Sincerest Form of Flattery, Indeed.

Michael Gerson...

“Atticus was right,” Scout says of her father. “One time he said you never really know a man until you stand in his shoes and walk around in them.”

This is easy to dismiss as sentiment and sugar water. It is, in fact, the answer to everything — to racism and bullying and genocide, and the daily abuse we inflict on each other. Do to others as you’d have them do to you. Don’t judge so you won’t be judged. Walk in the other guy’s shoes for a while. It is the only effective response to the Beast who is constantly reborn.

This is the hope that unites parents and teachers: not that human nature can be changed but that moral education is possible. That a 13-year-old, like many who came before, might glimpse real courage in imaginary lives. That the end of innocence might be the start of sympathy. That even junior high can include a little grace.

At the end of “To Kill a Mockingbird,” Scout says, “Nothin’s real scary except in books.” It isn’t true. A lot that is human is scary. But the answers are found on the reading list.*

echoes me here:

It all goes back to consistency. If you don't like it being done to others, don't do it yourself. Be prepared to apply your principles across the board.
...
Our laws, and most online contests or campaigns, draw a distinction between youth and adults. Leave the kids out of it: they're still growing, and learning, and truth be told: they should be focusing on their educations, which go far far beyond whom they might choose to sleep with when they grow up and are mature adults.

And here I was, humbly pretending nobody reads this blog...
Heh!

* which makes it all the more sadder, really, that nobody pulled that boy off the online social sites, and sat him in a room, alone, with the great books. (Try the short story Paul's Case, by Cather, for starters...)

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ADDED: I'm also pulling this post, from back in October of last year -- There's still time for the politicians to step back up to the plate and get this thing right... Will they listen here, or double down? -- highlighting my use, now commonplace, of the term "double down". It's f'n everywhere these days -- talk about picking up another's wordplay and running with it...

Technically, it's a gambling, a blackjack term. (I'm only speaking on this, not for credit, that's not me... but because it seems to have entered the mainstream lexicon now, and is so often wrongly used. It doesn't just mean: recommitting to what you're already working with.)

By using basic strategy you can determine when you should double down based on the mathematics of the game The reason that doubling down is so favorable is that you are doubling your bet when you have the best opportunity of beating the dealer. Most of the time, this is when the dealer is at their weakest. This happens when the dealer shows an up card, which can possibly cause them to bust.

Many computer simulations have been run to determine the frequency that a dealer will bust based on their up card. Take a look at the table at the bottom of this page.

The worst cards for the dealer are the two through six. They will bust more times with these cards showing. Your double down will be successful more against these cards. There are other situations where you will double down with a ten against the dealer's nine or an eleven against a dealer's ten. These are close calls and some newer players hesitate to do this. Although you will not be as successful with these plays as many times as when the dealer has a smaller card it is still the correct strategy to do so. In the long run you will win more money by doubling in these situations than you will lose.

So thanks for reading people,
just be sure, if you're taking my words out of context and adopting my style for your own, that you fully understand the words you're choosing to use.

First few times I saw "doubling down" in the political circles, I was flattered. But as everyone seems to ape everyone else when they get paid to put out daily analysis and coverage, and the election's still over a year away, it gets tiresome.

Glad I don't take my money that way.
Leaves me free to ... keep it real here, stay creative, enjoy the simple healthy life (been paddling and gardening way before some folks latched on to these photo ops).

A well-rounded intelligence, a solid educational foundation, and a healthy appetite for reading all things -- why, you can't swipe that and pass it off as your own. Not for too long anyway...

Who will go the distance...



ADDED BONUS:
Here's the full post from last October:

Freedom dies a little bit...
"if the commerce clause can be used to cover any activity where costs are shifted from one person in society to another." (from the public comments section.)

Ilya Somin on the Volokh law blog looks a bit closer at today's Michigan ruling that upholds mandating the purchase of health insurance for all.

The problem with this reasoning is that those who choose not to buy health insurance aren’t necessarily therefore going to buy the same services in other ways later. Some will, but some won’t. It depends on whether or not they get sick, how severe (and how treatable their illnesses are), whether if they do get sick, they can get assistance from charity, and many other factors. In addition, some people might be able to maintain their health simply by buying services that aren’t usually covered by insurance anyway, such as numerous low-cost medicines available in drug stores and the like. In such cases, they aren’t really participating in the same market as insurance purchasers.

Of course, many people will buy the same service later, and for some the probability of doing so is quite high. But the individual mandate makes no distinctions on any such basis. It sweeps in nearly everyone. If the mere possibility that you might purchase a similar service somewhere else is enough to count as “activity” and therefore regulable under the Commerce Clause, then almost any regulatory mandate would be permissible. For example, a requirement that each citizen purchase a gym club membership and exercise for one hour per day could be defended on the basis that, otherwise, people will be less healthy, which will make it more likely they will spend more money on medical care, health insurance, and perhaps other forms of exercise.

The opinion also claims that the Commerce Clause covers “economic decisions” as well as “economic activity.” “Economic decisions,” by this reasoning include decisions not to engage in economic activity. That, however, would allow the Commerce Clause to cover virtually any decision of any kind. Pretty much any decision to do anything is necessarily a decision not to use the same time and effort to engage in “economic activity.” If I choose to spend an hour sleeping, I necessarily choose not to spend that time working or buying products of some kind.

Another noteworthy aspect of the Michigan decision is that it ruled that the Thomas More plaintiffs had standing and that the case was ripe. In this respect, it was similar to the earlier Virginia ruling, which also came down against the government on these points. It looks like standing and ripeness issues will be less of a problem for the anti-mandate plaintiffs than I at first thought.

Well, that's one judge's opinion, eh?

Let's see what the American people have to say on the issue come NOvember**...

ADDED:
Georgetown law professor Randy Barnett, also writing on Volokh, has this to say about today's decision:

In the course of dismissing the plaintiff’s Commerce Clause challenge, the Judge Steeh has vindicated an important element of all such pending challenges: this claim of power by the government is without any precedent in experience or in law. In Judge Steeh’s words:

“The Court has never needed to address the activity/inactivity distinction advanced by plaintiffs because in every Commerce Clause case presented thus far, there has been some sort of activity. In this regard, the Health Care Reform Act arguably presents an issue of first impression.”

Never before in American history has the U.S. Government imposed an economic mandate commanding that persons engage in economic activity. Given that there is no current Supreme Court doctrine recognizing such power in Congress, the appropriate stance of a district court judge is to follow Supreme Court precedent and deny this claim of power until the Supreme Court decides in due course to expand its doctrine.
Instead, Judge Steeh accepted the government’s expansion of Congressional power beyond regulating economic activity to regulating economic “decisions”:

“While plaintiffs describe the Commerce Clause power as reaching economic activity, the government’s characterization of the Commerce Clause reaching economic decisions is more accurate.”

But this was not “plaintiff’s description.” It was how the Supreme Court itself described its own doctrine in each and every Commerce Clause case that allowed Congress to reach wholly intrastate activity because it was necessary and proper to the regulation of interstate commerce.

By inventing a new “economic decisions” doctrine, Judge Steeh has gone beyond the Commerce and Necessary and Proper Clause doctrines established by the Supreme Court.

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There's still time for the politicians to step back up to the plate and get this thing right... Will they listen here, or double down?

I'm hoping a new crew brings a new attitude and humbles some of the players who just can't fathom that what they twisted and compromised to get through -- and tried unsuccessfully to sell to the American public through liberal media mouthpieces represented on Journolist, including Krugman at The NYT; Klein, Ezra at WaPo; and Klein, Joe at Time -- is ... faulty.

Just a thought.

posted by Mary at 5:49 PM

** Damn! I called that one correctly also -- looking at the election results where the voters could not be denied. They simply do not like the ACA, or Obamacare, if you will...

With today's stories about the price of premiums going up, up, up ... I wonder if anybody will call Mr. Ezra Klein for what he is -- a young shill, pretending to sell his policy wonk skills, but his track record is dismal, to say the least... oh what the hey. He'll be off making his moolah in a non-profit advocacy role soon enough, I think. Never was a real journalist, in the first place. Simply never bothered to learn the old established rules, before he broke 'em...

The WaPo bought his youthful exuberance, but day to day to day? His work simply does not hold up. The old guard will realize that soon enough, I think...


FINALLY:
If you're still reading? FWIW: The only thing less funny than the thrice-told Pet Atop the Car Carrier kneeslapper is a dead hooker joke. I know, I know... who am I to judge? But trust me? Steer clear of emulating older, unwiser others, and breaking new ground for funny in such a troubled economy.

That skinny white dead hooker you're funning about?
That's the type of person you ought to be writing about these days...

Nevermind the victim jackpot winners -- see here and here*. How 'bout a little press coverage toward those struggling, and making it, without becoming fully dependent on other people's money, without which, sadly, they fall right back into the "hold the door open for me?" category...

(I mean: nothing against a good pity story. But trust me, the crippled boy making fun of America's mops isn't going to be the one to create a better mousetrap mop to help society better itself. And in time, I suspect, he might just regret trading up his own people, his mother, and his country and culture for the ... "good life" he's currently enjoying here in Boca Raton (the mouth of the rat), America. Call it a hunch...

If that seems harsh to you, today, wait and see. Don't stop thinking about his tomorrows, now that you've got him where you want him and all.)


* The only thing I can say about Blow's piece -- forgive me, my immediate reactions are rarely that of the crowd -- is that little Madison, the girl "who brings the sunshine into the basement?" She's gonna be a Sugar Daddy's delight in years to come...

What I mean is:
this program to provide poor people with artwork, and waterfront housing? A gift, through no direct efforts of their own, other than not to color on the walls and keep the new buildings clean? That kid will never learn to work hard, and do what it takes to sacrifice, work hard, study, work hard, and lift herself. No matter what she does in life, how can she compete with $85,000 annually handouts?

Judging by Blow's response, and the child's eagerness to please after spending half her 4-year-old life in this environment, let's just say ... she'll make somebody a nice geisha girl, that seems certain.

They mean well, but sometimes freedom and independence -- not just finer more gilded cages -- truly are the best lessons for lifelong success. How's about some stories on folks like that? Not jackpot winners, or wasted victims being helped by the goodness of one's friends (always named, naturally), but on those struggling today and getting by, and bettering themselves, who will one day compete honestly, and win too, thanks to the leveled playing fields.

It's not enough just to gain the win, it's the connected direct lessons that teach the value of education, hard work, and independence -- relying on yourself to take care of you, even if it means a lesser standard of living today but being able to really play.

Hope this makes sense; not too worried about the cold reactions, because indeed, I do have a heart. It's just the superior down-the-road vision that makes this things clearer to me, I think.