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Peace at any cost is a Prelude to War!
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INSIGHT
"What America needs is spiritual renewal and reconciliation -- first, man
with God, and then man with man." --Ronald Reagan {} "A pessimist sees
the difficulty in every opportunity; an optimist sees the opportunity in
every difficulty." --Sir Winston Churchill {} "Justice is a machine that,
when someone has once given it the starting push, rolls on of
itself." --John Galsworthy {} "No man is the whole of himself. His
friends are the rest of him." --George Whitefield {} "It is a good thing
for an uneducated man to read books of quotations." --Winston Churchill
{} "Even if you are on the right track, you'll get run over if you just
sit there." --Will Rogers {} "So long as we govern our nation by the
letter and spirit of the Bill of Rights, we can be sure that our nation
will grow in strength and wisdom and freedom." --Dwight D. Eisenhower. {}
"A truth told with bad intent Beats all the lies you can
invent." --William Blake {} "Nature never deceives us; it is always we
who deceive ourselves." --Jean Jacques Rousseau {} "I deny I ever said
that actors are cattle. What I said was, 'Actors should be treated like
cattle'." --Alfred Hitchcock
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UPRIGHT
"President Bush wants to spend millions of dollars on 'character'
education in government-run schools. My parents gave me mine for
free." --Cal Thomas {} "It's crucial to understand what the so-called
reform is about. It's about suppression of political speech." --Michael
Barone {} "Free speech is supposed to be our national passion. I don't
see it. The Senate debates a bill to stifle free political speech through
federal control of campaign finance, and respectable organs of opinion nod
in agreement." --Bill Murchison ++ "The debate on campaign finance
'reform' that would vastly expand government regulation of political
communication will measure just how much jeopardy the First Amendment, and
hence political freedom, faces. Recent evidence is ominous. ... Campaign
finance reform is about abridging the freedom of everyone but
incumbents -- and their media megaphones." --George Will ++ "Far better
to reduce the demand for political money rather than the
supply." --Charles Krauthammer {} "Politicians never accuse you of
'greed' for wanting other people's money -- only for wanting to keep your
own money." --Joseph Sobran {} "If we are serious about diagnosing and
fixing what ails our young people, we must look deeper, into the human
soul and the care we take for its formation." --Alan Keyes ++ "Most
Americans today pride themselves on being 'nonjudgmental.' It hasn't yet
dawned on most of them that the body count in our high schools is their
reward." --Mona Charen {} "The law cannot restrain government power and
protect individual liberty if it is not different than mere
politics." --Thomas L. Jipping {} "As if we were not involved in others'
struggles for freedom by our very nature, and by the nature of the
enterprise we began in 1776." --Paul Greenberg {} "The idols of
politics, entertainment and drugs are all false gods." --Charley Reese {}
"The big problem in the long process of dumbing down the schools is that
you can reach a point of no return. How are parents who never received a
decent education themselves to recognize that their children are not
getting a decent education?" --Thomas Sowell
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EDITORIAL EXEGESIS
"He did it. Barely two months into his administration, George W. Bush has
just done what even the Gipper never could: He told the American Bar
Association to take a hike. ... For its part, the ABA's claim of a
firewall that keeps the Standing Committee 'separate, independent, and
insulated' from the causes embraced by its House of Delegates has come to
have all the credibility of tobacco-industry studies showing no link
between smoking and lung cancer. Even Martha Barnett, the ABA president,
has trouble keeping a straight face here. At a press conference following
a private meeting with Bush officials a few days before the White House
made its announcement, she conceded that 'some people' might think the ABA
has a 'political or liberal agenda.' In fact, she declared, there might
even be 'positions we've taken that could be characterized as
liberal'." --Wall Street Journal
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SECOND OPINION
THE SAME ROOTS
In recent years, The Federalist has editorialized against restricted
resource exploration by "the stroke of a pen," such as Bill Clinton's
restriction of coal mining in Utah's Escalante Monument under the obscure
Antiquities Act. Recently, we reported on Leftist opposition to President
George Bush's proposals to allow resource exploration on "protected
lands," leading one to ask, "What should a constitutional conservative's
position be on nationalized land and resources?"
We first note, simply, that the root word, "conserve," from the Latin
"conservare," meaning to keep, guard, observe, is common to both
conservative and conservation. To conserve means "to keep in a safe or
sound state," or "to maintain constant during a process of ... change."
Central to both conservative politics and conservation policies are
tradition and handing down to posterity a country safe and sound in its
governing system and its physical state.
In a precise theory of property rights, governments can "own" nothing, as
ownership requires direct or indirect use of one's personal labor, and
governments have no labor or exchangeable goods except those taken from
their citizens. This relationship is especially so for landed property, as
the original title of a just and legitimate property right in that land is
established when a person works the land, removing it from its "natural"
state. Nevertheless, although our nation has approximated that ideal of
property rights more closely than has any other nation, within the rubric
of our constitutional order the government is permitted to lay limited
claims to property.
The Constitution contains one explicit reference to central government
landholdings, in Article IV, Section 3: "The Congress shall have power to
dispose of and make all needful rules and regulations respecting the
territory or other property belonging to the United States...." Other
"public lands" explicitly mentioned as being under congressional control
are for forts and military facilities "purchased by the consent of the
legislature of the state in which the same shall be" (Article I, Section
8). The 5th Amendment implies that the government through properly drawn
legal action may take property, in stating that "no person shall be
deprived of ... property, without due process of law; nor shall private
property be taken for public use without just compensation." And the 9th
and 10th Amendments taken together surely suggest that citizens may
authorize states to purchase and maintain lands for the purpose of
conservation.
During the early history of our country, lands held within the "public
domain" were considered only temporarily lodged in the custody of the
national government; the intention was that such land should soon be
embedded within the federal system through private acquisition and
formation into states that would then enter the union. More recently,
though, we've seen an inversion of this intent, with the central level of
government holding "public lands" apart from any free use by the public.
A brief history of public lands in the United States illustrates the
reversal. The original states and territories, acquired by treaty with
Great Britain in 1783, comprised 888,685 square miles. The initial
continental expansion occurred in 1803, when the Louisiana Territory was
purchased from France for $15 million, adding 827,192 square miles to the
total. The Federalists at the time opposed the purchase, arguing that the
Constitution granted no power for the central government to buy land from
a foreign nation. However, President Thomas Jefferson, typically a strict
constructionist, championed acquisition of the new territory, later
commenting, "I am persuaded no constitution was ever before as well
calculated as ours for extensive empire and self-government." In 1812,
Louisiana, the first state formed out of the purchase, was admitted to the
union. From that point forward, no serious reservations hindered U.S.
territorial expansion across the continent; today the 50 states stretch
over 3,623,420 square miles.
The Library of Congress dates the beginning of the American conservation
movement around 1850. The Home Department was created within the executive
branch in 1849, consolidating operations of the General Land Office and
related functions; this later became the Department of the Interior.
"In Wildness, is the preservation of the World," proclaimed Henry David
Thoreau, ushering in a new view of U.S. wilderness lands. In 1864, the
Senate authorized a grant of Yosemite Valley to the state of California,
as the nation's first public park. Legislation in 1872 set aside
Yellowstone as the first national park. (After complaints about
California's maintenance of Yosemite, these lands were returned to federal
control as Yosemite National Park in 1905.)
In the early 1900s, likely the greatest conservationist president, Teddy
Roosevelt, stated that private property is "subject to the general right
of the community to regulate its use to whatever degree the public welfare
may require it." Whatever degree? This position was perhaps sensible
during the age of robber barons, but now "the public welfare" claims of
government action themselves know few if any limits.
"Conservation means the greatest good to the greatest number for the
longest time," wrote early environmentalist Gifford Pinchot in 1910.
Nearly a hundred years later, the balance has assuredly tipped -- "public
land" decisions are now made by the few, to benefit the few, contrary to
the good of the many.
Indeed, in the midnight hours of his administration, Mr. Clinton
unilaterally designated over one million acres off-limits to the public as
"national monuments." And Tom DeWeese, president of the American Policy
Center, estimates that when all currently proposed environmental policies
are fully implemented, more than 50 percent of the land in the entire
United States will be cordoned off not only from private ownership but
also from any human activity.
Is there cause to question the validity and usefulness of government
holding of land on behalf of the people, in that private ownership might
be a superior means of conservation? Yes, and no.
As economist Thomas Sowell notes: "Ironically, what the rich are often
praised for is likely to do more harm than what they are condemned for.
..Buy up land and donate it for 'open space' and an idle heir or heiress
will be forgiven for all the money that some ancestor of theirs earned by
providing goods and services to millions. ...The less land is available to
build on, the more people are going to be crowded in the remaining land
that is available -- and the higher rents are going to be on that land.
Should people packed into slums be grateful that the actions of the rich
are driving up their rents and preventing them from getting a little elbow
room in what the anointed like to call 'urban sprawl'?"
True conservation, like virtue, pays its own rewards. But most of today's
environmentalism relies on forcible imposition on those who would not
otherwise comply -- and is intended to set land apart from any activity
that would constitute true ownership. And increasingly, environmental
policies are determined by international agreements giving sway to
globo-utopians.
In our view, it's unmatched hubris to believe a smattering of elite humans
can agree internationally on policies by treaty that will affect the
planetary environment -- and it's both evil and unconstitutional to enact
takings of U.S. citizens' property rights in service to such hubris. This
is not conservation of our heritage, but instead its destruction.
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DEZINFORMATSIA
"The Republican-controlled House voted mostly along party lines to pass
President Bush's federal budget blueprint. This includes his big tax cut
plan, partly bankrolled, critics say, through cuts in many federal aid
programs for children and education."----CBS talkinghead Dan Rather on
what "critics say." ++ "The rumor is a complete fabrication, and
newspapers that print it are not practicing good journalism." --CBS's
Sandy Genelius on reports that Dan Rather is about to be deposed because
CBS news is in the ratings dump. **Of course, the real problem is that Dan
Rather is the king of "complete fabrications" and "not practicing good
journalism." {} This week's "Clinton Media Sycophant" Award: "The Bush
White House has done very little about this with the exception of
seemingly adding fuel to the fire with talk of a worsening economy. Do the
markets now miss Bill Clinton and Bob Rubin?" --CBS's Bryant Gumbel {}
This week's "Media Busters" Award: "Difficult as it may be to admit, some
of the gay-baiting right's argument about media bias holds up. Consider
the following statistics. In the month after [Matthew] Shepard's [1997]
murder, Nexis recorded 3,007 stories about his death. In the month after
[Jesse] Dirkhising's [1998 torture/rape/murder by two homosexuals], Nexis
recorded 46 stories about his. In all of last year, only one article about
Dirkhising appeared in a major mainstream newspaper, The Boston Globe. The
New York Times and the Los Angeles Times ignored the incident completely.
In the same period, The New York Times published 45 stories about Shepard,
and The Washington Post published 28. This discrepancy isn't just real.
It's staggering." --New Republic's Andrew Sullivan -- who is homosexual.
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LEFTOVERS
"I know about the Salem Witch Trials. I could sort of identify with those
witches. Since I seem to have survived I feel uncomfortable taking the
analogy too far." --Bill Clinton entertaining his fans at Salem State
College, where he picked up another cool 100 grand. **Now that would have
constituted a justifiable use of presidential pardons! {} "...Bill
Clinton's the crack cocaine of...a large part of CNN and a lot of other
people. When he goes, when this thing goes, these guys die. I mean they
just die." --James Matalin Carville {} "[Democrats'] biggest obstacle is
proving to be not George W. Bush but his predecessor." --The Wall Street
Journal's token Lefty, Al Hunt.
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VILLAGE IDIOTS
"For me, it's a job made in heaven." --The Village Matriarch, Ms.
Rodham-Clinton on her role in the Senate. **For the rest of America, it is
the job from hell! {} This week's "Dumbing Down" Award: Ellen Fein,
co-author of "The Rules," a best-selling "how-to" book for women looking
for a husband, announced she is getting a divorce -- on the eve of the
release of her latest book, "The Rules III," subtitled, "Time-tested
secrets for making your marriage work." {} This week's "Consummate
Village-Celeb" Award: "It's hard to tell. Who cares, as long as it gets
done?" --Ted Turner when asked if the motivation for his "charitable
contributions" was personal glory. {} From the "Village Academic
Curriculum" File: They are back! This week's "Heterophobia" Award goes to
the "Gay, Lesbian and Straight Education Network for hosting its second
annual "Teach Out" conference at Tufts University. The conference
instructs government school teachers how to promote homosexuality during
classroom instruction. Do you know what your kids learned today?
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SHORT CUTS
"To those people, I say.... (pausing and looking over to V.P. Cheney)
Dick, what do I say?" --George Bush, responding to a reporter's suggestion
that Dick Cheney is really calling the shots. {} "Bush's predecessor,
Bill Clinton, could discuss any issue at any length. Bush, by his own
omission, occasionally stumbles over his words. On Thursday, he poked fun
at one such miscue when he fumbled the word underestimate." --The AP's
Jennifer Hoyt, who, we think, fumbled the word "omission." (Note: The
Federalist never makes such fumbles, though we put at least one error in
every edition just to see who is paying attention!) {} "Come on, you're
kidding. Clinton isn't a role model for adults, let alone children. This
is just insane." --Morris Martin, a member of the United Federation of
Teachers, which will be awarding Bill Clinton its highest honor -- The
John Dewey Award -- in May. {} "Tom Daschle is running everywhere trying
to sell his $300 rebate. Remember when he said the Bush tax plan would
allow rich people to buy a Lexus but would only pay for a muffler for low
income working people? I looked up the price of a Lexus muffler. Guess
what? $579.95. Plus labor. Daschle's tax rebate would buy less than half
a muffler." --Rich Galen {} "I don't want to get off on a rant here, but
like an infestation of cockroaches, a drunken party guest or a
super-virulent strain of antibiotic-resistant [disease], the Clintons are
proving almost impossible to get rid of." --Dennis Miller
Night Lines:
Leno.... Jesse Jackson mistress is going to write a tell-all book. She
says that Jesse gave her 400,000 dollars in hush money. This could hurt
Jesse since two of his organizations are non-profit. The tough part is
finding a mistress that is non-profit! .... According to Newsweek
magazine, Puff Daddy and Jennifer Lopez are getting back together. Why is
this in Newsweek? Remember when they used to report the news? .... The
University of Nebraska says that elderly people that drink beer or wine at
least four times a week have the highest bone density. They need it,
they're the ones falling down the most! .... There is a new type of
alarm clock on the market. It makes no noise. It uses lights and gets
brighter and brighter until you wake up. I already have one of these. It's
called a window! .... A new poll shows that 54% of women said they would
rather have a perfect body than a genius IQ. I guess with a genius IQ,
they can do whatever they want. With a perfect body, you can get somebody
else to do whatever you want.
Letterman.... Top Things You're Likely To Hear In A Meeting With CBS
President Les Moonves: "I just had a great idea for next season --
'Survivor 3'!" "What's the name of that actor who plays Dan Rather on the
news?" "If it's not an idea for a Tony Danza show, I don't want to hear
it." "That reminds me of something Saddam Hussein said once when we were
water skiing." "I'm the most powerful guy named Les in the world." "Last
week, at Castro's Grammy party, he let me beat a political prisoner."
"Forgive me if I don't get up -- I pulled a muscle laughing at last week's
'Some Of My Best Friends.'" "You got a problem with me?"
Hamilton.... Anthony Hopkins agreed to star in a sequel to the hit movie
'Hannibal.' The story is already on the drawing board. At the end of the
[sequel], Hannibal gets pardoned by Bill Clinton. But it costs him an arm
and a leg. .... Mike Tyson was offered terms by heavyweight champion
Lennox Lewis for a title bout in July. The time is right for Tyson. With
all the interest in this "Hannibal" thing, he could make $100 million on
Pay-Per-Chew.
O'Brien.... Kevin Costner might be getting married to his longtime
girlfriend. If they do get married, Costner says he wants to plan the
wedding, which means it will last three hours and lose $200 million. ....
A spokesperson for the program "Live With Regis" says that until they find
a replacement for Kathie Lee Gifford, Gifford won't be allowed back on the
show. And in a related story, host Regis Philbin announced that finding a
replacement should take about 15 to 20 years.
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