Dakota Beacon

While Barack Obama was making his latest pitch for a brand new, even more unsustainable entitlement at the health care “summit”, thousands of Greeks took to the streets to riot. An enterprising cable network might have shown the two scenes on a continuous split-screen - because they’re part of the same story. It’s just that Greece is a little further along in the plot: They’re at the point where the canoe is about to plunge over the falls. America is further upstream and can still pull for shore, but has decided instead that what it needs to do is catch up with the Greek canoe. Chapter One (the introduction of unsustainable entitlements) leads eventually to Chapter Twenty (total societal collapse): The Greeks are at Chapter Seventeen or Eighteen.

Paul Schaffner absolutely nails the Fargo Forum on their hypocrisy regarding “Republican Hypocrisy” This is a must read. I understand that it has been submitted to the Forum for publication. It will never see the light of day in any Forum Communications venue. Count on it!

An Event Review by Lynn Bergman

I shared my initial observations with the facilitator of the “Digging out from Debt” round table after completion of the presentation. I explained that I was attending with the intent of writing an article on the event in the Dakota Beacon magazine. I then began to explain my concern with what was not said at the beginning of the presentation and my disagreement with a few of the suggestions within the presentation. At first the facilitator became slightly defensive, but quickly became conciliatory after realizing that I was genuinely concerned with the economic well being of young citizens and how their education in financial matters is paramount to correcting our societal indifference to saving and subsequently buying with cash, a “life skill” those professionals in multiple disciplines aptly term “delayed gratification”.

Is there such a thing as a “Good Politician”?  Or, is a politician, by definition, innately a self-serving, know-it-all, in league with the devil?  The approval rating of our politicians in Washington, DC, as a group, has never been lower; and each and every one of them should be embarrassed and ashamed.

The point is that national parties are vote-getting, patronage machines. The attempt to beautify them and their operations by attaching philosophical labels is nonsense. The only way we can have the kind of discussions that my friend Bill Kauffman wants is by forgetting the shifting interests of our two parties and their opportunistic labeling. Otherwise, there is no escape from the exchange of prepackaged sound-bites.

You may have seen the recent story about the 41-year-old doctor who graduated from medical school in 2003 with student-loan indebtedness of $250,000 that has since swelled to more than $555,000. She is now scheduled to pay $990 per month until she is 70 years old. Ouch!

This is an extreme example of a widespread problem. Only 40 percent of the $730 billion of outstanding student loans are actively being repaid. This isn’t healthy for financial institutions and it isn’t healthy for many young Americans. Just as was the case with the ongoing mortgage fiasco, there is plenty of blame to go around for this sorry state of affairs. Still it is significant that almost all student loans are taken out by Americans too young to know what it takes to pay their bills and make a living on their own.

It has been an absolute rollercoaster watching Senator Conrad's policy regarding the use of budget reconciliation on non-budget issues take shape.

People criticize Senator Thurmond because he did not support integration until the people of South Carolina did. On the other hand, these critics ignore completely the fact that if, in 1948, Northern Republican Conservatives and Southern Democrat Conservatives alike had rallied to his cause and elected him, many of the 33,000 plus American soldiers and Marines killed in Korea might be alive today. Weighing these two factors, I have no hesitation in saying we would be better off if he had been elected.

Smart people are backing away from the fraud and deception of falsified data. Only politicians and stubborn ideological nitwits chase that myth and illusion.

The bloom is off the rose. Time to call a time-out on anything alleging manmade climate change. Use that time to separate climate from left-wing liberal politics.

Now, let's increase agricultural income across the board.  How?  Mandate we consume 10% more of the following  products: beef, pork, chicken, lamb, wheat, barley (beer you know), flax, field peas, soybeans, chickpeas, dry edible beans, oat, turkey, rye, spelt, canola, rape, lentil, mustard, corn, sugar beet, potato, duck, pheasant, quail, pond raised fish, carrots, onions, radish, cabbage, squash, pumpkin, peas, green beans, yellow beans, broccoli,  tomato, asparagus, grape(wine of course), honey, milk, cheese, butter, yogurts plus an endless list of other specialty crops and products  produced right here in North Dakota as well as nationally.

Jesting aside, it’s no stretch to say that this is the result of America’s affirmative-action mentality.  And, if you think it’s much ado about nothing, know that it reflects a society to which standards increasingly mean nothing.  We are creating generations of ignorant, shiftless slackers, people who are only eternally vigilant about seeking pleasure.  And think about this: If many modern Americans cannot adequately perform even simple functions, how can they tackle complex problems?  How can we expect them to be able to solve our budget and financial woes or create healthy families?         

We are descending, pell-mell, toward Idiocracy.  But, hey, man, like, you know, I get ABC’s drift, you know.  So what’s my problem?  Well, my bad, dude, my bad.  Yo, yes, we can!

I never knew Al Haig, though I did interview him for books I wrote on Ronald Reagan and on Reagan's closest adviser, Bill Clark, who had the thrill of serving as Haig's deputy at the State Department in that critical first year of the Reagan administration. I learned plenty about Haig from others. What I grasped about Haig—from a policy perspective—was not the conventional wisdom among pundits and historians: though Haig was the prototypical tough-talking, take-no-prisoners military general, he more often assumed the role of dove in the early Reagan administration. Alexander Haig was far from perfect, but aren't we all? He left the world a more interesting place, and one not as black-and-white as his critics suggest.

Today, the North Dakota Taxpayers' Association (NDTA) called on North Dakota's federal delegation to denounce the use of the budget reconciliation process to force government-run healthcare through Congress.

 The Quirks of ND, I froze up, I was just like a Popsicle, wolf at the door, Michele Bachmann, we'll always be Midgets, in his heart always remained a farmer, a lifetime interest in aircraft, a true Nodak, the town decided to reinvigorate itself, Living the good life in North Dakota, Lutheran Social Services, A startling statistic from South Dakota

America is overwhelmingly conservative, but that conservative will has long been frustrated by a combination of leftist entrenched establishments, befuddled Republican leaders who did not grasp that their supporters wanted a conservative revolution, and Democrats like Bayh, Dorgan, and Lincoln – who said one thing at home and did something very much different in Washington.  Everything has changed.  The next two election cycles are critical.  Right now, the constellations point to gains in 2010 and also in 2012 sufficient to allow stout hearted conservatives, through the Republican Party, to introduce the sort of hope and change that most Americans desperately want.  In three years, at long last, America may have the government that the vast majority of us want.

On the other hand, when it comes to “keeping you safe” from real threats, such as a millenarian theocracy that claims universal jurisdiction, America and its allies do nothing. There aren’t going to be any sanctions, because China and Russia don’t want them. That means military action, which would have to be done without UN backing – which, as Greg Sheridan of The Australian puts it, “would be foreign to every instinct of the Obama Administration.” Indeed. Nonetheless, Washington is (altogether now) “losing patience” with the mullahs. The New York Daily News reports the latest get-tough move:

“Secretary of State Clinton dared Iran on Monday to let her hold a town hall meeting in Tehran.”

How many times have we read or heard about children who were returned to abusive environments being severely injured or even killed? What of the emotional abuse that comes with domestic unrest?

Enumerated powers, separation of powers, checks and balances, high thresholds for amending the Constitution, and a system of co-equal state and federal powers – these were the promises made to the people and to their sovereign states when the Constitution was adopted.  Has any solemn promise not been broken?  Federal offices swear to protect and defend the Constitution, but when is the last time this sacred oath was taken seriously? 

"As far as public debt is concerned, the United States is long-since on a par with Europe. More generally, you cannot adopt European ideas about government and hope to keep the minimal government cherished by the American revolutionaries."

 In this latest e-publication from The Center for Vision & Values at Grove City College, “V&V Q&A: Outrageous Public Debt”, Dr. Paul Kengor, executive director of the Center, interviews Dr. Guido Hülsmann, chairman of the economics department at the University of Angers in France and author of an acclaimed biography of Ludwig von Mises, "Mises: The Last Knight of Liberalism."

Obama praised Wright as "a man who helped introduce me to my Christian faith." 

That would explain a lot about his absurdly mangled version of the faith he professes.  The devil can cite Scripture for his purpose, Shakespeare tells us; but surely the devil could do it more adroitly than Obama. 

It is time to start over with a process that brings both parties to the table with ideas for reform. The special deals and exemptions of the past are null and void. And another thing of great importance, this will be the opportunity for congress and the president to make amends for past behavior. They can show the American people that legislation can be produced that meets our nation’s needs, and it can be done in the open. We need to see civil behavior and cooperation and respect for other points of view. And most of all, they need to earn back the respect of the people for it is we who send them there to do our work.

Obama’s call for bipartisanship is imaginary transparency. He does not care about Republican ideas. He has called for a bipartisan meeting for two reasons. First, at long last he will fulfill his promise to televise health care negotiations on C-SPAN. Second, he can use the edited transcripts in November to produce campaign propaganda TV commercials supporting Democrats against Republicans.

Bottom line: Survey after survey reveal that Americans don’t like what they see of health care legislation. Most wish the process would start over with a level playing field, not merely be tweaked in bipartisan meetings. President Obama and the Democrat congressional leadership want proposed health care legislation left in tact and have said so.

Both as commander-in-chief of the Continental Army and president, Washington worked to form an American character. Throughout the War for Independence, he expected both his officers and soldiers to act morally and “display the character of republicans” appropriate to “Christian Soldier[s]” who were defending their country’s “dearest Rights and Liberties.” Speaking to the nation’s governors in 1783, Washington argued that Americans could “establish or ruin their national Character forever.” As John Winthrop had done in his 1630 sermon “A Model of Christian Charity,” Washington reminded his countrymen that “the eyes of the whole World” were “turned upon them.” Guided by the complementary principles of revelation and reason, Americans must fulfill their civic duties because they were “actors on a most conspicuous Theatre … peculiarly designated by Providence for the display of human greatness and felicity.”

Since all of the many past temperature fluctuations were caused by natural cycles and we have barely scratched the surface regarding our understanding of these natural cycles, it's absurd to assume all of the 1 degree of warming the past 100 years must be from man.

Econoclasts: The Rebels Who Sparked the Supply-Side Revolution and Restored American Prosperity, by Brian Domitrovic. Domitrovic “has written an important book,” observes Dr. Hendrickson. “Econoclasts is the first in-depth history of ‘supply-side economics,’ the intellectual movement that laid the foundation for the tax-cut and sound-money policies [that] liberated the United States from the grip of the dreadful stagflation of the ‘70s and paved the way for a quarter-century of almost uninterrupted economic growth and prosperity.” “Prof. Domitrovic writes fluently and clearly. He superbly recreates a period which many Americans are too young to remember.”

There can really be no argument on this point: The struggle against abortion is the cause célèbre nonpareil of our era. A free citizen living in these times is morally challenged as profoundly as an American living through slavery or as a German during the years of Hitler's madness.

We are morally defined by our response to the existential demands of our era. No Yankee or Southerner in antebellum America was left unscathed. No German in the time of the Third Reich avoided Divine scrutiny. Few of us today will be able to stand before God pleading total innocence of the blood of these 50 million children. I include myself among the guilty because I have lacked the wit and the passion to save a single one of them.

The soulless wretch in My Son John resembles another John of modern leftism, John Edwards.  This John  lies whenever it is more convenient to lie than to tell the truth.  He lies even when his lies are daggers through the hearts of family members.  He strives to look pretty, to sound glib, to seem caring, to think seriously – and yet everything about this very real modern John is as much a lie as the fictional character in My Son John.

NATION’S BEST COUNTIES, WHEN IT RAINS IT POURS!, WE NEED A COMPLETE CHANGE IN THE COUNCIL, POLAR PIG SPLASH, SIERS LEFT THE DIRECTOR POSITION FOLLOWING A STORMY START, THOSE ARE THE FACTS, FARGO NEEDS BIG MONEY, U.S. ATTORNEY FOR ND, 101-YEAR-OLD AVON LADY, THE OWL SLAYER, COMPULSIVE HOARDING SYNDROME, BARLEY, BEER DRINKERS AND GERMAN, PRAISING THE MINOT AFB, DAKTOIDS

This is the only country in the developed world where a mass movement took to the streets to say we can do just fine if you control-freak statists would just stay the hell out of our lives, and our pockets. You can shove your non-stimulating stimulus, your jobless jobs bill, and your multitrillion-dollar porkathons. This isn't karaoke. These guys are singing "I'll do it my way" for real.

But it's awfully late in the day. The end is near, we face the final curtain, and it's an open question whether the spirit of the tea parties can triumph over the soporific, sophomoric, self-flattering conformism of that Audi ad: Groupthink compliance has never felt so right!