The Press-Dispatch
Issue link: https://www.ifoldsflip.com/i/1417175
A-6 Wednesday, October 6, 2021 The Press-Dispatch 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 October is clergy appreciation month. Being a minister or pastor is like many thankless professions, such as teacher or police. There was a time when clergy were respected and held in high regard. Those days are gone with the wind. The profes- sion of "pastor" is near the bottom of a survey of the most-respected professions, just above "car sales- person." Ministers learn along the way if they wanted to be popular and admired, they should have sold ice cream. Ministers are seeing an alarm- ing rate of spiritual decline among church members. It is not uncom- mon for many members of a church to criticize openly and confront cler- gy with whom they disagree. Their lack of spirituality and opposition is having a chilling effect on clergy. Some recent survey results about pastors are enlightening: • 61 percent of congregations have forced a pastor to leave. • 33 percent state that being in the ministry is an outright hazard to their family. • 83 percent of clergy spouses want their spouse to leave pastoral ministry. Many pastor's children do not attend church now because of what the church has done to their parents. • 50 percent of pastors indicated they would leave the ministry if they had another way of making a living. • 90 percent of clergy in all de- nominations will not stay in minis- try long enough to reach the age of retirement. • 40 percent report serious con- flict with a parishioner at least once a month. • 50 percent have considered leav- ing the ministry in the last month. • 1,500 clergy are leaving pastoral ministry each month. Many denom- inations report an "empty pulpit cri- sis." They cannot find ministers will- ing to fill positions. People attend church for various reasons and often it is for reasons other than drawing closer to God. A church is not a social club, although some churches resemble them. Here is a typical example, as re- layed by a fellow pastor. "A few years ago, I sat in a regular monthly meet- ing of our board members and lis- tened to a woman from the congre- gation, as she railed against my in- sistence on preaching so much from the Bible. This woman, who was con- sidered a leader among the congre- gation, told me that my 28 minutes sermons were way too long, that the mixture of songs chosen for our time of worshiping through music was very much "not to her liking" and that any deviation from a writ- ten program was unacceptable. I very gently tried to explain that ma- ny of my sermons and entire services were designed to lift up those in the congregation who were down, to in- form those who were less informed in the ways of God than others and to "challenge long-time Christians to America is still working The Census Bureau has just issued its latest annual report, "Income and Poverty in the United States: 2020," and American Enterprise Institute economist and blogger Mark Per- ry has extracted and summarized its highlights, as he does every year. Perry's work is always illuminat- ing because the data shows how much healthier the country is so- cially and economically than anyone would believe who listens to the nay- sayers on the left, who want to trans- form America into a giant, socialist welfare state. Contrary to what we hear from Democrats and the left-leaning me- dia, Americans continue to move up and earn more. And those who don't fail to do so for reasons that are entirely in their control, as I will explain later. In 2020, 33.6 percent of American households had income of $100,000 or more, 40.3 percent had income between $ 35,000 and $100,000, and 26.2 percent had income of less than $ 35,000. In 1967, only 10.9 percent of Amer- ican households had earnings of $100,000 or more (in constant, in- flation-adjusted dollars). That is, from 1967 to 2020, the percentage of American households earning $100,000 or more has tripled! Compared with 1967, the percent- age of middle-income earning house- holds — $ 35,000 to $100,000 — has shrunk, 53.9 percent in 1967 com- pared with 40.3 percent in 2020. The percentage of middle-income households has shrunk because more households have moved into the upper-income category. The percentage earning $ 35,000 has shrunk from 35.2 percent in 1967 to 26.2 percent in 2020. Perry then drills down into the da- ta and looks at household income and household demographics to see how they correlate. His conclusions: "Specifically, high-income U.S. households have more income-earn- ers on average than lower-income households, and individuals in high-income households are far more likely on average than indi - viduals in low-income households to be well-educated, married, work- ing full-time, and in their prime earn- ing years. In contrast, individuals in lower-income U.S. households are far more likely than Americans in high- er-income households to be less-ed- ucated, working part-time, either very young (under 35 years) or very old (over 65 years), and living in sin- gle-parent or single-member house- holds." We get a much different picture here than the message that political- ly correct woke culture, which has attained such influence over recent years, has transmitted. Any individual's fate in America is very much in their own hands and the result of how much personal re- sponsibility they want to take in their own life. Major factors that correlate with earning power — education, work, family — start with personal deci- sions and personal responsibility. Readers might recall the incident I reported last year when my organiza- tion, CURE, posted billboards in var- ious low-income communities saying that if you want to get out of pover- ty — finish school, go to work and get married. Black Lives Matter protested and got the billboard company to remove our message. That's not to say that there is not public policy work that needs to be done. But it's not what we hear from the left. The work to relieve poverty and improve upward mobility is work that removes obstacles for individu- als to take personal responsibility for their lives. Obstacles like our union-con- trolled, government-controlled pub- lic school systems. Parents should control their child's education, not government and union bureaucrats. This week, my organization, CURE, is releasing its first State of Black America report, published in partnership with the Claremont In- stitute. The report points to the strength of American principles and points to cultural and institutional obstacles that contribute to the perpetuation of poverty — too much government and too much politics — as factors that pull us away from those princi- Smeared I just sued Facebook. I didn't want to sue. I hate lawsuits. I tried for a year to reach someone at Facebook to fix things, but Face- book wouldn't. Here's the problem: Facebook us- es "independent fact-checkers" to try to reduce fake news on their site. That's a noble goal. Unfortunately, at least one Facebook "fact-checker" is a cli- mate-alarmist group that cleverly us- es its Facebook connections to stop debate. Facebook is a private company. It has every right to cut me off. But Facebook does not have the right to just lie about me, yet that's exactly what Facebook and its "fact-checker" did. That's defama- tion, and it's just wrong. My video this week shows videos that Facebook throttled. The defamation started with the fact-checker, a group called Climate Feedback. They didn't like that my video reported facts suggesting that government mismanagement prob- ably played a bigger role in causing California's wildfires than climate change. Climate Feedback got Facebook to censor this as "misleading" and link to a page that still declares the follow- ing quote misleading: "Forest fires are caused by poor management. Not by climate change." As if that were something I said. But I didn't! I never said that. In fact, I said: "Climate change has made things worse. California has warmed 3 degrees." I've worked at NBC, CBS, ABC and Fox. All would have fired me if I falsely attributed a quote! I emailed Climate Feedback's ed- itor. She didn't respond. But two of three scientists listed as their "re- viewers" agreed to interviews. Stefan Doerr of Swansea Universi- ty surprised me by saying he'd never even watched my video! "If this is implying that we have re- viewed the video," said Doerr, "this is clearly wrong." Another reviewer, Zeke Hausfa- ther of The Breakthrough Institute, hadn't seen the video either. "I cer- tainly did not write a Climate Feed- back piece reviewing your segment." A fter he watched it, I asked, "Is (misleading) a fair label? " "I don't necessarily think so," he replied. "While there are plenty of debates around how much to empha- size fire management versus climate change, your piece clearly discussed that both were at fault." Still, neither Climate Feedback nor Facebook will change their smear. Then things got worse. I re-aired a video on climate change myths ti- tled "Are We Doomed? " Three climate scientists argue that we are not "doomed" because we can adapt to climate change. They invit- ed climate alarmists to debate them. None would. Climate Feedback got Facebook to throttle that video, too, and declare it "partly false." Why? Only one of their reviewers agreed to an interview. Patrick Brown of San Jose State University didn't like that my video suggests America can adjust to ris- ing sea levels. He claimed sea levels could rise 200 feet. "You're citing an extreme," I point out. "The (Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change) doesn't consid - er that likely." "I don't know if they assess sea level rise out to 1,000 years," he re- sponds. They don't. It's absurd that Facebook lets Cli- mate Feedback censor me over some- thing that might happen in 1,000 years. Climate Feedback also cited my video for questioning the claim that hurricanes have gotten stronger. But Brown, Climate Feedback's own reviewer, said, "That's wrong that you were criticized for saying that. ... The IPCC (doesn't) claim that (hurricanes) ... are increasing." Later, Brown told us I was cited for "omission of contextual informa- tion, rather than specific 'facts' be- ing 'wrong.'" So, their "fact-check" wasn't about actual facts? Still, they rated my video "partly false," which Facebook defines as content that "includes some factual inaccuracies." My video did not con- tain any factual inaccuracies, and they know it. Climate Feedback and its parent President Joe Biden keeps boast- ing that all the new jobs his pro- grams will supposedly create will be "good-paying union jobs." But, Joe, what about the 93 percent of private sector workers who are not members of unions? Does he care about them? The Labor Department reports that in America today, 6.3 percent of all private sector workers are union members. So more than 10 of 11 pri- vate workers aren't. The only area where unions are growing in America is in govern- ment. Nearly half of government workers, led by teachers, are union- ized. And they are radicalized. Meanwhile, nearly every policy coming out of the White House gives special-interest privileges for the la- bor bosses. Some of these acts are just pure giveaways to big labor as a payback for the hundreds of millions of dol- lars organized labor spent to get Biden elected. Here are some of the sweetheart kisses for the unions with taxpayers picking up the tab: First, a new law requiring union workforces on nearly every federal project. Nonunion contractors need not apply. By the way, these rules add up to 20 percent to the cost of every construction and service contract. In the Green New Deal bill that has al- ready passed in the Senate, there are tax breaks for renewable energy — but only if these projects are union- ized. Another absurdity is the creation of a new provision to make union dues tax-deductible. This will put millions of dollars into coffers of the unions. The granddaddy of them all is a provision in the so-called jobs bill that would end "right-to-work" laws in 27 states, which emphasize a worker's choice to join a union and prevent them from being forced to do so. This is an audacious power gr- ab by the federal government that would, for the first time in American history, force po- tentially tens of millions of U.S. workers to join a union against their will. This over- turns almost 75 years of labor law that left workers' rights up to the states. This will force workers to have money snatched from their paychecks and rerout- ed to union bank accounts. Workers would also have to contrib- ute to political advocacy efforts by big labor whether they support the causes and candidates or not. This is anything but "pro-choice." Why do Democrats genuflect at the altar of the unions? Because the unions fund Democratic campaigns. For example, in 2020, the public sector unions donated $ 93 million to candidates, parties and political groups. More than 90 percent of can- didate contributions went to Demo- crats. The surge in violent crime over the past year—murders in particular— has been astounding and historic. The numbers back this up and paint a grim picture. Property crime is generally down, but violent crime is way, way up. The murder rate rose by nearly 30 percent in 2020, more than any oth- er time in the last half-century. This is according to recently released sta- tistics compiled by the Federal Bu- reau of Investigation in its annual re- port on crime. The report shows that there were 4,901 more murders committed in 2020 than in 2019. It's the largest single-year in- crease—by a wide margin—in mur- der rate since the FBI began compil- ing these statistics in 1960. "The Uniform Crime Report will stand as the official word on an un- usually grim year, detailing a rise in murder of around 29 percent," re- ported The New York Times. "The previous largest one-year change was a 12.7 percent increase in 1968. The national rate—murders per 100,000 —still remains about one- third below the rate in the early 1990s." The total murder rate is still far away from its historic high, but the trend is unmistak- able. It looks like 2021 will have sim- ilar numbers to 2020, with only a slight dip in the national rate of in- crease in murder. Again, that's a dip in murder rate, not total murders. The trend is still going up, but not quite as historically fast. And in some places, like Portland, the rate of increase actually contin- ues to climb. More on Portland in just a moment. Of course, some on the left have been quick to conclude that the is- sue is guns or possibly even simply the pandemic itself. These conclusions seem dubious. Violent crime has been falling for de- cades even as gun ownership in the United States remained high. It's also important to note that the murder increase didn't really start until the summer of 2020 fol- lowing the death of George Floyd at the hands of police in Minneapolis. This was after the pandemic began and the country went into var- ious states of lockdown. While there certainly could be a variety of factors involved in the murder surge, it's hard not to see both the efforts to defund the police and—perhaps more impor- tantly—the "Minneapolis Ef- fect," as driving factors. Following Floyd's death, many cities hopped aboard the "defund the police" move- ment. Los Angeles, Baltimore, Seat- tle, Chicago, Portland, and Minneap- olis went through with this idea, of- ten stripping millions of dollars out of their police budgets and directing them toward other social services. Minneapolis is going even further and is looking to abolish its police de- partment altogether. This push to defund, which hap- pened during a time of protests and increasing anti-police rhetoric from activists and lawmakers created what some have called the "Minne- apolis Effect." This is similar to the "Ferguson Race for the Cure By Star Parker Give Me a Break John Stossel Continued on page 7 Continued on page 7 Continued on page 7 Eye on the Economy By Stephen Moore Government, by the unions, for the unions Heritage Viewpoint By Jarrett Stepman Points to Ponder By Rev. Curtis Bond Defunding police wasn't a good idea Pray for your minister Continued on page 7 Court MINISTER