The Press-Dispatch
Issue link: https://www.ifoldsflip.com/i/1064171
The Press-Dispatch Wednesday, December 19, 2018 C-11 OPINION Submit Letters to the Editor: Letters must be signed and received by noon on Mondays. Email: editor@pressdispatch.net or bring in a hard copy: 820 E. Poplar Street, Petersburg If America's auto manufactur- ers wrote letters to Santa, it's not hard to guess what would be high on their lists: retaining the feder- al tax credit for electric vehicles. For several years now, Uncle Sam (who often acts like Santa's U.S.-based cousin) has tried to en- courage the public to buy electric vehicles (EVs) by offering those who do so a tax credit of up to $7,500. But the credit wasn't created to be available forever, and it already caps out when a manufacturer has sold 200,000 EVs. General Motors, which is more than happy to have taxpayer mon- ey propping up part of its busi- ness, wants the credit made per- manent and the cap lifted. So do other auto manufacturers, such as Nissan and Tesla. Many lawmak- ers on both sides of the aisle seem more than happy to give them what they want. Guess who isn't? President Trump. When General Motors re- cently announced plant closings and a 15 percent cut in its work- force, the president said he was "looking at cutting all GM sub- sidies, including for electric cars." As well he should. Government has no business interfering in the market and try- ing to push consum- ers to buy what they don't want. And it's even more galling when lawmak- ers use taxpayer money to do it. This type of cronyism is bad enough on principle alone. But it gets worse in the case of EV tax credits. For one thing, the cost is borne disproportionately by lower- and fixed-income families who can't af- ford electric vehicles. Who's tak- ing advantage of the subsidies? Primarily America's wealthiest households. They don't need a tax break to afford an EV, but hey, if it's there, they'll take it. So, in an ironic twist, we have the government tak- ing money from a wide swath of Ameri- cans, including those on the low end of the income scale, to put those who are more well off into "green" vehicles. The Pacific Re- search Institute found that in 2014, 79 per- cent of electric vehicle tax credits went to households making over $100,000, while 99 percent of them went to households making at least $50,000. Auto manufacturers, like any other company, should base their decisions about what to make sole- ly on what customers want — not on what government wants them to want. If people want EVs, fine. But it should be their free choice, not The magic of Christmas... My Point of View by Dr. H. K. Fenol, Jr., M.D. In a few days we will be celebrat- ing one of the greatest events that changed the history of mankind and of our lives. It is interesting to know year after year, this Holy- days awaken in us different things. By this I mean the joys of connect- ing with so many people we other- wise would not have done. To our love ones, friends and acquain- tances we send and receive ma- ny Christmas cards and electron- ic greetings. We get excited buying gifts and giving them to those we care about. We get a thrill receiving gifts from them as well. We get busy decorating our work place as well as our homes. We get phone calls from those whom we have not heard from for sometime. We make calls to those who we feel we need to hear from: relatives, friends, love ones, long forgotten acquaintances who seem to have faded from our lives. We get to thinking great meals that would enhance our gather- ings. And of course we get to at- tend Church services as we cel- ebrate this spiritual event. Even places and countries who do not subscribe to our faith do some form of celebration during this time of the year. So that to me is the magic of Christmas. ****** So is it not, that our happy child- hood memories are a way to con- nect to our adulthood memories of Christmas? Think about the times we had gathered for meals, the times we had seen our children get excit- One of the most recognized as- pects of Christianity is the cross. It symbolizes the suffering of Je- sus as the Savior of mankind. In the opening pages of the gospel of Matthew, the reader is introduced to the cross: "And he who does not take his cross and follow after Me is not worthy of Me." The reader of this time period would have understood the impli- cation of that statement. The cross was an instrument of barbaric exe- cution used by the Romans. It con- sisted of two parts: a stake and a crossbeam. The condemned would often be forced to carry upon his shoulders the crossbeam, which would weigh close to 100 pounds. The symbolism is unmistakable; to be a disciple of Jesus one must carry the weight of a cross [beam] as 1) a sign of being a condemned sinner, and 2) a sign that being a disciple of Jesus will not be easy, and may be burdensome. To carry or bear one's cross is about discipleship, not necessarily about persecution and martyrdom, though the implication is there. As we continue further down- ward from the Christianized cul- ture of our forefathers, the disciple of Jesus is forced to make deci- sions about where to take a stand against the insidious intrusion into daily life of those whom the social jus- tice warriors and pro- gressives have made their target for not as- cribing to the "new norm." Make no mistake! The progres- sives in their own conceit are cul- turally superior, and anyone who does not ascribe to their ideolo- gy is a deplorable and worthy of hounding, ridicule, and shunning [that is the new norm]. Recently Peter Vlaming, a teach- er at West Point, Virginia, High School, was on the receiving end of the "new norm." A female student informed the high school last summer that she was transitioning to male and wanted to be referred to by male gender terms. In an incident at the school sev- eral weeks ago, Vlaming used the pronoun "she" in a conversation with oth- er teachers, but that conversation was not directed at the transi- tioning student. Teachers com- plained to Principal Jonathan Hochman who discussed the in- cident with Vlaming, who said, "He would not use male pronouns." He did of- fer to use the student's name and to avoid feminine pronouns, but the school was unwilling to accept the compromise. West Point Schools Superinten- dent Laura Abel said at a board meeting to decide his future as a teacher remarked "that discrimi- nation then leads to creating a hos- tile learning environment. And the student had expressed that. The parent had expressed that; they felt disrespected." He was fired by a unanimous vote by the school board. Points to Ponder by Rev. Ford Bond Don't fall upon any Cross Continued on page 12 Continued on page 12 Continued on page 12 Minority View by Walter E. Williams Acceptable racism? Continued on page 12 Continued on page 12 Continued on page 12 How appropriate would it be for a major publicly held American company to hire a person with a history of having publicly made the following statements and ma- ny others like them? (In the inter- est of brevity, I shall list only four.) "The world could get by just fine with zero black people." "It's kind of sick how much joy I get out of be- ing cruel to old black men." "Black people marking up the internet with their opinions like dogs piss- ing on fire hydrants." "Are black people genetically predisposed to burn faster in the sun, thus logi- cally only being fit to live under- ground like groveling bilious gob- lins? " I think most Americans would find such blatant racism despica- ble and would condemn any com- pany that knowingly hired such a person. Leftists of every stripe would be in an uproar, demanding the dismissal of such an employ- ee. College students and their pro- fessors would picket any company that hired such a person. I could be wrong about this, so I'd truly like any employer who'd hire such a person to come forward. Most Americans would see such statements as racist, but consid- er this: Suppose we slightly changed the wording of each state- ment, replacing the word "black" with "white." For example, "The world could get by just fine with zero white people." Would you consider that state- ment to be just as rac- ist? I would hope you'd answer in the affirmative. They're all racist statements! The full scoop on those state- ments can be found in an excellent essay by William Voegeli, "Rac- ism, Revised," in the fall edition of the Claremont Review of Books. The racist statements about white people were made by Sarah Jeong, one of the newest members of The New York Times' editorial board. Jeong attended the University of California, Berkeley and Harvard Law School. She decided to be- come a journalist specializing in technology and the internet. She has an active Twitter account with over 97,000 followers. One person excused Jeong's tweets by saying they "were not racist" but merely "jokes about white people." Leftists have been taught utter non- sense by their col- lege professors. The most insidious lesson taught is who can and who cannot be a rac- ist. Jeong was born in South Korea in 1988 and became a U.S. cit- izen in 2017, so she is a minority. According to the thinking of aca- demia's intellectual elite, a minor- ity person cannot be a racist. The reason is that minorities don't have the political, economic and institu- tional power to adversely affect the lives of whites. Such reasoning is beyond stu- pid. Here's a test. Is the following statement racist? "Jews are mon- ey-hungry hustlers." Before you answer, must you first find out the race of the person making the statement? Would you suggest that it's not a racist statement if the speaker is black but it is if he's Ending the electric-car subsidy Heritage Viewpoint by Edwin J. Feulner Pursuit of the Cure by Star Parker Lucid Moments By Bart Stinson Family breakdown explains social unrest Attorney General left large shoes to fill As France is gripped by civil dis- order, many commentators iden- tify, quite correctly, as the culprit the outsized burden that France's bloated welfare state places on its citizens. According a recent report from the Organization for Economic Co- operation and Development, the highest tax burden in the indus- trialized world is in France — 46.1 percent of GDP. In the United States, it is 27 per- cent, which includes taxes paid at all levels of government — feder- al, state and local. Welfare state spending in France is 32 percent of GDP, al- most double that of the U.S., mean- ing that 1 out of every 3 dollars generated by the French econo- my is captured by the government and redistributed into social/wel- fare spending. But let's recall that all this gov- ernment was put in place in the name of making life better for France's citizens. There's plenty of analysis re- garding the French situation, as there is in our own country, about how to streamline and reform gov- ernment programs and deliver the same quality of services at a re- duced spending and tax burden on citizens. But these discussions invariably fail to look at the full scope of hu- man reality at play. The vast expansion of the wel- fare state, both in Europe and in the United States, occurred in tan- dem with a weakening of the fam- ily. And weakening of the family generally occurs in an environ- ment of weakening of religion. When I speak and tell audienc- es that today 4 in 10 babies in the United States are born to unwed mothers, compared with less than 1 in 10 babies 50 years ago, I hear gasps. But in France, out of wedlock births stand at 6 in 10. Not surprisingly, a recent sur- vey by Pew Research of 34 Euro- pean countries shows France to be one of the least religious. Eleven percent in France say re- ligion is very important in the their lives; 22 percent say they attend religious services at least month- ly; 11 percent say they pray daily; and 11 percent say they believe in God with absolute certainty. This is in stark contrast to the United States, where 49 percent say religion is very important to them; 36 percent say they attend religious services at least weekly; 55 percent say they pray daily; and 75 percent say they believe in God. Only 47 percent of French peo- ple say marriage infidelity is mor- ally unacceptable compared with 84 percent of Americans. So although the hold of Christi- anity on the American public has weakened over the years, com- pared with France it remains a quite strong force. This has important bearing on the welfare state crisis, at home and abroad. As religion weakens, family structure weakens, and as family structure weakens, government strengthens and grows. Where people once looked to their par- ents to transmit values, love and care, increasingly they are looking to government. The problem is that it doesn't work. Traditional family and marriage reflect eternal values that cannot be replaced by government. These values — where husband and wife join in holy matrimony, embody- ing and transmitting truth that is greater than their own personal, egotistical proclivities — trans- late to children, learning, work, creativity and productivity. In 1958, 82 percent of Ameri- cans said religion can solve "most or all of today's problems" and 7 percent said religion is "old-fash- ioned and out of date." By 2015, 57 percent said religion can solve our problems and 30 percent said reli- gious is "out of date." Over this period of time, Amer- President Trump reported that when former Attorney General Jeff Sessions recused himself from the Russian collusion investigation, he asked himself, "What kind of man is this? " Although he intended it as a rhetorical question, I think it's a question that deserves an answer. Jeff Sessions was a stubborn- ly ethical and patriotic public ser- vant who deserves our enduring gratitude. Long after Americans forget the allegations of collabora- tion with Russian mischief-makers, our grandchildren will live with the consequences of uncontrolled im- migration. And nobody has been more steadfast in regaining control of our borders and of immigration than Jeff Sessions. He worked almost two years with a sword poised over his neck. And he really worked. As recently as September, he closed off a catch- and-release loophole that enabled phony asylum seekers to slip away into the American labor market while the U.S. bureaucracy adjudi- cated their petitions. He also restricted the leeway of immigration judges to bestow leni- ency on law-breaking immigrants. He increased hiring of immigration judges and ordered them to hear more cases per judge. In staffing the immigration courts, Sessions preferred applicants with prosecu- tion experience. Immigration judges aren't part of the judiciary. They're adminis- trative decision-makers within the executive branch. But they have come to think of themselves as re-