The current teacher protests in Madison, WI provide us a real chance to put political civility to the test. The rubber is hitting the road, so to speak. As I watch the various news reports come in, I would say that the jury is still out on whether or not union members and legislators will rise to the occasion.

But signs like this one certainly will not be helpful. To equate the legislative changes and benefit reductions with the man responsible for the death of millions is irresponsible and it undermines the teachers’ position.

I do not believe this sign is representative of the vast majority of teachers in Madison, but it casts an ugly shadow on what they are trying to accomplish there with their peaceful protesting.

Again the power of movements like the Civil Rights movement was their ability to demonstrate civility and behave better than those standing in the way of the reforms they rightfully sought.

Recently the Mayor of Salt Lake City and Utah’s Lt. Gov., Greg Bell, launched an initiative to improve civility or rather public discourse in the state. As I read through the website and the associated media write-ups on the civility imitative some thoughts and questions came to mind:

1. Why is the government doing this? – At a very fundamental level, one of the primary roles of government is to protect free speech, particularly political speech, which at times becomes very uncivil.
2. Who defines “welcoming, inclusive and caring community?” – What looks like caring to one, looks like overbearing to another. Is government really in a position to be the ultimate arbiter of our words? I sure hope not. This sort of thing, good intentions aside, sets the stage for potential censorship or claims of “hate” speech by those in power when those they disagree with create discomfort because of what they say.
3. Do we get more civility or just a chilling political speech? – I think there is a tendency to equate being nice with being civil. They are anything but the same. Again given the initiator of this program, I doubt we get more civility but rather more feelings pushed under the rug (see political correctness) and boiling up in far more destructive ways.

In the end initiatives like these are best left to what Edmund Burke called the “little platoons” of society – churches, civic groups, and most importantly families. That is where civility is best taught, practiced, and developed.

I am grateful that Ron Paul has stepped up to address the issue of overbearing airport security. As he well says in his remarks, “…enough is enough.”

To me the direction our airport security has taken is symbolic of a greater problem we face in America. It was a problem forseen by our founding fathers, particularly Alexander Hamilton.

From Federalist Paper No. 8:

“Safety from external danger is the most powerful director of national conduct. Even the ardent love of liberty will after a time give way to its dictates…and [the] alarm attendant on a state of continual danger will compel nations the most attached to liberty to resort for repose and security to institutions which have a tendency to destroy their civil and political  rights. To be more safe, they at length become willing to run the risk of being less free.“

Prophetic words. I am grateful to see we still have those back in DC who value freedom.

I had a chance today to attend a workshop with Karl Rove, who was in town promoting his new book: Courage & Consequence.

It was an interesting hour. I was a little disappointed that much of the time was spent on storytelling and not on sharing his thoughts on campaign strategy (which was how the session was branded).

A couple key takeaways for me: 1) the power of influencers in a campaign and 2) data matters.

On a side note, when asked about the senate race, he endorsed Bennett as a “real” conservative. Perhaps that much time in the beltway has altered his view of what a real conservative is. I also wonder if he knows that Bennett’s first real campaign promise was to term-limit himself and if Bennett is willing to break that promise what would hold him back from breaking all his others.

One of the benefits of being a GOP delegate is that I get to see a lot more material from the candidates than the average voter. Over time, the mass amounts of emails, mailers, etc. invariably lead to little nuggets of insight about the “real” candidate.

Today I found one of those nuggets in an email communication from Senator Bob Bennett:

“Obama’s proposal to cancel NASA’s Constellation program and the Ares I rocket booster will not only devastate the economy of northern Utah; it will also weaken our missile defense and our national security.”

So what’s the nugget?

Bennett’s first priority is bringing home the bacon for Utah.  Coming in second is national defense/national security.

Frankly, I agree with Bennett that the Constellation program needs to continue, because it is of prime importance to our national security.

However, the fact that it brings jobs to Utah should not matter, because while it’s nice that Utah has some job benefits, we may find that the most cost efficient model puts those jobs in Texas or Florida, where we currently have launch sites.

Bottom line, “job creation” through congressional deal making is not a conservative leadership, but the prime modus operandi of the DC deal maker.

One of my clients, for Junto, is in Cheyenne, Wyoming. I have been traveling there a couple of times a month. The trip includes a two-hour drive from the Denver airport and has given me some time to listen to some books on CD.

Most recently I have been listening again to The Tipping Point. As I listen, I often find myself making connections with what is being said in the book with some part of what I’m working on. In this case, the connection came regarding the health care debate, which is now back dominating political news.

In the book, Malcom Gladwell talks about two key elements that make products, movements, crime waves, diseases, etc. tip. These key elements are:

1. Small Changes: rather than big massive plans or huge reforms or major marketing campaigns; it was the small almost unnoticed changes that had the largest impact. A sort of “out of small things are great things brought to pass” principle came into play.
2. At the Margin: These small changes were also found at the margin. It was the sort of outlier type changes that people thought may not be related enough to the problem that actually helped change the problem.

So what does that have to do with health care reform?

If we apply Gladwell’s principles of “tipping” type change, President Obama’s ‘complete’ overhaul of the system and reform is not only unnecessary, but most likely will be counterproductive, much like the D.A.R.E. programs of yesteryear. Instead of a major overhaul of the system, perhaps we should be looking for very small changes at the margin that have proven to be far more effective at tipping behavior than grand plans like the one before Congress right now.