Held to Account

Mayor Street took some flak yesterday for waiting in line all day for the new iPhone.  A self-proclaimed gadget junkie, he just had to have the new toy, leaving some to wonder aloud if the mayor of the sixth largest city in the nation had more important ways to spend his time.  The Mayor responded that he was in fact working the whole time, via Blackberry and cell phone, and that if he had sent an aide in his place, he would've been pilloried just as much.

It is definitely interesting to observe how high a standard we place on our elected officials.  John Edwards gets lambasted for getting a $400 haircut, people roll their eyes about Governor Corzine spending nights outside out New Jersey, and Mayor Street is a favorite punching bag. 

To some degree, it's like us fans whose tickets pay the salaries of the people on the field, so we feel we can boo them and insult their families.  In the same way, we've elected these guys and gals, and it's our taxes that are paying their salaries, so we feel they should be at our beck and call.  And this is largely a good thing when it comes to politics, for public servants to indeed feel that they are ultimately accountable to the people.

But if we're going to hold them to account, the same principles are in play in terms of ourselves being accountable, particularly for those of us who are Bible-believing.  For the Bible is clear that we are inextricably inter-connected to one another.  We simply cannot opt out of our obligation to our fellow man, whether to ignore his need or ignore our responsibility to be a positive role model. 

Ultimately, for we who fear God, we are accountable to God, and will one day be held to account for our actions.  Players may have their salaries paid for by fans, and politicians by taxpayers, but all mankind has been birthed into existence by God, who continues to provide physical sustenance and material possessions to this day.  If we're going to heckle A-Rod and Mayor Street, we ought to be ready to stand up to the judgment of our God.

Share Nice

I've sung the praises of Philly Car Share for years now, but last night was my first experience as a user.  If you're not familiar, PCS is a non-profit that allows you to rent cars by the hour.  Rates are usually cheaper than if you were to use a traditional rental car, and, at least where I live, cars are readily available.  It's a great way for urban folk to forgo buying one more car that they'll only use one hour a day, three or four times a week; and an increasing number of organizations, including the City of Philadelphia, are enjoying the benefits of using PCS rather than maintaining large fleets. 

My first customer experience was a pleasurable one, too.  The nearest available car was a block from my house.  The reservation took two minutes to make, and when I was running late on the tail end of my time window, it took one call to get my return time bumped back 45 minutes.  Plus, I got to drive a Honda hybrid, which was pretty fun. 

I don't think the numbers work for us to give up our car and go completely carless.  But hopefully having access to PCS will keep us at one car for quite some time. 

Agglomerations and Chance Encounters

It's a mouthful of a word but a beautiful one nonetheless:
agglomeration. In an economic sense, it refers to metro areas that
contain clusters of activities in distinct industries. The
entertainment industry in LA, the financial districts of New York, and
growing densities of knowledge workers in hot places like Austin and
Charlotte are but a few examples.

It's funny how the more mobile and tech-oriented our world has become,
the more important place has become. Far from rendering place
irrelevant, high technology has increased the value of being
physically proximate to other like-minded individuals.

And not just for formal and intentional gatherings, like meetings and
conferences. Being physically proximate also means informal and
serendipitous touches, like bumping into colleagues on the subway or
at a restaurant, or having a chance meeting in an elevator or on the
street.

And so it is in a city of almost 1.5 million and a metro area of
millions more, than I can feel a sense of connection simply by putting
myself out there and looking up instead of down when I'm motoring
around every day. Just this past week, a coffee with a friend at a
popular hangout led to an unplanned reunion with an old colleague, I
bumped into the next mayor of Philadelphia while crossing the street
in front of City Hall, and I got introduced to the sister of an
acquaintance of mine who happens to be in the same field as me.

And so it is that in agglomerations, chance encounters make a big city
a small world. Who knows how many more such encounters I could have
if I would just keep my eyes open?

Urban Housing

As an urban Christian, I spend a fair amount of time thinking about
poverty in American cities. It is certainly a multi-dimensional
issue, but today I'd like to focus on just one aspect: housing.

I am always surprised to hear how high homeownership rates are in poor
urban neighborhoods. I think it's because I equate owning a home with
having wealth. And in fact, for most Americans, it is synonymous:
homeownership is more economical than renting, it qualifies you for
various tax write-offs, and you can borrow against the equity to do
things to further increase your wealth.

Yet somehow, far too few urban poor are enjoying the advantages of
homeownership. There are some who will tell you that the problem is
me and other yuppies who have moved from our suburban upbringings into
inner cities, and in doing so have unleashed that evil yet
hard-to-define phenomenon known as "gentrification." However it is
defined, the mechanics seem to be that our introduction into a
neighborhood, replete with any home improvements we make and any
purchasing power we bring with us, causes property values to rise,
"forcing out" old-timers who can no longer afford the property taxes.

(To be sure, shame on any of us who "take over" a neighborhood, in
terms of stripping it of its history and authenticity in the name of
more parking and easier access to Starbucks and Borders. As a
life-long student in the Jane Jacobs school of urban planning, I
always hope for a refreshing mix of old and new whenever neighborhoods
evolve over time.)

And yet, I find it not a bit odd that the thing most Americans want -
for their houses to appreciate in value - is the very thing many urban
poor people are taught is a bad thing. After all, there are a number
of mechanisms people can use to extract their new equity for purposes
of meeting any increase in property taxes. Having an asset that is
now worth more than what you paid for it also gives you choices: to
sell and buy another house, to start a business, to increase your
standard of living. In other words, such an appreciation is
synonymous with the kind of mobility that almost everybody in this
country strives for.

How is it, then, that people are told otherwise and led to believe it?
Could it be that there are people out there who benefit from
economically poor and immobile people staying poor and immobile?
Might politicians prefer a voting bloc that is stable and loyal,
rather than a constituency that is educated and mobile? Might banks
prefer neighborhoods to stay low-income so they can fulfill their
legal or social obligations to invest in such places, rather than see
entire neighborhoods increase their collective wealth?

Even worse and more damning, might people like me, who purport to care
about the urban poor, harbor a perverse self-interest in keeping the
urban poor right where they are, both geographically and economically,
so that we can continue to stroke our own subconscious need to be
their advocate, their hero, their defender? The urban poor gaining in
wealth, in mobility, in choices - would that be what we've been
working all this time for, or would that undo our carefully
constructed notion of who we are and what we're all about?

Needless to say, I consider many arguments against gentrification to
be paternalistic, self-serving, and counter-productive. Don't get me
wrong: we still have a lot of work to do. People need to be educated
about financial management and financial tools. Banks need to be
educated about working in urban communities. Politicians need to be
educated about policies that actually help the poor.

And all of us need to be better informed, and more vigorously put into
motion, such that we're working with the urban poor to improve their
neighborhoods, even and especially if that leads to marked
appreciation in property values. For stagnant home prices simply
freeze people where they are, and perverse self-interest
notwithstanding, that's not what we want happening in our low-income
neighborhoods.

Trust Dada

My son Aaron is a shrieker, especially when he's hungry. Even for
someone as cold and calculating as me, who is used to tuning out the
madness around me, it can get to you after awhile. Still, I'm
learning to keep a steady hand when he's in hysterics. I figure if I
can keep my cool, I can get to whatever it is he needs from me faster
than if I get all worked up.

One thing that's helped is thinking about what it's like to have a
Heavenly Father. We too play the role of infant child at times,
shrieking at our God as if He hasn't a clue what we need. And like us
level-headed dads, God is at work all along, warming up the bottle of
formula and shaking it just so and getting the bib on, until
everything is just right.

And so as I'm calming Aaron - and myself - by saying, "Trust Dada," as
he screams in my ear as I get his bottle ready, I'm realizing that
it's an assuring phrase my own Heavenly Father probably often has to
whisper to me. Hopefully, for my eardrum's sake, Aaron'll learn to
trust his earthly dad. And hopefully, for both our souls' sake, we'll
both learn to trust our Heavenly Father more each day.

Wilderness Times

I caught up with a friend earlier this month who suffered a terrible
loss a couple of years ago. Though we had spoken several times since
then, I finally asked him directly how he was coping. It was
heartening to hear how far he'd progressed in his grieving process,
and how he was able to see the whole experience as something that had
strengthened his relationship with God.

As I heard my friend out, and chimed in occasionally about difficult
times I had gone through myself, I realized just how significant
"wilderness" times are in the process of making a Christian. Those
seasons in which we are so shaken as to doubt God's very existence, or
even worse His goodness, when we feel as though we've been thrown down
a very deep pit with no hope for getting out, such that our strength
wanes and our desire dissipates.

Far from being evidence of God's non-existence or cruelty, they are a
demonstration of His Fatherly love. And my conversation with my
friend made more meaningful the fact that to be a Christian is not to
have an escape route from life's ills, but to have a strong and steady
Comforter to carry us through them. I thank God for carrying me
through my wildernesses, and for holding my friend's hand through his.

The Most Productive Thing

About 12 years ago, a good friend of mine had his first child. Like
me, he is college-educated, ambitious, and Kingdom-minded. I also
look up to him and count him among my role models. So I listened
carefully when I asked him one morning 12 years ago how he was doing,
and he responded, "My day consisted of changing 12 diapers and giving
6 feedings."

In other words, having a baby meant a huge drop in what he was used to
in terms of productivity. Indeed, a lot of people I know, myself
included, have gained a necessary measure of perspective upon becoming
parents, in terms of dealing with getting off the treadmill of life's
accomplishments and drivenness. It is certainly something I needed to
turn from myself, and something being a dad has helped to improve in.

But at the same time, I've often found that with areas in my life
where God is not totally God yet, and where He needs to change me, it
is not often that He needs a 180 out of me, but rather a slight
redirection. I'm not saying that it is a bad thing to realize that
productivity does not define us as people, as God's children, or as
our children's parents. I am saying that God simultaneously wants to
redefine our understanding of productivity.

In other words, too often I see the time and energy I put into raising
my kids as taking away from time and energy I could put elsewhere,
like in my job or my career or my usefulness in the Kingdom of God.
And in fact there are trade-offs every day that we all have to choose
to make, in one direction or the other.

But perhaps I need to be reminded that that time and energy I put into
raising my kids might just very well be the most productive investment
I can make. Sure, it might keep me from other avenues of service and
contribution. But what could I give myself to that would be more
important than teaching my kids to have a relationship with Jesus
Christ? To teach my son to respect women, and my daughter to respect
herself? To teach them both to have a heart for the city, for the
oppressed, for the voiceless?

To be sure, Jesus calls us to follow Him first, and to put raising our
kids as our top priority outside of Christian discipleship is to
disqualify ourselves from the path to life. To paraphrase the wife of
my friend, who I also respect and look up to, and who is in full-time
ministry: "My child is not my God, and my job is not my God; God is my
God."

Amen to that. Amen to a life that puts God first. Amen also to a
life that is able to honor that God in one's job. And amen, finally,
to a life that seeks to see child-rearing not as a diversion from
righteous productivity, but as one of the most productive uses of
one's days.

Proponents of transit oriented development have started to mainstream
a concept called "location efficient mortgages." Meaning that
residential development near transit stops should translate into banks
giving bigger mortgages to home buyers, since they don't have to spend
as much on the cost of maintaining and operating a car.

I wonder if we can pioneer some monetization of energy-efficient
building materials. Right now, developers are insufficiently
motivated to build with environmental sustainability and cost savings
in mind, because such materials are usually more expensive, and that
cost doesn't get recouped in anything the developer sees (i.e. the
sales price of the house).

But obviously, paying 25% more in building materials to conserve
natural resources and get the homeowner a three to five year payback
on his utility bills is a compelling trade-off. Energy Star publishes
the efficiency of appliances, allowing purchasers to see not only the
upfront price of the item but how much it'll cost to operate over
time, relative to other choices. I wonder if a similar rating could
be created for homes.

Alternatively, might banks run the numbers and offer "energy efficient
mortgages," which would work similarly to location efficient
mortgages? I.e. if a bank would normally allow a mortgage payment up
to 38% of gross income, might it be willing to allow a slightly higher
one if the homeowner buys a certified energy efficient house whose
utility bills would be much lower than a regular house?

I'm intrigued by this topic, because it sits at the nexus of so many
things I'm interested in. You know I love saving money and saving the
environment, especially when you can do both at the same time. And
I'm always intrigued by the distribution of costs and benefits, and
the ways you can create incentives so that everyone acting in their
own interest leads to the optimal gain for all, rather than a
suboptimal situation. So if anyone knows anything more about this
topic, and whether there are Energy Star ratings for houses or energy
efficient mortgages, give me a shout.

Postscript: I should do my homework before I post stuff like this. Of course there are Energy Efficient Mortgages out there. Go to http://www.energystar.gov/index.cfm?c=bldrs_lenders_raters.energy_efficient_mortgage or http://www.pueblo.gsa.gov/cic_text/housing/energy_mort/energy-mortgage.htm for more information.

According to my faith, everybody's important. There are no throwaway
people. But you'd have a hard time convincing far too many people in
this world whose life circumstances scream to them that they are
worthless. Whether they are victims of abuse, racism, or other forms
of degradation; whether their trauma was a single incident or a slow
and steady erosion; whether they were physically or emotionally
abandoned; they are faced with overwhelming evidence that the world
couldn't care less about them, that there is no loving God who deeply
knows and cares for them.

I was reminded by a friend this week that the longer people have lived
with this understanding, the harder it is to get them to change their
mind. Imagine you believe something your whole life, and have that
belief daily reinforced. How easily would you be able to believe
otherwise?

Amy and I harbor no martyr complex about being adoptive parents.
We've done it twice, with a third on the way, not to "save" these
kids, but because we want to be parents.

But we're mindful that when kids get put up for adoption, there's an
extra special obligation for adoptive parents to love and accept those
children. No disrespect meant to the biological parents: far from it,
for in many cases, their love and sacrifice towards their children is
something I will never attain to.

Nevertheless, it can be easy for an adopted kid to wonder about their
value, whatever the circumstances that led to their adoptability. And
so while many in this world who are grown are feeling worthless, so
are many in this world who are but babies and for whom there's time to
tell them otherwise.

And so I am always glad when someone comes up to me and tells me they
are thinking of adopting. Because out of the hundreds of millions of
little ones scattered around the world for whom the evidence is
compelling to them that they matter not, that's at least one who has a
good shot of being convinced otherwise.

Business and Government

In this wild, wired, wiki world, here are three truths you can take to
the bank: 1) government should be run more like an enterprise, 2)
business should figure out how to integrate social good into its
pursuit of profit, and 3) government and business are increasingly
intertwined in terms of outsourcing contract work and implementing
networked solutions.

So it makes perfect sense that Harvard's b-school and g-school would
offer a three-year joint program to train the next generation of
leaders who understand both disciplines and can work seamlessly
between the two. Hopefully other schools will do the same - to ensure
more collaboration between the public and private sector in matters of
the highest consequence, we need more leaders with such training and
perspective.

http://www.govexec.com/features/0507-15/0507-15admm.htm

Expand Influence, Don't Contain It

My former boss is a remarkable woman. 15+ years after taking the
reins at the small non-profit where I used to work, she is stil going.
In fact, she's even more passionate than on Day One, if that's
possible.

I gave her ten good years of service, but have since moved on. And
while it was hard for me to leave her and hard for her to see me
leave, she genuinely wished me well and we've enjoyed a wonderful
relationship since my departure. I know she truly wishes me the
greatest success in all my future endeavors, and not just me but other
key people who worked under her who have gone on to run non-profits
themselves, as well as do other great things.

And every day, I have a deeper appreciation for that kind of attitude,
that is sad to see good people go but honestly wants to see them move
on and do great work. It can be so easy to want to hang on to good
people, especially when you're hustling at a small non-profit and need
to wring the most out of every advantage you have. It is only natural
to have mixed feelings, if not be outright resentful or mean when
people opt out and you're left to keep on fighting.

It takes a lot of groundedness, a lot of foresight, a lot of
leadership, to mold leaders under you to the point that they become
more attractive candidates for doing something bigger and better than
work under you. So I have a lot of respect for my former boss, and
for other mentors who are humble and big-hearted enough to really want
their proteges to grow to be greater than their current role, and even
greater than their mentor will ever be.

Think also of the pastor who is able to want people to become more
effective ministers, even if that means they move on to other churches
and communities. It takes a lot to want more for people and for the
Kingdom of God than to want to hold on to one's own congregation and
budget.

Think also of the politician who is able to want people to become more
educated and more informed, even if that means they have more social
and economic mobility, to move out of poor neighborhoods or to move
across the country. It takes a lot to want more for people and for
the nation than to want to hold on to one's tax base and voting
constituency.

And so it is with the non-profit head who is able to want people to
grow their leadership skills, even if that means they get recruited
away to run their own non-profits. It takes a lot to want more for
people and for social welfare than to want to hold on to one's top
subordinates.

And so as I see more and more pastors and politicians and non-profit
heads who don't act in these ways, I am all the more appreciative that
I got to work with a leader who did act this way. And I was a direct
beneficiary of such an approach to leadership: one that seeks to
expand influence instead of containing it.

Fast Company

For someone who has a link on his blog to Fast Company under the
heading, "Manifesto," it had been far too long since I'd read an
issue. So it was nice, when the first issue of my new subscription
arrived in the mail today, that I read the following words in the
letter from the editor:

"Fast Company is a publication that doesn't just report on
developments; it stands for something. We embrace the idea that
business serves a purpose in our world that goes beyond dollars and
cents, and that a responsible and sustainable enterprise can be a
vehicle for progress. We believe these higher goals don't contradict
the quest for profitability. On the contrary, we're convinced
businesses that reflect and embody them will be tomorrow's leaders.
We are passionately interested in the nitty-gritty of what makes
businesses really work and celebrate the creative people in all types
of companies, at all levels, who inspire innovation."

Ask me again once I've gotten past page 14, but so far, I'm relieved
that this is still a magazine that I can say "Amen" to.

A Church Full of Ministers

I have personally never attended one of those churches that have an
array of full-time staffers for every ministry: a full-time youth
pastor, a full-time music minister, and one or more senior pastors,
for example. A lot of people like such places, and why not - you get
all your needs met, and by competent people who are good at what they
do and get to focus solely on it.

The church my family attend does not have such a luxury. Oh sure, we
have competent staff who are good at what they do, but our budget
constrains us to using ten hours of one person's time here, 25 hours
of another person there, and so on. There are three reasons for this
cobbled together approach, which I'll list from least important to
most important:

1. We don't have a lot of rich people in our congregation. We are a
generous church in every sense, including financially: I don't doubt
that most people give a tenth of their income if not more. But a
tenth of $30,000 is still less than a fifth of $120,000, which means
we just have less money coming in from tithes and offerings.

2. We have an old building to maintain. Our physical plant costs
more than the typical church's to heat, cool, and keep in one piece.
It's a wonderful resource - in addition to our congregation, we host
an Ethiopian church and a Chinese church, as well as scores of other
one-off gatherings - but it takes away money that might otherwise be
spent on personnel.

3. We believe in the priesthood of believers. The dangerous thing
about a full complement of competent staff is that congregants can
forget that the job of paid ministers is not to minister as much as to
help us all be ministers. What better way than to put all the saints
into motion, as volunteer helpers in Vacation Bible School and
landscaping and visitation?

This all reminds me of a leadership class I took, in which the
professor urged us to consider how to pretend as if our staff were all
volunteers, to impel us into thinking about non-monetary ways to
motivate and inspire them. I laughed, raised my hand, and replied
that at my job at the non-profit I was working with at the time, most
of my staff were volunteers.

But it occurred to me that our financial limitations, while I might've
cursed them every day, were blessings in disguise, because they did
force me to be a better leader, in terms of working hard to help my
staff find fulfillment in their jobs and in their work environment.
And it occurs to me that our church's financial limitations are
similarly a blessing in disguise, for they open the opportunity for
the whole congregation to play the role of minister.

What Am I Working On

About three months ago, I posted about what I was working on at work,
to open the conversation on these topics. Indeed, I've gotten a
chance to hear from friends about their perspectives, and I've been
sharpened and educated accordingly. So I'd like to make this a
somewhat regular post topic. Here's what I'm working on now at work
(I won't repeat anything from last time that I happen to still be
working on, and for confidentiality's sake I have to blur some of the
details for some of these studies):

* Comparing a city's utilization of minority-owned and women-owned
contractors vs. the local availability of such businesses

* Evaluating banks' home and business lending and branch locations in
terms of its treatment of women and minorities

* Helping a state figure out how to create proper incentives for
developers to produce affordable housing units

* Helping a developer get a municipality involved in its affordable
housing development in terms of providing infrastructural investments

* Quantifying the 30-year economic impact of a series of commercial
developments along a formerly industrial waterfront site

* Helping two historic retail corridors rejuvenate the gap that
separates them so as to create a contiguous strip of street-level
activity

* Providing a blueprint for the next mayor of Philadelphia to work
with SEPTA and developers to initiate new development near transit
stops

* Helping a social service agency determine whether to expand at its
current site or to lease or buy a new site

* Creating a financial calculator to help a service provider
demonstrate to government agencies the cost savings of outsourcing
work to them

* Making the case for a waterfront management entity to expand its
territory, rather than have its host city bring those responsibilities
back in-house

* Analyzing a developer's proposed plans for a resort development to
determine the fiscal impact on the municipality in which it will be
located

Seeking Full-Time Christians

A Christian missions magazine I subscribe to (both literally and
figuratively) recently wrote a scathing indictment of the church in
America, in terms of its half-hearted pursuit of the Kingdom of God.
And that sort of lukewarmness gets imported to the mission field as a
result. Unprepared missionaries with little church planting skills,
few tangible professional skills, little if any understanding of
cross-cultural issues, and even less experience fully living out the
Christian life every second of every day.

It is indeed saddening to realize how little of our lives we devote to
the faith here in this country. We settle for part-time Christianity
when God invites us and expects us to be full-time Christians. We
tell God we'll give Him what's left over once we've taken care of our
stuff: our job, our bills, our family. And since we find we have
little left, no matter how faithful we are with it, there's still 40+
hours of our work week and 90% of our income that we leave
under-utilized for eternal purposes.

This magazine was appropriately sharp about this development. We have
devolved a grand story into a bland one, wrapped it in modern-day
American comfort, and then are incredulous when we go to other
countries, have little success, and wonder why we add so little value
to the work God is doing among the citizens of that country.

All of us who attend church, not just those who have gone forth, are
at fault. All of us need to step up and see how great a comfort and
challenge it is that God invites Himself into our lives as Lord of the
totality of it. Would that we do so - that every role we play, every
cent we earn and spend, every second of our days, be missiological in
terms of pointing to His greatness and proclaiming His message.

Then, whether in our home countries or elsewhere, we might see and be
a part of great things. For God uses men and women in spite and
through their weaknesses, that His greatness might be all the more
manifested. But however weak the vessel, He still needs full-timers,
not part-timers.

Power to the People

In government school, we learned that there are three dominant
political cultures in our country. In the South, politics is about
the status quo, in terms of who's in power and who's not. In the
Northeast, politics is a profession, best left to lifers, and a little
corruption is part of how that game works. Then there's a band of the
country from the West Coast to Minnesota where politics is
participatory, people are supposed to be engaged, and politicians are
supposed to listen to them. Everywhere else is some combination of
those three archetypes.

While all styles have their pros and cons, and it would be naive to
uphold one as better than the other without understanding the deep,
deep influences that have led to these perspectives, I do believe it
is important that politicians render their public service to the
public and not themselves. Power can be intoxicating, and sometimes,
even in places where a little slime is considered acceptable, drinking
too deeply can get you in a heap of trouble.

The best policy in terms of dealing with the danger of abuse of power
is not to play defense but to play offense: don't just avoid wielding
power selfishly and unscrupulously, but see power as something you are
to steward on behalf of others who lack power. When you take action
in this way, you become an influential politician, ironically one who
is powerful because you are rooted and principled and can't be bought
or bullied. Most importantly, you become a politician who can sleep
at night and look your kids in the eye.

I say all this to say that I was proud to know and support two
candidates from last month's city council at large primary: Andy Toy
and David Oh. Much has been made about each candidate's quest to
become Philadelphia's first Asian city council member, and certainly
both of these upstanding guys have done the Asian community proud.

But their value to our town is greater than their ethnicity and their
ethnic relationships. These two leaders are the kind of public
servants who seek to wield power in the way I described it above:
actively for those in Philadelphia who lack it, not selfishly for
themselves.

Sadly, while David Oh made the cut and will hope to win a seat in
November, Andy Toy fell about 9,000 votes short after a well-run
campaign. Still, regardless of the results, I'm honored to know both
of them, and know that our city would be in good hands if they were in
positions of political power.

Republican Parenting

This morning at the zoo, I was watching Jada - from a distance - when
it dawned on me that my philosophy about parenting is identical to my
philosophy about politics and economics. In other words, I'm a
Republican parent.

What does that mean? Well, I'm Republican in politics and economics
because I believe, in general, that government intervention all too
often stifles personal initiative, leads to unintended consequences,
and is too blunt a tool when something finer is needed. It's tempting
as a government to want to monkey around with stuff directly instead
of creating an environment in which private players can do what they
do best, since you want to be seen as taking action and it can be hard
to trust that those private players will do their part. And yet that
restraint is what juices innovation and makes our country great.

Same, in my opinion, with parenting. Certainly, we can't be
completely libertarian: my daughter, at two, fundamentally needs me to
do things for her, like change her diaper and keep her from running
out into the street. But over time, she needs to learn to take
responsibility, and she needs room - and encouragement - to blossom
into the unique individual that God has made her to be.

So it's my job to know the difference between what I need to do for
her, and where and how I can give her space to experiment and try and
grow. Just like I think it's government's job to know the difference
between what roles it is to play for society, and what other,
safeguarding roles it is to play so society's members can play their
roles.

So if you catch me saying I'm a Republican parent, it's not because
I'm coaching my kids to love Reagan or advocate for supply-side
economics. It's because I'm standing ten feet back at the zoo,
watching to make sure she's OK but otherwise giving her room to
explore and get dirty and be her own person.