How I Generally See Things

Each of us sees the world through a unique set of lenses that reflect our genetic inheritance, family circumstances, education and life experience.  Here are mine, as best I currently perceive them:

Faith

I believe, not without daily struggle:

• We are not the ultimate author of our existence ... we are created, to know and love our Creator, and are called to find our highest purpose in seeking and doing our Creator's will.

• As created beings, we are each and all, everywhere, (1) of inherent and equal dignity, with inalienable human rights the community is obligated to respect, and (2) are called to live in community according to the biblical injunction to love one another, and the Golden Rule.

• We are all given free will to choose whether and how we will respond to our Creator's call.

• Circumstances beyond our control - as well as our own choices - often make it harder for us to respond to, or even perceive that calling, without relieving us of our individual responsibility to do so, to find and be our best selves.

• Although history is replete with evidence of heroic personal virtue and human possibilities, it also demonstrates that each and all of us, individually and community, are and will ever remain to greater or lesser degree imperfect and self-interested - sinful - in our choices and actions.

Government, Politics & Public Policy

My belief in both human agency and human imperfection convinces me that--

• "Progress" in human affairs -- understood as an overall increase in the conditions that best conduce to human flourishing -- is not inevitable.  If the arc of the universe does bend to justice, that arc is long, and it may be a lot more like a sine wave for the foreseeable future at any point along its sweep.  Our future will be a consequence of our wisdom and the choices we make.

• Ultimate loyalties in the public or private realm should always be contingent on our calling to love the other, the Golden Rule, and our prudential judgment of the common good, and never on a blind, inertial loyalty to party or person.  Thus convinced, I am now a political independent after 33 years as a registered Republican and former Federal political appointee in two Republican administrations (including the last 6 years as a "Never Trumper").   As President Reagan once said of the Democratic party, I haven't left the Republican Party ... for now at least, it has left me.

Informed by these convictions, I am generally predisposed to these views about the political arrangements that are most conducive to human flourishing:

• The Catholic principle of "subsidiarity" is sound -- that sovereignty over matters beyond the individual realm is generally best vested in the lowest appropriate level of social organization (family, local community, state, nation, international institutions) that is closest and most responsive to the needs of those affected.

• At the national level, the republican system of government established by the Framers in our Constitution (and as subsequently amended pursuant to its terms), when interpreted and applied insofar as possible in accordance with its provisions' meaning as originally adopted, is the form of government thus far devised that is most conducive to human dignity and flourishing.

• At present, our Constitutional system is impaired in its proper operation by the failure of Congress to protect and fulfill its assigned powers and responsibilities, primarily through excessive abdication and/or delegation of power to the Executive Branch and its agencies.

With respect to the ongoing activities of government at every level, I have these general dispositions:

• Over time, public expenditures should be sustained by public revenues.  Unsustainable levels of public debt constrain our ability to respond to future contingencies without damage to the economy and are immoral to the extent they burden future generations without their consent.

• Public officials at every level should treat public expenditure as though it is coming out of their own pocket.  It does come from somebody's pocket, and by force of law, not a free gift.

• Franklin Roosevelt was on to something when he said he saw no role for labor unions in the public sector.

• The best, and perhaps only, way to make significant, sustainable progress against big, complex challenges is step-by-step, with broad support, measurement of and accountability for producing the intended results, and a willingness to learn and adjust in response to circumstances.

Business Issues, Corporate Compliance and Ethics

• Broadly speaking, free enterprise capitalism (as opposed to corporatism, "crony" capitalism or socialism) is the form of economic organization that is most conducive to human flourishing, both in material terms and in liberating the human creativity and ingenuity essential to the true pursuit of happiness.

• But markets are no more perfect than people, so reasonable regulation is appropriate when necessary to enable the private sector to properly serve the common good.  People should not be thought of or treated merely as "human capital."  Labor unions can play a necessary and positive role in the private sector, when employees freely and fairly choose them and they are well and honestly run.

• Throughout my career, after early experience as a criminal prosecutor and civil litigator, much of my professional legal work focused on legal and regulatory compliance, and conducting or responding to related investigations and/or enforcement proceedings ... "ugly stuff."  I tend to view activity inside any large, complex organization (public or private) in terms of processes that should be well-defined and managed to objective measures of output and productivity, driving continuous improvement and mistake-proofing of those processes through (1) constant collection and root cause analysis of process escapes, and (2) benchmarking of other organizations to identify and adapt relevant best practices.

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