Wednesday, January 11, 2012

An Open Letter to President Obama

B"H

Why People Hate the Government



There is a small valise beneath his side of the bed. 

"Don't touch that!" my mother said.   Her tone and manner I understood.  I never bothered it again. 

Sixty years later that valise remains ever ready, ever vigilante, still beneath his side of the bed, the contents, a mystery.  I never asked what or why.  I simply understood.

My father has always been our eyes and ears in a realm beyond the one he showed us.  We should never know what he has known.  And so, WE THANK YOU, DEAR G-D, FOR AMERICA, THE GREAT, FREE LAND, where a small valise may ever remain under his side of the bed, always untouched. 

Today with my own family and household I know of other realms.  But I have neither the time nor the tools to deal with these details.  My husband has been my eyes and ears while I care for the homefront.  This other realm requires an awareness and temperment I have never possessed. 

I introduce you to my husband, the historian.



Dear Mr. President,


First let me say I do not hate the government. The United States government has done many good and great things, to wit: the development of inter-changeable parts in manufacturing, the canals, railroads, lasts in shoe manufacturing, diesel-electric engines, nuclear power, the space program and all its spinoffs, computer technology, the Internet; freeing the slaves, defeating the Nazis, creating democratic republics in Germany and Japan, ending Jim Crow in the South, and winning the Cold war. But now, Mr. President, our government no longer seems to work.

 As we are Jewish, when my son was born almost 16 years ago, he was not named in the hospital but eight days later at his circumcision. Dutifully, 10 days later we changed his name at the Cook County Clerk's office from "Blank Blank Rubin" to "Isaac Shalom Rubin", paying our fee. We obtained a copy of his birth certificate, got him a Social Security card, and in the ensuing five years we moved six times. Fast forward to roughly two years ago, when my wife suggested we take a trip to Stratford, Canada to see Shakespeare, which unfortunately now requires a passport. We could no longer find the original copy of my son's birth certificate and decided to get another in the Great State of Illinois. My wife had no problem getting my daughter's birth certificate or ordering hers from 1955.  I, of course, have a passport and, in addition, have an original "long form".  My son's birth certificate, however, came out "Blank Blank Rubin". My father-in-law began to blow a fuse but my wife kept her presence of mind and asked what to do. The response, call the State.

After an hour in voicemail jail, my wife reached a human being who promptly responded after hearing the story, "You must be from Cook County". Naively my wife responded, "Why?". "There are 102 counties in the state of Illinois, 101 of which cooperate with us, and one does not. I will send you a new set of forms, fill them out".
"Do we have to pay a new fee?".
"Yep".


We then received through the mail two nearly identical paper forms which we promptly filled out and notarized. We sent these back with our check and then heard nothing for six months. My wife then spent another hour in jail until she reached a human being who then informed her that the forms we had sent were sitting on someone's desk who had been laid-off.  Please resubmit.


Asked, done. Three months later, we received the paper work back stamped with the words "Denied" and "Needs photo ID" on them.  Whose photo ID?  We didn't know; it didn't say. After another hour on the phone my wife reached a human being.  She asked the above question. And received the response, "I don't know. Just send a copy of your driver' s license and hope for the best".


At this point, I started to think like a Chicagoan, although I now live in Ohio. What pol could I get to help me.  My mother-in-law's best friend is the mother-in-law of a State Senator.  Aha!  We then called up said State Senator whose office was able to get through to the appropriate state agency, which then sent us a letter requesting six or seven more pieces of paper to correct my son's birth certificate.  Nowhere on any of the information previously sent from the State or from our phone calls were we informed of this.  Now why the State of Illinois would want xeroxed copies of my and my wife's driver's-licenses completely confuses me.  After all they could get a more reliable record, I presume, through one of their databases.   Xeroxs can be faked.


We did everything as asked, sent the records in, and waited. While waiting, I thought I would be "clever".  Accessing the Cook County Clerk's office online, I tried to get a copy of my son's original birth certificate.  They referred me to an outsourced website, which then asked a series of very interesting questions such as:  of the four addresses listed which one did you live in 10 years ago, what was your phone number 20 years ago, etc.  This program then verified that I was who I claimed to be and released copies of the document after payment, of course.   I ordered three or four copies which read "Blank Blank Rubin".   Oh well, "the best laid plans…".


A few months later, we received a reply from the state stamped "Denied" with a form letter stating the Rabbi's certificate for our son's circumcision is not acceptable without an address on it, although the cover letter we had sent gave the Rabbi's address as well as his phone number.  Could the state officials bother to check the Rabbi's qualifications, certification etc.?  No!  At this point, my wife tried to get the State Senator himself to intervene directly,  which he refused.   Oh, for the return of  the Machine.


I suspect having been at this for more than two years I will need to hire a lawyer to solve this problem.  Now, what if someone were poor and/or an immigrant with barely any English?  In the meantime, I will see if my congressman can do anything in this regard, although she works in Ohio not in Illinois.


My guess the cause of my son's dilemma somehow relates to 9/11 and the Patriot Act.  My son is not a terrorist nor is he an illegal immigrant.  The state officials in Illinois, if they would bother to search their databases, clearly could know this.  But because their forms are not filled out in the exact manner as they have interpreted them, they refuse to act.  I am a physician and deal with hospital administrators all the time, not all that different than the government. What I have found is when a law or rule is promulgated each level of functionaries over-interprets the rule so that they do not get into trouble. The net result:  when you get to the lowest level, it becomes almost impossible to do anything.

 Above is a photograph of Jimmy Doolittle and his Raiders just prior to leaving on their famous raid on Tokyo in 1942.  December 7, 1941, we were attacked at Pearl Harbor.  Two weeks later Roosevelt asked the Armed Forces to bomb Japan.  One week later a Navy captain recommended flying army bombers off an aircraft carrier which had never been done.  In February, two brave pilots flew B-25's off the deck of the Hornet as an experiment.  Doolittle concurrently modified the B-25, chose and trained his crews, and bombed Tokyo on April 18, 1942.  I suspect Jimmy Doolittle had significant bureaucratic roadblocks to fight through.  Obviously having the backing of FDR and Hap Arnold helped tremendously.  The courage of Doolittle helped this country succeed in this endeavor both prior to and during the raid.  While he probably eventually earned the admiration of our erstwhile foes, he later admitted he made many enemies inside our military.  Could we do this today?

Contrast: as I was reading the 9/11 Commision Report, I was struck by the number of good men and  women groping-struggling-fighting against the weight of "the rules", only to be slapped down by a pusillanimous superior.*


Dear Mr. President, we want you to succeed; we need you to succeed.  Please think about the issues discussed above. We need fewer simpler laws and to encourage people willing to take calculated risks.  I suggest you read the autobiography of Jimmy Doolittle,  I Could Never Be So Lucky Again, and ask yourself could he succeed today.  I doubt it.

Sincerely,
-The Historian


* You may respond:  what about ineptitude prior to Pearl Harbor?  Our failure in that disaster, delivered by a first-class power, was primarily a lack of imagination on the part of military commanders (see At Dawn We Slept).  In both instances, however, lack of communication of intelligence clearly played a role.   Contrast Roosevelt's response, however:  he fired, perhaps somewhat unfairly, Kimmel and Short; he did not tell us to go "shopping".  I digress.

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