The Press-Dispatch
Issue link: https://www.ifoldsflip.com/i/1260401
The Press-Dispatch Opinion Wednesday, June 17, 2020 B- 9 was about $1.54.The catch? You pay cash, written in small letters. Gotcha deal, I knew that. We never had trouble finding fuel or food, but things do look different. 80 % of people wore masks, especially in the south- ern states. We bought our food mostly through drive- through because the fast food restaurants had their dining section cordoned off. All cashier sections had Plexiglas and workers all wore masks and gloves. Food was served rath- er quickly. Convenience stores were the busiest, and social distancing was observed the majority of time. Very few stores had not opened their restrooms to the public. Hotels were not hard to find, and because they do not serve continental breakfasts, and rarely had swimming pools open, pric- es for accommodation were significantly lower (about two thirds of the usual price). From the highway, shop- ping malls and large de- partment stores that I could see seemed to be op- erating at a 50 -70 % park- ing lot capacity. One good thing I noticed as we went to stores for whatever, ev- eryone seems to be more polite and laid back and less hurried. It seems out of what ap- peared to be a miserable tragedy, good things can come out, too, if we follow the Golden Rule. I think our Country is coming out of a deep slumber. We are Americans who are resil- ient and possessed of a unique great character. Like a sleeping giant, we will continue to awaken, and revitalize our lives and our economy, with God's unfailing love and help. that poisons and divides our country is the insis- tence of the powerful to see everyone through the lens of race, placing one's race ahead of one's human- ity. The result is the isola- tion and separation of the "black community" that they claim to care so much about from the community of the nation and the entire community of God. Star Parker is president of the Center for Urban Renew- al and Education and au- thor of the new book "Nec- essary Noise: How Donald Trump Inflames the Culture War and Why This is Good News for America." Read- ers can respond to Star's column by emailing editor@ CureAmerica.News. Continued from page 8 CONFUSE Court Report FELONY Pike County Circuit Court Harley E. DeWeese charged with child molest- ing, a level 1 felony. Sheila M. Cash charged with count I unlawful pos- session of a syringe, a level 6 felony, and count II know- ingly or intentionally oper- ating motor vehicle without ever receiving a license. TRAFFIC AND MISDEMEANOR Pike County Circuit Court Juan G. Guerrero-Mad- rigal charged with count I operating a vehicle with an ACE equivalent to .15 or more and count II reckless driving. Nicole L. Powell charged with criminal mischief. Matthew Hall charged with battery resulting in bodily injury. Jerramy D. Barfknecht charged with operating a vehicle with an ACE equiv- alent to at least .08 but less than .15. Casey Dale Fleetwood charged with count I pos- session of marijuana and count II possession of par- aphernalia. Anthony S. Pride charged with operating a vehicle while intoxicated. CIVIL Pike County Circuit Court Midland Credit Manage- ment, Inc. sues Christo- pher Britton on complaint. Portfolio Recovery As- sociates, LLC sues Amy Walker on complaint. CKS Prime Investments, LLC sues Melissa Beadles on complaint. Vehicle Title Request for Andrew Dean Smith. Vehicle Request for Jar- rod Beck. Progressive Southeast- ern Insurance Company sues Ty H. Cassitty on com- plaint. Hannah E. Popp sues Clinton J. Popp for dissolu- tion of marriage. Donald Ray Moss, Jr. sues Susan Rae Moss for dissolution of marriage. SMALL CLAIMS Pike County Circuit Court Hoosier Accounts Ser- vice sues Teresa Tinsley on complaint. Hoosier Accounts Ser- vice sues Joshua D. Wil- son on complaint. Hoosier Accounts Ser- vice sues Joseph A. Faulk on complaint. INFRACTIONS Pike County Circuit Court Thomas Tharp charged with driving while sus- pended. Ahvier D. Lamb charged with speeding. Devin A. Galloway charged with speeding, ex- ceeding 55 mph. tices do not consider hous- es of worship essential and more importantly the First Amendment does not mean what it means. God has to take a backseat to the politi- cal whims. Health and safe- ty first. Though many were shocked, the ruling should have been expected. The social upheaval that America is facing is a direct result of Supreme Court de- cisions beginning six de- cades ago; No prayer or Bible reading in the pub- lic schools. The court de- creed that there must be a "wall of separation" be- tween government and re- ligion. America must em- brace secular-atheism. Sanctity of life? Roe v Wade destroyed that con- cept with abortion on de- mand. Sanctity of marriage and the family? Supreme Court removed those barriers. Anyone over 60 has wit- nessed a tectonic shift in how we as a nation view family, sexuality, mar- riage, religion, and birth! This radical change did not come from elected assem- blies through democratic deliberations, but through the Supreme Court. During the debate to rati- fy the Constitution, the An- ti-Federalists warned that the Judicial Branch would imperil liberty and would become the strongest of the three branches. They asserted that that the Court would become a source of massive abuse because they were beyond the con- trol of "both the people and the legislature." Do not be discouraged. God can take care of him- self. He has across the cen- turies and the Church's continual message of Jesus Christ Saves in the face of tyranny and martyrdom is the proof! Remain strong in the faith, and pray for our na- tion. Think about it! Continued from page 8 ESSENTIAL Pittsburgh. Academic liberals, civil rights advo- cates and others blamed the exodus on racism — "white flight" to the suburbs to avoid blacks. But blacks have been fleeing some cities at higher rates than whites. The five cities whose suburbs have the fastest-growing black popula- tions are Miami, Dallas, Washington, Houston and Atlanta. It turns out that blacks, like whites, want better and saf- er schools for their kids and don't like to be mugged or have their property vandalized. And like white people, if they have the means, black people can- not wait to leave troubled cities. White liberals and black politicians focus most of their attention on what the police do, but how relevant is that to the overall tragedy? According to Statista, this year, 172 whites and 88 blacks have died at the hands of po- lice. To put police shootings in a bit of perspective, in Chicago alone in 2020 there have been 1,260 shootings and 256 homicides with blacks being the primary victims. That comes to one shooting victim every three hours and one homicide victim every 15 hours. Three people in Chicago have been killed by police. If one is truly con- cerned about black deaths, shootings by police should figure way down on one's list — which is not to excuse bad behavior by some police officers. Walter E. Williams is a professor of economics at George Mason University. Continued from page 8 PLIGHT and the primary target of Karl Marx and socialism. The tide of U.S. public opinion to- ward economic freedom and limit- ed government that Adam Smith and Thomas Jefferson advanced flowed strongly until late in the 19th centu- ry. The Great Depression of 1929 en- abled FDR to declare that it was the "responsibility" of the federal govern- ment to care for the welfare of its cit- izens, a progressive declaration that led to Social Security, Medicare, Fed- eral Aid for Dependent Children, and numerous other entitlements. President Ronald Reagan sought to limit the growth of government so that free-market capitalism could work its magic. As he said in 1970 as gover- nor of California, "Free men engaged in free enterprise build better nations with more and better goods and ser- vices, high wages and higher stan- dards of living for more people." But as president, Reagan was not able to re- verse the federal government's seem- ingly inevitable expansion. Congress- es, Republican as well as Democrat- ic, continued to expand rather than limit government. Entitlement spend- ing from health care to social securi- ty made up 52 percent of the 2018 fed- eral budget and is projected to com- mand a breathtaking 65 percent of the budget in 2029. Nevertheless, the roots of capi- talism have not withered away. The United States has continued to be the most prosperous and freest nation in the world, atop most economic index- es well into the 21st century. This is despite the election of Barack Obama, who was often critical of capitalism. He promised to be a transformation- al president, building on the progres- sive programs of FDR and Lyndon B. Johnson, especially with his A f- fordable Care Act. However, the ACA turned out to be more expensive than any of its sponsors imagined: A typical U.S. household spent $11,172 in 2019 on health care. The bureaucrats were proven wrong again. Obamacare was a wakeup call for conservatives of both political par- ties whose electoral response was the election of the idiosyncratic Donald Trump, a billionaire populist who has confounded official Washington from his first day in office. There is no ques- tioning where the president stands on the issue of socialism versus capital- ism. In his 2019 State of the Union Address, President Trump declared: "America was founded on liberty and independence—not government coer- cion, domination, and control. We are born free, and we will stay free…. To- night we renew our resolve that Amer- ica will never be a socialist country! " CAPITALISM IS ABOUT HUMAN FLOURISHING, NOT GREED Although a prosperous economy is good in itself, it is no less signifi- cant for its contribution to America's first principle of ordered liberty. In the words of the cultural historian Russell Kirk, economic production (or capital- ism) is the means "to raise man above the savage level, to make possible the leisure which sustains civilization and to free man from the condition of be- ing a simple drudge." Private owner- ship of property is not greed, Kirk ar- gued, but "one of the most powerful in- struments for teaching… responsibil- ity." The Nobel economists Friedrich Hayek and Milton Friedman both rec- ognized that private property encour- ages wise decisions and requires indi- viduals to accept the consequences of their choices. Capitalism puts a premi- um on industry, thrift, honesty, and in- genuity. It is not capitalism that is ruth- less, wrote the economist John Attari- an, but socialism, which makes a soci- ety ruthless by denying individuals the ability to make their own decisions and turning government into the master. Nowhere is the stark difference be- tween socialism and capitalism more evident than in a photograph of the Ko- rean peninsula at night. As Acton In- stitute president Robert Sirico, among others, has pointed out, South Korea (the lower half ) is a glittering Christ- mas tree that offers a vision of what the world looks like under freedom. North Korea (the upper half ) is a dark wilder- ness, suggesting what the world might look like were "the torch of human lib- erty to sputter out, casting civilization into darkness." It is not a myth but a reality that cap- italism has brought greater economic wealth and cultural freedom to more people than any other system in the history of man. As we look ahead to an uncertain, post-pandemic economic fu- ture, we should not allow the pervasive but unfounded myths about capitalism to divert us from this path of prosper- ity and freedom. Lee Edwards is a leading historian of American conservatism and the author or editor of 25 books. Continued from page 8 CAPITALISM Continued from page 8 VENTURE EAST GIBSON Commissioners overshoot legal budget County Council does not plan to pick up the tab By Janice Barniak Gibson County Council said on June 9, County Commissioners will have to find the money for attorney fees in their EDIT funds, instead of chang- ing the county's general budget to find money for legal expenses. Commissioners had legal bills come due for two $15,000 insurance deduct- ibles related to lawsuits against the Gibson County Jail, while also incur- ring their regular legal fees in contract with the county attorney, and addition- al fees related to reopening Area Plan- ning Commission meetings. The commissioners had trans- ferred $58,000 from the county's men- tal health fund to pay for legal fees as- sociated with attempting to pass zon- ing. They had estimated an addition- al $ 80,200 would be needed to finish out the contract for attorney Jim Mc- Donald. The APC has Evansville legal firm and zoning specialists Kahn, Dees, Donovan and Kahn during meetings and drafting changes to the plan. In a document to the County Coun- cil, the commissioners outlined invoic- es from KDDK for $ 39,484, addition- al fees of $40,000, another invoice for $1,538, and then $58,310 for the men- tal health fund to pay invoices to re- place the money that was taken out to cover earlier invoices. Commissioners' Assistant Kay Vore came to the council to ask if the council would pay for the legal fees as bills had come due to the mental health fund. South Gibson councilman Jeremy Overton said, in his opinion, the APC attorney fees should be taken from the commissioners' budget, and not from mental health. "I am opposed to using general fund money for that. The commissioners took that on, and didn't give us an es- timate of the cost. That's something they need to come up with out of the EDIT budget," he said. Originally, commissioners estimat- ed $2500 for legal fees for the year, which has been used, Vore said. "I've already exhausted the legal fees," she said, adding APC costs for January through March were $75,000. "They should have come to us be- fore spending the money," said coun- cil president Jay Riley. "Don't shoot the messenger," quipped Vore, eliciting laughs from council members. "They didn't want our opinion on it before, but now they want us to pay for it. I agree with Jeremy. Apparently, they had money set aside to pay for it in their own mind," said Riley. "They thought they did, but they ac- tually didn't," Vore said. "That's going to be their problem I believe," Riley said. "We spend months and months on our yearly budget, and we work and work and work," said board member Derek McGraw. "It's no different than a depart- ment head coming and having hired five people, then asking for money for payroll," said Riley. "It's just, you can't spend money that you don't have...You can't hire employees and then say too late we've already hired them." They tabled the request, saying they wanted Vore to come back with an itemization of how much had been used on APC legal fees, including sep- arating out the county attorney's APC work from his other work. "They need to be made aware that EDIT will be the funding source, and that they need to see how much paving (money) is left," said councilman Craig Pflug, referring to paving because ED- IT is the fund for road repair, among other projects at the discretion of com- missioners. Jail fix estimated at two years By Janice Barniak Engineer Rick Conner, of Amer- ican Structure Point, presented to Gibson County Council on plans for a jail that will address complaints cit- ed in lawsuits against the county that claim overcrowding is leading to vio- lence, among other issues. "Unfortunately, you have a problem here. It's not going to solve itself," he said. "A lawsuit is pending; there's non-compliance, so there is some ur- gency." During the research phase, Con- ner wants to review raw data, the needs assessment and look at staff- ing, then get the commissioners and county council behind one plan for the facility. The staffing analysis will be one of the most important aspects, as each position that is required to monitor inmates translates to three employ- ees, since the facility runs 24 hours a day. Those costs will factor in to whether it is cheaper to build new or build on to the current jail. "This is the information I think we need," he said. "My goal is to come together around a plan that makes sense for Gibson County...It does not do any good to rush through this part of the project at all." He estimates six weeks in pre-de- sign to get a plan and a consensus, then six to nine months for design, before a 12-to-18 -month bid and con- struction phase. Corona cases up to 23 in Gibson County Indiana now in stage four of reopening By Janice Barniak Gibson County ended the week at 23 cases of coronavirus Sunday, three cas- es up since the Sunday before, with the county surpassing 1,000 tests since the onset of coronavirus in Indiana. Meanwhile, Gov. Eric Holcomb an- nounced stage four of reopening would begin June 12 and last through July 3. State government buildings will re- open by appointment, office employ- ees, retail stores and malls can resume work at full capacity, with adherence to social distancing, dining rooms and food service can open at 75 percent capacity, cultural/entertainment and tourism sites, like museums and zoos, can open at 50 percent capacity, as can movie theaters and bowling alleys. Outdoor visitation is encouraged for nursing homes and hospital visitation is allowed. Raceways can open at 50 percent capacity, and Tri-State Speedway had their opening race Sunday. Non-con- tact sports games are allowed, play- grounds can reopen, and water parks and amusement parks can open. On the other hand, stage four still prohibits conventions, fairs, festivals and parades. Something newsworthy? Give us a call— 812-354-8500