Dakota Beacon

Economists and pundits alike are going wild over the United Kingdom’s recent “double dip” recession. The 2008-09 recession prompted the election of a conservative coalition led by Prime Minister David Cameron. Cameron decided the best path for economic recovery was “austerity,” a program of reduced government spending and smaller government debt. The new coalition—with the aid of Chancellor of the Exchequer George Osborne—sought to drastically slash the government budget. With the addition of increased taxes, the plan was dubbed “Tax and Axe.”

Two years later, the United Kingdom is back in recession. Keynesian economists are enjoying a savory “I told you so” moment, as many pointed out the dangers of austerity during troubled times. The logic runs as follows: when businesses, households, and governments all try to pay back their debts at the same time, they spend less. As they spend less, national income falls, leading to even less spending. This sets off a cycle of decreased spending and economic collapse.

The Keynesian solution is government spending. It goes like this: Governments can increase spending during recessions to keep national income up, preventing the spending collapse. In short, more stimulus is the answer.

In turn, many progressives in the United States are arguing that any similar austerity here (such as Congressman Paul Ryan’s budget plan) would have equally bad results: another recession.

Unfortunately, this reasoning is based on a faulty premise. Here is the reality: There is no austerity in the United Kingdom.

Quite the contrary, government spending in Britain has increased in the last two years, and will continue for the foreseeable future. In real terms (based on estimated inflation and GDP growth), spending was set to decrease this fiscal year. Unfortunately, this prediction was made on the assumption of positive yet small GDP growth. As we now know, this assumption was bad and GDP shrank, heralding a recession.

Public debt in the United Kingdom continues to rise. The 2012 budget clearly outlines increases in public debt all the way until 2016 (when the predictions stop). To top it all off, these numbers exclude the 2008-09 emergency financial interventions. The financial sector in the United Kingdom took a hit in the previous recession and was promptly bailed out in 2009. Since then, the government has borrowed an additional 124 billion pounds to keep banks afloat.

Furthermore, some British think tanks estimate that only around 6 percent of Cameron’s cuts have been implemented, with the remaining 94 percent still waiting to actually be cut by 2016-17. Is this “austerity” (itself a loaded term) in any sense of the word? Suppose you were driving towards a cliff. Is it enough to ease off the gas pedal, or do you need to hit the brakes?

Economists such as Paul Krugman are already branding Europe’s approach a failure. In many ways, it is. But what is really at stake is the real reason things are failing. We cannot allow history to think that the United Kingdom tried austerity. It is simply not true. If we interpret this wrong, we will get the wrong historical lessons.

In fact, something similar happened during the onset of the Great Depression. Herbert Hoover was in office when panic struck and the history books claim he tried free-market principles, which failed. In the first year of the depression, 1931, federal expenditures rose from $4.2 billion to $5.5 billion. The federal government incurred a $2.2-billion deficit the same year. In 1932, Hoover raised taxes.

Sound familiar? Despite the fact that President Hoover increased government spending and debt, his approach was labeled “free market.” The exact opposite is true. When running against Franklin Roosevelt, Hoover actually argued that Roosevelt would make things worse by lowering taxes and decreasing spending. Roosevelt responded by accusing Hoover’s administration of being a profligate spender.

The same classification error is happening again today. The United Kingdom has raised taxes, increased government spending, and taken on more debt. This is the exact opposite of the clear meaning of austerity. What sort of Orwellian doublespeak is being used when “free market” means more government?

Of course, the situation in the United Kingdom is not identical to the United States. Exact comparisons and examples do not translate. One thing we do know, however, is that the British have not attempted to rein in out-of-control government spending. Like many governments, Britain scheduled cuts years into the future and continue to pile on debt. Before we even consider the failure of austerity in England, we must first be convinced austerity has really happened.

— Kyle Latham is a contributor to The Center for Vision & Values and a May 2012 graduate of Grove City College who will be pursuing a graduate degree in economics. He is a winner of the Atlas Economic Research Foundation’s 2010 Sound Money Contest with his paper on “Concerns for the Utilitarian and Ethical Characteristics of Money.”

© 2012 by The Center for Vision & Values at Grove City College. The views & opinions
expressed herein may, but do not necessarily, reflect the views of Grove City College

In a previous column, I observed that "the presidency is ... a Superman's job. Nobody should be given - or trusted with - that much power and responsibility. Nobody can possibly handle it.

"By abandoning our Constitution, in which the legislative branch is supreme, we have permitted the executive branch to assume a centrality it was never meant to have. The president is now said to be our 'leader.' He's expected to provide governance, protection, economic expertise, geopolitical cunning, and inspiration, among other things; and of course he also has to have a talent for raising money and winning elections.

"Rare is the man who can master even one of these disparate, unrelated, almost miscellaneous skills. Requiring all of them is like asking a single individual to excel at playing the harpsichord, logical theory, standup comedy, chess, and pole-vaulting."

This, of course, raises the natural question, Why, then, am I running for the presidency? Am I arrogant enough to believe I possess all these qualities?

Not at all. Some people find me cocky, but at least I'm humble enough to admit I'm mortal: aging, slowing down, with thinning hair and thickening waistline. I'm incapable of ruling the world. Elect me, and you'll at least get a president who knows his limitations.

As for raising money and winning elections, well, let me just check the coffers here ... nope, still empty. Actually, I haven't asked for campaign donations. I'm not planning to cross the continent seeking votes, giving speeches, shaking hands, kissing babies. I'm planning to campaign on the cheap, right here at my keyboard, and let the Internet work its magic. Either people will get the message and write in my name, or they won't.

Not surprisingly, the liberal media are ignoring my campaign. So are the conservative media, which is not surprising either, since they don't want conservatives to know there is actually a presidential candidate who takes the U.S. Constitution seriously, even when it interferes with the right-wing agenda of making war all over the place.

Which brings me to my campaign promise: as president, I will veto any act of Congress I deem unconstitutional; I will impound any funds Congress appropriates for unconstitutional purposes; and I will refuse to enforce any Federal law on the books if it isn't authorized by the Constitution. I will ask Congress to repeal most existing Federal laws and spending programs.

Faulty decisions of the U.S. Supreme Court will also be unenforced. In fact, no Federal law will be enforced in the former Confederate States of America, since I will recognize the right of those states to secede from the Union and consider the Lincoln administration's denial of their sovereignty grossly unconstitutional. I will abide by the Declaration of Independence, which declares that all the states "are, and of Right ought to be, Free and Independent States."

All this will guarantee my swift impeachment and removal from the presidency, since Congress will surely regard keeping my oath to uphold the Constitution as chief among "high crimes and misdemeanors." But I can always run again in 2008, 2012, and so forth.

In the unlikely event that I am allowed to serve out my term, what will be my economic policy? Since I don't have the infinite foresight socialist planning and "running the economy" require, I will try to see that every American is permitted to spend his own money as he sees fit. My "policy" will simply be to respect all private ownership.

Foreign policy? Since I regard virtually all existing foreign governments as forming an axis of evil, I will avoid engagement with all of them. I will seek peace and friendly commerce with all countries; if they choose to make war with each other, the United States will remain aloof. Such a peace policy, now absurdly labeled "isolationism," was commended by George Washington and Thomas Jefferson.

Civil rights? I will try to restore one of the most basic of them: the right to associate, or to refuse to associate, with any person. Compulsory association, racial favoritism, and restrictions on the use of property aren't "civil rights."

Adherence to these simple principles won't put much of a strain on my meager abilities. It seems to me the only way an honest man can exercise the awesome power and responsibility of the presidency.

###

[This column was published originally by Griffin Internet Syndicate on January 2, 2003.]

###

The Reactionary Utopian by Joe Sobran is copyright (c) 2012

by the Fitzgerald Griffin Foundation http://www.fgfbooks.com.

All rights reserved. It may be forwarded if attribution

is given to the author and fgfBooks.com.

Among the natural rights of the colonists are these: First a right to life, secondly to liberty, and thirdly to property; together with the right to defend them in the best manner they can.  Samuel Adams

Where an excess of power prevails, property of no sort is duly respected. No man is safe in his opinions, his person, his faculties, or his possessions.  James Madison

 Almost any government activity can also be seen as taking property "without just compensation." The basic model of an unconstitutional "taking" would be if the government threw you out of your house. Michael Kinsley

(Who needs Samuel Adams, James Madison or even Michael Kinsley . . . when we have Corey Fong?)

Recently, the president of the ND Chamber of Commerce, Andy Peterson, used the police to attempt to intimidate townhall attendee, Palmer Reising, for raising an inconvenient question about the use of taxpayer funding for the Chamber’s anti-Measure 2 campaign.  Reising referenced threatening body language as a part of the attempt to stifle his question. (Rob Port, sayanythingblog, May 5).

Reprehensible, indeed, but what body language could be as effective as an eviction notice to someone who, after years of belief that he owned his home, hundreds of thousands of dollars in payments over 30 years in principle, interest and property tax, is laid off, retired, his pension fund raided by the scum who do that sort of thing, who finds that therefore he can't pay his tax.

One of the prime features of a free society is the RIGHT to OWN PROPERTY. In North Dakota, as in many other places, this "right" does not exist in reality. It is a mirage. The proud "homeowner" here is nothing more than a tenant of the state. THE STATE OWNS "YOUR" HOME. There IS no "right of ownership" when the state (i.e. the county) can take your home away from you because you can't pay the rent on it. Property tax is the rent you pay the government for the right to occupy the property you thought was yours. It is a cruel deception.

Many people invest in "buying" their homes because they believe it is a rock-solid "investment" that will hold its value as they end their working careers and retire - a very important part of their life's work, in fact. Well, in fact, it isn't. It is only a very expensive lease.

Of all taxes, property tax is the most regressive - the hardest on the poor. Every renter pays it to his landlord, who then sends it on to the government. Every hard-working homeowner struggles for decades to "retire" his debt by the time he is himself retired. The elderly are then at the greatest risk of losing their home and shelter. They, and of course the disabled or those whose work ends sooner than expected through loss of business (ever hear of that during this depression?) or loss of the job they depended upon.

Nearly any other form of taxation is more fair to the poor, the elderly, the disabled and the under- or unemployed, temporarily or otherwise. Income tax is tied to actual income. If you lose that income the tax goes down with it. Sales tax is mostly - or can be structured to be mostly - voluntary. If you can't afford the tax on the new car or the electronics gadgets or the home improvement or the other stuff, you can decide to save longer for it or do without it. No one will put you out of your home and steal your life’s investment.

The reason why anyone would want to retain this property tax - which is high, compared with many other parts of the nation - is the addiction of “government types” to that unending stream of income – and power. They are government types instead of entrepreneurs precisely because they have not the vision to see what an opportunity looks like. North Dakota has billions in reserves. Yet these people want to continue to extort large taxes from struggling "homeowners" just so they can keep doing what they're doing and stay in their comfort zone. They don't ever stop to think of the stimulation the elimination of this tax would be to North Dakota's economy. The climate it would create for long-term business investment and construction of desperately needed homes, the relief that it would provide to North Dakota citizens who could then plan investments of their own here. Or just pump some much-needed cash into the economy through patronizing other businesses here. That is the key difference between a giver and a taker. The taker is grasping and clinging to THAT WHICH IS NOT HIS. The giver is more interested in what works than in hanging on to someone else's stuff.

So what is in this for these graspers?  The astute reader will note that every time a city or county – or the state itself – wants to lure in an out-of-state investor the first line of enticement is to offer the tax abatement.  “No tax for you – the rest of the community will carry your load for you if you come here.”  Perfect.  For them.  And for the magnanimous bureaucrats and city councils who offer it.  But you, the homeowner, won’t see that kind of treatment.  You’ll be expected to pay for XYZ Corporation  or be thrown out of your home.  No excuses accepted.  No exceptions.  The thinking here is that this is a great come-on for investment in the community and YOU’LL be the big beneficiary because of the great effect it will have on your local community!  Yea!  So, why not exponentially increase this benefit?  Why not spread it around to all taxpayers?  Because, obviously, if you did THAT, you wouldn’t have all that power and influence to peddle anymore.  And that would be a shame.  No more sweetheart deals, no more kickbacks.  Just plain old opportunity for all North Dakotans.  No more unfair advantages to sell.

The State Tax Commissioner has officially projected a 7.7% increase in property tax over the next ten years.  Let’s just cut to the chase and call that a 77% increase over the next ten years.  There’s not a thing you can do about it.  Will that be difficult for you?  Will that raise housing costs?  Will that discourage construction (when we desperately need this investment in the oil industry)?  You think?  Well, there IS one thing you can do.  Vote YES on Measure 2 and put this specter back in its box for good. 

Will the local fire department be shut down?  No.  The measure provides for full funding based on the current full funding.  Will it hurt the schools?  No.  The measure provides full funding here as well.  Will it rob us of “local control”?  No. Because in Measure 2 itself, it provides that the decision making will remain local and the spending discretion will remain local.  There is no threat at all to “local control”.  The “KIL” (Keep It Local) gang would have you believe otherwise, would attempt to cover this up.  But it’s right there in the measure.  Read it.  By voting Yes you will hurt only one entity – the consortium of big government hacks, parasitic agencies and those who wish to retain this power to gift some at the expense of others.  At your expense.  They don’t mind that these taxes are lower today than they will be at any time in the foreseeable future.  That will be your problem, not theirs.  Just try to argue with them when your bill comes due and you can’t pay it.  Will it matter who’s right then?  Who has made the investment?  It is not your County Commission who has paid your mortgage and your taxes and interest all these years, not they who have maintained and improved your home, not they who have paid for insurance for 40 years, haggled with them over minor claims.  It is just they who will come like a thief in the night at disposses you of that property if your good fortune comes a cropper and you lose a job, a business, your health or your youth.  There are givers and takers.

Arguably, it is far easier to go to your state legislator with your petition for support.  Your state representative or senator is acutely aware that you have leverage – your vote.  Think about it – do you even KNOW who your county commissioners ARE?  Do you know whom you send to Bismarck?  More likely.  County commissioners thrive on their relative anonymity.  They coast back into office without anyone paying much attention. What they do is mostly not “page one” material.  They work quietly to assess your valuations and bill you for the taxes.  They quietly take away your home if you can’t pay – after your name has been smeared in the legal notices, of course.  You are always on the defensive.  Yes, you can vote for or against them, but do you know them?  Do they campaign on issues that seem relevant?  Will one do anything differently from another? 

North Dakota continues to be dominated by the takers in this equation. Let us hope that the people of this state will overcome their timidity, look beyond the small minded threats of these desperate takers and above all, recognize the necessity of true property ownership in the scheme of a free society. IT IS SIMPLE: IT IS IMMORAL TO DEPRIVE AN 'OWNER' OF HIS PROPERTY AND CALL IT 'TAX'. THE RIGHT NAME FOR THIS IS 'THEFT'.  If you want to do your state and its citizens a real service, VOTE YES on MEASURE 2.

Sally Morris is a member of Americans for Constitutional Government and the Executive Committee of the Valley Tea Party Conservative Coalition. 

Editor’s note: A longer version of this article first appeared at American Spectator.

Congressman Allen West (R-Fla.) is being heavily criticized for comments alleging that certain Democratic members of Congress are communists, and he is not backing down. West dared to quantify his accusation, claiming there are “78 to 81” Congressional Democrats who are communists.

I want to say three things relating to West’s remarks: First, some criticism of West’s critics. Second, a defense of West’s critics. And, finally, some criticism of West, which I offer constructively. I like Allen West and want him to succeed.

First, on West’s critics:

Their concern about West’s exaggeration and name-calling has little credibility coming from an ideology (liberalism) and political party (Democrats) who constantly engage in exaggeration and name-calling. I could point out a litany of examples. It’s as easy as the latest liberal/Democrat gambit accusing Republicans of a “war on women” merely because they believe the federal government shouldn’t force taxpayers to fund contraception and Planned Parenthood. For that crime, West’s colleague Maxine Waters called Republicans “demons.” Nancy Pelosi said they want women to “die on the floor”.  Dianne Feinstein insisted they want “to sock it to women.” Harry Reid claimed Reppublicans have placed a “bull’s eye on women.” Barbara Boxer described it as a “vendetta” against women. Congresswoman Barbara Lee summed it up as a GOP “war on women.”

I could go on and on. Google the words “George W. Bush” and “Hitler” or “Nazi.” Or recall the obscene statements from Democratic lawmakers regarding the Iraq war. Remember that Senator Dick Durbin compared our troops to “Nazis, Soviets in their gulags, or some mad regime—Pol Pot or others.”

But only when a Rush Limbaugh blows his top—or someone like Allen West issues charges like this one—does the New York Times start issuing calls for civility.

Point made. Now, for my second and third points:

Allen West needs to be much more careful. He sloppily overlapped categories and blurred lines of distinction. The reality is that the left side of the political spectrum is very broad. It includes Democrats, liberals, progressives, “social-justice” Christians, socialists, communists, Marxists, Leninists, Stalinists, Maoists, and more. There are distinct differences, even when a liberal Democrat favors something that Marx favored. For instance, point two in Marx’s 10-point plan in The Communist Manifesto calls for “a heavy progressive or graduated income tax.” Advocates of this include basically the entirety of the Democratic membership of the House of Representatives—but it doesn’t make them Marxists. Consider point three in Marx’s 10-point plan, which calls for “abolition of all rights of inheritance.” Many “liberals” and “progressives” advocate that to some degree (via taxation), but I know of no Congressional Democrat calling for complete abolition of all rights of inheritance.

Likewise, Marx wrote this: “the theory of the communists may be summed up in the single sentence: Abolition of private property.” Yes, liberals place all kinds of restrictions on private property, but I know of no Congressional Democrat who would go as far as Lenin and Stalin and Mao and Pol Pot and Castro.

Here’s the reality that often complicates things for conservatives when looking at the political left: Liberals agree with communists on many key sympathies—workers’ rights, spreading and redistributing wealth, a narrow to non-existent income gap, an expansive central government offering a wide array of “free” government services, favoring the public sector over the private sector, class-based rhetoric (often demagoguery) toward the wealthy, progressively high tax rates. The differences are matters of degree, but they are crucial differences.

Sure, Allen West didn’t say that every liberal in Congress is a communist. Yet, he did say that there is a huge portion. Even worse, he initially said that “78 to 81” were actual Communist Party members, or about 40 percent of the Democratic membership. Clearly that’s not accurate. If it is, then West should be chiseled into Mt. Rushmore for exposing the greatest threat to Washington since the War of 1812—and we should commence a national march to the Capitol right now, with torches.

I assume that West misspoke, and meant communists (lower case “c”) in ideology, not actual card-carrying Communist Party members.

Allen West has forgotten the painful lesson of Joe McCarthy: If you’re going to call certain people communists, you better be absolutely, 100 percent certain. There’s nothing that liberals detest more than anti-communism. Their preferred villain is Joe McCarthy, not Joe Stalin. They and their mass media will go ballistic, demanding a level of precision from you that they never demand from their own name-callers. Our side must be more cautious; that’s the deck stacked against us.

Allen West, your courage and boldness is refreshing, but please be more careful.

— Dr. Paul Kengor is professor of political science at Grove City College, executive director of The Center for Vision & Values, and author of the forthcoming book, “The Communist: Frank Marshall Davis, The Untold Story of Barack Obama’s Mentor.” His other books include "The Crusader: Ronald Reagan and the Fall of Communism" and "Dupes: How America’s Adversaries Have Manipulated Progressives for a Century."

© 2012 by The Center for Vision & Values at Grove City College. The views & opinions
expressed herein may, but do not necessarily, reflect the views of Grove City College.

Not long ago, I read that Hollywood is worried about a shortage of young male stars who can play big roles. I'm not surprised.

And I think I can give the chief reason in a single word: voices.

Think of the great male stars of the past: Humphrey Bogart, Edward G. Robinson, James Cagney, Spencer Tracy, John Wayne, Fredric March, Ronald Colman, Gary Cooper, James Stewart, William Powell, Cary Grant, Clark Gable, Laurence Olivier, Orson Welles, Richard Burton, Kirk Douglas, Burt Lancaster, Gregory Peck, Montgomery Clift. They weren't all pretty boys, though Cooper, Grant, Colman, Olivier, Peck, and Clift were extraordinarily good-looking; but they all had memorable voices. You can't picture them without recalling how they sounded. Nothing conveys personality so fully as the voice.

Burton's and Welles's resonant voices are legendary; but, as with the others, what was distinctive was less the timbre than their delivery. They put their stamp on every line they spoke. All these old stars did. Mimics loved them.

And today? There are plenty of handsome, ingratiating young stars - Tom Cruise, Matt Damon, Brad Pitt, Ben Affleck, Colin Farrell - but few of them have either good voices or recognizable styles of speaking. Their speech can only be called forgettable. That's why they can't play heroic roles convincingly; they can only play kids. You can hardly imagine them in serious conversation. Can you imagine any of these hunks carrying Casablanca, Rebecca, or From Here to Eternity, or holding his own with actresses like Katherine Hepburn, Bette Davis, or Myrna Loy? The mimics must be starving.

A notable exception is George Clooney, who combines good looks with a fine voice and real wit. He may be the best-equipped actor in Hollywood today, equal to both serious drama and romantic comedy. He knows what to do with a good line. Still, he lacks the special touch of the great old stars. Maybe it's that the scripts aren't what they used to be.

Another exception is Hugh Grant, who also has looks and voice and is probably the most charming actor in films today. It may help that he comes from England, where people tend to speak in complete sentences, sometimes without obscenities.

For the most part, only a few aging stars have riveting manners of speech that force you to listen: Paul Newman, Robert De Niro, Michael Caine, Sean Connery, Anthony Hopkins, Clint Eastwood, and above all Jack Nicholson. Give Nicholson a decent script, and he'll still bring down the house. Just by talking. Gene Hackman and Morgan Freeman also bring a measured conviction to every word they speak.

Ah, those scripts. In the old days, and let us not hesitate to call them the good old days, literate men like Morrie Ryskind, William Faulkner, Scott Fitzgerald, James Agee, and Raymond Chandler wrote screenplays worthy of the best actors. Today's writers are a pretty sorry lot, and anyway dialogue now plays a smaller part than violence and special effects. By the time the script reaches the screen it has been worked over by so many hacks that any inspiration in the original has usually been edited out. Many of the wittiest scripts in Hollywood today are written for animated films - Toy Story and Shrek, for example.

Many of the old stars also moved with a physical grace that is now rare. Cary Grant had been an acrobat, and it showed in his moments of slapstick; he brought consummate skill to looking awkward. Cagney started out as a dancer, and his agility made him exciting in his violent roles. Burton had been a star athlete. Olivier was the most charismatic stage actor of the last century; Agee wrote of him, "No actor since Chaplin has been so complete a master of everything the body can contribute to a role."

Brad Pitt beefed up impressively as Achilles in Troy, but it takes more than muscles to make a powerful screen presence; an actor has to be able to suggest danger even in repose. Marlon Brando could be ominous when he was merely chewing a matchstick - or just listening quietly. Pitt never conveys heroism except in a few violent moments; he doesn't grasp the truth of Artur Schnabel's remark that you have to play Mozart between the notes. A real artist knows how to use silence.

But the most popular male star in film history remains the one who captivated the world without speaking a word: Chaplin.

###

[This column was published originally by Griffin Internet Syndicate on April 3, 2005.]

###

The Reactionary Utopian by Joe Sobran is copyright (c) 2012

by the Fitzgerald Griffin Foundation http://www.fgfbooks.com.

All rights reserved. It may be forwarded if attribution

is given to the author and fgfBooks.com.

President Barack Obama’s five-point plan for turning the war back to the Afghans is designed to cover the withdrawal of U.S. and NATO forces and “forge a just and lasting peace.” What does the plan involve, and can it work?

Here are the five points:

0. Making Afghans responsible for their own security within two years
0. Training and operationalizing a 352,000-man Afghan security force
0. An enduring partnership with the United States providing training and counter-insurgency guidance
0. Pursuing a negotiated peace with the Taliban
0. Building a global consensus for peace

Afghanization—the practical consequence of the withdrawal of American forces—requires the strengthening of the Afghan military to withstand the Taliban. Elements fundamental to its success involve improving and modernizing the Afghan military, pacifying rural areas, strengthening the national political apparatus, delivering essential services while building a viable economy and, most importantly, ensuring security for the people.

Subsidiary tasks include expanding and improving the police, establishing democratic institutions down to the village level, restructuring the agricultural economy away from opium production, and rooting out the Taliban infrastructure. Given the non-specific nature of goals four and five in the president’s plan, the three essentials of Afghanization are: self-defense, self-government, and self-development.

Neutralizing the Taliban infrastructure is critical to extricating the U.S./NATO forces fighting in Afghanistan for the past decade. In part, this overly long commitment resulted from misjudging the nature of the war from the start, thinking it would be relatively easy to destroy al Qaeda and replace the Taliban government that nurtured and protected the terrorists. What are the obstacles successful Afghanization?

On the plus side, the Afghans are tough, resilient fighters who defeated Alexander the Great, thwarted British imperialism, humiliated the Soviets, and frustrated the U.S./NATO coalition. Molding the Afghans into a Western military image will be difficult. Unlike the Iraqis and Pakistanis, Afghans lack the British military tradition. That 86 percent of Afghan recruits are illiterate makes building a modern U.S.-style military a challenge. Leadership tends to be tribal and reflects the corruption rife in Afghan politics. Warriors abound but many of them are Taliban. Modern armies, however, require trained soldiers and effective leaders. Additionally, the security of advisors and trainers is integral to building a viable Afghan fighting force. So far, 20 percent of U.S. casualties have come at the hands of Afghan military personnel. This does not bode well for the advisory phase.

Item four in the Obama plan specifies a negotiated peace. Leverage is key to successful negotiations. President Obama declared, “A path to peace is now set before them (the Taliban). Those who refuse to walk it will face strong Afghan Security Forces, backed by the United States and our allies.” Is the president’s threat credible?

The Taliban knows that U.S. forces are leaving and 1,834 combat deaths (as of May 3, 2012,) have depleted American will. Given that Washington’s objective seems to be the extrication of U.S. combat forces by 2014, with an advisory contingent remaining, the enemy senses the “new day on the horizon” belongs to them. The Taliban responded to President Obama’s pre-dawn declaration with a daybreak attack within earshot of the U.S. embassy coupled to a strategic proclamation targeting U.S. military forces as well as Afghan security personnel and political leaders. Expect the Taliban to keep the pressure on during withdrawal.

The challenges of Afghanization mirror those of VIetnamization, which succeeded only in providing a patina for extracting U.S. forces from South Vietnam. The precursor to U.S. military involvement in Vietnam was the advisory and training phase that began in November 1961 but so failed to overcome cultural and military impediments that it required a massive U.S. military commitment starting in 1965 to forestall defeat. In 1969, when Vietnamization started in earnest, the original cultural and political challenges remained. Attempts to replicate the U.S. military structure focused on meeting the managerial imperatives of logistics rather than building armed forces able to withstand a North Vietnamese attack.

In the end, Vietnamization fulfilled President Richard Nixon’s vow to bring the troops home by the end of his first term. The president’s promise to South Vietnam’s President Nguyen Van Thieu to enforce the Paris Agreements of January 23, 1973 proved irrelevant following Nixon’s resignation in August 1974. Barely two years after the last U.S. troops departed South Vietnam, Saigon’s army disintegrated in the face of a concerted North Vietnamese attack. The South Vietnamese lacked military acumen and leadership and, most importantly, the will to fight … and so did the United States, whose Congress drastically cut appropriations needed to sustain the Industrial Age force Vietnamization rendered.

Afghanization succeeds only if it proceeds with a bodyguard of political and economic reforms compelling the Afghan people to fight for themselves. Otherwise, Afghanization only needs to endure until early November and the re-election of President Obama.

— Dr. Earl Tilford is a military historian and fellow for the Middle East & terrorism with The Center for Vision & Values at Grove City College. A retired Air Force intelligence officer, Dr. Tilford earned his PhD in American and European military history at George Washington University. From 1993 to 2001, he served as Director of Research at the U.S. Army’s Strategic Studies Institute. In 2001, he left Government service for a professorship at Grove City College, where he taught courses in military history, national security, and international and domestic terrorism and counter-terrorism.

© 2012 by The Center for Vision & Values at Grove City College. The views & opinions
expressed herein may, but do not necessarily, reflect the views of Grove City College.

We can’t drill our way to energy independence. Or so proclaims the president and many of his supporters. Here in Pennsylvania, the proclamation rings hollow; we are in the midst of a historic natural gas boom.

Pennsylvania has an abundant supply of natural gas locked up in the geology of the Marcellus Shale, thousands of feet below two-thirds of the state’s land surface. The Marcellus Shale natural gas resource is readily available for use for the entire nation’s energy independence and security. A recent estimate by the U.S. Geololgic Survey indicates that there are 84-trillion cubic feet of recoverable natural gas in the Marcellus Shale region and 3.4 billion barrels of natural gas liquids, too. That is enough natural gas to serve the entire needs of the nation far into the future. Almost unbelievably, there is another even potentially larger gas “play” that lies beneath the Marcellus shale, known as the Utica Shale.

A veritable endless supply of clean burning natural gas is at hand.

If you are not from Pennsylvania, this is how the gas boom looks: Recently, gas-supply companies have been petitioning the public utility commission for a rate reduction—a reduction from the already low rates (which is remarkable, given today’s economy). In what is no doubt a shock to practitioners of big government, this abundant natural resource is being made available at a reduced cost to the consumer, without the need for government mandate or directive, or without tax money “stimulus” or incentive. The invisible hand of the free market is at work here in the Commonwealth.

In addition, Shell Oil Company has announced the redevelopment of a historic industrial site to construct a $2.5-billion petrochemical ethane “cracker” plant, which will convert the “wet gas” from the Marcellus Shale into chemicals used for many purposes, from tires to diapers. The oil giant has estimated the facility could bring billions of dollars in investment into the region, employ several hundred people, and create 10,000 construction jobs.

In addition, the Marcellus Shale gas development is a great relief to Pennsylvania’s rural land owners, many of whom are farmers and have difficulty getting by even when times are good. Lease payments and royalties are a great benefit to rural Pennsylvanians. Many direct jobs will follow as development moves forward—jobs in drilling, site preparation, pipelines, etc., not to mention added support jobs.

While there are environmental concerns for just about every human activity, the technology and controls are available to responsibly develop the Marcellus Shale natural gas.

In great contrast to the free-market development of the Marcellus Shale is the heavy hand of government mandates and taxpayer-supplied stimulus and incentives for the likes of windmills and solar power. Not only have these “green” technologies been forced upon the entire country—with President Obama’s Solyndra a thoroughly reported example—but here in Pennsylvania, we have had the same enviro-insanity foisted upon us by the previous gubernatorial administration of Ed Rendell. Similar to many other states burdened by “green” energy laws, Pennsylvania (in November 2004) passed a law called the Alternative Energy Portfolio Standard. This law required each electric-distribution company or electric-generation supplier to provide 18 percent of its electricity using alternative-energy sources by year 2020. To support these requirements, alternative energy companies were lured to the area by being “incentivized” with taxpayer money, and provided by law with this guaranteed market for their economically unviable energy sources, such as solar and wind.

One does not have to be a geography, climate, or Northeast-states expert to recognize the impracticality of these alternative energy sources in Pennsylvania. And yet, the lack of economic viability for these alternative sources was determined to be insignificant by the progressive powers that be.

The ingenuity of Americans to assemble the component pieces of economic energy—and to convert that economic energy into economic abundance and wealth—is an American success story. Wealth generation is the outcome of Americans freely conducting their lives as they see fit in the pursuit of happiness. The perpetual motion machine of Americanism is driven by freedom; the freedom to obtain, assemble, and release economic energy and create wealth. As in this example of the Marcellus Shale, independent companies applied their own capital and technologies to acquire natural gas thousands of feet below the land surface. In turn, those companies then provided this product to the consumer at a reduced price, provided gainful employment for their fellow citizens, and required no government handout or incentive. The constraints have come mostly from government.

In the midst of a natural gas boom, Pennsylvania serves as a poster child for a citizenry faced with a choice between an energy policy based on progressive or free-market policies. The choice is easy to make. Demonstrably, the free market is not broken as our president proclaims.

— Robert T. Smith is an environmental scientist and co-owner of KU Resources, Inc., an environmental management and site development engineering company. He has guest lectured at Grove City College and is a guest commentator for The Center for Vision & Values.

2012 by The Center for Vision & Values at Grove City College. The views & opinions
expressed herein may, but do not necessarily, reflect the views of Grove City College.

Which are crazier: liberals or conservatives?

The question is forced on us anew by the latest flap over the Pledge of Allegiance. A Federal appeals court in San Francisco (where else?) has ruled that the words under God, added to the Pledge by an act of Congress in 1954, are unconstitutional. They amount, says the court, to an official endorsement of monotheism, in violation of "the wall of separation between church and state."

But the phrase wall of separation between church and state isn't in the U.S. Constitution. It was coined by Thomas Jefferson, who also referred to "God" in such official state documents as the Declaration of Independence, the reading of which in public schools would presumably violate the Constitution too, by the logic of the San Francisco judges. So, in fact, would every oath of office taken on a Bible by public officials, including these judges themselves.

Once again the Constitution has been treated as a "living document" by the ineffable Federal judiciary, which keeps surprising us by discovering novel meanings in old texts. It always turns out that our ancestors didn't realize what they were saying. We need modern liberals to explain their words to us.

Politicians of both parties are scrambling to denounce the ruling. You can almost forgive conservative Republicans, who at least pay lip-service to the principle that, as Lincoln put it, "the intention of the law-giver is the law." But liberal Democrats are proving themselves brazen hypocrites: they favor filling the judiciary with just the sort of judges who issue these crazy rulings, while they obstruct the confirmation of judges they suspect of interpreting the Constitution strictly.

Still, let us remember that the author of the new Pledge decision was a Nixon appointee; for that matter, many of the most indefensible judicial opinions have been written by Republican appointees. Neither party is a reliable guardian of the Constitution.

But conservatives treat the Pledge itself as if it were a founding, authoritative, and virtually sacred document of the Republic. It is not. It was written late in the nineteenth century - by a socialist, if memory serves - and the words one nation, indivisible were meant to indoctrinate children with the idea that no state may withdraw from the Union.

What other purpose does the Pledge really serve? It teaches an unreflective loyalty to the government, rather than an intelligent attachment to the principles of the Constitution. The Constitution never speaks of the United States as a single and monolithic "nation." It always refers to them in the plural. There is a reason for this, but most Americans have forgotten it. Even Lincoln sometimes spoke of the United States as a "confederacy."

Tellingly enough, liberals don't seem to mind instilling mindless obedience to the Federal Government into young children, as long as "God" is kept out of it. The words under God are the only redeeming part of the Pledge, since they remind us that the United States is answerable to him whom Jefferson called "God," the "Creator," the "Infinite Power," and the "Supreme Judge of the world."

The father who brought this case to court is an atheist who objected to his daughter's being pressured to participate in a ritual that smacked of religion. Leaving the Constitution aside, he had a point. The ritual was sponsored by schools supported with his tax money. To most people this may seem innocuous; but he insisted that there's a principle at stake.

And so there is. Jefferson also said it's tyrannical to force a man to support principles he finds repugnant. By the same token, other parents may rightfully object to supporting schools that exclude all mention of God, except in profanity. Which side shall prevail?

The solution is so obvious that it hardly occurs to anyone: the total separation of school and state. Tax-supported schools should not exist. The government should have no say at all in the formation of children's minds. Education should be a purely private matter, left to parents and those who want to support them voluntarily. That way we could avoid endless and irresolvable quarrels about the Pledge, religion, sex education, phonics, the New Math, "values," and all the rest.

Never mind that private schools outperform state schools and that home schooling beats them both. This is a matter of right and principle, not of what (according to the state) "works."

###

[This column was published originally by Griffin Internet Syndicate on June 27, 2002.]

###

The Reactionary Utopian by Joe Sobran is copyright (c) 2012 by the Fitzgerald Griffin Foundation http://www.fgfbooks.com.

All rights reserved. It may be forwarded if attribution is given to the author and fgfBooks.com.

O man, because you cannot find God in the days of your ignorance, say not that there is no God.
− S.R.

MOSCOW, April 21, 2012 ─ My recent exchange with a commenter who started out as an atheist culminated in his admission that he “can't be sure God does not exist.” In other words, he moved from being an atheist to being an agnostic.

We have seen this happen many times before. This is, in fact, what often happens when professed atheists begin to seriously ponder the great questions of existence. One of the most eye-opening conversions of this kind occurred recently when Richard Dawkins publicly admitted that he too is an agnostic. This is a startling admission from the author of The God Delusion and a man whom millions consider the High Priest of atheism.

But back to my reader: Immediately after his conversion, he challenged me to do something similar and admit that I – in turn – cannot be sure that God exists.

My friend's challenge, however, is a misplaced one, since the positions of a sceptic and a theist are not symmetrical vis-a-vis the question of God's existence. This is because there exists a large body of scientific data as well as a number of logical arguments that point to the existence of God.

The findings of modern cosmology, for example, with its Big Bang theory strongly suggest a transcendent cause behind the universe. We now know that the universe originated at a certain time in the past. At the same time we also know – from observation and intuition – that whatever begins to exist must have a cause. The cause of the universe, then, could only be something to which we usually refer to by the term God.

Likewise, the more we learn about the immense complexity of the cell, the more it becomes obvious that even the simplest form of life could not have arisen spontaneously by chance. That's why – when pressed to say how he thinks life originated – Richard Dawkins suggested that it may have been seeded on this earth by aliens. It is truly hard to believe that a serious scientist would even entertain such a fantastical speculation. This is, however, what happens when even intelligent men try to avoid the obvious implications of science. They start talking about aliens and such.

Needless to say, atheism is a self-defeating position, which can be easily demonstrated with a few pointed questions. But agnosticism is also less than a solid stance, since it is merely an attempt to evade the findings of logic and science. Not wanting to admit the obvious, the agnostic says it is impossible to know.

Regarding the Big Bang causal argument, for instance, many agnostics contend that causality may have not applied at the birth of the universe. But this is merely a cop-out, because the same people would never question causality in any other area of life or science. In fact, if you suggested that causality may not apply in biology or geology or chemistry, the agnostic would laugh. The only area of science where he calls causality into question is cosmology. He has no good reason to do so other than wanting to evade the fact of God's existence.

A similar kind of evasion takes place in biology when it comes to the question of life's origin. Here skeptics often paint all kinds of fantastic scenarios such as Richard Dawkins' appeal to aliens. Needless to say, such speculations have no basis in science and are unworthy of those who consider themselves scientifically minded.

So to answer my commenter friend: Can I be absolutely certain that God exists? Science and logic make his existence seem very likely. If I wanted to relinquish my beliefs, I would have to – among other things – question causality and perhaps even bring in an alien or two. For someone who respects both scientific findings and common sense this is a difficult thing to do.

But if you wish to be more than just a rational theist whose belief is based on science and common sense, there is a way to know God more intimately. It is by personal revelation. If we sincerely turn to God, he will reveal himself in our hearts. He told us so himself: “Ask and it will be given to you; seek and you will find; knock and the door will be opened to you.”

Born and raised under communism, Vasko Kohlmayer is a naturalized American citizen. He has lived in several countries under various forms of government, but he still marvels at the goodness of God and the wonder of life.

He has written for a number of newspapers, magazines and internet journals. Vasko currently lives in Europe with his long-suffering wife and two beautiful daughters. He is the founder of The Christian Writers Foundation.

Two counties in bold green type, Grand Forks (94.59% of maximum population) and Mercer (85.89% of maximum population), were set back after maximum populations in 1990 for two unrelated reasons, a major flood event and a “maturation” of coal field development activities.

Albert Jay Nock, an excellent but largely forgotten writer, once wrote a little book titled Our Enemy, the State. I still reread it when I'm groggy from absorption in the daily events of politics. It revives me like a slap in the face.

If I were a pagan, I might fancy I heard the Olympian laughter of the gods when modern men think of their rulers as their friends. Common sense would suggest that those who have power over you, and can use it to kill or enslave you, are, more properly speaking, your masters and enemies. We're supposed to think that the system that can extort half our earnings from us is benevolent?

I don't think it's funny, but I can see how Zeus and Neptune and Mercury, with their larger perspective, might get a kick out of it. As described by Homer and Ovid, they didn't have to pay taxes. They could afford to laugh. "What fools these mortals be!"

The state is a parasite on its subjects, but in America its subjects have acquired the habit of speaking of the state as "we." As in: "We are fighting a war on terrorism." There can be no greater triumph for the parasite than for the host to think of it and itself as a single unit. It's as if a man were to refer to himself and a blood-bloated leech under his skin as "we."

How does the state pull this off? One tested and well-nigh infallible method is to convince its subjects that it's protecting them from an even worse enemy than itself. This seldom fails. The majority nearly always fall for the idea that if the state is hurting someone else even worse than it's hurting them, it's on their side, and is therefore their friend, protector, and benefactor.

The Soviet Union crushed every freedom worth having, but it assured the "proletariat" that it was only exterminating their "class enemies." Hitler imposed tyranny on ordinary Germans, but he was even crueler to Jews, so Germans figured he was on their side. The socialist state of Israel robs Jews blind, but since it treats Arabs even worse, Jews think of the state as "us." And the U.S. Government is stripping away traditional American freedoms; but as long as it is prepared to bomb foreigners to death, Americans imagine that their proximate enemy is defending them. No, it's even worse than that: they think their enemy is "us." The enemy becomes the self.

What a blessing "terrorism" is for the state! It's the ideal distraction from the day-to-day reality of the state's chief activity: wringing from its subjects the wealth they produce. Last September a handful of fanatics, armed only with box-cutters, provided a new rationale for the trillion-dollar swindle. A bonanza!

I don't know what these "terrorists" thought they were achieving: Making the infidel respect Allah? If so, they were wrong. You might as well try to make the U.S. Government respect the U.S. Constitution. Ain't gonna happen. They only made the average American cling all the more tightly to his state.

Orwell, with his Olympian humor, summed up this eerie state of affairs in two words: Big Brother. The all-powerful master feigning blood kinship with his feckless subjects. "We."

Orwell's protagonist, Winston Smith, arrives at an illusory happy ending: "He had won the victory over himself. He loved Big Brother." And no doubt he pasted a decal of Big Brother's flag - "our" flag - onto his windshield.

When I was ten, I learned how to get a leech out of my leg in a hurry: a lighted match would do the trick. I never supposed that that creepy thing and I were "we."

But try getting a parasite out of your mind! As soon as you think you're rid of it, it has a way of coming back. You've been trained from childhood to think of your rulers as "we," just as sports fans speak of the home team as "we," as if they too had been down on the field earning the victory. Such mental habits are hard to shake.

Even the most wary of us have to keep reminding ourselves that the state is our enemy. Always. Not just when the Republicans - or the Democrats - are in power. Always. Tyranny and freedom are equally nonpartisan.

###

[This column was published originally by Griffin Internet Syndicate on May 16, 2002.]

###

The Reactionary Utopian by Joe Sobran is copyright (c) 2012 by the Fitzgerald Griffin Foundation http://www.fgfbooks.com.

All rights reserved. It may be forwarded if attribution is given to the author and fgfBooks.com.

For permission to publish or post this column,

contact Fran Griffin at (JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address).

###

Joe Sobran (1946-2010)

was a syndicated columnist, author, and speaker.

Something wonderful unfolded in American politics the last few days.

Almost immediately after Rick Santorum dropped out of the Republican presidential hunt, David Axelrod and the Obama reelection team unleashed the class-warfare cannons. They expected to enjoy the first salvo of the season, fired by Democratic lobbyist Hilary Rosen. In a CNN interview, Rosen claimed that Mitt Romney’s wife, Ann, “has actually never worked a day in her life.”

It was a nasty blow, and the public rallied to Ann Romney’s defense. As for Ann Romney, she didn’t remain silent. “I made a choice to stay home and raise five boys,” she said. “Believe me, it was hard work.” She might have noted her considerable physical sacrifices as well—such as breast cancer and MS—but didn’t.

While Hilary Rosen’s shot was still smoldering, liberal blogs were rife with fresh Democratic talking points vilifying Mitt Romney as a “one percenter,” asking whether he paid his “fair share” in taxes, and attacking him for squirreling away his vile riches in foreign bank accounts. It was total class warfare. And this was just week one!

But then came the wonderful thing: Merely six days after Hilary Rosen’s comment, major polling organizations released numbers on a head-to-head match-up between Barack Obama and Mitt Romney, and Romney suddenly has a lead. The most respected among them, Gallup, released numbers on April 17 showing Romney ahead by five points, 48 to 43 percent.

Why is this wonderful? It’s not that I adore Mitt Romney, but I loathe class hatred. Marx and the Bolsheviks and their disciples did it with great destruction. I don’t want it in my country.

It’s hard to pinpoint the exact reasons for Romney’s sudden surge over Obama, but no doubt some of this (particularly the swipe at Ann Romney) backfired. Or, at the least, some pollsters and pundits are interpreting it that way. If so, then maybe—just maybe—Axelrod might learn that not all forms of class warfare will resonate with Americans. Let’s hope that’s the case, because, otherwise, Axelrod and the president he serves—who Axelrod portrays as the Great Unifier and fountain of hope—will be bitterly dividing this nation along economic lines.

As I wrote a few weeks ago, not only has President Obama been unceasingly employing class rhetoric for three years now, but Axelrod has been thrilling over precisely such an assault against Mitt Romney. “Obama officials intend to frame Romney as the very picture of greed in the great recession—a sort of political Gordon Gekko,” reported an August 2011 Politico piece titled, “Obama plan: Destroy Romney.” The piece quoted Axelrod: “He [Romney] was very, very good at making a profit for himself and his partners but not nearly as good [at] saving jobs for communities. He is very much the profile of what we’ve seen in the last decade on Wall Street.”

This had been the plan before the Occupy Wall Street movement got up and running. Axelrod and Obama see Romney as red meat to feed the Occupy movement. As the Occupiers exploded last fall, Axelrod paused to tell MSNBC: “[Romney] says he represents business, but he really represents the Wall Street side of business.”

Envy is a deadly sin, but Team Obama desires it as an excellent divide-and-conquer tactic. Axelrod and Obama both cut their political teeth in Chicago, home of Obama inspiration Saul Alinsky, who preached the tactic of “isolating” a target and “demonizing” it. Romney’s riches fit the bill nicely.

More recently, in January, Axelrod told George Stephanopoulos that Romney is “not a job creator” but a “corporate raider” who outsourced “tens of thousands of jobs,” “closed down more than 1,000 plants, stores, and offices,” and raked in “hundreds of millions of dollars” at the expense of the poor. Axelrod referred to this as the sinister “Bain mentality.”

Alas, here we are, April 2012, with the presidential race finally down to Obama v. Romney, and the first polls show Obama behind this rapacious capitalist reptile.

So, will Romney’s sudden surge signal to Axelrod and Obama to call off the class-warfare dogs? I doubt it. This thinking is too close to their hearts. They’ve been hungering for this; fomenting class envy is what they long to do. But maybe—just maybe—the American public won’t swallow it.

Wouldn’t it be nice if the people of this country quit hating each other, including hating people with more money? I’m hoping so, but our messengers of hope, Obama and Axelrod, are hoping not.

— Dr. Paul Kengor is professor of political science at Grove City College and executive director of The Center for Vision & Values. His books include "The Crusader: Ronald Reagan and the Fall of Communism" and "Dupes: How America’s Adversaries Have Manipulated Progressives for a Century."

2012 by The Center for Vision & Values at Grove City College. The views & opinions
expressed herein may, but do not necessarily, reflect the views of Grove City College.

Editor’s note: A version of this article first appeared at Forbes.com

With Rick Santorum having dropped out of the race, Mitt Romney is apparently the Republican nominee for POTUS, barring a “black swan” event swooping down out of nowhere.

Why has the Republican Party taken so long to decide upon its presidential nominee? The two most common explanations given have been the structure of the primaries and the absence of an “ideal” candidate. Those are valid reasons, but there is one more that generally has been overlooked: The Republican Party itself is in a state of flux, and its new identity has not yet gelled.

The Tea Party message of smaller government has been dominant in the GOP primaries. However, even though the old guard, moderate, country club, establishment—choose whichever cliché you prefer—wing of the party was eclipsed in the nominating process, it remains a formidable force in Washington. This was evident in the recent Senate vote on repealing all subsidies to all private energy companies (conventional and renewable): 19 Republicans voted with every single Democrat against abolishing the subsidies. Also, the very fact that the most conservative budget proposal put forth in Congress by Paul Ryan (R-Wis.)—a plan that, while obviously superior to the Obama alternative, will increase federal spending and debt—shows the present limits of the Tea Party’s influence.

The Republican Party may indeed be evolving into a truly conservative party, but the transformation is far from complete. Many rank-and-file Republicans have been becoming more conservative at different rates, so it is not surprising that the candidates struggled to find the “sweet spot” where one could establish himself as the ideal 2012 Republican.

Although many Republicans were dismayed and disheartened as the primary race dragged on, there is an excellent chance that this sense of malaise will quickly dissipate now that the race is essentially over.

The bickering between the candidates was unpleasant and cast a pall over the nominating process, but that was a passing phenomenon that will soon be forgotten. Mitt Romney, Rick Santorum, and Newt Gingrich took turns pointing out each other’s past flirtations with interventionist government, while trying to outdo each other in professing to repent of those earlier missteps and emerging as the one genuine, born-again, true-blue conservative.

Ron Paul, meanwhile, who remained un-nominate-able due to his noninterventionist foreign policy (and perhaps even his uncompromising free-market principles), must feel vindicated that his three opponents (in some cases) staked out positions much closer to his consistent, constitutionalist, limited-government philosophy than would have been conceivable four years ago.

The Republican program in 2012 became clear even before Romney emerged as the standard-bearer. The last four men in the primary race—Romney, Paul, Gingrich and Santorum—all agreed: The federal government is too big, the country is in deep trouble, and the presidency of Barack Obama has been disastrous. All four advocated less federal involvement in education, effective control of national borders, lower taxes, fewer bureaucracies, repealing Obamacare, greater freedom to develop domestic energy resources, less social engineering by Washington, etc.

Choosing between Romney, Gingrich, and Santorum was, for many, like choosing between vanilla, chocolate, and strawberry ice cream. Their personalities, pasts, and priorities had different flavors, but their philosophies were of the same general type. The presidential election campaign will generate far more enthusiasm among Republicans than the primary race did, because voters will now have a clear-cut choice between Republican ice cream or another helping of Barack Obama’s spinach.

Barack Obama has already laid the groundwork for a very challenging economic environment in 2013. Whoever is president will have to cope with a bruising debt-ceiling battle, the scheduled expiration of the Bush tax cuts, a weak job market, unresolved systemic problems with Social Security and Medicare, a badly deteriorated power grid, and degraded military capabilities—not to mention possible complications resulting from Obama’s feckless foreign policy.

Frankly, I don’t think there is a person on earth who is completely prepared for all the challenges that will confront us during the next four years. I am convinced, though, that if Romney is elected, he will devote himself unreservedly to trying to solve those problems, while Obama would just make them worse. Tea Partiers, moderate Republicans, independents, and anyone else hoping for a change of direction in our country, can either unite behind Mitt Romney or concede defeat to Barack Obama. That is the choice before us.

— Dr. Mark W. Hendrickson is an adjunct faculty member, economist, and fellow for economic and social policy with The Center for Vision & Values at Grove City College.

2012 by The Center for Vision & Values at Grove City College. The views & opinions
expressed herein may, but do not necessarily, reflect the views of Grove City College.

“Intelligence Squared Debates”

I was channel surfing on both a Saturday night and the next Sunday morning and listened to this public television aired debate twice…the first time to absorb the event, the second time to document any bias it presented to public television viewers. The debate, held at New York University, was essentially the “last straw” that finally convinced me to expand my efforts to end federal funding of the NEA. To view the debate, use the following link:

 http://intelligencesquaredus.org/index.php/past-debates/the-world-would-be-better-off-without-religion/

The postulate to be debated was “The world would be better off without religion” which was the first clue to its unbalanced production. The question that came immediately to my mind was “Why not postulate that “The world is better off because of religion” which would begin the debate on an affirmative, if optimistic, postulate. The answer, of course, is that it would put the two “Atheist” panelists immediately on the defensive, while providing a leg up for the “Catholic turned Evangelical” and the “Jewish Rabbi” on the opposing side.

On several occasions throughout the debate, the moderator, an employee of a major network, revealed his bias toward the atheist presenters…the most dramatic example arising when he at first refused to allow a response concerning a question from the audience. After being booed for attempting to stifle the response, he asked for a show of hands from those in the audience who would like to hear a response; then directed an abbreviated response.

The method of determination of the winning debaters was equally slanted toward the atheists, as follows.

Before the debate, the audience was asked if they were “For”, “Against”, or “Undecided” concerning the debate postulate. The result was 52% For, 26% Against, and 22% Undecided. The audience was told that the scoring and selection of the winning side would be based on their answers to the same question at the conclusion of the debate. This 2-1 bias in the makeup of the audience was also very evident in the slanted audience responses to arguments of both sides participating in the debate. And where, but on a university campus, would one find an audience initially biased 2:1 in support of the postulate that “The world would be better off without religion”?

Were the scoring to be accomplished on a purely mathematically fair basis, the skewed number of persons in the audience favoring the postulate would be neutralized by weighing the results. To accomplish this end, the “For” responses would have been weighted by dividing by two. This would make the initial vote 26% For, 26% Against, and 22% undecided, a fair initial adjustment of the obviously biased audience that essentially throws out 26% of the audience in the name of fairness.

After the debate was conducted with a biased moderator, an initially and continually biased audience, and a rigged mathematical model for scoring, the question was posed to the audience once again and the result was 59% For, 31% Against, and 10% Undecided.

Employing the same weighting method of dividing the “For” responses by 2, the final result would have been 29.5% For, 31% Against, and 10% Undecided, essentially a win for the side arguing against the postulate. Put another way, the increase in “For” was 7 added to 52 or 13% greater, and the increase in “Against” was 5 added to 31 or 19% greater, so the “Against” argument was more persuasive (13% < 19%).

 But no… such weighting to achieve a fair method of scoring was not performed. Instead, the seven percent of converts from “For” to “Against” were directly compared to the five percent of converts from “Against” to “For” with the “For” side declared the winners.

The most revealing argument from the atheists was their condescending view of goat herders who lived 3,000 years ago, whose beliefs and superstitions, atheists claim, provided the roots, the origins, of the religious outlook of the world. This argument revealed their over-inflated sense of self, an immature demeaning of others to bolster one’s own ego. This is in stark contrast to my personal view that even when man was very unaware of what was occurring beyond his own small world, he possessed “intuition” and a keen thirst for knowledge and truth. I believe it was that same intuition and thirst for the truth that allowed him to imagine…thus the term “imagination”. I believe that the goat herders were exhibiting the ability of man to consider the possibility of something “bigger than themselves”, and THAT is called “religion”. Even agnostics have been open minded enough to at least CONSIDER that possibility.

The most compelling argument presented by the two believers was the obvious irony that the vast majority of the top 200 minds (who I call “imagineers”) of the last several hundred years were also religious. So scientific advancement seems NOT to have been stifled by religion… and the best minds seem to have been well nourished by a healthy sense of something “bigger than themselves”.

The best laugh of the debates came after the Rabbi’s observation that we already have an example of what a society looks like when religion is absent…it’s called Hollywood.

The best lesson I learned from the debate was a reference to the fact that of the roughly 1700 serious conflicts documented by history, only 7% were originated by religion. This refuted what atheist friends have told me for decades; that religion is the origin of most, if not all, wars. In the future, I will be taking what any of my friends tell me with a grain of salt.

The rigged nature of this debate would not have disturbed me as much without the knowledge that my own tax dollars partially supported the hoax! So, in the future, I will redouble my efforts to end any and all federal funding of the NEA.

We’d like to comment on a resent thought provoking, delightfully insightful and fact filled editorial by the Fargo Forum. The Forum, in keeping with journalistic goals informing the public on important topics, addressed the Measure aimed at abolishing property taxes.

In an effort to enlighten its readers the Fargo Forum expended 482 words, 74 of which were as follows: “strange twists and turns”, “Illogic of proponents’ arguments”, “gone to court to muzzle opponents”, “living in Bizarro world”, “recipe for tax chaos”, “willy-nilly eliminates property taxes”, “you’ve-got-to-be-kidding”, “Measure 2 led by anti-government types”, “these folks who spend a lot of hot air savaging the federal government”, “likely manipulated by disinterested legislators or unelected bureaucrats”, “”their position is as solid as Red River mud”, “as weighty as goose down”, “as clear as grass fire smoke”.

This reminded us of fourth grade boys calling one another names on the playground; each boy attempting to one up the other with senseless name calling. We suspect none of these words or phrases served to inform the reader about anything other than the Editorial writer’s lack of having anything meaningful to say, just like the juvenile boys on the playground.

The editorial repeatedly accused Measure 2proponents of attempting to “muzzle opponents by going to court and not wanting to talk about the Measure. It then attacked the Legislature sarcastically calling it “that repository of deep thought and high wisdom”. Finally, it said citizens seeking to use the tools given to us in our Constitution are “anti-government types”.

The law suit was not filed against "opponents of Measure 2". We wonder who does the Forums fact checking or research? The opponents can say anything they wish and they do.

The law suit was filed against government agencies and certain elected officials. The same elected officials that had just passed amendments to the state’s Corrupt Practices Act which they are now blatantly violating.

That Act says government entities and officials may make factual statements regarding a ballot measure initiated by citizens. However, they may not take a position either for or against.

Senator Oehlke stated, “They (proponents) can get the money from another source but don’t tell what source”. The Senator has not read the Measure. The Measure clearly states exactly which state funds will be accessed to provide the funding.

The State Association of Counties has been telling citizens that on January 1, 2013 every city and county in ND will go bankrupt and citizens will lose water and sewer service. These and hundreds of other equally false statements are being made by these entities and officials. They are listed in detail in our complaint.

They believe it is ok to not tell the truth and mislead. In fact, they are arguing to the court they have a constitutional right to do so and thus the Corrupt Practices Act infringes on them. Many of those violating the Corrupt Practices Act just voted, during the last session, to make this the law of North Dakota. Now they are complaining.

My father told me, when I was a young boy, those who didn’t have reason, logic or a valid argument on their side resorted to name calling. My father was a very wise man.