What’s Wrong with Spying?

The AP recently revealed a spying operation by the New York City police on Muslims and Muslim institutions. What should we think about that?

Public Health

As I write this, I just listened to another story about people who want to drink raw milk. When I was 11, recovering from an illness, my doctor, the chairman of pediatrics at a New York City hospital, told my parents to put me on raw milk – but specific milk medically supervised to make sure that it didn’t carry the botulism and other diseases that could have killed me quickly.

Let me make one other disclosure. I never met my sister. She died in 1927 at the age of three. I came along many years later. It was only in my generation that parents no longer expected to lose some of their children. So I have a foot and a heart in and an understanding of both worlds.

Sources of American Strength

Let’s talk about some basics – the sources of American economic power.

• We were always an immigrant society, peopled with those who had the drive and courage to leave where they were, cross the ocean and begin again with nothing.
• Initially we were agricultural. One innovation was small, “republican,” landownership by independent farmers. Their efficiency made everything else possible.
• We were among the leaders in the banking revolution which simplified and facilitated commerce.
• The transportation revolution began in England but it had an enormous impact on the American economy because of the sheer size of the country.
• Our system of democratic schooling  – education for all, rich and poor, boys and girls, immigrants and natives – was revolutionary and made us an international leader.
• England pioneered the scientific revolution. But America took advantage of the land grant colleges, and with the appreciation for learning that came with both the Christian and Jewish communities that relocated here, America became a major source of invention.
• Americans led the revolution in manufacturing – inventing and perfecting the assembly line.

Now what? Everything we achieved is out there.