545 PEOPLE

545 PEOPLE
By Charlie Reese

Politicians are the only people in the world who create problems and then campaign against them.

Have you ever wondered, if both the Democrats and the Republicans are against deficits, WHY do we have deficits?

Have you ever wondered, if all the politicians are against inflation and high taxes, WHY do we have inflation and high taxes?

You and I don't propose a federal budget. The president does.

You and I don't have the Constitutional authority to vote on appropriations. The House of Representatives does.

You and I don't write the tax code, Congress does.

You and I don't set fiscal policy, Congress does.

You and I don't control monetary policy, the Federal Reserve Bank does.

One hundred senators, 435 congressmen, one president, and nine Supreme Court justices equates to 545 human beings out of the 300 million are directly, legally, morally, and individually responsible for the domestic problems that plague this country.

I excluded the members of the Federal Reserve Board because that problem was created by the Congress. In 1913, Congress delegated its Constitutional duty to provide a sound currency to a federally chartered, but private, central bank.

I excluded all the special interests and lobbyists for a sound reason.. They have no legal authority. They have no ability to coerce a senator, a congressman, or a president to do one cotton-picking thing. I don't care if they offer a politician $1 million dollars in cash. The politician has the power to accept or reject it. No matter what the lobbyist promises, it is the legislator's responsibility to determine how he votes.

Those 545 human beings spend much of their energy convincing you that what they did is not their fault. They cooperate in this common con regardless of party. What separates a politician from a normal human being is an excessive amount of gall. No normal human being would have the gall of a Speaker, who stood up and criticized the President for creating deficits.. The president can only propose a budget. He cannot force the Congress to accept it.

The Constitution, which is the supreme law of the land, gives sole responsibility to the House of Representatives for originating and approving appropriations and taxes. Who is the speaker of the House? Nancy Pelosi. She is the leader of the majority party. She and fellow House members, not the president, can approve any budget they want. If the president vetoes it, they can pass it over his veto if they agree to.

It seems inconceivable to me that a nation of 300 million can not replace 545 people who stand convicted -- by present facts -- of incompetence and irresponsibility. I can't think of a single domestic problem that is not traceable directly to those 545 people. When you fully grasp the plain truth that 545 people exercise the power of the federal government, then it must follow that what exists is what they want to exist.

If the tax code is unfair, it's because they want it unfair.

If the budget is in the red, it's because they want it in the red ..

If the Army & Marines are in IRAQ , it's because they want them in IRAQ

If they do not receive social security but are on an elite retirement plan not available to the people, it's because they want it that way.

There are no insoluble government problems.

Do not let these 545 people shift the blame to bureaucrats, whom they hire and whose jobs they can abolish; to lobbyists, whose gifts and advice they can reject; to regulators, to whom they give the power to regulate and from whom they can take this power. Above all, do not let them con you into the belief that there exists disembodied mystical forces like "the economy," "inflation," or "politics" that prevent them from doing what they take an oath to do.

Those 545 people, and they alone, are responsible.

They, and they alone, have the power.

They, and they alone, should be held accountable by the people who are their bosses.

Provided the voters have the gumption to manage their own employees.

We should vote all of them out of office and clean up their mess!

Charlie Reese is a former columnist of the Orlando Sentinel Newspaper.

Enumerated Powers

There is a new concept brewing in Congress, HR 450, also known as the Enumerated Powers Act. If this bill passes it would state “Each Act of Congress shall contain a concise and definite statement of the constitutional authority relied upon for the enactment of each portion of that Act. The failure to comply with this section shall give rise to a point of order in either House of Congress….”

What a concept, basing the actions of the federal government on only those powers granted by the Constitution. Now why didn’t I think of that? Actually, the Founders did think of it and spelled it out quite succinctly in the 10^th Amendment which states, “The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people.” This tells me that Congress, the President, and the Courts have specific powers and only those powers.

My hat is flying off my head to salute Representative John Shadegg, R-Ariz. and the 19 other representatives who have signed on to this ground-breaking bill that will receive no notice in the main-stream press or by the Democrat leadership.

As it turns out, this is not the first time Representative Shadegg has introduced the bill. He has introduced it every year he has been in Congress. I have a couple of questions for every member of Congress; “Why is it necessary that this bill should even be required?” and “Why do I not see every member of the House of Representatives name as a cosponsor and the same in the Senate on a companion bill?” I do not think that these are rhetorical questions. I want an answer from each and every one of these individuals. For over 150 years, successive congresses, presidents, and courts have taken on powers not specifically spelled out in the Constitution. To see the cosponsors of this bill go here.

As I have noted on numerous occasions, I am no Constitutional Scholar, but in my reading of this venerable document I have found no constitutional justification for bailing out any private corporation; no constitutional justification for ordering a corporate executive to resign; or even the constitutional justification to tell petroleum companies when or where they can explore or drill for oil. Where in our Constitution does it say that the federal government has the authority to tell us who will have health care insurance, or who will pay for it? Please do not misunderstand me, I want everyone to be able to have access to health care but it is not within the purview of the federal government to determine the scope of that need or provide it.

The continuous over-reach of the federal government has accelerated to the point where we will not be out of debt for at least three generations unless we turn this trend around now. This means taking a number of immediate steps:

1. Cancel the “Stimulus Package”
2. Cut corporate taxes to a maximum rate of 14%
3. Repeal the 16^th Amendment
4. Pass a new amendment that guarantees all taxes will be fairly and equitably levied
5.  Eliminate all cabinet/federal departments that do not directly fall in line with the enumerated goals and powers in the Constitution.

These measures only address the financial mess with which the federal government has saddled us. There are many more measures that should be taken to return the United States to the greatness that we once enjoyed. But our economy is arguably at the fore of our thought process at this time.

As usual, I welcome your comments and discussion

Daniel C. Lanotte

A Rookie President

By Thomas Sowell

http://www.JewishWorldReview.com | Someone once said that, for every rookie you have on your starting team in the National Football League, you will lose a game. Somewhere, at some time during the season, a rookie will make a mistake that will cost you a game.


We now have a rookie President of the United States and, in the dangerous world we live in, with terrorist nations going nuclear, just one rookie mistake can bring disaster down on this generation and generations yet to come.


Barack Obama is a rookie in a sense that few other Presidents in American history have ever been. It is not just that he has never been President before. He has never had any position of major executive responsibility in any kind of organization where he was personally responsible for the outcome.


Other first-term Presidents have been governors, generals, cabinet members or others in positions of personal responsibility. A few have been senators, like Barack Obama, but usually for longer than Obama, and had not spent half their few years in the senate running for President.

What is even worse than making mistakes is having sycophants telling you that you are doing fine when you are not. In addition to all the usual hangers-on and supplicants for government favors that every President has, Barack Obama has a media that will see no evil, hear no evil and certainly speak no evil.


They will cheer him on, no matter what he does, short of first-degree murder-- and they would make excuses for that. Even former Reagan speech writer Peggy Noonan has gushed over President Obama and even crusty Bill O'Reilly has been impressed by Obama's demeanor.


There is no sign that President Obama has impressed the Russians, the Iranians or the North Koreans, except by his rookie mistakes-- and that is a dangerous way to impress dangerous people.


What did his televised overture to the Iranians accomplish, except to reassure them that he was not going to do a damn thing to stop them from getting a nuclear bomb? It is a mistake that can go ringing down the corridors of history.


Future generations who live in the shadow of that nuclear threat may wonder what we were thinking about, putting our lives-- and theirs-- in the hands of a rookie because we liked his style and symbolism?


In the name of "change," Barack Obama is following policies so old that this generation has never heard of them-- certainly not in most of our educational institutions, where history has been replaced by "social studies" or other politically correct courses.


Seeking deals with our adversaries, behind the backs of our allies? France did that at Munich back in 1938. They threw Czechoslovakia to the wolves and, less than two years later, Hitler gobbled up France anyway.


This year, President Obama's attempt to make a backdoor deal with the Russians, behind the backs of the NATO countries, was not only rejected but made public by the Russians-- a sign of contempt and a warning to our allies not to put too much trust in the United States.


Barack Obama is following a long practice among those on the left of being hard on our allies and soft on our enemies. One of our few allies in the Middle East, the Shah of Iran, was a whipping boy for many in the American media, who vented their indignation at his regime-- which now, in retrospect, seems almost benign compared to the hate-filled fanatics and international terrorism sponsors who now rule that country.


However much Barack Obama has proclaimed his support for Israel, his first phone call as President of the United States was to Hamas, to whom he has given hundreds of millions of dollars, which can buy a lot of rockets to fire into Israel.


Our oldest and staunchest ally, Britain, has been downgraded by President Obama's visibly less impressive reception of British Prime Minister Gordon Brown, compared to the way that previous Presidents over the past two generations have received British Prime Ministers. President Obama's sending the bust of Winston Churchill in the White House back to the British embassy at about the same time was either a rookie mistake or another snub.


We can lose some very big games with this rookie.

OBAMA the Narcissist

Obama the Narcissist

Half the harm that is done in this world is due to people who want to feel important.  They don't mean to do harm, but the harm does not interest them.  Or they do not see it, or they justify it because they are asbsorbed in the endless struggle to think well of themselves.

T.S. Eliot

Sigmund Freud introduced the concept of narcissism in his 1914 essay On Narcissism: An Introduction.  Freud suggested that  a basic self-love might not be as abnormal as previously thought, and was even a common component of the human psyche.  He argued that it was the desire and energy that drives our instinct to survive- he called this Primary Narcissism. 

But he also described the existence in some of an abnormal Secondary Narcissism- a pathological condition that occurs when the libido (the psychic and emotional energy behind human actions) withdraws from objects outside of the self. Freud said that Secondary Narcissism is an extreme, exaggerated form of the narcissism present in all of us.

To care for someone is to convert ego-libido (self love) into object-libido by sacrificing some self-love to give to the other person, which leaves less ego-libido available for primary narcissism and the protecting and nurturing of the self.  When that affection is returned in kind, so is the libido... thus restoring primary narcissism and self-worth. 

As the child grows and his ego develops, he is contantly giving of his self-love to people and objects, the first of which is usually his mother.  That diminished self-love should then be replenished by the affection and caring returned to him. However, any failure to achieve, or disruption of, this balance causes psychological disturbances.  In any such case, primary narcissism can only be restored by withdrawing object-libido to replenish self-love/ego libido.

Another form of narcissism, Acquired Situational Narcissism, develops in late adolescence or in adulthood, and is brought-on by wealth, fame, and other trappings of celebrity.  ASN differs from conventional narcissism in that it develops after childhood and is triggered and supported by the celebrity-obsessed society; fans, assistants, and the media all playing into the concept that the person really is vastly more important than other people, thereby triggering a problem that might have been only a tendency/latent, developing into a full-blown personality disorder.  

So, narcissism can be defined as an eccessive, even erotic, interest in one's own self and physical appearance.  It is typified by extreme selfishness, coupled to a grandiose view of one's own talents and a craving for admiration.  This self-centeredness arises from a failure to distinguish the self from external objects as a feature of a mental disorder.

Those with Narcissistic Personality Disorder (NPD) have at-least 5 of these symptoms:

• a grandiose sense of self-importance (i.e. exaggerates achievements and talents, expects to be recognized as superior without commensurate achievements... even to the point of lying)
  

• preoccupied with fantasies of unlimited success, power, omnipotence, brilliance, beauty, or ideal love

• harbors a belief that he/she is "special" and unique, and can only be understood by other special/high-status people or institutions- also feels "immune" and/or above-the-law

• has a sense of entitlement, i.e. unreasonable expectations of especially favorable treatment or automatic and full compliance with his/her expectations

• is interpersonally exploitative-  uses others to reach goals

• devoid of empathy; is unwilling to recognize or identify with the feelings and needs of others

• is often envious of others, or believes that others are envious of him or her
  

• shows arrogant, haughty, proud behaviors or attitudes

Additional signs of NPD to look for include:

• overreacts to criticism, becoming angry or humiliated

• utilizes denial mechanism to downplay own inadaquacies or failings

• uses rationalization mechanism to justify self-centered behavior

• jealousy and possessiveness

• excessive need to feel special, adored, loved, appreciated, or admired

• controlling behaviors 

• inflated self-esteem or grandiosity 

• blaming others for their situation or feelings

• an attitude that "the world revolves around me" and a need for others to cater to their ideas, opinions, thoughts, and feelings

• an unwillingness to reflect honestly on their own behavior

By almost any definition then, President Barack Obama is a pathological narcissist.  He clearly displays many of the tell-tale indicators of NPD in public... we can only guess how it is manifested in his private life.  His actions and words, the kind of people he surrounds himself with, towering arrogance, and inability to tolerate critics make Obama appear to be a textbook case.

Israeli author Dr Shmuel (Sam) Vaknin is a foremost authority on narcissism, and has written books on the topic such as Malignant Self-Love. He has also written a couple of papers on why he considers Barack Obama to likely have a Narcissistic Personality Disorder.

Dr. Vaknin states " I must confess I was impressed by Sen. Barack Obama from the first time I saw him. At first, I was excited to see a black candidate... he looked youthful, spoke well, appeared to be confident - a wholesome presidential package. I was put off soon though, not just because of his shallowness but also because there was an air of haughtiness in his demeanor that was unsettling-  his posture and his body language were louder than his empty words."

"Obama's speeches are unlike any political speech we have heard in American history. Never a politician in this land had such quasi "religious" impact on so many people. The fact that Obama is a total incognito with zero accomplishment makes this inexplicable infatuation alarming... he is not a genius. In fact he is quite ignorant on most important subjects. But, Barack Obama appears to be a narcissist." 

Dr Vaknin states that Obama's language, posture and demeanor suggest that has NPD... a pathological condition present in many charismatic leaders.  The infamous Jim Jones of the People's Temple, a man who led over 900 of his followers to commit mass suicide and even murder their own children by drinking poisoned Kool-Aid was a narcissist. David Koresh, Charles Manson, Joseph Koni, Josef Stalin, Saddam Hussein, Chairman Mao, Kim Jong Il and Adolph Hitler are but a few examples of narcissistic leaders. All these men had a tremendous influence over their followers, and created a personality cult around themselves with powerful speeches that elevated their admirers... filling them with enthusiasm and  a new zest for life. They promised them glory and greatness, but in the end lead them over the abyss.  One never realizes the reality of the personality cult until it is too late.

Narcissists are highly self-sufficient and consider themselves peerless. Their "friends",  companions, and acolytes provide them with an obsequious, unthreatening audience- with the kind of unconditional and unthinking obedience that confirms to him his omnipotence. They are sufficiently vacuous to make the narcissist look sharp and omniscient – but not so much as to be easily discernible as the sycophants that they are. They form the perfect backdrop, never likely to attain centre stage and overshadow their master... i.e. Robert Gibbs.

Aknin goes on to observe that "Obama's early life was decidedly chaotic and replete with traumatic and mentally bruising dislocations. Mixed-race marriages were even less common then. His parents went through a divorce when he was an infant. Obama saw his father only once again, before he died in a car accident. Then his mother re-married and Obama had to relocate to Indonesia, a foreign land with a radically foreign culture, to be raised by a step-father. At the age of ten, he was whisked off to live with his maternal (white) grandparents. He saw his mother only intermittently in the following few years and then she vanished from his life in 1979. She died of cancer in 1995".

And one must never underestimate the manipulative genius of a pathological narcissist-  they project such an imposing personality that it overwhelms those around them. Charmed by the charisma of the narcissist, people become like clay in his hands. They cheerfully do his bidding and delight to be at his service. The narcissist shapes the world around himself and reduces others in his own inverted image. He creates a cult of personality, with his admirers becoming his co-dependents.

Narcissists have no interest in things that do not help them to reach their personal objectives. They are focused on one thing alone... and that is power. All other issues are meaningless,  and anything that does not help them is simply beneath them.

Obama's election as the first black president of the Harvard Law Review led to a contract and advance to write a book about race relations. The University of Chicago Law School provided him a lot longer than expected and at the end it evolved into... his own autobiography.  Instead of writing a scholarly paper focusing on race relations, for which he had been paid, Obama could not resist writing about himself...  and titled it Dreams from My Father.  Not surprisingly, Adolph Hitler also wrote his own autobiography when he was still nobody... and so did Josef Stalin.  For the narcissist, there is no subject as important as one's self. Why would he waste his precious time and genius on insignificant things when he can write about his favorite topic? 

Narcissists are often callous- and even ruthless. They tend to lack empathy and/or a conscience. This is evident in Obama's lack of interest in his own half-brother who lives in poverty in Kenya, or his aunt found living in public housing in Boston. But Barack Obama, who lives in luxury, takes a private jet to vacation in Hawaii, and raised nearly half a billion dollars for his campaign has no interest in the plight of his relatives- why not be more charitable towards deprived members of his own family? This is a clearcut decision for him, because these relatives cannot be used in attaining his own ends... and therefore don't interest Obama in the slightest.

What could be more dangerous than having a man bereft of conscience, a serial liar, and one who cannot distinguish his fantasies from reality as the leader of the free world? This case is different from the garden-variety narcissism of a Bill Clinton, for example. With Obama, his appears to be mental health issue... not just a character flaw. Pathological narcissists are dangerous because they look normal and even intelligent. It is this disguise that makes them treacherous.

America is starting to wake-up to just exactly who this unvetted man they put in the White House is... and none of the surprises have been pleasant; a radical liberal agenda, apparent lack of ethics, myriad broken campaign promises, an inability to grasp basic economic issues or prioritize decisions, habitual dishonesty, and perhaps even serious psychological problems... and just two-months into this new administration.  Looks like we're in for a long, rough ride with this one.

http://reaganiterepublicanresistance.blogspot.com/2009/03/obama-narcissist.html

A foretaste of mob rule

Victor Davis Hanson

COMMENTARY:

In the last three months, we've been reduced to something like the ancient Athenian mob - with opportunistic politicians sometimes inciting, sometimes catering to an already angry public.
The Greek comic playwright Aristophanes once described how screaming politicians - posing as men of the people - would sway Athenian citizens by offering them all sort of perks and goodies that the government had no idea how to pay for.

The historian Thucydides offers even more frightening accounts of bloodthirsty voters after they were aroused by demagogues ("leaders or drivers of the people"). One day, in bloodthirsty rage, voters demanded the death of the rebellious men of the subject island city of Mytilene; yet on the very next, in sudden remorse, they rescinded that blanket death sentence.
Lately, we've allowed our government to forget its calmer republican roots. We've gone Athenian whole hog.

Take the American International Group Inc. (AIG) debacle. The global insurance and financial-services company is broke and needed a federal loan guarantee of $180 billion to prevent bankruptcy. Some $165 million (about one-thousandth of the loan guarantee sum) was previously contracted as bonuses for its derelict executives.

That set off a firestorm in Congress. Politicians rushed before the cameras to demand all sorts of penalties for these greedy investment bankers. Soon, they passed an unprecedented special tax law just to confiscate 90 percent of these contracted bonuses.

Those who shouted the loudest for the heads of the AIG execs had the dirtiest hands. President Obama was outraged at their greed. But he alone signed their bonus provisions into law. And during the recent presidential campaign, no one forced him to accept over $100,000 in AIG donations.

Rep. Charles B. Rangel, New York Democrat, was even more infuriated at such greed and, as chairman of the House Ways and Means Committee, he helped pass the retroactive tax bill. Yet for years, the populist Mr. Rangel - who is in trouble over back taxes owed and misuse of his subsidized New York apartments - had tried to entice AIG executives to fund his Charles B. Rangel Center for Public Service at the City College of New York.

Sen. Christopher J. Dodd, Connecticut Democrat, was the fieriest in his denunciations of Wall Street greed. Yet he was the very one who inserted the bonus provision into the bailout bill, despite later denying it. And Mr. Dodd has taken more AIG money than anyone else in Congress - in addition to getting VIP loan rates from the disgraced Countrywide Financial Corp. mortgage bank.

Then there is the matter of blowing apart the budget. Mr. Obama inherited from former President George W. Bush a $500 billion - and growing - annual budget deficit and a ballooning $11 trillion national debt. Mr. Obama nevertheless promised us an entirely new national health plan, bigger entitlements in education and a vast new cap-and-trade energy program.
But there is a problem in paying for the $3.5 trillion in budgetary expenditures Mr. Obama has called for in the coming fiscal year. Proposed vast additional taxes on the "rich" still won't provide enough revenue to avoid tripling the present budget deficit - and putting us on schedule during the next decade to add another $9 trillion to the existing national debt.

During the Clinton years, we got higher taxes but eventually balanced budgets. During the recent Bush administration, we got lower taxes but spiraling deficits. But now, during the era of Mr. Obama, we apparently will get the worst of both worlds - higher taxes than under Mr. Clinton and higher deficits than under Mr. Bush.

In other words, we - through our government - are spending money that we don't have. We're told the rich will pick up the tab, even though there are not enough rich with enough money to squeeze out the necessary amounts. Our new demagogues, though, argue this is the only fair course of action.

Meanwhile, these leaders - who have taken so much Wall Street money in the past - are driving us into fury to punish the guilty on Wall Street. This is truly the age of mindless mob rule.
Of course, we probably won't hear any candidate in four years issue the following assurance to voters: "I won't take any more money from Wall Street and will give back any that I already got. And if elected, I promise four consecutive years of budget cuts to achieve each year $1.5 trillion in annual budget surpluses. Only that way can we get the national debt back down to the past 'manageable' 2008 sum of $11 trillion."

We need such a Socrates in Washington right now, who would dare tell the American mob the truth of how we are descending into financial serfdom. But in this present mood, the aroused mob would first make him drink the hemlock.

Victor Davis Hanson is a classicist and historian at Stanford University's Hoover Institution and author of "A War Like No Other: How the Athenians and Spartans Fought the Peloponnesian War."

Financial Crisis Explained In Simple Terms

*Wendy is the proprietor of a bar in Washington. 

In order to increase sales, she decides to allow her loyal customers - most of whom are unemployed alcoholics - to drink now but pay later.

She keeps track of the drinks consumed in a ledger, thereby granting the customers loans.

Word gets around, and as a result increasing numbers of customers flood into Wendy's bar.

Taking advantage of her customers' freedom from immediate payment constraints, Wendy increases her prices for wine and beer, the most-consumed beverages. Her sales volume increases massively.

A young and dynamic customer service consultant at the local bank recognizes these customer debts as valuable future assets and increases Wendy's borrowing limit. He sees no reason for undue concern since he has the debts of the alcoholics as collateral.

At the bank's corporate headquarters, expert bankers transform these customer assets into DRINKBONDS, ALKBONDS and BOOZEBONDS.

These securities are then traded on markets worldwide. No one really understands what these abbreviations mean and how the securities are guaranteed; nevertheless, their prices continuously climb, and the securities become top-selling items.

One day, although the prices are still climbing, a risk manager of the bank (subsequently fired due to his negativity) decides that the time has come to demand payment of the debts incurred by the drinkers at Wendy's bar.

But the drinkers cannot pay off their debts -- they're unemployed and they're alcoholics!

Wendy in turn can't fulfill her loan obligations and claims bankruptcy.

DRINKBOND and ALKBOND drop in price by 95%. BOOZEBOND performs better, stabilizing in price after dropping by 80%.

The suppliers of Wendy's bar, having granted her generous payment due dates and having invested in the securities, are faced with a new situation: they must write off her accounts as uncollectable and suffer the loss of their investments. Her wine supplier claims bankruptcy, her beer supplier is taken over by a competitor.

The bank is saved by the Government following dramatic round-the-clock consultations by leaders from the governing political parties. Wendy, her suppliers, and all the investors who bought DRINKBONDs, ALKBONDs and BOOZEBONDs are left holding the bag.

The funds required for saving the bank - here's the good part! - are obtained by a tax levied on all non-drinkers.

Now do you understand?

Obama on education: right talk, wrong walk

Obama on education: right talk, wrong walk
Star Parker
Monday, March 02, 2009

I share President Obama's concerns about education. We certainly need to do a better job, particularly in our low-income communities.

But, from what I see so far, we're on very different pages regarding how to think about the problem.

For Obama, the solution to everything seems to be government and spending. But in improving education, more of neither seems to work.

According to Department of Education data, reported by the Cato Institute, K-12 spending per student, adjusted for inflation, went from $5,393 in 1970 to $11,470 in 2004. Over the same period, there were tiny increases in math scores among 17-year-olds and no improvement in reading scores.

In his address to Congress, Obama was clear that he understands it's not just money but how it's spent. " ...our schools don't just need more resources, they need more reform," he said.

But can we really believe that over the thirty-five years that per pupil spending doubled it did not dawn on any educator that reform was in order? There are endless new ideas about how to spend money to manipulate kids into learning.

The problem with professional bureaucrats is that they think we learn about human beings in laboratories and academic studies. It never occurs to them the problem is a bankrupt culture, which they themselves often reflect, and what's needed is a return to traditional values.

I recently watched the made-for-television movie, "Gifted Hands."

It's based on the book by the same name by Dr. Ben Carson about his remarkable life. I read it years ago when it was published and made my daughters read it.

Dr. Carson is one of the world's few black pediatric neurosurgeons, world renowned for his professional accomplishments. He is a professor and department head at Johns Hopkins Medical Institutions.

In his own words, he was an "at risk" child -- a black male raised in poverty by a young, poorly educated single mother.

According to Carson, "My mother worked as a domestic, two, sometimes three jobs at a time because she didn't want to be on welfare. She felt very strongly that if she gave up and went on welfare, that she would give up control of her life and of our lives, and I think she was probably correct about that."

When Carson was failing in school as a young boy, she laid down the law to him and his brother. Both of them would read two books a week and give her a book report (they had no idea she couldn't read). And, they'd be limited to three television shows per week.

Carson's young mother changed his life.

It's also relevant to mention that Carson's mother is a Christian woman of deep faith - a faith he shares. She redirected her boys' lives out of religious inspiration.

Ben Carson, of course, is an exceptional man. But his story verifies what existing studies show. The main predictor of a child's educational success is the parental guidance and involvement that the child gets at home.

Central to this also must be values. The problem is that these values - the traditional values that Ben Carson's mother taught him - are off limits in our public schools.

This is why throwing money at a government school monopoly is not going to change education realities. We need freedom, not money. Freedom to allow parents - certainly inner-city parents - to choose their child's school.

President Obama often uses the right words. He says that "responsibility for our children's education must begin at home." But then he will not allow parents' school choice and the option to choose a religious school.

Ben Carson's mother didn't need Harvard education theorists to know what her child needed.

We need more common sense and freedom in K-12 education -- not more government programs and money.