Dakota Beacon

The headline of today's editorial in The Bismarck Tribune sums it up perfectly: "Higher Ed Board Doesn't Get It".

 For months, it has been one scandal after another in the North Dakota University System.

 From the Dickinson State University enrollment fraud and fake degrees

Video Link: Chris Berg and Dustin Gawrylow discuss the DSU Situation

for Chinese students; to the never-ending University of North Dakota Fighting Sioux argument; to the Auditors' report saying Minot State University gave away $2.5 million dollars worth of tuition waivers without verification that the students were qualified; to the continuous demand for higher tuition by Dean Bresciani (despite the fact NDSU gave away $15 million worth of tuition waivers).

Last week, NDSU President Dean Bresciani went to the State Board of

Audio Link: Joel Heitkamp and Dustin Gawrylow Discuss the DSU Situation

Higher Education and asked for a 1.5% increase of the tuition NDSU charges. The board refused the request because just 9 months ago the board approved a 8.8% increase in tuition for NDSU, which exceeded the Board's own pledge to keep tuition increase down at 2.5%.

As part of his pitch to the board, Bresciani once again trotted out the tried and true "if you don't let us raise tuition, we'll have to cut programs" threat (without specifically citing what he would cut).

As the Bismarck Tribune said today:

The tomfoolery was compounded by NDSU President Dean Bresciani, who said in the aftermath that the university would likely have to cut academic programs. He said that the university was "at a breaking point." Such a response leaves us incredulous.

It has been a long held practice in the University System and individual s schools to hold student's hostage with threats of increasing tuition if the legislature does not give Higher Ed everything it wants. (This is why NDTA has long advocated that the legislature take back the power to regulate tuition that it gave the Board of Higher Ed in the 1990's.)

All of these things that have been happening in the University System are a product of a complete lack of accountability to the public, to the taxpayers, and to the legislature. Until that lack of accountability is addressed one way or another, these problems will continue to happen.

We are told that the legislature gave its power to the Board of Higher Education and the Education Roundtable to "take the politics out of higher education".

As the Bismarck Tribune points out:

Board President Grant Shaft, according to The Associated Press, said lawmakers might strip the 8.8 percent tuition increase granted NDSU in the spring of 2011, if the board would approve the half percent now.

The politics of the process are clearly alive and well.

It is time for the representatives of the people to realize the immediate need to restructure this system and get new people in place.

The legislature must collectively say "ENOUGH ALREADY" and go back to the drawing board.

Much ink has flowed over the recent apologies from President Barack Obama, Secretary of Defense Leon Panetta, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, and General John Allen, commander of NATO forces in Afghanistan, following the burning of copies of the Koran and their careless disposal. An apology may have been justified. A national mea culpa was not.

When the president of the United States speaks for the nation, a national apology for the misguided acts of soldiers on the other side of the world has little meaning other than to feed the suspicions and hatreds of an enemy who hates the United States anyway. Implying that “we the people” are somehow to blame only legitimizes retribution on a potentially greater scale. Follow-on apologies by the secretaries of defense and state potentially extends that culpability to U.S. service personnel and members of the State Department. This compounds the threat to Americans posed by religious fanatics in this global war against al Qaeda and its confederates.

What is in order is an examination of the purpose and results of our strategy in the War on Terror generally and Operation Enduring Freedom more specifically. These apologies weaken the United States in the eyes of the Taliban, further jeopardizing our troops, who are already facing the daunting task of withdrawing to meet a temporal deadline driven by domestic political considerations rather than strategic reality. An army in retreat faces the twin threat of an emboldened enemy anxious to exploit perceived weaknesses and a force whose mindset is on disengaging and going home and not on fighting to win. No one wants to be killed on the day we turned out the lights at Bagram Air Base.

While controversy rages over the apologies, questions concerning this sorry mess remain unanswered. Who was responsible for disposing the Korans? When it was discovered that prisoners were communicating through messages written in the Korans made available by the prison library, who made the decision to burn the books? Did anyone think that these messages might hold intelligence value? What might have been learned had the messages been copied and analyzed? Did anyone think to slap a security classification on those Korans and then send them in secure pouches to CIA headquarters for exploitation? Had this been done under proper security, not only might we have gained valuable knowledge about the Taliban and al Qaeda, it would have been far less likely this sorry mess would have ever arisen.

On the other hand, if the decision was to dispose the Korans, why wasn’t that done in a proper manner consistent with Islamic laws and traditions? In this kind of war, it is imperative that our warfighters understand the culture within which they are operating, especially concerning religious matters. Our enemies unabashedly acknowledge the nature of this conflict as a religious struggle—a jihad. When we deny that fact, we give the enemy a strategic advantage. Additionally, the otherwise “politically-correct” and “culturally-sensitive” U.S. armed forces seem to have their quota of chaplains for every possible religious faith, even wiccans. It is hard to believe there is not a Muslim chaplain assigned to NATO headquarters in Afghanistan. If so, was he consulted on the proper way to dispose Korans? Did that occur to anyone?

These oversights and mistakes, as consequential as they have become, do not rise to the level of an apology required by the president of the United States. Due to a needless knee-jerk reaction in Washington, a level of culpability probably not exceeding a letter of reprimand in a junior-level officer’s file has escalated into a sorry mess with enormous political and military implications. Several Americans were needlessly killed. High-ranking officers may suffer career-ending consequences.

In March 1968, a handful of American GIs commanded by Lt. William Calley murdered 501 South Vietnamese women, children, and old men. Calley eventually stood trial, was convicted of several counts of murder, and sentenced to life in prison at hard labor. He served one night in the post jail before receiving a presidential pardon. No one apologized to the Viet Cong—certainly not the president nor secretary of defense, neither of whom were in office when the incident occurred.

This My Lai massacre occurred at the start of the U.S. withdrawal from Vietnam. Troop morale was plummeting. Military leadership, from the top down, was out of touch with the true nature of the war.

History should not be ignored. Apologizing to the enemy reflects a gross misunderstanding of the purpose and realities to which “we the people” commit our armed forces in our national interest. We go to war with regret, but without debasing ourselves in what are, essentially, meaningless expressions of hand wringing. The real sorry mess is in our strategic assumptions and those who are responsible for articulating them.

— 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.

Saturday evening’s statewide debate provided the voters of North Dakota a better opportunity to look at the men and women who are asking to represent them in the US House, the Senate and as Governor.  We should give all of these dedicated people who showed up our greatest respect, for whether we agree with all of their ideas or not, they have demonstrated their respect for and confidence in free people to make an informed choice.

The full contingent of Republican hopefuls for the House was on deck and ready to discuss their views and hear each other’s.  It was a worthy group of serious-minded candidates who earnestly desired to communicate with the people they wished to serve.  Of that group, however, it was Public Service Commissioner Kevin Cramer who distinguished himself with his independence and thoughtfulness.

When the “herd mentality” telegraphed that it would be easy to score with the mantra of “term limits”, everyone else bought a ticket on that bus but Cramer.  He paused to give it some deeper thought, and told us that while he would impose a limit of eight years on himself in that office, should he win, he found the prospect of term limits “dicey”.  He cut through the fog to remind us that a limit does not grant freedom but restrains or removes freedom from the people.  He clearly understands that the people have only to go to the polls and vote for a replacement if they are unhappy.  He noted that Congressmen are limited to two years and must then be renewed.  It is the freedom of the people, the voters, that would be lost through the device of term limits.  And, of course, bureaucrats would win in that their role would expand - and what is it they want?  Bigger government.

On the matter of campaign contributions, once again, Cramer asserted the Constitution and its First Amendment in his argument that we have no business to deny the right to contribute to a candidate or party.  On the pragmatic side, he pointed out that if you put up a fence, donors will just find other ways to get the money to their causes regardless, through individuals, etc., - with an aside that it is often those who are unable to raise enough money who wish to restrict contributions to the campaigns of others.  He quite rightly did, however, stipulate that there must be transparency.  With transparency there really is no unfair advantage – if we know that George Soros, say, contributes to Candidate X we also know that this is in some way an advantage to Soros.  So if we don’t think helping Soros is a good idea we can consider that in our own decisions.  We might have wished that someone would have given a moment to observe that if we take away corporate contributions and PACs  from Conservative candidates, we would leave Democrats and Socialists with the virtually unlimited and unregulated financial support of the unions.  By defining his views in his own terms Cramer clearly sets himself apart from the crowd of other conservatives vying for the nomination, at a time when most of our problems in government seem to come from “team players”,  and reinforces Cramer's position.

The other two debates were disappointing only in that with only one candidate in each, “debate” as a description of the event was inaccurate.  Rick Berg blew off the debate with Conservative Duane Sand, which was too bad, because with the record of spending and other policy decisions of the past term, his only one in Congress, it would have provided an opportunity to tell us his reasons and get us on board with his program.  Who knows?  He might have been convincing and we might have decided he was right.  But that didn’t happen.  What did happen was that we had an opportunity to see what Sand has in mind, what his experience and training can bring us in a Senator and above all, that he is willing and unafraid to meet and discuss his positions with all comers in an open public debate.  We also learned that Berg is not. 

Another AWOL candidate was the bodacious Jack Dalrymple, who is asking  (or, rather, telling) us to support him.  Perhaps he feels that the nomination for Governor is already his because he has been in position to take advantage of the perks of incumbency, while not having achieved them in the usual way – through election to that office.  Whatever his reasons, his arrogance in not showing up to debate his opponent reeks.  Not only has he ignored Paul Sorum, the Conservative candidate for office, but also the voters and delegates in this latest act of presumptuousness.  This facet of Dalrymple’s campaign was reflected this week in the revelation that a state convention “Governor’s Dinner”, touted as an official event for attendees, is, in fact, a fundraiser  for Citizen Dalrymple’s campaign against opponent Paul Sorum!   This subterfuge, like some other irregularities in the process this year serve to point up the need for a good housecleaning within the ND GOP itself. (It also tends to vindicate Cramer's decision to skip the convention process this year.)

Suffice it to say that Dalrymple’s no-show slight was offset by a great opportunity to hear Paul Sorum’s vision for the future of the State of North Dakota, the experience he brings as a small business owner, contractor, and designer and even educator.  He clearly has thought about this as a job, one to which he owes his attention and one which he wishes to earn through the confidence and participation of the voters, the people themselves.  His insight into the problems of water management, construction and land development,  the importance of control by the private sector, his opposition to the cronyism that undercuts vital private enterprise, his understanding of the challenges facing higher education and his dedication to a pro-life climate and preservation of quality of life were only augmented this weekend by his reiteration of his view that the Sioux nickname has been a symbol of pride and is supported by “the Sioux nations and the good people of the State of North Dakota” and his belief that we don’t need outside “associations” or “agencies” to regulate our own pacts.  Paul Sorum came off of this “debate” as a very serious, focused, courageous fighter for the State and its rights and one who realizes that “when government grows, everything else shrinks”, someone who has a profound understanding  and appreciation of the values established by our Constitution.  We could hardly do better.

The big winners of Saturday’s Great Statewide Debate are Cramer, for his independent and confident assertion of Constitutional values and Sand and Sorum for being there, trusting the people enough to put their case before them - and their grace in showing North Dakotans the respect they deserve, even if the other two candidates did not.  If for no other reason, we must be grateful to the North Dakota Tea Party Caucus for presenting this forum.

As a graduate of DSU and also an ex-faculty member of DSU, I do believe that the state Board of Higher Education, to use Lloyd Umdahl’s  word, has become “dysfunctional.” It also appears that, given some of its attempts at self-diagnosing and  cleansing, that it cannot “heal” itself, but needs some radical surgery—removal of fossilized  body parts, new heart implant, and circulation of learning to the world outside of itself.

In a brief essay, it is impossible to trace the collapse of ND Higher Education into its “dysfunctional” from when it, its faculty, its graduates stood on their own merits.  They did not need “Made in China” recruits to cheer their teams: they did not need NCAA  to “OK” their sports teams; they did not need a $2 million Presidential Palaces to obtain authentic “Higher” education-oriented Presidents.   All they needed were classrooms in which to teach, teachers capable and willing to teach, students willing and capable to learn, and a purpose and goal for both teacher and student which, as the result of their time together, gave the world outside the campus, an enrichment, a blessing, a benefit, at least equal to the cost that the world outside the campus paid to this intellectual “academic birthplace” to produce these new “higher” educated minds, minds driven by the “higher” values of ethics, honesty, morality, freedom, honor, and a love of excellence in everything they do, say and are. When Higher Education no longer represent these values, no longer seeks achieve them, no longer even seeks to pursue them, or worse yet, replaces them with goals that even the blind can achieve, then Higher Education has indeed become dysfunctional. When did it begin?

I will use my own experience in the world of academia.  My English teacher during my 1952/53 senior high school year was a WW11 Navy veteran, as were many teachers during those years.  In Literature he taught us the difference between the excellent and the trivial by using classics in which some characters chose excellence, others chose the expedient.  We watched the consequences. The outcome a classic ALWAYS mirrored reality, which is what makes a classic.  It faithfully exemplifies life.  If “lower” education builds the groundwork and foundation for education, then “higher” education must enlarge the student’s view of greatness and excellence in his/her development as a “humane” human being.  After all, in all past ages of historical greatness, it was the study of the Humanities that lit this fire for knowledge, the beautiful, the worthy, the lovely, the honorable, to go “boldly” as STARTREK  taught, “where no man has gone before.”  And none of this was a collapse into the easily attainable, the unworthy, the vanity of pretending for the sake of “academic democracy” that “Fighting Sioux” is a demeaning logo. All the great heroes in past Classical history were warriors.  In the history of the Lemmings, there never were and are none now, nor will there ever be, any heroes. 

So Higher Education must, by its very nature must always have as it highest goal, the seeking, the never-ending search for the truth, the excellent, the honest, about humanity. When it abandons this quest for greatness in the truly great things, and seeks values in numbers and mass instead of intrinsic self-worth, it has become dysfunctional.  Most of these are clearly visible to any honest “searcher” for truth in North Dakota’s State Board of Higher Education and its arrogant blatant display of power and wealth , neither of which motivate the quest for excellence and truth and honesty in the human.  Ask any lawyer!  (to be continued).

The mainstream media constantly “informs” us that Democrats care and conservatives don’t. We are supposed to applaud the “good” intentions of Democrats while ignoring history, motives and the consequences.

It was cool seeing a black man ascend to the top of the party of slavery, segregation and the Klan. Conservatives fought for civil rights when Democrats opposed them. Should we simply forget the Democratic Party’s dismal record on human rights and assume they now care?

Democrats make people poor to have power over them. Democrats chase jobs overseas using tools like the EPA and unions. They tax and regulate jobs out of existence. Permitting drilling and the construction of oil refineries and pipelines alone would create millions of jobs, lower gasoline prices and reduce the cost of everything we buy but that’s the opposite of what Democrats seek.

Millions have fallen into the welfare trap and as a result can do little for themselves. Welfare has destroyed the initiative, potential, dignity, self-respect and very humanity of those we are told it “helps”. It destroys families, entire communities and soon our republic. It keeps poor people poor. The last thing Democrats want is for these people to become self-sufficient and prosperous. Today a larger percentage of Americans live in poverty than before Democrats began their “war on poverty”. This is by design.

Observe nations run by the left. As we follow Europe they will soon drive off a cliff. People are rioting because the money is running out to pay their welfare benefits. By design, Europe’s welfare states will soon implode.

Nations like China are the next stage of evolution for Europe. China isn’t a utopia as portrayed on far left media sources like PBS and the nightly news. People enslaved by the government are brutalized, imprisoned, slaughtered and forced at gun point to accept poverty. Those who spoke of freedom and supposedly didn’t care were buried in mass graves long ago by those who “cared”.  

The left only pretends to care about people until those people trade their freedom and self-sufficiency for the promise that government will provide for them.

In case you didn’t notice…. With George W. Bush out of office and a Democrat in the White House, the secular media stopped its handwringing over the president mentioning God. With Rick Santorum’s surge, the hysteria has started again. Every religious utterance by Santorum will be a cause for apoplexy by the liberal press.

It will be just fine—perfect, actually—for President Obama to effectively claim that Jesus favors a 39.6 percent marginal income tax rate on wealthy Americans (as opposed to 36 percent), or repeatedly sermonize about being his “brother’s keeper.” It won’t be preachy for Nancy Pelosi to urge no domestic drilling as “an act of worship.” But if Rick Santorum’s wife, Karen, dares to consider her husband’s presidential pursuit as “God’s will?”

Well, that’s plainly unacceptable.

Speaking of God’s will, I could offer countless examples of Democrats invoking precisely that. I’ve done articles, chapters, book on the subject. Pick your liberal/progressive: Woodrow Wilson, FDR, Jimmy Carter, Bill Clinton, Hillary Clinton, Al Gore. Democrats have never been shy about claiming God’s work as their own. The difference is that the secular press calls attention to this alleged malfeasance only when committed by conservatives.

To briefly illustrate the case, here are some examples from Bill Clinton:

“By the grace of God and your help, last year I was elected president,” said Bill Clinton, speaking at the Church of God in Christ in Memphis, November 1993. Or take this one: “Our ministry is to do the work of God here on Earth,” said Clinton to a church in Temple Hills, Maryland, August 1994.

Mind you, Clinton said this not merely while speaking in churches but actively campaigning in churches—another tactic the press only permits of Democrats.

In fact, Bill Clinton’s wife, as the senatorial candidate for New York in 2000, likewise campaigned in churches, as did Clinton’s vice president, Al Gore, the Democratic presidential nominee. On election eve in November 2000, Mrs. Clinton campaigned in seven churches in seven hours.

Bill Clinton, sitting president, happily helped Hillary and Al Gore and other Democrats that year, barnstorming churches like a country preacher. On October 31, 2000, Clinton hit the Kelly Temple Church of God in Christ in Harlem. Joined by a contingent of fellow Democrat politicians, Clinton reminded congregants why they were there:

Now, we all know why we’re here…. But I want to talk to you about the people that aren’t in this church tonight … but they could vote. And they need to vote, and they need to know why they’re voting. And that’s really why you’re here, because of all the people who aren’t here. Isn’t that right? …

So what you have to think about tonight is, what is it you intend to do between now and Tuesday, and on Tuesday, to get as many people there as possible and to make sure when they get to the polls, they know why they’re there, what the stakes are, and what the consequences are…. If you’ve got any friends across the river in New Jersey or anyplace else, I want you to reach them between now and Tuesday, because this is a razor-thin election.

Speaking to the Alfred Baptist Church in Alexandria, Virginia, Bill Clinton employed Scripture as justification to head to the polls: “The Scripture says, ‘While we have time, let us do good unto all men.’ And a week from Tuesday, it will be time for us to vote.”

Clinton was joined at the Alexandria church by a prominent collection of Democrats. That talk came on October 29, 2000, at 12:40 p.m. Three hours earlier, at 9:40 a.m., he squeezed in another campaign talk to the congregation of the Shiloh Baptist Church in Washington, D.C. There, Clinton pitched various federal legislation and blasted Republican-proposed tax cuts before urging worshipers to go vote.

When Scripture was mentioned at these churches, it was for political purposes. It was a total infusion of church and state. And why not? shrugged Clinton. As he told a congregation in Newark, he and fellow Democrats were doing the Lord’s work: “God’s work must be our own.”

Overall, Bill Clinton spoke in churches 21 times as president, over half of which came in election years. For the record, his wife did 27 churches in just two months in 2000.

The hypocrisy of the press on this issue is staggering. All a Republican needs to do is mention God and secular liberals go wild. Meanwhile, liberal Democrats can say anything they want about God—even while blatantly campaigning in churches—and their media allies will not utter a peep of protest.

“God’s will?” To the press, that’s the domain of Democrats alone.

— 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.

LONDON, February 25, 2012 — In his book The Gospel in Brief, Leo Tolstoy wrote about a personal crisis he underwent around the age of fifty. It was a crisis that nearly claimed his life:

“Fifty years after my birth, having asked myself and all the wise ones in my circle who I am and what the purpose of my life is, I received the answer that I am an accidental clutter of parts that there is no purpose in life... I fell into despair and wanted to kill myself.”

Tolstoy's long season of despair was one the great trials of his life. Things became so dire that he stopped going hunting for fear he could not resist the urge to shoot himself while out in the woods.

The root cause of Tolstoy's anguish could be easily pinpointed – his predicament was brought on by his atheism. It could not have been otherwise, because despair is the inevitable destiny of every clear-thinking person who subscribes to this worldview.

If atheism is true life is devoid of meaning or purpose. We are here for a blip of time and then we die. All we do in our lives – all our efforts and aspirations – are completely meaningless. It does not even matter whether one is a good person or a bad person. Ultimately, it really makes no difference whether you are a Mother Theresa or an Adolf Hitler. They both died and ceased to exist and soon will also everyone whose lives they touched one way or another.

In the end the universe itself will die a thermodynamic death. All the achievements of man – the plays of Shakespeare, the music of Bach, the sculptures of Michelangelo, the discoveries of Newton and Einstein – will have been for naught. The earth will be a block of dead ice floating aimlessly through a cold, burnt-out universe. Everything that man has ever done or accomplished will have been in vain.

There are those who say that even though life has no meaning we should try to snatch as much pleasure during our time on earth as we possibly can. But this a futile effort also, because pleasures – whether of the body or of the mind – are ultimately empty. In fact, people often find that as they grow older the pleasures that had once brought a measure of joy become tedious and unexciting.

King Solomon who as an old man penned the book of Ecclesiastes articulated this truth when he wrote: “All things are wearisome; man is not able to tell it. The eye is not satisfied with seeing, nor is the ear filled with hearing.”

We do not, however, have to go to an ancient Jewish text to read about the frustration that inevitably engulfs a pleasure-orientated life. More recently, a rock star who could freely indulge in every conceivable pleasure sang, “I can't get no satisfaction.” Whoever says that we can gain some degree of real happiness by pursuing pleasure – whether of carnal, intellectual or aesthetic kind – is simply not telling the truth.

If atheism is true then despair and frustration are our inescapable lot. But the most painful of all is the notion that life has no meaning. To a man who truly grasps the idea that his life is meaningless this realization cannot but become a source of unceasing torment. To a perceptive unbeliever his existence must appear as some cruel cosmic joke that is very hard to bear.

If one is a cheerful atheist, it is only because he has either not thought his worldview through or he deceives himself regarding the inevitable implications of it. When once grasped for what it really is, atheism is nearly impossible to endure. Suicide would, indeed, seem as the most reasonable and logical solution to the meaninglessness of human existence. That's why Tolstoy wanted to kill himself. He experienced that suicidal urge, because he was an atheist who could see clearly the bleak hopelessness of his position.

After a long and agonizing struggle, Tolstoy finally overcame his despondency by finding transcendence in God. If you, too, happen to be an atheist in despair over the absurdness of life take heart. Your predicament can be easily remedied, since deep down you know that atheism is untrue. Even though you may declare yourself to be an atheist, you certainly do not live like one, because to live consistently in accordance with your profession is simply impossible.

Somewhere in your heart you know that life is not meaningless and that it does matter how we live. You know that there is good and evil and that there is a world of difference between a Mother Theresa and an Adolf Hitler. You know that love excels hate. You know it is better to be a good person than to be a bad one. It is, in fact, very likely that you yourself try every day to be the best person you can be and that you rejoice in your moral progress and regret your failings.

This knowledge and these intuitions are common to all sane men and they show atheism for the lie that it is. Atheism is the product of a stubborn and rebellious heart that is at war with itself. Every day the atheist denies his worldview by his own actions and way of life.

Thankfully, there is a simple solution to this contradiction. You need to stop denying the obvious and start believing what you already know is true. You are God's creature and you bear his divine stamp all over your being. To become whole, you need to accept and acknowledge Him who is the source of all life, goodness and meaning.

This is what Tolstoy did and his change of mind saved his life and sanity. This is how he described his great decision in his book Confession: “I returned to a belief in God, in moral perfection, and in a tradition transmitting the meaning of life.”

Even though he was already considered the greatest living writer, Tolstoy was not ashamed to confess his mistakes and personal insufficiency before the creator of the universe. We should do no less.

____________________

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.

Once upon a time, my father bought Time magazine every week, as I do now. He paid 20 cents per issue; I'm paying $3.95. In my teens I bought paperback editions of Shakespeare's plays for 35 cents each; now they cost about five bucks. 

Joe Sobran (circa 1980)

I'm no economist; these are just some of my rough indices of how prices have risen in my memory. Things in general now cost ten to twenty times as much as they used to. Don't even ask about groceries or cars. If prices increased 1000 per cent overnight, we'd notice. Spread over decades, it seems natural. We hardly notice, let alone suspect mischief.

What's going on? Is America under the sway of an enormous counterfeiting ring? That's one way to put it. The funny money operation is formally known as the U.S. Government.

The money supply is now managed by the Federal Reserve System, which was created in 1913 and was supposed to protect the dollar from inflation. It obviously hasn't quite worked out as planned. Or maybe it has, but the public wasn't let in on the real plan. Somebody must benefit from the constant sapping of the dollar, but don't look at me.

Originally the "dollar" was more than a piece of paper with some president's face on it. It was a fixed amount of precious metal. When paper money came in, you could demand, and get, solid gold or silver for it.

Over time, the government took the dollar off the gold standard, meaning that it was now just a piece of paper. Most people were a bit foggy about that anyway, since they were used to paper money and supposed it had some intrinsic value. In fact, its only value now lay in its relative scarcity; it was no longer a promise to pay in precious metals.

All this would have shocked the Framers of the U.S. Constitution, who authorized Congress to "coin" money, not private bankers to "print" the stuff. The eventual decline of the dollar is just what they would have expected when the Constitution's prescription was abandoned, which amounts to counterfeiting dollars with the permission and encouragement of the government itself.

Our forebears would have seen this as a moral issue - a government conniving in the defrauding of its own citizens. But we accept it, take it for granted, don't get riled up, any more than sheep get indignant about being sheared.

The chief business of the U.S. Government today is fleecing us - through taxes, spending, creating debt, and ensuring that we're paid in shrinking dollars. It may look like a conspiracy, but I'm inclined to think it's just the aggregate result of the doings of men who are at once powerful and weak, venal and short-sighted, taking the path of least resistance for men in their position.

And if the public puts up with it, why not? Are your grandchildren going to be furious at having to pay off huge debts bequeathed to them? Probably no more furious than you are about the national debt you've been paying off all your adult life.

I can't really get angry about it myself, even though I sense what's happening to us every time I notice another price increase. I almost admire the people who do make a fuss about it, but there are so few of them that they sound crazy, like Ezra Pound ranting about "international financiers."

No, it's hard to make a melodrama out of a slow process. The government is less like a bank robber who storms in with ski mask and pistol than like a timid little bank clerk who quietly, over the years, embezzles a large fortune without setting off alarms or getting caught.

That timid clerk may look like nobody's idea of a criminal, but he may be an all-the-more-effective enemy to trusting people just because they'd never suspect him of breaking the law. Why, they assume he shares their concern about the general moral deterioration of society! Crime has no better mask than outward respectability. And a man who sticks up a bank for $50 is more noticeable than a man who embezzles a million bucks over many years, while carefully fixing the books.

So when the government tells us it's protecting us from the world's most ruthless criminals, we ought to wonder if perhaps we need to be protected from criminals a little closer to home. The chances of your being harmed by terrorists are mathematically minute. The chance of your being robbed by your own government? That's easy: 100 per cent.

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[This column was published originally by Griffin Internet Syndicate on January 1, 2004.]

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Earlier this month we wrote about the latest annual report from the non-partisan Tax Foundation ranking North Dakota 29th in the nation in the area of "Business Friendly Tax Policy."

Following that report, NDTA contacted the Tax Foundation and asked them to provide some ways they suggest North Dakota might do to make the state better for business - because 29th place simply is not good enough.

Last week, they issued this official policy memo:

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Recommendations for North Dakota's Tax System

by Mark Robyn

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

The secular world today trembles and shudders at the sight of Rick Santorum speaking on good and evil at Ave Maria University in Florida in 2008. Santorum’s statement came 25 years after another much-maligned social conservative, Ronald Reagan, delivered a similarly fiery speech in Florida in 1983. In both cases, the secular left recoiled in horror, mortified that any American other than Barack Obama or Jimmy Carter might dare remark on matters of faith and state, of the temporal and eternal.

I caught excerpts of Santorum’s speech for the first time yesterday, when America’s omnipresent force—Matt Drudge—posted a link under the grim, black-and-white headline, “SANTORUM’S SATAN WARNING.” Immediately, the remainder of the natural universe leapt in knee-jerk hysteria, and soon Santorum’s warnings of the Evil One were the talk of a stunned nation.

As I digested the speech, I was struck at how so many of Santorum’s themes and words echoed those expressed in Ronald Reagan’s historic Evil Empire speech. Santorum ruminated on evil, spiritual warfare, truth, vanity, sensuality, temptation, pride, education, abortion. Like Reagan, he fears that the “great political conflict” in America “is not a political war at all, or a cultural war—it is a spiritual war.” In that war, “the father of lies” has “set his sights” on America.

And then, like Reagan, Santorum finished with a message of faith-based optimism for the faithful: “My message to you today is that you will lose, you will lose battle after battle; you will become frustrated, but do not lose hope. God will be faithful, if you are.”

As for Ronald Reagan’s Evil Empire speech, it was many things. It is remembered as a bold, long-overdue utterance of searing truth about the USSR, which Reagan described as “the focus of evil in the modern world.” But the speech was much more. It looked inward at the sins and evils at work in America—as did Santorum’s speech. It was first and foremost a speech about evil generally, theological as much as political—like Santorum’s speech. As Reagan himself put it, “We know that living in this world means dealing with what philosophers would call the phenomenology of evil or, as theologians would put it, the doctrine of sin.” Reagan dared to use the “J” word: “There is sin and evil in the world, and we’re enjoined by Scripture and the Lord Jesus to oppose it with all our might.”

Reagan spoke on March 8, 1983 at the Orlando Sheraton. The audience was the National Association of Evangelicals. He began by thanking those present for their prayers. He cited his favorite quote from Lincoln, about being driven to his knees by the “overwhelming conviction” that he had nowhere else to go. He commended the crucial role of faith in democracy. “Freedom prospers only where the blessings of God are avidly sought and humbly accepted,” Reagan maintained. “The American experiment in democracy rests on this insight.” He said the discovery of that insight was the “great triumph” of the Founders. Indeed it was.

Characteristically, Reagan cited George Washington on the indispensability of religion and morality to “political prosperity.” Reagan bemoaned the “modern-day secularism” that had discarded the “tried and time-tested values” upon which American civilization was based. He expressed deep concern over rising illegitimate births and abortions. He pushed for prayer in public schools.

Reagan then underscored the evils pervading American life. “Our nation, too, has a legacy of evil with which it must deal,” said Reagan, pointing to the “long struggle of minority citizens for equal rights.” He insisted: “There is no room for racism, anti-Semitism, or other forms of ethnic and racial hatred in this country.”

Like Santorum, Reagan essentially agreed that America, too, had been victimized by Satan. Racism and slavery were among the Devil’s vicious victories.

Reagan cast America’s struggle as spiritual: “The real crisis we face today is a spiritual one; at root, it is a test of moral will and faith.” He referred to Marxism-Leninism as “the second oldest faith, first proclaimed in the Garden of Eden with the words of temptation, ‘Ye shall be as gods.’’’

Alas, Reagan finished with a burst of faith-based optimism, quoting Isaiah: “He giveth power to the faint; and to them that have no might He increased strength.... But they that wait upon the Lord shall renew their strength; they shall mount up with wings as eagles; they shall run, and not be weary.”

Of course, in reaction to Reagan’s speech, the press went nuts, much like the reaction to Santorum’s remarks.

Oh, well. To borrow from Reagan: There they go again.

Hang in there, Rick. Be not afraid.

— 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.

Have you noticed that most of those people against Measure 2 (Property Tax Elimination) are on the receive and spend side of property taxes.  As far as I can tell, they are the ones that ride in the wagon.  The average property tax payer could be considered the horse that pulls the wagon.  People in the wagon do pay property taxes, but a large majority of them feel it's just an irritating incident  that occurs on February 15.  If someone else in the wagon is upset by their property tax, they just negotiate more salary form the property tax to pay their property taxes.

Now the horse (average property taxpayer)  is a different story.  He has no input into the assessed  value of his property.  He is also on the outside looking in when the mill levies are establish.  Paying the tax is a major financial event  that may or may not get done.  But his job is to pull the wagon, shut up and make no waves.  One could fail to observe any local control here.  But he is rewarded every now and then with a new harness to help with increasing heavy  loads.  The tax and spend people are jumping into the wagon with statements like "It only 5 mills - who can object to that" and " Increased property values  is the American way"

Well the horse is now saying "Enough already.  It time to drop the harness on the State where  money is being stacked in the hallways!"  If we don't, every cockamamie spending idea under the sun will be funded by the legislature - like the absolutely necessary North Dakota Horse Racing Commission.  Ah, but then what would the people in the wagon have to do when they are not riding in the wagon.

The status quo is so comfortable and the ruling class like the deck chairs right where they are on the Titanic.  Some of our seniors who have lived here for decades, are either moving out or being thrown out because property taxes are approaching $300.00 a month.  And don't give me the Homestead  Credit speech - all that does is pass the obligation on to the rest of us.   Farmers and ranchers are having their land values raised state wide - about 22% for pasture and 32% for crop land.  Does that equate to higher property tax - NO,  but we all know what's coming.

Read the measure.  You will marvel at how well it's thought out.

Editor’s Note: The "V&V Q&A" is an e-publication from The Center for Vision & Values at Grove City College. In this latest edition, professor of political science and executive director of the Center—Dr. Paul Kengor—is interviewed by Kathryn Jean Lopez—editor-at-large of National Review Online, where this Q&A first appeared. In honor of Ronald Reagan’s birthday this month, Lopez asks Kengor about the Health and Human Services mandate forcing Catholics to offer and purchase health-insurance plans that violate their consciences and what the 40th president might have advised.

Kathryn Jean Lopez: Did Ronald Reagan ever face a backlash from some of his base like we’re seeing on this HHS mandate issue?

Paul Kengor: Two points on that:

First, I’d hesitate to describe the Catholic backlash  against Obama as a backlash from his base, even some of his base. Sure, Obama won a majority of self-professing Catholic voters in November 2008; those voters effectively made him president. However, many of those Catholic voters are not regular Mass attendees; they check “Catholic” in the religious-affiliation box in exit polls. When you actually break down the data from November 2008, you see that faithful, weekly-Mass-going Catholics voted decisively against Obama. And if you surveyed daily communicants—that is, daily Mass-goers—you’d find an even higher percentage who voted against Obama. Even deeper, if you survey daily Mass-goers under the age of 50, you’d think you were at CPAC. These are the “John Paul II Catholics,” the “Evangelium Vitae Catholics.” I should add that these categories also apply to priests.

This means that the future Catholic Church is much more loyal to the Church’s teachings on matters such as abortion and contraception.

Second, Reagan never faced a huge backlash from his base, though he did occasionally get conservative criticism. To cite one important example, certain leading conservatives were worried that Reagan was being duped by Mikhail Gorbachev and was giving away the store to the Soviet leader. They were the subject of a very interesting New York Times magazine piece in January 1988, entitled, “The Right against Reagan.”

Lopez: Is there anything from Reagan’s record that might be instructive to the sitting president?

Kengor: Well, yes, but I doubt Obama will listen.

Reagan did indeed have a major area of disagreement with the Catholic bishops. It was over Reagan’s pursuit of the MX missile and the whole nuclear-freeze controversy. The leader among the bishops was Joseph Cardinal Bernardin. Reagan’s point-man in communicating with the bishops was Bill Clark, the head of his National Security Council, a very faithful Catholic, and a good man. Clark carefully worked with the bishops. Clark even brought in an old Catholic friend, the famous Clare Boothe Luce, who also worked with the bishops. They all worked extremely well together, coming to an agreement in April 1983. Cardinal Bernardin ultimately told the New York Times that he believed the bishops had in fact “misunderstood” the Reagan administration. He credited Clark with clarifying the administration’s position. Clark had made clear to him that Reagan nuclear policy was guided by “compelling moral considerations.”

In short, Reagan worked with the bishops. He liked them. He liked the Catholic Church. I would even say that Reagan loved the Catholic Church. His father had been Catholic, and Reagan was very sympathetic to Catholicism. I record an example in one of my books where Reagan in the spring of 1989 told a group of visiting Poles that he considered John Paul II his “best friend.” And if John Paul II wasn’t literally his best friend, Bill Clark was one of them. Reagan’s brother and sister-in-law were daily communicants.

In other words, Reagan wanted to be on the same team as the bishops. He respected their moral authority and thinking. They were kindred souls.

Obama, on the other hand, could care less. Ditto for his chief advisers—folks like David Axelrod. For Obama, the promotion and preservation of “abortion rights” is where his heart is. He’s a true believer. He thinks that Catholics and their Church are flatly wrong on the abortion issue. He has no desire for common ground on this issue.

Lopez: Is there anything from Reagan’s record that might be instructive to the Republicans still vying for their party’s nomination—specifically on this mandate fight?

Kengor: Yes, it’s this: The Catholic bishops are highly educated, very intelligent, and very thoughtful men. And if your position is indeed morally defensible and on the side of what’s right, you can work with them. On this issue, Romney and Gingrich and Santorum are all with the bishops. They have nothing to fear or fight.

Lopez: Reagan was a convert on the issue of abortion. Might he have advice for Mitt Romney, who also is one?

Kengor: Reagan never supported abortion. As governor, though, he was forced to grapple with the issue for the first time. It was the late 1960s, pre-Roe. Very few people even thought about the abortion issue. It wasn’t a political issue. Reagan had been an FDR Democrat in the 1930s and 1940s. If any Democrat back then had come forward and advocated “abortion rights” and taxpayer funding for Planned Parenthood, embryo destruction, contraception, sterilization, and abortifacients, he would have been seized by authorities as a public menace and confined to a lunatic asylum. Seriously. No one back then would have supported the Democratic Party platform today.

Once Reagan became governor, the abortion issue was thrust upon him by the California assembly. He immediately dissected the moral arguments and concluded that abortion was wrong. That said, he was faced with a piece of abortion legislation pushed by the legislature. He tried to improve the legislation but was badly misled, and thereby signed into law a bill that helped to legalize abortion in California. It was a perfect example of unintended consequences. Reagan later considered it a gigantic mistake and one of his greatest regrets in office. He was truly shocked and appalled. I did a piece on this for NRO a few years ago. I recommend it for further details.

Lopez: How much of a gamble was Reagan for pro-lifers? How happy were they with him during his administration?

Kengor: He wasn’t a gamble at all. By 1981, he remained firmly pro-life and was arguably even stronger from a political standpoint because he had been so badly burned as governor. He was now wary. He vowed to be vigilant in never again allowing abortion proponents to sucker him.

As president, Reagan supported a human-life amendment to the U.S. Constitution. Such an amendment would have inserted these words into the Constitution: “The paramount right to life is vested in each human being from the moment of fertilization without regard to age, health or condition of dependency.” Think about that. He favored providing every human being—at all stages of development—protection as “persons” with the “right to life” under the 14th Amendment. That amendment never passed, which is too bad. It might have killed Obama’s mandate, or at least posed a significant challenge.

Note here that Reagan, a Protestant, took a position in lock-step with that of the Roman Catholic Church: Life begins at conception.

Reagan gave innumerable pro-life statements while president. They are a treasure. His rhetorical stance in favor of life and use of the bully pulpit to push the pro-life cause is one of the most unappreciated but meaningful things he did as president. I could give a hundred examples, but I’ll share a forgotten one:

In July 1987, Reagan gave a wonderful talk to a small group of pro-life leaders. He began: “Many of you, perhaps most, never dreamed of getting involved in politics. What brought you into politics was a matter of conscience, a matter of fundamental conviction…. Many of you have been attacked for being single-issue activists or single-issue voters. But I ask: What single issue could be of greater significance?” Reagan said that if one is unsure precisely when life begins, one should err in a way that protects rather than robs life: “If there’s even a question about when human life begins, isn’t it our duty to err on the side of life?”

Amen to that. Reagan finished with this: “I’d like to leave with you a quotation that means a great deal to me. These are the words of my friend, the late Terence Cardinal Cooke, of New York. ‘The gift of life, God’s special gift, is no less beautiful when it is accompanied by illness or weakness, hunger or poverty, mental or physical handicaps, loneliness or old age. Indeed, at these times, human life gains extra splendor as it requires our special care, concern, and reverence. It is in and through the weakest of human vessels that the Lord continues to reveal the power of His love.’”

Unlike Planned Parenthood founder Margaret Sanger, a liberal icon and racial-eugenicist who spoke to the New Jersey KKK, Reagan wasn’t eager to expunge the gene pool of what Sanger termed “human weeds.”

No, said Reagan, every human being, from the moment of conception, was a “ressacra,” a “sacred reality,” made in the image of God. All humans possess a God-given dignity that those of us among the living have a duty to protect.

Let’s just say that President Obama disagrees.

Lopez: Clearly, then, Reagan’s faith informed these issues?

Kengor: It sure did. Here, too, I could say a lot. But I’ll end with this example, which drove the New York Times so crazy with rage that it editorialized against Reagan.

In January 1984, Reagan gave a speech to religious broadcasters, in which he said: “God’s most blessed gift to his family is the gift of life. He sent us the Prince of Peace as a babe in the manger.” Like 19th-century clergy who led the movement to abolish slavery, Reagan as a Christian saw himself as duty-bound to fight abortion, which he equated with slavery in terms of moral outrage and deprivation of human dignity. He made that analogy to the National Religious Broadcasters: “This nation fought a terrible war so that black Americans would be guaranteed their God-given rights. Abraham Lincoln recognized that we could not survive as a free land when some could decide whether others should be free or slaves. Well, today another question begs to be asked: How can we survive as a free nation when some decide that others are not fit to live and should be done away with? I believe no challenge is more important to the character of America than restoring the right to life to all human beings. Without that right, no other rights have meaning.”

Reagan then quoted the words of Christ: “Suffer the little children to come unto me, and forbid them not, for such is the kingdom of God.”

Together, Reagan assured the religious broadcasters that they could convince their fellow countrymen that America “should, can, and will preserve God’s greatest gift”—the right to life.

That’s the fight we’re in right now, thanks to President Obama.

— 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." Kathryn Jean Lopez is editor-at-large of National Review Online, where this Q&A first appeared.

© 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.