The Press-Dispatch
Issue link: https://www.ifoldsflip.com/i/315570
OPINION C-2 Wednesday, May 21, 2014 The Press-Dispatch Points to ponder—by Rev. Ford Bond Observations by Thomas Sowell Think Big by Ben Carson Kangaroo courts on campus? Leaders who fail to own up to mistakes Continued on page 3 Democrats and Republicans talking past the voters A woman's perspective—by Mona Charen Not bad at all for a rainy weekend in Reykjavik It's a cliche to say that Washington, D.C., is "out of touch" with voters, but there's something to it. Arguably, in 2012, the Re- publican Party seemed fo- cused on a subject—debt— that wasn't a high priority for average Americans. Sin- cere Republicans (includ- ing this columnist) believe it should be. Nations that can- not pay their bills eventual- ly fall into decline, hardship and worse when govern- ments resort to inflation to pay off their debts. It's easier to make small adjustments now than to endure wrenching hard- ships later. But the voters remain to be convinced. The Democratic Party today is simi- larly situated regarding a matter of in- difference to voters—climate change. Sincere Democrats believe that Amer- icans should be worried about global warming. And just as Republicans have attempted to frighten Americans about the consequences of failing to act on our national debt, Democrats are try- ing to scare voters with doomsday sce- narios, the latest being the Obama ad- ministration's 829 -page report on "cli- mate disruption." Voters remain to be convinced. When Gallup asked Americans an open-ended question about the "most important problem facing this coun- try," the economy and jobs led by a mile. In April, a total of 47 percent said the economy and jobs were the top priority. No other issue broke double digits. Not the gap between rich and poor. Not taxes. Not corporate corrup- tion. Not fuel prices. The highest per- centage among the lesser issues was the 9 percent who mentioned the fed- eral budget deficit and/or the federal debt. These data have been consistent all year. As for climate change, only 1 percent listed the environment as the most important problem. Other polls show similar results. For both parties, it would seem that ad- dressing the voters' chief worries would be the path to getting their attention on other mat- ters. Some Republicans appear to have shift- ed their emphasis. Sen. Mike Lee of Utah has au- thored a family-friendly tax-reform proposal and delivered a biting speech opposing crony capitalism (or, as I pre- fer, "corporatism"). Sen. Marco Rubio has proposed changes to safety-net programs that would reward work and offer states more flexibility. Sens. Or- rin Hatch, Tom Coburn and Richard Burr have proposed a replacement for Obamacare that would cover the un- insured without raising costs for ev- eryone. Conservative publications like the National Review and National Af- fairs have been stressing reforms that would enhance opportunity for strug- gling Americans. The Democrats have proposed in- creasing the minimum wage and rais- ing taxes on the rich, both of which are popular with voters. But taxes have been raised several times dur- ing the Obama years (some are hid- den in Obamacare and Dodd/Frank) without any noticeable improvement in the economy. The Democrats sub- stitute talk about the gap between rich and poor (i.e., stoke resentment) for any clear policy agenda to improve the economy. The income gap, meanwhile, has increased during the Obama years. What would it mean for the average voter who worries most about the econ- omy and jobs if each party gets its way? If Republicans were successful in putting brakes on the ballooning fed- eral debt, the economy would probably improve. In the 1990s, when a Demo- cratic president and a Republican Con- gress were succeeding in balancing the budget, the private sector practi- cally sighed with pleasure. Labor-force participation rates increased. Econom- ic growth averaged 3.8 percent. If Democrats got their fondest wish- es regarding climate change, the U.S. would spend billions more on solar, wind and other energy sources that are more expensive than hydrocar- bons and incapable of meeting our en- ergy needs. We would simultaneous- ly delay or impede the development of cheap and environment-friendly natu- ral gas, and tax and extensively regu- late industries that produce or rely on fossil fuels. The result would be slower economic growth and more hardship. The sacrifice would be worth it if the danger to be avoided were clear. It isn't. Climateers have not answered the big- gest question: Why, in contrast to their confident predictions, has warming paused for the past 17 years? Nor have they answered the second biggest ques- tion: How would America taking an eco- nomic hit alter the world's temperature when China, Indonesia, Brazil, India— and even Germany and Great Britain— are all increasing their consumption of coal? The third unanswered question is: Why wouldn't further economic growth in the U.S. continue to do what it has al- ways done in the past—make us green- er and cleaner? The Democrats' doomsday predic- tions are phantasms spun of specula- tion, worst-case assumptions and panic aimed at increasing the government's control of economic life. The Repub- licans' doomsday fears are based on the arithmetic certainty that we can- not pay the estimated $ 86 trillion in debt we've amassed. Our Children Taken Captive The mass media drives the culture of today and has for the last 150 years. What is published as news and what is promoted as en- tertainment shapes how we think about ourselves and others. That being said, what re- deeming can be found in our culture's latest sexual sensa- tion who is working tireless- ly to replace the aging Ma- donna and to exceed the shock of Lady Gaga: Miley Cyrus? Cyrus can be likened to the Pied Piper and is march- ing our children toward he- donism and total self-indul- gence. She is not the first child star to slip from sug- ar and spice to a soulless de- pravity, but her descent has been swift. Cyrus's latest foray in- to depravity goes beyond the video where she rode a wrecking ball naked while making lewd gestures. Her newest video called Tongue Tied is a black and white montage of scenes of her al- most complete- ly naked, which has been de- scribed as allud- ing to torture, sadomasoch- ism, and sexual abuse. One not so kind reviewer opined: "The video is riddled with symbol- ism. While most music reviewers describe the video as 'being about bond- age,' there is much more go- ing on there. The song title itself suggests her being speechless and confused. Cyrus is a 'Sex Kitten' who is depicted as being blind, controlled, and confused. She cannot express what is happening to her because she is truly 'tongue tied.' Seeing Miley Cyrus por- trayed as the entertainment industry's favorite Kitten is painful to watch. Unfor- tunately, somewhere down the line she is going to have some kind of 'breakdown' or 'downfall.'" From Madonna to Britta- ny to Lady Gaga and now to Cyrus, there seems to be a disturbing trend within the entertainment industry to attack the psyche and sen- sibilities. It is beyond be- lief to attribute her stage change to being coinciden- tal. Could it be that the per- verted within the industry by design are taking the moral foundations away from our children? At her recent London Con- cert a reviewer observed: "Miley was drinking wa- ter and spitting it on the crowd and asking people to make out with members of the same sex. She got loads of same sex people to snog in the audience and put them on camera on a giant screen and makes a speech about how we should all just 'be ourselves.' She said she hopes we are all drunk and on loads of pills. One of the highlights came when a stage handler had to fix her corset when it became un- done while simulating sex with midgets." A former fan of Cyrus blogged, "Her act was so disgusting that one of my old work friends walked out of at O2 cause she was being vile and disgusting . . . no shock there then (sic)." But few people there at the con- cert walked out. Millions of her fans will clone her behavior be- cause she was first sold to them as a wholesome role model; Now that she is a grownup, she will show her followers how grown up women behave. The interpretation to Cyrus's metamorphous is that she has shed her Dis- ney persona and become the women she craves to be. This tells other young girls that they, too, can shed the "sugar and spice and every- thing nice image" and have fun with their sexuality: "If it feels good to you, then do it! " Young girls are being told that no one can rule them, yet just the opposite will hap- pen. Their ability to con- trol sensual desires is be- ing eroded, and they will lack the morality and con- science to resist and reject "sin." They are not yet so- phisticated enough to un- derstand that this mindset will degrade their moral in- hibitions that protects them from misuse and exploita- tion. Where are the protests occurring over Cyrus's be- havior from women's groups and church groups and the mothers of impressionable children? Have they them- selves been so indoctrinated by the mass media that pro- motes Cyrus [and others] as harmless "rebels" that they are unable to comprehend her stage act and life is ob- scene? As Madonna was in the 1990s, Cyrus will carry on the entertainment indus- try's assault on all things de- cent and continue to repro- gram a generation of young girls to swallow pills and to The recent escalating ar- guments over whether there should be fur- ther congres- sional hear- ings on Beng- hazi are troubling. The fact that there are substantial numbers of people who feel that there is nothing more to inves- tigate when four American lives were lost and no one has answered for this crime provides an indication of how far our sense of justice has slipped. This should not be a partisan issue, because the implications of ignoring or prevaricating about the underlying mistakes will have far-reaching conse- quences. The United States has diplo- matic establishments throughout the world, and if they can be attacked with- out consequences, it greatly diminish- es our influence despite any protesta- tions to the contrary. What does it say about our judg- ment if we have diplomatic establish- ments for which we make inadequate provisions for protection? This is es- pecially disturbing because it was re- vealed that requests by the consulate in Benghazi for more protection were refused. There had been attacks on the consulate not long before the fatal at- tack, and hostile actions had been tak- en against the British, which they were wise enough to react to appropriately. Even more confounding was the de- cision to abandon our personnel at the consulate because someone decided that our military forces could not reach them in time to effect a rescue. How could such a decision be made when no one knew how long the hostile ac- tion would last? Several military per- sonnel who were in the area ignored or- ders to stand down and instead rushed to the consulate with assault weapons and resisted hostile forces long enough to allow some of their colleagues to es- cape, while sacrificing their own lives. Their heroic actions demonstrate the bravery and loyalty that characterize American military forces. I feel certain that those men had no doubt in their minds that reinforcements were on the way, and that if they could just hold out long enough, their efforts would be re- warded. When our top officials make deci- sions to abandon our own people be- cause they feel the situation is hope- less, they also abandon the concept of American exceptionalism and create doubt in the minds of all future military participants about the intention of their superiors to expend maximum effort to preserve their lives when they have sacrificed everything for our nation. Making mistakes is part of being hu- man, but the ever-increasing deception that is necessary to cover those mis- takes when honesty is abandoned is evil. Those willing to ignore evil for political reasons should question their fitness for leadership of our nation. In this case, a blatant falsehood was pro- moted—namely that the Obama ad- ministration had international terror- ist activity directed at America under control, and that the Benghazi inci- dent was a spontaneous action result- ing from the outrage of locals who had viewed an offensive anti-Islamic video. Undue importance was placed on pro- moting an image of U.S. strength dur- ing the weeks immediately preceding the presidential election of 2012. Again, I must emphasize that if we, the American people, the American press and the American political class, participate in the cover-up or ignore such an important story, we contribute to the demise of honesty and truth as pillars of our governing structure. In the book of Proverbs, King Solomon put it this way: "If a ruler listens to lies, those who serve him will be wicked." We also should be concerned about the attempt by some to ignore or down- grade the significance of the Internal By Ed Feulner It is perhaps fitting that the Cold War finally began to crack apart in a place called Iceland. It was October 1986, and President Reagan flew to Reykjavik to meet Sovi- et Premier Mikhail Gor- bachev. Our side didn't ex- pect much from the talks. They were intended to give the leaders a chance to get to know each other better and lay some groundwork for fu- ture talks, planned for Wash- ington. That's not what end- ed up happening, though. Ken Adelman was there, as the president's arms-con- trol director. His new book, "Reagan at Reykjavik," tells the story of a weekend that changed the world. Mr. Gorbachev came to the summit prepared to bet big. He offered sweep- ing reductions in ballistic nuclear missiles and even agreed to work on human rights issues, which had al- ways been hidden far behind the Iron Curtain. Before he would sign any agreements, though, he demanded that the United States stop its work on Reagan's dream: the Strategic Defense Initia- tive (SDI) missile-defense system. Reagan wouldn't budge. A fter hours of talks be- tween the two leaders, the summit ended, "with no joint statement, no date set for the summit in Washington, no telegenic smiles or per- functory pleasantries," Mr. Adelman writes. Those who had been there immediately painted it as a failure. Secretary of State George Shultz expressed a "great sense of disappoint- ment." White House Chief of Staff Donald Regan told reporters, "there will not be another summit in the near future that I can see at this time." Mr. Gorbachev sounded pessimistic. "If we had a third meeting in Wash- ington that would have no re- sults, I think that would be a scandal, unacceptable, im- permissible," he told report- ers. The media agreed. "To- night, when the summit was over, a somber mood," ABC's Peter Jennings re- ported. "No banter, and no progress." Or as The Wash- ington Post put it, "The sum- mit meeting between Pres- ident Reagan and Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev collapsed tonight." Report- er Lou Cannon pointed the finger at the president. The sides, he wrote, "dead- locked on the crucial issue of restricting the U.S. space- based missile-defense pro- gram widely known as 'Star Wars.'" However, all this was, as they say, the rough first draft of history. Far more had happened in Reykja- vik than anyone knew at the time. First, the summit was crucial simply because it put Reagan and Gorbachev face to face. "Each felt free to speak his mind," Mr. Adelman writes, which al- lowed them to move for- ward. Back home, "both men felt that their own bu- reaucracies were block- ing, not just their goals, but Continued on page 3 Continued on page 3 There seems to be a full-court press on to get colleges to "do something" about rape on campus. But there seems to be remarkably little attention paid to two crucial facts: (1) rape is a crime and (2) colleges are not qualified to be law-enforcement institutions. Why are rapists not reported to the police and prosecuted in a court of law? Apparently this is because of some col- lege women who say that they were raped and are dissatisfied with a legal system that does not automatically take their word for it against the word of someone who has been accused and denies the charge. There seem to be a dangerously large number of people who think that the law ex- ists to give them whatever they want—even when that means denying other people the same rights that they claim for themselves. Nowhere is this self- centered attitude more common than on col- lege campuses. And no- where are such attitudes more encouraged than by the Obama administration's Justice Department, which is threatening colleges that don't handle rape issues the politically correct way—that is, by presuming the ac- cused to be guilty and not letting Constitu- tional safeguards get in the way. Anything that fits the "war on women" theme is seen as smart politics in an elec- tion year. The last thing Attorney General Eric Holder's Justice Department is inter- ested in is justice. Continued on page 3