Ignoring Ron Paul

Ignore Ron Paul at your peril.

In fact, even if you take full notice of the Texas Congressman, yet commit the heresy of concluding that he will not be elected president of the United States, you are still asking for a little bit of peril.

As a commentator on the slight right, one becomes inured to blowback and hate mail. A number of us earned our stripes during the 2008 presidential campaign when we learned, to our great surprise, that opposing Barack Obama made us horrible, horrible racists.

But something that started with the 2008 Paul campaign has become a notable feature of this cycle – that is, the Texas-sized chip Paul’s supporters carry on their shoulders. Sincere and energetic, perhaps even well-meaning, these people are perpetually poised to get honked off.

If you follow politics and political reporting, you have probably seen some of this. They flood websites, send angry emails, shout at newscasters shooting in public, and demand that the media “Stop ignoring Ron Paul!”

You may also have seen some pre-emptive apologies from broadcasters and commentators, cognizant of the disproportionate response they will get from Paul’s supporters if they do not show him adequate deference, regardless of his chances of victory.

I do not blame Rep. Paul personally for this. Indeed, I have met and talked with him, and found him to be a nice enough man. Even so, I do not believe he will ever be president of the United States. That’s not a personal slight, or a function of corporate interests supposedly pulling my strings. Lots of people won’t be president (Jon Huntsman, a word, please?). It’s not a dig to say so.

The commitment of Paul’s supporters, including and especially younger people whom you might not expect to see at political events, particularly Republican ones, is fascinating. Their demeanor, versus that of the man they purport to represent, as well as the age gap between them and him, make for a compelling picture. How is it that this unassuming man can motivate folks in this way? There’s an anthropology thesis in there somewhere.

Paul is an accomplished person, who has garnered a profoundly committed political following. He can claim a number of other achievements that I and many others could never match: For example, he has earned a medical degree and got himself elected to Congress.

But all things being equal, even including his recent second-place showing in New Hampshire primary polls, the chances of America electing a 76-year-old, isolationist Congressman to be only the second person in history to go straight from the House of Representatives to the presidency are remote.

The truth is, no one ignores Paul. Everyone reading this column knows precisely who he is, what he has said, and the things he represents. On some issues, he is sage; on others, he is out where the buses don’t run. For all his strengths and imperfections, he has attained clear fame.

But let us suppose that, not for the first time, I am dead wrong and Paul has a chance. I was wrong in 2008 when I thought a radical-snuggling lightweight like Barack Obama could not wrest the Democratic nomination from Hillary Clinton and go on to win the White House (more fool me, for underestimating the awesome and destructive power of white liberal guilt). In 2012, I hope I am even more wrong.

For example, in a recent column, I casually remarked that Herman Cain wouldn’t win, and boy howdy would I like to be wrong about that. Not long after I cast my judgment, Cain won the Florida 5 Straw Poll in a landslide, and Zogby shows him with an outright lead in national polls. His 9-9-9 plan, representing nine percent tax rates on corporations, personal income, and sales, is the boldest and most invigorating proposal of any GOP candidate. If a President Cain could actually enact such a system, America would be restored to global economic supremacy in a jiffy.

But back to the Congressman from Texas. We could do a lot worse than a President Paul, and have done (see: “Obama, Barack”). There are a number of domestic policy areas in which Paul is strong, even visionary. As two quick examples, if he could actually audit the Federal Reserve and abolish the Department of Homeland Security, I would be eager and glad to thank him.

Paul was unfairly ridiculed when he spoke of “capital flight,” which he extrapolated to suggest that the proposed fence on the southern border could be used to keep Americans in, rather than to keep Mexicans out. While actual physical impediments to leaving may or may not be in America’s future, from a taxation and capital perspective, Paul is correct. For example, as this column recently noted, the IRS claims authority over the income and assets of U.S. citizens, no matter where they live in the world. If a law-abiding, non-resident American, all paid up on their taxes, decides he or she would prefer to be free of this obligation and renounce their U.S. citizenship, the IRS may simply refuse to let them go. If a person’s income is above a certain amount, or if their net worth exceeds two million dollars, the IRS will require tax filings from that person for another decade at least, after which they will review the case. Even Russia does not do this, nor does China. America sure does.

In this way, America is easier to get into than to leave. This was Paul’s point, and such a system is anathema to the “Land of the Free.”

But it is on foreign policy that Paul falls down. His instincts are correct, inasmuch as in overseas matters, particularly the Middle East, America is constantly picking the wrong friends, arming the wrong people, and jamming its thumbs into complex problems it has neither the capacity nor humility to understand.

Even so, to expect or advocate America’s withdrawal from international defense obligations is unrealistic. Moreover, Paul’s assertion that 9/11 was brought about by U.S. “occupation,” apart from its deal-breaking offensiveness, neglects the fanatical and murderous nature of Islamist terrorism.

The economy may be the most important issue of this campaign – and on some economic issues, Paul is very good. But when discussion turns to foreign policy and Paul posits that Iran’s jihadist maniacs will be circumscribed by the notion of Mutually Assured Destruction, as the Soviets were, so why shouldn’t they have a nuclear bomb, then he is just too far wrong to lead America.

One more thought on angry supporters, please. Paul is not the only politician whose backers are getting their backs up of late. It seems some fans of Sarah Palin have gone feral. Even Ann Coulter, for years one of Palin’s most vocal defenders, has remarked that it’s no longer worth discussing the former Alaska governor on TV, lest she put a foot wrong and get an earful for it.

The insistence that Palin is suited to the Oval Office is somewhat akin to liberal demands that we all concur Obama is brilliant. Proponents’ only recourse is to attack those who disagree. I reject these shibboleths, but remain curious about just what’s gotten under the Palin people’s saddles.

This is, indeed, a new phenomenon, to see such furious behavior from supposed conservatives. Supercilious as it may sound, we simply don’t do that sort of thing. I wonder how many other rightist commentators have perused the day’s batch of electronic ire and, upon squinting, realized that an angry, misspelled, ALL CAPS, insulting diatribe is, for once, not from an outraged Obama hopey-changer, or a Moveon.org maven, or from Teresa Heinz-Kerry – but from one of ours!

Fair enough, though. Let’s have some fun with it.

Inviting a perfect storm of Republican hate mail (and, to be clear, such a thing should not exist – you’re better than that), I will say that if I had to choose between Sarah Palin and Ron Paul for president of the United States, I’d take Paul every day of the week and twice on Sundays.


Theo Caldwell, an international investor and broadcaster, has been a member of the New York Stock Exchange, the Chicago Board Options Exchange, the American Stock Exchange, and the Kansas City Board of Trade. He can be reached at theo@theocaldwell.com

 

Romney or Perry? Neither

Michele Bachmann made some sense. Near the end of the GOP presidential debate in Orlando, Florida, she observed, “Every four years, Republicans are told they have to settle.” The congresswoman’s meaning was that the party always gets urged toward someone moderate and “electable” – you know, like John McCain – rather than picking a proper conservative to run for president.

While Bachmann herself remains highly unlikely to become that proper conservative nominee, the current Republican frontrunners, former Massachusetts Governor Mitt Romney and Texas Governor Rick Perry, offer precious little hope.

In Romney’s case, his economic plan, particularly on taxes, is anemic, timid, and out of synch with the mood of the time. Perry, meanwhile, evinces an inexcusable lack of specificity and comprehension.

I don’t give a sweet tinker’s damn that Romney and Perry “look presidential,” as folks so often point out. Does a nation cracking under massive taxation, undermined and demoralized by ubiquitous government rules for living, find comfort in its president’s glorious hair or breathtaking haberdashery?

America needs bold, fearless and thoughtful leadership in order to regain its freedom and right its economy. Thus far, the two candidates most favored to contend with Barack Obama for the presidency offer nothing of the kind.

One wonders why and how men like Romney and Perry ascend to front-runner status, given the paucity of good ideas they put forward, in contrast to their struggling rivals. The best tax proposals to date have been advanced by Herman Cain – who will not win – and former Minnesota Governor Tim Pawlenty – who was never going to win either, and is now out of the race.

Indeed, after Pawlenty withdrew, Romney got his endorsement and Perry hired his advertising guys, but neither candidate had the good sense to copy his tax plan. In Perry’s case, it remains possible that he will come out with something similar but, after three debates and almost two months as a candidate, it is unacceptable that he has not done so. As for Romney, his prescription is a mess.

Cutting corporate taxes only modestly, from 35 to 25 percent, as Romney proposes, would still leave America’s rates on business much higher than those of its competitor nations. Such a move would do not one blasted thing to attract investment, but might well reduce tax revenue. Likewise, eliminating taxes on capital gains, dividends and interest only for those making under $200,000 will do nothing to encourage job-creators or goose the economy.

This sort of insipid rate-fidgeting solves no problems and satisfies no one. It is precisely the split-the-difference nonsense one unfortunately expects from tasseled-loafered Northeastern Republicans who, despite their party affiliation, are not truly animated by freedom-minded notions.

To wit, America did not have its 2010 political awakening just to end up with Romney tinkering with the tax code. A comprehensive reduction of rates is what is required, leading to an outright overhaul of the system. That is, corporate rates should be cut to 15% or less straight away, capital gains, dividend and interest taxes should be scrapped for everyone, and a single rate on income of 23% or below should be the order of the day. So why would Romney advocate such an anodyne plan instead? Does he believe that limp, non-threatening proposals will make him more palatable in the general election? Oh, for Heaven’s sake.

I have every confidence that Romney would defeat Obama. But so what? Will that usher in a new birth of freedom, as America hopes to find?

Is it any stretch to imagine President Romney shaking his head and waving his hands in his now-familiar gestures of equivocation, explaining to the American people why he couldn’t just take the limited government option on some issue or other – taxes, spending, oil drilling or debt, for example? Moreover, does anyone really think President Romney will ever present the sort of comprehensive reform for which the nation is clamoring? Would he abolish the EPA or the Department of Education? Would he wipe out the monstrous, 70,000-page tax code and start afresh? Not likely.

“I’m a business guy,” Romney pleads, and this may seem a strong quality to those who are unfamiliar with the sort of empty suits and silly-bears one routinely encounters in the “business” world.

In its conventions, redundancies, made-up language and pointless puffery, corporate culture rivals government itself for outright defiance of satire. There is good reason that iterations of “The Office” have resonated with millions of viewers on two continents. Mitt Romney might not be Michael Scott, but one could see him as David Wallace, the by-the-book, milquetoast CFO who does everything right, but still gets it wrong, and finds himself selling “Suck It” out of his palatial home.

As for Perry, where is his plan and, perhaps more important, what does he truly believe? We’ve heard about his HPV-Gardasil gack, and his repeated, cloying answer about how he “chose life” in mandating that sixth-grade girls be immunized against sexually transmitted disease does not serve him well. But on Social Security, taxes, and other specific issues, where is Perry’s core? We don’t see it. And at this point, one suspects we don’t see it because it isn’t there.

Studying up – as so many suggested Sarah Palin ought to do – is not the answer. If you want to be president of the United States, a cogent political and economic philosophy should be part of who you are, not something you manufacture just to get the job. This does not mean you should be a bloodless, single-minded creature, bred and raised to run for political office (Al Gore, please call your office), but you ought to have spent time thinking in an expansive way about what works and what does not, developing a personal set of beliefs as to the proper role of government.

So who else is there? If Republicans could wave their magic wands and pick their presidential champions, after a Harry Potter-type battle, we would likely see some pairing of Jeb Bush, Paul Ryan, Marco Rubio and Chris Christie on the ticket.

But since none of these men is on offer for the 2012 contest, we have to do the best we have with what we’ve got. What to do, what to do…

Everyone please keep calm, but may we take one more look at Newt Gingrich? No doubt, complaints about his negative ratings and personal foibles practically write themselves – for me personally, the advertising image of him and Nancy Pelosi, seated on an outdoor loveseat, pretending to care about “climate change,” periodically hits me like shellshock. But the former Speaker (Gingrich, not Pelosi) is smarter than any two of the other GOP candidates combined and, his shortcomings notwithstanding, he has bold plans for the nation and understands the wider world.

Rumpled and corpulent, Gingrich doesn’t even “look presidential,” and God bless him for that. In debate after debate, Gingrich shows that he has thought through the issues of the day, and in presenting his views, he is fearless – as well he might be, since he is yesterday’s man with nothing to lose.

Barack Obama can and should be defeated in 2012. But in choosing his replacement, America should not settle.

Theo Caldwell, an international investor and broadcaster, has been a member of the New York Stock Exchange, the Chicago Board Options Exchange, the American Stock Exchange, and the Kansas City Board of Trade. He can be reached at theo@theocaldwell.com

 

Hail to the Hobgoblin

Ralph Waldo Emerson famously and aptly observed that, “A foolish consistency is the hobgoblin of little minds.” Coming from his essay, “Self-Reliance,” the full quotation asserts such folly is, “adored by little statesmen and philosophers and divines.”

As if further proof of Emerson’s wisdom and foresight were needed, along comes America’s divine philosopher, President Barack Obama, abetted by his band of little statesmen, presenting yet another misbegotten plan to tax and spend – perfectly consistent with his foolish policies to date.

Following on a disastrous trillion-dollar “stimulus” plan, along with job-killing regulations across the land, the president now promises more of the same, including $1.5 trillion in new taxes. And as though government had not grown enough under his watch, he proposes that nanny state programs be expanded, proving once and for all that “Self-Reliance” has no place in Obama’s America.

At this point, Obama’s speeches practically write themselves. Each time he speaks, the only suspense lay in wondering just how big the tax bill will be. Full marks, as they say, for consistency.

The hobgoblin’s hallmark is a refusal to learn. But “little minds”? Really? Can we say such a thing about Obama and our betters at Harvard, NPR and the New York Times? Boy howdy (for the benefit of liberal readers, that means “yes”).

To abide on the left is to inhabit a little mind. Like a Manhattan studio apartment, there isn’t much space, so only the most cherished items are kept. There is no room for new ideas, only the single set of tired nostrums they inherited.

And so, in the parlance of William James, liberals simply rearrange their prejudices in lieu of thinking. Each iteration of Obama’s economic prescription bears this out, as new words are used to describe the same abysmal ideas.

“Stimulus” becomes a “jobs plan,” “tax hikes” become “revenue increases,” and “government spending” becomes “investment.”

This president doesn’t have a plan, he has a thesaurus. But this is the way of the left – they know only one way of looking at the world, and all their years marinating in news rooms, or the academy, or at Starbucks are spent coming up with novel and clever ways to say the same dopey things.

To wit, taxes always need to be higher, the rich are always wrong, Republicans are always stupid, Christianity is for cranks, and it’s all America’s fault.

I think it saves time to forego the common conservative courtesy of pretending liberals are intelligent just because, well, everyone says so. Even if this were true, it’s irrelevant so long as the left refuses to look at issues from any side but their own. This is why you find supposedly brilliant leftists observing a demonstrable and conventional conservative notion – such as, lower tax rates can lead to higher revenue – with the same screeching suspicion as the prehistoric primates beholding the monolith in 2001: A Space Odyssey.

But in case it’s helpful, let’s revisit this notion of superior liberal intelligence one more time. After years of scrutiny and contemplation, I consider this president, along with Joe Biden and the vast majority of Obama’s Cabinet, individually and collectively, to be dumb as a sack of doorknobs.

The grand prize for fatuity goes to Department of Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano – a “man-caused disaster” in her own right and the most malign and breathtaking imbecile in American public life.

As the Obama Administration’s fecklessness applies to the economy, this one-note approach is doing real and perhaps permanent damage to America. Increased government spending, debt and taxes have been tried and found wanting. Their outright refusal to contemplate a new paradigm, even as their own has failed so obviously and spectacularly, reveals unfathomable selfishness and intellectual vanity.

Much is made of the fact that none of Obama’s inner circle has ever run a private business, and that’s fair enough, so far as it goes. This would not be dispositive, however, if these folks showed at least some willingness to adapt and learn. It’s not just “experience” that matters – it’s judgment, too.

A person can “experience” something for ages, but still reach the wrong conclusions. New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg, for example, has business “experience” to beat the band, but he has not the first clue about personal freedom or the proper role of government.

But even as unemployment soars and markets crash, Obama seems to imagine he has the country on his side – or, at least, that he can sway the national mood with just one more speech. Before seeing his poll numbers smacked by the debt ceiling negotiations, Obama reportedly warned Republican Rep. Eric Cantor that he would take his case, “to the American people,” as though this would turn the tide.

A similar attitude was on display when Obama addressed a joint session of Congress recently, suggesting there would be serious consequences if they did not pass his bill promptly. “I intend to take that message to every corner of the country,” the president ominously intoned, giving a stern look to all assembled.

Does Obama think he’s threatening anyone with this sort of talk? We are told that the presidency is a bubble, but is Obama so isolated that he is completely unaware of the punch-line he has become?

What politician up for election in 2012 is frightened of having to run against Obama’s record or cowed by the prospect that he may deploy another speech? Seriously, is Obama still taken by his own “I’m LeBron, baby” braggadocio?

Until recently, many of us who considered Obama to be a plodding, humorless, lousy speaker were like the early Christians, communicating our beliefs in no more than a whisper, since the consequences of being found out just weren’t worth the hassle. Now, though, everyone is coming to this realization and, as we long-time critics come blinking out of the catacombs, we say to our new friends, especially you independent voters, “Welcome.”

Of course, hectoring speeches can be forgiven if the substance is sound. Obama, though, offers the worst of both worlds. You can teleprompt bad ideas ‘til the cows come home, but that don’t make them right.

There is nothing for it but that America must elect a new president. As to who that will be, we cannot know, but in choosing a chief executive, the country has nowhere to go but up. Mitt Romney’s tax reform policy is limp – it’s basically Jon Huntsman’s plan without the sanctimony and Mandarin-speaking – and Rick Perry’s has yet to be revealed.

But any available candidate at least offers the hope that America will shake off the hobgoblin of foolish consistency and try something new.

Theo Caldwell, an international investor and broadcaster, has been a member of the New York Stock Exchange, the Chicago Board Options Exchange, the American Stock Exchange, and the Kansas City Board of Trade. He can be reached at theo@theocaldwell.com

 

An Unimportant President

Rick Perry wants to be unimportant. The Texas Governor has famously promised that, if he is elected president of the United States, he will "work hard every day to make Washington, DC, as inconsequential to your life as possible." In Austin recently, he gave a few of us some details as to how that shakes out.
 
Freedom is the watchword of the unimportant president.  Perry relates how, in a recent visit to Gaffney, South Carolina, a woman who runs a small business asked him to say something that would give her hope. Perry replied that he would, “take the boot of regulation and taxation off her neck.”  The woman was moved to visible emotion.
 
The pledge resonates in a country where all but the ideologically blinded recognize that government micromanagement, overspending, and confiscatory taxation stand in the way of economic growth.  And it is getting worse – as Pete du Pont notes in the Wall Street Journal, 369 new federal business regulations came into effect in July alone.
 
But would any politician spend the time and money required to get himself elected to the most powerful office in the world, only to turn around and dismantle its influence?  Candidates of both parties make such promises, but would Perry actually deliver?  An unimportant president would certainly be a step up from what America has now – a self-important president.  Everything you do is some of his business.  And this compulsion to control your life, coupled with his preening self-regard, makes America’s current leader ridiculous.
 
To be clear, it is ridiculous that Barack Obama is president of the United States.  And as Perry’s prospects and those of his Republican rivals are contemplated, it is worth noting that just about anyone would be a better fit for the job.   
 
That’s right – anyone.  Wherever you find yourself reading this column, take a quick look to your left and right.  Now, a case can be made that whomever you might have seen would make a better president than Barack Obama.  If you are on the New York subway, for example, even that crazy shirtless guy, coming at you while giving you the finger with both hands, might be a better bet to lead America than its 44th Commander in Chief.   Or, if you are reading in some bucolic meadow and there are no other humans about, that tree stump or rabid gopher you spied would be a superior choice to occupy the Oval Office.
 
If nothing else, while the gopher was posing for its presidential portrait, America would save a trillion wasted “stimulus” dollars and purchasing health insurance would remain a matter of personal choice, rather than a government diktat.

But back to Perry. If we take the repeal of Obamacare as read, inasmuch as all Republican candidates will promise this, how else might he achieve his desired state of inconsequence?  Reducing the comprehensiveness and complexity by which Washington collects taxes from its citizens is an excellent way to start.  Perry is quick to volunteer that he favors the repeal of the worldwide reporting requirement, and resultant double taxation, for U.S. companies doing business internationally, noting that this move could see as much as $4 trillion repatriated to the American economy. 
 
The worldwide reporting requirement for American citizens should also be eliminated.  America is one of the only countries in the world that requires annual tax filings from its citizens, no matter their country of residence, demanding payment above whatever rates required by that country.  That is, even if an American does not work in the U.S., consume services, or make any money there, the IRS still claims authority over that individual’s income and assets, and requires an American tax filing, as well as copies of all filings in their country of residence, and demands payment at higher, American rates. 
 
One consequence of this global taxation without representation can be found in media reports of Americans renouncing their citizenships abroad, with U.S. consular services backlogged by requests to do so.  The cost to the U.S. economy is significant, as these are often productive individuals who do not wish to be beholden to the IRS even as they live elsewhere, and who, by renouncing their citizenships, remove themselves from American tax rolls permanently.  But apart from the dollar cost, it is anathema to a free country – especially the United States – that its tax department should pursue law-abiding citizens around the globe.
 
Perry’s prescription for tax rates, both personal and corporate, is refreshingly straightforward:  “Lower.”  With the second-highest corporate tax rate in the world, and a byzantine, 70,000-page tax code, America makes it awfully easy for investors to choose another destination for their capital.  Perry appreciates the economy-goosing potential of eliminating taxes on capital gains, dividends and interest, in contrast to benighted politicians who mistakenly assume higher tax rates lead to increased revenue.
 
He eschews the mindset of Washington-centric, regulation fetishists for whom things must be mandatory or forbidden.  The unimportant president is content for you to make your own decisions.  Not only is this a welcome departure from Washington’s reigning philosophy, whereby the Constitution’s Commerce Clause is absurdly stretched to justify federal intrusion into the most picayune matters, but it bespeaks an understanding of how a free society operates and thrives: through millions of people making different choices.
 
Enthusiasm for Perry’s early candidacy is reflected in national polls, and in the reaction of voters he meets across the country.  Whether this can be maintained will depend on myriad factors, from debate performances to emerging specifics of the Perry platform.  But even as he aspires to be the most powerful man in the world – if the president of the United States is still considered as such – Rick Perry promises to leave you alone.  It is a counterintuitive and compelling message. 


 

The Caldwell Account

In the marketplace of ideas, you need buyers and sellers – that’s how you find the price of the truth. The Caldwell Account, soon to debut on the Sun News Network, will make that market.

Truth is not personal – nor is it political – and if you stop and think things over, testing your own assumptions and allowing them to be challenged, you may find that much of what you thought you “knew” simply isn’t so. On The Caldwell Account, you and I can challenge our assumptions together.

For example, Canada is now the freest country in the world. I never thought I would write such a thing, and I do so in the full knowledge that our taxes are too high, free speech remains tenuous, and we countenance kangaroo-court absurdities like the “Human Rights Commission” that famously ganged up on my old friend and new colleague, Ezra Levant (note to the HRC: 40 to 1 is not a fair fight; next time, bring more guys). Also, when I speak of being the “freest country,” please understand I’m referring to major nations here, not some obscure Polynesian island-state where folks aren’t even obligated to wear trousers.

In Canada today, your chances to make all your dreams come true, to be Laverne slipping that glove onto the passing bottle, are higher than anyplace else, including the United States. We are uniquely poised, then, to speak the truth, boldly and in freedom as perfect as humankind can manage. The Sun News Network will be outstanding in that capacity.

I have followed the media coverage of this project, including reports that the head of our network, Kory Teneycke, supposedly huddles with Stephen Harper, Rupert Murdoch and Darth Vader to decide what we will broadcast.

If those meetings take place, I’ve certainly not been invited. But since one of those arch-villains must have set down his goblet of puppy blood and suggested my name, I suppose I should thank them.

That, however, has been the extent of their involvement. No one has told me what to say, and the day they do will be my last. Indeed, folks expecting The Caldwell Account to be a pro-Conservative, America-boosting, Promise Keepers’ rally should be surprised.

For instance, I think this North American perimeter plan, where airline logs and customs information are shared between Canada and the U.S., is a bad idea all around. I have always been a proponent of freedom for this largest trading relationship in the history of the world. But so long as an unaccountable, Frankenstein’s monster like the U.S. Department of Homeland Security is our partner, Canada should tell its southern pals to go pound sand – we will decide who boards our planes or sets foot on our soil.

Let’s get a few other things out of the way right now: I am an un-impoverished, somewhat-literate, heterosexual white male. I hold American citizenship, which I make no apology for keeping next to my Canadian passport, and when I’m not chasing the almighty dollar or publishing reactionary columns, I write books I want your kids to read. I invite you to vent your spleen on all that, get it out of your system, so we can move on to a real debate.

Please join me as we open The Caldwell Account on April 18.

theo@theocaldwell.com

Theo Caldwell will host The Caldwell Account on the Sun News Network.

While I Breathe, I Hope

“While I breathe, I hope.”

-Willis S. McLeese, 1913-2011

On January 5, 2011, Upper Canada College bid farewell to one of the school’s most extraordinary friends. In the 98th year of his remarkable life, Willis McLeese passed away.

From his World War II service in the Navy, to his legendary and lucrative careers in refrigeration and power, to the resort community he built at Cobble Beach, Ontario, Mr. McLeese made the most of every moment.

Along the way, he developed a myriad of skills, including thermodynamics and time management (a must, for someone who ran several companies). But of all the lessons Mr. McLeese gleaned from his decades of achievement, none was more pronounced than this: The power to persuade is essential to success.

His philanthropic efforts were vast and various, from giving financial aid for less-privileged students to attend UCC, to providing the opportunity for physically challenged youth to experience horseback riding through the Georgian Riding Association for Challenged Equestrians (GRACE) in Owen Sound. But the cause to which Mr. McLeese was most devoted was helping young people learn the craft of persuasive speaking. He donated time, money, and energy to this effort for 40 years, particularly in support of UCC and the Canadian Student Debating Federation (CSDF). He endowed the Willis S. McLeese Chair in Canadian Debating, based at UCC and working with the CSDF, to bring young people across the country into this activity. The program is outlined at mcleesedebate.com.

Mr. McLeese believed that students who develop the skills and confidence to speak publicly and advocate positions are well equipped for the contest of life. As someone who prevailed resoundingly in that contest, Mr. McLeese knew of whence he spoke. CSDF Founder Tom Lawson recounts how, in 1971, he telephoned Mr. McLeese, whom he did not know, and asked him to fly to Edmonton to debate the merits of the free market in an open public broadcast in front of 70 teenagers from every corner of Canada: “You’ll do it,” Lawson told him, “if you love kids.”

Not only did Mr. McLeese accept the invitation and bring the house down with his performance, but he signed on as Treasurer of the nascent coalition that became today’s CSDF. Lawson discusses how Mr. McLeese’s commitment and business acumen proved invaluable: “With infinite patience, he taught us how to conduct an Annual General Meeting, how to keep minutes, how to incorporate, how to raise funds. Over those years he personally raised hundreds of thousands of dollars for us, and whenever our backs were to the wall, he came through with five or ten thousand dollars to keep us afloat.”

As a result of Mr. McLeese’s support, says Lawson, “Countless thousands of great young Canadians have participated in formal, structured debate at both junior and senior levels in district, provincial, national, North American, and world competition, learning the basic skills desperately needed for effective citizenship in a democratic society: integrity in research, articulate persuasive speech, acute listening powers, open mindedness, and a keen interest in issues of common concern to all Canadians…none of this would have come about but for the never failing generosity, knowledge, infinite patience, and buoyant good humour of this remarkable man. I consider it one of the greatest privileges of my life to have known, as a mentor and friend, a great Canadian. I shall not see his like again.”

Indeed, Mr. McLeese considered listening skills and keeping an open mind to be indispensible components of the power to persuade. To wit, debating is not just about saying what you think; it requires hearing what other people are telling you. Consequently, Mr. McLeese insisted that student debaters argue every resolution from both sides, believing this would teach young people respect and tolerance for each other.

“Debating is a way to extend your influence,” he was fond of saying, often adding, “Canada will always need great leaders.” He understood and evinced that being a leader does not require your name on a ballot. Leaders come in all sorts, in every profession. What they share is the power to convince and inspire.

Drawing upon his wealth of experience, Mr. McLeese knew that whatever future careers students might pursue, someday they would have to answer questions like: What makes you different? Why should we do it your way? Why should I buy what you are offering? So much of life, and success, is about selling ideas. From Clarence Darrow to Don Cherry, if you can make a case, you can make a living. For Mr. McLeese, teaching young people this craft was practical education at its best.

It was a supreme and undeserved compliment when Mr. McLeese asked me to take up the Chair that bears his name. Working with, and learning from, a man of his character and stature was one of the great privileges of my life. Together, we were able to bring students from UCC and across Canada to the famed Munk Debates in Toronto, introducing them to luminaries, getting them newspaper coverage, and making it possible for them to debate live on the radio. We facilitated tournaments and workshops for hundreds of students from every background, as well as tutorials for teachers and coaches, enabling schools to create and develop their own debating programs.

Beginning in 2011, the McLeese Prize in Debating will be presented to the graduating UCC student who best exemplifies Mr. McLeese’s ideals of skill in the activity, tolerance and leadership. He was particularly enthusiastic about our latest venture, the McLeese Online Debating program. Hosted by mcleesedebate.com, this unique function will allow any student with web access to participate in teacher-moderated debates from anywhere in Canada. This undertaking appealed to Mr. McLeese straight away, as he understood that many schools and regions lack the funds or the infrastructure to allow kids to participate in debating.

Mr. McLeese knew he was a blessed man, and nothing made him happier than to share his good fortune. Even in his final months, when he could not attend debating events as often as he would like, he never lost his enthusiasm for helping young people. I will always remember the light in his face, or the joy in his voice on the telephone, when I would tell him of some opportunity or success enjoyed by the students he helped and cherished. With a masterful mind and a servant’s heart, he was a remarkable patron of the art of argument.

His copious experiences were animated by his personal motto, “Dum Spiro, Spero” – Latin for, “While I breathe, I hope.” The McLeese Debating crest, which combines the McLeese family coat of arms with symbols of UCC and the CSDF, bears these words. By his example, and through his tremendous generosity, Willis McLeese offered hope to countless young Canadians. What a magnificent legacy he leaves.
Theo Caldwell is the McLeese Chair in Debating.

Theo Caldwell is the McLeese Chair in Debating.

The TSA Tea Party

Yet again, those in power have misread and underestimated the will of the American people. Last November’s election results shattered the grinning assurances of politicians who supposed voters were unserious in their objections to government over-reach in matters of economics, regulation and health. Now, in the face of mounting protest against the excesses of TSA officers at America’s airports, those responsible for the policy of continued sexual violation of travelers maintain that they are winning the argument. They are wrong, and they will lose.

One hesitates to equate the grassroots and growing opposition to TSA’s practices of perversion with the Tea Party movement that propelled GOP gains in the 2010 elections, since the latter largely represents a right-of-centre worldview, while the airport uproar encompasses people of all political and ideological persuasions.

This is fitting, as the current TSA situation is a bi-partisan disgrace – including the lucrative compensation received by Bush-era Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff for selling Rapiscan backscatter x-ray machines to his former department for use at airports, as well as the eagerness of Chertoff’s Democratic successor, Janet Napolitano, to implement and expand this disgusting program.

Indeed, at a recent Washington, DC, conference hosted by the Electronic Privacy Information Center (epic.org), which is suing to halt the use of full-body x-ray scans by the TSA, speakers represented every conceivable background and affiliation – Congressmen and staffers from both parties, lawyers, municipal officials, pilots, students, security experts, libertarians, liberals – even Ralph Nader, for good measure. Assessing the TSA’s enhanced screening techniques from all sides – efficacy, cost, safety, constitutionality and on – this group of people who had probably never found themselves in one room and on the same side (TSA officials declined invitations to attend) demolished any and all rationale for a technology that has been abandoned by other countries for its obscenity and ineffectiveness.

But despite the diversity of its participants, the populist nature of this protest feels familiar. Government officials chug along as though all will be well once folks settle down, even as opposition websites, Facebook groups and on-line networks boast memberships in the tens of thousands, and rising. Americans of all types are sharing their stories of mistreatment at the hands (and eyes) of TSA officers, and pooling ideas to bring this shameful episode to an end.

In response, government spokespeople continue to proffer the same assurances about privacy and necessity and the “next generation” of security tools, assuming Americans simply need time to adjust to the system. The most egregious such comment comes from Napolitano herself, in reference to the “enhanced pat-down” techniques that permit TSA officers to put their hands in travelers’ most intimate areas: “It’s something new. Most Americans are not used to a real law enforcement pat-down like that.”

This is true, since most Americans do not find themselves arrested or in jail. How could we claim to have a free country if innocent citizens were to become “used to a real law enforcement pat-down”? Unlike many, I do not consider Napolitano to be a scheming abettor of some sinister New World Order. Rather – and I sincerely do not mean to be glib – I assess her to be so cosmically stupid and barren of understanding as to the nature of this nation or her job that she simply does not recognize the absurdity of such a remark.

TSA Administrator John Pistole, on the other hand, appears to be a very different sort. In a recorded message, played in loops at American airports, authoritarian menace drips from his voice as he speaks of, “your options as a passenger” under his regime. He does not say as much, but your “options” are to be photographed nude, groped, or both, at the whim of a TSA worker, under threat of arrest and prosecution if you refuse to comply.

As columnist Chris Selley observed in a different context, there are some police officers who are incapable of dealing with a citizen who knows his rights. A 26-year FBI veteran before being tapped by President Obama for his TSA post, Pistole seems like such an officer.

Pistole’s recording concludes by thanking the flying public for its cooperation in the security effort as, “We all work together.” We are not working together, John. You and I are not on the same side. You want to violate and take naked pictures of my countrymen and loved ones; I want to prevent that. Neither your mission nor mine has the first thing to do with terrorism, but at least I admit it.

It bears mentioning that, even if done precisely as advertised, TSA’s system is still an abomination. A government agent is still seeing your naked image and/or physically violating you, without cause, explanation, escape or recourse. The dynamic between uniformed officials and citizens is appalling. I have routinely witnessed travelers at Washington, DC’s Reagan-National Airport crammed three or four at a time into a tiny glass cage, locked at one end and guarded by a uniformed officer at the other, and held there until TSA personnel are good and ready to release and grope them one by one.

Folks are finding the reality at airports is nothing like the anodyne assurances they have received from government officials and sympathetic media outlets. As the EPIC legal team noted in its January 6 brief, “Public opposition has correlated with the actual experience of those who undergo the TSA’s new screening procedure.”

A recent Zogby poll found that 61% of Americans oppose the TSA’s new methods, and this number has nowhere to go but up. As more and more Americans discover the depravity of TSA’s system for themselves, watching their children be photographed naked or their spouses touched in obscene ways by government agents, the only remaining supporters of this regime will be those who are empowered by and exempt from it, such as Napolitano and Obama, along with those pitiful stragglers whose public personae consist of being loudly wrong about almost everything (Gloria Allred, call your office).

As security expert Bruce Schneier stated at the EPIC conference, “Terrorism cannot end our way of life – only our response to it can.” In this way, the TSA has succeeded where al-Qaeda failed. Since 9/11, Americans have defied fear and embraced freedom, choosing to fly despite the remote danger of airline terrorism. Now they are demurring, as they are faced with the very real possibility that they or those they love will be violated by agents of their own government. This cannot be our way. As Schneier observes, “If we are indomitable, the terrorists lose, even if their attack succeeds.”

With that sentiment in mind, I have hope. This will end, because it has to end. In recent years, we have seen the American people, including many who had not previously raised their voices in the public square, come together to make a difference. Now, on this issue, we are doing so again. I am confident we will prevail.

theo@theocaldwell.com

Theo Caldwell is the author of Finn the half-Great.