U.S. Congress by random draft #DraftCongress

In the service of the United States young men over the age of eighteen were at one time called to don uniforms, carry guns, and storm hills in the face of gunfire and bombshells. They were chosen from a random pool of boys who voluntarily registered their names and Social Security numbers, knowing they could be called to die for their Congress's and President's chosen path of bloodshed and disaster.


U.S. Congressmen, holed up in their cushy offices, far from gunfire or danger, called this process fair. It wasn't fair.  There were loopholes in selection that any well connected, white, college-aged man could avail himself of. See, for example, Dick Cheney and George W. Bush.


Nonetheless, many good men whose impact on the planet, its people and its fortunes will never be known, answered the call. They got suited up, shipped out and got killed. True, many came home just fine. Many never left the US. But many came back, broken. Badly. 


But it was mostly fair. Fearsome, unimaginably violent, dubious in origin, but fair. There is a current and far better use of that kind of random selection process now.


The U.S. should adopt a public service draft, by Constitutional Amendment of course, for Congress. All representatives would be chosen by a staggered, random drawing from all U.S. citizens between the age of 35 and 65. The single term of service would be four years with half of Congress replaced every two years. All who served would get DC dormitory housing for when Congress was in session and would be paid a daily stipend for their attendance at Congressional gatherings, which, I would bet, would be a whole lot less often than they are now. I estimate a drafted congress might meet once every three to six months and only for a week or so at a time. They could get reimbursed for constituent communication and events too. But only out of their district's tax payments.


Lobbyists would be mostly powerless. Committee assignments would be loathed and not coveted. Nobody would be out hunting for re-election support, so no company, cabal, or Netanyahu could consistently buy influence. There would be no lavish pensions, no junkets to foreign lands, and probably no more military-industrial complex. There would be a continued need for career specialists and administrative employees and agencies, but no more elected official class and its grossly ignorant buffoonery.


It is quite possible that with regular Americans in office, some meaningful, humane and relevant policies would be adopted. I would imagine quite a few bad laws would be stricken too. A drafted Congress would be efficient. There would be little to none of the "we have to do something" nonsense we have now. That fluff would disappear. There would be no patience for being away from home, family and work to vote for spending on National Broccoli Day recognition or some such.


Imagine. Members of the governed, called to govern, without a promise of influence or power, who just want to go through an agenda of pressing items and go home. Certainly if it was fair enough a process to choose young men to face death for the whims of their leaders, it is fair enough to choose citizens to make far less fatal and final governance decisions.  #DraftCongress

A little kindness goes a long way.

Over dinner last night, my family was discussing ways to be better conversationalists. None in that group are wallflowers or conversation hogs, but there were areas of improvement for all of us.


Sometimes one of us goes too long on details when the conversational story should be maybe ten seconds.


Another has a penchant for topping their conversational partner's story, any story, instead of appreciating it for what it is: the other person's story.


I tend to be blunt, gruff and impatient. My entire family gustily agreed with that self-criticism. In my usual fashion I explained I was often that way because it seems everyone who talks to me, family included, wants something.


And in the best advice I have received all year, my daughter said: "Maybe if you were kinder many people would want to give to you."


Yes. Best advice all year. Thanks Carrie. I will be kinder. I can and I will.


Smile first and the good stuff will follow. I know. I know.

Thinking AND feeling.

Maya Angelou said a lot of quotable things. One of my favorites is “I've learned that people will forget what you said, people will forget what you did, but people will never forget how you made them feel.” At first this seems all squishy and poetic, but in practice it seems true. You won't recall exactly what your doctor gave you or what the treatment was, but you will recall feeling secure or relieved. If your plumber fixes your leaks quickly and at a fair price, you feel satisfied. You won't remember what he said or exactly what he did.

The Angelou doctrine applies to all interpersonal relationships and even to business relationships, which are, at their core, interpersonal.

Help your customers and your clients feel good about working with you by giving a little more than they bought. Help your employees to feel good about working for you, by giving them your support, respect and approval, and they will convey that to your customers.  When a customer feels valued and respected, then they will keep that sensation far longer than they will a memory of the hourly rate you charged for your services.

And I can't stress this enough, if a relationship or deal "feels" wrong to you, then it probably needs work. Our sub-conscious minds see and know more than we can articulate. That subconscious sometimes communicates with us through our emotions and our "guts". Let that feeling inform your thinking. It's there for a reason.

Amendments, Independence and Change

Proposed Constitutional Amendments

As I pondered Independence Day and saw that American approval of Congress and the Supreme Court had fallen to all time lows, I thought of some changes that may make the institutions less intolerable.  In no particular order:

Any two adults may marry as they choose and no legal benefit or privilege of that 

Marriage can be denied by any state, the federal government, or any agency.

Congress shall pass no law limiting the natural right of the People to procure, grow, cultivate manufacture or physically ingest any substance derived primarily from vegetation.

Congress may pass no law in respect of religion, and no court, judge, justice of the Supreme Court, agency, administrator, President, or Congressional body may accept any non-secular or religious belief, faith, opinion, teaching, rule or dogma as fact or evidence for any purpose whatsoever.

A person may serve as a member of congress, meaning either the House of Representatives or the senate, for no more than eight cumulative years in the member's lifetime.

Justices of the US Supreme Court may serve on the court for no more than eight cumulative years in a lifetime. 

From the effective date of this Amendment, Justices of the Supreme Court, Senators and Representatives alike shall receive from the US treasury an annual salary equal to the per capita income in the United States as measured by the Bureau of Labor Statistics in the year that member of Congress is elected to office, or the Justice is appointed.  Adjustments to the calculated pay up or down shall be made every two years during the member's or Justice's 's service. The human constituents of a representative's district, or in the case of a Senator or Justice, his or her resident state's human residents, may pay the member additional compensation, but only upon full, unlimited, contemporaneous public disclosure of the payor, the dates of payment and the amount of payment. No other payment or consideration of any kind can be made to any member of congress by any other person or corporation, and the District of Columbia shall not be considered a state. 

In response to the decisions by the US Supreme Court in Citizens United and Hobby Lobby, the People say that those decisions were wrong, are wholly rejected, and retroactively to the date of the Citizens United decision corporations are neither people nor human, and shall not be considered as such under any law, Constitutional provision or judicial decision.

No Federal or state government may expend any cash or credit of the United States or any of the several states to directly or indirectly fund any military force or the procurement of any materials that are not required to actually defend any part of the United States or any Territory thereof from an attack or invasion by foreign forces. If there is no actual attack or invasion, or imminent threat of attack or invasion of US borders by foreign forces, with imminent to mean more likely than not within twelve months, by physical, electronic or cyber forces, then no expenditure shall be made. No US citizen or assembly of US citizens, no matter where they are located, shall be considered a foreign force.

Terrorism is a tactic and not a sovereign nation or territory. From the effective date of this amendment Congress shall pass no law nor fund any action to conduct a war on terror, terrorists or terrorism.

No American citizen shall be deprived of any Constitutionally protected right. There are no exceptions to this clause. Violations of this clause by any government or police agent shall be considered acts of treason punishable by imprisonment and fines.

No person may be executed as a penalty for the commission of any crime. 

No US military force may be directly or indirectly funded, equipped, located or stationed, temporarily or otherwise, outside the United States or its territories and within the borders of any sovereign nation or territory unless it is during the conduct of a war on a sovereign nation that was declared by the President and approved by a 2/3 majority of both the House of Representatives and the senate. There are no exceptions to this clause.

A fella can dream of a Constitutional convention...

Freedom is free, but you have to take it.

Happy Fourth of July! That's what we say to each other in the US today. We cheerfully mouth the words without thinking too much of another holiday. We think more about fireworks and barbeques than we do about the Revolutionaries that recaptured their lives from an oppressive British monarchy 270 years ago. This morning I was mowing my lawn, thinking of how I was not free from yard work. It struck me then that we are not free unless we forcibly take our freedom from whomever or whatever holds it. Our liberty cannot be bought on any level. It has no price. Freedom is what we are born to. No matter where we are, in which country, under which regime. A person cannot purchase it. If it has to be bought, then someone other than the buyer controls it. It isn't really freedom. That is because if one pays for liberty then the seller can always change the terms, or cancel the transaction. In the US many workers grind away for fifty weeks a year for two weeks of vacation time. For many that vacation is paid. But even then they are not free. Many work on those vacations, working during the supposed "paid time off." Even if they don't work a lick over their vacation, they are bound to return to their labor and their bills. When a person is free they are not bound to return to any state of being, good or bad. There is no elasticity in the conditions of a free person's life. That free man may turn to any direction and go without being limited by the anchors of unwanted commitment. Being committed to what you want is not the opposite of being free, it is the epitome of freedom. Freedom to chose and to direct your own life. Again, this freedom cannot be bought. It has to be taken and jealously guarded. It is a state of mind that allows one to say no to any limit or preconception. I did not want to say that someone who works for another cannot be free, but I think I must. True, a worker can be happy at their job, and love their coworkers, but they are always a servant in a master-servant relationship. It matters not how much they are paid, they are still at the beck, call and demand of another. Their lives can be turned upside down by a downsizing or new and less favorable supervisor. Is that free? Happiness and freedom go hand in hand. In bondage can anyone ever be happy? If freedom and happiness are equal, and money can't buy happiness, then it must be true that freedom can not be bought with money either. Take control of your comings and goings. Don't be at the mercy of another. Don't be a slave to debt for things that you do not need. Don't fear what your boss might say. Shed your bonds and do what makes you happy, because being happy is the same as being free.

Sparking a Choice

Sitting here in my office on a beautiful Friday afternoon, prepping a presentation for a Paycor webinar I am reminded that 1) writing is difficult and 2) I don't like sitting in my office on beautiful Friday afternoons. James Altucher, author of Choose Yourself, says that to be good at something you should put in 1,000 hours doing it. I've been a lawyer for fifteen years. I've got my 1000 hours in, times 15. To write well he advises that you write every day. Got it. To be more creative he says exercise your creativity and come up with five ideas a day. Is it that easy? No. Try coming up with five ideas in a day. I find that comfortable, familiar habits are now well worn, smooth ruts that leave little room for novelty and are hostile to efforts to climb out. We know what we should do to get better, but it's easier to keep doing what we've been doing. The book Spark by Lyn Heward, former creative director at Cirque du Soleil recognizes the ruts and the need to get out. It is so very easy. So so very easy to just do what you did the day before, and the day before that. Pretty soon we are left with nothing but bland memories of the days before as the ends of our futures come rushing into view. No more tomorrows. Time's up. If there is something interesting you dream of doing with your life, then you should start now. I read a great quote on Twitter within the past few days: "In a year you will be wondering why you didn't start today." So true. My partly written presentation is up and waiting for me on my other monitor. I should work on it. An opposing counsel just called and asked for two more weeks to respond to a motion and some interrogatories that also marked a settlement deadline. He needed an answer. He got it. The pool and my children on summer break are beckoning by text message. How many tomorrows do I get? What do I do? What would you do?

Bouncing

Renewed a trampoline today.  I put on a new safety net and a new spring protector. I didn't have the instructions from the first installation,  I had to make up the process from scratch. I'm not that smart so it took a couple of run throughs. There are more than a hundred springs and I had to take them off, one at a time, twice.

I'm dumb and now my hands hurt.  

Sure was a nice afternoon and I'm grateful for it.