By Richard Larsen

Published – Idaho State Journal, Published 11/22/09

It’s been said that life is what happens while we’re making other plans. It seems characteristic of human nature that in the process of eking out our existence and dealing with the vicissitudes of life, we sometimes are remiss in reflecting on the bigger picture and the bounties that are ours.

Our bounties are many, and we have to start with America herself. Our great country was conceived by the Declaration of Independence which proclaims that life and liberty are the inalienable gifts of God - natural rights - which no person or government can rightfully take away, and affirms that these are indeed God-given rights, not bestowed by man or governments. It affirms that the purpose of government is to secure our God-given inalienable individual rights, and that government derives its powers from the consent of the governed. Our Declaration reduced government from master to servant for the first time in history.

Our United States of America is not perfect. No temporal entity operated by man can be, yet the principles upon which this country is founded are divine in nature, and the resulting government by and for the people, originally was the most ennobling and free on earth. The Pilgrims early on realized freedom in commerce was concomitant with political freedom, and rejected communism, presaging the current struggle for the future of America.

The American people are the most giving in history. When there are calamities, conflicts, and just causes, Americans are there either as volunteers or giving generously of their means to assist. As Alexis de Tocqueville said, “America is great because America is good.”

We must always be grateful to our men and women in uniform who vigilantly ensure our liberties, freedom, and security on a daily basis. I am reminded of a list of truisms that declare: it is the veteran, not the preacher, who has given us freedom of religion. It is the veteran, not the reporter, who has given us freedom of the press. It is the veteran, not the poet, who has given us freedom of speech. It is the veteran, not the campus organizer, who has given us freedom to assemble. It is the veteran, not the lawyer, who has given us the right to a fair trial. It is the veteran, not the politician, who has given us the right to vote. Without their service, what we know as America would not be, and we would conceivably all be speaking German.

Idaho is a magnificent place to live and to raise a family. Tucked away in the midst of the Rocky Mountains, Idaho affords an environment that is relatively unaffected by many of the evils and social scourges that modern society contends with. We can walk to the park and downtown, and perambulate around our neighborhoods mostly without the fears and apprehensions associated with urban milieus. And here in Pocatello we’re literally within minutes of magnificent forests with clean, flowing streams, lush vegetation, and indigenous wildlife.

With the prevailing value system, Pocatello is a perfect place to raise a family. Largely absent are the pestilences and curses of more urban settings, while an attitude of friendliness and neighborliness prevails. Pocatello is small enough we can claim one another as brothers and sisters even if no other immediate family members live here.

Gratitude and thankful hearts require a degree of humility. The world doesn’t owe us anything, but in humility, we are thankful for what we do have and what freedoms and privileges are ours.

By Richard Larsen

Published – Idaho State Journal, Published 11/15/09

This past week not only commemorated the 20th anniversary of the fall of the Berlin Wall, it also marked the 45th anniversary of Ronald Reagan’s immortal “rendezvous with destiny” speech. It could hardly be considered coincidental that the most ardent foe of totalitarianism who arguably played the most pivotal role in the dismantling of Soviet Block oppression and totalitarianism would have one of his crowning achievements celebrated in conjunction with his immortal clarion call of freedom.

“I think it's time we ask ourselves if we still know the freedoms that were intended for us by the Founding Fathers…The idea that government is beholden to the people, that it has no other source of power except the sovereign people, is still the newest and the most unique idea in all the long history of man’s relation to man. This is the issue of this election, whether we believe in our capacity for self-government or whether we abandon the American Revolution and confess that a little intellectual elite in a far-distant capital can plan our lives for us better than we can plan them ourselves. You and I are told increasingly we have to choose between a left or right. Well, I'd like to suggest there is no such thing as a left or right. There's only an up or down. Man's age-old dream, the ultimate in individual freedom consistent with law and order, or down to the ant heap of totalitarianism.”

Reagan spent his life advancing those founding principles of freedom upon which this country was established, and vehemently decried the oppression of the totalitarian regimes of Eastern Europe. Just two years before the symbol of communist oppression was torn down by freedom seeking Germans, Reagan stood before the wall in Brandenburg and challenged the Soviet Premier, “Mr. Gorbachev, tear down this wall.”

Erected in 1961 to prevent the mass exodus of oppressed East Germans fleeing the dismal, blighted, hopeless existence imposed by communism, the Berlin Wall became the symbol of human oppression. It not only physically prevented escape from communist and socialist oppression, it represented the psychological prison of the communist system where individuals and liberty counted for naught, and all that mattered was the state and the masses.

It represented the dismal failure of the promise of communism to the masses: “From each according to his ability, to each according to his needs,” an aphorism gaining in acceptability by our “leaders” in Washington. The 1500 souls fleeing East Germany daily for freedom, and away from the “promises” of socialism, clearly illustrated that not everyone was granted according to his needs. Else, why risk life, limb, and family, for the uncertainty and risk-filled existence in the West which had not the “assurances” of cradle-to-grave security communism claimed to afford? They pined for freedom!

Ronald Reagan stood heads and shoulders above all others in articulating the depravity of the communist principles, and extolling the ennobling, enriching, and fulfilling qualities of freedom in stark contrast thereto. And while there were growing socialistic tendencies within the United States years ago when he uttered those inspiring words, his greatest concern was of the growing threat from without our borders: the Soviet tanks, missiles, and nuclear arsenal poised to vanquish freedom from western civilization and coerce upon all flesh, the ignoble, character-killing, meaninglessness of “the common good.”

We have no Berlin Wall now, separating the free from the oppressed. But we have “Berlin Walls” being constructed, even as we speak, which symbolize just as efficaciously the oppression of coercive, totalitarian government on the people. They are symbols of government ascendency and superiority over the individual which curtail liberty. The Berlin Walls now being constructed are not in Europe, for Europeans have learned their lesson, and are moving more and more away from the principles represented by the Berlin Wall. No, the walls are now being constructed in our own country. They originate as pieces of legislation, and then are signed into our legal codex as dictums to the masses. We must buy health insurance, or be fined or imprisoned. We must pay for a bailout of unsound financial institutions. We must pay for failing auto makers to keep them limping along, a mere shadow of their previous greatness. We must declare our firearms on our tax returns. We must allow the use of our money to fund the infanticide of the unborn. We must pay exorbitant taxes on our energy use in order to “save the planet.” We must risk the very future of the nation in order to feed the insatiable spending appetite of politicians seeking to expand their political base.

By Richard Larsen

Published – Idaho State Journal, Published 11/08/09

To an extent, both major political parties can claim some victories from Tuesday’s elections. But there are some certainties that can be gleaned from the outcomes, one of which is that President Obama’s Midas touch is now gone. Having actively campaigned for gubernatorial incumbents Jon Corzine in New Jersey, and Creigh Deeds in Virginia, Obama’s efforts in their behalf were rebuffed, as both lost, and Deeds, handily. Considering the national mood, they may well have lost because of Obama, rather than in spite of him.

As important as the outcomes were for many, perhaps more significant is the pattern which seems to be in evidence. That pattern looms even larger in light of comments after last year’s election which had all but buried the last vestiges of the GOP.

After a disastrous attempt to force socialized medicine on the country during Clinton’s first term, voters swung the political pendulum away from the power grab by gaining the Virginia and New Jersey governorships in 1993. What followed in 1994 was a record gain by Republicans as they retook control of the House and the Senate after maintaining minority status for over 40 years.

As former Clinton advisor D. Morris points out, the election outcomes for Virginia this week are virtually identical with 1993 results. The Clinton administration backed the Democrat candidate, Mary Sue Terry for governor. Terry lost by a 58% to 41% margin, virtually identical with Deeds’ margin of defeat this week.

In New Jersey, the pattern is equally evident, as the 1993 election featured Democrat Jim Florio seeking reelection against Republican Christie Todd Whitman. The race was close but Whitman, who later served as EPA Administrator in the Bush administration, pulled off the upset. So likewise for 2009, the New Jersey gubernatorial race was close but Democrat incumbent governor Jon Corzine was defeated by former US Attorney Chris Christie in one of the most liberal states in the country. Christie’s victory marks the first statewide election victory by a Republican in New Jersey in 12 years.

The compelling question is whether the trend will continue into 2010 as it did in 1994, when all 435 congressmen and a third of the senators are up for reelection. It probably has much more to do with which party is most motivated next year. Based on this year’s election results, the Tea (Taxed Enough Already) Parties, and massive demonstrations across the land against administration policies and congressional actions infringing on individual liberty, it would appear that the right of the political spectrum is most motivated for the time being. I have a sneaking hunch that the chagrin over how the country has lurched left will not subside by then.

The economic climate is much different now than it was in 1993 or 1994. By 1993 the minor recession at the end of the George H. W. Bush administration was already ended, unemployment was hovering at about 7% and dropping, while now it is at 10.2%, and likely to go higher before it begins to improve. Also, the budget deficit was narrowing at that time, in stark contrast to the monstrous deficit created in just ten months that dwarfs the government debt of the previous 233 years. While GDP has turned positive for the third quarter ‘09, there can be no real improvement on main street unless the employment picture begins to improve.

If the hubris manifest by the administration and congressional leaders continues unabated after this electoral rebuke in New Jersey and Virginia, many of them, including Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, could be adding to that 10% unemployment rate. And many of us will rejoice at them being in the unemployment lines they created.

There is no doubt that statistically the country is more conservative than liberal. As I have mentioned before, question D3 on the bipartisan Battleground Poll provides the evidence. 60% of the American electorate considers itself to be at least somewhat conservative.

Many of that majority didn’t bother to vote last year since they didn’t feel like they had a horse in the race. If they truly care about this country, you can bet they won’t be sitting out the next few elections.

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.