Some more from Prager

In my previous blog I mentioned a new book by Dennis Prager called Still the Best Hope. Here are some more comments from his book, which defends traditional values against assaults from the Left and Islam.

1. Liberals frequently criticize conservatives for fearing change. What we fear is transforming that which is already good.

2. Since the Enlightenment, the secular world has had to believe in man (or "humanity") because if you don't believe in God and you don't believe in humanity, you will despair.

3. The Left has a history of many decent people supporting many bad people doing great harm. Good intentions cause most of the world's great evils.

4. In order to do good in both the personal and social spheres, people need wisdom, common sense, and a moral value system.

5. Those of us who grew up in religious Jewish and Christian schools were taught early in life that our heart is an awful guide to doing what is right, that the human being is essentially flawed, that human nature needs to be constantly controlled, and that the greatest moral insights preceded our birth.

6. Those who value wisdom know that when you give people something for nothing, you produce ungrateful people; that when you obscure the differences between men and women, you end up with many aimless men and angry women; that when you give children "self-esteem" without earning it, you produce narcissists who enter adulthood often incapable of empathy and of handling life; that if you do not destroy evil, if will proliferate; and that if you are kind to the cruel, you will end up being cruel to the kind.

7. If you really want goodness to prevail, wisdom is a key to unlocking it. The heart is not.

8. The most closed-minded people in American and European society today are more likely to be on the Left than in the religious world or on the Right.

9. How do Leftists get elected? The answer is that, through its dominance of the news media, entertainment, media, and educational institutions, the Left is able to successfully demonize the Right. The Left rarely convinces Americans to adopt its views. Rather, it creates a fear of the Right.

10. There is much more racism on the Left than on the Right. The very notion that race is a significant human characteristic – a basic Left-wing tenant – is racist. The notion that whites and black, should not be judged by identical moral standards – or even taught similarly – is also racist.

11. American women have more opportunity and more equality than just about any women in the world today and certainly ever in history. In fact, if either sex is more "oppressed" today, is more likely to be males. If women were incarcerated, let alone murdered, as disproportionately as men are; if only 40% of those getting a bachelors degree were female; if girls dropped out of high school at the rate males do; if females committed suicide as often as – let alone considerably more often than – males do, there would be a national outcry. But for feminists, academics, and CBS News, it is women who are "oppressed."

A powerful book on American values

Dennis Prager is a talk show host, who has just come out with a book called Still the Best Hope. The subtitle to the book says it all: "Why the World Needs American Values to Triumph." It is a look at three world systems, which are currently competing for the world's attention – leftism, Islamism, and American values. He analyzes each, showing the weaknesses of the first to and defending American values is the best way for the world to improve. For the next few blogs I would like to include quotes from this book because I think it's powerful.

1. Prager says there is an American Trinity of values: Liberty, In God We Trust, and E Pluribus Unum. He says, "Liberty represents personal freedom, which according to Americanism is dependent upon small government, free economy, and a God-based society. In God We Trust represents a society that regards its liberty, its human rights, and its moral values as ultimately emanating from God. E Pluribus reprerepresents the American value of a society based on neither ethnicity nor race."

2. "Conservative intellectuals are sometimes wrong, but the list of foolish and dangerous ideas on the Left dwarfs the list of such ideas among conservatives: Marxism; Communism; people are basically good; poverty causes crime; men and women are basically the same; women are as likely to seek and enjoy sex without the prospect of commitment as are men; more government money solves most social problems; America was as responsible for the Cold War as was the Soviet Union; a human fetus has no worth, unless the mother says it does; all things being equal, it is not better for a child to have a mother and a father; humans are just another animal."

3. "A major part of the reason for the foolishness of Leftist ideas is the secular world from which they emanate. Its rejection of the basic book of wisdom of the Western world, the Bible, and its similar rejection of almost all pre-20th century wisdom literature along with its emphasis on the value of "change" have led people to rely on their hearts for insights into life. And the heart is the worst place to find wisdom."

One myth about Obamacare (among many)

I never did finish exploring some of the myths associated with Obamacare. So, let's start with this quote from Barack Obama: "If you like your doctor,  you can keep your doctor."

At the time. He said this, over 75% of Americans were happy with their health care, according to polls. So this statement by Obama painted a rosy picture of a future where millions of low-income Americans could join the ranks of those who already had health coverage. And this would not negatively affect the status quo of those who had coverage, according to Obama.

But let's look at the reality. The Congressional Budget Office keeps escalating predictions of how many Americans will end up without health coverage because of Obamacare. The latest estimate has the figure of at least 7 million people who lose their work-provided health coverage.

Why is this going to happen? It is much cheaper for employers to pay a fine for not offering coverage than it is for them to provide coverage. Critics have argued that this point all along, saying that if you provide employers with big incentives to stop offering health insurance, that's exactly what they will do. Industries that have low profit margins (retail, grocers, etc.) will especially want to dump their health insurance.

But this is only part of the problem with Obamacare. It has a requirement that employers must offer health insurance only if they have 50 or more workers were putting in at least 30 hours a week. Well, guess what? It's pretty obvious what is beginning to happen – many firms are reducing full-time workers to avoid having to comply with Obamacare.

So, the result is the American people are stuck with a bill that is likely to cause many of them to lose their doctors, contrary to the promises made by their President. But Obama is not the only one to blame. Shame on all the Americans who voted for him, even when plain economics and hard facts made it clear he was peddling untruths.

A Tale of Two States

A recent Wall Street Journal article compared two oil states – Texas and California. The author's point is that current conditions in both states are a result of good and bad policy choices.

Let's start with Texas. It has doubled its oil output since 2005. Around 400,000 Texans are employed by the oil and gas industry with an average salary  of around $100,000 a year. The industry generates something like $80 billion a year in economic activity.

So how does California compare? Well, oil output is down 21% since 2001. Some might say that this is due to California running out of oil. Not true. Our state has huge reservoirs of oil.

One big reason for the difference between the two states is the political culture. Californians have politicians who don't like fossil fuels and constantly block hydraulic fracturing (fracking) in the state. California has also passed cap-and-trade legislation that adds a lot of cost to conventional energy production and refining.

There's another big contrast. A lot of the Texas oil is on private lands, so oil companies have a chance to work their magic there. However, in California, much of the oil-rich areas are owned by the state or the federal government, so much of it is off limits to oil companies.

What does all this mean? It's no accident, according to the article, the Texas, has been leading the nation in job creation since the recession ended. The energy boom not only creates jobs in the oil industry but also in other industries, such as transportation, high technology, construction, and manufacturing. The Texas jobless rate is close to 6% while California's is the third highest of all states at 9.4%.

One other thing has come out of these two different attitudes. Oil and gas production in Texas has produced so much money in state taxes. The they can avoid a state income tax. Not true in California, where top marginal income-tax and capital-gains tax rate is 13.3%.

What's in the future? Well, it will be interesting to see if our governor out here, Jerry Brown, will split with his party and pursue gas and oil production. Let's hope we start looking a little more like Texas.