Borrowing the text from the message, I’ve removed the direct reference to liberal and conservative, and will leave it for you to decide which is which. There will not be a quiz at the end, but I would imagine those who follow current events closely will immediately recognize which is which. Now as you read these, decide which is the liberal, and which is the conservative, for, given my predilection for investing terms, I will only use the appellations “bulls” and “bears.”

If a bull doesn’t like guns, he doesn’t buy one. If a bear doesn’t like guns, he feels that no one should have one.

If a bull is a vegetarian, he doesn’t eat meat. If a bear is, he thinks no one else should eat meat either.

If a bull sees a foreign threat, he thinks about how to defeat his enemy. A bear, however, wonders how to avoid confrontation and look good doing it.

If a bull is homosexual, he quietly lives his life. If a bear is homosexual, he loudly demands legislated respect and acceptance of his lifestyle as “normal.”

If a minority is a bull, he sees himself as independently successful. Their bear counterparts see themselves as victims in need of government protection.

If a bull is down-and-out, he thinks about how to better his situation. A similarly down-and-out bear expects the government to take care of him and his working neighbors to pay for it.

If bull doesn’t like a talk show host, he switches channels. Bears, however, demand that those they don’t like be shut down.

If a bull is a non-believer, he doesn’t go to church. A bear who is a non-believer wants any mention of God or religion silenced and all public images thereof banished.

If a bull believes in man-made global warming, he tries to reduce his carbon footprint. A bear who is an adherent to the global warming religion thinks everyone should be forced to live like cavemen.

If a bull decides he needs health care, he goes about shopping for it, or may choose a job that provides it. A bear demands that the rest of us pay for his.

So how obvious was it to you which were the bulls and the bears? Although greatly simplified and generalized, the themes and basic tenets should be obvious. There is much to consider from these generalizations which makes this a pragmatic exercise judging from the national dialogue as it appears in the headlines and commentary on a daily basis. In short, it would appear that bulls believe in the primary tenet upon which this nation was founded: freedom, while the bears prefer government “solutions,” based on conformity and coercion.

That desire for conformity is further manifest in cries for unity and bipartisanship. The caveat to that notion is that for there to be such unity, someone has to sacrifice his principles and belief system to achieve it, and the expectation is that the bulls are the ones who have to acquiesce, while they hope that common sense will prevail and the bears will come to see things through the lens of freedom. The bears assume that since they’re more enlightened the bulls should see things through their lens of conformity and be willing to sacrifice freedom for the common good.

One of the glaring lessons from this little exercise is the realization that it’s not the bulls who attempt to force their belief system on others, as is the common presumption, but it’s the bears who do so. Bulls are content for the most part to allow people to live as they so desire, but the bears, due to the presumed superiority of their position, seek to impose their beliefs on all.

So which ideology is closest to yours? Are you a bull or a bear?

AP award winning columnist Richard Larsen is President of Larsen Financial, a brokerage and financial planning firm in Pocatello, and is a graduate of Idaho State University with a BA in Political Science and History and former member of the Idaho State Journal Editorial Board. He can be reached at rlarsenen@cableone.net.

By Richard Larsen

Published – Idaho State Journal, 10/25/2009

There are many among us who seem to make a sport of bashing business and the free market system. They appropriately point out the egregious moral and legal failures of some firms but then ascribe culpability to all in the corporate world equally. At the national level, it’s become a “pro sport” as professional politicians exculpate or absolve themselves of all their regulatory blunders creating the business environment companies must function in and cast blame on the corporate world for all that they can’t blame on our former president.

This bashing and fear of American corporations was well articulated by a recent contributor to the Journal blogs who said, “Not only is it appropriate to keep corporate transgressions ever present in any debate concerning the state of our economy, but that unless we do, capitalism as we once knew it will continue its metamorphosis into a controlling entity that has undermined the very Democracy that enabled it to exist.”

Yet what power is wielded by any corporation that even comes close to that which is held by government? Logically, there is much more to fear about government than there ever is to fear about the business world. Businesses make things, sell things, provide service, all to generate a profit so they can grow bigger, hire more people, sell more gadgets, and acquire other companies.

The larger companies grow, the greater their potential impact on the economy and their influence with lawmakers. But they have no more power with politicians than what the politicians grant. In spite of potential influence in D.C., corporations cannot deprive us of our civil or constitutional rights. Corporate policy sometimes can affect their employees and in some cases, their customers. But corporations cannot take away our collective freedom of speech, freedom of religion, freedom of association, freedom to own firearms. In short, they cannot deprive us of our constitutionally guaranteed freedoms. They cannot force us to give them 30% of our income. Their boards of directors cannot vote to force all of us to part with our earnings to pay for their pet projects and payback for political favors.

However, government can do all of those things. And government is actively engaged in this assault on individual freedom and liberty right before our very eyes. They can force us to pay $1600 more for our energy consumption as a tax. They can force us pay up to $6,000 per household for a public health-insurance plan. And once that is in place, they can dictate our diets and consumption habits for eligibility in the public health plan. They can force us to list all of our firearms on our tax form. They can force any reference of God out of the public sphere, if it smacks of anything Christian. They can do all these things. And they are doing them.

As governments’ appetite for spending increases, so likewise their need to expropriate more of our income increases. With a vote in Washington, we can lose more of our earnings. We can lose more of our liberties. We can be coerced into doing things we have moral, legal, and constitutional objections to. Corporations don’t have that power.

With the factual realization that government has the power to eliminate or minimize our freedoms, and corporations do not, which should we fear more? I can choose not to buy from a company because I object to their policies. But I have no such luxury to withhold my taxes for objectionable cause. I can choose to live outside of a corporations’ influence, but as an American, I cannot simply choose to live outside the parameters of government policy, regulation, and laws.

There is no inherent virtue in government or in capitalism per se, but there is inherent virtue in liberty. Both government and corporations should abide by those same constitutional precepts that were designed to assure individual liberty, and rather than abridging those rights, affirming and perpetuating them. Neither the absolutism of socialism nor unbridled capitalism morally serve the greater interests of the nation. But freedom does.

There is ample reason to be wary of corporations, but not to fear them. After all, they have little power over our fundamental liberties and freedoms. But with a legislative vote and the stroke of a pen, government can, and actively is, reshaping America from the land of the free to the land of the oppressed.

By Richard Larsen

Published – Idaho State Journal, 10/18/2009

The administration and Congress are actively engaged in a class-envy war on the private sector, the free-market system, and corporations. Part of the process is to villainize corporations to make them objects of our disapprobation.

In this context, it’s advisable to remember that America has been built economically by companies led by men and women of vision and principle. Not only do they provide jobs to over 150 million Americans in the workforce, but they provide health insurance, retirement plans, and a host of other benefits to employees who bring their skills to the table day after day for their employer.

There are also companies who go beyond good business practices, following a higher law in contributing to communities and caring for their own. One such example is Texas Roadhouse.

Three weeks ago Texas Roadhouse opened another of their outstanding restaurants in Logan, Utah. New restaurant openings are not uncommon, but this one is. All of the profits generated by this one venue will be used to fund the company’s charity, Andy’s Outreach. Andy is the name of the company’s armadillo mascot, and the charity so named is established to help Texas Roadhouse employees and their families during times of need. As the company puts it, “Andy’s Outreach Fund is the Texas Roadhouse way of raising money to help our family members (any employee) who might be struggling while carrying on the incredible, legendary culture of our one-of-a-kind place to work.”

The origins of the program are found in tragedy for one of their “family members.” Company CEO G.J. Hart was attending a seminar at the company headquarters in Louisville a few years ago where he met a veteran dishwasher named James Bryan. Bryan was a deaf man and was the father to five children. A few weeks later, Hart learned that Bryan had died from a heart attack, and he mobilized his resources and organized an effort to pay for his funeral and help his surviving family members. They succeeded in doing much more than that, as the organizing group eventually put all five children through college.

In just the few years that Texas Roadhouse has been in Pocatello, Andy’s Outreach has assisted over half-a-dozen local employees. Most recently, three have been helped with medical expenses, including one who is out of work for six months due to a car accident. Dave Alexander, the Managing Partner for the Pocatello restaurant says employees can contribute to the fund as well, and that Pocatello has the highest percentage of employee contributions of any in the chain.

To further illustrate how important Andy’s Outreach is to the 320 Managing Partners in the company, they contributed the necessary funds to build the Logan restaurant.

Another superb example is provided by Sears. By law, companies who have reservist employees who are called to active duty are required to hold their jobs open until their tour of duty is complete. With over 500 reservist employees called to active duty over the past few years, Sears did much more than what the law required. They not only held the reservists jobs for them, but the company paid the difference in salaries and maintained all benefits including medical insurance and bonus programs for their reservist employees. They extended these benefits for up to 60 months.

When I first learned of this policy a few years ago I was impressed at their commitment to their employees and their families and the support of our troops, and resolved that I owed them my loyalty. I’ve had to replace three major appliances during that time, and intentionally used Sears products to replace them for that very reason.

I’ve also been gratified to learn that IDACORP, the parent company of Idaho Power did the same for their reservist employees.

Corporations are nothing more than people coalesced around specific products and services to serve other people. Although there may be exceptions, it is disingenuous to ascribe nefarious motives to corporations carte blanche and the private sector in general. And many, many companies, like Texas Roadhouse, Sears, and IDACORP see the bigger picture and deserve our respect and admiration, not our scorn.

By Richard Larsen

Published – Idaho State Journal, 10/11/2009

The appellation “Neo-con” has been so unscrupulously bandied about the last few years, and so incorrectly used as a pejorative that the actual meaning of “neo-conservative” has become lost in the din of ignorant debate. With the passing of Irving Kristol, who graduated from mortality two weeks ago at the age of 89, a review of the contributions and analysis of the father of neo-conservatism is a venture into what made America great.

As a young socialist, Kristol was critical of the primary tenet which he found animating the socialist movement; the idyllic perfectibility of man and his milieu. As early as 1944 he wrote of his preference for “moral realism” which “foresees no new virtues and is interested in human beings as it finds them, content with the possibilities and limitations that are always with us.” Such an expression would lead him over the ensuing decades to a realization that ideals have value in reality, if they work, but not if they don’t.

His ideas and analysis truly took hold in the 1960s when he and other liberals like him, were castigated for being “neo-conservatives.” He was driven to do something that made many liberals uncomfortable, to monitor whether their theories worked in the real world, or if they created more problems than they solved. Kristol himself described neoconservatives as “liberals mugged by reality.”

Through his column in the Wall Street Journal and his quarterly journal, he analyzed the issues founded in the “Great Society” programs. Did urban redevelopment improve conditions for the poor? Did welfare programs create more problems, especially sociological issues, than they solved economically? Did they solve any economical issues for the impoverished? As a liberal who based efficacy on what worked rather than good intent, he came to the conclusion over 20 years ago, “The problem with our current welfare programs is not that they are costly – which they are – but that they have such perverse consequences for the people they are supposed to benefit.”

Time after time, and issue after issue, Kristol brilliantly exposed the principles of the Great Society (major spending programs that addressed education, medical care, urban problems, poverty, and transportation) as worthy ideas, yet wholly inadequate or destructive in application. As he aptly pointed out, after over a trillion dollars of wealth redistribution based on Great Society programs, we still have roughly 12% of the population living at poverty level. As one “mugged by reality,” he concluded that principles of socialism, even when partially executed, empirically fail.

Through his honest assessment of the failures of contemporary liberalism, Kristol emerged as one of capitalism’s greatest apologists. As he frequently reminded us, “Capitalism has eased more misery and engendered more comfort than any other economic system in world history.” And this man knew his history. So to Kristol, it only made sense that what the world needed more of was capitalism, not more of any of the other “isms” that ingratiate a few at the expense of the many.

The more nefarious use of the term was used throughout the Bush presidency, where the neoconservative concept of using American economic and military strength for purposes of expanding democracy, human rights, and capitalism. Conceptually I find it difficult to comprehend that any moral person would object to such a notion, but in the case of Bush, it had more to do with how the principle was implemented in Iraq, not a rejection of the philosophy behind it.

Even more disconcerting to Kristol’s former liberal colleagues, was his evolution as a social conservative. In his missive “My Cold War,” a recapitulation of his intellectual migration from left to right, he wrote, “What began to concern me more and more were the clear signs of rot and decadence germinating within American society -- a rot and decadence that was no longer the consequence of liberalism but was the actual agenda of contemporary liberalism. And the more contemporary, the more candid and radical was this agenda.” He warned, “Combating the cultural decay -- a war on spiritual poverty -- was even more important than winning the other Cold War.”

Much of neo-conservatism is based in common sense and application of principles with proven empirical efficacy, both of which are scarcities in Washington. Seems to me we need a lot more Irving Kristols. At the very least, we need a lot more neoconservatives.

By Richard Larsen

Published – Idaho State Journal, 10/04/2009

I actually had misgivings about the Van Jones resignation as the administrations’ “Green Jobs Csar.” He was the most high-level “green” advocate who was actually honest about what the green movement was all about. As he said, “The green economy will start off as a small subset of a complete revolution away from gray capitalism and toward redistribution of all the wealth…And we are going to push it and push it and push it until it becomes the engine for transforming the whole society.” He was also the most honest of the administration appointees about being a self-avowed communist. I’m sorry we’ve lost his openness, for he made the case very clearly that capping carbon emissions, and taxing everyone who creates a “carbon footprint” was not about saving the earth, but about governmental control over our energy consumption and redistribution of wealth.

About the same time Jones was resigning, Richard Lindzen of MIT published a paper that proves the United Nations’ Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) conclusions were wrong about carbon emissions. The IPCC conclusions were based on computer models, including the famed Michael Mann “hockey-stick” graph which has been discredited, whereas Lindzen relies on raw data and provides a breakthrough explanation for why global warming does not rise with carbon emissions.

Lindzen reports, “The global surface temperature record, which we update and publish every month, has shown no statistically-significant ‘global warming’ for almost 15 years. Statistically-significant global cooling has now persisted for very nearly eight years. Even a strong el Nino – expected in the coming months – will be unlikely to reverse the cooling trend.”

“More significantly, the ARGO bathythermographs deployed throughout the world’s oceans since 2003 show that the top 400 fathoms of the oceans, where it is agreed between all parties that at least 80% of all heat caused by manmade ‘global warming’ must accumulate, have been cooling over the past six years. That now prolonged ocean cooling is fatal to the ‘official’ theory that ‘global warming’ will happen on anything other than a minute scale.”

Lindzen’s peer reviewed work states “we now know that the effect of CO2 on temperature is small, we know why it is small, and we know that it is having very little effect on the climate.”

Data and graphical display of that data illustrate how carbon emissions have been steadily increasing over the past 15 years, while global mean temperatures have been declining. If carbon emissions were causal to warming global temperatures, there would be some concomitant harmony between the two charts. Namely, as carbon emissions increase, temperatures increase. Yet even when taken back over the past 100 years, there is no such correlation between the two. Critics argue that as complex as the climate is, there will always be a lag time between increase in CO2 and global mean temperatures. Yet even allowing for such a lag time, there is no observable correlation.

But what is most decimating to the global warming alarmist theory is the Earth Radiation Budget Experiment (ERBE) data, according to Lindzen. The data prove that CO2, which is a much less prevalent and effective “greenhouse gas” than water vapor, is incapable of capturing the amount of heat in our atmosphere as the IPCC claims. The ERBE results, which are factual data from real measurements made by satellite, prove the exact opposite of the IPCC projections based on computer models. In science, when hard data is juxtaposed with computer models, the data win. To see the full study, select the July CO2 report on the Science and Public Policy website.

The results of Lindzen’s report led one reviewer to comment, “All of this data leads to the conclusion that the UN/IPCC models are not only wrong, they are so far off the mark as to be laughable. The satellite and bathythermograph data clearly do not match the IPCC theory, which means that the theory is incorrect.”

Those of us who have questioned the pseudo-science behind the man-made global warming alarmists have known the motives were not about saving the planet. As more and more evidence provides justification for our skepticism, we will find ourselves in the dubious position of missing the honest proponents of controlling and taxing carbon emissions, like Van Jones.

By Richard Larsen

Published – Idaho State Journal, 09/27/2009

What is most disgusting about what former president Jimmy Carter said this week is not so much that he said it, but that those of Carter’s mentality consistently engage in such reprehensible specious reasoning.

In an NBC interview, Carter declared, “I think an overwhelming portion of the intensely demonstrated animosity toward President Barack Obama is based on the fact that he is a black man, that he's African-American. Racism...still exists, and I think it's bubbled up to the surface because of a belief among many white people, not just in the South but around the country, that African-Americans are not qualified to lead this great country.”

As long as there are idiots who judge people by the color of the skin as opposed to the content of their character, there will be racism. But to put this in perspective, consider that in 1958 only 35% of whites said they would vote for a black president. But in 2006, a scant 3% of Americans indicated they would not vote for a black president. If used as a barometer of racist tendencies, this progress speaks volumes for the dissolution of a racist mentality and dispels the notion that this is a racist country.

What Carter engaged in is a logical ad hominem fallacy, which is literally an “argument against the person.” This tactic is employed frequently by those who, in order to discredit their adversaries, seek to minimize their argument by making unsubstantiated accusations or allegations against them in order to redirect attention to the adversaries themselves, rather than the argument. By making the adversaries the focus with an accusation, the validity of their claim or premise is discredited since their argument is inextricably linked to them. The construct of the argument looks like this. Person A makes claim X. Regardless of veracity, an objection is made against Person A. Therefore claim X is false.

Even more precisely, this version of the ad hominem fallacy is argumentum ad personam. This device is intentionally used to belittle or insult an opponent in order to retake the offensive and place the opponent on the defensive. Hence, it becomes a verbal misdirection to make the opponent the center of the argument, rather than the issue at hand; something akin to a magicians’ trick.

Enter Carter center stage. In order to mitigate the disastrous polling for “Obamacare,” and the spectacle of Congressman Joe Wilson’s shout at the President, “You Lie!” and the massive demonstration in Washington on September 12 against totalitarian government, Carter makes an accusation “against the person.” The supposition is that the voices of dissent and the strength of the valid arguments against the White House agenda, are negated by the accusation.

Not only is this logically fallacious, but it displays both the arrogance and ignorance of those who engage in such behavior. Ignorance, for it presumes stupidity on the part of the American people, and arrogance because by so engaging, they simply sidestep the real issues underlying dissent. It usually is employed when logic fails. I have always maintained that the first person to call the other a name in a debate has lost the debate, and that’s what comes naturally to those with no ammo left, for they need to misdirect the argument.

The practice also constitutes an attempt to emotionalize an issue and remove it from the purely logical realm, which is crucial especially when their own logical arguments are inferior to their detractors.

It’s not a new tactic, but seems to be used with increasing frequency, not just by the politicians in control today, but by the media. They suppose due to our presumed ignorance, we’ll discount the claims of dissenters while aspersions like “mob,” (NBC & MSNBC), “evil” (Harry Reid), and “Nazis” (Nancy Pelosi) are hurled at them. We see it regarding other issues as well, like the appellation of “homophobic” to those who oppose homosexual marriage regardless of their logical reasons for opposition.

In this caustic political environment, it’s crucial to not only be aware of the ideology employed in transforming America, but to be wary and alert to the methodology they employ to manipulate public perception. With perspicacity, we can see through arrogant facades of those of intellectual vacuity who, like Carter, claim “racism” is behind everything that is anti-Obama.

By Richard Larsen

Published – Idaho State Journal, 09/20/2009

Although current governmental efforts are directed at “transforming” the nation, there are laws of economics and common sense that can’t be evaded. They can only be obfuscated, hoping that we, the ignorant masses, don’t know any better. For example, government spending does not grow an economy, massive government debt does not stimulate an economy, and increased governmental control over the private sector does not improve service or efficiency. Since history has proven time after time the validity of these simple economic verities, why do those in power incessantly try to dupe us to the contrary?

Over 70% of the U.S. economy is retail driven. Over 95% of jobs in the private sector are with small businesses. Those small businesses are facing the prospect of higher taxes, increased fines from the government if they don’t comply with the “public option” for health-insurance, and diminishing sales and revenue because of a weak economic climate. That climate, especially for retail, is unlikely to improve as long as unemployment increases and those still with jobs fear theirs might be on the chopping block next.

The August Labor Department report revealed a spike in unemployment to 9.7%, from 9.4% in July. This is the worst job environment the nation has had in nearly 30 years. In January we were sold the $787 billion “stimulus” bill based on the premise that if they didn’t pass it, unemployment would surpass 9% from the 7.2% jobless rate in January. Well here we are at 9.7% unemployment, having passed the “porkulus” bill, and we’re undoubtedly headed to over 10%. In spite of all this spending the economy is still projected to shrink by 3% this year. At what point are our elected leaders required to be honest with us?

The White House continues to claim that the stimulus is working. Joe Biden last week had the audacity to claim that the stimulus is “doing more, faster, more efficiently and more effectively than most expected.” With that statement, the charade is perpetuated, in spite of all the evidence to the contrary.

Even more perplexing was his follow-up comment that it “was the right thing to do morally.” In order to eventually pay for that massive spending bill, over a trillion dollars in taxes will have to be collected from tax-payers. How can it possibly be a moral thing to take from the producers and workers of America to fund those congressional pet projects? As we detailed when the bill was passed earlier in the year, there was very little in that legislation that was actually stimulative to the economy, and almost none of it in the private sector. But to have the audacity and mendacity to claim not only that it’s working but that it was morally the right thing to do is blatant prevarication.

Not only hasn’t it worked, though only about 15% of the funds have actually been spent, history teaches us that it will not work. During the Depression era, we know that even with a tripling of federal government spending from 1931 through 1939, the U.S. was still in a dire depression, and unemployment was still over 17%.

FDR’s Treasury Secretary, Henry Morgenthau, said that “we have tried spending money. We are spending more than we have ever spent before and it does not work. After eight years of this administration we have just as much unemployment as when we started and an enormous debt to boot!” Well, Obama said he wanted to be like Roosevelt.

A statement released earlier this year by 200 economists affirms these principles. The statement said in part, “More government spending by Hoover and Roosevelt did not pull the United States economy out of the Great Depression in the 1930s. More government spending did not solve Japan's ‘lost decade’ in the 1990s. As such, it is a triumph of hope over experience to believe that more government spending will help the U.S. today. To improve the economy, policy makers should focus on reforms that remove impediments to work, saving, investment and production. Lower tax rates and a reduction in the burden of government are the best ways of using fiscal policy to boost growth.”

If government spending was stimulative to the economy, it should be overheating now after the record $1.6 trillion spent this fiscal year, nearly all of it borrowed, adding to our deficit. Our economy will eventually rebound, but it will be in spite of what government policy is doing now, not because of it. Washington can spin their tale, but it’s fiction, as the facts tell a very different story.

By Richard Larsen

Published – Idaho State Journal, 09/13/2009

August Recess for the nations’ lawmakers was certainly not business as usual this year. With headlines and debate centered on the controversial overhaul of our health-care system, it could be fair to say many of them ran into constituent buzz-saws in their town hall meetings across the country. While the exchanges at these meetings were sometimes confrontational, the freedom behind such truly grassroots response to a proposed totalitarian health-care system was inspiring. It would seem that those objecting to “Obamacare” had learned Thomas Jefferson’s truism, “All tyranny needs to gain a foothold is for people of good conscience to remain silent.” And silent they were not.

Some of the statements and exchanges between lawmakers and their constituents were memorable, and many provide lasting lessons and imagery that should not be lost on an informed and attentive electorate.

For example, it was not that long ago that Speaker Nancy Pelosi encouraged and praised dissent, and said it was courageous to “speak truth to power.” It may have come as a shock to some, then, to hear from the Speaker that it’s now “un-American,” and that by so engaging, one must be part of a “dangerous, angry mob.” We might rhetorically ask what has changed from then to now?

Speaking of the Speaker, who is exceeded only by Joe Biden for making glib, nonsensical remarks, one of her best accusations against the town hall protestors was that they were “astroturf.” As Astroturf is to real grass, so likewise “astroturf” is to genuine grassroots level politics. Without question, what we witnessed in August was a legitimate grassroots response from concerned citizens about pending health-care legislation and dizzying expansion of government and the federal debt. The only real “astroturfing” we saw was when the health-care overhaul supporters began to show up en masse in buses. Wonder where they came from? I’ll bet the Speaker knows.

Illustrating what I said a few weeks ago that “Nazi” references really have no place in American political dialogue, the Speaker ignominiously called the protestors “Nazis.” She is obviously oblivious to the fact that Nazis are socialists, and that quite to the contrary, the protestors were standing up for their individual right to choose, which is anathema to socialism. If such ignorance was not so scary coming from the third-in-line from the President, it would be humorous. That accusation led to one of the best one-liners from a town hall attendee. Marine veteran David Hedrick at a West Virginia town hall declared, “If Nancy Pelosi wants to find a swastika maybe the first place she should look is on the sleeve of her own arm.” Marines don’t take kindly to pejorative characterizations.

Speaking of good lines, perhaps leading the “best of” collection from August town halls was one delivered by Dan Jeror, addressing Steny Hoyer, Pelosi’s second in command in the House. Jeror, after emphasizing that he was a registered Democrat, asked Hoyer, “Why would you guys try to stuff a health care bill down our throats in three to four weeks when the President took six months to pick a dog for his kids?”

Carol Shea Porter of New Hampshire thought it was below her dignity to answer a question from one of her constituents, and had the audacious retired policeman removed for doing so. How dare these lowly constituents question the omniscience of their puissant elected officials!

Rep. Sheila Jackson Lee took a cell phone call in the middle of a constituent’s question about health-care reform. That sure goes a long way to dispelling the notion that our elected officials aren’t listening to us!

Keith Olbermann of MSNBC referred to the protestors as “worse than racists,” while comedienne Janeane Garofalo called them “racist rednecks who hate blacks.” But in an interesting twist of such typical radical characterization, Kenneth Gladney, a black conservative, was beaten up at a Missouri town hall by local Service Employees International Union members, one of them shouting racial epithets. So really, who were the racist rednecks? They obviously were following the White House directive to “punch back twice as hard.” Unfortunately for Mr. Gladney, they took the directive as literal. Not surprisingly, the event received scant coverage from the mainstream media.

For the “silent majority” that typically sits reticently on the sidelines waiting for the political dust to settle, the “Tea Party” protestors and outspoken dissidents to the transformation of America are the only semblance of a check and balance we have. With the legislative and executive branches under single-party control, and the mainstream media acting as their guard-dog, all we have is our individual and collective voices of disapprobation. It’s time to no longer be the “silent majority.” This is a fight for the soul and future of America.

By Richard Larsen

Published – Idaho State Journal, 09/06/2009

For a brief moment in recent history we were united as a nation. We were not divided by ideology, color or creed. We were all Americans. That fateful day nearly eight years ago united us as a nation as did the similarly horrific Pearl Harbor attack. Collectively we mourned the human toll, over 3000 dead. We acknowledged the heroism of those who sought to save lives and mitigate the destruction. And we recognized as never before the growing extremist threat targeting western civilization and our way of life, and America as the pinnacle of that way of life.

That threat has not been eradicated. Estimates are that up to 10% of Muslims adhere to the Sunni extremist Wahhabi ideology which decries democracy, other religions including People of the Book (Jews and Christians), and foments actionable destruction against them.

Our 9/11 commemorations have been a concatenation of eulogies for the fallen, praise and adulation for the heroes of the day, and a recommitment to prevention of such acts being perpetrated against us again.

Apparently that is to be no more. We no longer have a “War on Terror” seeking out those who have or are trying to attack us, but we have “Overseas Contingency Operations,” the administration’s new term. And the initial objective in Afghanistan is apparently no longer to defeat the Taliban and secure peace for a troubled nation, and reducing the risk of another despicable attack from being planned there. Victory over our enemies is no longer the aim, as Obama said last month, “I’m always worried about using the word ‘victory,’ because, you know, it invokes this notion of Emperor Hirohito coming down and signing a surrender to MacArthur.” Aside from the historical ignorance displayed by the comment, most troublesome is his admission that we aren’t there to win. If we’re not there to win, what on earth are we doing there?

As if that’s not enough, it’s now becoming increasingly clear that our 9/11 commemorations are about to be hijacked as well. As Mathew Vadum of the American Spectator recently wrote, “The Obama White House is behind a cynical, coldly calculated political effort to erase the meaning of the Sept. 11, 2001 terrorist attacks from the American psyche and convert Sept. 11 into a day of leftist celebration and statist idolatry.”

This was initiated in April with legislation establishing 9/11 as a National Day of Service. They did add the words “And Remembrance” to the bill, but that was undoubtedly an afterthought. I’m sure not many of us gave much heed to the declaration at the time, but a recent conference call between the White House and over sixty radical leftist groups clarified the intent behind the declaration. Among those on the August 11 conference call were Color of Change, ACORN, Apollo Alliance, Community Action Partnership, Friends of the Earth, Mobilize.org, and the RainbowPUSH Coalition.

According to a source that participated on the call, as quoted in the American Spectator, “They [the Obama administration] think it needs to be taken back from the right. They're taking that day and they're breaking it because it gives Republicans an advantage. To them, that day is a fearful day because it focuses the public on supposedly ‘Republican’ issues like patriotism, national security, and terrorism.” That’s very strange that 9/11 is a “Republican” day of remembrance. For some reason I’ve never thought of Pearl Harbor remembrance as a “Democrat” day.

So rather than commemorating those who died on that day, and our military personnel who have sacrificed so much to vanquish the terrorist threat, the day will be transformed into a day for “green” activism, community action, tree hugging, and sundry leftist pet activities.

A week earlier on Aug. 4, controversial “Green Jobs Csar” Van Jones outlined the expectations for Sept. 11 events. In a White House blog video he declared that they will provide, “for people to connect, to find other people in your peer group who are also passionate about repowering America but also greening up America and cleaning up America.” Perhaps a noble venture, but in lieu of 9/11 commemorations? I don’t think so.

Perhaps they should have chosen May Day, or Lenin’s Birthday (which is noncoincidentally also Earth Day), rather than desicrate the memory of 9/11. September 11 will always be to me a sober reminder, not a day to “green up” the neighborhood.  

Senator Edward Kennedy’s passing does not provide justification for passage of an imprudent health-care bill. As Shakespeare said, “A rose by any other name would smell so sweet,” so to the contrary, bad legislation by any other name, even a Kennedy Health Care Bill, would still be odiferous.

There are many problematic aspects to the attempt to lionize the “Lion of the Senate” that shouldn’t be lost on us. And I’m not just talking about being expelled from Harvard for cheating and leaving Mary Jo Kopechne to die in his car at Chappaquidick. Everyone makes mistakes in their personal lives and as such should not be condemned for them. Kennedy himself said many times how he struggled with the consequences of the Chappaquidick incident for his entire life. As a side note, the more egregious aspect of that incident is not so much that he made a mistake, but that it proved that there are some people who are obviously above the law.

Actually, the more problematic elements are evident in the legislative efforts he championed and his causes célèbre that harmed the nation that should bode ill for a health-care bill adorned with his name. Space will restrict me to just a few examples.

Kennedy was perhaps the most ardent proponent of the Immigration and Nationalization Act of 1965. He championed the bill and on the floor of the Senate declared, “First, our cities will not be flooded with a million immigrants annually. Under the proposed bill, the present level of immigration remains substantially the same.... Secondly, the ethnic mix of this country will not be upset.... Contrary to the charges in some quarters, [the bill] will not inundate America with immigrants from any one country or area, or the most populated and deprived nations.... In the final analysis, the ethnic pattern of immigration under the proposed measure is not expected to change as sharply as the critics seem to think.... The bill will not flood our cities with immigrants. It will not upset the ethnic mix of our society. It will not relax the standards of admission. It will not cause American workers to lose their jobs.” He could not have been more wrong as much of our illegal alien problem is directly attributable to that Act. Everything he promised wouldn’t happen, did.

Related to health-care reform, we shouldn’t forget that much of the current health-care conundrum was created by the Senator. His 1973 legislation created HMOs and PPOs and created the “tangled intersection of the public and the private,” according to National Review. Interestingly, he later denounced his creation.

There was also his effort to undermine Ronald Reagan on the strategic defense initiative that arguably was the final nail in the coffin of the Soviet Union. Among the documents released to the public after the fall of the USSR were KGB files documenting how Kennedy sought a means with Soviet Premier Yuri Andropov to manipulate public opinion against Reagan’s proposed nuclear deterrent. Political opposition is one thing, but an act like that borders on treason as it deals directly with national security.

Some people raise the question of where the “hate” began in our contemporary political dialogue. While there is ample evidence of vitriol in the political dialogue throughout our national history, it should not be lost on us that some of the most virulent and rancorous speech was expressed by Senator Kennedy during both the Robert Bork and Clarence Thomas Supreme Court nomination hearings. Kennedy was not content to argue principles of law and denounce the nominees for views he thought were anathema to his ideology, but he sought to destroy the character and reputations of the nominees. We even have a term now applied to that malicious approach to the nomination process: it’s called being “Borked.”

Kennedy was an affable man who left his mark. But too many of his marks were wrong for the country. While some of the critical denunciations of the current health-care proposals may be questionable, the bills’ wording obviously leaves them open to less than idyllic interpretations. This makes them bad bills and leaves the door open to faulty execution on something critical to all of us and provides no solace that health-care decisions will be made in our best interest as opposed to the state’s interest. Passage would however follow the pattern of bad government with Ted Kennedy’s name affixed.

By Richard Larsen

Published – Idaho State Journal, 08/23/2009

It’s alarming to witness the escalating accusations of people being “Nazis” in American politics. Bush was not a Nazi, and Obama is not a Nazi. Swastikas have no legitimate place in the American political dialogue. National Socialism (for which Nazi serves as a contraction) was peculiar to an era of German nationalism based on socialistic and fascistic principles, and was as much a cultural as it was a political phenomenon in German history.

Aside from the accusations of being “Hitleresque” from both the right and the left in today’s political environment, the most specious and disingenuous are those who claim that conservatives or these health-care protestors at town halls are “Nazis.” On the political spectrum, the further to the left you move, the more totalitarian the government is. Governmental control over the lives of individuals is characteristic of all forms of socialism, whether Communist or the Nationalist variety, and the state assumes preeminence over individual rights when taken to the extreme.

Whereas the further one moves to the right on the political spectrum, the more individual liberty is advanced. Taken to its extreme is anarchy. When analyzed logically, then, National Socialism, or fascism, is incongruent philosophically and practically to the political conservative. Those who refer to Nazism as “right-wing” are politically ill-informed and have fallen for Stalin’s game of referring to them as such. One scholar makes the point that Nazism is to Communism what Pepsi is to Coke: basically the same but with a little different flavor.

There may be some angry folk out there who find elements of National Socialism fanciful, who delight in angering the rest of us with their displays of neo-Nazi swastikas, like Hayden Lake was plagued with a few years ago. But they aren’t in the mainstream, and they aren’t in the White House, and they aren’t the hordes of frustrated Americans attempting to express their chagrin over the perceived hijacking of the American health-care system in the name of providing insurance to the uninsured.

That said, there is, however, an American statism based ideologically on similar principles to European fascism. Our statist or fascist movement has the same ideological connections with those in Europe, reliant on philosophical components of Hegel, Weber, Marx, Kung, and Sartre. It seems harmonious in principle to Joseph Goebbels, Hitler’s Minister of Propaganda, statement, “To be a socialist is to submit the I to the thou; socialism is sacrificing the individual to the whole.”

America’s version also seeks to concentrate power in the state at the expense of individual liberty. As Leonard Piekoff states, it “does not represent a new approach to government; but is a continuation of the political absolutism -- the absolute monarchies, the oligarchies, the theocracies, the random tyrannies -- which has characterized most of human history.” It seeks to suppress criticism and opposition to the government. It denounces and eschews individualism, capitalism and inequity in compensation. It seeks out and targets enemies of the people like corporations and those not supportive of their collectivist objectives. Economically, fascism advocates control of business and labor, not ownership of it as communism advocates. In fact Mussolini called his system the “Corporate State.” Even the term “totalitarianism” derives from Mussolini’s concept of the preeminence of the “total state.”

As Jonah Goldberg described, American fascism is “a smiley faced version” of the European cousin. Less militaristic and forceful, it shares the concepts of an organic national community and sacrificing individual liberty is acceptable if it’s perceived to benefit the whole. As Goldberg says, what unites all versions of fascism is “their emotional or instinctual impulses, such as the quest for community, the urge to get beyond politics even though all is political to them, a faith in the perfectibility of man, the cult of action, and the need for an all powerful state to coordinate society at the national or global level. Most of all, they share the belief that with the right amount of tinkering we can realize the utopian dream.”

The examination of these historical philosophical roots is significant in the context of today’s discussion on a government-run health system. Look up Marc Micozzi’s 1992 research on the German system when he was the director of the National Museum of Health and Medicine. It bears an uncanny resemblance to the public mandate being sold to us today as a “public option.

While we should unanimously denounce the use of “Nazi” name-calling in the public dialogue, there obviously are lessons that can be learned from Nazi statism, vestiges of which are abundantly evident in today’s national political dialogue. What each of us need to decide is which is more important, the individual with his rights, or the state with its power and control.

By Richard Larsen

Published – Idaho State Journal, 08/16/2009

Recent attempts to compare Bill Clinton’s successful freeing of two Al Gore reporters by North Korea and George Hansen’s efforts to free American embassy personnel from Iran thirty years ago have been high on hyperbole and short on fact. Since both events have national security implications, a more thoughtful review is warranted.

After allowing Bill Clinton to bring Gore’s reporters home with him two weeks ago, North Korean press reported that Mr. Clinton conveyed a message from Mr. Obama “expressing apologies ... profound thanks ... and ways of improving the relations between the two countries.” Obama refutes those claims, though they are likely true given the President’s propensity to apologize to the world for America’s “evil” acts around the globe.

It is likely that Oliver North accurately pegged the outcome. “The smile pasted on Kim Jong Il's face in the ‘official photographs’ taken with Mr. Clinton tell the story. A price was paid. The North Koreans know what it is. The Obama administration knows what it is. But the American people don't -- and we won't unless transcripts of the Clinton-Kim Jong Il ‘conversations’ are released. Don't count on that happening soon. The administration that promised to be ‘the most transparent in history’ has made secrecy in foreign affairs a way of life.”

The situation with Iran during the Carter administration was significantly different. When Carter arbitrarily cancelled a rural stabilization program for Iranian mullahs, undermining our ally the Shah, the retributive Ayatollah began systematically withdrawing the $2.5 billion in deposits from Chase Manhattan Bank. As the withdrawals diminished deposits to levels dangerously close to what the bank had loaned to Pahlavi’s regime, the bank feared the new regime intended to default on the loans.

Carter, after allowing the Shah to fall, allowed him into New York for medical treatment. This prompted the Ayatollah to extol Iranian revolutionary students on 11/1/79 “to extend with all their might their attacks to force the U.S. to return the deposed and cruel Shah.” Just three days later the students carried out the Ayatollah's suggestion by storming the U. S. embassy and taking 66 hostages. Ten days later, after Chase Manhattan Bank importuned to the President, Carter froze all Iranian assets in the U.S., allowing Chase to cover their Iranian loans, and then some.

George Hansen, our 2nd District Congressman, who was also a ranking member of the House Banking Committee, was well aware of the tight spot Chase Manhattan Bank was in, and was convinced there was evidence of impropriety on the part of the government related to U.S. bank dealings with Iran. Hansen declared, “I really think that if congressional investigations find out anything wrong [in connection with the Shah’s regime] it’s been done by a few people lining their own pockets..and I think it is very possible that U.S. foreign policy has been conducted in such a way that allowed the opportunity for corruption to exist.”

Iran wanted to expose the banking corruption during the shah’s regime. With backing from his Democrat chairman of the House Banking Committee Hansen went to Iran armed with a proposal to conduct congressional hearings exposing the corruption. Bani Sadr, who later became President of Iran, told Hansen they would free the hostages, and allow him to take some home with him, if they were promised congressional hearings, and jubilantly reported the agreement with Hansen on live Iranian radio. Carter, however, nixed that possibility and a UN investigation when he declared that there “will be no hearings … I want the hostages.” Carter by blocking the possibility of hearings scuttled what the Washington Post called “the only proposal that ever had a chance” of freeing the hostages.

Hansen, who was cleared of all charges of impropriety by a 1995 Supreme Court ruling, was a man armed with what the Iranians then wanted: a forum to reveal the corrupt banking practices with the former regime, and a shot at freeing up their frozen assets.

Clinton, on the other hand, became a sacrificial pawn to North Korea’s whimpered cry for international legitimacy. Sure he came back with the two reporters that Al Gore placed at risk, but at what cost to national security?

It’s obvious that our current administration has an aversion to openness about the North Korean hostage release at least equal with the Carter aversion to openness regarding the causal forces behind the Iranian hostage crisis. It appears Obama paid the ransom price of positive PR, a photo-op with a former President, and increased legitimacy to a tyrannical dictator. Maybe more. The fear for all of us is, what precedence for paying “ransoms” does this set for all the anti-American dictators, terrorists, and thugs of the world?

Those who lived behind the “Iron Curtain,” or even in Nazi Germany, were fearful of expressing their true opinions about their government policies. Such reticence was necessary for they lived in fear that something they said might be reported to the authorities, leading to them being whisked away to the Gulag or the concentration camps.

Could such a thing happen in America? While I would certainly hope that it couldn’t, there are ominous indicators that truly make one wonder.

We started to see the signs last fall in the heat of the campaign when a Missouri paper reported, “Missouri top prosecutors announced this week that they will threaten and prosecute critics of Barack Obama. St. Louis City Circuit Attorney Jennifer Joyce and St. Louis County Circuit Attorney Bob McCulloch are threatening to bring libel charges against those who speak out against Barack Obama.”

Then in March Congress passed “The Give Act,” which among other things, established a Universal Voluntary Public Service corps of 250,000 “volunteers,” modeled after the Public Allies program, a group Obama led in Chicago which was organized to “agitate for justice and equality.” It seems to be the foundation for his “National Civilian Security Force” which he referenced in a speech last year in which he advocated creating a domestic service corps as “big and well-funded as the U.S. military.”

Then there was the leaked Agency Assessment from Janet Napolitano, Secretary of Homeland Security, which identified all those who oppose Obama’s policies as potential domestic terrorists. The Assessment was distributed to law enforcement agencies across the land including what law enforcement should watch for, like anti-abortion and Ron Paul bumper stickers, “Don’t Tread On Me” flags, and pickup gun racks.

The latest ominous sign is the mobilization of the President’s forces to stave off criticism of “Obamacare,” the legislation pending in Congress which would essentially take over the health-care industry. This effort is similar to what Hugo Chavez did without legislation in Venezuela when he took over the oil industry and put the media under government control. Parenthetically, Obama doesn’t need to do that with the media, as they essentially function as the official state-run propaganda machine already.

Then earlier this week the White House website had this entry added by Linda Douglas, formerly of ABC News, “There is a lot of disinformation about health insurance reform out there, spanning from control of personal finances to end of life care. These rumors often travel just below the surface via chain emails or through casual conversation. Since we can’t keep track of all of them here at the White House, we’re asking for your help. If you get an email or see something on the web about health insurance reform that seems fishy, send it to flag@whitehouse.gov.”

It seems the Obama White House is taking “domestic spying” to a whole new level by encouraging his disciples to report fellow citizens who have a different perspective on his effort to socialize the health-care system.

Senator John Cornyn issued a statement condemning the domestic spying program and requested a response from the President what his intentions were with those reported to the White House. Cornyn said, “I am not aware of any precedent for a President asking American citizens to report their fellow citizens to the White House for pure political speech that is deemed ‘fishy’ or otherwise inimical to the White House’s political interests.” Senator, we’re seeing a lot of things done by the White House without precedence in the land of the free and the home of the brave.

This week the Organizer in Chief sent out emails to 13 million of his followers urging them, “We've got to get out there…I want you to argue with them, and get in their face.”Dutifully responding to their Organizer’s beckon, labor unions sent out memos to their members answering the call to political arms. In a memo sent out by AFL-CIO President John Sweeney: “We want your help to organize major union participation to counter the right-wing ‘Tea-Party Patriots’ who will try to disrupt those meetings, as they've been trying to do to meetings for the last month...”

Organizing and encouraging your followers is one thing. But the White House setting up “snitch” websites for domestic spying and creating a political “brown shirt” corps across the nation is quite another. Somehow all this seems so un-American.

We do not have a health care crisis. Our health-care in this country is outstanding, and particularly here in Eastern Idaho. Portneuf Medical Center and their incredible staff provide superb care, as my family was reminded of just recently.

We can’t even truly say we have a health-care insurance crisis. I’ve not seen any better breakdown of the numbers than what Investor’s Business Daily printed a couple weeks ago. They pointed out that 85% of the population, or 258 million people, have health insurance. Of those, 89% are happy with the coverage their insurer provides, according to an ABC News poll.

They examined the most reliable figures of an estimated forty-seven million people who lack health care insurance. Of those, 20 million can afford to buy it, according to former CBO Director June O’Neill. About a third of the other 27 million are illegal aliens, while most of the rest are single and under 35 and choose not to have health insurance.

IBD completes the math and points out, “When it's all whittled down, as few as 12 million are unable to buy insurance — less than 4% of a population of 305 million. For this we need to nationalize 17% of our nation's $14 trillion economy and change the current care that 89% like?”

Yes, there are some that lack insurance, but that hardly means that they don’t get acceptable or adequate health care. Law dictates that all who enter an emergency room must be treated. We currently have about 37 million Americans living below the poverty level, but Medicaid covers 55 million. We pay $350 billion a year to cover them. And as many as 11 million of the uninsured qualify for other government run programs, like Medicaid and SCHIP, and programs for the indigent. Many don’t bother to sign up for the programs even though they are eligible.

We can’t believe what the politicians are saying about current proposals congress is considering, for they either haven’t read them or don’t understand them. There are numerous cases cited recently of congressmen meeting with constituents where the constituents know more about the bill than the congressmen do. And the current bills “contradict the President’s assurances” that we will not be sacrificing our choices and freedom in health care, according to CNN Money. CNN proved it by analyzing the actual verbiage of the bills and identified five key freedoms we lose if either plan is passed.

First: the freedom to choose what coverage we have. The government will mandate what the plans cover. Second: the freedom for being rewarded for healthy living, as the Obama plan enshrines into federal law one of the worst features of state legislation, community rating where everyone’s accepted but higher premiums are charged. Third: the freedom to choose high-deductible coverage, as everyone is forced into a “one size fits all” plan. Fourth: the freedom to keep our existing plan. Private plans are grandfathered for five years, but if anything changes, they are forced into the government model. Fifth: freedom to choose your doctors. The government plan mandates we go through something called “medical home,” which functions like an HMO. You’re assigned a primary care doctor, and the doctor controls your access to specialists, directly contradicting what the President is saying.

The CNN analysis concludes, “In short, the Obama platform would mandate extremely full, expensive, and highly subsidized coverage -- including a lot of benefits people would never pay for with their own money -- but deliver it through a highly restrictive, HMO-style plan that will determine what care and tests you can and can't have. It's a revolution, all right, but in the wrong direction.”

We have more of a health-care cost crisis than anything. If Washington was serious about reducing costs they could start with true tort reform which would cap claims amounts, and pass a “loser pay” law that requires the loser in a suit to pay the legal costs. That has a tendency to sift out a lot of spurious claims. And they could allow health-insurance competition across state lines.

Doctors take the Hippocratic Oath to “do no harm.” Our politicians should do the same. Their diagnosis is flawed, and their prescription will maim, not cure, the patient.

It’s always amusing to observe the benighted, simplistic fashion by which some from the political left characterize and demean those from the right. Last Sunday’s Idaho State Journal provided a perfect example with a “letter to the editor” by Leonard Hitchcock. Although attempted satirically and tongue-in-cheek, it nonetheless accurately characterizes the typical liberal perception of conservatives, which warrants a brief analysis.

His letter begins, “The Republicans’ conviction that big government is bad government rests upon a simple premise: It is good that the poor, the ignorant, the sick, the old, the foolish and the unlucky suffer the consequences of their various disabilities; it is good that they are victimized by the clever and rapacious; good that they sink to the bottom of society. Their misery serves as a salutary lesson for the rest of us, motivating us to be the exploiters, not the exploited, and, providentially, they also provide a source of cheap labor, which the economy requires.”

First off, there is little evidence that the contemporary Republicans in Washington have much less of an opinion of big government than the Democrats do. Truncated to a single line, we could fairly accurately characterize the actions of the Republicans as being for big government, and the Democrats as being for bigger government. An ancillary to the latter corollary could be, in the era of Obama, they advocate explosively burgeoning, liberty infringing, generational debt-producing government.

I can’t speak for Republicans, for I feel that the party has to a large extent divorced itself from its principled roots. But from a conservative or classical-liberal perspective, we hold to Thomas Jefferson’s mantra, “That government governs best which governs least.” That’s why there were specific functions identified in the Constitution at the time of the founding that articulated precisely what the government had the power to do. That great masterwork further declared that all rights and powers not enumerated to the federal government were reserved to the people and the states. It was written so precisely as to “guarantee” maximum individual freedom while restricting government’s ability to make us subservient to it.  

In most basic terms, the premise for conservatives is “viva la liberté.” For with every expansion of government, individual freedom is further eroded. With every trillion dollar spending plan or budget, our economic freedom is further encroached, since those funds will come out of our pockets. Many of us live on fixed incomes, and when government seeks to increase taxes on everything from energy consumption, to health care, income, property, and even soda pop, our economic liberty is assaulted. Increased regulatory and statutory control over our lives, combined with restrictions on our constitutionally guaranteed rights serve additionally as an affront to liberty. In short, when government expands its reach, liberty is sacrificed.

Now let’s see if Mr. Hitchcock’s unflattering depiction of conservatives as miserly holds up. Last year, Arthur C. Brooks of Syracuse University, authored a book titled “Who Really Cares:The Surprising Truth About Compassionate Conservatism” based on massive data research which surprised even the author, an avowed independent. Perhaps the most comprehensive analysis of the subject, Brooks discovered that although liberal families’ incomes average six percent higher than those of conservative families, conservative households give, on average, 30 percent more to charity than the average liberal household. He also found that conservatives also donate more time and give more blood. And here’s the real knock-out punch; those who disagree with the notion that “government has a responsibility to reduce income inequality” give an average of four times more than people who accept that proposition. Read that last line one more time just to let it sink in.

So not only is it erroneous to refer to “rich conservatives,” since liberals average six percent more in income, so is it erroneous to, even satirically, characterize conservatives as miserly and penurious. Conservatives apparently give, while liberals think the government should. The logical deduction is that conservatives are charitable with their own money, while liberals are magnanimous with others’.