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Thursday, May 31, 2012

GET LOST


The Senate is commencing hearings on the Law of the Sea Treaty (LOST), with the intention of ramming it through the Senate after the November 2012 elections during the lame duck session – much like the Democrats did with their most recent Christmas present – the START Treaty. LOST will cede American sovereignty to the United Nations and will tax the United States to fund UN military operations.  I oppose it.

Inconsistent with American principles, Sen. Kerry, the Chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, is chairing these hearings, but no one who opposes LOST has been invited to appear.  LOST supporters –  especially Secretary of State Hillary Clinton – don’t seem to understand the threat that it poses to American sovereignty. Under questioning by Sen. Mike Lee, Secy. Clinton came off as flustered, ill-informed, and “lost,” remaining captive to her talking points. 

Some of the problems with the treaty include:

·        it contains a backdoor tax increase on U.S. businesses that would be used to fund the operations of the international organization charged with overseeing it and could force America into the a Kyoto-style “cap and trade” system that would further damage the nation’s industrial productivity and move U.S. government funds offshore to yet another international body;


·        according to a “conservative” estimate by the U.S. Extended Continental Shelf Task Force, the United States would transfer $70 billion to the International Seabed Authority, the organization charged with overseeing LOST;


·        under LOST, the responsibility for preserving freedom of the seas would be relegated to a United Nations body whose mission is to resolve conflicts before they become shooting wars. It is not in the national interest of the United States to have its maritime or economic power subject to the whims of a highly politicized U.N. bureaucracy often driven by an anti-American agenda. Nor is it in its interest to be a party to another treaty that other signatories might flout with impunity; and

·        in addition, the Treaty could also get in the way of fighting the war on terror, for which the United States needs maximum flexibility. The treaty identifies only four circumstances under which ships may be stopped on the high seas -- human trafficking, drug trafficking, piracy and illegal broadcasting;
America has been down this road before. It lead to war not to peace. During the period between WWI and WWII, the global powers developed a series of treaties intended to prevent war. The democratic states abided by them while the dictatorships in Germany, Italy and Japan did not. They cheated as all bad state actors do, and the world turned a blind eye to their dishonesty. This left the democracies at a distinct disadvantage and ill-prepared when war eventually came.
Peace, as Ronald Reagan famously said, is best secured through strength. America has been complying voluntarily with the terms of treaty since 1983 -- a situation that protects its sovereignty and gives it maximum flexibility.

Before we GET LOST, we should GET SMART.

Tuesday, May 22, 2012

To Pledge or Not to Pledge – That is the Question

I agree with Phyllis Sato (Virginian Pilot May 18, 2012, “Pledge to Fail”) that candidates and incumbents who take the Grover Norquist Taxpayer Protection Pledge to “solemnly bind themselves to oppose any and all tax increases” may end up doing more harm than good.  

Representative Rigell (R- VA2) has not renewed the pledge, and conservative Representatives Allen West and Reid Ribble have refused to re-sign it.  They understand that while it may appear to give constituents a sense of comfort, it actually provides their opponents and the liberal media with one more weapon to use against them and one less chip to negotiate with on behalf of their constituents. If a pledger cuts spending by a trillion dollars, but then supports a bill that closes tax loopholes raising taxes by a million dollars, does that break the pledge? I think not.  Rep. Rob Woodall (R-Ga) put it succinctly, “True tax reform cannot be achieved until we are willing to abandon the current tax system in favor of something that is fair for all Americans.”

The only pledge that matters to me is Rep. Rigell’s oath as an elected representative to support and defend the Constitution of the United States against all enemies, foreign and domestic; to bear true faith and allegiance to the same; and to take this obligation freely, without any mental reservation or purpose of evasion; and to well and faithfully discharge the duties of his office … so help him God.

Performance is preferable to pro forma pledges. 

Thursday, May 17, 2012

Gods of the Supreme Court


“With the Hopes that our World is built on they were utterly out of touch,
They denied that the Moon was Stilton; they denied she was even Dutch;
They denied that Wishes were Horses; they denied that a Pig had Wings;
So we worshipped the Gods of the Market Who promised these beautiful things.”

From Gods of the Copybook Headings, Rudyard Kipling, 1919


The central message of Rudyard Kipling’s poem is that the basic and unvarying aspects of human nature will always reemerge in every society that becomes complacent and self-indulging.  And so it is with a legal ruling by U.S. District Judge Michael Urbanski that the first four of the commandments be redacted to convey a more secular message. The American Civil Liberties Union has filed a lawsuit on behalf of a student at Narrows High School, in Giles County, VA, who was upset by the display.

In their attempt to eliminate God from the marketplace of ideas, the progressives are, in fact, violating the First Amendment according to their own interpretation of it.  The Supreme Court ruled in Theriault v. Silber, 1978, that the First Amendment was too narrow and should be expanded to include those who have no religious belief:  (1) atheism may be a religion under the establishment clause (Malnak v Yogi, 1977) and (2) secular humanism may be a religion for purposes of the First Amendment (Grove v. Mead School District, 1985).  So, in effect, by requiring four of the commandments to be dropped, they may be imposing their secular humanist / atheistic "beliefs" on others in violation of their own principle of "separation of church and state" (which does not appear in the Constitution, but nonetheless is a principal tenet of liberal progressivism). 
Now all of this is moot anyway, because the Constitution (Amendment I) states "Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof ..."  According to Webster's original dictionary (1828) “religion” was defined: "Includes a belief in the being and perfections of God, in the revelation of his will to man, and in man's obligation to obey his commands, in a state of reward and punishment, and in man's accountableness to God; and also true godliness or piety of life, with the practice of all moral duties ... The practice of moral duties without a belief in a divine lawgiver, and without reference to his will or commands, is not religion." [Emphasis mine]  Words form ideas and ideas have consequences ... in this case according to the original meaning of the term "religion" to those who wrote the Constitution, atheism and secular humanism were incorrectly classified in 1978 by the Supreme Court as religion (what else have they gotten wrong?) and therefore have no standing under it (in fact religion was a matter left to the states).

Before liberal readers jump on the federalizing of the 14th Amendment by the Supreme Court in Everson v. Board of Education (1947) to conflate freedom of religion with civil rights, they should read the writings of those who lived at the time of the passage of the 14th Amendment.  Samuel T. Spear, a respected commentator of that period, wrote (Religion and the State, 1876, p. 224): "the Rule adopted by the Supreme Court of the United States interpreting the [Fourteenth Amendment] ... makes it inapplicable to the religious liberty of any other right of the citizen as determined by the State of which he is resident. The Court in the cases of Paul v. Virginia (8 Wallace, p.36) and of the New Orleans Slaughter-house (16 Wallace, p. 36) laid down the principle ... There is nothing in the last three amendments to the Constitution that reaches the question of religion, and nothing anywhere else in this instrument that places the States under the slightest restraint with reference to this subject; and hence it is true as remarked by Justice Story [one of the Supreme Court's most noted legal scholars, appointed by President James Madison] in his Commentaries on the Constitution (section 1879) that "the whole power over the subject of religion is left exclusively to the State governments, to be acted upon according to their sense of justice and State constitutions." [Emphasis Added].  The federal government should not even be involved in this debate. 
But then again, progressivism is a political ideology whose ideas are so good they must be mandated. When facts get in the way, ignore them.  When institutions get in the way, abolish them.  When words get in the way, redefine them.   Rudyard Kipling had it right: “They denied that Wishes were Horses; they denied that a Pig had Wings; So we worshipped the Gods of the Market Who promised these beautiful things.”

Saturday, May 12, 2012

Compassionate Capitalism or Socialist Servitude?


The occupy Wall Street crowd would have us believe that capitalism is the root of all our social ills. Now a report by James R. Otis, "An Audacious Promise: The Moral Case for Capitalism," Manhattan Institute, May 2012, attempts to quantify this claim.

A comparison of modern economic indicators since 1800 validates Milton Friedman’s conclusion (http://bit.ly/J0fhdX) that no other economic system has done more to eradicate poverty and improve the human condition than capitalism:

·         Since 1800, the world's population has increased six fold, yet despite this enormous increase, real income per person has increased approximately 16-fold.

·         In America, the increase is even more dramatic. In 1800 the country's total population was 5.3 million, life expectancy was 39 years, and the real Gross domestic product per capita was $1343 (in 2010 dollars).By 2011, the population is growing to 308 million, life expectancy doubled to 78 years, and GDP per capita increased 36 fold to $48,800.

Other factors being equal, capitalism has done more than anything else in the last 10,000 years of human history to alleviate social evil and poverty. As opposed to socialism, capitalism meets an individual's wants and needs by assisting them to obtain them. It recognizes that people are competent enough to take care of themselves and are the best providers of their own wants and needs.

And before one objects that the above metric is measured in pure dollars, a similar comparison can be made by looking at improvement in the quality of life. According to a Dallas Federal Reserve study based on U.S. Census Bureau data, the following table illustrates ownership of material goods in American society between 1970 and 2005. The table compares property ownership by all households in 1970 to “poor” households in 2005, as a percentage of population:


Households that Own
% All Households 1970
% Poor Households 2005
Washing machine
71
72
Close dryer
44
57
Dishwasher
19
37
Refrigerator
83
99
Stove
87
99
Microwave
1
73
Color TV
40
97
Videocassette/DVD
1
78
Personal computer
3
25
Telephone
93
96
Cell/mobile phone
1
60
Air conditioner
34
82

 Beyond these gains, Americans are the most generous citizens on the planet, giving more than $306 billion in 2007 to charity to help others while 60 million Americans volunteer time for nonprofits, hospitals, churches, and other causes.

So what is the socialist left’s alternative? Their answer is for the “1%" to give their wealth to the “99%." So who, exactly, are these top 1%? A study by Alan Meltzer, of the Wall Street Journal, in his article "A Look At The Global 1%", March 9, 2012 studied the income earned by the top 1% of earners in the United States, Canada, Australia, Netherlands, United Kingdom, France, and Sweden between 1903 in 2004. The percentage of total income earned by the top 1% has follows remarkably similar curves in all seven of these nations, even though their social policies are quite different. The median of the seven was approximately 18% in 1925, decreased to approximately 5% in 1980, and rose to approximately 9% in 2000. The United States, United Kingdom, and Canada departed from the group – on the upside – from about 1985 on, and averaged approximately 15% in the year 2000. Using the15% value, if the wealth of the 1% were taken away and given to the 99%, their incomes would rise by an average of 18%. However, this is not the only effect. Because the 1% invest much more of their income to provide jobs for the 99%, these jobs would be lost. In addition, once the wealth of the 1% is redistributed, everyone will realize that no one's property is safe, and the incentive to create business and industries would be sharply reduced. The economic circumstance of the entire nation will fall. Once private property is lost, liberty is lost. All that is left is tyranny, and wealth and power will be concentrated in those who control government. In effect, if the 99% are allowed to destroy the 1%, all of us will be ruled by the 0.000001%, a wealthy and corrupt few.

For those who currently believe themselves to be the “99%” – that is the Occupy Wall Street crowd, who apparently cannot do math, read history, or follow a rational argument –  the word picture is this: if Bill Gates’s $20 billion net worth were liquidated and divided among the people of the world, they would each receive about three dollars. Bill would be out of business and could not produce the software that provides the 99% with the capability to create information technology based jobs or to access online education that will lead to them creating their own wealth. Instead, all control would be transferred to a centralized government, like the Soviet Union, which collapsed under its own weight – unable to efficiently nor effectively meet the needs and wants of its people.

 History teaches us that it is better to be unequally wealthy rather that to be equally poor.


Remember ...

"You're entitled to your own opinion, but you're not entitled to your own facts," Sen. Daniel Patrick Moynihan.

"Against public stupidity, the gods themselves are powerless." Schiller.

“Who controls the past controls the future. Who controls the present controls the past.” – George Orwell, 1984

"Statistics are no substitute for judgement," Henry Clay

"The problem with socialism is that you eventually run out of other peoples' money," Margaret Thatcher