There are stories that seem explain life better than most. Everyone knows them. The Emperor's New Suit of Clothes and The Little Boy Who Cried Wolf help me understand much of what is happening, especially in politics. However, a tale from The Song of the South by Joel Chandler Harris, “Brer Rabbit and the Tar Baby”, seems especially prescient, especially to those who would involve themselves in any discussion thread on the Internet.

Quickly, in summary, Brer Fox [note: “Brer” is Harris' transliteration of the slaves dialect for “brother”] crafts a small human from tar, clothes it in hat and coat, and sets it on a log by a trail frequented by Brer Rabbit in an attempt to trap and capture his prey. Sure enough, Brer Rabbit attempts to engage the tar baby in polite conversation and becomes upset when it refuses to respond to his greeting. When Brer Rabbit attempts to punch the tar baby to teach it to be more polite, he becomes enmeshed in the sticky goo.

Isn't this an apt description of many of the discussions you have encountered on Internet discussion threads? It seems so to me.

Internet users enjoy the same anonymity as drivers in their motor vehicles. Even the meekest of humans seem to become aggressive when they feel assured that they are immune to the consequences of the words in their postings. Even worse, when they find themselves among like-minded people in a discussion, they quickly form themselves into mobs to attack anyone of a different ideological persuasion.

Too often, I delude myself into thinking that I am the conversational equivalent of a Texas Ranger. I suppose that reference requires some explanation...

There is a statue in the concourse of the airport at Dallas Love Field. It depicts a Texas Ranger confidently striding into the path of danger. The inscription on the base of it reads “One riot, one Ranger” and honors the true story of a Ranger who arrives in a town just as a mob is rioting in the streets. A local citizen who had sent an urgent plea to the Texas Rangers for help, is surprised to find just one lawman. What he doesn't know is that the Ranger had arrived coincidentally on another matter. When the citizen explains the situation, the Ranger calmly responds, “One riot...”

Thus, I wade into these mobs who are verbally abusing each other on Internet discussion threads and attempt to bring peace and order and end up like Brer Rabbit.

Tomorrow, I will comment on what I've learned or should have learned.

Well, I watched Super Bowl XLVIII. Did you? 

My wife an I were penalized mostly for delay of game. We're at that age when bathroom breaks occur frequently. Just wait until tonight. I now know what is meant by "the wee hours of the morning".

In his new film, America, Dinesh D'Souza examines our love of country. He quotes Edmund Burke who famously said, “To make us love our country, our country ought to be lovely.” D'Souza then purports to apply this test to America.

D'Souza has his point of view. Now, let me tell you another story...

I am the grandson of immigrants. Both of my parents were born in America of parents who emigrated here in hopes of building better lives. My mother's came from France and England. My father's came from an obscure village in the Carpathian Mountains, in a region then ruled by the Arch Duke Ferdinand of the Austro-Hungarian Empire, today known as Slovakia. They were Slovaks. All became coal miners in the mountains of Pennsylvania.

I know little of my mother's heritage. She was disowned by her family for marrying beneath her station even though they too were coal miners. Thus, I can only report on my father's history.

My father's family was dirt poor. They had no closets, cabinets, or cupboards in the home where he grew up. There was nothing to store in them. Indeed, the house itself was merely rented to them by the mine owner in exchange for their labor. A nail on the wall was sufficient to hang their clothes when they went to bed.

Father was afforded just a few years of elementary education before he was required to go to work in the mines as a breaker boy toiling over a rapidly moving belt where he helped separate the slag from the coal. In time, he became a mule skinner, leading the animals that pulled coal carts from the bowels of the earth. It seems a life with little hope of escape. Although it seems a bleak existence, the miners struggled to survive.

For example, my father told me how wives would pack extra bread in the miners' lunch pails. The miners would break off a small piece and place it nearby. If the bread didn't disappear, it was time to escape the tunnel because it was assumed that the rats, the ones that regularly stole the bread, had abandoned the hole and the miners should follow. Interestingly, to this day, I am compelled to follow every story of trapped miners. I feel a bond though I escaped their fate.

Ultimately, my father escaped the mines by becoming a prize fighter, a barroom bouncer, a cab driver, and then a mechanic. He moved south to Baltimore and found employment as a maintenance machinist at the Lever Brothers plant. In time, he obtained his high school diploma, a college degree, and then graduated from law school. With his education completed, his fortunes rose until he could build a custom home on Chestnut Ridge north of Baltimore, overlooking the Worthington Valley where moguls bred some of the world's finest racing thoroughbreds. The distance between this poor son of coal miners and the wealthy grew very small indeed.

That is the America I grew up in. That is the America I love. How could I not? Unfortunately, the progressives launched a war on poverty and poverty won. As recent surveys prove, upward mobility such as experienced by my father, is becoming an ever distant dream. The great irony is that the disparity between rich and poor that progressives decry, is becoming greater ever since progressivism hamstrung the system that afforded my father and other Americans upward mobility.

The more we read Edmund Burke's thoughts, the better we see our present plight...

• Nobody made a greater mistake than he who did nothing because he could only do a little
• The people never give up their liberties but under some delusion
• When bad men combine, the good must associate; else they will fall one by one, an unpitied sacrifice in a contemptible struggle – Thoughts on the Cause of Present Discontents
• Those who have been once intoxicated with power, and have derived any kind of emolument from it, even though but for one year, can never willingly abandon it.
• Bad laws are the worst sort of tyranny.
• The true danger is when liberty is nibbled away, for expedience, and by parts.
• All government, indeed every human benefit and enjoyment, every virtue, and every prudent act, is founded on compromise and barter.

...Does any of this sound familiar?

Once upon a time men prided themselves on their self reliance. It was part of a cowboy mystique that every man embraced. Maintaining one's own car was an important expression of this ideal.

One of my favorite stories of do-it-yourself prowess comes from a time when my friends and I got together to swap out a flathead V8 from a 1949 Ford and replace it with a similar engine that we purchased from a junkyard. Step one in the process was to drain all of the fluids – oil and coolant – before disconnecting the engine. An question occurred to us when this chore was completed: How long could a Ford flathead V8 run without any oil and water? The answer lay in a simple experiment. We fired it up, laid a brick on the accelerator pedal, and stood back to enjoy the show.

That engine commenced to scream in anguish. We could imagine the block glowing a hellish red but had the good sense to stand back. Soon, the air became clouded with the incense of burning babbitt. (That's the medal used to coat plain bearings such as are found where connecting rods meet crankshafts.)

The show continued until we became bored with it and sent the member of our company with the least sense to switch the engine off. As we sat drinking our beer, waiting for the engine to cool down sufficiently for us to resume work, we discussed the result of our experiment. We were universally surprised that the engine ran as long as it did without blowing up. Another experiment was then proposed which required restarting the engine. It wouldn't. It was frozen solid. Once stopped, the connecting rods gripped the crankshaft with the automotive equivalent of rigor mortis.

I am reminded of this episode as I watch the debate unfold about Obamacare. Few remain who believe that it was a good idea. However, those who call for its repeal may find that the system we left behind is already beyond repair. Maybe the debate should now focus on replacing Obamacare with a better idea much as we replaced that old engine. Hopefully, this time around we'll keep our eye on the ball and craft a system that will focus on the immediate problems without wandering far afield trying to fix everything all at once.

No, I'm not just talking about the website. As a former Internet network and applications architect, I say can with authority that it is beyond repair. It will never be secure unless security is built into a completely new system. 

There is growing concern that elderly drivers are unfit to operate motor vehicles safely and many states are now summoning them to the DMV to demonstrate their ability. Once upon a time you were considered qualified to drive if you could hear thunder and see lightning. Now they want to poke, prod, and examine you. No, I'm not talking about old people or even the retired. Hell, the American Association of Retired Persons (AARP) is handing out memberships like candy to anyone, even those just turned fifty. If they think that's old, wait until they catch up to me.

What brought this on? I just received my summons to hobble on down and be examined. I have to pass a vision exam and a written test on the motor vehicle code. Some fun, huh? It could be worse. They could force me to pass a driving test as well. When was the last time you did that?

My last driving test was in Colorado. I was tardy in applying for my license after moving there from Hawaii and they made me take the full battery of tests. Of course, I passed all until we came to the final one. The clerk at the desk instructed me to drive my car to the curb outside the door and wait there for my examiner. The man who emerged from the DMV, clipboard in hand, was larger than my Datsun stations wagon.

Wait! I hear you cry. Didn't you say in your last posting that you traded your Datsun for a Javelin? Yes, and I destroyed it before I left Hawaii. I had a salt water fish tank there and decided that it was easier to refresh the water once each week rather than slave over an alchemy set attempting to maintain the proper pH balance for the benefit of my fish. I would drive to the shore and fill a forty gallon trash can with clean seawater. Once, on the way home, an idiot cut me off and the trash can spilled when I slammed on my brakes. The trunk began rusting away by the time I reached home. Besides, I traded a Datsun 510 sedan for the Javelin. I arrived in Colorado with a Datsun 510 station wagon and a wife and child.

As I said, the DMV driving examiner appeared to exceed the cargo capacity of my Datsun and I worried over this as he walked around the car pretending to check it out as I flashed the lights and honked the horn. In truth, I suspect he was likewise considering whether or not the car would accommodate him. In the end, he decided to give it a go and entered the passenger seat. The car sagged.

Surprisingly, the cabin provided him with enough room that he was able to close the door. Unfortunately, the seat belt didn't. Actually, he ignored it and instructed me to proceed to the end of the driveway and turn right. For some reason I have yet to figure out, I refused to move until he secured the seat belt. After several game attempts including adjusting the seat to its extremity to maximize the seat belt's reach, he announced that he would just hold it and again instructed me to begin driving.

In for a penny, in for a pound. I refused. How did I know that this wasn't part of the test? I feared that he would fail me if I so much as started the engine before he was secure.

After a few more futile attempts to snap the belt into its receptacle, he left the car and disappeared into the DMV office.

I waited.

I waited some more.

Finally, I followed him into the DMV and asked the clerk where my examiner had disappeared to. She informed me that he had gone to lunch.

The clerk looked confused when I asked if I should go to lunch too and come back later to take my test. “But, you already passed,” she said after checking.

I did?

I did.

I hope I will again.

Whenever I feel down, when the checkbook is as bare as Mother Hubbard's Cubbard, I have one memory that helps carry me through. It's the day I bought my 1969 AMC Javelin.

I stopped off in Hawaii following my tour of duty in Vietnam before taking a week of leave to prove to my mother that I was still alive. I rented a Datsun 510 sedan at the Hertz desk at Honolulu International Airport and drove it to Tripler Army Medical Center where I was assigned to be the Officer in Charge of Special Services (Post theater, craft shops, sports facilities, etc). The car impressed me and I purchased one to be delivered on my return from leave on the mainland.

That car didn't disappoint me. It was fast and handled like a sports car. It was everything I could want except a “babe wagon”. Here I was, a young bachelor officer, living in paradise. Truthfully, I didn't think about it until a senior officer at the hospital began kidding me about it. I suppose that is why this story took an unexpected turn.

I was shuffling papers at my desk one day when one of the enlisted men in my command rushed into my office and announced, “You've had an accident, sir.”

Reflexively, I looked down at myself to see what had spilled.

“No, no, sir,” the young man explained. “Your car. You've had an accident.”

Now I was truly bewildered. I hadn't had an accident. My Datsun was parked in front of the post gymnasium/bowling alley/pool complex where my office was located.

“Sir,” he insisted, “you've had an accident.”

I followed him outside to discover that I really had an accident. Another officer, a captain, had parked his Volkswagon Beetle on the hill above me and it slipped its parking brake. It had rolled backwards almost hitting the captain as he walked towards my facility, jumped a curb, avoided a huge Monkey Pod tree, then slammed into the side of my car.

In those days, you had to obtain three estimates and submit them to the insurance company before having the car repaired. The next day, I spent the morning on this errand. I had two in hand when lunch hour rolled around. I stopped at the dealer where I had purchased the Datsun for the third estimate and was informed that the service manager was the only person authorized to write estimates and he wouldn't return until after lunch. Given that everyone worked on Hawaiian time, I might be waiting several hours.

I'm one of those people who paces as he thinks. Thus, I found myself in the dealer's showroom as I considered my options. A young salesperson interrupted my thoughts asking if he could be of help.

To this day, I have no idea how it happened. I pointed and asked, “Do you see that car?”

The young man followed my direction and responded, “Yes, sir.”

“Can you have it ready for me by next Wednesday?”

“What?”

“That car,” I said still pointing.

“What color?”

I took him by the wrist and walked him to the car. “Can you feel this car?” I asked.

“Yes, sir.”

I think he was worried at this point. I'm not sure. I wasn't paying attention.

“This is now my car.”

I handed him my card and said, “You sold me that Datsun,” I said pointing towards the service area door where my car could be seen parked. “That's my trade in. Don't worry about the damage. The insurance company will pay to have it repaired. It will be my down payment.”

“Yes, sir,” he replied, hesitantly.

I left.

The following Wednesday, a friend asked if I was going to pick up my car. Actually, I wasn't sure if I was. The whole incident seemed like a dream. I shrugged in response and decided to drive to the dealer and see if I had actually purchased it.

When I arrived, the salesperson was waiting. I believe his manager had rehearsed him in case I actually showed up. He sat me down in an office where all the paperwork was laid out. I signed. Transfered my personal effects from the Datsun, and drove away in my brand new 1969 Javelin.

It was a beautiful car. Even by today's standards. It was too much car to drive around the island, but I wasn't alone in that. Hawaii 50 had appeared on television and everyone else was buying Dodge Challengers with big block V8 engines. We all chugged around the island with our engines collecting soot. There wasn't a stretch of road where you could really run them at high speed and clean them out.

To this day, I don't know how much I paid for that car. What they allowed on my Datsun as trade in. I had a payment book and paid something each month. It seems that there were 36 payments of approximately $100. 

Have you ever been that impulsive in your life?

I've worked for more people than most, probably because I was fired more often than most. Government bureaucracies. Small businesses. Large ones. Multinational corporations. And, a few enterprises of my own. Almost everywhere I went, I found Dilbert comic strips hanging on bulletin boards and in employee cubicles. Invariably, bosses shared the laugh. Why? Didn't they see that they're the butt of the joke?

Inasmuch as I have worked for so many employers, I am often asked, "Which is the best managed organization for which you have ever worked?"

I never hesitate to respond, The United States Army.

I suppose that you are chuckling about now. How can that be? Haven't we all heard "the stories"? About the food? About the paperwork? About the mind-numbing drudgery? Of course we have, but the same things can be said of almost any organization.

During the late 1960s and into the 1970s, Phillips Petroleum was touted as the best managed corporation in the world. ABC produced a television special describing the secrets of their success. I ordered the enlisted men under my command to view it. We assembled in the company day room to be enlightened. 

Generally, most junior ranking personnel put their lives on hold while they were in the Army, until they returned to "the real world". I was hoping to encourage them to see that the Army was a part of the real world.

I wasn't disappointed in my decision. These young men sat open-mouthed as the show described the dress code (uniform) required of executives. How executives' spouses were expected to attend classes to lose their regional accents and thus present a better corporate image. How they were expected to socialize among the right people, in the right places. How employees were trained to follow standard operating procedures.

Ultimately, in these later years when people react with shock to my opinion that the Army is the best managed organization, I respond with a question of my own: "Can you imagine," I asked, "your organization picking up and moving operations on an instant's notice, half-way around the world? And, not only must it continue operations in this distant land, but also shelter, feed, and clothe its employees as well as provide medical care? Oh, and by the way, when you get there, someone is going to be shooting at you."

How well could your organization handle that? I don't think Dilbert's boss could, do you?

Are we doing our children any favors by lying to them? Sure, they're all special, each and every one of them. But not all of them are gifted, not in that way.

The officials may not be keeping score at youth sporting events, but you can bet the kids are. All these artificial methods we have crafted to boost our children's self esteem are not only not working, but also they may be backfiring. Watch an episode or two of American Idol or The X Factor. Sure, many people try out for talent competitions just to get their fifteen minutes of fame, however many appear to be honestly surprised when someone tells them that they don't have any talent. Are they such good actors that they can emote extreme heartbreak when they fail to win a ticket to the big show? Then again, if they are such good actors, they may simply be trying out for the wrong competition.

I suppose that none of these examples can match the Nobel committee awarding a Peace Prize in anticipation of someone earning it.

Are you surprised that a majority of voters, especially among the young, opt for a more powerful central government? Is there anyone who would argue with the premise that free individuals can't be successful unless they think for themselves, make decisions for themselves, and take responsibility for themselves? How can they when they are constantly plugged in, tuned in, and being spoon-fed someone else's thoughts?

Interestingly, many of the popular concepts being force fed through connections to iPhones and iPads are being generated by environmentalists who advocate that we abandon our automobiles in favor of green modes of transportation. Inasmuch as these are slower, joggers, cyclists, and pedestrians have more time to enjoy their personal media. Unfortunately, they also have less situational awareness and may fall victim to predators that are roaming city streets in alarmingly increasing numbers. Ironically, the same government that subsidizes green industries, also strives relentlessly to disarm us so that we can't defend ourselves from them.

Wait a minute. This was supposed to be funny, wasn't it?

Economics. Do you tremble at the sound of the word? Did you ever take a class in economics? Did your eyes roll up into the back of your head when the professor began lecturing? Mine did. My first economics professor committed suicide after just one class. (Really. That's no joke. He did.) The second mumbled unintelligibly for several weeks until we complained and the school installed a amplifier and microphone to hook up to the classroom speakers. We then suffered through amplified mumbling. At the end of the first semester, the whole class was restarted under a new professor. Ultimately, I passed Economics 101, but never got over the trauma of that introduction.

That was almost fifty years ago. Why would I subject myself to all that again? I decided that it was important. Obviously, I decided that I needed a foundation in economics to help me understand why the economy is falling into an abyss. More importantly, what could I do about it?

Then I found Hillsdale College. Hillsdale is not your typical college. Established in 1844, it's “educational mission rests upon two principles: academic excellence and institutional independence. The College does not accept federal or state taxpayer subsidies for any of its operations.” (How do you suppose they survive with that kind of an attitude?)

Hillsdale offers its core curriculum, required by every enrolled student, free and online. There are lectures, reading materials, discussion groups, and tests. Successful completion earns a noncredit certificate. In addition to economics, classes include: History 101 Western Heritage, History 201 American Heritage, Introduction to Constitution as well as Constitution 101 and 201. I wish that everyone would take advantage of these courses, but expect that those who need them most will avoid them like the plague. Take a look at this sample from the second session of Economics 101.

I can handle this. Can't you?

I'm pretty sure that I won't be able to cure the economy regardless of what I learn. However, I bet that we can if we get enough people involved, educating themselves, and participating more intelligently. Why don't we give it a try? At the very least, we won't fall victim to any more empty promises, nor will be have to abdicate our decision-making to those who pretend to be smarter than us. In fact, I wish that this class would be required for all who pretend to high office.