2 PARAGRAPHS 4 LIBERTY: #201 "UNALTERABLE LAWS"

        Regardless of what legislatures, courts or juries say, there are some laws in life that always affect human conduct that are unalterable.  One of these laws is the Law of Supply and Demand.  This law certainly can be affected by other laws, regulations and mores, but it can never be repealed.  One explanation for this is that, to the degree that people have Liberty to make choices, they will always consider their own self-interest when it comes to spending their money, time or labor.  Of course, some of those self-interests can be altruistic, but at least to some degree, this law always affects human conduct.  And no educated person is unaware of this reality that Incentives Matter! 
  
            The second is the Law of Unintended Consequences.  This law demonstrates that, no matter what the good intentions are of the people making rules or passing laws, there are often to even a great extent other consequences that provide results that are unforeseen and frequently negative.  Dr. Milton Friedman proposed the best antidote to this law by suggesting that we should judge programs by their results, not their good intentions.  Some good examples of those results are minimum wage laws that purport to want to increase wages for low-paid workers.  But the blunt reality is that some people’s labors, most often those of young people and other unskilled laborers, simply are not worth the increased expense to their employers.  So, as a result, they lose their jobs or don’t get hired in the first place.  Is this a bad thing?  Actually, most sociologists would agree that it is far better for society, for example, to have 100 people at work earning $10 per hour than 65 people earning $15 per hour.  Other similar laws of purportedly good intentions are rent-control laws, which attempt to keep rents below market rates.  Those laws work fine, at least temporarily, for the fortunate few people who already have apartments at the lower rates.  But landlords mostly will do anything they reasonably can to maximize their profits.  (Remember, Incentives Matter!)  So they will attempt to evict lower-paying tenants, or convert their apartments into condominiums or even parking lots that will bring a market rate of return on their investments. And they most certainly will not invest in building new apartments.  So all of this results in a decrease in the supply of apartments, which further exacerbates the problem.  And this is normal human conduct.  So listen to Milton Friedman.  Regardless of good intentions, and even voters’ perceptions of those intentions, the only fair yardstick of good laws is their actual results.  If people were to understand this basic concept, this would be a positive revolution in our country.   
  
            Quote for the week:  “Those who expect to reap the blessings of freedom must undergo the fatigue of supporting it.”  Thomas Paine

Judge Jim Gray (Ret.)

2012 Libertarian candidate for Vice President, along with

Governor Gary Johnson as the candidate for President

By the way, these columns are now on Facebook and LinkedIn at judgejimgray, Twitter at judgejamesgray, and wordpress at judgejimgray@wordpress.com.  Please visit these sites for past editions, and do your part to spread the word about the importance of Liberty.

2 PARAGRAPHS 4 LIBERTY: #200 "OUR MOST IMPORTANT JOB"

     This is the last in my non-expert series about parenting and mentoring our children, which are probably the most important jobs that most of us will ever have.  We have already covered many important aspects of raising children, such as loving them and setting boundaries and expectations.  So this edition will wrap it up with a few more abstract thoughts on these important subjects. 

·         The best thing a father can do for his children is to love their mother.

·         Teach children not to cry or whine when things go poorly, but instead to use words.

·         If children fall down, teach them to get up – on their own.

·         When looking for a mate, project who you would like to be the mother/father of your children.  That approach alone has changed numbers of lives – for the better.

·         Within reason, if someone is “bullying” your children, give them some advice, but let them deal with it themselves.

·         The classic father is gentle beneath his firmness, and the classic mother is firm beneath her gentleness.

Finally, although it may for some people not be politically correct to discuss this issue so bluntly, one of the best things that parents can do for their children is to be married to each other.  How and with whom people live if they are not parents I leave to their own sense of morals and views of Liberty.  But if people have children they owe it to their children to be legally as well as morally committed to each other in marriage.  Without this commitment, in so many ways the children of those parents are virtually condemned to having lives of substantially reduced opportunities!  And, tragically, today’s social mores appear almost routinely to accept this as the status quo.  For example, if Google is accurate, something like 39.8 percent of ALL births in the United States come to unwed mothers, with a breakdown of 29 percent for Caucasians, 53 percent for Hispanics, and 71 percent for African Americans.  So what can we do about this?  We should hammer this thought into children we can influence from an early age, and when we hear laudatory reports about male celebrities who have children “with their girlfriends,” we should respond with sadness and even shame.  This issue should not be left to religious and spiritual leaders alone, each of us must all vocally do our part. Liberty comes with responsibilities, and where better to place our efforts than the future of so many of our children?  

Quote for the week:  “Children must be taught how to think, not what to think.”  Margaret Mead

Judge Jim Gray (Ret.) 

2012 Libertarian candidate for Vice President, along with

Governor Gary Johnson as the candidate for President

By the way, these columns are now on Facebook and LinkedIn at judgejimgray, Twitter at judgejamesgray, and wordpress at judgejimgray@wordpress.com.  Please visit these sites for past editions, and do your part to spread the word about the importance of Liberty.

2 PARAGRAPHS 4 LIBERTY: #199 "CHILDPROOFING THEIR CHILDHOOD"

     The response to last week’s 2 Paragraphs edition about the parenting and mentoring of children was gratifying, but I received only a few additional suggestions to pass along to you.  Nevertheless, it’s not too late.  So if you have additional thoughts about what works and what doesn’t, please don’t be bashful.  But one more thought occurred to me after the column was distributed, and it came from the DEA agent on the first narcotics case I tried as a federal prosecutor.  The agent told me that the prime defendant had been his friend when they were in high school together.  But the huge difference between the paths they chose was caused by their mentors: the agent had been mentored by his basketball coach, and his friend had been mentored by a drug dealer.  “There but for the Grace of God” the situations could and likely would have been reversed.

       And to follow up on last week’s concept, what many parents are doing too often today is childproofing the development of their own children.  What does that mean?  Because of fears that our children will be hurt or harmed, we don’t allow them to walk to school by themselves, play unescorted in parks where they can make up games to play with their friends, go to a market or travel on public transportation unchaperoned, climb trees or generally learn how to take care of themselves until dark when it’s “time to come home for dinner” – which was the rule when I was growing up.  Furthermore, during my childhood there were no terms like “Helicopter Parents,” and my friends and I were not protected by a “safe space” or from “trigger words” so that we could be kept from being confronted or otherwise forced to think on the spot for ourselves.  Yes, we certainly want our children to be safe, but many too many ways we have overdone it!  Not only do these “protections” breed a lack of ingenuity, creativity and independence, they also develop in many children a fear of life itself unless there is plenty of structure and supervision.  So what good is Liberty if people are too fearful even after they have “grown up” to give it a try?  Yes, Liberty can be scary in lots of ways, but it still is the best and most productive and gratifying way to live our lives!!

Quote for the week:  “The best way to predict your future is to create it.”  Abraham Lincoln

Judge Jim Gray (Ret.) 

2012 Libertarian candidate for Vice President, along with

Governor Gary Johnson as the candidate for President

By the way, these columns are now on Facebook and LinkedIn at judgejimgray, Twitter at judgejamesgray, and wordpress at judgejimgray@wordpress.com.  Please visit these sites for past editions, and do your part to spread the word about the importance of Liberty.

2 PARAGRAPHS 4 LIBERTY: #198 "THE PARENTING/MENTORING OF CHILDREN

There are many things where I am not an expert, and parenting and mentoring children is certainly on that list.  But taking from my experience both as a parent and as a judge on the Juvenile Court and with Peer Court, I have gathered some thoughts over the years as to what works in that regard.  So with the New Year now with us, I thought that, in addition to loving our children, which is probably the most critical element in their positive  development, I would share some of those additional thoughts with you:

·         Teach our children the critical lesson that: “It’s fun to learn!”  Once they start to appreciate that fact, they will see that everything is interrelated.  So learning about one thing teaches them about many others.  And that makes life much more fascinating.

·         Another critical guideline to teach our children is to “Eschew Mediocrity.”  (I know this word is pompous, but I used it for emphasis in my high school musical “Americans All,” and it worked.)  Make excellence a pattern so if people know that, for example, Ellen did the job, they would know that it had been done right.  Thus “Good Enough” seldom is good enough.  One way to accomplish that outcome is to require all children to have regular chores to do from an early age, and be sure they are consistently done and done well.  Once again, excellence is a learned pattern of conduct.

·         “You Show Me your Friends, and I’ll Show You your Future!”  For example, if you hang out with colleagues who ditch school, smoke marijuana, talk back to their teachers and don’t apply themselves in their studies, the odds are overwhelming that you will do the same.  So, to pursue that thought, ask teenagers to close their eyes and think about the three people they hang out with the most.  And, without telling you who they are, ask the question: “Do you think they will be successful in their lives?”  If not, maybe you should hang out with a different group of people.   Another approach is to ask the question: “What is a friend?”  Does someone who encourages you to shop lift a CD, be truant or lie about your conduct really a “friend?”  Maybe that person is just a former friend, or maybe has always just been an acquaintance. 

·         Children should know where their boundaries of conduct are, and that those boundaries will be enforced – and then they will thrive within those boundaries.  Teenagers expect their parents to parent – and are inwardly disappointed when they don’t.  (Some parents are amazed at this thought, as they have instead simply tried to be their children’s “friends.”  But that is not the same thing!)

·         Ask teenagers how old they are right now, and then how old they will be ten years from now.    (I only had one young man get the wrong answer to this question.)  Then ask them what they want their lives to look like ten years from now.  (We all know that those ten years will go by quickly, but for a teenager it will seem like an eternity.)  So if you want to be an engineer, attorney, mechanic or medical doctor, what are you doing right now to further those worthwhile goals?  And will shoplifting at Target help you achieve them? 

·         “Your Dreams Don’t Work Unless You Do.”  Another way to drive home this thought is for a parent, teacher or other mentor to say: “I help those who help themselves.”

·         Teach children to question information, regardless of its source.  For example, one of my triumphs of parenting occurred one day when my three children, then at ages 9, 9 and 6, were driving with me through an area where there were sheets of plastic on the ground to nurture the growth of young strawberry plants.  So I said casually, “Look kids, this is where they grow plastic,” to which they responded: “Oh really Daddy, oh really?”  I said nothing.  But after we had driven another five miles down the road one of my children piped up and said: “Oh, come on Dad.”  I still see that as an important lesson for them.

·         Teach children that it often pays to postpone gratification.  People who can do that are much more likely to be successful than those who cannot.

·         Of course, grandparents should strongly to assist in the development of children, but it is also their obligation to spoil the grandchildren.  So do it without apology!

Okay, this edition has been much longer than I was expecting, but if even some of these thoughts make sense and are helpful, please use them and pass them along to other parents, teachers, coaches, scout leaders and other mentors as well.  It is hard for me to come up with a more important subject.  And if you have some other suggestions for successful parenting and mentoring, please pass them back to me.  If there are enough suggestions, we can revisit this issue in a future edition of 2 Paragraphs.

Judge Jim Gray (Ret.)

2012 Libertarian candidate for Vice President, along with

Governor Gary Johnson as the candidate for President

Thought for the week:  “I ordered a chicken and an egg from Amazon.  I’ll let you know.”

                                                                              

By the way, these columns are now on Facebook and LinkedIn at judgejimgray, Twitter at judgejamesgray, and wordpress at judgejimgray@wordpress.com.  Please visit these sites for past editions, and do your part to spread the word about the importance of Liberty.

2 PARAGRAHS 4 LIBERTY: #197 "SOME REFLECTIONS DURING THE CHRISTMAS SEASON"

     As this Christmas and Holiday Season is upon us, please join me in two reflections.  The first is: “We should pause to consider how our lives have been enhanced by some other people, and be grateful for them.”  And the second is: “We should pause to consider how we ourselves have been able to have enhanced the lives of others, and be grateful for those opportunities.”  For me, these reflections both originated from Frank Capra’s classic 1947 film “It’s a Wonderful Life,” and in many ways they embody the Christmas Spirit.  So I wanted to share them with you.

        As to the first reflection, and as I wrote in the first sentence of the Introduction of one of my books,* the best decision I ever made in my life was choosing my parents.  And this is simply true.  Being born to the loving, wonderful and supportive Elizabeth and William Gray provided me fantastic benefits that many people have never come close to receiving.  And, to my everlasting gratification, they knew I loved and appreciated them!  (Don’t let you or anyone close to you leave this earth without ensuring that they also know that you love and appreciate them!)  And there were many others as well, such as my wonderful wife and children; my sister and her loving and supportive husband; several good and close friends (one of whom helps by giving me suggestions and criticisms of most of my writings, including this 2 Paragraphs series); several former teachers and mentors (some of whom I have subsequently written to express my appreciation); and many more, many of whom I recognize and some of whom I will never know.  Imagine how my life would have been different had they not been in it!  But also don’t forget to include in your reflections how you have made positive differences in the lives of others – whether they have realized and expressed appreciation for them or not.  It brings genuine gratification just to know that a few things you have done have brought happiness, opportunities and warmth to others – and that should be enough.

                

So I hope you savor and bask in this Give and Receive Christmas Spirit with me.  Life is Good!

* Wearing the Robe: the Art and Responsibilities of Judging in Today’s Courts (Square One Press, 2009)

Judge Jim Gray (Ret.)

2012 Libertarian candidate for Vice President, along with

Governor Gary Johnson as the candidate for President

Question for the week: What did Adam say to his wife on the day before Christmas?  “Merry Christmas Eve.”

                                                                              

By the way, these columns are now on Facebook and LinkedIn at judgejimgray, Twitter at judgejamesgray, and wordpress at judgejimgray@wordpress.com.  Please visit these sites for past editions, and do your part to spread the word about the importance of Liberty.