Sex for the poor?  Phooey.

Catherine Rampell of the Washington Post weighed in with an op-ed piece today in the Charlotte Observer.

Sunday, we had an op-ed that “Yes means yes.”  Monday we had one that “the poor need taxpayer-provided birth control.”  Perfect juxtaposition of concepts.  Ms. Rampell of the WaPo correctly notes that furnishing birth control to the poor will reduce taxpayer spending on welfare for children born to teenage single mothers.  Yep, she is right.  Let’s assume that we equip every fertile female in poverty with reversible contraception.  Now we need to teach all the 13 year old boys in poverty that 12 year old girls in poverty must give consent first -- hilarious sophistry.  How passionate of you to care about that girl’s sexual freedom, and not give two cents about her certain destiny as a receptacle for whomever happens to feel the need. 

There is a human dignity issue here that cannot be cured by government spending.  Would somebody please tell me why Progressives are so indifferent to the fact that our culture is raising these girls with the default message that their greatest value at the outset of their teen years is as a receptacle? 

Progressives fight like terriers for the right of a ridiculously intoxicated co-ed to “be able to give consent” yet ignore these vulnerable girls who will reach age 18 with STDs and a permanently impaired sense of self.  Pardon me, but I accuse Progressives of “building the base” with the affirmative consent campaign while ignoring the truly vulnerable among us.

This is a fine illustration of why there is such animosity between the left and right today.  Rarely do we see advocacy that arises from refined motives.  So often, the bluster is about building the base, and it is typically cloaked in a shroud of pseudo-virtue.  Yuk.  

Stop Educational Genocide in NC

Wake County Superior Court Judge Howard E. Manning, Jr., writing in the Leandro case, said that NC was committing "educational genocide" by not educating its students in the public schools.

This ostrich would like to take her head out of the sand and describe a radical reform program that addresses underlying causes, aims to end the genocide, and elevate the quality of the education that we North Carolinians give our children. 

The debate about "Common Core or not" is a travesty for teachers, and by extension, students.  To remove this curriculum, just implemented two years ago, is embarrassing.  Will the curriculum be on again, off again based on who is in control of the state legislature?  Yikes, this is bush league.  Pick something and stick with it for five years, for pete's sake.  Give the teachers something to count on and build around.   

Irrespective of that debate, however, we have a more fundamental structural issue in our public schools.  This is my heart blast of desire that dreams of actually educating our children, rather than corralling them like cattle in a system that teaches them mainly how to hate school.  

* * * * *

  

NoGeno Reform Model

Segregate schools based on parental involvement in the students’ education. 

For students with actively involved parents, keep the current curriculum and administrative structure.

For students without actively involved parents/guardians:

(a) put their school in their neighborhood;

(b) make maximum class size 15 students so that the teacher can instruct the students in the social skills necessary for them to constructively participate in group endeavors;

(c) compartmentalize the curriculum so that students repeat small units until they master the content, regardless of age or native language;

(d) manage the school so that it becomes the surrogate family for the children – teams, expectations, extracurriculars;

(e) have a menu of vocational skill classes in all grades that students would choose for themselves;

(f) give the school the ability to expel students, who would then attend a school with rigorous disciplinary structure and limits on personal freedom; and

(g) annually, conduct a dutch auction for teaching positions at these in-neighborhood schools, effectively guaranteeing a sufficient number of qualified teachers.  Whatever excess compensation over prevailing levels is spent in these schools will be subtracted from regular schools; the PTA at the regular schools will be encouraged to make up the difference. (see dutch auction explanation below.)

At teacher colleges, teach the skills that instructors need to succeed with high-poverty populations.

(a)    Just as a teacher can be certified for teaching “gifted” or “reading,” there should be teacher-preparation curricula that generate graduates specialized in teaching low SES students.  Fifty percent of public school students are from the low SES strata, and the charter school movement will increase that percentage.

(b)   Seventy percent of high school math teachers are white and a disproportionate number of low SES students are not white.  Clearly, for a teacher to be effective in the classroom, s/he needs cultural orientation to appreciate the students’ home setting, and the complex array of regulations and resources relevant to this population.

(c)    This college curriculum will attract students to enroll if the in-neighborhood schools:

a.       Pay teachers and staff via a dutch auction compensation system 

b.      Have an administrative structure  that is effective, efficient, and permits the teacher to impart learning to the students

c.       Are promoted by the State of NC giving scholarships to teachers who commit to teaching for five years.

Treat teachers like the vital resource that they are . . . the sine qua non.

(a)    Give them a system and classroom in which they can actually accomplish instruction, not just day care and entitlement compliance.

(b)   Ensure stability of goals.  Stop changing the goal line every year with the annual revision to objectives, methods, and priorities.  It makes teachers feel like it is impossible to be competent at what they do, given the already demanding exogenous environment of radical technological evolution. 

(c)    Endow them with transparent leadership and professional courtesy.  Eliminate all the administrative double-talk necessitated by rhetoric designed to rationalize the gaps in performance.  Eliminate the part of new-employee orientation that speaks to the new hires as if they were just paroled from prison.

 

(d)   Require that administrators have more management skills training than pedagogical training. 

Create active citizen oversight without the baggage attendant to the local school boards.

(a)    Elected school board members may support schools, but they may have other goals:  nexus to real estate developers, political springboard, interest group advocate, or job security.  NC local Boards of Education have not ended the genocide.

(b)   Require each major urban school district to have an elected Education Watchdog Council whose sole purpose is to monitor strategic performance and articulate the college and employers’ view point of what they want from public schools

a.       long term assessment of the college or employment suitability of NC high school graduates

b.      market share of students by category: public, charter, independent, home school, dropped out, judicial system

c.       performance statistics (graduation, GPA, employment/college, ACT scores)  of students by category

d.      assessment of data quality from the school district (accuracy, timeliness, relevance)

e.      assessment of

                                                               i.      “brain drain” risk (NC students moving out of state for full-time employment)

                                                             ii.      skills gap in the NC workforce vs employment opportunities

                                                            iii.      surplus in the workforce of particular skill sets

Benefits of this Proposal

Benefit	Rationale
Remediates the primary deficit plaguing low income students:  lack of adult support.	Learning is hard work.  Humans do not embrace hard work absent motivation.  The family surrogate aspect of in-neighborhood schools allows students to cultivate motivation.
Makes the teacher compensation battle easier to understand and solve.	Fundamentally different pay scales are necessary for groups that teach students with actively involved parents compared to groups that teach low SES students without parent involvement.
Increases the supply of willing teachers, in that it reduces some of the nightmares legendary in public schools.	Ends the curriculum volatility, phony administrator rhetoric, and enables classroom control.
Enables and motivates students to attend school even if they have no parental guidance.	School is near the student’s residence and the student wants to be with their friends and “family.”
Conquers the formidable problem of social promotion.	Compartmentalized learning units can be taught to students of any age, ending the problem of seating a 16-year-old next to a 10-year-old, both learning fractions.
Maximizes possibility of learning for low SES students by giving them small class size, well-trained competent teachers, and a standard of “learning to mastery.”	Small class size eliminates the chance to be invisible or anonymous, and promotes teacher’s ability to deal with needs of low SES population.
Pragmatically, acknowledges that not everyone will attend college, but that everyone needs job skills and guidance toward self-reliance.	Statistics bear out this reality.  No one has a capped academic path.  Occupational skills create a greater chance for self-confidence, competence, and buy-in to the community life and laws.
Adds a fundamental respect for the human dignity of kids channeled into alternative discipline schools by requiring mandatory occupational work and literacy.	Ends the abusive practice toward children that have not had anyone demonstrate an interest in their learning.
Places importance on LEARNING, not on the political aims of the several parties to this debate.	The several parties to this debate organize into political factions, each of which pushes its self-interested agenda.  This incrementalism prolongs the genocide and ignores the authentic human dignity of the NC children growing up likely to hate school.  Hatred of school promotes dropping out and antipathy toward social mores.
Acknowledges the inadequacy of the historical 25 student classroom setting for kids from low SES homes that have not been properly socialized to function within a group.	To function in a classroom, students need emotional and social maturity, including the ability to delay gratification.  Small class size allows the teacher to include this instruction and to elevate expectations.
Places a sophisticated yet democratic layer of surveillance on the job performance of the School Board and School District, with an eye toward strategic outcomes.	Parents and other taxpayers are broadly dissatisfied with the current regime, and have lost confidence in its leadership.  While this preserves the leadership in place, it adds organization and sophistication to the collective assessment of the job they are doing.
Addresses the cultural issue of black strivers being accused of trying to “act white.”	At a majority black school, strivers are not accused of trying to “act white.”
Represents a comprehensive solution to the persistent “achievement gap.”	Instead of trying out the latest consultant program marketed to administrators eager to close the achievement gap, this approach focuses the effort on treating the root causes of the problem.

Objections to this proposal

Objection	Counter argument
It is foolish to expend more resources teaching the lowest achieving students.	The NC Constitution demands that we educate our students.  We either abandon the low SES students to chance or we design a system that works.  Mass-producing uneducated North Carolinians cripples future workforce development, burdens entitlement spending, and crowds prisons.
African American community leaders will dislike the possible concentration and lack of diversity at the in-neighborhood schools.	Many African Americans community leaders support the KIPP schools where there is no diversity but there is much success.
African American community leaders may construe this as a Trojan horse intended to resegregate schools.	If this idea were screened with pastors from African American faith communities, they might see the intrinsic desire to do right by the low SES children who are being dramatically underserved in the present arrangement. Also, as evidenced at KIPP Charlotte, there are plenty of parents of black children who are actively involved in their child’s education, and thus, all such children would be integrated into the regular public schools.
We do not have the budgetary funds to build/create in-neighborhood schools.	Wealthy sponsors will advance funds for concepts that are radically committed to authentic learning.
Suburban school parents will howl in protest over unequal resources for their kids (“reverse discrimination.”)	Suburban school parents will be delighted with the resulting higher functioning public schools, and can be persuaded to take this resource reduction in exchange for a more effective, efficient school.
Public schools are required to accept all students regardless of emotional, physical, or cognitive impairment.	In-neighborhood schools will accept all such students, and will cope with the extra demands of this population by limiting class size to 15 students; by having the freedom to expel students who cannot participate constructively; and by hiring instructors certified in the unique needs of the low SES population.
Maybe this would work if you started from scratch, but there is no effective transition method to get there.	Where there is a will, there is a way.
You are never going to solve the problems of poverty.	If a child has an IQ of at least 75, he can graduate from high school if he has a surrogate family structure and someone committed to push him toward learning to mastery [Ron Clark Academy, KIPP.]
The Achilles heel of this idea is the alternative discipline school.  The ACLU will not accept the limits on personal freedom required to make this kind of school work.	We have alternative discipline schools already.  The only criticism of them is that they are disproportionately populated by minorities.  The in-neighborhood school goes a long way toward redressing that.
Teachers will be wildly opposed to different pay standards for employees with equal education and tenure.	As long as each person is paid what they think is adequate for their needs, they should be willing to accept that another employee has a subject area for which the market has a greater shortage, thus driving the price up.
Low SES homes may not have e-mail, phone service, or the language skills to connect with the teacher.	Students in these families will receive the benefit of learning in smaller class settings.

What is a Dutch Auction?

A dutch auction is a method to find a price level for a service.  The level must be low enough to appeal to buyers and high enough to motivate sellers to offer the service.  Buyers and sellers must be treated fairly.

How does it work?

(a)    In this case, the “sellers” would be the teachers, because they are the ones who would receive money for services.  The “buyer” would be the school district.

(b)   The school district publishes criteria for candidates to qualify for a job.  Interested candidates submit an application to be considered.  The school district then notifies all the candidates who have been deemed qualified to submit a bid for available positions. It is important for the school district to ensure that there are enough qualified applicants to fill all the openings.  It continues recruiting until this is true. 

(c)    The school district solicits sealed bids for all open positions.  The teachers submit confidential sealed bids indicating the lowest salary they are willing to accept to perform a job. 

(d)   Suppose the bidding for two open positions was as follows:

KG teacher Ten positions open			High school physics teacher Five positions open
Teacher	Bid		Teacher	Bid
A	45,000		M	65,000
B	43,000		N	63,000
C	41,000		O	60,000
D	40,000		P	60,000
E	35,000		Q	55,000
F	35,000		R	55,000
G	35,000		S	55,000
H	33,000		T	53,000
I	32,000		U	52,000
J	28,000		V	48,000
K	27,000		W	47,000
L	25,000		X	45,000

For the KG teachers, ten employees are needed.  Counting up from the bottom of the list, it takes a salary of $41,000 to obtain the services of ten teachers.  Thus, all ten teachers would be paid $41,000 for the coming year.  Teachers C through L would be hired, and teachers A and B would not.

For the physics teachers, five employees are needed.  Counting up from the bottom of the list, it takes a salary of $53,000 to obtain the services of five teachers.  Thus, all five teachers would be paid $53,000 for the coming year.  Teachers T through X would be hired, and teachers M through S would not.

NY Times: Everything you need to know about Piketty vs. the FT

Marxism is now mainstream political thought in America.

Trouble is brewing.   Serious trouble.  Honest-to-God trouble. 

The catalyst is Thomas Piketty’s book, “Capital,” originally published in France last year and in the USA in March. The gist of the book is that income inequality between the classes is becoming so compelling that the only solution is a global wealth tax and more government intervention.  The book has soared to the top of the best seller’s list and stayed there.

Conservative media (the Wall Street Journal and the Financial Times) have challenged the rigor of the author’s data analysis, and further have challenged some simplifying assumptions he made in compiling and synthesizing the data.  Those squabbles will play out over the next couple weeks and maybe the dust will settle on how much they affect the book’s conclusions.

What is at issue are basic assumptions underlying our way of life: 

·         is the free enterprise system a good organizing construct for a well-ordered society? 

·         should the affluent be able to bequeath their lifetime wealth to their chosen heirs?

·         should the income and consequent wealth of our economy be allocated according to one’s productivity (work and investment); according to one’s need (poverty); or according to purchased political access (graft)?

Why do I think this is so huge? 

·         Income-tax payers are a political minority.  In the past 100 years, affluent people have limited family size.  Those in deep poverty have such a deprived life that the only readily available source of pleasure and momentary solace is reproduction or eating.  As such, our demographics have changed to the point that more low income people are being produced and obesity is endemic; consequently, the vote is heavily tilting to low income people.  Mitt Romney (oafishly) pointed out that 47% of the electorate pays no income tax (yes many do remit payroll tax, but that is not income tax.)

·         Bad things happen when politicians “soak the rich”.  When I got married (1981) the top income tax rate was 70% and the natural result of this was that the wealthy hid their cash in Swiss bank accounts or they created tax shelters.  This is a moral hazard and it made the convoluted US tax code even more tortuously complex.  The uber rich will have their way by some means, and it undermines the already-diminished moral fabric to corrupt them even more with confiscatory taxes.  The more some privileged few play by their own rules, the more the wider society thinks it is necessary to game the system.  This is how Mexico came to have such corruption in law enforcement.

·         Socialism has already been tried and it was a mess to clean up.  The Russian Revolution (1917) was about income inequality.  The French Revolution (1789) was the same.  Latin America has been plagued by wars and political unrest stemming from income inequality (lack of a functioning middle class.)

·         Confiscatory taxes corrupt society.  Regardless of morality, productive people flee to societies where they are allowed to keep the fruits of their labors.  Now that the United States is also becoming socialist, there is nowhere else to go.  So, productive people will look for means to hide their wealth from the tax man . . . moral hazard and corruption.  This is the political economy of Russia – a kleptocracy with 40% alcoholism (despair) among the people.

There will always be class conflict.  The masses (low income) can be soldiers and the affluent can buy guns, planes, and tanks.  This was the story of the Chinese Communist Revolution in 1949.  This is the story of the Middle Eastern conflict today.  We have a way to mediate this conflict in our society:  three branches of government with a balance of powers.

However, there is now effectively a fourth branch:  the parasites – the career politicians and the lobbyists that purchase their votes.  After Congressional service, any Senator or Representative can “monetize” their service by becoming a lobbyist and garnering millions. (See “This Town” by Mark Lebovich, 2013, Blue Rider Press.) 

The Parasite Branch exists to manipulate us for their political gain.  There is no party ideology, no patriotism, no commonweal.  There is only their posturing before the media and within the Parasite Branch to strengthen their influence.

If we want to let our Constitutional government function as designed, we have to root out the Parasite Branch.  This is only possible with campaign finance reform, term limits, tax code simplification, and a balanced budget.  Then we can allow a citizen government to mediate the difficult choices inherent in apportioning resources wisely.

Do not succumb to the illusion that there are Republicans and Democrats.  There is only one party that operates and it is the OPE party:  Opportunist Political Entrepreneur – those who seek to entrench themselves by espousing whatever notions happen to be in the wind. 

The foundation of conservatism is that a well-ordered society steeped in its traditions promotes the public welfare better than other alternatives.  The root of this philosophy is that each individual, by and large, must be self-supporting.

The traditional foundation of progressive thought is that change is immutable and that we must embrace its consequences in order to survive.  The root of this philosophy is that each individual’s creative thought is the locus of adaptation and thus all individuals deserve full inclusion and accommodation.  The creative impulse is the spark of life.

These two ideologies need each other, and they must be in a healthy tension for our society to flourish.  Regrettably, prolonged prosperity has allowed us to deteriorate to the point that our public discourse has become nothing more than demeaning opponents by claiming moral superiority as the ultimate weapon of political suasion.   

Conservatives fire up their base with gun rights, tax limits, and religious choice.  Progressives fire up their base with social prerogatives and government as the benevolent agent to combat the evil plutocrats.  Firing up the base is a whole lotta manipulation, a wagon-load of self-serving emotional skullduggery.

Are we this pathetic?  Can we govern ourselves no better than this?  If we do not insert some rational overlays into our discourse, we will have our own revolution well before our 300^th birthday. 

Uproot the Parasite Branch.  Install a citizen government.  Take congressional votes off the auctioneer’s table.   Act like there are consequences to our choices, and balance the freaking budget. 

How long will we operate with the delusion that there will be no day of reckoning for the fact that we replaced irresponsible household debt with irresponsible national debt? 

In 1844, Karl Marx wrote that “religion . . . is the opiate of the people.”  In the intervening 170 years, some new opiate has taken hold.   It is probably all the entertainment choice we have that merrily blunts our sense of reality, severs our connection to any sense of urgency.  We the torpid, led by the Parasitic, shall go hurtling off the cliff.  Let’s hope the real estate between here and the edge of the cliff is total nirvana.  

Right? . . . No.

 My thoughts on

 "Rethinking Our 'Rights' to Dangerous Behaviors"

Op-Ed in NY Times by Mark Bittman, 2/25/14

Hallelujah.  What a relief to see a progressive thinker raise the issue of what is and is not a “right.”

Bittman expresses a desire to recast old dilemmas in a new suit of clothes.  For example, instead of saying, “do companies have the right to sell junk food,” he wants to recast the questions as, “do children have the right to eat healthy food?”  Other flashpoints he wants to transform:

From “does a citizen have the right to . . .”	To “does a citizen have a right to”
Smoke cigarettes	Breathe clean air
Consume intoxicating beverages with elevated alcohol levels	Shop in a marketplace free from products that are nearly certain to be abused by the consumer.
Own and carry firearms	Live in a safe neighborhood
Make individual decisions about what drugs are beneficial to health	Shop for drugs and medicine, confident that those posing hazards to health have been banned from the marketplace.
Drive an automobile that fits the consumer’s preferences but that others consider inappropriate for public safety or environmental impact	Live in a society where the people, through their government, have banned vehicles that pollute the environment and are a general safety threat.

I applaud the fact that he is raising awareness of the ethical issue implicit in self-interested marketing practices of certain corporations.  I deplore the way that food and beverage companies, in some cases, behave like drug pushers in tempting consumers to buy their junk food products.  However, Mr. Bittman has a diction problem that troubles me. 

In our society we have rights conferred by the Constitution.  Further, we have agreements among ourselves called laws that create entitlements.  We have agreed to abide by certain laws even though the intent of the law is not to preserve a right enumerated in the Constitution.  For example, we agree that I cannot operate a beauty salon unless I am a licensed cosmetologist. 

We have created these entitlements by expressing our preferences through our elected government.  It is very important, however, to distinguish between a right and an entitlement. 

Rights are in the Constitution.  Laws or entitlements can only exist if the judicial system determines that they do not contravene rights in the Constitution.  If a majority of us wanted all balloons to be green, and the judiciary did not find that it violated constitutional rights, then henceforth, we would be able to enforce the existence of only green balloons.   The right to green balloons is not preserved in the Constitution, yet it would be an entitlement enforceable by penalties or rights limitations. 

My diction problem with Mr. Bittman is that he elevates his desire for certain conditions in the society to the status of a right.  He wants the government to limit the sale of polluting automobiles so that he can be confident that his environment is healthy.  I agree with his desires, but I do not believe that I have a right to a clean environment that is enshrined in the Constitution.   I will vigorously agitate for legislative reform to accomplish this purpose, but I am trying to persuade my fellow citizens to agree with me so that we can enact a law creating this entitlement. 

What is the big deal in making a distinction between a right and a legislated entitlement?  After all, we can amend the Constitution just like we can modify laws.  The big deal is that the rights in the Constitution prevail regardless of the popular vote in any given election.  It is important when we make a list of the rights that trump the results of a plebiscite. 

Mr. Bittman, you and I agree on a great deal, but we deeply disagree on the tactic of re-framing the debate in terms of what is and is not a right.  I see why you do this:  you find your opponents’ defense of their “rights” a pretty tough nut to crack.  You do noble work by raising awareness of corporate misbehavior with their manipulative marketing and distribution tactics.  There are other ways to solve those problems besides creating new expectations of rights. 

GOOG: Insider Information with Sizzle

Robert Epstein, a credentialed psychologist, is publishing research about the potential threat of Google manipulating elections.WaPo's What If Google Were Evil?

This story line is old hat:  every time a high growth company dominates a market segment with a compelling product, we are faced with market concentration issues:  Standard Oil, AT&T,  IBM, and Microsoft. 

Despite Epstein’s puerile motives in going after Google, he raises a plausible question.  Happily, there are sensible answers that preclude the need for regulation. 

It is sensible with rapid technodrift to be alert to vulnerabilities and to get that potential vulnerability into public awareness.  I think Obama’s recent statement about the need for discourse on standards for cyber security for public companies is a rational example of being alert but not reactive. 

Google publishes an annual video slideshow highlighting the biggest search queries of the year.  They offer public service information exchange in times of local crisis.  The point is that their power has much less to do with manipulating elections than it does with access to real time unfiltered market sentiments and wants.  The macro knowledge that they and their e-commerce brethren have is potently able to forecast attractive market opportunities.  It represents a paradox:  aggregated anonymous personal information is essentially “freely available” inside information of the finest kind. 

In five years, it will be interesting  to see Google’s patrimony in spin-offs and alumni enterprises.  

Same sex unbundling

You have likely seen the theme of “unbundling” in the last couple of years.  News delivery is unbundled from sheets of paper, education is unbundled from classrooms, and cinematic storytelling is unbundled from gathering places like theaters.   The same-sex marriage debate has created yet another unbundling, I think.  The previous bundle was a civil, religious, and social institution called “marriage.”  The driving public forced the hand of highway administrators in reinstating the 70 miles-per-hour speed limit on interstate roads.  Similarly, the general public’s de facto choices have forced the hand of jurists to unbundle marriage into its constituent parts:  the civil piece for property and custody rights, the religious piece for sacred promises, and the social piece for celebrating household formation. 

This is a watershed moment for the United States.  We are on the verge of acknowledging the gray instead of the straight jacket of the black-and-white.  The Founders were neither saints nor villains.  They had good ideas that were meaningful in their day and were formed by the circumstances of their day.  One of those ideas was accountability to a higher authority than self in making profound choices like forming a government.  Religious ideals were an important part of our headwaters.

The gray that we confront is the means by which we define the difference in our internal moral compass (religion, if any,) and our collective social contract (the judicial system.)  Our social contract is based on individual liberty to the extent that it does not harm the greater good.  The preamble to Robert’s Rules of Order justifies  parliamentary procedure:  for a minority to live according to the rules of the majority, the majority must show respect for the minority’s views.  With abortion, pornography, alcoholic beverages, and flag-burning, we have demonstrated that we can abide peacefully amidst the dichotomy of law and religion.  As a society interested in promoting national self-determination for other democracies, we openly long for them to achieve secular governments.  This is our moment to live by this standard in our own behavior. 

With lifetime power vested with the Supreme Court, it is surprising when the pundits speculate that the Court would like to find a way to dispense with Prop 8 and DOMA without making a sweeping declaration of rights.  Many are saying that the Court would like to remand based on proponents’ lack of legal standing, theorizing that this would buy time for public sentiment to evolve sufficiently to harmonize with a broad rights declaration.  One wonders about the numbers game – presumably, the Court will divide ideologically with four each on the right and left, leaving Justice Kennedy as the fence sitter.  If he is the only fence sitter, and he is angling for remand as a way to buy time, I can imagine the torment in his soul.  Not wanting to play the role of god in adjudicating a dispute over a radical divide, he seeks the company of his fellow man to gather around him and signal readiness to move forward.   

Little wonder that he seeks company – the only certainty surrounding this bridge to the future is that we will not be able to anticipate every consequence.  At times like this, to enable action, we seek the comfort of our culture: 

 With malice toward none, with charity for all, with firmness in the right as God gives us to see the right, let us strive on to finish the work we are in, to bind up the nation's wounds, to care for him who shall have borne the battle and for his widow and his orphan, to do all which may achieve and cherish a just and lasting peace among ourselves and with all nations.