The Voice

The American Dream Realized

2008-08-22T15:37:00.002-04:00

So much of politics often deals with the negative side of everything. Much lip-service is paid towards “cleaning up politics” and making things more positive. For the most part, this is impossible. What you have is two or more groups of people passionately believing something and attempting to explain their worldview. Since most of what I write about deals with these hot-button issues, it’s nice to sit back every once-and-a-while and write a story about something inspiring.

Most of America has yet to hear about a young man named Henry Cejudo; and certainly almost all of America outside of the wrestling community. Cejudo is a 21-year-old wrestler who represented the United States at the Olympic Games this year at the 55 kg. (121 pound) weight class. He was a four-time state champion in high school, splitting his years between Colorado and Arizona. Cejudo was the youngest Olympic champion in the history of American wrestling; but that’s probably the least of the obstacles he had to overcome.

Henry Cejudo was born the sixth (and last) child to two undocumented workers while they were living in California. His father left him at the age of 4 and returned to Mexico, while his mother decided to stay in the United States to ensure a better future for her children. Cejudo’s older brothers discovered the joy of wrestling and passed that on to him.

After winning four state championships, Henry decided to forgo certain full-ride scholarships to college and train for the 2008 Olympics. As someone who adjusted to college wrestling coming out of high school, I can’t even imagine how difficult it would be to go from high school to international competition. Nevertheless, Cejudo trained for a few years and earned a spot on the U.S. Olympic Team.

In freestyle wrestling (which differs from normal high school and college wrestling), a competitor must win two of the three periods to prevail. All three of Cejudo’s matches on the way to the championship bout went the same way. He lost the first periods and had to claw his way back by taking the next two. A difficult task…but relatively minor compared to the obstacles he put up with throughout his life.

I’m not going to pretend I know Henry Cejudo. From what I’ve read, he lived a life in which his family did not have a lot of money. He was a citizen, but his parents were not. I can only imagine the types of struggles that he has been dealt; I can only imagine because my life has been so easy in comparison.

All of this makes for an amazing story. But the thing that amazed me the most was Cejudo’s answers when he talked about his Olympic gold medal in retrospect. He spoke about “(having) that American blood pumping through my veins.” He called the United States the “land of opportunity” and the “greatest country in the world…I’m just proud to be an American.”

I read an interesting news story once that commented that depending on where you went in the world, people had different thoughts about what Americans looked like. In more modernized countries (like Western Europe), they saw all of us as white. In the Latin American countries (like Cuba), many saw a huge influence of Hispanic culture. In some Asian countries (most notably China) and parts of Africa, they thought that we were mostly black. The reasons for this vary, but I personally see it as something to celebrate. I was watching swimming this year and when a (seemingly) white swimmer from Zimbabwe competed, I was dumbfounded. Different colors, races, and religions are scarcely represented in other countries; and yet nobody thinks twice about it here in America.

By the end of the interview, I thought to myself: “This guy really gets it.” Henry Cejudo understands America; far better than the rest of the world, far better than most politicians, and probably far better than me and most of you.

The American Dream is still a reality.

Obama and Abortion Survivors: Clarifying the Record

2008-08-19T19:08:00.003-04:00

Update: Barack Obama offered a refutation to the claims made in my last article. Here is the response.

Obama and Abortion Survivors: Clarifying the Record

By Paul Kengor and Jarrett Skorup

A few weeks ago at NRO we posted a piece on Barack Obama’s votes in the Illinois legislature on a statewide version of the federal Born Alive Infant Protection Act (BAIPA)—i.e., legislation requiring medical personnel to provide treatment to infants who unexpectedly survive abortion procedures. http://article.nationalreview.com/?q=ZDI0MDJiOTM1Zjk0NjUyNWM2NzY3YTdmM2I2MWUyZDM=

Our point was to clarify the record and to add a crucial “rest of the story” that is still being missed: how this legislation sailed right through the Illinois legislature once its primary obstacle—Barack Obama—left the Illinois Senate for the U.S. Senate. In both senates, Illinois and the United States, the born-alive legislation was passed unanimously, but only in the absence of Senator Barack Obama.

This issue is now heating up, as Obama addressed the subject over the weekend in a question from CBN’s David Brody, and as talk-radio is now firmly on board. The latest is that Sean Hannity plans to interview Jill Stanek, the nurse at Christ Hospital in Oak Lawn, Illinois, where babies were aborted and those that survived were left to die. We interviewed Stanek at length for our article. She, too, can clarify the facts in this debate, and as an eye-witness.

Obama, hailed for being smooth and articulate, fumbles and bumbles and contradicts himself when forced to answer the simplest questions on human life, from whether life begins at conception to his votes on abortion survivors in the Illinois legislature. Here’s the latest on this issue, compliments of Obama’s remarks to Brody over the weekend:

Speaking of Evangelicals, Catholics, and the National Right to Life Committee, Brody noted to Obama that “they’re basically saying they felt like you misrepresented your position on that bill [the Illinois version of BAIPA].” Obama dove right in: “Let me clarify this right now … because they have not been telling the truth. And I hate to say that people are lying, but here’s a situation where folks are lying.”

Obama explained: “I have said repeatedly that I would have been completely in, fully in support of the federal bill that everybody supported, which was to say that you should provide assistance to any infant that was born, even if it was as a consequence of an induced abortion. That was not the bill that was presented at the state level. What that bill also was doing was trying to undermine Roe vs. Wade…. So for people to suggest that I … [was] somehow in favor of withholding life-saving support from an infant born alive is ridiculous. It defies commonsense and it defies imagination, and for people to keep on pushing this is offensive and it’s an example of the kind of politics that we have to get beyond.”

Obama claimed that these “people” were “misrepresent[ing] my positions repeatedly, even after they know that they’re wrong. And that’s what’s been happening.”

What’s the true answer here? The reality is that Obama needs to admit he was wrong, that he exercised bad judgment, and deal with it. His position is not being misrepresented.

What Obama is saying is partly true. Yes, he believed that the Illinois version of BAIPA—which, we were told, was identical to the federal bill, certainly in intent—would undermine Roe v. Wade. That is indeed the reason why he opposed the legislation. He opposed the legislation not because he wanted to see abortion survivors slowly die on cold tables or in trash cans at Illinois “hospitals,” like Christ Hospital, but because he feared that passing such legislation would undermine Roe v. Wade—the holy grail of modern liberalism.

We noted precisely this in our last article. We quoted Pam Sutherland, the president of the Illinois Planned Parenthood Council, who defended Obama on this exact point, “The legislation was written to ban abortion, plain and simple. Senator Obama saw the legislation, when he was there, for what it was.”

Quite the contrary, Obama did not see the legislation for what it was. He was all alone as an obstacle to the legislation. Obama had fallen for the classic red herring by the abortion industry, which argues that practically any restriction on abortion, no matter how sensible and humane, will undermine the sacred Roe v. Wade.

Obama was wrong. The obvious proof is that the passage of such legislation, at the state and national level, has not undermined Roe v. Wade. The most fanatical pro-choicers in the U.S. Senate, from Barbara Boxer to Hillary Clinton, understood this and thus voted in favor of BAIPA. Obama, however, failed to make the crucial distinction.

That does not mean that Obama is a monster who enjoys killing babies, and suggesting so would indeed be “offensive.” At the very least, however, this calls into question his judgment, his experience, and his decision-making abilities—crucial characteristics for a man who wants to be president of the United States.

It is also revealing of his stridency on the abortion issue and blind loyalty to the abortion movement. Barack Obama is to the left of Hillary Clinton on abortion.

Of all the policy areas where Obama could have failed his fellow citizens, this one was pretty darned serious.

Paul Kengor is professor is professor of political science and executive director of the Center for Vision & Values at Grove City College. Jarrett Skorup is a student fellow at the Center for Vision & Values.

Handle With Care: Obama's Abortion Problem

2008-08-08T16:49:00.003-04:00

By Paul Kengor & Jarrett Skorup

In both 2000 and 2004, it was the so-called moral-religious “values voters” who were crucial to the election of George W. Bush. It is no secret that the Democrats want those voters in 2008. Barack Obama wants them badly. What stands in his way? For Obama, the problem is not so much the Reverend Jeremiah Wright as it is the issue of abortion — consistently the dominant political-social issue in the eyes of conservative Christians, from evangelical Protestants to devout Catholics. Obama’s abortion problem is a reality that has become especially evident in recent weeks, most notably in his public battle with Focus on the Family’s James Dobson.

But it’s more specific than that. Obama’s problem is not the run-of-the-mill, over-the-top abortion stridency that has come to define the modern Democratic party’s presidential nominee, from Bill Clinton to John Kerry, but specifically his abominable position on the matter of newborn babies who survive abortions.

This subject is beginning to receive publicity even in the mainstream press, as was evident in a recent exchange on CNN between Bill Bennett and Donna Brazile, but we doubt that even the most well-informed observers know the full story. First, some background:

In 2002, Congress passed the Born Alive Infant Protection Act (BAIPA). BAIPA is simple: It establishes that if an abortion is attempted on a fetus and the fetus survives — alas, magically morphing into a “baby” — everything medically possible must be done to save the child. Plainly, if a fetus takes a breath of air outside the womb, personhood has been established, and all persons in America must receive medical care from trained professionals on the scene. Americans are not to be denied emergency medical care.

Such legislation was necessary because of the countless number of times in which babies who survived abortions were not offered medical treatment after Roe v. Wade became the law of the land in 1973. Unknown numbers of these babies — unknown to the would-be mothers, to the medical community, to the general public — were left instead to die alone in a room, typically abandoned to a cold, hard, metal table, or in a trash can, behind closed doors, slowly gasping for air until they perished. Chalk it up as yet another glorious consequence of a woman’s “right to choose.” This China-like human-rights atrocity went on in America for three decades. Mercifully, at long last, Congress finally did something about it by introducing BAIPA in 2002.

In the early stages, the bill was opposed by NARAL and extremist pro-choice groups, but objections ceased as a vote on the bill approached, most likely in anticipation of the public outcry. Yes, even the abortion industry can occasionally smell a bad p.r. move. The bill passed overwhelming in the House, by a margin of 380-15, and unanimously in the Senate, where even the most fanatical abortion-rights advocates — from Barbara Boxer to Hillary Clinton — were on board.

The bill was signed into law by President Bush on August 5, 2002. In attendance was Gianna Jessen, who in 1977 had survived a saline abortion attempt.

Remarking on the rare moment of unanimity was Senator Barbara Boxer (D., Calif.): “I, as being a pro-choice senator on this side, representing my colleagues here, have no problem whatsoever with this.” She added, “I feel good that we can, in fact, vote for this together. It is very rare that we can.” Indeed, it is.

Who could possibly oppose such legislation?

That brings us to Barack Obama, the Democratic party’s presidential candidate for 2008.

At the time that BAIPA went through the U.S. Congress, Obama was a member of the Illinois Senate, meaning, of course, that he could not vote on the federal BAIPA bill. He could, however, vote on such legislation if it were introduced in Illinois, as was being done by state legislatures around the country. That opportunity came when legislation was introduced in the Illinois legislature.

Offering testimony on the Illinois version of BAIPA was an eyewitness to the horror of these “survivor” abortions: Jill Stanek, a nurse from a hospital in Oak Lawn, Illinois, who had witnessed several occasions of babies surviving attempted abortions and then being left to die. For Stanek, recalling these episodes is like revisiting a nightmare in painstaking, graphic detail. But Stanek saw her testimony as a necessary evil to what she figured would be a “no-brainer” for Illinois legislators. She would later admit that she had been “naïve.” Her no-brainer met a major, unforeseen obstacle: a committee member named Barack Obama.

From the moment of her testimony, Stanek sensed she was in trouble: She recalled an incident when she was asked to take an aborted Down’s Syndrome baby to the hospital “Soiled Utility Room,” where the “attempted-aborted” babies were sent to take their final breaths. The little boy’s parents did not want to hold him, and none of the other nurses could find the time or bear the agony. Stanek remembers rocking the baby in her arms for the final 45 minutes that he suffered an excruciating life. “He was too weak to move very much,” she remembered, “expending any energy he had trying to breathe. Toward the end, he was so quiet that I couldn’t tell if he was still alive unless I held him up to the light to see if his heart was still beating through his chest wall.”

This incident took place at Christ Hospital, which would fire Stanek for her testimony.

Stanek was struck by Sen. Barack Obama’s cold, non-response to her testimony: Interviewed for this article, she told us that he appeared “unmoved” by her testimony and “even argued against it.” He told her, “What we are doing here is to create one more burden on a woman and I can’t support that.” Perhaps signaling his April 2008 remarks about his daughters, Obama could not imagine these un-desiring mothers being “punished with a baby.”

Obama gazed right past Stanek’s image of a gasping, dying, abandoned, newborn baby and instead saw an over-riding moral imperative: a woman’s “health-care choice.”

In Illinois, in order for a law to be sent to the full House and Senate, it must be approved within committee. The bill had been called up in the Senate Judiciary Committee — twice, in March 2001 and March 2002. Obama was a member of that committee. He first voted “present” on the bill and then later cast a “no” vote. It was there that he argued with Stanek’s testimony.

But that was nothing compared to the more decisive obstruction Obama provided as chair of the Health and Human Services Committee in March 2003, once the Democrats took control of the Illinois Senate. From that perch, Obama prevented the bill from being called up for a vote. In fact, he even refused to allow Stanek to testify orally, though he could not refuse to accept her written testimony. No doubt, Obama must have considered Stanek too persuasive to be permitted to speak.

Flying the flag for the “right to choose,” Obama, as committee chair, ensured that babies who survived abortions in Illinois would not receive emergency medical care, and thus would die. As Obama obstructed, time ticked away, with abortion survivors getting no protection from the state of Illinois and those “medical” providers who swore a Hippocratic Oath.

The gist of much of this has been reported, minus a few details. But what has been neglected is the crucial rest-of-the-story: As evidence of how Barack Obama did not simply oppose this legislation but was its primary if not sole hurdle, consider what happened to the Illinois legislation once Obama left the statehouse: It sailed right through.

In 2004, the people of Illinois elected Barack Obama to the U.S. Senate. This was wonderful news for abortion survivors in the state of Illinois — literally lifesaving. The act was reintroduced in 2005 and passed the Illinois House 116-0 and the Illinois Senate 52-0. Passage of the bill was more unanimous than even BAIPA in the U.S. Congress. Among the members of the Health and Human Services Committee that Obama had previously chaired, none voted against the bill in 2005.

Barack Obama had been totally alone in the Illinois legislature. His lone corner of support in the entire state was the small island of fanatics who make their living literally by killing unborn babies. It is no exaggeration to say that these people, and Barack Obama in solidarity with them, make supporters of partial-birth abortion look compassionate by comparison.

It should be added that Obama had been commended for his obstruction by the president of the Illinois Planned Parenthood Council, Pam Sutherland, who averred, “The legislation was written to ban abortion, plain and simple. Senator Obama saw the legislation, when he was there, for what it was.”

That, of course, is nonsense. This assertion was a classic red herring by the abortion industry. As obvious proof, abortion has not been banned anywhere in Illinois or nationwide with the passage of these laws protecting infants who survive abortions. Hillary Clinton understood that, as did Barbara Boxer, Ted Kennedy, and all of Obama’s current pro-choice colleagues in the U.S. Senate. Why couldn’t Barack Obama figure it out? Such poor decision-making, tragic misjudgment, or outright zealotry, is an important consideration for this frontrunner to become our next president — a man whose platform is about the future, change, and hope.

Democrats, who pride themselves on their alleged compassion, get angry and offended when their party is called the party of death. With Obama at the helm, they will do nothing to change the label. Quite the contrary, with Barack Obama as their voice, they are truly the party that has trashed the little guy.

— Paul Kengor is professor is professor of political science and executive director of the Center for Vision & Values at Grove City College. Jarrett Skorup is a student fellow at the Center for Vision & Values.

This article was first published in National Review Online.

http://article.nationalreview.com/print/?q=ZDI0MDJiOTM1Zjk0NjUyNWM2NzY3YTdmM2I2MWUyZDM=

The National Extortion Association (NEA)

2008-06-30T12:34:00.006-04:00

Recently, one of my friends informed me that she would be attending the National Education Association Student Program Conference in Washington, D.C. As the son of two parents who are teachers, I've long held opinions about the NEA. I follow up on the issues in their monthly magazine and have grown increasingly angry at the organization. What follows is my reasons for opposing them.The NEA is the largest teachers union in the country, in a corrupt system. The public education system in our country is doing a horrible job, is unfair, and is unconstitutional.

It's a monopoly. I'll explain what I mean by using an analogy.What would you do if the government came to you and said that you had to shop at Wal-Mart for all of your shopping? You don't like Wal-Mart, and in fact, you like the local grocery store better. Also, say that Wal-Mart costs twice as much as the local grocery store, had worse products, and the products they sold were things you didn't like or want. But, too bad, you have to shop there. You, as an American, would never put up with it. If this scenario really happened, Wal-Mart would be a terrible place to shop. If everyone had to pay and go to Wal-Mart, they wouldn't have any incentive to provide good products. But we aren't forced to go to Wal-Mart: you can go to Kmart, or Target, or whatever. Since you have options, Wal-Mart has to do a good job, or else no one will go there and they'll go out of business.

Now, this analogy accurately describes our public education system. Everyone has to pay money to it, and you don't have any choice. Sure, you can pay to send your kid to a private school; but you still have to pay for the public school system. According to the Washington Post, Washington D.C. public schools spend $12,979 per student. The CATO Institute believes that private schools in D.C. get, on average, about $10,000 less per child. So if you send your kid to a private school, or home school them, you are paying those costs on top of what the public district already gets from you in terms of tax dollars.

To counter this, voucher programs are needed. This means that the parents of a child get that $13,000 and can use it to send there kid wherever they want. This would mean that the public school has to do a better job, or else nobody will go there and will take the money elsewhere. This has been tried in Cleveland and Milwaukee and has worked enormously well (though the parents only get a partial amount of that money to spend at a different school). Naturally, teacher unions and most notably the National Education Association hate this idea. They like the system how it is and insist that districts just need "more money" and they will perform better.

According to UNICEF and other organization, in recent tests America is getting trounced by the rest of the world. In 4th grade, our kids are amongst the top 5 in the world. In 8th, we are middle of the pack. By senior year of high school, we are near the bottom. We are being beaten not only be the Japanese and other modernized countries...but by places like Portugal, Greece, and even some African countries. Keep in mind that we spend more (by far) than any other country in the world. So what's different between us and others? Well...other countries have an education system where you are free to go where you want. Our educational system is like the Wal-Mart I described in my scenario; it is government-run and has no reason or incentive to do better.So that's the argument against public schools in general, but what about the NEA? Besides being against voucher programs, there are many other proposals the NEA supports that are dangerous and just plain bad ideas. This includes tenure and equal pay for equal time. Tenure is ensured after 3-5 years of teaching in a district. It is nearly impossible to fire a teacher after they have gained tenure. In Illinois, where I'm from, the number of public school tenured teachers fired per year since 1985 has never been over 5. It costs over a quarter of a million dollars to fire a teacher in the New York City school district; possibly explaining why some teachers are paid (and given pay raises!) while sitting in jail (http://www.usatoday.com/news/education/2008-06-30-teacher-tenure-costs_N.htm).

Imagine if the businesses in our country ran this way: Work hard for 3 years, and then after that you're guaranteed a job for life, as long as you don't rape a child or kill someone. It would be a disaster. If I owned that business, I couldn't fire anyone. The reason that America has the best and top-performing businesses in the world is because people know that if they don't do a good job, they will lose their job. The opposite of this is true in countries like France, where it is nearly impossible to fire businessmen; and their economy is in the tank.

Equal pay sounds like a good idea. It's the idea that you are paid based on how long you've worked somewhere rather than the value you bring. So gym teachers, math teachers, science teachers, etc. are all paid the same. Can you honestly tell me with a straight face that teaching gym class and learning how to do that is as difficult as math and science? In academia today, we are having a harder and harder time finding math and science teachers. This is because people will teach "easier" subjects and go through schools learning things that aren't as challenging because they are paid the same anyways. To give you an extreme example: Imagine if a company paid the CEO and the janitor the same amount. It sounds good in theory, but in practice is horrible. Everyone would be a janitor, and nobody a CEO. CEO's, much as we like to demonize them, provide a valuable service to the company and only got there because they are so talented.

The NEA also supports "force-fee" initiatives. There are some "right-to-work" states in which teachers don't have to be in unions, but other states follow a "force-fee" standard in which the states' public school teachers are forced to be in a union and pay dues. A teacher in Illinois recently won the TEAI--Technical Education Association of Illinois "Teacher of the Year" award, was an ITEA "Teacher of Merit", and sent a letter of protest to them in the same month. It seems that the NEA has an official position of being "pro-choice" on abortion and this teacher had a problem with them being involved in that issue. How do I know this? Because that teacher is my father. This goes along with the NEA's position of being pro-gay marriage. Now, issues of abortion and homosexuality are complicated and controversial; but come on, should a union dedicated towards teachers really be getting involved in these issues that have nothing to do with education? The NEA sends 99% of the money it gets towards Democratic politicians, and thus supports Democratic positions. It is an endless cycle of unfairness, and children are on the losing end.

The Politics of Discrimination

2008-04-15T20:41:00.002-04:00

The gender war has come full circle. Or so it seems.

I’m scanning through Time Magazine this past week during a quick break between classes and I find this doozy of a story. It’s entitled, “College Confidential” with a subtitle of, “To close the gender gap, admissions officers often favor boys. Is that a good idea?”

Granted, the way this story portrayed my gender, I should be happy I was even in classes. Apparently, boys are slackers who don’t work hard, girls are more qualified for college, and men are sexist. Here is a smattering of quotes from the story:

“…if girls were once excluded because they somehow weren’t good enough, they now are rejected because they’re too good.”

“The gap persists on campus, where women tend to win more honors, join more clubs, do more volunteer work.”

“…it (may) turn out that girls emerge stronger somehow from having the game rigged against them,” says Haverford dean Greg Kannerstein.

“It’s a gross generalization that slacker boys get in over high-performing girls,” says Jennifer Delahunty, dean of admissions at Kenyon College, “but developmentally, girls bring more to the table than boys, and the disparity has gotten greater in recent years.”

Now, don’t get me wrong, I’m not disputing the figures that the article quotes. I tend to believe what most tests show: girls make up most of the middle of the spectrum in terms of intelligence whereas boys make up a disproportionate amount of the higher and lower ends. This has held true on the SAT and ACT tests for years now. I feel that this would tend to push more women into bachelor degree programs whereas men would get more PhD’s and be more likely to go to trade school, work construction, or do auto mechanic work. This is the choice we get to make in a free society. Outside of a few women having less choice in dating partners, I don’t feel this affects society too much.

My point is much larger: Where have these people been when debating affirmative action?
Asians and whites routinely score higher on standardized tests then blacks and Hispanics and yet are passed on because of their skin color. Miss Delahunty was horrified to learn that her own daughter had been weight-listed at the college her mom was the dean of, prompting her to write a piece for the New York Times entitled, “To All the Girls I’ve Rejected”. She wondered, “Why aren’t (the women) marching in the streets? That’s the part that slays me. It isn’t fair, and young women should be saying something about it not being fair.” Oh really? It isn’t fair? What is Delahunty’s attitude about affirmative action? Is it more important on college campuses to have racial diversity then gender diversity? I think even the most radical feminist would dispute this.

The current gender disparity is going to cross 60-40% women advantage. I would attribute this mainly to gender differences, the way we treat boys in grade school, and overall interest in college. Again, I’m not going to be super upset if colleges want to accept more girls than guys; I believe people should be accepted on merit. However, I don’t want to see UC Berkley passing up on Japanese-American students who graduate near the top of their class with excellent SAT scores in favor of students with lower scores just because they’re the right ethnicity; and then turn around and complain that girls are getting a bad rap because they outperform their counterparts and aren’t being accepted. I choose Berkley because this has happened there on more than one occasion.

If you’re going to discriminate, at least be consistent.

Making an Example of Detroit

2008-04-01T12:06:00.000-04:00

Let’s imagine there exists a city which has the following characteristics, each a major component of the Democratic platform:
-a high living wage, far above the federal minimum wage, for all employees public and private
-a school system that spends significantly more per pupil than the national average
-an effective teachers’ union providing exceptional pay and benefits
-an effective labor union providing exceptional pay and benefits
-a tax system that actively redistributes income from businesses and the wealthy to the poor

There is a city, of course, which looks like this. Detroit, MI has been dubbed “the most liberal city in America” and has voted Democratic consistently for decades. Each of the preceding characteristics are embraced heartily by the city. Newt Gingrich, in an address last week at a think tank in DC, expressed his hope that in the upcoming election conservatives would point to Detroit as an example of what the enactment of the progressive agenda does for a city.

In 1950, Detroit was per capita the wealthiest city in America. Today, the Census Bureau records it as per capita the poorest major city. This time period corresponds with a leftward turn by the inhabitants of the city as unions gained power and the government bureaucracy and business regulation grew. In short, the embrace of the Democratic agenda. And while correlation is not causation it cannot be mere coincidence that what economics predicts would occur when wage controls are implemented, regulation increases, and taxes are raised has occurred there without exception.

Price theory predicts that artificially high imposed wages like the so-called “living wages” will lead to an increase in unemployment. Detroit’s living wage is a whopping $7.40/hr, over $2 above the federal minimum wage when enacted and pressure groups are pushing for more. Additionally, any company working for the city or receiving aid from the city must pay its employees $8.23/hr with benefits or $10.28/hr without benefits. Such high wages make the low-skilled, low-education citizens of Detroit unlikely hires. Struggling and heavily taxed businesses simply cannot pay that high of wages. In a situation that must mystify the well-intentioned progressives at City Hall, yet is understood and predicted by mainstream economists, poverty is rampant and Detroit boasts the highest unemployment rate among large cities.

It is now conventional wisdom among Democrats that if you pay teachers well, support strong teacher unions, and increase spending per student, teacher quality and student performance will improve. We see in the Detroit public schools that this theory must be rejected. The story of the Detroit Public Schools is tragic. The public schools chronically underperform and reforms are vehemently opposed by the powerful teacher unions. The Michigan Education Association is the third largest teacher union in the nation and has negotiated for tremendous compensation for its teachers. Median compensation for a DPS teacher is $76,000 and Detroit spends the third highest amount of money per student among seventy-seven cities nationwide. Statewide, Detroit’s spending per pupil is 91st percentile and Detroit public school teachers are paid at the 96th percentile. And of course, Detroit schools have for decades failed their students.

Despite this massive flow of funds from tax-payers into the schools, Detroit’s public school students perform at the 3rd percentile in the state. People vote with their feet and the DPS loses around 10,000 students each year to charter, private, and suburban schools (called “black flight”). This school system is begging for mass firings for unsatisfactory performance. Of course, teacher unions make this impossible and major reform is opposed at every turn. Major reform was plopped in Detroit’s lap in 2003 at no cost, and again in 2005. Indeed, philanthropist Bob Thompson (an amazing man, look him up) offered public school administrators $200 million to build fifteen charter schools. The offer was turned down both times when the teacher unions revolted and staged walkouts when the mayor considered the offer. Charter schools are public but are not unionized, hence the unions’ opposition. Non-unionized competitors would not be tolerated since it would put their safe and well-compensated jobs at risk.

The MEA is not the only union hurting Detroit. Detroit is of course home to GM, Ford, and Chrysler, three car companies which have contracts with powerful and effective labor unions. The unions have served their workers well over the years. Wages and benefits are phenomenal and workers receive an estimated $71 per hour in total compensation. This is about $25 more per hour than Japanese car companies pay their American workers who are not unionized. Due to this disparity Japanese car companies make over $2000 more profit per car than the American companies. Meanwhile, the Detroit Big 3 are posting billions in losses in recent quarters and suffer the accompanying loss of market share. They have been struggling mightily against bankruptcy since the 80s (and helped along by federal protectionism and tax-payer funded bailouts). Despite this the labor unions won’t accept lower compensation even as plants close.

There are social reasons as well for Detroit’s slide into poverty. Progressive judges in the 1970s court-ordered busing of white students into the failing black neighborhood schools. This coercion of private citizens was resisted, of course. Those who were able simply moved to the suburbs. One infamous mayor told criminals to hit the wealthy and white neighborhoods which didn't help race relations. Finally, a factor that caused the flight of the middle-class and businesses is Detroit’s excessive tax burden, which is currently 170% the national average. Welfare, regulation, bureaucracy, and unions are not cheap.

Detroit is an example of the compassionate welfare state, a system progressives would like all of us to live under. Tom Bray of the Detroit News says this,

“Detroit, remember, was going to be the ‘Model City’ of Lyndon Johnson's Great Society, the shining example of what the "fairness" of the welfare state can produce. Billions of dollars later, Detroit instead has become the model of everything that can go wrong when you hook people on the idea of something for nothing—a once-middle class city of nearly 2 million that is now a poverty-stricken city of less than 900,000.”

Let’s hope Democrats will revise their platform after being made aware of the disaster their policies helped produce in Detroit.

Tax Cuts: A Simple Lesson in Economics

2008-02-13T11:56:00.000-05:00

Let's put tax cuts in terms everyone can understand. Suppose that every day, ten men go out for dinner. The bill for all ten comes to $100. If they pay their bill the way we pay our taxes, it would go something like this:

• The first four men (the poorest) would pay nothing.
• The fifth would pay $1.
• The sixth would pay $3.
• The seventh $7.
• The eighth $12.
• The ninth $18.
• The tenth man (the wealthiest) would pay $59.

So, that's what they decided to do. The ten men ate dinner in the restaurant every day and seemed quite happy with the arrangement, until one day, the owner threw them a curve. "Since you are all such good customers," he said, "I'm going to reduce the cost of your daily meal by $20."

So, now dinner for ten only cost $80. The group still wanted to pay their bill the way we pay our taxes.

So, the first four men were unaffected. They would still eat for free. But what about the other six, the paying customers? How could they divvy up the $20 windfall so that everyone would get his "fair share"?

The six men realized that $20 divided by six is $3.33. But if they subtracted that from everybody's share, then the fifth man and the sixth man would each end up being "PAID" to eat their meal.

So, the restaurant owner suggested that it would be fair to reduce each man's bill by roughly the same amount, and he proceeded to work out the amounts each should pay. And so:

• The fifth man, like the first four now paid nothing (100% savings).
• The sixth now paid $2 instead of $3 (33% savings).
• The seventh now paid $5 instead of $7 (28% savings).
• The eighth now paid $9 instead of $12 (25% savings).
• The ninth now paid $14 instead of $18 (22% savings).
• The tenth now paid $49 instead of $59 (16% savings).

Each of the six was better off than before, one now eats for free. And the first four continued to eat for free. But once outside the restaurant, the men began to compare their savings.

"I only got a dollar out of the $20," declared the sixth man. He pointed to the tenth man - "but he got $10!"

"Yeah, that's right," exclaimed the fifth man. "I only saved a dollar, too. It's unfair that he got ten times more than me!"

"That's true!" shouted the seventh man. "Why should he get $10 back when I got only $2? The wealthy get all the breaks!"

"Wait a minute," yelled the first four men in unison. "We didn't get anything at all. The system exploits the poor!"

The nine surrounded the tenth man (the wealthiest) and beat him up.

The next night the tenth man didn't show up for dinner, so the nine sat down and ate without him. But when it came time to pay the bill, they discovered something important. They didn't have enough money between all of them for even half of the bill!

And that, boys and girls, journalists and college professors, is how our tax system works. The people who pay the highest taxes get the most benefit from a tax reduction. Tax them too much, attack them for being wealthy, and they just may not show up at the table anymore.

I can't claim this idea as my own unfortunately, I just cleaned parts of it up so that it was more relateable.

Affirmative Action and the Politics of Race

2008-01-25T01:15:00.000-05:00

There are many issues in American politics that are extremely complicated. Issues like abortion, stem-cell research, and Iraq. I certainly have strong opinions about each of these, and I think there are parts of these issues that are simple as well (i.e. partial birth abortion). However, some issues are just very easy, particularly to the American people. Newt Gingrich tries to expand upon these in his new book Real Change. One of these issues is affirmative action.

Though this has been voted down repeatedly, even in our most liberal states, it still remains in our system. It is increasingly unpopular, supported only by members of the hard left and race baiters. I truly feel like this is an easy issue, and can be broken down as such.

Now first off, is it effective? If it was effective, they maybe we could argue that reverse racism is the answer to the problems of the lack of minorities in higher education. However, this just isn’t the case. In fact, it seems like the only group of people who haven’t been the beneficiaries of affirmative action (or racial preferences) is the one group succeeding the most. Asian-Americans, more specifically Japanese-Americans, do the best. By population, they get the most graduate degrees, have the most success, make the most money, and have the lowest rate of children born out of wedlock. Remember, Japanese-Americans were extremely discriminated against, even placed in internment camps just 60 years ago. They overcame this, worked hard, and quickly moved up the classes in America. There is no Jesse Jackson in the Asian community.

Consider this simple analogy of affirmative action. A white guy and a black guy apply for a job. The guy giving the job gives it to the white guy despite the black guy being more qualified. What would happen in this country? There would be riots. People would freak out, the court system would compensate the black guy, and Al Sharpton and Jesse Jackson would make the Jena Six movement look like a Girl Scout picnic. So why is this allowed to happen in favor of the black guy? Or Hispanics? Or women?

Now, I should make something known. If I apply for college, and an inner-city, low-income black student from the devastated part of New Orleans applies as well and we have about the same grades and he gets in over me, I’m not going to freak out and throw a fit. But if Al Sharpton’s son is in my position and an inner-city, low-income white student doesn’t get in ahead of him despite having better grades, a higher SAT, and better academic standing…I may be upset. And yet this is happening all the time.

Dinesh D’Souza makes the point that it is simply impossible to have a system like this in a country as diverse as America. What percentage minority do you have to be? How long ago must you have been oppressed? Remember, every race and group was oppressed at one time or another.

So what should we do about this? Well for one thing, Republicans need to make an issue of it. They won’t; they’re already branded as the party that hates black people, but they should. It’s an easy issue to win on, good politically, and it forces Democrats to support something that is a losing issue for them.

Slowly this issue will go away, but only after being here for many years. Minority and women students (who make up roughly 80% of the population by the way) are repeatedly told; you are oppressed, you are discriminated against. Be upset. Demand repercussions. If you fail, don’t worry, it’s not your fault. Asian-Americans learned long ago that this was pointless. There are times when things aren’t just, you deal with it and move on. These instances should be dealt with on an individual basis.

The question is, why do Asian-Americans do so well and African American students so poorly? None of this has to do with race. It can be broken down further. Japanese children born out of wedlock: 2%. African-Americans: 70%. Whites and Hispanics are somewhere in the middle. If liberals want to do something about minorities not doing well in higher education, they should focus on things like welfare reform and divorce laws. It’s also important to keep something in mind. In the 1930s, 40s, and 50s, the out-of-wedlock birthrate for blacks was about 20%. And that was a mere 70 years after slavery ended. So how did it get worse as blacks got further from the slave years? It’s a long and complicated answer, but it does show us that this issue is not about oppression.

This will never be admitted of course. It is too ingrained in the feminist and minority movements that they are victims. This will continue as a result of white guilt. I agree with Bernard Goldberg’s take on all this. He quotes Tom Izzo (head coach of Michigan State University) as a supporter of affirmative action. So why, Goldberg contends, does Izzo not put this into practice with his basketball team? Currently, Michigan State is made up 6 white players out of 15 total players. Whites make up roughly 70% of the population and over 80% of the state of Michigan. Should we apply these standards to the MSU basketball team? No, of course not, most sane people would argue. These players put in a lot of time and energy to get where they are, and they are rewarded by being on the basketball team. I’m sure Tom Izzo would never give away spots from people who deserved them to people who didn’t.

And neither should our country.

A Winnable Election?

2007-11-30T18:49:00.000-05:00

"I think the surge is working…and the surge is working for a couple of different reasons. And one reason is the increase in troops.”

So says Congressman John Murtha (D-PA), one of the most outspoken anti-war advocates. He goes on to say that the surge is, “only one element”, but also calling it “a window of opportunity.”
Well now we’re getting somewhere.

A few weeks ago, the New York Times leads with “A Winnable War?” Conservatives will argue that it is only at the New York Times that this is debatable; all wars are winnable for the United States. The question was never whether or not we could win, but whether or not we would choose to win. Meanwhile, I’m going to give Harry Reid (D-Nevada) a chance to retract his statement that “the war is lost.”

Look, we have a long way to go. The Iraqi government in particular has a lot to live up to. But for the first time, there is hope. The media in the Middle East has turned on Al Qaeda. People there are sick of innocents getting blown up. No longer do the terrorists have a monopoly on what true Islam is in the area.

Iraq is now a neutral issue, with the potential to become something truly special for Republicans next November; a wild card. First, Hillary Clinton fumbles the question about illegal immigrants obtaining drivers licenses. Next, scientists announce that they are moving in a direction that would all but eliminate the debate over embryonic stem-cell research (namely that we wouldn’t need to use them). And now repeated good news from Iraq? Maybe the election isn’t all but lost for the Republicans just yet.

Everyone has been talking about the problems for conservatives for a long time. Iraq was unpopular, stem-cell research was popular, immigration reform couldn’t get done, and universal health care was seen as a must. The tide is turning. Iraq is once again being seen as a front in the war on terrorism. The scientist working on stem-cells announced that they had “successfully reprogrammed human skin cells into cells indistinguishable from embryonic stem cells.” The leader of the research, James Thomson, had expressed reservations in the past about creating new stem cells to use for the research and this helps relieve that controversy. Immigration has been a winning issue for conservatives for a long time, and always will as long as Democratic governors and mayors keep coming up with new ways around the law (i.e. Eliot Spitzer). Health care is a winning issue for Democrats usually, but not if the leader of your party is someone known for their failed health care bill. Americans may want health care reform, but that is a long way from the universal care each of the leading Democratic candidates has offered. Even Hillary Clinton’s new plan is filled with many Republican talking points; the word “choice” is repeated often.

A few months ago, most pundits were writing this election off as a loss for Republicans (Newt Gingrich) and arguing over just how many Congressional seats would be lost. But for Republicans, just like the people in Iraq; there is finally hope.

The Modern-Day Feminist Movement: How Women are Selling-Out Women

2007-10-29T00:34:00.000-04:00

“In a certain sense it was almost accidental—coincidental—that I wrote The Feminine Mystique, and in another sense my whole life had prepared me to write that book; all the pieces of my life came together for the first time in the writing of it.” So writes Betty Friedan years after writing the book that probably launched modern-day feminism. In the late 19th and early 20th century, women like Elizabeth Stanton and Susan B. Anthony kicked off the feminism movement in America, and yet remained true to the roots that they grew up with. With the publication of The Feminine Mystique, women all over America latched on to something new; and those new ideas have produced some very dangerous actions. What once started out as a group of down-to-earth, pro-life, pro-family women has become the complete opposite of what the founders intended. Most of the material that will be dealt with quotes American feminists and considers their views, and this is a problem in itself. However, it should be noted that the opinions of women and feminist governments overseas, particularly in Europe, are far more advanced and dangerous than those in the United States. This short essay deals with the long, hard-fought battle that women have been fighting, how modern-day feminists have sold out the women of America, and in the process have made men, women, and children all weaker from their attempts.

In January of 2001, the president of Harvard University, Larry Summers, did something outrageous. He put forth a hypothesis (backed up by decades of scientific data) that men and women are inherently different. Unfortunately Nancy Hopkins, a biologist at Massachusetts Institute of Technology, was in attendance. Hopkins said later that if she hadn’t left, “I would’ve either blacked out or thrown up.” Very few credible biologists, sociologists, or psychologists will attest to the idea that men and women are innately exactly the same. However, the belief that men and women are mentally, spiritually, and emotionally identical is at the bedrock core of the modern-day feminism movement. Feminist Patricia Adair Gowaty writes:

"…statements about the evolutionary source of typical differences between women and men, it seemed to many a convenient, untested ‘just-so-story’ that buttressed status quo notions about sex roles that were sometimes used to confine women to their ‘natural’ roles as mothers and subordinates to men."

One must wonder if these women have ever had children, as it seems most parents with a boy and a girl realize how different the genders are. To this day, feminists resist arguments that evoke the significance in children’s development of “salient” sexual differences between men and women and instead argue that these differences are brought on by institutions rather than nature. At the core of this belief is the idea that men and women can raise children equally. And why not, for if both genders are essentially the same, then a child can get from each gender separately just as easily as it can from both sexes. This if often the basis for the belief of feminists supporting same-sex marriage and resisting such things as the “family –friendly” tax reduction policy. It is ironic to note that modern-day feminists want absolute equal rights until the idea of women being drafted is brought into the conversation, at that point they really begin to recognize the differences in the genders. Feminists want equal representation in the workplace, but as they say; every woman’s a feminist until they see one of their own climbing up the fire-escape to rescue them. Is it really that radical to prefer a 200-pound man carry you down six stories rather than a 110-pound woman?

In the end, Larry Summers was forced to resign from his job at Harvard. One of the main reasons for this is the result of his comments at a private conference regarding the commonly-held belief of nearly every expert in the field; that men and women are different.

Also, the modern-day feminist movement has taken on topics that are either not relevant to most women, or just simply too out of the mainstream to be taken seriously. Feminism used to be about equality for women, but it has turned into something far different. Such modern-day feminist beliefs include: pro-abortion, pro-homosexuality (and homosexual marriage), the rejection of the belief in gender differences, and even taking on far-left issues such as animal cruelty. By far, the most important of these is the idea that abortion should remain legal at all stages of pregnancy. In 1991, feminists groups in Rochester, New York were planning a month of programs to protest violence against women. The group Feminists for Life planned to participate, but was barred because of their beliefs about abortion. Feminist leaders sponsoring the event said that the denial of abortion constitutes the single greatest form of violence against women.

Sex is another big issue that modern-day feminists have taken on, and their ignorance about sex is what has driven them away from mainstream women. Susan Rose, a professor at Dickinson University, writes about love and sex, “(Love) is not a word to be thrown about easily. Sex, on the other hand, is not a big deal. It’s fun, but you need to take care to use protection so you don’t get AIDS or an infection.” This statement is rather ridiculous; Rose may want to interview some more girls who have been negatively affected by sex. The arrogance from Rose in her article and her condescension towards the “Religious Right,” seeps from the pages.

Another common issue taken up by some feminist groups is the cause of animal rights. This sounds like a noble cause until one really examines the extremes of the movement. People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA) is the largest animal-rights group, and their stunts are well documented. Josephine Donovan writes that it is “…a matter of caring for animals as mothers (human and nonhuman) care for their infants…listening to animals, paying emotional attention, taking seriously—caring about—what they are telling us.” Donovan feels that there is good reason the feminist movement has taken up with PETA and other animal rights activists,

"Feminists—indeed most women—are acutely aware of what it feels like to have one’s opinion ignored, trivialized, rendered unimportant. Perhaps this experience has awakened their sensitivity to the fact that other marginalized groups—including animals—have trouble getting their viewpoints heard."

This quote could just be left alone as it is with no explanation, and nearly everyone would get the point. This idea of attempting to portray animals as equal to humans seems to never grow old. The true irony is: Why do feminists have such an easy time seeing an animal as a human, yet such a hard time seeing an eight-month-old fetus as the same?

The issues that concern feminists are just radically different from what most women are willing to accept. This has caused the term ‘feminism’ to lose its meaning. USA Today interviewed several people about what has happened to the word, and Janice Hedstrom, a twenty-seven-year-old registered nurse from Minneapolis said, “The feminist movement has made it a word that carries a negative connotation. And while I believe the movement has done a lot for women in helping them to become more equal to men, it has pushed an agenda that has been negative toward the family.”

The modern-day feminist movement has simply lost touch with the American woman. In the last 10 years, the percent of stay-at-home moms has risen by 15%. This number puts a smile on the face of conservatives, and yet is seen as a major problem for the leaders of the feminist movement. A well-known feminist lawyer, philosophy professor, and author, Linda Hirshman had this to say:

"These women are choosing lives in which they do not use their capacity for very complicated works. They are choosing lives in which they do not use their capacity to deal with very powerful other adults in the world, which takes a lot of skill. I think there are better lives and worse lives."

Hirshman is the classic example of what the modern-day feminist movement has become; someone who claims to speak for the majority of American women and yet doesn’t share their values. The arrogance of this statement is astounding. Most women wonder, what is more important than raising children? At what point in our history did the most important job become something to look down upon? Feminists are constantly complaining that women are seen as less then their male counterparts, but it appears that they are the only ones looking down on anyone.

Feminist Jackie Brookner writes, “We have developed much activism for woman’s causes: for abortion rights, equal job opportunity, rape counseling, battered women, day care.” For each of the things she lists, one can point out the problems that occurred. Abortion rights led to a rapid spread of such evils as partial-birth abortion, infanticide, and a loss of respect for human life. Equal job opportunity has come at the expense of well-qualified men, pushing them out as businesses hire women for fear of being sued. Rape counseling has led to a rape epidemic; many women have been credibly accused of lying about being raped, most notably in the Duke lacrosse scandal last year. Real rape victims become victims all over again. Day care has led to fewer stay-at-home moms and children being raised in less healthy home environments.

When researching the works of modern-day feminists, one is also struck by the fact that they simply no longer relate to the views of the common woman. “You know, last week I attended the NOW convention and, out of hundreds of sessions, only one focused on children—and it was on lesbian mothers.” So relates Elizabeth Fox-Genovese in her new book.

In conclusion, feminism as we know it is dying out. It has simply become too radical. I was struck by how mean the feminist movement sounded while I was reading about it, and so I decided to do some investigating myself. At Easter dinner this past year, I asked women on both sides of my family if they would classify themselves as feminists. My family is a good mix of conservatives and liberals on both sides, so I hoped it would be a good sample of opinions. This diverse group came together in one area though, and that is in its condemnation of the feminist movement. It was universally condemned as both man-hating and against stay-at-home mothers; and this did not sit well in a family in which most of the female members shared this occupation. A grimace came to the face of whoever I was talking to regarding today’s feminist movement. Mary Hawkesworth writes:

"The women’s movement has lost its bearings, cut itself off from American women, and abandoned its original purpose…Rather than acting in concert to produce social change, the feminist movement factionalized, devolving into highly specialized individuals and cliques, each cultivating ins arcane little patch of ground…"

What started out once as a true and just cause has morphed into something different. With the passage of Title IX and affirmative action programs, feminist organizations began gaining ground; but with the increasing problem of male failures in school and extracurricular activities, what have they gained? It’s no wonder that currently only a third of women define themselves as feminists. As that number drops every year, it is becoming clearer and clearer that the modern-day feminist movement has truly abandoned women. At Grove City College, feminism is a curse word, and that trend is sure to continue as long as organizations like Planned Parenthood and NOW continue to ignore values truly important to American women.

Ivy League Lunacy

2007-09-21T15:42:00.000-04:00

I’d thought I’d seen it all. Just when parents thought that Ivy League schools couldn’t break away from mainstream thought anymore, Columbia University pushes the envelope even more. It was announced earlier this week that Columbia plans to go ahead with plans to host Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad for a speech. Ahmadinejad and Iran are said to be the chief sponsor of terrorism in the world; both in Iraq and with their funding of Hezbollah last year in its war against Israel. Ahmadinejad has also angered Jewish groups by calling the Holocaust a “myth” and saying that Israel should be “wiped off the map.”

I suppose that it’s about time Columbia joined its Ivy League counterparts by allowing more of this so-called “free speech.”

First, Princeton University promoted Bioethicist Peter Singer to the head of its department. For those who aren’t aware, Singer is an ethicist whose views have been compared to eugenicists. WORLD Magazine has him on the record supporting bestiality (“…not inherently wrong in a moral sense”), necrophilia (“…no moral problem with that”), and infanticide. When asked if there is something wrong with a society that breeds children for spare parts on a massive scale, Singer answered, “No.” WORLD also reports that he “reaffirmed it would be ethically OK to kill 1-year-olds with physical or mental disabilities…” Oh wait, he did say that ideally the question of infanticide would be "raised as soon as possible after birth.” Thanks.

Next, we have Yale. To go along with rejecting the ROTC, Yale decided to accept and help enroll a former terrorist. Former "ambassador-at-large" of the Taliban regime, Sayed Rahmatullah Hashemi is now a student at Yale. First brought to New Haven in 2001, Hashemi spoke as an apologist for his government. Not too worry…Hashemi applied and was accepted in 2004. Yale Dean Richard Shaw reportedly came away from the interview, “with a sense: Whoa! This is a person to be reckoned with and who could educate us about the world.”

The examples of Ivy League disconnection with the rest of the country goes on and on. All of these examples are defended by these college administrations and they all boil down to the same thing: Free speech! Diversity!

Interesting.

In January of 2001, the president of Harvard University, Larry Summers, did something outrageous. He put forth a hypothesis (backed up by decades of scientific data) that men and women are inherently different. Unfortunately, Nancy Hopkins, a biologist at Massachusetts Institute of Technology, was in attendance. Hopkins said later that if she hadn’t left, “I would’ve either blacked out or thrown up.” Because of his shocking view, the Harvard faculty voted that they had lost faith in him as a president and soon after he was asked to resign. Free speech?

The New York Times published a piece titled, “Republicans Outnumbered in Academia, Studies Find.” The piece is based on two studies done on professors at the collegiate level based on their voting records. The study found that Democrats outnumber Republicans at least 7 to 1 (9 to 1 at Berkeley and Stanford). At Harvard, $19 was given to John Kerry in 2004 for every $1 given to George W. Bush. The field in which the political leanings was closest was economics (still 3 to 1), furthest was anthropologists with a 30 to 1 difference. Diversity?

Getting back to Columbia, my problem with this is the stupidity of it all. Let me see if I get this straight: ROTC (which has been banned from Columbia since 1969 despite student approval of it) isn’t allowed to set up stands and recruit students…but the president of a country that state sponsors terrorism is allowed to come and share his views? And elite academia is wondering why they’re being called anti-American?

President Ahmadinejad has cited Adolf Hitler’s Mein Kampf as one of his favorite reads. Columbia University should treat the Iranian terrorist the same way Hitler would be treated if he had asked to come speak at one of our nation’s top universities in the midst of WWII.

Surge Politics

2007-09-17T16:29:00.000-04:00

This past week marks one of the most important days leading up to next year’s presidential elections, and it was started off with a bang. General David Petraeus, the leading commander of our forces in Iraq, gave his testimony to Congress about President Bush’s surge. For those of you who haven’t been following the news in the past 6 months, President Bush ordered a troop surge of 30,000 troops in hopes of better stabilizing Iraq. According to Petraeus, these troop increases greatly cut down on violence, particularly in the areas around Baghdad. “The situation in Iraq remains complex, difficult and sometimes downright frustrating,” said Petraeus. “(But) I also believe that it is possible to achieve our objectives in Iraq over time, although doing so will be neither quick nor easy.”

Most pundits would agree that the report was rather fair; portraying the surge as working while being extremely critical of the Iraqi government at the same time. Several Democrats praised General Petraeus, from both a personal standpoint as well as his leadership positions. Petraeus also started his presentation by making a point to say that the words were his own testimony and had not been reported to either the Pentagon nor the President.

Unfortunately, this did not stop Democrats from playing politics.

Senator Hillary Clinton (D-New York) said that to believe General Petraeus required the “willing suspension of disbelief.” Translation: The leading Democratic candidate for president called a 4-star general who was unanimously confirmed by the Senate a liar to his face. And it gets worse.

Moveon.org, one of the leading liberal websites bought a $100,000+, full-page ad from the New York Times (the most popular newspaper in the country) titled “General Petraeus? Or General Betray Us?” People were hung for treason for less than this during our great nation’s former wars.

Neither Clinton, Barack Obama (D-IL), nor any of the other Democrats running for president condemned the ad. Clinton accused Republicans of “generating a political sideshow instead of discussing the president’s failed war policy.” How long does it take to condemn an ad calling our country’s top general a traitor?

None of the Democrats running for president acknowledge the War in Iraq as apart of the global war on terror (which John Edwards called a “bumper sticker”). Obama in particular is set on capturing bin Laden; even warning that he is more than prepared to go into Pakistan after him without their permission. I personally think it’s weird that bin Laden himself speaks out so strongly against the War in Iraq in his latest video sent out two weeks ago…doesn’t he realize that it’s not apart of the war on terror?

Some may wonder why this is going on. It’s very simple. The leading Democrat in the senate is Harry Reid (D-Nevada). In April of this past year he declared the war in Iraq as “lost.” Can you imagine that? Better, can you imagine a United States Senator declaring in World War II that that war was lost? I mean, things were getting pretty bad up until 1942. We lost a tremendous amount of people; we were in a war in a far off country fighting Germany who didn’t attack us…

No, of course you can’t imagine that. This is a time of war. What Senator Reid said is 100% stupid and borderline treason. Al Qaeda would love to get its hands on that tape; it’s a terrorist training video. Osama Bin Laden called the United States a “paper tiger” in the 1990s, what else would we need to do to prove him correct?

The reason the Democrats are rejecting General Petraeus, as well as Ambassador Ryan Crocker, is pure politics. You can’t win an election if your only hope for victory is America’s defeat.

Iraq and the misconceptions about Darfur

2007-09-17T16:27:00.000-04:00

As I sat in my hotel room after enjoying this past weekends’ events at the Conservative Political Action Convention (CPAC) in Washington D.C., I decided to tune in to some of the evening’s news programs to look for coverage. After watching several of the shows, I tuned in to check out Bill Maher’s show on HBO, Real Time with Bill Maher. This was a big mistake for my conservative heart and mind.

The panel of the show included John Ridley (an author), Joe Scarborough (the host of Scarborough County on MSNBC), and a representative in the House from Massachusetts, Barney Frank. The show started off by first discussing the war in Iraq and what the panel saw as a complete failure. The fact that mistakes were made in the Middle East is undeniable, the president himself has admitted as much. The necessity of the war going on there is what is up for debate. In the minds of the commentators, there is no debate on Iraq as it was presumed that every viewer shared this view (it was Bill Maher on HBO, so they may have been right). The panel briefly discussed Barack Obama’s statement from a week ago (since retracted) that the lives lost in Iraq were “wasted.” Bill Maher and Ridley went on to reiterate this point.

Up to this point in the show, I was doing OK. After all, it was the usual liberal talking points that I was used to, so I wasn’t surprised. However, immediately after the segment on Iraq, the topic moved on to the Darfur region in Africa. Actress and activist Mia Farrow was brought on to talk about the region after visiting the area several times in the last couple of years. Farrow had extremely strong feelings about the treatment of some of the women and children in the region and the overwhelming persecution that they were facing.

The irony of these two segments back-to-back was apparently lost on the Maher’s audience, but I hope not on the rest of the country watching.

How is it that in a matter of minute’s liberals can go from calling our troops lives wasted in Iraq to clamoring for the U.S. and the international community to do something about the civil war going on in Darfur? What do they think would happen there? Somehow we could go in there, wipe out the Janjaweed, and the region would become a peaceful democracy? This is exactly what we are working for in Iraq.

Maher goes on to insinuate that the reason we’re not militarily involved in Darfur, and yet are in Iraq, is because the region of Darfur is completely black. This is ridiculous; if we weren’t in Iraq, would he complain that it was because the people there are Arabic?

Mia Farrow, Don Cheadle, and George Clooney go on talk show after talk show complaining about the U.S. not doing enough in Africa, and in the next breath will endlessly talk about the “disaster” going on in Iraq. The hypocrisy of these comparisons cannot be overstated.

Of course the disastrous problems in Darfur and other regions in Africa need to be addressed, but so do those in Iraq. Even among my conservative friends I’m reminded constantly about the thousands that are killed in Africa; but how quickly we have forgotten the hundreds of thousands killed by Saddam Hussein’s regime in Iraq.

The recent hyping of Darfur has become popular recently because of Hollywood liberals and politicians looking to jump on the bandwagon of a popular worthy cause, as opposed to Iraq which has become an unpopular worthy cause. The point here isn’t that Darfur doesn’t need attention (both from the United States as well as from the world), but that it is terrible to ignore the comparisons between this region and Iraq. America is having difficulty taking out a government and restoring order, how are we going to control a country that’s in a real civil war? Iraq has become unpopular and weak-willed politicians are looking to jump off what they see as a sinking ship and onto something that is politically a win-win situation; we must not be fooled.

Jarrett Skorup is a student at Grove City College in Pennsylvania. He is a student fellow for The Center for Vision and Values at Grove City College. You can contact him here

Pacifism, Capital Punishment, and Saddam

2007-09-17T16:24:00.000-04:00

This past summer, I spent a week shingling a friend’s house in central Wisconsin. It could have been the heat (roofing isn’t the best idea during a heat wave), or it may have just been the 12 hours a day spent on the roof, but somewhere along the lines we decided it would be a good way to pass the time by talking about politics.

Big mistake.

We started off OK: Between the four of us we determined that we agreed on pretty much every issue. Then we got to the death penalty. Six hours and one un-shingled roof later we went inside to cool off from the heat, and the politics.

The death penalty is one of those issues that you just don’t bring up at the dinner table or with close friends, unless you’re 100% positive that they agree with you. Unless you’re a syndicated columnist, because we all just like to argue.

However, this became a big deal this week as it was announced that Saddam Hussein will be executed for his many crimes against humanity (pending appeal). This is a very interesting thing to think about. If I were a betting man, I’m thinking that the percent of Americans against the death penalty is quite different then the amount of Americans against Hussein being executed. As in, a lot less.

The logic of this makes sense; Saddam killed many more people and committed much worse crimes than anyone we have on death row. However, the leading groups opposing the death penalty don’t agree.

According to the American Civil Liberties Union’s (ACLU) website, “The death penalty is the ultimate, irreversible denial of human rights.” Taking a page from them is Amnesty International stating, “The death penalty is the ultimate denial of civil liberties.” It’s almost like the DNC sends out talking points memos to different organizations instructing them on what to say (i.e. repeating “choice” as many times as you can when talking about abortion, calling our enemies “insurgents” rather than terrorists, etc.).

I don’t expect you to take the opinions of these two organizations too seriously; Amnesty was the group that called the United States a major violator of human rights because of its support of the death penalty, as well as having its secretary general Irene Khan call the U.S. prison camp at Guantanamo Bay the “gulag of our times.” Now I’m no history expert (I don’t graduate till 2009), but I recall reading somewhere that the Soviet Union murdered millions in their concentration camps. At last check the United States was hovering around zero.

Anyways though, are these groups right to condemn capital punishment in America? Yes…if they’re pacifists.

If you truly believe that the death penalty is wrong, in this country; then you are forced to take a pacifist position.

A pacifist believes, among other things, that to go to war is absolutely wrong and should never be done because it results in violence and the killing of people. Even guilty people. Is this not the same idea that fuels people against the death penalty? To be against the death-penalty but in support of any war in all of history is inconsistent. Every person facing the death penalty has committed a gruesome murder and/or rape. Very few enemies on the field of battle have done this sort of crime, so to believe we are justified in killing an enemy soldier but not a criminal is inconsistent.

Anti-death penalty advocates will say, of course not. They are against capital punishment because “innocent people are killed” or “Jesus wouldn’t sentence people to death”. But this logic just doesn’t make sense. Innocent people are killed in each and every single action war in the history of the world. Are they against World War II? How about the American Revolution? A lot of people that are against the death penalty are Christians; are they against the wars of the Old Testament that God oversaw and commanded?

When our society puts someone to death, they use every available resource to absolutely prove that that person is guilty; that they’ve committed murder. The prosecutors dig up all the evidence they can find in order to convict them, it is presented to an impartial jury, and the person on trial is given a proper defense. On the other hand, none of this happens when we go to war. In World War II, we sought out and killed German and Japanese soldiers. We also killed innocent civilians from these countries, and we knew we were doing it. And virtually everyone in this country is grateful of that today. There is no trial, there is no jury. We were at war against a great enemy, and we did what we had to in order to defeat them.

We are at war with another enemy in our country today, and that enemy is murderers and other criminals. In this war, however, we grant our enemies defense lawyers and we do our very best to show that they are absolutely guilty. And if there is even a shadow of a doubt, we do not execute them.

Nobody can deny that there is far more doubt about whether everyone we are killing in war is guilty then there is about when we execute someone on death row. We obviously don’t have the capabilities to try every person we kill during war, yet we do when it is a murder in our own country. So when will this country begin to give the benefit of the doubt to our policemen and prosecutors like we do to our soldiers?

Jarrett Skorup is a student at Grove City College in Pennsylvania. He is a student fellow for The Center for Vision and Values at Grove City College. You can contact him here.

Why teach sex-education?

2007-09-17T16:20:00.000-04:00

Your government spends over $200 million of your tax dollars every year teaching kids about sex-education. And in the last few years, this number has gone up about $22 million per year. As the new Congress and new legislators grapple with what to do with the federal minimum wage, where to go with Iraq, and how to get along with one another, I have a suggestion for them.

Cut off government funding for sex-education in schools.

Whether you belief in abstinence-only education or comprehensive, everyone can agree that this is a waste of money. People in favor of abstinence say they aren’t getting enough help from school districts, while people in favor of comprehensive education feel that they aren’t getting the money. This will all be put to rest once the government adopts my plan.

First off, I should come clean. If I really had to pick a side, I would have to argue for abstinence-only education. The statistics on the effectiveness are all over the board, but from personal experience I feel that it is the best way to educate students. And I do want them to be educated.
So where, you wonder, are students supposed to learn about sex? The mere fact that anyone has to ask that question anymore is a real concern. Kids need to learn about sex from their parents.

I’m not real sure how parents gave up their right to educate their children on this issue in the first place, but then again, I’m also not real sure how schools came away from focusing on reading, writing, and ‘rithmetic and got onto condoms and contraception. This could probably explain why the U.S. is at the back of the pack in many subjects compared to the rest of the world. The student’s in Thailand are learning math; our students are learning where to pick up the cheapest condoms.

Did sex just become too awkward for parents nowadays? Are the kids just too embarrassed? I’m not really sure how having a half-hour conversation with your parents every once and a while is more embarrassing than taking a whole semester of health classes learning how to put a condom on a banana, but then again, I guess I have been out of my teenage years for nearly 2 months. Times sure are a changing.

Anyways, I’ve been hearing a lot of statistics on sex-education. People in favor of comprehensive teaching seem absolutely certain that the general public favors their side. Some abstinence-only advocates even concede that point, but say that the general public just doesn’t understand what kind of things will be taught once our government starts handing over all that money to the other side. This can all be solved if we just allow the parents to deal with the issue.
Lockport, New York tried comprehensive sex-education for awhile. The Wilson Central School District’s school board eventually had to meet up over the continuing of the program because of legitimate concerns from the community. Several parents voiced concerns about a program that teaches fifth graders about homosexuality, masturbation, and abortion. How could they possibly do such a thing! Don’t they understand that comprehensive sex-education is the only kind that works? When I was in fifth grade, I wondered which girls I would have to run away from on the playground so as not to get cooties; what is this district possibly thinking?

Masturbation seems be a hot topic lately as several districts in Massachusetts were getting criticized for teaching about it to students as young as third grade. I would certainly love to put the issue of what type of education our children should have up for debate. This will never be voted on, however. Do you think supporters of comprehensive sex-education are going to allow parents to hear horror stories like these?

The bottom line is that parents need to be more responsible. It may be difficult to find the time (or the patience) to talk to your kids, but it needs to be done. I don’t understand why most parents wouldn’t want to do this anyways; regardless of what your values are, they’re your values, don’t you want to share them with your children? This debate isn’t even a slippery slope; there is no slope. We have parents on one hand who are educating their children and keeping them away from the type of education they might otherwise be getting in public schools, and on the other hand we have parents finding out that their 8 and 9-year-olds are learning how to come out of the closet.

A reoccurring theme in our countries history is that when you let the government control something it gets screwed up. I’m not here to debate economics, but the examples of this are easy to come by; education, health care, businesses…the list goes on and on. The government controls how children are educated in most aspects; they don’t need to decide what your children need to know about sex.