Immediately after World War II we had the most important choice in our nation’s history. It may not have seemed like it at the time, but the decision in how to proceed has governed our lives for the past 80 years. We could choose to invest in the people or we could build the biggest army the world has ever seen.

Make no mistake, we tried to do both for awhile. The post World War II economy was the greatest in the nation’s history. Any marker that you wanted to use to measure prosperity tells us this. The challenge of history isn’t about remembering what was. Fortunately, we still have people that can tell us first hand about the post-war boom in the economy.

The challenge of history is in determining why. Simply put, we as a country chose to invest in our own people. The GI bill has literally sent millions of people to college. Home ownership rates skyrocketed as America saw the development of a modern and thriving middle class. We owe all of that to those government programs and a strong presence of unions.

In the early 1990s we had a decision to make. The Cold War was over and we had ultimately won. The world will always be a dangerous place, but we had the decision of whether to keep investing in the American people or whether we wanted to keep investing in being a super power.

In 1990 the Cold War was more or less over. In 1990 we were spending 325.1 billion on defense. It reached it’s peak at 752.2 billion in 2011. The chart referenced only goes to 2019, but you get the general idea. Obviously, statistics can cut a number of ways. The same chart has the budget as a percentage of gross domestic product. Those numbers look very different.

Yet, one cannot help but imagine the possibilities. No one would suggest defense spending go to zero or even hold at 1990 levels, but we ultimately spent north of seven trillion dollars on the war on terror. Of course, that’s just one source. Different sources have different amounts. Sure, we killed Saddam Hussein and we killed Osama Bin Laden, but it is fair to ask how the world is a better place after 20 years.

It’s also fair to ask how America is a better place after the last 30 years. We could have retreated to a place of relative strength but one that was more or less an equal partner with the other nations in NATO. We could have heavily invested in our own people.

We could have a stronger living wage. We could have universal health care. We could have free community college at the very least. We could have invested in newer energies and prepared for the 21st century economy. We could have done all of these things and more. They will tell you that we can’t afford those things. Trillions of dollars on the war on terror says otherwise.

It has never been about whether we have the money. It has been about who should get the money. The right decided a long time ago that corporations and national defense needed that money a lot more than people did. They’ll tell you that we can’t afford to help poor people. They’ll tell you that they need to help themselves. They’ll tell you that we can’t afford a standard of living for every human being in the country. We know none of that is true. We choose not to.

Years ago, I read a book that made things make sense. It was a book by Thom Hartmann where he took a look at the complex world of issue framing. In the case of American politics, it is the difference between the way conservatives and progressives see the world.

There are things that conservatives and progressives do well. English teachers teach students about ethos, pathos, and logos. Progressives are really good with facts. They can logically break down any issue where their solution is the only one that makes sense.

Conservatives have mastered the emotional appeal. One could easily poke holes in the efficacy of that kind of argument, but in terms of messaging it has been ingenious. They attach a feeling to being an American in general. Americans feel a certain way about things. Therefore, if you feel differently you are not really American.

The concept behind this is one of rugged individualism. This concept is so engrained that it is taught to our students in history classes. Therefore, every time someone proposes anything that helps ordinary people it immediately bumps against that concept.

This is where liberals and progressives get themselves in trouble. They present ideas like a minimum wage hike or universal health care and think those issues stand on their own. They don’t. They are a part of a web of issues that ask government to look out for the needs of its citizens.

I’ve quoted it a few times before, but it goes back to the Shel Silverstein line that “I can be someone’s and still be my own.” Liberals and progressives have to present an alternative view of the world. We have to present a world where we are dependent on one another. We have to present a world we actually do better when the least among us does better. We have to present a world where when the least of us gets our needs met then the rest of us see our boats rise in the tide.

What conservatives have done is find a way to convince people in a very general way that when someone else gets something that is something that they cannot get. We usually call that a zero sum game. Life becomes a tit for tat game where we are conditioned to resent others for getting things we had to work for.

So, the web of rugged individualism and the zero sum game are tied together in neat story based on a fairy tale. I was born in the wilderness and left to my own devices. I worked hard, studied hard, and played by the rules so that I earned every scrap of stuff I now call my own. It is a powerful tale. It is a powerful image that pulls us all in.

Therefore, they don’t deserve those things. They did not work hard, study hard, or play by the rules. Giving them anything is unfair. It takes away from me and gives to them. Why should they get it for free when I had to work hard for it? These images are nearly impossible to defeat. Yet, they are all a lie. I did not get there through hard work alone. Someone came before me that worked hard and gave me a solid footing to get my start. Some people call it privaledge.

In many ways we are trying to sail into an overwhelming head wind. Any idea where we get there together has become verboten and heresy. Yet, it is firmly embedded in the philosophies we have grown up listening to and reading. It is just as compelling a story as the story of rugged individualism if not more so. It is the story we must start selling with the same zeal and enthusiasm as conservatives spin their story. We can’t win these issues one at a time. They all flow together.

“Where have all the good men gone And where are all the gods? Where’s the streetwise Hercules To fight the rising odds?”– Bonnie Tyler

No one could call Ukraine a fake country. It is the largest country in Europe and would be much more well-known if it were in Western Europe. The perception of Ukraine was probably that it was a de facto part of Russia trying to make a go of independence. We were supposed to feel sorry for them.

Looking pathetic would have created a similar effect as to what we have seen. Millions of Americans and citizens of other NATO countries would feel sorry for the Ukrainians and want to intervene. In essence, the Ukrainians haven’t played their part in that morality play.

The leader in Ukraine is a legitimate badass. Volodymyr Zelenskyy got his start as a comedian and satirist. His rise to prominence would be most similar to Al Franken in our own country if you remove the sex scandal and instead make Franken the president of the United States. Zelenskyy has a presence and charisma that few American politicians can muster. He’s needed every bit of that over the past few weeks and more.

Something special has happened in Ukraine. Great sports teams often take on the personality of their coach. I suppose bad teams do as well. The Ukrainian people have embodied the spirit of their leader and are winning over the citizens of the world. They are fighting all the way down to the last adult, often making weapons through Google searches and whatever supplies they can find on hand.

Meanwhile, they are getting support from some of the unlikeliest of places. No one could scarcely say that the entire world is behind them. Even the most cockeyed of optimists wouldn’t go that far. However, it is pretty safe to say the majority of the world is behind Ukraine and that support has caused some Russia backers here in the U.S. to change their tune. They know who they are, so there is no need to belabor the point.

Meanwhile, the Russian army has embodied the spirit of their leader. They came in with a big, imposing force hoping to bully the Ukrainians into submission. Yet, their effort was largely disorganized and many of the soldiers don’t seem to have the will to continue. They may eventually overwhelm Ukraine, but they certainly haven’t looked good doing it.

Since the Cold War days you could credibly say that the U.S. and Russia were mirror images of each other. That might be more true than we thought. One wonders if we would even be capable of mounting the same kind of defense that Ukraine is mustering. All people are capable of acts of courage and bravery collectively and we are no different. Yet, you have to wonder if we have any leaders capable of doing what Zelenskyy is doing. Even if we did you’d openly wonder how many people would actually follow them.

Lord knows why these things happen. There are certainly no shortage of working theories here. Many think our former president was either an unwitting or witting Russian agent. Others just think he saw himself as an autocrat and therefore gravitated towards those kinds of guys. Maybe that explains guys like Tucker Carlson too. I’ve never been much to buy into conspiracies, so I’m not about to start now. What I do know is that we could use own Zelenskyy right now.

“Of course, we won’t mind if you look around,” you’ll say. “It’s only twenty dollars per person.” They’ll pass over the money without even thinking about it. For it is money they have and peace they lack.”– Terrance Mann

At 5 PM EST on March 1st, the commissioner announced that six games would be purged from the baseball season. It is the second time Rob Manfred has been unable to salvage games in a season. He could blame 2020 on the pandemic and the pandemic certainly takes most of the blame, but he effectively botched any chance of playing 100 or 120 games because of his inability to make a deal.

Any baseball fan worth their salt knows exactly where the quote from above comes from. Any baseball fan worth their salt can rattle off the most famous numbers or relive the greatest moments in the game’s history. When you are a commissioner of the sport you first and foremost must love the sport. Loving the sport enables you to take all of the stakeholders and force them to negotiate in good faith. It also prevents you from succumbing to hairbrained schemes that alter the game for the worst.

Rob Manfred must resign as commissioner. He must resign not because he couldn’t broker an agreement between owners and players. He must resign not because of the ghost runner at second rule, the Astros cheating scandal that was really a league wide cheating scandal, or because he absolutely fumbled the pandemic negotiations. Those are all just symptoms of the disease. He must resign because he clearly doesn’t love baseball. He doesn’t understand baseball at its core. Therefore, he doesn’t understand when he makes the moves he makes how that eats away at the sport itself.

The offseason has a certain arc to it. There are owner’s meetings. There are general manager’s meetings. There are winter meetings. Free agency opens in November and has multiple waves of activity. Teams and players exchange arbitration numbers and have hearings. There is a Rule V draft and trades that boggle the imagination. More importantly, there is the excitement from fans that weaves its way through all of that. They call it the hot stove league. Fans were robbed of it this year.

Owners locked out the players in December. Keep in mind that many of the issues the two sides are currently debating have been known since the labor strife of 2020. They predicted this then. When asked why he waited until February to start negotiating, Manfred simply fumbled about and talked about the last ten days of negotiation. Yup Rob, that was the point of the question. YOU HAD 80 DAYS PRIOR TO THAT AND YOU DID NOTHING.

This is not one of those “make me commissioner” kind of pleas. I’m not qualified for the job, but I do have one qualification that Rob does not have. I love baseball. Of course, I’m not the only one. I’m not even going to try to argue that my love for the sport is superior to anyone else’s. It is superior to Manfred’s and that is clear with the way he talks about the game. It’s clear with the decisions he’s made to make the game shorter. People who love baseball aren’t desperate to have less of it.

The job of commissioner is difficult, but it is also easy to explain. The commissioner is a shepherd of sorts. They marry the interests of owners, players, and fans together to grow the sport and make it profitable for all. If one of those groups distrusts the commissioner he can’t effectively do his job. If more than one group distrusts the commissioner then the entire sport will sink. Don’t mind us now, but the sport is sinking.

Yesterday was an interesting day in the World Geography class I support. See, the district made a huge deal about the teaching of controversial topics. It isn’t even so much that we aren’t supposed to do it, but we have to be so careful as to not interject our own opinion into these things. Then, the teacher found a worksheet that described health care costs in the United States and nine other industrialized nations.

The teacher gave me the worksheet and asked me to look at the first question. It looked a little loaded and so we pivoted a little and hedged our bets. We looked more carefully at the whole sheet (including the graph) and there was no way to spin it. All of the questions were loaded. It presented facts that could not be disputed and yet framed the discussion in such a negative way that you wanted to call the policy fight before one side got killed.

See, according to the graph, the United States spends more than 15 percent of its GDP on health care. Naturally, you’d have to read the fine print to know exactly what that all entails. We could naturally assume they are talking both health insurance premiums and out of pocket expenses. The other nine industrialized nations all hovered around ten percent. Sweden was the lowest at 9.3 percent.

We include the usual caveats in a conversation like this. Why did those that make the graph pick those specific countries? Wouldn’t we need to also see what people are getting for that care? The worksheet even asked a question of what we would expect to see in terms of quality of care.

We avoid teaching these things because we are under the impression that we have to show both sides. We are under the impression that both sides actually have equal merit. This is where we’ve landed in terms of political correctness and bending over backwards not to appear to have a liberal agenda. A worksheet clearly shows we are spending too much on health care and we have to somehow tiptoe around that.

There used to be a day when we could all agree on the facts before us. If information presented itself that we spent more on health care per capita then any country in the world then we could all agree we are spending too much on health care. We could all agree that you don’t pal around with white supremacists or sing Vladimir Putin’s praises.

Politics used to be about accepting reality and then suggesting ways to make it better. If we want to stop a Russian mad man do we simply clamp down on him with more sanctions or do we actually physically intervene? We acknowledge that racism exists. We acknowledge that there are cases of racial bias in the judicial system and other systems. We endeavor to find ways to remove those biases.

In terms of health care, we acknowledge we are spending too much and too many families are financially ruined because someone got sick. Of course, acknowledging that also forces us to acknowledge our own greed. We would acknowledge that we are the only industrialized nation without universal coverage. We would have to acknowledge that drug prices are higher here and insurance companies make a bigger profit here.

We used to acknowledge that mad men shouldn’t have access to automatic weapons that can kill people by the dozens. We used to acknowledge that consumers deserved basic protections from predatory lenders or those that would swindle them. The debate came in how we protect people. It came in how we best serve their interests. It came in just how involved the government needed to be in providing these solutions. No one ever argued that these were good things. At least they didn’t until now.

The dictionary provides two definitions for integrity and both of them are really revealing. The first talks about honesty and strong moral principles. The second is the state of being whole and undivided. I’m sure the second refers to structural integrity such as the structural integrity of a bridge. However, the concept of being whole and undivided is fascinating as it pertains to human integrity.

In 1984, Greg Abbott was paralyzed when a tree struck him. He was jogging through the neighborhood. The event is obviously the most significant event in his life. It is hard to put a price on such things. How does one put a price on their ability to walk, run, or get around? How does one put a price on the happiness they cannot have due to permanent injury?

The facts are that Abbott availed himself of the system to compensate him following his accident. On some level, it is a completely understandable response and one no one would begrudge him. Except, Abbott would. Abbott spent most of his early political career working to limit others from benefitting from the system the way he did.

To date, it is perhaps the most comprehensive example of the fact that Abbott doesn’t have the integrity to lead. There are others. In 2015, a group of idiots became convinced that the military were going to kidnap citizens and stash them away in Wal-Marts in Texas. That was their explanation for military exercises that became known as Jade Helm.

Abbott’s response was telling as it usually is. He could have ignored it. He could have come out and eased tensions and simply told people there was nothing to worry about. He could have called them out as a bunch of paranoid kooks. Instead he asked the Texas State Guard to monitor the military. At the end of the day it didn’t really interfere with the exercises, so what exactly is the harm?

The harm is that it gave credence to the crackpots. It was a signal to them that the governor heard them and was on their side. Abbott knew it was all nuts, but couldn’t bring himself to say so. After all, he needed their vote. He knows the ex-president was full of crap as well. He knew the whole notion of a border wall was a bunch of window dressing. It didn’t stop him from leaning into that whole line of crap.

Finally, we see him threatening transsexual teens and their parents. We see him question green energy and blame it for the debacle last winter. Yet, we know Abbott was okay with the energy companies profiting from disaster. Thus, we finally see the real reason why Abbott is dangerous and a poor fit for the position of dog catcher, much less governor.

He isn’t a danger because he’s a conservative. True conservatives aren’t inherently dangerous. He’s a danger because he isn’t truly conservative. He isn’t truly anything. Greg Abbott’s only true constituency is Greg Abbott. He will do anything, say anything, and believe anything he needs to get ahead. If one believes in nothing they will eventually fall for anything. We’ve already seen it in Abbott’s case.