The Press-Dispatch
Issue link: https://www.ifoldsflip.com/i/1111651
The Press-Dispatch Wednesday, May 1, 2019 C-5 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 Preparing for emergencies My Point of View by Dr. H. K. Fenol, Jr., M.D. About a week and a half ago, I had a chance to participate in a Local Health Department Emer- gency Preparedness table top ex- ercise. I think to date I have done about six of them in the past two decades. It took place in our new Health Department Office located at the south wing of the old Peters- burg gym. If you have not visited the place yet, drop by and take a brief tour and see how nice the office looks like. This time the exercise was about how we as a community will respond to a biological agent release occurring either by acci- dental or intentional means. What impressed me is the pres- ence of many participants repre- senting their various occupations, professions and departments- such as Law enforcement, EMS, Emer- gency Preparedness Agency, 911 Dispatch, the City of Petersburg Services, Fire Department, Dis- trict 10 emergency preparedness coordinator, Red Cross, Gibson County and Knox County Health FoxNews in a recent report sug- gested that the United Methodist Church is on the verge of a split over the denial of LGBT inclusion in the ordained ministry. The root cause of the issue arose at a General Conference in Febru- ary 2019, where the Church con- tinued the ban on the ordaining of gay clergy, the use of Methodist Churches for same-sex weddings, and clergy are forbidden to per- form same-sex marriages. I do not expect the United Meth- odist Church to splinter anytime soon. Too much is at stake, and it will take years if it does. I am a bit bewildered as to why a group of no more than 4 percent of the adult population can wield so much power and demand that the church change its orthodox doc- trine under threat of schism. There is something larger at work here than LGBT inclusion. Be mindful that there are 2 bil- lion people worldwide who claim to be Christian, and the majority re- sides outside of the United States and Europe, and are not involved in the discussion of LGBT rights of inclusion. Therein, lies the answer as to what the demand for inclusion is actually about: the redefinition of Orthodoxy. The progressive wing of Christiani- ty asserts that those within the church who cling to Orthodox be- liefs are "bible idola- ters" in holding to the cliché "The Bible said it; it is so! " The progressives generally use the following approach to biblical interpretation: Open the Bible daily and read it Listen for God to speak through it Pray the Scriptures Seek to be led by the Bible's ma- jor themes Studies the Bible carefully Seek to understand the histori- cal and cultural context Reads its minor chords in light of its major chords Seek to live the Bible each day Few Bible believing Chris- tians would disagree with this ap- proach; however, there is one ele- ment missing. "What has the church taught [Orthodox beliefs] across the centuries? " This makes a world of difference. For almost a centu- ry, Orthodox Christi- anity has been fight- ing against a deter- mined adversary. The opening salvo be- tween modernists [progressives] and orthodox [fundamentalists] occurred Sunday, May 21, 1922, when Pastor Harry Emerson Fos- dick, of New York's First Presby- terian Church, delivered the mes- sage "Shall the Fundamentalists Win? " Fosdick contrasted "Funda- mentalists" with the "Evangelical Churches," which actually meant Liberal Protestantism. Though Fosdick used the term Fundamen- talists to describe a segment of the church, his use was meant to be a slight aimed at Orthodox Christi- Points to Ponder by Rev. Ford Bond Set for the defense Continued on page 6 Continued on page 6 Continued on page 6 Minority View by Walter E. Williams Justice Kavanaugh and GMU snowflakes Continued on page 6 Continued on page 6 George Mason University's An- tonin Scalia Law School hired Su- preme Court Associate Justice Brett Kavanaugh to co-teach a course this summer called Creation of the Constitution. The course will be held 3,668 miles away, in Run- nymede, England, where the Mag- na Carta was sealed 800 years ago. Some George Mason University students and faculty have become triggered. One student told George Mason's Board of Visitors, "It has affected my mental health know- ing that an abuser will be part of our faculty." Another said, "The hiring of Kavanaugh threatens the mental well-being of all survivors on this campus." The Washington Post reports that a petition to fire Kavanaugh has gathered almost 3,500 signatures and has the en- dorsement of George Mason Dem- ocrats. GMU students have creat- ed separate forms for parents and alumni to pledge that they will not donate to the university so long as Kavanaugh is teaching. Part of student demonstrations included defacing a statue of the university's namesake George Mason by putting blue tape on his mouth and attaching anti-Kavana- ugh signs. The university's spokes- man Michael Sandler gave The College Fix a mealy- mouthed excuse say- ing, "We allow stu- dents to dress up the statue, so this doesn't violate any policies that I'm aware of." He said the university "strong- ly supports freedom of expression and this would seem to fall into that category." His vi- sion suggests that freedom of ex- pression includes defacing univer- sity property. Youngsters with little under- standing might be forgiven for their protest of a U.S. Supreme Court as- sociate justice sharing his wisdom with law students. But faculty mem- bers cannot be excused. Professor Bethany Letiecq, the head of the George Mason chapter of the Amer- ican Association of University Pro- fessors, endorsed a call by UnKoch My Campus, another leftist group, for a congressional investigation of GMU's law school's hiring of Jus- tice Kavanaugh as an adjunct fac- ulty member. Fortunately for civil- ity, Dr. Angel Cabrera, the universi- ty's president, said that there were no legitimate grounds for an inves- tigation by the univer- sity. He threw a bit of pablum to the protest- ers by saying: "I re- spect the views of peo- ple who disagreed with Justice Kavanaugh's Senate confirmation due to questions raised about his sexual con- duct in high school. But he was confirmed and is now a sitting Justice." Consid- ering that a college president is al- so a politician, that statement dem- onstrates good judgment. Accord- ing to The College Fix, after listen- ing to the student protestors speak during the board meeting, Cabre- ra and Board of Visitors rector Tom Davis said they were proud of the students and appreciated that they spoke up and acted as engaged cit- izens. That's nonsense. I receive many questions from people around the nation who are surprised by the happenings at GMU. As I have advised on numer- ous occasions, George Mason Uni- versity erroneously earns a reputa- Continued on page 6 Eradicate poverty? We already know how Heritage Viewpoint by Edwin J. Feulner Pursuit of the Cure by Star Parker Late bloomers show the strength of America Lucid Moments By Bart Stinson Sleepless in Indianapolis With all the attention the nation- al debate between socialism and capitalism is getting, a new book has arrived on the scene that casts valuable perspective. The book is "Late Bloomers: The Power of Patience in a World Obsessed with Early Achieve- ment," written by Forbes Maga- zine publisher Rich Karlgaard. Karlgaard takes on the cult of youth that is capturing so much of our popular culture, particularly on the left. He reminds us in this important book that life is about learning, ac- cumulation of wisdom, self-renew- al and, in the best cases, prevailing against adversity. These are all the fruits of age and experience. A late bloomer, says Karlgaard, is "a person who fulfils their poten- tial later than expected; they often have talents that aren't visible to others initially. The key word here is expected." And he goes on to tell stories of individuals who faced frustration and even disillusion- ment in their youth and went on to great achievement later in life. This, in contrast to "early bloom- ers" — personalities such as Face- book founder Mark Zuckerberg who, at age 23, was the youngest self-made billionaire to ever ap- pear on Forbes Magazine's bil- lionaire list. But what is missed by those who look with awe at these youth- ful achievers is that the most im- portant lesson to be learned is of- ten the exact lesson that is missed. That lesson is that youthful suc- cess should be taken with humili- ty and gratitude, because it is the product of natural gifts and good fortune. The late bloomer, on the other hand, who struggles to find his or her way, who has the character to transcend disappointment, build anew and, in the end, accumulate valuable wisdom is the model in life who should get far more atten- tion than is afforded in our culture. What lessons lie here for the so- cialism vs. capitalism debate? My grandson and I are back from our road trip to Indianapolis, where we drove up for the National Rifle Association Annual Meetings & Exhibits. Admission was free for us members, about 75,000 of us, and 15 acres of gun-related exhib- its beckoned to enthusiasts. Longtime readers of this col- umn may recall that I am not a gun enthusiast. I don't know much about guns, and I'm not very curi- ous. Yes, I had to shoot them and clean them when I was in the Ar- my, but I haven't shot one for fun since I was in junior high school. I am, however, a freedom en- thusiast. I am therefore a Second Amendment true believer. We live in a diverse and conten- tious nation. I don't believe for a moment that we have avoided dic- tatorship and genocide because we are too altruistic and high-mind- ed for such things. Our republic and we, within it, have been pro- tected by the deterrent effect of the widespread private and anon- ymous ownership of firearms and ammunition. That Constitutional right to keep and bear arms will always be under siege. "Freedom," as Ronald Reagan observed, "is never more than one generation away from ex- tinction." The NR A has been a po- tent, principled defender and coun- ter-puncher against those who conspire against our civil right to own and supply the technology to protect ourselves and our republic. The NR A is a nonprofit corpora- tion with an unusually large board of directors. Maybe there's anoth- er one with 76 directors, but I don't know of it. I've often thought how thrilling the board meetings must have been, kind of like a sports fan- tasy camp, except that you got to rub elbows with Ted Nugent, Al- len West, Ollie North and Wayne LaPierre. Executive Vice President Wayne LaPierre has often been one of my heroes, standing up against fierce and hysterical public attacks when milder, meeker men (like me) might have wilted. And so I'm sentimental about the NR A, deep- ly committed to its success, and protective against its detractors. Imagine my dismay, then, to read about the lawsuit it filed in suburban Washington DC this month against Ackerman Mc - Queen, its Oklahoma City-based vendor for public-relations work, event planning, social media and digital content production. For a generation, Ackerman has shaped the message of the NR A. I have no criticism of Acker- man's work product. In fact, I think much of it has been inspired, whether the late Charlton Heston's "cold dead hands" speech nearly 20 years ago, or Charlie Daniels' 2016 warning to the ayatollahs that heartlanders will defend our coun- try with "bloody, calloused bare hands" if we have to. But Ackerman billed NR A for $42.6 million in 2017. You've got to accept the highest level of trans- parency and accountability when you're invoicing that kind of mon- ey. And it appears that Ackerman's not living up to that. The public relations firm has sent the NR A vague and incom- plete invoices, which is not a scan- dal. But when NR A employees did their job and insisted on clar- ification, their superiors retaliat- ed against them. Therein lies the scandal. Many of the most consci- entious employees no longer work at NR A. It appears that good stew- ards are seen as a nuisance by the senior executive staff. Part of the problem is that key NR A personnel are also on the Ackerman payroll, including Pres- ident Oliver North. North was not, so far as I know, part of the clique that drove stubbornly ethical em- ployees out. In fact, he is leading the drive to hold LaPierre account- able for financial misconduct. But even here, his credibility is undermined by his divided loy- alties between the NR A and its main vendor. One of the NR A's le- gal complaints against Ackerman is the vendor's refusal to provide a copy of its contract with North. He was coy when asked to provide his own copy of the contract, saying he'd need Ackerman's consent to Want to help the poor? Champi- on free enterprise. That flouts the conventional wisdom — at least as it's present- ed by many politicians and "main- stream" media outlets. They would have us believe that free enterprise (or to use their preferred bogey- man, capitalism) exacerbates pov- erty. In fact, they think we can't help the poor without a heavy dose of socialism. But the facts aren't on their side. They have the equation ex- actly backwards. What alleviates poverty isn't so much government doing something. It's government getting out of the way. "Democratic capitalism has do- ne more to pull people out of pov- erty than any other system in the history of humanity," best-selling author Arthur Brooks says in a re- cent video for the Daily Signal. He recalls the stark pictures found in National Geographic magazine in the early 1970s, illus- trating the famine that was killing hundreds of thousands of people in east A frica. Seeing these poor chil- dren with distended bellies and flies on their faces was heartbreak- ing, but the message, Mr. Brooks recalls, was that noth- ing could be done. "Even as a little kid, I knew the char- ity wasn't going to get it done," says Mr. Brooks, the president of the American En- terprise Institute. "It was a hopeless feel- ing." So one would hard- ly expect conditions to have im- proved for the world's poor in the decades since then. And yet, unbe- knownst to most people, they have. Some 70 percent of Americans think that hunger has gotten worse since 1970. But it's not true: 80 percent of starvational poverty has been eradicated in the last 50 years. Poverty still exists, to be sure, but has been substantial- ly reduced since Mr. Brooks saw those searing images in National Geographic. "Since 1970, the percentage of the world's population living on the equivalent of less than a dollar a day has fallen by more than 80 per- cent," he wrote in a 2012 Washing- ton Post article. "Hun- dreds of millions of people have been pulled out of grinding deprivation." Can we thank U.S. foreign aid, or some well-crafted U.N. de- velopment project? Those are the rem- edies usually touted by pundits and politi- cians. Nope. It was free trade. In China, for example, some 400 million were pulled out of ab- solute poverty between 1981 and 2001, thanks to free trade and for- eign investment. People can rail all they want about globalization, but it's made a huge difference in the lives of poor people who would oth- erwise languish and die. At The Heritage Foundation, we've been documenting the ef- fect of free enterprise for years with our Index of Economic Free- dom. This annual guide takes a