Great Britain suffers from a common law system called “primogeniture” wherein the first-born male in each family inherited the entire estate of the father. This had the effect of keeping large estates intact and preventing them from being scattered to the wind.

It also insulated first-born males as political fixtures. That system still survives in the British House of Lords, and with succession to the throne. It has given us Prince Charles in all his Tampon-seeking glory.

Since genes don’t transmit intact, and since much of what we call “talent” is developed in reaction to environment, a system that awards leadership to inherited wealth will probably yield mediocre leadership. We’ve seen it in this country with rule by Kennedy’s and Bush’s, and in this state with a senator who seems to believe he has some sort of entitlement to office, Max Baucus.

Baucus is mediocre at best. What ever convinced him that he was cut out to lead? Likely it was a family background (his middle name is “Sieben”, like that large land and sheep operation near Helena), and access to the best schools.

People trained at Stanford often go on to leadership and great accomplishments. But what happens when we bestow the best available education on the mediocre thinker, the uninspired leader who thinks he’s entitled to lead anyway? (There’s a problem with people who lack depth – they don’t have the depth to know that they lack depth.)

With George W. Bush, we sank into preventive war, special tax treatment of wealth, decay of infrastructure and privatization of government services.

With Senator Max Baucus, we have … well, not much. He’s never really led the floor on any issue, never inspired his fellows in the Senate. His public speaking is rambling and incoherent, and his impulse has always been to serve wealth.

Typical of an aristocrat, he seems to beleive that some sort of legacy mission had fallen on him, and cloaked in his purple robe, he has taken on the health care issue for all of us. But, typical of an aristocrat, he has no sense of the problems faced by ordinary people, and has restricted himself to back room dealings with insurance and pharmaceutical company representatives. In a move bespeaking pure arrogance and tone-deaf political skills, he held Potemkin-like “hearings” on health care solutions, and when single payer proponents tried to insert themselves, had them arrested.

Right in the middle of all of this, he also held “Camp Baucus”, a golf/fishing schmoozer for his wealthy and influential backers. Seeing a potential for confrontation with the untouchables, he opted not to attend.

Leadership by entitlement usually produces mediocrity. Occasionally in baseball we will see the genes of one player passed on to his son, as with Ken Griffey, Jr., Prince Fielder or Barry Bonds. But that’s the exception – most often we see regression to the mean, as with Pete Rose, Jr.

It is better for the nation as a whole to break up large estates, to allow new blood to enter the best schools, to keep the Dubya’s and Max’s of this world in low-level positions where they do minimal damage. Money will always bestow privilege, but should not automatically convey the right to lead.

Footenote: Perhaps Max’s worthwhile legacy will be that in 2005 he fought against privatization of Social Security. Credit where credit is due.

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Honest, sincere and for-real headline in today’s Boulder Daily Camera:

Maple Tree Pierces Two Priuses

There was a micro burst on Broadway in central Boulder that knocked down a very big elm tree. It fell out into the street, and wouldn’t you know it, it landed on two passing Toyota Priuses. Only in Boulder. (One slight injury.) A woman driving one of the vehicles said she’s often told her husband that “you can’t throw a stick in Boulder without hitting a Prius.”

Reminds me of a South Park episode: Smug Alert.

We have looked all over the surrounding foothills for a place to live, and found not very much. So we decided to rent in Boulder, and located a nice little condo today. We’ll be close to Barnes and Noble, Whole Foods, Vic’s Coffee, and the movie complex. What more can a liberal progressive lefty ask?

I’m a “Unitarian”, and if people don’t understand us well, we don’t understand ourselves well either. You can’t say we are “true believers” in that we don’t have a creed. The joke about us that that we are lousy singers because we are always reading ahead to see if we agree with the words.

At our Sunday service there is time set aside for “joys and concerns”, when people step forward to talk about personal matters. A lady stood up last Sunday to talk about the killing of Dr. George Tiller. I got very uncomfortable – I don’t know about the others. It’s a liberal group, and I think it safe to say that most members favor legal abortion.

But Dr. Tiller provided “late term” abortions, and I assume that they were “medically necessary”, otherwise they would be illegal. Killing him was a heinous crime, of course, and justice should be meted out accordingly. But it is hard to be “pro-choice” when the fetus is so obviously well-formed. It seems like … murder.

I’m troubled by abortion – I finally settled on the idea that early-term abortions are a woman’s business, not mine. I know about life and how people are. I know that if abortions are outlawed, they will go on as before, only less openly. I don’t think a woman should have to pay with eighteen years of her life for one night’s foolishness. And I agree with Gloria Steinem who said that if men could get pregnant, abortion would not just be legal – it would be a sacrament.

It’s a woman’s choice up to a point. It should be.

I want to give some support to those who in good conscious decide that they oppose abortion in all cases. That’s an honest and defensible position. These folks should not have abortions, but it stops there. They don’t get to make law for all of us. They are usually driven by religious belief. They should follow their religious beliefs and be true to themselves. Its for them. Not everyone.

I think free and easy access to a morning after pill would be a nice compromise. Are there any out there who are “pro-life” who are willing to make that concession?

Just curious.

I am not a marijuana smoker myself, so I don’t have a horse in this race. And I might add that if I were to actually try marijuana, it might make me claustrophobic and cause me to wander the pavement at night, startled by sounds such as kids on skateboards, and afraid to go indoors. Then I might see fit to eat every frickin’ morsel of carbs in the house. That’s what I think might happen, so I don’t mess with it.

But here’s a new poll, done by “conservative leaning” O’Leary, that shows that 52% of the public favors legalization of pot.

These 52% are free to join the 70% or so that favor single payer health care. They may now stand in the hall and wait for class to end. They are no longer relevant.

Drug policy is not health policy. Some drugs, like crystal meth, are truly harmful, and we should educate people about them. Others, like pot, are merely recreational. I’ve known potheads – people whose brain seems to be saturated in ‘don’t give a shit’ juice. That’s not good, but they don’t belong in prison any more than the habitual drunk or gambler. That cross-section of society will always be with us. Perhaps they are people who are simply not a fit in our agricultural society – hunter-gatherer remnants who don’t regiment easily. Maybe they merely yearn to breath free and cannot, and so take refuge in mental escape. Maybe they just like a buzz. Whatever. Leave ’em be. They are not hurting (or helping) anyone.

I’ve heard various stories about criminalization of pot, from the Hearst effort to suppress production of hemp (see here, scroll down to 1898) to Chomsky’s assertion that it is done to take control of the pesky minority populations. (Suburban white people don’t have to worry about their doors being busted in while they snort cocaine. But in poor and minority neighborhood, people have to be extremely vigilant, as the cops are looking to bust anyone who sneaks a joint.)

Others simply say that we need some reason to get rid of surplus population of young males, and we can’t put them all in the military. So we throw them in prison.

This I know: Marijuana will remain illegal, and millions of people, mostly minorities, will be kept in prison because of it. It’s not drug control. It’s people control. Government will not easily give up its hammer.

PS: Here’s a fascinating Glenn Greenwald piece on his experience with legalization of drugs in Portugal. It’s been an unqualified success, with drug use down, treatment up, imprisonment nonexistent, and money formerly used for prosecution and incarceration freed up for other uses. Greenwald and CATO are in league on this.

Beginning with the post directly below, comments will now have a nesting feature – I have set the level at five.

Bring on the cougar …

h/t: ECW

In a bold effort to keep all right-thinking Canadians from being exposed to people who might hold a different point of view than some of their leaders, Canada has stopped terrorism at its border. It has banned George Galloway from entering the country.

Galloway, it should be remembered, took a strong stance against the Clinton/Blair sanctions on Iraq in the 1990’s, against the invasion of Afghanistan in 2001, and the attack on Iraq in 2003.

The man’s obviously a terrorist.

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I stumbled across this video while doing my usual Cincinnati Reds surfing. I don’t know how well-known the film is down in Billings. I grew up there and spent many a night in my early youth and then in my twenties and thirties in old, run down, but otherwise perfect in every way … Cobb Field.

Anyway, they’ve made an award-winning film about 24 hours in the life of Cobb Field, which you can purchase – just follow the links from Church of Baseball. I’ll wait to get it on Netflix.