The Press-Dispatch
Issue link: https://www.ifoldsflip.com/i/1451562
C-4 Wednesday, Feburar y 16, 2022 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 Sarah Bloom Raskin — Biden's latest anti-freedom nominee With all the attention directed to President Joe Biden's commitment to nominate a Black woman to replace retiring Associate Justice Stephen Breyer on the Supreme Court, sadly lost is what we expect from our court and what we expect from our nation. If we have detached from what our nation supposedly is about, what idea could we possibly have about what its top judiciary body is supposed to be about? But this is what is happening. The American ideal that a just society is a free society is disappearing into the wind. And replacing it is the progres- sive idea that we give ultimate pow- er to selected men and women to de- cide what our lives should be about. Nothing demonstrates this more than the lineup of nominees that Biden has been sending to Congress for confirmation. Most recent is Sarah Bloom Raskin, whom the president has nominated to be vice chairman of supervision of the Federal Reserve Board of Governors. Raskin doesn't see her poten- tial new role merely as supervis- ing a smooth-running economy and banking system. She sees her role as prophet and navigator of Ameri- ca's future. But the difference between today's progressive prophets and the proph- ets of the Bible is the latter knew they were not God but spokespersons for the Creator. Raskin is convinced she knows the future. She questions, for instance, why oil and gas companies received credit and capital infusions from the government during the coronavirus crisis along with other industries. "The decision to bring oil and gas into the Fed's investment portfolio not only misdirects limited recovery resources but also sends a false price signal to investors about where capi- tal needs to be allocated." "Why is the Fed Spending So Much Money on a Dying Industry? It should not be directing money to further entrench the carbon econo- my," reads the headline of her New York Times article. Based on what does Raskin de- clare a death sentence on the mul- titrillion-dollar oil and gas industry? In April 1977, President Jimmy Carter made the same prediction. He spoke to the nation, announcing that we are in an "energy crisis," that the world is running out of oil and gas, and that the only way to transition to a new world with energy alterna- tives would be building and investing in major new government programs. The result of Carter's vision that big government was the answer to our challenges was multibillions of dollars in wasteful government spending and years of delay in the country making adjustments to new realities in energy — adjustments that could only be achieved by let- ting free markets work. The crisis then, like today, was not a crisis about natural resources but a crisis in governing, where too many Americans bought the distortion that they needed much more, not much less government. Carter was a one-term president, and by 2019, the United States was energy-independent, producing more oil and gas than it consumed. Meanwhile, Raskin's husband, Rep. Jamie Raskin, has been hit with an ethics violation charge for failing to report the sale of stock by his wife, cashing in for $1.5 million, in a firm under supervision by a federal agen- cy that she used to lead. I am reminded of the quote of Lord Acton, "Power corrupts ... " Corruption and political power are bedfellows. One follows the other. It's not the job of our politicians or our government to decide what America's future should or should not look like. It's not their job to de- cide which industries will flourish and which will fail. Let me remind all of the critical- ly important phrase in the preamble to our constitution, explaining why it was created and adopted: "to secure the blessings of liberty." Groveling to China Companies tell us they support justice. "Believe in something, even if it means sacrificing everything," says former 49ers quarterback Colin Kaepernick in a Nike ad. "Speak for the people who may not be able to be heard," says the NBA. "Corporate PR hogwash," says journalist Melissa Chen in my new video. "Hogwash," she says, because the NBA clearly does not want its employees to criticize injustice — if that injustice is in China. Daryl Morey, general manager of the Houston Rockets, tweeted, "Fight for freedom, stand with Hong Kong." Good for him. China crushed free- dom in Hong Kong. But China didn't like hearing an NBA executive say that. Chinese T V stopped broadcasting Rockets games. The NBA then apparently told its players and front offices to shut up. Morey deleted his tweet and instead tweeted that he "did not in- tend to cause any offense." The NBA itself also apologized to China, saying that they were "disap- pointed" by Morey's "inappropriate" tweet. Lebron James called Morey "misinformed." James Harden said, "We love China." "China is able to strong-arm these companies ... into actually acquiesc- ing with its ideology," complains Chen. That ideology is often grotesque. The U.S. and other countries ac- cuse China of committing genocide against a mostly Muslim minority group, the Uyghurs. China imprisons them in "reedu- cation camps." Leaked satellite foot- age shows blindfolded men, with their hands tied behind their backs, in what looks like a concentration camp. "They are forced into slave labor," says Chen. A few Uyghurs who escaped say they were tortured. But although the NBA runs ads that say, "Speak for the people who may not be able to be heard," it clear- ly does not want its players, coaches or executives to say anything about Uyghur genocide. Chamath Palihapitiya, a part own- er of the Golden State Warriors, was unusually honest when he said, "No- body cares about what's happening to the Uyghurs. ... We have a respon- sibility to take care of our own back- yard first." I took his comment to Chen. "Companies like Apple, Nike and Coca-Cola have part of their supply chain sourced from this region," she responds. "In these areas, Uyghurs are forced to participate in slave la- bor." Hollywood doesn't care either. The movie "Mulan" was filmed in the same region where Uyghurs are tortured. In the credits, Disney gave "special thanks" to government de- partments in Xinjiang, where the abuse occurs. "Fast and Furious 9" actor John Cena, promoting his movie to peo- ple in Taiwan, said, "Taiwan is the first country that can watch F9." What was wrong with that? "He had the audacity to allude to the fact that Taiwan was a country," says Chen, "rather than a territory owned by China." I don't know what China said to Ce- na or Universal Pictures, but soon Cena was on Chinese social media, groveling to China, saying "sorry" over and over. "I have made a mis- take. ... I really love and respect the Chinese people. ... I made a mistake," he pleaded. Chen calls that pathetic. "I think the Chinese government actually takes a lot of pleasure knowing that they can actually strong-arm individ- uals and companies into capitulation to its own political ideology." Only one NBA player is principled enough to point out the NBA's hypoc- risy: Boston Celtic Enes Kanter Free- dom. He criticizes players who don't speak up because they fear losing Chinese business deals. "Human rights and basic rights is way more important than any deal you can offer," he says. He loses lu- crative shoe contracts because he sometimes displays messages on his shoes, like "Free Tibet" and "Stand With Taiwan." He denounces Chi- nese Uyghur oppression. So China won't broadcast Celtics I'm the kind of guy Who never used to cry The world is treatin' me bad Misery — The Beatles Replacing former President Don- ald Trump with President Joe Biden was supposed to bring joy to the land from sea to sea. We were go- ing to be a united people at last. Ev- ery problem known to man would get solved by cradle-to-grave gov- ernment. Biden was even going to save us from the rise of the oceans. But just the opposite: A survey by the University of Chicago found that record percentages of people in 2021 described themselves as "unhappy." For most of the past 50 years, about 1 in 10 people have described themselves as unhappy. In 2021, 1 in 4 say they are unhappy. Typically, al- most 1 in 3 say they are "very happy," and now less than 1 in 5 do. The hap- piness index is falling like a stone. People are depressed. Gee, I wonder why the public is so glum all of a sudden. Let me count the ways. First, there is isolation and loneliness from lock- downs, stay-at-home orders and trav- el restrictions. Then there is out-of- control crime and a significant rise in business failures (from lockdowns), both clearly associated with depres- sion. People are still worried about their health two years into the pan- demic that Biden promised to shut down. The border is out of control. Then there is the financial stress on families from everything being more expensive. Children are de- pressed because schools are still do- ing remote learning or they are stuck wearing masks for eight hours a day. The "woke" movement has people feeling like they are tied inside a so- cial straitjacket. Noth- ing is funny anymore. Don't you dare say an off-color joke or you will be banished. People are afraid to laugh at anything for fear of offending some- one somewhere. When was the last time you saw a funny movie? But here's what's most interest- ing about the results of the happi- ness survey. The people with the most significant happiness deficien- cies are Democratic voters. Liberals are miserable. Only 1 in 6 Democrat- ic voters say they are "very happy." Almost twice as many Republicans say they are "very happy." Why is that? I have several admit- tedly unproven hypotheses. I will toss them out, and readers can de- cide for themselves if they agree or disagree. First, liberals are much less re- ligious, patriotic and interested in getting married and having chil- dren than conservatives. It's a Grand Canyon-sized division between liber- als and conservatives. I'd venture to say that the love of country, God and family make people happy. If you don't believe in these things, you will likely believe in false idols, such as big government, as your savior. That's hardly a path to hap- piness. Liberals are less likely to be work- ing and more likely to be on govern- ment assistance. But every study shows that work is highly associat- ed with happiness. Giving a person a fish rather than teaching a person to fish leads to very different life satisfaction outcomes. Liberals also live their lives in fear. Liberals are much more likely to be- lieve that global warm- ing will doom us than are conservatives. To listen to some of the more fanatical climate change worriers, they seem almost to want global warming to happen so we can pay penance for our sins to the planet. Similarly, from the start of the pandemic until recently, liber- als were twice as likely to be "very worried" about COVID-19 than con- servatives. There is something so- ciologically different about how lib- erals view risks than conservatives. Finally, there is the geographi- cal separation between conserva- tives camped in red states and lib- erals camped in blue states — the two Americas. Blue states shut down their economies. They shut down restaurants, schools, parks, the- aters, tennis and basketball courts, playgrounds, beaches, bars and any other place where people could, God forbid, have fun. Amid the dark days of the pandem- ic, I traveled to New York, Califor- nia and Florida. New York and Cali- fornia were zombie zones. If people saw you on the street walking toward you, they would lift their masks and swerve so as not to get anywhere near you. They would scowl or look away. In Florida, people got on with their lives. They took reasonable health Inflation makes governments rabid. They lash out for scapegoats to blame for policymakers' failures. Having failed to convince the Amer- ican people that greedy meatpackers and grocery stores are causing infla- tion in everything from used cars to houses to gasoline, the administra- tion and Congress are now going af- ter Americans who use cryptocurren- cies with tools that could easily install a China-style surveil-and-control sys- tem on all of your financial accounts. Last week the Biden administration announced an upcoming executive or- der to coordinate anti-crypto rules across government agencies, includ- ing the Securities and Exchange Com- mission, the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency, and the Commodity Futures Trading Commission. The announcement stressed nation- al security, which has been the go-to excuse for bureaucrats who don't like Bitcoin—ironic considering the rate of criminal use is between six and 15 times higher in the traditional bank- ing system than it is in Bitcoin. But, of course, traditional banks have more friends in Washington. Crypto itself is increasingly main- stream. According to a recent Pew survey, 16 percent of Americans use cryptocurrencies like Bitcoin. Those 33 million Americans are dispropor- tionately young—31 percent of Amer- icans under age 30 use crypto. And they are disproportionately non-white; blacks and Hispanics are almost twice as likely to own crypto. In other words, crypto appeals to the exact people traditionally exclud- ed from the traditional financial sys- tem, but, alas, black 20 -somethings don't have senators on speed dial. Why do people buy crypto? Many see it as a way to protect against a fall- ing dollar—for them, crypto is a dig- ital gold—one that is as anonymous as real gold or real cash, but one that can never be seized. Today, with federal spending and the Feder- al Reserve driving annu- al inflation to 7 percent, a dollar only buys 87 cents of what it bought five years ago, while a Bitcoin buys 30 times what it did 5 years ago. If the econo- my continues sliding into a 1970s-style stagflation, millions more will want to protect themselves with a noninflationary money. Of course, most Americans don't own crypto in 2022, just as most Amer- icans didn't own gold in the 1970s. But, as with gold, the mere possibility of exit acts as a policy brake on soaring deficits and runaway inflation lest peo- ple flee the dollar. This policy brake is critically important as governments feed at the trillion-dollar trough: To il- lustrate, without the ability to print un- limited dollars, no government would have imposed the draconian lock- downs that crashed the world in 2020. A fter all, without money-printing, a government facing a 50 percent drop in tax revenue—and the laid-off gov- ernment workers that implies—will pause and say it can't be done. Alas, governments did print money and, $ 6 trillion in magic money later, here we are. Right now, thousands of Canadi- an truckers would be relaxing at home with their family had governments been unable to inflate. Even if you don't own or care about crypto and inflation, the much wider issue is what policymakers are using the scapegoat to push: a full-blown surveillance state. The recently proposed Ameri- ca COMPETES Act—which might as well be called the "America CONCEDES Act," given its many handouts to Chinese communists—original- ly listed a litany of fi- nancial crimes, from ransomware to terror, to justify unlimited sur- veillance and control. These would apply to not just crypto, but every fi- nancial transaction you make, without due process and with the authority to close any of your fi- nancial accounts with no formal con- trols whatsoever. The proposal, which had already been recycled from previous bills, and may well be in President Joe Biden's upcoming executive order, amounts to riding crypto scaremongering to im- pose a surveillance panopticon. Amer- icans are already exposed to politically motivated financial persecution from the government, from the IRS' target- ing of conservatives to recent cancel- lations of bank accounts and credit cards of conservatives. Using scapegoats to impose collec- tive punishment on all Americans is a standard political trick, and this ad- ministration and Congress are using crypto for just that: to build the Chi- na-style system of surveil-and-control they crave. Any government that can't manage inflation should at least allow Amer- icans to protect themselves, but we must all stand strong against Chi- na-style financial totalitarianism, whatever the excuse this week. Peter St. Onge is a research fellow in economic policy at The Heritage Foun- dation. Race for the Cure By Star Parker Give Me a Break John Stossel Eye on the Economy By Stephen Moore Why are liberals so miserable? Letter Heritage Viewpoint By Peter St. Onge Biden's Anti-Crypto scaremongering threatens all Americans See LIBER ALS on page 5 See GROVEL on page 5 See R ASKIN on page 5 Court