The South Gibson Star-Times serves the towns of Haubstadt, Owensville and Fort Branch.
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B-10 Tuesday, May 17, 2022 South Gibson Star-Times The United States has a history of facing seemingly insurmountable challenges, beginning with its found- ing when Americans won indepen- dence by defeating the most power- ful nation in the world. We preserved the union and end- ed slavery in a horrific Civil War. We worked our way through the Great Depression and led the Al- lies to victory in World War II. We withstood the shocks of assassina- tions of political leaders, defeat in Vietnam and a cultural counterrev- olution at home. We held firm to our convictions despite the Watergate scandal. We defeated Soviet com- munism and tracked down our ene- mies in the wake of the 9/11 terrorist attacks. We surmounted a great re- cession, and we are fighting a dead- ly pandemic. We are now engaged in an epic debate—this time about our politi- cal future. It is complicated by our mass media, which stress all that is bad and ignore all that is good about U.S. society. Why have we survived? To put it simply, we are a nation favored with abundant natural resources, an in- dustrious population and an unpar- alleled national defense. Most of all, the United States is exceptional be- cause of our God-giv- en ability to meet any challenge by call- ing on the conserva- tive ideas articulated by our Founders and nourished by West- ern civilization. Those ideas, con- tained within the framework of a rep- resentative democra- cy, are limited consti- tutional government, free enterprise, individual freedom and personal responsibility, tradi- tional American values based on our Judeo-Christian heritage and a strong national defense. When we have been guided by these ideas, we have prevailed, as when Presi- dent Ronald Reagan led us out of a profound psychological depression by insisting our best days were yet to come; ignited a period of unparal- leled prosperity through tax cuts and widespread deregulation and ended the Cold War at the bargaining table and not on the battlefield. Even with COVID-19 variants, per- sistent inflation and ra- cial tension, the Unit- ed States remains an exceptional nation blessed with institu- tions such as the con- servative movement, the only social move- ment deeply commit- ted to the first princi- ples of the founding of the country. As in the past, the solution to our problems lies not with the federal government but with us. In this present political crisis, we must resolve anew to preserve and protect that most precious of our pos- sessions—ordered liberty. If we do, we will keep the republic that the Founders handed to us almost two- and-a-half centuries ago. Lee Edwards is a leading historian of American conservatism and the au- thor or editor of 25 books. Freedom is rooted in sanctity of life In 1955, an unmarried pregnant Uni- versity of Wisconsin graduate student left her home and traveled to San Fran- cisco to a doctor who took in unwed ex- pectant mothers, delivered their babies and helped arrange adoptions. The baby son she delivered and put up for adoption grew up to become the legendary business and technology en- trepreneur Steve Jobs. Had it been 1975, rather than 1955, there is a reasonable chance there would have never been a Steve Jobs. In 1975 America, after Roe v. Wade be- came law and where values markedly changed such that a young Catholic woman felt less shame to be unmar- ried and pregnant, Steve Jobs' mother could well have wound up in a Planned Parenthood clinic. Looking around at the impact of lap- top computers, iPhones, social media and remote work, it's hard to imagine what our lives would be like today had that one genius not been born. But the preciousness of every hu- man life depends not on whether that life is a potential Steve Jobs. Each brings their own unique and invalu- able gifts to the world. As the left goes berserk over the leaked Samuel Alito opinion pointing to the overturning of Roe v. Wade, we should consider that we'll never know the gifts of the 63 million children oblit- erated since the 1973 Roe v. Wade de- cision. The Kaiser Family Foundation re- ports in 2019 that 38 percent of abor- tions were given to Black women. Us- ing this figure, 24 million Black babies — roughly half the current Black pop- ulation — were removed by abortion since 1973. The United States in 1955 was a nation before the passage of the Civ- il Rights Act. There was segregation; there was racism; and there was pov- erty. But today, many years later, we still have poverty, and our public discourse is still dominated by allegations of rac- ism. According to the rhetoric on the left, there was nothing good about the America of 1955. But this is not true. The state of faith and, because of this, the state of marriage and child- bearing, was far healthier than today, both among whites and among Blacks. According to Gallup, as we show in the "State of Black America" recently published by my organization, CURE- POLICY, in the early 1960s, 70 percent of Americans said religion was "very important" in their own lives. By the late 1970s, this was down to 52 percent. In 1955, the national fertility rate — the average number of children birthed by women of child-bearing age — was 3.42. Today, this is down to 1.78. The rate needed for a population to replace itself and not shrink is 2.2. In 1960, 9 percent of Black adults and 8 percent of white adults had nev- er been married. By 2012, this had in- creased to 36 percent among Blacks and 16 percent among whites. In 1960, less than 5 percent of white babies were born to unwed mothers. By 2010, this was up to 29 percent. Among Blacks, in 1960 a little over 20 percent of babies were born to un- wed mothers. By 2010, this was up to 72 percent. The secularization of the country in the 1960s did not produce more free- dom. It produced more dependence on government. Blacks, in this regard, have been hurt the most. In 1950, the federal government took 15.3 percent of the national economy. By 2020, this was up to 32 percent. President Joe Biden, now presiding over a nation drowning in debt, infla- tion and sclerotic growth, said the oth- er day that "The MAGA crowd is the most extreme political organization that has existed in American history." If an aging America without married fathers and mothers and without chil- dren is where you think our future lies, then Biden is your man. In 1956, 39 percent of Blacks voted for the Republican presidential candi- date Dwight Eisenhower. We're going back to the future. More Black Americans, and all Americans, are seeing that rooted in the Ameri- can ideal of freedom is sanctity of life and family. Star Parker is president of the Center for Urban Renewal and Education and host of the weekly television show "Cure America with Star Parker." Washington never learns. Never. Politicians are like collective Alzhei- mer's disease patients. They have no short-term memories. Does anyone remember 2008? It was only 14 years ago. Then, Ameri- ca suffered through one of the most significant and most painful finan- cial crises in our nation's history — and the worst losses since the crash of 1929. Millions of people lost their jobs. Hundreds of thousands default- ed on their mortgages and lost their homes. Trillions of dollars of lifetime sav- ings and wealth evaporated. Central billion-dollar banks and investment houses that were thought to be invin- cible were swept away like straw huts in the face of a tsunami. The calamity resulted from gov- ernment policies that intentionally inflated a housing bubble year after year. Few saw the bursting of the bubble coming. When it popped, the carnage was everywhere and felt from coast to coast. Now there are many of the same flashing signs of a housing bubble — and again, no one is paying attention. A well-respected housing afford- ability index fell last month to near the lowest level ever as home prices surged. Mortgage interest rates now exceed 5.2 percent — up from 3.6 percent just two years ago. In some markets, rates are nearing 6 percent. And the Fed is raising rates again, as it should, but this too will likely fur- ther inflate mortgage rates. The average mortgage payment is now $1,800 a month — 70 percent higher than before COVID-19 hit. Many people live paycheck to pay- check and are already financially squeezed due to prices rising faster than paychecks. The only other time home payments were as high as they are today was in 2007. Yes, on the eve of the Great Financial Crisis. A popular mortgage monitor called Black Knight shows home prices are up 19.9 percent over a year ago. Yes, that's good news for homeowners as their home equity surges. But these gravity-defying home prices are killers for homebuy- ers, especially young, first-time buyers. Loan-to-income levels are also rising, which makes defaults more likely. If housing prices fall, borrowers will start to be pushed underwater with un- paid loans more out- standing than the house's value. They will walk away as mil- lions of borrowers did in 2008 and 2009. If this housing run-up were sim- ply a result of natural supply and de- mand market forces, there wouldn't be a great cause for concern. Alas, Congress, the Fed and hous- ing agencies such as Fannie Mae are pumping air into the bubble. The Fed has artificially held interest rates too low for too long as part of its "stimulus" strategy. Meanwhile, the Fed has encouraged home loans by purchasing $2.7 trillion of mort- Race for the Cure By Star Parker Heritage Viewpoint By Lee Edwards Is American democracy at risk? Give Me a Break By John Stossel Eye on the Economy By Stephen Moore Beware the popping of the housing bubble My So Called Millennial Life By Stephanie Hayes I quit the fertility clinic Organic 'manure' Activists have convinced Ameri- cans that "organic" food is better — healthier, better-tasting, life-extend- ing. As a result, poor parents feel guilty if they can't afford to pay $7 for organ- ic eggs. This misinformation is spread by people like Alexis Baden-Mayer, po- litical director of the Organic Con- sumers Association. She says organ- ic food is clearly better: "The nutrition is a huge difference." But it isn't. Studies find little differ- ence. If you still want to pay more for what's called "organic," that's your right. But what's outrageous is that this group of scientifically illiterate people convinced the government to force all of us to pay more. Congress has ruled that GMOs (ge- netically modified food) must be la- beled. Busybodies from both parties supported the idea. Politicians like Rep. Jim McGov- ern, D-Mass., said, "It doesn't cost any more. This idea that ... this ... will raise food prices is ridiculous." It's McGovern who is ridiculous. The U.S. Department of Agriculture says the GMO labeling will cost from $598 million to $ 3.5 billion. "But the public wants GMOs la- beled," say advocates. "Surveys show that." Of course they do. Ask people if DNA in food should be labeled, and most say yes. Yet DNA is in everything. Polling is a stupid way to make pol- icy. The idea of modifying a plant's DNA may sound creepy, but people have cross-bred plants and animals for years. "The corn we have today, there's nothing natural about that," I say to Baden-Mayer in my new video. "What native people ate, we'd find inedible." Baden-Mayer laughs at that. "You're saying indigenous corn is somehow inferior because you've seen it dried and it has tiny little kernels? " she asks. "Yes," I reply. I've tried to eat it. "That's another myth of the indus- try," she responds. "People like you be- lieve that." I sure do. I also believe it's good that genetic modification lets us alter na- ture more precisely, gene by gene. That's better and safer than the more haphazard crossbreeding that's been done for years. This new precision lets scientists make plants that save lives. In poor parts of the world, half a mil- lion people per year go blind due to lack of vitamin A in their diets. Ma- ny die. Scientists have created a new genet- ically modified rice that contains vita- min A. This "golden rice" could save those people. "I've heard of golden rice," sneers Baden-Mayer. "That was a project that all of the chemical companies invest- ed in." I sneer right back. "Golden rice hasn't succeeded part- ly because scientifically ignorant fools like you convinced the world that it's harmful! " "I knew at a certain point you would resort to name-calling," she replies. "But it doesn't change the science on this." Sadly, in some countries, people lis- ten to advocates like her and believe that Americans want to poison them. One group of GMO fearful protesters invaded a golden rice field in the Phil- ippines, ripping up all the plants. Thousands will die or go blind, needlessly, because the organic cult spreads misinformation. At least educated skeptics now un- derstand that they were wrong about GMOs. The New York Times points out that many "quietly walked back their op- position" to GMOs. "The science is clear," says a former opponent in The Wall Street Journal. "They're perfect- ly safe." The Philippines recently approved golden rice. But the hardcore zealots will never be convinced. Baden-Mayer claims GMOs cause cancer. "We're using more GMOs than ev- er," I point out. "There's less cancer now. Life spans keep increasing." "Compared to when, 100 years ago? " she scoffs. Absolutely, yes. We live about 25 years longer than Americans did 100 years ago. Even compared to 10 or 20 Editor's note: Stephanie Hayes is breaking from her traditional jovial column this week to discuss the sensi- tive topic of infertility. Some terms may be inappropriate for younger or sensi- tive readers. For those who want to get pregnant, it turns out waiting rooms are some- thing out of a glossy sitcom. Swanky velvet seats and gold vases, HGT V bleating from screens, gleeful suc- cess stories tacked to walls. No pro- testers. No shame. But reproduction is scary territory and so, to me, was this. A fear of wait- ing rooms is only natural. I've never had an abortion. Quite the opposite. I can't seem to get pregnant. I turn 39 next month and have been mar- ried almost five years. We've tried to conceive on some level for the majori- ty of that time. A fter a couple of years, I asked my OB-GYN for advice. "How old are you, again? " she said, and immediately wrote a referral to a fertility clinic. To the plush waiting room I went, alone thanks to COVID-19. We began tests. A transvaginal ultrasound to examine ovaries and eggs. An X-ray to check fallopi- an tubes. A uterine in- jection of high-contrast iodine. Blood draws and chemical analyses and video lessons about pricey genetic testing. Some pain. A fter all that, the di- agnosis was "unexplained infertility." The doctor recommended surgery to clear my uterus of an abundance of polyps. Insurance covered the proce- dure but not the expensive anesthesia, a maddening tease to the financial mo- rass of American childbearing. While I reclined half-awake on a re- covery trolley, the doctor came in to talk about next steps. He quickly ex- plained options: intrauterine insemina- tion, medication and lastly, in vitro fertil- ization with no guar- antee of success. I felt like a sprock- et on a factory belt, a line on a spread- sheet. I asked for time to think, and he looked a bit befud- dled. "By the time most people get to this point," he said, "they've made up their minds." Ah, but I am excellent at avoidance, an A-plus student of compartmental- izing. Since that day last year, I've act- ed like none of it exists. I saw the road ahead, the injections, the egg retrieval, the embryo transfer, the tens of thou- sands of dollars, the cycles of devasta- See FERTILITY on page 11