To: Members of Charlottesville City Council
From: Antoinette W. Roades
Date: 1 May 2012
Re: Your plan to give away 20 percent of Oakwood Cemetery

Given City practice over the last few years, what you are poised to do on 7 May could appear unremarkable. Again and again, you have given favor to Charlie Armstrong. And more and more, you have made only slight pretence of public process in proceeding with whatever you have already decided to do. (N.B. I can find no one who knew anything of a year-ago charette cited as neighborhood endorsement of development on the property involved. But even had my neighbors and I taken part in such a thing, we would not consider as endorsement a discussion of hypothetical projects between self-selected participants to constitute public process under law.) However, on brief investigation — the only sort of investigation possible given your unseemly rush to deliver the City’s latest gift — it becomes clear that the current situation is remarkable. It is remarkable because of the wrongs that have already been done. It is remarkable because of the wrongs that will be done if you persist.

Most recent among the wrongs done has been the misrepresentation of this property to the public and the press. And perhaps to you as well? It has been described as a problematic piece of land the City just happens to own “near Oakwood cemetery,” a piece with which something has long needed to be done, a dump worthy only of giveaway to what Councilors deem a worthy “vision” (albeit a “vision” even its submitter calls only conceptual). In fact, the property — which carries an assessed value of $370,700 despite its alleged worthlessness — is part of Oakwood cemetery, a part made up of public land purchased systematically by public officials with public money for the public purpose of expanding the City’s otherwise limited public cemetery space. And further inquiry reveals that this public land in a public cemetery should have been opened long ere now to the burials for which it was purchased. As for its being degraded in any degree, inquiry reveals that any such degradation is the direct and deplorable result not just of City neglect, but of active City abuse.

BACKGROUND

Our larger community — that is, both the City of Charlottesville and County of Albemarle — has only two public cemeteries, Maplewood and Oakwood, both of which lie in the City and fall under the jurisdiction of the Parks and Recreation Department. Both cemeteries were established in the 19th century — Maplewood earlier, Oakwood later. By the early 20th century, Maplewood was hemmed in by streets and residences that left it no potential for expansion. Oakwood, however, had potential for expansion, potential recognized by two sets of far-sighted and responsible City officials who secured additional land via two transactions.

By deed of 13 October 1944 (Charlottesville Deed Book 118, page 191; plat in CDB 20, page 289), the City acquired what is now Tax Parcel 29-266. Then, by deed of 29 March 1957 (CDB 198, page 61; plat in CDB 92, page 124), the City acquired what is now Tax Parcel 29-272.1. Both purchases reflect deliberation. Both occurred in difficult times when seemingly more important matters could claim public officials’ attention. The first occurred during World War II. The second occurred during the conflict over school desegregation. But as the deeds and related documents show, both occurred as soon as the property in question became available because of changes within the Gleason family, long residents of Ridge Street. (Note: The apparently low prices that the always public-spirited Gleasons set on their land further suggest that they were supportive of the purpose for which the City was making the purchase — yet another reason to honor that purpose.)

City officials of 1944 and 1957 obviously considered providing sufficient public burying ground to be a significant responsibility. Even that long ago, they foresaw a time when the burial capacity in the City cemeteries as then bounded would be exceeded. And documents show that at least some of those officials’ successors understood their intention and the property’s dedication. Two such items are attached. One is a Charlottesville map of 1963 published by National Bank but based, of course, on official surveys. It shows Oakwood’s boundaries inclusive of the parcels you are poised to give away. The other is a City Planning Department map of 1979 that projects land use for 1990. It also shows Oakwood inclusive of those two parcels. (The color blue denotes public use.) And I would add on an anecdotal note that no one I have raised this matter with — including former City Councilors — ever thought that the open land immediately west of Oakwood’s westernmost drive was anything but part of the cemetery.

Today, Maplewood appears to be full, and inquiry reveals that it is, in fact, “closed” because all available plots have been purchased. Indeed, it turns out that all its plots had been purchased by at least 20 years ago. Oakwood appears to have space remaining even east of its westernmost drive. In fact, however, it is also considered “closed” because all available plots east of Tax Parcels 29-266 and 29-272.1 have been purchased. But Oakwood should not be closed because Oakwood has more space — three-and-a-half acres more space that should have been opened for burials at least ten years ago if not earlier.

Instead of opening the land for the purpose for which it was purchased and needed, however, City officials allowed it to become a dumping site — that is, an illegal landfill — for assorted detritus hauled by City workers at the direction of City supervisors. That detritus, according to Jim Tolbert, has accumulated to a depth as measured by core samples of 20 feet. (Of course, any private landowner who had done the same thing at the same time would have been required to clean the property up under penalty of law. Failure to do so could have netted a fine, jail time, or both.)

SITUATION NOW

The repercussions of the City’s failures in regard to Oakwood vary. At a personal level, families of limited means who have needed public cemetery burial as well as families that may have considered Oakwood their traditional burial site have been forced to go not only elsewhere but onto the commercial cemetery market. At a community level, the natural flow of burials that makes of public cemeteries particularly valuable three-dimensional family albums and museums of local history has been cut off. And at a humanitarian level, the centuries-old community practice of providing burial ground for indigents, unknowns, and other unfortunates has been abandoned leaving a matter of civic compassion to the charity of churches.

The City’s official webpage for Oakwood says: “Oakwood Cemetery has been Charlottesville’s primary public cemetery since the latter half of the 19th century when Maplewood Cemetery began to reach its maximum capacity. It was also the primary burying ground for the poor and indigent. The first recorded indigent burial took place there in February of 1883 — that of “Sophie Shepherd’s child,” a local pauper. The cemetery still has a ‘Potter’s Field,’ a colloquial term for cemeteries used for individual burials of the poor. Such cemeteries, or sections of cemeteries, have existed throughout history as places for those who could not afford a grave or family vault.”

But the cemetery does not still have a Potters Field and has not had one for some time. So the statement on the City’s official website is untrue. (Note: This means among other things that should a resident of The Crossing or a client of The Haven die without means for private burial in a private cemetery — an event that can easily be foreseen — that person will again be homeless, something that would not have happened before Oakwood was declared “closed.”)

When I began this hurried inquiry, I thought the current situation might be attributed to mere reprehensible carelessness. During the time the Oakwood additions were made, public officials focused on being good stewards of public resources and providing basic amenities to the citizenry. However, in the last couple of decades, public officials have focused more and more on imposing on the citizenry the latest fads in politics and planning and providing public resources to private interests. Also, because the deaths of individuals rarely become public matters, the City’s failure to open the additional public burial space already provided for might easily elude public notice.

In the last couple of days, however, I have learned that employees of at least two (and probably three) City departments saw this situation developing and made their concerns known. And I have been told that at least some of those concerns were conveyed to City Council. So I am now forced to attribute the current situation to systemic incompetence, serial hypocrisy (vis-à-vis civic compassion), and calculated misrepresentation.

An analogy comes to mind — that is, declaring South Fork Reservoir worthless because silt that should have been dredged as a matter of course reduced its capacity below that for which it was designed. For the two situations to be truly analogous, however, City workers acting at their supervisors’ direction would also have to have dumped into the reservoir tons of debris rendering even the water it can hold unusable.

LOOKING AHEAD

Were blame to be assessed in this case at this moment, several generations of officials and employees would have to share it. But if you persist in giving 20 percent of the City’s public Oakwood Cemetery to Charlie Armstrong — who, of course, has shown unconscionable contempt for Hawkins family remains on the Ridge-Cherry property, contempt reinforced by the City Attorney’s directive to officials not to acknowledge the issue even for discussion — you will assume as entirely your own the blame for permanent denial of access by this community’s needy families, indigents, et al., to a basic amenity that your far-sighted predecessors acted to secure to them.

In my opinion, you have no legal right to do as you plan. If you persist you should be taken to court. I do hope, however, that you respond instead to the civic-minded ghosts of Charlottesville’s past — just the sort we should be honoring on the City’s 250th birthday — by restoring to current and future members of this community what already belongs to them.

Please do that. Thank you.

With both an engineering and medical background, my views are science and validated-results based.  They are more oriented with F. A. Hayek and “The Fatal Conceit,” than with American Planning Association dogma.

None of my comments are intended to disparage the conscientious efforts of those who have been fulfilling their duties in conducting the various studies being presented to you tonight.  My focus is on the factual results rather than on motives or good intentions.  Such a focus might give a false impression of my not being considerate or caring, just the opposite is the truth.

According to the official “oneCommunities” website, the “Livability Project” (your agenda item #1), is funded by a U.S. HUD $999,000 grant.  The October 14, 2010 letter from HUD to Mr. Stephen Williams in announcing the grant award made reference to the title of his application, “Sustainable Communities Regional Grant Planning Program.” Subsequently, an unexplained metamorphosis took place which transformed the project title into a “livability” project, and the term “sustainability” was scarcely to be found thereafter.  What is the definition of “livability” for this project?  If it exits, I cannot find it.

From that same website, I have copied one item from the 1998 Sustainability Accords (implementation of which is an objective of the grant):

3. To maintain a population composition that does not reduce the sustainability of the Region.
To be measured by the distribution of population according to age, race/ethnicity, income/personal wealth, education, and employment status.

In looking around the room at the people making up these commissions, I see at least one visible measurement feature not yet achieved from this 1998 guiding goal.

Mr. Williams in his opening remarks tonight claimed that the City, County, and University are considered as one entity by the public.  The public does not seem to agree, as documented by his own TJPDC livability group survey on jobs and housing preferences.  As reported in the February 15, 2012 Charlottesville-Tomorrow: “most of the 508 respondents said that they would prefer to live in the rural areas of Albemarle County if there were no barriers in choice of housing. Sixty-one percent said they commuted from outside the Charlottesville Albemarle area because they found housing elsewhere more affordable or a better value.”

The article continues: “…commuters continue to have a preference for larger houses on large lots in nearby counties…if expense were not a barrier, many of these commuters would prefer to live in Albemarle’s rural areas.”

This same  article noted that Mr. Wayne Cilimberg found that “it is too easy to live in the rural area and drive to work.” Albemarle County staff found this a “thorn in our flesh.”

From the citizen taxpayer’s point of view, it appears that “livability” is whatever the planners want it to be, even if it means forcing the round pegs of private citizen choice  into the square-hole  utopian notions of planners.  Instead of working to accommodate the expressed wishes of the public, the planners complain that the public does not know what is best for them.

The historical record of planning gives little reason to be optimistic about any attempts to define, measure, and regulate this undefined “livability.” Your own comments here tonight illustrate that fact. There were calls to have more committee meetings to get your stories straight before the next joint planning meeting.  The livability surveys are inherently flawed because any survey is limited to the chosen indicators.  What is the correct number of indicators?  Are all indicators of equal value? Who decides? Why feature questions on bike paths and not questions related to better or more paved roads? How do you quantify the worth of an indicator? What indicators are unknown, yet vital?

Would a different group pick and weigh different indicators? Whose biases get to shape the wording of the questions?  Who does not know that the phrasing of a question largely determines the answer? Who decides how large a sample group must be? Who decides the composition of that sample?

In the end, the result is largely pre-determined by the original crafters of the survey process, and the choices they offered the public.

You commissioners were quick to notice and question the issue of survey sample size and composition.  For all the effort to engage the public to vote their opinions on the packaged survey questions, the livability team could point to only 350 or so individuals, scattered over the several survey topics, who had signed in to partake in the surveys.  They had failed to cross reference the names and could not answer your question: “Are these the same people voting each time or not?  Is it the same core group of activists voting each time?   At some of the public voting displays only 20 or 30 people showed up. The County/City population is around 120,000.  This cannot be considered a valid representation of public opinion.  The HUD grant demands that the livability project go through this public participation process, but to say that at the end that “the public wants this or that” based on the results so far is not valid or meaningful.

None of the Livability surveys included linking “cost” to the desirability of a measure.  If the survey had included: “How much more in taxes would you pay for measure “x,” then the results might be meaningful.   So long as the wish list is “free” why not have more of everything deemed desirable. You will get a diversity of choices limited only by the number of people responding.  Livability for some might include a free flat panel TV, why not?

None of the Livability surveys included “private property rights” as a limiting factor or “indicator” in the choices offered. An expert on governmental planning, Randal O’Toole, has noted that “planners believe that private property rights are flexible and can be changed at whim.” He quotes from the APA book “The Land We Share,” that private property is an “institution that communities reshape over time to promote evolving goals,” and comments that “if guided by planners, the government decides that your property has historic, environmental, or scenic value, they can take from you the right to use your land without any composition.” Do you agree with this?

On the topic of transportation, Mr. O’Toole notes that “more than four out of five Americans say they prefer a house in the suburbs to higher-density housing near jobs, shops, and transit. (This true here as noted already in the TJPDC Livability study.) But planners believe a greater share of Americans should live in high-density housing, partly because planners erroneously think people living in higher densities will drive less.”  He notes that “Germany can’t tear them (high-density housing) down fast enough to keep up with people leaving for single-family homes.”

The presentations this evening spent much time on affordable housing.  What is the definition of “affordable housing”?  What determined the arbitrary percent level goal for 2050? How much is the right amount and for whom? I heard no mention of making housing affordable. In City/County discussions of new jobs, such jobs are always carefully qualified as being “environmentally friendly, high-tech, high-paying, clean.”  This proviso filters out the real jobs that the real unemployed might be qualified to do in more basic manufacturing.  The large numbers of unemployed for whom housing is unaffordable do not have the educational skills for such utopian industries.  This cherry picking of acceptable industry/jobs puts the disadvantaged in a perpetual dependency role rather than into a job.

One example of advocacy guiding public policy was illustrated by the comments regarding accommodations by the City to bicycling groups.  The spokesperson for the City noted the need for basic infrastructure upgrades.  How odd then that C-T reports that “The city’s budget director, Leslie Beauregard, said $100,000 of the capital budget was moved from undergrounding utilities into bicycle infrastructure development.”

Much “livability” talk also concerns the achieving of the right mix of housing stock and individuals.  The April 17, 2012 article by Thomas Sowell discussed this very topic.  He notes, “…in order to mix and match classes and races to fit the government’s preconceptions…is the idea that there is something wrong if a community does not have an even or random distribution of various kinds of people. This arbitrary assumption is that the absence of evenness or randomness — whether in employment, housing or many other situations — shows a “problem” that has to be “corrected.”

No evidence is considered necessary for this assumption to prevail at any level of government, including the US Supreme Court. No one has to show the existence, much less the prevalence, of an even or random distribution of different segments of the population — in any country, anywhere. Nothing is more common than for people to sort themselves out when it comes to residential housing, whether by class, race or other factors.”

In reference to politicians and bureaucrats, Sowell concludes with, “People convinced of their own superior wisdom and virtue have no time to spare for what other people really want.”

The article by Wendell Cox in the WSJ April 9, 2012 “California Declares War on Suburbia” confirms the experiences in other states regarding planning edicts.  He notes that “The campaign against suburbia is the result of laws passed in 2006 (the Global Warming Solutions Act) to reduce greenhouse gas emissions and in 2008 (the Sustainable Communities and Climate Protection Act) on urban planning. The latter law, as the Los Angeles Times aptly characterized it, was intended to “control suburban sprawl, build homes closer to downtown and reduce commuter driving, thus decreasing climate-changing greenhouse gas emissions.” In short, to discourage automobile use.”

Further, “Dartmouth economist William Fischel found that California’s housing had been nearly as affordable as the rest of the nation until the more restrictive regulations, such as development moratoria, urban growth boundaries, and overly expensive impact fees came into effect starting in the 1970s. Other economic studies, such as by Stephen Malpezzi at the University of Wisconsin, also have documented the strong relationship between more intense land-use regulations and exorbitant house prices.”

There was discussion during the meeting concerning housing prices and their statistical distribution in the City/County and land use/density.  Are you  bemoaning County regulations requiring 21 acre minimums for land divisions, with the restriction of only one home on one acre of that 21 acres? Do you not realize that the more restrictive land use laws become, the more expensive the land and homes become?  The number of people who chose to move and live outside the City or County because of increased housing costs is testimony to this.  Such planning choices make City and County living appear to be more of an elitist achievement.

At the recent London conference “Planet Under Pressure,” Yale University professor Karen Seto was quoted in MSMBC, “We certainly don’t want them (humans) strolling about the entire countryside.  We want them to save land for nature by living closely (together).”

Commissioners, it appears that there is a schism between the elite notions of the university planners and the wants and actions of the public. You  have the unenviable job of reconciling your good intentions with history and human diversity.

Corbusier tried in the 1930s with his “Radiant Cities” project; Jane Jacobs did a bit better; Chicago tried with the best planning talent in the 1950s and 1960s only to have these edifices later demolished.

In conclusion, I return to F. A. Hayek’s “Fatal Conceit.”  Ralph Reiland’s 2009 definition of that term conveys the message,  “that one man or one group, one cabinet of commanding officials or one central committee, or one team of planners from Harvard and Yale, can gather and understand enough information in order to reshape the world around them according to their wishes, reshape human nature…”

(Note: These remarks were delivered to a joint session of the Albemarle County and Charlottesville City Planning Commissions on April 18, 2012.)

There were many advantages to having a sheltered, upper-middle class background in Charlottesville. But one thing it didn’t teach me was what the adult world is really like in America across class lines. Even following college, I still believed most of the nation’s grown men behaved like the professional-level ones from my childhood, holding jobs and raising families.

So you can imagine how shocked I was when moving to New York City at nineteen. The men there were louder than what I was used to. Many led lifestyles—as transsexuals, or black nationalists, or bohemians—that would’ve made them freaks elsewhere. And, to my surprise, many engaged in a culture of indolence that seemed to permeate the entire city. On any given block, there’d be men hanging on corners, lying on benches, and standing in streets even as cars passed. Crazy ones would sing on subways, scream at pigeons, and use sidewalks as their personal toilets. At first I found this insolence fascinating, even hilarious, given it took place alongside the financiers and intellectuals that run our modern world. And back then I figured it was just another quirk of New York culture.

But its charm faded when I began traveling America’s other cities and found the same thing. And because in these cities it wasn’t tempered, like in New York, by the far greater presence of working people, it amounted to a glaring problem. This first struck me in Atlanta, whose downtown is surrounded by some of America’s most dangerous neighborhoods, and rife with homeless people. But after further travels, I found it existed to varying degrees in every major city.

Sit at a crowded public space inside these cities’ downtowns and you’ll see what I mean. There you’ll find inebriates, drug fiends, and other men lying around. An alarming number suffer obvious mental illnesses, and are homeless due to society’s neglect.  Others, whether homeless or not, have nothing apparently wrong with them, save that they are public nuisances—by ignoring their own hygiene, taunting women, arguing loudly, and yelling racist comments. But most just sit around saying nothing at all.

This has created a particularly bizarre atmosphere inside downtown public libraries. Rather than attracting scholarly types, most mock this original purpose by serving instead as lounges for the indigent. If, like me, you wish to use them for serious research, you better be able to endure loud conversations, trashed bathrooms, snoring men, and—always my favorite when buried over work—men who sit and stare blankly ahead for hours.

Of course, libraries could reverse this by disciplining against noise, or sleeping, or pointless loitering. But in a depressing symbolism of government priorities, many have policies that do the opposite, like allowing men to openly view porn on public computers. This way, ensured one staffer at a Portland branch, patrons can enjoy their “freedoms.” And such men indeed have, not only in libraries, but in other public facilities, so that visiting them often means entering a twilight zone of glazed-over eyes and lost ambitions.

“Coming Apart”

As a libertarian—and hardly a moralizer—I’m slow to interpret such widespread torpor as a sign of impending collapse. And because I’m young, I can’t fully compare my observations of these dilemmas with past ones. But I have to say this problem of public indigence, which is familiar to most urbanites, seems to me like a demographic crisis. When the Occupiers began their bratty tirade against the rich, I at least had to agree with them on one thing: America does have a class problem. And it’s defined by a vast underclass of men, many within this public sphere, who seem to lack basic cognitive skills. How they reached these conditions is endlessly complex. But one recent book, Charles Murray’s “Coming Apart: The State of White America 1960-2010”, emits some light.

In the book Murray uses census data to document the trajectories, since 1960, of two different groups of American white males, aged 30-49. One group, which he calls “Fishtown,” after a working-class Philadelphia neighborhood, represents the portion with high school diplomas or less, who are mostly in the lower 30% of earners. The other group, nicknamed “Belmont,” after a professional-class township outside Boston, represents the portion with higher educations, mostly in the upper 20%.

Murray begins by explaining that after World War II, not only were income discrepancies between these two classes narrower, but also their cultural differences. The two often lived in the same neighborhoods, shopped in the same stores, and sent their kids to the same schools. But following Kennedy’s assassination, these classes divided, and by the turn of the century were almost fully segregated. The upper class grew numerically and by income, while lower class incomes stagnated, accounting for the wide gap that exists today.

Many have blamed structural changes in the economy for this trend, but Murray uses a mountain of statistics to emphasize how cultural values also factor in. He begins, using pop sociology, by highlighting lifestyle differences in white- and blue-collar America. These observations so closely fit my own—following years of travel around the U.S.—that they could’ve come from my pen. Within this narrative, people in Belmont drink moderately, exercise daily, eat healthily, watch little TV, and read highbrow news publications. Meanwhile people in Fishtown practice all the stereotypical degeneracies associated with poverty. A third of them smoke cigarettes; many eat fast food regularly, and thus have higher obesity rates; and on average, they watch 35 hours—35 hours!—of television a week, mainly soap operas and reality television. Indeed their habits directly refute left-wing buffoons like Paul Krugman, who, writing from his own little planet, still blames class differences strictly on economic determinism rather than lifestyle choices.

In the next section, Murray digs deeper. He explains that the nation’s social fabric was once defined by four virtues: Marriage, Industriousness, Honesty, and Religiosity. These virtues were manifested through high marriage rates; high workforce participation; low incarceration rates; and high church membership.  The statistical peak of these virtues for both Fishtown and Belmont came in the early 1960s, before being attacked during the Cultural Revolution as symbols of rigidity. And while most of these attacks came from members of the elite, they scarcely altered the virtuous underpinnings of elite culture itself. From 1960-2010, the rates of Belmont males not in the workforce stayed below 5%, while the workweeks of those within it actually got longer. Their incarceration rate remained almost non-existent. Their marriage rate dropped slightly from 94% to 84%. And their regular church attendance, which even agnostics like Murray and I agree is an important indicator of social capital, went from 65% to 53%.

But for Fishtown, the Cultural Revolution meant sweeping social changes. The Fishtown marriage rate over this same time dropped from 84% to below 50%. Men outside the workforce skyrocketed from 5% to 12%; as did incarceration fivefold, to a full 1% of this group. Regular church attendance—once essential to community life in blue-collar neighborhoods—dipped from 57% to 40%.

This hurt Fishtown’s already-tenuous social fabric, and widened the income gap. And because, Murray notes, these downward trends are not unique to whites, but consistent across racial lines for low-educated and low-income males of similar age, they suggest disturbing trends for America. It means all the more men in their primes are either imprisoned or outside the workforce, and often without basic social bonds. They surely account for a large percentage of those I’ve found sitting lifelessly in public spaces.

What Caused This?

Some will use “Coming Apart” to reaffirm previous notions that mid-20^th century America was a stark morality tale between the innocent 1950s and decadent 1960s. But I’m glad Murray doesn’t succumb to this temptation. While he acknowledges that these four virtues predominated far more before JFK’s assassination than after, he doesn’t pretend that together they produced some heaven on earth in America. He rightly notes the persecution of women and minorities during the era. And he also notes some effects these virtues, practiced to extremes, had in stifling the nation’s white men. Borrowing from stereotypes then advanced by books like “The Organization Man,” Murray describes 1950s America as one of tight-knit communities centered on church and family, but also highly conformist. So he’s no more surprised than me that when these norms loosened in the 1960s, it led to a creative explosion across the U.S.

For example, look at how popular music changed during this time. In the Fifties it had consisted mostly of buttoned-up balladeers singing corny lyrics. By 1969 it had become a tidal wave of Dionysian ecstasy put to song, defined by the guttural screams of Led Zeppelin and James Brown. But I’m convinced this never would’ve occurred had certain postwar taboos remained in place. Instead music—and pop culture—would have continued with the sterile innocence of Dean Martin.

Murray believes this loosening of formalities enabled innovation across fields even more important than music. He writes that while in the Fifties a typical young couple would’ve remained in their hometown and married early–with the woman tending house and the man becoming a policeman or small businessman—by the Sixties such couples were avoiding marriage for higher education. What resulted were breakthroughs in science, engineering, finance, and the arts. This helped form our modern meritocratic upper class; and rather than just dividing America, writes Murray, has also improved life for the lower class. In what I found to be a striking admission near the book’s end, Murray himself writes that if given a choice, he’d sooner live in the America of 2010 than 1960, despite the cultural changes. This is because, thanks to Sixties reforms, America is not only more progressive, but more prosperous.

But Murray’s concerns are that over this age of progress, we’ve erred to the point of having no standards at all. Part of this is because our “hollow elite,” as he calls them, no longer hold the lower classes accountable, but cower in the name of “tolerance.” Isn’t public library porn, funded by taxpayers, a great example? If a free-spirited traveler like me can enter Chicago’s central library, walk to a row of computers, find a dozen grown men watching sex scenes, and feel mildly disgusted, what will mothers with children think? They may not say anything right then. But they’ll probably avoid the library in the future, just as, Murray writes, the upper class now avoids much of public life because of its decadence—the decadence this same class is scared to reprimand.

Another concern, addressed by Murray elsewhere, has been the entitlement state. It too was inspired by the Cultural Revolution, which rather than remaining a cultural phenomenon, soon became a governmental one, dragged by policymakers into the vortex of bureaucratic incompetence. Ignoring the maxim that governments shouldn’t legislate morality, these policymakers legislated their own bizarre version of it, wherein newly trending principles like “sexual freedom” and “class equity” were used to justify welfare programs incentivizing single motherhood and downward mobility. Such programs shortly preceded the statistical explosion in broken families, and continue to sustain our unemployed masses.

What to do about it?

I’m not going to list a bunch of policy solutions for this crisis, or even suggest government policies can solve it. But on the cultural front, I’ll echo Murray in saying that the return of the professional class and their values into public life would be a start. I’ll repeat as much in my upcoming book, which is about how America can revitalize its cities. As bastions of what’s usually best about diversity and culture—and tolerance—such cities have for too long tolerated blatant lethargy from many of their own people. And the professional class, feeling disgusted and endangered, has fled for the suburbs. But I believe for such cities to thrive again, this class must return, not at the mandate of urban planners, but at their own doing. Because not only will their reemergence add to these cities’ public coffers, thus improving services. It will create an atmosphere of virtue—particularly in the public sphere—where virtue is often now lacking.

But any way you go about, if America is to change, it will have to begin with a change in culture. Hopefully “Coming Apart” will start that conversation.

Man has always lived under sets of rules. From the Ten Commandments to the legal code, sporting competitions to board games, in physics and in tax forms, there are rules everywhere guiding our lives.

Deciphering the rules creates knowledge. Early man saw that fire burns, fire cooks, and fire lights; they learned that you can depend on those as fact. Fire burns today and it will burn you again tomorrow—the rule never changes. The ability to determine if a rule was reliable led to early man’s survival and so, to us being here today.

I made a living on rules. As a computer programmer or business analyst, in risk management or as a division head, rules make the workplace easier. In IT development a line of code does not think, it does exactly what it is told to do. Computers live in a world with black and white rules.

In the military I wrote Standard Operating Procedures. SOP’s allow a process requiring no choices or decisions to be made by staff. If you only give staff keys that fit in the keyhole only one way, then to open the door they must put the key in the slot that one way, the rule must be followed, and in reality they have no choice at all. If things go wrong the writer of the SOP was at fault not those who carried it out.

Some rules are personal, some institutional; some rules come from an even higher authority. The king can proclaim gravity has been banished but no man is powerful enough to change a rule like gravity. We can temporarily overcome gravity but the rule remains. Gravity is a fact.

Man-made rules are not fact; they can be bent, changed or ignored, like the speed limit on roads. It is easy to be misled into thinking man-made rules are fact, but without man these rules will cease to exist unlike factual rules like gravity. When people no longer think for themselves and treat man-made rules as though they are fact it allows people to bypass their responsibility and blame failure on the writer of the SOP.

Man cannot accept any rules blindly and should never take any rule man by man as anything more than accepted by some or all people but never as fact. If we desire freedom we must validate every rule each time it comes into play. Questioning every rule does not mean that man-made rules are not required for the common good.

Complete and unrestrained personal freedom is the complete absence of man-made rules. It is called anarchy.

The absence of personal freedom entirely is when every aspect of life is governed by man-made rules. It is the totalitarian state.

Freedom does depend on a low threshold of tolerance for man-made rules. The old adage is that with freedom comes responsibility. Responsibility requires work, hard work. Sometimes it may be acceptable to lose freedom and allow someone else to make the rules because they will bear responsibility for the consequences of the rule.

The attraction for many to accept a king, a dictator, or a totalitarian state is the fact it is easier to follow rules and not bear the responsibility passed to the rule makers. We learn from birth we must follow rules set by others. If you do not follow the rules we naturally blame the rule maker. How many times have you heard a child say, ‘but you didn’t tell me I had to….” Then as you grow up you must set your own rules and suffer the consequences if the rules you choose fail you or others around you.

Just as it is with your parents’ rules, it is easy to just follow rules set by the state. The danger is when citizens bypass any litmus test and rules set by the state are blindly accepted.

If a large enough portion of the citizenry is willing to accept any rule, even foolish ones, simply to bypass bearing any responsibility for failure, personal freedom is what disappears in exchange for the absolution from responsibility. If the set of rules becomes comprehensive enough you have reached total absolution. You are in a totalitarian state with no choices and only one responsibility: “do what you are told.”

At my birth, this great nation was the land of the free and the home of the brave. Now just 52 years later no one is free and few are standing up to demand our freedom back. Few want to bear any responsibility for themselves or others but rather they expect the state to take the weight of responsibility away with a rule.

If I can’t bear the responsibility of my children, or my finances, or care for the elderly in my community the government rules that if you cannot or will not bear that responsibility the state will do what ever is required in your stead. You do not need to feel any pain or anguish, no sorrow because you accept the rule.

My father’s father lied in order to return to combat duty as a 41-year-old man in 1943. He lied about his age. The officer at the recruiting desk had his file in front of him and after seeing his true birth year and evaluating my grandfather, the officer somehow “lost” the file into a trashcan. He did not follow the rules either.

Both men knew the rules. Both men understood responsibility. They both weighed the situation, considered the rules and bore the responsibility on their shoulders. It was their choice and neither man made the choice lightly. But they knew the ramifications of making a choice to follow or bypass the rules.

If my grandfather had followed the rule set by the state no one would have held him in ill regard, the state rule said he was too old to go into combat on a naval vessel. His responsibility was self-imposed, even though he was absolved by the state.

From 1943 to today something has shifted. There are few left who are true “public servants.” Many whose paycheck is taken from the taxpayers have learned to manipulate existing rules and sometimes even create rules in order to shirk responsibility to avoid hard choices. Shirking responsibility by twisting rules takes many different forms in government. Do mind that not all government officials neglect their responsibilities, but those who try to fulfill their duties are overruled when shirkers are in the majority. In the Obamacare sessions of Congress many Democrats learned they could shirk their responsibilities and change the rules for gain, allowing them to extort money and exemptions for their districts in exchange for their vote.

Locally, despite being the gatekeepers to a vault with our money in it, for many years the Albemarle County Board of Supervisors has accepted the rule that 60 percent of new revenue goes to the schools. The rule says we do it, so we no longer have to bear responsibility for the money we hand the school system without scrutiny or even asking the question of how it will be spent.

When following the rules is difficult then shirking duties by ignoring those rules is common. In Virginia the rule says adequate coverage is 1.5 police officers for every 1000 in population. For convenience we just ignored that rule for years in Albemarle County. Now addressing the issue will take five years or more to get back on track.

If not bound to rules by the superior state above us then we can simply make up our own rules, even if illogical and clearly only to shirk responsibility. The School Board says it is their rule not to meddle in the details of the school system and only look at the highest-level information. Their rule to only look at the cover and never inside the book allows them to shirk responsibility if the cover is falsely labeled a romance when the true story inside starts as a comedy then ends as a horror novel.

The most dangerous of all responsibility shirking is now the behavior of the Jefferson-Madison Regional Library officials who are actively shirking responsibility by blindly clinging to outdated rules made by past superiors and do not even consider alternate paths. This will cost Albemarle taxpayers millions of dollars now and hundred of thousands ongoing and if unchecked will be even worse. Blindly following the rule only because the rules sustain their paychecks—yet they are pococurante to the citizens—these bureaucrats will someday demand to be rewarded for their unwavering loyalty. That too will be at citizens’ expense.

When the Jefferson-Madison Library Bureaucrats are asked why the proposed Crozet Library is larger than the fire house it is because there is a square footage to population rule. There are no considerations to be weighed as long as they follow the rule. These bureaucrats bear no responsibility if they stick mindlessly to the rule. In truth, the square foot/population rule allows them to protect their fiefdom and have no accountability if things go awry, they can blame the rule.

When asked, “why build in the place where a library is least needed by the population?” The mindless answer: “’because that is the designated growth area.” An honest bureaucrat would say: “The rules in place do not require us to consider the needs of the people or any other factor. We have placed the library on this plot because the rules say we shall do so. If you do not like the rule I may not speak with you about the matter, it is above my pay grade. You must discuss this with the rule makers, for I have no responsibility.”

Any question requires no thought on their part just a robotic response.

What if there are true library needs elsewhere? Sorry, the rule precludes that as a consideration.

This proposed library of yesterday is obsolete before the ground is broken. Why not build for the future instead of for the past? Sorry the rule says in the past we are doing enough volume to build the library. We cannot open our minds to even considering what will happen in the future.

An honest evaluation of needs is not required because the rules were not made so libraries best serve the citizens but to protect the library fiefdoms. A library in ten years will be as valuable as the US Post Office in ten years. Instead of a Crozet Library I could have gotten the Jefferson-Madison Library bureaucrats to buy the old Crozet video store and tell them of the demand for VHS tapes, 20 years ago.

But your library rules are obsolete. Sorry they are not our rules, they come from the state. Therefore, we do not question the rule; you should not question the rule either.

This abdication of responsibility by government officials who mindlessly take more and more from the real working people with no justification except “we are just following the rules” is nothing short of a glimpse into 1930′s Germany.

We must choose right now, at this fork in United States history. Will you follow a path back to freedom or does your path lead to Europe’s past?

You may not accept it. But it is your responsibility.

As a friend of Dr. Nelson Lichtenstein ( former UVA Professor, Now at UCLA, union apologist, author of Jimmy Hoffa, The Most Dangerous Man In Detroit et al. and the first “ Living Wage Activist “ in my experience) I became aware of the movement a decade ago and followed its irrational screams since. A decade ago I asked Nelson why the unskilled, instead of those who rose in the ranks of producers, were constantly rewarded by social justice expounding institutions. He had no answer except it fitted the unionist agenda, it was “fair” and “don’t you think THEY need it”.  Why THEY, to the exclusion of meritorious producers, were then and now, the sole concern, is a mystery to me.  Class preference seems the only distillation of these talking point phrases used as rapid fire suppression of deeper thoughts and logical extension. As a guest on The Schilling Show, Ms. Emily Filler of UVa Living Wage brought nothing new to the “living wage” discussion. Indeed, she fit the mold precisely as Nelson Lichtenstein exhibited and taught a decade ago.

One question that has gone unexamined with respect to  the perpetual “social justice”  pay increases for beginning workers is, “Why are THEY rewarded with double digit frequent step raises while the higher production, higher service value employees are saddled with almost concomitant pay increase freezes?  It would be interesting to note the increases in starting salaries for unskilled workers versus the ACTUAL PAY RAISES skilled classified staff have received (published scales are useless for mid-level employees because the ranges and duties are so broad they approach meaningless). I believe you will find the producers have not fared as well as the starters.

So it seems the logical extension of Ms. Filler’s emotional “social justice” demand is to increase the starters and ignore the producers until each is paid what the scarcely half-learned Ms Filler and her elitist cohorts deem a “living wage.”  Mirable dictu! Oh joy! This is precisely the siren song of the wondrous Karl Marx and his minions right through the contemporaneous Noam Chomsky. The words to this ditty are “From each according to his ability; to each according to his need”! I am so delighted that Ms. Filler and her illuminati have finally crowned themselves as the dictators and implementers of Karl Marx commands for the rest of us, ignorant and unwashed as we might be!

I was simultaneously impressed, and duly dismayed, at how glibly the dogma, dictated by a thoroughly inculcated socialist ideology and practiced dialectic, flowed from the guest’s tongue in split-second response to any inquiry.  Each talking point was attuned to answer, instantly and forcefully in expression, any question only from its general context. Force in this instance seems to have been taught over substance. One should not be surprised.

I am of course saddened to see incipient civic persons joining, and apparently not unknowingly propagating, the red-sash and SOMA-satisfied Brave New World of Aldous Huxley through adherence to Marx’ instructions and DEMANDING, as a true community organizer, we all fall in either goose- or lock-step. I presume that years spent, steeped in institutional socialist indoctrination naturally leads one in this direction.

Watching this kind of ideological devotion to social fascism, I am reminded this is the TRUE BELIEVERS’ desired result—rule by the mob, sustained by the producers and enjoyed by the elite, ruling from their semi-supine positions of comfort and privilege, from their velvet dais of the self-proclaimed and self-tenured illuminati. For a more complete description of this model so common now in the United States of America, I simply point the curious to the former Soviet Union from whence a vast flood of this thinking of impotent people and a necessarily all-powerful Nanny State flowed. If one is not convinced of this model I heartily recommend reading at least one treatise on Russian history e.g. The Russian Tragedy: The Burden of History by Hugh Ragsdale.  Read this and weep, because you will see the diminution of individual thought, ability, innovation, freedom and expectations. Meanwhile the STATE rises and fills the gap as the omnipotent, omniscient, omnipresent and omnivorous destroyer of that same humanity, even mankind, the self-appointed social justice administrators claim to be saving us from a world deemed evil in all aspects but their own self-defined, half-cocked, faux altruism.

Hear Emily Filler discuss UVa Living Wage on The Schilling Show, February 29, 2012.

Circumstance saw me without my vehicle for a few days. Deciding to explore the alternatives, I chose to utilize the local transit system, known as CAT, the Charlottesville Area Transit System. I was a far younger man when I last utilized a transit system, in a city of much greater population. The system runs well, was on time, and I found the various points of transfer with other busses, in order to get across town, to be relatively easy. However, what I discovered while on board these busses has forced me to ask a serious question. How can a city municipal government, in the 21^st century, which receives federal funding, be allowed to deny to its employees some of the most simple and basic rights guaranteed to workers by the EEOC and the Department of Labor?

As I was making my travels, I overheard conversations between veteran drivers and those who were apparently being trained. What I heard was incredibly unbelievable. It seems that those individuals behind the wheel, with whom we entrust our lives and safety each and every time we step aboard a CAT bus, are denied the simple ability of having a break in their shift, as well as being denied an allotted time to even eat lunch. All these years, as I have witnessed these busses carrying on around town, I like everyone else no doubt, took for granted that those drivers were extended the same basic privileges as every other worker in the 21^st century. But we would all be wrong. While I can appreciate, from a safety point of view, the disallowance of cell phone and personal audio equipment use, as well as not being allowed to eat or drink while driving, I cannot agree to the other policy. That is the one that does not build into the work schedule of the drivers, an established period of down time, such as a fifteen-minute break in the morning and afternoon, as well as an established period of time that allows the driver to eat a meal.

I made it a point to pay greater attention to the drivers, and indeed, the schedules are so constrictive, that many barely have time to step off the bus to take care of simple basic human bodily functions, much less the luxury of actually eating or drinking.

I can not help but be curious as to the level of Council involvement in CAT transit affairs. Does council reach down into the administrative infrastructure, or does it simply hire folks such as Judy Mueller and trust in their leadership? I do not know how involved City Council currently is involved, but if they are highly engaged I can not help but be curious as to why Council members would abuse CAT employees, forcing them to work under conditions that not even an inmate at the Charlottesville-Albemarle Regional Jail would be legally required work under.

According to one of the drivers, breaks and lunches used to be extended to operators. Indeed, this driver said that they learned all of the routes by having to drive almost every one, as they filled in for the driver at lunch and at breaks. So what happened? How did the policy get eradicated? How can the CAT system and the city, which receives federal funding and it is my understanding, some state funding, not obey the law regarding treatment of city employees? As a taxpaying citizen, I am extremely uncomfortable in having any employee treated in this fashion, in my name.

One driver stated that there is supposedly a provision in the law that does not extend the lunch/break provisions for transit workers. However, he has never seen it in writing, nor does he know the statute number. So, I have to wonder if it really exists.

From simply a safety point of view, it is unbelievable to me that we can force a person to stay in a seat for up to ten hours, maybe more, and not get a chance to partake of nutrition and hydration. Answers need to be provided to these actions, along with a legally sound defense of same.

I would like to see Judy Mueller and all of her administrative staff not eat or drink from the time the go to work, until they get off work, plus two to three hours—the shift time of some drivers. I’ll bet that they could not do it.

Crozetians and Western Albemarleans awoke to welcomed news on December 8, 2011, as the Crozet Gazette and Charlottesville Daily Newspaper reported that the Albemarle County Board of Supervisors had voted to direct county staff to send out an RFP, or request for proposal, to build the new Crozet Library.

A part of the Jefferson-Madison Regional Library (JMRL)—which is the public regional library that serves the City of Charlottesville, and the counties of Albemarle, Greene, Louisa, and Nelson—the Crozet Library has been in need of expansion for quite some time: the building, which is a former train station in downtown Crozet, is so small that when the library takes inventory of newly released books, staff has to remove an older book from the stacks to make space.  Additionally, in late 2011 the fire marshal determined that no more than 50 people should safely occupy the Crozet Library at any given time.  Library programs, such as lectures, routinely draw crowds of over 50 patrons, so some events have had to be held at the neighboring Crozet Elementary School on Crozet Avenue.

The creation of a new home for the Crozet Library has been on the backburner for years, as the newly designated Library Avenue just south of downtown Crozet has lay vacant for the past two years.  Conservatives, libertarians, and constitutionalists who are upset with the performance of our area public schools and the graduates they are producing should consider lending their support to the JMRL and become library advocates for the following reasons.

First, libraries are overall cost effective and spend far less of taxpayers’ money than the government schools.  For example, depending on what number you look at, the total operating budget for the JMRL is around 6 million dollars per year.  Contrast this to the annual operating budget of the Charlottesville City Schools alone at 69 million dollars, and it is easy to see that libraries are feeding much, much less from the public trough and display greater efficiency for it: in Charlottesville, the average core per-pupil spending is 16,141 dollars per pupil, per year.  This ranks among the highest in the state, yet math and reading scores are serially lagging.  The cost per person who patronizes the library is far less than that, and considering the population it serves, the JMRL is actually among the most heavily used public libraries in America.  Circulation data support this claim.

Also, librarianship as a profession is very rewarding, but is not known for being extremely well-paying, and instances of librarians and library workers milking the system are few and far between.  Contrast this with some public school administrators in central offices who routinely draw six-figure salaries and have little to show for it.

Second, there are far fewer opportunities for socialist indoctrination of area youth in the public libraries.  This community has in recent years unearthed controversies in the public schools, such as the recent Kid Pan Alley episode, and when a high school teacher was caught on camera saying that America should “convert” to socialism!

Here is a more general example: it is a common belief that Franklin Delano Roosevelt’s New Deal pulled America out of the Great Depression.  This is what students in high school American History courses by and large “learn” through their reading and instruction.  In reality, this enlargement of the public sector prolonged the misery of the Depression; had the federal government followed a free market direction, the economy would have returned to pre-1929 output in a few to several years.  Due to FDR’s expansionist policies, the Depression did not end until the Second World War.  Teachers may mean well, but they and the history textbooks their school districts adopt do not tell the truth about the New Deal.

I graduated from a public high school in Virginia seven years ago, and it was only afterward when I, as an adult, was able to read up on the Great Depression and American History on my own, using books of my own choosing, rather than the choosing of a group of teachers.  The availability of choice and competition in the free market is far better than a one-size-fits-all textbook.  The Jefferson-Madison Regional Library is a great place to learn about American history by considering a variety of books, not the one book that is given the stamp of approval by public schools.  The library is probably the only place in town where you are guaranteed to find copies of the left-leaning A People’s History of the United States, by Howard Zinn, and its conservative counterpart, A Patriot’s History of the United States, by Larry Schweikart and Michael Allen.  It is through our public libraries that some citizens are replacing their indoctrination with an education.

Third, the JMRL boasts a voluminous selection of items that circulate to patrons.  The selection and diversity of items greatly outnumbers even the largest bookstores.  I am aware of libertarian arguments that government should not be competing with the private sector, and frankly, I am sympathetic to libertarian concerns and am willing to listen.  I enjoy patronizing large bookstores such as Barnes & Noble as well as small mom and pop used bookshops. However, I also know that there is more or less a free market in this country – it’s not perfect, but free enterprise is the most productive supplier of human needs and economic justice.  Private booksellers do not seem to have the same selection as public libraries, either because the free market will not allow it, or because private booksellers are unwilling to stock their shelves with the same ferocity.  Public libraries are more likely to possess rare, out of print books that private bookstores do not carry.  This makes visiting the public or university library nearly mandatory for those conducting serious research.

Liberals and progressives praise libraries because they see them as institutions that support democracy, and because libraries are cultural “equalizers.” It is because of public libraries, they argue, that even the poorest among us can have access to books.  Frankly, I am happy that they are happy; however, I have no interest in “spreading the wealth around.”  I have always felt that President Obama has not spent enough time in libraries, and has spent too much time “community organizing.”  I am advocating for public libraries for a different reason, because they are a better and cheaper tool for learning than are public schools.  Thomas Jefferson said that he could not live without books, and a society that is going to march toward freedom and liberty needs to be knowledgeable and well-educated.  I recommend that conservatives and libertarians “grow. learn. connect.” at their library, and I hope you will join me in a library near you!

Note: The author is a Charlottesville resident who works as a library support specialist with the Jefferson-Madison Regional Library.  He has taught math at a public school and has ran for School Board.  Opinions expressed here are his own, and do not necessarily reflect an official position of the JMRL.

The following is a paper I discovered amongst keepsakes of my parents. It was written for a middle school assignment 35 years ago, in the Albemarle County School System. I was given an A+++ at the time. Given the recent Kid Pan Alley “99%” controversy at Albemarle County’s Woodbrook Elementary School

The Magnificent History of the The United States
by Hank Martin

“Four score and seven years ago our fathers brought forth on this continent, a new nation, conceived in Liberty, and dedicated to the proposition that all men are created equal.” –Abraham Lincoln

Upon that proposition, this great land of liberty was founded, and to this day, the persecuted and the weary, look upon our shores with eyes of hope. Let us tell then, the story of this great land, the story of America.

In the beginning, when the freedom of man was but a vision in the hearts of a few, the Pilgrims came to our shores, that they might find a land where God could be worshipped according to a man’s own conscience. Where a man might govern himself, and live in peace and understanding with his fellow man. After they had prayed, they rolled up their sleeves and went to work. The building of America had begun. By the year 1630, thousands of immigrants had followed the paths of freedom, to land in Boston Harbor, in Massachusetts. Yes, the colonies were growing. It seemed a fit and proper time to give thanks to Almighty God. The colonists raised their voices in jubilation.

The new settlements prospered, it appeared that everything was going to be all right, until, the hard won personal rights were pierced with a proclamation. Taxes! Taxes! Taxes without representation! A despised and hated tyranny of the old world, reaching out to the new. Protests! Protests! The answer came swiftly. Soldiers of the king, thundered through the streets in the night. They sought after those considered enemies of the crown. But in a meeting at St. Johns Church, Patrick Henry exclaimed, “Give me liberty, or give me death!”  His speech lighted the torch of liberty.  Soon, the angry colonists were burning the very goods upon which the unjust taxes had been levied. Disguised as Indians, they threw bales of tea into Boston Harbor. The die had been cast. The continental congress met in grave session. The result of that meeting?

We, therefore, the Representatives of the United States of America, in General Congress, Assembled, appealing to the Supreme Judge of the world for the rectitude of our intentions, do, in the Name, and by Authority of the good People of these Colonies, solemnly publish and declare, That these United Colonies are, and of Right ought to be Free and Independent States.

One of the greatest of human documents was forged in the fire of patriotic fervor. It proclaimed these truths as self-evident. That all men were created equal. That they are endowed by their creator  with certain unalienable rights. That among these are the rights of life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.

In those ringing notes of liberty, as rang out by the liberty bell, a new flag was formed, when Betsy Ross made a new banner of red, white and blue, with thirteen stars, each star a state, and the great battles began.  Under Captain John Paul Jones, the American navy fought on. At Valley Forge, the great strength of George Washington held the army together.  The years of the war were long dark days in the history of our country. Then Washington joined the forces of Lafayette at Yorktown, and a decisive battle was fought. With sudden finality, the war was over. Again the Liberty bell rang out the news. By the grace of God, we had won. We were a nation!

It was decided that this new nation should have laws by which to govern itself.  The constitution of the United States was written. The states agreed. And to certify that these new laws would work for the people, there was added to it, the Bill of Rights.  Freedom of worship. Freeedom of speech, of the press. The right of assembly. James Madison put it this way:

“In approving this Bill of Rights, we have executed the will of the people.”

A mighty lot had been accomplished up to now; we had our freedom, our nation, and our first president, George Washington. In the years that followed, the great era of exploration began. Virginia’s own Thomas Jefferson regarded the maps of the day, and he had an idea about all of that land west of the Mississippi. The French agreed to sell the Louisiana territory to the United States for approximately four cents per acre. With fitting and proper ceremony, the Stars and Stripes were hoisted over the vast and fertile land.

The war of 1812 burst upon our shores with brisk and sudden fury.  A test by fire for so young a nation.   But Andrew Jackson was there, with his homespun men of the backwoods.  In Baltimore Harbor, the guns of Ft. McHenry blazed defiantly.  It was here, that Francis Scott Key, watching the battle through the night, wrote a song which he called, “The Star Spangled Banner.” In two years, the war came to an end, and Francis Scott key was a good prophet, our flag was still there.  We still had our nation, and now we had a song for our people to sing. Our national anthem.

It then seemed expedient to consider all those people who lived with us as our good neighbors in this hemisphere. And to give warning to foreign powers and foreign aggressors, for that time, and ever after. James Monroe read the text to John Quincy Adams:

We owe it, therefore, to candor, and to the amicable relations existing between the United States and those powers, to declare, that we should consider any attempt on their part to extend their system to any portion of this hemisphere, as dangerous to our peace and safety.

The Monroe Doctrine was a bulwark to further protect the principles upon which this country was founded. Thus ensued the great era of expansion.

In the Mexican campaign, Texas was won. Then we acquired the vast territories of California and Oregon. From California, the cry of GOLD! Was heard around the world. From every way the wind blows, adventurers raced to the prosperous bonanza.  But again, storm clouds were gathering over our republic, as the northern and southern states of our union, took issue with the direction our government was heading. Cries of Secession were heralded, as unjust northern tariffs were placed southern businesses, and other attempts to subvert individual states rights were promoted. The union was no longer united. Southern forces were manipulated into firing upon Ft. Sumter. This was no war of foreign aggression. Both Northern and Southern Forces believed their cause to be just.  Ultimately, the N

Northern forces would win, but there was little celebration by either side, just a sigh of relief that the struggle had come to an end.

Now began the great era of reconstruction and development. Lumbering prairie schooners rolled over the plains. Lusty bustling western towns sprang up in hundreds of places.  A huffing puffing symbol of technological progress marked a new trail with timbers and black smoke.  Long, spike settled rails now spanned the continent.  The iron horse had now brought together, the east and the west.  The conquest of the mountains, and the deserts and the prairies was concluded. But the age of hatreds of the old world were again reaching out, to embroil us in conflict.

The U.S.S. Maine was sunk in a Cuban Harbor. Teddy Roosevelt and his rough riders charged up San Juan Hill.  In one of the shortest wars in American history, Teddy said goodbye to his men and, fulfilling his destiny, became President of the United States. He never ceased fighting for what he believed to be right.

The twentieth century was growing up when Woodrow Wilson became president, but his years in office were overshadowed by that great human sacrifice known as World War One.  Soon after his second term commenced, the policy of “hands off” could no longer be tolerated. The war message was read in congress on April 2, 1917. Two million American men crossed the ocean, to invade the invader. Many battlefields and many townsfolk knew of their courage. And finally, when the strange hush of peace sprouted forth, they went home.  Some were laid forever in Flanders Field.  And we believed that war was a war to end war.

So we started to build. Bigger than ever before. AMERICA! Rising in miraculous monuments of stone and steel.  The tallest buildings in the world. Bridges expanding to cross whatever body of water we anted to cross. Mighty dams bringing new life to arid waste lands, and electric power to the rural countryside. Millions of miles of roads and highways. Oil derricks crowning the arteries of black flowing gold. Farmers plowing with tractors. Cities a symphony of automobiles.  Yet, in all of our prosperity, we failed to heed the venomous voice that was slithering across Europe. We watched again, as Hitler and Tojo ignited another conflagration amongst  the nations of the old world. Thus we had conscription, a peace time draft. But no one really believed it would happen again. That belief was rudely shattered on a Sunday morning in Pearl Harbor. Under Franklin Delano Roosevelt’s admimistration, the minds and hearts were quickly united against the tyrannical forces of the axis powers, and to work together as one, until that moment when the despots of tyranny were destroyed.

Such industry as the world has never seen sprang to life. Shoulder to shoulder, the workers of America banned together on the home front. Twenty four hours everyday, the factories filled the sky with the smoke and fire of defiance. Ringing steel and grinding wheels. Hammers and anvils, welding machines, made up the war time sounds of freedom at home.

Over vast areas of far away waters, our armed forces challenged the enemy.  One by one, we moved through the islands of the pacific. The pace was heartbreaking. Never before had a series of invasions been made so far from home. As landing craft chugged forth to deposit their cargos of brave and determined men, our planes blasted the enemy from their secret hideouts, and shot their planes from the sky. The great battles at sea held a proud and honored place in our history.  Admiral Nimitz was there, with his ships and men. It was an all American team, made up of the Navy, the Army, the Air Force and the Marines.

In distant Africa, our men were fighting side by side with the British and the French. In Italy, we were battling the hated hordes of Mussolini.  In Germany, the spirits of the captive Jew’s in the concentration camps heard the ever increasing roars of our bombers. The war was coming back to the enemy now.  Hitler had said “No Bomb will ever drop on German soil!” But they were falling like rain and like thunder. Then, one early morning on the English Channel, a great secret was made know to all. Invasion. The landing on Omaha beach was a masterpiece of coordination and precision, taking us into fortress Europe on that stretch of sand.

In the months that followed, the irresistible might of our armed forces grew more evident each day.  They swept across France, driving the enemy before them.  Our planes, like avenging eagles, blasted the Luftwaffe out of the sky, or shattered enemy planes on the airfields, far within the German border. Everything within the evil Reich that moved was halted.  Day by day, the land forces drove steadily to the Rhine. General Patton reached the river with his Third Army, and moved on. Our great military leaders, Marshall, Arnold, Eisenhower, pushed our troops forward to the final phase of the conflict.  In a narrow corner of West Berlin, what was left of a once arrogant German army was put to rout. When we entered Berlin, it was a shambles of broken walls. More than eighty percent of the once great city lay in ruins. A monument to the egotistical ravings of a madman.

With the surrender of Germany, we turned  our unified attention and might to the pacific, where the lines of battle were now close to the shores of Japan. Not long after, the B-29 bomber “Enola Gay” took off from the sands of Okinawa, carrying within it a bomb, the likes of which, man had never before conceived.  As the widening circle of death extended out over Hiroshima, the atomic age was written into the history books of man.  A second atomic bomb was dropped, and within a week, the Japanese surrendered. General Douglas MacArthur accepted the surrender from the Japanese emissaries, on the deck of the U.S.S. Missouri, in Tokyo Bay.  And so ended the Second World War. As before, the soldiers and sailors came home, or slept forever in a foreign land.

The question now, what should be done, what could be done, to protect ourselves from man’s inhumanity to man?  The United Nations charter was signed in San Francisco. But in the months and years to follow, we came to understand the meaning of a new kind of war. The cold war. We were forced to recognize that in some parts of the world, hate and oppression are still malignant. Therefore, the Atlantic pact was signed by President Truman. And the representatives of twelve nations. A pledge of mutual defense against any aggressor who would break the peace.

Today in America, we still hold to the principles upon which our nation was founded. We have numerous altars of all religions. We are still governed by the same constitution our founding fathers created for us. The Bill of Rights is still working for the people. We think, we speak, we act, freely. However, we are ever mindful that our rights must never be misused as a mask for treason. We are a bigger, a stronger, a greater America, than ever before.  We have been victorious in six bitter wars in defense of our birthright. Let those who would destroy us, read our history well and take warning.  It is written in the blood of our heroes that freedom shall not perish from the earth.

There are many facets of the recent debacle associated with the recent “Occupy Charlottesville” which will no doubt be a matter of prescient debate for many weeks and months to follow. As it should be. However, I feel that there is core principle which has been overlooked, yet it is the very essence of what America is all about. It is an intricate portion of the ideological rock upon which this nation was founded, and as such, without it, our constitution can not and will not survive.

America is not simply a geographical location. It is not a mere happenstance of mountains and rivers and other natural resources. Beyond all of that, America is as much a place in one’s heart and mind, as it is a land that exists between Canada and South America. Given the right education and understanding of the history and philosophy of our founding fathers, I dare say a group could fly to the moon or Mars, and rightfully establish America anywhere. What is the essence of this ideal called America? It is in its respect for the rule of law. Previously, the citizens of America could trust that, just as the statue indicates, justice is blind as she holds the scales in balance. However, when the rule of law is no longer upheld, then the trust of the public is destroyed. With the erosion of that trust, goes the bedrock in which the pillars of our republic have been inserted.

Our founding fathers recognized the importance of good laws, but even more so, they were cognizant that good laws were preferable, but good men were better. This is where the notion of the Oath of Office came into being. Not just federal office’s, but for all offices. From the president down to the local dogcatcher. Why? Because our founding fathers knew that for our republic to survive, its officers must, for the good of “WE THE PEOPLE” pledge their allegiance to the constitution, or rather “The Law of the Land.”

Therein lies what causes me concern in the “Occupy Charlottesville” incident. I am not going to attempt to dissect the reasoning of the OC members, or whether or not you are in agreement with their stance. What I do take issue with, is the manner in which they were allowed to, for a time, break the law. What causes alarm is the capricious manner in which political bodies selectively choose to enforce regulations already on the books. What is an oath? An oath is a statement of fact or a promise calling upon something or someone that the oath maker considers sacred, usually God, as a witness to the binding nature of the promise or the truth of the statement of fact. To swear is to take an oath, to make a solemn vow. The essence of a divine oath is an invocation of divine agency to be a guarantor of the oath taker’s own honesty and integrity in a matter. By implication, this invokes divine displeasure if the oath taker fails in their sworn duties. It therefore implies greater care than usual in the act of the performance of one’s duty.

These days, the importance of law enforcement can not be underestimated. Police officers take risks and suffer inconveniences to protect the lives, defend civil liberties, secure the safety of fellow citizens, and they endure such risks and tolerate such inconveniences on behalf of strangers. Consequently, police work is one of the more noble and selfless occupations in society. Making a difference in the quality of life is an opportunity that policing provides, and few other professions can offer. A public affirmation of adhering to an Oath of Honor is a powerful vehicle demonstrating ethical standards. The following is the   Law Enforcement Oath of Honor, and is generally utilized and accepted by police departments throughout the United States. It reads as follows:

On my honor,
I will never betray my badge,
my integrity, my character,
or the public trust.
I will always have
the courage to hold myself
and others accountable for our actions.
I will always uphold the constitution
my community and the agency I serve.

So what is my point? When city council refused to do their job, and ordered the police NOT to fulfill their duty, the police chief should have ignored this order, for it was not constitutional. It is the duty of the police to enforce and execute the law as it currently exists! Perhaps city council sympathized with the plight of the protestors. Perhaps some even firmly believed, erroneously, in the rightness of their cause. It matters not. City council is elected to uphold the laws of the community. Now, perhaps they want to change those laws. Fine. But do so by following the rules of proper legislation. And if city council can not or will not fulfill their constitutional duties, then the checks and balances system falls into place.

So, how should have this recent scenario played out, if we had individuals in authority who had the grit to fulfill their responsibilities? When Occupy Charlottesville initially commenced breaking the law, the Charlottesville Police Department should have executed the law as it was currently on the books, and expelled them from the park utilizing whatever means necessary. When the police department was instructed to violate their sworn duties to the community and to the rule of law by council, the police department should have ignored the order and performed their duties. If council wanted to allow the activities that ultimately ensued, then an emergency council session should have been held, and the current rules and regulations amended in the proper legislative order!! The OC individuals should have been disallowed presence in Lee Park, or any other park, until city council, having taken the proper steps and in the proper order, effects a publically approved change to policy regarding to the rules and regulations of public parks.

Rules and laws are given to us in order to prevent chaos and to allow domestic tranquility. They are meant not to hold us back, but to establish order to support our lives and make them better. I recall the example of a kite. A father and son went kite flying on a windy day. The wind was strong, and soon the kite soared higher and higher. Within just a short while, they had let out all their line, and the kite was just a small dot in the sky. The boy, caught up in the excitement of flying the kite, asked his dad, “Isn’t the string holding the kite down? If we let go of the string, will the kite not go even higher?” To this the dad replied. “No, it’s just the opposite. It is the string that holds the kite up. If we let go of the string, the kite would fall to the ground and be forever lost.”

Sometimes we see rules and laws in the same manner. Some think that they hold us back, when in truth, they are the very thing that holds our society up. We have a free society because of these rules and laws, and because people obey and respect these laws. These laws are in place and are enforced to protect the people. A great danger is to think that disobeying the laws will give us more freedom. Instead, it is through disobedience that innocent people are hurt and suffer. When our governing officials fail to properly represent and uphold the law, then the last line of defense against societal chaos rests in the police. When they choose to wrongly place their allegiance to an individual, or group of individuals who are governing in error, rather than following the rules set forth by our forefathers, they start to cut the cord of trust in the flight of this kite we know as our republic. How many more cuts of trust, such as the recent OC incident, can this delicate cord of order withstand, before we too see our republic fall and be lost forever? How long can we violate the constitution, before we successfully destroy it? I fear we will soon have the answer.

27% live in poverty
One-party tyranny
Low paying jobs
Occupy Cville mobs
Cost of living through the roof
Power elite, arrogant and aloof

World Class, my a$$

Wasteful art in place
Disrespect for the black race
Public housing disgrace

World Class, my a$$

Former mayor beats his wife
Lacrosse player takes a life
Feel good, checkbook philanthropy
Blood money from Albemarle County

World Class, my a$$

Sister cities number three
Self-satisfied as can be
Self-designated “World Class” city
City-County enmity
$7 million to re-brick the Mall
Christmas bonuses for all

World Class, my a$$

School system failing AYP stings
Tablets forced on parents with costly strings
Millions wasted to reconfigure schools
School board is ship of fools

World Class, my a$$

UVA, arrogance beyond compare
Pay up or sit elsewhere
Health System doesn’t care
Serpentine walls
Know-it-alls

World Class, my a$$

Landmark eyesore
Bureaucrats spending galore
City Manager over his head
Good thing Mr. Jefferson is dead

World Class, my a$$

We had a night to remember at the abortuary on Commonwealth Drive…just around the corner from the Pregnancy Centers of Central Virginia.

Normally one or two pro lifers show up with their signs and their prayers. Today the parking lot was already half filled by the time the first pro lifer arrived. It’s easy to get discouraged and today looked like it was going to be another long night… but that is not what God had planned. Today was going to be different because the silent cries of the unborn were not only heard by God, but there was a response by his faithful servants.

Their names are not as important as their mission, but maybe you know them? Chaney, Avery, Martha, Christina, Steve, Katarina, and Lauren all gave up their evening to serve God on a very special night. A night that would reveal the weakness of men and the strength of God.

It started when Martha walked up the abortion clinic driveway which is shared by an accountant’s office next door and stood on the edge of the accountant’s grass. She invited the others to join her and quickly they formed what appeared to my eyes to be a pro life line of defense. The previous week the accountant had given Martha permission to stand on his land to reach out to mothers and fathers considering abortion. The clinic staff were furious and had been complaining about the presence of persistent pro lifers who refused to walk away or give ground.

And today was no different. The clinic staff came out and Martha told them they had permission to be there, but the permission wasn’t simply from the accountant.  Pro lifers had answered the call long before that accountant knew of their existence. Their permission was of a spiritual nature — they had permission from God who calls us to serve in Him a fallen world on the sidewalk and driveway of an abortion clinic that to the untrained eye looks like an ordinary house.

The staff didn’t take matters into their own hands just yet… instead they decided to call the police.

And soon four police cruisers were on site, but those courageous pro lifers didn’t surrender. Instead they all knelt and began to pray. It was beautiful to see courage in the face of conflict. The headlights of one of the police cars was shining on them as passersby in cars craned their necks to see what was going on in the abortuary parking lot, but those police headlights did not shine nearly as brightly as the light of God’s spirit in that parking lot.

That spiritual light burned so bright that not even the abortionist could ignore it. And we’re not talking about just any abortionist.

The abortuary is owned by Dr. William Fitzhugh who has been performing abortions across the state of Virginia for decades and has been a leading advocate for partial birth abortion, even going so far as to be a named plaintiff in a federal lawsuit to keep partial birth abortion legal.  Last year his clinics stole the lives of 3,733 innocent Virginians … 415 were babies from the Charlottesville community.

The clinic staff were hoping the police would solve their problem and remove these pro lifers from the premises.

The police called the accountant to confirm that he had given the pro lifers permission to stand on his property — not only did they have permission to stand on the grass but according to the police the dividing line was the middle of the driveway! The pro lifers could now stand even closer than they had imagined. As time wore on post abortive mothers and fathers began to walk toward their cars with pro lifers praying and holding signs closer than they had ever been in the history of the spiritual battle for life in Charlottesville. They were so close they could see the pain and the shame in the eyes of the mothers and fathers.

Those moms and dads were told that God loved them and could heal them. They were told about ministries that were waiting for them such as Rachel’s Vineyard.

This would have been a miraculous night if nothing else happened, but God was just getting warmed up. The doctor who had ignored too many pro lifers to count was suddenly acutely aware of their presence outside of his clinic. He walked out of the abortuary in scrubs and stood on the back porch of the house where thousands upon thousands of innocent lives have been stolen and looked at the pro lifers who could be seen from the back porch for the first time in his career aborting babies in Charlottesville.

And then Dr. Fitzhugh heard the same words he’d been hearing for weeks, “It’s not too late to change!”

But unlike all of those other days when he dismissed the pro lifers and went about his grisly work, today he responded to those words and walked toward them. “I’m sorry, I didn’t catch that?”

“It’s not too late too change!”

He shook his head and walked closer still, “I didn’t catch that?”

“It’s not too late to change!”

Closer and closer… and the words were repeated over and over until he was face-to-face with the pro lifers who were still standing there late into the night.

“You shouldn’t be bullying people out here!” Dr. Fitzhugh said with as much courage as he could muster, but he wasn’t dealing with his office staff or lukewarm Christians. He was standing nose-to-nose with servants of God who were sent to rescue the unborn, their parents, and him.

He was shown the picture of a baby in the womb and reminded that his job is to dismember babies who are defenseless against him and that is the definition of a bully. “I’m not a bully! I’m here to help women.” He retorted.

Dr. Fitzhugh, like so many other misguided physicians, has deluded himself into believing that abortion is good for women. Even when it was pointed out that a woman had left his clinic five minutes ago who was obviously in great pain and suffering he didn’t break from the script. A few moments later he was presented with another more powerful example when he was asked about a young Muslim man who was in his clinic last week begging and pleading with his girlfriend to spare their baby. That young man had come out three times to talk to the pro lifers who did their best to encourage him and told him to go in back in and rescue his child and tell his girlfriend that God loved her and that he loved her too.

We never shared that story because it was so painful.

When that young man drove into the clinic parking lot the look in his eyes are forever etched in my memory. I don’t know if words can adequately capture it, but I imagine it’s how I would look if I were lost at sea and drifting on an old piece of wood after giving up any hope of rescue — and then opening my eyes and seeing the distant outline of land. Hope… that is what I saw in his eyes.

He didn’t even bother to go into the clinic — he went straight to the pro lifers who were standing on the sidewalk and in tears he asked if they thought he was going to hell. He stated that he knew his girlfriend was going to hell, but he wasn’t sure if he would go there since he had tried everything to save his baby. He took all of the pro lifers literature and listened to their suggestions and went into clinic three times to save his baby.

And three times he came out unsuccessful and frustrated. I remember the sound of the abortuary door slamming shut after his third attempt and the look of disgust on his face as he sat on the steps and pondered the impending death of his baby. I was also feeling frustrated that nothing was working. Earlier in the day a pro lifer said with 100% confidence, “We don’t have to worry… God has this one under control. I don’t know why… but he does… it’s going to work out.”

I wanted to believe it, but after the third time I was running out of words. To be honest, I was running out of hope.  I thought about risking getting arrested and going into the abortuary myself and talking to his girlfriend directly. Maybe if I could look into her eyes she would know that her baby would be cared for even if it was a complete stranger. I asked God for a special intervention… even though I knew that God loves all of his children equally and is no respecter of persons.

I wanted to tell the world about the miracle of a young man who had friends he had never met waiting for him at the abortuary. I wanted to see the smile on his face and her face… but that’s not what happened. He went in a fourth time and we waited, and waited, but he never came out again. Finally we went home disappointed that we didn’t get to see a miracle that night, but we knew there would be other nights — even if we would never be able to erase the memory of a young man desperately trying to save his baby with the help of pro lifers who were praying and advocating with every gift God had given them.

I walked away that night convinced that somehow we had failed that Muslim boy. The last words I heard him say was that he wanted her to suffer for what she was about to do to their child.

And now we were staring at the doctor who stole that child’s life and played a role in destroying the relationship of a mother and father. I wanted to hear his justification for hurting a man who was powerless to save his child, but I wasn’t prepared for his answer.

“I know exactly who you’re talking about… she didn’t have an abortion that night. She changed her mind.”

Dr. Fitzhugh had no idea what he had just told us. Long after we had given up and gone home to begin the grieving process and question our inability to win the victory — God was still there fighting. And God was victorious.

This abortion story captures the weakness of men. Even when we’re told God has it under control we still manage to see the all ways that it cannot happen. How it’s just not possible. But God is faithful to the very last possible moment even after every human effort up to that point has failed.

The spiritual battle surrounding abortion is just another shining example of how God is triumphant.

“But Jesus beheld them, and said unto them, With men this is impossible; but with God all things are possible.” – Matt. 19:26

I like National Public Radio. I just wish they weren’t getting my tax money.

After the primaries for the 2008 election, The Joan Shorenstein Center on Press, Politics, and Public Policy of The Harvard Kennedy School released a study that showed the media had given measurably more favorable coverage for particular candidates. National Public Radio was no exception.

Nor is this year an exception. Recently on Morning Edition, Andrea Seabrook filed a report on two Republican candidates. According to Ms. Seabrook, there are some Republicans who are anti-science or at least not prone to engage in “evidence based policy making.”

Ms. Seabrook’s concern was first for Michelle Bachman and based on two statements the candidate made, one recently and one in 2009. In the first, Bachman speaks about God trying to send a message to congress given the recent earthquake and hurricane in the D.C. area. An audio clip was played during the report and to me, and apparently everyone in Bachman’s audience, she was making a joke. Seabrook, though, remained skeptical. In the second, Bachman comments on the Swine Flu panic that ensued not long after President Obama took office. The candidate declared it an “interesting coincidence” that the last time there was a Swine Flu panic was during the Carter administration. Presumably, she was hinting at the penchant for Democrats to not let a good crisis go to waste. The reporter pointed out that the first case was actually in 1976 with President Ford in the White House. So, the comment was inaccurate and maybe a little weird, but I don’t recall Ms. Seabrook having any concern during the last primaries about Senator Obama’s claim of having visited 57 states or his belief that if he were elected President, the seas would recede.

The other Republican in science trouble is Texas Governor, Rick Perry. Apparently he questions the extent of human activity on global warming. He said, “Yes, the climate is changing. It has been changing since the Earth began… Scientists are coming forward and questioning the original idea that man-made global warming is what is causing the climate to change.” Hmm? That doesn’t seem too extraordinary. But that wasn’t the governor’s only infraction! He also spoke about evolution: “It’s a theory out there that has some gaps in it.” Here, I think Ms. Seabrook was gasping for air, but I’m not sure why she seemed so offended. That he called it a theory? If so, that’s odd. It’s called The Theory of Evolution after all. Or doesn’t she like the ‘gap’ part? But Darwin himself acknowledged the difference (and problem) between micro and macro evolution. Not okay to refer to that as a gap?

Anyway, that got me thinking: Are Democrats really the party of “evidence based policy making?” If so, how do we explain all those counter-productive policy preferences put forth over the years? A few examples…

During the primary debates in 2007, then Senator Obama was asked why he would raise the capital gains tax given that it has, in the past, led to less revenue for government. Even though raising the tax would adversely affect 100 million Americans who own stock, the president responded that he would do it anyway as a matter of fairness. He cited 50 hedge fund managers who were making too much money (in an apparently unfair fashion) as a reason for this. In other words, the President would hurt 100 million citizens and reduce revenue in order to get the 50 rich guys. That doesn’t sound practical or evidence based. It sounds petty and ideological.

Al Gore claimed the seas will rise 20 feet in the next 100 years. The United Nation’s (IPCC Panel) latest report said that it might be more like, well, 18 inches. Either way, the Left proposed the Kyoto Protocol. The environmentalist, Bjorn Lomborg, of the Copenhagen Consensus, says two things. First that Al Gore is all about hype. Second, that even if all of the Kyoto Protocol was followed by every country on Earth for the next 100 years, it would postpone the effects of global warming only by 6 years. And that would come at 150 billion dollars per year. He also says that the United Nations figures you could cure every malady on Earth for half that. That’s basic health care, clean drinking water, sanitation, and education to every human being on the planet. Slow global warming by 6 years or, for half the money, provide all that much-needed care to the poorest on the globe. But the Left’s concern curiously remains with Cap and Trade.

How about DDT? Malaria was nearly eradicated from the globe by the 1960′s due to the pesticide’s use. In 1962, Rachel Carson, in her book Silent Spring, predicted that the use of DDT would cause a cancer epidemic that would hit “practically 100 percent” of the human population, and worse yet, would thin out the shells of bird eggs. After seven months and 9,000 pages of testimony, an EPA administrative judge concluded “DDT is not a carcinogenic hazard to man… DDT is not a mutagenic or teratogenic hazard to man… The use of DDT under the regulations involved here do not have a deleterious effect on freshwater fish, estuarine organisms, wild birds or other wildlife.” Still, in 1972 the pesticide was banned. Today the UN estimates that a child dies every 30 seconds from Malaria. And today, Rachel Carson is still praised by the Left. Evidence based or agenda based?

Unemployment insurance: Google “effect of increasing the length of unemployment insurance” and you will find any number of studies for cities, states, and even nations that show that the longer government provides insurance checks to the unemployed the longer it takes for those people to take a job. In spite of that, Congress has now extended benefits twice to 99 weeks. So if shortening the time frame will push people back to work why have Democrats insisted on the extensions? Evidence and policy once again at odds.

Social Security: An account opened for you and guaranteed by the government to assist you in paying your bills once you have retired. Only there isn’t really an account and the money you get back represents a horrible rate of return as compared with just about any other investment. On top of that, when you die, excess funds that you earned aren’t inherited by your family; rather, they remain with government. And since poorer people die younger than the wealthy, the system is actually regressive. With average life expectancy as it is, we end up with young black men subsidizing old white woman. So why is this considered a third rail in politics? Precisely because it is politics. There certainly isn’t evidence that this system makes any sense economically.

The Left’s list of impractical, illogical, and problem ridden policies is endless: The Square Deal, the New Freedom, the New Era, The New Deal, The Great Society… The mercury-filled light bulb, the living wage, affordable housing, CAFE standards… All flawed. All with unintended consequences. All based on theory or merely a ‘feeling’ that it’s the right thing to do.

So, Ms. Seabrook, is the Left really where you go for evidence based policy?