I am feeling good about this new year of 2009. Mostly, though, I'm shocked that it is 2009. I was amazed when we hit 1984, that being the title of the George Orwell book we read in high school. Gobsmacked when we reached 2001, the year of the Space Odyssey.
If I had known I would live this long I would have taken better care of myself. So, I figure every year is a gift from the Creator. I'm not going to waste this one by playing wallflower at the high school dance. I'm going to grab the prettiest girl in the room and give her a swirl. (That would be any room my Lisa is in.)
Here are my resolutions for 2009 (in no particular order). I fully intend, in small ways and large, to help make each of them happen.
- Quit the assault on free speech rights of voluntary associations of citizens. As Chief Justice Roberts said in 2008 in a case brought by Wisconsin Right to Life, the tie goes to free speech. (Note to you free speech parasites in the mainstream news media: you don't own the First Amendment. It belongs to all of us.)
- Protect free speech but do not use my tax dollars to subsidize it. Do not tax you and me and the man behind the tree to finance speech with which we disagree. You want to support 9/11 "truther" Kevin Barrett's next campaign? Spend your dime, not mine.
- Put an extra dollar in the collection basket for Bishop Morlino. Thank you, Bishop Morlino, for reclaiming religion's proper role in the public square. Since when is it a Christian's job to be voted Most Popular Man on Campus?
- Some habanera peppers for the Wisconsin State Journal's milquetoast editorial page. Hurray for Jonah Goldberg and David Brooks. But where are their local counterparts? Offend somebody, dammit!
- Ring doorbells and write checks for whomever is running against Brenda Konkel and Progressive Dane. After all this time, what have they accomplished? Anyone? Get out, for the little good you have done!
- Peter the Great required anyone visiting his new town of St. Petersburg to bring a stone to help build it. Bring a bucket of sand; we'll mix concrete for a North Mendota Parkway. The Kathleen has delayed it long enough!
- Add two floors to the Dane County Jail. Improve our quality of life by filling those two floors.
- Leave the rail transit proposal where we left it in 2008 - for dead. Better a subway, someday.
- Reorganize county government top to bottom to strip it to its essentials; get rid of things like the Food Council and The Kathleen's manure digester (a job for the ag co-ops). Focus, guys. Keep your eyes on the prize! There is a reason the 911 emergency communications center disaster occurred.
- Elect Nancy Mistele as County Executive and make this a much shorter list!
- Look for a very public face and unapologetic voice to lead the Dane County Republican party out of the shadows - someone high profile like Jonathan Barry, Scott Klug or Mark Bugher. But more bite. Maybe Terrence Wall?
- Tolerate zero vandalism, graffiti, litter, loud parties, panhandling, vagrancy, out-of-control children - the "broken windows" that mark a neighborhood about to go under.
- Encourage good citizens to get out from behind closed curtains and deadbolt-locked doors to get back on the streets - with rakes and sharp sticks, if necessary - to take back their neighborhoods.
- Write into statute the authority of ship captains for our school teachers, the powers of corporal punishment and immunity from prosecution. In other words, put the troublemakers outside the reach of the ACLU.
- Repeal the mandate at the city and county levels that all but require landlords to accept Section 8 housing unless they can show good cause. Make landlords' jobs easier, not more difficult.
- End taxpayer subsidies for Brenda Konkel's Tenant Resource Center. Let the Evjue Foundation pay for that mess.
- Put a lump of coal in the PSC's stocking. Bill Harvey, propose a nuclear energy plant in place of the spurned coal plant at Cassville.
- Do not allow John Matthews and his militant teachers union to hijack the $27 million voted in referendum in order to exceed the state revenue caps.
- Thank Ted Thompson and Mike McCarthy for taking Brett Favre at his word this summer that his career was over. Which, the Jets (and perhaps Brett himself) now also realize, it was.
- Put up a monument to Bud Selig for 1) bringing baseball back to Milwaukee and 2) keeping it there by building Miller Park, a wonderful venue.
- Send Ed Garvey and John Nichols & Co. condolence cards when the Obama regime tracks moderate to middle of the road. The guy wants to succeed, after all.
- Teach basic economics and household budgeting in our high schools - especially to college-track kids. Yes, that would be promoting capitalism.
- Help working people. Defeat union card check.
- Help the less fortunate improve their lives; do not make them dependent on your charitable mood.
- Put an end to drive-by charges of racism. Let's not blame personal or group failure on pigmentation - starting, say, Inauguration Day. Henceforth, anyone who cries "racism" will be required to file formal charges with the responsible state or federal agency or shut the hell up.
- Allow the economy to purge itself; don't get in its way. Let GM have its bankruptcy so that it can turn itself right-side up.
- Support free trade. Don't revisit the Smoot-Hawley tariff wars that caused the Great Depression.
- End foreign aid. It isn't appreciated, we can't afford it and, a University of Chicago study conducted by Professor Raghuram Rajan finds, it doesn't do any good.
- Support Israel in its battle against Hamas, Hezbollah and other al Qaeda-like terrorist organizations. Terror anywhere is terror everywhere.
- Thank President George W. Bush for manning the watchtower against attack. Support our new President, for if he succeeds, so do we all.
- Be magnanimous in victory, gracious in defeat. Be of good humor. The Founders and heroic generations since have fought to secure our rights. Use and protect them.
- Refuse, refuse, refuse to be intimidated.
Those are my resolutions. I showed you mine; now show me yours.
