Rant # 15 - Truth Can Be Adjusted

People of all races and backgrounds have an innate ability to rise above their circumstances and succeed based upon their own will and determination, as long as there are no societal or governmental barriers to them achieving this. The only force that can effectively keep people accountable to their actions and motivate them to succeed is the fear of failure, and the sense of self-worth that causes us to "pick up our bootstraps", so to speak, and do the responsible things that add up to a good community, a good government, a good culture. Governmnent "saftey nets" only add up to perpetual dependence and a generation of "entitled" brats.

Ours is a difficult philosophy to defend in a world where perception is reality based on truth that can be adjusted.

But the policies of a conservative pine for exactly those motivating, liberating changes that lead to a responsible and prosperous society. It was the Republican Party that was formed in Ripon, WI, 1854 as the "anti-slave" party, and successfully elected a the only third-party President to wage war on the societal assumptions of race superiority. They passed the first Civil Rights Act of 1866, 1871 and again in 1875. It was the Republican Party that insisted on empowering individuals in the midst of small recessions and the depression of the 1880's-90's. Champions like Gover Cleveland and William McKinley believed the strength of the American system was in allowing people to learn dependence on no one. They believed it was better to find your face in the dirt after you've fallen, than find your knees on the ground the rest of your life.

But again, this outlook on life is berated in the public media and painted as cruel and heartless by progressive liberals who preach "compassion" to the masses they look forward to victimizing and securing as a voting base.

But it was the Republican Party that lowered taxes from over 90%... YES! 90% on the richest Americans and the tax rates on every other taxpayer in the 1920's to ignite an economic boom that saw record unemployment, developed an overnight middle-class and initiated the most radical, positive changes in American Society since the Industrial Revolution. During the 1920's tax rates were savagely cut while tax revenue more than doubled. It was the Republican Party that helped foster the economic boom of the 1950's that saw low tax rates and little regulation encourage the development of something we call the "suburban life", lower-class Americans were moving up and moving out and were finding more freedom to pursue the American dream. But something still remained as a stain on American society: institutionalized racism. And by the way, it was Republican President Dwight Eisenhower that sent troops to schools in the south to force the desegregation of blacks and whites. It was also Ike who appointed Chief Justice Warren to the Supreme Court, which ultimately did away with the hidden institutionalized racism that plagued our country. Finally, it was the Republican Party that pushed and passed the Civil Rights Acts of 1957 of 1964 against KKK Democrats like Roberty Byrd and then-Democrat Strom Thurmond. (Thurmond became a Republican in 1964, but ran as a segregationist Democrat in 1948.) Again, they pushed for another Act creating a means for enforement with additional legislation in 1968. Time after time, the Republican Party has been the champion of the "little guy"... but not by giving them a handout... rather they believe in their ability to fend for thsemselves when given the liberty to do so.

The Southern Democrats had a strangehold on blacks that were looking to take part in the same liberating, free will success everyone else was enjoying. From the time immediately following the Civil War, they had fought hard to keep Freemen from voting through a patchwork of ridiculous rules to keep them from being able to register. They wanted to ride the same busses, go to the same schools, shop in the same stores and vote in the same elections, but the Democratic Party, the champion of the poor WHITE masses would have nothing of it.

Meanwhile, many Democrats in the 1920's formed together to form the Ku Klux Klan in the southern states, and by the end of the decade their numbers had grown to nearly 5 million members.

Frances Rice, founder of the National Black Republican Association (NBRA) points out that it was Democrat public safety commissioner Eugene "Bull" Connor, in Birmingham, Ala., who unleashed dogs and turned fire hoses on black civil rights demonstrators. And Democrat Georgia Governor Lester Maddox who "brandished an ax hammer to prevent blacks from patronizing his restaurant. And Democrat Governor George Wallace who stood in front of the Alabama schoolhouse in 1963, declaring there would be segregation forever. In 1954, Democrat Arkansas Governor Faubus tried to prevent desegregation of Little Rock public schools. She asks, "Have most black Americans ever been taught any of this? Of course not."

Today the Democratic Party is seeing a new opportunity rise in the latino community in the form of illegal immigrants and their inherent dependency on something or someone. And if they can show them a door to "freedom", they know they can secure generations of dependent sops all over again. Another race of open-handed, entitled poor people who will come to depend on the government for everything from housing and food to job placement and health care. Of course, the conservatives within the Republican Party find themselves in an awkward position of having to explain their philosophy of independence and self-determination through a muted media that will not properly convey their true heart or intentions. Ironic, since it has been Republicans who have essentially shoved equality down the throats of Democrats for 150 years.

Much of the latino community is a family-protecting, hard-working, God-loving culture that has so much to offer the American Way, but instead Democrats tell them the Government is there to "help" them and "protect" them. And the Republican Party is trying to play both sides, avoiding the brand of race-haters all over again. Somehow we lost this fight in the 1960's, but we MUST avoid allowing big-government activists to falsely frame the argument against Conservatives again.

People live best when they are free. No one deserves the same starting point to achieve success - that is more the result of natural forces out of our control or the foolish decisions of previous generations. But EVERYONE deserves the same right to use their freedom uninhibited in pursuing the happiness the first "conservatives" wrote into the Declaration of 1776. And they WILL achieve it if we get out of the way, allow the hot stove principle to teach them discretion, and allow men to pass or fail the test of life as God intended it! If I make a mistake and face economic despair because of a decision I made in a free society than sobeit. I'd rather die standing dirt poor than be a slave on my knees groveling at the feet of another.

Liberal Democrats have a vision of an "equal" America that defies human nature and history by enslaving the poor and punishing the wealthy. Conservatives look to empower EVERYONE without any strings attached. And I'm ticked that we have allowed ourselves to be cast as the opposite.

Misgiving # 6 - Global Warming is Being Proven as The Folly We Thought It to Be

The following column was published today on foxnews.com by John Lott, and does an excellent job of properly framing the debate on global warming, and cutting out the rhetoric. He states concisely the practical measures of what global warming is, how it is caused, whether it can be mitigated by any human effort and if it is even still occurring.

(Significant links for footnotes on every major element of the article can be found on the Foxnews page where this story was sourced.)

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John McCain, Barack Obama, and Hillary Clinton all promise massive new regulations that will cost trillions of dollars to combat global warming. McCain says that it will be his first task if he wins the presidency. After consulting with Al Gore, Obama feels the problem is so imminent that it is not even really possible to wait until he becomes president.

Ironically, this political unanimity is occurring as global temperatures have been cooling dramatically over the last decade.

Global temperatures have now largely eliminated most of the one degree Celsius warming that had previously occurred over the last 100 years. Hundreds of climate scientists have warned that there is not significant man-made global warming.

A conference in New York on Monday and Tuesday this week will bring 100 scientists together to warn that the there is no man-made global warming crisis.

Yet, we just keep on piling on more and more regulations without asking hard questions about whether they are justified.

New mileage per gallon regulations were signed into law last year that will mandate cars get 35 MPG. The rules will make us poorer, forcing people to buy products that aren’t otherwise the best suited for them. More people will die because lighter cars are less safe, but we are told this is all worth it largely because of global warming.

But much of what gets passed is arbitrary. Was there anything scientific about picking 35 MPG instead of, say, 30 MPG other than the desire to do more? And how do these regulations fit in with all the gasoline taxes we have that are already reducing gas use?
To see if all this makes any sense there are really four questions that all have to be answered "yes."

1) Are global temperatures rising? Surely, they were rising from the late 1970s to 1998, but "there has been no net global warming since 1998." Indeed, the more recent numbers show that there is now evidence of significant cooling.

2) But supposing that the answer to the first question is "yes," is mankind responsible for a significant and noticeable portion of an increase in temperatures? Mankind is responsible for just a fraction of one percent of the effect from greenhouse gases, and greenhouse gases are not responsible for most of what causes warming (e.g., the Sun).

Over 100 leading climate scientists from around the world signed a letter in December stating: "significant new peer-reviewed research has cast even more doubt on the hypothesis of dangerous human-caused global warming."

In December a list was also released of another 400 scientists who questioned the general notion of significant manmade global warming.

3) If the answer to both preceding questions is "yes," is an increase temperature changes "bad"? That answer is hardly obvious.

Even the UN’s original draft stated that an increase in temperature of up to two degrees Celsius would be good for many regions of the globe. Higher temperatures could increase ocean levels by between seven inches and two feet over the next 100 years.

Although some blame global warming for seemingly everything, according to others higher temperatures will increase the amount of land that we can use to grow food, it will improve people's health, and increase biological diversity.

4) Finally, let's assume that the answer to all three previous questions is "yes." Does that mean we need more regulations and taxes? No, that is still not clear.

If we believe that man-made global warming is “bad,” we still don’t want to eliminate all carbon emissions. Having no cars, no air conditioning, or no electricity would presumably be much worse than anything people are claiming from global warming.

You want to pick a tax that just discourages carbon emissions to the point where the cost of global warming is greater than that of cutting emissions.

Too little of a tax can be “bad” because we would produce greenhouse gases when their costs were greater than the benefits. But too much of a tax also makes us poorer because we won’t be getting the benefits from cars or electricity even when the benefits exceed the costs that they would produce from global warming.

What is often ignored in the debate over global warming is that we already have very substantial taxes on gasoline, averaging 46 cents per gallon in the US. Even if one believes that gasoline use should be restricted to reduce carbon dioxide emissions, the question is whether our taxes are already restricting use "too much" or "not enough.” But simply saying that carbon dioxide emissions are bad isn’t enough.

In fact, William Nordhaus, an economics professor at Yale and former member of President Carter’s Council of Economic Advisors, puts the “right” level of gasoline taxes at around 10 cents a gallon today, reaching 16 cents per gallon in 2015. Nordhaus’ analysis assumes that the answers to the first three questions are “yes.” If anything, while gasoline taxes are partially used for such things as building roads, it seems quite plausible that, even accepting Nordhaus’ assumptions, current gasoline taxes are much too high to deal with the harm from global warming.

However good the intentions, the debate over global warming is much more complicated than simply saying that the world is getting warmer. It is too bad that these questions won’t be getting a real debate this election. The irony is that those who sell themselves as being so caring aren't careful enough to investigate the impact of their regulations.

John Lott is the author of Freedomnomics and a senior research scientist at the University of Maryland.