The Myth That Standard Oil Was a ‘Predatory Monopoly’

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In light of recent calls to enforce antitrust laws against Google, it is worth scrutinizing the argument behind antitrust regulation. As is often the case, these regulatory efforts hurt consumers more than they help.

Consider some history. The Sherman Antitrust Act was passed in 1890 against the backdrop of the nascent Industrial Revolution and the rise of big business in America. The ostensible rationale for antitrust regulation was to protect consumers from the “predatory pricing” of large companies. The theory holds that a company could cut its prices low enough to drive competition out of the marketplace. Then, when it corners a market, it could raise prices and exploit consumers. It’s a plausible-sounding theory. But almost never has it been documented in practice.

Take the case against Standard Oil, which is regarded today as textbook evidence of predatory monopoly power. In 1870, when it was in its early years, Standard Oil owned just 4 percent of the petroleum market. John D. Rockefeller, however, obsessed over improving efficiency and cutting costs. Through economies of scale and vertical integration, he vastly improved oil-refining efficiency. His business grew as a result.

By 1874, his share of the petroleum market jumped to 25 percent, and by 1880 it skyrocketed to about 85 percent. Meanwhile, the price of oil plummeted from 30 cents per gallon in 1869 to eight cents in 1885. Put simply, Rockefeller increased production and lowered prices while creating thousands of well-paid jobs along the way (he usually paid his workers significantly more than his competition did). His business was a model of free-market efficiency.

But neither his competitors nor the US Supreme Court seemed to take note. In 1911, the court declared Standard Oil a monopoly and ordered its breakup. Revealingly, as scholars have noted, the court made no mention of either predatory pricing or withholding production, as monopoly theory maintains. In fact, economist John S. McGee reviewed over 11,000 pages of trial testimony, including the charges brought by Standard Oil’s competitors. Publishing his findings in the Journal of Law and Economics, he concluded that there was “little to no evidence” of wrongdoing, adding that “Standard Oil did not use predatory price cutting to acquire or keep monopoly power.”

Furthermore, and also in contradiction to monopoly theory, Standard Oil’s share of the market had declined from close to 90 percent in the late 1800s to about 65 percent at the time of the court’s ruling. These facts, however, did not faze the judiciary. The court ruled that because Standard Oil had consolidated some 30 divisions under one single management structure it counted as a monopoly. In other words, Standard Oil did precisely the opposite of what monopoly theory maintains—it reduced rather than raised prices, it increased rather than cut production, it lost rather than “controlled” market share, and it paid its employees more rather than less than its competitors—yet the theory that Standard Oil engaged in “predatory practices” and “exploited” consumers has prevailed in our history books.

But the truth is the theory is as lacking as the evidence is scarce. First, it is incredibly risky for a company to artificially hold down its prices in hopes that it drives competitors out of the market. No company knows how long that might take—weeks, months, years? Who can afford that risk? Second, at any point a competitor could enter the market and force a predatory business to continue driving its prices down, thus inflicting even more financial pain. Third, artificially low prices encourage increased consumer demand, meaning a business that sells product below cost must step up its production to meet higher demand, accelerating its financial losses.

For these reasons, private monopolies are virtually non-existent in the historical record. Indeed, University of Hartford economics professor and antitrust expert Dominick Armentano reviewed 55 of the most famous antitrust cases in US history. In his landmark book, Antitrust and Monopoly: Anatomy of a Policy Failure, he concluded:

Antitrust policy in America is a misleading myth that has served to draw public attention away from the actual process of monopolization that has been occurring throughout the economy. The general public has been deluded into believing that monopoly is a free-market problem, and that the government, through antitrust enforcement, is on the side of the ‘angels.’ The facts are exactly the opposite. Antitrust…served as a convenient cover for an insidious process of monopolization in the marketplace.

In other words, the very antitrust policies that were designed to prevent monopolies have in fact created them. For example, economist Tom DiLorenzo documents that following the breakup of Standard Oil, the government created the Oil Division of the US Fuel Administration and the Federal Oil Conservation Board, effectively making the oil industry a government-protected monopoly.

While the purported purpose was to assure steady oil production during and after WWI, it, in fact produced the full repertoire of predatory monopoly policies: price fixing (at artificially high rates), the elimination of competition, inefficiency, corruption, and waste. Moreover, this pattern has been a consistent feature of antitrust policy. As Armentano notes, “the entire antitrust system—allegedly created to protect competition and increase consumer welfare—has worked, instead, to lessen business competition and lessen the efficiency and productivity associated with the free-market process.”

Thus, the record is clear: Antitrust has inflicted far more harm than good. Those calling to enforce it against Google ought to study that record. Doing so would encourage them to realize that antitrust policy is the problem and that applying it is far from a helpful solution.

COLUMN BY

David Weinberger

David Weinberger

David Weinberger previously worked at a public policy institution. He is currently a freelance writer. Follow him on Twitter @dweinberger03.Email him at dwdweinberger@gmail.com.

RELATED ARTICLE: Trump helping Europe cut the electric cord with Russia

EDITORS NOTE: This column with images by FEE is republished with permission.

15 Things You Should Know about the 2018 Partial Government Shutdown

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Because the spending bill requires a filibuster-proof majority to pass in the Senate, Republicans need several Democrats to support the funding proposal that includes border wall funding.

On Friday, the federal government entered a partial shutdown after the Senate failed to pass a spending bill that includes border wall funding. President Trump refuses to sign any additional funding that does not include $5.1 billion in additional money to pay for an extension of the border wall, allowing him to fulfill his primary campaign promise.

A government shutdown occurs either when Congress fails to pass funding bills or when the president refuses to sign a funding bill before the current appropriations expire.

A partial government shutdown occurs when many or most government agencies have already been funded by other legislation but there remain some areas that still need funding.

Several government agencies were already funded for fiscal year 2019. But another funding bill was needed to cover several agencies for about seven weeks. Nine out of 15 federal departments, dozens of agencies, and several programs will be closed or reduce operations:

  • Department of Commerce
  • Department of Homeland Security
  • Department of Housing and Urban Development
  • Department of Interior
  • Department of Justice
  • Department of State
  • Department of Transportation
  • Environment Protection Agency (EPA)
  • Federal Drug Administration (FDA)
  • United States Department of Agriculture (USDA)
  • Programs related to science, financial services, and other agencies
  • The National Flood Insurance Program
  • The Violence Against Women Act
  • The Pesticide Registration Improvement Act
  • Temporary Assistance for Needy Families
  • Immigration extensions (EB-5, E-Verify, Conrad 30 program for international medical school graduates, Special Immigrant Religious Workers program, and H2B returning worker authority for DHS)
  • The Chemical Facility Anti-Terrorism Standards Act
  • Two expiring provisions of the Pandemic All-Hazards Preparedness Act
  • Medicaid Money-Follows-the-Person and Spousal Impoverishment, through March 31

According to the Senate Appropriations Committee, more than 41,000 federal law enforcement and correctional officers will be affected, including:

  • 2,614 ATF agents
  • 16,742 Bureau of Prisons correctional officers
  • 13,709 FBI agents
  • 3,600 deputy US Marshals
  • 4,399 DEA agents
  • 54,000 Customs and Border Protection agents and customs officers
  • 42,000 Coast Guard employees

Under a federal law known as the Anti-Deficiency Act, it can be a felony to spend taxpayer money without an appropriation from Congress.

The US Constitution grants Congress the power to allocate all funds collected through taxes (“No money shall be drawn from the Treasury, but in Consequence of Appropriations made by Law.”). Most government spending is mandatory spending, which means Congress has passed a law requiring monies to be used for specific purposes. Examples of mandatory spending are Medicare and Medicaid, Social Security, and unemployment benefits.

Approximately 35 percent of government spending, though, is non-discretionary spending. This type of spending includes spending on such things as defense, homeland security, and education. For the federal agencies to receive this funding, Congress has to authorize this spending. In December, Congress passed the Further Additional Continuing Appropriations Act, 2018 (HR 1370), which provides non-discretionary funding through January 19, 2018.

No. Even in a full, rather than partial, shutdown, programs deemed “essential”—which include, among other agencies and services, the military, air traffic control, food inspections, etc.—would continue as normal. “Non-essential” programs and services such as national parks and federal museums would be closed. Federal workers deemed non-essential would also be furloughed.

Not directly. Benefits like Social Security, Medicare, and retirement for veterans are mandatory spending, so they are unaffected. However, if the workers who mail the checks are considered “non-essential,” it may result in delays in the checks being sent out.

Congress is exempted from the furloughs, and the Capitol building will stay open, so lawmakers aren’t really affected. Several types of executive branch officials and employees are also not subject to furlough. These include the president, presidential appointees, and federal employees deemed excepted by the Office of Public Management.

Yes. The United States Postal Service is exempt from the federal government shutdown because it does not receive its budget from annual appropriations from Congress.

Federal workers placed on furlough will not get paid during a shutdown. However, after past shutdowns, Congress has always voted to pay furloughed workers retroactively.

Not if past shutdowns are any indication. The Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget reports that estimates vary widely, but “evidence suggests that shutdowns tend to cost, not save, money.” A recent shutdown cost the government $1.4 billion, according to an estimate by the Office of Management and Budget.

Since 1976, there have been almost two dozen shutdowns—including three under President Trump. However, before the 1980s, the government continued operating at reduced levels without furloughing workers. The two shutdowns in 2018 lasted mere days, while the shutdown in 2013 lasted 16 days.

Prior to that was the longest shutdown in modern history—a 21-day shutdown in December 1995 that came soon after a five-day shutdown that lasted from November 13-19. Those shutdowns were sparked by a disagreement over tax cuts between then-President Bill Clinton and former House Speaker Newt Gingrich.

Because the spending bill requires a filibuster-proof majority to pass in the Senate, Republicans need several Democrats to support the funding proposal that includes border wall funding.

On December 11, President Trump told two Democratic leaders of Congress, “I am proud to shut down the government for border security . . . I will take the mantle. I will be the one to shut it down. I’m not going to blame you for it.”

The president has backtracked, though, and attempted to avoid blame. On Friday he tweeted, “The Democrats now own the shutdown!”

However long the shutdown lasts, the GOP will likely be considered at fault. Since the 1990s, polls show that Republicans are the party most blamed for government shutdowns.

This article was reprinted with permission from the Acton Institute.

COLUMN BY

Joe Carter

Joe Carter

Joe Carter is a Senior Editor at the Acton Institute. Joe also serves as an editor at The Gospel Coalition, a communications specialist for the Ethics and Religious Liberty Commission of the Southern Baptist Convention, and as an adjunct professor of journalism at Patrick Henry College. He is the editor of the NIV Lifehacks Bible and co-author of How to Argue like Jesus: Learning Persuasion from History’s Greatest Communicator (Crossway).

RELATED ARTICLE: Look how much of these federal departments is ‘nonessential’

EDITORS NOTE: This column with images by FEE is republished with permission. Image credit: Wikimedia

Bump Stock Ban Broken Down: Unconstitutional And Futile

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“Those who would give up essential Liberty, to purchase a little temporary Safety, deserve neither Liberty nor Safety.” – Benjamin Franklin

On December 10, 2018, the Department of Justice published its final rule regarding a bump stock ban in the United States. (The rule can be found at the The Federalist Pages Library section, along with the NRA’s comments on the proposed rule.) The DOJ arrived at this prohibition by holding that bump stocks are machine guns under the definitions of such weapons contained in 27 C.F.R. §§ 447.11, 478.11, and 479.11. But even if DOJ were to have the authority to enact this regulation, the rule would serve only to further threaten American citizens with excessive regulatory restraints while not having a chance at achieving its stated purpose.

A constitutional government of enumerated powers ought not pass any law that falls outside the ambit of those authorities given to it, nor those that do not serve to improve society. As such, even if we decide that a government is authorized to pass a law, that authorization is nullified by the futility of the act. Such is the case here.

First, Congress is arguably entitled to pass a bump stock ban under the Second Amendment.

A valid argument can be made that Congress possesses the authority under the Constitution to pass a bump stock ban. Although some argue the Second Amendment to the Constitution prohibits Congress from banning bump stocks, in point of fact, a stronger argument holds that such a prohibition does not apply to firearm accessories, which bump stocks clearly are.

In banning bump stocks, the DOJ claims it is merely interpreting the definitions of “machine gun” contained in 27 C.F.R. §§ 447.11, 478.11, and 479.11. Because it does not include a provision addressing parts of a machine gun, 27 C.F.R. § 447.11 could not be construed to include a bump stock, but 27 C.F.R. §§ 478.11 & 479.11 do. They define a machine gun as “any weapon, which shoots, is designed to shoot, or can be readily restored to shoot, automatically more than one shot, without manual reloading, by a single function of the trigger. The term shall also include the frame or receiver of any such weapon, any part designed and intended solely and exclusively, or combination of parts designed and intended, for use in converting a weapon into a machine gun, and any combination of parts from which a machine gun can be assembled if such parts are in the possession or under control of a person.”

Clearly, bump stocks may not be included within the first part of the definitions of “machine gun,” but bump stocks are designed solely and exclusively for use in converting a weapon into a machine gun.

Of course, there is an inconsistency in using the term machine gun within the definition of machine gun, as doing so implies that what is being described is not a machine gun, but something else — which is then modified to act as a machine gun. As we shall see, the flawed design of the machine gun definition brings up some legal difficulties.

Because it could reasonably be argued that Congress intended to include bump stocks within its definition of machine gun, which would mean the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms, and Explosives would have the authority to regulate them, and DOJ would have the congressional authority to ban them.

But oddly, by calling a bump stock a machine gun, DOJ opens the door to Second Amendment jurisdiction. Governments have argued their authorities to regulate magazines, bullets, and other firearm attachments are not subject to Second Amendment restrictions because these are not “arms” as referenced in the Second Amendment, but rather accessories to arms.

However, in order to avail itself of the congressional authority to regulate bump stocks, DOJ has found it necessary to call bump stocks machine guns, which are firearms, thus opening the door to Second Amendment challenges.

Even if the judiciary takes up the charge of considering bump stocks machine guns in the full sense of the word, the question of whether it would find that regulating bump stocks runs afoul of the Second Amendment is a separate matter.

Interestingly, it was not until the District of Columbia v. Heller case of 2008 that the Supreme Court defined those weapons protected by the Second Amendment. Here, the Court ruled that it was weapons “in common use,” that were protected. Although little question exists that bump stocks are “in common use,” the Court also reminded us that Congress could ban “dangerous and unusual weapons.”

Notice, the phrase is not dangerous or unusual, but dangerous and unusual, forcing the government to show that bump stocks are both if it were to defend its authority to prohibit them. What the courts would rule if it would accept the invitation to consider bump stocks as actual firearms rather than accessories remains to be seen.

Countering this position is the lack of meaningful uses for bump stocks, which are used to increase the speed with which a weapon is fired, but most gun experts say that bump stocks are worthless items that only serve to diminish the accuracy of the weapon, and they are not advocated for use in hunting, or even as a valid enhancement to one’s self-defense. As such, it would be a very easy bar for the advocate to clear in arguing the superfluousness of such items and therefore, the lack of any meaningful intrusion on individual liberties in banning them.

One could also argue that a bump stock is not a machine gun. This is inherently true, of course, as a bump stock could not, by itself, fire a bullet. If a bump stock is not a machine gun, then DOJ’s reliance on 27 C.F.R. §§ 478.11 & 479.11 would get thrown out as nonsensical. Frankly speaking, such would be the honest assessment and the most appropriate outcome of a true evaluation of the language of the governing statutes.

However, it is equally clear that Congress, despite the grammatical impossibility of its definition, intended to include articles such as bump stocks in its regulatory scheme. A court would likely stick to the intent of the statute rather than engage in wordplay on such a politically charged issue. Of course, should the court decide not to make an issue of the incongruity of the definition of machine gun, it would immediately force itself to address the Second Amendment issues noted above; an inescapable Hobson’s choice

Is Congress’s ban prohibited by the broader Constitution?

There is yet another, more fundamental argument to be made against the validity of a congressional ban: it might not be allowed by the Constitution itself.  Until now, our constitutional considerations have centered on whether Congress may ban bump stocks under the Second Amendment.  Indeed, the greater question is whether Congress was ever given the authority to do so under the broader Constitution.

The federal government is one of enumerated powers. If a power employed by Congress in passing a law is not contained in Article I, Section 8 of the Constitution; it cannot possess the authority to enact it, and there is no provision in the Constitution allowing Congress to ban bump stocks. Even the interstate commerce clause would not allow Congress to ban it.

That Congress was not given the authority in Article I to ban items is a well-founded contention as the Framers did not intend to create a federal government that could ban such things, leaving it to the states to do so instead. To be sure, the Article I powers contained in the Constitution have been expanded by the interstate commerce clause, but even if the interstate commerce clause were to be employed in Congress’s defense of regulating bump stocks, such powers would allow Congress to prohibit the interstate transport and sale of such items, not their intrastate possession.

Sadly, though, the train allowing Congress to intrude in such intrastate activities has long since left the station and delivering such an argument before a federal magistrate would be met with nothing other than hostility.

In the most practical sense, regulating bump stocks would likely not help.

Despite these valid arguments, many of which are addressed in DOJ’s final rule announcement, the most basic argument against banning bump stock lies in its futility. Recall that according to the legal theory leading to the creation of our government, the burden is upon the authorities to show that the rule or law passed is within the ambit of its authorities and purposeful in addressing a societal problem.

Assuming appropriate authority — which we questioned above — would banning bump stocks help solve a societal problem?

The discussion about banning bump stocks was brought back to the forefront of the nation’s political discussion after the horrible massacre of 2017 in Las Vegas. There, bump stocks were used to convert semiautomatic weapons to automatics and spray over 1,100 rounds from the 43d floor of a hotel onto concert goers assembled across the street. Fifty-eight people were killed that night and another 851 were injured, 422 from gunshot wounds.

Immediately, gun control advocates, knowing that they would not easily be able to ban semiautomatic weapons, focused their attention on bump stocks. Although bump stocks were not employed in the February 14, 2018, Parkland shooting, that massacre reinvigorated the call for a ban, one that President Trump adopted. By March 2018, DOJ had published its proposed rule.

But such a ban will not have any effect on preventing or lessening these massacres.

First, massacres can and often do take place without the use of semiautomatic weapon converters. Not only did the Parkland shooter not employ bump stocks, but also the later massacre in a California nightclub where 13 were killed was carried out with great effectiveness with a handheld semiautomatic. Similarly, the Pulse Club shooting in Orlando that killed 49 people did not include bump stocks.

Federal authorities do not know how many bump stocks exist in the United States although DOJ estimates that there are anywhere between 280,000 and 520,000 in circulation. There is no record of who owns these accessories, making it impossible for DOJ to chase them down. Additionally, the rule relies primarily on the voluntary destruction of bump stocks to remove them from circulation. Here, we can learn from the experiences of the few states that have passed bump stock bans. In New Jersey, its bump stock return program has produced exactly zero bump stocks to authorities. And in Massachusetts, its program has delivered three.

Moreover, a semiautomatic rifle can be converted to fire automatically by using as many methods as imaginative minds can conjure, making conversion a relatively simple affair, bump stock or not.

Even Jeremy Stein, the President of Connecticut Against Gun Violence and coauthor of the Connecticut bump stock bill called the legislation ineffective at solving gun violence problems and said the effort at banning bump stocks was “symbolic.” In addition, The Wall Street Journal said enforcement would be “a challenge.”

So the strongest argument in favor of passing anti-bump stock legislation is the invalid symbolism contention and the argument against it is the indisputable futility charge, and possible unconstitutionality.

But the rule gets enacted anyway, which brings us to the heart of the issue. Government should not be engaged in the practice of knowingly passing ineffective legislation, and we the people should not be allowing it to do so.

Yet, they do; and we do. And therein lies the crux of our problem.

EDITORS NOTE: This column originally appeared in The Revolutionary Act. The featured photo is by Anthony Garand on Unsplash.

Report Details Nature Of Facebook’s Secret Rulebook Governing Global Speech

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Facebook’s secretive rulebook regulating how employees censor certain forms of expression contains numerous biases and outright errors, according to internal documents The New York Times obtained Friday.

The nearly 1,400-page document shows the Silicon Valley company’s guidebook is riddled with mistakes and is not nimble enough to handle cultural nuance, the report notes. The guidelines censor mainstream speech in one country while allowing extremist language to fester in others.

Several dozen Facebook employees gather every other Tuesday to brainstorm rules that flesh out what people can and cannot say while navigating the platform, according to TheNYT. The guidelines that are agreed upon are then sent out to 7,500-plus moderators around the world.

The Facebook employees, many of whom are young, attempt to distill complex issues into concrete yes-or-no categories. Much of the post-by-post moderation is outsourced to companies that enlist unskilled workers, the report states, citing documents from an employee who worried the rule book is too intrusive.

Moderators often use Google Translator for the mind-numbing work. They must recall countless rules and apply them to the hundreds of posts a day, with the cultural context largely stripped. They suss through emojis, smiley faces and sometimes innocuous comments to determine what is dangerous and what is not.

Facebook executives say it’s all part of the daily grinding of trying to ensure a safe place on the platform.

“There’s a real tension here between wanting to have nuances to account for every situation and wanting to have set of policies we can enforce accurately, and we can explain cleanly,” Monika Bickert, Facebook’s head of global policy management, told reporters, noting the first goal is to prevent harm.


FILE PHOTO: The entrance sign to Facebook headquarters is seen in Menlo Park, California, on Wednesday, October 10, 2018. REUTERS/Elijah Nouvelage/File Photo

The report also suggests guidelines are futzing with electoral politics in countries like Pakistan, which places a media blackout on Election Day. The media ban makes Facebook a potentially powerful weapon — the rulebook can elevate some candidates and messages while suppressing others.

“Facebook’s role has become so hegemonic, so monopolistic, that it has become a force unto itself,” Jasmin Mujanovic, an expert on the Balkans, told reporters. “No one entity, especially not a for-profit venture like Facebook, should have that kind of power to influence public debate and policy.”

The Silicon Valley company has been beating back negative press for the past several months. One Dec. 19 report from TheNYT showed Facebook began forming data partnerships with the likes of Amazon, Microsoft and Yahoo. (

The tool allowed Facebook to adhere itself to multiple social media platforms while insulating itself from competition, but by 2013 the program became too unwieldy for mid-level employees to govern, so the company resorted to putting it on autopilot.

Follow Chris White on Facebook and Twitter

RELATED ARTICLE: REPORT: Facebook Gave AI Control Of A Crucial Personal Data Collection Tool

EDITORS NOTE: This column with images by The Daily Caller is republished with permission. Content created by The Daily Caller News Foundation is available without charge to any eligible news publisher that can provide a large audience. For licensing opportunities of our original content, please contact licensing@dailycallernewsfoundation.org.

The Cure for Republican ‘Shutdown-ophobia’ Is Forceful Messaging on the Wall, Not Surrendering

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Supporters of border security can only hope that, over the Christmas recess, Santa gifted congressional Republicans with a crash course in effective messaging on the need for funding for President Donald Trump’s border wall.

They will need it when Congress reconvenes Thursday amid the partial government shutdown caused by Democratic intransigence over funding the border barrier.

The crash course should be taught by psychologists who would start by counseling weak-kneed GOP lawmakers that the best way to overcome a phobia—in this case, “shutdown-ophobia”—is to confront the fear head-on, rather than running away from it.

The tutorial in messaging is needed because, until Trump forced their hand, GOP leaders in Congress were poised to throw away the only leverage they have to secure funding for the wall, by agreeing to another continuing budget resolution with almost no money for the wall.

That capitulation would have only ensured the wall would never get funded, much less built, with Democrats—who are indefensibly opposed to border security, their protestations to the contrary notwithstanding—set to retake control of the House next week.

So, why were congressional Republicans willing to surrender unilaterally, and why did it require Trump’s vow to veto the continuing resolution to inject some much-needed steel into their spines?

It can all be traced back to shutdown-ophobia.

Psychologists define phobias as “an extreme or irrational fear of, or aversion to, something,” and the Republican leadership’s shutdown-ophobia is nothing if not irrational, given that Republicans scored presidential landslides in 1984 and 1988 despite no fewer than eight government closures during the Reagan administrations alone.

More recently, Republicans actually added to their House majority and took control of the Senate in the 2014 midterms following a 2013 shutdown of more than two weeks’ duration brought about by Texas Republican Sen. Ted Cruz’s opposition to Obamacare.

So much for the elephant’s memory.

Despite having a winning hand on the issue of the border wall if it’s messaged properly and consistently, Republican leaders in Congress inexplicably feared the government-shutdown boogeyman more than they feared angering the party’s base, which overwhelmingly supports building the wall.

Congressional Republicans were about to blink and throw their base under the bus in exchange for, well, nothing, until Trump put his foot down.

Democrats were setting the stage for a reprise of 1992, when they prodded President George H.W. Bush to repudiate his “Read my lips; no new taxes” pledge. That as much as Ross Perot’s third-party candidacy ensured that there would be no new term for Bush.

Capitulation on border wall funding likely would have had that same dispiriting effect on the GOP base, because the wall was and is Trump’s signature issue.

Throwing in the towel rightly would have been seen as a betrayal, and it would almost certainly doom any chances Trump has of re-election in 2020.

But GOP congressional leaders were seemingly paralyzed by shutdown-ophobia, fear that the mainstream media—who, like the Democrats, support open borders—would blame them for the shutdown, even though Democrats’ intransigence is the real cause.

If the GOP’s overrated K Street consultants were any good at strategy and messaging (they’ve demonstrated time and again they’re not), it would be an easy matter to recast the blame for the shutdown on Democratic unwillingness to defend America’s borders.

That brings us back to the need for better messaging. Presidential tweets are insufficient. Trump should request nothing less than TV airtime for a prime-time address to the nation on the issue of border security.

Yes, national sovereignty is that important, and that’s precisely how the issue should be cast.

The president could begin his address—which he should have given weeks ago, before the prior continuing resolution lapsed—by citing a Dec. 11 tweet from Republican National Committee Chairwoman Ronna Romney McDaniel.

McDaniel noted:

In ’13 under Obama, all 54 Dems in the Dem Senate voted to:

*double length of border barrier w/Mexico

*spend $40B on border security

*end diversity visa lottery

*double # of border agents to 40K

* create merit-based visas

Now that @realDonaldTrump’s in office, they’re opposed.

That hypocrisy would put the lie to Senate Democrats’ insistence that they’re not against border security, just against a border wall as a way to achieve it.

The president should also borrow a tactic from leftist Saul Alinsky’s playbook, “Rules for Radicals”; namely, ridicule, which Alinsky described as “man’s most potent weapon.” Underscore the absurdity of the Democrats, who have never met a spending program they wouldn’t increase, claiming the mantle of budget hawks in arguing we “can’t afford” $5 billion for a border wall.

In a $4.4 trillion annual federal budget, $5 billion doesn’t even qualify as a rounding error. It’s significantly less than the $5.89 billion the Treasury says we spent on food stamps in October alone.

The president should also explain that the one-time cost of building a wall is absolutely dwarfed by how much illegal immigration costs federal, state, and local governments every year. Estimates range from a 2013 tally by The Heritage Foundation of a net cost of  $54 billion a year to a 2017 calculation of $115.9 billion by the Federation for American Immigration Reform.

Democrats opposed to the wall must be made to answer two simple questions: How many is too many illegal immigrants? And how much is too much for taxpayers to have to pay for their presence here?

During his address from the Oval Office, Trump should be flanked by Border Patrol agents and border county sheriffs, who overwhelmingly support the wall, and by survivors of the victims of the crimes of illegal immigrants, like the parents of Kate Steinle and Mollie Tibbetts.

The president could call on representatives of both groups to make remarks reinforcing his own, as if to say, “If you don’t believe me, believe them.”

That’s what an effective, compelling messaging strategy would look like if Republican leaders would just overcome their irrational shutdown-ophobia and fight back with all the weapons at their disposal.

COMMENTARY BY

Peter Parisi

Peter Parisi is an editor and writer for The Daily Signal.

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EDITORS NOTE: This column with images by The Daily Signal is republished with permission. Photo: Douliery Olivier /ABACA/Newscom.

WHY TRUMP’S WALL IS A MUST: And why a “virtual fence” will stop no one.

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President Trump has demonstrated, once again, that he is a man of his word, opting to shut down the government rather than accede to the globalist Democrats who refuse to provide funding for the wall to be erected to help secure the dangerous and porous U.S./Mexican border.

Schumer, Pelosi and others, mostly Democrats, have opposed a wall and called for drones and other elements of a “virtual fence” along the southern border insisting that a wall would be too expensive and not needed.

As I noted in an earlier article, America Needs A Border Wall Like Houses Need Insulation, just as the cost of insulating houses ultimately saves money, by keeping warm air from escaping the house in the winter, insulating America against contraband (including deadly, dangerous narcotics), illegals and the criminals and terrorists among them, would protect America and Americans; and help staunch the flow of tens of billions of dollars annually sent out of the United States by illegal alien workers and criminals.

The cost of a secure border wall should be considered an investment in national security, public safety and the livelihoods of American workers.  This is one investment that would not only pay for itself and, indeed pay dividends, but save many, many innocent lives.

For years, drones–also known as UAV’s (Unmanned Aerial Vehicles)–have been deployed along that border at great expense and with little or nothing to show for the costly effort.

The deployment of the U.S. military’s Predator UAV’s to support the Border Patrol’s efforts to secure our borders provided many Americans with a sense of security.  After all, the military relies on those drones and we all know the U.S. military’s prowess at achieving national security goals and objectives.

In reality, for the most part, that sense of security provided by the drones has been false security.  False security is worse than no security.

The stark and irrefutable reality is that drones and other such devices cannot stop the entry of any illegal aliens or contraband.

Drones can spot illegal aliens and contraband only after our borders have been violated.  This is true for all of the technological devices that are deployed along the border.

Furthermore, unmanned drones cannot make arrests.  All that drones, pole-mounted cameras, radar and other sensors can do is transmit alerts and images to alert members of the U.S. Border Patrol that illegal entries into the United States have already taken place.  The Border Patrol then must have the resources to respond to those alerts and images provided by the drones and other costly high-tech devices.

On May 1, 2018 the Cato Institute published the Immigration Research And Policy Brief No. 5: Drones on the Border: Efficacy and Privacy Implications which began with the following two paragraphs:

In response to President Donald Trump’s call for a border wall, some members of Congress have instead offered a “virtual wall”—ocean-to-ocean border surveillance with technology, especially unmanned aircraft known as drones. U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) already operates a fleet of nine unmanned aircraft. Although drones have been widely used in foreign battlefields, they have failed to help CBP apprehend illegal border crossers and seize drugs. Drones have led to only 0.5 percent of apprehensions at a cost of $32,000 per arrest.

At the same time, drones undermine Americans’ privacy. Their surveillance records the daily lives of Americans living along the border, and because CBP regularly uses its drones to support the operations of other federal agencies as well as state and local police, its drones allow for government surveillance nationwide with minimal oversight and without warrants. CBP should wind down its drone program and, in the meantime, establish more robust privacy protections.

Drones cannot assist Border Patrol agents who come under attack by illegal aliens and alien smugglers.  All that drones can do is transit images of agents who are being attacked and other agents then need to respond to back up the agents who are being attacked.

Drones are also vulnerable to hacking.  On December 17, 2015 the website Defense One published a report, DHS: Drug Traffickers Are Spoofing Border Drones that include the following statement:

“The bad guys on the border have lots of money and what they are putting money into is into spoofing and jamming GPS systems. We’re funding some advances so we can counter this,” said Timothy Bennett, a science-and-technology program manager at the Department of Homeland Security, which oversees CBP. Those bad guys aren’t ISIS, just traffickers, Bennett said on Dec. 16 at the Center for Strategic and International Studies “It’s more about trafficking drugs and people,” he told Defense One. “We know who’s over there. We can guess who’s doing it.”

On December 24, 2014 the DHS Office of Inspector General (OIG) issued a report, “U.S. Customs and Border Protection’s Unmanned Aircraft System Program Does Not Achieve Intended Results or Recognize All Costs of Operations” that included the following assessments:

 Although CBP’s Unmanned Aircraft System program contributes to border security, after 8 years, CBP cannot prove that the program is effective because it has not developed performance measures. The program has also not achieved the expected results. Specifically, the unmanned aircraft are not meeting flight hour goals. Although CBP anticipated increased apprehensions of illegal border crossers, a reduction in border surveillance costs, and improvement in the U.S. Border Patrol’s efficiency, we found little or no evidence that CBP met those program expectations.

We estimate that, in fiscal year 2013, it cost at least $62.5 million to operate the program, or about $12,255 per hour. The Office of Air and Marine’s calculation of $2,468 per flight hour does not include operating costs, such as the costs of pilots, equipment, and overhead. By not including all operating costs, CBP also cannot accurately assess the program’s cost effectiveness or make informed decisions about program expansion. In addition, unless CBP fully discloses all operating costs, Congress and the public are unaware of all the resources committed to the Unmanned Aircraft System program. As a result, CBP has invested significant funds in a program that has not achieved the expected results, and it cannot demonstrate how much the program has improved border security.

Given the cost of the Unmanned Aircraft System program and its unproven effectiveness, CBP should reconsider its plan to expand the program. The $443 million that CBP plans to spend on program expansion could be put to better use by investing in alternatives, such as manned aircraft and ground surveillance assets.

An effective wall, however, could prevent the illegal entry of aliens and contraband in the first place.

This should be a matter of common sense, yet many members of Congress have resisted the construction of a wall.

The major corporations that sell the government the drones, cameras and sensors find this to be an extremely lucrative venture.  All too frequently you have to consider the potential for what has come to be referred to as “crony capitalism.”

Of far greater concern however, is the simple and unavoidable conclusion that I came to many years ago.  I have come to refer to this as the magic act, comparable to the magician who promises his audience that he will slice his lovely assistance in half.

Using all sorts of devices, blue smoke, mirrors and lighting, the magician creates a most convincing illusion that he had, indeed, cut the poor young woman in half.  However, to everyone’s relief, after the stunt is carried out, his assistant bounds up onto the stage to the enthusiastic applause and cheers of the audience.

Of course, it is clear that the last thing that the magician would want to do is really slice his assistant in half.  He would go to jail and probably never be able to find anyone willing to work with him again.

Politicians like Schumer and Pelosi know damned well that the great majority of Americans, including their supposed constituents want our borders secured against the illegal entry of aliens, particularly the criminals and terrorists among them.  The politicians know that the voters want to keep drugs out of their communities.  However, the politicians also know that the majority of the special interest groups, such as the U.S. Chamber of Commerce want our borders left open so that cheap and exploitable workers can flood into the United States.

Politicians know that they need those campaign contributions from those special interest groups if they are to win their next elections, so they are compelled to meet the demands of their de-facto employers, those who write those big, fat political campaign checks.

Not unlike that magician, politicians have become adept at creating illusions that they are eager to secure our borders and demonstrate this by voting for expensive measures and programs that are largely worthless, but create the convincing illusion that lots of money is being spent to meet the demands of their constituents while, in reality, just as the magician’s assistant is unharmed, the flood of exploitable workers will be able to continue without impediment.

So, while Schumer continues to drone on, and on, ad nauseam, the truth is that America’s borders cannot be secured by blue smoke and mirrors.

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EDITORS NOTE: This column with images originally appeared in FrontPage Magazine. It is republished with permission.

Ohio Legislature Defeats Kasich’s Veto On Gun-Owner Rights Bill

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Ohio Republican Gov. John Kasich’s veto opposing a bill for gun owners’ rights was overturned by the Republican-led state legislature Thursday.

The state House first voted to overturn Kasich’s veto on the bill, which makes it easier for off-duty police officers to access guns and also changes laws regarding self-defense cases. The state Senate then voted later, 21-11, turning down Kasich’s veto on the legislation, The Associated Press reported.

The bill was heavily supported by pro-gun groups in the state that pushed lawmakers to overturn the veto.

Kasich, who is known as a more moderate Republican, has been a critic of President Donald Trump, blaming GOP leadership and Democratic leadership for many of the problems going on in Washington, D.C.The Republican governor also vetoed a bill banning abortion if an unborn baby has a heartbeat, known as the “heartbeat bill,” which was voted on Thursday as well. However, the Senate failed to overturn Kasich’s veto.

He has not ruled out a 2020 run as a third-party candidate against Trump.

COLUMN BY

Henry Rodgers

Capitol Hill Reporter. Follow Henry Rodgers On Twitter

RELATED ARTICLE: John Kasich To Veto 6-Week Abortion Ban And Gun Rights Bill

EDITORS NOTE: This column with images by The Daily Caller is republished with permission. Content created by The Daily Caller News Foundation is available without charge to any eligible news publisher that can provide a large audience. For licensing opportunities of our original content, please contact licensing@dailycallernewsfoundation.org.

VIDEO: Public Enemy #1 — The Democratic Party

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The Democrat Party has become public enemy #1….its time for the American people to dismantle this godless, anti American party.

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EDITORS NOTE: This video is republished with permission. The featured photo is by History in HD on Unsplash.

Slaving Private Ryan

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“A great civilization is not conquered from without until it has destroyed itself from within. ” — Ariel Durant, Russian-born American researcher and writer, co-author of The Story of Civilization, Pulitzer Prize winner for general non-fiction. (1898-1981)

While the United Nations agreed to flood Western nations with thousands of strong, able-bodied young men to overwhelm our security forces, our healthcare system, and our finances to feed, clothe and house them, there is yet another way to reduce our ability to deal with the invasion. The system began some time ago, and although we cannot be certain that this was their end game, it is certainly another method of realizing the left’s aspiration of globalism.   It is time to gather the many components.

The Women’s movement began with the right to vote in the 19th and 20th centuries, evolving into every facet of their lives in the ‘60s,– sexuality, family, and work.  The National Women’s Studies Association (NWSA), established in 1977, focused on social transformation,  rethinking gender, bio-politics of humanity, post-capitalism, revolutions and Utopian projects, environmental justice, climate change, and more.  Often repackaged, we see these concepts increasingly governing our schools today, disturbing trends for today’s students.

Beginning with kindergarten, many American and European schools have implemented programs to discourage “best friends,” to keep the youngsters more isolated and lonely, including relinquishing human interaction for computer hours.  Common Core’s standards redefine the teachers as facilitators who are less involved with actual instruction, and disdain objective truth for the subjective opinions of the students.  Students despair through the lack of a solid foundation of academic and personal skills.

Common Core standards owes its implementation to its architect, David Coleman, who has no background in academia; Barack Hussein Obama; Bill Ayers, leader of the ‘60s counterculture movement, domestic terrorist and elementary education theorist; and Arne Duncan, later US Secretary of Education.  Their philosophy was education for a revolution.  Simple math emerged as extensive, frustrating mathematical problems.  Classical literature, considered responsible for improving vocabulary, creative thought and expression, was replaced with dystopian writings and corporate texts, peppered with leftist ideology and resulting in contempt for reading.  World religion became historical revisionism, omissions, and bias devoted to Islam with intrinsic Judeophobia.  Texts and schoolbooks depict Americans as colonialists, conquerors, and slavers, and the presentation of our founding fathers, the Constitution, Bill of Rights, and the Emancipation Proclamation, leave our children humiliated about their heritage, angry and eager to destroy historic statuary and monuments.  The result is an intense anxiety in our children, fear of school, anger, sleeplessness, bed-wetting, and even self-mutilation.

The blind acceptance of a foreign element that rejects our American values is yet another threat to our students.  The implementation of the concept of diversity actually divided the children who were once only American students striving for an education.  Rather, the mirage of diversity has separated the students by race, heritage, gender; assimilation has been replaced by confrontation. No longer are they judged by achievements and grades, but by skin color and ethnicity.    The buzz word, ”equality,” is now applied to outcome, rather than to opportunity, so that standards must be lowered to provide all with an equal comfort level.  Thus, leading universities began to establish a quota system based on group identity instead of on individual ability, encouraging diversity but using it to separate one from another, pit one against the other, and diminish the importance of the camaraderie and commonality of the school experience and Americanism.  This is social engineering – denying this generation the aptitude and intellect to discern fact from fiction, right from wrong.

Another injustice ensued when young women were blaming chauvinism for the jobs they did not land, forcing companies to make the necessary hiring accommodations by gender and ethnicity, rather than talent and ability, a palpable problem in medicine and other fields.  Such was the case of the Obama-era FAA hiring rules that placed air traffic controller diversity ahead of safety.

Men were now not succeeding as their fathers had, not able to support their families if they married, and often not marrying because the young women are managing well enough with socialist welfare checks.  The fathers are pushed to abandon what should have been their new family.

Many young women in school have been imbued with a disrespect, even contempt, for men, particularly white men, which vilifies our history and suppresses a flourishing civilization.  It was certainly evident with the confirmation hearings of Supreme Court Justice Brett Kavanaugh, when women were seen screaming and pounding on locked doors, willingly charging him with unproven crimes.  Further, the assault on free speech gives credence to silencing anyone with the accusation of “hate speech,” or “behavioral transgressions.”  Boys and young men who, through the ages, have been the ones to initiate courtship are now deterred because of potential accusations of offensive speech or aggression.  Many universities now employ a Bias Hotline, where anyone may report any conduct or speech seen as offensive, intimidating, demeaning, degrading, marginalizing, victimizing or threatening to another individual.  The victim could be fined, suspended, or even dismissed from the school.

Another depreciating and seriously damaging influence is the schools’ indoctrinating young children to accept transgenderism, replacing our pronouns for two genders with an appalling variety of choices, so that teachers may be fired if they accidentally lapse into the God-given two.  Nontraditional families and cross-dressing are also approved.  Boys who have always been acclaimed for healthy masculine traits that enable them to succeed in our military and police forces may now be subjected to ridicule, harassment and shame by the teacher.  Is it any wonder that the suicide rate for boys is four times higher than that of girls?

And finally (or is it?), citing evidence that boys have become maladjusted, low achievers, truants and delinquents, inattentive and rebellious, depressed and desperate, with a shorter life expectancy, Brown University has implemented a program to “unlearn toxic masculinity,” which can only further emasculate boys.  Rather than analyze society’s role in weakening and devaluing them, robbing them of their natural maleness and function, this university has chosen to  hasten the process.  And can I even find the words to discuss the leftist assault on our sanity, as they declare that boys can menstruate?  We recognize the strategies, but what lies behind this war against our male population?

The power hungry who seek to rule the globe as one governing entity, globalists, (including our own Shadow Government) or caliphates, do not have the manpower and defense technology to overcome our population, our citizens’ abilities and spirit, so that other means would have to be found.  The only course open to globalists is to overwhelm Americans with an alien population; hence, we are being beset by the migrant masses and determined opposition to the border wall for protection.  Another would be to weaken America as  President Obama depleted our military by spending down and sending ~$33.6 billion to Iran, reducing our armed services and allowing equipment to age without replacement, and denigrating our police.

The strategy of weakening America’s manpower is being implemented in order to ensure that our youth, our future military, remain uninspired, untrained, and emasculated.  It would appear that they are being converted into a non-reasoning, obedient, slave sect, a modern-day form of Pharaoh’s eunuchs.  Then, should enemy forces advance, there would be few true men left to do battle for our existence.

EDITORS NOTE: This column is republished with permission. The featured photo is by Holly Mindrup on Unsplash.

Pedophiles Believe They Should Be A Part Of The LGBT Community

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Pedophiles are rebranding themselves as “MAPs” or “Minor Attracted Persons” in an effort to gain acceptance and be included into the LGBT community, according to several reportsfrom LGBT news sites.

According to Urban Dictionary, the blanket term MAP includes infantophiles (infants), pedophiles (pre-pubescent children), hebephiles (pubescent children), and ephebophiles (post-pubescent children). Some MAPs also refer to themselves as NOMAPs or “Non-Offending Minor Attracted Persons”.

These pedophiles seek to be a part of the LGBT+ community, even going so far as to make a “Pride” flag for Gay Pride Month.

The “MAP/NOMAP community” tries to pull at people’s heartstrings by claiming that pedophiles are misunderstood marginalized people, and that as long as their attraction to children is not acted upon —  or in some cases when they get permission from the child — that they should not be villainized.

Sites such as “The Prevention Project” claim to be aimed at helping children, posting quotes like the one below, reminiscent of testimonials of struggling gay youth, under headlines like “everyone needs support”.

“John” was suicidal. He had been bullied by trolls on social media for most of his life for being different. The bullies were primarily people who claimed, based on their  religious beliefs, that “John” was going to hell and deserved to die. They described how they would kill him on his twitter page and people supported their hate. Desperate for help, John sought treatment for his shame, depression, and suicidality. Although he was scared to share about himself with a stranger, he felt desperate for help as he had NO desire to harm anyone, ever. Once he shared about his attraction to children, his therapist told him, “I don’t treat sex offenders.”

Many blogs exist on Tumblr showing support for MAPs, claiming that they should be a part of the LGBT community and attempting to create “safe spaces” for these “minor attracted persons”. The blog “Pedophiles about Pedophilia” also presents many sob stories of “marginalized” pedophiles in pretty pastel colors, claiming that they mean no harm and just want to be loved like everyone else as shown in such headlines as “Why Pedophilia And Pedophiles Are Not A Risk To Children”, “Growing Up A Pedophile” and “How I came out as an anti-contact pedophile to the woman I love”.

This name change seems to follow in the liberal trend of rebranding things by giving them more “politically correct” names, but is the next step really normalizing pedophilia?

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EDITORS NOTE: This column with images by The Daily Caller is republished with permission.

House Democrats Are Lining Up Behind What Could Be The Largest Expansion Of Government In Decades

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  • Democrats are lining up to support Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez’s “Green New Deal.”
  • The proposal could be the largest expansion of government since the Great Society or New Deal.
  • Ocasio-Cortez’s plan could cost tens of trillions of dollars.

Democrats are increasingly lining up to support a “Green New Deal,” which, while vague on details, could end up being the largest expansion of government in decades.

As it stands, the “Green New Deal” is more aspirational than actual policy. Indeed, it takes its name from the New Deal of the 1930s, and its main backer, incoming Democratic New York Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, compared it to the Great Society of the 1960s.

More than 40 Democratic lawmakers support the “Green New Deal” as part of a broad plan to fight global warming and bring about what they see as “economic, social and racial justice.” A poll found most Americans supported the deal, but knew little about it.

But the big question is when Americans find out what’s in the “Green New Deal,” will they be willing to pay for it?

Ocasio-Cortez’s “Green New Deal” calls for creating a House committee to draft legislation to fight global warming and turn the U.S. economy into something akin to what Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders envisions. Indeed, the “Green New Deal” could be a preview of what policies the Democratic Party will back in the 2020 elections.

Democratic congressional candidate Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez speaks at her midterm election night party in New York City

Democratic congressional candidate Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez speaks at her midterm election night party in New York City, U.S. November 6, 2018. REUTERS/Andrew Kelly.

“This is going to be the New Deal, the Great Society, the moon shot, the civil-rights movement of our generation,” Ocasio-Cortez said at a panel event in early December alongside Sanders, a likely 2020 presidential contender.

Those goals include moving the U.S. to 100 percent green energy, federal job guarantees for workings forced out of their fossil fuel jobs, guaranteed minimum income and universal health care.

Democrats will take control of the House in 2019 and many want to see global warming become a central part of their agenda. Republicans are unlikely to go along with a green deal in any form, and cracks are even appearing among Democrats on climate policy.

Since the “Green New Deal” lacks specifics, it’s hard to gauge the total cost, but similar climate and welfare policies are estimated to cost trillions of dollars.

For starters, moving the U.S. to a 100-percent renewable electric grid could cost as much as $5.2 trillion over two decades, according to a 2010 study by the conservative Heritage Foundation. That’s about $218 billion to move the grid away from coal and natural gas.

Senator Bernie Sanders (I-VT) speaks after the senate voted on a resolution ending U.S. military support for the war in Yemen on Capitol Hill in Washington

Senator Bernie Sanders (I-VT) speaks after the senate voted on a resolution ending U.S. military support for the war in Yemen on Capitol Hill in Washington, U.S., December 13, 2018. REUTERS/Joshua Robert.

On top of that, the non-energy-related portions of the Green New Deal could cost trillions more, including universal health care and guaranteed income.

The libertarian Mercatus Center released a study in July that found Sanders’s “Medicare for All” plan would cost $32.6 trillion over 10 years. That same month, hedge-fund manager Ray Dalio estimated the cost to taxpayers of a universal basic income policy would top $3.8 trillion a year — and that’s assuming every American citizen got just $12,000 a year.

For comparison, the Great Society policies pursued by the Johnson administration during the 1960s cost $22 trillion, according to estimates from the Heritage Foundation. Former President Franklin D. Roosevelt’s “New Deal” of the 1930s during the Great Depression cost $500 billion in today’s dollars, The Nation reported in 2008.

Of course, both the New Deal and Great Society have left U.S. taxpayers on the hook for trillions in debt and unfunded liabilities — somewhere between $87 trillion and $222 trillion.

COLUMN BY

Michael Bastasch

Energy Editor. Follow Michael on Facebook and Twitter

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EDITORS NOTE: This column with images by The Daily Caller is republished with permission. Content created by The Daily Caller News Foundation is available without charge to any eligible news publisher that can provide a large audience. For licensing opportunities of our original content, please contact licensing@dailycallernewsfoundation.org.

Anti-blasphemy Laws, Free Speech and Religious Freedom

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Anti-blasphemy restrictions essentially require people to accord sanctity to doctrines they do not endorse and subordinate their spiritual ideals to those who consider them infidels.

Freedom of speech is taken for granted in western society, but it is an essential right that is necessary for the perpetuation of constitutional democracy.  Unfortunately, it also seems to be an endangered species under stealth attack by extremism masquerading as diversity and tolerance.

As European courts enforce laws criminalizing the critical discussion of certain religions, and as the political left blames western society for inflaming Islamist passions by refusing to accommodate radical dictates, the right to speak freely is being threatened by a stultifying political correctness. What is being eroded are classical liberal values.

Nothing illustrates this better than a recent decision by the European Court of Human Rights affirming an Austrian court’s verdict against a woman for suggesting that Muhammad’s marriage to a young girl as recounted in Muslim scripture was tantamount to child abuse.  The Human Rights Court held that her comments could be perceived as “an abusive attack on the Prophet of Islam” and thus were properly subject to prosecution under Austrian law.

The net consequence of this ruling, however, was to enforce an anti-blasphemy restriction against speech, though the offending words were uttered in a pluralistic country that supposedly values freedom of expression.

Although criticism of specific belief systems could certainly offend their adherents, empirical analysis or even disparagement of any faith would be perfectly legal in the United States, where free speech is constitutionally protected and government is prohibited from favoring or promoting any particular religion.

The Austrian law affirmed by the European Human Rights Court would be unenforceable under the US Constitution, which guarantees freedom of expression and worship and prohibits the establishment of any state religion.

From an American perspective, restrictions on speech concerning Islam or any religion would be problematic because they implicitly imbue ideologies with human rights, though such rights adhere uniquely to human beings, not abstract ideas, beliefs or creeds.  Human rights are not inherent in thoughts per se, but rather in the people who express them. However, the premise that belief systems possess innate rights can be used to silence divergent thought; and rendering criticism of particular faiths unlawful may force people to submit to dogmas that conflict with their own ethical or spiritual principles.  Such overreach impairs the right to speak and worship freely while empowering ideological supremacism by eliminating public discourse.

Selective punishment of speech considered offensive to any faith community could encourage discrimination against people who believe differently.

  • Would such restrictions outlaw public criticism of Sharia by Jews and Christians who are deemed subjugated and inferior there under?
  • Would it be illegal for Jews to challenge those parts of Islamic tradition which hold that they are descended from apes and pigs or must be exterminated in the end of days?

It seems such laws could effectively require people to acquiesce to doctrines that are contrary to their own beliefs.

Those who support anti-blasphemy restrictions under the guise of hate-speech regulation do not truly respect or understand the freedoms that characterize western society  While advocates may claim that laws penalizing disparagement of faith protect all religions, such laws never seem to be enforced equally.  But regardless of whether they are applied generally or selectively, anti-blasphemy laws would not pass constitutional muster in the United States because they would require government involvement in ecclesiastical matters and potentially elevate certain faiths over others – all in violation of the First Amendment.

Regarding matters of faith, the First Amendment states: “Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion . . . or prohibiting the free exercise thereof.”  These two phrases together comprise the Establishment Clause, which prohibits government from establishing a national religion or favoring particular faiths.

Those seeking to stifle criticism of religion undeniably include Islamists who are anti-Semitic and denigrate other beliefs as matters of doctrine.  It seems ironic that secular proponents of speech regulations do not see a similar need to protect their own communities from radicals who promote anti-Semitism and hatred of western values, or who preach genocide and the destruction of Israel – a nation whose land they claim through past conquest and whose people they deem unworthy of respect or national autonomy.

Taken to its logical extreme, restricting the right to challenge supremacist ideologies would in fact insulate hateful words as long as they are uttered as expressions of faith.  In addition, such restrictions would essentially require people to accord sanctity to doctrines they do not endorse and subordinate their spiritual ideals to those who consider them infidels.

According to common dictionary usage, “blasphemy” is irreverent behavior toward things held sacred, and “sacred” is defined as veneration by association with the divine.  Consequently, sanctity is determined by ecclesiastical fiat, not objective universal standards. For words to be truly blasphemous, therefore, the speaker must recognize the sanctity of the target.  But disrespectful conduct cannot be blasphemous in the eyes of the offender – no matter how rude, boorish, or insensitive – if he does not acknowledge the object of his derision as sacred.  Thus, for example, non-Hindus who do not revere cows cannot be considered blasphemers for eating beef in India. Likewise, non-Jews do not sin by failing to observe Torah commandments binding only on Jews.

Proponents of speech restrictions argue that defamation of religion constitutes a human rights violation, but this is sophistry which assigns inalienable rights to concepts instead of the people who espouse them.  And although anti-blasphemy apologists may claim concern for the integrity of all faiths, their lack of regard for Judaism and western religions is glaring. In fact, those who discourage critical analysis of Islam (usually progressives) generally show little respect for Jews or Christians – either in the west or in Sharia states where they and other religious and ethnic minorities are marginalized and oppressed.

Where is liberal European outrage over the persecution of Christians or Zoroastrians in the Islamic world?  Why is there silence when Yazidis are murdered and their daughters forced into sexual slavery in Iraq or Copts are harassed and massacred in Egypt?  Progressive society seems interested in protecting only one religion from insult and bestowing minority status on a global faith community that comprises nearly two-billion people and has a history of aggressive expansion.

Political correctness offers an apologetic buffer for the doctrinal rejection of western values, and its practitioners seem willing to run interference for absolutist ideologies that mandate the subjugation of nonbelievers.  Suppressing speech under the guise of protecting religion might be consistent with rigid theocracy, but it is incompatible with the basic freedoms that define liberal democracy. And making it unlawful to question any specific ideology casts a repressive pall over individual expression and severely hampers the free exchange of ideas.

Free-speech advocates might recognize the threat posed by such laws, but few seem willing to challenge them for fear of being labeled bigots.  This reluctance recalls past ambivalence regarding UN anti-blasphemy proposals that sought to impose international standards for curtailing speech.  Over the years, various resolutions were proposed by the Organization of Islamic Cooperation and endorsed by its political allies. Though western support had subsided by the time the Defamation of Religions Resolution was passed by the UN Human Rights Council in 2010, many progressives had until then voiced sympathetic understanding for its motivations, if not its substance.  (Its non-Muslim state supporters included Bolivia, China, Cuba, Nicaragua, Russian Federation, and South Africa.)

Leftist support for speech restrictions would seem to corroborate the existence of a “red-green alliance” between radical Islam and a progressive left that denounces Jews, Christians and western values, while ignoring repression of religious and ethnic minorities throughout the Arab Mideast.  The point progressives conveniently ignore is that citizens in democratic society are free to worship as they choose.

It seems absurd when western courts effectively impose sanctions for the violation of imported sectarian standards that are contrary to mainstream cultural and religious norms.  Though Islamists might consider “infidels” subject to the dictates of Sharia, the notion that people can be controlled by parochial laws foreign to them is presumptuous and inconsistent with liberal democratic values.

European willingness to curb unflattering or “blasphemous” speech is not based on tolerance, but instead seems compelled by deference to authoritarian doctrines and anti-western sensibilities.  If the EU wants to maintain its liberal democratic traditions, however, it should make clear that while immigrants are welcome within its borders, they have no right to be insulated from speech they find offensive or to impose their religious standards on their host societies.

EDITORS NOTE: This column originally appeared in Israel National News. It is republished with permission. The featured photo is by Ricardo Mancía on Unsplash.

Democrats Question Judicial Nominee About Membership in Catholic Association

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Two Democrats on the Senate Judiciary Committee are pressing a nominee for the Nebraska federal trial court about his membership in the Knights of Columbus, a fraternal service organization of the Catholic Church.

Democratic Sens. Mazie Hirono of Hawaii and Kamala Harris of California submitted written questions in December to Brian Buescher, an Omaha lawyer nominated to the U.S. District Court for the District of Nebraska, proposing that he resign his affiliation with the Knights, which they call an “all male society” that “has taken a number of extreme positions” on social questions.

The Catholic News Agency was first to report Friday on Hirono and Harris’ questions respecting the Knights of Columbus.

Buescher leads the agribusiness litigation practice at Kutak Rock LLP, where he has practiced since graduating the Georgetown University Law Center in 2000. President Donald Trump nominated him to the federal bench on Oct. 10 at the recommendation of GOP Sens. Ben Sasse and Debra Fischer of Nebraska.

Lawmakers did not question Buescher about his enrollment in the Knights during his Nov. 28 confirmation hearing, though he listed his association with the group in a questionnaire he returned to the Judiciary Committee prior to his appearance. The issue was only raised in a series of follow-up questions Democrats transmitted to Buescher on Dec. 5. Senators often submit written questions to nominees following a confirmation hearing, though they generally escape public notice.

Christian leaders have previously criticized Judiciary Committee Democrats for perceived anti-Catholic bias. Hirono was among the Democratic lawmakers who expressed concern that Judge Amy Coney Barrett’s religious convictions would impede the discharge of her judicial duties during Barrett’s confirmation hearing for the 7th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in September 2017.

Like Buescher, Barrett is a Catholic. She is considered a serious contender for the Supreme Court, should another vacancy arise during the Trump administration.

Among other items, Harris asked Buescher if he was aware that the leadership of the Knights opposes gay marriage, while Hirono asked whether he can assure litigants that he will fairly judge matters relating to reproductive rights.

Founded in 1882 as a mutual benefit society for impoverished Catholic immigrants in New England, the Knights currently operate in over a dozen countries and distribute almost $200 million in charitable funds annually. The organization has some 15,000 chapters.

“The Knights of Columbus is a Roman Catholic service organization with approximately two million members worldwide,” Buescher wrote in response to Hirono and Harris’ questions. “The organization has a religious and charitable purpose. I joined the Knights of Columbus when I was 18 years old and have been a member ever since. My membership has involved participation in charitable and community events in local Catholic parishes.”

“The Knights of Columbus does not have the authority to take personal political positions on behalf of all of its approximately two million members,” he said elsewhere in his responses.

Most members of the Judiciary Committee, including Harris, were absent from the Nov. 28 hearing, which took place an hour before a widely attended briefing with senior administration officials on the Saudi war effort in Yemen.

Aside from his affiliation with the Knights, Democratic lawmakers questioned Buescher about his unsuccessful bid for Nebraska attorney general. During the campaign he described himself as “an avidly pro-life person” and vowed to resist overreaching federal regulations.

Kevin Daley

Kevin Daley is a legal affairs reporter for the Daily Caller News Foundation. Twitter: @kevindaleydc.

EDITORS NOTE: This Daily Caller Foundation column with images is republished with permission. Content created by The Daily Caller News Foundation is available without charge to any eligible news publisher that can provide a large audience. For licensing opportunities for this original content, emaillicensing@dailycallernewsfoundation.org. Photo: Senate/ZUMA Press/Newscom.

TRUMP ADMINISTRATION RESTRICTS CHINESE STUDENTS: Finally, America confronts a massive espionage operation.

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On December 2, 2018 Voice Of America (VOA) published a news report, US Considers New Restrictions on Chinese Students.

This is certainly welcome news.  The actions of the Trump administration to restrict Chinese students studying in the United States has been long overdue given the outrageous conduct of the Chinese government in its massive spying program against the United States; which has been so pervasive that it has come to be sarcastically referred to by the American intelligence community as “Chinese Take-Out!”

Here is how the VOA article began:

The administration of American President Donald Trump is considering new restrictions on Chinese students entering the U.S.

U.S. officials say increased concerns over spying and the loss of new technologies are among the reasons.

In June, the U.S. State Department shortened the length of stay for visas given to Chinese graduate students studying in several fields. The fields include flight, robotics and some kinds of manufacturing. Visas were shortened from five years to one.

At the time, the officials said the goal was to limit the risk of spying and of the loss of intellectual property that is important to national security.

Now, the Trump administration is considering whether to carry out additional investigations of Chinese students attending U.S. schools.

Reuters news agency reported that officials want to examine student phone calls. They also are considering looking at students’ personal accounts on Chinese and U.S. social media sites.

Since taking office, President Trump has refused to follow the well-worn path of previous presidents who failed to put the interests of America and Americans first. This includes how the U.S. deals with China.

For decades, the relationship that the United States has had with China frequently defied comprehension and logic.  Consider that China enjoys Most Favored Trade Status, even while it has manipulated currency, has engaged in large-scale espionage and in the wide-spread hacking of U.S. computers that belong to our military, government agencies, corporations and even private citizens–in identity theft.

We must not lose sight that China, first and foremost, is governed by a totalitarian communist government that routinely and profoundly violates the rights of its own citizens.

Nevertheless, many American companies have moved their production lines to China providing China even greater opportunities to steal intellectual property from these U.S. companies.  This illustrates just how far CEOs of major companies will go to lower the cost of labor and overcome regulations while undermining the future of their own companies.  This practice is not a matter of corporate executives suffering from myopia but utter blindness, calling into question, not only the vision of those American executives, but their sanity as well.

Meanwhile for years, the United States has admitted hundreds of thousands of Chinese STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics) students and provided them with first-rate educations.

Chinese engineering students often take advantage of the expanding “Optional Practical Training” opportunities in the United States to work in U.S. companies that were of interest to the Chinese government to spy on, and acquire new technology.

Then these newly-minted engineers, computer programmers and other high-tech professionals return to China with their newly acquired skills to help build up China’s military.  When China rattles its sabers at the United States and other countries around the world, frequently those sabers were designed by those engineers who received their education in the United States.

Furthermore, indeed, all too frequently China also shares stolen technology with adversaries of the United States.

The Student and Exchange Visitor Program (SEVP) is part of U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement’s (ICE) Homeland Security Investigations within the U.S. Department of Homeland Security (DHS). SEVP manages the Student and Exchange Visitor Information System (SEVIS)–the web-based system DHS uses to maintain and manage information on the non-immigrants, whose primary purpose for coming to the United States is to study.

Every other year ICE issues a report about the enrollment of foreign students in the United States.  Here is the link to the latest such report:  SEVIS By The Numbers: Biannual Report On International Student Trends April 2018.

It disclosed, among other facts that:

Forty-nine percent of the F and M student population in the United States hailed from either China (377,070 students) or India (211,703 students), and interest continues to grow. Over the reporting period, both China and India saw proportional growth between 1 and 2 percent, with China sending 6,305 more students and India sending 2,356 more students. It is this level of participation from China and India that makes Asia far and away the most popular continent of origin. In fact, 77 percent of all international students in the United States call Asia home.

F student visas are for students enrolled in academic programs while M students are enrolled in trade schools.

While the report did not disclose how many Chinese students are enrolled in STEM courses of study, in years past, more than half of all Chinese students enrolled in STEM courses of study.

On December 10, 2018 Forbes Magazine published commentary by Arthur Herman, a Senior Fellow at the Hudson Institute, Huawei’s (And China’s) Dangerous High-Tech Game.  His piece focused on the implications of the December 1, 2018 arrest of Huawei’s CFO Meng Wanzhou in Canada, allegedly because Huawei’s Hong Kong shell company, Skycom sold products to Iran that contained U.S. components in violation of sanctions imposed by the Trump administration.

Here is an important excerpt from the piece:

What makes this arrest such a landmark isn’t just the fact that Meng is heir apparent to the Chinese tech company her father founded and which has gained nearly $100 billion in revenue in 2018; or because Huawei is currently the world’s biggest supplier of telecom network equipment and number two cellphone producer (Apple is third); or even the fact this arrest falls in the midst of a declared 90-day truce in the on-going trade battle between China and the Trump administration.

Instead, this is a shot across Beijing’s bow in a much bigger struggle, the one for high-tech supremacy between the U.S. and China—the one that will decide the fate of the 21st century. Meng’s arrest sends the message that Huawei, and its Chinese Communist Party puppet masters, are playing a dangerous game, if they think they can win this high-stakes struggle by any means fair or foul.

Three days later, on December 13th Herman wrote a followup piece, A Death In Silicon Valley ‘With Chinese Characteristics’ that reported on the suicide of the distinguished Chinese quantum physicist, venture capitalist, and Stanford University professor Zhang Shoucheng that took place on December 1, 2018, the same day that the CFO of Huawei was arrested in Canada.

Although Shoucheng was a naturalized U.S. citizen, he maintained disturbingly close links with the Chinese government.

Consider these excerpts from the article:

“Despite being a naturalized U.S. citizen, Zhang maintained close contact with the Communist regime in China (the head of ShanghaiTech, for example, is the son of former party leader Jiang Zemin). His company Digital Horizon Capital, known by the acronym DHVC, has been identified as part of a major Chinese infiltration effort into Silicon Valley, according to the U.S. Trade Representative Richard Lighthizer’s latest report on China—a report released just days before Zhang’s death.”

“Lighthizer’s report specifically named Zhang’s DHVC as part of the “web of entities” set up in Silicon Valley “to further the industrial-policy goals of the Chinese government.” Zhang’s DHVC, as it turns out, is heavily back by the investment arm of an entity called the Zhongguancum Development Corporation (ZDG), a Chinese government state-owned firm, which revealed on its website during DHVC’s launch that Zhang’s outfit was going to focus on innovative technology being fostered at Stanford and elsewhere in Silicon Valley, for the benefit of ZDG.”

I addressed my concerns about Chinese aggression in three recent articles that were published earlier this year:​

Fears About Chinese ‘Trade War’ Are Late And Dumb
China has been waging economic war against the U.S. for decades.

China Ratchets Up Its U.S. Spying Programs
American Universities and financial institutions are at risk.

Chinese Citizen Arrested By FBI For Spying On U.S.
A case that highlights the nexus between immigration and espionage.

​On December 20, 2018 the DOJ issued a press release, “Two Chinese Hackers Associated With the Ministry of State Security Charged with Global Computer Intrusion Campaigns Targeting Intellectual Property and Confidential Business Information.”

On September 10, 2018 Newsweek reported, “China’s Role In Russia’s Largest War Games Shows Beijing-Moscow Ties Are Strengthening, Experts Say.”

On September 13, 2018 Newsweek reported, “Will China Bail Out Venezuela? Maduro Heads To Beijing Amid U.S. Invasion Rumors.”

As the article reported:

China has sent more than $50 billion to Venezuela over the past decade in the form of oil-for-loan deals, according to Reuters. These have allowed Beijing to secure much-needed fuel for its growing economy while supporting a vehemently anti-American government in South America.

Furthermore, as I noted in my recent article, Caravan Of ‘Migrants’ – A Crisis Decades In The Making, The President of Guatemala has claimed that cash-strapped Venezuela has provided funding to the “Caravan of Migrants.”

It is possible that China and/or Iran have provided cash to Venezuela that was then used to subsidize at least some of the costs of organizing and transporting thousands of aspiring illegal aliens who sought to enter the United States by whatever means possible.

On September 14, 2018 Newsweek reported,  “Chinese Deal To Take Over Key Israeli Port May Threaten U.S. Naval Operations, Critics Say.”

My dad taught me that bullies could intimidate me only if I permitted them to intimidate me.

President Trump is demonstrating a clear lesson to the thugs and bullies of the world that finally America will no longer be pushed around.

EDITORS NOTE: This column with images originally appeared in FrontPage Magazine. It is republished with permission.

Zhores Medvedev’s Life: A Chilling Reminder of How the Soviets Weaponized Psychiatry against Dissidents

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The practice of categorizing one’s enemies as “insane” became a ready tool of suppression in the Soviet state founded by Lenin and developed under Stalin.

The New York Times obituary opened with a simple recitation of facts: “Zhores A. Medvedev, the Soviet biologist, writer and dissident who was declared insane, confined to a mental institution and stripped of his citizenship in the 1970s after attacking a Stalinist pseudoscience, died … in London.”

Zhores Medvedev, his twin brother Roy (still alive at 93), the physicist Andrei Sakharov, and the Nobel Prize-winning novelist Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn were leading dissidents. They courageously put their lives on the line to smuggle manuscripts out of the Soviet Union. They wanted the wider world to learn the truth about the “the workers’ paradise” that so many Western intellectuals (some deluded, others having gone over to the dark side) praised.

A generation of Americans has been born since the Soviet Union, the USSR that President Ronald Reagan boldly labeled “the evil empire,” ceased to exist. They have little to no concept of how ferociously the USSR’s communist tyranny suppressed dissent. As the Times obituary of Dr. Medvedev illustrates, one Soviet technique of oppression was to declare that political dissidents were insane. They were then incarcerated in psychiatric hospitals where they were tormented and tortured. Some were used as human guinea pigs for dangerous experiments. (Shades of Hitler’s buddy, Dr. Mengele.) Some even succumbed to the not-so-tender ministrations of those “hospitals.”

I recall one particular example of the disgusting abuse of human beings in Soviet psychiatric hospitals. Vladimir Bukovsky, who will turn 76 later this month, spent a dozen years being shuffled between Soviet jails, labor camps, and psychiatric hospitals. One of the “therapies” administered in a psychiatric hospital was putting a cord into Bukovsky’s mouth, threading it from his throat up through his nasal passages, and then drawing it out through one of his nostrils. (Maybe the cord went in the opposite direction; I’ve never been interested in memorizing torture techniques.) Alas, this communist “treatment” did not “cure” Bukovsky of his rational (not irrational) abhorrence of tyranny and brutality.

The warped thought process that led to the perversion and weaponization of psychiatry in the Soviet Union can be traced back to the communist icon and thought leader Karl Marx. Marx propounded a spurious doctrine known as “polylogism” to justify stifling dissent. According to Marx, different classes of people had different structures in their minds. Thus, Marx declared the bourgeoisie to be mentally defective because they were inherently unable to comprehend Marx’s (allegedly) revelatory and progressive theories. Since they were, in a sense, insane, there was no valid reason for communists to “waste time” arguing with them. On the contrary, communists were justified in not only ignoring or suppressing bourgeois ideas but in liquidating the entire bourgeois class.

The practice of categorizing one’s enemies as “insane” became a ready tool of suppression in the Soviet state founded by Lenin and developed under Stalin. The USSR’s infamous secret police energetically wielded quack psychiatry as a club with which to destroy political dissidents. If you want more information about how the Soviets kidnapped and misused psychiatry, here is a link to a document that describes what American agents of the USSR were taught about psycho-political techniques in the late 1930s. (The provenance of the booklet is murky, and Soviet apologists have long tried to discredit it, but in light of numerous psychiatric abuses known to have been committed with the approval of the USSR’s rulers, the content of the book is highly plausible.)

The incarceration of Zhores Medvedev in psychiatric hospitals in the 1970s was a monstrous injustice. His “crime” was having exposed the bizarre pseudoscience of Lysenkoism that Stalin had embraced in the 1950s. Lysenko’s quack theories led to deadly crop failures and widespread starvation. Nevertheless, Stalin backed him by executing scientists who dared to disagree with Lysenko. Millions of innocents lost their lives because “truth” in the Soviet Union wasn’t scientific but political.

Another vivid example of the destructive consequences of politicizing truth is related in Solzhenitsyn’s exposé of Soviet labor camps, The Gulag Archipelago. Certain Soviet officials decided to increase the steel shipped to a certain area. When the planners issued orders for trains to carry double the steel to the designated destination, conscientious engineers informed them that it couldn’t be done. They pointed out that the existing train tracks could not support such great weights. The politicians had the engineers executed as “saboteurs” for opposing “the plan.” What followed was predictable: the loads were doubled, the tracks gave out, and the designated area ended up getting less steel, not more.

As the havoc wrought by Soviet central economic planners repeatedly demonstrated, the communist central planners refused to abandon their insufferable self-delusion and mystical belief in the power of their own will to alter reality.
This episode shows where the true insanity was in the USSR. The central planners believed that constructing their ideal country was simply a matter of will. Alas, reality doesn’t conform to the whims or will of any human being, but the arrogance of central planners remains stubbornly impervious to that inescapable fact of life. Instead, as the havoc wrought by Soviet central economic planners repeatedly demonstrated, the communist central planners refused to abandon their insufferable self-delusion and mystical belief in the power of their own will to alter reality. This was the true insanity, compounded by the error of persecuting competent scientists like Zhores Medvedev.

Sadly, the practice of branding political opponents as “insane” is not confined to the now-defunct Soviet state. In 1981, when I was completing my master’s thesis on Solzhenitsyn, I telephoned an American college professor of history to ask whether he recalled if Solzhenitsyn had been granted honorary US citizenship. (He hadn’t. President Ford didn’t want to offend the Soviet leadership.) The reply to my question was this: “Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn belongs in an insane asylum.” The virus of Marx’s polylogism is, unfortunately, alive and well in American academia.

As for Zhores Medvedev, may he now rest in peace and receive his reward for his integrity and courage.

This article was reprinted from the Mises Institute.

COLUMN BY

Mark Hendrickson

Mark Hendrickson

Mark Hendrickson is Adjunct Professor of Economics at Grove City College, where he has taught since 2004. He is a Fellow for Economics and Social Policy with The Center for Vision and Values and is on the Council of Scholars of the Commonwealth Foundation.

EDITORS NOTE: This column with images by FEE is republished with permission.