the finals to win the gold.



You've proven you can complete the course work.  You have proven
you have a good memory.  You understand and use language and
mathematics well.  You can follow directions, and you have shown
you can think, organize, plan, and prioritize your time well enough to
succeed in academic work.

In short, you have proven a lot, and you have a right to be proud,
but you haven't won the gold medal yet.

Most likely, though, you still have yet to prove that you can deal with
some of life's more difficult challenges, such as...

1.  Are you brave enough to stand up to life's difficult
     challenges, and persevere when all goes wrong?

2.  Are you wise enough to know when to hold 'em and when to
     fold 'em...or when to go all in or all out?

3.  Are you strong enough to stand up for the honorable thing, even
     when it is not to your personal advantage to do it?

4.  Are you are smart enough to recognize the right thing, when
     it appears in front of you?

5.  Are you generous and unselfish enough to sacrifice some of
     your personal ambitions to benefit your family, your loved ones,
     or the community, if necessary?

6.  Are you resilient in the face of persistent day-to-day frustrations?

7.  Can you listen to others and learn from their perspectives,
     even if they are not as "educated" as you are?







Hundreds of thousands have sat where you sit today, proud of
their achievement, and sure that they, and their generation, will
solve the problems that bedevil our society and the world.  Same
as you, they were trained by professors, who also teach and advise
corporate and governmental leaders, special interest groups, quasi-
governmental organizations, and politicians.

Their solutions have always been pretty much the same.  One, take
money from individuals and businesses so that it can be spent on
government programs.  Two, take more money from individuals
and businesses so they can spend it on expanded or new programs.
Finally, three, put your trust in well-educated bureaucrats to make
the wise decision for you.

The solutions almost never result in a choice to eliminate unnecessary
or inefficient programs, to apply new technology to substantially
eliminate waste and graft, or to spend less in tough times.

The bad news is, the money is running out, and the old solutions
aren't working.  The good news is, you're going to be part of the
generation that will have to find new solutions to old problems.

I know, you've just earned your way into the "well-educated
bureaucrat" (or corporate, or professorial) class.  Am I trying
to tell you that you're the problem?

If you can't come up with better solutions, you WILL become part
of the problem, and the future for your generation looks dark.  If you
CAN come up with better solutions, your future can be bright
and shining.  You control your destiny.  You control the country's
destiny.





Lyndon Johnson started the "War on Poverty" almost fifty years
ago.  After spending billions (trillions?) of dollars on program after
program, have we eliminated poverty?  After years of spending
billions on the "War on Drugs", have we eliminated the drug problem?
Did the "best and brightest" manage Vietnam well?

How about business?  Have all those MBAs done right by Wall
Street...or in Washington?  Did all those well-educated regulators
and Wall Street titans foresee or prevent the mortgage market
meltdown, even though it would seem to be a no-brainer to require
proof that a mortgagee has enough income to pay back a loan?  Has
greed, corruption, or foolishness been eliminated?

All those people who helped create this world that you may think is
all screwed up;  they sat where you sit today and thought they were
going to make the world a better place to live.  Hey, Bernie Madoff
sat where you sit today, as happy and optimistic and proud of his
future as you are of yours today.  Don't do Bernie.

Remember, you're at the beginning of your road, not at the final
destination.  Don't think you know all the answers...hopefully, you
will know to ask the right questions.  Keep your eyes and ears open,
and feed what you see and hear into an open mind.  You can learn
from the most unlikely sources.

Formal education is not learning.  Life experience, simmering within
an engaged mind, over a lifetime, leads to learning and to wisdom.
Question what you've been taught and what you hear.  Believe in
yourself and don't be afraid to speak your truth.

I envy you today.  A page is being turned, and your life is starting
anew today.  You have a new beginning, and you are free to choose
what you make of it.  Live it.  Enjoy it.  Revel in it.

Make this world a better place.  

Dueling Mind-Sets

For almost all of human history, the mind-set of governance has been that leaders lead,
and all others are either enforcers for, or followers of, laws created by the elite leaders.

This has been true of leaders endowed with power by divine right, endowed by religious
theocracy,  by the power of the sword, or by the power of a democratic election.

The basic rule is that powerful elites set whatever rules they want, and, as long as they
have the power to enforce their decisions, everyone else must follow the rules...and, if
another set of leaders takes control, then the new leaders set the rules.  Same
mind-set, different rulers.

When America was formed, a different mind-set took hold.  The basic idea was that
each individual should have the freedom to choose their own road in life, and accept
the risks and rewards that come with their new found freedom.

No longer would a powerful elite control all individuals, and, to ensure that the
federal government would not have the power to intrude into citizen's lives, the
federal government was limited to specific powers, with other specific powers
delegated to the states.

In addition, individual rights were specified that could not be violated by the federal
or state governments.

Finally, the federal government was divided into three distinct parts, legislative,
executive, and judicial...in order to make sure that no one in the federal government could
achieve enough power to prevent individuals from attaining life, liberty, and their
own pursuits of happiness.

Granted, this is all basics civics, but the difference between the two mind-sets is
still in play in the politics of the current day.

When you listen to politicians, do not pay attention to what they are labeled or to
their political party.  They might be Democrats or Republicans, Conservatives or
Liberals.

What matters is their mind-set.  What matters is how they think. Listen to what they
say and ask yourself "Do they want the power to control my life, or do they think I'm
competent to make my own decisions?"  "Do they look at me as an individual, or
do they look at me as a cog in a demographic group that they can manipulate?"

Actually, a better question would be "Do I look at myself as a competent individual, or
am I just a mindless part of a demographic group?".

There have always been, and will always be, elites that feel they know better than you
how you should live your life.  They have always thirsted for power to enforce their will
upon others...always, of course, for your benefit, not theirs.  And, it is true that some
limits do need to be in place to prevent individual freedom from turning into anarchy.






But it is no coincidence that somehow, in the history of the world, those elites have never
delivered the freedom and the economic and human progress that the American
Experiment did in just a few hundred years.  For all its problems, America is still one
country that has most learned to embrace diversity and live together; a shining symbol
showing the rest of the world what can be accomplished with good will and tolerance.

Even in America, little by little, year by year, elites have slowly been "transforming" the
federal government from its originally intended limited purposes into a gigantic
conglomerate of regulations, entitlements, promises, spending, and power...a
conglomerate that is well on its way to bankruptcy or to oppressive taxation for
future generations.

Before you vote, listen.  Listen hard to what politicians are saying, and ask yourself, "Am
I voting for a safety net, or am I voting for a way of life?

Look.  Look hard, not only at what they are saying, but at the effects of what they are
doing.  Whether by good intention, or not, the effect of much of the federal legislation
over the last hundred years has been to curtail individual freedom and initiative, and to
replace it with regulation, intimidation, and favoritism.

Its a good thing to have control enough to prevent anarchy...but too much control is a
vice, not a virtue.  Do not throw away that which has made us great for that which will
make us mundane.

The greatest gift mankind had ever been given was the freedom our founders
bestowed on this country. 

The burden of history has fallen upon this generation.  We will either be remembered
as the generation that gave that freedom away, or as the generation that took it back.
I don't know how this story will end.  I hope we'll fight to take it back, but I fear
we'll give it up.

Each individual will have to take a side. I hope you pick the right side.