The Press-Dispatch
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D-4 Wednesday, Feburar y 23, 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 Learning the lessons of Black history February is Black History Month. Why do we need Black History Month? Why don't we set aside spe- cial occasions to observe the history of other ethnicities in our country? My answer to this question is that Black history tells a uniquely im- portant story in our nation. It is a story that no other race or ethnici- ty shares. It is a story that must be grasped and understood if we are to understand our country as a whole, where it has been and where it needs to go. Unique among a large percent- age of Black Americans is a histo- ry in which their ancestors did not choose to come to America. They were brought here by force and en- slaved. No other ethnicity shares a history in which their ancestors did not come here by choice. According to the 1790 Census of the United States, of a population of 3,893,635, 17.8 % , or 694,280, were slaves. In a nation founded on the princi- ple of human liberty, almost one-fifth of the population were slaves. How should we understand this? Some want to tell us that slavery is not just a stain on American his- tory but that it defines America and American history. That America is a nation founded in racism and evil and that the task today is to reinvent and recreate the nation. This is what "wokeness" and DEI — diversity, equity and inclusion pro- gramming — is about. Those who have declared that the nation was evil at its birth now want to seize control and put themselves in charge of deciding what it should be about and what it should look like. This is a great and dangerous dis- tortion, doomed to add on to, not erase, the sin at America's founding. The proclamation from the White House noting National Black His- tory Month 2022 says, "Our nation was founded on an idea: that all of us are created equal and deserve to be treated with equal dignity through- out our lives." This, I think, is false. Our nation was not founded on an idea. An idea is a product of thought. When slave trader John Newton, composer of the haunting hymn "Amazing Grace," had the horrible confrontation with himself, realizing the grave sin he had committed, he wrote "I was lost, but now I'm found. / Was blind, but now I see." Newton did not discover he had a bad idea and decide to replace it with a better idea. He realized that there is truth in the world, which he gravely violated. The ideals upon which our nation was founded were rooted in divine principles and recognition that all are created equal because all are the product of the same Creator. It is for this reason that those who signed the Declaration of Inde- pendence concluded saying, "With a firm Reliance on the Protection of divine Providence, we mutually pledge to each other our Lives, our Fortunes, and our sacred Honor." "Sacred" is not about ideas. "Sa- cred" is about faith and divine truth. The presence of slavery at our na- tion's founding was about Man's abil- ity and willingness to sin. Slavery was the symptom, not the cause. Black History is documentation that even in a great nation, sin was present. The Creator gave man the abil- ity to choose. This is why freedom is important. Men cannot be denied their ability to choose. But they also cannot escape their responsibility to choose good over evil. This is the lesson we must learn from Black History. We will not live right, we will not treat our neighbors right, until we recognize that we all are the results of the same Creator. America is in crisis today because recognition of that Creator has been widely purged. And like the plantation owners that usurped truth, so today we have a new generation of usurpers. This is what we must recognize and fix. Star Parker is president of the Cen- ter for Urban Renewal and Education and host of the weekly television show "Cure America with Star Parker." Canceling Joe Joe Rogan is amazing. Five years ago, I left Fox to start Stossel T V. I left because I was frus- trated by live T V. Guests talked so much but said little. I now produce videos like the ones I used to do on "20/20." I like having a month or more to do research and then more time to edit the video in- to a short clip that explains compli- cated things but is also fun to watch. This edited model succeeded. Our short videos average 2 million views. People are busy. They don't want to sit through hours of live discussion. But then Joe Rogan proved me wrong. He talks to people, not for an hour, but often for three hours. Yet 11 mil- lion people stay to listen. Eleven mil- lion! How does he do it? He had no jour- nalism training. He acted on a sitcom and hosted the reality show "Fear Factor." I happen to be a mixed mar- tial arts fan, so I did notice that Ro- gan was the best commentator at UFC events. But hosting three hours of serious talk with intellectuals like physicist Brian Cox or mathematician Roger Penrose without the visual gimmicks that make T V bearable is very differ- ent. So, I started listening to Rogan's podcasts. Suddenly, I found myself spending an hour, sometimes three, with Rogan and his guests. I learned more than I learn watching T V news. I don't really know how Rogan does it. Maybe it's because he's a good lis- tener who asks good questions. He re- members what he learned from past interviews and uses those ideas when he questions other guests. He some- how makes three educational hours fun. Now Rogan is being criticized for broadcasting "misinformation." He sometimes has anti-vaxxers on his show who claim COVID-19 vac- cines are harmful. Rogan himself didn't get vaccinated. He believes his natural immunity (he and his family had COVID-19) is enough protection. If he got COVID-19 again, he thinks it wouldn't hurt him much because he's fit, takes vitamins, etc. I'm skeptical. I'm about to get my fourth dose of vaccine. But I still like hearing Rogan ques- tion anti-vaxxers and other people with unusual ideas. I learn from his show. But other people say, "Rogan must be stopped. He kills people by broad- casting 'misinformation.'" Also, "He's racist because he said the N-word." Neil Young, Joni Mitchell and some other musicians who I bet have nev- er listened to Rogan pulled their mu- sic from Spotify, the service that car- ries his podcast. They and others demand Spotify drop his show. Spotify hasn't. And Rogan, unlike many people at- tacked by the mob, didn't hide. He did what all of us should do if we're attacked for something we say: fight back with more speech. He quickly (without T V cosmetics — looks like he shot it in his back- yard) released a video on Instagram, pointing out, "Many of the things that we thought of as misinformation just a short while ago are now accepted as fact. ... If you said, 'I don't think cloth masks work,' you would be banned from social media. Now that's open- ly and repeatedly stated on CNN. If you said, 'I think it's possible that COVID-19 came from a lab,' you'd be banned from many social media platforms. Now that's on the cover of Newsweek." Rogan is right. The smug arbiters of truth versus misinformation are of- ten wrong. Then Rogan faced another con- troversy. A video of him using the N-word was circulated. Rogan apol- ogized but again fought back with more speech. He said he never called anyone the N-word; he'd only said it when others said it. "I was quoting a Lenny Bruce bit," said Rogan. "Or a Paul Mooney bit. Or I was talking about how Quentin Tarantino used it repeatedly in 'Pulp Fiction.'" Rogan's a comedian who's done thousands of shows and hundreds of podcasts. Of course he'll make mis- takes and offend some people. So what? He corrects his mistakes. Let Rogan speak. John Stossel is creator of Stossel TV and author of "Give Me a Break: How I Exposed Hucksters, Cheats, and Scam Artists and Became the Scourge of the Liberal Media." Today, two years after COVID-19 first hit these shores from Chi- na, most studies confirm that the heavy-handed government lock- downs of businesses, restaurants, schools, churches and parks did more harm than good to our health and well-being. States and countries with strict and prolonged lockdown and stay- at-home orders had slightly better health outcomes, but they ruined their economies and had highly ad- verse effects on children. If any good comes out of COVID-19, it should be that we've learned this lesson the hard way, and never, never again should we allow politicians to impose these unconsti- tutional lockdown orders again. Now we have evidence of more collateral damage from lockdowns, and perhaps this will persuade even those on the far left who generally support the heavy hand of govern- ment. Shutting down the economy hurt the poor the most and vastly widened the chasm between rich and poor. Lockdowns squashed small startup businesses, hurt low-income work- ers whose jobs were first in line to be destroyed and devastated education- al advances of children in the worst school districts. For example, we have learned that high-achieving children did fine with remote learning. However, those who scored below av- erage in school perfor- mance or from low-in- come families without computer skills tend- ed to tune out and shut down online lessons completely. We know from teachers that as many as one-third of children rarely, if ever, even turned on a com- puter during the lockdowns. The long-term educational setbacks for these children as they grow to adult age could be devastating. Just who were the winners from lockdown nation? Let's start with the corporate titans: Walmart, Google, Amazon, Walgreens, Apple, McDon- ald's, Pfizer, Goldman Sachs, etc. They were rewarded with the des- ignation of "essential" by the politi- cians. Their doors stayed open. They raked in dollars by the millions. You don't have to take my word for it. Here is a headline from Mar- ketWatch earlier this month: "Big Tech's pandemic year produces mind-boggling financial results." We learn that big business- es scored a " $1.4 trillion payday" during the pandemic. Amazon, Ap- ple, Facebook, Google and Micro- soft increased their profits by 45% last year. "Wow, bring back more pandemics! " they must be shouting around the boardroom table. Then there was this nugget from the front page of the New York Times: "Wealth inequal- ity is the highest since World War II." George Soros, Bill Gates and Warren Buffett won the lottery. Don't get me wrong: I'm not a basher of Big Tech or Big Pharma. On the contrary, I love a rising stock market. If firms make great products or services that people want, hooray for capitalism. Everyone's better off. But here, we see the hypocrisy of the left in the media come shining through. The left denounces inequal- ity, but it embraces the policies that allow the uneven playing field. When will the bleeding hearts learn this history lesson that keeps repeating itself like a skip on a vinyl record? Big government creates eco- nomic unfairness. It never solves it. Stephen Moore is a senior fellow at Freedom Works. He is also author of the new book: "Govzilla: How The Re- lentless Growth of Government Is De- vouring Our Economy." On U.S. health care policy, Presi- dent Biden's administration conclud- ed this past year as predicted. The administration aggressively consol- idated greater federal control over health care, undercutting state au- thority and making Americans more dependent on the federal govern- ment. At the state level, health care was the proverbial "mixed bag," re- flecting the intensely contentious competing visions for health care reform. 2022 will likely bring more of the same at both the federal and state level. Biden's Campaign for Federal Control The Administration took aggres- sive administrative and legislative actions to implement its health pol- icy agenda. It rolled back many of the Trump administration's reforms aimed at bringing down the cost of health care and pushed more peo- ple into government-run coverage by re-opening the Obamacare exchang- es and quadrupling the number of or- ganizations charged with enrolling individuals in government coverage. The Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) also be- gan taking steps to strip away state flexibility. In fact, CMS took the un- precedented step of revoking pre- viously approved state Medicaid agreements targeted at those states promoting work as a means to assist able-bodied, low-income adults tran- sition out of government dependence and toward self-sufficiency. Working closely with its allies in Congress, the Administration used the ongoing COVID crisis as a pre- text to pursue its long-term goal of a government-run, single-payer health care system. The initial legislative vehicle, the American Rescue Plan, further consolidated federal control by making existing Obamacare sub- sidies more generous and extend- ing Obamacare subsidies to all, re- gardless of income. Touted as "tem- porary" relief, these provisions laid the groundwork for the next legisla- tive phase. The multi-trillion-dollar, tax-and- spend "Build Back Better" plan, passed by the House, made tempo- rary provisions permanent and add- ed a new set of sweeping and costly changes that would permanently con- solidate federal control over health care. In addition to mak- ing the temporary feder- al subsidies permanent, the plan set up a new government-run health program, made chang- es to undermine employ- er-based coverage and other non-government coverage op- tions and imposed more federal man- dates on the states, further restrict- ing the states' authority to manage their health care programs. Thus far, this massive bill has been stalled in the United States Senate. States Fight over Policy Direction As with the national debate over the best response to COVID, 2021 state battles on health care reform revolved around two very different and competing approaches. Progres- sive or liberal-leaning states pur- sued heavy-handed government in- terventions to expand government control, while more conservative or mainstream states pursued policies designed to make health care cover- age more accessible and affordable. Among the progressive victories, Nevada and Colorado joined Wash- ington state in enacting a so-called "public option." Each with its own version, these states established government-run plans to compete against existing private health plans in the state. There were also a number of pro- posals advanced in the states aimed at imposing government controls on pharmaceuticals, ranging from im- porting government price controls from other countries to creating government affordability boards to "oversee" pharmaceutical prices in the states. In sharp contrast to these cam- paigns, the more mainstream or con- servative states took up patient-cen- tered reforms aimed at expanding access and improving choice and competition. For example, Mon- tana removed key reg- ulatory barriers to pa- tients and competi- tion by expanding the availability of direct primary care, elimi- nating some restric- tions on telehealth ser- vices, easing rules for medical professionals to dispense prescrip- tion medications and repealing anti-competitive certifi- cate of need laws that restrict entry of new providers and health care in- novation. In Texas, the state enacted "Healthy Families, Healthy Texas." As an alternative to Medicaid expan- sion, this bipartisan package of re- forms focused on improving access, outcomes and affordability. Mon- tana and Texas were not alone, oth- er states also took important actions to advance patient-centered health reform in their own states. Looking ahead This year, you can expect to see many of these same policy issues re- surface—in one form or another— at the federal or state level. Specif- ically: Build Back Better President Biden and his congres- sional allies are not likely to give up trying to pass the multi-trillion Build Back Better plan. They may try to re- suscitate the House-passed bill, craft another version of it, or advance ele- ments of the proposal on a piecemeal basis. The latter approach might in- clude making those temporary ACA subsidies and expansions permanent and re-introducing a "public option" plan aimed at squeezing out private and employer-based health cover- age. In addition, with the enticement of generous federal funds, states may be lured into advancing this piece- meal approach by adopting federal benefit and eligibility expansions, in- cluding those relating to home-and community-based health services. Race for the Cure By Star Parker Give Me a Break John Stossel Eye on the Economy By Stephen Moore Under pandemic lockdowns, the rich got richer and the poor got crushed Heritage Viewpoint By Nina Owcharenko Schaefer Health care: 2022 will be a confusing year See HEALTH on page 5 Court