Dakota Beacon

. . . speaking about the New Town murders; All eight of the FBI’s ND agents; FBI remained tightlipped; Dickinson and Minot are tossing around billion dollar numbers; Housing, housing, housing; Erdrich received the National Book Award; Did the Bismarck Tribune miss the boat? Wahat has been ND’s greatest export? Airline boardings up 19 percent; Heidi Heitkamp’s surprise victory; U.S. Senator Kent Conrad; sleeps in a van in Williston; UND hockey attendance . . . .

In contrast to the anger and unhappiness of this protest mentality is the “present” mentality, which was colorfully expressed by G.K. Chesterton when he said, “Goods look a lot better when wrapped as gifts.” We appreciate presents because they’re a bonus; they’re things we don’t deserve. They tend to make us, in a word, happy.

The intent of the First Amendment was to make government neutral among religious sects, not neutral between religion and non-religion. Professor Charles Rice, in his book, The Supreme Court and Public Prayer, writes: "... the public life of the American states was based upon the unapologetic conviction that there is a God who exercises benevolent providence over the affairs of man. This is not to say that all Americans then recognized God, or that there was agreement on all the details of his attributes. But to those who assert that the First Amendment was designed to prevent the government from recognizing God and praying His aid, it can rightly be said that they will have to find evidence for their claim elsewhere than in the history of the period prior to 1787."

Failing to consider how often emotion, or our animal nature, trumps intellect is one of the most common mistakes made when predicting man’s behavior. George W. Bush was guilty of this when making the case for Mideast “nation building” and saying “All people want freedom.” Perhaps. But so does a wild animal in a city zoo; so does a toddler. Yet neither can negotiate civilization without endangering himself and/or others. And this mistake is also apparent in continual Kumbaya calls to ignore the perils of cultural incongruity, such as “All people want the same things.”

The ceasefire announced by Secretary of State Hillary Clinton notwithstanding, it is unlikely U.S. diplomacy will broker the permanent peace Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu indicated Israel can—or will—accept. The Israelis know a deal opening the Gaza crossing points will lead inevitably to a third intifada. Furthermore, Hamas only agrees to ceasefires when it is to their advantage. Israel’s enemies have never modified their stated goal of annihilating the Jewish state and, until they do, there can be no permanent peace between Israel and the Palestinians. Such an implacable enemy must be totally defeated. Ceasefires are irrelevant for Israel’s Gaza trap.

For all intents and purposes, there are no black folks in these regions.

There has been no period of an elimination of freedom of religion, or of the press, or of assembly. We have weathered wars and depressions. We will also weather the difficulties in which we are now embroiled. But we will do so only if Americans begin to recall their history and their values and not give assent to those who seek only to condemn and to destroy.

The problem with you progressives is that you never progressed beyond childhood; you think only of what you want in the moment and are oblivious to long-term implications. Our Founding Fathers gave us three branches of government for the same reason ancient Sparta once had two kings: man has long recognized the perils of placing too much power in one leader’s hands. So forget Obama. Do you really want the presidency to become a dictatorial institution? And, of course, effective vote fraud empowers an ambitious leader more than most anything else. For a politician can act contrary to the people’s wilal with impunity if they don’t have the capacity to vote him out of office

The biggest danger, and one that is not talked about, is the national debt and the ballooning interest rates. America currently owes $16 trillion. This does not include unfunded liabilities which make the debt much, much higher. So far, we can service this debt because of low interest rates (about 2% or about $300 billion a year). In a few years the debt will reach $20 trillion. As we continue printing money and our creditors demand higher interest payments the interest rates will increase to around 5% or more and the annual interest payment will run around $1 trillion a year. Eventual insolvency is the real fiscal cliff.

Still, the voters keep re-electing the same politicians

. . . Narcissism; There was no ice storm -- yet Heitkamp won; UND’s aviation department; What about that; The biography jumped from an Amazon ranking of 77,000 to 111; “There is a lot more that is going to come out.”; a visiting homeless family; There is a lot of good, a whole lot; KKR comes to Williston; He parties, he’s ‘Rah Rah’; both daughters died the ND way; Space Aliens Grill & Bars; ND had about 200 people over 100; DAKTOIDS. . . .

The keystone of this argument is a passage that is terrifying in its implications and is worth quoting in full: “The typical organization for collective action [interest group] within a society will … have little or no incentive to make any significant sacrifices in the interest of the society” and “there is ... no constraint on the social cost such an organization will find it expedient to impose on the society in the course of obtaining a larger share of the social output for itself” (italics in original). This means nothing less than it says: a group will kill its host, the American republic in this case, before relinquishing even a modicum of benefits for itself.

. . . consider this report from The Columbus Dispatch:  

More than one out of every five registered Ohio voters is probably ineligible to vote.

In two counties, the number of registered voters actually exceeds the voting-age population: Northwestern Ohio’s Wood County shows 109 registered voters for every 100 eligible, while in Lawrence County along the Ohio River it’s a mere 104 registered per 100 eligible.

Another 31 counties show registrations at more than 90 percent of those eligible, a rate regarded as unrealistic by most voting experts. The national average is a little more than 70 percent.

[…]Of the Buckeye State’s 7.8 million registered voters, nearly 1.6 million are regarded as “inactive.”. . .

Now consider that Obama “won” Ohio by 100,000 votes. This means that to flip the state, Democrat surrogates had to illegally “activate” only 6.25 percent of its 1.6 million inactive voters.

Perhaps the most breathtaking parallel between FDR’s and Obama’s Big Government agendas is this: In his first five years in office, FDR spent more than the previous 31 presidents combined; in eight years as president, Obama will have doubled the national debt accumulated by all 43 of his predecessors (unless, of course, Uncle Sam’s farcical finances blow up before then).

The final insult was the connivance to fix future conventions/nominations by sewing up delegate approval by the central committee.  This, alone, was enough to alienate many valuable activists at a time when we needed all we could find.  I can’t forgive this deed.  In the face of forces set to destroy our country, these folks were focusing on trying to contain and hogtie the most vital segment of the party, one they had already beaten.  They already had their man on the ticket.  Why do this – NOW?

There were no limits to how much they blamed Bush, and how much the blame worked with the Democratic base.

But even that doesn’t describe the full picture. Remarkably, Mitt Romney received fewer votes in 2012 than John McCain did in 2008, even amid the red-hot anti-Obama sentiment among conservatives and what seemed to be a genuine pro-Romney enthusiasm among Republicans.

There was a time not so long ago when serious sociologists attributed the stability of society to the fundamental building blocks of home, school and church. With the increase in non-traditional homes and families, failing schools and the liberalization of churches these institutions have failed us. Alluding to the words of Barack Obama’s former pastor, Jeremiah Wright, the chickens have come home to roost. How right he was.

I marvel that, when Obama urged his followers to revenge, Mitt Romney responded not in kind -- with a call to anger, resentment, and violence -- but with a call to love. Caritas. "Love of country," he called it. That was probably his finest hour.

Why love? Love unites. Hatred divides.

Editor’s note: A version of this piece was written for the American Thinker on January 26, 2011.

We're at the halfway mark of Barack Obama's first term as president. I say "first term" because I'm confident that this isn't his last. Conservatives will not want to hear this, but I've felt all along that Obama will be a two-term president, and nothing I've seen dispels that notion.

My thinking is grounded primarily in two sets of data . . .

. . . Heitkamp won the U.S. Senate race; You’re headed in the wrong direction; The state is feeling more self-reliant; Jamestown is ready to rumble; Two Rivers Activity Center; business growth outside the Oil Patch; Jamestown College Athletic Department; Who represents North Dakota? the Legislature ignored public opinion; the end of the United Mine Workers in Coal Country; Stanton, ND -- no problem; MOST INTERESTING RUMORS; DAKTOIDS. . . .

Moreover, the president’s unceasing class-warfare rhetoric was rewarded by the electorate, as were his attacks on profits, the private sector, the wealthy, banking and investment, and the oil and natural gas industry. The Obama energy policy is advanced. Mitt Romney would have unleashed a boom for America’s domestic energy industry. That is now gone. That is a tragedy, the levels of which we will not be able to appreciate.

And what about Romney? I had my reservations, but America rejected a genuinely decent man who had the best business background of anyone who would have ever assumed the Oval Office. He was the perfect person for the perfect time.

While conservatives complain about illegal migration — ever more tepidly — I’ve been warning that it was merely an exacerbation of a larger problem: legal immigration, through which statists have been importing reliably socialist voters. This I have explained thoroughly over and over and over and over and over and over again, yet most conservatives won’t touch the issue. This is partially due to “immigrationism,” dogma stating that immigration must be a permanent and unquestioned fixture of American life (death?); partially due to pundit cowardice; and partially due to rationalization. After all, immigration is here to stay, we think, so better to shunt its scary implications to the mind’s recesses, where the rest of the wild things are. 

Understanding what is happening, though, helps us realize that we have the opportunity to formulate plans for the end game of socialism. We have only to look at the collapse of the Soviet Union to realize what our national future looks like and to act to minimize the damage to our own individual lives. Again, unfortunately, those actions we must take are the opposite of what our national economy needs, as you will see below.

Understanding what is happening, though, helps us realize that we have the opportunity to formulate plans for the end game of socialism. We have only to look at the collapse of the Soviet Union to realize what our national future looks like and to act to minimize the damage to our own individual lives. Again, unfortunately, those actions we must take are the opposite of what our national economy needs, as you will see below.

Those in charge of America's public education -- the teachers' unions and college academics -- have turned America's education system into a laboratory, with our children as the rats. They are committed to undermining the traditions, beliefs, and social structures that made America great.

Perhaps none of our choices is infallible, but we believe that they represent our best opportunity this year to help return America to its founding principles, restore our ailing economy and repair our damaged national defenses.

To that end we offer the endorsements herein and urge that those who love freedom and our country VOTE on November 6 and get your friends and families to the polls. We are facing serious threats to our freedom. We must elect people who are most likely to oppose these challenges. . . .

. . . “Why’s everybody always pickin’ on me?”; Bismarck will be the “sweet spot” in the Bakken Oil Boom; Bismarck hospitals have an acute shortage of nurses; “For the Love of North Dakota and Other Essays”; ballot measures proposing new sales taxes; 5 exceed $100 million; Fargo Beer is brewed in Black River Falls, Wisconsin; “Fighting Whatevers”; Kelley described UND as vibrant and diverse; pipelines are one of the biggest issues; Cattle from ND typically have thicker coats; Forum's "Best of 2012”; surnames beginning with SCH. . . .

Economic expansion and development is the happy consequence of people participating in an extensive market division of labor, made possible by the accumulation of capital that is wisely invested and directed by entrepreneurs. Capital accumulation and technological innovation, therefore, are vital for sustaining economic progress because they allow workers and producers to be more productive. Increases in productivity yield higher real wages and a more prosperous standard of living.

Such laws give government the latitude to punish people selectively based on whether they or their words are in political favor.

The likely response here is that I’m being obtuse. “Don’t you know, Duke, that women generally have to assume the responsibility for birth control?” But hold the phone. The feminists have long maintained that men should shoulder half the burden of contraception and that thinking otherwise is “sexist.” So why did they make that antiquated, “sexist” assumption an implicit centerpiece in their argument for government policy?

For Williams there is no separation between the material and the spiritual world. Accordingly, if death is the sundering of body and soul, it is not as simple a process as most of us think. Any death, and especially a sudden one, leaves much unfinished business in the hearts and minds of both the departed and those left behind.