Hennessy's View

Elena Kagan reminds me of Norm Peterson’s (Cheers) meltdown in front the brewery president just before he landed his dream job as a beer taster. Poor Elena can’t remember the simplest things—like her own handwriting. 

Today, Democrat Arlen Specter warned that he may have to vote “no.” 

She might not be the infanticidal maniac some claim.  Instead, she seems to be devoid of any substantial legal thought whatsoever. 

The few opinions she does have are horrible.  She believes it’s okay for the government to ban books.  She believes it’s okay to submit false documents to official inquiries.  She believed judicial nominees (like her) could be compelled to answer questions about prior court opinions . . . before she decided nominees should be required to say nothing.

In short, Elena Kagan is a run-of-the-mill, academic leftist who specializes in kissing up to the boss.  Hardly the stuff of judicial legend, but possibly a disaster for freedom if she makes it onto the court. 

Let’s make a litmus test: no book burners on the Supreme Court.

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Sometimes things just happen.

As Jim Durbin points out, last night’s St. Louis Tea Party Night at the Ball Game was a total fluke.  A mix-up left us with 46 tickets to last night’s Cardinal’s game against Arizona. (Long story.) But this tea party thing that started over a year ago seems to generate its own publicity.

But the real story, to me, is what happened last night. Three incidents vindicated the shift toward more community building work, even if that work comes at the expense of big, boisterous rallies.

The Usher

While we were assembling at the Stan Musial statue, a young man in a security guard or usher uniform approached me.  He said, “I just recently figured out what the whole Tea Party movement is about, and I wanted you to know that I support you guys. Thank you for doing this.” 

I told him “thanks,” and introduced myself and handed him a pocket Constitution and Declaration of Independence. He seemed to be in a hurry.  But he’ll be back. 

The Fan

During the top of the ninth, I went over to section 331 to say goodbye to the large crowd there. (The Tea Partyers put me in the overflow seats two sections away from the main group. They know how I get.)  On my way over, another young man stopped and told me he’d been supporting the tea party movement from a distance for a while. He, too , said “thanks” for what we do. I handed him a Constitution and told him to contact us through www.stlouisteaparty.com. 

The Coverage

Today, news of our accidental BUYcott of the game went viral.  This certainly wasn’t planned.  We didn’t issue a press release about the event. We just wanted to watch baseball with some of the friends we’ve made manning the barricades of freedom since 2009.

The Vindication

I realized a year ago that, without a network of people stronger, smarter, braver, and more energetic than me, I wouldn’t have organized that second tea party. (The first one was testimony to my own ignorance and tendency toward compulsion, and it was successful only because of Dana’s work.)

Well, if I need a strong fabric of people and groups to sustain me, then lots of other people do, too. 

“How many people,” I wondered, “would join us in small groups, at house parties or block parties, even if they’re not comfortable coming out to a protest or rally?”

Through the retail work of meeting one person at a time, we unfurl the blanket of community that Jim Durbin talks about when he writes:

We like hanging out together.  And while there will always be a little political theater when this group gets together, last night was really about getting out to the ballpark with friends, family, and the kids.

We do like hanging out together. We know we’re safe and covered by our friends. We know our friends will keep us in line and steady us when we stumble. Even if they do make us sit two sections away.

So if you haven’t joined our ranks, please do. We hold a little party every Thursday evening at Sky Music Lounge in Ballwin.  We’re working on adding additional locations for weekly get-togethers in South St. Louis City or County, North County, and Mid-County.  We look for new Block Captains who will invest a few dollars and a couple hours in training and Constitutions.  Please contact john.burns@stlouisteaparty.com to become part of the solution to the problem government has left us.

Finally, about our little movement, let me say this.  We never intended to create a new party or some massive blob of angry snarkiness. We just wanted our kids to find an America that’s a little freer, a little stronger, and little more fun than the one we inherited.  That may sound like a grandiose plan, but it’s really the dream of every American man and woman since the Pilgrims formed their little colony in Massachusetts.  If we accomplish that, we’ll have achieved no more than our parents and grandparents did.

Come to think of it, that’s one hell of an ambitious plan.

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When a family’s children are small, the family has such unity of purpose. Mom, Dad, and all the kids climb into the mini-van or the SUV and head to the store. From there, they visit her parents. Then stop at McDonald’s on the way home.  If one of the older kids is involved in an organized program, the whole family attends.

At bath time, the younger ones are bathed in batch.  Everyone eats together. Bed time comes for all of the kids at once, although older ones might get to read a while before turning out the light.

Young families have unity of purpose.

Then the kids get older.  Activities overlap, so the family must divide to accomplish them all. Soon, neither Mom nor Dad can stay and watch Trish’s volleyball game, because other kids need to be shuttled from event to event.

Before you know it, Trish is catching rides with the older kids who have their own cars. In a blink, the kids’ afterschool jobs prevent them from eating dinner as a family. Now, even Grandpa’s 70th birthday becomes a hassle to schedule.  And, yes, life is so complex the anniversary of a man’s birth has to be scheduled around other activities.

This is like any new organization, whether it’s a business startup or a grassroots movement.  At first, there’s such excitement about the next event or milestone or release date that everyone focuses on that.  Then teams get larger, and we divide our attentions.  Some focus on the next milestone, while others engage in longer term planning. Before long, we have not one but three or four immediate milestones, and we’ve divided the labor among specialists.

At this point, we no longer feel the excitement of the startup.  We feel like we’re in a big corporation with titles and departments.  And we notice that we’re missing a lot of targets and struggling for ideas.  Worst, there’s personality conflict and turf battles.  Everything is hard work, and nothing feels like an achievement.  Everything feels like a pain in the ass.

The way to combat this situation is three-fold:

Know Your Intended Outcome:  Have a single purpose around which everyone rallies, and make sure the whole organization understands why you exist.  For example, the first Tea Parties in February 2009 had perfect unity of purpose: Repeal the Pork or Retire.  That message was for Congress.  The pork was TARP, Stimuli I and II, the massive Budget Plus bill passed to redistribute wealth from us to Obama’s largest campaign donors.  That’s why this whole thing came about: government spending and borrowing for things that we never gave government permission to do.

Eliminate the Unnecessary:  Many activities should have been temporary but became permanent.  Kill all of those.  Weekly status meeting that came about because Project Y was behind schedule?  Kill it when Project Y ships and fix the reason it was late.  (Hint, meetings make projects later.) Is one project two generations behind because resources move to the other projects? Kill the feeder project. No one’s interested.  Any activity or project that does not directly address the Intended Outcome needs to stop immediately.

Do One Thing at a Time:  The human brain cannot multitask. Give it up. Don’t ask others to multitask unless you’d ask them to be in two places at once.  Once you’ve eliminated the unnecessary and established a clear, constant reminder of your intended outcome, you should have only one important task before you. Do it.  Then do the next.  Then one after that.  Trying to do two or more things at once will result in two or more crappy pieces of work.

If you feel that you’re busier than ever but nothing’s getting done, chances are you that you’ve taken on too much, lost sight of your intended outcome, and divided your attention among too many things.  Stop.  Write down that intention, write down a list of everything that’s in flight, then cross out every activity except the one that’s most important to the intended outcome.  You make a new list tomorrow.

For more information on achieving your goals, read my latest book, Zen Conservatism.

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Thanks, again, to Larry Kudlow for asking me to talk about tea party things on Friday, June 25.

The Kudlow Rehttp://www.cnbc.com/id/15838446/port airs weeknights at 6:00 p.m. CT on CNBC.

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Communist dictator Hugo Chavez has has stolen eleven oil rigs owned by the American company Helmerich and Payne. As Reuters points out, Chavez has now nationalized oil, telecommunications (including news), power, steel, and banking.

If you’re keeping score, Chavez leads Obama 5-3, as Obama so far has managed to seize only banking, automotive, and healthcare. But Obama has vowed a comeback.

Over the weekend, I had the pleasure of cutting and splitting some oak and hickory with a friend.  His “What Would Reagan Do” answer to the question of foreign governments seizing American property?

Amen.

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