2008
Week 7
February 23, 2008

Hi

“Really Big” news this week: Nebraska Smoking ban passed 34-14. Some folks have been working on this for twenty years. In the end, even bars were getting in on it. One owner: “I never realized how happy my employees would be to breathe clean air.”

The side talk is about government overreaching, which is always a caution. However, citizen's health is a major responsibility of government, especially when actions impair the health of other persons. Legislating against obesity was the silly “parallel” argument. My obesity takes up room, but does not injure my neighbor. Unless I sit on him.

Email reaction was generally celebratory. Except one: “Goodbye to our rights, our business, our life as we know it, and to Nebraska. Your loss.”

I wrote last week, tongue in cheek (if that can be a writing style), that my preferred method of execution would be for the state to hire a hit man (never is a woman). Someone noted that hit men sometimes kill others at the same time. Collateral damage.

Bingo! A major point. We accept collateral damage as “a price worth paying” to get rid of bad people. I have had persons argue that we execute innocent persons less than 1% of the time, so it is a price worth paying. Be sure to kill the right one among others. Incredible.

For the record, I feel killing one innocent person BY THE STATE is too high a price. We have public employees who are in harms way on our behalf, resulting in the death of good people. But we did not choose to execute them.

Nor should we choose to take away 22 years of a young man's life. Several of us met this week with the man from Oklahoma who spent 19 of his 22 prison years on death row, for a murder he knew nothing about. You expect the recount of pain about years of anxiety, anger and despair. What struck me was what happened to his thinking after release.

“I was raised a convict. The state took me as a teenager, from a loving home, and raised me as a convict. Your world is family, children, careers, gatherings of loved ones, support. I do not know your world. You are not my friends.”

Upon his release, innocent by extensive public record, he found many persons in his home community who were angry with him for not being executed. “Someone has to die for her murder and you could have been the one.”

Are we that violent? Kill someone. Anyone. Blood revenge. In Afghanistan, if your brother is killed in a drive by shooting, you are to kill someone, anyone, in the next village. That is the way gangs think. We enforce their inclination to think that way by imitating their behavior. Kill someone and give us “closure.” We teach our kids that violence pays the debt with blood.

Sorry to be so grim, but I do despair of ever getting out of our violent mode. On TV we teach children that blowing up someone is entertainment.

Shifting, we do have much to be thankful for. We must cut state expense in this downturn, but our economy is so good we are still in the black. We will drop talk of a tax rebate, which is an expense that actually is not helpful. The feds are doing a “stimulus” package, in spite of research that shows it does not pay out. The government gets back only 20% of the stimulus. Put out $100 to stir the economy and lose $80 of it. Actually, add the $80 to your children's debt package.

But people cheer. Well, not all. The joking I have heard is how to spend the rebate. To be clear, there are family members who will gratefully use the $$ for necessities, but we do not target them as much as we target persons who will put the $$ into savings. And vote.

Quote of the week: “My Daddy said never to buy anything that eats.” Translation: We can do a project with one-time cost, but not if the cost will keep coming back in future budgets. We are intent to find what $$ would save us the most in the future.

My legislative bills are on my website: www.lowenkruse.com. Link to bills is at the end. I have eight bills I am trying to move, and have hope for half of them.

Finally, more good news. I get older next week. And may take treats to “class.”

Lowen