Sum relegatae.

"I have been relegated."  In ancient Rome, when one incurred the displeasure of the Emperor, one possible punishment was relegation--exile for a period of time to a place away from Rome (usually--Claudius relegated some people who hated Rome to have to stay no further than 3 miles from the City--strange sense of humor, poor old Clau-Clau-Clau had), more or less dreary.  You kept all your property, and family and friends could go with you--you just couldn't go back until the period was over.  The Romans, for all their legendary bloodthirstiness, were not big fans of imposing capital punishment on other Romans.  Those who know me reasonably well, know why I feel relegated.

It's been suggested that I need to stop "coveting" my old role as Bishop.  Am I guilty of that?  I just feel completely lost and unwanted these days.  The calling of Bishop becomes a part of one, his identity, for years.  Then one week, a leader for whatever reason thinks "the time has come," and out one goes.  With every call comes a release, President Hinckley said, and as in most things, he was very wise in this observation.  But it is hard.  Many released Bishops become inactive or consider themselves pathetic has-beens.  None of that for me, just a little bitter, and a lot sad.  

When the release came, I prayed and prayed for comfort.  None has been forthcoming.  I've tried to address this with various people I expected would be sympathetic.  They have been remarkably less so than I had hoped.  I felt that at the time of release, I felt I was being asked to sacrifice my calling to the Lord.  I did, but not eagerly.  Mormon taught that a gift grudgingly given is of no avail.  Is that my problem?  My best friend told me today that I should be grateful that I had four years and eight months of service in that role that I felt I was "made for."  I'll try to concentrate on that.

Was I a perfect Bishop?  Heavens no, far from it.  But I did try very hard to do things right, and to please God and His people, and I think I did a reasonable job of that.  I was given an "honorable release" and a vote of thanks.  No plaque, no watch, no vacation to Bermuda.  Did I want those things?  No, but it's hard to get a sense of closure on things from a "vote of thanks."  I served the best that I was able.  Is that enough?  I wish I could feel enthusiastic about saying yes.  But I feel like some out of favor Senator, sitting on a rock on some Mediterranean beach, forlornly watching the ebb and flow of the tide and pining for Rome.

Fiscal Chickenhawks

To all you "fiscal hawks" so obsessed about cutting government spending:  great idea!  Wish you'd been around during the spending "glory days" of 2001-2004!  Don't forget, "Reagan proved that deficits don't matter."  But as for now, I'll start taking you seriously as soon as you identify exactly what spending you would cut.  How many F-35s do we really need at $300 million each?  Exactly whose Social Security should be cut; how much of a fee reduction should doctors take to fund Medicare cuts?  Which tax-subsidies should be done away--the subsidy of home mortgages?  Charitable contributions?  Oil exploration and production?  Should market rates be charged for mineral claims and grazing on public lands?  How many carrier task groups need to be operational in peacetime?   Because cutting funding for PBS and Amtrak and eliminating foreign aid might make you feel good by hurting the people you don't like, but they won't do much at all towards establishing real fiscal discipline.  What's that?--you won't identify where you would cut,  because it might make you unpopular and you might lose the next election?  Sounds like the whining of fiscal "chickenhawks" to me.

It's one for the history books

Well, all the election stuff is over for now..., wait, think again!  Yesterday I heard people talk about how there are so many "liberal" Senators up for reelection in 2014 and how now's the time to start sorting candidates for 2016 and all that blather.   Aieeee!  They just can't stop, it's like people who are addicted to some unpleasant substance.  Well, anyways, it's over for me, and for this blog.

I feel sorry for those who say the sky is falling, who see an election result as a sign of impending apocalypse.  They have been guzzling the kool-aid, haven't they?  It doesn't surprise me that many want to blame the right's loss on a candidate who was insufficiently pure.  Don't they ever stop?  Not while there is money to be made, I suppose.  The reverse Pauline Kael syndrome that I've seen makes me laugh, though.  She was the New York Times movie critic who supposedly said in 1972, "I can't believe that McGovern lost.  Everyone I know voted for him!"  (She denied saying that, by the way.)  If someone is shocked because "all their friends" were for Romney and hated Obama, that may say more about them than about the election.

Enough already!  Give it a rest.

Reason 10--It doesn't add up

I simply do not believe that if Romney is elected, 12 million jobs will spring up like mushrooms after January 20.  If deregulation and tax cuts for the wealthy create jobs, where have they been since 2001?  The Great Recession and the painfully slow recovery occurred because of, not in spite of, tax cuts and deregulation.  If voodoo economics worked, the Recession would not have happened.  Foolish deregulation of the financial sector was a disaster that makes Sandy look like a summer shower.  How people make money--doing so fairly and in accordance with the expectations of society--matters a great deal.  Regulation is needed to prevent the "haves" from rigging the economy to favor themselves.  Regulation is needed because the natural man is an enemy to God, and has been since the beginning.  There are few more "natural men" than predatory plutocrats.

I also don't believe that taxes on investment income should be eliminated, nor that capital gains taxes should be eliminated.  Ronald Reagan said that taxes on earned income--wages and salaries--should not be taxes at a higher rate than capital gains or investment income.  He was right.  I'm not a fan of the estate tax and believe it should be eliminated for estates of $5MM or less, but in place for larger estates to prevent excessive concentration of wealth.

Finally, I don't believe that Romney cares about anyone other than "winners" like himself and his sneering running mate.  They don't even really care about the 53% Romney talked to his money men about.  They trot out phoney lines like "a rising tide raises all boats" and "we built that" to reassure people that they want the middle class to succeed, but the reality is, they view the middle class like Henry Potter in "It's a Wonderful Life" views the middle class.  Watch it some time and you'll see what I mean. 

Reason 9--Paul Ryan

Paul Ryan is by himself enough reason for me to stick by the President.  Ryan is a disciple of Ayn Rand, the atheist apostle of selfishness, greed, and narcissism.  Some people are seduced by her version of the world, which is basically the same as Korihor's--one profits by one's own efforts, in a vacuum, alone, and one should do nothing for others, and force them to fend for themselves.  However Ryan dresses it up, this is the essence of his budget plan and the "Opportunity Economy" and "We built that" which he and Romney talk about.  In their perfect world, the economic "winner" takes all, regardless of how he contrived to "win", and it's every man for himself.  (Sorry, no pc version of that old saying quite captures it, and in the days when people really needed to jump into lifeboats to save themselves, "man" was understood to mean everyone.) 

This philosophy is the antithesis of the Gospel of Christ.  I'm surprised that a faithful member of God's Church would select a running mate with this kind of a philosophy.  Romney's doing so, and the philosophy itself, are insupportable.

Is Vice President Biden prone to unfortunate gaffes and hyperbole?  Yes, but he does not subscribe to a philosophy of the devil.  Ryan's philosophical lodestar is in my opinion an irredeemable evil.

Reason 8--The Supreme Court

Quite simply, I don't believe the nation can survive any more Alito/Scalia type Justices, and that's what Mr. Romney has promised to appoint.  I recognize that he is not bound by such promises, and it seems he doesn't feel bound by most anything he says except, "Elect me!"  But in this I take him at his word.  I expect that we will get at least 2 and maybe more new Justices during the next Presidential term.  I think the women The President has appointed have been reasonably good--I'd like to see a President return to the practice of seeking quality before ideology, and even appointing members of the other party, which hasn't happened since Nixon, but Kagan and Sotomayor have been decent Justices in spite of the efforts of the radical right to "Bork" them.  

The President is a scholar of the Constitution (which makes me laugh at the rabid Romney-ites who say that the President is somehow a danger to the Constitution).  I trust him to continue to make acceptable appointments to the Supreme Court, even though I think he will be more influences by demography and ideology than he should be.  I expect Romney to appoint people who will be in favor of more Citizens United-type decisions--there, the ruling was that corporations have the right to make unlimited political contributions.  I can imagine further abhorrent and aberrant decisions from the litmus-tested candidates that Mitt would appoint.  Even if he wanted to appoint someone who was moderate, I suspect the Taliban Party types would have none of it.  

Citizens United has been the worst Supreme Court decision of a generation--it ranks with the Dred Scott decision and Plessy v. Ferguson as an unholy trinity of terrible, corrosive, unjust decisions that have had awful consequences for the Republic.  It has introduced the appearance and the reality of outright corruption by corporate interests of both political parties.  Nothing like it must ever happen again.  We can't afford another Justice Scalia, or another Alito.  Hence, I will vote for the person who will not appoint that ilk of Justice, and against the one whom I think would do so.

Reason 7--Itching Ears and Teeth on Edge

One of my biggest concerns about the challenger in this year's Presidential race is that I believe his ideological house is built upon sand:  the shifting sand of saying whatever it is that the demographic or slice of the electorate he is courting wants to hear.  If he was still the moderate Republican who ran for Senate in 1994, or for Governor in 2002, I could seriously consider him.  But since he began his Ahab-like pursuit of the Presidency, he has steadily and consistently steered himself toward the libertarian reactionary extreme of his party.  The party that used to be mine until those people drove me out of it.  So he has embraced the wingnut migration of the GOP, even while I have turned away from it. 

On a host of issues, since 2007, he has moved steadily towards the Fox News crowd and away from what he once stood for.  In some cases he claims an epiphany, but one suspects that the only epiphany Mitt Romney has had on these issues is that he won't get the votes of his party's aptly-named "base" unless he shifts to at least appear to agree with them.  They have been taught by Roger Ailes (i.e. Fox News) and his friends that one's "competence" and "character" mean nothing, that what counts is ideological purity.  And that, Mitt has given them.  I believe he is a competent leader, at least when things go his way.  (Don't forget that when he was "working with Democrats" in Massachusetts, he vetoed hundreds of bills, many of which were made law by overriding his veto--hence his single term.)  I believe he has personal character, keeps the standards of the LDS Church, and believes in the Gospel of Christ.  But I think politically he is like the false prophets Isaiah decries as saying what their listeners want to hear, rather than what is true--he gives soothing words to itching ears.  He may do this because he honestly thinks the hard right of his party is correct and he was wrong for most of his life and political career, but one suspects that there are other forces at play.  One suspects he has changed almost everything he ever stood for because he really has only one thing on his agenda--being elected.  Heaven and his polling team only know which Mitt we will get from day to day.  

The interesting thing to me is that his much-touted first debate performance was the Etch-A-Sketch moment his advisers had promised back at the time of the Republican Convention in August.  Having tacked his yacht far to the right to gain the nomination, in the general election (they said) he would tack back towards the center to appeal to moderates.  And so he did.   I made the observation that he had fulfilled this prophecy right after the debate, and some were roundly critical of me for doing so.  At least a couple of them thought I was complaining from the right that he had forsaken his new ideological purity.  No, no, folks, I was noting his latest morph in the quest for electability.  But I digress.

A few months ago, Romney was proclaiming the libertarian reactionary notion that the Federal Emergency Management Agency is unneeded, that the states can and should lead natural disaster recovery.  After Hurricane Sandy he sings a different tune, because the need for FEMA to take the lead and respond vigorously, as opposed to making block grants to states and leaving them on their own, is palpable--so obvious as to be unmistakable.  Here is another of what I think of as Mitt's "Odo Moments"--referencing the shape-shifting character on Star Trek: Deep Space 9.  I offer this as the latest example, and perhaps one of the least, of Mr. Romney speaking to the itching ears of the electorate.  His words do not soothe my ears; to borrow another Biblical metaphor, they set my teeth on edge.  

The President is not perfect.  He has done a number of things I don't like.  He seems to care way more about making the homosexual rights advocates happy than I think he ought.  He should have concentrated on economic recovery and left health insurance reform on the back burner until the nation was more fully out of the abyss that supply side economics and deregulation put it into.  He favors certain economic interests in the City of Chicago over keeping Asian Carp out of the Great Lakes.  But even in these things, he has at least been consistent.  I can accept a leader who consistently does a few things I don't like, way more than a would-be leader who will say anything to get the vote count he needs.  Hence, I will vote the same as I did in 2008--with less enthusiasm, but no less conviction that my choice is the correct one.