The Press-Dispatch
Issue link: https://www.ifoldsflip.com/i/883023
The Press-Dispatch Wednesday, October 4, 2017 D-9 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 Having just finished a confer- ence in Franklin, Tennessee, my wife and I motored over to the Smoky Mountains to spend a few days. The Smoky Mountains Nation- al Park is the most visited park in the United States. Its beauty and primitive setting is an expe- rience. It is no accident that there is one main two-lane road across the mountains [from Gatlinburg, TN to Cherokee, NC], and if you are looking for any tourists spots, there are none to be found inside the park. Our favorite area is the Roaring Fork Nature Auto Tour that winds around 16 miles at the northern foot of the mountains. The road winds through an area that once was farmed, and several cabins and a mill remind visitors of life on the mountain. This was a hard life where a family was truly living alongside of nature and was depen- dent upon the seasons. The psalmist wrote, "I will med- itate on the glorious splendor of Your majesty, And on Your won- drous works." No feat of engineer- ing can man engage to reproduce this majestic area of nature. I could not but notice the effects of the wildfire that occurred there in late November 2016. I remem- ber reading about the fire and the damage around Gatlinburg and Pi- geon Forge. Inside the park more than 10,000 acres were burned, 6,000 acres outside the park, more than 2,000 homes, businesses, and struc- tures were damaged or destroyed, and 14 people died. But this was not the type of wildfire that comes to mind when hearing the word wild- fire. Our mind conjures up a roar- ing fire that destroys everything in its path. That does not happen in fires in woodlands east of the Mississippi because this region has abundant rainfall, and the dry conditions that occur in the west- ern US do not exist in the east. The fire burned small areas at a time, and hot embers were spread by unseasonable strong winds. What burned was the forest floor clutter and bark on some trees in the park, but also around Gatlin- burg and Pigeon Forge patches of damage were evident. A summer report by the Forest Service mentioned the area where the fire originated Chimney Tops 1 and 2 were still closed, and the trails in the area would remain closed for the foreseeable future. For hikers, this is devastating. Outside of the Appalachian Trail which winds through the park, this area is the most visit- ed and most hiked. But there was a glimmer of hope in the press release. As the Forest Service is assessing how to help the area recover, it not- ed nature has already begun the repair pro- cess. Except near the highest areas, grass, flowers, and bushes in the fire ar- ea are sprouting. Nature can re- pair itself. Consider that point again; na- ture can repair itself. I recog- nized the parallel between nature and humanity in that the God of all creation extends His hand to heal evil. What academia, secularists, and humanists wrestle with is identi- fying what is evil. Where does it originate? How can we arrest its development and produce an idyl- lic world. Christianity maintains that man- kind has a sinful/evil nature be- cause it sinned [rebelled] against God and lost the ability to live in fellowship with God. But that is not the end. Like our environment, God has made a way Continued on page 10 Continued on page 10 Minority View by Walter E. Williams The Weekly by Alden Heuring Not a daycare Points to Ponder by Rev. Ford Bond A refreshing thought Tax cut for all Americans will help workers Heritage Viewpoint by Edwin J. Feulner When you hear the phrase "cor- porate tax cut," what do you pic- ture? Middle-class workers, or Un- cle Moneybags, the character from the Monopoly board game? Probably the latter, unfortunate- ly. Too many Americans buy into the popular misconception that such a cut would benefit only fi- nancial fat cats. And who can blame them? Who's telling them the truth: that a tax cut for corporations is a tax cut for the average American? The United States has the high- est corporate tax rate in the devel- oped world — a top marginal feder- al rate of 35 percent (38.9 percent when you include the state aver- age). At first glance, sure, this levy seems to hit the rich and those who own corporations the hardest. A grumbling worker might think, "Good riddance." But that reaction makes a lot less sense when you consider what the corporate tax does. Business own- ers wind up with a lot less money to spend. That mean they're invest- ing less in the very businesses that em- ploy the grumbling worker and his col- leagues. That means fewer jobs. Lower wages. Less-compet- itive businesses. Indeed, a corporate tax cut is actually a re- markably "progres- sive" tax change, as it benefits workers who earn their income in the form of wages. And those at the bottom of the income scale stand to gain the most from it. They're the ones who really suf- fer when businesses can't expand — and therefore can't hire more workers, or pay their current work- ers a higher wage. But the negative effects don't stop there. It's easy to speak of "corporations" as faceless entities, but think about it: They're made up of people. I don't just mean the workers, as important as they are. I mean the people who invest in them through the stock market. Here again, misper- ceptions rule. It's easy to think of Gordon Gekko when the stock market comes up, but what we should think about is ourselves. "Across the U.S., corporations employ 54.8 million hard-work- ing individuals who create prod- ucts for global and domestic mar- kets," writes tax expert Adam Mi- chel. "Corporate profits also are ul- timately claimed by people. More than half of Americans invest in the stock market, and almost 40 percent of corporate stock is owned through retirement plans." Unfortunately, that isn't the mes- Our college-age population con- sists mostly of 18 - to 30 -year-olds, and likewise our armed forces. I wonder whether they shared com- mon responses to the 2016 presi- dential election. Many college ad- ministrators provided students with therapy dogs, play dough, coloring books, bubbles, videos of frolicking kittens and puppies, and soft mu- sic. They even canceled classes and postponed exams so that their 18 - to 30 -year-old snowflakes could bet- ter cope with the election results. There are numerous internet pho- tos and videos of these youngsters screaming and in outright grief and panic. Here's my question: Were our military leaders as accommo- dating as college administrators? Did commanding officers of our air- craft carriers provide their young people with therapy dogs, play dough, crayons and coloring books, and soft music? Were sea training exercises canceled? Were similar accommodations ordered by com- manders of our special forces, such as the Army Rangers, Navy SEALs and Delta Force? I'm guessing and hoping that our military leaders, unlike many college administrators, have not lost their minds. That brings me to this column's title: "Not a Day Care." That's the title of a new book written by Dr. Everett Piper, president of Oklahoma Wesleyan University. Piper reminds us that today's law students are tomor- row's lawyers and judges. Based on what they are taught, there's no mystery why lawyers and judges seek to legislate from the bench. Students who want to rid college curricula of dead old white men such as Plato, Aristotle, Voltaire and Kant will be on tomorrow's school boards or be professors. This doesn't bode well for our na- tion's future. Many colleges have become hotbeds of what might be la- beled as enlightened racism. Stu- dents at the University of Califor- nia, Berkeley created "safe spac- es" for people of color. Resident advisers at Scripps College post- ed two signs to educate students about "emotional labor," one aimed at white students and one for "peo- ple of color and marginalized back- grounds." University of Michigan students demanded a "designat- ed space on central campus for Black students and students of col- or to organize and do social justice work." That was after the universi- ty caved to student demands and spent $10 million to build a multi- cultural center. In Chapter 6, Piper discusses an attack by a Muslim Somali stu- dent at Ohio State University. For- tunately, he was shot dead by po- lice officers before he could add to his toll of 11 injured students. The Islamic State group praised him and called him one of its sol- diers. The administration respond- ed to the incident by inviting Na- than Lean, author of "The Islam- ophobia Industry: How the Right Manufactures Fear of Muslims," to lecture about Islamophobia. A few days after the attack, pro- testers gathered on campus to read the names of people of color killed by police in the previous two months. The Muslim Somali stu- dent made the list, going from a terrorist to a victim virtually over- night. Piper asks whether it is pos- sible to imagine President Frank- lin D. Roosevelt taking to the radio waves after the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor to announce a forum on diversity and prejudice. Among the many other ug- ly things going on at our univer- sities is the withering attack on free speech. Diversity is the high- est goal of students and profes- sors who openly detest those with whom they disagree. The content of a man's character is no longer as important as the color of his skin or his sex or his political loy- alties. This intolerance has won such respectability that even poli- ticians have little shame express- ing it. In 2014, New York Gov. An- drew Cuomo basically told people who disagreed with him to leave the state. He said people who de- fend traditional marriage, are pro- life and are anti-gun control "have no place in the state of New York." That's progressive ideological fas- cism that ought to be put down by freedom-loving Americans. Dr. Everett Piper's "Not a Day Shhhh.... Continued on page 10 My Point of View by Dr. H. K. Fenol, Jr., M.D. It's a small world after all. This song, I've heard many times, I'm sure many of you have as well. It reminds me of the theme song in one of the Disney world attrac- tions, where we took our kids dur- ing their childhood years for vaca- tions. Rose and I just came back from Canada for a visit the past two weeks. Many of you likely have not heard of Regina, Saskatchewan. Yup, we flew there from Niagara Falls, Ontario after visiting my 101 year old mother. We visited Rose's brother and his family who migrat- ed to Regina years ago. What a trip. Regina is the capital City in the Province of Saskatchewan(Canada calls their regions provinces instead of states.) Saskatchewan is north of Montana and North Dakota. The temperature there was 12 degrees Fahrenheit when we visited. It was sunny but the breeze was cold. Saskatchewan has seemingly Trip to Canada Continued on page 10 Continued on page 10 Don't tell anyone, but... Jill is pregnant! I'll try to cover all the usual questions here in one convenient place, so you won't even have to ask. But let me know if I missed one! -We are officially due to deliver on May 1, 2018. This is literally a mayday situation. Please send re- inforcements. -How is Jill feeling? Well, gassy, for one. Ready to nap at any mo- ment. Sometimes, she throws up. Sometimes, she throws up in the middle of the morning, into a pub- lic trash can on a city square, and a passerby calls the police while I'm in the nearest bar, which is open on a Tuesday morning for some reason, getting napkins from a wizened lady barkeep. ...Wait, that was last pregnancy. -No, we don't have a name picked out. We're still trying to find the old notebook we wrote a bunch of names in last time. -Yes, we've told Flannery. No, she doesn't seem to care much. -No, we don't know if it's a boy or girl. For lack of a non-gendered pronoun to use ("it" just isn't right for a baby), we are calling the baby "our bean" for now. Because, you know, our bean kind of looks like a bean in the ultrasound. And Jill is really gassy from the pregnan- cy, so there's some kind of bean joke there. -What gender are we hoping for? Girl, definitely. But even if our bean is a boy, he's getting Flan- nery's hand-me-down clothes. It'll build his character. -Is this going to be the last one? Well... When it comes to family planning, we're open to what God wants for us. So who knows? As awesome as Flannery is, I wouldn't mind either way—but it's really not up to me. So I think that covers all the ba- sics. I know from the grapevine that many of my readers prefer hearing about Flannery to any of the art-house stuff I try to get away with in this column, so soon you'll have another baby in the house to hear wild stories about. You voy- eurs. See you next week! Stuff of the week Read: It's October, so let's get spooky! Try "The Outsider" by H.P. Lovecraft if you like a good classical kind of psychological hor- ror. Drink: Hot cocoa! The weather is finally just right! Listen: I've been listening to a lot of "worldbeat" lately. It's sooth- ing. Ponder: I'm going to let Flan- nery do the poem this week: rxhrffr c crc xxxxjrf /fERvx R v nn ≥… Pursuit of the Cure by Star Parker Collins blocks serious heath care reform With Maine Senator Susan Collins announcing her opposition to the Gra- ham-Cassidy bill to reform Obam- acare, she has slammed the door on this latest Republican effort to ad- dress our health care crisis. I'm just able to muster up one word to capture my sense of Senator Col- lins: Irresponsible. Collins expressed her concern that the bill would "open the door for states to weaken protection for people with pre-existing conditions..." What insight does Collins thinks she has that the 48 Republican Sena- tors who support the bill don't grasp? Graham-Cassidy does give flexibil- ity to states to seek a waiver on the federal requirement to cover pre-ex- isting conditions. However, to achieve the waiver, states must demonstrate they have another approach for deal- ing with the problem. The current situation simply causes damage to everyone. By forc- ing insurance companies to provide products that don't work economical- ly, the companies have to either raise rates – which is what is happening – or withdraw from markets – which is also happening. Graham-Cassidy takes a difficult situation and says, "It's clear we're not going to solve it in Wash- ington, so let's turn it over to states and let each state deal locally with its challenges." This is indeed what America is about. This is what the founders of the USA wrote into our constitution. A limited federal government, and the rest left to the states. And they were right! But liberals, like Susan Collins, have upset the apple cart over the years and now we have a mess in Washington. Collins should celebrate that Gra- ham-Cassidy allows her to work with citizens in her own state with great latitude to solve these difficult prob- lems locally. But like most liberals, in- stead of concluding that things are not working because the federal govern- ment is too big, she concludes it's not big enough. Senator Lindsey Gra- ham summed up the current situation with precision when he said that his main concern is that "Obamacare is a placeholder for Berniec- are." "Berniecare" is, of course, the national sin- gle-payer government health care that Sena- tor Sanders is pushing for. Barack Obama was clear that that's also what he wanted. But seeing that he couldn't get it, he opted for getting it through the back door by way of the A ffordable Care Act. With its vast array of regulations and taxes coupled with the huge ex- pansion of Medicaid, Obamacare has been a major step toward a sin- gle-payer government system. Med- icaid, which is a single-payer system for low-income Americans, now cov-