The Press-Dispatch
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Opinion C-2 Wednesday, January 1, 2014 The Press-Dispatch Observations by Thomas Sowell Why December 25? Editor's note: Thomas Sowell is off. The following column is by Erick Erickson. One of the most popular theories and commonly taught explanations for why Christmas is on Dec. 25th is because the early church placed Christian holidays at times of Roman celebration to co-opt the local pagan festivals. Christians placed Christmas on Dec. 25th to co-opt Saturnalia, the mid-winter festival, or possibly the Festival of the Unconquered Sun—Sol Invictus. The theory went that Christians could get the heathen to convert by co-opting their own holidays. There is one problem—it sounds more convincing than it is. These theories did not start growing until the 12th century and only became popular once comparative religion became trendy after the 18th The danger of incivility By Ed Feulner Think it's too late for a Christmas gift idea? Not for the one I have in mind. It's something you can give right now to anyone you like. Something that's sorely needed in policy circles and political debates: civility. Alas, what we're seeing in the marketplace of ideas today is a disturbing growth of incivility. This breakdown isn't a failing of either the political left or right exclusively. It spreads from one end of the spectrum to the other. This schoolyard mentality, and the name-calling that inevitably follows, are not the exclusive domain of those who attach intemperate comments to online articles. We hear it from highly educated people who write syndicated columns, publish books, and shout on radio and television talk shows. Further down the food chain, lesser lights join in, poisoning the atmosphere still more. The Internet is a breeding ground for this type of behavior. Someone will post a civil comment on some political topic. Almost immediately, someone else swings the verbal hammer of incivility, and from there the conversation degrades into a food fight, with invective and insult as the main course. This breakdown is an echo of the famous "broken windows" theory of crime, popularized years ago by criminologists James Q. Wilson and George Kelling: When a broken window in a building is left un-repaired, the rest are soon broken by vandals. That's what we see online and on the airwaves. Once someone lowers the tone, others take it as an invitation to join in. Debates become shouting matches. If you watch closely, you'll see something else happening. The people who make civil comments basically shut down. A few join in the food fight. But most just disappear. They leave because the atmosphere has turned hostile to anything approaching an actual dialogue. This is the real danger of incivility. Our free, selfgoverning society requires an open exchange of ideas. That can't happen without a certain level of mutual respect for each other's opinions and viewpoints. What we see today is an accelerating competition between the left and the right to see which side can inflict the most damage. Increasingly, those who take part in public debates appear to be exchanging ideas when, in fact, they are trading insults: idiot, liar, moron, traitor. The broken-windows theory shows us the dangers when it comes to both crime and debates. But there's an important difference. When behavioral norms break down in a community, police can restore order. But when civility breaks down in the marketplace of ideas, the law is powerless to set things right. And properly so. Our right to speak freely is guaranteed by those five glorious words in the First Amendment: "Congress shall make no law . . . ." And yet, the need for civility has never been greatContinued on page 3 No spin zone—by Bill O'Reilly Teenage werewolves Back in the 1950s, "Little Joe Cartwright" starred in a movie called "I Was a Teenage Werewolf." That's right, after seeing a full moon, Michael Landon ran around a public high school foaming at the mouth and pretty much out of control. Since there was little difference between his behavior and that of the normal students, he got away with it for two semesters. As I watched the film, I remember thinking that it was going to be tough for Landon to get into college with that on his resume. But then the 1960s happened, so that was that. This brings me to the present. My life these days is largely confronting political and social madness on television and then going home to deal with teenage drama from an almost-14-yearold girl. I vaguely remember being 14, because I was ensconced in a Catholic high school that gave out homework assignments like they were M&M's. Believe me, I had plenty of angst. But nobody paid much attention to it. Like today, many teenagers back then brooded full time. Check out James Dean, an outstandingly cloudy guy. But now teens have two things that embolden their disenchantment: the Internet and permissive parents. Earlier this week, I was encouraging my urchins to speed it up because the bus was coming. "I can't go faster 'cause you're staring at me," the teen wailed. "I'm not staring at you. I just came into the room." "But I can see you!" You get the idea. My daughter also did not want to wear anything that covered her legs—even though it was 39 degrees outside. She wanted to wear shorts. At that point, I started wishing she'd turn into a werewolf. At least the fur would keep her warm. But it is the Internet that is truly changing the teenage dynamic in America. It used to be that teenagers would hang out together and swap stories of woe. I remember seeing Billy Joel and his crew at stores on Levittown Parkway. They were just slouching around the same as my guys were. Just being with other teenagers was comforting, but we actually had to leave our houses to do that. Now, teens can gang-brood from their rooms on the Net. Because nearly every awful occurrence is highlighted on various Facebook pages, teenagers now find it easier to justify their own craziness. "How can you criticize me for getting a C when Shelley got all F's and crashed her dad's car?" That kind of thing. Nothing is private anymore. Teenagers are subjected to (and some participate in) incredibly destructive behavior online. And parents have few options. Even if you ban home computers, handheld devices are all over the place. You'd have to put a full-time bodyguard on the child in order to provide complete protection. In the end, all parents can do is try their best to impose a sense of responsibility on their kids. But don't expect any appreciation, and be watchful at all times. Kids today are growing up at warp speed; the machines march them into adulthood way before they're ready. Even with fangs, Landon had it easier. Points to ponder—by Rev. Ford Bond Roast Duck? Voltaire, the 18th century agnostic, is often quoted to have said, "I do not agree with what you have to say, but I'll defend to the death your right to say it." Sadly, there are few, if any, Voltaire's among the disingenuous liberals who control the major media outlets. This is painfully obvious as the saga of the Phil Robertson, the patriarch of the Duck Dynasty family, continues to take media "fire" over remarks that he made in an interview in GQ Magazine. The media went wild be- cause Phil was asked about his beliefs and true to character, he told them. Phil is a product of the 1960s and lived a life of sex and drugs during. He found redemption through Jesus Christ and is not bashful or ashamed to proclaim his faith. At issue with the driveby media was Phil's hurtful remarks towards gays and blacks. Phil holds to the historic Christian position that marriage and sex is to be confined to a husband and wife, and he doesn't think sodomy (excuse me, I mean gay sex) is natural. A woman's perspective—by Mona Charen Obamacare whac-a-mole The wheels began to come off Obamacare in 2011 when the administration announced that the "CLASS Act," a provision to provide longterm disability care, was, in the words of Kathleen Sebelius, "totally unsustainable," and would be discontinued. What was the problem? The White House website had boasted: "No taxpayer funds will be used to pay benefits under this provision . . . Safeguards will be put in place to ensure its premiums are enough to cover its costs." "Safeguards." Sounds quaint now, doesn't it? A bit like "If you like your plan . . . " So why did the Department of Health and Human Services kill it? Because former Sen. Judd Gregg, R - N.H., had inserted a provision requiring that the CLASS Act be entirely self-sustaining and ineligible for government subsidies. (Yes, wouldn't it be sublime if most laws contained such a provision?) Because it contained neither a mandate to purchase insurance nor a taxpayer subsidy, most of those who enrolled would be those who expected to need disability care. Sound familiar? At least the administration actually got Congress's agreement to scrap this piece of the legislation. (It was repealed as part of the fiscal cliff deal at the start of 2013.) As for the rest of the law, the administration is flinging whole chapters over the side without so much as a nod toward its coequal branch. No one can safely plan in this environment. Jay Carney's declarations have a shelf life of hours, not weeks, but the more lasting damage inheres in the idea that the law can be dictated by the White House. The chang- century. Going back to the earliest Christian church finds evidence that Christmas, though not initially celebrated, had starting being commemorated well before the Feast of the Unconquered Sun's creation for entirely Christian reasons. In Egypt, less than 300 years after Christ's death, some Christians celebrated his birth in the spring. As the Biblical Archeology Society has noted, the earliest references to Christmas come at about 200 A.D., at a time Christians were not incorporating other religious traditions into their own. By 300 A.D., many Christians were celebrating his birth around Dec. 25th. Within Continued on page 3 es are not matters of implementation but structural elements going to the heart of the law. The administration feels free to issue such changes—though doing so violates (at the very least) the Administrative Procedure Act and arguably the Constitution—because President Barack Obama has successfully flouted the law since 2009. Bankruptcy law was ignored in the auto bailout. Secured creditors were undermined in favor of unions purely on the president's say-so. After the Gulf oil spill, the administration, without any authority, summarily ordered BP to set aside $20 billion for restitution. In the pre-Obama world, this would have been the province of the courts. Obama behaved like a dictator, and few protested. He then issued a moratorium on all drilling in the Gulf of Mexico— again, without authority. The president demonstrated the same contempt for law and procedure when he made flagrantly unlawful recess appointments. Regarding Obamacare, the administration has issued 1,231 waivers to unions, businesses, trade associations and others. In a display of government by decree, the administration has delayed or altered the law no fewer than 14 times (as of this writing). After a string of denials, HHS announced that employers would not be required to offer health insurance until 2015 instead of 2014 as the law provides. Next, Obama decreed that small businesses would not have to enroll in online exchanges next year. HHS highhandedly ruled that next year's enrollment deadline for individuals would be Nov. 15, not Oct. 15 (I can't imagine why). After the outcry over canceled policies, the president unilaterally allowed that insurers could go ahead and offer last year's policies. Accelerating retractions and corrections come daily now—most without legal foundation. Individuals can take an extra week to sign up for plans; those who've had their policies canceled can sign up for "catastrophic" policies. It all depends upon Obama's whim. This last bit of executive caprice creates the illogical and utterly unjust outcome that people who could not afford insurance at all in 2013 are still subject to the mandate, whereas those who did have insurance but saw their plans canceled are not. The law contains a "hardship exemption" from the individual mandate, which had included the homeless, members of Indian tribes, those who'd filed for bankruptcy within the previous six months and so forth. Now, according to the White House, having your insurance plan canceled because of Obamacare is itself a hardship. They're getting warmer. The president and his secretary of HHS seem to be playing a federal version of Whac-A-Mole. No sooner do they bat at one problem with the law than another pops up. This isn't just a problem with Obamacare. It's a dangerous new level of government by decree. Adhering to the rule of law isn't just a tradition—it is the essence of American liberty and success. Nations without it (look at Egypt, Venezuela or Russia) have difficulty achieving stability and prosperity even though they are blessed with natural resources and other advantages. Obamacare has thrown one-sixth of the economy into chaos —with results that are still incalculable. It's even more dangerous that Obama has undermined the rule of law and gotten away with it. In addition, he is accused of questioning whether the civil rights movement has advanced the overall quality of life for AfricanAmericans (so have a few black columnists). His actual comment was growing up, he never witnessed a black being mistreated. The thought police have pronounced a curse upon Phil and labeled him an unashamed racist-homophobe. The media demanded that he be punished for his maligning of homosexuals and questioning of civil rights. Therefore, the Arts and Entertainment Cable Channel (A&E) had no choice but to punish Phil for having opinions that run contrary to what is dictated by the 'beautiful people,' and enforced by the media branch of the thought police. A&E announced that Phil would be suspended indefinitely from future taping of their number one program Duck Dynasty and vaguely hinted the show might be cancelled. Since that announcement, I have tried to visualize if A&E ran into a buzz-saw, was attacked by killer bees, or is just plain stupid. From many quarters, in- cluding the governor of Louisiana (where the Robertson's live), several gay rights advocates, and a large majority of rank-and-file Americans have said 'enough is enough!' It is obvious that the politically correct mandate of toleration does not extend to Christians who object to watching their culture collapse around. Phil is not the President, a judge, or a county dog catcher. His family makes duck calls and have a cable TV show. They are Christians and act as such. The drive-by media picked the wrong target because the Robertson's will not collapse under the weight of their pronounced sins. Though they may appear to "city folks" as uneducated hicks, they are a family of "down home" beliefs and try to live a slower pace life. Phil (and several other family members) is college educated and the family are millionaires (and were before Duck Dynasty). Short of a public execution, the media can do nothing but throw a tantrum. Phil's remarks in the GQ interview were in character for Phil. Ask a conserContinued on page 3 The P Dispatch ress- MR. AND MRS. FRANK HEURING, PUBLISHERS ANDREW G. HEURING, EDITOR JOHN B. HEURING, ADVERTISING MANAGER Wednesday, January 1, 2014 Entered at the Post Office in Petersburg, Indiana for transmission through the mails as Periodical Mail, Postage paid at Petersburg, Indiana. Published weekly. 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