The Press-Dispatch
Issue link: https://www.ifoldsflip.com/i/1425326
B-4 Wednesday, November 3, 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 Trick or treat! Once again, Halloween was cele- brated with its usual fanfare. It has quasi holiday status with outdoor decorations and celebrations ga- lore. Retailers have ample supplies of candy for sale to hand out to the little ghosts and goblins that "trick or treat" at their door. People decorate their yards with blow up creatures such as Frankenstein, Dracula, the Wolfman, ghosts, aliens, and devils. Carved "jack-o-lanterns" are every- where. Orange lights adorn houses, trees and shrubbery casting an ee- rie glow. Most people view Halloween as harmless revelry, and poking fun at fictional creatures. Many churches get in on the exuberance with haunt- ed houses and other ghoulish activ- ities. As a pastor, I disapprove of church- es celebrating Halloween with haunt- ed houses and all the trimmings. However, I discovered many church- es ignore the pleadings of the pastor to refrain from such hedonistic cel- ebration. The standard defense of- fered is this is just good clean fun for kids and harmless. Fun maybe, harmless no! Halloween or All Souls Day, is a Christian celebration honoring and remembering the dead. In many Christian churches, it is a solemn occasion observed with prayers, lit- urgies and masses. Jesus had a lot to say about death. In the days of Jesus', death by disease, poverty, and by Im- perial Rome was widespread. Lifes- pans were short, averaging about 40 years or fewer if one made it out of childhood. For most people, prema- ture death was a genuine concern and a possibility. Jesus encountered a lot of scared people throughout his travels. Jesus reassured the people there was no reason to fear death. His countless miracles were meant to calm their fears while assuring them of his Father's love. Death being so prevalent, Jesus addressed it head- Give America a new birth of freedom in Virginia The joke goes that a slip of the tongue for a politician means that they accidentally said what they ac- tually believe. Now Democrats are trying to clean up the mess created by Virginia Democratic candidate for governor, Terry McAuliffe, when he said in a debate on Sept. 28, "I don't think par- ents should be telling schools what they should teach." McAuliffe's 5 -point lead over his opponent, Republican Glenn Youn- gkin, who has made parental con- trol in education a central issue in his campaign, has disappeared. Big-name Democrats, including former President Barack Obama, are now showing up in Virginia with a mop and pail. Vice President Ka- mala Harris sent a video to over 300 Black churches statewide, urging support for McAuliffe. According to some opinions, Harris' politicking for McAuliffe in churches violates either or both the Johnson Amendment, which prohibits tax-exempt entities such as churches from electioneer- ing, and the Hatch Act, which prohib- its federal government officials from using their position to influence the outcome of an election. Former Democratic Virginia Gov. Douglas Wilder, Virginia's first Black governor, has weighed in saying he believes churches will jeopardize their tax-exempt status if they show Harris' video. McAuliffe followed up with an ad claiming what he said is being mis- construed and that he really meant the opposite. Comedian Groucho Marx once quipped "Who are you going to be- lieve — me or your own eyes? " Panic among Democrats is well-founded in that Blacks consti- tute approximately 20 percent of vot- ers in Virginia and can make all the difference in the outcome of the elec- tion. And Blacks poll strongly in fa- vor of parental choice in education. In 2018, Republican candidate Ron DeSantis defeated Black Democrat- ic candidate Andrew Gillum by less than 40,000 votes in the gubernatori- al election in Florida. One reason was DeSantis got 18 percent of the vote of Black women. This was most like- ly Black mothers expressing appre- ciation for the 100,000 low-income children attending private schools through tax-credit funded scholar- ships provided through the Step Up for Students program. If anything positive has come out of COVID-19, it has driven home to many parents the implications of gov- ernment and politically controlled schools. Given the central importance of education to a child's future, more parents are becoming aware of grave implications of losing control of when and where their children are taught, how they are taught and what they are taught. McAuliffe's accidental moment of truth put out for all to see what Democrats are really about. They are casting a wider and stronger net of government and political control of almost every aspect of our lives. The core American value of freedom has all but disappeared. More Black parents are sensitive to the crisis in the Black family. Do they really want progressive politi- cians defining sexuality for their chil- dren? But this is what is happening. Thirty states and the District of Columbia mandate sex education in public schools. Log onto the website of either of the major teachers unions — Nation- al Education Association and Ameri- can Federation of Teachers. Both in- clude the commitment to LGBTQ values. What about Black parents, or par- ents of any ethnicity, that reject this worldview? What about Black par- ents, or parents of any ethnicity, who want their child's education about sexuality to be defined by traditional biblical views of love and marriage? In a recent Pew Research survey, 59 percent said Americans disagree on "basic facts." In a country where there's not even consensus about what reality is — what is true and what is false — how can we possibly have a govern- Lessons from Venezuela Democrats say President Joe Biden won "a strong mandate." His government can do all sorts of good things! I don't believe he has a mandate, but thanks to the selfishness of for- mer President Donald Trump, Dem- ocrats control Congress, and that may give them power to shove their worst ideas down our throats. Those include: No. 1: Hate speech laws. No. 2: Expanding the Supreme Court. No. 3: Gun control. No. 4: Spending much more. Unfortunately, they don't seem to have noticed that these "reforms" were just tried in a country near us. My new video reveals how they worked out (spoiler alert: badly). Venezuela became progressives "it" country when Hugo Chavez be- came president. Celebrities like Danny Glover, Su- san Sarandon and Michael Moore showered him with praise. Sean Penn called him "one of the most important forces we've had on this planet." "You have to be blind to believe that," responds Andres Guilarte of The Fund for American Studies. Guilarte is one of many Venezue- lans who risked his life to protest so- cialist rule. When the protests failed, he came to the United States as a ref- ugee. Today, protest is even riskier in Venezuela, because of progressive reform No. 1: the "Law Against Ha- tred." Half America's Democrats support that, says a YouGov poll. They should rethink what they want, says Guilarte, because "the ruling party ... (gets to decide) what hate speech is." In Venezuela, critics of the govern- ment now face jail time. No. 2: Some Democrats want to add four new justices to the Supreme Court. Sen. Ed Markey says the new justices would "restore balance" af- ter years of Republican rule. Chavez added justices to Venezu- ela's Supreme Court. He "changed it from 20 people to 32 people," says Guilarte. A fter that, "the court never ruled against him." It let him shut down opposition me- dia and confiscate 1,000 private busi- nesses. No. 3: American Democrats want gun control. In Venezuela now, only the army, police and certain favored groups may have guns. That made it even easier for officials to come to people's homes and take their property. "You're just in your shop, selling shoes," explains Guilarte. "Some government officer arrives and says, 'We're going to shut down your busi- ness.' That would be completely dif- ferent if that business owner had a gun." "But the government would just come in with bigger guns," I suggest. "If we had a culture like you have in the U.S.," Guilarte responds, "It would have been incredibly difficult." Venezuela's gun control didn't even reduce crime. In fact, Venezue- la's murder rate rose. Venezuela now has the third-highest murder rate in the world. "These laws never work," says Gui- larte. "Citizens don't have guns. But the criminals have bigger guns! " No. 4: The most important lesson from Venezuela is the idea that gov - ernments can fund whatever they want to do simply by printing more money. "The Federal government can nev- er run out of money," says Modern Monetary Theory economist Steph- anie Kelton. She's convinced politi- cians that they can spend much more without worrying about inflation. "Well, of course, John," replies Guilarte, sarcastically. "That's how the economy works. You just print money because money comes up from trees." Venezuela printed money and won praise from progressives by spend- ing some on programs they said would help the poor. But the poor and the middle class were crushed by the inflation that followed: 20 percent ... then 100 percent ... 3,000 percent ... 40,000 percent! This destroyed Ven- ezuela. Inflation in America has risen to 5.4 percent. Bad, but of course, noth- ing close to what happened in Ven- ezuela. If you think the supply chain prob- lems, empty shelves in stores and higher inflation are problems now, wait a few weeks; they are likely to get worse. And this isn't a result of hurricanes, the pandemic or other acts of nature. It's all due to politi- cal incompetence that starts in the Oval Office. Here's one prominent reason the supply shortage of goods from fruits and vegetables to gasoline to toys for Christmas will go from a headache to a crisis. We are now witnessing the end of four decades of labor peace in Amer- ica. Two prominent companies, Kel- logg's and John Deere, face strikes with thousands of workers walking off the job. The United Auto Workers strike against John Deere is the first labor unrest at the large Illinois plant since the mid-1980s. Kellogg's last had a work stoppage in 1972. We already have nearly 11 million unfilled jobs thanks to super-gener- ous welfare benefits. The shortage of dockworkers, truckers and facto- ry workers is inciting higher infla- tion due to shortages. Now, if thou- sands of more workers in critical in- dustries go on strike, havoc could prevail. The worker short- ages only give more leverage to the unions to walk off the job for higher pay and bene- fits. The John Deere workers balked at a proposed 5% raise — and not without cause. With inflation running closer to 6 % , a 5% raise could mean a loss in real income to the rank-and- file workers. Here's the vicious cycle we could be looking at in due time. Inflation means higher prices at the stores, which means workers want higher pay, which means companies have higher costs, which means the firms have to raise their prices further. And the process repeats. Six per- cent inflation could snowball into 8 % to 10 % inflation by the end of the year. Yikes. History proves that mismanage- ment of the money supply and a dol- lar that loses value causes convul- sions in the labor mar- ket. E.J. Antoni, an econ- omist at the Texas Public Policy Foundation, re- cently ran the numbers. Annual inflation spiked to 7.9 % for 1951, and a re- cord 470 strikes occurred the following year. In the late 1960s, inflation rose to 5.4% , and the number of strikes rose above 400 in a single year. But as price volatility moderat- ed starting in the Ronald Reagan years, so did strikes. A stable dollar that was "as good as gold" retained its value and allowed labor and man- agement to reach mutually agreeable contracts on wage increases. From 1947 to 1982, a period of many strikes, inflation rose and fell wildly, with the annual rate changing as much as 8.7 percentage points in a single year and having a 14.5 per- President Joe Biden and Vice Pres- ident Kamala Harris' free communi- ty college plan will increase costs for both students and taxpayers. Fortunately, the Biden-Harris promise of free community college appears less likely to make it into the final version of the Build Back Better Act, the $ 3.5 trillion tax-and- spend plan currently under debate in Congress. The proposed provision for tui- tion-free community college would dole out $109 billion in grants to states so that students can attend two-year colleges without paying tui- tion. Taxpayers would foot the tuition bill starting in 2023. Currently, the average sticker price for community college in the United States is about $ 3,000. How- ever, the average cost per student is actually close to $18,000. Most of the discrepancy accounts for state and local appropriations and federal grants to the institutions. The rest consists of smaller grants and appro- priations. Moreover, most students who need financial assistance already re- ceive it via Pell Grants as well as state and institutional grants. Accounting for financial assistance, the national average amount paid by students for tuition and fees at pub- lic two-year colleges is - $220, meaning that many students actually receive more than the cost of attendance in student aid. The Build Back Better program would mostly benefit those who are already covering the relative- ly modest cost of com- munity college on their own. With taxpayers already covering most of the cost of this investment in the form of direct appropriations and grants, do we see benefits of these drastic subsidies of community col- lege? Community college completion rates are abysmal. According to the National Center for Education Sta- tistics, only 16.3% of students at two- year institutions graduate in two years, with 28.7% completing their degree in three years, and 34.2 % completing their two-year degree in four. These statistics suggest that it could be more beneficial for students to spend those years getting work experience rather than a degree. Since the advent of widely available feder- al government subsidi- zation of higher educa- tion beginning in 1965, there have been massive increases in tuition pric- es without a correspond- ing increase in access or quality. Further subsidi- zation under the Build Back Better plan will continue to inflate pric- es and shift the increased costs on- to taxpayers. Free community college will al- so continue the trend of degree in- flation. More subsidies lead to more graduates—but not more skills— which leads to the need for more de- grees to differentiate oneself. As the Cato Institute's Neal McCluskey ex- plains: The average college degree has come to represent less and less hu- man capital, as college attendance, fueled in large part by government aid, has skyrocketed. Exacerbating the situation, employers—who bear Race for the Cure By Star Parker Give Me a Break John Stossel Continued on page 5 Continued on page 5 Eye on the Economy By Stephen Moore Will all of America go on strike? Heritage Viewpoint By John Schoof Points to Ponder By Rev. Curtis Bond Biden promotes free college, not so fast What does history and the Bible teach us? Continued on page 5 Continued on page 5 Court TEACH