News New Mexico: Swickard Columns

Showing posts with label Swickard Columns. Show all posts

Swickard: Roping Roy, The Wonderful Western Mascot

© 2014 Michael Swickard, Ph.D. - Sometimes things matter little in the grand scheme of things but matter much to me. Historical truth is one of those things. Last week Oklahoma State University and New Mexico State University got officially crossways over their mutual mascot Pistol Pete.
  Truth be known I know the story better than most since it is my article from the 1980s that touched this dispute off. You might wonder: why it took twenty-five years to come to lawyers? That is not what bothers me. For me the problem is: when NMSU was made aware they decided to lie their way out rather than be a stand-up institution.
  As to Pistol Pete, I thought years ago NMSU would say, "Whoops," and pick a better mascot such as my suggestion "Roping Roy, the Wonderful Western Mascot." Best I can tell the name is still open if NMSU can muster a "Whoops" about Pistol Pete.
  Pistol Pete is one of five historical issues I have had with NMSU over the years. One was NMSU celebrating its centennial on the wrong year. Seriously. Worse, they were two years off. The way I discovered it was that I was hired to write an article about how NMSU celebrated in the then year of 1988, along with 1938 and 1913. I was supposed to document how institutional celebrating changed over the years.
  To my surprise in the 1930s and the 1950s NMSU (known then by a different name) quietly moved their start date back a year each time. The undisputed fact is NMSU was started by Hiram Hadley, the first university president. And, he was in charge of the 25th year celebration which he held in 1915.
  That is a fact. He knew when the university started because he was there. And the 40th anniversary celebration was held in 1930. Nothing but facts. Both stolen years were done for a "Good reason" much like stealing Pistol Pete along with stealing "Crimson Pride" from the Crimson Tide. Not that it really matters. It just looks stupid.
Another controversy involved the NMSU yearbook, The Swastika. In 1983 the "Flan hit the fan" about NMSU having a yearbook named The Swastika. I was the head photographer of the 1969 Swastika so I thought I knew all about it.
  The Albuquerque Journal's Impact Magazine hired me to cover the controversy. Seems the first yearbook in 1907 had no Swastikas in it, rather, the name was a Sanskrit word meaning "An auspicious beginning." Along the way Swastika symbols were added and when Hitler ruined the name most organizations quietly cast it off. Not NMSU. The made up a new history: it was a Navajo word meaning "Peace and harmony for all people."
  The Navajo Language Dictionary says it is a symbol with no meaning. The core issue is that no one thought of NMSU when they saw the Swastika. But there was a brisk battle between the people thinking they were supporting the Native Americans and people wanting to support the protesting Jewish community. After my story came out NMSU changed the name of the yearbook to the Phoenix, and killed the yearbook shortly thereafter.
  About that same time I noticed that the NMSU's War Memorial had one name that should not be there and was missing a very important name. It had the name of a graduate who was killed in the Pancho Villa Raid, but was not in the military so that name should not be there. And little Eugene Casey from the Class of 1898, who died in the Spanish American War was entirely left out. I was told it was too expensive to correct it.
  Finally, there is a Kent Hall on campus named for Harry Kent, a beloved president who had a credential problem that showed up his 14th year as president. The powers that be let him leave quietly and named a building for him.
  Each of these historical issues are not particularly egregious, but they do tarnish the reputation of a research university. Worse, in each case the NMSU leaders have known the truth but decided to lie rather than just say "Whoops" and then correct the issue.
  I like Roping Roy, the Wonderful Western Mascot.
Dr. Michael Swickard is co-host of radio talk show News New Mexico 6 to 9 a.m. Monday - Friday on a number of New Mexico radio stations and through streaming. Email: michael@swickard.com

Swickard: When big government is never big enough

© 2014 Michael Swickard, Ph.D. - Government was small when our country was founded. In fact, it was between small and non-existent for most American citizens. Contrast that with our government today where for some Americans government is never big enough. It always needs to get bigger year by year.
Much of the reach of our government today, that Americans take for granted, would be as foreign to our founding leaders as going to the Moon and returning safely. If our founding leaders were not already dead, a look today at our bloated government would kill them.
In essence bigger government was the central fight when our current constitution was constructed. Some delegates to the Constitutional Convention wanted as little government as possible. However, the Articles of Confederation which was what they were trying to amend was clearly not enough federal government. Our founding leaders knew this.
Some delegates saw things only a larger government could do. Of those Benjamin Franklin and George Washington especially saw the need of a stronger federal government for the defense of our country. There was the need for balance in our government and the new constitution had a balance of power which was designed to hold the power of government down.
So our country was founded with a small federal government which inspired small state governments. But an interesting thing happened over the years. Our federal and state governments got bigger. New tasks were given to government and government reached further into the lives of Americans.
Every year of our nation’s existence our government was said by some citizens to not be doing enough and was said by other citizens as getting too big. Citizens argued year by year about we must reign in big government or government must do even more.
At some point it became part of the national dialog to vote money out of the pockets of other citizens and into our own pockets. The way to do that was with big government providing the muscle for such theft. Read full column

Our American way today of being Americans

© 2014 Michael Swickard, Ph.D. Talk show host Dennis Prager was asked to name the biggest threat to our country a few years ago, “We have not passed on (to the next generation) what it means to be an American.”

He is correct, but it is much worse than that. Many Americans today only think of themselves and their needs. And our politicians feed this insanity to the point our country may not recover.
America was not founded on what you get. It was founded on an ideal of having a chance to get what you want by earning it. There was never a thought back in 1776 that as soon as America was rid of England then the treasury would be thrust open for everyone to have all the money they want.
The American treasury then, much like today, was firmly in the red. We are lucky foreign governments still take our non-backed paper because we are no longer a rich nation. We have not been food independent since 1992, have not been energy independent even longer and we no longer have military dominance.
We are acting rich as a country but the time of consequences is near. Today, with heads firmly in the sand, despite our treasury being empty, free is the political way of life. Even the media dares not tell Americans that the bank is empty and even Fort Knox has no gold. Yes, some Americans know but no one is listening.
Americans put themselves before country and feel no obligations. President John Kennedy in his 1961 inaugural speech implored, And so, my fellow Americans: ask not what your country can do for you, ask what you can do for your country.”
He would be voted out of office today. Many Americans wait patiently and not so patiently for a government check from our treasury.Read full commentary

Swickard: Once arrested never innocent in the media

© 2014 Michael Swickard, Ph.D.
The media’s the most powerful entity on earth. They have the power to make the innocent guilty and to make the guilty innocent, and that’s power. Because they control the minds of the masses. Malcolm X

Several times a week there is something in the media that makes me queasy. Someone will have been arrested so the media gives all the details of the crime in such a way that for most people there is no other conclusion than the person is guilty. Every detail is on the front page for all to see, even those details that the police plant in the press to move the case forward.
The presumption of innocence is one of the founding principles of our country. But over the years citizens have lost that presumption. In the Old West often the low-down dirty varmint was hung and then given a trial. Example: at Boot Hill in Tombstone, Arizona is this marker:

Here lies George Johnson hanged by mistake 1882
He was right, we was wrong,
But we strung him up, and now he's gone.
Several times a month I protest the way the media frames the story such that guilt can be the only conclusion. I protest to the media that they only carried the prosecution’s message. They are usually huffy about any criticism since everyone knows that when someone is arrested they are guilty.
They answer the defendant will get his or her day in court. But that is not the issue. The jury pool is contaminated by the media framing the story from the prosecution’s point of view. The media often is intimidated by the police and if they do not play ball, so to speak, they are frozen out of the information loop.
Further, as some of us remember there have been several seemingly iron-clad cases against citizens that subsequently turned out to be incorrect. What is remembered is that the person was handcuffed and perp-walked into the jail on nighttime television. It is rarely remembered that the person was really innocent. Read full column

Swickard: Job is not a four letter word

© 2014 Michael Swickard, Ph.D. The most important job young people will ever get is their first job. It may not pay well; but it leads to their second job. They cannot have a second job without a first job. Without the all-important first job, many young people will flounder and never get into the job market therefore wind up living on the street.
Our society has put up many barriers to young people working. So many young do not get a no-brainer job and learn to work. They must learn to work as the boss says and to not quit until they have another job lined up. There is nothing wrong with working and going to school to get that first job. The key to my success over forty years was to get that first job and learn from it so I could get the next job and so on. Today many young people are in their middle twenties and still have not had a first job. I say to them that job is not a four letter word.
There are three reasons many young people have not had their first job: first, they have not valued the things to learn from a first job. Secondly, many are not being forced by the economics of their life to get a job as long as they do not mind going in debt with student loans. Finally, many young people have not gotten that first job because the job market has collapsed.
Many jobs are not open to young people because these young people do not have any job skills so employers are reluctant to hire young people who must be paid the minimum wage while they cannot return that productivity for the employer.
In this tough economy many employers are slimming down their workforces and paying more to productive members of their staff while not hiring young people. There is a national push to make this worse by raising the minimum wage further. No one is speaking out for these young unemployed.
Know this: they cannot get a second job without getting their first job. Further, they cannot get productive skills if employers will not hire them because of the minimum wage.
There should be a waiver that if someone has never had a job previously then they can make any deal with an employer for a first job. Suddenly, they would be attractive. Read full column

Swickard: Good teaching is rare in our schools

© 2014 Michael Swickard, Ph.D. The most important question in education: what is good teaching? Perhaps defining good teaching is impossible, but we know good teaching when we see it. On the other hand many celebrated teachers may not know how to teach but are great at educational politics.
Example: what many “Good” teachers are good at is playing political games in their school. They know how to play the games and therefore their students get good scores on tests regardless of how the students get their scores or even if the scores reflect their student’s abilities.
These “Good” teachers are high achievers who make their schools look good. They are given awards while other teachers go about the teaching with no hoopla at all. One of my former students went through the cumulative folders for her incoming class and found they were on grade level.
But when the kids came into her class they had forgotten everything. She struggled all year. In March of that year the mystery was solved. She told me, “When I gave them the end of year tests they said, ‘Miss, aren't you going to give us the answers like the teacher did last year?’”
The best way to get at great teaching is to say what it is not. First, it is not mean. There is a notion that rigor is good so the harder the teachers are on the students, the more the students will thank them in their prayers. Not so. It seems to me that some of the mean teachers are mentally unbalanced and prey upon students.
A former student wrote that one of her kids came to school very sad. Her grandfather had died suddenly the day before. The class was scheduled for an accountability test that day. My former student contacted the office and said that this student could not take the test.
The principal came fluttering into the classroom at the notion of a student not taking the test and said, “We need you to take this test.” The girl, with tears running down her face said, “My grandpa died yesterday.” The principal looked mad and said, “You have to take this test” and stomped off.
My former student’s coworkers said she must sit the student with a test. Instead my former student took her student to the library and let her sit with the librarian and hold a stuffed toy. She did get in trouble.
At the end of the year this former student quit education, saying she would not hurt children regardless of politics and pressures. It is best she left public education since there is no room in the field for someone who realizes a child who lost a loved one the day before is not in proper condition to do accountability tests.Read full column

Maximum unemployment with the minimum wage

© 2014 Michael Swickard, Ph.D. Nobel Prize winner in Economics Milton Friedman not only opposed raising the minimum wage, he opposed the very concept of a minimum wage. There was not any government program of mandated wages that he embraced. The reason he gave for his opposition was that the notion of a government mandated wage violated economic principles and would harm the very people said to need it.
In his 1980 television series, Free to Choose, Friedman says, “The minimum wage law is most properly described as a law saying that employers must discriminate against people who have low skills… The law says here’s a man who has a skill that would justify a wage of $5 or $6 per hour (adjusted for 2014), but you may not employ him, it’s illegal, because if you employ him you must pay him $9 per hour.”
Friedman continues, “So what’s the result? To employ him at $9 per hour is to engage in charity. There’s nothing wrong with charity. But most employers are not in the position to engage in that kind of charity. Thus, the consequences of minimum wage laws have been almost wholly bad. We have increased unemployment and increased poverty.”
When the minimum wage was first proposed the effect on the least skilled workers was understood by those politicians. Only recently have the media been able to obscure these outcomes. The political opportunities were such that politicians and labor unions could prosper while the least productive members of our society paid a dreadful price.
The minimum wage debate is almost entirely from the side of the person without adequate productive skills. That person must exist on very little money. I worry about someone else. What about those least skilled citizens who do not have a job and cannot get one? They are now less likely to be employed.
This is especially so for young people who have never had a job. Getting that first job is a problem because they have no job history and unless they come from a technical high school or college, they do not have the productive skills such that the employer can make a fair trade.
So most of these young people sit at home, mostly in their parent’s home and they do not gain skills while the politicians and unions talk about raising the minimum wage even higher. Alas, the unemployed cheer for a higher minimum wage without realizing a higher minimum wage puts jobs even further out of their reach.
The unemployed have a much harder road to live than anyone employed. Read full column

Swickard: Burning up with road-rage

© 2014 Michael Swickard, Ph.D. Road-rage has been all the rage to talk about these last few weeks. Someone did a survey of what causes road-rage. The top cause was people who drive too slowly. For cranky people susceptible to road-rage driving too slowly are all those people going slower than them.
The best way to understand these cranky people is to see them change a light bulb. They hold the bulb steady and let the world revolve around them.

In the 1950s humorist Brother Dave Gardner told about a guy behind a truck he could not pass. There was a sign on the back of the truck: I may be slow but I am ahead of you. The guy flips out and wrecks. It is a funny story, to a point.

Two hundred years ago humans could only go as fast as a horse could run. Those early 19th century humans could only go the speed of Romans two thousand years earlier. Perhaps there was road-rage then for slow horses. Then technology increased speed. We now can go hundreds of miles in a day in air-conditioned comfort listening to music coming from space.

But some people act like being slowed for a few moments makes the whole journey like riding in a German cattle-car in the early 1940s. Impatient people feel everything on the road purposely tries to make them mad. Ultimately, they pay the price for their maladaptive coping mechanism, though innocent people also pay.

Out in the country where I am from we generally smile and wave. We drive friendly even with strangers. There is a reason for our civility. In small towns everyone knows everyone else so bad behavior is remembered more than sin and is often punished by the offender being shunned by town folks.

Contrast that with big cities where people are mostly anonymous. Many unnecessarily aggressive drivers count on being able to disappear into a cloud of strangers after their intentionally bad moments. But there is a change brought to us by technology: car video systems.Read full column

Swickard: Accessing truth is the problem

© 2014 Michael Swickard, Ph.D. The first victim of the Information Age is truth. Specifically, it is having access to the truth because there is so much false clutter that no one can be sure the media or Internet is really true.
Often truth has been hijacked for political or anarchist reasons. There are hundreds of false reports each day that make it into the media. These false reports are either called out or assimilated into the culture of our society. Often they live as slogans, “Bush lied and people died.” Or, “America did not land on the Moon.”
It is now possible to “prove” or “disprove” any fact or theory. There is probably a blog chronicling that Elvis is alive and playing golf with Michael Jackson who is also alive. If not, wait a minute, it will be up shortly.
My first connection to a wider world was in 1988 when I was a tester for Prodigy while living in California. At first it was opinions and advisories and in the 1990s it changed to data repositories.
In 1992 I was using email at NMSU such that I was on a project with a women in Jamaica and a man in New Zealand. We never met face to face but worked a year together. The data we sent back and forth stayed true on the worksheets and it was great.
Certainly I was aware in 1998 of the Y2K scare which came from the Internet to the media and back. Now it seems mildly humorous that so many people believed that life on this planet was going to end due to a programming problem when the clock strikes the year 2000.
Well, not everyone was freaked out and worried including myself, but the media played the concern to the hilt. People started stocking up on food, water and generators. However, I did not stock up or hoard above my normal two weeks or so of stuff.
In 1999 I wrote a column asking: how were these hoarders going to deal with their neighbors when they have the only warm house in the neighborhood? It was going to get ugly, especially when the lights came back on. Neighbors will have long memories of you shoving a gun in the faces and telling them to scram. Read full column

Swickard: Who is really in charge?

© 2014 Michael Swickard, Ph.D. It is possible for someone in New Mexico to get hurt or even killed. Why? There is an ambiguity among our local, county, state and national agencies as to who has the final police authority in New Mexico. No one knows and each thinks they do. Let me illustrate: it is legal for New Mexicans who comply with regulations to have medical marijuana. There is no ambiguity in New Mexico’s laws.
However, the federal government considers medical marijuana an illegal substance subjecting the person to the full fury of the federal government. The State of New Mexico says it is legal while the Federal Government says it is not.

There should never be a time in a nation of laws for something to be legal and illegal concurrently. But that is not as big a problem as the question: who ultimately is in charge in police matters?
The second example came recently when Otero County Commissioners asked Otero Sheriff Benny House to open a gate in Otero County that was shut by a federal authority. The feds insists on a closed gate, Otero County wants an open gate. They told the Sheriff to open it. Neither side intends to give an inch.
Imagine if I legally possessed medical marijuana. And imagine if Governor Martinez was in my truck as we were stopped by the Border Patrol. They would detect marijuana and attempt to confiscate it even though I showed my paperwork.

Whether I was with Governor Martinez or my own County Sheriff we would have a difficulty. How would it play out? We do not know because it is not clear who is the final authority in New Mexico. Our New Mexico Constitution says it is the Sheriff of that county. Would the feds listen?

So let’s say I asked Governor Martinez to protect my legal property. Perhaps she would tell her State Police bodyguards to protect us from the feds. Well, friends, it could get dangerous. Who would back off? The federal government has become a military of their own with tanks, planes and guns galore. Read full column

Swickard: Paying Americans too much or too little

2014 Michael Swickard, Ph.D. Question: when is the notion of “any” considered not enough? And, when is the notion of “much” considered too much? Answer: when the government decides the compensation for American workers.

Lately, along with the push to increase minimum compensation, there is now a push to impose a maximum wage. Some Americans are getting too much compensation so the government must stop them.

I cannot lay my finger on the part of the United States Constitution that says the government can make me pay someone more or less than I desire. The founders thought that emancipated adult citizens had the right to make any deal for compensation if both sides agree. If they do not agree, they do not have to trade.

Economist Milton Friedman wrote, “There is one and only one social responsibility of business, to use its resources and engage in activities designed to increase its profits so long as it stays within the rules of the game, which is to say, engages in open and free competition without deception or fraud.”

All of the horror stories about workers being abused involve times in America’s past that are no longer germane to the argument. If someone is not making any money right now and wants to work for less than the minimum wage it is wrong to keep them unemployed. Further, they are not gaining productive skills. Read full column

Endangered: American commerce under attack

© 2014 Michael Swickard, Ph.D. This much I know: whatever you wish to do in commerce will be opposed by environmental lawyers in three areas: animals, lands and procedures. All are tied to a political agenda to destroy commerce. The money for environmentalists to oppose commerce is provided by said commerce in the form of taxes. They are using the proceeds of capitalism to kill capitalism.

How does it work? Whenever someone attempts to farm, ranch or develop extractives, there is always a potential endangered species that suddenly crops up which cannot exist with the farm, ranch or extractive activity. Year after year every capitalistic venture in our country is under this same attack.

Environmentalists look to see where the capitalistic activity is and then apply concern of some unknown species to that activity. You want to open a mine? There is a potential endangered habitat there. Suddenly the media is full of stories about the newest species which is then used to stop commerce. Environmentalists trot out these species as needed.

When they do, the forces of capitalism must muster a robust defense of the proposed commerce while the environmental lawyers are paid by taxes. Importantly, when one battle is won or lost then environmental lawyers bring out the next species to battle over and the battle begins again. They battle until people who work for a living run out of money and desire to fight.

Many multi-generational ranchers have left ranching for good because the courts are stacked against them. Many battle with all their heart to continue the Agricultural heritage of America which is under attack. They battle until they no longer can battle. The media either paints them as wanting to harm endangered species or does not mention them at all.

Ultimately when Agriculture and the Extractive Industries are destroyed by political monsters for the purpose of political gain, the American citizens lose. Read full column

Swickard: The right way to deal with feral animals

© 2014 Michael Swickard, Ph.D. My mother rescued a half-starved feral cat one time. He seemed like any of her other rescued cats but even after neutering he was anti-social with the other cats. Also he had a great desire to mark territory pungently which he did. She had to cage him where he lived out his days. At no time during his years with us was he able to join her other cats.

There were always about six cats, all inside cats, living in our house. They came into our lives one by one, a rescue here and there. And then there was that feral cat named “Yoohoo” who could not live with domesticated cats.

My mother almost taught her cats to use the human toilet instead of the litter-pan. She lacked just one hold-out, a black female named Witch. We kids had to make sure we left the seat down and the lid up. But that knucklehead Witch would not do it.

I would have drop-kicked Witch through the goalpost of life and then had five cats with no need for kitty-litter. Not my dear mother who shrugged and went back to full-time kitty-litter for six cats. Anyway she was always going to have kitty-litter around because of Yoohoo.

Certainly on ranches and farms the most damming comment for man or animal is, “He’s undependable. That was Yoohoo. Some days he was almost pleasant. Most days he was not. But he was always undependable.

I was thinking about my brush with a feral cat this week because city leaders in several communities have struggled with the problem of feral cats. These non-domesticated cats live away from humans and prey mostly on wild birds and other small animals. Some people even put out feed which makes the problem worse. Read full column

Swickard: Cow flop lessons apply to ObamaCare

© 2014 Michael Swickard, Ph.D. As I wrote last week, I have had trouble with my new “healthcare.” It reminds me of something my brother did to me when I was five. Bill is three years older and when we were young that was significant.

One day he and a friend were jumping off of one side of a barn into plowed ground. It was a fall of about six feet. After I watched a while I asked: did it hurt when he landed.

He and his friend got an odd look on their faces. He put his hand on my shoulder as a sign of trust. “Yes,” he said, “It sure does hurt unless a person knows what to do so it does not hurt.”

Wow, to be able to jump off things and it not hurt. I asked him for the secret. He leaned closer and said confidentially, as if he was about to impart something important, that if I kept my eyes closed real tight, it would not hurt.

Double wow, so that was the secret. I was always trying to find the secret to things. And I had just found out how to jump off things without it hurting. My brother and his friend stood by the side of the barn in disbelief as I climbed to the top of the one story barn, firmly closed my eyes and said, “Oh, boy!”

First off, I was not going to waste this secret going off the side onto plowed dirt, no; I jumped off the front of the barn with an air of pleasant expectation, like trying a new flavor of ice cream. Very quickly I learned what a credibility gap is all about. I did not break anything, but for a time I was not sure.

Luckily I hit in the middle of a pile of cow flop which I would have missed if my eyes had been open. The good news is the cow pies broke my fall a little, but I would not recommend cow flop as a pillow, even if it is relatively soft when you jump off a barn.

What made matters even worse was that I went into the ranch house crying and trying to wipe the cow flop off of me. Heads would roll if I had anything to say about it. I had the intention of getting my brother in big trouble for the dirty rotten trick he had pulled on me. Then it happened.

The first adult seemed slow to understanding why I was crying and fussing while covered with cow flop. Suddenly the first adult got the story and I am sorry to say laughed. I guess it just came out.

Further, I am sad to say that instead of sympathy which I deserved, instead of the kindness for my misfortune, instead of going out there and swatting my brother as he surely deserved.

Instead, the first blabbed to the rest of the adults and they all laughed. It was cruel cow-flop laughter and I remember it started with that same expression that had been on my brother’s face.

In fact, about all I got from the fall into the cow flop was a close look at that expression. I remember it well even now. When I see that expression I keep my eyes open. Read full column

Swickard: Cranky Columnist Complains Happily

© 2014 Michael Swickard, Ph.D. Hello, I am a cranky columnist. I did not start out that way but I certainly am one now. Example: I went in the Comcast store to make a payment. A guy told me to sign in and then directed me to the Service Line.

I protested, “I do not want to change my service, I want to make a payment. The textbook way is to be in the payment line.” He shook his head, “No, payments are in the Service Line.” Mr. Cranky came out of my mouth, “I see you got your prescription for stupid pills refilled.” Well, one of us enjoyed it.

Lately it seems I am getting crankier and crankier. Worse, I am really enjoying it. Another example: last September I was thrown off my medical plan by the Affordable Care Act. So I have spent gobs of time trying to get another plan with Democrats telling me that the problem is I am resisting signing up for political reasons.

Not so. My old plan took me back month by month when the new plan was not ready. Finally last week I got my new policy. I was prouder than when I got long pants. However, I went to the pharmacy to check on a prescription. “I am sorry Mr. Swickard; your prescription for Insulin has been rejected by the new insurance.”

So far it has not mattered whether I was cranky or not, I cannot get my Insulin. You might ask why does Michael want Insulin? Answer: because he is an Insulin dependent diabetic. When Nancy Pelosi, then Speaker of the House said you would have to pass the Affordable Care Act to see what was in it, I never thought some person in our nation’s capital would want to take Insulin away from me and call it Affordable Care.

Now I do not expect this impasse to last too many more weeks, but I have had a cranky-fest talking to people on the phone and in person. While it has not moved the marker even one inch closer to me getting the drugs I need to stay alive, at least I have enjoyed the moments of pure unadulterated crankiness. Read full column

Swickard: Be ready to help when called upon

© 2014 Michael Swickard, Ph.D. It is something we hope to avoid but at times we are thrust into emergencies. Suddenly we must act correctly and quickly. Automobile collisions come to mind since the clock is ticking because the delicate human protoplasm inside each vehicle is often injured.

We see a plume of dust signaling one or more vehicles have left the roadway. There are just seconds to do the right things for these unfortunates. Little is written about what to do if you drive up upon an accident other than call the authorities. Many Americans just stand and watch like they are watching a television show. While they are just standing some people die who could have been saved.

My uncle, Ralph Smith, was a Safety Engineer for the New Mexico State Highway Department as I was growing up so I was steeped in this question. My response to collisions is somewhat automatic though every crash is different.

The first thing to do is to keep oncoming vehicles from running through the crash site. People must go quite a ways in both directions to stop oncoming traffic. Wave, shout and stop oncoming cars. It is a tragedy to be in a crash and even worse to be killed because an oncoming vehicle runs through the crash site.

Then try to help the injured. How much? My rule is that if it seems to me I can help, I do. The first thing is to get the walking wounded to lie down out of harm’s way. Obviously get people out of vehicles that might catch on fire if you can. Naturally stop the blood flow of injuries. Further, it is vital that when emergency workers arrive that you point them to the injured needing assistance immediately.

Finally, when the dust settles and the injured are on their way to a hospital it is helpful to give a verbal report along with your name and phone number on a piece of paper to the police. This way they can more easily reconstruct what happened both at the start of the collision and before they got there. Read full column

Swickard: What it takes to get my vote

It is frightening when more Americans vote in television shows than in real elections. Something must prompt them to do so; to make American Idol more important to them than Congress. There must be some reward to be so taken in by television and not real life. Trouble is I cannot for the life of me guess what that is.

We have 545 politicians (Congress, Supreme Court and President) who are running rough-shod over the American public while most Americans do not notice. One reason they do not notice is that the media operates as part of the ruling class and not as a watchdog to freedom. Politicians love it. Why our citizens allow the media to enable politicians to lie and cheat the American public, I cannot understand it.

In the coming mid-term elections our nation teeters on the brink of disaster far more than at any time after the Civil War. We are a nation so disconnected to the news that Man-made Global Warming is believed more than that Americans landed on the Moon and returned safely. I cannot for the life of me guess why.

As to the elections, we have people professing to have the best wishes for the teens who cannot get jobs. These same people want to raise the minimum wage even higher. The minimum wage does not let employers pay for what someone can trade productively.

That is exactly why low-skilled young people cannot find work and yet it is the very thing some political leaders are pushing. These politicians are running on raising the minimum wage which will keep more of our young people unemployed. And, go figure, most of the young people vote for them because a higher minimum wage sounds like they will be making more money. No, they will still be unemployed and unemployable.

What unemployed workers need more than anything is to get a job, any job for any wage because any wage will be more than they are making now. But their elected leaders seem to want to keep them jobless and in poverty. Worse, the media conspired to obscure the result of minimum wages: joblessness. Read full column

Swickard: Freedom from losing our freedoms

© 2014 Michael Swickard, Ph.D. In President Franklin Roosevelt’s 1941 State of the Union speech he spoke of four freedoms: these were the freedom of speech, freedom of worship, freedom from want and freedom from fear. Two of those: speech and worship are in the Bill of Rights and two: the freedom from want and fear, were not realistic.

There is no way government can inure citizens from want and fear. FDR said in his first inauguration in 1933, “The only things we have to fear is fear itself.” What about the notion government can guarantee citizens freedom from want?

FDR’s Four Freedoms have been in the public eye for several generations. The freedom from want has shaped public expectations such as Minimum Wage and the War on Poverty. Government cannot give each citizen all that they want.

In the year 2014 there could be a new Four Freedoms: Freedom from losing all of our Bill of Rights. Freedom to not have unusual concerns about food supplies, energy and the ability of our military to protect us. Next we need the freedom to have public education that is focused on the students and not the adults and which is not used for propaganda. Finally I would want the freedom from tyranny by our police and bureaucrats.

The intention of the founders of our country by passing the Bill of Rights was for government to be limited in how it could handle citizens. Inch by inch courts have interpreted the Constitution to mean exactly opposite of what it originally meant. When a section says… Congress shall make no laws… it is now interpreted to mean …Congress shall make laws… go figure.

More so, little by little each right in the Bill of Rights has been repealed without a vote of Congress or the people. Do not let anyone kid you, when the police come you are considered in our society guilty until proven innocent even if we mouth the words the other way. Read full column

Swickard: Jobs only occur when businesses flourish

© 2014 Michael Swickard, Ph.D. “There is one and only one social responsibility of business: to use its resources and engage in activities designed to increase its profits so long as it stays within the rules of the game, which is to say, engages in open and free competition without deception or fraud” Milton Friedman

The 2014 New Mexico Legislature is coming to an end of its 30-day session. There have been lots of controversies aimed at getting the members of the Legislature reelected in November but little else to help the people who need help the most: unemployed and underemployed New Mexicans.

The every other year 30-day legislative session in New Mexico concentrates on a state budget and anything else that catches the governor’s fancy. Me, I fancy jobs because jobs make New Mexico strong and we are not strong in our business sector.

For most people there are many more advantages to jobs than unemployment. Sure, with unemployment Democrats can throw palliative money at voters for the purpose of getting votes. They stand before cameras talking about helping New Mexico families. It gets them reelected but the people remain unemployed.

The underlying issue to what ails New Mexico is that the New Mexico State government along with County and Municipalities are not doing the right things to support businesses in this state. So businesses are not hiring enough New Mexicans for our economy to improve.

More so, the least likely to be employed are the least skilled since we have minimum wage laws which prohibit businesses from dealing honestly with potential employees. Businesses should be able to compensate employees by what the employee can do for the business.

New Mexico needs to lose the notion that government knows best for the citizens and let the citizens make their own economic decisions. The marketplace will bring prosperity to New Mexico if New Mexico confines its interference to making sure, as Milton Friedman says, “business…engages in open and free competition without deception or fraud.” Read full column

Swickard: Repeal all minimum wage laws now

© 2014 Michael Swickard, Ph.D. The minimum wage is an example of wage control. There has never been any country where wage controls have helped the workers. Wage controls always cause lots of economic problems and it gives government much more control of our lives.

We do not need polls, advice columns, or politicians sputtering, the economic data is compelling. When a minimum wage is imposed, it excludes the very members of the society that need a first job. Further, it treats employers improperly making them fund socialist benevolence via an unequal trade with their employees.

How so? Businesses take a product and convey it to customers. Done correctly there must be a profit so the process can continue. The employer trades money with employees for their productivity in this process.

If the value of the employee productivity is less than the money the employer gives the employee then there is an uneven trade. Both employer and employee must prosper for the relationship to continue. The employer must pay enough that employees can exist while employees must give employers enough productivity that customers are satisfied by quality and price.

Further, customers decide how much they will spend so prices must conform to customer behavior. Therefore, if the cost of the product including the cost of the employee productivity is more than the customer is willing to spend, the customer will not buy. Often businesses will fail. This is Economics 101.

So when the government forces employers to make a bad bargain of paying employees more than their productivity is worth one of two things will happen: the loss is passed on to the customer who is free to buy or not because the product costs more than it should. Customers are free to buy from any vendor so employers who lower the employee cost can lower purchase price.

The second thing is that some employers may mechanize to keep from paying more for the employees than the employees can deliver in productivity. This is an adaption many businesses have used because of the minimum wage laws. Currently, many low-skilled jobs have been mechanized or moved off-shore.Read full column

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