Retribution or Reconciliation?

Earlier this year, on February 27, 2013, the United States Supreme Court heard an argument by a lawyer representing Shelby County, Alabama, in regard to the applicability and current accuracy of the premise upon which the 1965 Voting Rights Act was based.  The 1965 Voting Rights Act was passed by Congress over opposition from Democrats (primarily in the South) yet signed into law by President Lyndon Baines Johnson.  It was a landmark decision in the vein of the Reconstruction laws that applied to the Southern states following the Civil War.  Prior to that, it was generally understood that all federal laws had to apply equally to all citizens and to all states.  Article IV, Section 2 of the United States Constitution states…

"The Citizens of each State shall be entitled to all Privileges and Immunities of Citizens in the several States."

The Thirteenth, Fourteenth, and Fifteenth Amendments to the US Constitution specifically protect the rights of African Americans and serve as the bedrock of protections of all citizens against discrimination, especially the right to vote.  Section 5 of the Fourteenth Amendment specifically states

"The Congress shall have the power to enforce, by appropriate legislation the provisions of this article."

While the intent and the letter of the Thirteenth, Fourteenth, and Fifteenth Amendments is abundantly clear, they alone did not solve the problem of discrimination in the South.  As noted in a previous blog, the election of our first Progressive (i.e. liberal) President, Woodrow Wilson, dramatically reversed the progress in race relations and economic advancement in the South.  Wilson, an outspoken racist who grew up in the deep South (born in Virginia, but raised in Georgia), helped to engineer the re-segregation of the South.  Wilson, a student and disciple of Richard T. Ely [an influential founder of the Progressive movement], first re-segregated the Federal Government, reversing the policies of Republican Presidents before him.  Ely and others, who believed that African Americans had not sufficiently progressed ethically, then went about encouraging and achieving the re-segregation of the South.

The re-segregation of the South led to the infamous Jim Crow era that lasted from the time of Ely until the 1960s.  Through the use of poll taxes, threats, and physical harassment, African Americans were denied the right to vote.  It was a sad era in American history.  Repeatedly, Republicans in Congress tried to pass civil rights legislation, but it was continually voted down or watered down by the Democrat majorities in Congress up until 1964.

Finally, in 1964, a strong Civil Rights Act was passed by Congress over the objections of Southern Democrats and Democrats from as far North as Montana.  Similarly, in 1965, the historic Voting Rights Act was passed.

The argument made by Shelby County, Alabama, was that today, 48 years after the Voting Rights bill was passed, race relations, economic opportunities, and voting access to all citizens in that county are dramatically different than they were in 1965.  In other words, they argued before the Court that the premise upon which the Voting Rights Act was based, that Alabama and other Southern states actively discriminate against African Americans, is no longer true today. 

The Supreme Court ruled in June 2013, that it is unjustified to assume that no racial progress has been made in the states to which the 1965 Voting Rights legislation applies.  However, the Court did not state that no restrictions could apply, but simply that the Congress should evaluate the current status of these states and form a new basis for applying the Voting Rights Act.  Moreover, the Court did not view the requirement for government issued photo identification as discriminatory.

This ruling set off a firestorm of outrage on the left by many who had been active in the civil rights movement back in the 1960s, and those of other motivations.  But, before I get into that outrage, let me provide you with a quote from USA Today on the ruling…

"Declaring that 'our country has changed in the past 50 years,' Chief Justice John Roberts and the court's four other conservatives said the 1965 law cannot be enforced unless Congress updates it to account for a half-century of civil rights advances."

Apparently, Americans from all walks of life, all political parties, political philosophies, all ages, and both men and women agree with Chief Justice Robert's appraisal that racial progress has been made over the past 50 years.  A survey taken by Elon University in North Carolina of North Carolina residents (I picked this one because it is in the South) showed these amazing results…

Now, remember this is a poll of North Carolina citizens only.  In each and every category, no matter how you slice it, every group favors the use of government issued photo identification cards as a requirement to vote.

Similar national polls show support for government issued photo identifications voter cards to be above 70%.  This includes all categories shown above, plus folks who identify themselves as liberals! In all cases and in all groups the support is above 50%.

So the question crosses my mind, if African Americans living in the South support government issued ID voter cards, is there any doubt that "our country has changed in the last 50 years?  Is there really any likelihood that photo identification cards will negatively impact minority voting?  If all minority groups support government issued voter identification cards, they must not feel that the requirement that a voter show a government issued photo identification card will dissuade them from voting.

So, then, what is the objection to using ID cards to provide integrity in the voting system?  Why the opposition to securing the validity of the voting franchise?  Why the outrage at the Supreme Court ruling?

The Alabama law and most other voter security laws (they exist in 34 states), allow everyone one to vote, even those without a government issued photo ID, on a provisional basis.  In other words, even if you do not have an ID card, you can cast your ballot provisionally until it has been verified that you are who you claim to be.

And, frankly, virtually everyone has a government issued photo ID card today.  Such cards are required to receive food stamps, drive a car, purchase liquor or cigarettes, etc.  Moreover, in those states that require a photo ID to vote, you can get one for free from a local state office.  How much easier can we make it to vote?

But now, let's talk about the outrage. 

I have worked with a lawyer in New York City.  Although we have never met, I have talked with him on several occasions on the telephone in regard to a legal matter in which both he and I were interested.  I believe he is a very sincere man with strong principles.  I do not agree with him politically, but I believe he is honest, competent, and desires justice.

When the US Supreme Court first heard the Shelby County, Alabama, case my acquaintance in New York City was outraged.  He sent out a news release on the comments made by the Judges during oral arguments and he was livid.  This is, in part, what his news release said…

"In August 1968, three years after the Voting Rights Act was passed, Henrietta Wright began her testimony on August 10th in the first voting rights damage suit in a Federal United States District Court in a Mississippi courtroom. She was suing Sheriff John Wages, the Sheriff who brutally beat her, hospitalized her and jailed her because she tried to register to vote on August 25, 1965 -- 20 days after the historic act was passed.

When the first voting rights suit was filed by the Department of Justice, Winona County, Mississippi, had 7,639 white persons and 7,250 Negroes of voting age. At least 5,343 white persons were registered to vote.

I was Mrs. Wright's lawyer."

My friend goes on to explain how Henrietta Wright was beaten up and mistreated by the police in Winona County, Mississippi, just because she tried to register to vote.  It is a very emotional and, I am sure, absolutely true story.  It describes a shocking case of voting rights abuse.  For this lawyer, it was just yesterday that this trial took place.  He story is vivid and his passion for justice shows through as he tells the story…

"Henrietta Wright's handcuffs were removed. She spent that night in jail, with no offer of dinner. The next morning Wages, Miller, Morgan, and Cross[the Sheriff and his deputies] entered her cell, dragged her off the cot, and slammed her head and back against the concrete floor. They kneed her in the stomach, thighs, and mouth, knocking out two front teeth, her mouth filling with blood. She resisted as best she could. They tried to handcuff her to keep her from fighting back, but they were not able to get more than one lock snapped on.

Her damage trial lasted a week. A constant angry white crowd congregated each day, all day, outside the courthouse. Mrs. Wright and I were surrounded, cornered, bumped and threatened as we came and went to the courthouse. I got phone calls at my hotel threatening, 'Slick, you won't leave town alive'.

The all-white jury deliberated for two hours. We lost the case, but we won. Mrs. Wright won first by trying to vote, then by merely bringing the suit and making the Sheriff face her lawyer and her cross examination, and by the fact that an all-white jury needed two hours to deliberate and did not return an immediate verdict against Mrs. Wright.

Mrs. Wright was cheered as she left the courthouse by some of her neighbors who, after hearing of the verdict, came to support and protect her after she left the courthouse.

It is now 45 years after Mrs. Wright's trial. On February 27, 2013, the Supreme Court heard Alabama's attack that the voting Rights Act could no longer stop states from discriminating against black voters. The lawyers for Shelby County, Alabama, argued that the Voting Rights Act of 1965 was no longer necessary in 2006 for times had changed."

You can see from reading his news release that he is still infuriated by what happened to Mrs. Wright, and he honestly believes that nothing has changed in the South.  This is what he said about the oral arguments before the Supreme Court in the Shelby County, Alabama, case…

"Chief Justice John G. Roberts, Jr., in support of Alabama's position, rhetorically asked whether 'the citizens in the South are more racist than citizens in the North.' Justice Roberts tried to show it was unfair to single out the South for racial discrimination and that the law was now being unequally applied; and that this unequal application may be more troublesome than the racial discrimination itself. Justice Anthony M. Kennedy, whose vote was known to be critical, then rhetorically asked the government lawyer whether Alabama today is an 'independent sovereign' or whether it must live 'under the trusteeship of the United States government.'

But it was Justice Antonin Scalia who had the temerity to say that the Voting Rights Act, a great civil rights landmark, now amounted to a 'perpetuation of racial entitlement.'"

In my friend's eyes, nothing has changed in nearly 50 years.  The South is today, in his mind, just as racist and bigoted as it was 45 years ago.  I can almost understand his ire, but his position is clearly one based on his personal experience, and not on facts.

I think we can trust African Americans living in North Carolina when it comes to whether or not the requirement for government issued photo ID cards to secure the integrity of the ballot box will keep them from voting.  And, as far as nothing has changed is concerned, African Americans are returning to the South from the North, for jobs and for retirement.

In an article for the Pittsburg Post-Gazette, Daniel DiSalvo, an assistant professor of political science at the City College of New York, wrote of the remigration of blacks from the North to the South.  Other major publications have also taken note of this phenomenon.  This is some of what Professor DiSalvo reported…

"A century ago, nine of 10 African-Americans lived in the South, primarily in formerly Confederate states where segregation reigned. Then, in the 1920s, blacks began heading north, both to escape the racism of Jim Crow and to seek work as southern agriculture grew increasingly mechanized. 'From World War I to the 1970s, some 6 million black Americans fled the American South for an uncertain existence in the urban North and West,' wrote author Isabel Wilkerson in [her book] 'The Warmth of Other Suns.'

Principal destinations in the Great Migration, as the exodus came to be called, included Chicago, Detroit and New York City, and carried tremendous political implications, both good and bad. It helped spur the civil rights movement, but it also trapped many blacks in urban ghettos. More recently, the Great Migration has reversed itself, with blacks returning to the South."

He goes on…

"The New York Times noticed in the early 1970s that, for the first time, more blacks were moving from the North to the South than vice versa. Last year, the Times described the South's share of black population growth as 'about half the country's total in the 1970s, two-thirds in the 1990s and three-quarters in the decade that just ended.'

Many of the migrants are "buppies" -- young, college-educated, upwardly mobile black professionals -- and older retirees. Over the last two decades, according to the Census, the states with the biggest gains in black population have been Georgia, South Carolina, Virginia, Texas and Florida. New York, Illinois and Michigan have seen the greatest losses. Today, 57 percent of American blacks live in the South -- the highest percentage in a half-century."

Professor DiSalvo sums the remigration of blacks from the North to the South this way…

"The first is the push and pull of job markets. States in the Northeast and on the West Coast, where liberalism has been strongest, tend to have powerful public-sector unions, high taxes and heavy regulations, which translate into fewer private-sector jobs. In southern locales, where taxes are lower and regulations lighter, employment has grown faster; the fastest-growing cities for job creation between 2000 and 2010 were Austin, Raleigh, San Antonio, Houston, Charlotte and Oklahoma City. For upwardly mobile blacks, the job-creating South represents a new land of opportunity.

The second reason for blacks' southward migration is the North's higher housing prices and property tax rates. The 2010 median single-family home price in northeastern metro areas was $243,900, compared with $153,700 in southern metro areas, according to the National Association of Realtors. Overall cost of living is an issue, too: Groceries, utility bills, housing and health care cost less south of the Mason-Dixon Line. High costs in the North make life difficult for the middle class regardless of color, but they pose a particular challenge to black families. From 2005 to 2009, according to a Pew survey, inflation-adjusted wealth fell by 16 percent among white households but by 53 percent among black ones.

Third, high taxes in northern cities don't always translate into effective public services. Public schools are a prime example: Though class sizes have shrunk and average per-pupil spending has increased markedly over the last three decades, schools with large black populations continue to perform poorly. In search of a solution, blacks have become far more amenable than other groups to experiments with vouchers and charter schools.

Finally, many blacks moving to the South are retirees who, like other older Americans, are seeking better weather. Over the past decade, Florida has attracted more black migrants than any other state. Sociologists Calvin Beale and Glenn Fuguitt have found that black retirees are moving not only to classic retirement destinations in the South but also to 'a cross-section of southern counties from which thousands of blacks migrated during the exodus from farming in the 20 years or so after World War II.' Many may be responding to what anthropologist Carol Stack describes as a 'call to home.'"

From this data it is impossible for anyone to conclude that nothing has changed in the South over the past 50 years.  Can anyone seriously argue that tens of thousands of African Americans would willingly move from the North to the South for jobs and for retirement if they thought they would be discriminated against, especially in the voting process? 

I am confident that my lawyer friend is sincere in his beliefs.  He is just wrong.  There is no logic, and there are no facts to support his argument.  But, I understand how and why he clings to these false ideas.

Sadly, my friend is not alone in his false conclusions.  No less than the Attorney General of the United States, Eric Holder, is throwing about wild accusations that the required use of government issued photo ID cards is designed to suppress the black vote and that those behind this movement are racists.  In the Wall Street Journal editorial of October 8, 2013, the editors say in regard to his lawsuit against North Carolina's photo ID law…

"According to Holder, this [the law requiring a government issued ID as a requirement for voting] amounts to a shocking return to the Jim Crow era.  He describes these modest measures to secure the integrity of the ballot as 'aggressive steps to curtail the voting rights of African Americans.'  And he is suing the state to bring it back under the federal supervision of the Voting Rights Act for all of its future voting-law changes."

What a disaster this would be.  According to J. Christians Adams, a former attorney in the Civil Rights Division of the DOJ, attorneys in that division not only refused to enforce the law, but stood by as politicians to their liking corrupted the voting process.  Attorney General Holder is defying the ruling of the Supreme Court with his lawsuit, which is sure to be the first of many if he is successful.  To again quote the Wall Street Journal editorial…

"Under Section 3 of the Act [1965 Voting Rights Act], states can be required to get federal preclearance if a court finds that the state has intentionally discriminated against minorities in its voting laws.  That's a high legal bar that the Justice Department will find hard to prove, especially since many of the states' [North Carolina and Texas] voter ID provisions are widespread in other states."

Beyond the unsubstantiated charges that the requirement of photo IDs will result in minority voter suppression, the argument is made that there is no need for ballot security because instances of voter fraud are rare and insignificant.  As WSJ contributing editor John Fund has documented in his book, Stealing Elections, voter fraud is a real and significant danger across our nation.  Voter fraud is widespread and has undoubtedly changed the outcome of many close elections.

In fact, former and very liberal US Supreme Associate Justice John Paul Stevens supported the constitutionality of a strict Indiana voter ID law designed to combat fraud. Justice Stevens, who personally encountered voter fraud while serving on various reform commissions in his native Chicago, spoke for a six-member majority. In a decision two years earlier clearing the way for an Arizona ID law, the Court had declared in a unanimous opinion that…

"…confidence in the integrity of our electoral processes is essential to the functioning of our participatory democracy. Voter fraud drives honest citizens out of the democratic process and breeds distrust of our government. Voters who fear their legitimate votes will be outweighed by fraudulent ones will feel disenfranchised."

To sum it up, there are five reasons used to oppose enhancing the integrity of the voting process via government issued photo identification cards…

1. Nothing Has Changed.  Nothing has changed in the South in regard to discrimination of African Americans.  It is just as bad today as it was in 1965.
2. ID Cards Will Suppress Black Voting.  The very existence of requiring photo identification in order to vote will unfairly discourage black and other minority voting.
3. No Danger of Voter Fraud.  There is no credible evidence or danger of widespread voter fraud.
4. Political Advantage.  There is a political advantage in accusing the Republicans of wanting to suppress black and other minority voting by requiring voter ID cards.  It enables Democrats to scare black voters into believing that Republicans are racists.
5. Impediment to Vote Theft.  The dishonest and crooked see voter ID cards as an impediment to vote theft.

If you believe nothing has changed, you are certainly entitled to your view, even though it runs totally counter to objective data.  Yes, racism exists and it will always exist.  It is a matter of the heart, not a matter of the law.

If you believe that voter ID cards will suppress black voting, there is just no evidence to support that belief.  Those affected directly do not fear voter ID requirements.  If you want to promote this idea, you need supporting evidence.

If you oppose voter ID cards for political advantage, shame on you.  You are a part of the problem, not a part of the solution.  You seek to divide Americans for political gain, not unite them for the common good.  You are driven by anger and seek revenge, not reconciliation.  You seek power over honesty and integrity in government. 

And, if you oppose voter ID cards because you want to encourage vote theft, you belong behind bars.  You are a crook.

Of all the bad policies promoted by our President and his Administration, I despise his conscious efforts to divide Americans the most.  Leaders do not divide, they unite, they encourage harmony.

The message of Christianity is reconciliation.  Through Jesus' death on the cross, man is reconciled to God.  Jesus died for our sins on the cross, so that we can live with him in perfect harmony forever in heaven.  As a Christian, I am to forgo retribution and instead forgive.  I am to forgive not only my friends, but also my enemies.  America is known as a nation that forgives, thanks to our Christian heritage.  When someone in public office admits their guilt, we are quick to forgive.

If we only had a leader in the White House whose goal was to reconcile black and white Americans, much progress could be made toward unity and harmony in our land.  Everyone would benefit.  Instead, we have a President and an Attorney General who either believe that nothing has changed and/or they encourage division for political gain.  Shame on them!

A few years ago, the late Chuck Colson wrote about a predominately white Baptist Church in the deep South.  I think it was in Montgomery, Alabama, but it really makes no difference.  The story he related took place in the late 1980s or early 1990s. 

Members of the church slowly, but firmly, came to the realization of their sin in resenting their black brothers and sisters, and of not working with them and for them in spreading the Gospel of Jesus.  One Sunday morning, the entire church went to a nearby predominately black Baptist church and expressed their repentance for their sinful attitude and actions.  On that Sunday morning true reconciliation occurred.  And, from that point forward, the two churches have worked together, socialized together, and prayed together.

This is just one anecdote, but there are many more of a changed and repentant South.  As a Christian, I know that in God's eyes to hate someone is to make me guilty of murder (1 John 3:15).  Racism is just another name for hatred.  Being a racist and being a Christian are incompatible.

Retribution may feel good at the instant of impact, but it damages the soul.  Reconciliation breeds love and understanding and friendship.  Yes, we have made great progress in race relations over the past 50 years and it should be celebrated.  And, no, we should not overlook or condone racism of any kind. 

And, we should insist that any office holder or political appointee eschew any policy or statement that divides Americans, instead of uniting them.  This should be a minimum expectation of any office holder, Republican or Democrat.  It's written on our coins and on the Great Seal of the United States—E Pluribus Unum.  It means out of many, one.  Diversity is nice, but unity is critical.

Stop the World, I Want to Get Off!

Ever since I became politically aware I have been puzzled by the antics of those of the left.  They take great pride in their intellectual achievements and their “modern” approach to life.  However, every time there seems to be a real scientific advance that benefits society as a whole, they act like Luddites.  Their reasoning is shallow and superficial, they are easily scared, and they rely primarily on emotion, not reason.  Apparently the future scares them.

Let me give you just a few examples.  As early as 1952, the Boeing aircraft company quietly began work on a so-called SST—Supersonic Transport—to carry passengers at supersonic speeds, i.e. faster than the speed of sound (Mach 1; 768 miles per hour).  Just five years earlier, in 1947, Chuck Yeager had broken the sound barrier for the first time in history, flying the experimental Bell X-1 rocket propelled aircraft.  By 1958, Boeing had set up an entire team to develop the SST and by 1960 Boeing was spending more than $1 million annually, about $7.8 million in 2013 dollars.

Not far behind Boeing, but taking a government funding approach, Britain set up their Supersonic Transport Aircraft Committee in 1956.  In 1962, Britain joined with the French to develop their own SST, later to be called the Concorde.  Not to be left in the dust, the Soviet Union began working on an SST, the Tu-144.

On 5th June, 1963, President John F. Kennedy announced that the US would pursue construction of an SST.  Like the British, Kennedy decided to take a government funded program.  It was not necessarily the correct approach.  Why should those who would not be flying aboard the SST subsidize those who would be passengers on it?  From the beginning, Boeing believed it was a market place product and that is why they had spent their own money to develop it.  At the helm of Boeing at that time was Bill Boeing, Jr., who was convinced that the SST could be built without a federal subsidy and be sold to airlines at a profit.  It was perhaps when government intervened that the project went off the rails.

But, let me continue with the story.  The Boeing plane, unlike the Concorde, was to be a large plane that was to carry 277 passengers (later reduced to 230) and had many features that later became common fixtures in modern aircraft such as retractable TV screens. 

Flight time for the SST from New York City to Los Angeles at Mach 2 (2,000 mph) would be cut to about 2 1/2 hours and a flight from Washington, DC to London would take approximately 3 ½ hours.  While the British and French proceeded with their Concorde project, the Boeing plane was never built.

Why?  Because those on the left who oddly call themselves “Progressives” were scared of the SST.  They were sure the sky would fall if the SST was flown over land.  Like the opponents of railroads of a hundred years earlier, who were sure the hens would stop laying if trains passed their barns, liberals were sure the SST would be catastrophic for society.  As it is with almost all liberal arguments, the case against the SST was based primarily on emotion, and little concern was given to the facts of the matter.

While the SST may never have been a marketplace product, it is hard to know that for certain.  While the Concorde seated just 128 passengers, and thus the price of a ticket was very high, that was not true of the Boeing SST.  Boeing had two designs, the aforementioned plane that would hold 230, and designs for a plane that would hold many more passengers.  But alas, it was not to be built. 

The Concorde ceased commercial operation in 2003.  If the government had not intervened, and had the left not stirred up so much emotional opposition, it’s possible, just possible that you and I could be flying from Washington, DC to London in half the time it takes today.

And, while the left does not embrace advances in transportation, they do have a love affair with the past.  They love to build public subway systems similar to those built at the turn of the 20th century, around 1905.  They also like so-called high-speed rail service.  Of course, none of these forms of transportation can sustain themselves on their own.  They are outdated and not a market product.  If they were, they would be built with private funds, make a profit, and not be a continuing burden to taxpayers, most of whom never ride such systems.  The capital cost that is born by the taxpayer for the construction of these boondoggle projects is very costly, running into the billions of dollars, but that is the least of the burden.  Worse yet is the annual subsidy for a typical line which costs millions of dollars.  Embracing government built and run public transit is just another example of the left embracing the past and the approach of socialist Europe.

I could call liberals modern day Luddites, but how can a Luddite be modern?  The Luddite movement existed from 1811 to 1817.  Luddites attacked factories and tried to smash machines.  In Luddite fashion, President Obama verbally attacked ATM machines because he said they destroyed jobs.  What he does not apparently understand is that automation increases efficiency and builds wealth. 

When goods and services are produced more efficiently, the more goods and services everyone in society enjoys.  Economic progress depends on a man or woman being able to produce more than they can consume.  Of course, in order to participate in this automation produced prosperity, you need to have a good education, not necessarily a college education.  When you are well educated you can obtain a job where you can operate a manpower saving machine to produce goods and services far faster and more efficiently than you could do without that machine.  When automation stagnates and efficiency declines, prosperity declines.  It is because of mass production, automation, innovation, and scientific advances that increase efficiency in the marketplace that Americans have become so prosperous.  And, of course, this happens only in a free market.

But, it’s not just ATM machines and SST planes that scare the timid left.  It’s always something.  Do you remember the Alar scare?  Alar, or B 995, is a plant growth regulator that apple growers used to keep apples from falling off their trees before they were ripe.  In effect, Alar made the apple growers more efficient and delivered a better, more fresh and tasty apply to the consumer.  However, liberals have a scientifically unfounded fear of chemicals because very few liberals have degrees in science or engineering.  They simply do not understand how or why things work.

Without doing in-depth research, the far left Natural Resources Defense Council charged that Alar caused cancer.  After a willing and gullible CBS 60 Minutes highlighted this emotional charge, apple growers suffered immense losses, estimated in the hundreds of millions of dollars, and apple consumers were unable to purchase apples at a reasonable price.  Much damage was caused by these wild charges which were later proven to be completely unfounded.  Eventually, the American Council on Science and Health (http://acsh.org/), exposed the Alar scare as a total fraud.  Today, the Alar story is a reminder of the damage that can be done when the mainstream news media cooperates in creating an irrational, emotional public scare based on propaganda rather than facts.  They call themselves Progressives, but they have a knee-jerk reaction against advances in science when any ally on the left promotes a fraud like the Alar scare.

You can almost hear the left mumbling.  If only we could ride a horse drawn wagon.  If we could only ban automobiles.  If we could only force people out of the suburbs and into anthill living in big cities.  If only we could eat apples from a tree planted by Johnny Appleseed.  If only we could eliminate preservatives from our food?  If only we could ban this and ban that?  The future scares the left.  It reminds me of one of my wife’s favorite movies, You’ve Got Mail, starring Tom Hanks and Meg Ryan.  There is a character in the movie, Frank Navasky, who is accurately portrayed as someone from the far left.  Frank (played by Greg Kinnear) writes for the Village Voice or some other rag to the left of the Voice.  Frank hates computers and progress.  He loves typewriters and everything in the past.  The future and scientific advances scare Frank, just like they seem to scare today’s liberals.

The latest thing that scares the left is what is commonly called Fracking.  Investopedia (www.investopedia.com) defines Fracking as

“A slang term for hydraulic fracturing.  Fracking refers to the procedure of creating fractures in rocks and rock formations by injecting fluid into cracks to force them further open.  The larger fissures allow more oil and gas to flow out of the formation and into the wellbore, from where it can be extracted.”

Actually, according to Wikipedia, the history of Fracking goes all the way back to the 1800s...

“Fracturing as a method to stimulate shallow, hard rock oil wells dates back to the 1860s. It was applied by oil producers in Pennsylvania, New York, Kentucky, and West Virginia by using liquid and later also solidified nitroglycerin. Later, the same method was applied to water and natural gas wells.  The idea to use acid as a non-explosive fluid for well stimulation was introduced in the 1930s. Due to acid etching, fractures would not close completely and therefore productivity was enhanced. The same phenomenon was discovered with water injection and squeeze cementing operations.”

I first became aware of the vast amounts of oil and gas reserves trapped in shale in 1966 when I was a young engineer working for Gulf Oil in Port Arthur, Texas.  I remember reading the Oil and Gas Journal (www.ogj.com) in the library of the Gulf refinery.  There were a number of articles in the Journal about the large reserves of oil and gas found in shale formations across the nation.  At that time all the oil and gas industry could do was to bemoan the fact that there was no way to extract those reserves.  Fortunately, that is no longer true.

But, while oil and gas fracking has been with us a long time.  The late George P. Mitchell is considered the father of modern day fracking.  Mr. Mitchell died at the age of 94 in July of this year.  His is a great American success story, and it deserves to be told.  And, he deserves our gratitude.  By all accounts, Mr. Mitchell had a penchant for hard work and perseverance.  The son of a Greek immigrant that tended sheep in Greece before immigrating to the United States, Mr. Mitchell worked his way through Texas A&M University, graduating first in his class in petroleum engineering.  The Dallas Morning News, said this of Mitchell in his obituary…

The work of this legendary oilman, who died last week at age 94 in Galveston, is the reason the United States is in the midst of an energy renaissance.  In the past decade, natural gas drilling has created thousands of jobs, been a godsend to American manufacturing, revived U.S. oil and gas production, expanded natural gas exports and reduced CO{-2} emissions as utilities turn away from coal and toward natural gas to fire up their generating plants.  Some now predict North America could be energy independent by the end of this decade.

Until Mitchell’s breakthrough in the 1990s, gas couldn’t be collected cheaply enough from the depths of impermeable shale to warrant exploration companies to even try.  But after two decades of trial and error, he discovered that sand, water and chemicals blasted into rock formations at high pressure could free gas trapped in the shale for capture and storage.  As a result, unprecedented drilling frenzies are underway in the Marcellus Shale in Pennsylvania, the Barnett Shale in North Texas, the Eagle Ford in South Texas, the Permian Basin in West Texas and the Bakken in North Dakota.

Mr. Mitchell is just another in a long line of American entrepreneurs like Andrew Carnegie, Henry Ford, Henry Firestone, Bill Boeing, Sr., Steve Jobs, Bill Gates, and thousands more who have made our lives better and America stronger.  Through their hard work and innovation they have not only created millions of jobs, but increased efficiency so that the standard of living in the United States is higher than any other place in the world.  They could not have started so low on the economic ladder if government had continually gotten in their way.  No, Mr. President, these men did not achieve success because of government, they achieved success because of their hard work, their perseverance, and the blessing of God.

But, liberals do not acknowledge the greatness of America’s entrepreneurs.  They live in a world of make believe.  They really believe that green energy is the wave of the future.  They cling to the past.  We had windmills in the 1800s and once again today we are told by the left to use windmills and other renewal energy sources, even though they cannot exist without government subsidies.  In other words, because subsidies always help a few and damage many, we must lower our standard of living in order to please the left.  Liberals really fear freedom.  It’s unkempt and messy.  They envy the success of entrepreneurs, they are jealous of their honestly earned wealth.  They can’t understand why a businessman without much education who has built a company through hard work, long hours, and at great risk should be more wealthy than they are.  After all, they have a PhD and many successful businessmen don’t even have any college education.

Yet, the left touts themselves as compassionate, yet they don’t seem to care that high energy prices hurt the poor the most.  I realize that I have said this many times before, but this is a very real economic issue for people who are barely making it.  A huge proportion of their income is devoted to energy use, whereas a middle class couple with a family spends proportionately much less.  And, what is the argument for eschewing low cost oil and gas in favor of windmills?  Well, there really isn’t a rational one.  It is, as with nearly all arguments on the left, based on emotion, not reason.

Today, the left likes to make fantasy documentaries like An Inconvenient Truth and Gasland to promote their far left agenda.  I say fantasy because there is virtually no fact or truth in any of these movies.  They are based almost solely on emotion.  Yet, these slick movies seduce the low information voter who knows practically nothing about anything, thus making them an ideal Democrat. 

One of the most intelligent articles on Fracking was written by Englishman Matt Ridley, whose books have sold more than a million copies and have been translated into 30 languages.  Mr. Ridley graduated with BA and Doctor of Philosophy degrees from Oxford University.  He worked for the Economist for nine years as science editor.  Ridley’s paper is entitled “The Five Myths of Fracking.”  You can find it and other excellent Ridley blogs online at www.rationaloptimist.com/blog.  He identifies five things that are repeatedly said about fracking, but are simply untrue:

1. Shale gas production has polluted aquifers in the United States.
2. Fracking releases more methane than other forms of gas production.
3. Fracking uses a worryingly large amount of water.
4. Fracking uses hundreds of toxic chemicals.
5. Fracking causes damaging earthquakes.

Here are a few excerpts from his blog on Fracking…

“The total number of aquifers that have been found to be polluted by either fracking fluid or methane gas as a result of fracking in the United States is zero. Case after case has been alleged and found to be untrue.  The Environmental Protection Agency closed its investigation at Dimock, in Pennsylvania, concluding there was no evidence of contamination; abandoned its claim that drilling in Parker County, Texas, had caused methane gas to come out of people’s taps; and withdrew its allegations of water contamination at Pavilion in Wyoming for lack of evidence.  Two recent peer-reviewed studies concluded that groundwater contamination from fracking is ‘ not physically plausible.’”

Regarding…

“…the claim that shale gas production results in more methane release to the atmosphere and hence could be as bad for climate change as coal.  Study after study has refuted it. As a team from Massachusetts Institute of Technology put it: ‘It is incorrect to suggest that shale gas-related hydraulic fracturing has substantially altered the overall [greenhouse gas] intensity of natural gas production.’”

As far as the claim that Fracking uses too much water, Ridley points out that Fracking uses .3% of all the water used in the United States, less than is used by golf courses.  Even in Texas, a big Fracking state, only 1% of all the water used is for Fracking, according to Ridley.

As for chemicals injected into the wells (that now has to be reported by law), Ridley says this…

“Fracking fluid is 99.51% water and sand. In the remaining 0.49% there are just 13 chemicals, all of which can be found in your kitchen, garage or bathroom: citric acid (lemon juice), hydrochloric acid (swimming pools), glutaraldehyde (disinfectant), guar (ice cream), dimethylformamide (plastics), isopropanol (deodorant), borate (hand soap); ammonium persulphate (hair dye); potassium chloride (intravenous drips), sodium carbonate (detergent), ethylene glycol (de-icer), ammonium bisulphite (cosmetics), petroleum distillate (cosmetics).”

And, finally, in regard to earthquakes caused by Fracking, Ridley writes…

“As for earthquakes, Durham University’s definitive survey of all induced earthquakes over many decades concluded that ‘almost all of the resultant seismic activity [from fracking] was on such a small scale that only geoscientists would be able to detect it’ and that mining, geothermal activity or reservoir water storage causes more and bigger tremors.”

In the Wall Street Journal of October 3, 2013, it was reported that the United States is now the number one energy producer in the world, flying past Saudi Arabia and Russia.  That is good news.  We are energy independent, no thanks to President Obama and his allies in Congress.  Why are we energy independent?  We are energy independent because of Fracking, pure and simple.  Fracking means jobs, it means low cost energy, and thus it means a helping hand to the poor to help them get out of poverty.  It means a higher standard of living for all Americans.

Even the emotion driven politicians in New York and in California are giving a second look at Fracking.  Fracking is here to stay, but it is only the latest scientific advance to be hated and despised by the wagon wheel left.  The Luddites will always be with us because there will always be timid, easily scared folks who have a hard time accepting the future. 

But, while the left is clinging to the past, I say…On to the future!

Helping a Few, Hurting Many

There is a beautiful, new metro rail line being constructed that will run within a couple blocks of my office.  I love the architecture of big construction projects like this one.  I also greatly appreciate the engineering that goes into construction of a major project like this one.  It is truly amazing.

Sadly, however, while this mass transit project is beautiful to behold, it is a nightmare to the taxpayer and to all residents who will be taxed to support it.  The projected annual operating shortfall is $170 million per year for the Silver line.  Of course, the actual shortfall will probably be in the neighborhood of $200 million, if the taxpayers are lucky.  The operating shortfall for the entire system (without the Silver line) is more than $535 million.  In other words, with the Silver line in service, the annual revenue shortfall (covered by a taxpayer subsidy) will be in excess of $700 million dollars.  This does not include substantial annual federal subsidies for capital improvements.

It is true that a few taxpayers will come out on the positive side.  Those who benefit are limited to the less than 10% of daily commuters who actually ride Metro rail.  The other 90% who drive automobiles subsidize those who ride Metro rail so that the fares charged by Metro are low enough to attract riders.  But, the cost is not limited to drivers of automobiles.  In fact, everyone in the Commonwealth of Virginia who pays taxes into the general treasury pays for the few who actually ride Metro.

But, in fairness, DC Metro rail is not an anomaly.  Economists often note that anytime any government entity gets involved in the marketplace it causes dislocations.  What does that mean? 

A simple way to explain it is this.  Whenever government (at any level) provides subsides, tax breaks, tariffs, privileges, or any other benefit or punishment to any individual or enterprise, a few benefit and many are burdened.  Even simpler, any government interference in the free market, no matter how well intentioned, helps a very few, and hurts many.  Sometimes, that interference doesn’t help anyone, but hurts everyone.

Every regulation drives up costs, every single regulation.  I am not suggesting that we should do away with all regulations, but I do believe that we should regulate with our eyes wide open.  We need regulations to protect the public from genuine public health issues.  But, even in this area, regulations are often created not to protect the public, but to protect businesses from competition.  For example, regulating taxi service is proclaimed to be in the public interest, but in reality, it limits entry into the marketplace by entrepreneurs who can provide that service better and cheaper as has been repeatedly shown.  The result is that a few benefit, and many suffer.

Some states regulate barber shops and beauty parlors in the supposed interest of the public.  In reality, the source of these regulations originates from those already in the marketplace who fear that more competition will reduce their charges.  Again, a few benefit, many suffer.

US Sugar producers (like many other industries) receive millions of dollars in subsidies from the federal government to protect them from “unfair” competition.  Without such subsidies, cheaper sources of sugar from overseas would drive down sugar prices.  A few, the sugar producers benefit, while everyone who uses sugar, suffer.

Subsidies never benefit the public, they always benefit a few at the expense of the public.  But, government interference in the marketplace doesn’t just help big businesses at the expense of the public.  Instead of letting the free market function to the benefit of many, government intervenes into affecting wages and benefits with the goal of establishing a “level playing field.”  It sets rules telling businesses that they can’t fire workers if they strike, they must hold organizing elections for unions if petitioned, they cannot hire nonunion workers if their state allows a closed union shop.  And so, by such intervention, what happens?  Because wages are artificially raised, the prices of goods and services produced are higher.  The union workers in those specific industries benefit, everyone who buys those goods and services pays more.  Again, a few benefit, many suffer.

Recently, the State of California raised the minimum wage to $10 an hour.  Sounds great, doesn’t it.  Finally, the advocates say, people will be paid a fair wage for their work.  But, does it really work that way?  Let’s see McDonald’s workers will get $10 per hour, but with that added cost, two things will happen.  First, the price of hamburgers and fries will go up.  There is no other way to stay in business.  So, a few workers will benefit, and many will suffer.  So what, you say, isn’t it better that you and I pay a few cents more for our next Quarter Pounder™ so that those workers will benefit?  That is certainly the way it looks on the surface of the matter, but it’s not reality.  The second thing that will happen is that McDonalds and other businesses that need minimum wage workers will simply shut down some stores, and they won’t build others.  The fact of the matter is that the free market always sets the minimum wage based on the free give and take of the worker, the consumer and the provider.  Politicians can convince themselves that they are bighearted by raising the minimum wage, but such artificial wage increases simply curtail business expansion and, therefore, job creation. 

Worse yet, by setting a minimum wage, government interferes in the marketplace, discouraging and preventing budding entrepreneurs with creative new ideas from starting up businesses.  In addition, it kills “first time jobs” for young people, especially the poor. 

Recently, the District of Columbia City Council passed a bill to raise the minimum wage (they called it the “living wage”) to $17 an hour.  They did this to keep Wal-Mart from building some seven stores in poor communities in DC.  Why did they try to kill off much needed jobs for poor people?  They did so because these city council members depend on union money and support for re-election.  Wal-Mart said they would have to stop construction on the stores and not enter into the District of Columbia if they have to pay a minimum wage of $17.  It almost makes one laugh.  If $10 or $17 is a good minimum wage, why not raise it to $25 or $50 an hour?  When the DC City Council tried to set a minimum wage of $17, it was punishing many to benefit a few.  By driving out Wal-Mart they would not only kill off much-needed jobs for their constituents, but also force them to pay more for the goods and services that they would otherwise purchase at Wal-Mart.  It is just another case of government benefitting a few to the detriment of many.  Fortunately, the Mayor of Washington, DC vetoed the kill Wal-Mart bill, but the City Council is threatening to override the Mayor. 

The other day the United States Postal Service (USPS) announced the intent to raise the price of a first class stamp by 3 cents.  The USPS already loses billions of dollars each year and it will always lose money as long as there is no competition and it is run by government.  The problem is that there is no fair mechanism to set wages and benefits for unionized postal workers.  Because government is doing what a private firm should be doing and has granted itself a monopoly, many suffer, a few benefit. 

The solution is to get government out of the marketplace.  It has no means whatsoever of setting fair wages, benefits, or prices for goods and services.  In every single instance, it makes matters worse for many, while benefitting a privileged few.

Today, we are strangling our economy through government interference into the marketplace.  The result is that each and every American pays above market prices for nearly every good and service we purchase.  Through government interference in the free market, we entrap the poor in poverty and remove opportunities to escape their dire situation.  Through government interference, every sector of our society suffers to benefit the ruling class. 

And, things are not going to get better.  This is not just an accident, it is by design.  Those in the ruling class realize that the more people they make dependent on their handouts, the easier it is to manipulate them.  That’s why you see government pushing food stamps on nearly 50% of Americans.  They even changed the name of the Food Stamp Program to the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, but manure by any other name still smells as bad.

President Obama is not worried about the number of people out of work, he wants more people to be out of work.  It is to his political benefit and his continuing goal of reducing America to the same state as European nations.  He has to be careful how he does this, but it is politically beneficial to him to destroy the American dream, and replace it with the soft tyranny of a Socialist state.  The goal is to increase the power and reach of the bureaucracy at the expense of those who fund it. 

Obamacare is not about medical care, it’s about political control.  Socialized medicine is always the crown jewel of socialists because they know that once they control your health care, there is no escape.  At that point, every single American becomes dependent upon the government.  And, if they are willing to corrupt the Internal Revenue Service for political gain, what makes you think they will not corrupt Obamacare for political gain?  Besides which, the ultimate goal is not Obamacare.  The ultimate goal is the failure of Obamacare and replacing it with total socialized medicine that gives the politicians and bureaucrats life and death power over your life.

There is nothing unique or new about the left’s goal for America.  It is to abandon the dream of a free society as created by our Founders and replace it with a top down, autocratic society that benefits the few in power at the expense of many.  The left’s goal is as old as the first sin in the Garden of Eden.  Adam and Eve weren’t satisfied with living in God’s perfect world, they wanted to be like God.  And, that is exactly what liberals want to do today, to play God and rule over everyone who they think is inferior to them.

The solution to our problems is not economic or political, it is theological.  Until and unless we witness spiritual renewal in our land, we will continue to slide toward a cold, brutal, totalitarian state.  As Americans, we inherited the greatest nation in the history of the world.  It was the most free, the most generous nation ever created. 

Can it be rescued?  Or, are we willing to let it slide into just another top-down, autocratic state such as the ones our Forefathers fled?  How much do we really care about the future of our children and grandchildren?  If we are dedicated, if we are willing to get down on our knees and plead for mercy, perhaps, just perhaps, we can rescue this once great nation. 

The Sordid History of the American Progressive Movement

What a great irony.  Those who originally identified themselves as Progressives and later called themselves Liberals like to think of themselves as having higher ethical standards than everyone else in society.  In fact, that’s exactly why they selected the term Progressive to describe their ideology.  Just prior to the turn of the 20th century, men like Richard T. Ely and his student and future President, Woodrow Wilson, decided that certain individuals and certain elements of society had progressed to a higher ethical plane.  These men (and women) were enlightened.  They had taken a step never before taken in the history of the world, becoming men and women with higher ethical standards.  The founders of the Progressive movement (today called the Liberal movement) concluded that they had, in the long march of mankind, finally shaken off the curse of the fallen state of man and were no longer subject to corruption of human nature as understood by the Founders.

It wasn’t that the Progressives thought the Founders were bad people.  In fact, for their time, they conceded that the Founders were quite an amazing group of men.  They might even say that they too had taken a great leap in ethics to form the first successful republic in the history of the world.  But, given the general state of the world in the 1700s, the Founders simply had not yet reached the level of ethics that had been achieved by themselves (Progressives) in the late 1800s and early 1900s. 

Professor Tiffany Jones Miller (from whom I have borrowed liberally) has written in National Review…

“The vital core of the turn-of-the 20th century Progressive Movement was a group of social scientists, many of whom had studied in German universities in the post-Civil War era.  Among their most energetic reformers were a group of economists who had studied with members of the German Historical School of Economics, a school whose approach was, as historian Daniel M. Fox observes, ‘deeply influenced by Hegelian concepts of the historical process.’  Richard T. Ely was arguably the most influential member of this group.  Ely played a leading role in the founding of the reform-minded American Economic Association…” 

In fact, Ely is still honored today by the American Economic Association.  Each year an economist is selected to be a Richard T. Ely Lecturer.  The Encyclopedia of World Biography writes, “Richard Ely (1854-1943) is considered the dean of American economics…”  As you will see, this is a rather surprising designation for someone who was such a blatant racist as was Ely.

Ely frankly explained his view that he and others had attained a higher ethical perspective and standard that had others in the past.  He wrote the…

“…ethical ideal which animates the new political economy is the most perfect development of all human faculties in each individual, which can be attained…”

He further explained that this includes…

“…all the higher faculties—faculties of love, of knowledge, of aesthetic perception, and the like…”

And, keep in mind who this quote from Ely sounds like…

“When we speak of freedom as something to be highly prized, we do not mean merely freedom from restraint or compulsion.” 

“True liberty” according to Ely does not consist in “negative” freedom as the Founders’ envisioned, but it is “positive” in nature and “…means the expression of positive powers of the individual [to] make the most and best of [himself]…”

As Professor Jones Miller writes…

“The Progressives believed in ‘progress,’ in short, because they believed that history, as a process of moral growth, has an upward trajectory.”

Professor Jones Miller has correctly identified the point of divergence between progressives (liberals) and the Founders.  It is the progressive/liberal belief that man can progress morally and ethically; indeed that some men and women have in fact progressed to a higher moral and ethical level.  Such a view is a radical departure from the understanding of the Founders and from traditionally held views of the nature of man.

Recently, liberal icons like Hillary Clinton have gone back to referring to themselves as Progressives, but Hillary might want to re-consider the wisdom of such a move in light of the frankly sordid history of the early Progressives.  There is a very good reason that the name Progressive was abandoned in favor of the word Liberal.

The Progressive movement didn’t just deal exclusively with politics.  It insinuated itself into every aspect of society—education (John Dewey), religion (Harry Emerson Fosdick), economics (Richard T. Ely), social policy (Margaret Sanger), arts and entertainment.  And, one of the things that took place was the evaluation by these elitists of every segment of society, not as individuals, but as groups.

The overriding goal of the Progressive movement was power.  They wanted power in every area, in education, in religion, in economics, in social policy, in politics, and in arts and entertainment.  With this focus, they were able to change positions almost instantly, if it advanced their overall goal of achieving power.  And, this is something they have done repeatedly.  Because most liberals of today reject traditional moral values, it is not difficult to follow a practice of the ends justify the means.

In the Progressives’ view, the purpose of gaining power over the lives of other citizens was entirely benign.  After all, because they had achieved a higher ethical plane, they knew, better than the citizens themselves, what was good for them.  They could easily rationalize that what they had on their agenda was best for everyone.

But, accomplishing the Progressives’ goal wasn’t necessarily an easy task.  They wanted to seek unprecedented power in a free society.  They had to deal with the cumbersome democratic process in order to gain power and then curtail the democratic process.  But, they felt that they were up to the task.  And, they were.

After all, they were Progressives and that meant that anyone who did not agree with them was a regressive.  And, in their view, what those who opposed them had in mind was simply not good for a modern society.  They were, after all, inventing something new in the history of the world.

The Progressives’ plan, through the agency of government, was to provide security for every American.  They would provide true justice, they would usher in an era of permanent world peace, and they would cure economic inequities, while still providing a good living for all.  Under the control of the Progressives the arts would flourish, education would expand, society would improve, and the very nature of man would evolve to a higher state.  Such was the vision of the founders of the American Progressive movement.

But, of course, it didn’t work like that.  Human nature had not changed at all.  And, that became abundantly clear with the advent of the worst wars, highest crime rates, worst education, and worst depression in the history of the United States.  Each and every one of these were aided and abetted by the American Progressive movement.  And, the problems created by the American Progressive/Liberal movement continue even today.  There is no learning curve for the misguided leaders of the movement because they still today do not recognize or acknowledge the fact that they have not progressed ethically beyond any other segment of society.  They, too, are subject to the fallen state of man.  God is not dead, his precepts and standards still hold true.  Yet, those in the Progressive/Liberal movement still cling to the idea that they are somehow better people than the other members of the human race.  And, as long as they have power and cling to this falsehood, they will continue to wreak havoc on our society.

If the foundational premise of your movement is wrong, no policy or program you advocate can possibly work.  And, before the current liberals come to the conclusion that the name liberal is so sullied as to be unusable (they do believe this), I suggest to them that they consider the sordid history of the Progressives of an earlier era. 

Woodrow Wilson was born in Virginia in 1856.  As a young boy living in Atlanta, Georgia, he ardently cheered for the victory of the South.  This is not, of course, unexpected in a young man whose family roots were in the deep South.  But, Wilson never outgrew the racism of his childhood.  Throughout his entire life, he considered African Americans to be inferior to white Americans.  It was not uncommon for Wilson to use harsh racist terms as President of the United States, even in public.  It was reported that Wilson’s favorite movie was D.W. Griffith’s “Birth of a Nation.”  This racist movie depicted the KKK as the noble defenders of noble white Americans, and it is said that Wilson used it to justify his reinstitution of racial segregation as official US domestic policy.

Clearly, Wilson was no friend of Frederick Douglass, the former slave and leader of the abolitionist movement prior to the Civil War.  And, although they were not contemporaries, their lives did overlap, with Douglass dying in 1895 and Wilson in 1924.  Douglass was prescient in his fear of what would happen if men like Wilson gained power.  He feared that blacks would lose the rights they gained under the 13th, 14th, and 15th Amendments to the Constitution that were passed by Republicans.  He wrote about the importance of the black man having the right to own property and compete with the white man in the marketplace, and he also wrote that if the black man lost the right to vote he would once again become…

“…the slave of society… holds his liberty as a privilege, not as a right.”

Beginning in 1890, a wave of disenfranchisement of black voters swept through the South, with the encouragement of men like Richard Ely and Woodrow Wilson.  Historian C. Vann Woodward documented that while there were 130,334 blacks registered to vote in Louisiana in 1896, this number had declined dramatically to only 1,342 by 1904.  The same pattern happened throughout the Old South.  Woodward states…

“In the South, the typical progressive reformer rode to power…on a disenfranchising or white-supremacy movement.”

The racism of the Progressives was not confined to the South.  In 1931, the Democrats pushed through the Davis-Bacon Act.  Here is the story of the Davis-Bacon Act as described by David Bernstein, in his paper, The Davis-Bacon Act:  Let's Bring Jim Crow to an End…

“The story of Davis-Bacon begins, one might say, in 1927 when a contractor from Alabama won a bid to build a Veterans' Bureau hospital in Long Island, New York. He brought a crew of black construction workers from Alabama to work on the project. Appalled that blacks from the South were working on a federal project in his district, Representative Robert Bacon of Long Island submitted H.R. 17069, "A Bill to Require Contractors and Subcontractors Engaged on Public Works of the United States to Comply with State Laws Relating to Hours of Labor and Wages of Employees on State Public Works," the antecedent of the Davis- Bacon Act.”

“Over the next four years Bacon introduced thirteen more bills to establish regulation of labor on federal public works projects.[10] Finally, a bill submitted by Bacon and Senator James J. Davis, with the support of the American Federation of Labor, passed in 1931. The law provided that all federal construction contractors with contracts in excess of $5,000 or more must pay their workers the "prevailing wage," which in practice meant the wages of unionized labor.”

“The measure passed because Congressmen saw the bill as protection for local, unionized white workers' salaries in the fierce labor market of the Depression.  In particular, white union workers were angry that black workers who were barred from unions were migrating to the North in search of jobs in the building trades and undercutting "white" wages.”

“The comments of various congressmen reveal the racial animus that motivated the sponsors and supporters of the bill.  In 1930, Representative John J. Cochran of Missouri stated that he had ‘received numerous complaints in recent months about southern contractors employing low-paid colored mechanics getting work and bringing the employees from the South.’”

The Davis-Bacon Act is clearly a racist law designed to discriminate against African Americans in the marketplace.  Moreover, the Davis-Bacon Act is still supported by liberal Democrats, North and South.  Jim Crow lives on in the marketplace because today’s Democratic Party is more loyal to their Union allies than they are to the principles of equal treatment under the law as guaranteed by the 14th Amendment to the United States Constitution.  Why, because the Progressive/Liberal movement is first and foremost driven by the acquisition of power, not the interests of the citizens of our Republic.

The disdain for minorities by Progressives was not limited to African Americans.  They held a similar disdain for all minorities, as proven by the policies of the great liberal hero, Franklin D. Roosevelt.  During World War II, Roosevelt was extremely xenophobic.  While the number of German Americans far outnumbered the number of Japanese Americans, it was those of Japanese descent who became a target of President Roosevelt and fellow Progressive Republican Governor Earl Warren of California. 

Together, Roosevelt and Warren devised and executed a plan that resulted in the internment of Japanese Americans.  There was no greater reason to distrust the loyalty of Japanese American any more than German Americans, but Roosevelt did so only because they were Asians.  Today’s Liberal authors of school text books spend a great deal of time talking about the internment of Japanese Americans during World War II to show how bad America is.  However, they do not properly credit this injustice to Franklin D. Roosevelt.  Worse yet, they do not credit United States Senator Robert Taft (known as Mr. Conservative) as the most outspoken and prominent opponent of this misguided policy.  Of course, to do so would be inconsistent with their message that all Conservatives are racists, and all Liberals are broad minded, compassionate individuals.

And, speaking of compassion, a study by Professor Arthur C. Brooks showed a distinct lack of compassion by Liberals when it comes to donating their time and money to charitable causes.  They love to be identified as a “bleeding heart liberal,” but the facts show something entirely different.  Liberals claim to be compassionate because they advocate spending someone else’s money to help others, but taking money forcibly from someone in the form of taxes is hardly compassion.  Compassion can only be measured by the unforced, un-coerced generosity of an individual.  And, on that score, liberals come up wanting.  Today, 65% of all charitable gifts in the United States come from Christian conservatives.  Donors to all major charities are dominated by conservatives.  Moreover, the giving that comes from the liberals is mostly for nonprofit liberal Foundations that qualify as charities, but deal primarily in promoting liberal causes; so much for the idea of a “bleeding heart Liberal.”

The Progressive Movement has had a dalliance with utopian concepts like egalitarianism, and with those who promote them.  When the Russian Revolution of 1917, led by Vladimir Lenin, toppled the corrupt régime of the Tsar, it received high praise from American Liberals (by that time they had abandoned the name Progressive due to its association with racism, Jim Crow, and eugenics). 

Indeed, Walter Duranty, who served as Moscow correspondent for the New York Times during Joseph Stalin’s  reign of terror, intentionally sent home glowing, but false, reports on Stalin.  Duranty knew of the bloodthirsty activities of Stalin, but chose to avoid reporting them because he was enamored of the new Soviet State.  Duranty actually received a Pulitzer Prize (yet unreturned by the Times) for his reporting.  But, in fairness to Duranty, he was not alone in his glowing reports on the new Soviet Society.  In fact, many liberals in the media (not all) continued to write positively of the Soviet Union up until the day it was brought down by Ronald Reagan.  And, virtually all liberals decided early on that there was a moral equivalence between the United States of America and the Soviet Union!  There was no fear among liberals of the Soviet Union.  In fact, President Franklin D. Roosevelt once bragged that…

“Some of my best friends are Communists.”

It was this naiveté that allowed the Soviet conspiracy to deeply and dangerously penetrate the Roosevelt Administration.  Several high ranking members of Roosevelt’s administration had pro-Soviet views, including his Vice President, Henry Wallace.  Others, like Harry Dexter White (first chairman of the International Monetary Fund) and Alger Hiss, (Assistant Secretary of State and the first Secretary General of the United Nations), were active Soviet spies as verified by the Verona Papers (released after the fall of the Soviet Union).

The late Walter Lippmann, who is perhaps the most highly praised journalist by liberals, also had an infatuation with the policies of Adolph Hitler when he first came on the world stage.  On at least one occasion he wrote glowingly of the new society that was being created by Hitler.  Later, to Lippmann’s credit, he became an active and vocal critic of Hitler and later of Stalin.  But, the point remains that when you believe that man can evolve his nature positively, you are an easy dupe of those who promise a new utopian order.

And, while Progressives (Liberals) were gaining political power, they were also gaining power over America’s educational establishment, from the elementary school to the graduate school.  The result is that they have demolished the greatest educational system in the world.  They have re-written history to be a distortion of reality that fits their distorted world view.  Today, thanks to the screwy ideas of men like John Dewey, American education ranks at one of the lowest levels among industrialized nations in the entire world.  Thanks to cockamamie ideas like social promotion, a relaxation of discipline, and the degradation of writing, reading, and arithmetic, our children are going uneducated and are unable to compete. 

The social engineering of the liberal movement has decimated the black community.  While early Progressives like Wilson held black Americans in low regard and promoted policies to separate them from the rest of society, liberals later decided that they could no longer maintain that position and gain power, so they reversed themselves after the Republicans had done the heavy lifting.  Well into the 1960’s, however, it was Democrats, South and North, who repeatedly blocked the passage of Civil Rights legislation. 

Professing concern and compassion, Liberals passed seemingly benevolent laws that resulted in a permanent black underclass in society.  But, this worked to their political gain as they have been able to control their votes by promising more handouts.  It is a sad situation, and both Republican and Democrat Progressives/Liberals are responsible for this patronizing approach.  It allows them to think better of themselves, but it belies their real view of African Americans as inferior to themselves. 

At its core, the current welfare state is a racist policy.  It is not a hand up, it is a hand out designed to deny to African Americans an opportunity to participate in the American dream.  Blacks in poor areas are forced to attend some of the worst public schools in our nation, even though laws could be passed to allow them to attend high quality schools funded by tax vouchers.  Through licensing, certification, and minimum wage laws, poor people are denied their opportunity to achieve economic independence.  And, by removing God from our schools, morality has declined and violence and abuse has increased.  This is another gift from American Liberals.

One of the organizations most admired by today’s liberals like Hillary Clinton is Planned Parenthood, founded by the rancid racist, Margaret Sanger.  I do not use the term rancid racist lightly.  She wrote “We do not want word to go out that we want to exterminate the Negro population…”  She referred to poor people and immigrants as “human weeds” and “…human beings who never should have been born."  She wanted to eliminate what she called the “feeble minded [mentally ill].”

Sanger wrote in the Birth Control Review, November 1921, that her goal in promoting birth control was "…to create a race of thoroughbreds…"  She believed that for the purpose of “racial purification” the United States should pay blacks and other minorities to be sterilized.  If these policies aren’t rancid racism, I don’t know what is.  But, when you believe that you have progressed to a higher plane than others in society, you can justify almost any policy.  And, Sanger was a hero in the Progressive movement of her time.  So, Mrs. Clinton, you might want to reconsider identifying yourself as a Progressive.  There is a sordid history to contend with.

Henry Emerson Fosdick led the charge of liberalism in the American Christian community.  With the aid of John D. Rockefeller, he founded the interdenominational Riverside Church in New York City.  According to Fosdick, the Bible was less than reliable and authentic, but with Rockefeller’s millions, his influence on Christianity in America was immense.  He challenged the authority of Scripture, and he focused on a social gospel of helping the underclass, while ignoring the traditional Gospel of repentance at the foot of the cross.  Although Detrick Bonhoeffer accepted a funded scholarship position at the Union Theological Seminary, a group closely affiliated with Fosdick, he said of the institution, “The Gospel is not preached there.”  The followers of Fosdick promoted modernism that included relative morality.  Their impact on Christianity in the United States was substantial and damaging.  Today, the mainstream Christian churches, with very limited exceptions, no longer preach the law and the Gospel as taught by Jesus.  Many doubt and even deny the divinity of Christ, and promote a works righteousness theology as opposed to a salvation by grace alone theology of the traditional Christian church.  They also substitute their own moral code for that of the Bible.  As a result, the Christian church as a whole is weakened as a standard of morality and virtue that is crucial to fostering a free society.

The American Progressive/iberal movement has been a scourge on the United States.  It has promoted misguided racist policies.  It has dismissed very real threats to our nation with words like “witch hunt” and “red scare.”  It has denied opportunities to the poor, and sought to manipulate them for political gain.  It has corrupted our morals, and bankrupted our nation.  It is indeed a sordid history that keeps getting worse, not better.  What I have written in this blog is not the entire, sad story of the American Progressive/Liberal movement, it is just a brief overview.  I hope that someday, a true historian will write the ignoble tale of this movement that has worked successfully to destroy the American dream and to eradicate the values and principles of the American founding.

It is a story that needs to be told and understood if we are to reverse course and save our nation.

Political Correctness vs. Free Speech

The first amendment to the United States Constitution, the first article of the Bill of Rights, says…

“Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.”

The left has a problem understanding the meaning of this first article of the Bill of Rights.  Just as it has a problem understanding the meaning of the second amendment to the Constitution, the one that says “…the right of the people to keep and bear arms, shall not be infringed.”

Actually, I doubt that they really have any problem understanding the clear meaning of these words, they just don’t like them.  And, it is, in their opinion, simply too difficult to change these protections through the prescribed amendment process.  So, they just pretend that these words mean something other than what they clearly mean.

They have re-defined the intended meaning of Article 1 to be a restraint on religion and the free expression thereof.  They prattle on endlessly about “separation of church and state,” yet those words appear nowhere in the United States Constitution.  They have made up a new meaning for what they refer to as the “establishment clause,” i.e. “Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion…” and argue that this means that there must be a total separation of church and state.  

In fact, it was Christian leaders who advocated the strongest for the so-called “establishment clause” because they did not want government to interfere with or control religion as it did in Europe.  That was their frame of reference.  The Pilgrims fled to America, as did many others, so that they could worship freely without interference by the government.  They did not want the government to tell them what church they needed to belong to. Nor did they want to be forced to support, through taxes, a state church whose doctrine and practices they did not agree with.  They sought a government that did not make any law that interfered with their open and free practice of religion as they chose to do so. 

The flimsy basis of the idea that the Constitution called for a wall to be built between church and state is a letter written by Thomas Jefferson to the Danbury Baptists.  They had  expressed to him a concern that by including a protection of freedom of religion into the Constitution it was making religion a privilege granted by the state, not an inalienable freedom granted by God.  Jefferson wrote back to the Danbury Baptists, assuring them that the intent of the first amendment was to protect their right to practice their faith without any interference from government.  In his letter of January 1, 1802, he wrote…

“Believing with you that religion is a matter which lies solely between Man & his God, that he owes account to none other for his faith or his worship, that the legitimate powers of government reach actions only, & not opinions, I contemplate with sovereign reverence that act of the whole American people which declared that their legislature should ‘make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof,’ thus building a wall of separation between Church & State.  Adhering to this expression of the supreme will of the nation in behalf of the rights of conscience, I shall see with sincere satisfaction the progress of those sentiments which tend to restore to man all his natural rights, convinced he has no natural right in opposition to his social duties.”

Clearly, the “wall” that Jefferson is here referring to is the wall that keeps government from interfering with religion, not religion from influencing government, or prohibiting citizens from expressing their views in the public square.  Neither were Americans to be discouraged from using their faith in God and their belief in the Bible as a basis for their political and philosophical views.  Discussion of religious views in public was to be free and open as were all other forms of speech, not to be proscribed by government or in any way regulated or abridged.

But, even more than this, Jefferson did not write the Bill of Rights, nor did he participate in writing the United States Constitution.  In fact, he wrote (The Writings of Thomas Jefferson, Volume 10)…

“I was in Europe when the Constitution was planned and never saw it till after it was established.”

Moreover, when he received a copy of the Constitution, while he was residing in France, he wrote back to James Madison (The Writings of Thomas Jefferson, Volume 10)…

“On receiving [the Constitution], I wrote strongly to Mr. Madison, urging the want of provision for freedom of religion…”

To have advocated a limitation on the exercise of religion in the public square would have been totally inconsistent with the previous writings and exertions of Thomas Jefferson.  He had championed the ending of discrimination against the Baptists and other dissenters in Virginia by the colonial government.  He opposed any state religion in Virginia.

The fact is, the entire idea of the so-called “establishment clause” prohibiting the exercise of religion in the public square is made up out of whole cloth.  It means exactly what it says, that citizens shall have the right to free exercise of their religion without any interference from government, nothing more and nothing less.

In fact, the idea of government secularists restricting religion in any way in the public square is simply censorship.  It’s book burning by any other name.  What we have today is a state sanctioned religion.  That religion is human secularism.  It is just as much a state religion today as was the Anglican Church in the colony of Virginia prior to the American Revolution.

It wants to control what is in school textbooks, excluding the role of religion in our society and any aspect of faith or God in our society.  It wants a total monopoly on learning and on speech in the public square.  That’s not freedom of religion, it is government sanctioned license.

The entire idea of politically correct speech is based solely on shutting up anyone who does not agree with you.  Using the pretext of banning speech that hurts someone’s feelings or that is offensive to them is a clear “abridgement” of the freedom of speech as described clearly in Article 1 of the Bill of Rights.  I am not in favor of hurting anyone’s feelings.  I believe I should be sensitive to the concerns of my fellow citizens, but this is driven by my understanding that all men are equal in God’s sight and that they should be in mine also.

Nevertheless, when government starts deciding what can be said and what cannot be said it is the beginning of government censorship.  It will grow and expand as government always grows and expands at the expense of the individual rights of its citizens.

Freedom is always messy.  In a free society, every individual is free to think, to act, and to advocate whatever they believe, providing what they do does not interfere with anyone else’s freedom of speech or other freedom. 

Freedom is messy in the public square, it is messy in the marketplace, it is simply a messy way of living.  It is imperfect, and I’m sure that’s why the Founders repeatedly talked about the importance of having a virtuous society.  They knew that freedom really would not work unless each citizen restrained his worst instincts.  And, they knew that would only happen if a consensus of citizens feared and loved God and seek to please him.

Today, the exercise of religion in the public square is under attack on all fronts.  The goal of the secularists is to silence all religion in the public square and replace it with an anti-God, humanistic approach.

Some of the examples of the suppression of the freedom of religion include suspending a young girl from a public elementary school because she silently bowed her head and prayed over her lunch.  She did not speak one word out loud, but was condemned for her actions because the “political correctness” policy of the School District proclaimed that for her to do so might offend another student.

How silly and how clearly unconstitutional. 

As Dr. Benjamin Carson said at the National Prayer Breakfast, “Political Correctness is dangerous.”

Today, we are not supposed to say Merry Christmas to anyone because they might be offended.  Merry Christmas, like Happy Easter, or Happy Hanukkah, is simply a blessing.  It is wishing a blessing upon the person. 

We need to be slow to take offense.  As it says in James 1:19…

“Remember this, my dear brothers and sisters: Everyone should be quick to listen, slow to speak, and should not get angry easily.”

We need to get past political correctness.  It is simply censorship of free speech and it has no place in America.  It is dangerous, as Dr. Carson said, because it suppresses open and free discussion that can lead to the honest evaluation and analysis of real societal problems.  Political correctness does not draw us together as a nation, it divides us and encourages us to take offense at the most minor of comments.

Article 52 of the Soviet Constitution reads…

“Citizens of the USSR are guaranteed freedom of conscience, that is, the right to profess or not to profess any religion, and to conduct religious worship or atheistic propaganda.”

Yet, freedom of religion was totally and absolutely suppressed in the Soviet Union.  Those who tried to express their faith in God openly were sent to the Gulag.  How could this happen?  The wording of Article 52 seems to be clear and precise.  It even references religious worship.

The answer is simple. Lenin and Stalin, and all the dictators that followed them, ignored the Constitution of the Soviet Union.  The Soviet Union was not a government of laws, it was a government of men.  If something in the law did not suit them, they ignored it or they violated it.  It happens in all top down, centralized governments.  As Lord Acton said..

“Power corrupts and absolute power corrupts absolutely.”

Yet today, Obama talks about having to bypass Congress and do what needs to be done.  He ignores the United States Constitution and so do at least four members of the United States Supreme Court, as well as our chief law enforcer, Attorney General Eric Holder.  Associate Justice Ginsburg has even used laws in other nations to base her decisions upon.  These four Court members, and the President of the United States, as well as the Attorney General, and most leaders in his party, simply have no respect for the Founders or for the intent of the United States Constitution.

Although the President, the Attorney General, and the members of the Supreme Court, and all members of Congress took an oath to uphold and defend the Constitution of the United States, they daily ignore that oath.  In doing so, it says much about their character and about the danger they pose to our nation.

When we start suppressing freedom of speech because we are offended, we are headed down the road to serfdom.  When there is no longer true freedom of speech, no freedom of religion, no freedom in the marketplace, there is no freedom of any kind.

But, the flame of freedom is not dead in America.  It burns in the hearts and minds of millions of Americans who cherish our Constitution, and respect the wisdom of our Founders.  There is a movement afoot in America to return this nation to the faith and freedom of the Founders, and thereby, to greatness.  The outcome will be close.  It is not guaranteed, and, in fact, the odds are against the preservation of freedom.  In the course of history, periods of freedom are rare, they are the exception, not the rule.  Individual freedom only exists when government is small and restrained, and when citizens exercise self-restraint, as well as compassion for their fellow human beings.

You and I are blessed to live in this wonderful, free society.  But, if we are to preserve it for our children and grandchildren, we will need to have the courage and the determination of the Founders, as well as their faith.  Let us resolve to give our all to this goal.

Ben Carson for President

I know it is a long time until 2016, but Hillary Clinton is already out raising millions for her candidacy.  And, rumor has it that Establishment Republicans like Chris Christie and Jeb Bush, who feel that they are entitled to be the next Republican nominee, are already planning their campaigns.  So, it’s not too early to talk about who our nominee will be in 2016.

I’m a conservative and I am a Christian.  Like the Founders, I believe in limited government, fiscal responsibility, traditional moral values, and a strong, free America.  There’s no doubt about it, there are many fine conservative candidates thinking about running for President of the United States.  Ted Cruz is only 42 and he just got elected to the US Senate in 2010, but he is a great, courageous conservative.  Rand Paul understands the values of the free market system, and treasures freedom.  Like Cruz, Paul was recently elected to the US Senate.  There are many, many more fine men and women who would make a fine President, but can they be elected?  Can they heal our racial divide?  Do they have the maturity and the wisdom to lead our nation out of the precarious mess we are in?

I am not unbiased.  The National Draft Ben Carson for President Committee (www.runbenrun.org) is a client of Campaign Funding Direct, a company I founded.  The President of that company is Tammy Cali, a respected conservative and a very talented leader. 

But, I’m not for Ben Carson due to my connection with Campaign Funding Direct.  I’m excited about a Ben Carson candidacy because he is a wise, dedicated Tea Party conservative and I believe he is a sure winner!  Please let me explain.  In the last presidential election cycle, Campaign Funding Direct raised funds for Herman Cain.  It was very exciting and quite successful.  The campaign raised (via multiple fund raising channels) some $14 million in the first 40 days and was on track to top $30 million in the next thirty days when the campaign imploded.  Had it not crashed, the Cain campaign was on track to win the Iowa caucuses and to match the Romney campaign dollar-for-dollar from that point forward.  It is likely that Herman Cain, not Mitt Romney would have been the GOP nominee for President.

Why is the history of the Herman Cain campaign so important?  Well, what most folks don’t know is that the internal polling of the Cain campaign showed him winning 40% of the African-American vote.  That’s right 40%!  I was incredulous when I heard that Cain was doing that well among the black community, even up against Barack Obama.  But then I thought about it.

While African Americans voted for Barack Obama in overwhelming numbers (about 95% voted for him), he initially had a very hard time persuading them to support him.  The problem was his privileged background as well as the fact that he is not a descendent of slaves.  In reality, Barack Obama has very little in common with traditional black Americans.  He grew up in Hawaii, where he attended exclusive private schools, and then went to college at an elite Ivy League school.  He was never involved with the civil rights movement because he was too young.  It was for these reasons that Obama had a difficult time connecting with the average black American.

Herman Cain, on the other hand, made his way up out of poverty.  His father and his mother worked multiple jobs to support their family and to escape poverty and thereby passed along to their son, Herman, a strong work ethic.  Cain became a very successful businessman.

Herman Cain’s story is appealing, but the story of Dr. Benjamin Carson is truly amazing.  To understand it, you should read his latest book, America the Beautiful, that you can purchase at www.runbenrun.org.  Ben Carson was born into desperate poverty.  His mother got married at 13, could not read or write, but even after she found out that her husband was a bigamist and kicked him out, she refused to go on welfare.  She wisely observed that anyone who went on welfare never escaped it.  Even though she and her two sons lived in one of the worst areas of Detroit, she wanted something better for her children.  It is an inspiring story worth reading.

One son, Curtis, became an aerospace engineer and her other son, Ben, became a medical doctor.  In fact, Dr. Benjamin Carson became a world-renowned neurosurgeon, the first man ever to successfully separate conjoined twins at the head.  No one else had ever developed a way to separate such twins without one of the two dying, but Dr. Carson did it.  A book and movie about this miracle was written and produced called “Gifted Hands.”  You can purchase the movie at www.runbenrun.org.  And, in 2008, President Bush awarded Dr. Carson the nation’s highest civilian honor, the Medal of Freedom, for his medical achievements and for his humanitarian service.

While you and I may only recently be aware of the many accomplishments and accolades of Dr. Ben Carson, he has been a hero in the black community for many years.  He is revered and respected as a great man by African Americans all across America.  And, in fact, he is a great, albeit humble, man.  That being true, I have to ask myself, if Herman Cain could poll 40% of the black vote, running against a black candidate, just imagine what percent of the black vote Dr. Ben Carson would receive?  And, Dr. Carson would not be running against Barack Obama, a black man, but instead he would be running against Hillary Clinton or some other white liberal Democrat.

I personally believe Ben Carson would win more than 50% of the African American vote.  But, suppose Ben Carson would receive just 20% of the black vote?  If he runs and receives just 20% of the black vote, did you know that it is mathematically impossible for Hillary Clinton, or any other Democrat, to win?  If any Republican candidate for President wins as little as 20% of the black vote the Democratic ship runs aground, never to sail again.  That’s why the Democrats are so insistent on stirring up racial hatred.  They know that their dominance of the politics in America hangs by a slender thread.  Snip that thread and their political dominance disappears.  That’s why they are so shrill in denouncing all Republicans and all conservatives as racists.  They know it is a lie, but a lie they must perpetuate if they are to remain in power.

You may be surprised to know that it was not that long ago that Republicans won much more than 20% of the black vote.  As recently as 1956, Dwight D. Eisenhower received 39% of the black vote.  That’s why the candidacy of Dr. Ben Carson terrifies the radicals who control the Democratic Party.  They know they cannot win if Ben Carson is the Republican nominee.

Ironically, Dwight Eisenhower was the last non-politician Republican to win the White House.  And, like Ike, Ben Carson is a national hero.  Of course, Dr. Carson became a hero for something entirely different than winning a world war, but the intelligence, daring, and leadership it took to be the first man to successfully separate conjoined twins at the head is an incredible feat.  It took a medical team of 70 men and women, working on a split second schedule for 22 hours to accomplish this miracle.

But, the Republican establishment is uncomfortable with Dr. Carson because he is a conservative, Tea Party Republican.  And, as the establishment GOP likes to say, he’s not the next one in line.  Senator Bob Dole was the next one in line and he lost.  John McCain was the next one in line and he lost.  Mitt Romney was the next one in line and he lost.  Will the Republican establishment never learn? 

They say the definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting a different result.  Well, the way the Republican Party chooses its nominees for President seems to fit that definition.  The truth is that we need a different kind of a candidate in 2016 if we are to get a different result.  We can’t win if we keep sending the same type of candidate up to bat.  We will keep on striking out.  We are headed in the wrong direction.  John McCain lost and then we nominate Mitt Romney and he received even fewer votes than Senator McCain.  They are both fine people, they just don’t have what it takes to win the White House.

Sadly, even a strong conservative candidate for President, who is just another white guy, will almost certainly lose.  This time we need a winner and that winner is, in my opinion, Ben Carson.  But, that means millions of Americans will have to rise up and work for his victory.

I’m not saying that winning is everything, but I am saying that we don’t have to compromise our conservative principles to win if we select Ben Carson as our nominee.  Ben Carson is 100% committed to the United States Constitution, and to the principles of freedom set forth by the Founders.  Ben Carson will insist on a balanced budget, without raising taxes.

Dr. Carson is not some Johnny-come-lately.  He supported the Tea Party movement from the very beginning.  And, he is a man of incredible courage as his speech at the national prayer breakfast showed.  You can see that speech here. With the President and Vice President Biden just a few feet away, Ben Carson said that Obamacare was a disaster, and then offered a free market alternative.  He also suggested that the IRS be replaced.  This is what he said about our tax system…

“When I pick up my Bible, you know what I see?  I see the fairest individual in the Universe, God, and he’s given us a system.  It’s called tithe. Now we don’t necessarily have to [make] it 10% but it’s [the] principle.  He didn’t say, if your crops fail, don’t give me any tithes.  He didn’t say, if you have a bumper crop, give me triple tithes.  So there must be something inherently fair about proportionality.  You make $10 billion dollars you put in a billion.  You make $10 you put in $1 …but now some people say, that’s not fair because it doesn’t hurt the guy who made $10 billion dollars as much as the guy who made $10. Where does it say you have to hurt the guy?  He’s just put in a billion in the pot.  We don’t need to hurt him.”

Dr. Carson also talked about political correctness at the National Prayer Breakfast.  This is what he said…

“…one last thing about political correctness, which I think is a horrible thing, by the way.  I’m very, very compassionate, and I’m not ever out to offend anyone. But, pc is dangerous.  Because, you see, in this country one of the founding principles was freedom of thought and freedom of expression. [Political correctness}…muffles people.  It puts a muzzle on them.  And at the same time, keeps people from discussing important issues while the fabric of this society is being changed.  …we cannot fall for that trick.  And what we need to do is start talking about things, talking about things that are important.”

Dr. Carson, an outspoken Christian, not only verbally supports the right-to-life movement, he has been an active part of it, counseling women to choose life, rather than abortion, and speaking at fund raising dinners for crisis pregnancy centers across the nation.  He recounts his discussion with the head of the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) in this excerpt from his book…

“A few years ago, I was consulted by a woman who was thirty-three weeks pregnant with a baby who had been diagnosed by ultrasound to have hydrocephalus or water on the brain.  [Later] I was discussing this case with the head of the ACLU, who had made a statement that the purpose of their organization was to speak for and defend those who could not speak for and defend themselves.  I asked whether or not this thirty-three week-old fetus qualified as a human being incapable of speaking for or defending itself.  He artfully dodged answering the question, so I decided to make it easier for him.  I told him that there were many premature infants in our neonatal intensive care unit who were several weeks younger than the baby in question.  These babies were on life support, but in most cases we had every expectation that they would survive.  I asked him if he would speak for and defend the rights of a twenty-eight week old baby who was in an incubator and on life support.  He replied that that was a no-brainer; of course the ACLU would defend such an individual.  …I then asked why it was difficult to defend a baby that was five weeks further along in development and was in the most protected environment possible, but easy to defend a less viable individual who was outside the womb.” 

As this exchange shows, Ben Carson is a man of incredible courage and intelligence, and he understands our Constitution and the principles upon which the Founders created this great nation.  As President, he would expect the government to be responsive to the wishes of its citizens, by repealing Obamacare, and making sure our borders are secure.

While Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama believe in the Marxist concept of redistribution, Ben Carson does not.  This quote is taken from his book, America the Beautiful…

“…in 1795 the Supreme Court of the United States declared, “…The legislature…has no authority to make an act divesting one citizen of his freehold [property], and vesting it in another…It is inconsistent with the principles of reason, justice and moral rectitude…it is contrary to the principles of…every free government; and lastly, it is contrary to the letter and spirit of the Constitution.”

Only Ben Carson will end the mess that is the welfare state.  He will replace it with a path to self-reliance and success for those entrapped in this horrific nightmare.  He has written…

“A truly moral nation enacts policies that encourage personal responsibility and discourage self-destructive behavior by not subsidizing people who live irresponsibly and make poor choices.”

Dr. Carson proposes “phasing out government assistance” and replacing it with assistance from compassionate citizens who work through nonprofit organizations and churches to not only provide support, but also help to change lives.  He bluntly says of the current system created by the left to keep the poor in an underclass status, it…

“…may seem a bit harsh to many bleeding heart do-gooders, but I submit that what is harsh is continuing to encourage irresponsible behavior and generating a permanent underclass.”

Of the growing national debt, he writes…

“To saddle the next generation with unimaginable debt is not only callous, it is morally reprehensible.  How can we even live with ourselves knowing that we are eroding the standard of living of the next generations with each dollar that we add to the national debt?”

And, as a Tea Party conservative, he doesn’t just blame the Democrats for America’s fiscal mess.  Listen to this excerpt from America the Beautiful…

“Both Democrats and Republicans have strayed so far from the path of responsible financial policy that the concept of balancing the budget is foreign to them.”

To keep the United States from going bankrupt, he advises…

“…have each governmental agency and department trim its budget by 10%—with no exceptions.  In each subsequent year, another 10% decrease would be required and would continue as long as necessary to bring the budget back into balance.”

There is one more important reason you and I need to encourage Ben Carson to run for President, and it may be the most important reason to support him.  I believe that the worst and most destructive aspect of the Obama Presidency has been his efforts to divide Americans…to set one group of people against another—black vs. white, young vs. old, women vs. men, blue collar workers vs. white collar workers, businessmen vs. workers.  Dr. Carson believes that encouraging class warfare and creating envy is immoral, and destructive to America. 

The Democrats, and their allies in the news media, are particularly adept at smearing decent people by recklessly leveling unfounded charges of racism against them for political gain.  This is what Dr. Carson says about racism…

“Although much overt racism has been eliminated in America, there are still too many people who make sweeping generalizations about whole groups of people based on a negative encounter with a person of a different race.  In order to resolve this problem, we must first admit that it exists even in our own families or ourselves—and African-Americans are just as likely to harbor racist attitudes as white people.”

E pluribus Unum is the Latin phrase that appears on the Great Seal of the United States.  It means, out of many, one.  In other words, it means that while we come from different countries to the United States, we are united as one people speaking a common language.  But, that’s not the view of the leaders of the Democratic Party.  They promote diversity, not unity.  Sadly, President Obama has been a divider, not a uniter.  Thanks, in part, to the President’s continuing efforts to divide Americans, we are more divided today than we have been since the Civil War.

I believe Dr. Carson will bring this shameful episode to a much needed end.  We are all Americans.  We love this great nation.  We know our nation has flaws and we know it makes mistakes, but we know that there is no other nation on the face of the earth that is as good and great as the United States of America.  If we are to bring Americans together, we need a man who will unite us, not divide us, and that man is Ben Carson.  I believe he is the one person who can end the rancor, the distrust, the divide that has been crassly exploited by the cynical and unprincipled leftists who control the Democratic Party.

Ben Carson has been a kind, compassionate, and skilled healer his entire life.  And, he is a proud and unrepentant American!  He will be a President who never apologizes for America.  Whereas, Barack Obama does not see America as a great, good, and exceptional nation, Ben Carson sees it exactly that way.  He sums up his view of our nation this way in his book, America the Beautiful…

“…there is no country I’d rather be a citizen of and call home than America.  Where else, but in this land of opportunity, are people given so much freedom to pursue their dreams, with the potential to bring out the best in everyone?”

Ben Carson is a man whose life story defies the liberals’ notion of what a black American can accomplish.  He would make a great President.  While Dr. Ben Carson is not perfect (and, of course, no one is), he is the nearly perfect candidate for President.

No Democrat candidate for President, even Hillary Clinton, can defeat him.  No Republican candidate for President is as articulate, courageous, and as full of common sense as Ben Carson.  And, most important of all, no other candidate for President can heal our broken land.

But, you may be asking yourself, will Ben Carson actually run for president?  You can decide for yourself when you read this exchange he had with a reporter from the New York Times.  The reporter asked him if he was going to run for President and he said…

“Certainly if a year and a half went by and there was no one on the scene and people are still clamouring, I would have to take that into consideration.  I would never turn my back on my fellow citizens.”

I think his answer is pretty clear.  If enough American citizens encourage him to run, he will run.  He believes, like the Founders, in the idea of citizen statesmen serving their country, not as a career, but as a duty.  But, he also believes he must be called to serve by American citizens before being entitled to run.  He sees public service as something to be called to, not something to seek for personal gain.

Are you ready to clamor?  I am.  I want to not only win in 2016; I want to elect a genuine conservative as President.  That’s why I have donated to the National Draft Ben Carson for President Committee (www.runbenrun.org) and I have signed the petition asking him to run for President.

If you feel the same way as I do, if you want to win in 2016 and you want to elect a solid, Constitutional conservative, then I urge you to go to www.runbenrun.org and sign the petition encouraging Dr. Ben Carson to run for President.  And, if you feel so inclined, I urge you to support his candidacy with your dollars.

Run, Ben, Run.