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Power Comes from Ideas, Words
By Ralph Smeed
Idaho Press-Tribune
January 3, 1993
Let us begin the new year (by the way, you all have a happy one) in the area where most of the action really is, namely "higher" education.
Oh sure, I know the "muscle" is in politics, at least in the short run, but in the long run the ultimate "power" is in ideas and the college and/or university campuses all across the nation are where most of the ideas get most of their "spin." From these "launching pads" the ideas and attitudes, which are sometimes even more influential than the ideas themselves, reach out all over the world. It is a big deal because ideas have consequences--both for better and for worse, of course.
I put quotation marks around some of the above terms because words, like ideas, have different meanings to different people no matter how intelligent those people are. One of the wonderful things about this country, however, has been the fact that we have had only one national language. English of course, with which we have been able to harmoniously communicate those ideas, ideals, and, yes, even the attitudes, most of which have always stood America in good stead.
The rich heritage which different languages have helped serve this country so well is because the immigrants who populated America in the early days were intensely proud to learn the native language (English) of their newly chosen and adopted country. Thank heaven that has not yet completely fallen under the do-gooder's ax. However, some considerable effort is, indeed, exerted from time to time to bastardize our language under the impetus or guise of egalitarianism in a "silly-putty" kind of racial equality. Fortunately, lots of fine ethnic minority persons see through this misguided and guilt-driven asininity. But more about that controversy another day.
Back to the arena of ideas, it was one of the liberal's own heroes, John Maynard Keynes, who told us with keen insight: "The ideas of economists and political philosophers, both when they are right and when they are wrong, are more powerful than commonly understood. Indeed the world is ruled by little else.
"Practical men who believe themselves to be quite exempt from any intellectual influences are usually the slaves of some defunct economist. Mad men in authority who hear voices in the air are distilling their frenzy from some academic scribbler of a few years back.
Ultimately, then, all of us are or should be deeply concerned with the truth of the ideas that find acceptance in the colleges and universities we support voluntarily and are forced to support through our taxes. It is this writer's solemn conviction that we have increasingly abandoned ideas of strength, vitality and truth and have stood by in rather dull-witted and lethargic fashion while ideas have been substituted that are both incorrect and dangerous.
But if one seeks to challenge, even in a friendly way, the education establishment of today, one runs the risk of incurring the wrath of most every parent of a school-age youngster. The usual reaction often goes something like this:
"Who does that nut think he is--criticizing education? Schools are education (some are; some are not, of course) and my kid is in school, therefore he must be criticizing my kid. So damn him--and his observations."
The thinking stops there. It is a kind of tribalism, sad to say, because it is reactionary rather than analytical. Still, it is very important so let us try to explore the matter a little. A local incident may serve to open a meaningful dialogue:
Just before the election I asked the dean of an important business school (a very intelligent and friendly fellow) here in the valley: "The Democrat economists tell us the country needs more taxes, and the Republican economists, contrarywise, say we need less taxes. And you the educator rascals teach it both ways. Aren't you either being duplicious (trying to suck and blow in the same breath) or do you not known which is right? In other words, you people seem not to know who is correct: Adam Smith or Karl Marx. Otherwise why do so many regular students know who Marx the socialist was and so few know who Smith the capitalist was?
"Your school's graduates (and most other schools, too) don't even have the vocabulary to discuss intelligently the two schools of thought. Pity the poor voter, then, who can't tell the Demorepublican from the Republicrats. Isn't it mostly your fault?
Stay tuned. The spotlight is on "higher" education.
Small Business Gets the Business
By Ralph Smeed
Idaho Press-Tribune
February 28, 1993
Did you ever wonder why the middle-class Americans seem to be disappearing? Haven't you heard many people returning from other once-great countries reporting that most of those countries' people were either very rich or very poor? I'm sure you have.
Well, it's happening right here in River City, as the saying goes--today.
Randy and Louisa Cone of Caldwell own and operate the Sand Hollow Country Store and Cafe located about 10 miles west of Caldwell, just of I-84, Exit 17. They operate a family business of selling groceries and miscellaneous goods as well as a small gas and oil station. Their cafe enjoys a lively trade of locals with some tourists and featured a great Valentine's Day breakfast special of waffles and strawberries. We tried it and it was great food and the service-with-a-smile was, well refreshing in the best tradition of small business entrepreneurship--America.
Comes now the Idaho State Transportation (highway) Department headquartered, wouldn't you know (?) in the state's bureaucrat capitol, Boise. They tell Mr. and Mrs. Cone and their ambitious and energetic son, Duane, by the way, that they must cease and desist advertising their small business via two neatly painted signs installed outside (repeat outside) of the state's huge 600-foot wide right-of-way. Each of the two signs is 8 feet high by 8 feet wide and is installed on private property outside the right-of-way fence with permission of the private property owners, of course.
The signs merely say, "Next exit FUEL, CAFE, GROCERIES, easy exit." The legal notices by which the state highway bureau communicated with the Cone family to remove the signs cited all sorts of legaleze with gobs of numbers of the regulations etc., etc., ad infinitum, ad nauseum. But none of said "notices" made any attempt to cite any common-sense reasons nor did they suggest any common-sense ideas of just why the highway department edict should be enforced.
I use the above term "enforced" for a special reason. Here's why: You may remember it was only a relatively few years ago that the law in Idaho would not allow Mormons to vote. That may come as a surprise to some of you younger folks, but it is true. (By the way, The Cones are not Mormon). Of course, the authorities merely ignored the law, i.e., did not enforce it, and the Mormons voted anyway--regardless of its being absolutely illegal. By and by there was a referendum put on the ballot and the voters took that particular provision out of the Idaho Constitution so the LDSers could vote legally, as indeed was fitting and proper because both ways it was just common sense.
So what's all this have to do with Randy and Louisa Cone's "legal" problem with the Idaho Highway Department?
Well, there's a whole body of law on such matters. In fact, there was a big friendly article on the front page of The Wall Street Journal some time ago. It is called the Fully Informed Jury Amendment (FIJA) and would recognize the jury's right to ignore a law if in their opinion said law was unjust, unwise, misapplied or simply did not make common sense.
So, I am suggesting that the Idaho Highway Department do just that, i.e., simply ignore the asinine restriction, regulation or law and not enforce it, so as to allow this small business family to advertise their business. After all, wouldn't it seem they have better more important things to do, e.g., to rebuild and/or refurbish our roads and bridges and supervise that huge area inside their 600-foot wide right-of-way going back and forth all across our state?
But bureaucrats and all too many modern politicians seem almost terrified they will lose some turf. Even such a small "turf" as to allow a tiny little mom and pop operation such as the Sand Hollow Country Store, small business to lead a decent common-sense life.
Oh gosh, I almost forgot a little but terribly important, revealing and exquisitely interesting detail of the Cone/Commisar (of the Highway) saga. The Cones protested, of course, and are currently awaiting the final appeal to the gargantuan Idaho Department of Transportation. And they (Cones) know their chances against Big Brother are slim and any costly court trials could easily gobble up all their life's savings.
But--now get this--the highwaymen (pun intended) say not to worry. In the event the Cones lose their private enterprise signboard appeal, the state's obedient bureaucrat told them: "It appears that you would be eligible for (one of our) gas and/or food logo signs at Exit 17" (at $500 annual fee).
In other words, now that our government has clobbered your middle-class private advertising on "their" highway, maybe you are "ready" for some of that same "rich" government's monopoly advertising."
Caldwell to Vote On Its Government
By Ralph Smeed
Idaho Press-Tribune
January 10, 1993
The front page headline last week read: "Caldwell to vote on new form of city government." Wow! The lumpenproletariat gets to express their opinion on something called, roughly, government. That's good. but some ask how many are actually well-informed on the possibilities as well the perils, and pitfalls? Not many. That's bad.
What are the proposals? According to the Press Tribune's story (Tuesday, Jan. 5) what is being proposed is a public election to determine if the city will change its form of government from a "strong mayor" type to a "council-city manager" form of government.
Suppose we just take a little look at Caldwell's "government" problem and see if we can get some perspective.
It is true, of course, that our little city, especially downtown, has real problems. These have been around for a good many years--long before Mayor Jim Dakan and the present council took power, so these are old problems begging big for a "solution."
For years Caldwell's former power-brokers have thought more and more "solutions" should come about via city government. It was gradual, though, and nobody thought too much about it.
But two things happened: (1) government solutions not only cost money, but they add up--especially when they get added on to for so many years. And (2) downtowns all across America became "high-button shoes," i.e. old fashioned, out-of-date and unpopular (see shopping malls and strip developments) to accommodate our fanatically mobile lifestyle. Thus no amount of "urban renewal" made sense, unless, of course, Uncle Sap could be coaxed into subsidizing downtown U.S.A., the oldest and among the dumbest of subsidies--next to subsidizing farm surpluses and "higher" education's absolutely insatiable appetite for tax money and ego.
So this left Caldwell in the same boat as lots of towns. Some, it is true, did innovate early enough to survive. But those who had neither political clout nor collective vision enough--languished. Many are still doing so.
Sincere people, and some filled with a kind of blind faith, kept trying. Caldwell, too, hasn't given up. But the crusade to "save downtown" still sputters. Meantime, despite many sincere efforts over the years from many good folks, time marched on.
Hope springs eternal, but it was almost in desperation when the Rural Urban Design Assistance Team (RUDAT) was hired to advise Caldwell how to "design" themselves out of the malaise. They came. They saw, (i.e., they were told what to look at) as it was sort of a closed circuit operation guided principally by local businessmen and promoters of (RUDAT), Bob Carpenter and Ms. Terri Ottens, Caldwell's city manager without portfolio. I don't know her official title, but she's Dakan's strong right arm--in every (repeat, every) department and committee.
RUDAT was a host of well-meaning zoner and planner "experts" from around the country. All were either government bureaucrats, politicians or paper shufflers of one stripe or another. Not one of these "experts" at planning other people's affairs (no, not even one) ever "laid a brick or grew a blade of grass" on their own. Not one of their myriad of recommendations even alluded to how Caldwell could enhance its ability to serve its customers, especially agricultural customers, better and thus make this agriculture town a better place to trade, especially for that segment of the economy, and thereby make money.
Some of RUDAT's suggestions did make sense, having been kicked around by local citizens for years. Some of us thought it might help merely to get a sound outside "source" to articulate and thus sell the good ideas. And let me hasten to add that many were sincere pushers for something--anything that might get Caldwell into some kind of orbit. But none of these ideas were how to make a market economy work. Indeed, RUDAT was one of the government grant mentality. Without the omnipresent government grant, which they didn't have, their advice was . . . well, pretty much a blankout.
But one of RUDAT suggestions, well-meaning and extant for many years, received added gusto from the planning "experts," namely, for Caldwell to change its government to the city-manager type. Ho hum: "A rose by any other name smells the same." And the city council has taken that advice.
In about 90 days, after some "educating" meetings (ho ho ho) you may vote. Informed or not. In 90 days? Egad.
The city council should postpone that election. We need more time for serious public debate.
Is City Manager Caldwell's Answer?
By Ralph Smeed
Idaho Press-Tribune
January 17, 1993
As has been voiced around the city for some years now, it seems to be hard for Caldwell to do very much with any class.
Cases in point abound, but a neat one is to note the big "hole" in the pavement/sidewalk near the intersection of Kimball Avenue and Blaine Street next to where the Warren's Shoe Store stood for many years. It was big enough to hold a couple of huge railroad box cars with room to spare. It was repulsive to look at.
Thankfully, the problem seems to be getting corrected at the present time, but it stayed there staring tourists and homefolks smack in the face for almost a decade. Why? And how come for these many many years? Was it a sort of gridlock? Maybe. Maybe it was more the fault of the Idaho State Highway Board who "owns" Blaine Street. But either way, why do you suppose Caldwell sat still, so to speak, for so many years, so passively (i.e., without raising particular hell about the sad-looking, bludgeon-like blight right there in the heart of downtown Caldwell) as though the blemish were merely a passing plop of a horse manure on the street after a rodeo parade?
Was it a lack of interest or lack of will? This writer knows of at least one instance of city officials complaining bitterly and trying to get something done (repaired) in conjunction with the state highway bureau.
Caldwell's "downtowners," for the most part, did not really raise hell screaming at the top of their lungs, as the saying goes, that they were "mad as hell and they were not going to take it any more." They seemed sort of passively resigned to their collective plight.
Time was, though admittedly quite a few years ago, when Caldwell had a great trading spirit, far more than Nampa, by the way--commercialism some people call it--wherein the professional people, merchants, banks, tradesmen (et al) did their darndest to make their city a good place to trade. Their profit-seeking paid off, too. It was a neat place to trade and the farm and ranch people came from miles and miles around, thus helping Caldwell to be the center of Canyon County as the 35th most productive agricultural county in the nation. Only 34 higher, nationwide, out of about 3,000 counties. Not bad, eh? And one of our city's most mouthy merchants (in a non-agri business) said only a year or two ago: "I get tired of hearing about our so-called farm economy . . .
So, today's problems, especially downtown Caldwell's, are not solely the fault of the present mayor, council and administration, although some members thereof have complained, albeit not bitterly, that Mayor Jim Dakan seldom makes a decision, preferring instead to let his chief aide and assistant, Teri Ottens, make almost all of said decisions.
True or not, I know of at least one excellent decision wherein Dakan made a deal with a Caldwell businessman for a several thousand dollar addition, a mile of U.S. flags, one every pole and staff. A beautiful, heart-warming display on one of the city's major downtown avenues all paid for at said businessman's expense. The mayor agreed the city would maintain the flags at least during his administration. About a year and a half later, the City Council, in a fit of pique, or envy, demanded the flags be taken down, choosing to arrogantly ignore two legal opinions, one from the county attorney and one from the United States attorney confirming the legality of so displaying said flags, and 41 petitions with almost 600 supporting signatures.
I mention this little affair because (1) it's an example of the silly attitude of the council, not lack of a city manager, who wonders why its mayor tends not to make decisions, then, when he does make one, and at a financial bargain by the way, in an effort to give his city a touch of class they (City Council) lacked not only the wisdom but had neither the wit nor the grace to honor his decent decision. I know this story well as I was that businessman and I had not even an "I'm sorry, Ralph . . ." regret from even one council member. Tut. So much for encouragement from council to citizen for our beleaguered city.
Comes now that same city administration's effort to make things better for Caldwell. They have decided to push a city manager type of government for us. An election to implement same is scheduled in less than--hurry, hurry--90 days. Well, goshalmighty! We've had virtually a "city manager" type of government already for the past two or three years in the omnipresent Teri Ottens. All a formal name-change (to city manager) would do is add another layer of unneeded bureaucracy to the city and in all probability another $75,000 to $100,000 added expense.
Our neighbor city Nampa has flourished with its finance director, Ken Harward, acting oh so successfully, if informally, as a non turf-building city manager. Now, if they but had a part-time mayor they'd have the best of both worlds.
Why doesn't Caldwell merely follow suit?
Recognizing Self-Righteous Pomposity
By Ralph Smeed
Idaho Press-Tribune
January 24, 1993
Life is not all politics and economics--thank God--and the social world around us is a welcome diversion at times. Sports, the rich, the environment, and the schools are among our many concerns and fascinations--including the sad and sorry status of an actual "sacred cow."
Yet, despite the follies and foibles found in these areas, there is also a pattern to the apparent madness. And it is very similar to the pattern found in Idaho politics and economic policy in general, i.e., wishful thinking and resolute blindness to results we do not want to see. Generally speaking, that's the hallmark of Idaho politics today.
"The rich are often a red herring (pun intended by Smeed) that distracts us from more serious issues. Doomsday doctrines are another distraction that would be funny if the consequence of believing them were not so serious. Environmentalism and education each have their own Alice-in-Wonderland quality, but behind the Mad Hatters and the March
Hares are some very narrow special interests--and in the background are the future (Idahoans) whose fates are in the balance.
"Some of these themes are treated lightly only because it would be a mistake to take self-righteous pomposities seriously--a real big mistake, my friends. But it happens.
So wrote one of the few really brilliant economists in America. Dr. Thomas Sowell is also one of the few black libertarians in America and a fellow at the Hoover Institution at Stanford University. He penned most of these words back in the 1980's just before the Ronald Reagan presidency. (See his new book: Inside American Education. Free Press Publishing Co.)
The above-words sound quite like they were intended as commentary for today on the recent Idaho Senate flap wherein State Sen. and GOP Caucus Chairman Dave Kerrick, a quite liberal fellow by the way, led a move to strip two of his conservative Senate colleagues of their seniority chairmanships. Why? Because the two conservatives,
Rex Furness and Stan Hawkins, had publicly supported other conservative GOP challengers in the recent primary against liberal GOP incumbents.
Now then, support both for and against incumbents in primary races is not uncommon, but it's usually done "under the table." To their everlasting credit, Hawkins and Furness did it right out there, publicly, in front of God and everybody. In fact it is the same old contest between liberal and conservative Republicans not unlike the historically classic 1960-64 contest between liberal GOPer Nelson Rockefeller of New York and conservative GOPer Barry Goldwater of Arizona.
Too bad that these "differences" are not allowed to be frankly discussed out in the open. They are not unlike whiskey prohibition in the early 1900's when people's wants and wishes won out, eventually. And when these are driven "underground," people tend to demand what they see as legitimate desires, especially in principles, one way or another--sometimes with a justified violence.
"Closet liberals" is the pejorative term used in private discussion among Republican regulars, i.e., when they care about the proper differences between the two major political parties. They like to be known as members of the conservative Republican party. For the most part, Democrats are properly labeled the liberal party. Time was when the parties' platform could be seen to "define" the differences or principles which distinguished the two major parties. Not so now. Or not so at least since the advent upon the scene of the career politician. The latter may very well be the major and most debilitating influence we've come to witness in modern politics. Dishonesty, at least intellectual dishonesty, has come to dominate our politics today. People who cannot quite identify the phony from the foolish can often at least sense there is "something rotten in Denmark," in politics, hence they clamor for some way to limit government or at least taxes, e.g., term limits and or new faces at election time. But the career politicians have even found ways around this--witness over 95 percent of incumbents return to office even after voting themselves automatic, obscene raises.
Sowell's term "self-righteous pomposity" is a good one and apropos of Kerrick's establishment-liberal flap against his maverick conservative colleagues. So why don't we have us a highly publicized public debate right away on the government's TV (KAID-TV Channel 4)? It'd be a welcome, if unusual switch for Channel 4.
Kerrick and a panel of GOP liberals could face off a Hawkins/Furness panel of GOP conservatives for all to see in a welcome, if rare and no doubt revealing and entertaining public service.
Methinks that way, that Kerrick's secret intra-party caucus antics in which Hawkins and Furness were "convicted" and defrocked for political sins might emerge as the "self-righteous pomposity" most career politicians will not otherwise even admit they see.
Andrus Eyes New Tax Revenue Source
By Ralph Smeed
Idaho Press-Tribune
January 31, 1993
Gov. Cecil Andrus has discovered a "new" source of tax revenue. One hundred twenty-five million dollars is just sitting there for the taking. All he needs to do, so the story goes, is convince the Idaho Legislature to remove the sales tax exemption on services. (You remember your economics teacher telling you about "goods and services.") This sounds reasonable doesn't it? After all, why should some portions of our economy pay sales tax and others not? We must be taxed equally (penalized equally) right?
Have you ever wondered why we abandon this zeal for equal taxation when we legislate property tax reductions for home owners but not for business owners? We penalize the most productive members of our society by using progressive tax rates on income. Not very equal is it?
This brings us back to the state sales tax. While we're at it, why not tax payrolls, farm production expenses, timber and mining expenses and any other producers who could conceivably be holding out their fair share? (We're heading there now, you know.)
If we can do all these wonderful things for $1.25 billion (State General Fund Budget FY93) then think of all the good we could do with, say, $20 billion. It leaves you breathless, doesn't it? No? Do I hear a few disgruntled individuals claiming there ought to be a limit on government growth?
These same malcontents claim that Soviet Russia has already proved that socialism (i.e. more government) doesn't work well resulting in dramatic losses in freedom as well as untold millions suffering and dying from starvation, disease and government persecution. But why doesn't it work well? Good question. Why can't sincere, dedicated, hard-working people make collectivism work?
My conservative friends say they want to make government efficient. Liberals want to make it somewhat efficient, but more importantly, driven by envy and utopianism they want more statism, now. Like Scarlett O'Hara in Gone With The Wind they "will think about freedom and efficiency tomorrow."
Well then, how does the private sector achieve efficiency in a free-market, capitalistic system? We know. They put out a better product at a cheaper price. Competition demands it and rewards it by profit. A great, if old fashioned, concept. If they fail, then losses will occur which tells them they are doing something wrong and they had better change--or go broke.
But how does one achieve efficiency in government? The essential guts of the private sector which compels efficiency are competition, private ownership and the profit motive. None of these are present within government. How then does the government determine reward (salary)? In both elected and appointed positions it is whatever one can convince the voters and/or the legislature to pay. And if you think this has anything to do with efficiency (or logic, or reason) then you must believe in the Tooth Fairy. In career or civil services, jobs salaries are generally determined by a combination of schooling, length of tenure and so-called responsibility.
This term "responsibility" is where the real problem lies. Again, generally speaking, responsibility means bigger budgets and more employees. Therefore a career government management level employee who wants to achieve better rewards (higher pay) will get a college degree, stay employed by government as long as possible (take no risks) raise the budgets and add more employees under his direction at every opportunity. If non-management personnel decide to work hard and complete their daily tasks in four hours instead of eight, not only will they be condemned by their fellow employees but their boss may well see them as a threat to his/her goals of expanding budgets and adding more employees, i.e., such workers then, are likely to be the first to be terminated. Egad.
What I'm trying to suggest is that all the normal signals successfully driving the private sector toward efficiency simply do not exist in the government arena. Certainly not in a free-society context.
In fact, the market economy's rewards and goals are, on balance, in direct conflict with government's goals and rewards, thus statism grows like a cancer. If this analogy is correct, and I believe it is, then how much government do we really want--given the reality that every increase in government will result in a corresponding reduction in personal freedom and individual choice?
Yes, super-salesman such as the government-loving Andrus may exploit the people's massive economic illiteracy with the media's help and thus convince many Idahoans who feel they can tax their way, rather than produce their way, into the good life. But both parties have tried that and merely piled up the monumentally menacing national debt.
Can't Compare Symms, Baird
By Ralph Smeed
Idaho Press-Tribune
February 7, 1993
The Idaho Statesman's left-leaning columnist Maria Salazar wrote recently comparing her Democrat President Clinton's designate for U.S. attorney general, Zoe Baird, with Caldwell's Dan Symms of Symms Fruit Ranch. Both Baird and Symms had problems with foreign nationality workers. Both were adjudged "guilty" by the U.S. Immigration/ Naturalization Service (INS). But right there any reasonable comparison abruptly ends.
By way of explanation, Salazar's comparisons were so blatantly biased and hate-based one puzzles as to which items one should respond in this severely limited space, but I'll try.
Salazar tends to excuse Baird, admitting the latter knowingly hired two illegals "only" after she could not find legal ones. Salazar failed to say Symms merely furnished 719 workers with employment verification. He hired no one illegally.
Symms didn't even have to "verify" but INS and 719 Mexican workers so requested. Said 719 were only about 20 percent of the total employed during that time. So much for the magnitude of keeping track of things ethnic vis-a-vis the government.
After four years of fine-tooth-comb digging, the INS investigators prosecuted Symms on only 22 Mexican workers as "improperly" verified. A far better record, by the way, than Baird. And Symms had paid Social Security tax on all of his Mexican workers, thus indicating he was not trying to cover up anything. In fact, without Symms' own excellent records, prosecution would have been impossible.
So it appears Baird was doing just the opposite. Fraud. She failed to pay any SS taxes at all on her illegal alien workers in what would seem like an obvious attempt to escape being discovered. Remember, Symms illegally hired no one.
Most non-hate-oriented observers hereabouts see the INS' microscopic investigation of Symms as a police-state type, politically motivated inquisition by the liberal oriented government (read, bureaucracy) in order to "get at" Dan Symms' conservative and controversial father, U.S. Sen. Steve Symms. The latter was well-known to have severely and often criticized INS policy and tactics. Tell you something?
Salazar did report that Baird and her lawyer husband paid a $2,900 fine to the INS but she neglected to report Symms paid $300,000 in fines. Nor did she say that the Symms Co. also paid out another obscenely large "penalty," approximately $400,000, in the form of legal fees prior to what she (Salazar) labeled a "guilty" plea! The INS would, could and no doubt did spend several million dollars on its "Symms Project," consequently a guilty plea these days is certainly no indication of simple admission of guilt, especially for white-collar "crime." The government could thereby disembowel a company from its entire financial resources--even on phony charges, by using the double-standard. That's what uniform enforcement or persecution is all about. Many see it as clearly political harassment.
Nor was Salazar's own opinion that: "Symms should have spent some time in jail" a rational conclusion except, perhaps, of her hatred of individualism in general and capitalism in particular. And probably private ownership, too, since her kind of liberal usually decry private property.
The Mexican lady-columnist's bias also makes an interesting if transparent play on words, e.g., on "illegal aliens." Instead, she uses the euphemism "undocumented workers" five times in her 650 word essay. Why? Well, Democrat Zoe Baird's workers were clearly illegal. Symms was not even thusly accused by the INS. Only on employment verification. Later the prosecution was based solely upon the charge of improperly verifying some Mexican workers as having been employed at Symms Fruit Ranch during the one-year period in question. Even then they were prosecuted for only 22 people as "improperly verified"--out of 719. Egad.
No other company in the entire United States has been thusly prosecuted for such a "crime." Isn't that interesting? Further, no one in the local media on Symms nor the national media concerning Baird even asked if the law itself made sense--in either case. In fact, that particular law is no longer even on the books.
So what? Well, so Salazar's claim of concern over what and who is legal is about as phony as the double standard, selective prosecution of Symms in the first place.
We are rightfully alarmed then, when the media is so malicious--and self-righteously statist.
GOP, Media Tie for Dullness
By Ralph Smeed
Idaho Press-Tribune
February 14, 1993
Last week Canyon County's Lincoln Day Banquet was held in Nampa's new Convention Center and the Republican State leaders "ministered" to their flock in fair fashion, if typically establishment.
It was also dubiously reported by the print media, but it was not clear as to which group (i.e., the GOPers or the media) caused the most typical dullness or the most typical bias.
The event was chaired by The Press-Tribune's gutsy, non-establishment and colorful (no pun) columnist Robert Vasquez. Two cheers for GOPers. Why? Ordinarily, neither disabled veterans nor folks with Spanish surnames are the usual bill-of-fare for partisan Republicans. Certainly it is rare when one does show up in GOP circles that he or she doesn't play the minority "card" morning, noon, and night. This Vasquez fellow, certainly more than most WASPS, does his homework and thus knows--why--he's a Republican. So a plus to him.
Which brings me to the key point of the Lincoln Day evening. U.S. Sen. Larry Craig spoke and spoke well as he always does. U.S. Sen. Dirk Kempthorne and Rep. Mike Crapo all spoke nicely, too. But they said little that an Idaho Democrat wouldn't have agreed with.
Crapo, probably the most liberal of the three, made the most meaningful remarks with just how phony and manipulated was the system in Insane City, D.C. None of the three, however, named names of liberal Republicans who certainly played key roles in our massive and growing federal debt and the devastating loss of responsible individual freedom.
State Chairman Phil Batt, probable candidate for governor, come 1994's primary, also spoke briefly. He is riding the crest of a well-deserved popularity wave having raised a lot of money for his party thus helping restore majority control of the Legislature for the GOP.
It is too bad, however, that not one word of praise is ever uttered by the GOP chairman for the absolutely critical role played by the 1 Percent Tax Limit Initiative without which last election's success would have been impossible. Why?
Because Idaho's largest labor union the left-wing Idaho Education Association typically spends hundreds of thousands of dollars each campaign "buying" politicians and lobbying. Last campaign they had to spend most of their money, time and talent merely fighting off the 1 Percent Tax Limit effort. That's why the GOP was able to win control last election.
Certainly critical was Batt's money-raising and leadership without which the victory would have been doubtful. But credit where credit's due! Please.
Now then, Dan Popkey a young gadfly political reporter for the Idaho Statesman took the cake. He sought out this writer and others at the banquet for a quote on Kempthorne's dilemma on the ski trip to Utah to raise money for charity. Some big business lobbyists paid much of Dirk's expenses to the event and Popkey's paper pummeled him unmercifully for it.
"Do you think those lobbyists were trying to buy access to Kempthorne, Ralph?" asked Popkey. I responded: "Of course! Why else would they pay his expenses. He'd have been a fool not to go. That's what Washington is all about--power and influence. Do you think he'd get those payments if he were not a U.S. senator? Of course they are trying to buy access. That's what lobbyists are paid for.
"Politicians and lobbyists both gain influence by 'scratching each other's backs.' It's done all the time, Dan, and you know it. Power is all those politicians have to sell. It's sick--and it's sad. But Dirk's still a cut above the others."
Popkey, who's not all bad, as media folk go, wrote it all down. But mine was not a typical mossback, rubber stamp Republican quote, so he interviewed others until he got the quotes he wanted. For example:
Jim Oates, a longtime conservative GOPer and a real nice guy also attended the banquet. He is also predictably Republican and more conservative than I. (He's so conservative he locks his car while he checks the tires). He, too, was interviewed. Same reporter. Same question. Oates' GOP establishment "defense" was more like what Popkey wanted, so he used it: Said Oates, "I think Dirk is in a learning mode . . ."
Perhaps liberal newsmen such as Popkey cannot allow penetratingly candid opinions like mine to surface at Republican affairs. In any event, it's a new twist on why the old Republican image--stays that way.
Media Help Pols Have It Both Ways
By Ralph Smeed
Idaho Press-Tribune
March 7, 1993
One of this writer's major gripes is when our politicians try with alarming regularity to "suck and blow in the same breath." They do this, of course, in a ploy to have their so-called cake and eat it, too--but not without the help of the media liberals.
The Idaho legislators, a majority of whom are Republicans (but a majority of that majority qualify as liberal and/or statist), along with the Democrats are at it again.
The Idaho Education Association (IEA) and the State Employee's Union (et al) are asking the Legislature to boost the pension of every government employee in the state. The cost to the taxpayer is enormous. The bill is HCR 20.
Rod Beck of Boise, former majority leader in the Idaho Senate, says it would cost approximately $500 million (that's half a billion dollars, my friends) over the next 10 years. He further reports that about one-fourth of the new taxes to pay for the ambitious plan will be added to your property taxes. State employees' pay and pension of course, skewers the percentages, i.e., the county/city employees' pay and pension comes entirely from your property taxes. Teachers' and other state employees' pay comes from a mixture of funds. You pay for it but via other tax monies, too.
Beck makes some other points as well, not the least of which is: "When a pay raise is granted, the state (and one supposes likewise the counties) is only committed through the next pay period. (However) when a pension benefit is granted by law, the taxpayer is on the hook forever."
Small wonder the 1 Percent Tax limit got so many votes. Not enough, you say? True, but only because there are so many more sucking the government cow's teat than there are pitching hay to feed her.
The actuarial figures to the pension fund's dollar obligations are frightening. Ada County Commissioner Gary Glenn asked the Public Employee's Retirement Fund of Idaho (PERSI) how much it would cost if Ada County "bought their way out" of their pension fund. The answer was approximately $7 million. That is to pay pension obligations due but not yet owing for county employees who will retire sometime in the distant future.
HCR 20, which passed the House by the way, may get killed in the Senate but the committee recommending it would cause a 40 to 45 percent increase (from approximately 8.3 to 12.5) in the percentage of their salary paid into the retirement fund by the county. A huge obligation, for sure.
Comes now the "suck and blow in the same breath." The big increase was opposed not only by Glenn and Canyon County Commissioner Jan Vinson but also by Latah's ultra-liberal Democrat Commissioner Mark Solomon and middle-road Democrat Commissioner Mike Anderson of Kootenai County who said their counties couldn't afford the big pension increase.
GOP Caucus Chairman Dave Kerrick (R-Canyon) said at least 18 solid Republican votes were solid "against the House-passed package." Kerrick, who was a member of the study committee that recommended the big pension increase in the first place (he supported it) said after so much hell was raised about the House vote: "We're not going to scuttle it. We want to have a study committee. . . .Everyone is concerned . . . to hold off a year, get some experts to comment."
Egad. How many study committees does he need? The one he was on presumably studied it. He recommended it then. One guesses he's having second thoughts, at least, now. But wouldn't you think this young liberal politician would be more conservative with your money and vote "no" at least until after the study by experts was made?
The Associated Press reporters quoting Beck, Glenn and Kerrick are insufferably liberal and thusly slant much of their coverage of this story, too. How? Well, when they referred to Beck he is a "conservative who ran an unsuccessful bid for the GOP senate nomination." Then when referring to Glenn he is another conservative: "Who spearheaded the Right-to-Work drive in the 1980's."
All of which is just fine--except how do they refer to Kerrick with whom the liberal media doubtless agree? You guessed it. No label at all in terms of Kerrick's philosophy which is at least as "liberal" as his two opponents are "conservative." (The AP reporters love to do crap like this).
Ever wonder how the media happen to miss reporting on politicians who so often suck and blow in the same breath? Easy. Because they do it themselves--almost daily. Get it? If you don't, you will get it in the end.
Social Security Prophesy Right On
By Ralph Smeed
Idaho Press-Tribune,
March 14, 1993
An historically aware friend of mine dropped off to me a copy of an old Reader's Digest story (May 1947) about America's Social Security. He did this last week and since the Digest is no doubt the largest and probably the most influential magazine in the whole world, I decided you should hear its path-breaking story right now.
The preface to the article set the tone: "Since the inception of the (SS) plan, $7.50 out of each $9 paid by employees and employers has been spent by the government for other purposes. An individual guilty of such malfeasance would land in the penitentiary." (Today's government is even more irresponsible, by the way).
Old Stuff? Well, yes and no. The 46-year-old article is entitled, "Our Present Dishonest Federal Old Age Pension Plan." The author's opening paragraph read: "My purpose is not to oppose public pensions but to expose the indefensible methods by which the plan is being rendered ridiculous." That author was one of America's all-time great writers and thinkers. He held positions in public affairs and other posts of high prestige and responsibility. He was called to testify before the House Ways and Means Committee in 1939, so compelling and convincing were his insightful arguments on SS.
The above-mentioned article was written by the great John T. Flynn, in 1947, of course, when Social Security had been enacted into federal law only 12 years before. His writings were almost prophetic of things to come 40 to 50 years later:
"The government has collected nine billion dollars (his emphasis) in taxes for old-age pensions and survivors insurance. It has paid a billion and a half in pensions. It has borrowed and spent the other seven and a half billion on other things."
Remember folks, this may sound as if it were written today. It was not. It was way back in 1947. The old Reader's Digest article by Flynn went on:
"Not only is it dishonest, it is poor administration besides, to collect taxes under one guise and spend them for another purpose." Sounds just like today's government doesn't it? Well, for goodness sake, why then don't we wake up? Flynn's prophecy continued:
"Government has collected nearly nine billion of which it has borrowed seven and a half billion to pay running expenses of the government. Instead of Social Security for the workers this looks like political security for the politicians.
"No matter how big the fund gets, the money will be gone, having been spent by the government on current expenses."
The government's course, Flynn warned back then, was a plan, ". . . to add a billion or two every year to the national debt which we are supposed to reduce. It entangles the whole Social Security system with the fiscal difficulties of the government which are bound to increase." And, sure enough, today we have a $4 trillion debt. Egad.
Are we to suppose that this very same message merely went out into space, in the ensuing 45 years since then, and never fell back on anyone's ears until last year (1992) when Texas billionaire H. Ross Perot took up the commonsense cause? It was the common man vs. both the Republican and Democrat political parties, was it not? Is it not so, even today? Isn't it beginning to look even worse, now that President Bill Clinton's ever so many campaign promises are being broken almost daily? Almost hourly?
You know most all of this? OK, so do I. So do many of our friends. America's silly lumpen-proletariat virtually scrambles, even today, for the government's other gambling scheme, i.e., lottery tickets with odds well known to be several million to one against any hope for payoff at all. So much for government as a role model.
Perhaps not even the great Reader's Digest half-century of crusading nor the great John T. Flynn's are apt to stop the tide of liberalism or, more accurately, statism. Our own Mark Twain told us why way back around the turn of the century when he said:
"The teacher reminded us that Rome's liberties were not auctioned off in a day, but were bought slowly, gradually, furtively, little by little, first with a little corn and oil for the exceedingly poor and wretched; later with corn and oil for voters who were not quite so poor; later still with corn and oil for pretty much every man that had a vote to sell--exactly our own history over again."
Wake up, you fools. Maybe, just maybe, it's not too late.
Hatfield: Media Distort Owl Issue
By Ralph Smeed
Idaho Press-Tribune
March 21, 1993
Oregon's U.S. Sen. Mark Hatfield had something important to say recently about his home state of Oregon and that state's monumentally important logging and lumber industry.
The quite liberal senator has been in office for a great number of years but his interests are of course those of Oregon's timber industry, against which the liberal media bias has loomed almost daily.
Certainly the thousands of jobs directly affected and no doubt hundreds of thousands of employees indirectly affected would suggest his concerns over the many years were both well-intentioned and expertly intelligent. But they were alarmingly low-key given the lateness of the times and the arrogant momentum of the environmental crazies. Criticizing the media Hatfield said:
"Throughout this debate, policymakers have been plagued by several factors some of which were directly related to the media's coverage of the (spotted owl) issue.
"The problems were just as prevalent in the regional media (which one would expect to have more expertise on details) as they were in the national media." Translation: The national media is always terribly liberal, thus reports in typically biased fashion. But poor Hatfield thought the local Oregon media would be better.
Balderdash! These local media folk are almost never much different than the high priests they tend to ape and worship in the national media "church." It's been that way for decades. One wonders where Hatfield has been. He goes on with his media complaint:
"I believe the media have . . . an obligation to (present facts) accurately and fairly . . . My view is that just the opposite has been true in the reporting of the 'Great Forest Wars.'" The latter means, of course, the spotted owl controversy.
The Oregon senator went on to chronicle in detail numerous examples of media distortions and omissions in the spotted owl/timber preservation turmoil, then cited a particularly bad series in his own state's major newspaper, the Oregonian. All were biased against the lumberjacks and favored the environmental extremists. He said:
"In addition, the Oregonian (story) relied heavily on environmental sources and gave only token representation to forest industry sources . . . Out of a total of 2,700 column inches of print, only 53 inches, or 2 percent of the total, cited industry sources . . . This problem of selective reporting within a news story was elevated . . . with a cover story in Time magazine (entitled) 'Owl vs. Man.'"
Well, the bias examples favoring the lumber lockup and owl idiocy went on and on, much to Hatfield's credit, but as the brilliant economist Thomas Sowell likes to point out, this kind of asininity should be met with such as "you are either sadly misinformed or you're dumb as hell." Not like Hatfield's gentle and soft-spoken cluck-clucking.
Again, it's late in the game so as I said, where has the liberal senator been all these years? By that I mean, as early as 1947, the Commission of Freedom of the Press at the University of Chicago noted: "One of the most effective ways of improving the press is blocked by the press itself. By a kind of unwritten law the press ignores the misrepresentations, lies and scandals of which its members are guilty." But the GOPers have traditionally only brown-nosed them.
Still, I say hats off to Hatfield for speaking up a little, albeit awfully tepid, timid and temperately for the conservative lumberman. Yet he should know by now that government too often sets out to do good and winds up doing just the opposite. For example, during my little research for this column I discovered a classic paradigm proving the government's so-called endangered spotted owl effort is one of these reverse effects--in spades.
Whenever the Forest Service bureaucrats hear of an owl "sighting" they close off a huge area surrounding said sighting, thus adamantly stopping timber harvest, especially on private property. Now then, there are 4,456,000 acres of privately owned tree farms in Oregon (16.5 percent of that timber base) hence these sightings put lots of men and families flat out of work. A cold-blooded-blooded attack on private ownership.
So guess what kind of real incentive this creates for the men of the forest? You guessed it. Kill the damn owls before they "kill" you--and your hardworking family. You can guess how dull a lumberjack or tree farmer has to be--not to shoot the owls.
A tree farmer's property rights ought surely to be more sacrosanct than the bird-watching bureaucrat's. By the way, don't send your youngster to college these days to learn about it. Private property is not very "PC" (politically correct), on campus--a traditional hotbed of anti-capitalism.
Albertson College conservative trustees Steve Symms and Kathy Mertz please take note.
Another 'No Wonder We Lose' Case
By Ralph Smeed
Idaho Press-Tribune
Sunday, March 28, 1993
The people who believe in the private sector as compared to the bureaucratic or government sector should enjoy my "no wonder we lose" department. One would suppose the Chamber of Commerce would be the first line of defense favoring the private sector, but such is not necessarily the case. At least not in Boise. Here's why:
A week or so ago the Boise Chamber of Commerce representative of their Governmental Affairs Committee came to the Caldwell Chamber's Education Committee. His mission was to get the Caldwell Chamber's support to help reduce the Idaho Constitution's requirement of a two-thirds majority vote to approve bond issues, namely, to raise taxes for schools.
Mr. Ray Stark of Boise's Chamber explained that since many bond elections in the state lack a big enough majority, it would be great if "we" could get the said 66 2/3 majority mandate reduced to 60 percent. That way the schools could get all the money they needed. Or maybe he said they "wanted." I don't remember. But his words were in that ballpark. He went on at great length to explain how needful the school's money situation is and how desperate: (They get approximately 75 percent of the state's entire budget already).
Stark admitted that to change the Constitution to lower the two-thirds majority to 60 percent would be very difficult, if not impossible, so Boise's plan is to get the days on which school bond elections are held limited in such a manner as to help get a big turnout of voters. This would tend to assure the two-thirds majority.
Stark was querried as to why Boise didn't ask that the required majority be reduced to 51 percent, thus assuring voter aproval. He explained they "wanted to give property owners at least some protection against higher taxes." So I inquired, "If that was the case, why didn't you Boise Chamber folks support the recent 1 Percent Tax Limit Initiative to give property tax relief?" But he made no response to that excellent and relevant question.
Given Stark's silence on tax limitation, this writer explained that for several decades now the Boise Chamber representatives have occasionally requested help from Caldwell's Chamber group. But they had never, never come requesting anything to reduce government or to reduce taxes. That being the case, by my own personal observation over those years, I asked Stark, "Don't you Boise Chamber people represent the business community?" To which he willingly answered, "Yes."
"Well, then," I inquired further, "why doesn't your Boise Chamber ever push for free-enterprise solutions? For example, the school lobby is said by many to have an absolutely insatiable appetite for funds and a bottomless barrel into which they throw tax money with almost no supply and demand accountability back to their customers. Seems like a great opportunity for some competition.
"If you bit city types were to furnish even a little bit of leadership for business to privatize the government school system, then some real progress could be made in the private delivery of schooling and education. Even the educational voucher system (a middle of the road approach) as articulated and advocated for years by Nobel Laureate Milton Friedman, the famous economist, would seem appropriate as a place to begin for relieving Idaho schools.
"I must admit, however, given its long history of advocating interventionism and statism of one kind or another, the likelihood of such 'leadership' coming out of Boise is not large. Especially since the Chamber of Commerce of that fair city is a bit dull, one should not hold one's breath waiting for them to utter the word--capitalism--out loud.
But it could happen. Not probably, perhaps, but with encouragement from some socially acceptable personalities it just could get to be popular. Even the Brookings Institute, a prestigious liberal think tank, recently did an in-depth study on school vouchers. It birthed forth a great book entitled Politics, Markets and America's Schools by John Chubb and Terry Moe.
What did the Caldwell Chamber do with the Boiseans' request to raise taxes? We tabled it until next month's meeting. (It should have been rejected out of hand.)
Like I was saying: No wonder we lose.
Caldwell Will Be Voting for Change
By Ralph Smeed
Idaho Press-Tribune
April 4, 1993
The late, great Franklin D. Roosevelt told us that, "All government is local government." That is to say, FDR was indeed "great" in the eyes of those Utopian-type folks who tend to love government as a great problem solver. Most of them (not all) can be called statists.
These oft-times well-intentioned people find it hard to overcome their critics who claim that Big Brother federal government may be bad, but local government is good. Thus, Caldwell is today in the throes of a sort of bastardization of what FDR put into the culture as a kind of "religion." Its advocates pray for a scheme to more "effectively" (sometimes called efficiently) manage other people's affairs.
The proposed scheme called "city manager" is presently pushed by the Caldwell mayor and City Council (all but one) and primarily one "self-appointed" businessman.
The saving grace, so say the statists, is that local government is competent to rule. Competent, that is, if said manager has attended college (not always a sure sign of common sense, by the way) and thus presumably trained in the urge to tell other people how to live. So, about this city manager scheme, a few observations in no particular order of impotence (sorry, importance):
1. The election to decide whether Caldwell changes to a city manager is next Tuesday, April 6.
2. A national parable: Then candidate for president Bill Clinton, last year campaigned for that office almost solely by promising "change" for the sake of change. No definitions, mind you, and few specifics.
3. Caldwell pushers of change to city manager likewise offer few specifics. Mainly change. Given Caldwell's downtown problems, change itself tends to sell. As in Bill Clinton's silly slogan.
4. More importantly, the city manager "religion" is based primarily on two false assumptions. They assume the title (read, label) city manager somehow assures us of a competent well-trained employee who will no doubt govern well. The second false assumption is that a full-time administrator appointed by the mayor (possibly with advice and consent of the Council, but who could be fired by the mayor) is somehow either incompetent or a simple political hack. Possible? Yes. But possible under either plan. If these false assumptions are left standing, of course, it is not possible to win a reasoned debate.
5. A modicum of virtue does appear to creep into the dialogue, but these advantages are available under the present system. For example, the Council can vote now to have a part-time mayor and full-time assistant at higher--or lower, pay. So why not demand "competency" today?
6. Some well-meaning souls who want a city manager claim that "safeguards" exist which would assume some undefined control, presumably by a committee called the City Council. But that's precisely the problem, namely, a committee. Committees historically cannot manage. They could and should set policy, then demand it be carried out by the chief administrating officer.
7. It is true the Council could conceivably fire a future manager, but even now it's reported that two or three councilpersons say privately they can't "do anything" about the present Personnel/Administrative Assistant Teri Ottens, controversial city manager without portfolio ". . . because she works only for the mayor. And he thinks she's great."
8. Such isn't true, of course. The Council could indeed force the mayor to fire his assistant, if they wanted to and had the guts. For one thing, they could refuse to fund his/her salary. But it's sad if the city has to be hornswaggled into a scheme of more bureaucracy merely to get rid of a controversial administrator. In any event, this is management by committee. And difficult at best.
Unfortunately, a harebrained and immature personal attack has been injected into the city government fuss by the abovementioned "self-appointed" businessman. To him I'd only say that sincere and intelligent citizens can both disagree and have strong feelings without personal attacks. But what is right is far more important--than who is right.
So, if we want less bureaucracy, let's vote no on a city manager April 6.
GOP Target of Rankin's Poison Pen
By Ralph Smeed
Idaho Press-Tribune
April 25, 1993
There is a mysterious man in north Idaho who has for years been president and CEO of the Idaho State Property Owners Association and quite probably the most worthy and least appreciated political activist in the whole darned state. He is virtually the Rush Limbaugh of Idaho for both his brains and his brashness. And his bulky build, by the way. About that gentleman a few observations:
He is Ron Rankin of Coeur d'Alene. He is also president of the Kootenai County Property Owners and chief of the 1 Percent Tax Limit idea.
In addition to being of the few real bright political operators in all of Idaho, and no doubt one of the most communicative, he is easily the most intelligently controversial. Why? Two reasons: (1) He is a vigorous and extremely articulate conservative, free-market type person and (2) he is a born-again supporter and friendly pusher of private property as a key idea in the American miracle as largely envisioned by Thomas Jefferson.
He is controversial, partly because he has a lot of guts, or, if you like, courage. Another reason for Rankin's controversial image is that his raison d'etre--private property, is the single major distinction between our system and the old Soviet system in Russia. This fact alone sets him apart from the media and even much of the Republican Party with whom he often tangles. Strangely, the GOP seldom even touches the subject of private property.
Although many see the terms conservative and liberal as the key difference between our two major parties, Rankin really let the GOP hear it a few days ago in a letter to me soon to be made public.
Here in part, is his assessment of the recent Legislature:
"First the Legislature, dominated by Republicans by more than 2 to 1, passed HCR-20, the second step in over $500 million in increased public employees' pensions with $115 million in state-mandated local property tax increases. They killed House Bill 357, prohibiting massive unbudgeted bonuses to public employees.
"They killed Senate Bill 1193, a hiring freeze on state employees who are increasing at four times the rate of population increase. They killed HJR-1 which would have required Idaho legislators to vote publicly on their own pay raises."
(Our state's part-time lawmakers now get $1,000 per month, $12,000 per year, free medical insurance, and discounted family medical insurance, free phone and postage allowance, etc., etc., and an almost completely free, all expense paid, power trip away from the real world and a lively ego trip back.
Rankin rankles the GOP much like a prickly hair-shirt partly because they would be, and have been from time to time, his chosen party "if they only stood steadfast for some thing besides merely getting elected and staying elected." He rightly points out that seldom can the public hold politicians accountable on "issues" which they all prattle about.
Rather it is on principles steadfastly proclaimed and promoted wherein the hardworking citizen, without big bucks or big muscles of some sort, even stands a chance in politics.
His poison pen pounces on the party of his choice leading the Legislature: "They cried big tears because they didn't have enough tax dollars . . . Yet scant mention was made of the fact they spent $80 million more than last year.
"They killed bills . . . to limit terms of office holders (i.e., themselves). They passed S-1017, increasing pension benefits and reducing retirement age . . . more mandated local property taxes . . . Fortunately the bill was vetoed by Gov. Andrus.
"And they called all of this spending cuts because, now get this . . it was less than they wanted to spend. Twenty-five bills were introduced, mostly by minority Democrats, intended to relieve our oppressive property taxes . . . not one survived!"
Exposing GOPers such as Rankin does infuriates his critics, but their reactions almost always include: "well, the Democrats are worse." So? Do two wrongs make a right? "Somebody has to be nuts" says Rankin. I agree, but I liked this one of his sharp insights best:
"Their Republican House HBill 410, an aberration spawned in the Celia Gould (R-Buhl) committee was the illegitimate offspring of the incestuous parentage of paid lobbyists from the Association of Cities (Shirley Mix) and the Association of Counties (Dan Chadwick), midwifed by the morally neutered lobbyist-controlled front group calling itself Associated Taxpayers of Idaho (Randy Nelson. Egad. No wonder we lose.
In Public Affairs, Context Is Everything
By Ralph Smeed
Idaho Press-Tribune
May 2, 1993
This writer was the co-publisher of one of the sharpest newsletters ever to be published in this part of the country. It was called In Context. It's now out of print. But:
That's what it's all about, you know, i.e., context, especially where public affairs and public "servants" are concerned.
The quotation marks are used simply because many of these so-called servants are serving themselves first and their constituents second, hence two meanings. Maybe that's OK. Maybe not. Much depends upon the context within which the question gets examined, hopefully, prior to the public's having to vote (decide) on the particular politician, issue or principle in question. So let us see if we can apply this context idea to some important every-day examples.
A growing number of people are saying that "all politicians are liars." While one can get some legitimate applause by saying that, one need not be a rocket scientist to know it is not true in every case. The truth might be in the context within which one might test the general premise. Take for example that some say President Clinton lied during the campaign. OK, true enough. But so did George Bush lie. Remember "Read my lips. No new taxes." OK, H. Ross Perot lied, too. Remember he said, "If the people will put me on the ballot in all 50 states I'll run for president of the U.S. and spend $100 million of my own money to get elected." They did. He did not. Was that a lie? Yes, but only a little one, you say. No, it was a real big whopper.
Now then, just what is the context of these three public figures' "lies"? Politics. Everybody knows politicians will lie (promise) almost anything just to get elected. Once in office the voters soon forget, i.e., if the liberal media will let them forget. Bush was beaten over the head, perhaps deservedly, for breaking his dramatic "read my lips" promise. Many say that statement alone defeated the big GOPer.
In any case, given the context of politics, especially today, amidst our increasing permissiveness and decreasing moral standards, perhaps Clinton thought he could get away with more and bigger lies, since he has a lot more charm and charisma than Bush. In that context, maybe he was right. Certainly he seems comfortable continuing his frequent reversals of his campaign promises to soak only the rich. Remember his promise to increase taxes only on those who make $200,000 or more per year? Now, of course, his own aides (no pun) are increasing the tax on people making $30,000 or even less per year.
Many say Clinton has already lied far more in his current "100-day honeymoon" than Bush did in his entire four-year term and there is a lot more in the works, even with the liberal media covering up for him and adding lots of moral support.
One thing I will have to admit, however, in regard to Clinton's keeping his plethora of promises. He seems almost hell-bent on keeping his promises to the homosexuals. If one is influenced by that group's big loudmouth fringe and their gross antics and public parade paraphernalia (note even their huge artificial phallic symbols strapped on their frontal body parts to flaunt sexuality as shown on national TV) then maybe the president will have to relent.
But give him "credit" he has done his dangdest to keep his promises to his homo constituency. On the matter of the media, I am glad, if also surprised, that about 10 or 15 percent of the national media, to their everlasting credit, do seem to be trying to hold Clinton to his, and his advisors', by the way, promises. Still, this has little chance of succeeding because the remaining 85 to 90 percent of the media tend to fawn over any socialist scheme to come down the pike proposed by almost anybody. The polemicists and cartoonists, however, don't buy the BS. They are calling Clinton, President "Clinocchio" in recognition of the Disney character, Pinocchio, whose long nose got longer as he lied.
Still, the late, great Communist, George Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel gives us the scariest context of today's staggering statism. Said he: "What experience and history teach is this--that peoples and governments never have learned anything from history, or acted on principles deduced from it."
Does this context include people like you?
"Gentleman of the Right" Asks for Moral Support
By Ralph Smeed
The Idaho Statesman
July 3, 1993
Father forgive me for what I'm about to do, i.e., what follows is the first of what is scheduled to be a regular commentary or column on, mostly, public affairs (some private) on the liberal media, liberal government schools, liberal politics and busy-body type interventionism in general. Or - maybe we'll just challenge puffery wherever.
All of this, and more, in The Idaho Statesman - believe it or not - and most of it will tend to come down somewhere to the right of George McGovern. Won't that be a surprise to many readers of the "august" Statesman. I used august in quotes partly because it's starting in July (not August) and partly because, well, they are so darned big that some people thought there would never get to be anything written therein by what my friend William F. Buckley, Jr. calls a "gentleman of the right."
I know it's a little hard to believe, gentle readers, a shot at some balance in the media (read The Statesman in particular) especially after all those decades of "right-wing" hissing by my old friend John Corlett, long-time political editor (now retired) of this newspaper whose idea of telling both sides was to find two liberals who disagree. His worst epithet, chiefly, was to call someone with whom he vigorously disagreed, e.g., some anti-communist such as I, a "right-winger."
We never could get John to give us a definition of a right-winger, but his "hissing" sound always came through loud and clear and the legacy has generally, I think, been honored by later Statesman writers over the years. Including, especially, the AP wire service stalwarts Quayne Kenyon and Bob Fick, who like to insist there exists "not a dozen liberals in the whole state of Idaho." Egad! (Tell you something about media bias?)
All of which is sort of to say I'll welcome all the moral support I can get (conservatives are said to seldom pick up their wounded off the battlefield) by way of letters to the editor, scathing denouncement(s) from liberals, especially those with a sense of humor, and the conservatives who wish they had one.
Why will I welcome this? Because, if I do a good job on the above-mentioned subjects as has been sorely neglected for lo these many years in this newspaper, could I expect to be promptly fired forthwith? One could "logically" expect such. But as the great literacy giant and libertarian-leaning conservative Jeffrey Hart explains, "People do not make up their minds by logic and reason. Rather they do it based mostly on sentiment and assumption." All that to the consternation of Professor Hart's own Dartmouth College which is even to the liberal left of Boise State University.
Still, as I am only a moderately good (read, skillful) writer, thus probably not a really big threat to this giant liberal-leaning newspaper (aren't they all?) and since the latter is presently manifesting what seems to be a kind of generous tendency toward, well, "broadening" their stable of writers - I just may tend to leaven the lump of liberal balance at this paper and be here every Saturday.
Thus hope springs eternal ... even with us libertarian/conservatives. Or could I be a conservative/libertarian?
Next week we'll try our hand at labeling, i.e., name-calling, with which the liberals are expert and obsessed - all the while decrying it and cussing out the conservatives for trying the same. This paper's sometime classic comic strip "B.C." says it this way: The young insect ant had asked his father ant what "labeling" meant. The father and answered, "That, son, is a scheme to hate somebody without knowing anything about them."
Still, we are badly in need of labels. So stay tuned.
Labels Can Be Deadly, or They Can Be Dynamite
By Ralph Smeed
The Idaho Statesman
July 10, 1993
If there is anything that proves the old saying: "perception is truth," it's the myth that definitions are dull and unimportant.
Hardly anything could be further from the truth. But, the suspicion persists that labels or definitions, which are really quite interdependent, are nonetheless both dull and irrelevant.
For this reason we are seldom treated to meaningful specifics in the news, particularly in the arena of public affairs. Unfortunately, this causes all kinds of confusion.
One might say the matter of labeling, so often decried by the liberals, is a facet of defining just what it is we are talking about. Take for example the word taxes now called "investment" by Bill Clinton. Others call it "revenue enhancement." I call it the equivalent of "date rape."
Of course, politicians are often keen to avoid giving us a solid label of just what it is they really mean because they tend to turn voters off that way. The liberal media frequently compounds the problem by ascribing the label "extreme" and/or "extremist" to public figures with whom they disagree. They often describe conservatives as "extremist" for example, but almost never the liberals.
Labels are severely criticized largely because their use calls for accountability. One is reminded of all three presidential candidates in the last couple of elections: George Bush said, "Read my lips, no new taxes." He thereby labeled and attempted to define his platform. It worked, i.e. the label did. It probably killed him politically, but the label was fine. It was instead the MIS-labeling that was bad when he approved new taxes. His critics called him a liar. His friends said he should have kept his mouth shut. The clear label exposed his broken promise.
Billionaire Texas tycoon H. Ross Perot said if the "pee-pull" would put him on the ballot in all 50 states, he would run for president of the United States and spend $100 million of his own money to get elected. They did. He didn't. His was an attempt to label his platform and define it. His critics labeled him, too, a liar. So now then, just who can we believe next time around?
Bill Jefferson Clinton, candidate for the same presidential post, said if he were elected, he's move swiftly and dramatically to balance the budget and reduce the nation's debt and deficit. He would do this by taxing only the rich, i.e. those making $200,000 or more per year. His was also a clear label - and it worked. But he backed out. Now his critics say he, too, lied because he now wants to tax everybody making $20,000 to $25,000 a year. Clinton "lied" on other matters, of course, but not on everything. At least he kept his promise to support the "gays." The latter word itself is an example of a clever use of labeling.
Labels are simply words, if we use them properly. They also can be a form of political dynamite, so don't let some promoter talk you out of proper labels. And insist on definitions too, as they can certainly be said to be a form of label.
Perhaps it simply boils down to the character of those using the labels and definitions, especially in the case of politicians and the news media. Remember the national media told us during the last campaign that a person's character did not matter much. Egad.
Could that tell us something about how the media "defines" truth in labeling?
Liberals Have Fire Power to Take Care of Their Own
By Ralph Smeed
The Idaho Statesman
July 17, 1993
Gov. Cecil Andrus and Attorney General Larry EchoHawk, members of the state Land Board, were being awfully frugal and up-front about their pending decision whether or not to sue the tourists who started the fire in the Boise National Forest last summer. But there's a curious double standard concerning these two gentlemen's idea of just who to sue and who not to.
First of all you may remember the Pennsylvania couple who were touring in their motor-home up near Banks last year when the passenger car they were towing blew a tire. The bare wheel dragging on the pavement caused sparks that ignited dry grass and weeds along some distance of highway, thus starting a forest fire.
The couple, of course, were not aware they were dragging a sort of flaming torch and setting an unfortunate string of roadside fires resulting in said forest fire costing $1.13 million.
The story has been pretty well covered in the media, so I won't recount a lot of detail here except to say that Andrus and EchoHawk were waiting to see how big the Pennsylvania couple's financial statement turned out to be before deciding whether to sue or settle. Apparently the touring couple had a limit of $300,000 of liability insurance, which their carrier had offered to the state in settlement of the fire damage.
More could be said about the possible damage to Idaho's tourism industry if prospective customer-tourists are unduly hassled for unintentional and understandable accidents. But the above-mentioned double standard surely merits some attention, certainly before the popular and liberal EchoHawk is elected our next governor, congressman, or some such, virtually by default. That is, at least, if the fawning liberal media has its way.
In any event, let's admit he's hot political property for the Democrats, but how about the other accidental fire caused by EchoHawk's own employee's carelessness in his own attorney general's office resulting in a massively expensive fire?
You may remember Jean McNeil, a nice lady, liberal Democrat, who used to work for the government TV (Channel 4), then left to work for liberal Democrat Gov. John Evans and wound up in the Democrat attorney general's office, where she worked until a short while ago. McNeil, a cigarette smoker, unintentionally emptied her ash tray containing a burning cigarette into a waste basket just before leaving her office at night in the AG's elegant, old, even antique, suite of offices.
One of the worst fires in the history of the fine, old statehouse ensued. It cost $3.5 million, three times as much as the entire forest fire at Banks set off by the touring couple from Pennsylvania. Both fires were tragic and costly to the state of Idaho. Both, of course, were accidental - even preventable.
Much more could be said about these two fires, including why all the big push by the Land Board to sue the Pennsylvania couple? And why were state leaders so quick to accept McNeil's simple, if sincere, "I'm sorry"? By the way, I'm sure she both was and is.
But there's one smoldering "fire" nobody in the media wants to touch, i.e., Channel 4's good-ole-boy network of political liberals. They virtually "incubate" right out of the government's very own TV station (PBS) in Boise.
In addition to McNeil, for example, there is Marc Johnson, an extra-liberal former director of public affairs who left Channel 4 to work for our liberal governor. (There's more, but note none at public television "incubate" to the right.)
You have to hand it to them though, the liberal networkers are experts at fire power and taking care of their own.
Glenn's Efforts to Fight "Statism" Unappreciated
By Ralph Smeed
The Idaho Statesman
July 24, 1993
Two stories sort of hit the headlines last week, especially in Boise. No doubt the sickest was the federal Occupational Safety and Health Administration bureaucrat's attempt to sock an $8,000 fine onto a company whose employees jumped down into a deep trench to save a fellow employee who was suffocating under an accidental dirt and mud cave-in.
Their crime? The hero workers "neglected" to don their hard hats as required by OSHA's rules, before jumping down into the trench to save the inundated worker's life. Their fast action did save his life, but not because of OSHA's darn fool efforts. And only massive outrage from both public and private observers forced the OSHA bureaucrats to back off. Shades of George Orwell's prophetic book "1984," which told us all this would happen. And how.
The second Boise story was just as asinine, although not so life-threatening. It seems the two Ada County commissioners, Roger Simmons and Vern Bisterfeldt, often vote together and against the third commissioner, Gary Glenn. No big deal you say? sure, except that Glenn is so often in the one-third minority, he has taken to issuing a press release after many of those votes wherein he has lost to explain the issue and why he so voted.
Said press releases, of course, seem to be quite embarrassing, hence driving the peppery Glenn's colleague-commissioners up the wall. I use the term "peppery" because Republican office-holders are expected to sit down and shut up after they lose a vote, so the GOP establishment can get on with the business at hand - statism. But Glenn, a real pro, doesn't shut up easily, so let's take a deeper look.
There is so much misunderstanding about both private and public affairs these days that one hesitates even to try to make them make sense, but the ease with Gary Glenn and its attendant surroundings is so dramatic that maybe it will be useful.
Glenn's critics claim he is too "conservative." But they want to make their criticism based only on issues. These so-called "issues" are almost meaningless except when viewed in the context of clearly defined principles. Principles, of course, call quickly for philosophical context and it is here that today's statists (usually called liberals) have us by the neck.
It's called humanism, pure democracy, or nihilism or modernism. George Orwell called it "new-speak." But words are bastardized in order to cover up what is really going on. For example, Glenn's philosophy is that a political candidate should try to do exactly what he said he'd do - and vote that way. In other words, try to reduce taxes and reduce government. But government continues to grow by leaps and bounds anyway, not only at the federal level but at the county level.
So Glenn, the minority commissioner, sees this going on and tries to do something about it. How? Well, he and his colleagues hold quasi-public hearings ostensibly to "determine" public policy, so he phones taxpayers to assure their participation in said "open" hearings. The Statesman newspaper scolded him editorially for "stacking the deck" by inviting his supporters to the hearings - even to the extent of calling Glenn "sleazy." A wrong-headed accusation, me thinks.
"Openness" is all Glenn claims to be doing and faults this newspaper, saying his press releases are the epitome of openness in government.
He's right on. This newspaper should be ashamed of itself. If Glenn had been a liberal they would have featured him on their front page for "virtue in promoting participatory democracy," said, without doubt, "the spirit of Idaho's open-meeting law."
Is there a double-standard here? Of course there is. It's the same syndrome as the one in Congress. It's called by various names, but it can only succeed aided and abetted by a news media philosophically sympathetic to - statism.
Political Word Games Keep Politicians in Office
By Ralph Smeed
The Idaho Statesman
July 31, 1993
Whatever one may say about Idaho's junior senator, Dirk Kempthorne, he is neither a bad man nor a conniving one.
He is also fairly intelligent, fairly honest and wants to do the right thing. The matter before us, however, is can be he do anything about the inane if not catastrophic state of affairs in Insane City, D.C.?
Part of Kempthorne's problem centers on his words. When you think about it, words are all a politician produces. The private sector produces deeds. Thank Heaven.
Environmentalists exploit politicians' word games. In fact they are today's Big Brother. A classic example occurred at the recent Idaho conference on technology and economic growth in Idaho Falls. Kempthorne said: "Today, I am going to suggest a new name for INEL."
Kempthorne went on: "I'm suggesting an addition of one word. but it's one word that speaks volumes. I propose that we change the name from INEL to INEEL, the Idaho National Engineering AND ENVIRONMENTAL (my emphasis) Laboratory. The plain fact is that the INEL is now, will e, and must always be, known as an environmental lab. INEL should be recognized as the leader in solving tough environmental problems."
So? Where so we go to throw up, you ask? It's just a big play on words, you say.
Yes, but don't be too angry at the junior senator who, as former mayor of Boise, presided over substantial increases of bureaucratic regulations while in that office, so I'm told, hence knows what staying in office is all about. Maybe he's trying to save 13,000 jobs at the INEL.
Of course, that's the way the game of politics is played today my friends. And its getting worse. On Campus USA, it's called "PC" (politically correct). For example, next time you get a flyer from your nearby college or university, notice how often they mention "independence" or "excellence" or some such fluffy word game and how seldom they feature words about their philosophy and how students will be able to make a living after graduation. It is just not "PC" to mention the latter ideas and practical common-sense ideals.
In another bygone day (1969), William O. Douglas, the famous justice of the U.S. Supreme Court, and a big liberal by the way, said, "I've often thought that if our zoning boards could be put in charge of botanists, of zoologists and geologists, and people who know about the earth, we would have much more wisdom in such planning than we have when we leave it to the engineers." Egad.
One of this century's few really great prophets, George Orwell, said it much better in his book "1984" predicting all these word games in his fictional country "INGSOC" (English socialism): "Big Brother whose face faded away and instead there appeared the three slogans of the Party: War is peace; Freedom is slavery; Ignorance is strength."
At that moment Orwell chronicled that the entire group of people in his "1984" broke into a deep, slow rhythmical chant of, "B-B: ... B-B: ... B-B: ..." Over and over again very slowly, with a long pause between 'B' and 'B.' And meaning of course, 'Big Brother; Big Brother; Big Brother.'"
It's all there for all willing to see, my friends. Comrades Clinton and Hillary have and are making Big Brother's word games about as clear for us as they can.
So, don't get too sore at Kempthorne, folks. He has to play a few word games, he thinks, in order to stay in office. After all, the glandular environmentalists seem to be in charge of today's political word games. Sad to say, in that sense at least, Kempthorne may be right.
Roses, Razzberries Bloom on Nampa's Golf Course
By Ralph Smeed
The Idaho Statesman
August 7, 1993
During 18 years of writing a weekly commentary in one or another of Idaho newspapers, my Roses and Razzberries column has been both fun and popular.
The roses are usually, though not always, reserved for private entities and the razzberries usually for politicians and bureaucrats. I hope you enjoy it and if you do, maybe we'll use it more often.
ROSES for America's all-time great founding father Thomas Jefferson and author of our spectacular Declaration of Independence who also wrote something that today's so-called leaders seem to have forgotten: "That government governs best that governs least." If today's public "servants" have not forgotten it, then they surely ignore it with a vengeance.
ROSES, too, for Nampa's new Centennial Golf Course just off Highway I-84. It is reported to be one of the busiest in the state. The city leaders held an election a short few years ago when the scheme was first broached. The voters were asked if the city should build or help build such a golf course. The voters didn't say no, they said Hell no! Guess what the Nampa politicians did. They waited a few weeks then went right ahead and built their "public" golf course anyway.
The heck with how people actually voted. One must admit the golf course has been immensely popular and profitable too, so nobody dares criticize it. As a matter of fact, I have some knowledge about all of this because I just opened up a golf driving range myself.
ROSES, too, for the Nampa golf pro whose entrepreneurship, risk, skill and reward in managing Centennial has been way beyond what anybody even dreamed of, hence it is reported he's actually getting rich at it. I sincerely hope he is and that it continues. But:
RAZZBERRIES for the city council at Nampa who, it's been reliably reported, tried their dangdest to break their contract with the golf pro because some thought he was making too much money. fortunately they didn't succeed. But they have now a new scheme for which:
RAZZBERRIES for the City of Nampa's politicians who are right today in the middle of planning - believe it or not - two more brand new city golf courses. Egad, shades of George Orwell's "1984" and his Big Brother all over again. As few on the Nampa City Council seem to recognize, private ownership (read, private property) is the single most important distinction between the American system and the old USSR's system of socialism - for the masses, of course. So:
ROSES for that city's ever-so-popular and bright financial director, Ken Harward, who for some years now has stewarded Nampa on the road to a whole host of city "successes." I use quotation marks around successes, however, because to put his city into so many business enterprises which should rightly be none of their responsibility is, well, just not the stuff of which the late, great Thomas Jefferson and his colleagues would have approved at all. Unfortunately Harward is promoting MORE government.
RAZZBERRIES to Idaho's Governor-forever-and-ever, Cecil Andrus, who virtually single-handedly made the huge acreage around the Nampa State School and Hospital available for the Nampa golfers.
While it certainly isn't 100 percent bad to put said huge state-owned acreage to beneficial use such as more and more city golf courses (even a new city golf driving range is now being promoted as part of the complex) this is the stuff which should be done in the private sector.
Andrus, had he been a champion of Jefferson's "Government that governs least," would no doubt have auctioned off the above-mentioned huge acreage into the private sector whereupon capitalism might have resurrected another new Declaration of Independence. Instead, Idaho gets what seems to be a constant and swelling tide of socialism.
RAZZBERRIES for Nampa's politicians who say they will "rent" their new facilities to the private sector. A rose by any other name still - smells.
Both Left and Right Garble Their Message
By Ralph Smeed
The Idaho Statesman
August 14, 1993
One of the few really great college presidents in America is Dr. Perry Gresham, now long retired from the leadership of Bethany College in Bethany, W. Va. This grand old man - he's almost 90 - is even today full of the rare spirit that so often draws open-minded people to his side to listen to his keen insights.
Gresham launched one of these insights upon me during his visit to Idaho a few years ago. Said he, "Be slow to ascribe to malice that which usually can be explained by stupidity."
It is with this in mind that I respond to a recent critic who suggested that my criticism of the "liberal media" was somewhat misplaced. My critic cited a plethora of "right-wing talk shows" seeming to have all of a sudden come to dominate the air waves. One supposes all this is much to the consternation of said critic's moral sensibilities, in all probability - liberal sensibilities, since the reference was to my "liberal" media (a sort of understatement) and to his "right-wing" talk shows.
As an aside, notice that today's critics of conservatives frequently resort to the term "right-wing", usually accompanied with a hissing sound while their own viewpoints are merely "liberal."
Well, all this brought to my mind my old and valued friend Perry's admonition not to look for malice when one could easily see little else to explain such vast differences in whether the media is excessively left or right. But stupidity? In this case nonetheless, I doubt it.
What else then? It's about the absence of definition of terms. Not malice, not even stupidity. Today's society seems hell-bent to avoid precise definitions for anything.
One frequently hears the declaration, "I don't mean to be judgmental - but ..." Why not be judgmental? Well, two reasons: (1) lack of courage and (2) lack of good definitions. In this case, political definitions.
Now then, people tend to be a little dull-witted, especially where public affairs are concerned. And all the more, given the fact that "taking an interest and voting" makes so very little difference. That situation is made so very much worse because and thanks mostly to the government run school system, we tend to see a modern "Tower of Babel", also known as a mass of confusion, especially without adequate definitions. Why? Because government schools do not teach students the good and virtuous things about the private sector. Some private schools, sad to say, are even worse.
Part of the "Tower of Babel" results in my above-mentioned critic's evaluation of our news media, i.e., is the media sweetly liberal and slanted or is it right-wing and slanted?
By the way, whatever happened to the term left-wing? How often do we hear that even mentioned?
My concern, ladies and gentlemen, is that my critics just may be sincere. Sincerely wrong perhaps, though not always. How do we get out of this mess? Definitions, that's how, made clear and understandable and articulated by intelligent spokesmen. That is particularly important for those who support a private property order as opposed to a communally owned and operated society as the left-liberal's words mostly define the word-battle.
So, let us agree there's confusion on both sides, oftentimes without malice. Those of us on the right also are to blame. We non-liberals tend to arrogantly ignore the powerful role that words and definitions almost always play.
"For it is by discourse that men associate, and words are imposed by the vulgar." And therefore the ill and unfit choice to words wonderfully obstructs the understanding ..."
"Words plainly force and over-rule the understanding, and throw all into confusion, and lead men away into numberless empty controversies and idle fancies."
Those are the great Francis Bacon's words, my friends. Do you suppose they describe today's "liberal media" or today's "right-wing media"? Or Gresham's "malice" or "stupidity"?
Respect Educators, But Don't Worship Them
By Ralph Smeed
The Idaho Statesman
August 21, 1993
"One good schoolmaster is worth a thousand priests," Robert Ingersoll said in 1881. One might add that the "schoolmaster," I'm sure he'd call them schoolteachers if he were speaking today, also has the most influence with students, due to the considerable amount of time they spend with them.
My point? Well, the future depends to a great extent on teachers and what they teach. Therefore, the Caldwell Chamber of Commerce Education Committee sponsors each year a "Teacher Appreciation Day." A breakfast will be served this month to celebrate the teachers' importance. Hooray for teachers. Hooray for the chamber members who (1) pay for the breakfast and (2) who actually participate.
Some observations about the Chamber of Commerce and their views toward education seem in order, however.
One member of the chamber's education committee recently asked, "When do you suppose we might host a similar Plumbers Appreciation Day? If we didn't have good plumbers, wouldn't we be in a pile of trouble? I wonder if we really appreciate them - adequately? Seriously."
Let me hasten to add that what follows herein is not meant to disparage teachers. Theirs is a noble and highly important job. It is rather meant to say that education is not a religion, though many tend to treat it that way. It should thus not be worshipped, but instead should be viewed skeptically as well as honorably with intelligence, honest criticism and candid concern about where we're headed.
In order to avoid those extreme special interests such as Superintendent of Public Instruction Jerry Evans and the Idaho Education Association (IEA), who merely ignore or impugn the motives of those good souls who question the government school monopoly, let me try to explain where I'm coming from.
Perhaps John Garner, former secretary of Health, Education and Welfare (1965-1968) said it best: "An excellent plumber is infinitely more admirable than an incompetent philosopher. The society which scorns excellence in plumbing because lumbing is (thought to be) a humble activity and tolerates shoddiness in philosophy because it is an exalted activity will have neither good plumbing nor good philosophy. Neither its pipes nor its theories will hold water."
I intend to raise this monumentally important line of questioning again, as I'm hoping to keep it mostly in the scope of ideas rather than the arena of personalities. Still, it is personalities that determine, i.e., advocate, vote upon and thus put the kill or cure into our public policies. So maybe public personalities have to be "fair game." In any event, my observation, at least in the first place, is not directed at the teachers but rather at the Chambers of Commerce; and not only in Caldwell, but especially in Boise, whose education committees seem to have become more a propaganda arm of the government school lobby than an arm of the responsible commercial and/or business interests of their respective communities.
Boise and Caldwell Chambers of Commerce would do well therefore to recall the words of the late, great Tom Roach, the gutsy and wise chief (a vanishing breed, by the way) of Idaho Power Co., who said: "We hear a lot about businesses' stake in education. We should hear something about education's stake in business."
Again let me say, I don't want to be misunderstood, but the "sacred cow" of India is more an idea than merely a farm animal; still, that idea is responsible for much of the starvation and deprivation in that sadly socialistic country. So, then, let us make sure that our own sacred cow, i.e., American education, which is in some ways almost as sacred as the one in India - is not headed in that same direction.
GOP Powerbrokers Muddy Primary Waters
By Ralph Smeed
The Idaho Statesman
August 28, 1993
Here's a different slant on the GOP primary races in Idaho, especially on those with some "life" in them, namely, the race for governor easily dominated for the moment by long-time politico Phil Batt and the Republican race for the privilege of contesting the weakening liberal Democrat incumbent Larry LaRocco.
In any event, the only two announced candidates worth much attention, at least so far, is Batt and an articulate conservative Helen Chenoweth for first district congress. She is senior partner in Consulting Associates, a Boise firm mainly specializing in natural resources.
A rather oddball, if establishment-like situation, tends to connect Batt's campaign with Chenoweth's. Each announced early their intentions to run in their respective races. But Ron McMurray, a late-comer whose rather vacillating urge to run for governor is well-known, is confusing the usually staid GOP status-quo. He is the successful chief operating manager of Lewiston Idaho's Port Authority and bon vivant of North Idaho political conservatives has Republicans in a muddle.
Why the confusion? Well, McMurray's is a fresh face in Idaho politics with, so I'm told, a lively conservative philosophy remarkably parallel to Chenoweth's. If McMurray gets into the governor's race some of the GOP politicos fear Batt's chances would be seriously reduced. This is somewhat understandable because the latter's more or less liberal philosophy would almost certainly tend to be "unnecessarily" highlighted in a contest with a popular North Idaho conservatives.
Chuck Winder of Boise, a friendly bigwig of the Ada County Highway board is probably even more liberal than Batt, thus is not seen by these power-brokers as much of a threat in his bid for governor against Batt. Boisean Larry Eastland, a financial and political consultant, also somewhat of an ambiguous conservative, is contesting for the GOP not to run for governor and, like Winder, cannot be counted out. Moreover, Eastland is still a threat in no small part because he's an active member of the Mormon Church which usually can be counted on to play a substantial part at least in eastern Idaho. Just recently there's word of another late-comer Doug Dorn, of Boise, who may announce next month for governor. Too early to speculate on him, but the political plot thickens.
The huge lead Batt has is surely weakened by so many now in the race. It reminds one of candidate Steve Symms back in 1972. That race was completely sewed up by Boise attorney Wayne Kidwell, a long-time politician whose nomination was a lead pipe cinch. He even had then-Congressman Jim McClure's public support. But that air-tight cabal was nonetheless upset by then-newcomer Symms.
So it can be done. Anything can happen. McMurray is said to be a charmer much like the 1972 Symms and he is panting and salivating for either the governor's race, for which he really aspires, or for Congress, which he says is only his second choice. further adding to the confusion is that some of Batt's better friends fear he can make the GOP primary, but may not make it against a strong Democrat in the general. Who knows?
What's to say for Chenoweth then? The lady almost surely could become Idaho's Margaret Thatcher, i.e., if the Republicans were to become fascinated with ideas as the British did when Thatcher was Prime Minister. Well, Idaho's powerbrokers are gung-ho for Batt and since some fear Chenoweth may have a bit too much of an intelligent conservative mind of her own - it's a good bet they will hassle conservative McMurray into a contest against the conservative (Chenoweth) to assure a more or less liberal Batt's run for governor.
Anybody for a political race based on ideas? Don't hold your breath.
Just As Man Bites Dog, Glen Bites Government
By Ralph Smeed
The Idaho Statesman
September 4, 1993
John B. Bogart, city editor of the now-defunct New York Sun, once opined that "when a dog bites a man it is not news. But when a man bites a dog - that's news." Well, an event took place in Boise last week that was virtually every bit like man bites dog.
Ada County Commissioner Gary Glenn, a well-known conservative with better than typical milquetoast Republican credentials, called a press conference. It was to formally announce his proposal to take a "bite out of government' (my term, not his) instead of just talk about it. Not since the early days of then-Rep. Steve Symms have we been treated to such rhetoric, at least believable rhetoric.
Glenn's proposal is to rewrite an Ada County ordinance to end county licensing of cable-TV operators and eliminate the 2 percent franchise fee on cable operators, which he called "nothing more than a hidden TV tax that's passed on to be paid by consumers."
The press conference was indeed a "man bites dog" event. Why? Because there is not one lousy thing written into the law to provide an incentive for a politician to push hard, not to mention publicly, and in full view of God and everybody, for an actual, specific cutback in government.
One can, of course, make a case that an effort to reduce taxes is an effort to cut back on government, and we should support such. But that is so general and so hackneyed as to sound much like the typical honking of automobile horns in a Mexico City or Panama traffic jam, i.e., loud noises, familiar, to the honker, meaning very little and soon passing, only to be continued again in the next few days.
Glenn did his homework on the cable-TV license and fee. While the 2 percent franchise fee is admittedly small by comparison, he explained it merely restricts competition to the current provider and amounts to another hidden tax.
Dr. John Wenders, an economist at the University of Idaho, said Glenn's proposal was a "model cable-TV ordinance."
Wenders went on to say, "Free entry of competition (into the cable-TV market) is the best protection against high prices."
The savings to each consumer would be about $8 per year. Furthermore, Glenn also said there is "no justification whatsoever" for the county to have singled out cable-TV businesses for a 2 percent tax on its gross receipts.
But fellow County Commissioner Roger Simmons, a liberal who asked to comment on Glenn's proposal, objected, saying the county needed the approximately $65,000 per year income to "supervise" the cable-TV provider, explaining that the commissioners have to "answer a lot of consumer phone calls."
Simmons, in a rather grossly duplicitous gesture, pointed to Glenn's huge enlargement facsimile display of the new cable-TV statement about to be mailed out for the first time showing in plain view the almost 70-cents monthly franchise fee, saying, "It is not a hidden tax at all (as Glenn had claimed); there it is in plain sight."
Glenn was able to contradict Simmons with special vigor. "This form of cable-TV bill has never before been used. The public has never before seen the franchise tax itemized. Until next month the tax has indeed been completely hidden," he said.
But worst of all was Simmons' typical, meddling, government greed for power and turf for more money - justified or not. Glenn said, "If the only justification for this arbitrary and unjustifiable tax is how much money we can put in county coffers, we could extort even more money by arbitrarily singling out Boise Cascade and Simplot ... for 2 percent (of their gross)."
Thus Glenn, the man, bit government, the dog. I say, sic 'em.
Get Government Out of Land Rental Business
By Ralph Smeed
The Idaho Statesman
September 11, 1993
There seems to be something going on at the Idaho Statesman. An improvement, too, in my humble opinion, away from a position held by all too many newspapers in America today. Namely, they call for more government, i.e., statism, as a problem-solving way of life.
So as not to sound too self-serving, because my column appears in this paper on Saturdays, and so that my friends do not prematurely set aside their proper and healthy skepticism of the major media, let me hasten to add that the Statesman has by no means converted. I mean to the free-market, private ownership, limited government ideal so well articulated and insightfully launched by the founding fathers.
A case in point is the Statesman's Aug. 10 editorial on a subject of tremendous economic and moral significance to Idaho and the 11 Western states. It was titled "Federal grazing plan on the right course." It said: "Clinton is moving ahead with higher grazing fees and new rules designed to protect public land."
The editorial no doubt reflected the popular public appetite, but it was dead wrong. Here in part is why: The editorial said: "... to protect public land," Well, first off, it is not "public" land. It is government land.
Secondly, protect said land from what? Or from whom? The editorial board didn't say.
Presumably they mean protection from the cowboys and/or the sheepherders. but, given any reasonable and comparable criteria at all, the record of the latter is far better. Particularly when operating on privately owned range land, the cowboys and sheepmen manage far and away better than the government's bureaucrats. Government "management" is legendary in almost all of its wide-ranging bureaus, i.e., in all walks of government activity stewardship in any excellent sense of the word is almost always an oxymoron. True also with the Bureau of Land Management and the Forest Service.
Let me hasten to add that the latter two bureaus are in an untenable position to manage. We should be circumspect then, if for no other reason than the fact that many good and otherwise competent men in the BLM and Forest Service are saddled with a lousy system not of their own making. Without a market economy and a profit and loss system, economic calculation is impossible. Good management, then, is tenuous at best.
The editorial's assumptions were almost entirely based on a statism premise and environmentalist trigger words such as: "compromise, planning, higher grazing fees, need to improve range land, overgrazing, reform, etc., etc." All these and more were based on government ownership by counting noses between special interest groups. Not, please note, between individual ownership and collectivist ownership. this comparison, gentle reader, is a moral one, and the single distinction between America's private system and the old socialist ownership and management scheme tried for most of a century by bureaucratic Soviet Russia. Won't we ever learn?
But let us not blame solely our major media. To some degree they hear only the vacuum left there by the short-sighted cattle and sheep and the lumber men's rather mundane arguments.
The brilliant author Ron Arnold explains this in his book "Ecology Wars:" "The environmental battle is ... not class warfare but cultural warfare. Most industry workers and industry managers ... ARE NOT IDEA ORIENTED (his emphasis) and have little contact with 'big ideas' either through discussion or reading.
"Many loggers wouldn't be caught dead in a library. Many forest managers (and grazers) have never come in contact with the notion that there might be MORAL AND PHILOSOPHICAL PRINCIPLES (his emphasis) behind their way of life."
The philosophical underpinnings of the modern educational, environmental and media ethic are fundamentally opposed to free enterprise and strongly biased in favor of centralized government.
Politics won't change this. Education could. So, do I hear it for a college course in the moral and ethical cases for free-market capitalism?
Kudos to Those Involved in Mideast Peace Talks
By Ralph Smeed
The Idaho Statesman Saturday
September 18, 1993
"Roses" are really not good enough for people who do nice things, especially in public policy affairs, and "razzberries" are not bad enough for people who do asinine things. But we are not permitted the freedom on this editorial page to use foul language (apologies to the bird), so here's a potpourri of observations:
ROSES for former President Jimmy Carter, whose crowning jewel of his presidency just has to be the role he played in getting the Arabs and Jews together in starting their people on the road to peace.
Another jewel, perhaps even a series of them, has to be what followed Anwar Sadat's courageous leadership of Egypt's crucial role toward peace with Israel.
On Monday, representatives of both Jews and Arabs signed what appears to be an even bigger agreement to stop fighting and hating and start negotiating and reasoning. The beginning of all this easily cost Sadat his life.
ROSES, too, for former President George Bush and reigning American President Bill Clinton and their entourages who no doubt played important roles about which we're told only a little.
RAZZBERRIES for most of the news media for telling us so very little of the important role that the tiny country of Norway played in the recent peace agreement.
ROSES for those thoughtful, intelligent and courageous souls who watched Monday's peace efforts and had the guts to stress publicly that it was at best only a beginning. A good one, but only a big step.
ROSES for George Washington, I think it was, who said that government, like fire, was a fine servant but a fearful master. So then:
RAZZBERRIES for our contemporary leaders and commentators who refuse to state the relevance of Washington's warning and further note that many of today's problems are made much worse by governments that stress their people's rights rather than their responsibilities. That furthermore, we cannot have good countries until we first have good individuals. Meantime, back here at home:
RAZZBERRIES for Ada County Commissioners Roger Simmons and Vern Bisterfeldt, whose warped idea of individual responsibility seems to have peaked in their pique at fellow Commission Gary Glenn.
Glenn wants less government and more freedom. The other two seem to want more. They're proposing to compel Glenn's attendance at 90 percent of their meddling meetings as well as the important ones.
Egad! State law allows wide latitude for any commissioner's attendance. Glenn agrees, explaining that his colleagues often attempt to "micro-manage" what ought to be left to the people's own responsibility and freedom.
No doubt they'd be much happier if Glenn never even showed up to vote at all.
RAZZBERRIES for KTVB-TV (Channel 7's) liberal news director, Rod Gramer, who staged a completely one-sided TV segment favoring a controversial contractor's licensing law. Such a bill has been proposed for years by the big building contractors, but it would serve to put their small competitors out of business. The latter are virtually the only effective means of keeping the big ones' prices in line.
RAZZBERRIES then, for the sorry role the media often plays to expand government instead of having it keep the peace.
Money Managers, Media Make Political Mischief
By Ralph Smeed
The Idaho Statesman
September 25, 1993
One would have to say that the famous and bright U.S. Sen. Patrick Moynihan, D-N.Y., is both an intellectual and, indeed a liberal. But every once in a while he is given to making some clever and abrupt observations.
Said he: "Those who control the past control the future." That works in curious ways. Let me explain.
Another even brighter but less well-known intellectual is Dr. Thomas Sowell, economist and senior fellow at The Hoover Institution at Stanford. Commenting on Moynihan's above statement he said that those who "control" the past (he meant those who make the news, write commentary, documentaries, textbooks, etc.) "... control the whole framework within which you think. And that's an enormous thing to try to fight against."
Interviewed in Rush Limbaugh's May newsletter Sowell touched this "framework" problem. It includes, by the way, the very reason the Republicans are losing control of Idaho politics. He said: "Too often Republicans have thought they could operate within the assumptions of liberals and yet reach conservative conclusions.
"But if you've bought their assumptions, you've essentially bought their conclusions. And all the attempts to quibble with details: 'Well, I wouldn't spend as much ... I would do a little bit more through the market ... I would do this, I would do that ...' - It all sounds weak; because it IS weak." (his emphasis).
Most folks are somewhat aware of the framework textbooks etc. can and do play in our schools, but how many realize the role news stories and headlines play in what these two intellectuals call "controlling" the future via the past.
A classic example took place last week as a major story in this newspaper. The big headline on the business page said: "Inflation Rises in Boise." the story went on to say, "Inflation in the Boise area increased in August for the eighth consecutive month, advancing 0.5 per cent on another increase in housing costs, first Security Corp. said Tuesday."
The balance of the story went on in the same vein, but any schoolteacher worth his/her salt, and respects dictionaries, should have flinched aloud at the bastardization of the proper definition of the term inflation.
Is it a semantic jungle? Or is it a classic case of Moynihan's "control", so feared and lamented by Sowell? And whose is the more egregious error: The Statesman's headline? Or First Security Corp's. poor albeit popular, even, perhaps, understandable use of the term inflation?
Don't let some soothsaying purveyor of situation ethics tell you that it doesn't make any difference. Here's why: There are two definitions in popular, if contradictory, use of the term inflation. Each leads in an opposite direction, at least wherein the cause or blame for runaway high prices is concerned.
Merriam-Webster's popular, unabridged library edition (6-inches thick) as well as funk & Wagnal's and Random House's similarly huge dictionaries of the English language give the definition of INFLATION plainly as an increase in the supply of money and/or credit - usually followed by high prices.
In other words, what we have at issue here is not perceived by one person in a thousand. It can only be "solved," I think, by simply hyphenating two easily understood terms, i.e., money-inflation and price-inflation. But it is fiercely controversial. Why?
A couple reasons. The media elite tends to hate hyphenated words as a matter of style. But perhaps more importantly treating the dilemma of runaway prices using these hyphenated words suggests a free market money system.
Thus most of the media elite and the money managers who "control the past" will be loathe to give it up.
Ray Is One Democrat Who Has Common Sense
By Ralph Smeed
The Idaho Statesman
October 2, 1993
Every twice in a while I get scolded for criticizing Republicans. Since I was once affiliated with that party's hierarchy, it is assumed I should be more or less consistent only condemning Democrats.
It is true, the Democrats have spent more government money and legislated more foolishness than the GOP by far. But somehow when a Democrat deviates from the above asininity it tends to escape media attention.
A case in point resurfaced last week. Former Washington Gov. Dixie Lee Ray, a distinguished nuclear scientist and ex-chief of the Atomic Energy Commission is a longtime Democrat. Her blockbusting book "Trashing the Planet" shoots down much of the environmental terrorism promulgated by the Environmental Protection Agency, which was put in place years ago by President Richard Nixon, a Republican. In the opinion of a growing number of political watchers the EPA continues to inflict more hardship and less common sense than almost all the other alphabet agencies combined.
Ray has done more than just cluck cluck about what she sees as asinine federal regulation and legislation. this includes more than merely writing as insightful and scientifically sound book. She started the Alliance for America - A for A - to help warn thoughtful people against a government almost gone mad in yet another giant grab for power.
Her Sept. 27 "A for A Alert" newsletter warns: "HR 1845 has cleared committee and is scheduled for a vote on the House floor later (this week)."
As the newsletter describes it, the legislation would create an office within the Department of Interior to map, assess, protect and manage all public and private resources of the United States.
Proponents say HR 1845 will protect "biodiversity" within the "ecosystems." Thomas Lovejoy, science advisor to Interior Secretary Bruce Babbitt, has said the "NBS (National Biological Survey) will map the whole nation for all biology and determine development for the whole country and regulate it all because that is our obligation as set forth in the Endangered Species Act."
That act, gentle reader, is the very one being used at Bruneau, Idaho, to save a silly snail hardly larger than the head of a pin. Ranchers fear the government is being used by the environmental extremists to get all the cattle off the government grazing land. This would break the cattlemen who've done a find job there for many generations.
Opponents of the bill say HR 1845 is a license to trespass and steal private property, private forests, private wetlands and private resources without the knowledge and consent of its citizens. They say the bill is based on pseudo science with no provisions for peer review. They estimate that start-up costs include $30 million of new moneys with no estimate of future costs to fund this monster bureaucracy.
Even if she is a Democrat, Ray should be applauded to high heaven for helping head off these greedy power grabs by President Clinton and his government "bureau-mongers" whose class-hatred for private producers of food, fiber and services is exceeded only by their increasingly evident and collectivist-style envy.
Contact A for A today - P.O. Box 449, Cayuga Lake, N.Y. 12032 - unless you just plain don't give a hoot about anything but an owl or a snail.
Thank the Free Market for Telephone Revolution
By Ralph Smeed
The Idaho Statesman
Saturday, October 9, 1993
American Telephone and Telegraph Co., AT&T, was a bellwether of courtesy, competence and consistency. Its accomplishments are legendary, to say the least, but competition via free market capitalism finally broke through the scar tissue of even the state-franchised monopoly. Let's look at some of its side effects.
I said competition "broke through," but that is somewhat overstated. A federal judge by the name of Harold Greene presided over the company's so-called breakup whereupon he arbitrarily reorganized the giant AT&T monopoly into seven smaller regional monopolies.
Whether one likes said breakup a little or a lot, the whole episode has introduced competition into the communications business in an array of wonderful examples too numerous to itemize here. Suffice it to say that already we tend to take for granted the plethora of innovative phone apparatus that we never before imagined.
New apparatus appears almost every season, and if you think the one you got for Christmas is too complicated you just call in your teenager or ask the neighbor's teenager. Chances are you'll be treated to several simple ways to get more done in less time than ever before and have more fun doing it.
With all these innovations come commercial applications that enable companies to serve both themselves and you more efficiently. Many of these result in cost savings that can be passed along. You might say those greedy capitalists will only put the savings in their deep pockets. You'd be right, too, except that competition will rear its "ugly" head - if it is allowed to. When that happens, competing entrepreneurs are thus forced to share said savings with their customers. This will happen, too, unless government says competition is illegal.
There are other less noticeable and less "sexy" manifestations to the new competition in telephoning. Consider the rather new Regional Telephone Directory, which comes to our doors without charge. Some rather neat innovations appear therein.
To name but a few features:
* The newer regional directory (green and white cover) has Boise, Nampa, Caldwell and surrounding towns all in one book.
* A special innovation that people dearly love is the personal zip codes along with the address behind every person's name in the whole book. It does have 16 pages of coupons in the front of the table of contents, which I think is a pain in the neck, but the book does save us from a flood of trash like U.S. West's book inflicts upon us in a kind of Ralph Nader type, silly and excessive consumerism.
Now then, we are thankful to Alexander Graham Bell, no doubt. But the communication business thus started will also be better served and shared by more people, more effectively if we take care to encourage competition and free entry into the market.
So let's be thankful to Adam Smith, too.
Taxpayers don't Owe Governor a Big Mansion
By Ralph Smeed
The Idaho Statesman
October 16, 1993
Rep. Kitty Gurnsey of Boise is a Republican state representative of one of the city's more liberal districts; hence, one might assume she must publicly speak and act liberal if she wants to continue to get elected. It's an effective, if sad, excuse.
Why? Because "continued to get elected" has become the litany if not he downright dogma of almost every one of today's government-worshipping politicians.
Gurnsey favors a new and probably multimillion-dollar governor's mansion.
Here's how The Statesman quoted her recently: "It's not a politically popular thing for a governor to say, 'We have all these other needs in the state, but I want you to take X number of dollars and build a governor's residence.' But I think we owe it to whoever is governor of this state to provide him with a decent place to live."
Gurnsey, who is chairwoman of the House Appropriations Committee, holds one of the most powerful positions in the House, where all money appropriations must originate. Does all this make her a liberal? Not necessarily.
Does it say anything about her, more than her being a big supporter of a new governor's mansion? Yes. But perhaps we should use the term "statist" more often, rather than liberal. The term sometimes fits better. It means someone who favors more government rather than less, more centralized control and planning by the state, less by individuals in a free-market, private property order.
Intelligent and sincere people do disagree on important matters such as these, so let me hasten to add I bear no animosity for Gurnsey.
Nonetheless, I do want to challenge some of her statements, namely, "We owe it to whoever is governor." Balderdash! Who is "we"? Does she have a mouse in her pocket? Does the mouse have any money? No. Gurnsey wants you and me to use our money.
"We" don't owe any politician a thing except perhaps a modest amount of respect for obvious reasons. They knew what the salary and perks were when they pleaded for and took the job. Furthermore, they often do their dangedest to raise their pay even after they get in office.
Moreover, our chairwoman wants to help the plethora of seekers after the office of governor to have what she calls "a decent place to live." Egad. She and her big-spending colleagues appropriated $150,000 for a Sun Valley architect merely to design a governor's house. Why, that's more money than most taxpayers can afford for the cost of building their entire home.
Much to this credit, Gov. Cecil Andrus did suggest the state delay, at least until next spring, to consider spending a million dollars for a new governor's mansion. Of course, he could have line-item-vetoed the appropriation for said $150,000 exploratory design, had he wanted to. One supposes, however, that that's par for most politicians today who like to be perceived as favoring both sides at the same time.
But no so the Statesman. At least its editorial was consistent with its big story using Gurnsey's statist stance. Build more than a fancy place to sleep, editors pleaded. Build "rooms, grounds and a kitchen adequate for hosting receptions." They should have added: for hosting fat lobbyists, political mug-wumps and a host of hacks and hangers-on who pant and pine to glorify government. Or said another way - glorify statism.
Valbois Torpedoed, Should Be Reconsidered
By Ralph Smeed
The Idaho Statesman
October 30, 1993
The front-page headline on the Oct. 23 Idaho Statesman read: "Valbois resort loses permit." The big, black headline in letters one inch high was appropriately spread clear across the top of the whole front page.
Why do I say "appropriately"? Because it's a big deal. Idaho has spent millions of taxpayers dollars over the past few years to promote a vigorous tourist industry. No big belching, dirty smokestacks. No big boiling masses of a population explosion hot on the highways, clogging up the roads at factory shift-changes two, four and six times each day.
Nope. Just rich tourists visiting Idaho, spending their out-of-state millions and leaving the concurrent prosperity here. No problems of big population areas. Problems exit with those tourists. Idaho prospers.
Since 1988, the Valbois Ski and Recreation Resort promoters have done their level best to do much more than the ever-growing number of politicians and bureaucrats has been able to do and do it at no cost to the beleaguered taxpayer. Maybe former U.S. Sen. Steve Symms was right when he used to say: "there is no such thing as a free lunch." But the super Valbois caper is about as close to one as you can get, i.e., if our liberal Gov. Cecil Andrus, the leftist environmental crazies, the statist Secretary of Interior Bruce Babbitt and a few others would just cooperate.
The Valbois team has wound its way through a mountainous maze of bureaucratic obstacle courses for a decade now, spending $14 million in a Herculean effort to be responsible developers. What cooperation did they get? Zero from Andrus, who everybody knows is beholden to the environmental collectivists. In fact, he's always done all he could to kill the private Valbois valiants.
Now then, let's see what else the Statesman's sad headline story said: "Federal authorities rejected a last-minute effort by developers to save ... the Valbois ski resort near Cascade."
Boise National forest's chief bureaucrat Steve Mealey (an otherwise bright guy, by the way) said he terminated the $120 million project because developers, "didn't prove" they had enough money. Egad. Now the federal government, without doubt the most fiscally irresponsible group in the history of the world, is telling us who is "fiscally responsible." Give me a break, just once.
One would think an outfit as bankrupt as the federal government would break their behinds to help private interests to develop our state. I said "our" state. Bang. I'm wrong. Idaho is owned almost entirely by the federal government. Well, two-thirds of it, anyway. And we're expected to make a living on the rest. Admittedly, we used to have "multiple use" of the government lands. But, thanks to the likes of well over 90 percent of our teachers, professors, Superintendent of Public Instruction Jerry Evans and the news media (liberals all), even the vocabulary for private ownership, entrepreneurship and, sad to say, even private stewardship is fast disappearing from meaningful public dialogue.
Witness the concerted effort by today's huge socialist forces to expunge all the cattle and sheep off the government lands.
The Statesman story goes on: "The (Forest) service owns most of the land where the resort would be built."
Gosamighty, so does the government own most of the entire state. Apparently the reporter, in an otherwise quite well-written story, didn't think of that.
In criticizing Valbois developer's permit cancellation Mealey said, "I feel a lot of pain ... But it would have been irresponsible of me ... to continue ... to allow people ... to hang their hopes on the success of the project."
Nonetheless, we note it was OK to allow them to spend $14 million of their own non-socialist funds trying.
Will Boise's Mayor Coles Slow Builder Competition?
By Ralph Smeed
The Idaho Statesman
November 6, 1993
This is an open letter to Boise Mayor Brent Coles:
You may remember our short visit at the Western Idaho State Fair recently whereupon you gave me your card and
assured me you were indeed "available" to talk about the matter of your support for your city's possible enactment of a contractor's licensing law.
You declared your support for such but indicated a willingness to talk to some of us about the other sie of the question. I took your assurance to be genuine and I'd like to suppose it still is. But no results.
Perhaps, since our above-mentioned visit and my follow-up letter, you may have concluded the contractor's licensing law is too controversial and hence decided to avoid hearing the other side. Such a side, of course, is to preserve free entry into the construction market. Just who, one might ask, is responsible for preserving said free entry into trades, professions and businesses in general? Especially for the small entrepreneur?
Well, some small contractors and other interested parties fought and defeated the entrenched special interest contractor's licensing law several years' hard running at the Legislature. Such attempts were then dropped and instead a different tack organized. They started contacting the 44 county commissions and the major cities. Apparently no one in your office knew about or was sympathetic to preserving a free market in the construction trade, hence your support for another occupational license restriction - per the big contractor's lobby.
Sincere people do disagree, of course, and you may have decided irreversibly not to allow us to pursue the matter with you; however, you did seem to convey some open-mindedness. Since you've apparently decided in the negative, I hope you realize the precedent that such a move tends to set, if indeed Boise city enacts such a licensing law to restrict free entry into the construction market.
Should you still be undecided about the matter, Mr. Mayor, please keep in mind that we are witness these days to a rather alarming and sometimes despotic expansion of the bureaucracies all across America. Additionally, such is the opinion of an increasing number of economic and social scholars, not the least of whom is the famous Nobel Laureate Milton Friedman, along with several others who followed him with the Nobel prize in subsequent years.
As these scholars and others are quick to note, it is the special interest of the bigger contractors to restrict entry inasmuch as it is the smaller builders that keep the bigger fellows' prices "in line" and the market honest. Government cannot do this. Indeed, as the purpose of this column/letter indicates to all who are willing to listen, it is your own city government that is now considering this piece of anti-market foolishness.
Such efforts and policies put into effect by your administration could well have a more deleterious effect on the marketplace than you might have expected, especially when one considers the furious pace of construction price rises in Boise these days.
Compounding the problem is that today's schools and colleges tend almost exclusively to feature studies of government intervention whereas the study of market alternatives is left to fend for itself.
The liberal media and the Association of Idaho cities almost always promote more government intervention rather than market solutions. Although it puzzled me at the time, I should hasten to add The Idaho Statesman joined us a few years back in opposing the contractor's licensing law.
Thanks for whatever consideration you might have already given against the big contractor's licensing scheme, Mr. Mayor. I know that it is unlikely that many of your aides and/or department heads will agree, since expanding their turf is of utmost impotance for bureaucrats.
No Market Alternatives Offered for Schools
By Ralph Smeed
The Idaho Statesman
November 13, 1993
The headline on a recent unusual Statesman editorial read: "School budget on runaway train." How about that? Perhaps my calling that editorial "unusual" is an understatement, because education in Idaho has become literally a sacred cow.
Boise lawyer Robert Huntley, the attorney-spokesman for the government school forces suing Idaho taxpayers for a lot more money (schools get 70.4 percent the budget already), responded to said editorial with all the guts and gusto expected of spokesmen for special interests. The Statesman calls him a "hired gun." In fact, the government worship of both Huntley and former State board of Education chief Karl Shurtliff reminds us about Shakespeare's "tale told by an idiot, full of sound and fury, signifying nothing."
Let me hasten to add that Huntley is no idiot; neither is Shurtliff; but Huntley is easier to read. At least he is what many call an ideologue, i.e., he believes in ideas, mostly statist or utopian ideas, so I'm told, but ideas, nevertheless, and, somewhat to his credit, by the way. He's their lawyer all right, but his zeal drives him beyond mere lawyerism.
Boise is a fountainhead of this sad kind of foolishness, however, and it permeates outward from the political whorehouse called the Idaho Legislature all over the state clear down to the Boise Chamber of Commerce. Almost all of them have a "one-size-fits-all" answer to every public problem: Throw a trainload of money at it. Other people's money, of course.
Terry Gilbert is a regional director of he state's most coercive and powerful union. The Idaho Education Association (IEA) is another milking machine fastened to the education sacred cow. He, too, entered the debate about government schools, accusing the Statesman editorialists of making "an emotional" argument and of more or less bad faith without intellectually honest "facts." I use quotes around the word facts because the IEA's so-called facts are typically double-think, self-serving, coercive and, yes, emotional. Gilbert added little to the Statesman vs. Huntley debate - beyond the "sound and fury ..."
Shurtliff is something else. He has guts, makes assumptions and judges their consequences with gusto, but his assumptions where schooling is concerned are always statist too, never private nor market-oriented. Small wonder the private sector is so poorly understood by students.
Shurtliff could clear up the "runaway train" school debate by introducing private market alternatives for the delivery of education. but let's not hold our breath waiting. Oh, well, maybe his lawyer background of advocacy for his clients precludes him from even considering his critics - i.e., those who favor a market economy for education - as anything but adversaries.
Speaking of market alternatives, perhaps the Boise Chamber of Commerce is in someways the worst of all. Last spring, their representative asked the Caldwell Chamber education committee to help them do an end run around the two-thirds majority now required to pass a school bond issue.
Their representative said in effect that if the present two-thirds majority could be reduced to only 60 percent, the taxpayers could easily be milked for more money. He claimed they so desperately need lots of it.
This writer sits on that Caldwell Education Committee, and I asked the Boise chamber representative why his chamber so often pushed government rather than free enterprise to solve problems. It is called capitalism. But the Boise chamber man appeared not to understand the word.
As badly as the schools today represent free, private, marketplace capitalism, one wonders if maybe, just maybe, there might be more support for it in the Statesman than in the Boise Chamber of Commerce and the liberal school system's leaders.
Nothing Wrong With a Good Partisan Race
By Ralph Smeed
The Idaho Statesman
November 27, 1993
An Oct. 21 column by Susan Stacy on the editorial page of this newspaper severely decried this month's campaign for mayor of Boise. She said it was too partisan, as was then Mayor Dirk Kempthorne's (now U.S. Senator) when he ran for office. Methinks Stacy's is a curious observation.
Incumbent Mayor Brent Coles' support would come mostly from Republicans, she seemed to say, while most of his challenger Tracy Andrus' support would come from Democrats. As almost everyone knows, Andrus is the daughter of Democrat Governor-for-life Cecil Andrus who is quite probably the most partisan politician in Idaho's history. So, just how a major campaign such as that for mayor of the state's capital city could be other than partisan isn't exactly clear.
Still, Stacy raised some interesting questions. Partisanship is often mindless and even reactionary. Many say there's not a dime's worth of difference between the parties. she didn't object to the country's major races as phony, flabby or fraudulent, but she should have. Merely she said of Boise's mayoral race; "Issues like water, crime and traffic jams don't lend themselves to the partisan attitudes that fracture state and national politics."
Stacy went on to decry "Kempthorne's everlasting discredit (bringing) the taint of partisan politics to Boise" in 19485. Compounding that curiosity, she let go with something about former Boise Mayor Dick Eardley's "deadly serious refusal to reveal his party affiliation," (chuckle, chuckle) while Kempthorne flaunted his.
Well, goshamighty. One wonders what is so bad about partisanship for a major city and presumably good, or at least tolerable, every two and four years for the state's and the nation's highest posts. Stacy seemed to think somehow her "non-partisan" campaign would be on a higher plane or perhaps more down to earth where the good ordinary people live and breathe and have their being.
If Stacy's comments were meant merely to indicate a bellyache with today's politics and politicians I'd say two cheers for her. Why not three cheers? Here's why: There's nothing wrong with partisanship, i.e., my dictionary defines it as, "a firm adherence to a party, faction or a cause," if that partisanship - or principle - is clearly defined.
That, my friends, is exactly what the proper role of newspapers and newspaper columnists should be: to make things clear. But it so often gets covered over, lost or even distorted among the media mongers. Sometimes with malice aforethought, often without.
Forgive me if I bore you concerned citizens, but you'd better wake up. You are sure to be getting the shaft if you don't insist on good, clear definitions of "partisan" principles or causes (admitted or not) and how the candidate in question intends to apply those principles.
Neither Coles nor Andrus was sufficiently pressured by the media about the principle of anything during the recent campaign, and just how their views of each issue fit into those principles.
Although Stacy's commentary was written prior to Election Day she almost (not quite) put her finger onto a prime point, namely, that if the media would insist that partisan principles always be clearly defined, then public policy would be improved dramatically.
Ayn Rand, one of the world's truly great thinkers told us why "In any collaboration between two men (or two groups) who hold different basic principles it is the more evil or irrational one who wins ...
"When opposite basic principles are clearly and openly defined, it works to the advantage of the rational side; when they are not clearly defined but are hidden or evaded, it works to the advantage of the irrational side."
Boise's Mayoral Race Too Partisan? No. Too Philosophically Flabby.
Colleges Teach Technology But Not Traditional Values
By Ralph Smeed
The Idaho Statesman
December 4, 1993
So many books have been written and speeches made by qualified people criticizing higher education in America that one wonders how the institution survives, not to mention prospers. Fortunately, a few exceptions exist. but first a little background.
Seldom in the history of Western civilization has a country given more of its substance to schooling and received less in return than in the United States.
The study of technology in colleges and universities has skyrocketed.
On the subject of the spectacular success of education with technology, one should keep in mind that in terms of most liberal arts departments "success" has been all but redefined, thus stripping their traditional humanities of almost everything but the welfare-state mentality. With precious few exceptions, America's entire public policy framework has been shifted to the left.
Again, big technological progress has surely been made in both lower and higher education. But higher education's liberal arts departments are where the foolishness and philosophical flabbiness get the power into orbit.
It is almost a truism that our colleges and universities have given up the time-honored "search for truth" and replaced it with what is loosely defined or allowed as "politically correct." A more dramatic overview of this rising tide of PC foolishness can be seen in what passes itself off as "art," - subsidized by the government. A glaring example is a golden crucifix immersed in a glass beaker filled with the artist's own urine.
Why? Big time shock value - that's why. This example of "art," along with many others, is an attack on our country's traditional values. The latter require real big shocks to dislodge them, and it works. It's called, "change" and we're admonished to not be against change.
Comes now "Imprimis," the substantive newsletter of Hillsdale College, Hillsdale, Mich. In it, Hillsdale's President George Roche explains that free market capitalism is the best friend mankind and education ever had. Moreover he tells what his college and its trustees are doing to restore sanity to academic life in America. "Imprimis" is great. It's timely and it's free. Stay tuned and I'll tell you how and why.
Exceptional College Fosters Free Thinking
By Ralph Smeed
The Idaho Statesman
December 11, 1993
The great biologist and plant breeder Luther Burbank (1849-1926) remarked, "If we paid no more attention to our plants than we have to our children, we would now be living in a jungle of weeds." A growing number of people are saying that much of education in America, particularly higher education, has become just that - a jungle of weeds.
Education has also become a kind of religion with all the trappings of an establishment, parallel in many ways, with the all powerful church-state of centuries gone by. Indeed, so pervasive has the power of the huge education lobby become that those who dare to suggest meaningful changes in it are accused of being against education itself, if not downright against children. Thus has education in America been shoved, for the most part, dramatically to the liberal left.
Not so at Hillsdale College in Hillsdale, Mich. Let me illustrate: This fine and unusual liberal arts school has higher education's largest newsletter circulation going monthly to about 500,000 enthusiastic readers worldwide. The newsletter is called "Imprimis" and while it seldom mentions their 150-year history, including admission of female and black students long before the turn of the century, it chronicles a parade of great noncollectivist speakers with their unique and wondrous stories for the college's 1,200 students.
A list of those stories and the personalities articulating their viewpoints and philosophy tends to reveal just what is "unique and wondrous" about Hillsdale. Here are some examples (in no particular order of importance) to illustrate what I mean:
"The Dangers of Price Controls" by Henry Hazlitt, author of "Economics In One Lesson." "There Is No Urban Crisis" by M. Stanton Evans, editor, Indianapolis News. "Your Brother's Keeper: From Genesis to Galbraith" by F.A. Harper, author of "Why Wages Rise" (he was a brilliant critic of economist John Kenneth Galbraith). "Decadence and Recovery in American Education" by Russell Kirk, author and world-class conservative intellectual. "The Bias of Network News" by Edward Jay Epstein. "Will Capitalism Survive?" by Benjamin Rogge, a world-class libertarian/conservative and head of the Political Economy Department at Wabash College.
Interestingly enough Rogge, a lifetime academic of extremely high repute once told me, "It's easier for a college professor to bilk his customers than it is for a used car salesman to bilk his." (Your own professors won't admit that.)
The list of Hillsdale's speakers reads like Who's Who of America's noncommunal thinkers and doers of academe and industry and intellectual stars of high-powered think tanks all over the world. Some of the most important are the least well-known, thanks in large part to what will not pass on campus and in the liberal media for not being "politically correct."
"Government Can Be Hazardous to Your Health," M. Stanton Evans' second subject here, bears repeating simply because his title is especially rare as a subject on today's campuses. Indeed, you might want to compare some of these subjects, which reflect much of the pro-capitalist sentiment at Hillsdale, with that prevailing on your own campus.
The list goes on and on almost endlessly with names like Nobel laureates Milton Friedman ("Free to Choose"), Frederich Hayek ("Capitalism and the Historians") and a host of others almost as famous. But before I close I should not neglect Michael Novak's classic "Imprimis" lecture title, "Capitalist and Proud of It." Novak is an important Catholic scholar and fellow at the American Enterprise Institute, the likes of which Idaho's colleges seldom recognize, let alone feature.
As this column is being written, the Hillsdale official magazine's fall issue just arrived, A major story is entitled: "Market Approaches to Health Care Make Good Economic Sense ... and Medical Sense, too."
Try that one on the academic crowd at your own college. But be prepared to duck.
Craig's Political Letter Makes LaRocco Flinch
By Ralph Smeed
The Idaho Statesman
December 18, 1993
According to Idaho's very liberal Congressman Larry LaRocco, D-Idaho, our conservative senior U.S. Sen. Larry Craig, R-Idaho, called him a socialist. Well, poor baby.
One is reminded of the old saying, "That's merely a distinction without a difference," especially with the country being led even farther and faster to the left by the neo-socialist Clinton team now leading in hot pursuit of the total Welfare State in Washington, D.C.
It shouldn't be necessary to note here, in passing, that there are sincere liberals who are not totally socialist, just as there are conservatives and libertarians who are not anarchist. But it should be helpful to admit that these are the respective ends toward which the two major schools of political thought are often headed. This way the voters might see before it's too late which way their leaders are "leading."
In that regard a little background: It was in a fund-raising letter that the conservative Craig, to his everlasting credit, let the at out of the bag. Here is the key sentence right out of the senator's recent letter that has the offended LaRocco shedding such crocodile tears:
"The tax and spend, socialized agenda put forth by President Clinton, House Speaker Tom Foley and our own Larry LaRocco is going to put this country into even deeper trouble." The letter went on to say: "I will be working hard ... to get the truth out ... about what liberalism is doing to this great nation . ... I would not have written you ... and I would not have bothered you unless it was very, very important." Oh yes, of course, the letter ended with: send money.
There it is, folks, in all its glory. What else is new, you may ask? Well, it is a bit more candid, perhaps, than usual, although partisan fund-raising letters have gone out for years suggesting almost as much. but LaRocco's reaction to this particular one is, thankfully, probably what served to set it off.
One wonders if the Clintons' agenda has come so far to the left that even such an extreme liberal as the Idaho congressman is tending to be embarrassed at the plain-spoken labeling. Small wonder politicians tend to hate labels and the basic principles these often bring into focus. All of which reminds us of Shakespeare's famous phrase about one who "doth protest too much, methinks."
LaRocco is nonetheless in deep trouble, for example, having cast the one deciding vote on Clinton's budget bill, putting into effect the biggest tax increase in the country's history. Both his recent poll and one by his major GOP opponent Helen Chenoweth, the bright, attractive and articulate conservative of Boise, show considerable voter dissatisfaction with his liberal or socialist (Craig said "socialized") agenda. He is also in trouble for other reasons.
So, watch for two things almost certain to emerge in the upcoming campaign vis-a-vis Craig's rightward thrust at the left-wing congressman:
* LaRocco will soon launch a vigorous conservative-sounding campaign in an effort to avoid being tabbed as a card-carrying, socialist-type liberal.
* He will say (a) socialism doesn't exist, and anyway (b) it isn't the primary thrust of us left-leaning Democrats.
Merry Christmas. And ask Santa Claus to bring your packages this year with truth-in-labeling - on the outside.
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The Pragmatic Side of Principle in Pursuit of Public Policy
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