It had single buttons that played whole chords. Other buttons played cymbals, marimba and other rhythmic beats.

I spent hours playing the thing. My father, too — his fingers are so big he had trouble playing just one key at a time — played it often.

And at family gatherings, my mother and her siblings would stand around it for hours, singing holiday tunes and other well-known standards.

I had no idea then how technological innovation made our living-room organ possible.

Harvey Olsen, a retired electrical engineer, electronics instructor and organ expert, told me about the history of the home organ.

In 1933, Lawrence Hammond, an inventor and high-end clock maker, got into the organ business. His goal was to produce a mechanical instrument that replicated the sound of a pipe organ.
Hammond’s very first organs consisted of spinning wheels — tone generators — and lots of other electromechanical parts. The machines were extremely well built and many are still functioning today.

By the mid-1950s, however, organ makers began replicating the organ sound with lower-cost vacuum-tube technology — tubes that looked and acted like light bulbs. It was much less costly to create tones electronically than with lots of mechanical parts.

By the late ’60s, vacuum tubes gave way to even-lower-cost transistor technology. The transistors were small, inexpensive and reliable. They enabled the development of compact integrated circuit boards — the electronic gizmos made it possible to produce more sophisticated sounds, such as a marimba beat.

They also allowed organs to be produced cheaply.

And so it was that the ’60s and early ’70s became the heyday of the home organ. Hammond, a high-end organ maker, soon found competition from low-cost producers, such as Lowrey, Thomas and Kimball.

Every mall had an organ store staffed with organ-playing sales representatives. They seduced thousands of suburban dads, such as mine, into digging into their wallets to bring organ music into their living rooms — something that had been unimaginable to my father as he grew up during the Depression years.

To be sure, our old Kimball organ brought us many hours of amusement. As sophisticated as we thought it was in the ’70s, we would have been shocked had we known what organs would be able to do by 2009.

Digital technology has revolutionized the organ, as it has everything else. Today, for significantly less than my father paid for our Kimball in the ’70s, a fellow can buy a digital organ that produces incredible sounds.

If you’re traveling in Europe and come across a pipe organ in a medieval church, you can probably buy a “sampling” software program that allows you to reproduce its exact sound in your living room.

In any event, we’ve had so much technological innovation in America that we take it for granted, but we do so at our own peril.

The fact is, innovators and entrepreneurs are the lifeblood of our economy. We need their inventions, many of them not yet known, to resolve a multitude of challenges we face — to produce the wealth we need to cover our bills.

Government spending is tying up needed capital and a proposed increase in capital gains taxes will only punish success and inhibit investment in new ideas. Shouldn’t the government do everything possible to unleash innovation — rather than quell it?

Where America’s innovators and entrepreneurs are concerned, can’t we strike a better chord?

In 2006, Feldblum signed a statement, “Beyond Same-Sex Marriage,” that was the most radical, irresponsible assault on marriage and the family ever written. It maintained that every conceivable “partnership” and “relationship” should be on a par with marriage, and even went so far as to say that “Queer couples who decide to jointly create and raise a child with another queer person or couple, in two households,” should be given governmental and private recognition. In other words, gay men and lesbians who do not even live under the same roof should be able to adopt a child and then be given exactly the same kinds of governmental benefits afforded normal marital unions. To top things off, every private institution [read: religious organizations] should be forced to do likewise.

Feldblum, however, sensing that her nomination is in trouble, announced just days ago that she wants her name taken off the anti-marriage and anti-family document. This is a farce. She is running scared: she knew what she was signing and waited until the 11th hour to bolt. Only a fool would be fooled by this patently insincere move.

The source of the problem is democracy. Decades of so-called “progressive” thought have led us to abandon the limited-government, constitutional republic established by our founding fathers. In the name of putting more power into the hands of "the people," the government has arrogated sweeping powers.

There is a famous passage (possibly cobbled together from several separate statements and authors) that explains democracy’s fatal flaw, the inherently self-destructive element that caused our founding fathers to distrust democracy (google “James Madison on democracy” for more):

“A democracy is always temporary in nature; it simply cannot exist as a permanent form of government. A democracy will continue to exist up until the time that voters discover that they can vote themselves generous gifts from the public treasury. From that moment on, the majority always votes for the candidates who promise the most benefits from the public treasury, with the result that every democracy will finally collapse due to loose fiscal policy, which is always followed by a dictatorship.”

Crude, majoritarian democracy (as in, “there are more of us than there are of you, so we’re going to redistribute your wealth”) inevitably undermines the harmony of society. A free market, as competitive as it is, is based on peaceful, voluntary cooperation. When commerce is free and unfettered by government interference, both sides to a transaction normally gain, thereby promoting social harmony.

Democracy, by contrast, engenders social conflict. Money changes hands by force of the taxman and the threat of imprisonment, not voluntarily. Democracy pits citizens against each other in a sordid squabble whereby many strive to have the state confer benefits seized from their fellow citizens.

Today, Washington redistributes trillions of dollars annually, so the capital is swarmed by battalions of lobbyists, representing myriad special interests, each trying to secure more political rent from government than what government takes from them. As the late, great economist Hans Sennholz described it, the democratic "transfer society" resembles the absurd spectacle of a circle of people, each trying to pick his neighbor’s pocket. How can there be social harmony when everyone is trying to rip off someone else?

This process of using government to extract wealth from other citizens (dubbed “legal plunder” by the 19^th -century French economist Frederic Bastiat in his brilliant essay, “The Law”) has reached the point where Uncle Sam is essentially bankrupt. (See “We’re Broke.” ) With government spending and deficits soaring under the present administration, the day of reckoning approaches. If foreigners should decide to cut their losses and balk at financing any more of our debt, either interest rates will soar, collapsing the economy, or the Fed will monetize all the debt, collapsing the dollar and the economy.

Can that day of cataclysm be postponed? Perhaps the wealth-redistribution system can be kept on life support a while longer, if government can confiscate a much larger share of the middle class’ wealth (yes, the middle class, because there aren’t enough rich people to finance all of Uncle Sam’s promises) or by dramatically slashing benefits.

When that momentous day arrives, there will be a lot of angry Americans. One might say that the so-called “social contract” will be broken, but the problem is, there isn’t just one such “contract.” There are two, and they are fundamentally and irreconcilably opposed to each other.

One “contract” is the government’s long-standing promise to support those in need. Many Americans have been taught to believe that they are entitled to a share of other people’s property, even if they have contributed nothing of value to society themselves and have made poor choices. The other social “contract” is the traditional implicit promise of America: namely, that if you work hard, you are entitled to the fruits of your labor.

When a financial crackup occurs, those who have been taught to depend on government will demand continued government benefits. If government fails to provide them, those demands could turn violent. On the other hand, if government moves to confiscate a significant chunk of whatever wealth remains in the hands of an already-hurting middle class, then millions of peaceful, law-abiding, hard-working Americans may finally reach the breaking point and rebel, as our forebears did in the 1770s, against a government viewed as abusive and oppressive.

How bad could it get? If the social order breaks down, civil unrest could disrupt markets and shortages of essential goods could occur. The resulting chaos could trigger martial law. A strong leader—a Caesar—could institute some sort of command order. Millions would resent it, but it would be accepted, because the alternative—civil conflict, chronic disorder, and impending starvation—would be intolerable. In such a calamity, Caesar would be the lesser of two evils. The American Republic and Constitution would join earlier democracies in the ashbin of history.

God help us.

House Democrats are celebrating a first-round victory in the battle to nationalize America’s health care system—a victory claimed on behalf of every American’s right to high-quality, affordable health care [cue patriotic music].  Opponents of the House bill are not without a victory of their own, however.  Thanks to Bart Stupak, Joe Pitts, and 238 pro-life representatives from both sides of the aisle, the tradition of the Hyde Amendment has been upheld: federal funds will not be used to finance abortion as part of any government-managed health care plan—at least for now.  Those seeking abortions will have to pay for the procedure without the unwitting aid of the American taxpayer.

The pro-abortion camp is incensed by the passage of the Stupak-Pitts Amendment, denouncing the move as “an unprecedented overreach into women’s basic rights and freedoms in this country.”  Aside from the irony of complaining about government overreach at the same time as they are stumping for a government takeover of America’s health care system, the assertion that basic rights and freedoms are at stake unless tax monies are used to fund the killing of innocents again demonstrates the logical and moral incoherence of the pro-abortion position.  This absurd position demonstrates that Lincoln’s words are as true today as they were when he surmised that, though all Americans declare for liberty, we have yet to reach a consensus on what liberty actually is and to whom it applies.

America fought a bloody civil war because of our inability to agree on the meaning and scope of liberty.  In the dark days of the pre-war South, a slave’s existence was contingent entirely upon his master’s goodwill.  If the master decided to sell him, or beat him, or kill him, that was the final word on the matter.  The slave did not enjoy basic human freedoms because, in the eyes of the law, a slave was not really a person.

A century and a half later, it is no longer skin color that provokes controversy over the question of liberty, but other criteria such as size, age, and location (inside or outside the womb).  Because we have decided that they are not “persons,” the continued existence of the unborn has become entirely contingent upon the whims of the mother.  The pro-abortion camp insists that an unborn child only counts when it is wanted.  Rights have nothing to do with the matter—it’s really all about wants.  Thus, when a woman who has decided she wants to be a mother suffers a miscarriage, society views it as a tragedy and a cause for mourning.  Yet if this same woman carries her child for nine months only to decide at the eleventh hour that she is not willing to accept the responsibility of motherhood, she can destroy the child, and society is expected to defend her “right” to do so.  And if Nancy Pelosi has the final say, your tax dollars will pay for it!

What abortion advocates ignore is that unless we first preserve the right to life, all other rights are meaningless.  Rights mean nothing to a corpse.  Life is necessary to enjoy freedoms and exercise rights—including the so-called right to healthcare.

Thus, those who insist that Americans have a right to healthcare and a right to taxpayer-funded abortions suffer from a severe form of moral schizophrenia.  And their claims that the Constitution supports their warped position only add insult to injury.  In order to maintain any form of coherence, they should rest their arguments on the writings of Friedrich Nietzsche or Peter Singer and leave the Constitution out of it.

As unlawful enemy combatants, Mohammed and his fellow jihadists are not entitled under the Geneva Convention to any judicial review.  President Obama himself has said that there are scores of individuals being held at Guantanamo Bay - the so-called “worst of the worst” - who cannot be tried but must nonetheless be detained indefinitely.  Such treatment should certainly be applied to a man who is arguably the very worst of the worst of the worst.

Mr. Holder’s insistence that KSM and Company should come to the very heart of the city that is the biggest target for international terrorism is flawed on so many grounds that it is hard to escape the conclusion that the decision has more to do with President Obama’s determination to close Gitmo than it does with ensuring justice is done.  After all, if the most dangerous of our enemies can be safely brought to America soil, why can’t the rest?

Consider just a few of the problems that seem likely seriously to complicate, if not preclude, the conviction of the 9/11 plotters:

• The moment they set foot in this country, all will be accorded constitutional rights to which they are not entitled - but from which they will extract considerable benefit.  For example, they will have access to the best defense counsel, men and women determined to use civil liberties designed to protect the innocent to secure release of the guilty.  Many of these lawyers comprise what is known as the “Guantanamo bar,” including attorneys from Mr. Holder’s former law firm and some of his senior subordinates now responsible for detainee policy at the Department of  Justice.

• The attorneys will point out that, when apprehended, the accused were not read their Miranda rights.  That was because, of course, they didn’t have any.  But that was then and this is now.

• The terrorists’ lawyers will also try to exploit the government’s reluctance to compromise intelligence sources and methods, in the hope of ensuring that the cost to the national security of prosecuting their clients will become excessive.

• The defense will work hard to reveal as much as possible of the enhanced interrogation techniques and other means used to extract information from hardened  terrorists like KSM.  In particular, they will endlessly trumpet the fact that Mohammed was subjected to one of those techniques - waterboarding - on over 180 occasions.  (Never mind that afterwards he divulged invaluable information that prevented new attacks, made it possible to roll up al Qaeda operatives and saved American and others’ lives.)  My guess is that the defendants will ask Messrs. Obama and Holder to testify on why they consider such a practice to be “torture.”

Then, there is the probability that the defense will successfully argue that they can’t find an impartial jury in the city profoundly traumatized by the 9/11 attacks.  The Washington Times reported Monday that Sen. Jack Reed, Democrat of Rhode Island, believes “‘The people in New York who saw the towers fall’ would be the ideal people to judge the September 11 terrorists.”  But will a federal judge agree?  And if not, will the security arrangements in the alternative venue be as good as we are assured they are in New York?

Speaking of security, as with the various locations where Team Obama is trying to dump the rest of the Gitmo detainees (including most recently an Illinois prison 150 miles from Chicago), the problem is only partly one of ensuring the prisoners are unable to escape.  The surrounding communities assuredly become higher-value, as well as inherently “soft” (read, easy), targets for further terrorist attacks.

Even if the likes of KSM can be safely confined in our prisons, that does not mean they pose no danger.  FBI Director Robert Mueller has publicly warned that such rock stars of the Shariah-mandated jihadist movement constitute a grave threat in our penal system as they inspire, recruit and train other prisoners. This is not a hypothetical risk:  Several recently uncovered terrorist plots in this country involved individuals who joined the jihad in American jails.

To be sure, if Khalid Shaikh Mohammed goes to trial in civilian court, he might again plead guilty.  Even if he does not, he might be convicted.  Years from now, he might even get the death penalty.

There are, however, real and unacceptably high risks associated with trying to secure such outcomes in U.S. federal court.

One thing is clear already:  Neither American values, the families of those who lost loved ones on 9/11 nor rest of us are going to be well served by affording Mohammed and his co-conspirators a platform for waging lawfare and political warfare against us.  The proper way to deal with such unrepentant psychopaths who justify their murderous actions by Shariah is to include them in the group Mr. Obama intends to lock up forever without trial - and to do so at the most secure prison in the world: Guantanamo Bay.

When the bill to promote homosexual marriage was first introduced in D.C., the Archdiocese of Washington was fine with it. That’s because it protected the right of churches and other houses of worship not to perform gay marriages. But then gay overreach took place: the language was changed to narrow the religious liberty protections. Because the archdiocese fears that the new language could be used to force it to provide health benefits to gay couples, and allow for gay adoption, it said it could not abide by the revised bill. In practical terms, this means that Catholic Charities would suspend its city services, a move that would terminate its medical clinics, foster care and adoption services, tutoring for GED tests, mental health services, homeless shelters, etc.

The reaction from the Church’s critics has not only been harsh, it has been over the top. “What the Church is doing is an uncharitable and cruel maneuver,” wrote Petula Dvorak in the Washington Post. In the Huffington Post, Allison Kilkenny concluded that “If gay folk can marry, the Catholic church refuses to feed the homeless.” Adele M. Stan at AlterNet said that this decision, along with the bishops’ opposition to a health care bill that offered abortion coverage, “serve the bishops’ obsession with the sex lives and reproductive organs of others.” She showed her true colors when she opined, “As an institution, it [the Catholic Church] ranks among the world’s most sexually dysfunctional.”

If Alabama Governor George Wallace had told the Archdiocese of Mobile that as a condition of receiving state aid for social services it had to cease performing interracial marriages, few would have criticized the archdiocese for exercising its doctrinal prerogatives. Indeed, it may even have been applauded for doing so. Now it should not matter what the issue is that the Church decides it cannot in good conscience support—what should matter is its First Amendment religious liberty right to do so. The unprincipled, of course, cannot understand such logic.

Here’s why. Notwithstanding their rhetoric of freedom and empowerment, many prominent black leaders appear content to send blacks back to the government plantation—where a small number of Washington elites make decisions for blacks who aren’t in the room. Why do minority leaders not favor alternatives that demonstrate faith in the intelligence and dignity of people to manage their own lives?

In a sermon at Howard University, the Rev. Jeremiah Wright reminded university students that, “Racism is alive and well. Racism is how this country was founded and how this country is still run.” During the presidential campaign, Wright explained to his parishioners that America is “a country and culture controlled by rich white people.” But if racists and “rich white people” control America, why do those sympathetic to Wright assume that those same people will look out for the health of blacks?

If Princeton religion professor Cornel West was right in his 2008 book, Hope on a Tight Rope, that “the very discovery that black people are human beings is a new one,” then shouldn’t blacks raise questions about centralizing health care decisions in a bureaucracy peopled by officials who are only recently cognizant of minorities’ humanity? “White brothers and sisters have been shaped by 244 years of white supremacist slavery, 87 years of white supremacist Jim and Jane Crow, and then another 40 years in which progress has been made” but “the stereotypes still cut deep,” West wrote. He admits “relative progress for a significant number of black people,” but warns that there has not been “some kind of fundamental transformation” in America. Dr. West asserts that “white supremacy is married to capitalism.” If that is true, then why would we want to set up a health-care system that strengthens the government sanction of health-care provision by businesses?

If Georgetown University sociology professor Michael Eric Dyson is correct about the current racial and structural injustice impeding poor blacks, then there is cause for concern. In response to Bill Cosby’s “conservative” reflections on black America in 2006, the Rev. Dr. Dyson wrote, “Cosby is hell bent on denying that race and structural forces play any role in the lives of the poor.” He continued by saying, “The plane of black progress lifts on the wings of personal responsibility and social justice.” If race and structural forces are at work against blacks, why not promote personal responsibility and justice by liberating them from dependence on those structures and putting them in a position to call their own shots?

If CNN analyst Roland Martin was right on February 18, 2009, when he said, “while everyone seems to be caught up in the delusion of a post-racial America, we cannot forget the reality of the racial America, where African-Americans were treated and portrayed as inferior and less than others,” then shouldn’t blacks be concerned about centralized health care, which will tether them ever more securely to a fundamentally corrupt political system? We cannot hope for change, after all: Martin insists that “the realities of race” are “being played out in our communities each day,” and had earlier reminded us that when it comes to white racism blacks should “accept the fact that some people will not change” (September 10, 2008).

Many black leaders seem confused on this point. If America has a race problem, then it will manifest itself in both public and private sectors. Expanding Medicare and Medicaid only subjects poor blacks to more government control. Economic empowerment and returning health decisions to black people are the only way to eradicate concerns about structural injustice. When health-care providers compete for their patronage, blacks are empowered and control their own destinies. Economic freedom in health care is a moral and civil-rights issue because for too long blacks have suffered the indignity of having political structures make surrogate decisions about their bodies.

Black leaders should encourage policymakers to make health more affordable by giving individuals absolute control over their earnings with concomitant power to choose their own health plan. Instead, they are conspiring with Congress to lead us back to the plantation.

Stone finds it troubling that the bishops are so vocal. He yearns for a time when JFK was president, a time when separation of church and state met his approval. Perhaps the Chicago law professor forgot about Rev. Martin Luther King, the minister who took to the pulpit and lobbied for civil rights in the name of free speech and religious liberty. Should King have been muzzled as well? Or just today’s bishops?

As the following list discloses, Stone is hardly alone in trying to censor the bishops: Rep. Lynn Woolsey, Rep. Diana DeGette, Rep. Patrick Kennedy, Frances Kissling, Planned Parenthood, Feminist Majority, Catholics for Choice, Americans United for Separation of Church and State, the National Organization for Women, and many others favor a gag rule. On Nov. 12, Nancy Snyderman of MSNBC spoke for many when she said that “This is going to be a Pollyannaish statement. The Catholic bishops appearing and having a political voice seems to be a most fundamental violation of church and state.” Brilliant.

The following is a partial list of religious groups that want abortion coverage in the health care bill: Rabbinical Assembly, Women’s League for Conservative Judaism, Episcopal Church, Society for Humanistic Judaism, Jewish Reconstructionist Federation, Union for Reform Judaism, Central Conference of American Rabbis, North American Federation of Temple Youth, United Church of Christ, United Methodist Church, Unitarian Universalist, Presbyterian Church (USA), Women of Reform Judaism, Society for Humanistic Judaism, Church of the Brethren Women’s Caucus, Reconstructionist Rabbinical Association, Lutheran Women’s Caucus, Christian Lesbians Out, YWCA.

So why don’t Stone and company want to gag these groups as well? Let’s face it: they don’t have a principled bone in their collective bodies.

But have we really been supporting them?

Sure, we thank them when we see them at the airport.

We attend parades and Veterans Day events to show our appreciation.

And with good reason.

According to the Department of Veterans Affairs, nearly 42 million American men and women have served during wartime.

Nearly 1.2 million died while serving. Nearly 1.5 million were wounded.

Since 9/11, more than 5,200 have died in Iraq and Afghanistan. Nearly 36,000 have been wounded — many have debilitating injuries that have changed their lives forever.

We may debate the rightness or wrongness of various engagements, but we know that freedom comes at a steep price — and we honor those who have secured it for us.

But are we really supporting the troops?

During the peak of World War II, American defense spending was 42 percent of our gross domestic product.

Everyone — those who served as well as those who stayed home — needed to unite and sacrifice.

Today, defense spending is around 3 percent of GDP. The wars in Iraq and Afghanistan have required little or no sacrifice from most.

We haven’t paid higher taxes to fund the wars — our government continues to borrow the money for that.

We haven’t needed to buy war bonds or work long hours at a factory to produce tanks and planes.

We haven’t given up vacations, new cars, gasoline, meat, sugar and the hundreds of other items that were rationed during World War II.

Most haven’t done so for a simple reason: Our support of the troops has not been a matter of need, but a matter of choice.

Aside from our goodwill and appreciation, the fact is this: Many have chosen to not support the troops much at all.

As you read this, thousands of soldiers are serving in hostile conditions. Some will be badly wounded — some won’t make it home.

They don’t want our pity, to be sure. They are trained warriors. They volunteered to serve.

But they could use a little support — and we don’t have to sacrifice much to provide it.

“There are many small things people can do that can make a world of difference,” says Jerry Newberry, director of communications for the Veterans of Foreign Wars (VFW).

Such as assisting the family of a service member who has been deployed.

“Family members go through a long period of wondering, worrying and waiting,” says Newberry. “But they still need to deal with the car breaking down, a child getting sick, a death in the family. If you know of such families, reach out to them.”

Or write an e-mail. The troops — particularly those recuperating in military hospitals — love receiving e-mails (www.ourmilitary.mil), letters and care packages.

Donate time. Your local Veterans Affairs office, VFW and other legitimate organizations are in need of volunteers.

Organize a toy drive for children of deployed soldiers. Support the Marine Corps Toys for Tots program. Provide gift cards to troops through aafes.com.

Donate money. You can give to a variety of needed services for military members — or support the Red Cross to provide basic necessities to service members in military hospitals.

Just go to vfw.org and click on “Donate” or “Troop Support.”

Hey, Veterans Day is upon us. What better time to offer real support to our men and women in uniform?

On September 30, the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops sent a letter to the U.S. Senate saying, “So far, the health reform bills considered in committee, including the new Senate Finance Committee bill, have not met President Obama’s challenge of barring use of federal dollars for abortion.”

We now know that President Obama—who is lobbying to excise the abortion restrictions that the bishops wanted—has betrayed the bishops. Here is how New York Times reporter Robert Pear put it today: “President Obama suggested Monday that he was not comfortable with abortion restrictions inserted into the House version of major health care legislation, and he prodded Congress to revise them.” Although Obama spoke out of both sides of his mouth in his ABC News interview, Pear’s statement is an accurate reflection of the president’s position.

The manly thing for the president to do would be to state the obvious: his love for abortion rights brooks no compromise. But he won’t do so, choosing instead to play the same old shell game he’s been playing all along. And he is not alone. For months, we have been told that the bill does not cover funds for abortion, yet if that were true, there would have been no need for the Stupak amendment, and no resistance to it.

This has been a great moment for the bishops, and for Catholics generally, but the fight is not over. It’s important that those on both sides know exactly who the players are on each team.