TUCK IN YOUR SHIRT APPROPRIATELY--OR FIND ANOTHER JOB

A MESSAGE TO THE EMPLOYEES OF THE COCKLAND GROUP LLC

By : Mr. Ronald F. Daggett, Assistant Deputy Vice President for Human Resources, The Cockland Group LLC, an Investment House specializing in service to the mortgage industry.

Cockland Group LLC is growing at a rapid pace. Since our founding in 2003, we have secured firm accounts with the Nation's largest mortgage sellers, including HSBC, Citigroup and Coldwell Banker. Our commitment to Absolute Client Satisfaction (ACS)™ is unparalleled. Our earnings have steadily risen in every consecutive quarter since our founding, even during some of the most challenging economic times in our Nation's history. We are proud of our accomplishments and we remain focused on our overriding goal: To deliver timely, effective, reasonable mortgage reinvestment services across the entire financial industry.

We could not have achieved these results without you, our employees. Here at Cockland management, we salute your dedication, hard work and passion for mortgage reinvestment services. At Cockland, it is not just about mortgages. It is about people™. Our people are the best. We know you know that, too. And we are thankful that you share our zeal for boundless client satisfaction. Because when great people serve great clients, everyone wins™.

We owe our success to our unique corporate culture. Cockland drives hard and plays hard. When we enter a market, we aim to penetrate and win. But when we relax, we relax with the same fervor we display when servicing an account. Cockland employees know how to please clients. And that is why clients keep coming back for more. Cockland delivers solid performance: Any time, anywhere--and for the best price™.

Nonetheless, not everyone can be a Cockland employee. We expect the best and we demand a lot. Sometimes it is difficult to overcome stiff competition in the mortgage client service market. We do not tolerate droopers or flaccid account service. Only the firmest survive at Cockland. Our employees don't back down. They stay on top of accounts until they are closed. Cockland employees are not timid. When we service accounts, we never pull out. We do not stop until our clients are completely satisfied™.

We also demand complete devotion to The Cockland Mission (TCM)™ (see employee manual, Chapter 2 for details). Being part of a winning team means the ability to play your position and to cheerfully receive instructions. Knowing your job is only half the battle; the other half is knowing how you fit on the ball club.

Attire is an important part of Cockland's success. Since our founding, we have insisted that every team member in the Cockland family wear either a white or blue button-down shirt at work. Button-down shirts show good taste and respect for client expectations. Clients in the mortgage industry wear button-down shirts. Typically, those shirts are white or blue. It only makes sense that we--as dedicated client service professionals--mirror their expectations. That is why we have always required our employees to wear white or blue button-down shirts. Sometimes conventions are essential. And this is one such instance.

Button-down shirts are vital to Cockland's special place in the mortgage service market. Yet the company has never endorsed an official policy expressing unconditional support for button-down shirts. We believe we have a duty as a company to reverse that trend. It is time for Cockland to recognize button-down shirts. And it is time for Cockland to make button-down shirts mandatory for all employees at the company. It is time to formalize.

From this day forward, every Cockland employee will be required to wear only blue or white button-down shirts while on company business. We refuse to acknowledge any exceptions to this policy. Every Cockland employee must certify that he or she will comply with this policy. He or she must further certify that failure to comply will result in immediate disciplinary action, up to and including docked pay and termination. Cockland must preserve its team spirit. And it must also maintain its winning attire-related traditions. That is why we hereby officially make blue and white button-down shirts a core element of Cockland culture. If Cockland employees cannot accept this, they can find employment elsewhere.

But this does not end Cockland's determination to inculcate attire discipline. In addition to requiring all Cockland employees to wear white or blue button-down shirts, all employees must also appropriately tuck their shirts into their pants.

Without appropriate tucking, blue and white button-down shirts mean nothing. Only a tucked-in button-down shirt can accomplish the goals Cockland expects. A tucked-in button-down shirt is absolutely vital to continued employment at Cockland. Inappropriately tucked and untucked button-down shirts reveal an inattention to personal excellence that is fundamentally inconsistent with Cockland's overriding commitment to unparalleled mortgage service. Our clients tuck in their shirts. All people worth anything in the world tuck in their shirts, too.

It would contravene our most basic company values to tolerate anything less than fully tucked-in shirts among our employees. For that reason, Cockland hereby requires all employees to certify not only that they will wear a blue or white button-down shirt every day at work, but that they will also appropriately tuck in their shirts. Failure to tuck in a shirt will result in immediate disciplinary action, up to and including docked pay and termination. Additionally, inappropriately tucked-in shirts will lead to the same consequences. Cockland simply cannot risk disappointing its clients by allowing employees to appear without immaculately tucked-in blue or white button-down shirts.

We recognize that these policy changes may appear harsh. We also recognize that employees may be confused about what it means to "tuck in" a button-down shirt or to "appropriately" tuck in a button-down shirt. In fairness to our employees, we wish to clarify these matters.

First, a "tucked-in button down shirt" means any button-down shirt the shirttails of which rest against the upper thighs, yet which are concealed and circumscribed at the top by a belt and trousers. As such, if a shirttail at any time appears outside the pants, the shirt is considered "not tucked-in" and will accordingly subject the offending employee to discipline.

Second, an "inappropriately tucked-in button down shirt" means a tucked-in button down shirt the tucking of which is not appropriate. "Appropriate tucking," in turn, means a tuck that does not result in ruffles, creases or otherwise slovenly shirt characteristics above the beltline. A tuck is only appropriate when the shirttails remain at all times below the beltline without bulging out, creasing or otherwise creating an unsavory appearance. The mere fact that an employee experiences "inappropriate tucking" because he or she sat down at a desk for too long does not cure the offense. An inappropriate tuck is an inappropriate tuck. Our clients expect the best from Cockland; and they do not forgive inappropriate tucking.

Neither do we. Inappropriately tucked-in button-down shirts will immediately subject the offending employee to discipline, up to an including docked pay and termination. We realize that compliance with appropriate tucking requirements may at times prove difficult. For that reason, management has decided to allow employees to cure inappropriate tucking by expeditiously removing all inappropriateness from their tucking within 30 seconds after discovering that their button-down shirts are inappropriately tucked. We believe that this rule both fairly allows for conscientious compliance at the same time it justly punishes flagrantly inappropriate tucking.

Cockland management is determined to realize excellence in all employee endeavors. That is why it has decided to implement these new rules concerning mandatory button-down shirt wearing and appropriate tucking effective immediately. Details may be found in the employee manual, Chapter 45, subsection 7(b).

Anyone who is anyone wears a blue or white button-down shirt every day. And anyone who is anyone appropriately tucks that shirt in; or at least corrects inappropriate tucking the moment it appears. At Cockland, we are committed to bringing maximal satisfaction to everyone who is anyone. That is why we must lead by example. That is why we must tuck in our shirts--appropriately.

If you don't like the rule, you shouldn't be on this team. So tuck in your shirt and start penetrating those accounts like a real Cocklander.

ON THE IMPORTANCE OF AVOIDING MASSIVE CRANIAL DAMAGE TO CAREER SUCCESS IN THE UNITED STATES

TOP NOTCH CAREER TIPS

By : Ms. Vanessa H. Breaker, M.S., University of Texas (Facilities Management); Founder and Chairperson, Help-U-Advance, Inc., a Career Management Consulting Bureau (Houston, TX); Author, You Can Do It : A 10-Step Formula to Achieve Wealth, Success, Money (And Yes, Love, Too); Owner, several real estate tracts in central Texas; Married; Cowboys fan.

Recently, a college graduate came into my office and asked: "How will I ever get a job in this economy? How will I ever pay my own rent?"

I can understand his frustration. By all accounts, times are very hard out there. For people just starting out in the world, life looks intimidating. No one is hiring. No one even gets an interview. And without a job, you can't pay your rent.

But success is possible. It is possible to defy the odds and live the American dream. Anyone can learn how to be successful. There is a recipe for success: You can learn it. Successful people all behave in a similar way. They all have similar habits. By learning those behaviors and acquiring those habits, you can be successful, too. And when you achieve success, you not only get the job, you get the promotion, the raise, the bonus and the beautiful wife, too! Doesn't that sound nice? You bet it does.

So what are successful behaviors and habits? Well, let us begin by stressing that success is a lifestyle. Success is not a hobby; it is a discipline. You must eat, drink and breathe success. You cannot tolerate failure. And you must be tough: This is a race; no one hires the runner-up.

Living success begins at an early age. Successful people get on the track to success when they are children. They understand what they want from life and they commit themselves to excellence. To that end, stable households produce more successful people than broken ones. After all, a child will not develop the basic skills needed to get good grades and work hard if he or she suffers parental sexual abuse and beatings every day. Those challenges make doing math homework difficult. And kids who fail math won't go to Harvard. In that light, a peaceful home is essential to growing up successful: It allows the focus needed to "home in" on success.

Successful people do not give in to distractions. To achieve success, it is necessary to "stay on track." That means working hard, getting good grades, going to bed early, taking instructions seriously and remembering your place. Yet it is easy to forget these rules when peers goad you to go dancing on Friday night, or when you'd rather watch television shows all evening than do your homework. Put simply, distractions surround us every day. And they threaten to derail us from the success track. To resist distractions, you must simply say: "I want to be successful. I will avoid these distractions." It is about mind over matter: Forget the video games: Think about the accounting job you want.

Education is essential to success in America. In bare outline, success means getting a good job at a good company, making good money and owning property. Yet good companies do not give good jobs to just anyone; they only give them to good people with good educations from good schools. In that light, success requires that you get a good education at a good school. That, in turn, requires that you live successfully without distractions. Only children who live appropriately during childhood will get into the schools needed to get good jobs. It is not so much about learning as it is about showing: Firms want to see good grades from good schools. As long as you get into a good school and show the good grades, you will get a shot at the good jobs. It does not matter whether you remember what you learned. And you will stand no chance at all if you don’t get into a good school: Good grades from bad schools will not impress good companies.

Still, successful living means more than just getting good grades. Once you actually get a job, it is essential to observe successful habits. Successful people keep their jobs because they know what is expected. That means they understand their employer's mission and loyally advance it. They also observe decorum by dressing appropriately, speaking respectfully and refraining from all distractions while carrying on the employer's business. In this sense, successful living is all about acting appropriately on the job: Loyal workers advance far. Ultimately, they rise through the ranks. Good companies love loyal workers who suppress their own interests to earn profits for them. Self-sacrifice is a hallmark of successful living: And it is rewarded.

Intangible factors also influence career success. For better or for worse, birth has much to do with success. Wealthy children stand a better chance to live stable early lives. That, in turn, prepares them to "get on the success track" without distraction. Additionally, powerful parents who attended good schools can assure that their children, too, attend those schools. Wealthy parents can also pay large tuitions and urge employers to hire their children. In some cases, wealthy parents are the employers; and they naturally award jobs to their own blood. In this light, the importance of fortunate birth cannot be overstated. Although it is impossible to "learn" how to be related to powerful people, blood is a sure way to get a big head start in the success race.

Still, success is never guaranteed, even for people who enjoy all the advantages. After all, even a minor mishap along the path to success can sink an entire life. A student may develop a drug addiction, ruining his semester grades and costing him a job at a banking firm. A junior associate might have a relationship dispute and perform poorly at work. A promising employee might fall in love and show up late for work. A woman might give birth, requiring her to put off career focus. Put simply, things can happen in life. And they can easily knock a person off the "success track." Just one distraction can unravel a lifetime of work.

And that is to say nothing about the danger of massive cranial injuries. In the above examples, otherwise successful people gave in to distractions through some fault. In other cases, otherwise successful people might fail to achieve success simply because something massively damages their cranium.

Consider, for example, a first-class legal scholar who has done everything right. He has been born into a good family, his father was successful, he had a stable childhood, he followed instructions, he went to bed early, he dressed appropriately, he got into first-class schools and got first-class grades his whole life. He even landed a job at a first-class law firm and the managing partner said: "He is bound to be successful because he has successful habits." He worked hard his whole life and had every reason to expect success. But he amounted to nothing because someone shot him in the forehead with a .38 caliber revolver. This example proves that massive cranial injury can ruin even the most successful lives.

Consider, too, a respected office manager with an excellent salary. This man did everything for his company. He gave up personal relationships to make sure his employer profited. He worked nights and weekends as he advanced up the company ladder. Through his childhood, he followed instructions and did everything he was supposed to do. He never rocked the boat; people called him a square, but it never bothered him because he achieved success. But one day on his way to work he tripped over a piece of fruit and fell into the street, where a concrete mixing truck rolled over his head. Once again, massive cranial injury derailed an otherwise successful life.

These examples say nothing about all the potentially successful people who suffer massive cranial injury prior to achieving success. What about the countless young people who study hard for exams, refrain from drugs, avoid peer pressure and go to bed early, only to be shot in the head with rifles? What about the super interns who give up everything for the company and win glowing reviews from supervisors, only to have their brains dashed out by falling cinder blocks?

No matter the circumstances, these examples teach a clear lesson: Avoiding massive cranial injury is a crucial step on the road to success in the United States. While it is essential to learn positive behaviors to achieve success, it is also vital to avoid being fatally struck in the head while practicing those behaviors. After all, a lifetime of hard work, study, high birth and promise can be instantly destroyed by a single bullet to the brain. That is why the most successful people absorb this lesson: You must not only live successfully; you must also avoid massive cranial injury at all costs.

Massive cranial injury is a worse threat to success than distraction or inappropriate workplace behavior. After all, it is possible to rally from distraction or an office faux pas. But it is not possible to rally from having your skull crushed by a concrete mixing truck. A person's career can recover from an embarrassing extramarital affair or a "C+" on an exam. But it cannot recover from a pointblank shotgun blast to the face.

In all these cases, the lesson emerges: The real key to success in America is to avoid massive cranial injury. After all, no person who suffers massive cranial injury will ever achieve success. And any success he has achieved up to that point instantly vanishes. To that extent, massive cranial injury is the worst thing that can happen to a promising career. Interview mistakes, bad resumes, lackluster university performance and even drug abuse do not threaten careers as much as being brutally slammed in the head with a baseball bat.

You can fix a resume. But you can't fix a shattered cranium. And people with shattered craniums do not get promoted or hired.

In conclusion, if you wish to achieve success in America, remember what is important: Avoid massive cranial injury first. The rest is just details. Because even the best career habits can vanish the moment someone cracks your head open.

NATIONAL BROTHERHOOD OF NO-GOOD SCOUNDRELS, DISHONORABLE PRICKS, LOW-DOWN PUNKS AND PLAIN LOUSY SONOFABITCHES WHO NEVER CALL YOU BACK

POLITICAL PARTIES FOR A CHANGING WORLD

By : Dr. U. B. van Flucken, Ph. D., Yale University (Behavioral Science); Former Fashion and Women's Issues Editor, Men's Health Magazine (2003-2007); Fellow, The National Favorable Results Society (Washington, D.C. Chapter); Author, "Say What You Need To Say : A Beginner's Guide to Getting What You Want from People " (Doubleday Press : New York 1999); Semi-Professional Water Polo Competitor (Greater Northeast Elite Sports Network) (1989-present).

No matter where you turn in this country, people tell you that it is bad to be a scoundrel. They say that it is wrong to lie, exaggerate, deceive, betray, backstab and abuse people's trust. They say it is wrong to borrow money without paying it back. And they even say it is wrong to two-time on your girlfriend.

But these folks just don't know how to be a no-good scoundrel. Contrary to all the propaganda, there is nothing wrong at all with being a no-good, morally-destitute scoundrel. You just have to know how to play your cards right. In fact, great people know how to be great scoundrels. And they become great because they know how to disguise who they really are: Scoundrels.

I started the National Brotherhood of No-Good Scoundrels, Dishonorable Pricks, Low-Down Punks and Plain Lousy Sonofabitches Who Never Call You Back for a simple reason: To show Americans how vital we really are. Since founding the organization, I have struggled to demonstrate that honorable responsibility is not the pathway to success. To the contrary, it is my mission to show that only a dishonorable scoundrel can prevail in this world. And it is not a hard job: If you know how to be a low-down, dishonorable punk and not get caught, there is nothing you cannot accomplish.

Success is all about image. When you're a successful scoundrel, no one knows just how big a scoundrel you really are. If they did, they'd ostracize you and no one would want to talk to you. Scoundrels need people; you can't be successful without them. But real scoundrels know how to control their image. They don’t let people get the right idea about them. They carefully monitor how people perceive them, then skillfully play one unsuspecting idiot off the other to gain all the advantages. Contrary to all the rhetoric, scoundrels aren't haphazard bums. They know exactly what they're doing at all times.

Not everyone has the guts to be an unrepentant, conniving knave. Most people buy into the propaganda and try to live honorable, "decent" lives. A lot of good that does: They wind up working loser jobs for bad pay, then skulking around with their wives and boring children for years on end. Sure, they might get some inward satisfaction from "treating people with respect" and "telling the truth, no matter what."

But at what cost! Wouldn't it be so much better to twist a few arms and tell a few tall tales here and there to really get what you want? Wouldn't life be so much more rewarding if you played some putz like a fiddle, then refused to call him back when he needed you? Why not? As long as you make sure that the guy isn't important for your advancement later, screw him. Tell him what he wants to hear. Inflate yourself. Get what you need from him. Then just forget about him and move on to the next sucker. Remember: Life is a ladder with human rungs. You need to keep moving up if you want to get to the top.

Dishonor, manipulation and double-dealing bring untold rewards. Still, a skillful rogue must make sure he does not generate the wrong impression. Good scoundrels effortlessly master disguises. You can't just trample on people and expect them to take it. Rather, a skillful rogue knows how to totally screw a person over without them knowing until it is too late--if ever. Scoundrels like us only got a bad reputation because some jerk tried to be clever and got caught in the act. And scoundrels only get caught when they are not paying attention to what they are doing. In that sense, true scoundrels are not scoundrels at all: They are virtuosos who know how to spin a story and exploit the hell out of people without anyone ever catching on. That takes skill--not everyone can hack it.

Life is tough enough without worrying about whether you're responsible or ethical. Everyone wants the same things: Money, success, happiness, women, recognition. You know, the usual stuff. Everyone is chasing after the same rewards. It is hard to win even without rules. That is why it amazes me that people insist on "honest dealing," "telling the truth" and "propriety" in their quest for success. That's like tying a boulder to your leg before swimming the English Channel: It greatly impedes your chances to succeed. In fact, it will probably sink you long before you even come close to your goal.

But scoundrels don't bother with boulders. They dress for success. They think about where they want to go and just do it. They do not distract themselves with abstractions. They don't overthink issues; they just deliver results. To that end, it makes no sense to respect everyone. In fact, most people on the road to success are hopeful scoundrels, too, and why would you respect someone who is trying to hoodwink you? No, a skillful rogue simply acts like he respects his fellows, when in truth he knows what they are: Just another low-down sonofabitch determined to block his advance up the ladder. To be a successful scoundrel, you must hold certain assumptions about your fellow man. And that means you expect to be deceived, deluded, used, abused, tossed away, manipulated and forgotten. It’s all part of the ball game: You need a tough heart to keep playing.

Great scoundrels don't get discouraged. They seek out weakness and capitalize on it. Sure, they know that people are out to use them, but they use others before they can be used. And in the off chance that someone actually trusts them, all the better. Clever scoundrels always come out ahead.

In this light, it is inconceivable why society holds us in such contempt. We are the go-getters. On the other hand, we recognize that no-good scoundrels, dishonorable pricks, low-down punks and plain lousy sonofabitches occupy the highest positions in our society. We run the banks. We run the Senate. We run the stock exchange. We run the insurance companies. We control everything. And the beauty of it is that no one knows we are scoundrels--or, if they found out, there's nothing they could do about it. People only ridicule us when we commit some faux pas that blows our cover. Great scoundrels, however, are extremely discreet. They don't make faux pas: They screw everyone else over their whole lives and no one ever notices.

For that reason, all the social criticism against scoundrels makes no difference to a truly dishonorable punk. A masterfully rotten scoundrel never makes a mistake to invite rebuke. He just keeps moving over people until he quietly reaches his goal.

We prefer it that way. The moralists and ethicists can whine all they want about "irresponsibility." They are only talking about amateur scoundrels. Little do the moralists know that professional scoundrels are the ones paying them to do their little jobs. Little do the ethicists know that professional scoundrels are the ones who own the printing companies that publish their little books. Undiscovered, virtuoso scoundrels run this world--and no one will ever know the difference. That's exactly how we like it.

So what is our secret? If being a scoundrel is so advantageous, why do so many people refuse to follow our path? We wish we could provide specific advice in this regard. The most we can say is to put yourself above others, keep your eyes on the prize and do what you need to do to get it. Don’t slow yourself down with categorical loyalties, philosophical principles or--God forbid--conscientious worries.

In a word, a great scoundrel is a great actor. He can play any part. But he must remain believable. In fact, a scoundrel has failed when the world calls him one. Great scoundrels appear to be everything, even if they are nothing. They seem to be friends with everyone, when in truth they have none. In the scoundrel's world, it's all about presentation. It doesn’t matter if there's really nothing there. Very few people ever really look to see if there is, anyway.

So if you really want to be scoundrel, start thinking about your image. Stop thinking about dignity and worth. Stop thinking about honesty, unless it would help to be honest in a particular situation. For a scoundrel, the truth is never absolute. It is just a tool. Mark that and you will go far.

Tread softly. Flatter. Connive. Ingratiate. Betray. Lie. Win.

Be a no-good scoundrel. Because good never got anyone what they wanted. And there's nothing wrong with getting what you want.

THE POST OFFICE : A WORLD FREE FROM BUSINESS PRESSURE

A REFLECTION

Several weeks ago, I walked down to the post office on 18th Street. I had to send a letter by "Certified Mail," and it's easier to do that at the post office. So off I went to Old Chelsea Station.

Old Chelsea Station is old. Very old. The building probably dates from the 1920s. It has faux stone pillars and pale green deco linoleum floors. Notices about wanted criminals and special postal offers line the peeling walls. Some notices are over ten years old. The employees work behind ornate, dull bronze bars and a marble counter top. It even smells old in Old Chelsea Station. It is a place that time forgot. And it's oddly comforting.

I filled out my Certified Mail form on a marble table that probably has been in the same place since FDR ruled the White House. I stuck the form on my letter and put it in the "Certified Mail" slot. The slots looked original, too. Faded gold letters adorned them: "Regular Mail," "Express Mail," etc. I looked up and saw a faded gold Federal emblem with an eagle on it. It said "The United States Postal Service" under it.

I left Old Chelsea Station. I thought to myself: "So this is what the world would be like without private enterprise."

I felt at ease at Old Chelsea Station because I could feel continuity with the past. All too often in America, things change overnight. Businesses open and close. Buildings change with the times. People move in and out. Commerce is tough. People either hack it fast or they lose. They need to stay current to compete. If they don't, they go out of business. In the process, they lose touch with the past and live perpetually in the present.

Not so at the post office. Under the Constitution, the Federal government has a "postal monopoly." U.S. Const. Art. I sec. 8, cl. 7. The government manages post offices. They are public institutions. They do not exist for private profit, nor must they worry about the rent. Rather, they get their money from Washington. They don't have to worry about bad months or changing times. They can just keep doing what they have always done.

That is why Old Chelsea Station looks and smells the way it does. It does not need to change. The buidling opened in the 1920s to handle mail services in the neighborhood. It does exactly the same thing today. It does not have competitors. It does not fight a frantic battle every month to scrounge enough money to pay the bills. As such, it can move leisurely. It does not need to renovate every few years. It does not need expensive decorations or gaudy advertisements. It does not need to install creature comforts for customers. It can just stay the way it has always been.

Private enterprise pushes businesses into a life-or-death struggle. Unlike the post office, private businesses need to adapt to survive. They need to constantly change their look. They need to advertise and promote. They need to remain attractive to consumers. In short, they need to stay modern. If a private business operated like the post office, it would have failed decades ago. In private commerce, people need to stay on their toes. They can't worry about continuity. They need to change fast or die.

Perhaps progress depends on this life-or-death struggle. Perhaps society benefits when private economic actors ruthlessly compete with each other to deliver better products and please more people. But that struggle transforms life into one vast, bitter, breathless race. And that race lives in the present moment. The past vanishes. The future does not exist. The race is all. In private commerce, it is all about today. No wonder Americans have such short memories: They can't think about yesterday or they lose the economic battle today.

It is so easy to forget what came before us. I marvel at history. People find it strange that I obsess about things that used to exist in New York decades ago, like the Third Avenue El and S. Klein's Department Store on Union Square. They wonder why I care. I care because the past means something. We can understand the world better when we know what existed before we showed up. We can put things in historical context. Yet it is so easy to lose sight of context because commerce sweeps the past away without a trace. Commerce swept away S. Klein's and the Third Avenue El long ago.

But it did not sweep away Old Chelsea Station. The post office is immune from private commercial pressures. It gives us an insight into bygone times. And it shows us what life might be like without financial worry. True, it might be slow and inefficient. But sometimes it's refreshing to slow down and just remember once in a while. Sometimes it's refreshing to put the present on hold and just look around.

You can do that at Old Chelsea Station.

IS AMBITION A BAD WORD?

AN ESSAY

I am ambivalent about ambition. In America, people generally think that ambition is a good thing. It reflects the urge to "do better" and to "get ahead" in society, or in any competitive endeavor. It only makes sense that "ambition" finds a cozy home in America. After all, this country perpetuates a myth that "anyone" can succeed here as long as they work hard and persevere through difficulty. Ambition is all they need to force their way to the top.

Or, at least, that's what the myth says. In my experience, I have learned that success in America is not so simple. Many things can go wrong. Ambition alone will not deliver success. Some people are born into the wrong families. Some suffer accidents and mishaps. Others just lose interest. Often, it's not their fault that they fail. Chance and timing have a tremendous influence on success. Ambition alone does not cut it.

Despite this, American mythology extols ambition. In most cases, Americans favorably use the word: "He is so focused and ambitious; he will be successful." Even those who already have achieved success say to others: "I was ambitious. I made it. You can, too." At funerals, eulogists sing hymns to ambition: "As a young man, he was so ambitious. He succeeded and he provided for his family." And some even equate ambition with progress. Abraham Lincoln alluded to ambition when he suggested awarding royalties to patent-seekers: "Patents add the fuel of interest to the fire of genius." Second Lecture on Discoveries and Inventions (1859).

If ambition is so great, why am I ambivalent about it? I'm ambivalent about it because there is a very dark side to ambition that reflects fundamental problems in our society's values. Lincoln's quote provides a good introduction. He uses a "fire" analogy to describe ambition-fueled "genius." Ambition is like a flame that consumes the individual, driving him toward a coveted goal. The goal might not be praiseworthy at all, but the ambitious man will burn until he fulfills it. Ambition is consumptive. It overwhelms the individual. It makes him ruthless, unscrupulous and uncompromising. In short, it possesses him.

But consumptiveness is not the only thing that makes ambition problematic. It is also problematic because it has an exclusively external focus. Grammatically, ambition requires an object. In almost every case, that object is external "success." People are ambitious for fame, wealth, advancement, recognition, praise, influence and power. They want to be seen by others in a particular way, or they want to possess things that give them authority over others. To achieve these things, they must focus their energy outwardly. They need not look within themselves for strength or meaning. They do not even need to be true to themselves. No, their fulfillment comes from external success--and the tangible rewards it brings.

Ambition is about recognition. It is about the audience. After all, only the audience can decide whether to recognize the performer. And only the audience can give the coveted ovation.

Ambition bothers me because I believe that external success frustrates individual virtue. To win recognition, you need to play by others' rules. You even need to be unscrupulous. A truly ambitious person "stops at nothing" to achieve his goal. That makes it difficult for him to adhere to principles that would constrain his actions. Honor requires a person to think as much about how he achieves a goal as the goal itself. But ambition drives a person to disregard everything as long as he achieves the goal. In this sense, ambition and honor exclude each other. Virtue is honor. That is why ambition frustrates individual virtue.

Aristotle supports my position on this point. While analyzing the Spartan Constitution in The Politics, Aristotle strongly criticizes Sparta's legislative body--the Board of Elders--because election to the Board required ambition. See The Politics, Book II, ch. ix ¶1271a9. He writes: "[I]t is all wrong that a person who is going to be deemed worthy of the office should himself solicit it. Whether he wants it or not, the man to hold office is the man who is fit for it." Id. In other words, Aristotle found a flaw in Sparta's decision to entrust politicians with a choice whether to run for office, because only ambitious people would ever make that choice. For Aristotle, personal virtue was much more important than personal ambition. Only personal virtue makes a man "fit" for office--or any other honor in life.

This may seem unreasonable to a modern American reader. After all, we learn that ambitious people are the ones who make all the money and win all the success. To the American mind, it is only natural that the most ambitious man would nominate himself to hold political office. In America, personal virtue is irrelevant next to ambition. Personal virtue does not amass fortunes or start businesses; ambition does. In a strange transmutation, ambition became virtue in America. Ambition makes a man "fit," not adherence to metaphysical principles. The fact that only "really successful" people win high office reveals how strongly commerce has infiltrated American culture. Commerce has drowned all personal virtue. And it has supplanted honor with ambition as the most essential social characteristic.

In commercial America, people want power. It takes money to get power. And it takes ruthless ambition to make money in our brutally competitive free market system. In this environment, honor does not stand a chance. Ambition is the only thing that can steel men enough to survive it.

This is not a good development. When ambition overtakes honor in society, we can expect bad things. Aristotle warned about ambition in strong terms: "Yet the truth is that men's ambition and their desire to make money are among the most frequent causes of deliberate acts of injustice." The Politics, Book II ch. ix ¶1271a9.

Aristotle knew what he was talking about. He correctly equated ambition with "deliberate acts of injustice" because ambition necessarily overshadows honor. Honor imposes limits on the means by which people achieve goals. Ambition lifts those limits. When men no longer observe honor in dealing with others, they gladly commit injustice. Their burning desire to make money overwhelms all other considerations; results are everything. They are not afraid to bend rules, dissemble, exploit and cut corners to achieve the results they seek.

By contrast, an honorable man would refuse to do these things. He would insist on "justice." But in commerce, this places an honorable man at a material disadvantage; an honorable man will always lose to an ambitious one. An ambitious man does not tie his hands with "ethics;" he is not even afraid to fight dirty when he must. In the end, the ambitious man achieves the goal, wins the power and ultimately takes high office. When ambition leads to such tangible rewards, who wouldn't want to be ambitious?

Probably not many. Nonetheless, I venture that honor offers its own rewards. Success can be measured in ways beyond salaries and fame. Some success is purely internal. Some success flows from personal excellence and adherence to personal standards. Put differently, it can be rewarding to be ethical. Although ethics may impede ambition and external success, it leads to virtue. It may be an antiquated sentiment to say that success means being honorable. But I really think it does.

External success is overrated. I leave it to the ambitious to chase external recognition and rewards. For my part, I am content to live according to my own heart and my own principles. I strive to do wrong to no one, not to make a certain salary. I strive to help those who need it, not to win praises from a supervisor. I burn to express my own personality, not to tailor my speech for a money prize. Call me old-fashioned--or even antiquated--but honor is very important to me.

But I can't be ambitious for honor. True honor exists without a need for external recognition or reward. Honor does not bestow career advancement, at least not consciously. No, ambition only works for those who crave external rewards. By contrast, honor is an internal reward. It is inwardly fulfilling. As such, ambition will not help you find honor--or "achieve" it. In fact, while it may be an achievement to live with honor, there's no trophy or plaque to commemorate the day you became honorable.

That's what an ambitious person will never understand.

WE CAN SOLVE AMERICA'S HEALTH CARE CRISIS WITH EDUCATION AND PRIVATE LENDING

ALTERNATIVE HEALTH CARE SOLUTIONS FROM GREAT MINDS

By : Dr. T. Everett Branwell, M.D., Ph.D., F.A.C.O.G., D.V.M., M.B.A., C.P.A., President and Charter Member, Paying Customers United for Quality Health Care; Chairman and CEO, Gastro-Tech Intestinal Scanning Instruments LLC (a Delaware Limited Liability Company); Married; Hospital Cost-Control Consultant; Amateur Dog Breeder.

America hungers for a miraculous solution to the health care mess. For more than a year now, we have watched President Obama struggle to balance the myriad forces bearing upon this issue. For more than a year now, we have seen little improvement: Millions remain uninsured; malpractice lawyers game the system with frivolous suits; surgery still costs an arm and leg (in more ways than one); and health care costs are still driving this country to financial ruin. Although Congress wisely avoided committing America to a wasteful European-style "public option" in its recent health care legislation, the bill leaves many questions unanswered. In a word, it is no solution.

We will not rescue healthcare without solutions that reinforce American virtues. Handouts and subsidies will not get the job done. Neither will government programs that interfere with private decisionmaking. Rather, we must attack the problem directly while cultivating self-reliance and respect for private enterprise. Government can do no job that a private person cannot do better. I trust the American people. And I know that an ambitious American can achieve anything he sets out to accomplish.

We must start from square one. Health care fails in America primarily because there are not enough doctors. Costs rose to astronomical levels because doctors are in limited supply, yet demand for their services is higher than ever. As any economics student can tell you, that's a recipe for runaway prices. The bottom line is this: You need doctors to provide healthcare; and there aren't enough doctors to provide it to everyone who needs it. Add the facts that Americans live longer, weigh more and exercise less and you soon discover how grave this crisis really is.

In a typical scenario, an American gets sick. He spends days waiting for the right doctor to see him. He cannot work during that time. He worries whether he will recover. In essence, he must be passive; he must wait for the doctor to help him. This is not good for the economy or the Nation. We need more doctors so that sick people can recover faster. If there were a doctor right around the corner, this poor man would receive immediate attention and get back to work sooner.

So how do we create more doctors? Simple: By education. Doctors do not grow on trees; they must be trained. But this is not a drawback; it is an opportunity. Education is good for America. Because doctors depend on education, we can address the health care problem through education. I care about America. I care about education. I care about health care. That is why I have devised a foolproof solution that will harmonize all these things.

We can rescue healthcare in America by requiring all Americans to become doctors. If everyone were a doctor, no one would have to go to the hospital or take time off work. Instead, sick people would be able to care for themselves. If a man breaks his leg, he could set the bone himself, administer anesthesia to himself, keep a detailed treatment log for himself, administer physical therapy to himself, write his own prescriptions and be back on his feet in no time. And he could do all this without depending on others: No wait times, no insurance forms, no missed work. If he encountered a problem in treatment, he could always call on his wife, children or parents, all of whom, too, would have the medical expertise needed to heal him. Put simply, mandatory medical education would render virtually every health care dilemma moot.

We understand that it takes a long time to become a doctor. Many people shy away from careers in medicine because they do not want to stay in school until they are 40 and stay awake for 24 hours several nights a week. But we have seen what happens when our society does not have enough doctors. Our health care system fails because doctors cannot handle all the sick people in an expeditious manner. If everyone becomes a doctor, however, these problems will instantly disappear. Yes, it is a significant investment. But in the end, it will solve the health care mess.

Still, we can only achieve this happy result through a complete educational overhaul. We must finance every American's medical education, and that will cost a lot of money. Yet we must never underestimate the strength of American private enterprise. As long as we provide sufficient incentives to private enterprise in America, we can expect miracles. By the same token, if we leave substantial questions in government hands, we can expect disasters. In that light, we must put our faith in the free market to deliver quality medical education to every American. Just as mandatory medical education will breed self-reliance in the population, so too will private educational financing teach fiscal responsibility to every American.

To realize the dream of universal American medical education, we must require every American to take out private educational loans. At the same time, we must abolish government-backed educational loans in order to maximize private competition in lending. We will not achieve our educational goals by stifling healthy free market activity; banks cannot do their work if they are not free to charge as much interest as they wish on student loans. In that light, we also must insist that every American pay only interest on their student loans in perpetuity. This will allow banks to constantly increase their outstanding balances, thereby increasing their income and maximizing their shareholder revenues. When banks prosper, so does America. Thus, mandatory private financing for mandatory medical education will kill two birds with one stone: It will solve the health care crisis by making everyone a doctor; and it will also reward healthy private banking.

The solution is obvious.

Critics will inevitably counter that America requires employment diversity to survive in the 21st Century. Specifically, they say that doctors are not the only profession that Americans need. According to these critics, Americans need mechanics, lawyers, steelworkers, coffee shop baristas, taxi drivers, cashiers, plumbers, nude dancers, ditch diggers, soldiers, politicians, toilet cleaners, peddlers and stockbrokers, too.

We do not disagree. Our critics do not understand what we mean when we say "universal medical education." We do not mean that everyone must stop their educational pursuits as soon as they become doctors. We simply mean that everyone must at least be a doctor before undertaking another profession. This is the only way that Americans can truly achieve medical self-sufficiency. In other words, once a man becomes a doctor, he is free to learn donutmaking or some other craft. We understand that Americans need donutmakers as much as they need doctors. But under our plan, a medically-educated donutmaker will have the knowledge to care for his own medical problems, rather than depend on someone else if his health fails. We agree that America needs other professions. We simply insist that everyone must at least be a doctor.

We actually encourage Americans to pursue educational goals beyond medicine. After all, when everyone is a doctor, salaries for doctors will inevitably decrease. That will require enterprising Americans to find novel new ways to make money. Once again, private enterprise will light the way: Banks stand ready to provide private loans to any doctor who wishes to learn another trade.

Mandatory medical education is right for America in many ways. It will not only solve the intractable financial problems associated with health care. It will also teach virtue. This country rose to preeminence because Americans are self-sufficient. The health care mess developed because too many Americans were not self-sufficient. But those days will end as soon as every American becomes a doctor. On that day, Americans will treat their own diseases; they will not need anyone else to help them. In our view, this will reinforce the gritty determination that made America great in the first place.

Sickness and injury will no longer signal desperation and worry. To the contrary, a medically-educated American will confront them with defiance. "I have HIV? Pah, I can treat myself for it," he will say. And he won't owe anyone else a dime for things he can handle himself.

We must implement mandatory medical education at once. It is the only way to extricate ourselves from the health care money pit in which we now find ourselves. It is the best possible way to overcome this crisis. It offers nothing but benefits. It fosters respect for education; that's good for America. It teaches self-reliance; that's good for America. It teaches fiscal responsibility; that's good for America. It supports private enterprise; that's good for America. And it does all these things without government interference; and that's definitely good for America.

Americans are individuals. They can do anything as long as they know what they are doing. It's time to harness that spirit to solve health care. It's time to make everyone a doctor.

True, every new doctor will emerge into the world saddled with debt. But that will just be an incentive to work harder and better. Debt is not a bad thing. In fact, it is a very good thing for banks. And when banks prosper, so does America.

Tell your Congressman that you can handle your own medical problems. You can be your own surgeon. You don't need Congress or President Obama to bail you out.

Mandatory medical education. It's the only way. The American way.®

ARE LAWYERS ALLOWED TO CARE ABOUT FAIRNESS?

AN ESSAY

I like fairness. I always have. Even when I was a kid, I couldn't stand it when people got preferential treatment when it appeared to me they didn't deserve it. I didn't like it when other kids cheated at games, or when I saw that some kids' parents had more money than mine. "That's not fair," I complained. When I was young, I earnestly believed that everyone should have an equal chance to succeed at things. And I believed that success had something to do with merit. For me, fairness expressed whether a situation was fundamentally right or wrong. It was intuitive. I even thought that our government cared about fairness.

My understanding about fairness changed over time. I learned that fairness had two dimensions, one substantive, the other procedural. "Substantive" fairness referred to the intuitive judgment whether a situation was right or wrong. "Procedural" fairness referred to the technical circumstances that either gave or withheld an equal chance to achieve a particular result. For example, racial realities in America reflect "substantive unfairness" for black people because their economic social situation is largely worse than that for comparable white Americans. On the other hand, court rules and contract terms might reflect "procedural unfairness" because they tilt technical rules to favor one party over another in a dispute. Substantive fairness is basically a "justice" inquiry. Procedural fairness is more technical. But both imply a confrontation between opposing forces with "something at stake."

In law school, I cared about both substantive and procedural fairness. I used to complain about results in particular cases because they were "unfair" to one side or the other. This amused my professors. Slowly, I learned that while the law professes to supply "procedural fairness" to both sides in a legal dispute in an effort to assure "substantive fairness" (AKA "justice"), the reality is that fairness does not really matter. Procedure and form are more important than substance in the law. The side with greater resources and greater procedural tact will win. One motion beats another motion. A dismissal beats a complaint. A judgment beats a plea. Papers must be filed properly or they will be rejected, no matter how cogent their arguments. Sometimes these procedural results lead to "substantive fairness." But it is really irrelevant. Judges simply look to see whether the lawyers' behavior matches the rulebook. Legal officiating, then, is really just a technical exercise; it is not necessary that both sides have equal procedural opportunities. And it certainly is not necessary that the ultimate result be "substantively fair."

And how could it be? After all, fairness only enters the analysis when two sides confront one another. Fairness comes into play not just in the law, but also in fistfights, football games and poker tournaments. When two sides compete for a result under common rules, fairness rears its head. When something is at stake, fairness matters. Children scream "No fair" only after investing themselves in a game that offers some reward; without confrontation, fairness does not really matter. People want fairness when they strive to obtain a result that will favor them and disfavor someone else. They want to know that they had every opportunity to vindicate their desire to win. In legal terms, litigants want to know that they had every chance to advance their interests, or to protect them if they are threatened.

This creates a dilemma. After all, lawyers in our legal system--like rabid children vying for victory in a game--badly want particular results. They are not neutral guardians committed to abstract principles like "procedural fairness." Rather, they are biased advocates determined to win. In fact, they take an oath to "zealously" represent their clients' legal interests, and that means pulling out all the stops to prevail. This is problematic because fairness and bias do not go hand in hand. If fairness means giving the other side exactly the same opportunity to win as you, then fairness reduces your chances to win. As a biased advocate, you must increase your chances to win, not reduce them. In that sense, lawyering and fairness appear antithetical to one another.

Still, lawyers inevitably say that they just want "fairness" for their clients. But here they confuse their terms. Yes, they certainly want "substantive fairness," namely, a biased result that intuitively pleases the client. But they do not want "procedural fairness," namely, giving the other guy an equal chance to win. Additionally, lawyers misuse the word "fairness" all the time. They say they care about fairness, but they really mean "favorable results for me." If they win, they say the process has been "fair." If they lose, though, they say they were treated "unfairly." This has nothing to do with abstract fairness. This is mere bias and disappointment.

We should not be surprised that lawsuits are brutally acrimonious affairs because we follow the adversarial system in the United States. That means we basically allow two diametrically opposed, biased parties to battle it out to determine various property and liberty rights. One side gains; the other loses. It is always a zero-sum game. As such, advocacy is essential. The lawyers must go for the throat or their clients lose everything. Courts praise the adversarial system because they say it leads to greater "truth." After all, according to the apologists, the "truth" will inevitably come out as two sworn enemies struggle to gain an advantage over each other. And when money is at stake, they will stop at nothing to win. Truth, then, is the "collateral fallout" from biased adversary confrontations.

And here again arises the dilemma. How can fairness matter in bitter confrontations like this? Will either side in a lawsuit value fairness to the other when they are sworn to ruin each other? That is like asking NFL teams to ensure that their opponents get all the favorable flag calls they deserve. In other words, it is sheer fantasy. When two sides confront each other and stand to lose all if they do not win, fairness to the other guy is the last thing on their minds.

I mention all this because our legal system professes respect for fairness. Everyone in court says they are either "aggrieved" or "wrongly accused." They say they just want an opportunity to be heard in a fair forum. Yet during that opportunity to be heard, they want to treat the other side as unfairly as possible in order to win the fight. No one really cares about securing "ultimate fairness." Individual litigants--and their lawyers--just want biased results.

Judges should care about fairness. But as merely technical stewards committed to determining whether lawyers meet the standards set out in motion rulebooks, they have little power to reflect on power disparities between the parties--or unfairness in the rules themselves. Court rules and civil procedure protocols present fairness problems in their own right. Judges do not have the authority or discretion to deeply think about larger fairness issues. Their job is technical, not philosophical or ethical. Behavior either falls within the rule or without. Sometimes the result is fair, sometimes it isn't. Sometimes it's "fair" to bar an injured person from filing a lawsuit because he missed the date by one day. Sometimes it isn't. But from the judge's perspective, rules are rules. And that ends the judge's role.

This is why so many legal cases arouse disgust in neutral onlookers. From a detached perspective, it appears that fairness means nothing in the average lawsuit. Rather, it appears that mere compliance with rules and deadlines takes precedence over the question whether each side has a fair shot at a particular result. And lawyers do their best to belittle, degrade and discount everything their opponents say in court. This gives the impression that they would be just as satisfied if they won unfairly as if they won fairly--just so long as they win. Fairness seems the last thing on their minds. Indeed, they only mention "fairness" if they lose a point, in which case they say the result is "unfair."

In truth, we cannot blame lawyers for acting this way: They are biased advocates in an adversary system. They are trained to exploit rules in order to obtain private results, not to ensure that abstract fairness flows from every confrontation under the law. Lawyers are not philosophers or ethicists; they are employees hired to do a job. And employees are biased toward their employers because they receive pay to act only in their interest.

Bias and fairness are mutually exclusive. That is why I think it is extremely difficult--if not impossible--for our legal system to consistently deliver fair results. That is not to say that biased advocacy does not sometimes lead to abstract fairness. But that is a side effect at best, not an intentional result.

UNCONDITIONAL LOVE IS A PRECIOUS COMMODITY--AND PSYCHIATRISTS SELL IT

A REFLECTION

I know a lot of people in therapy. Pretty soon I might join them. In one way or another, everyone deals with emotional disturbance and unhappiness in our society. Life can be incredibly painful. After all, we live in a competitive world. We basically contend with two types of people: (1) Indifferent people who want to outdo us; and (2) people we love who are biologically bound to die one day. It is stressful to cope with high stakes and loss all the time. We suffer defeats, losses and setbacks every day. Freud said that it is "much easier to experience unhappiness than happiness." Civilization and its Discontents, 26 (Strachey trans. 1961). Sometimes unhappiness grinds us into submission, no matter how optimistic we try to be. In brief, life takes a toll, even if you had a relatively stable childhood. And that's a rarity.

Yet for all our vulnerability to unhappiness and emotional pain, we strive for love. See generally Civilization and its Discontents, 33-34. We think that love will counteract our unhappiness, or at least make it more bearable. But we seek a very specific kind of love: Love without conditions or qualifications. We want love without first fulfilling others' demands or acceding to others' conceptions about "what we should be." As simple as it sounds, we want people to love us "for who we are," without manipulation or expectation. Generally speaking, expectations result at least in stress and at most in unhappiness. Expectations create a disparity between our conceptions about the future and reality. When reality does not match the expectation, we feel failure or worse. "Love with expectations" results in serious emotional pain. But love without expectations--simple, unconditional love--results in emotional satisfaction, even euphoria. That is what we want from life--strongly positive emotions--because when we feel that good, nothing else can bring us down.

But this is exactly the problem. After all, it is almost impossible to find unconditional love in society. First, our entire social structure does not really value individual happiness. Rather, it merely expects objective economic productivity and "service." Those two basic goals do not require happiness. Quite the contrary, they typically induce unhappiness. Very few people are ever happy about being "objectively economically productive" for someone else, nor are they ever happy about serving some domineering economic master. Yet "success" in our society flows from "productivity" and "service." It does not matter whether a "successful man" feels happy while he productively serves. It does not affect the bottom line. Subjective, individual feelings, in other words, simply do not matter in this objective social scheme.

But what are human beings if not feeling creatures? In the final analysis, every man and woman is a unique entity with emotions and thoughts. Emotions and thoughts are entirely subjective. While they might mean nothing to society or the economy, they mean everything to the individual who thinks and feels. Unconditional love is one of the best feelings a person can experience. Society, however, could care less about it. It is not essential either to productivity or service. This is why unhappiness is so rampant, even among people who appear "successful" and "content." They may reach "objective" standards for social success, but miserably fail to satisfy their own "subjective" emotional needs. In a word, there is much more to life than success.

We should not be surprised that it is hard to find unconditional love in our society. After all, everything has conditions attached in the merciless commercial crucible of life. A condition means something that must be fulfilled before something else is given. It is "bargain-like:" "If you cut my grass, I will give you $100." It channels behavior: You don't get the $100 if you don’t cut the grass. No one does anything for anyone else in our society without imposing some condition on performance. Conditions allow people to induce behavior in others. They allow people to tyrannize and manipulate others for their own gain. This might be perfectly appropriate in cutthroat commerce. But conditions attach not just to contracts and business deals. Rather, they attach just as often to human affections.

We want unconditional love because we are accustomed to conditional love. I read an article in the New York Times last week arguing that modern psychiatry can be explained by reference to "selling unconditional love" in a society that rarely loves, and only conditionally when it does. According to the article, living with conditional love cripples us emotionally. It said that even our parents do not often love us unconditionally. Much to the contrary, they typically want to "control our behavior" by baiting us with love. The article claimed that parents could warp their children not just by scolding and criticizing them, but also by excessively praising them. Each case implicates "conditional love." Praise creates an internal urge for conformity in a child, leading him or her to modify behavior in order to win the praise. Parents only give praise when the child acts "as they wish;" that is conditional love. Without fulfilling the condition, the parent does not praise--and does not love. Praise, then, can be just as damaging as critique.

If parents do not love unconditionally, who will? That is a serious question. If our closest relatives do not love us "for who we are," can we expect commercial actors, bosses and clients to do so? Certainly not. In fact, in commerce we never expect unconditional relationships. We always know that someone wants something from us in return for what they give. As fundamental as that "bargain imperative" may be in commerce, it is anathema to our emotional needs. We might steel ourselves to conditional relationships as we move through life. But in the process we deny ourselves the one thing that might bring us happiness. We will never find unconditional love in commerce; we will never find it in our careers. We never even find it within our own families. People always want us to act in some way that benefits them, or at least matches their sentiments. It is never enough to "be who we are." To fulfill conditions, we must always "be someone else." That leads to emotional ruin in the end.

This is the psychiatrist's niche. The psychiatrist, unlike the boss, the parent, the admirer or even the sometime friend, staunchly empathizes with his patient no matter what. He listens attentively. He does not impose his own moral or family-based judgments on the patient's choices or lifestyle. He offers the love that the patient's own parents refused to give without conditions. This is modern therapy. It is a dose of unconditional love in a world without unconditional love. Perplexingly, however, it is also a commercial relationship. Therapists do not support their patients because they genuinely want to give unconditional love; they do it because they are on the clock. In this sense, they offer "unconditional love conditional upon payment," but even that is better than purely conditional love.

Unconditional love is a precious commodity. The fact that so many people turn to therapy testifies to its pricelessness in our emotional lives. No matter how much we cynically harden ourselves to commercial realities and its myriad conditions, we always must attend to our own emotional health. Unconditional love makes us feel really good. It makes us feel better than any hard-won, competitive victory. Nothing can match it because it affirms our own personality without any effort on our part. It feels good to be loved "simply for who we are" without having first performed a song and dance to placate some demanding taskmaster.

Taskmasters surround us in life. They come in many guises. Even our own spouses and parents might force us to act in unappealing ways to win their love. When it comes to love, no one wants to compete. If we compete for love, it is not really love. We want others to love us because we are who we are, not because we do things for them. But this is a hard thing to do in a world that consistently heaps us with conditions and expectations. This society does not make individual happiness a primary goal. So it leaves us to struggle--often vainly--to obtain it.

LEGAL "VICTORIES" : PURE EXAGGERATION, AND A BAD WORD CHOICE

AN ESSAY

Law firm websites amuse me. I get priceless satirical material from them. Generally, they take themselves extremely seriously and want to show that they are “winners.” They toss around words like “success,” “results,” “every time,” “reliable,” “professional,” “result-oriented,” “highly successful,” “preeminent,” “unique,” “client-focused,” “team spirit,” “effective” and “experienced.” This all makes me laugh because I know what law firms are like. There is nothing rarefied or glorious about them. They are profit mills in which lawyers pool their efforts to twist the law in their favor. Their “experience,” “results” and “success” flow from their dogged ability to wear down their opponents, then either make money or save money for their clients. For all concerns and purposes, American law practice is an elaborate game. One side wins. The other loses. It is adversarial. And it is seethingly bitter, as all competitive games are.

Big law firms like to report their “recent victories.” After all, “victories” show that the law firm has “won many games,” and potential clients want to win “their game,” too. When betting on a sports team, you want to choose the team most likely to win. You can tell whether a team is more likely to win if you know how often they have won in the past. A law firm’s “past victories” create the impression that it can defeat the opposition again, make money and deliver “success” to a new client. The “victory” metaphor is sport-like, even warlike.

But is law practice supposed to be sport-like? Are legal problems really nothing more than games to be manipulated and won? Or are they miniature wars in which the “enemy” must be hunted down and destroyed? Is this really appropriate rhetoric? After all, law is supposed to provide a rational framework in which to resolve civil disputes. It is supposed to provide reasonable, neutral rules by which to adjudicate problems that might otherwise spur violence. Civilizations invented law to neutralize private violence among citizens intended to redress perceived grievances. In that sense, there is nagging irony in the assertion that lawyers should pursue “victory” for their clients. If law is just and neutral, results should flow as a matter of principle, not as a matter of martial triumph. Law, in other words, is supposed to replace armed conflict as a means to solve problems. Yet the rhetoric of “winning” and “victory” suggests that law is no different from uncivilized, violent struggle. Armies win “victories” by killing those who oppose them in battle. Is this what we expect from lawyers in their “legal battles?”

Let us examine the word “victory.” The word has a decidedly martial connotation. There is nothing detached or nonviolent about it; it involves prevailing over another person or group after a fierce competition or struggle. According to Webster, “victory” means: “1. final and complete supremacy or superiority in battle or war; 2. a specific military engagement ending in triumph; or 3. success in any contest or struggle involving the defeat of an opponent or the overcoming of obstacles.” Webster’s New World College Dictionary (4th Ed.). Two of the three meanings deal specifically with war. The third mentions “success” after “struggling with” and “defeating” an “opponent” in a “contest” with “obstacles.” Victory is a hypercharged, even romantic word. It implies the euphoria that flows from armed triumph over an enemy. It feels good to defeat “opponents” and “overcome obstacles.” It feels good to display “complete supremacy or superiority” over an “enemy in battle or war.” There is nothing more primal than proving domination over an opponent through force. It is crude, animalistic and base. Strong lions overpower weaker ones. They win “victory” over their competitors after a “struggle for supremacy.”

But should lawyers be no different than lions in the wild? Or conquering generals bent on defeating their opponents in battle? I thought law was supposed to elevate us from such violent impulses. I thought law was supposed to replace war with rational principle and reasonable discussion. By using the word “victory” to describe legal “success,” however, lawyers debase themselves. They misunderstand the law. They use it as an arena or a battlefield, not as a rational platform for resolving differences. They approach legal questions like battles, not as opportunities to show their civilized ability to transcend warlike thinking. “Victory” is alluring because everyone likes to “dominate,” “defeat” and “succeed” over a recalcitrant foe. But the question remains: Is law really the right forum to pursue that quest?

Perhaps it is. In the English legal tradition, after all, law functions in an “adversary capacity.” Two sides “face off” against each other. Each side has diametrically opposed interests. One wants land; the other one refuses to give it up. One wants compensation for an injury; the other one refuses to pay. One claims he had a contract; the other says there was never a deal. No matter the facts, “adversary justice” places each side in a “competitive” position. The law assumes that people will make the best arguments—and, ironically, “tell the truth”—in order to satisfy their threatened self-interest. Lawyers step in to vindicate each side’s self-interest. They have only one goal: To defeat the opponent’s arguments and convince the court to grant whatever the client wants.

In this sense, we see that “adversary justice” is profoundly “game-like.” Just as two competitors yearn for “supremacy over the other” in a game, two sides in a legal dispute square off to achieve the same thing. Just as sportsmen must adapt their play to acknowledged rules in their quest for victory, lawyers, too, must contend with “court procedures,” “discovery protocols” and various other “steps” on the road to ultimate success. Each side tries to manipulate the rules to obtain an edge over the other. After all, when “victory” is at stake, you do everything you can to increase your chances to win. In the “adversary system,” competition is fierce. After all, only one side can win; and someone has to lose, too. When money is on the line, the gloves come off. Victory becomes an obsession. Just as two generals struggle violently to obtain an edge over each other in battle, so too do two lawyers savagely grapple with one another for the court’s favor. In all these cases—games, war and “adversary justice”—the breathless quest for victory engenders ruthless competition and narrow-minded commitment to one’s cause, even if it is unjust.

This is all very ugly. We all know who people who insatiably pursue victory in all life’s pursuits. We recoil from those who seek in all things to defeat us. True, sometimes we all enjoy competing for accolades and laurels, whether in games or in life. But there is a limit beyond which we refuse to compete for decency’s sake. Those who compete in everything come off as barbaric and swinish, even if they ultimately win. There is something disgustingly selfish about an endless thirst for victory. After all, victory implies a violent struggle for domination. That is a primal, overweening, animalistic impulse. If we live in a civilized community, we seek to avoid coarse brutishness. Yet the insatiable thirst for victory requires exactly that. Those who publicly broadcast and flaunt their “victories”—like so many law firms—appear wretchedly selfish, even gluttonous and shameless. After all, they are advertising their ability to struggle, fight, brutalize and ultimately dominate their opponents in savage conflicts. That is something Genghis Khan might do, not someone who claims to live in a civilized community.

I think lawyers should excise “victory rhetoric” from their vocabulary. “Victory rhetoric” stems from war. In my view, law should replace armed conflict, not imitate it. But this might be asking too much. After all, even “civilized” human beings retain a lurking instinct to dominate their fellow men. They like the euphoria that springs from “victory,” whether in war, sport or commerce. This is why so many things in our lives—including the law—are “gamelike.” Victory in games provides a primal, emotional charge that humans crave. If they can’t get an emotional charge from battle and physical supremacy over other men, they turn to substitute sources, like games, careers and other competitive fields. All these things provide an opportunity to dominate others, even if without violence.

Yet there is nothing noble about “pursuing victory” and the basely euphoric emotions associated with it. Saint Augustine wrote extensively about games and competition in his Confessions. He confessed before God that he routinely pursued the bestial emotions that flowed from “victory in games” as a child: “In competitive games, I loved the pride of winning…even in [these children’s games] I was overcome by a vain desire to win and was often guilty of cheating. Any breach of the rules I would not tolerate and, if I detected it, would fiercely denounce it, though it was exactly what I was doing to others.” Confessions, at pp. 12, 22 (Oxford University Press 1992). Tellingly, Augustine observed that children are not the only ones who seek “victory in games.” He writes: “Behavior does not change when one leaves behind domestic guardians and schoolmasters, nuts and balls and sparrows.” Id. at p. 22. Rather, adults play games, too, and they seek the same base emotions as children. Just like children at play, they cheat, manipulate rules and engage in hypocrisy. He writes: “[The] amusement of adults is called business.” Id. at 12.

Against that background, should lawyers really crow about their “victories?” Are they no better than children? In sum, we should be very wary about transforming life’s pursuits into competitive games. When we do, we lower ourselves into something resembling animal squalor. I find it both sad and ironic that lawyers—through their ugly “victory rhetoric”—bring the law down to the level of children’s games.

I thought we had come further than this as a civilization. I thought law was supposed to elevate us from violent competitions. Apparently not, at least in the American “legal market.” It’s all just a “win-loss column.” Reason and principle have nothing to do with it, especially if you get an “L” for following them. When you thirst for victory, you do anything for a “W.” Principle is an impediment on that path, not an advantage.

STOP THE INEFFICIENCY : IT'S TIME TO PRIVATIZE PUBLIC SERVICES

INSTALLMENT # 1 : LAW ENFORCEMENT

By : Mr. A. James Meinecke, M.B.A. (Harvard Business School), President and CEO, Tailor-Targeted Systems Solutions (TTSS), LLC, a Delaware Limited Liability Company; Former Director, Blackwater USA, a consulting agency specializing in private security solutions and diplomacy (1997-2004); Former Chief, Atlanta Police Department (1988-1997); Board Member, The Free Market Society (2001-present); Publisher Laissez-Faire, S’il Vous Plait, an informational newsletter serving America’s corporate boards.

Americans want safe streets and safe workplaces. They don’t want to worry about crime and terrorism on their way to work. They want their children to be safe when they use the Internet and email. Americans also want to know that guilty people are being investigated, captured and punished. America trusts its law enforcement personnel to accomplish these tasks. For decades, government-run American law enforcement kept pace with the criminals.

But we can do better. For a long time, America has trusted Federal, State and local government to enforce its laws. Americans elect representatives to pass laws criminalizing certain conduct. They then rely on Executive agencies—such as the Federal Bureau of Investigation, the State police and local police forces—to corral anyone who violates those laws. Although Executive agencies generally do a fine job investigating, interrogating, prosecuting and punishing criminals, they face a key limitation: They are public servants. And public servants never do a job as well as competitive, motivated private contractors.

Here at Tailor-Targeted Systems Solutions LLC, we want to help America. Specifically, we want to make public services more efficient by cutting the “public” out of “public services.” As effective as State law enforcement efforts may be, imagine how much more effective they would be if private enterprise competed for better ways to catch criminals. The simple truth is that government employees do not have an economic incentive to pursue criminals. They receive low pay and generally enjoy few avenues for financial advancement. No matter how hard they work and how many drug dealers they arrest, they get the same $29,578 a year. Additionally, they have a monopoly on their jobs: They do not feel pressure to introduce better solutions to existing problems. After all, there are no rival police departments to keep them on their toes. We believe that America deserves better. When it comes to catching criminals, we think efficiency comes first.

Many people think that certain government functions should not be private, including law enforcement. These people think that government agents should investigate crime because crime is a public concern. They think that police officers should not be loyal to their own economic interests, but rather the “public good.” In essence, this argument boils down to loyalty: To whom should police officers be loyal? Yet this argument misses an essential point. Namely, it forgets that law enforcement aims to efficiently stop crime, not vindicate the popular will. If it came between stopping ten rapes and vaguely fulfilling “the popular will,” I think every American would say that stopping ten rapes is more important. Complacent State officers cannot stop rape as effectively as dedicated private contractors with an economic interest in stopping rape. When law enforcement professionals have no personal economic stake in stopping crime, they have no reason to be efficient. That is why we must privatize law enforcement. We owe it to our children. If we want safe streets, we must change the way we look at loyalty.

Police officers would do a much better job if they knew they would profit from stopping crime. According to popular understanding, police officers pursue crime because they care about the public good. But the public good pays no bills; money does. If our police officers received a special bonus for every crime they prevent—or for every suspected criminal they catch—we would provide a meaningful incentive for our law enforcement personnel to protect us. In this sense, we propose a corporate model for law enforcement. Rather than requiring “loyalty to the State” from our policemen, we should make them loyal to a private law enforcement company. That company, in turn, would contractually pay them a higher salary than the State, plus bonuses for effective criminal management. When people have real economic incentives to get a job done, they do it much more effectively than someone who receives a discouraging flat rate serving “the public good.” In our view, when police officers have an economic motivation to stop crime, they will stop it much more efficiently than they would “serving the public good” for minimal pay. For example, a police officer would much more willingly investigate a dangerous drug ring knowing he might receive an extra $4,000 per arrest than he would if he knew he would receive nothing more than the usual $29,578 a year for zealously investigating the drug ring. He could use that $4,000 to pay medical bills, car notes or credit card debt. He could use the extra money to buy consumer goods or invest in the stock market. At the same time, he would benefit the public by stopping drug crime. Put simply, when people have an economic reason to do something, they take more chances and get jobs done more effectively than they would without the incentive. That is why we must privatize police forces. Public loyalty does not protect our children. Only private loyalty does.

There is no reason why so-called “traditional public services” should not compete in a free market system. The fact that “traditional public services” are so important only supports the argument that private enterprise should provide them. After all, police services are essential to the community. Private enterprise would provide them more efficiently than the State. In that light, Americans should embrace private solutions to traditionally public services. Private police can catch twice as many criminals as public police in the same time. Results are results. When Americans get better results from private enterprise than public services, they will never go back to public services. Additionally, private enterprise must always stay fresh. There will always be a competitor striving to take a company’s place in the market. In that light, competition will make private businesses even more efficient crime stoppers. After all, if a new police company catches more criminals than the old one, the old company will lose its contract. That will force the old company to invent new, more effective crime control measures to keep pace. All the while, the public benefits. When police forces compete for contracts, the criminals lose and the public wins.

Competition among private police forces will not just reduce crime. It will also drive down costs. Unlike inefficient public police forces, private companies will always need to stay ahead of the curve and deliver results. They will have to stop more crime more quickly than their competitors, all for a competitive price. By competing for contracts, private companies will ensure that taxpayers only pay market rates for law enforcement services, not inflated subsidy rates. If a company can’t cut the mustard, it will lose its contract to a company that can arrest more criminals for less money. This is just the way business works. Yet under the public model, if the police force fails to stop crime, it still costs the same amount. This is not just inefficient. It is also expensive and wasteful. This is why we must privatize our police forces. It will not just stop crime and protect children; it will cost less, too.

Private police forces will pursue criminals much more effectively than public ones. Under the public model, police officers always wear uniforms and other “official, State insigniae.” While this adds a special “government aura” to law enforcement, it also gives criminals far too much warning. They can easily run away whenever they see a uniformed policeman approaching, or they can say: “Put the drugs away; here comes a cop car.” Put simply, public police forces stick out like a sore thumb. And when criminals get away, the public suffers.

Not so under the private model. Private police officers are not really “officers” at all. Rather, they are “employees.” As such, they do not wear uniforms. They do not drive marked cars. They look like regular guys on the street. Criminals will never know whether a law enforcement company employee is nearby, ready to arrest them. This is much more efficient than tipping criminals off by wearing ostentatious silver badges and military-style uniforms. When law enforcement goes private, criminals will start looking over both shoulders. And when criminals are scared, they will not rape women, rob banks or murder children.

Private police employees enjoy another key practical advantage over public police officers: Namely, they are not bound to respect any “constitutional rights.” Public police forces are “State actors.” As such, they must follow the United States Constitution and various State constitutions when investigating and prosecuting crime. This drastically impedes their effectiveness, because constitutions interpose “individual rights” that bar highly efficient crime control practices. By contrast, private law enforcement employees face no such limitations. When they set out to arrest a criminal, they do not need to worry about “warrants,” “probable cause,” “reasonable suspicion,” “privacy,” “the Fourth Amendment,” “Miranda warnings,” “Due Process” or other elaborate judicial fantasies. Rather, they can arrest whomever they please, whenever they please. If they need to tap a phone, they tap it. If they need to search a house, they search it. If they need to wring a confession from a suspect, they wring it. In short, criminals have no refuge when facing private law enforcement employees. And all this adds up to safer streets and safer children.

We should not shrink from privatizing our police forces. We owe it to our children. When it comes to any service, the best solutions are private. Private employees with an interest in success do a job much better than poorly-paid bureaucrats who just want to see 5 o’clock and a pension. Just look at the DMV to see public servants at work. Would you trust your wife’s safety to a DMV employee? Of course not. Yet these people are your police officers. Vigorous private enterprise gives Americans their most cherished goods and services, from medicine to fast food. There is no reason why we should not trust private enterprise to give them something as vital as protection from criminals. Additionally, when we privatize police forces, we will open a whole new employment market, boosting job growth and income levels across the country. Enterprising men and women will study to become law enforcement employees. They will learn to make a decent wage catching criminals. The solution is obvious.

We can do it. America deserves more from its law enforcement professionals, not lackluster donut-eating and clockwatching. We must move away from the idea that only government can do certain jobs. As a Director at Blackwater USA, I showed that privately-employed soldiers could do a better job than the U.S. Army in the field. If private enterprise can wage war in Iraq, it can also protect Americans against dangerous criminals at home. And it can do it more efficiently, too. When employees stand to make more money for doing a better job, everybody wins.

We deserve efficiency. We deserve better pay. We deserve solutions that work. That is why we must bring private enterprise to law enforcement.